Baby's First Ponytail and Other Tales

Alyssa finally has enough hair for a ponytail. Well, sort of. If you can even see it, it's only about 5 hairs. Her Aunty Pam fixed up her hair the other day and sent me this picture while I was at work. I showed it to a bunch of my fellow teachers and they loved it.

Alyssa now has FOUR teeth coming in at the same time - three in the front on the bottom and a molar on the bottom. No wonder she's always cranky and drooling like a waterfall. We go through multiple outfits every day because each one gets soaked in no time flat, even when she's wearing a bib. We're careful to keep our fingers out of her mouth because she sometimes draws blood with her super-sharp teeth.

She's also talking up a storm. She's got a ton of syllables down, but the funniest ones are that she says "da da da da" when she's happy and "ma ma ma ma" when she's mad. I don't know if I like that, but I have a feeling that I'll be the one doing the discipline, so maybe it's appropriate.

We think she's going to be crawling any day now. She can sit up on her own, and when she sits on my lap, she climbs all over me. She can roll all over the floor and scoot herself around on her bum when she's sitting. We've also considered the fact that she may just skip crawling all together and go straight to walking. She's starting to pull herself up on furniture, but her legs aren't stable enough to hold her without help.

We only have two more weeks of school left!!!!!!! Yep, I survived my first year in the classroom (well, 3/4 of a year). I'm happy with what I've been able to accomplish, but I know I have a lot more work to do. I'm still getting really good feedback from my principal and department chair, and I've been told I'll be full-time next year, so I'm happy with that. I love what I do, but I'm definitely ready for summer break. I will be teaching summer school, but it's only four hours, so it will be like a vacation. I'll have two weeks off in August, and that will be more than enough time for me. I'm the kind of person who has to be stressed and have a long to-do list to be happy, so teaching is perfect for me.