First Sun in a Week and a Restless Night

Last night, for the first time in about a week, we saw some sun.  I noticed it on my drive home from work and was actually stunned that I had to pull my sunglasses from my purse and wear them on my face!  With Hurricane Sandy, we've seen rain, rain and nothing but rain for the longest time...and we aren't even on the east coast!  So it was blissful to see the sun, and even more enjoyable to see a sunset, which I snapped below (in 39 degree temperatures, by the way).  

I also had the whole place to myself last night because Mr. My Blog for Bonnie had a work dinner that went until about 8:30 pm and didn't arrive home until 9:30 pm.  This was his first day back to work all week after being hit with the mutant flu virus that wiped out entire weeks of our lives, so I felt badly that it had to be such a long day.  Nevertheless, my intentions were to catch up on shows I DVR'd this week, read the news online, etc...  I was so annoyed to discover our cable and internet were out!  And seriously, guys, I know I have ZERO right to complain when so many in my area (including my own parents!) are still without power.  But it was a bummer.  

I consoled myself by opening a bottle of wine to have a glass, only to discover that it tasted vaguely like poison.  I bought this bottle back at the Ohio Wine Festival in August and I sampled it at one of the booths.  It must have been a bad batch or something.  Do you know how sad it is to pour an entire bottle of wine down your drain?  Wasting anything is bad news, but wine? Boo!

And herein lies my mistake:  I decided to have coffee instead.  Let me tell you right now that caffeine has traditionally never had the same effect on me as it has on other people.  I drink it in the morning, but it doesn't get me wired.  Since I've been married, I've been able to have it right before bed and still fall asleep like I haven't slept in days.  I think you know where I'm going with this...the caffeine affected me FOR SURE last night.

The only thing I can attribute it to is that my body chemistry altered a little bit with that horrible flu.  And really, I'm only half-kidding.  Something that nasty that took weeks to get over surely left me a little altered, right?  Because how else can I explain that for the first time ever yesterday, I felt my heart beating in my ears as I attempted to sleep?  

Let me tell you the worst part.  We have a book at school where I teach...it's really more of a flipchart with an accompanying CD.  As a teacher, I'm aware that it isn't the most developmentally-appropriate of tools: we strive to have an emergent curriculum based on the children's interests, not our own, and sitting them down to learn about the alphabet isn't exactly something any child would choose for him/herself.  However, another classroom had the flipchart and it went over like the greatest party on earth every time they played it for their kids, and it was a great way for the kids to begin very early letter recognition.  My boss ordered us a copy from amazon and we've been using it every since.

To say it's the most popular language activity in our classroom is an understatement.  Sometimes I'll say "Okay friends, let's clean up so we can do our ABC flipchart," and literally the entire classroom breaks into thunderous applause and cheering.  (PS:  I love a job where you get cheered and generally treating like a celebrity when you say something cool or even just walk through the door...that is early childhood teaching in a nutshell, my friends.)

As a consequence, I have pretty much memorized this flipchart.  Each letter of the alphabet is assigned a song set to the tune of a popular children's song.  So, the letter "C" becomes "Can You Bake a Cake?" set to the tune of "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"  and "J" is "James and Judy" set to "Frere Jacques."  I know the words to all of the songs for each letter of the alphabet, and what's more, almost all of my kids do too!  Keep in mind, some of my kids aren't even 2 yet!  A lot of them look at the letters and say "H for Hannah!" or "A for Addison!" (which is how they associate letters at this point...with the first letter of their name or their friends' names, but still, a 2 year old recognizing letters is amazing!) 

So, you guessed it, last night ALL of these little ditties were running through my head while I tossed and turned.  It's a pretty cool trick for me to bust out a song for each letter of the alphabet, and I'll do it for your child if you ask me, but let me tell you, it is an atrocious thing to be doing when you can't sleep!

After seeing my husband off to work at 6:15 am, I went back to bed for another hour and of course I had horrific nightmares.  Sigh.  I'm so glad it's Friday....here's to never having caffeine again before bed!!

 

Ahh, the first sunset after 7 straight days of rain & darkness!