Aliens Are Short and Cute - and Sometimes Nerve-Wracking

I think I know why Wednesdays always seem to find me too exhausted to post. I believe I've found the answer that has stumped us all  me these past few weeks. 


Aliens.




Yup. Aliens.




Remember back awhile when I said that I felt like aliens my third graders were sucking the life out of me? Well, y'all, what if they ARE???? I think I may be on the verge of discovering all those government secrets of Area 51 or 53 or whatever - you know, Roswell, where the aliens crashed way back in the 1900's? I think those little aliens DID crash there, then took over the minds of several folks, who then reproduced, but then the government figured out what was going on and they were all like, "We've got to do something about this," but then the scientist folks were all, "No, wait, we should USE these things to our advantage and study them," so the government started this program and here we are decades later, and my third graders are aliens. How 'bout that, y'all! Isn't that something? I know some of you doubters out there will need proof, and boy do I have it...just look:


*Even after all these years, they still do not completely understand our language. I mean, look at what I go through day after day when trying to communicate with them:


                                       ~ When I tell them to sit down, many of them continue to walk around the room as though I never said a word!

                                      ~ When I tell them to walk quietly down the hall in a line, they will often form small groups or "clumps" and chit chat in normal tone voices until I freak out and "SHHHHHUSH" them in my loudest shush. And then we repeat the whole pattern again a few moments later.

                                    ~ When I distinctly say, and then write the page number of the book we're opening up for our lesson, 95% of them ask repeatedly, "What page?"

                                    ~ Every day the morning routines and board work are posted on the dry erase board. #1 is ALWAYS "Turn in your folder and put away your backpack." Inevitably 1-2 students will NOT turn in their folders and there's always 2 or 3 backpacks on the floor or near the desks instead of where they belong!

                                   ~ They can be given an assignment to read a certain passage. That passage might contain the words, "Matter is anything that takes up space and has mass," for example. They may, for example, have a question that asks, "What is matter?" They will tell you the answer is NOT on that page and that they've read it two or three times. What the heck?!

*Their eyes apparently have functions that have less to do with actual vision than ours do. Here's more evidence:


                                 ~ Even my own children have this problem: THEY        DON'T       SEE        MESSES. They just don't. It's like their brains "erase" any sort of messiness that we see. I can tell a student to clean up the mess around and on her desk and she'll claim it is clean, despite the huge pile of paper clippings, broken erasers, crayon stubs with no paper on them, shredded crayon paper (hmmm, wonder how THAT got there?), pencils, and a few unidentifiable (OMG - could it be alien paraphernalia??) odds and ends that surround and completely cover her desk.

                                ~ A student can swear he doesn't have a particular book in his desk and swear I must've never given him one (true, stranger things have happened), leaving me to scramble to find a spare one to give him so we can continue on with our lesson.....only to realize that the very book he's looking for is sitting RIGHT ON HIS DESK.......................OUT IN PLAIN SIGHT..............NOT COVERED UP BY ANYTHING............EASILY SPOTTED BY ADULT NON-ALIENS.

*They hate to wear foot coverings of any kind...even in the bathroom where GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT THEY MIGHT BE STEPPING IN/ON IN THERE. 

True story - I've had to punish several of my aliens students for this infraction. See, they take their shoes off when we're walking the track after lunch and as we come in the building, we pass the bathrooms, so obviously, being a whiz at time management (NOT), I have them stop by to use the restroom on our way back to the room. The only problem is that several of them "forget" to put their shoes back on before going into the germ-crawling, pee-covered floors of the restroom. Ugh. Feeling a little sick just thinking about it.......breathe......breathe......breathe.....


*They believe their pencils MUST be sharp enough to perform surgery with EVERY time they use them.

This one makes me nervous. Could it be they are stockpiling weapons in order to take over the school and then the world? A sharp pencil can be deadly you know.

Okay, I made that last part up, but sharp pencils DO hurt when you get poked with one. I would know. I've had my share of run-ins with razor-sharp pencils over the years.

*Bathrooms are a place of ritualistic behaviors, including (but not limited to: roughhousing, jumping, running, SCREAMING, GIGGLING, slamming doors, splashing water, and other general areas of play). 

Yes, I know. I DO NOT teach kindergarten. I DO NOT teach toddlers or preschoolers. I teach aliens third graders. And this is what third graders do in the bathroom. Again, more evidence, I believe, of alien behavior. Perhaps this is their way to communicate with the Mother Ship? They create a ruckus in one bathroom, where I go to investigate & SHHUUUUSHSHSHSHSH them, while the aliens in the other bathroom make contact. That way they can't get caught in their communications, since they know I don't have the ability to be in two places at once. Speaking of which, I wonder if they can do that and if they can, would they teach me?


*Last but not least, my final bit of evidence that third graders are aliens: They plan to slowly take over my mind after I've completely lost it. I doubt I have to give you any other reasons as to why I might lose my mind, but I'll indulge you once more: they plan to make me go insane by talking to me all at one time. And boy do they do it, too. At any given moment during the day, I may have 5 aliens students surrounding me (literally IN MY PERSONAL SPACE), talking all at once as though I am listening only to them, while another one continuously taps me on the shoulder while saying my name over and over and over again, while yet another 3-7 simply call out my name over all the others. 


I rest my case. I am surrounded by aliens that are trying to make me crazy crazier by using odd tactics and practices that regularly blow my mind. 


That's okay. I'm not scared. 


You can't scare me. 
I'm a teacher.

Rules were made to be broken - another late WHY post

Okay. Here we are. Um, my dog ate my blog post before I could hit "save." I think. Or it could've been that whole alien abduction thing that happened to me...not sure which. You go ahead and choose the excuse you like and that'll be the one we'll go with. K? K.

Here are my "whys" for this week, albeit a tad late.

What? Was I just supposed to reach down my dog's throat and pull out the cyberbytes he was so happily devouring with his cute puppyish face (or hop off the alien examination table in the middle of my rather uncomfortable session of poking and prodding, depending on which excuse you went with earlier)? Well, okay then. Here we go.

**** WHY elevator music? Why not simply a local radio station or a CD being played on a repeating loop? I mean, who decided that Guns-N-Roses would sound divine on a harpsichord? I mean, seriously, come on people.


**** WHY is life backwards? I mean, why do we waste naps on the young (who don't want them) instead of giving them to the folks who NEED them (like say, moms, or third grade teachers)? WHY is it that you try to mind-meld a time warp in order to speed up time when you're younger and then feel that the world is whipping by at breakneck speed when you hit your thirties? WHY must you gain all the knowledge/wisdom as you age, and then when you possess it, the only good it'll do is to pass it along to a young preteen/teenager (possibly your own) who will think much the same way you did at his/her age ("Mom's so lame"), ignore it, and have to make all the same stupid mistakes you made in order to gain the SAME knowledge/wisdom you just tried to cram into their head? WHY do the little people of the world (i.e., toddlers and preschoolers, and even most kindergarten-goers) have the energy of FIFTY-FIVE THOUSAND ATOMIC BOMBS, while their mothers are left with the energy of a moss-covered sloth? Doesn't that just seem backwards to you?


**** WHY am I having such a hard time getting my butt into a regular blogging routine? Stay tuned for the answer to that one...I'm about to ****GASP**** post twice in ONE NIGHT! Holy Moly! What can I say, I'm on a productive streak now that my Adderall has kicked in.

NOW - your turn. Ya'll aren't playing well. I've only had a single "WHY" left for me (thanks Elaine)! Come on - leave me a few "whys" - I'd love to hear what rattles around your brain from time to time!

WHY...um...Thursday?

Okay girlie, you can just go on ahead and get off your high horse there - yeah. You. I know. I KNOW it's not Wednesday and here I am posting my "WHY Wednesday" post on, well, Thursday, but COME ON. Don't you realize that we are just now wrapping up the first week of school and my little Hellions Darlin's have absolutely SUCKED THE LIFE OUT OF ME this week? Is it possible that these children are really not children at all, but rather some sort of other-worldly beings that are literally, slowly, sucking the life out of me? How is it possible for one person to be so dadgum tired after simply talking about rules, complete sentences, short vowels, and fantasy vs reality stories? I kid you not ya'll, I totally came home Monday and Tuesday and just passed out on the couch - the first night I managed to hook up my kids with some tasty pre-heated microwave meals, and on Tuesday, well, Chore Fairy Jr. was on her own, the two year old got vaguely warm chicken nuggets at 8pm and Kingdaddy and I skipped supper altogether.

I know what you're thinking now..."Well, what about Wednesday? Did you pass out that day too?" and the answer is, "No. No I did not." I was actually feeling pretty good, so I took advantage of the good feelings and empty house (Kingdaddy and TMan had gone to the homebuilding site - did I mention we're building? and Chore Fairy Jr. was on one of her walks around the neighborhood) by calling up Mom and chatting away with out constant interruptions. It was such bliss, especially after hearing my married name prefixed with "Mrs." all day long by 21 adorable kidlets. Almost always all at once, I might add. Sometimes I just want to say, "What the crud, dude? Can you NOT see I am TALKING to another human being (or possible otherworldy being, disguised as a third grade Alabamian)? DO NOT FLIPPIN INTERRUPT PEOPLE!! ERRRR!!!"

Okay. See what I'm talking about? I have totally been a ball of nerves and exhaustion most of the week, which makes being entertaining and interesting oh, so difficult. ***Insert "sigh" and exaggerated hair toss with hand placed delicately over forehead, Scarlett-style, here.*** I so totally deserved that little slice of peace and quiet, just talking about this and that. Sort of like I do on here. So, um, I guess I don't know why I didn't post yesterday, but I'm gonna go with in-my-aliens-are-sucking-the-life-out-of-me state, I didn't even actually REALIZE that yesterday was Wednesday until it wasn't Wednesday anymore and well, you know, by then it was just too late. So....now ya' know. And I'm sure you're feeling so much better for it, right?

Whatever. Let's cut to the chase and examine a few "whys" for Why Wednesday Thursday (just this once - hopefully - depending on what the alien children do to me in the future).

***You know those times, when your angel decides that 3:30 am is a perfectly acceptable time to rise and shine for the day and you're desperately trying to keep him quiet so at least the rest of the household can sleep? WHY must he decide to play with the LOUDEST FREAKING TOY HE OWNS?? Why not the sweet, soft, stuffed (quiet) doggie? Why does it HAVE to be the firetruck, complete with fire engine sounds and flashing lights? WHY? Someone please tell me.

***Why can't dogs clear their throats? Why do they have to be destined to hack and cough as though they had a smoking habit for the past 50 years (or past 350 years in dog years)? Does your dog "hack" and do you try to "coerce" him into just stopping with all that unpleasantness? *Hack, hack, HACK, HACK.*

Excuse me. Pardon. I had to clear my throat.

* **Why does putting something cold on your head make it feel better when it aches? For real, there must be some sort of science behind that one ya'll. Enlighten me if you're all scientific and stuff.

Now....how about some "whys" from ya'll. Keep 'em comin'! :)

PS I'd just like to take this opportunity to totally FREAK out with complete and total utter humiliating gushiness over the fact that, unless my Blog Frog visitor tracker is totally messing with me, ya'll, The Bloggess visited my blog!!!! I'm SO pumped up right now! Granted, she probably found it totally by mistake and lingered for roughly 1.4 seconds (okay, I won't sell myself short - 1.9 seconds) before clicking off to another much more fabulous blog, but who the heck cares?? She stopped by!!! She all but said, "hello" simply by checking in!!!! Maybe by this time next week we'll be BFF's and then we can both blog about how Diet Dr Pepper is messing with us all (is it REALLY Diet or not) and how everyone should totally own a James Garfield. Granted, I don't have anything as fabulous as her James Garfield, BUT I do lay claim to one Bob the Bobcat who watches over me as I type this very post, snarling pose and all. But back to the gushiness - YA'LL THE BLOGGESS FREAKING STOPPED BY HERE, so you're totally within 6 degrees of separation of total Blogdom Awesomeness. You can thank me later.

WHY Wednesday?

Okay, in order to get my butt back into a routine of some sort, and so as to not disappoint my one two loyal readers (thanks Mom and Kim), I thought I'd start a weekly post of some of my musings that pop into my mind...you know the type, they are often more logical than folks give you credit for and yet for some reason, they sometimes make you feel too embarrassed to ask them. Since very little embarrasses me, most days anyway, I thought, what the heck. You do realize though, that by reading this you are obligating yourself to adding your very own "Whys" in the comments section, right? Before proceeding further, please sign here X___________________, here: X_____________________, and here: X____________________ and initial here X_______________________ and here: X__________________________. Okay, now that we have the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way, here goes my very first attempt at "Why Wednesday:"




* Why do toddlers insist on stripping their toys of their accessories? Right now, in America alone, there are over 900,000 naked Barbies being deprived of fabulous shiny dresses. Right now in our living room there are 42,363 cars/trucks/tractors with no tires - yep, you guessed it: naked wheels.



* Why is seeing someone falling down so darn funny? Why do we laugh so hysterically at those awesome cats that have that I-totally-meant-to-run-into-that-sliding-glass-door look on their faces right after running into said sliding glass door?



*And speaking of funny, or rather, NOT funny, why do advertisers  and movie people think that kids and babies throwing up is a funny gag? These people have obviously never been on the receiving end of an "Omenesque" event at 2am, while tripping over the dog and praying that the vomit won't be spread too far and wide for you to clean up with what's left of  the carpet cleaner that you meant to pick up at the store yesterday after work but forgot to because you were too distracted entranced by your little darlin' and his demands precious requests for more sweet tea that he is now throwing up all over you. I mean, really, people, what gives?



Okay - your turn - what "whys" do you have for me today?