Just Plain Weird

The new school year is definitely underway. Weekly meetings, mini-conferences with interventionists, a new math curriculum to read and figure out, and yeah, the kids. I have 25 this year. It's not a huge number, but it is a little more than "ideal". Nevertheless, it provides ample personality, creativity, ideas, background knowledge, smiles, and brains. We can never get enough of those things in first grade!

All of these nuances and many more are running a sprint around the track inside my mind. And then I remember, I have been hired to do more. Yes, I am to teach, plan, differentiate, manage, inspire, motivate, remediate, encourage, love, and learn. Yet, there's more.

I was hired to be a Mentor Teacher this year in my school. This comes with responsibility and leadership that I have never had before. I sought after and accepted the position to learn to be a leader and to strengthen my own skills by the sharpening of other teachers. One of the aspects of my job is to observe other teachers and help them strengthen their craft. Sounds fairly simple, right? In theory it sounds nice and tidy. However, in practice it can get pretty messy.

Last week I had my first opportunity to briefly observe another teacher. This is a very informal setting where I pop in and pop out, looking for only a few things. Today was another day I chose to pop in on a teacher and observe the environment she has helped create with her new class. I can't describe the feeling I get when I go into these classrooms. I am excited to be there. I want to get to know these other teachers that I have been working with for several years. However, it feels... just plain weird. I feel like I don't belong. Sometimes I might not be welcome? I feel unprepared. Uneasy. Weird.

I don't think the teachers on the other side of the situation realize how I feel. I hope I can learn to be a better leader and help them realize that together we can make it just plain helpful.

"You say Goodbye, I say Hello"

The time has come to say goodbye
...to sleeping in and staying up late
...to reading until noon
...to lounging around the house in pjs
...to wet hair thrown back with a headband
...to afternoons lounging by the pool with a book and a friend
...to whimsical errands and coffee meetings
...to jetsetting off on a trip with friends

The time has come to say hello
...to 25 new sets of eyes and ears
...to hair and makeup at 6am
...to wearing a real bra
...to having a plan and sticking to it
...to going to bed early and not sleeping in
...to new learning, laughing, and love
...to being stretched and stretching others
...to working together and seeing growth
...to being surprised and amazed by the minds of the young
...to a new start.

Possibilities

Every day is fresh. I am so glad that it is. There are days when I wake and feel joy, pain, shame, hope. No matter which, the day is new. clean. ready to be painted with life's possibilities.

Today the idea of newness is even greater. Baby Josiah has come home. L and J have waited many years for this little guy. No, he isn't biologically theirs, but they have given them their heart. love. life.

As he laid on top of me this evening, I couldn't help but think how lucky this little one is. He has birth parents who loved him to nurture him through nine months in the womb. They loved him enough to plan for him. Care for him. Want for him. He has adoptive parents who sought him, pray for him, yearn for him. He has family and friends all over the world who have waited with breath baited for his arrival, traveled across country to welcome him home, and two aunties who get to spoil him rotten daily.

Yes, new is...
...a blessing
...special
...full of possibilities.

May God bless you with all of his wonderful possibilities, little Josiah!

Check!

Before school let out in May, I sat down one afternoon and drafted a list (go figure!) about things I would like to do this summer. Some were more serious and time demanding, and others were purely for kicks and giggles. One of the things on that list was to learn to make piña coladas. I am not really into coconutty drinks, but it is alwasy refreshing, sweet, and really fun with an umbrella straw!

As the summer has gone on I have had to let go of some of the things on my list. Some of them were just pipe dreams- things that I knew probably would never happen- but I had to keep hope alive. For some reason, August 1st was the "end" to my summer- at least in my mind. I had given up hope yesterday that any fun or sun or relaxing could happen after that looming date. I even went in to school today for a work day with a pretty bad attitude. I was grumpy. irritable. heartbroken. I was just beginning to feel like summer was coming alive, only to have it ripped away like a sudden death.

Tonight I was proven wrong! Summer, fun, frivolity, and fruity drinks can happen after August 1st! While L and I were at the store I went ahead and got the supplies needed for our new drink. It was a whim! And I loved every heart beating second of it!

 With a fantastic dinner, we enjoyed my very first piña coladas! So yes, I got to put a "check" mark next to that dream on my summer list.

Scratch

I feel the itch...

The nagging bite of school.
It creeps up my leg.
It demands my acknowledgement.
It wants my attention.

I might be ready.
I should be ready.
I think I'm ready.

I feel the need to scratch.

23

My church has started a series on Psalm 23. Because of my sporadic attendance this summer, I missed the beginning of the series. Even so, the message today held power, beauty, truth. I won't quote it to you. If you know it, then you know it. If you don't, you might look it up.

The basic premise is about wants or desires. Yes, our culture is "want" driven. Tv commericals, bilboards, magazines, radio stations, etc tell us of the newest and greatest thing-a-mabob that we need. I am ultra guilty of feeling that urge to go and spend. Sometimes it consumes me. Controls me. Even deeper than consumable want is the deisre for something more out of life. A marriage. Children. A talent. An experience. I think we can all relate to either type. The tendency to see what someone else has and want it seems natural to me. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be natural.

The pastor encouraged us to combat this feeling of want in a way that I wasn't expecting. Yeah, sure I was counting on the "spend within your means", "don't compare yourself to others", etc. I wasn't calculating the challenge of: be grateful for what you have and be genuinely happy for others when they have something you want.

Even though the summer has been different than I had planned, I am grateful.

• For the chance to visit aging grandparents.
• For long evenings spent chatting with old friends.
• For sunny hours spent lounging in a pool with friends.
• For a home where I feel safe, loved, welcome.
• For far-away friends who are happy to hear my voice when I call.
• For my job- even though the upcoming year frightens me!
• For new babies in the lives of so many near and dear to me.
• For those who truly know me despite my tendency to hide.
• For the chance to stop. be. think. breathe.

"Be thankful more than envious."- T.R.

Words?

The title of the blog here could mean many things. Stuttering. Searching for the right word. Using words incorrectly.
I have never considered myself to be a creative writer. I can write, sure, the occasional letter, thank you card, email, and of course educational paper. I am pretty good at those. But creatively? Nah.
When I sit down to write I wish I had a different voice. I wish my style were more subtle, poised, connected. Instead I feel kind of silly. Forced. Cliche.
I hope its true when others say that imitation is the purest form of flattery, because I try to imitate in my writing. I read. Books. Magazines. Other blogs- and lots of them. I have a few favorites that create mental images so vivid and bold that they make me stop in my reading to go back and linger. Take hold. Study. But even with this apprentice-like studying, I can't seem to take hold of those writing traits. I know why. It's more of a thinking than an actual writing I admire.
All of this leaves me with a question. If my original intent for writing every day of July was to gain some experience writing in a daily fashion in order to relate better to my six and seven year old writers- What do I do with kids who just don't know what or how to write?
I have jotted down ideas in a notebook and never written about them. I have read other people's writing and tried to imitate and gleam from their style, expertise and even subject matter. So, in the upcoming year I am faced with what to do with those reluctant writers. I thought after this experience I would have some great insight to give them from my own writing. Instead, I feel sympathy. I know what it's like to think all day and not have an idea good enough or worthy enough for an audience. I know what it's like to sit staring at a blank page. And I definitely can relate to not wanting to share my writing (even though I don't have a choice in this forum). But every day I did it. I am not sure that I learned something each day. But perhaps the whole is worth more than its parts in this scenario.
What do I tell them? I can relate?Jot down some ideas? Look to others for inspiration and ideas?

I have been telling myself: Just keep writing. Is that enough?