Hiatus

So, after my 8-month break from writing, I'm checking in! Hmmm....what has changed?

I finished my year at the middle school where I was trying to shape the young pre-teen minds of Memphis. Nothing left to say about that.

I got a NEW job teaching gifted classes at two elementary (!!!) schools. Gifted classes are SO fun...I didn't realize how much I missed teaching the gifted kids until I was back in the swing of things. The switch to elementary school has been challenging and the fact that I now have a 70-mile round trip commute each day is a bit taxing, but I love it. The majority of my students are engaged in the lessons and are engaging in their interactions. They want to learn and truly enjoy a challenge. It makes coming to work a joy.

My household has changed. Lily and I are on our own now. We are still in our house and have adjusted to the changes of single-parent-family living. Lily ADORES kindergarten and we are so blessed by her teacher this year. She has made some wonderful friends and loves seeing her cousins every day. We are going to be just fine. We are going to be better than fine-we are already pretty fabulous!

So, as I post from now on, I'm hoping my tone will be decidedly different. Posts about Lily will still be as glowing as ever. Posts about work will be happier. Posts about my life will be lighter and have more life than they have in a long time.

Here's to yet another chapter......

Virtual fail

So...the female students in my sixth grade classes are obsessed with this online game where they can take care of virtual babies. They feed and clothe them, find daycare for them and put them to bed.

Today, one of my students had her virtual babies taken away by virtual Child Protective Services for neglect.

Fail.

Testing, testing..can you hear me?

We are in the midst of "practice" tests for our annual state testing. Basically, it means that between circulating around the room glancing at tests to make sure students are not skipping sections, I sit around and watch a room full of preteens alternately guess or stress...

This is supposed to measure their ability to retain the information that I've killed myself teaching all year? Something is just not quite right about that.

ahem....

I could list all the excuses, middle school student-style: my computer crashed this summer and I lost everything; I started a new job that has sucked the life out of me; I have a thousand things to do every day and I get too tired to blog...

But, excuses are kind of pathetic. I'll just own up to the fact that I haven't been interested in creating anything lately. No artwork, no writing and, as you may have noticed, no blogging. This morning, I read through some posts on a blog written by my friend, Katy. Her daughter is six months old now and bears a striking resemblance to Lily in some of her pictures. She has big blue eyes and a shock of dark hair on her head (one major exception is that she got her first tooth at six months...it took Lily almost 19 months for that to happen!) I began to think about all the things I have not posted and all the things that I need to be recording for posterity.

So, here's hoping that I can pull myself out of the dumpster of preoccupation and get back in the game. In the meantime, some pictures....

This is Lily last June surrounded by pink flamingo lawn art...when we were Flocked by Young Life.

This is Lily proudly showing off her VBS T-shirt...she loved VBS! Evie and Lily on the swing in Chilhowee..."Mom, Evie is my cousin AND my best friend!" Lily and her favorite person from Trail West...Lolly, Lolly Popper. She had a unicorn birthday party for her fourth birthday because of Lolly!

Lily in the beloved green dress...year four. The great computer crash of '09 has decimated years two and three, but I am hoping to dig up some hard copies to show her growth. We have put her in this dress every year on her birthday for pictures to show how she has grown. It is so fun, since my sister and I played dress up in this dress throughout our childhood.

Cute Cousins

Aunt Jenn brought Wyatt and Caleb down for a visit this past week. We had lots of play time with Wyatt and cuddle time with Caleb...Lily adores them both!

What a difference two and a half years makes....

December 2007, three months after the accident....

March 2009...

Attention to Detail

Lily has an amazing attention to detail when she wants to....she has this thing right now where she wants to check books for the page that has the cover art on it. She will look at the cover of a book and then go through every page until she finds the matching picture inside. A cute quirk, to be sure, but beware the book that does NOT have a copy of the cover art as part of the story.



She brought a book to me the other day (one of my old Richard Scarry "Please and Thank You" books) and handed it to me with a very exasperated sigh, saying, "Mommy, this picture is NOT in this book!" I tried to explain to her that sometimes the cover is different from the pictures inside and then I went through the book looking for a match. I thought at one point I had found it and I was pretty proud of spotting it until I showed it to her...



She looked at me with a very knowing expression, pointed at the hippo's mouth and said, "(Sigh) Mommy. This hippo's mouth is closed. It is not the same."



Whoops.