Three day weekend

Friday we had teacher meetings at Centennial Elementary.  It's one of the fancy new schools in the district.  When we met in one of the classrooms, we had major classroom envy.  They had things like storage and actual walls instead of metal panels.  (I can talk to my neighbor, Nicole, in a regular voice through the not walls.)

I realized the difference aesthetically between those classrooms and ours was the difference between having a wedding reception in a church gym or a beautiful castle.  In a gym, you have to put lots of effort into the decorations for a wedding receptions.  In a castle, you could put some flowers on the tables and be done.  

What really impressed us was the coat room.  How lovely to have a designated and separate space for coats and backpacks!  And what a great place to hide children if there was a shooter.  We all noticed.  And it was on the second floor so you didn't have to worry about shooting through windows.  We're all newly into risk assessment.  It was just that kind of a week.  We shared our revised plans with each other.  I think I could move my bookshelf.  I think I could tip over my table.  The real problem was could we get our door locked soon enough and the windows.  

So America, as long as we can get our doors locked fast enough and our blinds closed (although my blinds are currently broken), don't...worry...about the school children.  We've got...plans.  

We're fine.  It's fine.  Everything's fine.

Saturday I tackled trimming some bushes in our yard.  Trimming bushes is hands down my favorite task in the yard.  I don't know how many hints I need to give that I want an electric hedge trimmer, but I'll let you know.

Probably Adam doesn't want me armed.  I'm an enthusiastic trimmer.

We also went to the Downton Abbey movie which we'd been preparing for for months by rewatching the entire series.  We had done our homework and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There were a few inconsistencies and a few way too convenient turn of events but I didn't mind.

Sunday was a nice and restful day.  We had minimal extra meetings which is always welcome.  We only had Emma for dinner because Mark had to work.  So it was vegetarian, but not gluten free.  Because it is always something.  We played speedcheesi, which is a made up sped up version of Parcheesi.  I won.  I mean, no big deal, but I won.

Monday was cold and rainy.  It didn't stop us from going to cemeteries.  We went to the Murray, Sandy, Crescent and West Jordan cemeteries.  I saw all four sets of great grandparents' graves and a lot of great great grandparents' too.  People took lots of pictures, but I didn't.  

Partway through the day, Emma and Mark went to Ogden to see the graves of some of Adam's family members.  We spent the time hitting the appliance sale at Home Depot.  We reunited for dinner at Mod and then home.

I always love Memorial Day and the connection I feel to my kindred dead.  I am reminded that so many of the blessings I have in life are on the shoulders of those stalwart people.  I don't want to let them down.

Grateful Friday

Yesterday I felt all the feelings.  Mostly grateful though.

A few of my sweet students brought me gifts.  They gave me notes and hugs and told me they were going to miss me.  A few tried to persuade me to be a 4th grade teacher.  Some of my former students came in with their autograph books for me to sign.  One of my most earnest students said to me, "I'm going to keep learning during the summer.  My dad asked me what I want to learn about and I said dinosaurs." I asked him if he had ever been to Vernal and he said he had not.  I told him to tell his dad to take him there for a field trip about dinosaurs. 

We did the "6th grade clap out" and Mr. Dawson led the way and one of the 6th grade boys had tears streaming down his face and I almost lost it.  The last day of school is the most happy/sad day in the world.

At the end of the day, my class was seated with me in a circle on the rug, playing a game.  

Mr. Dawson made an announcement 5 minutes before the bell rang for dismissal.  He told the students how much he had loved being their principal and how much he would miss them.  Partway through his announcement, he said, "Sorry...I'm going to...sneeze."

It was a nice try, but he was clearly crying.  My students all looked at me in slight alarm and there I was with emotions already very near the surface.  I held it together pretty well.  I had to.  3rd graders don't want to see their teacher cry.  That is all.

When the bell rang, a few of them bolted out the door at a dead run.  Most of them lingered around telling me good-bye.  A handful threw their arms around me for big hugs.  

Happy/sad.

I had my "exit interview" with Jami.  He said, "Miss Thelma!  What can I do for you today?" (Every time in the last three years that I interacted with him, he would ask me that.)

I said, "Don't leave."

He told me that he appreciated that I was a good teacher and a good person and a pre-crastinator. (Which was nice of him to say because sometimes pre-crastinators bug people.)

I told him that I appreciated that he was all the things that make him Mr. Dawson.  Our school will sorely miss him as principal!

We gathered for the faculty party.  

It's a big group when you add all the staff to the teacher group.  I am on the back row standing on a chair and our head custodian who is up on all the OSHA things was not too happy about it, but he also doesn't love that I stand on my heavily water damaged and bowed counter to staple things on the wall.  He said, "You stand on a ladder right?  A sturdy one?  With three points of contact?"  

Um...

And I love these people!  And our janky school with water damaged and bowed counters.

I feel so blessed that I get to work where I do.

There were presentations for people who are leaving Bonneville.  There were made up songs and costumes and a drum solo and original poems and lots of goodie bags of favorite treats.

I have said it before:  elementary teachers are their own kind of people.

There were also a lot of tears.  In an act of self awareness, I took a box of Kleenex to the meeting.  And a lot of other teachers did too.  Every table had at least one box.  And we needed them.

As the first grade teachers were paying tribute to one of their team, who is retiring, I thought, "I hope that's never me."

That's an unreasonable thing to think, but I love my job.

Passing the torch

Yesterday I handed out certificates to all the students saying they had progressed from 3rd to 4th grade.  They wanted to know if anyone didn't pass.  No, everyone passes. This isn't the 80s.

A few days ago, teachers hauled all their unwanted items to the cafeteria for a swap.  I took my very popular butterfly chairs.  I'm tired of them.  They are unwieldy and take up a lot of space and cause conflict. 

They were still there the next morning and my students were displeased.  "Why are you selling our chairs?!?"  They really embrace a whole what's yours is mine mentality.  I told them the school year was over anyway.  They were still mad.  One boy asked if he could take them home.  I said, "If they're still there and your mom says you can, go for it."

They asked if they could bring stuffed animals today, the last day of school.  School will be all of 90 minutes.  I said, "It's up to your parents."

They asked if they could wear pajamas.  I said, "It's up to your parents."

I was starting to see a real pattern.

The torch is being passed to me also.  I got an email inviting me to a meeting in August for a 504 plan diabetic review.  There's a third grader next year who has type 1 diabetes and guess who the teacher will be?  (They think I'm an expert because of Mark, but Mark is way more of an expert than I am.)

Yesterday

We had art day in my class yesterday.  My students came in and saw ART was mostly listed on the schedule and they of course freaked out.  What does that mean?  They act like I am withholding information from them and only through interrogation will they get to the bottom of it all.

We studied four artists.  I wrote their names on the board and they told me the two solitary facts they knew about the artists.

Then I had them research and write things they learned on sticky notes.

I loved it!  They learned so much and were excited.

I showed them a little clip of Coco, the part with Frida Kahlo in it.  They all love Coco and they were thrilled.  In the video clip, one of them excitedly said, "She had a pet monkey! I read that!" Another one said, "And a black dog!"

Children excited about new things they've learned is my love language!

We talked about MC Escher too and I taught them how to draw some optical illusions.  I read them Christina Katerina and the Box and Magic Trash and then they created art out of magazine clippings and paper scraps.

I played songs by Lin Manuel Miranda while they worked.

I loved their creativity.

 

We talked about Vincent Van Gogh and I showed them some of his art.

I had a Starry Night coloring sheet and some of them tried to imitate the original and some of them didn't and I think Van Gogh would have been happy either way.  I know I was.

It was an exhausting day.  There were paper scraps, broken crayons and markers all over the floor.  There were missing glue lids and experimentation with centrifugal force.  (They kept swinging the buckets of colored pencils to see if they would fall out.)

Any angst I felt about the day evaporated when I got home and read the news.

In another school, in Texas, it was a very different day.  It probably started about the same.  There were students coming to school with packed lunches and soccer balls.  The teachers likely greeted them with smiles and lesson plans.  There were probably reminders about missing library books.  There may have been unusual end of the school year plans.  There may have been a sixth grade graduation in the works.  

What happened though, was a school shooting.  It is senseless and tragic and heartbreaking.  I cried when I read the news.  When is enough going to finally be enough?  When will thoughts and prayers and fiercely held gun rights give way to doing a better job of protecting innocent people?  I am guessing that legislators who are refusing to budge on gun control are also pro life.  Can protecting the sanctity of life  extend at least into elementary school?

I said goodbye to all 23 of my students yesterday when they walked out the door.  We called, "See you tomorrow!" like we do every day.

That feels like such a luxury now.  

Last week of school

I have this many jackets that no one will claim in my classroom.

I sent an email to parents with the picture and said that if they weren't claimed by the last day of school, I was donating them.

Two parents immediately responded.  Amazing how much more invested you are when you bought the jackets.

We played math games.  I had candy to throw at them when they got Bingo in Multiplication Bingo.  I am terrible at throwing, but no one lost an eye or anything.  They loved Multiplication Bingo (and the candy).

I have more boys than girls, but I still divided them up boys vs. girls for Jeopardy.  I didn't think the boys would mind, but they did.

They whined and whined that there were more girls than boys, so it wasn't fair.  A few minutes later, I said something about the boys' team and one of them said, "We aren't boys, we're men."

Hmph.  Then stop whining, I thought.

The girls ended up winning, but not by too much.  

We made thank you notes for Mr. Dawson and Janelle had a bag and fabric markers and she had the third graders sign the bag.  My hardest behavior child was messing with someone else's thank you note and I told him not to.  So that made him mad and he refused to sign the bag.  Every day he is randomly defiant about things that don't impact me.  I don't know.

A lot of them have saved pennies and they are shocked that I won't bring back the Skittle Machine after they emptied it and tried to break it when I was gone.  They say, "But I have a penny."

Yesterday we had our reading party for students who brought back their reading calendars, reporting they had read at home.  For the past two weeks, I've been reminding them every day that they could have their parents email me or send a note if they lost their calendars.  I emailed the parents saying the same thing.

I had a student tell me he did read every day, he just forgot to ask his mom for a note.

I said, "Then you can't go to the reading party."

Another one said, "I read, just, my dad works, so I don't have the note."

I said, "Then you can't go to the reading party."

They both acted extremely put upon by that turn of events.

Sometimes I look around and feel sad that it is coming to an end.  I love these kids and I will miss them.  Other times the last week of school feels like the plane has landed after a very long flight and you are sitting in the back of the plane.  You just want to get off the plane, but you know you still have a little longer.

Weekend

Friday I was back at school.  I was all geared up with a fabulous lecture for my misbehaving students.  They were so happy to see me and I was so happy to see them, it took some of the wind out of the lecture sails.

I did manage to still give them a piece of my mind.  We talked about how much better life is when you are trusted and how your actions teach people about your character.  I reported that I knew they had been sneaking onto YouTube and I knew who had drained my skittle machine.  I backed off when one of them looked like he was going to cry.

They were pretty much angelic all day.  And it was a good thing, because I was EXHAUSTED.  Covid is no joke, even on the second round.  My symptoms are gone, but I am still so tired.

After school, I took a nap for about an hour and then I went to dinner with everyone except Adam.  I felt terrible leaving him behind, but he told me that me feeling terrible didn't do anything for him.

My heart walking around outside my body, in three parts.

Here's some more of my heart:

Emma draped her shirt over the baby carrier and Miss Baby (as Anna calls her which I think is adorable) slept.

They are such good parents!  I feel proud of Anna as a mother even though I had nothing to do with how spectacular that girl is.  Miss Baby is lucky.

Saturday I went to my classroom to try to put things to right a little more.  Being gone for four days was a lot to dig out from under and I only made a dent on Friday.  While I was there, I placed a FaceTime audio call with our family group so we could coordinate our plans.  Adam answered, then either Braeden or Mark, I couldn't tell which because their voices are the same.  Braeden said it was him, so I asked Adam if Mark was awake yet.  Adam said no and Braeden said, "Wait, I thought you were Mark."

I realized maybe I should have made it a video call.  The three of them sound the same on the phone.

In the afternoon, some of us visited my grandma on her 95th birthday!

Here's the difference between a great great grandma and a regular grandma.  Miss Baby cried when I held her and she was happy with my grandma.  

She recognized experience.

Here's 4/5 of a Five Generation picture (we will have to take one with my mom).

Saturday night our kids got together with their cousins.  We were supposed to be hosting the party, but it was at the Carlson's instead.

But don't worry.  Adam and I had our own pity party that night at home.

It was kind of an exclusive group, because, you know, Covid.  Poor sad us.

Sunday Braeden and Anna went to their old ward in Provo for church and then stopped by to return the van.  They sat in the living room and Adam sat in the entry way with a mask on and was finally able to see them from a distance.  It was not nearly long enough, but I'm glad we got a little more time with them.

Mark and I drove them to Herriman, where they were having Sunday dinner with the Carlsons and then going to the airport.

We are counting down the days until they come again in June!

Grateful Friday

Sometimes these posts are easier to write than others.  

I found out yesterday that we are getting a new principal and I am very sad because we all love our principal.

I'm grateful we had such a great principal during all the crazy Covid times and during the less crazy times too.

Mark tested positive for Covid with a home test too, so it was decided that Braeden and company definitely wouldn't stay with us.

I am also grateful for this:  Braeden told me that he wanted to stay at our house anyway because he has been looking forward to it for so long.  He said, "I thought about what Dad would do though.  He would sacrifice so he could take care of me, so that is what I have to do."  He cares more about his baby than himself.  How is that not wonderful?

Then, Mark got the results from a PCR test and they were negative!  He isn't sick and Adam and I definitely were/have been sick, but ???????

I don't know what's going to happen now.

My classroom seriously self destructed without me.  They emptied my skittle machine and reigned with terror.  

I'm grateful that I'm going back.  I had a pretty fun day planned and now I have a pretty not fun day planned for them.  I am going to tell them that you teach people how to treat you and I am not a slow learner.  I'm grateful I have one last opportunity to try to teach them something.

I'm grateful every week won't be like this week.