Contentedness

This afternoon we had Steve and Sabrina and AJ over to grill some good food (chicken and zucchini and squash) and have the kids play in the wading pool and in the sprinklers.  As I watched my husband grilling chicken, and my beautiful daughter playing in the yard with her equally handsome friend, as I watched AJ run and squeal and laugh and Natalie giggle and tease, I realized … my life is pretty great.  And it was peaceful.  God is good.  All the time.  I know that troubles may be ahead, but for now I am grateful for my husband and my daughter, my home and my church, my friends, and the contentedness and gratitude that lies in my heart.  It might get better than this, but right now, I don’t really care.  This … all of this … is pretty good.

My special helper – an interlude in life

Natalie is my special helper.  Ever since she could crawl she’d “help” me move things around.  Now, she hands me groceries as we unpack from our shopping trip, or takes things and throws them away for me, she’s even started to help me cook.  Last weekend after I had chopped up some potatoes to make mashed potatoes, she put them in the pot.  I premeausred salt and pepper and she put them in for me.  Later I gave her a cup with milk and she poured it in.  This all sounds great, but the reality of it is that she doesn’t think of it as helping.  At least I don’t think she does.  I think she thinks of it as “doing it all by myself.”  Or “following instructions.”  This morning she’s trying to feed herself breakfast.  I made her some oatmeal with maple & brown sugar, and cut up strawberries (fresh from our strawberry picking field trip yesterday) and mixed them in.  And she’s making a mess.  A huge mess.  She’s just learning to eat from a spoon and she’s pretty good at it, but sometimes it gets frustrating and she starts to use her hands instead.  Like I said, a huge mess.  The thing is, she’s refusing to let me help her.  I got a second spoon and was starting to help feed her and she pushed me away.  So the best I can do for the moment is let her eat, and get out the firehose for later.  But she thinks she’s doing it “all by herself” so that makes it fun.

A little about a boy

Tomorrow marks my last “teaching” day for this school year.  Our last day of school is the 29th but after tomorrow, we have a lot of special activities and very little schoolwork type things left to do.  One of my students’ last day is tomorrow.  His family happens to be going on a trip this last week of school and he won’t be returning after he leaves tomorrow afternoon.  At 3 p.m. his summer will begin and I will watch him run up the sidewalk and go home, to get ready to leave on Saturday.

He’s a changed boy.  It’s imperceptible to anyone who doesn’t know him well.  As a boy who suffered (and I mean really suffered) in early childhood he boasts a hard outer shell, one he keeps with his big brown eyes and winning smile, and it’s hard to break into that shell to see the inside.  I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder to win a child’s trust and love and loyalty.  But when he runs up that sidewalk tomorrow, climbs in that car, and drives away, I know in my heart he’ll return in the fall … but he won’t have forgotten me.  And I know that because I have seen how he’s changed.

One Day More

Apparently I have not blogged for quite some time.  I have been, though, rather busy.

Since the last time I blogged I have performed in 5 performances of Les Miserables at school (pit orchestra – I am not an actress!), prepared and taken a team of 3-8 graders (actually, the middle school math teacher prepared the middle school kids) to the Math Olympics where we brought home 22 of 60 awards (4 schools competed), and then gotten caught up in the middle of all of the regular end-of-the-school year things.  This coming week I have the elementary spring music concert Tuesday followed by the performance being done by the high school theatre arts class on Thursday (I’m helping with technical design and direction).  And of course on top of all this is the normal everyday life of just putting one foot in front of the other and making things go.

I am, unashamedly, looking forward to the end of this school year.  I love my job and I love my kids, but the kids know the year is almost over, the kids are anticipating summer, and as well behaved as most of them are, it’s hard to keep their attention.  I find myself playing more games and giving more breaks than I would in say October or February, just to keep their interest.  It’s exhausting.  Especially since I’m not that creative!  I can also tell that all of us adults involved at the school – teachers, administrators, parents – are all getting a little weary.  We’re pushing for the end of the year and it’s taking more energy than usual.

I miss running.  I have been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to run much.  I run about 20 minutes, 3 times a week.  And do that, I have to drag myself out of bed early in the morning.  In fact, the first time it was so dark outside that I totally let my imagination run wild and imagine all things dark and creepy, and scared myself out of running at all.  But it will get better in about 2 weeks – my running shoes are getting dusty sitting in the corner!

Natalie cracks me up.  She’s just starting to use real words (as opposed to everything being “GAH!”) and sometimes she’ll mix them up.  She knows shoe, blanket, out, more, and about one out of ten times, she’ll manage something that sounds a little bit like thank you.  Even more exciting, she’s all into using the potty.  Actually, I take that back.  She’s not that into using it – although she gets really excited when she does use it.  She’s more into the idea of using it.  She likes to put her potty seat adapter on the toilet and climb up and sit on it.  She likes to nod her head when we ask her if she needs to go.  She likes to pull toilet paper from the roll.  As far as actually using the potty?  It’s about a 50-50 chance whether something will actually happen.

The last day of school is May 29.  We have 13 1/2 days of school left.  Not that I’m counting.