Light

As in, at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe?

Yesterday was a better day.  I had had an abysmal night's sleep because when I live with stress long enough, my body rebels with insomnia.

I'm a lot of fun.

Despite that, the day was OK.  I taped a little card onto each desk for a star chart.  They earn stars, they lose stars, if anyone gets five stars, they get a prize.  I'm super picky at first about crossing out stars and also pretty generous about giving stars because I am training them to be, you know, third graders.

It feels like the uphill battle that it is, but they're getting there.  I don't have anyone who is just irredeemably hard like some years (knock on all the wood).  They are chatty and the ones who don't speak much English are exceptionally chatty because they are bored out of their minds.

I can't imagine going to elementary school in a different language.

Every year about this time, it occurs to me how difficult it is to explain place value to a non native English speaker.  

Jamie got us all lunch carts.  We had these big tubs that the kids would lug to the lunchroom full of home lunches.  Now we have sleek carts.  Jamie asked what I wanted on my cart--other teachers had Mickey Mouse ears or crayons or hot air balloons.

I said, "I want a goat."

Jamie showed me a few so I could pick my favorite.  I picked the one that most looks like Horace.

It's really the little things.

We met Mark for dinner last night before he had institute and Adam had mutual.  It's fun to catch up.  I told them about my day.  I had cemented Mark as most interesting of my children by telling them about the destruction he wrought as a toddler.  We read a story about a destructive baby brother so I told them about Mark and some of them were rolling on the floor laughing.  It is an easy crowd.

So far I love our new ritual of going to dinner with Mark every other week.  

We talked about work and starting school and dating and told each other dumb jokes.  I love that kid!