Army Band Concert

Lily went to her first concert tonight. The US Army Field Band & Soldier's Chorus came through on part of their fall tour, and I got a pair of tickets for Lily and I. (Jimmy had to work this evening. It's not like we just didn't invite him....) Lily did well through the concert. We sat in an outside aisle seat near the back so we could make a quick exit if necessary. We didn't have to make the dreaded quick exit, but we didn't make it to the end of the show either. We made it through about 3/4 of the program (or about 1 hour and 15 minutes), so I was generally pleased. The music was amazing and it had been quite a long time since I'd been to a concert of this caliber. It makes me miss playing....

My Little Queen of the Remote Control

The little one has figured out that the remote controls make the television do things...and she certainly likes to experiment with them! She doesn't really much watch much TV (we try to limit her to Tigger & Pooh and Sesame Street), but we do have the television on sometimes during the day. Regardless of whether the TV's on or off, the remote controls still seem to be entertaining....

Chimes

I was told when I took my music teaching job to expect resistance from the junior high crowd. (And no, it wasn't a warning about my particular junior high group, but just a warning about the age group altogether.) While I was expecting resistance and daily battles, I've had surprisingly few. When I was digging through the closets in the music room, I found a 3-octave set of hand chimes. The previous music teacher knew they were there and pointed them out to me, but she also told me that most of them were broken. As it turns out, very few of the chimes were actually broken (3 had to be replaced) and the set was is pretty good condition. At that point, I decided to turn my junior high music groups into bell choirs...and the response has been amazing! The kids are actually enjoying music class (to the point of begging not to be pulled out of music to go finish math tests!) and they're learning a lot about reading and playing music. One of my groups played an arrangement of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in church today. They did really well, they were very proud of themselves, and they managed to earn root beer floats as well....

YAY Football!!

Lily attended her first major sporting event -- the TU vs. OU football game in Norman. Jimmy's uncle had tickets, and he invited us to go along with him. We initially looked for a babysitter for Lily, but we were unable to find one...so we took her along with us! I was a bit concerned about how Lily would handle the crowds and the noise, but she did wonderfully. She watched everything that was going on, clapped when music was playing and when everyone else was cheering, and even seemed to enjoy watching the fireworks that were being set off merely a half a dozen or so rows behind us. She did get a little played out by the fourth quarter, so she slept through part of it (fireworks and all). I love my little sweetheart; she's such a good sport!!

My Poor Neglected Blog....

My, it's been a while since I've been on here.... And now there's the question of whether to go back and attempt to fill in some gaps or just attempt to jump back into the blog-o-sphere now. I guess we'll just have to see what happens....

A John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Headache

Wow - I ended up with a headache today like none other; I think it's days like this that keep the Tylenol people in business. I got the brilliant idea over the weekend that it would be fun to have my little music students (K-3rd) do some activities with music and volume -- singing softly and loudly, playing instruments softly and loudly, etc. Anyway, I decided that we'd sing the "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" song and then do another similar activity with instruments -- drums, mini cymbals, triangles, etc. To make a long story short, the activity was a huge success -- the students loved it and I met the objectives that I had set for the day. However, after 2 hours of hearing ""John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt - LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!" I ended up with the most awful pounding headache that I've had in a very, very long time....

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school.... I'm teaching K-8 music (part time, two days per week) at a small private school this year, and today was the beginning of the year. The day went relatively well, especially considering that I'm still feeling yucky from the flu and yucky from the medicine that they gave me to get rid of the flu. I quickly discovered, however, that I'm going to have to do a lot of work to figure out how to keep kindergarteners occupied for half an hour....

Flu

I have the flu. And it really sucks.

Family Picture

One of the things that we did on the cruise was have some family pictures taken. The last pictures we had done were our engagement and wedding pictures, so it was certainly time for an updated picture. Though there was really only one pose that we ended up liking, I think it's a keeper....

Beach Bums

YAY for VACATION!! We escaped for a few days (flew out on 7/30 and back on 8/4) for a nice family vacation. We flew to Miami and then went on a cruise to the Bahamas and the Great Stirrup Cay. After the cruise, we spent a day in South Beach before flying back home. The trip was fabulous -- the weather was great and just about everything went smoothly. Some of our flights were delayed (and we'll probably never fly Delta again) but we ended up making our connections, so that wasn't too bad. Lily was wonderful on the planes; she slept on 3 of the 4 flights and she did just fine on the other one. The cruise was very nice. The water was smooth, the food was phenomenal, and Oklahoma allergens were nowhere to be found, our cell phones didn't work, and it was way, way too expensive to get on the internet on the ship. The beaches were beautiful and the water was clear. Lily was a real trooper; she loved the beaches and all of the people and she took wonderful stroller-naps as we were walking around and seeing the sights. It was great to get away for a few days and to come back home feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.

Water Park!!

Today was Lily's first trip to the local water park. (Actually, it was her first time in a big swimming pool.) Anyway, we'll be going on vacation at the end of this next week and going to the beach, so we needed to make sure Lily would get along all right in the water. We got her all sunscreened and put her lifejacket on, and Lily spent over an hour walking around in the wading pools and "swimming" with Mommy and Daddy in the bigger pool. Lily did pretty well; there were a little spitting and sputtering and a few tears when her head went under once, but otherwise she seemed to generally enjoy the experience. She wasn't all smiley and chatty, but we were just guessing she was trying to figure out what all of these people were doing in her bath....

A Very Busy Writing Camp Week

It's a busy week this week.... I'm teaching another Writing Camp in addition to my regular night class that meets twice a week. Our babysitter is putting in extra hours, Daddy is doing extra Daddy-duty, and Mommy is tired beyond belief....

Angela's Ashes Author Dies

Frank McCourt, one of my favorite contemporary authors, died today. 'Tis sad, the Teacher Man is no longer with us....

Daddy's a Schmuck....

(Disclaimer: Jimmy provided me with the title for this blog. Thus, I do not want to be accused of any pejorative name calling....)

It has begun.... Jimmy and Lily went browsing and shopping in the mall while I was at work tonight. When they came to pick me up, Miss Lily was sporting a rather large stuffed Tigger in her stroller. Apparently Daddy let Lily play with the Tigger in the store, and then she refused to let go of it when it came time to leave the store. Thus, Lily ended up with a Tigger. I'm just hoping that this is not the beginning of a trend....

Better Bedtimes

Bedtimes and naptimes were rough for a while, but they've been much better lately. Most days Lily goes down for her nap while the babysitter's here, so I'm not the one putting her down. However, the babysitter says she usually goes to sleep quite easily. Bedtimes have been a breeze lately. I've been giving Lily a bedtime-snack bottle, followed by a little water to wash the milk off of the teeth, and then I put her in her bed. That's usually followed by a "Good Night, Lily," which is then followed by about 30 seconds worth of screaming. After the 30 seconds of screaming she usually manages to find her thumb and then drift off to sleep.

This sure beats spending an hour or two trying to coax a screaming baby to sleep....