Mark

Sometimes I feel like there is this contest going on as to which of our kids can worry me the most.  (Granted, I have a high capacity for worry, but still.)  They give me a run for my money with just health alone and then when you sprinkle in the other occasional nonsense....

Mark usually wins though.

Especially lately.

It would help and I would worry less if I didn't just love him so very much.  He's sweet to his core and knows any song from the last four decades and can just fix things.

Yesterday one of my students was sporting a brand new necklace that she loved that was "a late Christmas present."  She caught it on something and it self destructed and the clasp broke into pieces.  She was devastated.  It was my second student crying jag of the morning.  I gathered up the pieces in a ziploc bag and told her I would take it home and try to fix it.  I put it back together using needle nose pliers but I was missing a link for the lobster clasp to go into.  I have some little wire rings but they were all too big.  The chain was tiny.  I looked in the garage but we don't really have a stockpile of stuff like that.  My dad does, but in Nevada.  I was rifling through our ultimate junk drawer in the green desk in our kitchen and lamenting, "What am I going to tell her?  I want to fix her necklace!"

I turned around and Mark was seated at the kitchen table.  He'd found a little S shaped wire and using the needle nose pliers and his excellent dexterity, he had fixed the necklace!  I said, "Sometimes you remind me so much of my dad!"

My students are going to relish the fact that Mark fixed the necklace.  They beg me for stories about Mark.  I don't know why he captures their imagination so much.  Yesterday we had a new vocabulary word:  appreciate.  Since I know they love Mark stories, I said, "I appreciate when Mark takes out the garbage," as an example.

I have them draw pictures of our vocabulary words to lock them in their brains.  Two of the boys drew stick figure Mark taking out the garbage with a stick figure me smiling.

I appreciate when Mark fixes unicorn necklaces.  I appreciate that he's my boy.