Grateful Friday

As much as I loved being in Nevada the last two weekends, I am grateful we are home this weekend.  I will be able to do all the weekend things on the weekend rather than squeeze them into weekdays.

I talked to Mark last night and he seems happy and healthy and enjoying his life.  That makes me grateful.   Also, like I told him, I feel like I'm getting away with something this year.  My class is easier!  I don't have a head-ache every day.  It's pretty amazing.  I feel much better equipped to help the ones that need it and I am enjoying all of them more.  They are not without their challenges, but I am not without my resources.

For example, one of them hates to write.  As in, he'll tear up his paper, throw things and declares that he quits.  (He has a speech problem so he actually says, "I twit!" and it is adorable but I can't let him know that.)

I talked with Jamie about ideas.  She gave me about 6 different pencils and said maybe he would like one of them.  Maybe he hates writing because it texturally bothers him.  He immediately preferred one of them and I immediately ordered a package from Amazon.  He's been using Jamie's pencil and has been reverently presenting it to me at the end of each day.  He loves that pencil!

The package I ordered arrived yesterday.

You just never know what it's going to take to make something work better.

I have one little guy who complains most mornings of a stomach ache.  Yesterday it finally occurred to me to ask him what he had eaten for breakfast.  He said, "Nothing.  I didn't have breakfast."

I got him a fruit snack he said, "Wow, teacher!  That really helped!"

Imagine.

I'm grateful that I can buys pencils and snacks when needed.  I'm grateful for every little way I can pave the road a little easier for them.

Because I love those kids!

Finally, something I'm decidedly not grateful for.  My dad was bucked off a horse yesterday.  (Will someone please tell my dad he is too old for stuff like that?!?) I'm grateful he went to the hospital. (It's not a foregone conclusion with that guy that he will go to the doctor.)  I'm grateful he didn't need surgery--at least not so far.  He has several broken bones in his back and his ribs.  I hurt for him and I'm so sorry for the pain he is enduring and will continue to endure while he heals.  

Last night as my siblings and I were glued to our phones for updates, I knew they were praying like I was.  I'm grateful my sisters are there to help (Olivia is dropping Ruben off at college right now, but she will be back and she is a force to be reckoned with much like Marianne is).  I'm grateful Tabor was coincidentally on his way there.

Families are a really good invention.