Slap on the Hand

In the teaching world, it's called in action plan.  In real life, I think you could call it "the mom guilt trip" but either way, I'm in trouble.

Yes, yes, I'm referring to my blogging (or lack thereof).  Reading previous blogs had made me realize that it's not just that I'm blogging less often, but I'm writing shorter and less interesting posts.  Have I become jaded?  Am I now immune to the hilarity of my kids?  What happened?

Last year, my students never ceased to amaze me with the ridiculous things that they did.  One day it was asking me to blow in their eye, the next it was a kid drawing a picture that looked like a horrendous homicide/rape that turned out to be him getting stung by a bee (must have been traumatizing).  This year... none of that.  Maybe I'm SO focused on my improved instructional methods that I don't notice those little things anymore, or maybe they've ceased occurring because the only thing that happens in my room is student mastery of objectives.

I'm more inclined to believe that I'm paying less attention.

So what to blog about now that my life isn't a free fall of death and my kids are generally well-behaved and under control?  It's been difficult, especially being busy with all this extra "figuring out my career" thing.  There aren't very many quirky things about applying to law schools; in fact, it's probably one of the least exciting things to blog about.  I'm wondering if this is a normal progression- part of getting older and growing up.  Do you just naturally become more boring?  I hope not.  But when given a chance to poke fun at my life and the other people in it, one of my FAVORITE pastimes, I pass it up to play Web Sudoku or scrub my baseboards (okay, I've only done that once... but still).

The more I thought about it, the more I feel like our overall fun-ness fluctuates something like this:

I honestly think I'm going to have to wait until retirement to return to the fun level I was in college.  Not only will I not have to work, but I'll have all this money to spend on whatever I want.  Take my parents, for instance- retired (or close enough, anyway).  They are having a blast.  My dad just bought a new shower with 10 different settings, including one strangely similar to getting sprayed full blast by a hose.  They've turned the office into a bar, and have bought four flat screen LED TVs for three rooms in our downstairs.  Pretty soon, the attic will be turned into a dance club and my room will be the new hookah lounge.  Then there's my nana, who probably parties harder than most 22-year-old frat boys.  With all the money she saves on vodka with her mail-in rebates, she can pretty much do whatever she wants with her AWOL (Available Widows On the Loose) friends.

I should probably readjust my attitude, seeing that if I don't I'm sentencing myself to 30 years of very low life enjoyment, but I think I might be onto something.  Until then, I'll try to go back to noticing my students and all the crazy things they do so that the two most fun people I know (Mom and Nana) stop pointing out what a boring person I've become.