March 12, 2015

Stuff and Things 3/12



Stuff and things I hear...

+"Did you get those leggings at K-Mart?"  In the middle of a lesson, a girl raises her hand to ask a question.  It's about my leggings.

+During state testing week, we're not allowed to do a whole lot of real schoolwork because testing for 2 hours a day, apparently, stresses kids out.  We tested for 5+ hours a day in Alaska, but that is beside the point I guess.  So I've been introducing the kids to the wonders of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The kids: "This is really creepy." The scene in this Little House on the Prairie movie (if you're a Little House fan, you need to watch that movie) in which Laura is delirious with malaria and the camera is all shaky and the picture is foggy.  "It's like a horror movie."

(I'm thinking yeah, like The Ring..creepiest movie ever.)

A kid says, "Yeah, it's like The Ring!".



+Talking about the same Little House movie, which is broken into segments on Youtube...
Kid: "Oh, I get it!  They're different episodes that are all connected!"
Another kid:  "Hey! Like The Walking Dead!"

Again:



+I admit, I'm not the most sympathetic person when it comes to someone complaining about spousal separation.  I should be.  I attempt to be.  But it's difficult.  Someone was lamenting last week about her boyfriend going away to training for a few months.  Someone she's been dating for less than a year.  Someone she is not wholly dependent on in life and limb.  Someone she doesn't have an entire life with. Someone else (a military wife of perhaps 3 months) piped up with "I know how you feel!".

I get it.  You probably do know how she feels.  But, as I said to a fellow army wife of 5+ years, "Let me play my tiny violin for you".  When your husband is in war zone for a year and IEDs are blowing up left and right and you get to talk to him once a week and you fear someone in uniform showing up on your doorstep and, meanwhile, you are taking care of everything yourself and it's a major stressor in your existence...then we can talk.  Or maybe I'm just showing my age here.

And then I tell myself that we all come from different places and have different experiences and...well, I'm trying here.

And I don't know why you'd announce that stuff at a staff meeting to begin with.

+Scott said once, "Maybe Jett's not as cute as we think he is.  Maybe we just think he's cute because he's ours."  Because when out with the dogs, every passerby will stop to compliment Scout, but never Jett.


...I can't imagine why, based on this evidence from last spring.

Here is what we often hear regarding Jett:

"Have you ever seen The Neverending Story?  He looks like the dragon!"


Nope.  I've never seen The Neverending Story because puppets are creepy.  Also, I feel like this is kind of insulting to Jett.



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16 comments:

  1. hahaha...about the lack of compliments Jett gets. That cracked me up.

    I think our own experiences always lead us to be less sympathetic in certain areas...that's not always a good trait, but it kind of just happens. I know I tend to roll my eyes at ex-pat complaints....and my mom, probably as a result of the 7 of us kids, doesn't have a high tolerance for people who complain about how 'hard' birthing/raising/managing one or two or three is.

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  2. I've never seen the Never Ending Story. I feel like I should but I just can't do it....

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  3. Why are these children watching things like The Walking Dead? Dylan got me hooked on it last year and I started it on Netflix a few days ago. I'm just now able to watch it by myself and not jump every time those things pop out. Watching it when James was a newborn and I was up multiple times a night was not a good idea because I was constantly tell myself zombies aren't real and that I didn't have to worry about them being in my house, ha!

    I know everyone can miss their person (or deal with whatever it is differently) but I do tend to judge based on experience. I try not to complain about that type of stuff because I know others are dealing with much more.

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  4. Oh my goodness! It's been so long since I've thiught about that movie!! The Never Ending Story was totally a childhood favorite! Great movie!

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  5. There's so much in this post that has me going YES YES YES! Also--Jett looks nothing like that dragon and he's freaking adorable. It's not just a "you" thing. And I'm dying to know--were your leggings from K-mart? As far as the spousal separation thing...girl...I don't know how you survive. I can't compare anything army wives go through to normal life. At all. I'll admit it breaks my heart when J and I have to do life things apart mostly because we signed to "support each other for life" so when we aren't together, my world feels a little off kilter--but I can't IMAGINE what you guys go through. A friend of mine just got her husband back after an 8 month deployment (their first). It's an experience I can't pretend to know how it feels. You're so strong, love.

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  6. "He looks like the dragon" HAHAHAHA!

    And the kids in your class scare me! I can't believe they've seen The Walking Dead & The Ring! Geez! That just seems so crazy to me!

    And the part about the wives whining.... oh good God that really annoys me so much! I always want to just tell them to shut up, but I'm too nice for that, so I usually just smile & say, "yeah... it sucks, I'm sorry" or something along those lines but my insides are screaming at them to just stop talking.

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  7. It's probably because Jett is kind of a ginger. We rarely get the compliments we deserve. :)

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  8. I love that movie, Falcor is awesome!

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  9. So I sit down on the couch this week, and of all the things to watch on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc, MFD is watching The Neverending Story. I hate that movie. It creeps me out and the reading the book and the kid in the fairytale are both whiners. Of course he fell asleep a few minutes in. BLAH.

    ANYWAY. I think Jett is cute.

    It kills me when women are like I can't sleep if Blank isn't home. What? Get right with that. Or when they make a big deal about a weekend apart (by choice) because I know there are many like you who have husbands or wives in war zones. This is one of the last things we should be whining about.

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  10. Ok, no, Jett does not look like that creepy dragon! He's very cute! That movie is so creepy, I'm not sure why people who made movies in the 80's wanted to give us kids nightmares!

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  11. Jett is adorable. People who don't see that are blind and stupid. Also, Barkley gets complimented all the time and Dobie gets nothing so I get it.

    I get your frustration with those other spouses. Nothing to do with your age, just your experience.

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  12. I understand the lack of sympathy thing. Like, I have little to no sympathy for people who complain that the nearest Target is 30 minutes away or Amazon took 3 days to get something to their doorstep instead of the promised 2. Talk to me when you can't get to a real store (of any kind, literally) without paying a few hundred dollars for a plane or ferry ticket, or when the postal service promises 3 day priority but it literally never takes less than 7 days, sometimes longer. Or when a company wants to charge you $25 to ship a $10 item, or when they won't ship it at all because they treat Alaska like a 3rd world foreign country. I think it's like Rachel said...we all have different things we deal with that others just simply cannot understand or relate to.

    Also....this might sound mean but I've always thought Jett was cuter than Scout...sorry, haha.

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  13. you've never seen the neverending story?!? jett is adorable. i must be in the minority, the neverending story was not creepy to me at all!

    its not the same, but, when people would be like 'oh i did long distance for 10 minutes and my boyfriend lived an hour away' i want to smack them. YOU KNOW NOTHING JON SNOW.

    soooo were your leggings from k-mart?

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  14. Who couldn't think Jett is adorable?! That photo is fantastic and he is SO cute!! 2 hours of testing?! We definitely had like 4-5 in elementary school when I was little. I love that you're introducing them to Laura Ingalls Wilder, though, excellent choice!

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  15. Um...is Jordan in your class? Because I'm pretty sure she's asked her teacher that same question but not about leggings. :)

    I complain about my husbands travel for his job (weekly) all the time...but I'd NEVER do it to a military wife or anyone that sort of a situation. How insensitive would that be???

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  16. I can't believe the kids in your class are watching those movies and shows. I guess I am a mean parent.

    I think Jett is cute!

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