Black Feet and Soot

To say that my little boys like to play with dirt is like saying dolphins like to play in water. It is their preferred medium, and their natural way of being. At the end of everyday, you will find these boys covered in dirt. Their feet black, their hair full of sand, and basically looking like a couple of waifs.

When we lived in Austin, they generally required two baths a day. In the park, they would get covered in a fine white powder of dust from the rocks that lined all the playgrounds there. They would also bring home sand in their diaper, sand in their hair, sand in their snack, sand everywhere--their feet would be black. So naturally, the only way to remove the above contents was to bathe the boys because there is nothing like the chaffing feeling of sand in your crack.

Living in California things have turned black with a chance for sand. The younger Bee, especially, can frequently be found with soot on his face. He likes to apply it just the way women apply cover up. It doesn't even matter if there is no dirt in the vicinity. He will improvise with whatever he can find. Below you will see a picture of the guilty boy after having gotten a hold of two whiteboard dry erasers and using them as telephones.


His brother, not to be outdone, decided to join him. These are brothers who want to wear the same everything these days: same clothes, same shoes, same dirt.

Where did July go?

How is it that summer is over already? Has it been two months? The oldest boy starts kinder on the 17th, an ungodly day to start school if you ask me. We might as well just go ahead and start school in July. I myself won't have kids showing up into the classroom until the 24th.

Wednesday is my official last day of summer. Never mind that I have spent the last 3 weeks planning for the next two months. This involves researching, creating lessons, documents, PowerPoints, calendars, and most recently syllabi for my math, social studies, and response to literature class. My room also has several spools worth of new bulletin board paper covering boring white walls. In previous years, I would have just waited until two days before school started to get ready, but I find my usual procrastinating ways stress me out.

We've recently spent countless amounts of money on back to school supplies for our classrooms, and Big Brother's first day of kindergarten. The Dada will be teaching high school Bio this year so setting up a new classroom requires countless of dollars to purchase necessary items that will help the classroom function. I got more of the same. For the older boy, we had to invest many dollars buying school supplies to donate to his cash-strapped classroom due to what else...budget cuts, and five sets of uniform items. Barf. I hate uniforms. Do we really want to teach and raise children that can't even decide what to wear for themselves? Students must be allowed to be individuals, and to at least have some choice in how they express themselvses with their wardrobe. I hate to take this freedom of choice away from them when we are already holding them hostage for 6+ hours. But really, I digress. I'll just end my rant here.

Summer is coming to and end, and work begins. I shall miss my many lazy days with my two little boys who have literally grown a few sizes this summer. My advance planning will hopefully help get me home at a reasonable hour the first month when most teachers work late.