Fausto, Julius, or Massimo??

Ok, here's your chance to offer up baby name suggestions for me if you have any! Marc and I have a few good options for girls, like we did last time around, but if it's a boy, we are right where we were before -nowhere. Marc hates any "trendy" names, or names that sound like race car drivers. I hate basically any boy name Marc comes up with... shall I share a few names that my little Luke could now be if it were up to Marc? Fausto and Julius Caesar come to mind right away. This time around it's names like Massimo (all I can think of is the brand of clothes at target, spelled with an "o" not an "a". Hate it). So I'm open to ideas... girls or boys, but preferrable boys! :)

Child Genius?

My child just amazed me, so I have to brag and share for a moment! Luke was playing with a big circle of cardboard that had come out of a new storage tub. He walked up to me with a shape and said "It's an octagon!" I have no idea where he learned that -not from us! And it actually looked like one. So I decided to ask him how many sides it had, and he told me 8. The reason this really impressed me is because a) my third grade kids last year had a question on their TAKS test that showed an octagon and asked how many sides it had, and several missed it, and b) my boy #2 didn't even know what a triangle was yesterday at school. So maybe Luke's not a genius, but to know an octagon at age 3 seemed impressive to this third grade teacher! I have photos to add someday, but my computer doesn't seem to want me to post them, because I can't ever get to them!

My turn for the survey...

So my sister and cousin did this, so I guess it's my turn now. I'll try not to cheat like Lori and change the questions..

Me from A to Z


A is for age: 32
B is for beer of choice: I'm going with root beer too
C is for career right now: third grade teacher
D is for your dog's name?: Molly
E is for essential item you use everyday: cell phone, mascara
F is for favorite TV show at the moment: Blue's Clues Baby Brother (Oh wait, that's Luke's... it's on about 2 hours a day, so I got confused there)... also Treasure Hunters, Cash Cab, any stupid summer reality show
G is for favorite game: scrabble
H is for Home town: Killeen TX
I is for instruments you play: used to be flute
J is for favorite juice: now that I'm pregnant, orange juice daily!
K is for whose butt you'd like to kick: Today it would have to be the person/school who promoted boy #2 (refer to other blogs), and Rodney, the jazzercise instructor who was way too tough tonight!
L is for last food you ate: spaghetti
M is for marriage: going on 6 years
N is for your full name: Jill Marie (Davis) Minatrea
O is for overnight hospital stays: One night when Luke was born, 2003
P is for people you were with today: Marc, Luke, my jazzercise class, and about 800 kids and faculty at school
Q is for quote: : "Mom! I had big ground pee like daddy!" (OK, so not as profound as Amy's. Did I share too much? It makes me laugh everytime. By the way, ground peeing is our latest accomplishment... Luke's way of describing peeing standing up.)
R is for Biggest Regret: that bad haircut senior year of college
S is for status: married
T is for time you woke up today: 5:40
U is for (Amy, you had no U, so I'll just pick one...) underwear: red today (Ok, I drew a blank on another U word!)
V is for vegetable you love: mashed potatoes
W is for worst habit: leaving my classroom messy at the end of the day
X is for x-rays you've had: teeth, leg after accident, stomach, finger (remember the sewing machine incident??)... I'm sure there were others
Y is for yummy food you ate today: banana moon pie
Z is for zodiac sign: Taurus

Boy #2 Update

Ok, since most of the people who read this are teachers or are related to a teacher, I wanted to update on boy #2 that was mentioned in my previous post. I apologize in advance for how long this blog is! I thought you could appreciate what I am dealing with. So this boy that I mentioned as not being able to write his name and being a behavior problem... Well, the past 2 days have been consumed with him and his grandmother. She has appeared each morning this week and taken up most of my conference time talking about him. Yesterday she told the assistant principal and myself that he is ADHD but she decided not to keep him on meds. Don't you love that? So when he spent Tuesday under his desk part of the day, and was in the office by early afternoon for being so disruptive, I thought she'd get the hint that meds are a good thing for students. A previous teacher emailed me about him and her words, and I quote, were "Bless you, and good luck." Huh. That's not too encouraging. Turns out he made 20s in her class, and we're not so sure he should even be in 3rd grade.But, he ended up at a Louisiana school, and the school doesn't exist supposedly today. Today was the best day of all. I had two favorite moments... Moment #1. Let me take after my cousin Lori and give you a play by play conversation.
Grandmother: So yesterday didn't go too well,huh?
Me: No maam, he had a hard time with following directions and he refused to do any work.
Grandmother: Well, I thought about it a lot last night - it kept me up most of the night - and I came up with something finally.
(Let me interrupt here and say that I assume she will tell me that she realizes he does need to go back on meds or something similar. I'm way wrong...)
Grandmother: I think the solution is no chocolate milk.
Me: Excuse me? What do you mean?
Grandmother: I think that he needs only white milk at lunch, not chocolate or strawberry. The sugar in those is causing him to have these problems.
Me: (Trying to pick my jaw off the floor...) Um, maam, I don't think it's the milk. He was in a buddy room by 9:45 yesterday (last step before office) and that was long before he had any milk.
Grandmother: Really? Wow. I thought that was the problem.

Ok, so she told me the day before that she's not in denial to his issues. I'm having a hard time believing that. This child is severely ADHD, and can't write his name, and she thinks it's because he had chocolate milk 2 days at lunch? That has to be one of my favorite parent moments to date.

The other moment today was when a reading teacher tested his reading level. He couldn't pass a level 2 (they should be on a 22... Kinder kids can read a 12 or so). The story had balloons on the cover, and he thought it was about bears. He also doesn't know his ABCs. Um, Luke knows his ABCs.

So I know this was long, but I'm just in shock that this child has made it to a regular ed 3rd grade class. I think we may be working to get him emergency tested for special ed, and possibly put in 2nd grade. Suggestions teacher friends? I am at a loss!

First Day of School

First days are so not what they used to be. It used to be the kids were all on their best behavior, and that was the one day everyone got along. Today was one of the longest days ever! I had only 16 kids show up, but that was more than enough today! For the most part, they are good kids... but then there's boy #1 and boy #2. Boy #1 summed himself up as being a rapper... and has the personality and behavior to go with it. The only times he addressed me, it was "Hey!". Nice. You don't hear that much in Killeen, where the military influence has kids saying "Yes Maam, No Maam". Boy #2 is enough to have cracked me if I was a first year teacher - I would have been in tears by 10:00. Let's sum him up by saying that in the one hour my kids were out of the room, 6 other teachers and the assistant principal had to correct him and let me know about it. Nice. He had such an attitude! I had to call home on him on the first day! The best part is that he can't write his name. He spelled it wrong, and didn't know his last name for most of the day. Let's hope there's an IEP floating around somewhere for him! He's a Katrina evacuee, so his paperwork could be gone in the flood still... The really good news is that he's not the only one in my third grade class who can't spell his name... luckily, boy #3 is special ed and won't be taking the dreaded TAKS test. Other than those 3, and a few VERY talkative kids, I did get some wonderful kids. I am doing inclusion this year, so I've been told, so I expect some lower kids. Just thought they'd know their names by age 8...Here's to an interesting year. Low kids, misbehaviors, pregnancy hormones, swollen ankles... I'm ready for it all! One day down, 179 to go...

We're Still Here!

I just wanted to let the world know that the Minatrea's are still alive and kicking! I don't think I've sent an email or made a phone call since I had to report to school this past Monday! The first days back are always tiring, but balancing that with the pregnancy and getting Luke adjusted back to early mornings and not so late nights has made it a little more exhausting than usual. Hopefully once the first week of kids is over next Friday, I will rejoin the world of technology and keep in touch a litte better!

New Job

By now, most of you know that Marc got a new job last week, but I wanted to give him a spot on this blog as he is part of the four of us! He's been the head basketball coach in Cameron for the past 2 years. While he loved having his dream come true of being a head coach, and his team did pretty well, it was hard on us as a family. He had an hour commute each way, and was also a football coach, so on the average week, Luke and I wouldn't see him each Thursday and Friday at all. Then when he was home, he'd be trying to catch up on sleep. An opportunity came up back here in Killeen at Shoemaker High School very late in the summer, but we didn't think he had much of a chance at it. However, the interviews kept getting postponed, and as they did, his chances at it improved to the point that he got it! For our family, this is the perfect timing. Marc has about a 10 minute drive to work, gets to sleep in more each day, and has NO FOOTBALL!! And for those of you who know Texas school systems, he's now at a 5A school, which is the biggest school there is, so really, he can't get a much better job. We're so proud of him for working so hard to get this job. Although it'll still be a tough job, and he'll be working hard, it's just an awesome situation for our growing family to be in this year! Marc asked me a few weeks ago when he'd get blog in here, so here it is. There's no picture to attach (he's not exactly the kind of guy who has me take his photo all the time!) but you know what he looks like!

It's a ...

Ok, so you can't really tell yet if it's a boy or a girl... looks more like a peanut to me. But, here's my baby. The doctor said it must be a girl because it has a brain! (Not sure if you can tell, but it's the 2 things that look like big eyes!) Everything looks great according to the doc, so I couldn't ask for more right now.