storm

we sat down to eat dinner last nite just as a big lightning storm was starting (pretty common in spring/summer here). the wind was blowing the rain into the window so hard it sounded like someone was standinng outside spraying the window with a hose. all of a sudden there was a HUGE gust of wind and a very loud crash of thunder boomed. then we started hearing crashing and banging noises outside and something hard was hitting the side of the house. both of us just sat staring at the wall wondering what was happening and what we were supposed to do. it got quiet and went back to just rain pounding on the window. we decided to see what hit the house cuz it was just a narrow alleyway between our house and our neighbour's (who are also our landlords) and whatever it was came from our roof or thiers. zac went down the dark alley and said something about tiles on the ground and asked me if i thought we had tiles on the roof. my thought was "no-- who tiles their roof? maybe he means shingles.". we went back inside to finish our dinner and leave it until morning. i went out this morning and the alley had broken tiles in it. i looked at our roof, its corrigated iron. the landlords roof is tiled (thats who tiles their roof). the landlords came by to check out damage to our house-- i hadn't noticed when i looked but the winds actually ripped some of the nails off on our roof and the sheets of iron had started to come off. the landlord said that a tree had also fallen through a window on their house. now we know what happened with that big bang (we thought maybe lightning hit our house or theirs-- maybe it did). the wind or lightning hit a tree and dropped it on their house, breaking the tiles on their roof and the wind threw them into our house. everyone is ok but our landlords have a lot of repair work to do.

monday/tuesday group

at the preschool i'm working at we always refer to the monday/tuesday group as the hard group. there's a lot of difficult behaviours in the group and it can be a challange to get them all playing nicely or sitting still and listening when they need to. they can be kinda funny though. the other day one of the women i work with overheard a child saying to a "difficult behaviour child" (who thinks she's a princess and acts really immiturely for her age) "are you like this at home? are you just always naughty?" it was nice to have another child telling her this-- might make her think about what she's doing and realize she's not funny even to her peers when she's doing her immature little games. another kid tried to tell me that i was naughty. he was mad at me because i'd asked him to leave an area after warning him twice about not playing properly (chasing and tackling another child). when he wouldn't pick anopther area to play in i just stood blocking his way so he couldn't get back to where he wanted to play. he just kept telling me i was naughty and trying to get around me without having to touch me. when i realized he didn't want to be near me i just said that i was going to sit in the area i was telling him to leave. he stormed off to tell the other staff i wouldn't let him play there (not really the brightest kid. he doesn't realize all the staff are on the same page when it comes to discipline for not playing properly with the toys or other children). several seconds later i hear my boss saying to him "shawna's naughty? i don't think so!"
fortunately its wednesday today so i don't have to deal with that group of kids until next week. 8)