You just never know where we'll end up.

Somehow the conversation today turned to your parents borrowing your money when you're a kid.

Remember, my kids are seven.

"Mrs. Overman, my parents borrowed my entire life savings to pay a bill! A whole plastic egg filled with my money...my whole life savings!"

Pet names

My friend and colleague Ruth was in my room today for awhile--great time in there, btw--and told me this story:

"B says he has a cat but won't tell me the name because its name has a bad word in it."


Shortly after that M came to me and said, "Mrs. Overman, this picture looks like my dog, Buttmunch."

Poor dog.

Kids having kids.

You know my Little J? Today we were working on a very important project which required lots of moving around and things and therefore came with lots of noise.

Some days noise bothers Little J, but it's rather unpredictable if it will or not.

Apparently today it did because he turned to me and said, "I think when I have kids they'll just drive me crazy."

Not exactly an advertisement for Applebee's...

Yesterday I asked my kids to share what they had/did for dinner the night before. Then of course, it was my turn, and "Mrs. Overman, what did you do?"

Me: I had dinner with my two favorite teachers at Applebee's.

M: Oh yeah. I threw up Applebee's before. Mini-cheeseburgers.

Me: Ugh.

Ahh, writing conferences.

There is literally nothing I love more about my job than have conversations with my kids.

And this is why.

Today I did my usual conferring with kids. I am trying to get around to my newbies first (the ones I didn't have last year) in order to know them a little better and give them the extra little ummph they need in writing. "A" was first on my list to meet with today.

A is as young as she is quiet in comparison to the rest of my kiddos. I said, "Would you read your story to me or would you like me to read it myself?"

"I'll read it to you. 'My mom, my dad, and my brother. I love my family. My mom cleans. My brother likes video games. My dad is a lazy bum.'"

The minnow is still alive.

Yesterday during Writing Workshop one of my little guys had a picture of a fish and some too-small-to-read words in a bubble next to it.

Me: E, will you tell me about your fish?

E: Oh yeah. This is my fish. My uncle gave him to me and I was going to feed him to my cat. But then I realized he wasn't dead. So I just put him in a bowl and started feeding him. Sometimes the food falls all the way to the bottom of the bowl, though.

Morbid.

Right in the middle of lunch today, one of my little ones looked at me and said,

"Mrs. Overman, are you just gonna teach here 'till you're dead?"

Satellite Dish

I start my mornings with community time where kids share lots of different things. I have the same kiddos this year, so I wanted to know what they spent their summer doing. I got the typical answers:

• "I went swimming in the lake."
• "I played with my sister."
• "We went camping."

Then G shared, "I was helping my sister build a treehouse and look at my thumb!" [holds up thumb with a seriously nasty blood blister] "Then look what happened!" [holds up finger with a big scrape]

"G, what happened there?"

He replied, "Well, after we worked on the treehouse, we rode bikes. I rode right into the satellite dish."

Seriously...who does that?!

Pony

School doesn't start for another week, but I have a good one for you. Hopefully I'll get all the details right (if not, Ruth, feel free to leave a comment and correct me!).

My friend Ruth has a friend whose daughter we'll call "A". She's four and apparently has spent LOTS of time praying (as do most little girls) for a pony. Her parents decided not to tell her she wasn't going to get a pony, but instead just let her pray what she wanted.

After MANY days and nights of praying for the pony, the family awoke to find a pony in front of their house. Of course, A wasn't surprised; she had been expecting it!

The parents desperately tried to find the pony's owner...no luck.

Lucky they live in the country....