Total Rip Off

This is Rio the Kitty, every morning, when I am trying to drink coffee.

She makes it quite difficult.

So much has been going on, although not much of it very entertaining.

Teacher life is exhausting.  Mostly because I just plowed on through “Halloween Week.”  And Halloween in an elementary school is not for the faint of heart, my friends.

First off, I had to dress up, yet again, and I double hate dressing up for Halloween.

But I double love my teaching team.

We are all book characters from our favorite author, Mo Willems, if you must know.  And you must also know that I am surely not creative.  I bought a bunch of felt and foolishly tried to create my own pigeon shirt.  And I bought a shirt online but got confused on the size chart.

I think I will wear it to bed.  It looks super appropriate for a 40 year old person’s pajamas, yes?

And then I was cranky and I showed up to school in a mediocore Pigeon costume and it was fine and I did it FOR THE CHILDREN.

Speaking of the children.  They were exhausting this week. Because, Halloween. And they were hard on my heart.  CPS reports had to be made on behalf of one of my kiddos, and that caused me worry and angst.  I had to make phone calls to parents regarding academic concerns and I got hung up on.  And I give getting hung up on two thumbs down. It was just all around a tough week.

But we made parachutes in science, so that was fun.

And the whole community is up in arms, and just in case you wanted to hear it from someone who is working in a school, No, we are not teaching Critical Race Theory, and No, Social Emotional Learning is not something to take the place of parents teaching important values to their children, and yes, Social Emotional Learning is a good thing.  I promise.  And I am not crazy.  I don’t think.

So.  Those are the things going on in my world and it feels disheartening.

Let’s move on.

Hadley’s senior pictures were taken, if you can believe such a thing.

We have not seen them yet, but I am looking forward to them.

HD was recently diagnosed with Vitiligo on his face.  It has been a weird couple of months trying to figure out what was happening with his skin.  He feels a bit bummed about it and we are trying to attack it with a treament plan from a dermatologist.

The puppy brothers chewed the arm of his glasses, but we haven’t had time to show our faces to Bob and let him know that for a third time, a dog has eaten the glasses.  They are still wearable.  So poor HD gets to tackle freshman year with Vitiligo, braces, and chewed glasses.  #killingit.

We have sponsored a Compassion child for maybe 11-12 years?  We write back and forth frequently, but it takes quite a while for a letter to get to and from.  She recently shared with us that she had gotten pregnant and the circumstances around it were very questionable.  Honestly, I am pretty sure it was a rape.  So, that has been distressing, but we reached out to Compassion and they have opened an investigation.  She had her baby and her mom takes care of him and she is trying to go to school to be a lawyer.  She shared that she was in need of milk and diapers and I do not know when she will get it, but we were able to send her cash through Compassion.  So that little gal is also weighing on my heart.

There are lots of things weighing on my heart, apparently.  Let us try to lighten things up.

Hadley and her boyfriend bought me surprise kitchen towels just because and for no reason at all.

When I texted him thank you, her boyfriend replied:

“We knew you would love it.”

Isn’t that nice?

I have also decided to take up crocheting.  I made a potholder once in seventh grade, so I am sure I will pick it up real easy.  I have gotten as far as purchasing yarn and a couple crochet hooks and I brought them in from the car and they are in a bag in my house.

I have high hopes.  My teaching team-

Remember them?

We have decided to try and take up crocheting in the evenings to soothe the teaching stress.  I don’t think any of us have actually done it yet, but let the records show, we are contemplating it.

David thinks that me starting up crocheting is super weird.

Just wait until he sees my new pajamas.

This week, I was reading a book called “The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything.”

Me:  Class, look at this picture!  She totally looks scared in this picture!

Class:  Yes!  Yes, she does!

Me:  Well, I thought she was “The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of ANYTHING!”

Student:  Well, that is a TOTAL rip off!

Happy Saturday.