When I taught sixth grade English, I
forced encouraged my students to keep a journal. A few times every week we'd pull out the journals and have a free-write time. My students were responsible to write about
something. It didn't matter what the topic as long as it was appropriate
(you'd think that would be a no-brainer). They just had to write.
On free-write days, I had this exact conversation about 50 times with various students:
Me: Little Johnny, why aren't you writing? Why are you instead talking/ defacing school property/driving me crazy?
L.J.: I can't think of anything to write about.
Me: Just write about something.
L.J.: I can't think of anything to write about.
Me: Just start writing. Something will come to you.
L.J.: (
Rolls eyes. Writes something, or at least pretends to write something to appease annoying teacher.)
So here I am with my little blog and over a week with nothing to write about. And I remember what I used to tell my students.
It makes me want to roll my eyes, too. That advice
is annoying. But I'll try it.
Nothing much has been going on around here. Scot was out of town last week, so I was busy, busy running after my two.
I remember back when I was expecting Nate and I was scared half to death about having two. I had no idea how I was going to take care of a two-year-old and a newborn. A friend encouraged me. "They never go through tough stages at the same time," she told me. "It's so funny how when one is tough, the others are easy, like they know you can't handle any more stress."
She lied.
Oh, you know I love my two. I hope it's obvious. But, God bless their little hearts, it's been rough around here. (That's Southern for "I'm losing my mind!!")
Sweet Nate is quite the drama king nowadays. He's perfected the art of throwing a fit at the tender age of 15 months. He's also decided to adopt a strict diet of raisins, Goldfish and blueberries. Put anything other than that in front of him and you'll hear about it. And homeboy has some lungs. So that's fun.
Oh, and Brooke. The three-year-old fussy/whiny/pouties have hit and they've hit hard. Girlfriend knows what she wants and when she wants it.
The other morning she threw a fit about each of these things within 10 minutes of waking up:
- getting out of her pjs
- putting on a long-sleeved shirt instead of her Snow White costume
- putting on jeans instead of her Snow White costume
- putting on socks
- eating cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal
And I don't think she's supposed to throw me this look until she's at least twelve.
But you know I love my little guys. And I figure that if they both go through a rough phase at the same time, they'll both be easy at the same time, too, right?
Right??
I'm going to go call my encouraging friend and tell her to tell me I'm right.
So, there's my free-write for the day.
And I thought I didn't have anything to write about.
