A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Where to start? Let's see. I finally got my charger in the mail today so I have my computer back. I'm very excited about that. I can get some pics up on my 365 blog.

Now let's back up to last night. I had a breakdown because of my exhaustion. I was drained. Andrew felt sorry for me and gave me the night off. :) I've already told you about my Lowe's run and that sweet puppy of mine. And by the way I must clarify about the poo. I'm pretty sure it belonged to another dog. Our dogs are never in the front yard where he found it. I'm not sure if that makes the story better or worse. Anyways, we went to Lowe's to buy dirt for a lab I wanted to do today. We were going to make rivers today since we are studying erosion. However, we made nothing but a big tub of mud. And yes, I know when you mix water and dirt you get mud. But, I've done this before and it worked. I just bought the wrong kind of dirt. Who knew there was a wrong type of dirt. So then I was stressing - trying to figure out what I was going to do with my other 8th graders this afternoon. I certainly didn't want to make mud again. I finally found something for them to do.

Right after that happened, I had this sweet 7th grader in my room. We'll call him J. J does not have a good home life. I've known this. He has told me things, that I've had to report. J comes to me during my prep period, because the few other people that he likes are all busy. He is sitting at a table working on an assignment as happy as can be. He's in a great mood. I was across the room talking with another student and going through my cabinet trying to find something to replace mud. I look over and J is between two shelves beating his head against the wall. I immediately start trying to talk to him and figure what happened to his good mood. He then proceeds to pick up his pencil and use the sharpened end to scratch his arm as hard as he can. His counselor had told me this is his new thing. I try to talk him into stopping saying he will hurt himself. His response was that he doesn't care. So I pry the pencil out of his hand. He starts biting his arm in that same spot. So now I'm standing behind holding on to both his arms, to make him stop. I got him away from the wall and had him facing me. I let go of him and was still trying to talk to him. J began to strangle himself with his hands. He said he just wanted to end the misery once and for all. I kept telling him I wasn't going to let him do that, that I cared about him. At this point I have tears running down my face - I couldn't help it. He finally quit trying to hurt himself and just started bawling. We discussed what he could do when these moods come on so he doesn't hurt himself. I'm going tonight to buy a bag of apples to keep in my room for him to bite into instead of his arm. I later found out that part of the deal was that his dad made him watch Saw V last night. If J wanted to leave or look away, dad called him a chicken or a sissy.

Sad, I know. I just keep praying for him.


On the good news - Andrew and I are planning a trip to DC over Spring Break. I'm so excited - well except the plane part. I'm not looking forward to flying at all. Other than that I'm super excited. This is one of many places on the list of places we want to go.