Phillips or Flat-head?

Carey called from California yesterday. We parents always get cold chills when a conversation begins, "I just called to let you know that Brady is OK, but....."

It began as your normal Sunday afternoon.....Carey was napping on the couch, probably watching an old movie behind closed eyelids, when Nathanial and TJ came tearing downstairs, screaming, "Brady can't breathe through his nose! Brady can't breathe through his nose!" Unfortunately, Carey only heard "Brady can't breathe" and levitated off the couch and up the stairs in a flash.

Brady, who turned 3 on October 16th, had apparently stuck a foreign object up his nose. (See my blog entry for October 3). Brady kept telling Carey to "Get a strudryber" - but neither he nor Brandy could decipher what a 'strudryber' was. Trying unsuccessfully to pull out the Unidentified Object, Carey and Brandy flipped a coin to decide who got to take him to the local hospital and who stayed home with the other two boys. Brandy lost.

A trip to the ER determined that Brady had inserted a screw in his nose - with the pointy end going in first. Luckily there was no damage and the offending screw was removed - after he was given a light sedation. He didn't want the doctor trying to fetch the object either! Well, after all, he HAD told them to get a 'strudryber' and no one would listen!

Oh, and by the way......it was a Phillips Head.

With Liberty and Justice For All

I am a dog lover...
Travis used to think he was a dog lover until he married me...
Now Travis will say that he is just a dog 'tolerator'...but sometimes I think even that is pushing it.

Now please understand that sometimes our three dogs (yes, you read that right - three) get on my nerves as well, and last weekend was one of those times.

Travis and I went to the lake and took all the dogs - yes, all three. Actually, we all had a great time while we were there. Justice, our lab, loved swimming in the lake. Mitchell, the border collie, loved flipping over on his back and rubbing his fur into stinky stuff. Gizmo, the old, blind hairball, was just glad to be there!

The trip home was not so great. Since the bed comforter from the camper needed washing, we thought, "What the heck, we'll let the dogs lay on it." Wrong....Justice ate it.

The comforter had some kind of fuzzy polyester filling...I suspect you know where this is going.

I was sitting in the backyard the day after we returned home and noticed some odd looking fuzzy stuff scattered about. Using my well-honed detective skills I quickly surmised that the fuzzy stuff was my comforter after it had passed through my dog!

Dog Lover...Dog Tolerator....Hmmmmmmmmmm

Duty Free Lunch For Teachers

I am now in my 28th year of teaching....all but 3 of those years have been in middle school. Yes, Virginia, it takes a special kind of crazy to teach this age group. After a while you begin to wonder if perhaps the inmates are running the asylum.

Every year something bizarre will happen and every year I will hear myself utter those Infamous Teacher Words declaring: "In all my years of teaching, I've never....." H-E-L-L-OOOOOOOO!!! You'd think I'd know better than to say that.

During the early years - when my grip on sanity was still rather strong - I sat in the school cafeteria and watched as one of my darlings skillfully stuffed baked beans up his left nostril. Before I could reach his seat to explain the finer points of table manners, Little Johnny became a machine gunner and his unfortunate target sat directly across the table.

This is just one of many reasons the teacher lobby pushed for duty free lunch. Another reason is known as the School Cafeteria Diet....not to be confused with the South Beach Diet, Weight Watchers, or Jenny Craig.

The real fear among school systems nationwide was that there would be an enormous teacher shortage due, not to the retirement of the Baby Boomers mind you, but to teachers losing so much weight on the School Cafeteria Diet that they simply disappeared.

More exciting cafeteria stories to come....be warned;-)