A couple of days ago, on the recommendation of a couple of friends, I purchased Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred DVD.

Jillian leads the workout with the help of two ripped pals, Natalie and Anita. Let me tell you, Jillian does not accept excuses.  She does not allow breaks.  Jillian says if I want results in 20 minutes, I have to PUSH.  She says, "Intensity people!"  She shows me Anita's abs and announces, "These don't come for free!"

I don't know why this motivates me, but it does.  I have now shredded three days in a row.  I'll let you know what happens.  Probably no one will recognize me once 30 days are up.

Here's some information about my media consumption habits of late:

Dan and I are almost finished watching Season Four of one of our favorite shows: The Big Bang Theory.  Have you seen it?  The main characters are physics researchers at a California university and are completely unabashedly nerdtastic.  They live across the hall from a cute wannabe actress who works at The Cheesecake Factory. Is that a recipe for hilarity or what?

Also, I'm reading a book for my mother-daughter book club called Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant.  The author of this book, David Tammet, has a mind that works much differently than most other people's, and he explains this clearly in his memoir.  I'm happy to be reading it, but the writing is not as artful as writing in other texts I've enjoyed.

For my middle school faculty book club, I read The Schwa was Here by Neal Schusterman.  In that novel, the main character is kind of invisible, but not really.  A lot of people tend to just not notice the poor guy. There's one really memorable and poignant scene in the novel that involves a view of a billboard from a warehouse.  Just for that scene alone, I'm glad to have read the book.

Right now, I'm watching Top Chef: Just Desserts.  I have to multitask because otherwise I'm too busy to read or blog or watch television.  That's the way the fall goes when you're a teacher.

You were probably wondering about the latest in the sleep situation at our house. Well, let me tell you: it's been a full queen bed around here lately. But don't feel too badly for me because sometimes I can convince one of them to camp out on the floor. That way they're NEXT TO my bed, instead of in it.

My latest spate of Internet research turned up a sleep solution that worked for a couple of days, wherein I would go check on Mac every fifteen minutes, but only if he was quiet. The problem with this strategy is that you have to go up there every fifteen minutes and the kid doesn't actually fall asleep for hours. Because I guess it's a lot of fun to wait for the checks. I still haven't completely given up on this strategy, but I've added another component:

Tonight I tried a very special sleeping medicine that I whipped up and administered via syringe. I made a big deal out of this placebo. What happened? Shef read for an hour in his bed and then fell asleep. Mac cried for an hour about how he couldn't sleep. I told him the medicine only works if you lie in your bed and close your eyes. In the dark. He didn't really buy this, but eventually he did get in bed and is now sleeping.

I'll probably try everything again tomorrow night.

 I'm just back from my Nerdy Education Book Club.  This is the one where we pick education-related texts and discuss them in terms of our own jobs, experiences, and philosophies.  Tonight, we discussed a book on how you should only teach reading, writing, and discussion; and until you are teaching those things well, you shouldn't do anything else.

The book was called Focus by a guy named Mike Schmoker.  There were parts of the book I really enjoyed and learned from.  For instance, Mike really drove home the importance of checking for understanding.  This is something I haven't done so well in the last few years, so I appreciated the pep talk.

Other parts of the book, I didn't care for. Basically, those were the parts about how any idiot without an ounce of creativity can teach a good lesson if they just follow an easy formula and why won't the administrators just adequately supervise and enforce.

Overall, I found the book to be condescending, but still useful.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, if you want to read it, as Lee says, you should.

Shef has homework now.  Here, he's working on a word wall project in which he had to write a story about a flower AND design the flower.  He came up with a great story idea involving a stream, a giant mango, and a wand.

I was really happy to sit around and talk about the story with him, but the fact that he's become obsessed with perfect handwriting really slowed us down. 

"Keep writing!" I told him.  "We can fix it on the final draft!"

That only sort of worked.

Today, while Mac was in the bathroom ("Give me privacy," he tells us after we help him disrobe), Shef asked him something about his "wiener."

"Shef!" I hissed.  "Don't teach him that word!"

"Oh," he said. "He already knows that word, Mom."

I rolled my eyes.  "Because of YOU," I said.

"Yes," he nodded, going back to his art (?!) project.  "I AM an excellent teacher.

Shef has been yacking my ear off on the ways to and from school.  I actually love it a lot.  He tells me all kinds of good stuff.

Recently, he told me about how most of the second graders had decided whom to marry.  Henry might marry Kelly or Maia, for instance.

"Who are YOU going to marry?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that, Mom," he said.  "I also know who Clare is going to marry."

"Oh yeah?  Who's that?"

"I'm sworn to secrecy, Mom."

I see.

Another topic of conversation was who gets in trouble all the time.

"So-and-so has been to the office FIVE times!" Maniacal laughter.

"That's not so good," I said.  "I bet he's working on it."

"Well, I've been working really hard," Shef reported.  "I haven't had any breaks.  I haven't even been asked to go to my seat.  I HAVE HAD some warnings.  But no breaks. But LAST YEAR!  I had SO MANY BREAKS!!!!" Maniacal laughter.

Yeah, kid.  I had those conferences with Mrs. J. so I know all about the damn breaks.

So far, second grade is a real trip.