Daily Practice

Anna made her first communion this Sunday, 31 years almost to the day after I made mine. It was lovely--the weather, the ceremony, the nostalgia. A few scenes:

The cake















The girl and the gown

At the beginning of class this morning, I brought up Virginia Tech with my developmental writing students. They all started speaking at once, but the one who ended up capturing everyone's attention was J, who announced the following: "It would never happen here."

Many students nodded vigorously in agreement with him. I asked J to explain. He said that our campus is "full of ex-felons, ex-crips, and ex-bloods--and they'd never let such a thing happen."

He went on: "I'm not saying that a shooting couldn't happen here, but I don't think the shooter would have nearly as many victims. This isn't a preppy school. People here would be all over that guy."

Then other students went on to analyze the kinds of guns the shooter at Virginia Tech used. Many of my students knew exactly how many rounds each gun could fire and how long they would take to reload--and thus how many opportunities there'd be to physically attack the shooter. Two of my students said they'd been shot before with a 22 (one of the kinds of guns the Virginia Tech shooter used); one said he was shot in the leg and "didn't even fall down." He said he'd be able to "take on" somebody who had that type of gun.

I'm still wrapping my brain around this discussion.

Joanna tagged me, so here goes.

I'm supposed to list five things I do every day to contribute to my "success." (I should note that I'm reading this as success at work. Success in some other arena--say, motherhood--would entail a completely different list. And would be much less attainable, in my opinion.)

1. Take care of/ respond to work-related emails as soon as they come in. I'm not always on top of things (like grading, writing a report that's due, whatever), but I try to be really good about dealing with email right away, rather than reading it and coming back to it later and essentially having to deal with a message twice. Responding right away makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. And it makes me appear to be on top of things!

2. Be nice to others. This is such a no-brainer that I almost didn't list it. But it really is important to me. I always try to chat with the secretaries, be friendly with faculty in other departments, get to know staff members around campus. Being nice is just good in and of itself, but the (selfish) payoff is also huge when I need something later.

3. Check in with my work girls. I have this core group of friends in my department--friends with whom I can vent, hash things out, celebrate, gossip, whatever. I love and adore these women and have to check in with them (in person and online) every single day. When I'm connected to my colleagues, I do better work. And enjoy it more.

4. Read blogs. I learn so much (about teaching, writing, etc.) from them.

5. Kiss and hug my babies at home. Nothing relaxes and rejuvenates me more.

Labels: memes

Labels: girls, mothers and daughters, pics

Friday night: egg coloring.

Saturday morning: neighborhood egg hunt (in winter coats?!).

Saturday evening: to the Roller Derby to watch our good friend Heather (aka "Handle Barz") compete. That's her signing autographs. She's a star.

Sunday: trip to grandma and grandpa's for Easter.

Labels: girls, pics, roller derby

I had a conference with Kate's kindergarten teacher this week, and her teacher told me that she's worried that Kate might struggle in first grade. Kate's "young-acting," not all that interested in schoolwork (the teacher said Kate would be happy to "just color all day"), and not where she should be with letter and sound recognition. The good news, the teacher said, is that Kate doesn't seem to be stressed at all, that she's very social and happy at school.

Part of me is worried and anxious. And feeling guilty. (For sending Kate to school too early, for not working with her enough at home, for spending too much time/energy on my own work, for blithely assuming that she'd be like Anna and just pick it all up on her own.)

But I'm also not surprised by the situation. When Kate was a baby, Todd and I sometimes referred to her, lovingly, as "Lazy Kate." She just wasn't into putting herself out in any way. Like if a toy was out of her reach, she wouldn't bother to stretch for it; she'd just play with her toes. Or if she didn't know how to ask for something, she'd just let her chatty older sister do all the talking.

I've always rather liked this quality in Kate. She's not the perfectionist, make-herself-sick kind of kid that I was. She's not the always-gotta-be-moving-and-talking-and-doing kind of kid that Anna is. She's just...content where she is.


But...what to do? I asked the teacher if Kate should repeat kindergarten. She said probably not--she thinks the blow to kids' self-esteem outweighs the gains they make intellectually when they repeat a grade. So we decided that Todd and I will try doing some really intensive work with Kate in the evenings and over the summer. The teacher said she'll order us some books to use. And I talked with my sister, a kindergarten teacher in another state, who's going to send me some curricular stuff. So I feel like we have a plan.

I'm surprisingly calm about all this. Which kind of scares me. Should I be totally freaking out?

My eight-year-old, Anna, loves this site called "Club Penguin," which she was introduced to by our friends' children (who are the smartest, kindest kids I've ever met--so I trust their recommendations!). She's earned enough "coins" on the site that she can now send messages to other users--er, penguins--and invite them to be her friends.

Last night, she was on the site, and she kept giggling and calling out to me. "Mom," she'd say, "another person invited me to be their friend!" or, "Mom, Gloria060 said yes to my invitation to be her friend! I can't believe it!"

But the best was when she came into my room with a big smile on her face and said, "Mom, Sophie22 just invited me to meet her at the ice rink! I think we're building a relationship!"

It's just cool, somehow, that she's already thinking of online activity as relationship-building.

It always feels like spring has arrived when 4C's is over. I returned last night to 70-degree temps, open windows, shorts-clad kids, and a completely cleaned-out and fixed-up sunroom. We use the sunroom as a mudroom in the winter, so it's nice to reclaim that space this time of year.

The conference was good--especially rooming with my colleague (and great friend) Ing, catching up with old friends like Collin, and finally getting to meet the delightful Joanna! I missed other bloggers, though--I think I saw Timna and Liz from a distance but got sidetracked when I tried to get to them. That's my loss, certainly.

A new quarter starts for me tomorrow. I'm team-teaching a business writing course, which should be cool. But it's a night class, which means that I'll be at work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Mondays. And it also means that we'll probably have to scramble some weeks to figure out what to do with the kids in the evening, since Todd's schedule is so weird. We already have a glitch tomorrow, in fact. But our super-incredible neighbors are coming to the rescue, picking the kids up from their after-school program and watching them until Todd gets home at 7:00. They even offered to help the kids with their homework!! I love, love, LOVE my neighbors!

Spring quarter should be--knock on wood--a much less busy quarter for me, so I'm hoping vowing to blog more often.

Labels: 4C's, spring