Build-A-Bear

After hours and hours of hard work, raking leaves, my three girls took their cash and spent a combined total of 80 dollars at Build-A-Bear last week. I know it's their money and they earned it, and the whole point is that they can spend it how they want---but 80 dollars on over-priced doll clothes?!! Oh well. I'm sure my book habbit is just as bizarre to them.

I know I've mentioned this about three times in the last year, but just so everyone knows: Easter is really reading now. She is way into this cute little new chapter book called CLEMENTINE. She gets stuck on some words, but she loves the story and I am blown-away by her progress in reading over the last year and a half.

The official adoption date is set for Monday, November 27th. The pirhana lawyer told me yesterday, when I called him, that there were some things missing from our file. I went off on him. Told him how we'd been trying to get this done for over eight months, that I was so frustrated and angry that he's just now telling me this, and on and on a bit. He called back five minutes later and said he "found" the missing stuff. I'm hoping there aren't any more hitches and that everything can be finished and final and forever on Monday.

Early Bird

I have at least two loyal readers, so I'm motivated to blog even more frequently. We'll see how long this lasts.

I wake up around 6:00 a.m. Can't help it. Don't need to. But I can never get back to sleep. I think it's because of coffee and adrenaline. My coffee drinking somehow makes my sleeping schedule very rigid. And I always start to feel some adrenaline pumping through my brain cells after I barely wake up and start mapping out my teaching for the day and start looking forward to working.

I have this very super favorite student right now, a fifth grader named Jessie. He loves math, is pretty good at reading, and is also an amazing athlete. He was the only fourth grader on my little basketball team last year. He also lives in the Road Home shelter, has gang affiliated uncles and proclivities, and is a natural born leader. He's been labeled by our super incompetent, tyrant administrator as "bad". So I've become his number one advocate lately. He's a kid with some problems, but he has so much potential and a really sweet side, and I sometimes feel so angry when we're willing to dismiss kids as hopeless when they're only 10. I made him my assistant in the after school reading program and so he's not getting in trouble after school anymore. He relishes meaningful responsibilities and he's also the editor-in-chief of our classroom newspaper. I keep on getting worried that he's going to move and will miss him a lot when he does.

Later--Not two hours after writing that loving description I was informed that Jessie's family got kicked out of the homeless shelter. He wasn't at school and my heart was falling to pieces, but then it turns out they can move back to the shelter tomorrow (??) and he even showed up to school around 11:00 today--with his homework. What some people, even children, survive everyday, is unimaginable to me. That kid is truly one of my heroes.

Guilt, Passion, and a Meme

Okay--here's a couple things I've come to own recently: I take my teaching profession so serious and I am so passionate about it that I occasionally wonder if it deters from more important responsibilities, like parenting. Take the recent Halloween fiasco, for example. By the end of the day of October 31st, 2006, I was so drained and exhausted from both planning loads of extravagant fun for my class and from fighting futiley against a capricious tyrant on behalf of a couple kids, that I pretty much sank into my bed at 7:30 and skipped out on trick-or-treating with my girls. But here's the thing: Robert is totally not into Halloween, he's even vaguely against the holiday, and I don't see how I can expect myself to work full time, and then come home and have the energy to recreate my own childhood, all by myself, for these children of ours, which isn't even what they necessarily need or even want.

So--I'm just going to lose the guilt already. I love my kids at school, I'm super passionate about teaching well and so I'm going to stop apologizing to myself all the time for my many shortcomings-- for my lack of motherliness and my lack of time and my lack of dedication to my family. I'm doing the best I can for all the kids that I love, my girls included. It's okay to work hard at work and relax more when it comes to my own kids. I make sure they're reading, I check their homework, I cook their dinner (usually), and I try to make sure they feel safe and loved, and that's enough--good enough. No more guilt.

And now for the meme:

What part of the past would you bring back if you possibly could?

The few years I had in college when I took classes because they sounded interesting and was still extremely idealistic and optimistic about the majority of life's problems and possibilities.

What character trait would you alter if you could?

I wish I wasn't so shy. I'm not really shy with kids, even ones I just met, but I'm painfully shy with all adults, even ones I know.

Which skill would you like to have the time and energy to really work on?

I wish I had time to learn how to draw and paint, and I also wish I had time and energy to devote to learning more about photography--in the artistic sense.

Are you money poor, love poor, time poor or freedom poor?

Money poor--but only relative to people of my same age and social class.

What element of your partner's character would you alter if you could?

OCD--I'd eliminate his need to have everything EXTREMELY organized and ordered.

What three things are you going to do next year that you've been meaning to do for ages but never got around to?

Next year? Hmmm, I'm going to compile an annotated list of great picture books, take the girls hiking once, and fix all the sprinklers in our yard.

If your fairy godmother gave you three wishes, what would you wish for?

A small class (22 or less) every year for the rest of my teaching life.

A long list of books recommendations that I will love.

That Kevin and Lisa could live on a planet inside Utah, that's not Utah, but would be only a ten minute drive or less from my house.

What one thing would you change about your living conditions?

I'd xeriscape the backyard and have a well sheltered hot tub built back there.

How could the quality of your free time be improved?

If I had some more friends, especially outside-of-work friends.

What change have you made to your life recently that you'’re most proud of?

I'm putting into actual practice almost every single damn thing I know about teaching well, which is a feat that I don't think many people in the world would really appreciate. But I don't do if for appreciation or recognition--I do it for my students--but I'm still proud of it.