Its a Southern thing...

So my friend in California has reminded me of the pride that I have in
the fact that I am from the South. Not because I hate CA or think bad
of it at all, but I realize even more than usual that it is a
privilege to be from GA. Obviously not for our education system, last
time I checked I’m pretty sure we were 48th, but for our traditions
and our stance on not losing them. It is impressive to have a cast
iron frying pan that is been in your family for 5 generations and has
made the cornbread that is used in Thanksgiving’s dressing for the
last 150 years. It is a privilege to wear a wedding dress that has
been handed down from our grandmother even if it isn’t a Vera Wang. A
dress in my family has been worn by 4 members, a baptismal gown has
been worn by three. We are proud for our children to have smocked
penguins across their chest that their Mimi hand stitched and say
certain words with such a thick drawl that people giggle and say “my
goodness, she does have magnolia mouth just like you did when you were
a little girl.” They have enclosure cards with tiny soccer balls or
ballet shoes on them where they “write” their first thank you cards to
the people that attended their first birthday party. They wear
seersucker and knee socks and saddle oxfords (and I mean the boys) and
the girls dress their best for Sunday (pronounced Sun-dee) church and
Sun-dee dinner. We call them Miss Priss and Little Man and we expect
them to use their manners, who cares if they are 3?
They know Emily Post because they think she is coming to dinner each
week, they think their daddies hung the moon and love their creek
(pronounced crick) that runs behind their house that they can go catch
tadpoles in while Mom and Dad work in the garden. They have stopped
and had boiled peanuts at every roadside stand this side of the
mason-Dixon line and know how to eat them without messing up their
traveling clothes. They know their neighbors (and neighbor’s dogs)
names and are welcome to swim in their pool anytime. No one locks
their doors when they are home and they can ride their bikes in the
streets. They have made a lemonade stand in their front yard and made enough money in two hours to buy the electric Barbie jeep they were just dying for. We make cookies all
together as a family on Christmas Adam (the day before Christmas Eve)
and decorate them and get icing all over the walls, and it is doesn’t
matter if you are 6 or 26 because it is a tradition and that means it
will be like that forever, green icing stuck in your pigtail and a
tummy ache from all the batter and all.

so as I sit here at my desk I find myself drifting off into a place that I loving call 'fiesta del summer', which is my magical happy place that only exists when it is warm and sunny and beautiful outside and I am stuck in my windowless office. If i lean in closely enough to my diet coke (while wishing it was a corona) I can hear laughter and jet skis and hear jimmy buffett playing softly in the background. I know, its true. I am a little crazy... but I can think of nothing better than nautical themes and koozies and waking up early only to fall asleep with the sun beaming down on you and the smell of coppertone wafting up your nostrils.

I love to watch the small children in their fishing hats that tie under their chins playing with the dads in the sand and taking it off down the beach only to bust it into a hole they didnt see coming up. I love watching their faces light up when the waves come over their ankles and the look of sheer terror when the waves knock them down only to see them scooped up by their parents before the next one hits. They then spend the next couple of minutes with their bottom lip poked out pointing at the waves and babbling to their parents and then sticking their finger in their mouth and pointing again only to wiggle down their daddys leg to go right back to the spot where the incident occured. I love seeing them build their sandcastle with their 238763036 tools shaped like starfish, sea turtles, crabs, jellyfish, and what seems to be a mermaid. They have 6 shapes and sizes of shovels and 4 buckets. The funny thing is that the small child finds as much fun in running down to the water, attempting to fill the bucket and run back as fast as possible to the to the castle that mommy and daddy have begun building sloshing the water to and fro on the way only to dump the minimal contents onto the perfect rendition of rapunzels tower that daddy has recreated. As lunch/naptime descends the little families begin to mosey back up to their beach houses packing up their seemingly endless supply of toys and floaties. you have the tent, the umbrella, the beach chairs, the bag of sunscreen, the boogie board, the arm floaties in the shape of sponge bob squarepants, the inner tube, the wagon, the shovels, the sea creature shaped sand toys, the play pen, the towels, the beach blanket, the cooler...the list goes on and on... so as I watch them cramming everthing ino the red wagon the hauled down to the beach I realize that it might be more fun to watch than to be a part of.

And just as I was beginning a deep train of thoughts I see a guy in a speedo weenie-bikini aka banana hammock. My friend who has been silently reading her book for the past three hours and left my imagination alone (which is a very dangerous thing when there is so much people watching at my disposal) and says some snarky comment about how hot he looks in his fur coat and his speedo (of course by fur coat she means his discusting display of back hair.) to which all I can reply is "i guess lunch can wait another hour." We watch him romp around in the water and go back to his umbrella shaded beach chair. Oh thank goodness, he is gonna read or listen to music or something. Oh no... he and his family are the "active beach people." You know the type.. bachi ball, frisbee, volley ball, badmitton. These people can't sit still. They cannot be content to tan and read and wade in the water like me, the lazy beach bum type. I think the final straw was when he attempted to skim board and busted it face first. It was just too tragic- I had to look away and choose another set of people to observe. I could take no more...

So here is my deal- I teach a lot of kids, and I mean a LOT. In one month sometimes i will go to three schools and teach every single class in the school. U know what the equation equals out to?? A bunch of names that make me laugh, a bunch of little kid comments that are just precious and a lot of sticky hands and snotty noses (but that is the bad part...)

Here are a few great comments: Upon asking the kids to give me some examples of rules (we are talking prek-5th grade here) #1 "Don't go into a hospital and tell someone ther are dying because they might get sad" #2 "Don't pretend like you forgot to do your chores" #3 "don't drink beer" #4 "Don't beat up baby dolls" (a little wierd...but hey) #5 "Don't put food down your brother's back"

Or when giving them the example of when your ride your bike you wear a ______ (I then point at my head and pause for an answer) and a little 4 year old prek student whose mother was observing yells out "A WIG!!!!!" I thought her mother was going to fall out of her chair and it took me about 5 minutes to regain my and the classes composures!!

I had a few extra minutes after my classes around halloween and asked the kids what they were going to dress up as; I got the normal answers, "Jason" was the most widely used suprisingly....I kinda thought he was outdated, but whatever. Ladybug, cheerleader, teacher (guess you carry some chalk and an apple around), spiderman, chucky, but my personal favorite "I am going to be MARRIED for halloween" I even asked again and they were like Yep, just like my mom and dad.... I would have been very interested in how that costume turned out!

So my favorite names of the month and I am NOT making these up, these kids were in my class, their names were taped to their desks!! #1 Ovarian (pronounced O-va-re-on) #2 Demon (pronounced D-mon) #3 Santanna (yep, like the amazing guitarist- possibly named after with an extra N, didn't ask, but definitely had the rock and roll look going on..) #4 Loreal (yep, like the makeup.) #5 Regional (think they meant reginald?)

My favorite misspellings in the classrooms (and we wonder why this generation can't spell a dang thing...I am probably not the best considering I post without editing most of the time...) On the holiday words board: "snowsmen", "raindeers"

In a Pre-k Class things are labeled everywhere: a few of my favorites a box with little pieces of paper for writing random things down labeled "strap paper" and an old computer labeled "moniter" (that one really isn't that bad, but it is the principle of the thing..)

My favorite tshirts include ones for halloween that said "nothing scares me, I have a little brother" or "I make dirt look good" or "Take a picture it will last longer" or the ever popular "Its all about me" (and we wonder how they ever get the idea that the world revolves around them...)

I also enjoy their bookbags, my favorite will always be the one that is shaped like a yellow hummer and it has wheels on it, so it is dual purpose really... the child won't hurt his/her back while toting around the 3465 lbs of books that they are expected to carry; and it looks like their knapsack is popping a wheelie. win-win if you ask me.

And my favorite of all, which I will post a picture of as soon as I can figure out how to blur out the name of the school had a sign outside, which in their defense could have absolutely been altered said "here at ____ we care about our STDS" (this was meant as an abbreviation of students.) I did tell the administration and it was fixed, but it brought me a lot of laughs.

funny things the little girls in my family said this weekend:

three little girls under 10 sitting around the dining room table eating dinner with me.

(meanwhile Jessica (3) is running in circles around the table singing "Waddle while you walk" and quacking like a duck...)

"My daddy has been working on all kinds of stuff on the house and working on the computer and showing me how to use my digital camera." -abigail (10)

"yeah, our daddy has been doing all kinds of stuff around the house and helping to train the dogs" -Ellie (6)

"my daddy is on a diet" -Isabel (4)

My sister looks me square in the eye, sighed, dropped her peanut butter sandwich, put her head in her hands and said in her most grown up voice said "i miss michael jackson" i almost lost it.

My dad says to 6 y/o ellie. "come over here and take a picture with us and don't throw that Barbie." "i don't want to come over there and I will throw it if I want to" ellie says back. "Don't you do it ellie, that would be an 'extreme act of defiance' and you know what Dr. Mark says about that" Abigail looks at me, rolls her eyes, breathes out loudly and says "therapist." I felt like I was on a sitcom.

"he is a cool little dude" 10 y/o referencing the 10 month old.

driving down the road Isabel asks what all the mess is and her mom says that they are working on the road to make it smooth and she answers "oh...so we can put on our lipstick?"