Quill

The other night, we were playing Scrabble. LD tried his hand at the word “quill”, but he spelled it “quil.”

Me: That’s not how you spell it.

LD: Yes, it is.

Me: No, it isn’t.

LD: Yes, it is.

Me: Dude. No. You need two L’s.

LD: What?

Me (exasperated): In a one syllable word, with a short vowel sound and one consonant sound after the vowel, you double the letters f,l,s, and z. It is the first concept I teach first graders.

LD looks at the rest of the family: I feel like the expectations on six years olds is too high.

***

Time has passed. Events have transpired. I have failed to keep you abreast.

Let’s get to it.

First Grade.

One afternoon, I was getting ready to head off to a meeting.

Me: When you get back from STEM class, I won’t be there. You will have a guest teacher, but I will be back before you pack up to go home.

Class: Why?

Me: I have a meeting.

Student: Boy, Mrs. Mal. I sure hope you aren’t about to get fired!

***

In my last post, I spoke of a student named “Sally.”

Oh, Sally.

Sally, Sally, Sally.

One day, Sally ran up to me.

“Mrs Mal! Is there a baby in your tummy?”

Me: No.

Sally grabs my lanyard with my school photo on it.

“WHOA! Mrs. Mal. Was this picture taken when you were a LOT younger?”

Me: Please sit down.

Teaching Sally, or rather, attempting to teach Sally, has been an exhausting battle. This girl is stubborn and often refuses to try. We have daily showdowns where I have to sit and wait her out in order to get her to sound out the word “tub.”

One week, we were working on the same decodable reader during my intervention time with her.

Same book. Everyday.

SAME. BOOK.

EVERY. DAY.

The first line in the book read, “Tad had a fat cat.”

Sally is 100% capable of reading every word in that sentence. Yet, everyday, Reader, this is what would happen:

Me: Listen to me. You will not guess. You will not pretend read. You will sound out each sound and do your best. Ok?

Sally: Ok.

Me: Ok. Go ahead.

And every time, she would swipe her finger across the page at lightning speed, not even look at the words, and say (not read, say):

“The cat is fat.”

I am happy to report that she is kind of, sort of, moving along. She is now reading words with digraphs and blends, if that means anything to you, but only if I bribe her with fruit snacks when she doesn’t guess.

I went to college for this.

Math has been the same story, but after Christmas break, a new Sally has appeared for math class. She hasn’t appeared yet in reading class, but I remain hopeful.

Our whole class is used to her answers and the kids are patient with her, even though her answers are oft in left field.

But reader. Listen to this.

Me: Ok, next problem. John has 11 marbles. He gives SOME to Ben. Now he has 9 left how many did he give to Ben?

Sally’s hand shoots in the air. And I call on her. And this is what she said.

“Two.”

We were, as a class, collectively in awe. One girl’s mouth dropped wide open and she looked at her and said,

“Wow. Good job, Sally.”

So that is that. I love her and I hope the best for her and I will need a lot of patience and fruit snacks to help this little learner get to second grade.

***

Before Christmas, the kids wrote these funny little writing pages where they could say what they thought their teacher would like for Christmas. Here are two of them:

I think my teacher wants a curling iron and clips for Christmas because she will be dazzling and pretty.

I mean. Come on.

Next one-

I think my teacher wants a cowhat for Christmas because I think you will like this cowhat cuz you love cow so much.

When that girl walked into class after Christmas break, she said,

“Mrs. Mal! Did you get the hat?”

Me: What?

Student: Did Santa bring you the hat? The cowhat? Did you get it?

Precious.

I did not get a cowhat. Sadly.

***

Let’s leave the fabulous world of first grade and try to update you on all things family.

The boys are huge and eating us out of house and home and also HD drives a newer car than me and they are both playing basketball.

Proof:

HD is on the left, LD on the right. LD is the youngest, yet largest of the family.

Every game, HD’s glasses go flying. Sometimes they recover well, sometimes he runs to the coach with them and he tries to pop the lenses back in. I keep trying to get him to pay Bob a visit but he is always too busy.

HD is a very fun player to watch. They don’t have a deep bench and he plays the entire game and never seems to tire and he has lots of fancy moves that he got from me.

Recently after a pretty big win, that they were not expected to win, there was a little write up in the paper about the game. HD had scored 14 of his 24 points in the 4th quarter and it was insane how their team came back and won. The coach from the other team was quoted in the paper commenting on how well HD “took the ball to the hole.”

We were all very proud of him, and rightfully so, but I did use it to my advantage from time to time.

Me: I need you to do the dishes.

HD:

Me:

HD:

Me: If you can do a good job getting the ball to the hole, you can do a good job getting your plate to the dishwasher.

LD is trying to figure out how to live inside of his new, large body. He is doing well getting up over the crowd down by the basket and getting the rebounds and such.

One game, he did what is known as a “stuff.” It was legal and great and awesome, but then he did some sort of muscle man move so he got a technical foul.

*sigh*

After the game, I was walking out near him and he came across the player from the other team who he had “stuffed.”

LD: Hey, man, I am sorry about that, I didn’t mean it to be-

Other Player: Oh, no bro. No worries. That was an awesome stuff! I would have done the same thing.

LD: I think we play you again sometime?

Other Player: Yeah. In a couple of weeks. See ya then!

LD: See ya!

So that was something.

The next time he performed a successful stuff (not to that same team), he stood stick straight as a statue and tried hard to not show any emotion or pride whatsoever. And, thankfully, no technical foul was called.

***

We got to have Hadley back for quite awhile during the Christmas break, which is nice and lovely and pleasant. On Christmas morning, she and HD decided to do some target practice. So, the two of them go on the back deck and do just that while I am inside trying to prepare the Christmas foods and calm Norman the dog down who feels we are under attack from rapid gunfire.

The door opens and in come Hadley and HD. Hadley is bleeding profusely. There is blood from her forehead down to her chin and when she was talking it was all in her teeth. I rush her to the bathroom and I am trying to wipe blood and figure out where her wound is. While I am doing this, she facetimes her bff, Lily. So, I am wiping blood and Lily was at a family event and the whole room is watching what is going on and I don’t understand why she needed to facetime at that moment.

Turns out when she shot the gun, there was kickback and the scope wacked her in the head.

HD runs in the bathroom.

“HADLEY! Good news! You HIT THE TARGET!”

So, we took her to the urgent care on Christmas day and the doc decided to dermabond it. That will be important later.

Anyways. She looked like she had a worm stuck to her head.

See?

After a couple of days, she managed to wack her head on her steering wheel doing a dramatic reenactment of her feelings about a boy saying she looked like she had a worm on her head to Lily, causing blood and yellow pus to ooze out of the dermabond.

I took her back to the urgent care and a new doctor saw her. And new doctor was like, “Well did you tell the other doctor you did not want a noticeable scar?” And we were like, “Why, yes, we did.” And new doctor was like, “Well then she should not have used dermabond, she should have stitched it, but it is too late to do anything about now.”

?

So, that antagonized me.

Kate, Caleb and Nokona the puppy came for a bit after Christmas and were here for Kate’s, and you better sit down for this-

TWENTY FIRST BIRTHDAY.

I mean.

How?

Anyways. Here she is with a beautiful cake my nieces made her. Same gals who made her wedding cake.

Now, that’s talent.

On her actual birthday, we went to dinner as a family. Hadley was still sporting a worm on her head. As pretty young adults do.

Kate and Caleb brought Nokona the puppy with them, and she had a grand time playing farm dog with Charlie, Niko, and Norman.

She also looks a lot like Niko and Norman. Almost like she was the missing third piece of a set.

She was pretty much living her best life on the farm.

***

HD has a girlfriend-have I told you this? Since May. She is great! We all love her!

They went to their first dance a couple of weeks ago.

Doesn’t she have the best smile? She needs to teach him how to smile.

***

Rio is totally obsessed with me. This is what she does every time I try to read.

She commands attention.

I have not seen Mama Kitty or Norma Jean Riley for quite some time.

I fear the worst.

***

Hadley’s worm glob fell off. I think she will heal fine.

***

Well, that is that for now. I will leave you with one cow picture and two pictures of my baby puppies from our walks. Because I choose to believe you would like to view those pictures.

Happy Monday!