Snug and Cozy

You know what’s weird?

I’ll tell you.

The girls used to always fight over the front seat when they were in their pre-driving days. But the boys never, ever do. HD prefers the backseat and LD is always in the front.

And no one ever rants about the injustice of it all.

I take the boys to school most mornings. When we get into the car, I ask LD to set up my phone by charging it, connecting to Bluetooth, and starting my playlist on Amazon music.

My playlist is called Taylor’s Tunes. It is aptly named.

He does this for me each day. Nice boy. And my fun playlist starts playing, and the boys quickly put in their airpods to tune out my music.

LD: Mom. Please, PLEASE, please tell me “Taylor’s Tunes” is not public.

Me: Say what?

And then he popped his earbuds/airbuds/airpods in and tuned me out while I rocked it to Taylor’s Tunes, and is my playlist public? And if it was, would the world end?

My morning drive is loathesome. It takes like an hour and 10-15 minutes for me to leave, get boys to school, and then get to my school. And then when the roads are bad?

Oh, the humanity.

But I digress.

We are back to school, back in action. Monday was a humdinger because it started with an early meeting and my loathesome commute. However, when I saw my desk, it was filled with little gifts, Christmas cards, and notes from students who had brought me gifts while I was out the last few days due to surgery.

Please take a moment to read this precious letter from a student:

It brought joy to my heart.

“And I also hope you were snug and cozy in your bed and after you got surgery you weren’t hurting.”

The ear is doing well, but is still quite sensitive to loud noises, especially if I, myself, am the one speaking loudly. So, during the day, I usually have a cotton ball in my ear to muffle the sound.

Because, SOME times, I have to use a “teacher voice.”

And the other day, a second grader came up to me and said:

“Oh, Cool, Mrs. M! You have an airpod in your ear!”

And I think that if she reports at home that teachers at school walk around with airpods in their ears, Imma gonna have some explaining to do.

Airpod? Earbud? Airbud?

Let’s move on.

My best girl, Matilda, went and had herself a baby on Monday.

Matilda is, in fact, a cow.

The cow did not have Matilda’s beauty, but I am always willing to overlook such things and cherish the little beings for who they are.

On Monday, we went back to school and then had basketball games into the wee hours of the night. When we got home, David went to check on the cows and came back to gave the grim news:

Matilda’s calf was not well.

Reader. It was after 10pm and we were so tired. But, what can you do? David went out to retrieve the calf, all while fighting poor Matilda off, and I found old blankets and towels to lay down by the woodstove.

We brought the calf in by the fire. We did everything we could think of to help him, but about an hour later, he died right in our arms.

I might need to be done with this. The sadness is just too much. And then Matilda is walking around mooing for her baby, and it is probably just because she has an udder full of milk, but my feelers get all sad because I am certain she is missing her baby.

Was I meant to live this life?

No.

But I will probably remember this night. Because Hadley and the boys were home, and we were all a part of it, all working to try and help. And that was something.

Let’s move on and talk about the fabulous first grade.

Well. Today was fun!

As I may or may not have eluded to in the past, I have a tricky class this year. We are definitely making progress-and I love them with my whole entire being-but, somedays can be tricky.

Me: D, I need you to look at the book when we read it.

D: Oh, ok.

We read. He’s not looking. He is rubbing all around in his hair. And, Reader. You might THINK it would make total sense to firsties that in order to read, ONE MUST ACTUALLY LOOK AND TRY. But this is sadly not reality.

D: Oh! Look! I just pulled a bug out of my hair!

D is one of my special friends who literally has to sit next to me ALL day. Needless to say, my head has itched all day.

I tried to keep this whole situation as discreet as possible. I wrote a private note and sent him to the office with it and the other students were none the wiser.

But, then, Reader! But, then!

He was back in class within ten minutes. With a note that just read, “returning to class.”

And there he was.

Now, Reader. The policy on headlice has changed 4.2 billion times in my lifetime. And that seems excessive, seeing as how I am 41 years old. So, I don’t know what to do.

But here’s what I do know: I don’t know.

So. D came back to class. And I kid you not, a couple hours later, he told me about another bug he pulled out of his hair, and oh mylanta, what’s a girl to do?

Another student was acting ALL SORTS of out of sorts. And every time I asked him to do ANY SIMPLE THING, he would look at me and shout

“I NOT TAKE MY PILL TODAY.’

So, that situation? Also fun.

But what was more fun? WIld boy or bug boy?

You be the judge.

Anyways. I was feeling all discouraged today, and then a student wrote “GIRLS SUCK” on a testing folder and I just accepted that at that moment, my life was mimicking, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

But don’t feel TOO badly for me, Reader.

Nay.

I gave them a math quiz right before they went to art class. And, Reader. At the beginning of the year, ONE STUDENT was scoring at grade level for math. Needless to say, we have been hitting math pretty hard.

Well.

We have been practing and working and thinking and asking to go to the bathroom and working and asking for a drink of water and working and thinking and have been worried about why Sally is doing this and Johnny is doing that, and I am happy to report that through it all: ALL students, minus one, scored at grade level for our recent test.

So I shall have this day for rejoicing.

Because, Reader.

I taught the snot out of that lesson. Them kids knew what math.

In fact. I bet you that the lice who may or may not be living on top of D’s head ALSO could have passed that math lesson.

Happy Thursday.