Grateful Friday

I am grateful parent teacher conferences are over.  I don't dislike them, it's just that they are exhausting.  Yesterday I was at the school for over 12 hours and pretty much that entire time I was speaking actual words to people.  I need more blank space in my life than that.

***

I am grateful that I got to have parent teacher conferences.  It was really nice to meet with my students' parents.  They are a good group of people.  All of them were very kind to me and some of them helped shed some light on their students' situations and hopefully I shed a little light as well.

One guy, who has such a charming smile you can't help smile back, turned in a blank math test yesterday with the word YEET on it.  (Third grade attempt at humor.)  He must not have connected the dots that he and his parents were my 4:45.  I slid the test across the desk to them.  His parents were shocked and not at all happy and I just had to smile and say, "I'm sure he can try again tomorrow."

When they walked out of the room they were talking consequences and I just have to hand him the test back today because they did my work for me on that one.

Nice timing (for me--not so much for him).

***

I say it over and over but I am over and over grateful for the people I work with.  We had dinner brought in last night and I sat at the big kids' table (with the sixth grade teachers).  I don't interact with them as often because we have different schedules but it still felt like I was having dinner with friends.

The new principal--who's starting next week--came into my classroom last night and we chatted a little.  He seems really nice and the teachers' collective boots on the ground connections at the school where he used to be are all very positive.

***

I'm grateful for good men.  Brother Cordon in our ward is a tireless champion of scouts.  He has wheeled his wheelchair up to our boys many a Sunday to check in with them and encourage them.  His health has landed him in a care center so he was going to miss the last Eagle court of honor where five of his boys were being honored.

That wasn't OK with Adam.

Adam visited him and downloaded an app on Brother Cordon's phone so Adam could live stream the court of honor to him.  Adam positioned someone with Brother Cordon to be tech support and he took all the equipment to record (along with every conceivable back up, including the huge battery that goes to our lawn mower but can convert to a power source to plug things into).  He was not leaving anything to chance.

Adam sent me this screenshot:

And then after the court of honor, they went to give Brother Cordon their mentor pins.

It makes me teary to think of the impact this one good man has had on these boys.

And I'm also pretty grateful for Adam for recognizing the value of including Brother Cordon in the celebration as much as possible.

The world needs good men and from where I sit, the world has a lot of them.

***

I'm grateful it's the weekend!  I love being able to spend more time with my people.  We have a "business dinner" planned with Mark tonight where we are going to discuss his school schedule for next year.  Wish me luck; we have different opinions.

Inequality

I lamented on my blog that it feels like an unequal partnership and I am not holding up my end of the bargain with Adam.

That night he told me that of course it was an unequal partnership.  He said, "Our marriage has never been about keeping everything equal.  Sometimes one of us does more.  That's why it works."

It made me cry.

***

In the course of an hour I can fluctuate between feeling like I have the best job in the world and I am enriching lives! and making a difference! and I love it! to feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing with these irrational and small and demanding people.  I wonder if I have the patience, stamina, or ability to meet their needs and teach them what they need to know.  Also, I have stuff to do at home so why am I spending so much energy elsewhere?  Also, I really like being home.

It's the same way I can fluctuate between feeling like a fabulous mother with spectacular children to feeling like I have failed in every parenting measure and my whole life's work is kind of a bust.

***

I guess this is what life is all about.  You keep trying.  You keep trying to improve and contribute and work and matter.

And sometimes you don't feel like you are doing any of it right.

I tell myself it's OK, because it never was about an equal partnership.  The Atonement of Jesus Christ keeps making up the difference for when I feel like a mess.

My job is to just keep going.

Yesterday

Braeden texted me this:

And that was just days after I told him that Olivia and I were pinning all our hopes on the fact that our boys will have better grades when they're older because Braeden does....

Emma texted me this:

I texted back...um, what is a paragon of filial piety?

So, my daughter is smarter than I am but that is nothing new to anyone.

Mark sent me on a roller coaster (as is his specific talent) by telling me first thing in the morning that he was out of insulin and forgot to tell me earlier.

I called the pharmacy and reordered and Adam stepped up to the plate and I went to school.

Adam is the MVP on the daily around here.  He stays up late with Mark when Mark's glucose levels are wonky (they had been the night before).  He changes his work schedule around to be here for Mark when things self destruct.  He doesn't get on the roller coaster like I do, he just calmly takes care of things.  I know we are partners in this endeavor but it really feels like he is doing more than his share and I'm very very grateful.

I married well.

As for me, I taught school and then had 13 parent teacher conferences.  It was exhausting on a cellular level but also nice.  I love telling parents that I love their children and I love giving them specific reasons.

I gave one mother something her son had written about how he wanted to be a better helper to his mom because he loved her.

She started crying.

So I guess I can't adopt him which is what I've been hoping for.  He is a terrific kid but I kind of doubt his mom will part with him.

***

The only person in our family I didn't hear from yesterday was Anna but I did show one of my students her picture.  She wanted to see a picture of "your other one."  (Braeden is a hard name apparently.)  I showed her an engagement picture and said, "That's Braeden and that is his wife, Anna."

My student said 1) she's so pretty! and 2) I love her name!

Third grade

For all the exhaustion and dailiness of it, third grade delights me.

One little girl who really struggles with school work but has the biggest heart and most infectious smile you'll ever see, was working on her Chromebook, doing Lexia, which is a reading program.  She likes to come and sit at my desk for moral support so I was watching her peripherally.  She would do the sign of the cross and look heavenward before pressing enter when she was spelling words.

I love the mixed up words they use.  I was playing Go Fish with a small reading group, working on controlled r words.  The kids mostly call it Goldfish.

"Do you have storm?"

"Goldfish."

"Do you have girl?"

"Goldfish."

One of the boys was delighted to come across the word fork.  He said, "Like Fork Knife!"

I think he meant Fortnite.  I prefer fork knife.

Also, a lot of them call their backpacks "pack packs."  The other day it was lightly snowing after school and one girl was stressed about her library books.  She said, "I forgot my pack pack!  What am I going to do?"

I showed her how to put the books inside her coat and hold it closed around them.  She looked at me like I was an inventive genius.

Third graders are such an easy crowd.

They are also incredibly earnest.  One little guy is the English speaker in his family.  Over a series of days he and I were able to set up his mom's parent teacher conference (and I have an interpreter lined up for the meeting).  I would write down information in words he could read and understand to explain to his mom about the conference.  He had me write down every available time so he could see which his mom preferred.  He came back the next day and said, "3:15 on Tuesday."

"3:15 on Tuesday?" I asked.

He solemnly said, "Yes."

And I knew he was right because he's the kind of kid that remembers everything.

Third grade also ties my tongue up sometimes, particularly vocabulary lessons.

Descendants was one of our vocabulary words.  Have you ever tried explaining that to eight year olds?  "So people you're related to?"  "People older than you?"  "People younger than you?"

One student, a wise cracker who is sarcastic and lazy and incredibly, incredibly smart, understood what I was explaining.  He said, "Your offspring!"

"Yes," I said.  "Your offspring."

Another student said, "I have no idea what that means."

I drew a family tree on the board.  "These are my grandparents," I said.  I wrote Harvey and Margaret on the board.  (I didn't want to confuse them by writing my grandma named Thelma.)  I drew 7 lines representing their children.  I pointed to which was my dad.  I said, "This is my dad Mark and he married Coralee."

"Mark!" they exclaimed.  (Because of the whole hero worship of Mark that happens for reasons beyond understanding.)

I drew 6 lines.  "These are their children."

"Which is you?"

I pointed to the second line.  "I married Adam and we have three kids."  I drew three lines.

They said, "Mark."

One of the girls (because the girls are fascinated by her) said, "And Emma."

Another student said, "Don't you have another one too?"

(I considered how much it would disappoint Braeden to know he was an afterthought.  He's used to being the firstborn center of attention.)

I pointed to the family tree and said, "These are all Harvey and Margaret's descendants."

It all seemed to make sense.  They were nodding their heads in understanding.

Then one boy raised his hand and said, "So when did it begin?  Who were the first people?"

Um.

I said, "Well, people who are Christians believe that Adam and Eve were the first people.  Then there are people who have other ideas."  I'm 99% sure they are all on board with Adam and Eve plus I really didn't want to get into a whole discussion about creation vs. evolution.

Besides we had other vocabulary words to cover.

Another vocabulary word was pioneers.

I talked about pioneers in medicine and technology and talked about the crossed-the-plains kind of pioneers.  (Living in Utah, where we have Pioneer Day, I didn't think this would be a hard concept but it seemed to be.)

I explained that pioneers were people that had gone before.  I almost said that pioneers were the first ones to go West, but then I saw them and about half of them are not white and it seemed like a disservice to tell them the pioneers were the first people to go West when there were actually people already there.

I walked over to the map and showed them the size of the United States before the westward expansion.  I assured them the land was still there (we've gone down that path before), but most Americans lived in the East.

I explained, explained, explained.

Sometimes vocabulary time takes way longer than I expect it to take.

Weekending

I think Adam and I are at a go-to-weddings stage of life.  Our friends' kids and my young women from when I was serving there are getting married.

We went to a wedding both last weekend and this weekend.  Last weekend was Lisa and Gary's son, Davis's wedding.  Lisa and Gary were our friends in Connecticut and Davis was one of Braeden's first friends.  Also, Lisa and Gary are the type of friends you can see only a few times in the last 20 years and still have lots to talk about.

This weekend was the wedding of one of "my girls."  I also haven't seen her for a few years.  Her life has taken her down different paths but we still hugged and she enthusiastically told me about her job and son and she beamed at both of us when she introduced me to her new husband.

When Lisa and I were talking a week ago, we were talking about being Young Women presidents.  (She is one right now and she loves it.)  I told her I hadn't loved it.  I said that I had realized sometimes we have callings because we are great at the job and have a lot to offer and sometimes we have callings because we need to learn things.  I was definitely in the latter category when I had my fish out of water stint as YW president.  Still.  When I see some of those girls, we love each other.  They saw past my faltering and we learned from each other.

Adam and I also went to the Hale Theater on Saturday.  Emma got us tickets to the matinee show of The Man With the Pointed Toes.  We both enjoyed it and critiqued the ending while driving home.  We think the same about many things and sometimes I wonder if we are turning into the same person.

Then, we stopped at Walmart on the way home from the theater.  Standing in line, Adam was trying to guess which candy bar I would choose out of each row of candy bars.  He was wrong most of the time.

Mystery is still alive in this marriage.

Saturday night in a rare and wonderful turn of events, we were home and Mark was home and we built some of our Lego set from Christmas that has been sadly neglected.

Adam and Mark said we could watch the PBS version of Les Miserables while we built and I said that I was going to watch it 6 times in a few weeks so I needed to not watch Les Miserables.  Mark went to the basement first to start building and when we went down, he was singing along to Les Mis music.  Adam said, "We need to find different music."

We've got to keep a lid on Les Mis or yours truly will go crazy.

(And you know Mark had a perfect alternative playlist queued up.)

We finished up the Lego set.  My job is sorting (and I worked on some parent teacher conference prep while I waited for them to catch up to my sorting).  Adam and Mark are the builders.

The little details are delightful.  Look at that parking meter!

Mark brought the whole thing upstairs and set it up on the counter to show "the kids" which is what we collectively call Braeden and Anna and Emma and Desi.  (Although this week Desi stayed home to sleep which I 100% supported.  Even the Energizer Bunny needs sleep occasionally.)

The top floor above the diner has a recording studio so Mark rummaged through his other Lego bins and created The Million Dollar Quartet:

Jerry Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis and Johnny Cash

Emma showed the others her pictures from Rise of the Resistance and they were appropriately awed. I think telling her brothers about it was half the fun for Emma because she knew how much they would love it.

The force has awakened in Emma (see what I did there?) and she is interested in Star Wars.  Since she got up at 4:00 AM for Star Wars, I guess she has skin in the game.  She and her roommate Fiona have been practicing light saber moves with Fiona's new light saber.  They pulled out some light sabers from our mostly broken collection.  Emma was excited to show off her skills for her brothers.  They showed off their moves, spinning light sabers and sparring like they've been doing it since they were preschoolers.  (Mark absolutely has.)  Emma said, "Oh,"  followed by, "Oh."

Then she enlisted their help to teach her.  She lamented her wasted youth.  "I should have been doing this when I was six!"

All the clashing and crashing of plastic tubes brought me right back to a time period I don't miss too much of broken furniture and threats (by me) to not break things.

When Emma wants to learn something, she wants to learn something and Adam and I finally had to shut down the lessons because Braeden and Anna wanted to go home and they had all ridden together.

I like weekends.

Grateful Friday

I'm grateful for the way my students rallied around one of their own when she lost a prized "squishy."  I didn't know squishies were a thing but they are.  She lost hers and she was in the depths of despair as only an 8 year old girl can be.  I offered a reward and one of the students found it the next morning before school on the playground.  There was SO much rejoicing.  The student with the lost squishy is late almost every day and the students were keeping a sharp lookout for her because they were so excited to tell her the good news about the found toy.  It was heartwarming and a brilliant example of how we should treat each other in life.

I'm grateful that I have my sisters to talk to on the phone.  They make me feel heard and seen and in a million little ways assure me that I'm not alone.  We are raising our children together which is a huge comfort.  I always go away from talking to them refreshed and feeling like I can do some more of whatever it is I need to do.

I'm grateful every morning that I have a fireplace in my room that I can switch on at 5:45.  It makes January mornings more approachable.  I can't imagine what my ancestors who had to chop and carry firewood and actually, you know, build a fire would think of me flipping that switch.  If I could talk to them, I would tell them that I am not taking it for granted.  I marvel at the luxury every cold morning.

I'm grateful for how kind everyone is to me at school.  I'm surrounded by these adults that compliment me and cheer me on and understand me and this work we've undertaken that is sometimes super thankless.

Every once in awhile it isn't thankless and I'm grateful for that.  One of my really hard students said yesterday that he was "glad to have such a kind teacher."

Even though we are at odds many times a day, I'm grateful he still likes me.  I like him too.

I'm grateful for Adam.  He's my person.  Always and forever.

Mark

Sometimes I feel like there is this contest going on as to which of our kids can worry me the most.  (Granted, I have a high capacity for worry, but still.)  They give me a run for my money with just health alone and then when you sprinkle in the other occasional nonsense....

Mark usually wins though.

Especially lately.

It would help and I would worry less if I didn't just love him so very much.  He's sweet to his core and knows any song from the last four decades and can just fix things.

Yesterday one of my students was sporting a brand new necklace that she loved that was "a late Christmas present."  She caught it on something and it self destructed and the clasp broke into pieces.  She was devastated.  It was my second student crying jag of the morning.  I gathered up the pieces in a ziploc bag and told her I would take it home and try to fix it.  I put it back together using needle nose pliers but I was missing a link for the lobster clasp to go into.  I have some little wire rings but they were all too big.  The chain was tiny.  I looked in the garage but we don't really have a stockpile of stuff like that.  My dad does, but in Nevada.  I was rifling through our ultimate junk drawer in the green desk in our kitchen and lamenting, "What am I going to tell her?  I want to fix her necklace!"

I turned around and Mark was seated at the kitchen table.  He'd found a little S shaped wire and using the needle nose pliers and his excellent dexterity, he had fixed the necklace!  I said, "Sometimes you remind me so much of my dad!"

My students are going to relish the fact that Mark fixed the necklace.  They beg me for stories about Mark.  I don't know why he captures their imagination so much.  Yesterday we had a new vocabulary word:  appreciate.  Since I know they love Mark stories, I said, "I appreciate when Mark takes out the garbage," as an example.

I have them draw pictures of our vocabulary words to lock them in their brains.  Two of the boys drew stick figure Mark taking out the garbage with a stick figure me smiling.

I appreciate when Mark fixes unicorn necklaces.  I appreciate that he's my boy.

Tiny (thank you) notes

Dear Students,

Thank you for being good for my evaluation.  That really could have gone either way.


Dear Students (particularly the girls),

Thank you for being so kind to our new student.  She is lucky to have you.


Dear Emma,

Thank you for teaching me about art so I can wow my students.  From now on you have to tell me more about each artist/painting of the week that I have.


Dear Still Light Sky at 5:30 PM,

Thank you for being still light at 5:30 PM.  You give me springlike hope.


Dear Adam,

Thank you for making Sunday dinner and helping me clear out a file cabinet and then carrying it into my classroom and taking Mark to his appointment with the school counselor and for generally being awesome (and I am sorry you had to have a root canal).


Dear Mark,

Thank you for giving me "sustaining hugs" when I need them.  Also, thank you for being reluctant to leave our room/bed at night.  Even when I want you to go away so I can sleep, I want you to stay forever because I love you.  It's complicated.


Dear Relief Society meeting,

Thank you for being there even though I was tired and had to sort of convince myself to go.  Connecting with friends is worth it.


Dear Every Little Thing's Going to Be All Right,

I went to bed feeling sad/discouraged/stressed.  I just wanted someone to tell me everything was going to be OK.  I slept poorly but when I did sleep, I had a dream that reminded me of truths I know (and I really rarely even remember my dreams so this feels like a gift).  This morning I was again reminded in a really weird and unexpected way about what matters a lot and what matters less.

Books

Mostly so I can keep track, here are two books I read recently:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman*****

I loved this book!  It is exactly the kind of book I love.  It had quirky characters and a love story and a twist and it made me laugh out loud a few times.  (It also made me cry.)

It's about a sort of emotionally damaged and lonely woman who makes a friend that changes everything.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah ****

I like every book by Kristin Hannah.  This was not one of my favorites though.  It was just so brutal.  It was about a family that moved to Alaska to get a fresh start.  The dad was a messed up Vietnam vet who was abusive and a little crazy.  The mom was fragile and didn't have the strength to leave him.  It  ultimately ended in a satisfying way, but it was rough.  I skimmed parts.

Winter

Emma sent this Southern California sunrise picture on Friday when she was at Disneyland in the 5:00 hour to get tickets to the new Star Wars ride (according to her:  worth it).

I sent my own early morning picture in return:

Two of my students coming in hot.  Some of the parents drop off their kids at the church behind the school and then they race across the field to me.

Winter with all its post Christmas reality has settled in.  I paid bills on Saturday and got three paper cuts in my ridiculously fragile winter skin.  Three!  I said to Mark, "I literally deal with paper all week long.  Why did I get three paper cuts just opening the mail?!?"

He said, "Maybe you don't have anyone to impress at home."

That's the ticket.  I get paper cuts when I forget to impress people....

Sunday morning before he left for his meetings, Adam eyed what I was wearing and said it was "a look."  I forgot I had on yoga pants under my dress to keep warm.

Happily I remembered to take them off before church.

At least the sun is shining.

Sunlight streaming through the windows warms the place up and lights up the plants.  There's still life around here!  We're not frozen yet!

Grateful Friday

Last night we got a message there was a snow advisory two hour delay for Alpine School District.  My head filled with thoughts of productivity.  I was thinking I would take Joan anyway (she's a little champ in the snow) and have two hours to work in my classroom.  Alas.  Regular start time.

Which is just as well because I wasn't sure what I wanted to cut out of my day.

It made me grateful for two things though:  1- we haven't had snow days (which I appreciate because we would have to make them up during spring break and that would be tragic) and 2- we have had the right amount of small storms blow through so we haven't had any awful inversion days yet.

Way to go, weather!

***

I'm grateful for the joy filled messages Emma has been sending me from Disneyland.  I'm a little jealous but I am happy to live vicariously through her.  Reminds me of when she went to the Louvre every Friday while she was living in Paris.

***

I'm grateful we were all home last night.  Mark did homework and Adam and I were incredibly tired slugs.  At 8:30, we were shocked it was only 8:30.  Life has had a way of eroding our energy.

***

I'm grateful for answered prayers.  I was praying for one of my students--her mother, actually--and all is well.

***

I'm grateful that I received a small grant I applied for for my classroom.  I'm going to buy lots and lots of books!

Multi-Tasking

Last night I was bolting around the kitchen straightening up in anticipation of Marie Louise coming over to do family history.  Adam was working in his office and I was hanging up my coat in the closet by his office door.  I said to him, "I wish just for a little while I didn't have this hurry hurry hurry going on in my head."

I spend most of my waking hours trying to maximize time.  And this strapped feeling is like an epidemic.  I talked to both sisters yesterday while I was driving (the only time I really have time to talk on the phone) and they both feel up against it and seem to be about as busy as they've ever been.

It feels discouraging.

I don't like being busy.

I try to be as efficient as possible in hopes of some mythical time when I'm on top of things.  Since I'm in a constant struggle to fit everything into my school day, I started having my students practice handwriting (cursive) while I read aloud to them.

Yesterday, when I told them to pull out their handwriting, one of them asked, "Are we being punished?"  (Maybe they think that because I got the idea to combine the two coincidentally after the day I stopped reading to them because they were being disruptive.)

I said, "No, you're not being punished.  But you need to learn to write in cursive."

He shrugged, pulled out his handwriting book, and said, "That's true."

Sometimes my job feels like herding cats and other times they're reasonable and compliant like that.  There's no predicting.

Come read with me

Yesterday the third grade had Come Read With Me.  It is a time when the parents/guardians/any relative really comes and reads with the students for about 30 minutes.

A week ago I sat my students down for a heart to heart.  I explained to them that whenever Braeden and Emma had anything at school, I was there.  Now, Mark has his CCR (college and career readiness) meeting with the school counselor and I can't go because I'll be there at the school with my third graders.  (Adam can go which is a relief to me.)

I assured them I don't love Mark any less, I just have work.

I promised them that their mom/dad/etc. really wanted to be there so even if they didn't come, it didn't mean they didn't love them less.

Not even half of my students had a parent who could come.  A few parents doubled up with multiple kids.  I paired some students together and I walked around listening to the students without parents there read a page or two.  Everyone seemed fine with it all and it felt like a successful event.

Later, I heard that on Monday, when the third grade teachers were at training, it was accidentally announced in the Monday morning school wide assembly, that the next day was Come Follow Me for the third grade.

The mistake delighted all the teachers.  A lot.

I love where I work.

Leaked footage

Mark texted me the first video and Nola airdropped the second one to me in the hall while we were walking from sacrament meeting to Relief Society (her kids are playing Cosette and Enjolras).  Mark is on the pile of rubble as one of the dead students (I don't want to watch that part every night) and he comes in during One Day More and stands in the back.  Unlike his brother, that's his preferred spot.

Excitement is building.

I already have these songs in my head.

This weekend

Adam and I...

...shoveled snow together on Sunday morning.  It was light and powdery but froze to ice if you stepped on it.  I imagine it is what shoveling temperamental powdered sugar would be like.

...went to Trader Joe's and Winco and lunch on Saturday like usual.  Also the pharmacy.  #diabetes.

...watched British and Australian TV (a new genre for us) and ate crackers and a cheese ball like it was a celebration when really it was just us.

...didn't get invited to Braeden's birthday party.

...celebrated with him the next day, on Sunday.

...told each other about the book being read (me) and the trippy TV show being watched (him).

...watched the weather together with mild apprehension Saturday night (because Mark did get invited to Braeden's birthday party and it was snowing).

....arranged some vocabulary assessment data (it was mostly Adam, but it was my data so I think we both sort of did it).

...laughed.  I almost died when I was eating chocolate cake and Adam said to Braeden, "My gift to you is advice.  Don't wait until you're 46 to discover Yanni."  I don't know why it make me laugh so much but there I was gasping for air and the kids were thinking, who is Yanni and does she need medical attention?!?

...did some yoga.  With Mark.  He was late for his morning rehearsal on Saturday so he had to perform "the position of woe" which is all these pushups and pilates type exercises.  Mark was sore Sunday night so I said, "Let's do some yoga!"  The three of us did and it ended up with all of us lying on the floor laughing which made Mark hurt.

"Stop, stop," he said between laughing and gulping for air.  But I think it worked out some lactic acid.

Grateful Friday

Mostly I am grateful that it is Friday.

It has been sort of a rough week and I am tired.

Yesterday was a doozy.  I had a student have a come apart and I took him to the principal.  My laptop wouldn't work at all so I had Kate email the district tech guy and literally seconds before he walked in, my laptop worked again.

So he was cranky.

He pulled my desk away from the wall and made a holy mess trying to find the ethernet cable and while that was happening the principal walked back in with the recalcitrant child and the class was in an uproar.

And that was just the beginning.

The tech guy lectured me for having brought my own Apple TV from home to use.  (I ended up donating it to the school so he will back off.)

I had two different cheating incidents.  I had a ring of girls that would not stay in their seats.  I stopped read aloud mid sentence because they were being so disruptive.  "I guess you don't want to hear me read."

Today they're doing phonics during read aloud time.  Seriously.

About an hour and a half before the end of the day, I gave them a talking to.  I mustered all my mom skills, honed by years of lecturing my own.  Nice Mrs. Davis had left the building.

One of the cheaters was crying big tears and hugged me and sobbed into my shoulder that she was sorry.  And they were silent for the rest of the day.  Silent.  And that never happens.  Like ever.  I can't emphasize that enough.

So I'm grateful it is Friday for all of our sakes.

I'm grateful to be able to spend a little more time with Mark and Adam.  I'm grateful this weekend I'll be able to celebrate my first born's birthday.  I'm grateful I can go to the store and buy more super glue so I can repair my cracked fingers (I traded always gray skies for cracking fingers when I moved away from the Pacific Northwest).

I'm grateful this girl is in the country.

She is going to Disneyland next weekend (because if anyone needs a trip, it's her?) with her roommates' family, the Swensons.  Her roommates are twins.  They are also theater people so the natural choice is to get together at the Swensons (who live right down the hill from us) and make Mickey Mouse ears for the trip.  Emma's inspiration was Marie from The Aristocats.

Emma's always loved Marie.  It occurs to me now that I don't know if she loved France first so she loved that movie or she loved that movie so she loved France.

In either case, Emma stopped by to pick up some textbooks that had arrived from Amazon for her so I got to see her.

And that makes me grateful.

Not always sunshine and roses

Yesterday it snowed and we had inside recess.  The remaining hours of the day were awful.  Awful.  Those kids need recess and so do I.  (15 minutes of silence.  Please and thank you.)

Mark's monitor went haywire...it does sometimes...so he was up late and dragging after school and he had a work party he needed to attend.  Even though he turned off his monitor so it would stop alerting him, his pump vibrated all night intermittently.  Not a perfect way to sleep.

Adam had a hard day at work.  Also, late nights.  Multiple late nights.

The best idea I had was to light candles and reset expectations last night and hope for better things today.  Mark was eating at the theater and Adam and I met for a quick dinner at Costa Vida.  The kind of dinner when you eat your chicken salad as fast as you can eat and then bolt from the table.  I hurried home to meet with Marie Louise for family history and Adam hurried to the church to meet with the deacons.

Mark enjoyed his party.  Adam, who is sort of brilliant with boys that age, seemed to have a good time.  As a culmination/reward for them learning more about the priesthood duties, Adam let them search our new church building for a ladder and climb up to see if the random door in the organ pipes would open.  It did and they were all fascinated.

Doing family history with Marie Louise was good for me.  She always thanks me profusely for helping with "our" family because that's what she calls it.  I love getting together with her though.  We laugh a lot and compare notes on raising young adult children and feel the Spirit as we link her family together.  Afterward we just sat on the couch and chatted awhile.  Even though I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of tasks undone, I thought the time well spent.

None of the angst of the day really went away.  I slept poorly and feel this press of anxiety about my upcoming evaluation and parent teacher conferences which aren't really as nerve wracking as they were when I was in my early twenties, but take a lot of work to prepare for.

Sometimes we're cranky (me) and tired (all of us) and things feel bleak (the weather), but I'm glad I have this life and these people to share it with.

The slog continues.

Things I'm loving

British TV

Adam and I have been watching (sometimes only a little at a time because I'm tired) the Family Cooking Showdown.  At first it felt like a mediocre substitute for The Great British Baking Show, but it is growing on us.

Helping Mark change his sensor

It isn't really fun at all.  You use this chemical to help loosen the adhesive.  Adam usually does it.  He wasn't home and Mark asked me and we laughed and talked which was restorative to me.  Every once in awhile Mark would wince because I was going too fast.  He sort of deserved it though because when I went outside to take the garbage out, I said I might get mauled by a cougar (I saw a news story that a cougar jumped off someone's roof to kill a deer in their front yard and since we have 1) a roof and 2) deer in our yard it kind of freaked me out).  He said, "We won't sell your stuff if you die, don't worry."

I said, "You can sell my stuff if I die; I don't care.  What if I have to go into a medically induced coma?"

He said, "How long should we wait to pull the plug?  A week?  Ten days."

Teaching in Orem, UT

We were talking about space and the solar system and some of the students had this dawning realization that other stars might have earth-like planets around them.  One girl raised her hand and said, "Well, we know from the Book of Mormon that Jesus said He had other worlds."

Yes, we do.

Emma is happy happy happy

She is sending us these effusive messages about her classes and the song they're singing in Women's Chorus this semester which is her favorite song she's ever sung.  She is getting to the point in her college career that she's done with general classes and she'd moved onto the stuff she really loves and has likeminded friends in her classes.

Mark's pretty happy too

He has a few new classes for the semester that he likes + friends are in those classes.  Also they've started rehearsing a lot for Les Mis and he likes that.

Fulfilling wishes

In December, one of my students came to me and asked, "Did you know there's a new Dog Man book?"

I didn't know.

He said, "A lot of kids in the class would really like it."

If "a lot of kids in the class" wanted the book, they did a good thing sending him as their emissary.  He's one of the cutest kids in the world and I did what anyone would do and ordered the book on Amazon.

I put it on the shelf during Christmas break and he discovered it yesterday.  His smile made it all worth it.  I didn't even want to stop him when he was surreptitiously trying to read it during spelling, but I did.

Also yesterday one of my favorites (am I supposed to admit I have favorites?) came and asked me if I had any more books in a series of Weather Channel books.  Are you kidding me?  I love the weather.  I'm ordering more books.

(In case it isn't obvious, I have a weakness for kids who want books.)

Re entry

It's always hard.  I felt like I'd prepared pretty well.  I had my lesson plans figured out (I thought I did) and I had Christmas decorations removed in favor of winter/January stuff.  I'd even cleaned my desk.

But all day yesterday I felt like, "Um...what?"

We have Monday collaborations as a third grade team and we were all suffering from the same fuzzy brains.  We had carefully planned an entire science unit together three weeks earlier at our last Monday collaboration and we were trying to decipher our notes.  We had a vocabulary assessment slated for Thursday but did any of us remember where we had put that assessment?  (Our shared Google drive could be used to hide state secrets.  It is a hot mess and hard to find anything.)

It took awhile to unravel and I'm sure Janelle's two new BYU student teachers were...impressed.

My students helped me immediately land in their realm of influence.  In the first 30 minutes of the day I had a student tell me tearfully that she had bumps on her forehead and she was scared.  Did Mrs. Davis have a chicken pox outbreak?!?  I looked her over and inspected the insides of her arms and the bumps were only near her hairline.  I tried to trouble shoot what could be causing it and we determined new shampoo.  She must be allergic.  I hugged her and assured her she was going to be OK.

Minutes later, I had a student whose eye hurt.  I told him to stop rubbing it.  "It hurts!" he yowled.  I pulled some of those individual use eye drops I keep in my bag for my own wonky eye and offered to give him eye drops.  I assured him they didn't hurt, they were just like tears.  He said yes and squeezed his eye shut tight.  I tilted back his head and pried his eye open and got maybe half a drop in.  "Ow! Ow! Ow!" he wailed.  About an hour later he asked for more eye drops.  Repeat repeat repeat all day.

Another student needed lotion for his extremely dry Utah frigid winter hands.

Another student had a paper cut and needed a bandaid.

After lunch recess, one of the girls who was wearing a floor length tulle skirt (with glitter) for reasons beyond me, came to me crying because her high heeled boots were chafing her ankles because she was wearing short socks.  I didn't know what to say to that besides, "Hmmm.  I'm sorry.  That looks like it hurts."

So we were back.

After school, I met with an intervention team to discuss a few of my struggling students.  They gave me lots of things to assess further and strategies to try and all I could think of was, "OK, but when?!?"

I left the school with knots in my stomach.

Later, as I was going to sleep last night, I remembered when I'd had them write a New Year Resolution earlier in the day.  One of the sweet girls (she hugs me every day before she goes home) brought me her resolution.  It was to read The Book of Mormon.  She explained that when she is twelve she will be able to go to the temple and she "needs to be ready."

I told her it was a great goal and I wanted to read The Book of Mormon this year too.  I said, "I've read it before, but I am going to read it again."

She said, "This is my first time."

I feel fortunate to be entrusted with these precious kids for several hours every day.  I'll keep going; I'll keep trying.

And then there were three

Emma moved back to Provo this weekend.  We will miss having her around but Provo is preferable to Paris as far as I am concerned.

Our house feels quieter and Emma doesn't even make that much noise.

A few years ago, Olivia gave us each starts of a Christmas cactus that belonged to our great-grandma Olivia Egbert.  Emma took hers to Provo and mine is blooming.

It makes me happy and reminds me of the Olivias in my life that I love (great-grandma, aunt, sister, niece).

We spent the weekend helping Emma move, buying a car for her to drive, and finishing up last minute projects including but not limited to a big DI run.  We also went to dinner Saturday night with the Porters.  Even though we live across the street from each other, we don't get together often which is a function of busy lives.  It was great to sit across the table from each other for three hours and just visit.  It never ceases to amaze me how much we have in common and how close our children would have been if they'd grown up together.  They are a lot alike.

Our waiter was a young college student who lives in our stake.  He recognized Dave as President Porter and it was like a celebrity sighting.  The owner, in his low slung black jeans and a belt that resembled one of those dog collars with spiky things on them, came out to talk to us because he heard "he had a holy roller here."  The owner brought us freshly made pico de gallo and some apricot syrup that was his grandmother's recipe.  The waiter requested a picture with Dave so they took one and Dave said he'd text it to the waiter's dad who is a bishop in our stake.

Nola said, "This happens all the time."

The waiter wondered who Adam and I were.  Just neighbors.  Civilians.

Speaking of church, our ward moved to a new building because another ward was too big for that building and needed to switch.  So now we have to drive four minutes to church instead of two.  Please keep us in your thoughts during this difficult time.

Ready or not, we're back to school and work this week.

I have my classroom more or less ready.  I cleaned my desk which was a bit of an undertaking.  I have the new date written in light blue marker on the board--felt wintry.  I am looking forward to seeing my students.

Adam gave me this for Christmas.

I have a little jar of pennies I will give them as rewards so they can buy Skittles.  (Always Skittles because I really hate Skittles and am not even a bit tempted to eat them.)  I sort of think they'll lose their minds when they see it.  Third graders are an extremely easy crowd.

Books

Janet gave me this for Christmas and I LOVE it!

You scratch off the books you've read and then there are these little stickers you use to rate them.  Of the "100 Epic Reads," I have read 46.  Some of them I read in high school so I decided to read ALL of them again/or for the first time.  This is in addition to my goal to read every Newbery.

I think I have reading delusions.

These are the books I read during the break (it's more than I've read in a long time and that makes me happy).

They are a combination of two Newberys, a book I vetted for a read aloud for my class, The Secret Garden because it was on the chart (I scratched off Harry Potter too because I just read it to my class) and The Sugar Queen because I wanted a light hearted book I love for the hospital.

I'm also a little over halfway done with Endling the Last by Katherine Applegate.  I was considering reading it to my class.  I still might but it's kind of intense in spots.  I think it's a perfect 5th or 6th grade book.

These are the books I bought at the library.  I spent $16 for the whole stack!

Some for my classroom, some are on the chart and some I just wanted.

I feel sad that today is the last day of Christmas break.  Rats.  There are still a lot of things I want to do before our lives resume their pace and Emma moves back to Provo.

By the time I finished putting all our Christmas stuff away and all my grandma's Christmas stuff away, I felt like I never wanted to see Christmas again, but that is a short lived emotion.  I love Christmas.

And I also love Christmas break.

My desk didn't get cleaned, but I took care of my girl and spent time with my family and read books.

(My desk has been waiting for awhile and there's no reason to believe it will stop being patient.)

Unexpected wonderfulness

I'm guessing wonderfulness is a word?  My computer isn't telling me it isn't....

On New Year's Eve, I felt tired and I had a sore throat and stuffy head.  I was fully planning on going to bed early.

I usually go to bed before the new year arrives; I like to sleep.

We had decided to see a movie.  I had several I was interested in, with Little Women topping the list.  Mark maintained he had "just seen" Little Women because he had watched a version of it with us when it was on PBS awhile ago.

We decided to go to Star Wars because I wanted everyone happy.

Braeden pointed out to me that Mark had seen Star Wars the day it came out with Anna and Braeden. (Emma had a ticket to go too but she was in the hospital.)  So not only had Mark seen Star Wars, he'd seen that exact movie a few weeks before.

All my-youngest-son-is-spoiled-rotten angst aside, that was our plan.

In the early evening, Stephanie texted.  She was in town and through a confluence of circumstances, alone.  She wanted to go to the movie with us.  I looked at the seats available online and there was one and only one right next to us.  I snatched it up!

She met us at the theater and I was so happy to see my sweet friend!  We enjoyed the movie and then I asked Stephanie if she wanted to come over.

She said, "But aren't you wanting to go to sleep?"

I said, "Come over."

So she did.

We ate snacks and while Emma and Adam decorated a gingerbread house (I don't know--it's been that sort of a year), and Mark was in and out doing whatever it is Mark does, Stephanie and I sat next to the fire and talked.  It did me a world of good.  She is a dancer and her body moves with grace but her spirit is even more graceful.  She has this reservoir of peace and goodwill and gentleness that are inspiring and impressive to me.

Life can be hard and it is exactly that inner perspective and hope and faith that we all need to survive.  I can see that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Stephanie is able to add Grace to her natural grace.

How I love her!

We used to walk every day when we were neighbors.  She gave me a daily dose of her kind listening and example of goodness.  I miss her.

I stayed up way past midnight and I'm not even sorry.