I am a kindergarten teacher. I have the unique privilege of teaching children who WANT to go to school. Children who look downcast when you tell them Saturday is a day off and that after Saturday is Sunday-another day away from school. Children who share that what makes them happy is ‘going to school’. Children …
As a mom, I feel pressure to capture and preserve every waking moment of my four children’s lives. To photograph, video-tape, blog, anecdote; to keep a baby calendar, baby-record book, family scrapbook, and personal diary; to Facebook, Pinterest, Tweet and Instagram for the love of my children; and to do things the old-fashioned way: write …
We are T-minus zero to bedtime. I am so ready for this. Then one of the rug-rats hollers from the T.V. room, “Daddy promised we could have a game of ‘Hide-and-Go-Seek.’ In the dark. He promised!” He promised, did he? Was his head connected to the rest of his body when these shady deals were …
Who I am is enough. For now. And I say this first and foremost. The rest will follow as it may. I am under the table wiping up crumbs. While I clean, I talk to Husband, who is wiping counters. I talk about my troubles with Daughter Number One. She has been extraordinarily moody of …
If you want pure, unadulterated honesty- the kind of honesty that will bring you to your knees or send you into fits of laughter, step inside a Kindergarten classroom. The concept was invented for four and five-year olds. I had a student once who shared with me what her mother wore to bed at night. …
How to teach appreciation? I am at a loss, by times… Second-Youngest Daughter came home from school today and mentioned, in an off-hand way, that she had shared her lunch with one of the boys in her Grade 3 class who had only had a bag of Cheesies stashed away inside his lunchbag. When Husband …
I love a rainy day. Those days spent inside four sturdy walls, cozily tucked away from the demands of the outside world- contentedly busy with life within. And when life within is peaceful, there is no place I’d rather be. Than here. Home. I have thought a lot lately about joy and purpose and living …
There are moments upon moments when I feel pulled in ten different directions and the elastic band that holds my soul, snaps. And when that happens, I just have to laugh at myself. Soul exposed. Transparency at its very best. Or worst. I am making beds. At 9:15 p.m., to be precise. What is the …
It has been one of those days where I could just lay on the bed and cry about the gloominess of it all. I feel like Eeyore. I have misplaced an essential: my ability to feel the joy. And when that happens, one is left with two choices: recoil or embrace. Cry or laugh. So …
We have a life light, shining outward from the soul- that compels us, in different ways and through various methods, to move forward. Beyond. That insists we “keep-on-keeping-on”. That urges us to place one foot in front of the other and move into the future. That causes us to not stand idle for longer than …
If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, I would have politely laughed at them. If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, and one of my students would be my charming little M.A., I would have (politely) laughed at them and then high-tailed it …
First day of school bloopers: I got called Mrs. Wood (which ran a close second to “what’s your name again???”) all day. I think it was the “smell ya later” that the infamous D.W. (our vivacious former Vice-principal) said on her way out the kindergarten door, that really stuck with them. As I was on …