I'm feeling lucky today even the night was not so good.  joy slept with me until around 1:30 when jackson woke up and i had to change him.  he wanted to sleep in the same room and i knew that 4 people in the bed was not going to work so i decided to sleep in joy's room.  well she heard that and decided to join me.  so she and i slept in her bed with her bouncing against the head board singing the ABC's at the top of her lungs.  I am fairly tired to say the least.

I talked with Jill today about taking the 3 day class in Dubuque.  I'm not sure about it and she told me I could take it if I wanted.  (lots of help there) I mean the class sounds wonderful, but being gone so close after Joy's surgery makes me nervous.  Let alone being in Dubuque by myself for 3 days also frightens me! My class might not even recognize me when i return.  Ha ha!

I went to Menards after work (because really, why not continue my trend of being late to dance class every week?)  I went in the yard to find the sand I need for beach day and it was lying there.  I don't know what the guy at lunch was doing there (obviously not working) because I found it right away!  Of course, tonight there was not a single employee to be found, or for that matter so strong ole me picks up the 50 lbs bag of sand (that has been there for more than just today like they tried to tell me...that there was none there and it was probably on the truck and i could get it later) Now, this bag has been outside for a LONG time because it is basically frozen.  The sand is frozen.  The bag is frozen.  The bags were frozen together.  It was frozen!  I mean it probably weighed another 25 lbs on top of the 50 lbs of sand.  I picked it up and carried it to the doors that WOULD NOT OPEN!!!!!  I had a brief image of being stuck in the yard all night long where i freeze to death...blah blah blah.  So I walked to the last door and thankfully it opened.  The bag meanwhile is getting a little slippery because it is melting a little and I can hardly hold onto it.  I get it to the cashier and because its winter and who buys play sand in the winter, it was really very cheap.  (which was the only good thing of this whole experience.)  she asks me if i want help to my car.  (ummm...YES) they tell me to pull up and they will bring the sand to me.  It gets to be a few seconds, then a minute before he comes out with the bag of sand which this 12 year old kid can hardly lift.  I tried to take it from him, but he just DROPS the bag in the back and it went THUD because that's what frozen sand does.  i should have just carried the silly thing out myself. 

So, anyway, I got sand after a 15 minute mess and yes, never fear I was late to dance class!  However, there is another mom there that i've become friends with and she pulled in right beside me and i told joy to run so at least we wouldn't be last! 

When I was looking through Jackson's backpack I found a picture of a heart and in his writing it said I love you.  on the back he wrote his name and mom.  It totally melted my heart!  he can be so very sweet and sometimes he can't! 

They had pictures of the costumes the girls will wear at their recital and they are sooo cute.  In both cases Joy gets to wear a pink costume with some sort of skirt with it.  She was originally suppose to do the song centerfield and have a cute sparkly baseball costume, but they couldn't find the costume in xsmall so they are doing a different song that i can't remember at this moment.  Her ballet song is girls just wanna have fun which i think is fairly appropriate for this particular group of girls.

My job is a crazy mix of fun and work.  I love when I get to see the kids excited about something we did in class.  Today we had an air popper and did not put the lid on so popcorn popped everywhere.  The kids laughed and giggled so much.  Then we acted out being the popcorn seed.  Next we broke into small groups and one group looked for pigs in pudding (which we pretended was mud) and making pancakes.  It was so much fun, but it was a lot of work to get prepared for.  Then, one of the people in my classroom told me she couldn't do some of the things i do because of how much energy i put into everything, and that some of the things we did today were just silly and how could i even think they would be fun.  I understand that the two of us have very different views, but am i really doing what is best?  i know that i am, it just took a few moments of letting that un-settling feeling come and go.

off to start the usual evening routine.