Okay, cereal is going to have to be banned from my house. I have been eating out of a box of Trix while I've been reading people's blogs. Yuck! How gross is that.
I kicked this cereal habit over a year ago. I thought I had it licked and started buying it for the kids when I was doing Lent and "couldn't" have it. I thought I could handle having it in the house (says the alcoholic!) but obviously I can't.
If Ashli was on here, she'd be commenting "yes, Nikki, get the junk out of the house."
I know this is going to sound like an excuse, but when your son has celiac disease and sensory integration issue with extreme oral texture problems, you just want to feed him what he'll eat. When we are in a cereal aisle (actually to buy granola bars for hubby or pancake syrup) and my son sees all this cereal with the cartoon characters on it. And he can hardly have any of them. But he asks for Trix. I feel awful tellin him no. Why? Because mommy eats too much of it and binges on it. Ugh! Yes, I know it's not healthy for him either. It's colored sugar with some corn mixed in.
But still, I give in alot to him about food because he has so many problem.
Okay, no more Trix in my house, though. My jeans are too tight!
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So I spent the day yesterday observing and helping in Collin's classroom where I will be teaching next year. I am even going to get paid for yesterday! I had no idea. That is cool. This is a very nice school.
Well, I just loved it and I think I'm really going to like this job.
I thought I would freak out a little or that it would be a wake up call for what I'm in for. But really I can handle this. 15-18 3 year olds and I have a co-teacher so it's not like I'm alone trying to "control" all these kids.
And the day is structured so much with music/art class, outside time, lunch, circle time, free play and stuff. It goes by so quickly.
I mostly watched Collin's teachers who are so excellent. I want to be just like them! They are very patient and gentle with them.
One of them told me the main goal with these kids is teaching them social skills, so much of what you are doing is intervening between squabbles between kids.
They introduce letter and number recognition but don't push it in this class since they are so young. (But I am amazed at what Collin knows because I haven't worked with him on letters and he knows many of them. So I give them and Letter Factory video the credit for this.)
They have a theme every week (this week was gardens and they are learning about plants) and do lessons with that. Art projects that focus on the process and experience rather than the outcome. Like yesterday they made seed collages.

Can you tell I'm excited?! I really love teaching and am looking forward to being in the classroom again.
I observed 2 teachers in the 3 year old room next door and their style was so different from Collin's teachers. His teachers are so gentle and mild mannered. These teachers were more "aggressive" (I'm not sure how to describe it). Still very good but had a less patient style.
Um, that is how I was when I was a teacher. Now, having kids has mellowed me out big time and I've always known I'm going to such a different teacher when I go back. But it's hard to keep it together when you "lose control" of the classroom and the kids go wild!
I just really watched Collin's teachers when that happened and tried to memorize how they handle things.
I don't think this is going to be the bone-tired, stressful, exhausting job that teaching 3rd grade was. In fact I asked one of them if they feel stressed at the end of the day. She said no, it's really a great job.
Okay, I think I'm done going on and on about that for now.

Food: Monday and Tuesday were pretty good. I planned my food and almost followed it perfectly. I had more little baggies of cereal than was planned.
Yesterday not so good. I stopped at Braum's in the late afternoon and got a sundae. As much as I'm excited about this job, it is still going to back to work and I'm still sad that I'm giving up full time SAHM-hood. Did the sundae help this? No, it only made me feel worse.

Later in the evening after the kids were in bed, I got a bill in the mail and freaked out about money. I truly don't know what we are going to do about things. It's getting really bad.
So I hit the cereal and had a bunch of dry cereal. And felt sick to my stomach--a combination of the cereal mixed with the anxiety. I really regretted that.
So I'm recording these misdeeds here to help me learn from them. Moving on.

I have not had a chance to read blogs lately. Hopefully I'll get a chance later to see how you all are doing!