Makana wants to be a dog

• Our new thing is to pretend that we are a dog. it is getting a bit out of hand as Makana bites, licks, and now wants to spend as much time as possible in the dog kennel. She likes it best if both Duke and Nalu are in there with her. Nalu is in there almost full time these days recovering from her surgery, but Makana likes to go in and put Duke in there with them. Yesterday she started laughing and then told me she licked Duke on the back. Disgusting! Seriously, she cries when we tell her no. I finally got up the nerve to take some pictures of it, but I am worried that we will get a visit about child abuse so I try to discourage her! In public she will ask if she can go in the kennel when she gets home! This morning she was trying to pet Nalu through the bars and she got her arm stuck! She was more scared than anything, she went in past her elbow, bent the elbow and then could not figure out how to get her arm out! I will post some pics I took last night, but I please don't call the child abuse hotline, we don't leave her locked in there, though according to her she would prefer that to day care! Hey, we could save a lot of money that way.....




• Potty humor is also rampant in our house. She usually sings Mama Mia songs, or something from a Disney movie, but lately everything is poop. Just now she was listening to the song about Pooh and the Super Sleuths and replaced all the words with "poop". Oh boy!



• The beautiful flower picture was taken in my yard yesterday. When I tried to take one more pic Kona walked up to it and I thought I would get a cute pic of my puppy and the flower, instead she ate the bottom three petals right off. That is just one example of why Gil calls her Bruno. Of course when the other dogs start barking at someone at the door or whatever she runs to hide behind me.

A dinglehoffer?

OK here I sit working and Makana says, "I'm making strangles of myself." SO I say, what? and look over and she has a plastic fork from her tea set and she has wound it all up in her hair! She meant tangles. I think she has been watching too much little mermaid!

Rambling thoughts in August

I just felt the need to share what has been going on in my life, not sure why. I am opening up a new middle school in a week. I went to Korea this summer for a study tour and was gone a month in all. When I came back I certainly felt behind at work, though it is summer vacation. I had to hire someone new as our number of studtnts increased and ended up taking a position teaching 2 subjects rather than try to hire someone to do that. We decided to just hire someone for the SS position that I was going to teach. So now in addition to planning for my one subject, I will plan for 2 while trying to make sure that all the teachers in the SS department are prepared and have what they need. I have not moved into my classroom completely. I bought a new puppy that I am trying to train. Adorable, but we should have named her the Energizer Jaws Puppy. I tne meantime my 10 year old lab will not accept the new lab. She is a nervous dog to start with and was spending as much time as possible hiding from the puppy. She wasn't eating much, but she does that even when I keep another person's dog while they are out of town. So I knew she was acting strange, but didn't see her too much and chalked her behavior up to pouting and figured she would come around eventually as she usually does. Sunday was my birthday. I woke up to my husband telling me there is something wrong with Nalu. I go to see her and she cannot move her back legs, is dragging herself around. How do you go from running with me and going up and down stairs to no control over her leg. She could still control her bowels and all and could still wag her tail. Bizarre. So we took her to our vet who took xrays and saw nothing that would do this, he sent them to a radiologist for a second look, some degenerative changes that would be expected of a 10 year old, but nothing to cause this. Then we go to a neurologist, yes, they have those for dogs. He wants to do an MRI, and possible surgery, deposit, 3 grand, about half if they do the surgery, but without it we have to euthanize her. Now I know that many people would just do that and we don't exactly have 6k lying around. But mentally and in every other aspect but the legs she is fine. She was our first "baby" as my husband says. So yesterday she had the MRI and the surgery, it was a ruptured disc. SO far so good, except financially I guess. I am still so behind in work and yet here I sit ;-) And somehow I have some perspective, because I could be crying my eyes out over my loss and I am not. A girl from work called and said that she is so behind etc etc, and I am having the whole faculty over a week from today, was I OK with that. She was totally checking to see if I need anything, not trying to up the anxiety. I said, you know, it will work out and if the house doesn't pass a white glove test, they will have to understand, I was busy, three all day workshops next week, plus all my extra. Yes, it is pressure, but worrying won't help, ya know. Anyway, I am not sure why I shared this, just felt like it because you all always provide me a place to put my thoughts into words and maybe make some meaning. HMmm, I could have done that without sending it into cyberspace, but an audience makes a difference. We say that in teaching, that kids like authentic work with an authentic audience, maybe now I sort of understand why.
So if you are dealing with stress, and who the heck isn't these days, maybe we all just need a little perspective. Maybe that is why I had to go through this with Nalu, but I sure would have liked to learn that without her suffering! I just kept saying, at least it isn't Makana, which in some ways sounds callous, but man I would have REALLY been a wreck then!
Kristin

Leaving for Korea

I leave for Dallas Saturday and then head on to Korea for 2 weeks. Makana will stay with mom. I am sad to leave her and excited about the trip at the same time. She tells me she will be sad and cry and I say that is OK, I will be sad too. She says such funny things today I said, "let's go eat cause your momma is hungry!" and she said, "and your daughter is hungry!"Today we went to the zoo with Zach and Kathy, we had a great time. Kathy took all the pics, maybe she will send me some. Here I will include some of Makana and Zach playing with bubbles last week. I am going to start a blog for while I am in Korea so that at least Makana and Mom can follow along.

Early Summer

Opening the new school has been a challenge, it is now supposed to be summer, but I imagine I will still be working quite a bit, good thing I have a box of toys for Makana in my classroom! She finished her first year of pre-school a week before I finished work, luckily Gil was able to keep her until about 3:00 each day and then she came to work where she enjoyed coloring on the white boards! Gil and I have been working on the yard since the weather got better, he has done an amazing job of installing sprinklers, building a fence and gate and adding steps to the stoop outside. We still have a lot of work to do, but it is looking better and at least there is no more mud for the dogs to track! Makana has been tending her strawberry plants which are beginning to have fruit despite the fact that she pulled off all the flowers at one point. She also enjoys deadheading the petunias and smelling all the flowers in the garden shops, I am glad she is such a good sport about the garden centers! She also says things that amaze me, her vocabulary is huge, I can't really think of anything that she can't say. The other day she was talking to me an she said, "Young lady," I honestly don't remember using that term with her, but she obviously knows it from me! The teacher said she doesn't talk at all at school, worrisome, but she is learning because she comes home and tells me things that I know she learned at school, things about animals and places. She won't answer questions I ask her about school, but she will later just spout off things. WE got her hair cut this week and she yacked with the girl the entire time, not sure why she won't talk at school. This week Zach is staying with us while his parents are in Mexico. They are playing really well together so far. Yesterday we went to the mall and the kids got their face and arm painted, I will post some of those pics along with some of Makana's first week in swim lessons, of course now she does not want to go any more!

Chinese New Year

We all enjoyed Chinese New Year this year at the CCAI celebration! We arrived early, had a great seat and enjoyed the company of those seated around us. The food was good and the entertainment was a lot of fun, Makana enjoyed feeding the Lion, which she insists is a dragon. Makana and I made wontons in Chinese class earlier in the month and they were delicious. We also performed in the JCC festival for New Year, well we walked around the stage while Makana hid behind me and I sang, but maybe that counts! I tried making my own wontons at home later, they were good, but not as good as we had in class. Makana has been enjoying watching Ni Hao Kai Lan on Nickelodean, it is good for her to hear the Chinese we are learning in school elsewhere and to have fun with it. We also bought a dragon and a book on Chinese New Year that she loves. I hope we can keep her as close to her heritage as possible!

Makana's birthday

We discussed a party for Makana, but it would have had to be a week after her birthday as I did not get any invitations done before Christmas break and we did not go back to school until the 6th of January, a day after her birthday. So I finally decided to have Kathy and Zach meet us for lunch at Chick-fil-et and where we had cake and the kids played after lunch. We then drove to the Disney store and let the kids pick out some gifts. The sale was incredible, so Makana got a lot! We had a great day together, then on Gil's day off later in the week they also had a special day together.