Checklist for Life

I've had a particularly busy weekend, that will continue to be busy and in fact, get busier. Apparently, the world decided that this weekend was the time to pile everything on Megan. Sure a lot of the load has piled on due to my total lack of preparedness. Everytime I realize I'm procrastinating, I think...' tomorrow I will stop procrastinating.' Pretty bizarre logic right? I find myself making these lists on scraps of paper that I find at home or at work, or at preschool. The problem is, I never remember where I put them, so I end up having to start yet ANOTHER list. It doesn't help that I am absent minded, and frequently misplace things...like my wallet that I just realized was missing today...It doesn't help that ON TOP of everything I have going on I also have personal issues I'm dealing with, not to mention other people's issues that I've been made aware of. When I know someone is struggling I want to help...and that's my problem! I can't be selfish and just think about myself, NO, I have to help everyone else first.

So here is my to do list for today. I post it on the internet, where I know it will be. Because let's face it, I'm going to loose my written one anyway.

• Go to Lee's to get Bread Bowls for the Linger Longer
• Go to Macey's for Soup and Salad.
• Get the keys to the Ward Building from Jordan
• Go to the ward to find out how many plates/forks/cups/spoons etc. I have to get.
• Call the Relief Society President to see if she can make some treats for Sunday.
• Make 2 dozen cookies.
• Pay my Questar Bill, that will be late if I wait any longer.
• Find my wallet. (Hopefully it's at the movie theatre I went to last night)
• Find 3 or 4 more crock pots for Sunday.
• Find SOMETHING to put on the tables so that they don't get all gross.
• Hollow out 100 bread bowls
• Taste test the soup to make sure it's actually edible.
• Make a cooler full of lemonade
• Get ICE
• Write my missionary friend, and the friend in the Military.
• Practice the song I'm singing in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.
• Pretend like this soreness taking over my throat is all in my head.
• 3 papers, 1 quiz and 2 sets of chapter notes...ick.

Maybe I'll sleep and eat at some point. But that stuff's overrated right?

You know you're a preschool teacher when...

• You come home with a paint handprint on your bottom, that you didn't know was there.
• You begin to praise adults with lingo like, "look at you! you are making dinner all by yourself."
• You see a toilet paper roll as an art supply.
• The song you have stuck in your head is Willaby Wallaby. No that is not a new rap artist, or a song by Katie Parry. It is in fact a highly effective children's song used to teach rhyming and alliteration. Let me demonstrate...

"Willaby Wallaby woo...an elephant sat on you. Willaby Wallaby We...an elephant sat on me. Willaby Wallaby wegan...an elephant sat on Megan. Willaby Wallaby wax...an elephant sat on Max." You get the general idea?

• You become more comfortable sitting on the ground than in your chair.
• You no longer blush when talking about body parts or where babies come from.

STORY: On the way into the classroom on Wednesday, one of the teachers was talking with Sadie (can't use her real name), one of our 3 year old students. While walking, Sadie was muttering something to her teacher very quickly, and quite incoherently. Figuring that Sadie was trying to ask her a question, the teacher asked "Did you say something about the grass?" Quite disgruntled Sadie said, "NO NOT GRASS..." She then repeated her original statement. To the astonishment of the teacher involved, Sadie had actually asked, "When am I going to get breasts?" The reason this teacher even realized what she was talking about was because Sadie was trying to locate them by grabbing at her own chest. The teacher quickly explained that she would get them when she got older, but that didn't stop Sadie. She continued to probe, asking why she couldn't have breasts like the teachers and her mom do, and was very upset that she was going to have to wait. Bless her.

• Bedtime is not only mandatory, but necessary. Personally on the days I'm in preschool I become so exhausted that I'm lucky if I make it past 10:30.
• 3 Triscuits and some grape juice can hold you over for at least 3 hours.
• Looking up at someone is a rare occurence.

AND FINALLY...

• You see children running around a grocery store screaming and flinch...wishing you could stop them. (Especially when you know just how to do so.)

The greatest part?

"Oh Teacher...I'm just thinking about how great preschool is..." AIDEN age 3

Yep...Totally worth it.

Dear Roommates

Last night I had a dream that our landlady had a major meltdown in our apartment. Our apartment was much cooler, it had a waterslide (I wonder if that was symbolic) at the top. In the dream we had BOY attempting to move in to our apartment! . The boy was faceless but supposedly really awful and was moving in to MY room. I'm not sure where Jessie was, I guess in this dream we were all in our own rooms. Regardless of where she was, we had a boy in our apartment...and he was ruining my life. As much as we protested the move our dear sweet Rosemary was more concerned about the dumb holes in the wall. We were in the midst of redecorating our apartment when she barged in and began screaming. "MORE HOLES FOR YOU, MORE MONEY FOR ME! AH HA HA HA HA!" Needless to say, it was scary and even more so because she kind of had a Gollum/Izma voice. However, the rest of you giggled about it, eventually getting me to giggle about it, and together we made the land-nazi FURIOUS.

That being said, thank you Roommates for being you. Thank you for riding with me on my Roller Coaster of Emotions this week. I'm sure I was quite impossible to live with, but thank you for sticking it out. It means a lot that you are STILL (even after the millions of conversations) listening to my pathetic problems and trying hard to help me get through them. It makes a difference to have you close by. Also, I promise that this next week will go better. The initial first week of school craziness is over. Just stick with me, it'll be very important to have you around.

Can you hear that? You know, the faint buzzing sound? It starts out soft and gradually builds to an annoying high pitched screach. That is the sound of a million alarms going off at once.

Hear that? Do ya? It's like a pounding sound, a smacking sound, a breaking sound... It's the sound of a half a million procrastinators hitting the snooze button. It can't be time yet. It just can't.

Now listen to that, that nails-on-chalk-board sound. That's the sound of thousands of little kids being dragged off to start kindergarten (or for some junior high...;) , they are clinging to every headboard, car door and mother's hand..."Please don't make me go to school. I wanna stay here with you!"

Okay, how about that one? Did ya hear that one? A million teens and college students just groaned at the same time, cursing under their breath, and pulling their covers over their heads.

The cheering sound is a hallelujah chorus of parents around the world rejoicing to finally have their time to themselves. No more entertaining, feeding, arguing, problem solving, picking up after or pacifying.

Hear billions of pencil sharpeners whirring; the sound of running on the blacktop, from the parking lot or up old main. Hear the jump rope rhymes, the giggling girls, the high fives, the cell phone rings, the iPod background noise. Hear the repeating question of "hey, how was your summer?"

You hear that? That whooshing sound...sort of like an airplane or a really really really fast car, or the wind coming from Logan Canyon...That is the sound of summer flying by.

Class is in Session...

Hence forth, Jessie and I will no longer be allowed to sit together in Sacrament Meeting...

For the summer, our ward has been combined with 3 other wards because there are so few people living in the area as of now. For this month, another ward is in charge of the sacrament meetings. Now I understand that choosing speakers and subjects is a difficult task, one that I would never want. I'm sure the bishopric of this ward was trying to get some excitement about their said subject, Missionary Work. Great...Fine...but let's be honest. When you instruct 3 college students to discuss the same topic, inevitably they will give the same talk in three different voices. Please, for the love of everything good in this world Bishop, please never do a themed sacrament meeting again.

One thing you have to understand about Jessie and I...sometimes when we haven't had enough Diet Coke, we do things we aren't proud of. This combined with the somewhat reckless decision to sleep outside the night before on the grassy knoll, cause it's just too DARN hot in our apartment, made us quite irritable yesterday. Yes, it would have been scary, sleeping outside alone, but Travis protected us girls by sleeping a good 3 feet away, cuddled up like a napkin. When I sleep, I don't mean really sleep, I mean wake up every five seconds cause bugs are crawling on you, lying on the grass, staring at the bug zapper as it eats giant winged creatures. So when we woke up the next morning I had a blinding spot dwelling in front of my left eye, and Jess had a stabbing pain just between her eyeballs.

Yes I realize that on SUNDAY there is no excuse for being grumpy at church. I mean, we brought these head pains upon ourselves with our silly fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants ideas. So I am not asking anyone to feel sorry for us. Actually, I feel sorry for everyone who had to be around us yesterday. We did however spare those who would have to sit with us in Sunday school...the caffeine monster was on my back and I could not take it anymore. (Hey jess, did you feel that, we just got judged)...

So back in sacrament meeting, Jessie and I just couldn't handle the same speeches over and over. I was going to fall asleep on the shoulder of the guy next to me, and I didn't even know him. In order to stay awake Jessie and I did what every young LDS woman does...We practiced signing our names Mrs. Megan/Jessie...... Shortly after that got boring, we did the second thing LDS women do...Wrote down baby names that we liked. Our favorite however, came from Travis who is going to name his son Espen, but spell it ESPN. I thought it was clever. We laughed and giggled all through the talks (some of our names and chosen spellings were hilarious) and for the life of me, I couldn't keep still. We also covertly awkward handed several people surrounding us, laughing because they had no idea what we were up to. We're sinners...

And then, the clincher. The one thing that could of save the meeting for us we completely blew. The choice for the last song was "Called to Serve." Our organist was playing it fast and snappy (as it should be) and we could not contain ourselves. Songs like this one bring out the primary kid in me. I began by sit-marching...making marching movements while sitting...and Jessie joined in. If you know the base line of this song, you know that there's a lot of fanfare. So we began singing the fanfare between verses, and Jessie did that thing where she slides up to the top notes right before they were to be sung. It didn't help that the people behind us were joining in. Apparently silliness is contagious in a singles ward. Looking around, a ton of people were engaged in similar actions, but none as obviously as Jessie and I. At one point I looked up and our Bishop was staring us down, although he started to laugh at the end.

I guess we won't be surprised when the Bishop asks us to speak next week.