Why I march

Today, Joel, Evelyn and I went to the Women’s March on the Palouse. We walked with women, men, children, clergy and even a few wheelchairs braved the slushy sidewalks of Moscow. We marched to support each other. We marched to send a message. We marched to be an example for Evelyn.

Many people on social media say to get over it and move on. But I’m not sure how, as a mother and a teacher, I should get over the leader of the United States being an awful example of what a human being should act like. I teach my students and Evelyn to use kind words, to talk about their disputes and to treat everyone equally. He does none of this. He is a bully. He is offensive. So today we marched to say that behavior is not okay. He is not the type of person I want my students or child to look up to. He may be the President, but he is not my president.

Some people on social media today asked what we accomplished. Why did we block streets, not go to work or be more productive with our time. We could have volunteered to really make a change. And while I actively volunteer to help make a difference in my community, today was not the day for that. Today was to rise up. Today was to be supported and united with my husband, child, friends and people who also see the need to resist.

Today gave me hope. I checked my Facebook and saw millions of people around the world who stood with me. I stood by my husband, who as a white, middle class male, knows that this is not his fight. He knows that this is my fight. It’s Evelyn’s fight. And he will stand next to me always. My heart is full tonight.

Some days at school, I feel disoriented and unorganized. I feel overwhelmed by the 23 tiny humans who constantly need something from me and unprepared to teach them everything they need to know.

Today was not one of those days. While driving Evelyn to daycare, I was thrilled that it was raining and not snowing and that the slush was starting to fully melt. At school, we had a staff book study on Conscious Discipline which never fails to revive my trust in humanity, remind me of how I want to interact with my students and gives me insight into their motivation for behavior.
In the few minutes before the bell rang, I started to design a “100 kind acts from the Highland PACK” sign and paper hearts to go with them. We are approaching 100 days of school and are planning our celebration.

This was my Pinterest inspiration. I printed hearts out for all of the other teachers and made a poster board sign to hang in the gym with our kind act hearts.

Being in my third year of teaching kindergarten, I’m definitely starting to make my classroom my own and discovering that I don’t have to be a cookie cutter replica of the other class. My class dynamics are vastly different than the other class and we’re able to accomplish different activities. So recently, instead of fine motor time before lunch, we’re doing literacy centers. They’re learning or practicing their reading and writing but they’re fun enough that the kids don’t put up a fight.


Who doesn’t love using a white board? Again, sight words and seasonal words.

Plus play dough sight words and at the start of the year play dough letters.
For the most part, the kids engaged and retain what they’re working on. I’ve also made a lot of math station games that they like. There’s something about laminating everything that makes me feel like a good teacher.
I’m sure after this post about how I was productive and felt good about my day, tomorrow will go to hell but I figure I’ve got to celebrate the little victories!

Seasons

It’s been over 2 months since Ive consistently blogged. I can easily blame my absence on preparing for and going on a tropical family vacation, getting sick and the holidays. Those are all bloggable events. But the truth is, it’s been a tough fall. I’ve definitely been in a valley and it’s hard to write about trivial things when your mind is constantly on what could have been and asking God why.

As I wrote about before, I had another miscarriage. That was over 4 months ago and my body still isn’t back to normal. I contacted my nurse midwife about 8 weeks after the start of the miscarriage with my concerns and was eventually referred to another obgyn. Joel and I went in and saw her and then went in for a procedure to check for abnormalities. Everything was clear which is a relief but also means there’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing to fix. Which is frustrating in itself.

My fertility struggle has made me more appreciative of Evelyn- some families don’t successfully get pregnant even once- and I have a perfectly healthy, seldomly sassy, smart child. But it doesn’t stop us from wanting another child. People’s favorite advice when I tell them about our struggle is, “as soon as you stop trying, that’s when it happens”. These people have the best intentions and yet I want to punch them in the throat. Yes, thank you. Allow me to simply ‘stop thinking about’ a life consuming topic.
Last week, we had dinner with Joel’s grandparents and as I was chatting with Papa Jerry, he said, this might not be a polite thing to ask, but do you and Joel want more children? Now, it’s easy to brush this off with a standard ‘we’re trying’ but I gave Papa Jerry the real deal. I wouldn’t say there’s a stigma around taking about fertility struggles but it’s not exactly something you throw up as a casual Facebook status. It’s complicated and personal and sad. But if we’re being real, that’s life.

Clothes subscriptions

January has been a great month for clothes subscriptions at my house. My MIL- the genius that she is- gave her adults children and their spouses money for Christmas. Win. She said we had to buy something fun and then she wanted a picture of it. Joel bought himself a keyboard and I ordered a Stitch fix box. I immediately added cute booties, flats, colored pants and chunky sweaters to my Pinterest board and in my ‘note to stylist’ informed them that it’s currently cold AF in the PNW. Man, my stylist hit the nail in the head!

Seriously, Evelyn should take up photography as a hobby. Wine colored denim skinnies and (although you Can’t tell), my sweater has buttons up the back and elbow patches. My other items included a pink v-neck sweater, multi colored ballet flats (which I can’t wear til the damn snow goes away), and a total teacher blouse.

I obviously kept all of it and got my 25% discount.
The other clothes subscription I belonged to, and it only lasted this long because I forgot to cancel it and then if you cancel you don’t get the VIP prices, talk about bait and switch, was Fabletics. They make their money on people- like me- who forget to ‘skip’ their outfit of the month by the fifth day of the month and get charged. I did this twice. I really don’t need work out clothes every month. So I spent my credits in a couple outfits and promptly canceled the whole thing. Here’s what I got-
Simple swim suit cover up for next summer and an outfit with shorts. Can you tell that I’m day dreaming of warmer days?

Joel laughed at the matchy-matchy aspect of this three piece outfit. It will not be worn all at once. The jacket might be cute with jeans for a ‘sporty’ look, maybe I need to invest in some Chuck Taylors. And the shorts have pockets. Total win.

MLK

When you spend your days zipping coats, teaching kids the names and sounds of letters and reminding them to go potty so they don’t have an accident, sometimes you forget that these small humans have the capacity to understand big concepts. My most recent example is introducing Martin Luther King Junior to my kindergarten class and explaining why he was such a big deal.
It’s completely accurate to say that we lack diversity in the LCV. And in an effort not to ostracisze the few students I have who aren’t white, we compared hair color, shirt color and gender. To introduce the concept, I made all the kids wearing short sleeves shirts sit at their chairs. I told them they couldn’t sit at the carpet with the rest of the class. You would think I killed their puppy. Why can’t we sit there? That’s not fair! Bingo. It’s not fair. Let’s talk.

I asked our fabulous librarian for all the books she had on MLK. Although I sent some of them back because they were above our comprehension level, we read lots of them.

Many of my kids asked, is this real life? Often the stories we read are fiction. I assured them that Martin lived before their parents were born but that he was so important. We talked about words like equality and justice. We talked about how we feel when something isn’t fair. We talked about how to make things fair. We talked about how to be kind.

It’s easy to forget about MLK and his mission when the holiday passes. However I’m determined to continue our conversation. Over Christmas break, I made kindness trees for the K-2 classes at school. Kids watch for kind acts during the day and put a hand on the tree. At the end of the day, we talk about the kind acts we saw throughout the day.
Now, possibly more than ever, it’s important to teach our kids acceptance and tolerance. It’s easy to let the world teach us to be selfish and judgemental but I know that’s not what good ol’ Martin would have wanted.

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” MLK JR