Out and About

True Story

I had a conversation with one of my students today; let's call him "Julio."

Me: Okay. Please open your journals. Your topic for today is (I read from a book of writing starters): "If you were going to be stranded on a deserted island for ten years and you could only bring one of each of the following, what would you bring: CD, movie, book, piece of clothing, food item, and miscellaneous."

Julio: Will there be a TV for me to watch my movie on?

Me: It's not real, Julio. It's just a creative way to ask what your favorites are.

Julio: I know, but will I need to bring my own TV?

Me: Um, no. There's one there. On your deserted island.

Julio: Okay, cool.

(5 minutes later)

Julio: Mrs. Miller?

Me: It's not real, Julio. It's just to get you thinking and writing.

Julio: I know. But I was just wondering; can I bring a boat to get off the island as my extra thing?

Me: Sure.

Julio: Sweet.

Me: But it's a magic boat that you can only start after you've had it for ten years.

Julio: Dangit. I guess I'll go back to my first idea: a PS3.

Pumpkins

So last year we found out fairly late in October that apparently when you have kids you're supposed to take them to pumpkin patches and take cute fall pictures. I never did this as a kid, so I didn't know I was supposed to do it as a parent. I just noticed that there seemed to be a proliferation of pumpkin patch pictures popping up on facebook (how's that for alliteration?). Since we hadn't gotten the memo, we were not able to drag our three month old to a pumpkin patch and take pictures of him laying on pumpkins. So we grabbed a green blanket, borrowed our neighbors' pumpkin, and took "pumpkin patch" cheater pictures in our living room. Out of this blatant disregard for parenting rules came the cutest picture of our child ever.

But this year we had no excuses. So when I saw the pictures start popping up on facebook again, I knew it was time. So I googled "pumpkin patch orange county" (cause that's how I roll) and came up with a farm in Irvine. You heard me--a farm in Irvine. Because when you think Irvine, you think farm. At any rate, off we went. Bonus: it was a chilly day so we were able to put Benjamin in some cute fall clothes. Two days later the clouds rolled away and we've been living on the surface of the sun ever since.


Just for good measure, we went back to the pumpkin farm the following weekend with the Gibbses. Yep--we had to make up for last year's inexcusable negligence. Ben was grumpy for most of the time (of course he was...I had my new birthday camera and I wanted to take great pictures...so of course he refused to smile), and Adalee had missed her nap, so she was grumpy as well. So we abused our crabby children for about an hour.


We took pumpkin pictures, of course. But there were a few other activities to do as well. There were rows and rows of pumpkins. Ben rolled down one of the little ditches as he traversed aforementioned rows. There was also a baby hay bale maze, which Ben took very seriously and conquered with determination, concentration, and speed. There was also a barbecue and petting zoo. We all know how Ben feels about animals and food.

Jesse and Brandi took Adalee home so she could sleep, and we went to the barbecue and petting zoo (cause that's how we roll).


Despite the grouchy babies, I did catch a few smiles. Although Matt set my camera to wide angle and I didn't know how to set it back. So we have several wide shots. But the cute child is still there, so ha.

Sports Fan

Last year I had a student who is a major Angels fan. I have been a mild Yankee's "fan" for some time. I cannot stress to you enough the mild part. I mean, we're talking "I root for them because I like the city of New York and the color blue" fan. Well, this student (for privacy we'll call him Student) was not a great student. He hated English and, consequently, my class and probably me. But I let it slip once that I liked the Yankees, and it was ON. At first it was joking banter. It was the beginning of the season, and he'd come in and say things like, "Did you see the game? Manning's dunk was totally a foul" (okay...so I don't really know the names of the players or the terminology...well, not then I didn't). And then I'd be all, "totally," because I wanted him to like me. This went on for a while. I started looking at the Yankee website so I could learn some names and terms, and so I could shame him back when "my" team won. Student started loving coming to my class. I was his favorite teacher. My whole class got in on it. I started making grammar quizzes with sentences about the teams and about Student. There was a Red Sox fan in my class as well, and so we had a connection too. One day, the day of the first Angels/Yankees game of the season, I came back to my classroom after recess to find it completely covered in Angels gear and pictures of Ben (printed off a computer) saying "Yankees Suck." So I filled up his locker with golf, tennis, and ping pong balls and stuck a picture of Ben in a Yankees cap in the back. Most of the teachers in my school are Angels fans, so the fun and games spread. I felt good about my decision to pretend I was a real fan because I was contributing to a positive and fun school climate. I had the world fooled.

Apparently I did too good of a job.

The Angels and the Yankees are currently vying for a spot in the World Series (that's the Big Game--I know that now because I looked it up on Wikipedia). I'm finding it harder to maintain my Fan image because clearly people expect me to actually watch a game, which I hitherto haven't done since I was a kid and got pissed that my regular TV shows weren't on because of stupid, boring baseball. So watched the last 30 minutes or so of Saturday's crazy game, and the last 30 minutes or so of yesterday's game just so I could adequately respond to the imminent trash talk. In case you aren't a huge fan like me and you don't know about those two games, they were each about 5 hours long. Which means I tuned in long after the games should have been over and I felt like I really should try it. Apparently there's some kind of strategy in professional baseball wherein a pitcher purposefully walks a batter that will probably slam dunk hit a home run. I think this practice is chicken. I think they do it because they're afraid if they actually play fairly they will lose. Both teams were doing it, I thought it was stupid, so I made a clever and witty comment on facebook to that effect. Bad plan. All of these real fans started cyber-shouting at me about how the Yankees buy their wins and steal real wins from better teams and that the Yankees should die and they can't believe I'm actually a Yankees fan, how appalling, and so on ad infinitum.

Whoa. Let's all slow down and remember that I don't actually care about the Yankees. It's a new school year, that student isn't even in my class anymore, and I'm only doing this still because I'm very competitive and the science teacher made a bet with me that the losing team will get pied.

I liked sports until everyone got mean and vicious. You crazy fans need to get a life. I don't want to play anymore.

Random October (so far)

Here are some miscellaneous moments from October thus far. We are really enjoying our new home (that which we can see through the boxes, at least). There are some hitches. The screen door is falling apart, so it's not quite effective at keeping the toddler in. The oven and dryer don't work, so we're hoping to get that taken care of soon. The toilets sometimes go on "ever-flush" mode, wherein they flush every 2-3 minutes at random. So that's fun. And I've already discussed Superneighbor. Otherwise, though, we are loving it. Benjamin and Adalee are great friends, as are us adults.

Benjamin can now blow kisses. Look out, ladies. He-Who-Could-Not-Get-Cuter JUST DID.

It's like a thousand degrees right now, so yesterday we had popsicles.

Benjamin discovered the phone at Pottery Barn Kids yesterday. He played with it for a pretty long time. I guess he had a lot of people to call.

So there is this super cool and annoying talking Elmo toy at Target that Ben likes to play with when we're there. And it's $50. And did I mention it talks? We will never own it. But we did get a small, non-talking Elmo for $6. It is Ben's favorite thing ever. I also found a toddler backpack (which I have been keeping my eye out for for a while) on sale for $6 at Carter's. Elmo+rocket-ship backpack+cute outfit+boy=ADORABLE.