Grateful Friday

 We are having such a wonderful time!

I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time together.  Talia and Jackson and Kain are these grown up, interesting and fun to talk to people and I have loved watching them interact with our kids.  There has been a lot of laughter and reminiscing and it feels great.  They pulled out photo albums and remembered all the events surrounding the pictures.  They talked about the mints Grandpa Linn had in his car and laughed at each other's hairstyles and poses.  They shared a lot of good times and I am just so grateful for the happy childhood Linn and Geri created for those kids.

I have loved reading to QE.  I love when she takes my hand and wants me to go upstairs and play with her.  She asks, "Want to play, Nana?" and I am powerless to say no.  Sometimes she just says "C'mon Nan" as she casually walks away, confident I will follow her anywhere.

At one point yesterday we were walking upstairs and she said, "I love you, Nana."

That is all I need in the world.

She discovered the glory of Megan's My Little Ponies from the 80s and Megan sat on the floor and combed pony hair with her.  At one point Anna took her to the backyard.  I was washing dishes and Braeden was drying and he sighed the happiest sigh when he looked out the kitchen window and saw his daughter tromping through the wet grass with her rain boots just like he used to do.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious and Geri always does a spectacular job orchestrating it all.

I'm grateful to be part of this family.  For nearly 30 years, they have made me feel welcome.  They've tolerated my quirks and lack of athletic ability and no desire to camp.  They've given me a seat at the table anyway.

Family is a pretty great thing and I'm grateful.

Phew!

It's here!  We are off to Seattle this morning and we are excited.  

Yesterday was quite a day at school.  (They are all quite days it seems.)

The students were very amped up and I had altered expectations for the day.  We did some legitimate work and some Thanksgiving math pages and Thanksgiving writing pages and we made snowflakes for the door.

(I had everyone pick up 30 things off the floor when we were finished.)

I was very ready to send them home when it was time because they were pretty much bouncing off the walls like they do when there is an upcoming break.

They all basically looked like Olaf in the above picture.

We had teacher Turkey Bowling after school.  We set up pins and bowl with frozen turkeys and it's bizarre and fun.  We each got a practice bowl before we actually bowled against someone in the bracket.  I went against Lacey and we both had gutter balls (no gutters, but you get the idea).  We switched places because we'd both veered in opposite directions.

Noemi, the vice principal, said, "C'mon Thelma!  Put some faces on those pins!"

I hit a strike which does not reveal any violent tendencies on my part...I promise.

We laughed a lot and it is ridiculous things like that that make me love working at that school.

Mark came to help me decorate my classroom for Christmas.  Matt had said we could all go home early and he stopped at my classroom and said, "Thelma, I said you could leave a while ago."

I said, "I have stuff to do!"

Mark said quietly to me, "Does he have to stay until you leave?"

No.  That would be crazy.  Because teachers tend to stay late and come early.

Mark hung up snowflakes and set up my Christmas village while I decorated the tree and hung up some other things.

He took a picture of the village.

I'm excited for my students to see it all.

I'm hoping I can keep a certain someone from messing with the Christmas village.  I can already predict it....

Baby it's cold inside

 Back in August when my room was in the 80s, I knew this would happen.  I was talking to my team back then though and we decided we would rather be cold than hot in our classrooms.  Nobody wins with sweaty whiny children. You can always put a jacket on.

Yesterday tested the limits of we-would-rather-be-cold-than-hot.  I would rather be cold than hot to a point and yesterday was past that point!

It hovered between 58-60 degrees all day long and I was cold and cranky.

It's not that I am a complainer or anything...but I did text whiny stoic texts to my siblings and children and Adam.

I wore my coat and eventually my gloves.

The kids were cold too.  There are only so many rounds of head shoulders knees and toes you can do.

The faculty room is always warm.  It's often uncomfortably warm.  I was holding out for lunch time.

Then when I was walking my class to lunch, the hall was cold too.  I saw Matt in a coat.  I said, "Is the whole school cold?"

He said yes.

It was too late or I would have driven home for a space heater.

Finally, about the time the kids were going home, the heat kicked on.  It got up to 67 in my classroom and I was as happy as I could be about it.

I passed Matt in the hall after school and he looked back and said, "Oh, Thelma?  The heat's working."

I told him I knew that and it was why I had my sunny disposition.

I guess it's a good thing to have the heat not working occasionally to make us appreciate it.

Speaking of appreciation, I read one of my favorite picture books, Boxes for Katje to my class yesterday.  Partway through it, a boy said, "This is a really good story!"

Reading to children is my love language and when they like the story, it is my favorite thing ever!

Weekend

I told Adam that we have come full circle.

When Adam was in graduate school and we didn't have much money, our big treat was to go to McDonalds for dinner.  Adam would get a meal and I would get a cheeseburger.  I would share with Braeden, who was a toddler at the time.  We would all share the fries and I would share the drink with Adam.

Friday night Adam and I were not all that hungry and split a kids meal at Iceberg.

Staring down senior citizenship....

Adam was gone for a good part of Saturday with the young men so I decided for the first time to start decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is late and we're going out of town and I decided I would be happy to come home to decorations.  

I have not done the trees (waiting for Emma) and I still have things to move around, but it is mostly done and I'm not sad about that.

I just love red.

Also, I was happy to be home and listen to an audiobook while I hauled boxes and unwrapped treasures.

(I miss my boys in the hauling boxes department.)

In the late afternoon, Adam and I went to Fashion Place Mall, which is such a hopping place.  Malls may be dying, but nobody told Fashion Place Mall.  

We hit the Lego store Insider Weekend along with a lot of other people.  It's not that exclusive of a club!

We stopped at Crate and Barrel for my Stendig calendar.  

I asked Adam if he was going to wrap it in last year's calendar paper (which is my wrapping paper of choice) and he said that the pages weren't big enough.

Church was good on Sunday and then I did family history with Marie Louise, which is always edifying.  I just love her so much.  She told me that she was having a really frustrating time getting names printed so she decided to do three sessions in a row at the temple, just to show Satan that she could.

Don't mess with Marie Louise!

I am 100% convinced that I have an easier time finding names for her because of her tenacity in temple attendance.  We are a team and neither of us could do it alone.

I went to choir practice and we are slowly getting a larger choir, which is nice.

Mark came over and we talked to Emma in Washington and Braeden and Anna and QE in California and we are so happy that later this week, we will all be together.  Mark got a ladder and did the high decorations for me.  I told him he can never move away.  I was reading to QE in the other room and Adam and Mark hung the wall hanging above the fireplace at a 90 degree angle.  I liked it, but Adam told me, "We were prepared to put it the right way if you didn't."

It's almost like they know me and they've done this before.

Extra

Yesterday after school the vice principal came into my classroom where I was meeting with my team and tongue in cheek asked, "Can third grade stop with the fight club?!?"

I wish and also we're trying.

Yesterday was A DAY.  I had a student come to school in tears which is always an auspicious way to start the day.

One girl stuck her tongue out at another and they were both upset.  I talked to them and one had been singing and the other told her to stop because it was annoying, so the singer stuck out her tongue.

We talked about other ways it could have been handled, because I am into futility like that.

My ebullient student who is as adorable as he is naughty, came to school late and sad.  Turns out I like him bouncing off the walls more.  I was trying to help him with math (again me + futility) and I noticed he had tears in his eyes.  I asked, "Are you sad?" He nodded.  I asked him if he wanted to talk about it and he hesitated.  I asked, "Do you want to talk about it in Spanish?"

He did.  I left my class in control of their out of control selves and took him to find someone who spoke Spanish.

I pulled a student out of line on the way to art so that we could have a heart to heart about behavior.  A quick redirection turned into about ten minutes of her airing all of her grievances against everyone else in the class to excuse her being mean.  

During art, another student was flinging paint around so he was invited to go clean tables in the art room during recess. 

During lunch the secretary came and got Miriam and me because of...third grade fight club.  There were 7 kids--mostly mine--who'd been brawling at lunch and they didn't have the sense not to do it in front of the office windows.  

When they were in full scale denial of wrong doing, one of the secretaries said, "We could see you right out the windows."

The students turned around to see what the secretaries' view was and stopped their denials.

One student started rapid fire angry Spanish and a few others joined in and a girl said, "Stop!  In English!  The teachers don't understand!"

Miriam had recess duty so I told them they'd all be with me during recess.  A few of them were accepting and a few of them were sizzling mad about it.

We had the whole conversation (again, we've had it many, many times) about if someone does something to you, you have options besides hit them back.

I had a student unrelated to any of the rest of the drama in complete sobbing tears because she'd hurt her friend's feelings in the morning and had been rebuffed in her apology efforts.  So I pulled the friend aside too and they were both sobbing until I unraveled that.

I had my students who missed recess scattered about the room working.  One of them wondered if they could talk about what happened at lunch.

Absolutely not.  (Do I look like Judge Judy?!?)

I said I knew what happened.  They were hitting each other and that's not OK.

A student got bonked in the head at recess so he was holding an ice pack to his head when they came back in.

It was a whole scene.

The student who cleaned tables in the art room came back and told me that the art teacher had said I would give him candy since he'd done such a great job cleaning tables.

I said, "OK, I'll talk to her about it."

He said, "Oh no, Teacher.  Never mind."

I thought so.

So then I had a parent meeting after school unrelated to all the rest of the day's drama, but with enough drama for daytime television at least.

No days are completely free of travail, but some of them are just PACKED with travail.

Elementary school

There were accusations.  First, I didn't warn them there was going to be a sub and second, there was a sub.

I told them I was sorry and I explained that I had a headache.  They kind of huffed like they were going to let me get by this time, but I'd better not let it happen again.

The sub was a delight, or at least the note left behind was:

 In case you're not as accustomed to wobbly spelling and handwriting like I am, here's the translation:

I apologize as I am sure my penmanship is hurting you to read as a teacher.  It is usually better (slightly) but I foolishly hit the gym too hard and my arms are shaky.

It was so delightful to me, I texted it to my family and Emma summed up how we were all feeling: 

One of my students had something "very big" to share.  He first had everyone raise their hand if they are a BYU fan.  (Third graders love to have everyone raise their hand if...)

After he had found out who was a BYU fan, he proceeded with his story.  His parents are British and I love the way he peppers his stories with little British phrases.  He said they thought they were going one place for dinner for his brother's dinner, but his parents "were being cheeky" and it ended up they went and met the BYU football team.  He was so excited telling them all about it.

One boy raised his hand and asked, "Was Michael Jordan there?"

"No!"

"He's dead," someone said.

"No I think just retired," another one said.

"Plus he played basketball."

"Wait, were the Lakers there?" still another kid wanted to know.

"That's basketball!"

The poor story teller had a look on his face that reflected how I feel 75% of the day.

***

I had assigned them an online math assignment when I was gone and seven of them had done it.

"The sub didn't tell us!" the rest of them said.

"He only told these seven?" I asked.

That gave them pause.

I made the rest of them do the assignment.

***

Walking down the hall, I saw two 2nd grade girls, deeply engrossed in conversation and one of them said, "I have a loose tooth and I am so stressed out about it.  I mean, it could come out at any minute!"

I rounded the corner and another kid was oblivious to the world around him and singing for all he was worth.

There is always something exciting happening at an elementary school.

Migraine day

 I get way fewer migraines and headaches in general than I used to.  The difference is that I no longer feel the need to be a hero.

I stayed home from school yesterday.  

I wrote wonky sub plans in the 3:00 AM hour and then slept for a few more hours.  I mostly felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

Contributing to my migraine was a super stressful and somewhat confrontational Monday.  There are strong personalities in those after school meetings and sometimes I'm one of them.  We all want the best for our collective students and we don't all have the same opinions, but we need to work together.

I stopped by Walmart on my way home for 4 things.  It took me 45 minutes.  I don't go to Walmart all that often so I don't know the lay of the land and I was looking for pretty specific things. I searched high and low.  Imagine me studying the boxes of lightbulbs for the correct kelvin number, because Adam told me that was key, while trying not to get run down by the blue vested guys pushing enormous carts and filling pick up orders.

It was a whole scene.

After that I sat in the Walgreens pharmacy window line for an interminable amount of time.  Emma called and said, "Would it cheer you up if I told you I bought you a Christmas present today?"

I said yes.

She said, "How about if I told you that I bought you a second present because I found something you would love on my way out of the store?"

Emma is a giver of good gifts and highly generous.  We're lucky to have her.

Adam and I had dinner with Mark (Mark Monday) and my head hurt a lot and I wanted to lay it down on the table, but the table looked kind of dirty.  Mark kept looking over at me and patting my shoulder.

We went home and Adam rubbed my back, which is heroic of him.  I slept for awhile, but then I spent several hours of quality time feeling like I might die.

Who has more fun than me?

I spent the day resting and napping and being mildly productive (if you count working on my Christmas list while sitting in a recliner productive).  We had tickets to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever but Adam ended up having church commitments and Emma ended up forgetting all about it.  Mark and I went along with Lili and her boyfriend Josh.  Adam bullied me into eating some toast before I went.  I still didn't feel great, but I loved the movie.

"Hey, unto us a Child is born!"