mashed potatoes, wind sheilds and other stuff

So this week seemed like a long one as I was suffering with a sinus infection.   I finally went to the walk in clinic on Thursday and got some meds.  Hopefully by Monday all will be right in my head... hmmm one can only hope. I have to say that my little tadpoles were extra nice to me (most of them anyway) and made me laugh more than once during the long 7 days.  Mornings always start with a Morning Meeting at the carpet where we do calendar, share a story and share news about our lives.  As it was Monday, all the tadpoles had exciting adventures to share about what they did on the weekend.  When it was L.'s turn to speak, he paused long enough for me to really see the dark circles under his eyes and the glazed look on his face.  I asked how long he'd played the wii on the weekend.  He brightened up and said "How did you know I played the Wii?  I got to play it Saturday and Sunday while Dad was at work!"  He had a huge smile on his face as he went on to say that he also got to watch all kinds of t.v. too.  L is a child that is easily fixated on video games and needs to play outside.  As he recounting his games and t.v. programs, one of my ESL kids turns around and said something I didn't quite catch.  L stops and looks at him and says "Don't call me that!"  I asked that it be repeated "L is mashed potatoes!" says the other little boy.  Mashed potatoes?!  "Yes all he did was sit on the couch, he's mashed potatoes!"  Oh when English sayings get mixed up!  I had to giggle a little, while explaining what a couch potato is.  
Something that I implemented this week was a Report book.  7 year olds like to make sure the teacher is informed of everything that is going on in the class.  I have a few kids that love to be the first to tell me important stuff like someone is bleeding and unimportant stuff like when a fellow tadpole doesn't put his shoes on right.  We've been working on telling the really important stuff and tattle telling.  Some days my head feels like it's going to explode by lunch time, so I have put a Report Book on the ledge for them to vent (in writing) their little tidbits of information that they feel I need to hear.  Within minutes I had a tadpole writing in it.  As we left on Friday afternoon, on of my very adept tellers was writing a novel in the notebook.  I can hardly wait to read it on Monday.
We had to rush into town on Friday afternoon to get our windshield replaced.  Here in the North, it is a very common sight to see a spider web effect on every other windshield.  We had let it go as long as we could, as we had it done in May last year and about a week and a half later, it got a small boulder's kiss.  Anyway.  We had it done Friday and driving to Grande Prarie this morning, we got a stone pit on the way into the city.  On the way home we got an even bigger stone just outside of FSJ that created an actual chip.  24 hours folks, that's all it took!  We're just hoping that it survives until Monday to get it filled before it starts to crack again.  Life in the North, snow, wind chill and cracked windshields.  Oh and don't forget the pajama pants worn to dinner.