Today I introduced my “Pirámide de Participación” at school. It’s the crown jewel of my Spanish program. I’ve been tweaking it for several years and now I just need to make sure it works with over 125 students.
Of course the kick off was more hectic than I was hoping. But in the end I think it went well. A couple of my more reluctant learners were very engaged. They had a lot of questions and we’re already planning how they can strategize to win the most prizes. Some even asked if they could take books home!
I wore my Profe Pulpo hat in all its glory.
I had their boards ready in their hanging files.
And of course I had the library ready.
I really hope this year is a success. I struggled to keep up last year, and when I saw my numbers for this year I immediately started brainstorming ways I can streamline the process for larger classes. As I was telling the kids today., if everyone reads the required five books this year I’ll have over 600 responses to process. The reality is it will be more like 1,000 because many of them will do extra. It’s a lot. But hopefully it will go well and be rewarding for them and for me.
I’ve spent the last two weeks (maybe more) managing a raspy throat, wondering when the actual cold is going to hit. But it never does. And then I remember that the same thing happened in the spring and I finally decided it was allergies. I even went back to my allergist, who I haven’t seen in years, to see what she thought. So maybe this is allergies? Except I don’t have many other symptoms (my eyes are fine) and everyone and their mother has a cough that sounds a lot like my raspy throat clearing. Maybe I’m not getting the full cough because I’ve had this particular bug before?
I just wish I knew. I wish I had a diagnostic system that could tell me what is going on, so I could commit to the appropriate treatment, instead of taking Umcka and Airborne for four days and then doubling down on Allegra and Nasacort for another four.
I get allergies shots already, so the thought that I could have symptoms like this again twice a year is a giant bummer. Maybe that is why I’m in such denial. And if I get retested at the allergy department, and they find a new allergen I need added to my shot, I have to go back to newbie status and get them twice and week and then once a week for I don’t even know how long. It’s been years since I had to go that regularly. I wonder how bad I’d have to feel to do that.
I told my son I wished I had a diagnostic system to tell me why I felt like I did (he has similar undiagnosable symptoms) and he said, why don’t you just wish you didn’t feel this way at all?
The weekend was a success. I enjoyed myself and I think others did too. I’m really happy I went, and I didn’t even return home exhausted!
Each kid was with a set of grandparents so my husband isn’t exhausted either. That is good because last week was looong and tiring and this week will be busy too.
And we get an extra hour!
This evening is back to real life. I have planning to do and projects to grade. I’m at the dojo Monday and Tuesday, after an unplanned hiatus last month. I need to get coverage for my last two block periods on Thursday because of a high school tour. Then a long weekend!
I really need a long weekend. One where we don’t go away.
And I need to sit down and figure out when I’m going to write posts and reply to comments and read other people’s blog posts and write comments. I can do it all, but I need to be strategic about when. And I don’t want to go to bed too late doing it because this is a time when I try to reset my sleep cycle a little earlier. I need to take advantage of this opportunity to get more sleep.
I thought I’d start NaBloPoMo (on the fourth day) with a little intro post. My About page is… playful? Fun? Annoying? Definitely not helpful. So if some new people are going to stop by this month, I might as well let them know who I am.
And I just can’t get the caterpillar from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland out of my head. So I’m adding him too.
So who am I?
I’m a 43 year old middle school Spanish teacher. I live in San Francisco (the super expensive doom loop city!) with my husband (of 15 years this winter!), my 13-year-old daughter and my 10-year-old son. Oh, and my two kitten cats (they just turned one this summer) and a bearded dragon. We have a house on the south (aka more affordable) side of the city, that we “bought” (feels weird to say that when it’s not even half paid off) 11 years ago. We had to rent out our in-law unit to pay our mortgage for a while, but after a $20K buy out we get to walk behind our car to our bedroom! Four years later and it’s still glorious to have two bathrooms, for real for real.
I am around middle schoolers ALL DAY so I sometimes talk like them. No cap.
Who else am I? I have ADHD, which I treat with a Ritilin-equivalent. I was on anti-depressants for over 10 years before my ADHD diagnosis and none of them worked and I’m SO THANKFUL for ADHD medication. It saved me.
I started blogging 15 years ago when I was trying to get pregnant and processing my ectopic pregnancy. I found an incredible online community around that and wrote copious amounts of words a week on my previous blog. I closed shop there a while back and briefly tried posting under my real name, but shut that down pretty quickly. I’ve been writing anonymously again in this space for close to a decade. I don’t post photos of myself or my family here, and I’m not on social media (at all) because I’m terrified of my students finding me and making me miserable. Also social media is not my friend. Or even my frenemy. The fear is real and I will never overcome it.
But blogging was my literal world for several years there. When that community of ALI (Adoption, Loss, Infertility) bloggers slowly fell away (as people just stopped writing after they completed their families with our without children), I was left with a rather sizeable hole (gaping felt like a strong word to use in an intro, but it’s appropriate).
I’ve kind of stumbled along here despite never really finding that community again. I think part of why I’m excited to participate in NaBloPoMo this year is I love the idea of finding some of that online comradery again.
We shall see…
Sorry I’m ping ponging all over the place. Turns out it’s hard to pin down who I am…
I have lived in SF for over 20 years. Before that I was at UC Berkeley and before that at my parents’ house on the peninsula (near where I now work). I spent seven-ish years in Hong Kong as a kid, when I was very young and then from 2nd to 7th grade. I really loved living in Hong Kong and thrived on the independence I was allowed there. I had a hard time in middle school when I got back. 7th and 8th grade were truly some of the worst years of my life. I find it kind of hilarious that I ended up there in perpetuity.
But I love my job. I really do. My native language is not Spanish, but I fell into this job 20 (!!) years ago and am so grateful I did. I get to fly under a lot of the radars that regularly force public school teachers out of the classroom, and I get to flex my creativity when I have the time and energy to do so. I’ve built a really popular program that exploded this past year and I’m learning what “be careful what you wish for” really means. But I don’t regret it. At least, I don’t want to.
I work out a fair amount. Right now I run and strength train and practice martial arts. I’m a blue belt at a dojo that blends karate and tae kwan do. I also run for run because how can you not when the weather is beautiful all year round. I swam competitively in high school but destroyed my shoulder and stopped (I was never very good – I swam mostly for the friends, and the endorphins). I cycled a lot with my parents in my 20s and have ridden several centuries. I love to run and have completed one marathon and several half marathons. I also dabbled in rock climbing for several years. Basically I love to move my body and feel strong, and exercise is my number one go-to for mental health management.
My relationship with San Francisco can be complicated. I love this city, but it can be really hard to raise a family here. Especially on the salaries of a public middle school teacher and a city employee. We’re both pretty high on our salary schedules, but it never seems to be enough. We live in a pretty modest house, and only have one car, but we’re also in one of the most expensive areas in the US. We’re lucky we got into our house when we did. We plan to leave when we’re wheeled to assisted living (if we make it that long). Our kids go to public schools in the city, and even though the district can drive me all kinds of crazy, I believe strongly in public education and that is where we intend to keep them.
My husband works for the city, where he was born and raised. You don’t meet a lot of born-and-raised San Franciscans who still live here. He’s a unicorn. He loves the city. His job is centered around trying to improve it. It can be demoralizing to attempt to do that. But he always knows what is happening and we really do take advantage of our urban lifestyle. We go to museums and music events regularly. Our kids are learning to get around by themselves on the buses and trains they take with us every day. I love this life for them, and I’m glad we’re lucky enough to be living it.
I have to stop now, and I’m sure there are things I’ll be shocked I forgot to mention, but I’ll feel those feelings when it they hit. Because right now I need to schedule this, shower, and start some laundry.
This is how excited I am about NaBloPoMo. I hope you’re more excited to be here than my cats. 😀
If my commitment post going up on the 3rd, and no post at all on the 1st, is any indication, this might be a mistake. But I have shown up for many a NaBloPoMo, and the amount of minutes I’ve been spending trying to reach “Genuis” on the NYT’s Spelling Bee suggests I do have the time. I think I might have the inclination as well, especially when there is such an organized push this year. (There probably has been this push before, I just didn’t know about it!)
I’m excited to show up here more. I’m determined to respond to all the comments. I’m stoked to read so many new blogs! I think this might be a really fun month in blogland!
Which is what I need. I need something that feels good right now, and this could be it.
I just spilled coffee all over my keyboard, which doesn’t feel like the greatest omen… but my computer still works so maybe it’s a metaphor!
This weekend I’m headed to wine country with some people from work. I almost wrote friends, but that doesn’t feel like the right word. I’ve known many of these people a long time. I’m sure I could call them friends. But I’m also nervous about spending the weekend with them. I can be very socially awkward – I talk too much and interrupt if I’m not careful. I’m also loud. Ho boy do I struggle with my inside voice! It’s booming! I’m just a lot, and it’s hard for me to manage myself and still have fun. With good friends I feel a little more comfortable because I know they are choosing to be with me for a prolonged. With something like this I feel a lot more self conscious.
But I’m trying to get out more – in real life and in blog land. It’s fitting that I signed up for NaBloPoMo the day before this little getaway. Bring it on, November.
Halloween 2023 is in the books. It was filled with firsts for us, and I had some big feelings about them.
The biggest change was that we didn’t meet at my friend’s house to pre-party and then to Trick-or-Treat with the girls in her neighborhood. This year the friend who usually hosts went out with her younger daughter’s friends. I ended up going out with my younger kid as well. And our girls went out with their school friends, instead of together. That part felt especially hard.
I like our usual Halloween hang out not just for the company but also for the low key vibes. We usually stayed our about an hour before heading back to the house to hang out.
Last night my son and I joined his friends and they do Halloween differently. We were out for three hours and we hit up two of the craziest neighborhoods for Halloween. I ended the night walking to bus stop in my socks, because I just couldn’t wear my boots any longer.
That we partly because I wore them all day at school. Our staff theme this year was Barbie and people went all out. I wish I could post group photos but as you know, that’s not how I roll. I will say that I love my staff. We really bring it when it comes to dressing up.
This year I was weird Barbie, because all my Barbies ended up weird eventually. When I saw Weird Barbie in the movie I thought, oh yes. There she is. That’s my girl.
I made me own Weird Barbie costume and I spent exactly $5 on it – for the patch that I ironed on the dress, so people would know I was Weird Barbie and not just a weirdo.
Everything else I had. I used a dress I didn’t love and spattered it with paint, that I already owned (and was able to find in the shed!) I threw on some crazy leggings and a wig I had at school for skits. The final touch was my white go-go boots which I wore as Princess Leia and my daughter wore as Cher from Clueless and which barely had another use in them. My daughter and I spent last Sunday drawing all over them, and they were a big hit.
The dress, before I hung it on a tree to splatter the back. The boots.
My daughter was a Pokémon she already had the onsie for, which means the only costume I had to buy was my son’s. He went as Glamrock Freddy from FNAF. It was a pretty intense costume and I worried he’d have second thoughts but he rocked it at school and on the streets.
We met up with his friends early and we’re our Trick-or-Treating by 5:30. We started near their house in the Mission. All in all there were four 10-year-olds and their parents. It was the same group that spent the night for our son’s birthday.
After walking five pretty packed blocks we said goodbye to one family and headed up the hill to Fair Oaks, which might be the most popular Halloween neighborhood in San Francisco. People come from all over the Bay Area to Trick-or-Treat on these six blocks.
We headed up there because one family had a friend in the area. We stopped there to use the bathroom and get some more real food in our stomachs. Most of the adults stayed at the house while I went back out with the boys. We hit up about half of the blocks that were closed off. There were DJs playing in some of the garages and dance parties in the street. It was truly nuts.
Just one of the many dance parties we walked past. (This is a gif but it only plays on the site.)
Back at the friend’s friend’s house the boys counted their candy.
So much candy.
At 8:30, when it was clear no one else was heading home, I bribed my own son with an episode of The Simpsons if he’s head back with me. And this is when I took my boots off and walked the five blocks back to the bus stop in my socks.
Yesterday morning we were all really tired but luckily my class was finishing up Coco at school, so that was manageable. I always love that our Day of the Dead unit ends with Coco right when Halloween requires a break. It’s my favorite unit for a lot of reasons.
Last night my husband and I went to a concert of Spanish-language groups, including an Aztec punk band. It was a lot of fun, and I would never have gone to something like that on a Wednesday if most of my classes weren’t finishing Coco today. Yay!
Aztec dancers that performed between sets. (This is a gif but it only plays on the site.)
Today is Day of the Dead. I really love this holiday. I’ve had my ofrenda up in my classroom for a few weeks, with pictures of my grandmother, cousins and cat. It’s been nice to see their faces and think of them this month. I wish our culture provided more opportunities for us to remember the people who are no longer with us.
I’m back on the elliptical so it’s time for a post!
I really did mean to write earlier this week, but I felt like I was coming down with something on Thursday and last night, so I went to bed really early. I’m still not sure if I’m fighting something off, or just really tired (or maybe it’s allergies?), but I’m getting my Covid booster today regardless, which is why I’m working out now, so if (when?) I feel horrible later, I’ll have my work out done.
Working Out Right Now
I’m a little disappointed that I’m only on the elliptical today. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day and I would have been at the dojo, except there is an adult test today so no classes. And I would have ran, but again I’ve heard this new Covid booster lays you out so I don’t want to wait to run and then feel too sick to do so. Maybe I can run tomorrow.
I’ve been struggling to show up at the dojo for a few different reasons. They have had some unexpected closures due to roof work. I’ve had some unusual commitments on the weekdays and weekends. Work is also requiring more of me at home this year, which has led me to skip a few evenings. I’m trying to take it in stride – it’s good to get a break, especially for my back/leg pain, but also for my overall commitment to it. It is expected that I stay at blue belt for a long while, so I’m not in a rush to learn anything. And my friend I train with is even out right now (injury), so she’s not blasting ahead of me either. It’s really fine that I’m not showing up there like I normally would. I’m letting myself process that.
Ditto with running. I love it, and I do think I can make more time for it if I change expectations, but it’s okay if I’m on the elliptical more for a little while. I mean we have an elliptical! It’s good to use it! (My husband is on it regularly so it’s getting used regardless). Monday I went for a quick run before I took my son and his friend to the dojo. It didn’t go great, but I did run for 30 minutes and I ran fast so maybe that is what a during the week run will look like this winter.
The reality is I’m not training for anything, so I don’t need to add stress to my workout regimen. Right now I’m just trying to maintain my physical and mental health (and keep the winter holiday weight gain at bay, let’s be honest) and if that looks like less time at the dojo and running so be it. And maybe, once PT starts (in mid-November) my goals will change even more. And that is okay too.
Trunk or Treat
Part of why I was really tired last night, was surely due to the two hours I stood outside in the increasing cold for Trunk or Treat at my daughter’s school. She and some of her friends are going as Pokémon this year (she already has an Evie onsie), and my son has been a huge fan for years so we have plenty of Pokémon stuff around the house (including enough stuff for me to dress up as Ash!) so we made that our theme. I also had a bunch of Trick-or-Trade card packs from Costco, which felt like a sign. Finally, I found a Gengar Trunk-or-Treat decoration and Pokéball balloons on Amazon so that sealed the deal.
It was fun to participate this year, since it’s her last at the school. And I’m sure I can use it all again when my son is at the school in a few years.
Apologies for blacking out our faces – I was reminded recently how much I DO NOT want my students, or my kids’ friends, to ever find identifiable photos of us online.
It was a nice day, but by 6:30 it was pretty cold to be out there in shorts. When I got home I bundled up with some hot tea until I passed out at 10pm.
This weekend and the coming week
Today we’re getting vaccinations. My son and husband are getting both flu shot and the Covid booster, I’m getting the Covid booster (I already got the flu shot) and our daughter is just getting the flu shot (she’s a little sick so we didn’t think the Covid booster made sense this weekend). I have nothing else planned this weekend and even next week is pretty light at school, as we rap up our Day of the Dead unit with the movie Coco (always great to show a movie on Halloween too!) I definitely need the time to catch up on grading and get ready to launch our free reading program, which requires some tweaking this year with the large classes.
I also need to plan for the classes (and sometimes full days) I’ll be missing for high school tours. They are of course, during the school day, which is a giant pain in the ass for me. But hopefully, after we tour, we’ll feel confident in our rankings on the application. I’m trying to schedule a little something for myself on the days I’m away from school, so they are not just stressful and annoying. I also still have my student teacher around, which makes me gone a lot easier.
November and beyond
November starts this week and while the first half of it is really busy with high school tours, a both-cats vet appointment and starting physical therapy, it slows down by the Thanksgiving Break. We don’t usually do much that week, so hopefully then I can recharge before the winter holidays.
I have been uploading pictures to a Best of 2023 album on Shutterfly all year, which means making the calendar over Thanksgiving break should be WAY easier. Last year I spent several late nights going through the THOUSANDS of photos from the year before to grab the best, but this year they are already curated! I’m so glad I thought to do that last year and actually stuck to it this year. Yay for 2022 Noemi bullying me via my reminders app into doing twice a month!
And my time on the elliptical is over, so I have to go shower. I hope you all have a great weekend!
We officially have a two double digit kids! That is weird to think. And we survived the 10yo turning 10!
The weekend went pretty well. Friday two friends and I banded together to plan an impromptu 13th birthday party for another friend’s daughter. This friend finally got Covid – her first time! – and she has been laid out all week. Obviously she couldn’t throw the surprise party she had planned for her daughter on Friday night. So the three of us came together to plan something for her and our daughters. This is the group of moms I because close with during the pandemic. Our four daughters have been friends since preschool and still love each other. The four of us moms love each other. It’s the kind of group I always dreamed I might one day be a part of, but never dared to hope would ever happen. But it has, and I’m so grateful and Friday was a reminder of how wonderful it can be.
Saturday morning my husband and I took our daughter to the SFUSD enrollment fair. We didn’t really learn anything about the schools, but it was our first time dipping our toes in the BIG FEELINGS that all of us only beginning to acknowledge about this process. So while it wasn’t really worth it in some ways, I feel like it was good that we went.
It was also our son’s opportunity to stay home alone for the longest stint yet. We reviewed what he should do if there is an earthquake (NOT get under our storage table that sits on four shaky bed risers) or a fire (NOT get water) and left him to play video games while we were away for about an hour. In the past he hasn’t wanted to stay home alone, so it was nice to see him feel more self assured. We’re hoping next year he’ll walk home from school alone at least three days a week, so getting used to being alone now is important.
After the enrollment fair my son and I took the 13yo to Art. We walked to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park and ate lunch, and then bought some stuff I needed for his birthday sleep over while we waited. I usually wouldn’t bring him to that, but we knew it was going to be hard to kill the hours on Saturday so we made an outing of it. It was fun.
After Art, my husband and I picked up and cleaned the house for the sleep over, and for my parents coming over on Sunday after the sleep over. My house frequently drives me crazy, but I will say that it is at a place where I can get it presentable without too much effort or stress. I’m really looking forward to getting rid of more stuff, so that it looks presentable for no good reason!
And speaking of getting rid of stuff, I listened to Shira Gill’s episode of Edit Your Life (because of SHU‘s recommendation) and I really liked her. Discussions around minimalism can really irk me (and I have a lot of Minimalism blogs in my Feedly!) but I found her very refreshing. (Maybe because she’s also from the Bay?) Having said that, a couple of the things she mentioned were absolute no-gos for me. She was very taken with the idea of not having a linen closet at all, and just having one set of sheets for each bed that you wash and put back on over and over. Just hearing about that made me feel so panicked! What do you do when a kid throws up on their one set in the middle of the night? Or you take them off and then get distracted and they aren’t washed and dried before bedtime that night? We have SO MANY sets of sheets, ones that are in the regular rotation and old sets that only come out when someone is visiting, and I have no desire to get rid of any of them. I was thinking of that as I pulled some old sheets out for my son’s friends last night, which I had ready even though another couple sets were still dirty in the garage from the camping trip all those weeks ago. It just goes to show that everyone’s idea of “parring down” looks different and I think I’m finally at a place where I can trust my own instinct when it comes to getting rid of stuff.
So back to the weekend… my son’s friends were all over by 6pm. They played video games together on the Switch. Ate pizza. Decorated insulated cups with stickers (their “party favor”). Enjoyed cake and ice cream (cake courteous of my mom, who brought it up when she picked up my daughter to save her from the 10yo invasion). Watched the new Ninja Turtles Movie. Played on their own iPads for a bit. Went to sleep. Woke back up to mess around on their iPads at an ungodly hour. Went back to sleep (at my strident urging). Woke up around 8am. Played on their own devices for a while again. Ate ube mochi pancakes. Brushed teeth and packed up. Played more video games together on the Switch. Started being a little mean to each other so we shut it down. Played Tacos vs. Burritos with my husband, then left around 11:30am. All in all, it was a success.
My son only had to wait an hour after that for my parents to come back up. Then he opened his family presents. He got a couple video games, some shirts, some Five Nights at Freddy’s toys, and a ton of table top games (yay Amazon prime day!) My parents brought up pozole and we enjoyed more of my mom’s cake. By 3pm they were heading out. (My inlaws are in Texas so they couldn’t be with us today). My husband has been doing dishes all weekend and I’ve been doing laundry and so now the house is in pretty good shape, considering how many people have come in and out in the last 24 hours.
I’m on the elliptical now, writing this. The kids are playing some more video games. They’ve already done their chores and are both pretty tired. We plan to play Mysterium (one of the new games) together tonight. And my son and I might watch the first episode of the new season of Loki (we just finished Ahsoka and LOVED it).
A bunch of students turned in late work this weekend (and followed my direction of commenting on the assignment in google classroom when they did!) so I need to check those and update my grade book. I also need to look over the week with my husband, and make sure we’re both on the same page about what is happening and when. Finally, my daughter and I need to plan our decorations for Trunk or Treat, which we’re participating in at her school this Friday. Our theme is Pokemon and we have A TON of stuffies and other toys, we just need to figure out how to use them. I already ordered the center piece of the decorations, and it came today and it’s great. I’m excited to do this with her this year.
Okay, that was a long post. I guess at this point in my life I can show up for a giant word vomit about once a week. It’s not ideal, but it’s where I’m at and I’m trying to be okay with it.
It’s been a pretty decent week. I’ve continued to make headway in getting stuff out of the house. I cleaned up the back room, which had become a dumpster fire, both physically and emotionally (for me at least). My husband has indeed been stepping up since he started feeling better, which has provided me with some much needed margins in the afternoons. I also decided I’m going to work out four days a week again, instead of five, because that fifth workout was adding more stress than it was relieving.
We’re having another heat wave but its supposed to break today. Two of my friends have Covid again, and I feel like it’s just a matter of time before I get hit again. I haven’t looked into getting the new booster, but I should. My initial feelers suggested Kaiser was not going to make it easy, and I haven’t felt like fighting for it yet. But I should.
I did get a sports medicine appointment and went on Monday. I have some mild degeneration at L5-S1 which I guess is common. She referred me for physical therapy but I never got a call from them. Hopefully next week (I only remembered to email her today and let her know that they never called me).
We finished our Murakami puzzle. Our cat actually flipped it over last Sunday so we hard to start it all over again (we were over half way done). It was a giant bummer, and if my husband wasn’t so good at puzzles I probably would have given up. But we started again and after looking for – and finding! – missing pieces we finally finished it yesterday. It was very satisfying.
I went to a high school info night on Wednesday that actually felt worth my time. The next six weeks will be turned a little upside with high school tours and info nights and applications. I will be very happy when it’s over. It’s really hard for me to take a couple hours off in the middle of the day, but I have to do that four times in November, at least.
I got the cats into the vet – and after school! It feels like a miracle.
Our friends had their baby. It’s their second child and she was born just four days before my son’s birthday. It had me thinking a lot about when he was born, 10 years ago. I went onto Shutterfly and downloaded some pictures onto my phone. We looked very happy then. I remember being happy. I remember really appreciating my time with him, because I knew he was my last baby and I couldn’t believe I got to do it all again. I was so grateful.
It’s looking like our anniversary getaway will just be two nights somewhere close by. I’m trying to process my disappointment quickly. I know we’re lucky to get away at all. But I guess I thought things would be easier for us by now. And for a short while they seemed to be. But things feel really tight again and it feels like were constantly having conversations about what we can’t afford anymore. It doesn’t feel great. Inflation is really real. Lifestyle creep is real. We need to be better at budgeting.
This weekend is full. Hopefully it will also be fun. We shall see. I’m trying to go into it with realistic expectations. Our son is handling his birthday better than he has… maybe ever? I really hope he enjoys his sleep over. I really hope I don’t regret throwing it.
It’s 11:30 and I still have 35 slide deck activities to score. Boo. Better get at it.
My husband and I try to do a little debrief on Sunday nights, to make sure all the pieces fit for the next seven days. This week is going to be a doozy, culminating in our son’s 10th birthday on Sunday. I have to admit,. I will be relieved once it’s over.
And I know I was just singing the praises of parenting older kids, but today was a reminder that it’s not all unicorn farts and fairy queefs. Both my kids were sporting some serious attitude today and I had to take deep breaths several times to keep from losing my shit on them. They are generally pretty down to go somewhere or try something, even if the initial transition to leaving the house is difficult, but today it felt like everything we suggested was met with with groans and eye rolls. No thank you!
But we got through it. And we enjoyed the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the SFMoMA, along with some really great photography exhibits downstairs. We also made it to the library to pick up some books on hold, even though it was a full two blocks out of our way (but we already walked for sooooo long!). We even got boba, which was several blocks farther, but did not elicit the complaints that walking to the library did. Strange.
Last week was a strange one not just because we got back from out trip on Tuesday evening, but also because the kids had teeth cleanings on Wednesday, and because the dojo was offering limited classes. This week my son and I are back at the dojo, my daughter is back at swimming, and starting a new Portfolio Prep class on Tuesdays, I have my sports medicine appointment tomorrow and my allergy shot on Tuesday.
This weekend is the SFUSD enrollment fair and my son’s birthday sleep over with three friends. Then his family birthday on Sunday with just my parents (my in-laws are out of town). He hasn’t asked for many presents and we didn’t get him much after Universal Studios. I’m really hoping he handles it well. Presents have always been a thing he cares a lot about, but this year he clearly doesn’t want as much and seems sometimes to be fine knowing he’s not getting much and sometimes he clearly struggles with it. It’s all just a part of growing up, but I’ll be glad when the day is over and we’re past whatever reaction he has.
Work should be relatively low key this week. I only have one more online training module to complete before Saturday, so that should be doable. I’ve gotten all the assessments and projects scored, which feels nice. On Friday my student teacher and her advisory and I met for her first evaluation meeting. It used up my entire prep, but at least it’s over and there is only one more. I have found this to be a rewarding experience in many respects, but I doubt I’ll be agreeing to take on another student teacher any time soon. In the end I’m losing more time than I’ll be getting back when she does her solo weeks, and the stipend is so small as to be almost more troubling than being offered nothing at all ($120 for the entire semester – after taxes it honestly doesn’t feel worth filling out the W-9). When I think about how much she is paying the school, and how little they are reimbursing me, it’s not a great feeling.
But we don’t get into teaching for the money right?! We do it for the respect and appreciation we receive from students and parents alike!
For real, it’s demoralizing to be reminded constantly that our culture does not value what we do at all. It’s a giant bummer.
My husband is finally feeling better, after being down for the count pretty much all week. I”m looking forward to having some help next week, and weekend. Did I mention we’ll have four 10-year-old boys over here Saturday night?! I just hope we get some sleep.
