Sentimental + slightly harrowing journey

Yesterday we walked to Orem Junior High to watch Seussical Jr. which their theater program was presenting.  It is always a wild time walking there (crossing 8th North!) and keeping an auditorium full of excited elementary students civil in the minutes leading up to the show.  

Then we walk back and they are all thirsty or have to use the bathroom or wonder what time it is.

But Seussical!  It brought back many many happy memories of when this boy was a Wickersham brother:

He was 15!  And having the very time of his life.

Hearing all the songs brought back all the drama mama feels.  It is so exhilarating to watch kids you love (and I loved his friends too) sing and dance their little hearts out.  And I loved seeing the joy on their faces during the curtain call.

There was one girl who attended Bonneville in the show.  She was in Janelle's class, not mine, but I was excited to see her.  The cast greeted us as we filed out of the auditorium and she shyly said, "Hi, Mrs. Davis."

She had played a very sassy sour kangaroo on stage, but she was just a sweet little girl after all, hoping a Bonneville teacher remembered her.

I do!

We got to see Mr. Dawson, our old principal, who is now the principal at Orem Junior High.  One of my boys threw his arms around him.  This is the same boy who asks me multiple times a day for a hug, or just walks up and gives me one.

I had That Student (I'm sure you can imagine) walk at the head of the line with me and I had an intrepid parent volunteer head up the back of the line.  Every 2nd through 6th grader from our school was making the walk and I turned around frequently and counted heads.  At every intersection, I made sure we had everyone before we crossed.  The Orem police helped us cross 8th North which was very kind of them.  

While we were walking back after the show and students were a little whiny and lagging, things got interesting really fast when four police cars, an ambulance and two fire trucks zoomed past, sirens blaring.  They were heading right toward Bonneville and I felt a brief panic because all that was left there were the first graders and kindergartners.  Our principal was even with us!  But when we got closer, it was not our school, but a nearby house which had been run into by a car!

We kept everyone moving and on the sidewalk (it helped that they were hungry + thirsty + needed to use the bathroom).  When the answer to, "Teacher, I need to use the bathroom!" is "The school is the closest bathroom," they are motivated.

We made it back.  Everyone safe and sound.  Well, everyone except the house....

Work vs. outcome

I love listening to the podcast The Next Right Thing on my way home from work.  Emily P. Freeman is the podcaster and she is one of my pretend friends.

The episode I listened to yesterday (from back in March) was an interview with Parker Palmer.  He said something that resonated with me so much I turned off the podcast to think about it the rest of the way home.

(That happens often when I listen to podcasts, mostly the Follow Him podcast.  I've got to stop and think.)

She was asking Parker Palmer, who is an author and speaker and activist about his vocation and what he wanted to be known for. Here is part of his answer:

I think it resonated with me because it is outcome season at school.  All the high stakes tests are happening.  We will be judged as teachers and as a third grade team and as a school and as a district and as a state by how our students do on these tests.

Gulp.

I am not there to guarantee test results though, not really.  I would love it if they do well (and some of them REALLY won't) but what drives me is the connection I have with them.  I love the improvement they make, the growth I can sometimes tell even though it isn't measurable to anyone else.   I love seeing them want to read and help each other. I love that they begged me yesterday to keep reading aloud to them.  I love when I take away their books because they are reading when they should be doing something else.  They are readers!

I love seeing the student who was so paralyzed by anxiety at the beginning of the year that they wouldn't even talk to me has a friend now.  They are inseparable and things are so much better. 

The outcomes come and go.  My attachment to them does not.

One of my boys is the younger brother of a former student who is now in junior high.  He stops by to see me before or after school when he is picking up or dropping off his brothers and I am just so proud of what a handsome and confident kid he is.

They are in my heart.

An even bigger portion of my heart is captivated by my three babies who are fully grown.  Braeden, Emma and Mark.  My work is to be their mother.  I know only too well that if I have hitched my wagon to the star of a particular outcome, I may feel like a failure.

I still want to be their mother though.

Come what may, I'm their mother.

As mother and as teacher, I will focus on what I can do.  I will dedicate myself to the cause.  My dogged trying is the outcome I'm looking for.

It was a Monday

I woke up with a headache (which I resent).  I was about five minutes late for school (which I hate!) but at least Matt was walking in at the same time as I was.

I realized I had before school traffic duty.

My eyes were feeling allergic again, so I looked tearful and felt annoyed by them.

I still had a headache.

We had testing and first the internet wasn't working, then I didn't have a fellow proctor because of a mix up, then my student who doesn't speak any English was supposed to have it in Spanish, but just kidding, it actually needs to be in English.  I had two students absent and testing always feels stressful + a lot to manage.

We're still having intense conversation about next year and it is...intense.  I had a low key confrontation with another teacher and I hate that too.

Everything was out of sorts all day long.

After school we had an opportunity to get a $40 gift card in exchange for completing an hour long survey from a BYU student about our science curriculum.

Almost every teacher did it.

I did not.

I needed an hour to calm the crazy in my classroom way more than I needed $40.

It reminded me of Fried Green Tomatoes, when Kathy Bates character said she was older and had more car insurance.

Same.

Weekend

Friday was the typical situation where Adam and I were tired puddles of exhaustion.  We went to Marley's for dinner and there was a band playing outside and a lot of men in leather jackets milling around the Harley Davidson store that is connected to Marley's.  Adam walked through and looked at some motorcycles.

I can't even list all the reasons that make that a no.

Adam said, "Wasn't it fun in college when you rode behind your friends on their motorcycles?"

I had to admit it was.

Also, such a big no.

We looked at all the shiny objects though and then went home and went to bed like the sensible middle aged people we are.

Saturday was a big chore day.  Adam and I prioritized our list for our house in Nevada and categorized.  We did errands.  We contemplated the future of our deck cushions.  We came up with a curtain solution for a bookshelf in Nevada for when it is fly season.  We get very invested in bizarre projects.

While I did my chores, Adam and Mark tried to wash the robin detritus off the windows.  It wasn't easy and there is still a little remaining.  They used the power washer multiple times and Mark scraped the windows with a dish scraper but it was stubborn. They are thinking some enzyme spray will do the trick.  

We found ourselves at Winco at 9:00 PM, when we finally got around to grocery shopping.  We decided to divide and conquer to make it quicker.  There is a definite stream of traffic at Winco and I went the opposite way to meet Adam in the middle.

It reminded me of when Mark would get kicked out of Smalland at IKEA and I'd have to go upstream to get him.

Yesterday I taught Sunday School.  It makes me nervous every time, but I feel like I am learning a lot.  It is good for me to think about it and talk about it so much.  I immerse myself in the lesson because I don't want to look foolish in front of everyone, but that immersing is blessing my life.

Mark was sick again on Sunday.  He sent me these texts.

It is sobering to think about how vigilant he has to constantly be and to know that sometimes things just go awry despite his best efforts.  

He upgraded to a new sensor yesterday which is awesome because it is way smaller, taking up a fraction of space on him and he said it didn't hurt at all when he attached it.  All of that change and rigamarole messed him up though and he went really high and it made him sick.

Sigh.

I can't even tell you how few nanoseconds it would take me to take that away from him if I could.

Like I told him, God isn't thinking, "Oops...that got away from me."  He knows Mark and what Mark needs. 

This I know.

Marie Louise came over and after a long hiatus we worked on family history together.  It felt so good to be together again.  It's been several years since we worked (she showed me her list that is seven and a half pages long with her tiny handwriting of names of women whose temple work she has completed since we last worked together) and it was amazing to me that some of the names were still familiar to me.  There would be a married couple with record issues we were resolving and I would say, "Oh, that's the one that is related to you. I remember."  They have sunk into my brain.

She insists they're "our" family, not just hers.  She tells me that we're building an army on the other side to help us.  We fantasize about taking a trip to Berkshire together someday where all her family are from in England and we imagine meeting them all in heaven someday.

And she also makes fun of my American pronunciation.  

There's some of that too.

I went to a bishopric training meeting because they wanted the wives and then we had our kiddos over for dinner.

It was a good weekend, but I need a week of school to rest up after it!

Grateful Friday

This has been a busy week for Adam.  I could start every blog post that way, but this one has been extra.

It is a really busy time at work, with him working into the night editing documents.

He has had church responsibilities Tuesday, Wednesday and last night.  

I haven't seen much of the kid.

Last night I was already in bed--which has been the story of the week--when he got home.  He lay down next to me to talk for a few minutes before he got back to work.  It was brief and then he got up wearily to go sit in front of a laptop for hours.

He said off-handedly, "Does my haircut look OK?"  He cuts his own hair now.  

I said, "I think so.  I can see four of you."  My astigmatism is extra exciting at night when I'm tired and not wearing glasses.  I told him I would get a better look later and let him know about his hair.

I said, "I love all four of you."

He said, "We all love you too."

He left, but before I went to sleep, I said another prayer.  I'm grateful for Adam.  I'm grateful that he daily chooses the better part.  He acknowledges his exhaustion, but he never complains about the meetings/trainings/YM activities he has to do.

He just does them.

And I'm grateful to be married to someone like him.

Living the actual dream

Things I love:

blossoms on the trees

the green hills

sunny days

my class

being a teacher

School has been downright fun lately.  We laugh a lot and we read a lot and they tell me jokes and show me magic tricks and I love it.

While lining up for library, one of my students showed me how her book had medals on it.  One was a Newbery Honor.  I explained what Newbery Awards were.  I told her about Miss Hickory which is the wackiest Newbery I've read.

She checked it out at the library.

The secret to getting a kid to read a book is to tell them you dislike it and that is science.

Another student was reading Wild Animal Facts and did you know that narwhals don't have a horn, it is actually a tooth?

I was 51 when I learned that.

I also got hiccups yesterday and my students told me to "search it up on my phone" how to get rid of them.  Search it up on your phone is their answer to everything and anything.

I read that if I pressed my index finger between my upper lip and nose and breathed slowly for 20-30 seconds, my hiccups would go away.

I tried it.

They all tried it along with me.  I said, "You don't have hiccups!"  Solidarity though.

And it worked!  My hiccups went away immediately.

It's a small little life in the walls of an old and very un-fancy classroom, but I wake up every morning happy to go back and that feels like a gift.

A tale of two deliveries

Well, it's a tale of only one delivery.

In January, I got my new temporary driver's license.  They were going to mail the hard copy.

It never came.

I looked into getting it sent again and one place told me to wait three months before contacting them and one place suggested 8 weeks.

Are they attaching it to a carrier pigeon and just sending it in the general direction of Pleasant Grove?!?  Have they decided to live up to the nickname snail mail?  If it's snails you want, it is snails you get.  

I imagine the snail has not made too much progress from the DMV at this point.

It didn't ever come, so Monday I called and after the usual array of phone menus and button pressing, I finally got a person.  She seemed very unconcerned that my license had never arrived.  She said they would send another one.

She said, "And if it doesn't come in 8 weeks, call back.  We will send it again."

How often does it not work?  This staggers my mind.  How unreliable is our mail?

Also on Monday, my little retractable keyring/ID badge holder that I clip onto my waistband broke.  I need it so I got on Amazon and ordered another one.

When I got home from school...it was on my doorstep.