Happy holidays

I have a collection of Halloween riddles and I wrote one on the board every day in October (every day I was there, so not every day).

How can you tell it's a cemetery?

From all the coffin. (coughin')

Yesterday a student asked me if I had any Thanksgiving jokes.

I said, "I don't know any."

Another student excitedly said, "I know one!"

"OK," I said.  "What is it?"

She said, "What did the turkey say to the cookie?"

"I don't know, what?"

"Wake up!"

It was one of those times when I really had no words.

Yesterday we talked about Veterans Day and I showed them my poppy bracelet that I bought at Normandy.  We talked about the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  We talked about what a veteran is.  Everyone wanted to tell me about the veterans in their lives.  Then they wanted to talk about wars.  "When was the Revolutionary War anyway and why did they cross a river?"

Things like that.

It's nice to have those conversations though.  Veterans matter.

On my way home, I turned on the radio and they were playing Christmas music.  Mark would have had an aneurism if he had been in the car.  Christmas music before Thanksgiving is a high crime to him.

I didn't change the station though.

And I'm not even sorry.  

Covid facts

 People are super curious when you've had it.  So many people have asked me about my symptoms, duration, where do I think I got it?  For months, around here at least, no one knew anyone that had it.  That has changed, but I'm still sort of a novelty.

I'm tired.  On Sunday one of my friends, who's also in the I've Had It Club, asked me if I was tired.  I said yes.  She said she was too and she goes to bed early.  I'm embracing it.  I went to bed in the 8:00 hour last night.

We're in a state of emergency.  Mark has essentially been grounded by the governor.  For at least the next two weeks we can't have casual social interaction with anyone out of our household so Mark can't hang out with even one friend.

We're used to masks.  I have to remind my students to take them off when they go to lunch because I don't want them to get lost (it's happened).  Sometimes I'll be working in my classroom alone and after about an hour, I'll remember, "Oh, I can take this thing off."

Our classrooms are a little chaotic with students quarantining and some online students coming back and some in person students going online.  So far no third graders have actually had it and we are knocking on all the wood!

Masks keep your face warm on recess duty.  We don't have to wear masks for recess but I think we just might.

It's bizarre.  Yesterday I sent my students home.  "See you tomorrow!"  

One girl yelled back over her shoulder, "OK!  Unless I get Covid!"

Curly boys

I'm glad Braeden and Emma came over Sunday because Sunday night our governor mandated that no casual gatherings could happen between households.  (Anna had stayed home because she was feeling sick.  Our kids are conscientious rule followers when it comes to the coronavirus!  We did FaceTime with her a little though.)

Braeden got a table from the garage and set it up in the other room out of an abundance of caution I guess?  I don't know.  I've already had it and Mark and Adam must have immune systems of steel since they didn't also get it.  Braeden said he was the sovereign, sitting at his own table, and he grabbed a blanket to wrap around himself because he has never not loved costumes.

After dinner and after FaceTiming with Anna, we started combing Mark's hair which is incredibly long and every time I tell him to go get a haircut he says it's no shave November, which isn't really applicable if you ask me.

He took his shirt off because this style took water

There really was no end to the fun we could have with his hair.

Then Braeden said, "Comb my hair too!"

And I wondered why they weren't like this when they were little boys and I was combing their hair before church.

Both boys could get a really good flip going with those curls.

What is the point of all this?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Weekend

I have felt encouraged this weekend about the state of things in our country.  I know that we are "deeply divided" as every news article states over and over and over.  I can see that.  At the same time, I can see the way nearly everyone I know who is a Trump supporter (and I know a lot) has graciously moved on.  That is what I love about America.  

The person I wanted to win, did.  I am fairly conservative but I can't stomach Trump.  He's awful.  The people I know and love--my inner circle--made a choice.  Vote for Trump because you can't vote for someone who is in favor of abortion or vote for Biden because you can't vote for someone who is as morally corrupt and divisive as Trump.

I understand both viewpoints.

I'm always wary of people who "can't imagine" who would vote for someone else.  Really?  Because I think I have a pretty average imagination and I can do it.  It takes listening.  Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of off putting vitriol but it is still good to listen.  It takes sitting humbly for a minute and thinking about where someone is coming from and what life experiences would bring them to that point.  

It's possible.

Kamala Harris wouldn't be my first pick ideologically to lead our country, but it does matter to me that we have a woman elected as vice president.  It matters.  I think it matters to me mostly for Emma.  And then I think of my granddaughters.  They will be born into a world where it is a given that women can hold that office.  Even if you have no aspirations to do so yourself, it matters.  I loved this from Kamala Harris Saturday night:

Our weekend was not just about politics though.  We did all the Saturday chores and errands, we watched a movie and ate cheddar cheese so sharp it was crumbly on Biscoff crackers.  We moved the last of the deck furniture.

Last week we had highs in the 70s and my students would come in hot and sweaty from recess.

Sunday we woke up to snow.

It happened abruptly and jarred my thinking that I need to get myself in gear with Christmas plans.  I've done a few preliminary things.  Before I was working, I'd have all my ducks in a row for Christmas in October.  

Now I can't even find all my ducks.

Grateful Friday

I'm grateful for connection.

I'm grateful for the secretaries who stop what they're doing to chat with me when I go in the office.

I'm grateful for fellow teachers who have to share a wacky story and want to hear my wacky story.  (We all have wacky stories.  Every day.)

I'm grateful for a young woman who dropped off cookies and a really kind note thanking me for being her YW president. (So out of the blue and so nice!)

I'm grateful for texts from my kids.  Funny texts, texts asking questions, texts bragging about some random accomplishment.  I love every text.

I'm grateful for a date night with Adam and for my friend Susan who invited us.  It was a dinner theater and we sat at a table with people we'd never met.  They had three children about the same age as ours and we had a nice time getting to know them.

I'm grateful for hugs from my students.

I'm grateful for every time I hear some version of, "Oh!  I get it!"

I'm grateful for the third grader from a different class who came to my class instead of his own to have his shoe tied at the end of recess.  I asked, "Did you know I'm an expert at this?"

He asked, surprised, "No, are you?"

I said, "Yep!"

He grinned and I told him to go to class.

I'm grateful when my blend of pantomime and key words results in my non English speaking student understanding me.

I'm grateful every time my last year's students come find me to introduce their kindergarten brother, to tell me about their recent birthday or to ask me how third grade is going this year.

Don't believe the hype about our divided country.  There is a lot of connection too.

We the people

There is no accounting for where third graders get their information or how it morphs in their minds to be real.  

Yesterday in my reading group, one of the boys said that he'd heard if Trump won, everyone who is brown would have to go back to their country.  Most of the children in the room were brown, including the speaker.  They looked at each other wide eyed, then they looked at me.  One boy held up his hand and said, "But I'm brown."

I said, "That's not going to happen!"

They wanted to know how I knew.

I said, "Because we won't let it."

After school, since students from all three classes had been in my room at the time, the third grade teachers discussed.  I had been so knocked sideways by the fear in their wide brown eyes that I hadn't been too eloquent.  We decided that our united front would be to explain that the government was bigger than one person.  It doesn't matter who the president is, they can't unilaterally make huge changes.

In high school, Mr. Coates, my government teacher, pointed out to us that usually the president was from one party and the majority in Congress was from another.  Sometimes they were from the same party but then voters would change it in the midterms.  

Our government is meant to be messy.  It's meant to be slow.  It's meant to keep any person or group from having too much power.

I choose to believe in that idea.  I choose optimism and hope.  I choose to believe that whatever happens in this unusual election in this upside down year, the majority of the people will peacefully accept the outcome.  There will be disappointment because about half the country feels at odds with the other half politically, but I choose to trust that most of us will get on with life anyway.  

When it comes down to it, red or blue, we are all we've got.

Not about the election

 Because it's all we're going to hear about for a few days and it's all we've BEEN hearing about.

Yesterday Emma texted that a good get to know you question was what you requested to eat for your birthday and why.  She and her roommate had been talking about it.

She said that she realized that she always wanted spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra cheese because we would go to The Old Spaghetti Factory on our way home from picking up Adam from the airport when he would fly home from London.  She said she was always excited to have him home, even though it meant she couldn't stay up reading as late.

(I always went to bed earlier than she and Adam did....I still do.)

She's a scoundrel, but I love her and I loved remembering that time in our life when we'd have a party every time Adam came home from London.