Liar liar pants on fire

We share kids for science.  I teach weather (because I love weather) and I am teaching weather to Miriam's class right now.

We talked about extreme weather.  We talked about tornadoes, hurricanes and dust storms.  We talked about where those things are likely to happen.  I showed them maps of tornado alley and talked about how hurricanes happen on the coasts.  I explained that they get their power from warm water.

I asked if they had ever experienced extreme weather like this.

Every hand shot up.

One girl stood in front of the class and used to hands to dramatically explain a time when she and her mom had seen a tornado.  "My mom screamed!  I screamed! But then we realized it was a dust devil."

The rest of the students must have decided they had to do better than that.

"I was in a hurricane once."

"Where?"

"Um.  On the beach.  In Oregon?"

"I don't think so."

They all switched their stories to having happened while they were "on vacation" and they "didn't remember where."

Note to self, never go on vacation with these unlucky kids.  Every vacation it seemed had ended in either a tornado or hurricane.

The pièce de résistance was the student who had been on vacation and the first day was a tornado, the next day was a hurricane and then next day was a wind storm.  It happened long ago, when he was "like 5 years old" and at a forgotten location.

OK, so what you're all saying is that you have never experienced extreme weather like this, but have active imaginations.  Moving on.

Speaking of weather, I had recess duty yesterday.  The longest 15 minutes of my life is recess duty when the temperature is in the 20s.  Brrrrrrr.

We had fresh snow on the ground and no snowballs thrown is a BIG rule.  A second grader, who has gotten in trouble at recess before, was tossing a snowball.  I started toward him and he picked up several more snowballs and tossed them.

"Hey," I called.  (I had forgotten my trusty Fox40 whistle inside.) "Stop throwing snowballs."

"I wasn't!" he said. 

"You were," I said.  "And if you do it again, you'll have to go sit on the bench for the rest of recess."

His friend piped up, "He wasn't throwing snowballs!"

"I saw him," I said.

"I wasn't!" he said again.

"I saw you," I said again. (So much of my life is arguing with recalcitrant children!) "Don't do it again."

"He wasn't throwing snowballs," said the friend again.  "It was a toy."

"A toy?" I didn't believe them.  "Show me."

He pulled a small white round plastic windup toy out of his pocket.  It was the exact size as what I thought was snowballs.

At that point, I had to apologize.  

In my defense, trust issues are an occupational hazard.

Back at it

Yesterday I had a Christmas tree waiting for them.  It's small, but decorated with apples and also their names made out of scrabble tiles.  The little Christmas village was set up (by Mark).  Our kids made up a whole back story about each person in the village when they were younger.  My students stare at it and I tell them no touching.  I had an advent calendar and everyone got a Christmas themed eraser.  I have the elf door, with a student's picture behind it.  A few of them wrote tiny notes and put them in the elf mailbox.  I have three other tiny trees and a snowman.  I played Christmas music softly when they came in yesterday morning.  I read them The Amazing Christmas Extravaganza.  My aim is to create a cozy Christmas.  I want a happy place for all of us to spend our days.

It doesn't feel like enough.  Untangling the messes in their families is heartbreaking.  It seems like every day I learn about some new tragedy in their little lives.

My weak attempt at Christmas cheer feels pathetic but also really important.  I don't know what kind of mess they're in when they aren't at school, but today we're reading Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree and I'll play Christmas music.  There will be a spot of cheer.  

It isn't enough, but it's something.

Weekend

I am in love with our little corner of the earth and it was also not without its highs and lows.

Wednesday, Adam and I finished getting everything loaded and after a few last minute stops, headed to the land of the setting sun.  We unloaded in the ice crusted snow.  Adam pulled up onto the lawn (poor lawn, we'll treat you better someday) and he handed me things over the porch railing.  It was a good system, except our mattress in a box, that weighed about 10,000 pounds, wasn't going to work.  We went calling on the neighbors to borrow a dolly from my dad and Marianne and Robert and some of their family was visiting so Robert and Nikki came to help.  They made short work of not only bringing the heavy stuff inside but also they helped build our platform bed.

You can't beat the neighbors around here.

We had dinner at my parents' house and Ammon's family was there for that.  Emma and Mark arrived, having come after work and Adam and Mark drove back to our house together and Emma and I drove together.  Emma marveled at all the stars.  She said breathlessly, "I can see the Milky Way."

It is magical.

While I was putting away the additional stuff the kids brought me (most importantly the butter and pesto that were integral to my Thanksgiving contributions but I had forgotten--my extensive list let me down!).  Emma sat in our sparse living room and played her guitar and sang and I felt like I was pretty much in paradise.  

Thursday was when our reversal of fortunes came.

I made pie and pesto dip and hummed along in my lovely, if Spartan, little kitchen with the pretty views out the (very dirty) windows.  Marianne and Robert and a bunch of their people stopped by on their walk.  Everything was going swimmingly and then neither toilet would flush.

I called my dad to borrow a plunger and told him the news and he said, "That's not good."  I was hoping he would say that there was a magic button hidden in a closet that I could push to fix everything, but I guess there isn't.

My uncle Drew has a bigger house there, next to the smaller house his family lived in when we were growing up.  He told my dad he had some furniture there he wanted to get rid of and we were welcome to it.  It seemed like an easy short term fix to our no furniture problem.  My dad and Ammon met us there.

No ones uses the little house and it is not what you would call vermin proof.  Mark pointed to the mouse droppings and I said, "Oh, those aren't mouse droppings." Rats.  Literally.

The couches were in really good shape (besides the rats) and I wanted them.  Adam didn't.  He gamely helped load them in the back of my dad's truck.  We put them on the front porch and I started taking off the removable cushion covers to see just what the story was.  My dad nobly pulled a mouse skeleton out of a crevice and tossed it away so I didn't have to.

I wondered if those couches were going to spell the end of our marriage, but we rallied.  I was dealing with them and the men went to ponder the septic situation.  The couch cushions were in really good shape and the rodents hadn't done too much damage.  After my dad and Ammon left, Adam and I vacuumed the couches and flipped them over and they are very solidly constructed.  I think we'll try to get them reupholstered and they won't be just a short term fix.

The marriage will be saved.

Adam was in touch with Andrew, our contractor, and then spoke with a plumber/septic person?  I don't know his official title.  He agreed to come the next day to try to reconcile our troubles.

We called a family council.  

Adam and Emma were fine staying overnight in a place where there were not working toilets.

I was not.

Mark wanted to go back to Utah because his friend had sent a distress signal and he wanted to answer it.

We went to Thanksgiving dinner at Marianne's and left our problems behind.  It was a great affair.  Marianne knows how to throw a party; she always has.  I think there were 32 people if I counted correctly.  We had plenty of food and plenty of laughter and conviviality.  

My dad offered to come with his excavator the next day and dig up our septic tank.  Because he, you know, just happens to have an excavator like you do.  He said they'd build a fire to thaw the ground.  So we canceled with our other guy.

Adam, who is every bit the hero my dad is in my life, just in different ways, got us a hotel room in Elko.

After dinner we made these button Christmas trees which united two things I love, buttons and spending time with the ladies.

After our craft, we played a rousing game of Nauvoo bingo.  Clarissa and Timeon's adorable foreign exchange student from Germany (who knows five languages--she's amazing) enthusiastically played too and I wonder if she will go home thinking that Nauvoo bingo is a part of American Thanksgiving.  My mom created the game after their mission.  The spaces are photos they took in Nauvoo.  Enoch is the traditional caller of the game, but had the audacity to move to Portland.  Ammon filled in and Marianne and Olivia and I were sitting closest to him and several times we lost track of our boards because we were either chatting or laughing at what Ammon was saying.  It was a crying gasping situation at times.  Let's just say Ammon missed his calling as a bingo caller.  

Maybe it isn't too late, he's young yet.

The best part of Nauvoo bingo, besides the brother cracking wise while calling, is the prizes.  My mom has bins of prizes.  They were all laid out on the long countertop in Marianne and Robert's new sunroom and everybody got 1) a prize when they got bingo, 2) a prize when they got blackout and 3) another prize because my mom said they could.  They are legitimately good prizes and more than one person hid the Bath and Body Works lotion or hand soap they wanted before the game started.

The last thing was the talent show.  Robert juggled oranges (a fan favorite) and I sang with our kids, but otherwise it was just the grandkids performing.  They are some talented kids, but I thought Omar stole the show by solving a rubiks cube his brother Ammon had helpfully messed up for him in 53 seconds.  How is that even possible?!?

Braeden texted this peaceful scene of their Thanksgiving dinner:

Mark responded with this:

I think this happened during our button Christmas trees.  My favorite part of the picture is Ruben placidly on his phone while his brothers are getting pummeled at his elbow.

Mark went back to Utah, Adam and I went to Elko, and Emma borrowed a car from the Johnsons and slept in our house.  Brave girl.

Friday morning, I roped Adam into pondering all the Black Friday deals and then he took a shower and I called my dad.  My dad, brothers, Robert, Morgan and Olivia's boys had built the fire at 7:00 AM!  Adam felt bad he hadn't been there to help.  We headed to Starr Valley and Emma and I visited my mom and my dad and Ammon and Adam worked.  

We looked at her old high school yearbooks and she tried to remember the name of the musical she starred in when she was in high school.  When my sisters were in high school musicals and when my children were in high school musicals, my mom never mentioned she had been in one.  "Why didn't you ever tell us?" I asked.  She just shrugged.

We made spaghetti for lunch and then they went back to work outside and Emma and I inventoried stuff at our house.  I want to know what I have and what I need to bring when we visit.  I took this picture out the bedroom window:

Ammon is hard to see, but he's down in the hole.

I stopped by to thank Ammon and I said, "Say Ammon, how did you spend your Thanksgiving vacation?"  

He grinned and leaned on his shovel and said,  "Stay in school, kids."

Emma napped and I feathered my nest a little, organizing things until I had to use the bathroom and went back over to my parents' house.

Katie and Melanee and their kids were back from Black Friday shopping in town so we saw some of their spoils and then Adam called and said we needed to go to town for ten feet of 4 inch PVC pipe.  My dad said he also wanted me to get some starter fluid and I felt the returning panic of when I was in high school and my dad would send me to that store for something and I would get the wrong thing.  That store intimidates me.  Adam was getting the pipe cut and getting the stuff he needed and I wandered completely aimlessly not even knowing which part of the nonsensical store to look.  A worker took compassion on me and asked if I needed help.  I located the stuff for my dad, Adam tied the pipe on the top of the car (luckily he is better at knots than I am) and we were on our way.  It was dark by the time we got back and they used our car and my dad's (pull into the orchard?  no problem for the Subarus) to illuminate the way and they fixed it!  There were roots grown into the line.  (I won't hold it against the crabapple tree though.  I've always loved it since I was a little girl and would swing on the tire swing on the Big Treehouse tree and try to touch the crabapple tree with my feet.)

We had dinner at Marianne's, a reprise of Thanksgiving leftovers which was wonderful.  We went back to our snug little house which was also wonderful.

Saturday morning I got up before everyone else and I found my spot.

I will eventually get a more comfy chair.

I enjoyed the fire and the view.

The folding chairs are strategically placed to flatten the rug but they also are very lightweight so I don't think they flatten it much.

You can't see it in the picture but there was softly falling snow outside that then turned to more enthusiastic falling snow.

Emma and I went to Olivia's for her annual holiday brunch.  It is always a highlight.  Olivia also knows how to throw a party.

Here's a picture of my mom and her girls:

Melanee, Olivia, my mom, Marianne, me and Katie--why am I standing out in front of everyone?

Then here's a picture of our girls:

Back row: Clarissa, Carolina, Desi, Liberty, Shuyan (the foreign exchange student), Olivia, Destin (she lives with Marianne and Robert), Emma.  Front row:  Charlotte, Ruby (holding Liliana's picture), Azure, and Lucette.

Olivia had us each write a limerick about the person to our right.  What it comes down to is that none of us are going to quit our day jobs to become limerick writers, but we still enjoyed them.  We told about a rose, a thorn and a bud from the year and some of us cried. (I don't know if I've ever been to the brunch and not cried.)

We played After the Manner of the Adverb and Smurf, which is what my family calls Pluck the Chicken.

It was a good time.

Saturday night Adam and Emma and I worked on a puzzle and then went to Marianne's for some capitalism playing.  I'm not very good at it, to the chagrin of Robert who is super competitive and would cringe at my choices (he also looks at everyones' hands).  It was a fun time.  I love being a couple minutes away from my family.

Sunday morning we battened down all the hatches in our house and went to church.  We left after sacrament meeting and came back to Utah.

I feel rejuvenated and grateful.  I loved our Thanksgiving break, even with the reversal of fortunes, and I feel blessed in my association with my parents and siblings. 

And now it's the Christmas season!  Hurray!

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm off to where the internet isn't! So this is my Happy Thanksgiving to you.

I love Thanksgiving, and not just for the pie.  I love gathering.  I love pausing to appreciate what I've been given.  (And I love the pie.)

I'm thankful for my family and friends.  I'm thankful for a body that mostly does what I need it to do.  I'm thankful for food to eat, clean water to drink and a comfortable bed to sleep on.  I'm thankful for a job I love and the challenges and stretching it provides me.  I'm grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I'm thankful for the scriptures and the Follow Him podcast that I listen to each week that helps me understand the scriptures.  I'm thankful for temples and eternal families.  

It's a good life.

Christmas ornaments

There is a huge tree in the school library and every year, the teachers are supposed to have their students make ornaments for the tree.  I saw an idea for making shrinky dink type ornaments out of plastic cups.

I had the students decorate the cups with Sharpies:

 I punched a hole in the side with a regular hole punch.  Then I cooked them for about 1 minute at 350 degrees:

I'm going to string a ribbon through the hole and put their picture on the back (I get a page of stickers of their school pictures.)

They are cute + easy + unique and I am happy.  That is all.

(If you decide to do something like this, use a cup with a 5 recycling code.  I didn't try other types but my googling research said that was what to use.)

Weekend

Friday, over burgers, I asked Mark his hopes and dreams for Saturday.

He said he was getting a haircut and would go grocery shopping with me.  I told him I didn't want him to go grocery shopping with me.  He said, "Oh good, because I didn't really want to go."

It was a very amicable exchange, but he's fired from grocery shopping with me.  He gets cranky and impatient.  I told him other things he could do for me instead.  (Dishes, clean up the basement, bring in the couch cushions off the deck (the snow has finally melted and they were dry).  He happily did all those things and I happily didn't have an ill-tempered grocery shopping partner.

I stayed up late Friday night wrapping the books for my students.  It didn't need to be done yet, but I had nervous energy to burn and it was something to cross off the list.  I talked to Adam (in Orlando) before I went to bed and he asked why I was still awake and it was because my mind was spinning with all the things and I couldn't settle it.

I was glad on Saturday when I created the mother of all lists and I sorted out all the tasks and assigned them times and I got a lot done and felt like I could breathe.

I went grocery shopping (alone).  If you ever want to feel a part of something, go grocery shopping the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  The produce, dairy and meat sections were clogged.  Standing room only. Everyone was jockeying overloaded carts, trying to buy all the things.  I walked down the aisle to get the gluten free taco seasoning and I was the only person in the aisle.  We are all eating the same thing this week!  What a great time to be American!

In the line, which was really long so I had time on my hands, I tried to guess whether people were hosting Thanksgiving or being a guest for Thanksgiving based on what was in their carts.  

Besides the tasks I assigned him, Mark spent a good part of Saturday shopping for Christmas presents.  For the first time in his life, he has extra money to spend on gifts and he is reveling in it.  He was telling me about his gifts for Braeden and Anna and Eleanor and Emma and I said, "You're very generous, but you don't need to spend so much money on gifts."

He looped his arm over my shoulder and said, "I'm my mother's son."

It is true.  Gifts are my love language and I love picking out gifts.  Also, two thumbs way up that he is shopping in November.  Maybe he inherited more than curly hair and a proclivity to crankiness from me.

Sunday Adam flew home from Orlando.  He made it for the second talk in sacrament meeting (the guy got up very early).  We were happy to have him home.  Emma didn't come over because she was under the weather, but Adam and Mark built with Legos.  

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving week with many of my people; I'm bracing myself for the ways an impending school break riles up the children.

Grateful Friday

Here are some random things I'm grateful for.

I'm grateful for liquid bandage stuff.  Tis the season when my fingers split and I glue them together.  I wish I didn't need to, but I'm glad I have it when I need it.

I was doing ministering interviews last night and I talked to a friend who has three kids with busy activities every night and none of them drive and I don't miss those days.  I miss my kids, not the busyness they added to my life.  If I was going to go back in time, I'd go back to when I homeschooled them and we mostly had quiet evenings at home.  That I miss.

Anyway, I'm grateful I'm not living my life around the schedule of cantankerous teenagers.

I'm grateful for my friends.  Near and far, old and new, the ones I talk to often and the ones I seldom talk to.  I love them.

I'm grateful for my family.  Adam and our kids (including Anna) and Eleanor.  She's the bees knees and we all know it.  I'm grateful for our parents and siblings and their spouses and all our nieces and nephews. I'm grateful I'll get to see a bunch of them next week in Nevada.  

I'm grateful for the smile I get when I see the board in the workroom where someone started us writing our favorite Christmas movies.  Can you beat Christmas movies?  (These are actually good Christmas movies although I really like watching the super awful Christmas movies on Netflix or Hallmark movies with Emma.  They are so bad they're good.)

I'm grateful that my mouth feels all better.  Who knew dental work could throw you for such a loop?  But I healed.  Bodies are pretty amazing like that.

I'm grateful for really good pens.  My friend Jamie has started me down a path of pen snobbery and I can't go back.  There is such joy in a good pen.

I'm grateful it's Friday.  I will never not love a good Friday.

Embracing the chaos

 The only certainty is that chaos is unpredictable.

                Matthew Terrill

This is a pep talk to myself that it's OK and my eye will stop twitching eventually....

Yesterday morning I talked to Olivia while I was getting ready for school.  She's busy. I'm busy. We don't want to be.

We do want the things that prompted the busyness in the first place.

It's a conundrum.  And just life.

I can spend time fretting about the chaos or just embrace it and triage it and forge ahead.

Clarissa and I walk most days.  Lately, we've been walking around the Mt. Timpanogos temple because it is pretty well lit and we walk after dark.  Also, it is cold.  Clarissa warms me up.  She is a ray of sunshine. Marianne and I both had sunshine-y first born children.  We tell each other about the craziness happening in our various lives and we laugh and take quick steps because it is cold and I always go away feeling energized.

Life is just going to be crazy sometimes.  It's what I signed up for.

Five things I'm grateful for

 1. I had a chiropractor appointment (always grateful for those) and I mentioned I had dental work and my jaw seemed out of whack.  He said, "Oh wow," and "This will hurt."  He's never wrong about it hurting, but my jaw feels a lot better now.

2. I bump up against chaotic families a lot at school.  It makes me grateful for the stable home I grew up in and the stable one I go home to.  Also, I'm grateful for my school.  Yesterday I was in an interaction with a parent who can only be described as a hot mess.  Kristie, our principal was there too.  She must have texted the secretary, because Rachel showed up quietly and set down three bags of groceries.  Kristie simply said, "These are for you," and gave them to the parent, who replied that they could now eat tonight.  There is good in the world and I'm proud to be associated with a school that brings so much good.

3. I had a stack of books to pick from for my students for Christmas presents.  I didn't have enough books!  At least not enough that were easy enough for this crowd.  I was SURE I had more.  But where?  I looked and looked and finally gave up, thinking I must have only imagined I had more.  Then I found them!  I had plenty that were just right.  The melodrama is never too far away....

4. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is my favorite time of year.  It's busy, but wonderful.  The scented candles alone make it great!

5. There are many genius inventions that make life better.  Zip ties, letter openers, boot jacks, car play, watering cans, magnets, pens, needles, to name a very few.  What a wonderful world!

Kindred spirits

Yesterday, my diabetic student's mom came in because he had forgotten his cell phone.  He uses it for a medical device.  She told me he also had a treat in his backpack in honor of Diabetic Awareness Day.

I hadn't been aware of Diabetic Awareness Day.

Wow, it matters to me though.

Yesterday commemorated the birthday of one of the co-discoverers of insulin.  Without that discovery, my uncle, cousin, brother and son would all be dead by now.

And my cute little student too.

I felt a kinship with his mother.  How we appreciate modern medicine!

My son also gifted me with a kindred spirit when he married Anna.  What a good boy!  She sends me Pride and Prejudice memes and loves Anne of Green Gables (which I could never get Emma into!).  

Yesterday my team was meeting after school and Janelle said, "Have you thought about what to get the BYU teachers as a gift?"

I said, "As a matter of fact I have!"  I went to Anna's Etsy shop Green Gable Girl where I want one of everything, please and thank you.

I ordered this cute tote bag for my BYU teacher (who works at the library, she will love it).  It came yesterday!

So three cheers for Frederik Banting!  Thank you for saving the lives of people I love!

And three cheers for Anna, my very own Green Gable Girl.  She created cute designs in her Etsy shop and an even cuter granddaughter!

Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

Weekend

Things I said to Adam this weekend:

• Are you rethinking turning down life insurance on me?
• You have been really kind to me this weekend and I have not been a lot of fun.
• (Also, I whined a lot.)

Wednesday I got my crown.  It messed me up.  I got canker sores on my tongue and also on my tonsils.  My jaw hurt, my glands were swollen, I hurt.

Friday at school, it was hard to talk.  It was painful.  After lunch, I wrote on the board, "I can't talk because it hurts too much.  Log into Google Classroom and do the Mystery Science lessons."

One of the boys came up and hugged me.  They were absolutely silent.  In their lovable, if irrational way, they figured if I couldn't talk, they couldn't either.  They wrote me notes.  "Can I use the bathroom?"  "If you can't talk I won't either."

I considered that I should have done that MONTHS ago.

Friday night I took about 45 minutes eating scrambled eggs.  I was starving, but it hurt to swallow.  So painful!

Saturday morning I woke up with a migraine which is my least favorite way to wake up.  I couldn't eat so I didn't eat and since I didn't eat, I didn't take any medicine for the headache so it just got worse.

I finally choked down some applesauce and yogurt and Excedrin.  I lay on the couch in a posture of just wanting to die and then Adam brought me some rice chex.  I struggled to eat them and then I finally started to feel a little more human in the late afternoon.

Once you start to lose the grip of a migraine, it is amazing how good you feel.  I still felt sad about a lost day with Adam.  It was his first time home on a Saturday in 5 weeks and I had been looking forward to spending it with him.  

You don't always get what you want.

Sunday, I taught Relief Society and Adam went to sacrament meeting in our ward, which was nice.  He doesn't like sharing a hymn book with me because I tend to bounce my leg, but we're working it out.  I think this marriage can be saved.

In the afternoon, we talked to the Davis kids.  Watching Eleanor army crawl toward the phone with determined glee is a high point in our lives.  She grabs the phone and swoops us around the room.  When she looks at us in the screen, she raises her eyebrows and smiles.  She also showed off her skills at pulling herself up to standing at the dishwasher.  Anna gave her a clean plastic cutting board out of dishwasher as "her spoils."  You never saw anyone so delighted with a cutting board.

Emma came over and I showed her the box of stuff my aunt Jennifer gave me.  I need to figure out how to best preserve it.  I want to share some of it with my cousins and siblings.  

So it ended up being a nice enough weekend.  I didn't die after all.  There's always that.

Grateful Friday

Here's what I'm grateful about today:

1. I don't have to get another crown for awhile (or maybe ever?).  Fingers crossed.  That was awful, but I did it.

2. Adam is home.  I miss that guy when he's gone.

3. Christmas planning.  It makes me happy.  Also, I decided not to send Christmas cards this year, so if you normally get one from us, it's not you, it's me.  If a tradition ever feels like a chore, I let it go.

4. My job.  I know I complain about it, but I also really love it.  I love that I know which student's paper is the one without a name because I recognize their handwriting.  (Yesterday I knew whose math test it was because of the tear drops on it....) I love the connections I make with them.  Some of them are just really funny and they delight me every day.  Here's a story one of them wrote (Miss Larson is our BYU practicum student):

She said, "I ran out of time."  I guess that's why there were no details about the super! super! top secret mission.

This same girl sits near my desk because she needs someone constantly telling her to stay on task.  I called a student up yesterday to talk about her writing and the one near me stopped her and said, "OK, don't be nervous.  Mrs. Davis is nice.  You'll be fine, just fine."

She also gets excited when she sees kindergartners because they are shorter than she is.

She also told me very dramatically that boys are SO dramatic.

Being there makes me happy.

5. There are many good people in the world.  A week ago, the Rotary Club donated a dictionary to every third grader.  So. Much. Excitement.  When they found out they got to TAKE THEM HOME and KEEP THEM FOREVER, some of the kids lost their minds.

If you ever want to feel happy, watch eight year olds excitedly read dictionaries.

6. Sweet friends.  Stephanie called me last night.  We chatted for nearly an hour.  We talked, laughed and cried.  Friends are wonderful.

The force is weak with this one

One of our class jobs is "lunch walker." That means they walk the "lunch bin" down to the cafeteria.  It is a tub full of lunches students brought from home.

The other day I called the lunch walker Luke Lunchwalker.  Another student said, "Wait...you know...Star Wars?"

You can't be married to Adam and mother to Braeden and Mark and not know a bit of Star Wars.

The three watch Andor and then discuss it.  Adam and Mark have been wanting me to watch Andor.

Yesterday, I had to go to the dentist and get a crown.  Of all the dentist whiners and complainers, I think I'm queen, so I guess I needed a crown.  I like my actual dentist, but hate going to the dentist and dreaded it all week.

They asked if I wanted laughing gas.  Hard pass.  I hate the way that makes me feel.

They asked if I wanted to watch a show.  I said, "Sure."

I watched Andor.  I didn't get it.  Granted I was getting a crown on my tooth during it.  The dentist blocked my vision sometimes and other times I couldn't hear.

So yes, I know Star Wars, but just barely.

I get by with a little help from my friends

The dismissal bell rings at 2:15.  My students get out of specialties at 2:10.  We high-tail it back to class and don coats and backpacks and they head out.

Yesterday, we were walking by the first grade classrooms on our way back from PE.  One of my little boys threw up.

A nearby boy started gagging.  The sick student gave me the panic stricken, what do I do now look.

I simultaneously needed to do four things.

1) take care of the sick student

2) warn the first grade classes about the hall before the stampede of dismissed students came out

3) alert the office/custodians

4) get my class out the door

Happily, two aides came down the hall, on their way home.  I asked them for help, sending one to the first grades and one to the office.  I rushed my students back to the classroom and then out the door and then I went back for the sick student (I had sent him to the first grade bathroom).

It all worked out.  I even had a boy stay behind in the classroom while I went to get the sick student, because my student who has autism refuses to leave until I have hugged them.  The boy stayed to keep the hugger company while they waited for their hug.

It takes a village.  

Christmas countdown

We have music time on Mondays.  Yesterday I decided it was time to start to work on our song for the Christmas sing.  Here is the conversation that ensued.

Me:  If you have been a student at Bonneville, you know that we have the Christmas sing every year.  This year it will be on December 14-15 and we are going to start practicing the 3rd grade song today.

Students: (excited rumblings)

Me: It is called the Christmas Candy Countdown.  So we start with 6 peppermints and we count down in the song.  When we say peppermints, what we are really saying is days.  (You can't over explain at times like this.)

We started singing the song.  "It's 6 pink peppermints til Christmas and there's lots and lots of things for us to do..."

Student:  Wait, is it really 6 days until Christmas!?!

Me: No, Christmas is about 7 weeks away, we're just learning this song for the Christmas sing.  The Christmas sing is December 14-15.

We started singing again.

Different Student: Wait, what day is December 12? (That's his birthday.)

Me: On December 12 (I couldn't resist).

Me:  (repenting) It's in a little over a month.  Today is November 7. (I pointed to the white board where the date is written.)

We started singing again.

Different Student: Is Christmas really only 6 days away?

***

You would think I would have developed more patience by now.  I mean, I have so much practice!

***

Clarissa and I walked in the dark.  We were both excited because our husbands were coming home.  Marie Louise called me on the way to the walk and had some treats she wanted to drop off.  I told her I'd pick them up on the way home.

When I stopped by, she waved me inside and said, "I hope you walked some extra laps."

I said, "These treats will be our reward after Mark and I get our flu shots."

We got our shots and they are never as terrible as you think they're going to be.  We came home to potato soup and Marie Louise's Russian Creams.  On the drive home, I told Mark I was going to turn on the Christmas lights in honor of Adam coming home.

He, of course, argued that it was not time for Christmas lights yet. (If there is something to argue about, Mark will find it.)

I told him they were holiday lights and once Halloween is past, it is the holiday season.  

He said, "You just called them Christmas lights."  He continued to argue, but I am as good at tuning him out as he is at pontificating his opinions.   When we got home, I turned on the lights anyway.  

I spend my day arguing with children.  The 8 year olds get me warmed up for the 19 year old.

Good thing Marie Louise gives me a treat from time to time to sustain the arguing energy.

Also, Adam is home!  Hurray!

Weekend

It was not my best weekend so far.  

First of all, I miss Adam.  A lot.  He has been gone.  A lot.  It has been a confluence of extraordinary circumstances and it will get better.

I hope so.

Friday, I happily said good-bye to a hard school week.  I had two students crying in the morning because they had to switch parents they were staying with. 

Life can be so hard and I am incapable of fixing things for them.  One of them stayed in for recess with me and we talked it out and I gave him a granola bar and then he wrote me a note telling me I was "awsom."

I decided to skip phonics.  We had a lesson instead about gratitude.  I told them it was magical and whenever I was sad or anxious or unhappy, if I tried to think of things I was grateful for, I always felt better.

We wrote something we were grateful for on the board for every letter of the alphabet.

You can see I'm not one of those teachers who has really perfect handwriting.  When I was in elementary school, I used to get C's in handwriting, much to my parents' chagrin.  So I guess I've improved a little?

I loved all the people they were grateful for.  Some of them are in our class and some of them were their family members.  

I also loved "Quarter" and "Bank." Capitalism is alive and well.

For every suggestion, I had them tell me why they were grateful for that.  They all agreed that without banks, there would be no money.  I felt like it was a good enough reason.  I didn't have the time or ability to explain the national treasury and economics to them. 

Our school mascot is the Broncos, specifically Rider.  Rider values are Respectful, Inclusive, Determined, Exemplary and Responsible.  And they're grateful for Rider values.

I love that.

I also had them write something they were grateful for on a leaf and I hung the leaves on the tree on the door.

Gratitude worked its magic and improved my day.

I should have enlisted some more gratitude for Saturday, because it was a hard day.  I miss Adam especially on Saturdays.  Also, I had been in survival mode for awhile and all the angst (mostly first world problem angst, but still) caught up with me.

I talked to both sisters and my mom and that helped.

Mark and I dealt with the big tree limbs that fell during the snow storm.

It rained so that melted the snow before it could damage any more trees.  I felt sad for the poor trees and sorry that I hadn't been aware enough to go knock off the snow earlier.  They weren't ready for snow.  I also felt really grateful I had Mark to help me.

Sunday, I reset all the clocks.  For the first time ever, I succeeded in resetting my alarm clock on my nightstand.  I don't use the alarm, I use my phone, but I like having the time and I can never set it right. Adam does it for me, but I did it! 

I felt very accomplished but I had no one to brag to about it so here I am.

Mark asked me if it was the good time change or the bad one.  I said the good one, but nobody wins with a time change.  I wish we could get rid of it.

After church I went to a Temple and Family History committee meeting and sat next to Marie Louise.  Everyone at the meeting asked me how I was.  They asked her the same question.  We both said, "Fine."

We stayed after and asked each other, "How are you really?"

It is nice to have friends like that.

Emma came for dinner.  She played the piano and sang; we played Monopoly Deal.  Marianne called in case I was lonely.

It's not a bad life.

(I'll still be glad when Adam comes home.)

Grateful Friday

We had a leadership meeting yesterday after school.  Kristie, our principal, said, "I want to commend the teachers for their management on Halloween and the day after Halloween.  Things went surprisingly well."

She added, "Yesterday was when things fell apart."

She wasn't wrong.

It was the snow that brought out the horror show.  My class was awful yesterday.  All the strides I've been making recently were forgotten.  Completely.  

I texted this to Adam:

He, of course, had a ready answer:

I was there until 5:30 yesterday, doggedly doing all the things that my team had accomplished while I was in the leadership meeting.

I eyed this arrangement:

soaking wet gloves on my counter--still don't have a sink

I have a drawer full of these black stretchy gloves for students to use (and one pair of more colorful striped ones that used to be Emma's).  I pulled them out yesterday and distributed them.  The students were super grateful, like they always are.  Some of them frankly told me that their parents can't afford gloves.  One girl said she'd never had gloves.  They thanked me profusely.

I'm grateful that I'm able to provide gloves for them (although I need to up my game, these get soaked and are not that helpful).  I'm also grateful that for my whole life, whenever I have needed them, I had gloves.

Sometimes you just don't realize how lucky you are.

I was walking out to my car and I heard, "Hi Mrs. Davis!" yelled cheerfully across the parking lot.  It was a student of Janelle's, leaning out a car window.  The hood of the car was open and three adults were peering inside.  It was clearly not going that well, but this little guy was as happy as he could be to greet a teacher. 

I don't do it for the money and praise.

I'm there for the kids.

One more thing to be grateful about:  I'm 0-3 getting a sixth grade boy to use the crosswalk, which is my whole job at traffic duty this week.   All the other kids dutifully walk down to the crosswalk without me reminding them.  I tell him to go down to the crosswalk and he gamely ignores me and walks into the oncoming traffic.  Granted he is a huge kid (as in, I look up at him) and the cars are going to stop for him.  I'm grateful he doesn't squash me like a bug when I try to stop him, because he totally could.  He grins and does what he wants.  I know for a fact that he's had a super hard life.  Since I've known him, he's had three close family members die.  This is the first time in a few years I've seen that grin.  He picked up a snowball and hurled it at another kid once he was across the parking lot, but still on school grounds.  I yelled his name, "No throwing snow!"  It's a big rule.  He smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up.

Why does this make me grateful?

The boy is smiling.

The resilience of humans is astounding.  He'll probably not obey me for the rest of the year, but if he smiles, I'll be OK.

First snow

Here's a winning combination for a chaotic week:

Monday:  Halloween

Tuesday: Day after Halloween.  Children come to school armed with candy.  They are in turns hyper and deflated.  They are all tired.

Wednesday: First real snow + inside recess.  Either of those is hard enough. They get ants in their pants.

Today: Pajama day.  For reasons WAY beyond my understanding.  Why. This. Week? Pajama day amps them up too.  And a lot of them will bring stuffed animals and I will put their stuffed animals in stuffed animal jail on top of the shelf where they can't reach.

Friday:  Finally.  Hopefully.  Eventually.

Inside recess was because of rain.  It turned to snow.  Janelle said, "How much is it supposed to snow?"  (I am the self appointed weather person.)

I told her it would snow, but not accumulate.

I was wrong.

Remember how we have traffic duty?  That was fun.

This was the view out the window last night.  

That little lump is an errant pillow that blew off the couch.  I am wishing I'd brought in the cushions....

Mark played the Vince Guaraldi Trio.  Charlie Brown Christmas.  He said, "I usually wait until after Thanksgiving for this, but that's a winter wonderland."

Halloween

 I knew Monday would be a hectic day.

• It was Halloween
• I had been gone for two days
• It was Monday, so I had my practicum student + no prep
• I was super tired
• I had before and after school traffic duty

Mark said it would be so crazy it would stop being crazy and that was true.  I had very very low expectations.  It was survived.

They are shown in front of the cabinets that are almost, but not quite, done.  They have no drawer pulls and they haven't cut the hole for the sink.  I don't really want to put anything in the cabinets/drawers because they still need to drill holes.  So I still have piles on the other side of the room.  Sigh.

Cute kids though, right?  I love those exhausting little characters!

I love these people too:

Braeden flew home Monday morning and was happily reunited with his girls.

They sent this:  

I'm not sure how comfortable it is to recline against Braeden's foot, but Eleanor looks pretty happy about it.  She's propping her leg up on the bear Emma got her in Ireland.

How we love her!

I went to sleep a few minutes before 9:00 PM.  I didn't have a bit of Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters. I figure I give my contribution to children earlier in the day.

Mark bought some candy and wrote a "help yourself" note and left it on the porch.  I don't think he had many takers, but I was happy to go to bed.

Blogging on TUESDAY

Adam's aunt Mary asked me, "Do you not blog on Tuesday because you're too stressed from Monday?"

I hadn't noticed the pattern, but probably.

Mondays are rough.

I have a lot to say today though, even though yesterday was indeed, rough.

We had a good trip to Seattle.  Happy sad.  We drove there on Thursday.  Adult kids are kind of the dream on road trips.  I took enough road trips with toddlers and preschoolers that I appreciate adult kids.  We listened to podcasts and comedians and music.  When we were getting near to our destination, I said I wanted to listen to my music after listening to the kids' choices all day.  Mark kept saying, "Can I make a request?"

I said, "No.  We're going to listen to this playlist."

Mark kept asking and Emma did too.  I said some salty remark and Adam said, "Kind words."

When he does that, it doesn't make me feel inclined to be kind, quite the opposite.  It does however make me keep my sour mood to myself.  So mission accomplished, Adam.

Friday we spent the day at Geri's.  The kids went to the airport for Braeden (again, winning with adult children).  It was good to see him and all be together, but it no longer feels complete when it is the five of us.  The fab five have become the magnificent seven and without Anna and Eleanor, we felt incomplete.

It was nice to be together at Geri's.  We hugged and cried and talked.  In the evening, we went to the viewing.  There was a slideshow running of pictures of Raelyn and it broke my heart.  All the pictures of her smiling, all the memories I remembered, all the promise of her newfound independence, it was all so sad.  It came to such a tragic end.  

There was a lot of crying there.  Emma and I sat on the couch for awhile and just went through Kleenex after Kleenex.  We visited with family too, which was nice.  Happy sad.  

That evening, I think we must have felt a cathartic release because our laughter eclipsed our tears.  We looked through a photo album of school pictures of Adam and his siblings, teasing them about their hair and clothes and poses.  It felt good to laugh together. 

Saturday was the funeral.  I continued to feel all the sad emotions, but I felt something else too.  I felt loved and a desire to be better.  

Adam's cousin from the Davis side, Cathy, came from Pocatello.  I told her that was so kind and I wanted to be like her when I grew up.  She said simply, "Well, we're family."

Geri's family who live in Bellingham, were there in full force, giving their love and support.  I haven't seen them for a few years and it was nice to see them and feel the love they always show to me.  I always tell Adam, he has the nicest cousins and aunts and uncles.

Geri's neighbor, Marilyn and her daughter Melissa, were there.  They came up to hug me after the funeral. I told Marilyn that on the Sunday we found out, Adam had talked to his mom and said, "I heard Marilyn in the background."

Marilyn looked a little sheepish when I said that, like maybe I was calling her a loudmouth.  

I started crying though.  I said, "It meant so much to us that you were there.  We wished we could be there and we loved that you were there.  You are a good neighbor."

Marilyn hugged me again.  She said, "Geri is a good neighbor!  I don't know what I'd do without her."

Eric and Janet came to the funeral.  We talked to them for about ten minutes over the whole weekend, but like really good chocolate, it was satisfying even though it was a small piece.  They are our eternal more-like-friends-than-family friends.  When we said good-bye to Eric, Braeden called over his shoulder, "We'll live in the same cul-de-sac in heaven."

I'm fully planning on it.

Linn and Geri's forever friends, the Meldrums, were there.  I probably haven't seen them for a decade, but we visited and caught up and I told Sydney that her chocolate cake roll with mint ice cream had informed Braeden's birthday cake choices since he was about 5 years old.

A high school teacher of Raelyn's spoke at the funeral, as well as two women who worked with her in her adult learning programs.  I was blown away by their goodness and kindness and love for Raelyn.  

I was inspired by the big turnout at her funeral.  She touched people.  She mattered to us all.  She will be so missed.

Our kids took a picture with their cousins and it makes me happy and also devastated because there is someone missing.  It seriously doesn't look right.

Raelyn should be right there, in front of Jackson, next to Talia, her white blonde hair lightening the picture, her radiant smile outshining the sun.

We reconvened at Geri's after the funeral.  When we were driving to her house, Mark said, "I feel better now than I have ever since we found out about Rae."  

It was healing.

We talked into the evening, the Kraken game on in the background, on mute.  We pulled out the photo album again and recreated family photos from 1997:

Scott, Brian
Megan, Whitney
Adam

We had the 1997 babies recreate their photo too:

Braeden, Kain and Talia (Talia had the same baby blanket)

It was really nice to be together all weekend.  I really wish it were for a different reason.

Sunday evening, Adam took Emma and Mark and me to the airport and he stayed on for a few more days. Braeden flew home yesterday morning and they carved pumpkins Sunday night.

Life can be really really hard.  Things happen that are devastating.  What a difference family makes.  What a difference kind and helpful people make.  What a difference friends and good neighbors make.  It all amounts to a community of loved ones who lift arms that hang down.

I went away from the weekend loving my family more, resolving to show up for people I love, and feeling grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which blunts the sting and pain of mortal life more than anything.