Teachers Do Back To School (uncensored)

Welp, maternity leave is done and summer is over.  I had to leave these two little love bugs behind at the sitter and head.  back.  to.  work.  Sounds weird after having 5 months off!

I know, I know.  You don't feel very sorry for me if you aren't a teacher.  Well, you might feel bad for me after seeing what a teacher REALLY has to go through before the students arrive...

After a few tears dropping the kiddos off at the sitter, things were looking bright.  Lori, Carol (my teammates) and myself got ROCKSTAR parking at the high school for our yearly kick off celebration.  We literally parked right next to the handicapped spots.  This is UNheard of.  We also learned the vans are great for parking in those spots that only appear to fit "compact" cars...no doors to open!  Here's a pic of Lori celebrating.. and holding all our bags?!

After the kickoff, we spent literally ALL.  DAY.  in training for our new literacy materials.  I'm pretty sure my "focus pills" didn't kick in that day....

 Did I say we were in training all day?  I lied.  We DID go back to school for lunch.  And when I say lunch, I mean this:

Diets are the worst.  My teammates are awesome though.  We ate in my classroom each day and didn't go out once!  Dave Ramsey My husband liked this too! ;)

Speaking of diets.  Luck have it the cupcake truck donated fancy cupcakes in spiffy plastic cups to all Linn-Mar teachers that day.  Cupcakes don't fall under my South Beach Diet Phase 1 plan so I just kept walking... drooling...but walking.  I found myself to go delirious mid training.  I actually tried to eat someone's cupcake in their hand!  In my defense, it was a joke.  It turned out to not be so funny (for myself) when I found out the lady holding the cupcake was a complete stranger!  I swore it was another teacher from our building.  WRONG!  (Again, my pills must not have kicked in?!)  Here's a reenactment:

See the lady in the back talking to the gal in the tye-dye?  SHE is the one that was holding the cupcake I pretended to eat.  She was probably talking about me to her pal there.  That pal is actually my old college roommate so I doubt she was surprised...but ANYWAY.......

I mentioned my teammates were awesome.  Well, they are but they are prone to injuries.  Carol was on crutches all day from knee surgery.  What happened to Lori you ask?  Well, you might want to talk to her chiropractor to get the full diagnosis but here's a glimpse of what I might have done on accident to her...  She's SO awesome that she manually opened the trunk to grab our bags and I didn't hear her so I opened the trunk.  Well pushing the trunk button on an opened trunk will only do the following... consider yourself warned...

After a day of training, embarrassment and injuries, I got to take my Maxer to his preschool meet and greet.  He's too busy to take pics these days but here's the only pic I have that's not TOO blurry of him at his seat.  TEARS!  He's so grown up! I wonder if his teacher has a similar experience getting ready for his class?!

Here's to a fabulous new school year!

Love,

Lis

Time Flies! Four Months

Reese @ 4 Months:

 

 Rolls all over the place.  Beginning to scoot!  Hates rice cereal and bottles.  Sleeping through the night?  Nope.  Not anymore!  Sigh.



Reese 1-4 months re-cap:

 

 

 

Max vs. Reese @ 4 Months:

 

 

Love,

Lis
 

Time Flies: 3 Months

Reese @ 3 months:

 

Rolling over and sleeping through the night.  Laughs at her brother ALL the time (except when he pulls her arms too hard!)  Holds her head up HIGH!

 

 

Reese in review:  months 1-3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Max Vs. Reese @ 3 Months:

 

 

 

Until next month...

 

Love,
Lis

 

 



It's COOL to see Max grow at the POOL

For your enjoyment (mostly mine) I present pics of Max.  Each was taken on his first visit to the pool since we joined :)

2010

 

2011

 

 2012

 

 2013

 

Love,

Lis



Proud and Creepy moments...

The Drinkalls had an "proud night" just the other day.  Max started soccer.  For those of you know who Mike well, you'll know this was the day he has been waiting for since the ultra sound technician said "it's a boy!"  He's a soccer fanatic.   For those of you who know me well, this is the day I've been fearing since Max could walk and talk.  He's somewhat of a wild child and I didn't want him to turn practice into a circus show for all the spectators as he oh so often can do...

Well anyhoo, Max surprised us all... He was a soccer stud.  He listened to his coaches, he made some goals, and even waited his turn without punching the kid in front of him for his snack (gasp!)  I didn't have to take ownership of the kid chasing squirrels in the woods instead of following direction (for once)...although I know this can change by the time next practice arrives, I sure enjoyed not being the mom of "that kid" for once.

Here is our little man on his first night of soccer:

 After soccer we celebrated Max's "good ears" night by getting him some ice cream.  There's nothing worse than having your kid do awesome things and celebrate with ice cream when you are on a diet...  I ordered a small chocolate cone for Max, a small vanilla milk shake for mike, and a big fat... NOTHING for me.  How's that fair?  I survived.

Max sure enjoyed his treat...  maybe after we master "good ears" we can master "clean eating"...

One thing is for sure though.  Soccer and ice cream wore our little man out.  He didn't even pull his "I'm scared" story that night... Still trying to figure out if he's for real or not... wolves in our house?!  Well, normally I'd laugh and say "get outta town and buck up" but I truly had a "wolf phobia" as a child so I can relate... genetic?  Something to ponder.  I'll save that for our therapist...

Just like Reese on her blankie, any good day can "flip" around...

 Get it?  FLIP around?  She's flipping over... okay, okay... moving on.  The next day I present to you wasn't quite as glorious and I may be on the "child predator" list by the time this blog is posted...

I decided to put the library on the "summer weekly list of things to do".  Today was our first day.   We didn't get out of the house until lunch time and it all felt wrong.  Reese was fussy, which never helps!

Max wanted nothing to do with the books so I picked out some for him but that's not what ruined the trip.  I would like to put the following disclaimer out there before I share the next story:  I'm ADD and NOT currently medicated...

Okay.  So I might as well drive this around:

I was talking to a friend at the library and I noticed a screaming kid.  The screaming kid was screaming because of MY kid.  Max didn't understand the concept of those "tornado donation coin collector" things and stopped the poor kid's penny from swirling and it just plopped down the hole.  I was so embarrassed even if Max explained that "the kid should have caught it".  He had no idea what that thing was for!  I had no change to give the kiddo but my friend did thank goodness.  Anyhoo, the kid wouldn't take the coin from me.  Why?  Well during this whole fiasco, I reached down and grabbed Max to have a talk with him about the incident...fairly firmly...on the arm.  I wondered why he was flopping around so much... well... it wasn't my kid.  It was the kid who was mad about his dang coin.  Now he thought I was trying to abduct him.  There were no words I could come up with to explain the situation to his mom who was watching the WHOLE THING.  Time. To. Go... and possibly never return?

Anyhoo, we got home and had some quality book time...

 And again it was verified that maybe borrowing books isn't a good idea for our family... Max "Skee-dattled" too fast and his foot stuck to poor pussy's face...   How do I go back to the library and pay that fine if my face is on a wanted poster there?!

Love,

Lis

State, Baby!

Wassup, fellow nerds.  In honor of my daddy's soccer team making it to State, I sported their team t-shirt 8 sizes too hobo-ish and my pants 8 inches to high-ish with a little "tuck-in" action.  Here's how my "vacation" to State went...

 

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My mom, Alecia, Reese and myself arrived to the soccer game and to my surprise PETE was there!  He got to meet baby Reese!

 

 

Here's a pic of  me in an "athletic trainer sandwich".  Mom thought she could "corral" me by placing me in  between them and offering me all sorts of goodies...

 

 

...although I appreciated and enjoyed the delicious snacks, I soon grew bored and ventured out on the bleachers to see what kind of trouble I could stir up.  I quickly found a group of crazy teens cheering for daddy's team.  I called them the "good guys" because they liked the Warriors.  Anyhoo.  This picture doesn't do justice to just how much I got into their business.  I soon weaseled my by in the middle of their cluster and kissed, high fived, bragged about my baby sister and ipad, and even went waaaaaaaaaay overboard and spanked their booties.  Alecia, Pete, and my mom thought I was getting a little too friendly so I had to go back to the "athletic trainer sandwich" 

 

(Look closely...I'm in the back!)

 

Unfortunately daddy's team didn't win the soccer game.  Daddy was pretty upset.  I think his eyes are closed in this picture so we wouldn't see his tears.  Chin up, dad!

 

 

I thought the players could use some advice cheering up. 

 

 

I showed them how to get the job done for next time by demonstrating with my daddy.

 

 

It was getting late by the time this was over so we all ate dinner.  I helped feed Reese.  This was the first time I had ever given her a bottle.  She would rather have done it herself and kept trying to grab it.  I laughed at this although it was rather rude the more I think about it!

 

 

After waiting approximately 30 minutes, it was time to swim.  Thank goodness Alecia is super duper nice.  My mom is a dud and said she wasn't going to be seen in public in a swimming suit.  She's a party pooper for sure. 

 

 

Note to others:  It's tricky to get wet swim trunks on after a potty break.  Again, thank goodness for Alecia! 

 

 

Reese was pretty bummed that she couldn't go swimming with us until we dipped her toes in.  She didn't care so much for the artic temperature of the water...

 

 

To make sure she didn't feel left out, we let her try on my new goggles.  I think she appreciated the kind gesture.  I'm just that kinda guy!

 

 

After all that splishing and splashing it was time to relax in our jammies.  Mom thought it'd be a good time to get a photo of Reese and myself.  I thought it was a good time for mom to MOVE OUT OF MY WAY so I could finish watching my cartoons...

 

 

It wasn't much longer before we all passed out from pure exhaustion...

 

 

 

The rest of the night's story is quite crazy.  Really.  We were all sleeping in the pitch dark hotel room when all of a sudden the most annoying noise came from this device:

 

 

Mom and dad were freaking out and yelling at each other.  I heard dad yell "HELP, Lisa!  Turn that off!"  Eventually the chaos ended.  But not for long...  exactly 13 minutes later the most forceful knocking I'd ever heard was at the door.  Mom and dad ignored it for a bit but then daddy stomped toward the door.  He was about to kick some major high school soccer player's booty for knocking on our door and potentially waking up us kids!  Good thing he kept his yapper shut!  It was the POLICE!  I began to panic.  I said a little prayer, "Dear lord, please make these police go away...I promise to never pee in the pool again..."

 

 They had their rubber gloves on and their flashlights out searching our room!  Someone had called 911 from our hotel room asking for help?! 

 

This was quite a confusing ordeal for everyone.  We still don't have it figured out.  We can only possibly think that daddy knocked the phone off the hook while trying to get the alarm off and they heard him asking for my mommy's help.  But what are the chances of him hitting "9-9-1-1"?  Maybe we should play the lottery this week?

 

Anyhoo-  no one got arrested.  We're cool.  They still don't believe us that we didn't call for help though!

 

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The next day I went shopping with Alecia, Reese and mommy.  Look!  Alecia and I were twinsies!

 

Mom spent 7 bucks for me to ride in a fire truck around the mall.  I may never make it to college if she keeps doing silly things like that!  After all, I'm sure it'd have been more fun chasing me around all afternoon, right?!

 

 

Don't go thinking 7 bucks is too much for this rig.  It came with high safety ratings.  See!?

 

 

I'm not one to listen though...

 

 

So there you have it.  State 2013.  We didn't win the game but definitely won some awesome memories and had a great time.  As they often say for the Cubbies, "There's always next year..."

 

-Max

 

Love,

Lis