The Bouncy Castle in Space

Bounces for Smish

DanielaTorre said:

Hey Smish! ESPECIALLY BOUNCY! New pad, new job, great feedback on my ms, and a reasonable query! I should be querying for the first time ever sometime next month. I'm freaking out!

Also, I broke 9.5K on my latest MS last night! Lookin' good.

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Good luck on querying!

Good luck Daniela! Bounce, bounce, Smish!

Daniela! AWESOME!!! Go you! I'm so excited to hear how things go!

(And you've almost caught up to me - I got to 11K on my WIP, but then I got buried in freelance work. We can do it!)

I'm still alive! The world's 52 most dramatic seventh graders are taking up all my time these days! About half the class right now is sick, injured, in distress, or undergoing some type of terrible personal upheaval. I've got two bad backs, one intractable migraine, disabling blisters, one Domestic Situation, one newly homeless, one absent mom about to turn over parental rights to a foster dad, what I assume is PTSD, one kid who cries if you ask him to do classwork, and 5 incurable cases of the Talk-Backs. But they have mostly stopped wrestling in the classroom. Progress! Is this normal???

Kitty Pryde said:

The world's 52 most dramatic seventh graders are taking up all my time these days! About half the class right now is sick, injured, in distress, or undergoing some type of terrible personal upheaval. .. Is this normal???

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I don't know if that's normal, but so far my preschooler has refused to sit for circle time, tried to leave class and run in the halls, pushed, hit, swung his backpack around until it made contact with another preschoolers face.. etc. If this trend continues, I'll send him your way in a couple years.

ALSO Daniela, good luck with the query!

You have 52 seventh graders in one class? Like all day?

I was just thinking that was a very big class.

I have a homeroom of 26 kids, and i teach two math classes of 30 kids each (6th and 7th), and an algebra class of 9 kids. They are a dramatic and needy bunch!

Yea Daniela -good luck

Kitty- Teachers are amazing. I don't know how you guys handle it all and actually teach. A friend once said that about 1/3 of her class had issues at any given time. Bless you all.

Still alive! I broke out some Mean Teacher shtick today and it went over well. And I told one kid who can do much better, "Quit it with the antisocial behavior unless you want me walking you from class to class like you're four years old and I'm your mommy." Remarkably effective! And my new answer to having "But whyyyyyyy?" moaned at me is, "Because I want you to succeed." Which is slightly harder to argue with.

Halloween's coming, guys! What are your kids going to be? What are your students planning? Who's dressing up? (I seem to remember Kitty goes all out...)

My daughter (7) is going to be Athena. I've made her dress and breastplate. She's taking care of shield and sword. We bought a helmet. My 3 year old said he wanted to be an orange ghost, which I thought sounded simple (and therefore awesome) but now he wants it to have a breastplate, pockets, a cowboy hat, and matching costumes for two of his stuffed animals.

My husband wants to be Zorro, and I'm trying to decide if I want to spring for a blue wig and be Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone - or, as my husband put it, "that obscure character from some book no one's read."

JoyMC said:

I'm trying to decide if I want to spring for a blue wig and be Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone - or, as my husband put it, "that obscure character from some book no one's read."

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Yeah. Every year my office has a costume party. I wanted to dress up last year like Coraline (which would also serve double duty for character dress-up dinner at a writers conference), but my hubby pointed out that NO ONE in my office would get that.

It made me sad for the people I work with.

For the record, I think Karou would be lovely.

I went to MCM, one of London's biggest comic cons, as John Constantine from the Hellblazer comics - white shirt, tie, tan overcoat and fake cigarettes. It was an awesome time, even if only one guy got it

Dave

i don't know. Our school has usually been off on Halloween due to a massive street fair nearby making pickup time nearly impossible, but this year we have class on the 31st. I'm really sad because admin told us no Halloween costumes or decorations. Wah! So no dress up at school, plus I will have to crack down on kids wearing costumes.

I'm thinking about going as 11th Doctor but I'm not sure. At leat Nov 1st is a professional development day, so no exhausted kids nursing candy hangovers to deal with.

I love Halloween. It was always my favorite commercial holiday. As an adult, and not having any kiddos of my own, it's sort of fallen by the wayside. I'm always way too busy to remember I need a costume until the very last minute.

The hubby is very into Halloween. We've got grand aspirations (when we're able to move into our house) that we'll be "those people" at Halloween, who go all out and have the best candy and a spooky entrance and backyard and ghastly barbecues and all that....

But this year it's smack in the middle of packing to move and a serious financial crunch. We do have a party we're going to, so we have to be something... just don't know what yet.

Halloween isn't really a big thing over here. I'm just going to sit at home and be grumpy.

Halloween!! I start playing Nightmare Before Halloween mid september so I'm fully prepped

This year we decided to do a family costume, but I'm not super crafty and hubs vetoed my more "creative" ideas (they really were bad, or super complicated). Instead we're going to do Star Wars. Hubby will be Han Solo (plus side, we got to order blasters), I'll be Princess Leia, my three year old will be Luke and my one year old will be R2D2 (that one is homemade with a tutu).

YAY candy!

PS: Wampuscat: I love the idea of Coraline!

R2D2 wore a tutu? Didn't know that, but I haven't seen all special edition re-mastered remakes. George Lucas has a lot to answer for.

Halloween is my favorite holiday! I haven't decided what I'm going to wear, yet. I never decide until the last minute.

wampuscat, I love the idea of dressing as Coraline. In fact, I may just do that, since it'd be an easy costume to put together. I already have a raincoat and wellies, and can easily make a button-eye (just one, because I need to actually be able to see!). Who cares if no one else gets it? It's still an awesome costume!

summerb said:

This year we decided to do a family costume, but I'm not super crafty and hubs vetoed my more "creative" ideas (they really were bad, or super complicated). Instead we're going to do Star Wars. Hubby will be Han Solo (plus side, we got to order blasters), I'll be Princess Leia, my three year old will be Luke and my one year old will be R2D2 (that one is homemade with a tutu).

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Have you seen the commercial with the family in Star Wars costumes where the Dad is Jabba and the dog is Darth Vader?

I love the idea of a family costume!

Smish, you could also paint button eyes on your eyelids so you get the effect but can still see.

I think I'm going to be a 50s housewife instead. I bought an adorable apron.

wampuscat said:

Have you seen the commercial with the family in Star Wars costumes where the Dad is Jabba and the dog is Darth Vader?

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Yeah, I was slightly mad that they stole my costume, although the baby in the slave leia bjorn is hilarious!

And, JVC, mostly, I just like the way it sounds: R2D2-tutu.. George Lucas wishes he had thought of it

Smish, love that! 50's aprons are so cute!

Exciting news!

I think I have some bounce worthy news. My series was announced today in the PW Children's bookshelf newsletter! Yay!

Here's a link

My series is The Last Dragon Charmer and book 1 is The Villain Keeper. It will be published by HarpersChildrens.

Oh my gosh, Laurie, that's AMAZING news! A three-book deal and a pre-empt! Huge, huge, HUGE congratulations!!!!! How exciting!!!!! How are you celebrating?