Dr. Shoes

I decided I need to share some more of my Kindergarten Kraziness before I forget it. I try to write down some of the things they do and say on post-its throughout the day. There are just so many little things that I forget to put on paper. Like how they burst into spontaneous clapping when the teacher says that I have done something for them. They grin at me and cheer like I am amazing. Sometimes it can be as simple as getting paper for them.

Last Friday was dress for success day. This is designed to teach them about college and how if they want to be successful they should go to college. We sent notes home with the students to tell their parents to have them dressed in nice clothes. As they walked into the classroom all dressed up some were shy and some were dramatic. Some walked in, threw off their jackets and stood there waiting for a reaction. One of our toughest little boys walked in, wearing a tie and jacket. He was a bit embarrassed by the attention he got. I heard him arguing hotly with his partner, "I do NOT look like a dad!!!" One little girl who is on the heavy side and tends to wear clothes too small and too tight walked in looking adorable. She had her hair done up and was in heals and a real dress and tights. Everything fit nicely and was not too small. The whole class stopped and oohed and ahhed. They were all saying things at the same time but I definitely heard one say. "You look like a grownup!", and another yelled out "You look like you are on TV" It was a fun day but I was pretty sure the kids didn't get the point of why they were dressed up when one walked out at the end of the day and asks me, "Why am I wearing my church clothes?"

Before I left for my surgery the teacher had them make me cards. She had written "We will miss you" on the board so they all wrote that.
One decided to add a note inside.

This one is from my tea-bag darling.

But my favorite is me as a black woman with blonde hair. I love the nose and lips. It is being kept forever.


The big news of this week is that we are celebrating Dr. Suess's Birthday. You can see his books and pictures hanging up all over the school. One little boy looks up at me today and says, "It Dr. Shoes birthday?"

I cannot sign off without a special note to tea-bag darling. I don't have favorites in the class but she if by far my biggest source of silly sayings and amusing anecdotes. One day at the end of class she is sitting there with her coat and back pack on smiling at everyone when she raises her and hand and asks, "Mrs. Leppard, can I give the WHOLE class a hug?" She was just overcome with love for her friends:). I am pretty sure she is the one who shared her cold with me. We were both blowing our noses this week and she says, "My boogers just keep sliding out." I so wish I could video tape her at recess. I don't think I have met such an active imagination since I was five and still had all my imagination. Today she came down the slide when her hand held high in the air. She is often playing super girl so I asked her if this is what she was doing. She looked at me like I had lost my mind and said, "No I didn't want my treat to get dirty, see." She holds out an empty hand that when asked held a chocolate cupcake. I was at school on Monday and she decided to show me her imaginary house. She would come grab my hand take me to one part of the play ground and show me her living room. She would point out all the furniture and tell me the color. I spent most of the 20 minutes being dragged around the playground to see different parts of her house. Finally we had to go in. I was sick Tuesday and Wednesday. When I took them out to recess today, she grabbed my hand like we had just left and showed me her bathroom. It was like those two days had never happened.

TTC, IVF AI and TTFN

For those of you that know us, you know we have been trying to have kids for a few years now. I never thought I would be someone who couldn't have kids. My brother and sister have 8 kids between them so I figured I came from fertile stock. It is a strange to enter into the world of TTC (trying to conceive). There is a whole new lingo to learn and if you try to read blogs or message boards without a key to decode the slang you will be lost.

Now I have wanted kids forever but I have to honestly say I am not even close to the edge of extreme when it comes to the TTC world. I started reading up about it more and finally understood why friends and family would tip toe around our infertility issue with us. There are some seriously emotionally invested people out there. They have come to equate being a parent with being happy. If any of you have run into a hardcore TTC person you should be careful. They take offense easily and are very distraught over their infertility. I am not trying to mock their pain, I share it. I just don't ever want to be confused with them. I have had and probably will continue to have my struggles with it but I think I am at peace with God's will for our lives. Please don't ever tiptoe around us, we are not uptight about not having kids yet.

In saying that here is the adventure we now head into. I have had two small surgeries this year to get us ready for IVF. We had thought it would be quite a few months before any of this would happen but not so. My post op. Doctor's appointment yesterday was rather exciting as he talked about how fast every thing would happen now. We should be heading up to Washington DC sometime in Spring or early Summer to the Military Hospital up there for treatment. Before that time I will be on Clomid which increases our chances of multiple babies by 12%. (Ben thinks triplets would be great but I am not so keen on that idea. I would love twins.) We will also try one round of AI down here.

We also have paperwork in on adoption but it is at a standstill right now. In a strange set of circumstances the very young social worker assigned to our case died last month. Therefor the agency is back logged and the wait time has increased. I am not super excited about adoption. It has nothing to do with wanting a biological child but rather to the crazy laws and regulations that go along with adoption.

That is where we are. We are peaceful with our status as TTC. We are excited by all this year holds. We are loving the present time with no kids as it means late night movies, luxurious sleep filled Saturday mornings, trips at a drop of a hat, restaurants whenever we want and painless road trips and airplane rides.

Welcome Friend

Ahhh - my stomach aches from laughing, my heart feels full of joy and I feel renewed after a weekend with my friend Carine. She left all four kids and her husband, took the family van and drove 3 1/2 hours to come spend two nights with me. I feel privileged to have so much of her time all to myself. I can't believe we have known each other for 14 years now. It just doesn't feel like we are that old.

She arrived late Friday and we ate Italian food, drank wine and talked until midnight. I know how busy moms are so I wanted her to do whatever she would do with out kids. That meant we slept until 9:30. This is not unusal for me but I am glad she was able to get to sleep in. Honestly I am not sure if we would ever run out of good conversation and silly jokes.

Saturday we went and explored Norfolk for a little bit. We went to a new cafe that I had read about. Oh my goodness, they had so many desserts that it was difficult to choose only two. A little old grandmother came out in her apron with a tray of goodies while we were eating which explains why it was all so good. No one beats Grandma for dessert.

One of the tasty temptations.


Carine trying to decide.











I had also heard about a local museum so we went there next. It is an old house that is pretty much full of art and is in itself a work of art. The gardens are going to be amazing when spring hits. I get in free as Ben is active duty military and it is only 10 minutes from the house. I also found out they offer watercolor classes, ceramics, and photography courses. Yippeee!!!! How great to find two such treasures a cafe and an art haven all in one day. I know I wouldn't have gone on my own so it was extra nice to have Carine go with me.

No pictures are allowed inside so this is one shot of the garden and one of the geese wandering around.





We came home and did a repeat of Friday night with Italian, wine and good conversation. As it got later we started laughing at nothing which happens with us. I put some pictures of us being us.



Thanks Carine for coming!! It was a real treat.

Rest, Recovery and Relatives

Well I am pretty much over the painful part of my small surgery and I am just enjoying the laziness of recovery. The surgery went really well. In fact my Dr. was very considerate and used my old scars to cut on so I only really gained one small new scar. The worst part for sure is the CO2 that gets trapped in your body. This sounds weird but the fill your stomach with CO2 so they see what they are doing. If they don't get it all out it moves around and bugs your nerves. I go back next Tuesday to get the all clear from the Dr. Ben was great at spoiling me for two days and then my sister Meg flew in to take over. I feel a bit bad as we haven't really shown her any of Norfolk. All we have done is read books, watch movies and sleep. She says this is just what she needed. I hope so. We did go out to get food last night and on the way caught this cool sunset shot. Meg saw the moon through the trees so we grabbed that as well. She leaves tomorrow and Ben leaves Thursday for 10 days so it is going to be quiet around here for awhile.




Ben took this shot after drying his hands on me. He thought he was hilarious.

I'm Having a Salpingectomy

I am thrilled to say that on Wednesday I am having a salpingectomy. While it sounds atrocious by name it is rather simple. Basically I have a one huge fat fallopian tube that should be a nice skinny fallopian tube. The fat one holds a fluid that is embryo toxic. The surgery is going to remove this fat tube. Once it is gone Ben and I are going to pursue IVF. Today I was surfing the net and found an article from Oxford. It made me want to send out a prayer request. You are welcome to click the link and read it but basically it found that 88% of patients who had a salpigectomy like mine got pregnant on their own within six months.. Please pray with us that happens for us. It would be so perfect.

My sister-in-law thinks I am crazy but I am really looking forward to my surgery. First I am a science geek and get a kick out of the all the hospital stuff and hearing what they are going to do to me. Second, I get spoiled by Ben as I recover and this time I get extra spoiled as my sister Meg is coming to visit and hang out with me as well. Third it offers us hope to finally become parents. Life is good!!

100th Day of School

It is a HUGE deal in Kindergarten when the 100th day of school arrives. I was not aware of how big a deal until I experienced it in person today.


My day stared off with a small boy I have never met before yelling at me in the hall, "Do you know that I have gummy bears in my back pack? 100 gummy bears!!!" I acted suitably impressed and he walks on to yell at the next grown up he comes in contact with. He just could not believe his good fortune. Basically the whole school full of kindergarten arrives with large amounts of candy and food that they can count out 100 pieces of and then eat. I never have seen such joy as I did on their faces when I put all the candy out on trays. They had made crowns to wear and then we made glasses in the shape of 100. The school had balloons and an assembly to celebrate. The glasses we made didn't fit so well and they either fell off or made the poor kids a bit crosseyed. They continued to wear them even when they got headaches. I wish you could have seen the entire school sitting on the floor of the cafeteria wearing these ridiculous hats and glasses and counting to 100 at the top of their lungs. It was a riot. It was all a bit contagious and I felt exhausted from the excitement of the day, either that or I just had a hard time coming down from my sugar high.

They drew pictures of what they would look like at 100.
The first pictures shows all the presents she will get when she is 100.


This one shows how he will have a grey beard. He ran out of time to finish coloring this picture.


The blissful candy tray.


A close up of the glasses. Notice that they do not fit.




I also had to add two Tea Bag Darling stories for you. For those of you who read my previous posts you'll know Tea Bag Darling is the little girl in my class with HUGE personality. This week we went out for a 20 minute recess. (Side note here. The teacher often promises them 20 minutes of recess. They get so excited and will do any thing for a LONG recess. But the crazy part is they can't tell time and are completely unaware of how long we have been outside. If you just keep saying it was a 20 minute recess they are thrilled and smile all proud of themselves for earning this long period of free time.) We went out for a LONG recess and Tea Bag Darling hits the playground running and then stops to a dead standstill. She procedes to pull out her imaginary cell phone from her pocket. She looks at me and says, "Oh my cell phone. I better get this." I am not exaggerating when I say that she talked on that phone for the whole recess. She walked and talked and talked and walked. At one point I listened in to hear her say, "Wait a minute I need to step outside where I can hear you better." I asked her who she was talking to and she told me her cousin and then says into the phone. "Oh I was telling Ms. Leppard who I was talking to." It it not hard to imagine what Mommy spends a lot of time doing at that house.

The teacher had to go home to be with her daughter this week and I had the kids on my own in the afternoon for a day. This worked out well as the teacher is getting married next week and I wanted them to make cards for her. I gave them white paper and let them draw a picture of her wedding. Tea Bag Darling worked diligently. At one point she had her shirt up and was inspecting her belly button but I just put it down to her being her. Then I collected the pictures. I looked at hers and had to laugh. I called her over and asked her "What is that?" She says, "Ms. _________'s belly button." So then I pointed above this and asked, "What are those?" She looks up at me and says guiltily, "Her boobies."

Late Night Thoughts

It is Friday night and actually not that late but I decided to surf the Internet for a bit. It inspired me to write on my blog. Ben has been gone for a week so I have had a lot of quality Moira time. It is a good thing I like myself or I would be bored to tears of my own company. Since I have no one but the cats to talk to at the moment I decided to write some of my late night thoughts down.

First -Facebook. What a strange thing this is. Someone from your past or present writes an email asking to "be your friend". You smile at the memories of this old friend and add them to your list and then never really contact them again. But it isn't a bad thing as it has reminded me of mostly good memories.

Second - Kindergarten. I was just really happy to be working with them today. They are so willing to put their small slimy hands in yours. I should be grossed out as I have seen where those hands go, but you know what? I love it. You can say the dumbest things and they think you are hilarious. If they are all standing nicely in line, one will randomly come hug you and then this seems to be sign that they must all come hug you. Even the tough boys come hug you because peer pressure says they must now hug the teacher. You read them a book and all 17 will sit at your feet completely enthralled with the pictures and your voice. Some get so excited they laugh and yell out as you read. They aren't being bad, just 5.

Third - jumping in puddles. I have a part time nanny job and today the two year old twins watched a show on playing in the rain. The show ended and they turned around in unison and said, "We want to play in the rain." The rain had stopped but they jumped in muddy puddles for half an hour. They faithfully held their umbrellas even though I assured them the rain was gone. They watched the rain go down the storm drain and were quite excited. Then as we turned to go in they stopped and looked in a puddle and said "I see me. " "I see the clouds" It was a good afternoon.

Fourth - all this great time with kids should make me want my own even more and I do want one. But God is so good that I feel really peaceful about where we are. We turned in adoption paperwork but haven't heard back yet. I have my next surgery in less than two weeks. I am excited by the possibilities but also realistic that it might not do anything for us. It would be great to have kids. However lately I have seen how great my life is without kids. I can love all the kids in my life - students, nieces, nephews, friends and yet go home to peace and quite and a good night's sleep. Don't get me wrong I still hope to be a mom but life is good right now and I could accept God saying no. At one point this would have been a devastating thought and now it is a peaceful option.