A life in progress

A few days ago, I got in my first ever Twitter scuffle (I won't call it an all-out Twitter war, because let's be honest, I'm not that important) with a local journalist.  He wrote about the contract dispute between the teachers and the local school district, blaming teachers and labor unions for the school district's budgetary problems.  I disagreed.  A lot.  I also felt the facts he used in his article were misleading, and in some places outright incorrect.  So I responded to him directly and wrote a fairly lengthy blog post airing my opinion. OMG!  Kermit is using the wrong your/you're! If you haven't read the first part of this post, it's fairly lengthy.  In short, I talk about how teachers are educated professionals that deserve to be treated with respect and deserve to be paid a reasonable salary.  Eventually, teachers leave the profession for lack of money. I shared it on social media and got quite a bit of feedback - much more th...

Yesterday, I used this sad llama to show how I felt about leaving my students Today... I don't know... I have to try to find a sadder llama.  I don't know if there's a better embodiment of my heartbreak than Kuzco sitting in the rain as a sad llama. Maybe a sad elephant. Yeah - just imagine the saddest thing ever.  If you aren't crying - here's a  BuzzFeed article  to help start the tears.  Read that and then come back to me. Ok?  Are you crying now?  Because I am.  I didn't even have to reread that article.  Just finding the link made me a little misty.  Don't judge.  It's been a rough day. Today started like any other normal day.  Actually, it started earlier than most normal days because I had to get all my grades finalized so I went in early. Before school even started, my neighbor came in to give me goodbye treats.  They were amazing and I ate way to many of them.  Again - this is a no judging ...

Today has been absolutely heart wrenching. I saw half of my students for the last time - since my school is on a block schedule, I only see my students every other day, making today the last time I will see many of them. That also makes today the first real slap-in-the-face reality of leaving the classroom.  I have been a teacher for 10 years, plus some student teaching and that weird year in China, so... let's call it 12 - which is the same age as many of my students.  I have been a teacher since before most of my students could walk, or talk.  To them, it is a lifetime. And I guess in many ways, it's a lifetime for me, too. For the past ten years, I have woken up every day and gone into a room of young people where I was expected to be the smartest person in there -- or at least the one that knew what was going on... Usually that was the case... However, that wasn't always how it went. Teaching is much harder than I ever thought it would ...

I haven't written anything for quite a while.  Largely, that's because I spent the past (almost year) focusing on finishing law school, graduating, and passing the bar.  Fortunately for me (and my husband), I did all of those things.  Yay me! However, I've had a lot on my mind lately and I decided it was time to let it all out. **warning - this is kind of long and ranty and mild profanity does appear in this post** I'm going to vote tomorrow morning.  I like voting.  It makes me feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself.  Nevada, fortunately, has early voting, which means I can go to the mall, get a corndog, and vote with very little fuss.  Voting on actual election day is kind of a pain, and I like this 21st century mall-based system I live in. Like most people, I'm not shy about who I'm voting for in the election. Over the past year, I've had mixed anxiety levels about a "President Trump" world.  Fortunately, as of ...

This afternoon, I went into my principal's office for a moment to ask a routine question about a student.  We chit-chatted for a couple minutes and then he gave this dramatic sigh like I'd never heard come from him before and handed me a couple of pages stapled together.  I had no idea what was happening, but I took the pages and started reading. The first was a student ID photo with some basic information -- printed out from our student information system.  While this was not my  student, I was aware of him.  We are a very small school with a dozen teachers and one administrator; everyone knows everyone - literally.  At times we have as few as 25 students on campus.  This particular student had recently completed our program and returned to a comprehensive high school, but recently enough that the name and face was still familiar. The second page was a news article giving some sketchy details of a murder.  I'm sure pretty much everyone can se...

So, last night, the call we'd been waiting for came.  Baby C's dad had gotten all of his ducks in a row and was ready to take custody of her.  So... we spent a little time saying goodbye and stopped to visit the ducks in the park on the way to drop her off. We knew this day was coming.  It was actually supposed to happen last weekend, but there was a little bit a a hiccup in the process.  Her had actually moved from California to comply with CPS.  We didn't completely understand the situation, but it came across as he'd never really been involved as a parent, but when given the opportunity, he really did what he needed to do to step up.  For the past few weeks, he'd been doing visitations with Baby C on Friday evenings.  At first he wasn't really sure of what he should be doing, but at the most recent visitation, when I went in at the end of the hour, they were playing together with the toys.  The simple fact that he was willing to move...

Today, I am linking up with Jen from  Ramblings of a Suburban Mom  again for her Thursday Thoughts. I actually started this blog post last week.  It was my birthday (FYI, I am old now) and I was doing a lot of very un-birthday like things... I feel like I spent the bulk of the day cleaning up baby poop and chasing after 8th graders. But, for some reason, I didn't finish the post.  It just sat here.  I probably got distracted cleaning up more baby poop or chasing after some more 8th graders. In the past week, things have actually settled down somewhat in the baby poop department.  We're giving Baby C less milk, so she's calmed down a lot.  8th graders, on the other hand, are a terrible population of people in general, and in the past week, they've only gotten worse.  (If, for some reason, you are an 8th grader reading my blog, I have a couple of things to say.  Firstly, you might want to consider some more age-appropriate reading ma...

Today begins day 3 with Baby C.  So far, things have been going fairly well with her.  We are actually surprised at what an "easy" baby she is. Yesterday, Mike and I made a point of making sure we were with her all day - both of us as much as possible & at least one of us within eyesight at (virtually) all times while she was awake.  Friday night was a little rough for her.  She woke up a crying a couple of times during the night, and while we were able to put her back to sleep pretty easily, she wasn't quite able to do that for herself.  At 4am, she truly cried for the first time.  She'd fussed and whimpered a couple of times Friday evening and had woken up once at 2am, but at 4, she really cried.  I went in and picked her up and rocked her for a little while; I think that was the first time she was really scared or lonely.  We realized that as part of a large family group (she has 3 older siblings), it was probably the first time in her en...

After a great deal of thought, and an endless number of "should we or shouldn't we" conversations, Mike and I have changed course a bit in the world of foster care.  We have decided a couple of things - 1.  One child is enough.  I said this before, but going from zero children in our home to two children in our home is much too overwhelming, especially since I've never had children. 2.  We are not ready for long-term care yet.  Yet.  We realized we still like having options and the ability to say no.  We were actually presented with a potential adoptive child a few weeks ago.  We thought about it and talked about it, and in the end decided we weren't there yet.  Part of us wanted to be, but we realized it would be unfair to us as a couple and unfair to the child to make that step without being 100% certain it was the right choice.  After a few days of talking it over, we kindly thanked the case worker, but walked away without ever me...

Somehow, I have come to a crossroads in my life... all of a sudden these decisions appeared on the horizon and now I have to make them.  I've seen enough episodes of "Supernatural" to know that something will probably go askew somewhere. None of my impending decisions are life-and-death, however, I imagine they will have some long-lasting impact on both my personal and professional lives. We are trying to make some foster care decisions (as I discussed the other day), and to make matters more complicated, our case manager called and asked if we would be interested in becoming an adoptive family for a young boy who has been living with a foster family since birth.  The little boy has some potential health concerns, as he was born very prematurely, but seems to be in a good place now.  He was born drug exposed and had a difficult first few months, but seems to be stable.  His mother has abandoned him, and the courts have terminated parental rights, so he is avai...

Today, like most other days, CPS placement workers called me three separate times to ask me if Mike and I would be willing to take physical custody of various foster children.  I know there was a 6 month old boy, but I didn't speak to the other two workers, so I'm not sure who the other two children were.  On average, I get 2-3 calls per day, every day.  We have a happy home and and empty bed, so we are a CPS worker's dream.  For 12 hours a day, placement workers are trying to find healthy, happy, homes for children that are brought into care for a couple of different reasons. Some children need what's called an "initial placement".  They are brought into CPS care from their parent or guardian's home, and now need somewhere to go.  If they don't find the child(ren) a home within the first 24 hours, they technically become a ward of the state, which is a legal conundrum for a number of reasons -- it's much easier if they find a foster parent withi...

I posted last week about our first adventure(s) in foster care and a lot of people have been asking me "what's next" or "what now."  So, I thought it was probably time for an update.  It's been a difficult decision, and one we haven't taken lightly, so we've spent a lot of time deciding what was right for us and for future foster children. Our experience with J and Baby P taught us a couple of things: 1.  We are NOT prepared for this.  It's kind of like your first teaching job.  You were a student teacher, you took all the classes and wrote all the papers, have some lesson plans prepared and all sorts of stuff, but then the first day of class arrives and you realize you have a lot of book smarts, but zero idea of what you're doing. Even though all of our friends have been so amazing (a special shout out here to Val, who was a total lifesaver in more ways than one), and so giving, we found ourselves at a loss.  At one point, I had ba...

2014 is winding to a close, and everyone is making  Facebook year in review  slideshows.  It's really kind of an awesome concept.  Facebook has chosen some random photo albums, posts and pictures from the year and turned them into a little presentation.  In creating and watching mine (which I've since watched a dozen times), I realized how awesome my year was! While the year is not quite over yet -- and knowing me, things could go crazy in the next 8 days, I thought I'd take a few minutes to be thankful for the amazing year I had.  It's sort of like Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years all rolled into one... talk about crazy. Of course, I am thankful for my wonderful husband.  We had an amazing year together & I am ever-grateful that I found him.  The adventures we had this year were unparalleled and something I never could have come up with in my wildest dreams.  While the year started on sort of a sour note (failed IVF), it only...

It is my favorite time of year.  Not necessarily the holidays, but it is that magical time when I don't have to go anywhere, or do anything, except hang out at home in my pajamas and watch movies with my dogs.  According to TimeHop, that's what I do around this time every year.  The sheer number of "wearing pajamas and watching movies" Facebook posts in late December is almost frightening. This year, Mike is out of town for a few days, so I have even less motivation than usual.  Paris, Lily, Bill and I have been watching TV and baking Christmas treats for the past two days, and let me tell you - divine.  While, granted, I've been doing the bulk of the baking and the pups are mostly sitting in the kitchen and waiting for me to drop things, it all works out. I do feel extra-justified in my mini-hibernation this year.  On Thursday night, we had our final DFS inspection in preparation for taking in foster children.  We worked and cleaned for days getti...

(I actually started writing this nearly a month ago... but finals happened and it didn't get finished until just now... for a better explanation of the insanity of finals... see my other post.  :) ) I'm linking up with Jen from Ramblings of a Suburban Mom  today for Thursday Thoughts Today, I am going to write part two of my ode to my mom.  After I posted yesterday, I realized there was a lot more I wanted to say.  So, I'm going to continue part two of my ongoing series... honestly, it might only be a two-part series, but I want to keep my options open. I'm going to start off by telling you the things my mom did not teach me.  She did not teach me how to cook, or bake, or sew, even though she was great at these things herself.  Not for lack of effort, mind you, but because I had ZERO skills.  I'm going to give her credit for attempting to teach me those things, but I don't think Martha Stewart herself could have imparted any homemaking k...