Who gets sick in the middle of summer????

OMG...tomorrow is day 6 of teaching and I have the day off. Why? Because I FREAKING have strep throat...omggggggg. What kind of teacher gets strep throat? Who gets it in the FIRST week of school? JEESH.

I woke up on Sunday with a sore throat and blamed it on air conditioning or something lame like that. Then it hadn't gotten any better and I lost my voice on top of it. Basically, I sounded H.O.T. Luckily my assistant is amazing and rocks my face off. She helped me tremendously this week by doing all of my read-alouds (aka, reading books to the kids) and helping teaching or monitor anything that I asked her to. Last night my throat hurt sooooo badly I knew I needed to get it checked out. I was taking NyQuil and Dayquil like it was my job and it still didn't help. And Excedrin doesn't make any Excedrin Froat Hurts. The white bumps on the back of my throat made me realize that it probably wasn't getting better anytime soon. TMI (too much info) I know...therefore, I called on Tuesday afternoon and asked for an appointment at anytime on Wednesday afternoon. They kept trying to make me pick a doctor before I set up an appointment, I said I really didn't care who I saw, whoever might be free on Wednesday afternoon was good for me. Turns out, my doctor rocked too! She was awesome and I would totally go back....although I hope I don't get sick for 6 months AT LEAST. The only bad part...they gave me a shot of some medicine and a steroid to reduce the swelling in my throat...in my butt. Well, not really my butt, but lower back. Go fig, I almost passed out and had to sit down. Stupid. I hate shots. I'm 25 years old and act like I'm 5 when it comes to getting shots. I had to sit in my car with the AC full blast talking on the phone for awhile before I was safe to drive!

So....the first 5 days of school have been interesting. I have a total of 22 kindergartners. My kids talk wayyyy too much and have a hard time listening. I blame this on two things, first and foremost, I blame their inattentiveness on me and not keeping them engaged enough with my lessons and discussions. Secondly, I blame it on the fact they have never been to school before, they haven't learned that when the teacher is talking, they are not. On Friday afternoon I had two parents call me by 3:45 p.m. It was only the second day of school. Their kids came home with their daily calendar colored in yellow (this means they had a warning and were going to lose recess because they couldn't follow the rules). Both parents wanted to know what their kids were doing...basically because they wanted a reason for why they were whooping their kids. I also had several parents stop in today and tell me that if I have to tell their kids to listen more than once to call them and they would come to school (also to whoop their kid). It's so sad, but totally the culture here. These kids don't know any different, but I'm bound and determined to use other methods of getting them to behave than having to resort to that.

My kids are B-E-A-UTIFUL. In case I haven't mentioned that before...they are just gorgeous...I love 5 year-olds and how innocent but incredibly intelligent they are. If they get busted for starting to bicker with someone else they always say, "but he/she was messing wit me." Or Jarrius, everytime I ask if he did something another student claimed he did (such as push another kid) he always says, "maaaan, I didn't do that...he/she did dat" and puts the blame on someone else around him. Today someone said something really funny at lunch but I can't remember what it was...I was laughing though. It's great that you can "reward" the kids that are doing good with letting them carry your lunch, or I'll send them down the hall to fill up my waterbottle. This is, like, HUGE for them!

PS...the Indianola Wal-mart is the only place I know that literally sells out of Mac & Cheese. WTF is that?! If you thought me being a teacher was going to result in me trying to cook as well....well, that was a funny thought, huh? I have enough cereal to get me through a month of suppers ;)

Anyone have any old happy meal toys??? I'll take them for my "toy box" that the students who end the day on silver get to play with on the rug. They just eat it up, it's like the best thing in the world for them! Let me know!!!

Okay...the olympics rock. My voice is a disaster...call me if you want to hear something really hilarious. Sometimes when I say sentences, certain words just don't come out! Tomorrow I'm going to be SUPER productive...working on my room, making things for my classroom, hopefully sign my contract (since that hasn't happened yet) and baking treats for the people who have helped me through my first week or helped us find our house!! and maybe a few extras....Oh, relax Jeannie, I'll sleep in and probably take a nap in the afternoon!

AHHHH, I'm missing the LeSueur County fair and am sooooooo sad...... :( I haven't missed that fair in the last 5 years!! L-O-V-E that place and those people....