Help! They're losing brain cells and I can't find them anywhere!

Thursday's Drama...

• I emailed Dasha's teacher for the class that she has a 34.75 average in. Apparently, this is all self-directed and Dasha is failing because she takes too long. Hmmmm..... I'd have a whole bunch of pissed off parents if I told them that their kiddo was failing because they weren't pacing and monitoring their own work and then didn't tell them until a few days before the module was closed out. So, she has to go to school early for makeup sessions which will still be computer / self driven and it really won't change anything other than the fact that she'll have longer to sit there not knowing what to do. When I went to sign her agenda after she'd told me that she didn't have any homework, I found notes from teachers saying that she hadn't brought her things to class and should do them for homework. Um, guess what! Those same books that she didn't take to class are still in her locker at school! Am I really surprised? Dasha told me that she could just do all of the work during homeroom in the morning. We'll see how that works out for her.
• I came home to find Dad ripping carpet and my current hardwoods out of the foyer, living room, and dining room. The furniture is simply stacked on top of itself and all of the kids' things that were in the rooms are now stacked on top of the precariously perched furniture. I hadn't gotten all of the odds and ends and crap out of the areas so I'm clueless as to their whereabouts. My old antique clock is now laying on the floor with a lamp sitting on top of the beveled glass front. I'd move it but I can't get to it. As I said, I'm so grateful for the gift of new floors but I would really like to have a better plan in place before bringing in a demo team of one and letting him loose with a crowbar and box cutter! He plans on coming back tomorrow morning to finish off the hardwoods (glued directly to the concrete slab) and take the molding off. I'm now Googling and watching as many You Tube videos about laying 12 mm laminate flooring as I can find hoping to save this situation from disaster. (I even Googled how to use a table saw and install the blade correctly). Anyway, enough of that. I should be thankful and just leave it at that.
• Grant told me that he only had a bit of homework so helped Dad with the demo. Funny thing, about 8:30, he suddenly decided that he had more than just a "bit" of homework. I just finished doing a worksheet on prepositions, writing sentences from the Wizard of Oz with prepositional phrases, reading The Wounded Wolf, and doing a worksheet about character motives, conflicts, and story elements for Grant while he tackled his social studies. (By the way, this would be the same social studies class that has shown an "art" video two days this week with tons of nude relics. Yeah). Grant also just informed me that he didn't do well on his preposition test (maybe because mom did the homework) and needs to be at school at 7:40 in the morning for a tutoring session and to retake the test. Hmmmmm.... If I have to be in my classroom and receiving kids at 7:30, something isn't going to work out so well!
• And then, there's Annie. Annie is pretty consistent in the insane department. She still has a cold so that doesn't help her attitude much. She hates it when her nose runs so she's resorted to asking you if she can wipe her nose on your shirt. It's gross! I guess the sitter lets her do this. After she slimed me the first time, I gave up and became her personal walking Kleenex, too. Oh well. Her newest trick today was turning every word into at least four syllables. I swear she must have watched Hee-Haw today or something like that! She sounds like some country bumpkin! When she answers "yes," she says "yea -aaaaa - sss." And the word "then" comes out "theeeee-unnnnn." It's so weird but funny. If it continues on, I think it'll lose it's humor, though. She also completed her first "real" puzzle today. It had 20 pieces and was of Tinkerbell. I was pretty impressed. But, at the same time, my heart broke a little to realize how fast she's growing up. Before long, she's going to be ten (still with a paci and diapers, though)! Anyway, Annie can be my undoing with her temper or my bright spot with her revelations about life. I'm more thankful for her everyday - especially as the older kids seem to be veering toward a mental facility or a maximum security prison.
• As for me, I'm over middle school. So far, the only positive thing I can say is that the building is nice and clean! I can't begin to tell you how many videos the kids have watched and how many questionable conversations teachers have engaged in with students. I can see that two of Dasha's teachers actually teach and one of Grant's teachers but the other teachers seem to hand out busy work and then expect the kids to go home and read their text books and figure out the missing pieces. Problem is, when Dasha comes home, ALL of her pieces are missing and we're left at ground zero! I can NOT continue to teach 24 kids all day long and then come home and reteach the 6th grade curriculum. I'm so tired that I literally don't remember driving to work this morning. While I'm trying to keep everyone above water academically, I'm still trying to shield everyone from the emotional shrapnel flying around, too. Eric is coming to town for Labor Day weekend so that will add another layer of stuff to deal with. So, this weekend, I will pretend to be Bob the Builder and learn to use a table saw and lay laminate flooring with Dad. Maybe it will be a time of bonding or maybe it will be a time of wondering how my mom let him live this long! Who knows! I'm just praying that this floor goes together as smoothly as it's supposed to. Now, I'm heading to crawl into bed with a humongous stack of papers to be graded. I literally fell asleep in this same stack of papers last night while I was grading them. Hopefully, I can stay awake long enough to get the necessities taken care of so parents won't begin to wonder who in the world they're leaving their babies with all day long! I am thankful, though, that my classroom has finally begun to fall into a routine and the kids are finally coming out of their shells more and laughing at my lame jokes to puff up my ego a bit. I still haven't gotten comfortable with administrators wondering around my room with clipboards making unknown notes and then silently leaving. Are they taking some sore of data on my sanity status? (This is happening to every teacher, though). I guess it wouldn't bug me so much if I thought that these folks even knew who I was! I've never really even spoken to two of them personally (although one of them lives up the street from me and I've been SO tempted to station myself in the shrubs and lob Nerf darts from a high powered toy at her as she walks her frouffy little dogs). I don't expect to be their best friend or even their friend but I'd like to at least have them know my name before they start analyzing who I am as a professional. OK. Enough of that. Once again, the flip side of that coin is that I'm SO thankful to have a job that affords me great hours (sans the 6:20 a.m. departure), insurance, a solid enough salary to keep everything turned on, food on the table, and a roof over our heads. Whew. That's actually a whole lot to be thankful for. Although, I may have a roof over my head but I might not have flooring under my feet after tomorrow! Ah. That's minor, I guess. So, as I said twenty minutes ago, I'm heading to bed to grade papers and make sure that all of the other inmates are locked away and won't be trying to wrap me up in the massive piece of carpet that's now laying in my backyard with who knows what kind of spores and mold living in it. Good night, all.