Wife of the Year

You might be the wife of the year if:

1. You don't throw a fit when your birthday doesn't go as imagined. You just move your birthday to a different day, make yourself a sign, and call it good. 

2. You watch a scary movie with your husband. And then, while he sleeps soundly, totally unaffected by the horror you just submitted your minds to, and you lay there terrified and unable to sleep, you remember how much he loves his sleep and you do not wake him up. 

Do NOT watch this movie!

3. Marriage is caring is sharing. If you share the closet as well as I do, you might be the wife of the year. 

This is Stephen's side of our closet. I know, I know. It was really generous of me to give him all that space.

4. You decorate your house and it looks adorable!

......while it lasts. 

Three hours after hanging these up....

5. You definitely don't ever ask him to dress up with you for an event that no one else is dressing up for. And you don't hand him a pair of your own tights to put on in an attempt to find an appropriate costume. (And if you did, you wouldn't spend 5 minutes laughing at how hilarious he looks wearing your tights.)

(.....and even if you hypothetically did do all of that stuff, you wouldn't then ask him to put the tights back on a day later so that you could take a picture of him and put it on your blog for the enjoyment of everybody else.)

If you do / have done any of these things, you can give yourself a hearty pat on the back. You are well on your way to being wife of the year! 

Why You Shouldn't Teach

1. Safety duty. I'm sure if this blog was more popular, I would get at least a few comments from a parent whose child got hit by a car because their teacher wasn't out on safety duty. But this blog is not that popular, so I am going to complain about safety duty. This school is literally psychotic about it. We get our panties all twisted up every single day if someone is missing their safety duty. There has to be at least one teacher on every crosswalk. I'm talking about the crosswalks in the parking lot, not the ones on the busy road that is actually like 5 miles away from my school. WHY!? Guys? Just why. Most kids know to look before they cross the street. Most parents look around before they pull forward, because they're at a freaking elementary school at 3:30pm and they know that there are dozens of kids all around.

I don't really want to make the argument that safety duty is an unimportant job. Mostly I just want to make the argument that I should not be the one who has to do it. I am too busy making copies and erasing my board and uploading grades and rearranging desks and emailing parents and checking books back into the guided reading library and filling out forms, and I'm just not sure why the PTA isn't in charge of safety duty.

2. Other teachers. Mostly, I like other teachers. But there are some teachers who don't understand their job, and instead of just teaching their students, they try to teach the teachers around them, too. To them I would like to say: Shut up. Go back in your classroom and close the door and stop trying to tell me what to do. And teachers that "shhhh" other teachers are the worst.

3. Paperwork. It's just so annoying. I know it is not solely annoying to teachers - there are plenty of jobs where paperwork is a downside. But it is certainly annoying to me.

4. Parents. Can be so awesome, so so awesome. But they can also be the worst thing ever. I guess it's just hard to be a parent, because not many of them can seem to strike the perfect balance between being nice and babying their child, and between being strict and just plain mean. I kind of like my job because kids get assigned to me and then even if the parents don't like it at first, I have all year to convince them that I am in fact awesome, you're welcome. But I kind of don't like it because until I prove myself, some of them just set up camp in my butt. And I want them to leave.

5. Salary. You do not get paid enough. Everyone told me this, but I looked at the numbers and I thought that sounded like plenty of money for me. Listen: the only way you actually get paid "enough" to be a teacher is if you are teaching as a hobby. Not as a job. Not as a career. As a hobby.

But here's why you should teach, if you feel so inclined:

1. You have to do what you love. No job is perfect, and no matter what you do, you can find something in your line of work to complain about. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

2. You get to color, and cut, and glue, and put glitter on things if you want.

3. You get hugs pretty much daily.

4. Sometimes you get shivers because you really are sitting at your own desk, in your own classroom, looking over the names of your very own students, and you're doing exactly what you've always wanted to do, and that is really a nice thing. Not everyone can say they're doing exactly what they've always wanted.

5. Children's books are cute.

6. Kids are really smart, and really nice. Sometimes they're snots. But in general, they are nice, and they don't want to hurt other people.

Final score: 5-6. I guess you should teach, after all. [If you want to.]

Are you Bleeding?

Every day, I spend one hour in each class teaching guided reading. It's something I sucked at last year, and now all of a sudden, I am rock-awesome at it.

Guided reading is where I read with a small group (4-6 students) on their reading level, while everyone else works on something else. The rule in my class is that you do not talk to the teacher during Guided Reading unless you are bleeding. If you're bleeding, I can help you. Otherwise, you need to solve your problems on your own.

I was teaching Guided Reading the other day when M walked up to the kidney table. "Mrs. Shimp?"

"Oh! Are you bleeding?" My normal response.

He paused, then said, "I just have a question about...."

"But wait, are you bleeding?"

He considered. "I have a zit...." he said, completely serious.

"Okay, go - wait, what?"

He solemnly pointed at his chin. There was a small red mark there.

"Um....M, the reason I ask if you're bleeding is because, if you're not bleeding, then....because it's a problem that.....you don't really....okay. It's okay. I think you can answer your question on your own," I said. He walked back to his desk.

I would also just like to say that I taught my kids the BEST game today at inside recess. Two people play. They sit in chairs facing each other, gripping the seat with their hands. One of them runs their feet, sitting in their chair, while the other one cheers them on. When they feel like they've run enough, they tap the other person's knee and it switches. I just did it because they never have anything to do at inside recess, and they need to get out their wiggles, but they can't run around the room....so it was perfect!

You can see there are at least 3 games going on in this picture. My girls A and S are just about to get started. L in the black hoodie is moving his chair to start up a game. And K in the orange shirt is really feeling the burn. 

Pathetically Pinterested

Have you seen the hilarious pictures of Pinterest fails?

Here's one.

 And there are a ton more! The message being that Pinterest is unrealistic. And things that look easy are not always as easy as you might think. Which I learned the hard way this morning.

I'll just start from the beginning, I guess. Once upon a time I was born, and I had really straight hairs. Then I grew up and I still had really straight hairs. Then I got a job as a teacher in West Jordan, even though I still had straight hairs. Then I got an apartment in Provo, which meant that I and my straight hairs had an hour to drive err morning and err night. Which meant that even though I was capable (barely) of curling my hairs, it was never ever going to happen with this commute.

(Some people let themselves go when they get married. Others let themselves go when they realize that they work with 7-yr-olds all day.) 

So anyway, the other day while I was perusing Pinterest I happened across a pin of some beautifully curled hairs. The pin advertised a simple way to get these curls with no heat! I was intrigued!

I did some digging. (Am I the only one who can never just click on the pin and get the directions right there? I always have to google it and find it on someone's blog or something. Sorry if you now think that this blog is written by an 80-year-old woman. I am 22.) I found that the way to get these curls actually was very simple! All I had to do was put a headband across my forehead, hippie style, and loop chunks of hair through it, so that I looked like George Washington. Then I had to sleep on it and take all the hair out when I woke up the next day. Sooo easy, guys. So easy.

But actually Pinterest is a LIAR and it's not sooo easy.

Pros of trying this out:

1. Your husband might think you look hot in your George Washington hairdo.
2. You might get beautiful luscious curls without heat.
3. Your hair might be so grateful that you didn't choose to damage it with a curling iron or hair spray.

Cons of trying this out:

1. Your husband might not think you look hot in your George Washington hairdo. You may never know for a fact that he doesn't think so, but let's be honest, you'll know it for a pretty much fact.
2. You might not have to expose your hair to any heat, but that's not much of a consolation when you find yourself ripping it out in chunks when it gets stuck in gnarly tangles around the headband, and you are running 20 minutes late on a day that you might get observed by your principal, so you find yourself waking up your poor tired husband who knows nothing about hair, but you wake him up anyway because you are panicking and visions of a bald you are running through your head and you are convinced that he must be able to help in some way.....
3. Your hair will not be grateful. It will be lonely. Because you will lose 18% of your hairs in this simple attempt.

In the end, I had to cut the headband and pull it out of my hair. (This was a huge task in and of itself.) Then I had to brush through my hairs until I looked like Hermione Granger and there were at least 7 knots the size of nickels in my trash can. Then I had to get dressed and pack a lunch and breakfast and open the door (which, strangely, was harder than both getting dressed and packing food) and walk down to my car and drive all the way to school. Then I had to go and talk to my teacher friends about it.

THEN I had to realize that my Mac-klemore was still at home. Then I had to check a laptop out from the computer lab. Then my principal did decide to come and observe me. Then I had to cry in my head because my kids were so good while he was there. Then I had to break up a fight over the headphones at the listening center. Then I had to cry in my head again because the principal was not there anymore and so my kids had reverted back to being the spawn of rabid dogs.

Then I had to get the best text ever from the best husband ever, and then I had to decide that this whole thing is a little bit funny, and I had better blog about it.

Happy Monday, everyone. And Happy Pinteresting....if you dare.