Captain Jack Ride

Here it is: proof that we all made it to Walt Disney World, rode a few rides and generally enjoyed ourselves. This was taken outside Pirates of the Caribbean. The entire time in line, all Emma could talk about was seeing Captain Jack. Then when we got up to the loading area, she immediately changed her tune. "I'm not sure about this Mama. I'm not going in there." I think it was the dark, damp atmosphere that had her spooked. Uncle Matt has a great photo of E sitting with Mimi and Papa. They are all smiles and Emma has her hands covering her face. She rode the entire ride in that position except for the few times that there was a Captain Jack-sighting when she would uncover her eyes to wave at him and then promptly return to the position of abject terror. It was great fun. I'll see if I can get the photo from Matt.

Emma pic

Haven't had an Emma pic in a while. This one is a little old but it's a good one. Trying to get some pics from Disney World to load.

Emma = panther snack

We went to a birthday party on Saturday for one of Emma's school friends. It was at the Tallahasse Natural Science Museum. I was unaware that we had one of these until the party invitation arrived in E's cubby at school. So, Mama and E set out on Saturday for the museum. It was raining. A lot. The museum is mostly outdoors. You can see where this is going, can't you?

What do you get when you put 22 three 1/2 year olds plus at least 1 parent each, pizza, Capri Sun drinks, and birthday cake in a 10x20 room? Utter pandemonium. It was so crazy it was funny. At one point, me and another mom just stood against the wall and laughed until we cried. Then they brought in the snake - you heard me - the snake. Now, as snakes go, it wasn't a huge Boa or anything, it was a Florida Pine Snake - about 3 feet long and brown. Kids react 2 ways to snakes:
1) "Cool, I wanna touch it!"
2) "AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Mama, HOLD ME!"
Emma was in group #2. Now, you all realize that I am 8.5 months pregnant. Said child began scaling me like Mt. Everest in her attempt to get away from the "scary snake meany guy". At one point she had her upper torso wrapped around my head and was using my pregnant belly as a stepladder in her mission to embed herself in my hair in order to camouflage herself from the snake. Pleasant.

However, the rest of the day was pretty cool. Emma was actually pretty well behaved and I found myself in a situation that most mothers experience at birthday parties. I was comparing Emma's behavior to the other kids and determined that I've got a pretty good egg on my hands most of the time. She was neither crippled by shyness nor was she crawling underneath the table as a dinosaur, roaring and grabbing at people's ankles like one little boy. All in all, she was very well-behaved. She only did laps around the table when they were SUPPOSED to be running in the keep-the-plastic-animal-in-the-kitchen-spoon game. I felt quite proud of Andy's and my parenting skills.

It was still raining but we went out on the walking tour anyway. It was more of a steady drizzle anyway. They have a boardwalk set up that takes you on a 2-mile trek through lots of different animal habitats including turkeys, foxes, skunks, black bears, alligators, and panthers. This is where I discovered that Emma looks pretty tasty to large jungle creatures.

As we're rounding the corner to enter the panther habitat, there was a long stretch of straight, raised boardwalk. As you moms are aware, long stretches of sidewalk are irresistible to kiddos who like to run (as Emma does - EVERYWHERE) so she and her friend Ben took off. Me and Ben's mom figure we'll let them run to the next turn in the boardwalk. The panthers at this point, are lounging on top of their "hut" in the rain looking sleepy. WELL. Apparently running preschoolers are like hour'de voures b/c as soon as Ben and Emma took off, the panthers took off right after them. It was scary even with the high fence protecting our babies. The panthers leapt down off the hut and caught them up very quickly and were soon running right alongside Emma and Ben on the other side of the fence, about 5 feet below. All the while I could see their panther-brains thinking, "Ooh-hoo hoo, snack time!" Emma and Ben, of course, thought this was hilarious. I had one of those flashes where I saw myself jumping into the panther pit and thought, "I could beat that panther to death with my umbrella if I have to." Then I remembered Anchorman and figured I would also have an, "I immediately regret this decision" moment but I would have to TRY and save her from a hungry panther. Needless to say, it was an exciting trip to the NHM. Emma enjoyed her time with the animals and I'll leave you with her thoughts in parting.
"Mama, those were some big kitties. They are even bigger than Max."

Dinner Conversation with Emma Last Night

E: Mama, can I have some candy?
Me: After you finish your supper.
E: Where is the candy?
Me: I hid it. (This, of course, was my mistake.)
E: Where did you hide it?
Me: In the secret hiding place.
E: Where's the secret hiding place?
Me: I can't tell you. It's a secret.
E: Why is it a secret?
Me: I want to surprise you.
E: What's the surprise?
Me: The candy.
E: But where's the candy?
Me: In the secret hiding place.
E: Where's the secret hiding place?

And, you know the rest.

Liar Liar...and all the rest

OK, so I said I was going to post more often but it just hasn't happened. Currently I have 2 stacks of papers staring me in the face (yes, papers DO stare for those of you who don't teach - more adequately they BORE A HOLE INTO YOUR WILL TO LIVE until you grade them!), I have 2 baskets of laundry to fold, 3 buckets of baby clothes to sort and wash, as well as a dishwasher to empty, a catbox to clean out and a 3 year old to pick up from daycare. But, for you, my loyal bleaders (blog-readers), I will postpone all this- and blog.

Nothing has really been happening lately. Still gestating. BTW - I'm done being pregnant. Maybe not forever, Andy and I might have one more kidlet in us, but I'm definitely done with this pregnancy. I have hit full-blown pod-stage. For those of you who haven't been pregnant, this is the point at which your body is truly no longer your own. All food and drink is consumed purely for the bambino b/c you can't fit enough into your squashed stomach to really call it a meal. All water is drunk, not to quench thirst, but to stave off swelling. All sleep is done on the left side of the body not b/c it's comfortable but b/c it aids circulation for the kiddo so that you don't wake up with the lower half of your body completely numb. Getting up from the couch is a 2-person operation. (Andy has gone so far as to even suggest building a pulley system to put in the living room for the last month of my pregnancies. Now that we're on #3, he truly regrets not doing so when we were having Emma.) Bending over is impossible to do without embarrassing noises or horribly awkward squatting positions. Bathroom trips # in the teens every day. In my opinion: officially time to pop out the boy! Too bad I've got about 3 more weeks. Arghh.

We have the furniture in Jackson's room and it is put together. We are currently trying to find a good, inexpensive crib mattress as ours was destroyed in the Fayetteville/Tallahassee Moving Debacle of 2007. (BTW - we still haven't found the PlayStation 2 or any of the DVD cases that were packed away with it. A moment of silence, please, while Andy mourns the loss of his video game system.)

Emma bought me a bookcase for Christmas so I feel that we are finally, officially moved into the house b/c I have books in my living room. Home just isn't home without your books, you know?For those of you that know me, I had to pare down my collection tremendously since we went from an entire wall of built-ins to one, 5-shelf bookcase. I'm even taking some books to the used bookstore to sell. GASP. I feel good about it though. It's time to let them go. (deep breath) Still sad that all my classroom books are hanging out in storage by themselves but after a tremendous effort by my wonderful husband, there is still room in the storage unit for our Christmas stuff as well as my school stuff. He is the master of this adult version of Tetris.

Still trying to get 8 weeks of sub plans together. For those of you who don't teach, you'll have no idea what this entails. For those of you who do - pray for me. The other day, I actually thought about putting this in the plans: Do nothing today. That way when the kids who are absent come back and ask, "I was gone yesterday - did we do anything?" you can honestly say "no". Seriously though, I have a fairly decent idea of what will be taught while I'm gone and praise all the deities I know of that the person I got to sub is a former 8th grade teacher. Thankfully she's agreed to grade everything while I'm out so that I don't have to do it. What a blessing.

On that note, gotta go work on lesson plans and avoid those glaring papers. Later.

I know, I know...

As many of you have mentioned to me over the past couple of weeks, I have been hideously neglectful of my blog. Looking at my Archives, it is a sad state of affairs to watch the number of posts dwindle but one of my New Year's resolutions is to post more often. Let me just plug in a few of my excuses here as to why the blog has been so bereft lately: (1) I'm gestating. The 1/2 of you that haven't done this, please try it and get back to me. (2) Our home laptop is decrepit. It takes upwards of 10 minutes just to boot up and that doesn't even count the time it takes to load the internet. By the time we get E to bed and get the computer working, it's time for us to go to bed. (3) My mother-in-law gave me this book to read and it is CONSUMING my free time. I'm currently a little pissed at her because I've been staying up entirely too late reading the damn thing. I haven't stayed up reading until 2:00 in the morning since the Deathly Hallows came out. Sheesh. And it's a series so I've more to go. (4) I have only 8 days of prep time left(weekends; I can't do any of this when I get home from school, are you crazy?) until baby boy gets here. We still have to put up the crib, swap out chest of drawers, organize closets, wash baby clothes, etc. I'm panicking but keeping it all bottled up inside. (5) I'm just plain lazy sometimes.

Lots has happened since the last post. Princess Palooza 2007 was a success. We had a blast at Disney World despite a bumpy start. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and Jay & Leanne and spouses were really good sports about helping us share the Emma ride-along responsibility. One sad note, E developed a chest infection while we were at Disney and coughed her head off at night. On the last day at Animal Kingdom she had a fever. We were those parents: "You're getting on the safari ride now, I don't care if you have a fever and would rather nap in the stroller. We're going to look at hippos - it'll be fun." We really didn't push her that hard and she still had a good time it was just obvious she wasn't herself. She actually asked to ride in the stroller for Pete's sake. You people KNOW that means she's sick. The rooms at the hotel were really nice and had plenty of room for all of us. There were Trivial Pursuit games in the Snider family tradition and I am sorry to say that I was on the losing team both times. However, everyone who played the 2nd night will attest that the Snider vs. non-Snider game was decidedly unfair. Dinghu Fever? What the heck? Am I right, Jay? My parents ended up buying into the time-share that offered us this trip so there could be many more Disney days ahead. Let's face it - we live 3 1/2 hours away so we're definitely going again. MK and Scott have said they'd like to hang with us out there one weekend. Anyone with kids, we could tag team it. Jess and Ken? Em and Dave? Ben and Vickie? It really is a lot of fun.

We spent one glorious day at home (doing laundry) and then hit the road for Central Arkansas. We made the trip up to AR in one day. It really wasn't that bad until we hit Memphis. Then it seemed like we'd never get there. We were in Hot Springs most of the time we were there visiting Andy's family and having Christmas with them. It was good to be back in cooler weather. One gets tired of 75 and 80 degree December days after a while. We made it to Little Rock for one day and I got to see Jess, Courtney and Katie. It was so good to see them. Definitely not enough time but better than nothing. Then we made the trip back to FL in 2 days. I'm not sure which is worse: 1 day trip or 2 day trip/expedition. Personally, I'd almost vote for flying and I get airsick! I am planning on bringing the kids for 2 weeks this summer (YIKES - I said kids, as in plural, as in more than one) so hopefully I'll have more time to visit and maybe make my way to NW AR too.


I moved for the 3rd time so far this year at school. I'm now in a portable building and am told I won't have to move again until summer. Sadly my books remain in storage and I miss them desperately. Another disturbing note: the portable building next to mine caught fire and BURNED TO THE GROUND last week before school started back up. Luckily (gasp) only 2 of my windows melted and just the outer siding was singed on my building. They assured us it was an electrical fire, not arson. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? So arson was a possibility??? My own portable is equipped with a smoke detector and fire extinguisher but I plan on just running for the hills if I see or smell smoke. Someone else can save my grammar books. Besides all the books I care about are STILL IN STORAGE. The portable building is older than I am - It was installed in 1974 and the A/C was "added" later. Gee, why did the other one have electrical problems? The only positive thing is that now I don't have to travel between classes. That's good since I'm in the swelling stages of pregnancy. My kids hate it but I kind of like being out in the middle of nowhere. No one to look in on me and sit in the back of the room while I teach. SLAM poetry anyone? Kidding. Sort of.

I promise to be a better blogger this year. I'll have lots of time when I'm home with the bambino. Hope you are all well. Talk to you soon. Promise.