Shaddup Already!





















2005-11-03

Life goes on

Cami left last night around 6:30. I really appreciate all the comments of support that so many of you have left me over the last few weeks. It helps reading them, truly, it does.

I'm doing pretty well with her being gone. It was what I signed up to do and I'm proud that I did this. I'm also really proud of my girl. She's gonna do great and I'm so blessed to have been able to be a part of it.

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I finally remembered to bring something home from school that I wanted to show off.

See, animals are really important in my life. So, as a way to build rapport with my students, I include my animals in many of my lesson plans. When I need an example of something, I will often include one of my pets. When the kids have been really good and worked really hard, I try to share silly stories about my pets that usually make me look like an idiot. The kids love it.

There seems to be one pet each year that is the star of most of my stories. So they tend to take center stage and that is the pet kids relate with me.

For the last two years, Booger Boy has been that star of my stories. This year it's Atticus, because a puppy provides so many experiences that will leave it's human looking like an idiot. At any rate, I didn't have a puppy last year, so Boo-Boo was my main topic of conversation with my kids.

This year I have a 7th grade teacher that uses my classroom during my plan period. She has a couple of my students from last year, including one that really loves to draw. She gave me many pictures last year, which were all really good.

Kids don't tend to give teachers from the year before artwork--simply because they have 7 new teachers to receive these creative efforts. So I was really surprised about a month into school when T presented me with a picture. It was an absolutely perfect picture for me. Something that let me know that T was listening to me and really got who I was. It meant a great deal to me:

You'll have to excuse the smudge marks, between her carrying it around in her backpack and me getting it home in the rain, it got a little smudgy. You can still see how wonderful it is. You gotta love a picture that features an orange kitty, when one of your minions of kitty mischief is an orange cat.

I just love the picture. I am really a very lucky person and have a very good life, which Ms. Brazil told me and I meant to thank her for reminding me of that. So I'm thanking you now :o) THANKS!

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