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.