Ruth Ayres invites us to share our celebrations from the week each Saturday. Thank you, Ruth, for reminding me to celebrate. Share your celebrations at Ruth Ayres Writes.
There’s so much to celebrate:
I love my job. I keep pinching myself to make sure it’s not all a dream. I never realized I was teaching above my 5th graders’ heads before, so it’s been a comfortable/easy transition to 7th grade (I can reuse most of what I’ve done before).
My kids make me laugh. I made an amateur middle school mistake (they keep you on your toes) of labeling a paper with #2 when the first word was “Crap.” I kept saying, “Look at paper number two, the one that starts with the word crap.”
My kids giggled and pointed out, “Isn’t it funny how you labeled the story with the word crap as #2.” They were rolling making this toilet connection to my student examples for revision. I couldn’t help but join them.
Yesterday I caught myself making that “What are you doing/supposed to be doing face?” This is the face that makes me scrunch my entire face, especially my forehead as I give a little darling the stink eye to remind them to get back on track. My coworker and I joke that this face is why we have fine lines between our eyes. As I caught myself making this face, I couldn’t help but laugh. I jokingly told the student he was the reason I may need Botox someday. He thought this was hysterical, and he walked out of the classroom smiling as he repeated, “I’m the reason Ms. F. needs Botox.”
I perused through old files to try to reuse something from last year, and I felt a pit in my stomach just thinking of how challenging last year was. Even looking at old lessons from then made me start to feel sick. I realized just how tough last year was, and I was even more grateful for my new situation. I feel so blessed. It’s like I hit the school lottery.
My parents are wonderful.
My mom bought me an Ipad “just because.” There was a promotion when she upgraded her phone, so she thought of me when they offered it. (Now I just need to learn how to use it and get a case so I’m not worried about dropping it.)
I called my dad to tell him my coworker asked if I’d help coach the girls’ basketball team. He now calls me “Coach” and has promised to attend all of my games. It’s so sweet.
I must admit I’m as excited as my dad to help with the team. Basketball is my favorite sport, so I love that I’ll get to help out.
I go to bed each night with a long list of things I’m grateful for. I smiled last week when I couldn’t think of just one thing that was the best part of my day.