TESTING 1, 2, 3

I am at school strangely early. I used to get here this early all the time, but since I am teaching art instead of science, I have tried this year to arrive between 7 and 7:30. This morning I was full of energy and read my twitters and my e-mails at home, gathered my things and off I went to school. I was here by 6:30a.m. The repairman is in my room fixing my phone.We are having our high stakes testing and my classroom phone will not call out, I can receive but not send. There was a boy in my class who was wanting to use his breathing machine between two tests that were scheduled without a break. That gave me a scare, he was moved to a room with a working phone and now it is getting fixed! Hooray! The phone hasn't worked all year and part of last year.

Testing week is always weird. We don't want to make too much of the academic time we have, so after a whole morning of testing and we are having classes meet one day each day of the week. Friday we will be testing all day and they should be pretty much fried at the end of that. I have a really great group of SpEd kids who are taking the test seriously and working at it very intently. I took a peek at their essays and I was impressed. Their teachers have been hitting the writing really hard and it shows. Even the ones who appeared to not be writing much did a decent job. I look forward to seeing their scores.

Last weekend I took care of the H-bomb and his new dog, Ruby. She is a rescue red boned hound, just like Little Ann in "Where the Red Fern Grows". BUT she has been abused in her previous life, and although she is a sweet,laid back, very calm animal in many ways, she is afraid of EVERYTHING. Skittish, a flutter a crackle, she flinches. That does not compute with the sweet and laid back part, but it's true.I lured her downstairs from her closet with tiny morsels of chicken, ala, "It's either me or the dog", I tried everything I have gleaned from my reading lately to try to get her to relax and be comfortable. It worked somewhat and she AND the H-bomb slept with me that night-- Ruby on the floor and H in bed, like an angel. Then Ruby decided to gnaw on her great big crackling bone. (Sleep deprived Nonnie.)
It was pouring rain, buckets of rain at 6.a.m. When H awoke and said he was hungry. The night before, I decided we would venture over to the truck stop for pancakes and we did go. By the time I got on the road I was so drenched from my unsuccessful attempts to wrest the booster seat from the pickup truck, belt the boy in, and try to open a brand new umbrella, that I looked as if someone had soaked me with a garden hose. Unsuspecting, I ordered the blueberry and banana pancakes for the preschooler, he has a good appetite, but this plate would have served two if not three adults. He barely made a dent in it, and he tried! A great time was had by all, including the two star wars characters who accompanied us. We went back to our pirate ship and played until mommy got home. When I got to my home, I was sure I wasn't tired, but it took me about two seconds on the sofa to conk out.

more later--just don't post as much now that I twitter-- oh I saw a list of books on Jen Lancaster's blog this morning that look like really good reads. Not only does the girl write, but she writes a good review of what she has been reading. I am going to go back over there and copy that list!