Well

 I feel disappointed this morning.

I am disappointed that the worst of the I-can't-believe-these-are-our-best-options won.

It's not like he's ever hidden his personality from us.  In a deeply divided country that is crying for unity, we've got...him.

Tabor said recently that President Nelson was his president.  Mine too.  Yikes.  Mine too.

Also, the Alpine School District split into three.  PG and Orem are left in the decimated leftovers (and we didn't get to vote on it--if I had some tea I would go throw it in Utah Lake.  Taxation without representation).

Either the quality of education will decline or taxes will increase and that is all.

Yesterday I read from someone in Lehi that they wanted to break away from Orem and Pleasant Grove because those cities wouldn't pass the bond.

And that is completely valid. 

And makes me sad.

I don't know exactly how it will affect me (probably way more than anything else that was voted on last night).  I know that I'm going to walk into a school of stressed out adults for the same reason.  We'll have solidarity in that.

We'll also have solidarity in teaching our little ones.  They deserve our best.

Election day

Well, today is a big day.  We are introducing division in 3rd grade.  They love it (at least at first).  Between cursive and multiplication and division, 3rd grade is like being invited to sit at the big kids' table.

Oh, yes.  It's also Election Day.  I'm probably not the only one with a pit in my stomach.

Last night over gluten free macaroni and cheese (Mark Monday), Mark told me we're going to be fine.  He laid out all the reasons.

I said, "What about the school district decision?"

He said, "The district is the airplane, but you are the pilot."

I guess the takeaway is if you need a pep talk, ask someone with two autoimmune diseases.  He knows something about getting through things.

This morning I was thinking about the pilot thing and the words from the song Jesus Savior Pilot Me came into my head.

Jesus, Savior, pilot me,
Over life's tempestuous sea:
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rocks and treach'rous shoal;
Chart and compass come from Thee–
Jesus, Savior, pilot me!

As a mother stills her child,
Thou canst hush the ocean wild;
Boist'rous waves obey Thy will
When Thou say'st to them, "Be still!"
Wondrous Sov'reign of the sea,
Jesus, Savior, pilot me!

When at last I near the shore,
And the fearful breakers roar
'Twixt me and the peaceful rest–
Then, while leaning on Thy breast,
May I hear Thee say to me,
"Fear not– I will pilot thee!"

That feels better than me being the pilot.

Weekend

On Friday Emma texted me:  Do you want to go shopping tomorrow?

It was as shocking as if one of my boys had texted wondering if I wanted to go to a craft store with them.

The girl hates to shop.

I said yes.  Of course I did.

Also Friday night, Adam and I went on a recliner quest.  I decided to upgrade my arrangement in my office.  Turns out I'm not just a Goldilocks where my bed is concerned, also my chair.  

We got separated in Costco, and I gave him very precise and helpful directions to find me.

Then he texted our children this:

How did he not know where the sharpies usually are?

I love being with Adam.  We came home and watched the Great British Baking Show which is about the best thing that could happen to me on a Friday night.

Saturday I met up with Emma at Walmart in Fort Union.  She needed a vacuum and a file box for choir music.

A guy stopped us to ask where the garbage cans were, including some expletives because he was frustrated about not being able to find them.  I pointed him in the direction of my best guess and I told Emma to get ready because the older she gets, the more people will ask her for help at a store.  I get stopped for questions about which cereal to buy, to identify vegetables and which pineapple to pick.

(I give them my grandma's advice on pineapple picking.)

We found a vacuum and I showed her the file crate that every teacher I know has in spades.

We went to lunch and ordered the exact same thing.  I told her about the berry agua fresca I had added to my Diet Coke with brilliant results at Chipotle the night before.  She told me she had also eaten at Chipotle and we had ordered the exact same thing (except she had put the watermelon limeade in her Diet Coke).  She is very much her dad's girl, but sometimes she's mine.

We went to the Fashion Place mall and she bought a cute dress and cardigan.  

Again, I can't tell you how shocking this was for me:  Emma shopping and not under duress.

We wandered a bit more and then I headed home.

Adam and Mark had gone to Costco to pick up the recliner that was the winner.  They assembled it and set it up and I'm perched in it right now.  

I am a fan.

Sunday morning I changed clocks.  I can't really sleep in anymore so I get no delight in the time falling back like I used to when I was a teenager.

After church-family history-choir practice (I'm no good at it, I go in solidarity to Emma), I got things sorted for Sunday dinner.  I made a gluten free cake and then Mark's pump had gone haywire, his blood sugar was way high and he didn't end up coming.  We enjoyed our time with Emma and our bonus kids and Liberty and Nikki took some food back to Mark which was very kind of them.

This morning I woke up an hour early.  Experience tells me I'll adjust.  

Grateful Friday

 Oh Halloween.  You exhaust me!

My mother was 100% accurate that I did not indeed sit back and relax during the party.  The parents who came to help were wonderful--I've never had such a great crew--but I still felt like I was juggling flaming torches.

By the end of the day, my floor was covered in popcorn (room parents always think the popcorn in a clear glove would be a fun activity--it always makes such a mess!), the students were amped up with excitement or desolate because they'd lost part of their costume or overheated because of their layers.

I let everyone go 5 minutes early.  We all needed it.

What I feel grateful about is my school.  Halloween endears these people to me (they are already endeared to me--it endears them further).

The teachers had a theme of cartoons.

This was in the office and I want it to stay there forever.

Every team was pictured on a different TV along with cereal and milk.

(Sadly the kids have no idea about Saturday morning cartoons.)

My team dressed as characters from It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown:

Here's most of the staff--some weren't there yet, or busy elsewhere.

I love these people and working at this school!

Also, I'm grateful Adam and I have landed on a great life hack.  We went to Costco last night.  It was empty.  There were employees waiting idle at the check stands.  I love being where the people aren't, especially after Halloween at school.

Happy Halloween/Happy Nevada Day (for those who celebrate)

 If I could bottle up the energy at the school the past few days, my mom could stop worrying about me drinking caffeine.

I could drink that instead.

Here's hoping we survive the day (and tomorrow, which will be worse).

It is happy to be around happy and excited children though.  It's contagious and even though Halloween lives at the very bottom of my favorite holiday list, here I am, sort of excited right along with them.

I helped decorate the hall a little after the faculty meeting.  We don't enter into things lightly.

(Speaking of the faculty meeting, I got a shout out--and the gift card that goes along with it--from Maren, who had been testing ML students in the classroom next to mine for the past two weeks.  She said she wanted to give me a shout out because she had eavesdropped on me the whole time and "it was hilarious."  I'm not 100% sure how to feel about that, but hey, I got a gift card.)

Also, besides being beside themselves with excitement, my students have been delighting me.

One was looking for a book recommendation and he had just finished reading Christopher Mouse and loved it.  I showed him the Beverly Cleary shelf and handed him The Mouse and the Motorcycle. I told him a 30 second book review and a huge smile spread on his face and he grabbed the book and went straight to reading it.

Adam gets bonuses at work and I never do, but I felt like I did in that moment.

Here are some other good things:

At the faculty meeting, we were asked to submit names of students who could use some extra holiday love. Being part of a school that cares so much about their students and families makes me happy.

At the end of the day, my students were coloring Halloween pictures and I played Ghost Girl for them which is my very favorite song of Emma's.  They were stunned.  They said things like, "Wait, you know her?!?" and "Is that actually her singing?!?" and, "She made this song up?!?"

They are a very easy crowd (but it's a good song, says her mother).  

Some of them walked over to look at my family picture on the wall, suddenly more interested in Emma.

They make me laugh and often I have to suppress it like when a girl came mournfully to my desk and asked in an injured voice if she could go to the wellness room.  (And the Academy Award goes to....)

I asked her why she wanted to go and she paused and then said, "I can't remember."

I told her to go sit down.

The final thing delighting me is that I got an email from one of my room parents and she said they had the entire Halloween party handled and hopefully I could "just sit back and relax."

Usually the Halloween party feels like juggling flaming torches, so I will take it!

Fear and outrage; us and them

I had a conversation with a friend who shrugged like she didn't care when I said that if the district split, there wouldn't be the educational resources for children in the district that there are now.  She didn't care and I was effectively stunned into silence.

I strive to be informed about the presidential election, but it leaves me feeling depleted and often revolted.

Adam and I were talking about the fear and outrage that is dished out in the media from both the left and the right.  It is discouraging and bears very little resemblance to the country we thought we grew up in.

There's a lot of us versus them and very little we the people.  Most people I know are like me and don't want to align with us or them, but here we are.

So after school yesterday, my team and I cut out pumpkins and hung up Halloween decorations in the hall (I have two former college basketball players for teammates which comes in handy, I must say.)

We talked about ways to make the holiday fun.

We planned lessons and graded the math test we'd given.  

We sent texts and emails to parents.

In short, we did what we could.  We'll keep doing what we can.  It's all any of us can do.

That, and be kind.

I am constantly telling my students, "Just because someone does something wrong, doesn't mean you should do something wrong."

I hope I have the fortitude for the next month.

We survived it

Yesterday was...a day.  I don't even know.

I had traffic duty and then a parent waylaid me in the office to find out about the field trip and then another person stopped me and then my student whose birthday it is wanted to walk and talk with me and all the while I was wading through people to get to my classroom.  

Matt was there when I got there and said, "There are kids outside."

I said, "I'm coming!"

(They aren't going to die if they wait three minutes outside.)

The kids were all keyed up and one student threw a tantrum because of their field trip group.  (Also threw their desk.)

We got everyone sorted and got the lunches sorted and went for the buses and someone forgot her jacket, so I had Miriam watch my class and we went back for it.

It was 9:00 AM and I was already looking for my serenity!

We got to the field trip, at the Butterfly Biosphere at Thanksgiving Point.  They always love it and everyone behaved pretty well.

In with the butterflies, one of my boys said he wanted to leave.  His tone of voice told me that he was terrified.  I took him outside the enclosure and a few more students wanted to go too, so we watched through the window.

Three of them decided after a while to go back, but my little buddy stayed with me and flinched every time a butterfly came close to the window.

We finally got everyone gathered up when it was time to go and we headed to a park.  They had to eat before we let them play.  One of my students had two full-size Hostess cupcakes, a sleeve of powdered donuts and a quart-size bag bulging with candy for lunch.  He had two large sugary drinks to wash it all down.  I had already eaten my sandwich, but I gave him my orange, which he happily took.  (I offered to peel it.  Even still, my children are more inclined to eat an orange if I will peel it.  He wanted me to peel it.)  His lunch explains a whole lot.

It's a new big park in Lehi and it was a lot of fun.  And fraught with injuries.  Kids were crying and limping right and left and it was up to us to parse out who was actually hurt.

One kid had hit his head and was bleeding and an enthusiastic chaperone went to her car and had some  bandages she wanted to stick on his head, which would have stuck in his hair.  I vetoed that.  I had him sit by me for a few minutes and then he was good to go again.

At the end, one of Miriam's students was wailing because she had lost her glasses.  Alissa and I both wear glasses and we sent out students back into the playground to find them.

Miriam stood there nonchalantly waiting for us.

Finally we decided if she didn't care, we wouldn't either.  We gathered everyone up again and the glasses were on the bus all along.

One of my girls wanted to sit by me on the bus, both on the way and on the way back.  We chatted about Halloween and scary movies and her brother (who used to be my student) and her primary program.

She was quiet, looking out the window, as we drove back to the school.  She suddenly turned to me and asked, "How do people who paint His picture know what Jesus looks like?"

I said that was a good question and I think they made their best guess.

She said, "Hmm, OK."

The minute we got back to the school and everyone needed to use the bathroom and get a drink, we were supposed to go to the 1st grade Halloween program.  We hightailed it to the gym for the program and then back to class to celebrate the birthday in the few minutes before school was out.

In our haste, there was a kerfuffle in the line behind me that I didn't see and I had to go to the office after school and identify just who shoved who.  Luckily no one was badly hurt.  

A fifth grade teacher happened to be in the office while I was watching and gasped at them shoving each other to the ground.  I said, "Lucky you!  You'll get them in two years."

She said, "I'll retire by then."

I told her nice try, but she was too young.

When it was all said and done, I just wanted a nap, but we had to plan next week and realign our literacy groups and I had to meet with Matt to go over my observation.

Mondays.  I'm telling you.  I felt dysregulated when I got home, but we had YEN and YEN is fun.  We ate a delicious dinner (it's always delicious) and played a few games that no one really cared too much about winning, but were fun.  We dabbled in political talk, but not too far.  We mentioned our children, but not too much.  We mostly just talked and it was just the antidote I needed for my day.