not pictured: waking up to child kicking me in the head. fortunately we both recovered quickly.
a welcomed winter break
i walked into school on friday and one of my students said to me, "ms. n., are you OKAY? you look exhausted." i wasn't even wearing my leopard snuggie.
so it was with great anticipation that i welcomed winter break. even though the days have been so full of work and christmas crafting and baking and errands, i love coming home to our living room always, especially during this time of year. we've been eating almost every meal in front of the tree and fire, and playing lots of games on warm blankets. even if there was a cheap flight to the cayman islands, i'm quite content to just stay right here.
cold oregon coast weather with random bouts of aggressive hailing didn't stop this kid from digging in the sand with sock-mittened fingers. she is feeling all better, by the way. the barfing business was totally random.:)
so it was with great anticipation that i welcomed winter break. even though the days have been so full of work and christmas crafting and baking and errands, i love coming home to our living room always, especially during this time of year. we've been eating almost every meal in front of the tree and fire, and playing lots of games on warm blankets. even if there was a cheap flight to the cayman islands, i'm quite content to just stay right here.
although this weekend, adah and i attempted (while anne was visiting her other kids) to begin our weekend at the beach, for a cozy weekend away from doing. things went a little awry. barfing child + power outage in rockaway beach = early end to weekend date with daughter. we did have fun, though, while it lasted. we had some play time on the beach, but mostly lots of snuggles, games, watercolor snowflakes, and ovaltine inside.
halloween favorites
i would like a treehouse for christmas, please. it's possible that i like them more than adah does.
fambly pumpkin carving on saturday morning with a belly full of pumpkin cinnamon rolls. my dad even dug his hands in there.
meet carol burnett's mother and her pirate.
watching the ladybug and the princess trick or treat made me giddy and grow lots of laugh lines.
they had quite the crew cheering them on: a gold digger and her miner, opal's dad, carol burnett's mothers' pirate, and my mom. i think we smiled for 2 hours straight.
apparently some people have fun by throwing rocks through people's living room windows while other people sleep deeply. huh. today's lesson learned: pessimism! i was greatly relieved that it would only cost $150 to repair, as opposed to the $800 or so i was expecting. see that? optimism disappoints, and pessimism gives you things to smile about.
grateful for:
chickens! ask this kid what would help her feel better on a bad day and it's often her friend chickens.
relaxing weekends at the coast, where we jumped in puddles, ran on the beach, played lots of games inside, and colored a lot.
autumn afternoons spent crafting with my girls.
overwhelmed.
why does "overwhelmed" have to be the impetus for me to write? this blog has turned into a captioned scrapbook, as i am often juggling too many plates in the air.
how can i stay energized at work? how can i be devoted to my students and come home and be equally energetic with my most beloved ones?
how can i have acceptance that at the end of the day i've tried as hard as i could, and that is enough?
how can i be in community and still have a little time for myself?
how can i nurture my partnership with anne?
how can i live a creative life when life's minutiae takes up so much friggin time?
i feel like i'm in a pressure cooker at work. so many parents have huge expectations of me specifically, since i am the language arts dept., and they expect me to get their way-below-grade-level kids up to par in the 45 minutes i have them 4 times a week. first i have to dismantle all the prejudices they have against school, and then against reading and writing in particular, and then find a way to address their myriad of skill deficits. total over-whelm-o. it's not that i don't get to see them grow-- i do, and it's the thing i love most about working in a small setting. it would just be nice if more of the parents treated me as an ally.
i feel like i'm working my ass off, and getting questioned and doubted every second. so much that i have to check the rates on cheapcaribbean.com every couple of days because it's only october and i need another vacation already.
is anyone there? what is currently sustaining you?
how can i stay energized at work? how can i be devoted to my students and come home and be equally energetic with my most beloved ones?
how can i have acceptance that at the end of the day i've tried as hard as i could, and that is enough?
how can i be in community and still have a little time for myself?
how can i nurture my partnership with anne?
how can i live a creative life when life's minutiae takes up so much friggin time?
i feel like i'm in a pressure cooker at work. so many parents have huge expectations of me specifically, since i am the language arts dept., and they expect me to get their way-below-grade-level kids up to par in the 45 minutes i have them 4 times a week. first i have to dismantle all the prejudices they have against school, and then against reading and writing in particular, and then find a way to address their myriad of skill deficits. total over-whelm-o. it's not that i don't get to see them grow-- i do, and it's the thing i love most about working in a small setting. it would just be nice if more of the parents treated me as an ally.
i feel like i'm working my ass off, and getting questioned and doubted every second. so much that i have to check the rates on cheapcaribbean.com every couple of days because it's only october and i need another vacation already.
is anyone there? what is currently sustaining you?
welcoming autumn
i highly recommend sauvie's island on a friday afternoon before the multitudes start to arrive. NEVER GO THERE ON A WEEKEND IN OCTOBER OR YOU WILL NOT GET OUT ALIVE.
we needed luck because we got lost in there for an hour and a half. don't let the simplicity of part 1 of the maze fool you. bring food and water, lest you want children who are obviously tired of walking and starving to death and thirsty. verrrrrry thirsty.
smile!
and trudge, if you have to, towards the beautiful.
a reunion!
oh, how we've missed living just a few doors down from this family:
they had the nerve to move into a neighborhood where their kids can go to a mandarin immersion program, and their kids can have a huge backyard! one day we'll get over it. okay, okay, of course i want what's best for them.
we had a lovely reunion with them on saturday morning, which included all sorts of goodness: brunch, balloons, bunnies, watermelon, shadows, and a trip to the park. i loved seeing our girls back together again.
goodbye summer.
while anne dealt with some family stuff, and rested up for a hectic work week ahead, bug and i had an absolutely splendid end-of the-summer road trip to CA. we got to see many of my favorite people, and it was totally rejuvinating. we told appalling stories of our younger years, ate a lot of good food and fancy ice cream, had a pool party/barbeque, went to the zoo, the beach, a whimsical fairyland, and generally had a lot of good time together. notably, thanks to bff babysitters, i also had some time to talk uninterruptedly with my buddies, and have a couple of separate adventures with them. notably, my child willingly agreed to stay with folks she hasn't seen since she was 2. it was beautiful.
i have to say, i find it a bit anxiety provoking to bring my kid with me to visit people who don't have kids. i tend to feel like we're a big nuisance for a number of reasons. additionally, adah has some strange communication techniques, like randomly screaming at people, or growling at them like she's a feral cat when people try and speak to her. however, it was really striking to witness how comfortable my curmedgeon was with my friends. i expected she wouldn't speak to them for four days or so, but by day two, she was holding alicia and michelle's hands, taking some risks on the monkey bars with laura, and fluttering with her through the forest like a pair of pretty butterflies. she was actually conversing with people with words instead of meow's! can i just say how awesome my friends are? and how great my kid is?
this is a picture of her having just arrived at erica and dana's house. totally relaxed! let's keep this one for the record since normally she clings to me in any new environment (even if she's been there many times before). after dinner we all played "BOO!" a game in which we tried to scare the hiccups out of each other. uncle dana even jumped off a roof for effect, and michelle came running out of the house with a paper bag on her head. it's no wonder she had a great time.
***
but now it's sunday, and time for the Sunday Night Anxiety Attack to resume. back to work tomorrow! an early IEP meeting before the school year officially begins, and lots of curriculum reorganizing to do. hoping for a great year...
redwood regional park
happy fairy in the woods.
a couple of monkeys.
a playful dr. fraser...
fluttering butterflies...
cue a joni mitchell song
i was haggard before we began. i lost our traveling money, and couldn't sleep the night before we left since my brain was busy berating myself because of it. i planned on going to sleep at 6pm so i could wake up at 3:00 am and drive through the rest of the night, seamlessly crossing off half the driving before arriving in ashland for breakfast. but i woke up to adah having peed all over me, and before i even began driving i needed some toothpicks to keep my eyes open. i hoped bug would sleep for the entire first half of the drive, since it was the middle of the night and all, but she successfully slept for ONE WHOLE HOUR. thankfully she was very amused by ivy and bean audio cd's. so amused that as the elevation got higher, i pulled over to sleep for a half an hour under a pear tree while she found out exactly how many tricks the two girls could play on bean's older sister.despite the rough beginning, we actually had a great trip. we listened to lots of books and loud music, had a walking tour of ashland's best bakeries, she watched a movie and ate lots of snacks, we stopped at the jelly belly factory and voila! 14 hours later we arrived to food on the table, great friends, and a much needed rest.
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