Weekend

Early autumn changed to late autumn.  The leaves are falling off the brilliantly colored trees.  There's snow on the mountain.   I pulled out my Christmas sweaters for an assessment of inventory.  I told Adam to stop me if I decide to buy more Christmas sweaters.

I made an enormous packing list for our trip.  I'll be gone ten days.  My lists are falling into place; I've been training for this my whole life.  My sub plans are pretty much done, just need the final touches of prep at school.  I have the food more or less sorted for the trip.  I have set aside everything that I can do after I return.  

My mind spins with to dos and since I think future Thelma is incompetent, I want to do everything now, now, now.

I am getting better at believing in future Thelma.  You can think about that in December. 

I am looking forward to the hustle and bustle and quiet calm and connection of the next two weeks.  

Adam and I had a nice weekend together.  Friday night we went to Costco and Trader Joe's, Saturday we went to Walmart and Winco.  (Saved the Ws for Saturday I guess.). We delivered medicine and Powerade to Mark.  He and Emma both have colds (Mark's was worsened by a bad night's sleep because of a faulty sensor) and Adam and I don't.  I have to think that living among children who cough and sniffle and sneeze at me all day has bolstered my immune system to new heights.

We had a quiet Sunday.  Adam was in our ward because President Porter went out of town mid morning.  I am always very grateful to have him next to me at church.  Mark was sick and none of our other guests could come so it was just the three of us on a quiet and rainy day.  

We did talk to Braeden and Anna and QE.  That is always a highlight to any day.  She had bucked her nap and was zooming around. We read a few books to her and she read a frenetic version of Amelia Bedelia to us, flipping the pages and jabbering.  Nothing delights us quite like she does!

Grateful Friday

I'm grateful for the little hero in my class who I aspire to be like.  How lovely that I get 9 months to try to learn from him.

He is one of the kindest people I know.  

We've had a school wide kindness challenge.  My class earned a party (we are having it today) by filling a jar with marbles.  Every time someone was kind (they couldn't self report; someone else had to notice) I put a marble in the jar.

This boy is responsible for about 1/3 of the marbles.

He goes around helping everyone during clean up.  He is terrific at origami and he not only teaches anyone who wants to learn, but he makes amazing little origami creations for everyone.  I have a whole shelfful.  He stays behind to line up the reading books when people are putting them away after reading time.  He checks on kids when they're sad.  The other day I saw him across the playground at recess pick up a kid off the grass who had fallen in the soccer game.  He put his arm around the other kid and made sure he was OK, then they both ran back into the game.  He never leaves for the day without coming up to my desk and saying, "Good-bye Teacher.  I hope you have a good day."

He's just so kind.  He's also smart.  He is a whiz at math and a good reader, especially considering English is not his native language.  Like my other students who speak better English than their parents, he carefully listens to announcements that involve his parents or family and he asks earnest follow up questions.

I have a student who is not so very kind.  Through no fault of his own, he has had some pretty major adverse childhood experiences that have not helped him be successful in school or socially.  He has kicked the kind boy's soccer ball on the roof and also over the fence.  (We have Riley who is the hero in instances like that.) He has been suspended regularly for violent and inappropriate behavior.  It's been rough.  

He's been gone all week and yesterday, before school, my sweet little hero asked me, "Where's XXX?  I haven't seen him."

He had a look of genuine concern on his face. I felt a little humbled.  I knew where XXX was, but I have not missed him.  I could learn a lot from my sweet student.

Also yesterday, Katie, our wonderful community outreach person called my kind boy out of class. His family was flagged for our Giving Tree at school. She told me later that when she asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he told her what he wanted for his little brother and also for his mom.

She pushed him, "But what do you want?" 

He finally told her.  I love my association with people like him.  I hope he rubs off on me! (And I'm going to tell Katie that I want to be the one to get his gift!)

Inside outside upside down

There's what I think and what I say:

I am ready for you to leave.  Go home.  Go home. Go home.

Of course I will help you find your sweatshirt.

It is two weeks past the deadline for the form to be turned in.

I will ask if you can still do Battle of the Books.  

If you would listen, you would understand it.

Come over to my desk and I will help you.

Sometimes I don't do such a good job editing what I'm actually thinking and it accidentally comes out of my mouth:

Quintessential Tattletale Girl:  Teacher, the lights in the girls' bathroom are turned off. 

Me: Do you know how to use a light switch?

Quintessential Tattletale Girl (looking chastened): Yes.

Another super day

I woke up yesterday with a headache.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either.  I dragged myself to school.  (Teachers have oodles of sick days that we never take because it is not worth the sub plans and fallout.)

If I'd been able to have a different sort of job, where I could sit sedately and not be around loud children, it may be have been OK, but I quickly crossed over to migraine territory.

Please don't yell, I said.  

It didn't matter.

My hearing is fine, I said.  You don't need to be so loud.

It didn't matter.

I had one of my migraine pills in my desk drawer, like one of those pills a spy carries in case of emergency.  I didn't want to take it because it makes me feel so weird and dizzy and awful, but it is better than a migraine, so I finally went for it.

It was a wild ride.  I had to sit down for a while, but I powered through, like you do.  As time passed, I felt a little better.  My headache was gone and I was just slightly dizzy.  

Then writing happened.

I had assigned them books on Native Americans on Epic, a website with digital books they can read.  They were to look through the books and decide which Native tribe they wanted to write about.  This is the exact same thing I have done every year, with zero drama or problem.

This was not like other years.

The books I assigned were about specific tribes or areas where tribes lived, like Native Tribes of the Southwest.  There were also some general books about Native Americans.  

I had about 5 kids come up immediately and tell me they had decided which tribe they were going to write about:  Native Americans.  They would point proudly at a book titled, Native Americans. 

That isn't a tribe.  They are all Native Americans.  Pick which tribe.

They said the tribe they wanted to do was Crazy Horse.  That isn't a tribe.

More of them said Native Americans.  That isn't a tribe.

One girl wandered into a different collection I had assigned earlier about weather.  Hurricanes, she said.

That isn't a tribe.

It shouldn't be astonishing, because it happens so often, but I am always astonished at times like that:  How is this so hard?!?

3rd grade

We went on a field trip to the Orem library to watch the Timpanogos Symphony.  The kids generally liked it and were generally well behaved.  My impulsive can't stop talking friend was positioned strategically next to me.  I tried to keep him facing the right direction and at least whispering and then he asked, "Can I go to sleep?"

I said, "Yes."

And it was blissful.

Would it be bad if I just let him sleep every day?  Because he is otherwise talking....

One of the girls wanted to sit by me on the bus.  She told me all about her cousins and her uncle and her church.  It was a lot to listen to and to keep straight but mostly I just needed to smile and nod.  There was no quiz.

I started a new book yesterday, The Lemonade War.  I love that I have a class that likes to be read to again.  They cheer if I say I'll read one more chapter and they groan when I'm done.  Reading to children is my love language.

They have told me all about their holiday plans.  It is clear they are not clear on the details.  We are leaving....Monday?  Next Monday?  This Monday?  Wednesday?  I don't know.  We're going to my grandma's.  Then another student raises their hands.  We're going to visit my auntie in California.  We are going to be gone for 8 days!  Well maybe.  Maybe we're leaving in 8 days?

After a few minutes of travels plans sketched by Picasso, I say we need to move on with the lesson, but maybe they can tell me later.

I'm teaching them the Christmas song that third grade sings for the Christmas Sing.  They love it.  They also love the Mexican Hat Dance.  We have music time every Monday and I love that they enjoy it.

They pretty much delight me.

Weekend

My students are usually obsessed with Mark and I don't know why.  Adam said it is because I tell them stories about Mark, but I don't think I really do.  And I mention all my kids in equal measure, which is not that much.  I don't know.

Friday morning, one of the students who I had seen at Pizza Pie Cafe said to me when I opened the door to them first thing, "I saw you last night.  And Mark."  

I acknowledged the truth of that statement.  When they see me in the wild, they always tell me at school. 

Then she turned to all her classmates and told them individually, not wanting anyone to miss the fact:  I saw Mark.

Hours later, she came up to my desk and asked, "Who was that girl sitting by Mark?"

I said, "That was Emma."

She pointed to my family picture on the wall and asked, "Is she the one next to you?"

"Yes."

Mark is the lead and the rest of us are just extras.

He texted Friday and said that their apartment was without hot water and he was going to go home to shower.  He left his calling card on the kitchen table:

I had said earlier that there would be no new LEGO sets for Christmas because they hadn't finished the one from last year.  (Adam said there would be a new LEGO set and he is usually the one that buys it against my better judgement, but I wanted to try to draw a line in the sand.)

So Mark finished the LEGO set.

(How many of these does one family need?  Asking for a friend....)

It was a nice weekend.  We did all the weekend things.  We tried to watch a movie Friday night and I fell asleep during it.  We successfully watched a movie Saturday night:  An American Pickle which was homework Clarissa had given me.

I took some pictures of the sky:

Autumn is my favorite.

My dad sent me this picture:

He texted it with one comment:  It needs a shorter lightbulb. 

I love it!  My grandma's mixer, brought to life!  My dad is a wizard.

After a few week hiatus, we enjoyed having everyone over for Sunday dinner.  After we ate, we played Scattergories.  Clarissa said, "I've never seen the Davises so competitive."

Maybe Emma and I shouldn't be allowed to play word games in polite company.

Everyone except Clarissa left and we talked about one of her really hard classes at school.  I tried to give suggestions, but I know that even the best suggestions may work for a little while at best.  Teaching is not for the faint of heart!

Grateful Friday

The other night Sue, my RS president and also my friend, came over for a ministering interview.  After we chatted, she said, "Now you painted your cabinets, right?  Can I see them again?"

I said sure and we walked in the kitchen and I was super glad that it was clean.  I said, "I don't want you to think it always looks like this.  Our cleaners came today."

She hugged me and said, "I am so proud of you!"

Later, Adam asked, "Was she proud of you for having cleaners or for admitting your kitchen is not always clean?"

I don't know.  I'll take either.

I am never not grateful to have cleaners.  Besides money spent to...you know...keep us alive, I think paying cleaners every other week is the best thing we can do with our money.  There is nothing quite so lovely as walking into a perfectly clean house after a day at school has kind of beaten me down.

Worth it.

I am grateful for my friends.  Everyone is still pitching in and trying to help with Miriam out sick.  I managed it myself for a few days and I was sort of drowning but I called in the reserves and they arrived!

I'm grateful for our kids.  Braeden called a few nights ago.  He was as cheerful as he always is and he was driving home after helping pack for a move (Elders quorum president reporting for duty) for a few hours.  He didn't have a hint of tiredness or begrudging the use of his time in his voice.  He said, "I've gotta go!  I love you Mom but I just pulled in and I want to see QE before she goes to sleep!" (Except he didn't call her QE.)

I love that boy.

I had dinner with our other two (Adam had to go to the stake center) at Pizza Pie Cafe because it was Bonneville night there.  I try to go every time they have a restaurant night.  

Who am I to cook dinner when I have an excuse not to?

I saw some current students and some former students.  They hugged me and chatted with me.  Today at school they will hardly acknowledge me.  One mom dragged a timid girl up to me who was trying to hide behind her mom.  The mom said, "She wanted to say hi, but she is being shy."

This same girl approached me at school yesterday a handful of times to talk to me and she wasn't shy at all.

Emma and I decided it is like the difference between seeing animals at the zoo or in the wild.  A teacher in her natural habitat....

I am also grateful for Adam.  Braeden learned his willingness to serve from somewhere and it was Adam.  Neither of us has ever had such a busy but invisible calling as Adam has right now and he just does it with zero complaint.

He is inspiring to me. (And he read to me when he got home last night.)