The countdown is on now for the birth of a tiny little baby that is soon to arrive to a momma and daddy who will love it for ever and ever. My first grandchild is due on the 3rd of March and when that little one is born, its birth certificate shall read "Whidbey Island, Washington". It's a place far, far away from here in the Rocky Mountains, nestled safely into the Puget Sound area off of the coastline. I had never heard of that place before my son Ricky married his wonderful bride Angie last July there. My son Grahame and I traveled to Langley, a small town on the island, for the wedding and we were able to spend 3 days seeing the sights and hearing the sounds of life there. It was beautiful.
I have a ticket in hand to make the journey there to see this little person when spring break arrives here for our school district in late March. Having never been through this before, I'm not quite sure what it is that a "grandma" does but I'm a fast learner and will probably do ok. After the saga of "old lefty" in 2011, I was so afraid that I would never have the strength to safely hold things in my arms again and one of those "things" was a baby. It was a real concern to me. God provided the healing after that little curb jumping incident and there should be no problems. The silly things that we people worry about!
Perhaps it is the idea of the baby arriving soon but lately for some reason, I've been ever more aware of all the blessings that are around me each and every day. It's like an awakening of sorts that perhaps has come as I've settled more into my surroundings here in a place far from my old home in south central Kansas. I surely am grateful for my new school family at Olathe Elementary, just up the road from here in Montrose. I've said many times throughout these blog posts that it's a wonderful thing to work in a place where everyone watches out for each other. I can remember what it was like the first time I met them all. It was a huge mass of humanity to me, what seemed like thousands of strange faces looking my way as I was introduced to them all at the first faculty meeting in August. I wondered to myself, "How on earth am I going to keep them all apart? Geesch, I'll NEVER remember who is who!" But oddly enough, I did figure them all out and it is with pleasure that I journey there each day to teach amongst them. God knew all along what it was that I was supposed to do here in this new land called "Colorado". In His own time, I found out.
And for the "18"? I will forever be thankful for the blessing of knowing them and you know what? I have to say something about them here. No, really I have to say something about ME here. Call it a "confession" or whatever you wish but a couple of mornings ago in my classroom I learned something about myself and the lesson was taught to me by my students. For the record, some of my best lessons learned have come to me from kids. We had just started our day and were busy in social studies, trying to work on some map skills. I gave directions about what to do, not once but many times to them. I was positive they were explicitly given and actually rather simple to follow. Evidently they were not. Time and time again during the next 3 minutes, I was repeatedly asked to repeat or clarify the directions of what to do. I could sense my impatience growing with them and realized that by the first fifteen minutes of the day I was close to already becoming the "cranky Mrs. Renfro". Finally I realized what I needed to do and it was necessary to do it right then and there.
I stopped myself, put the lesson on the proverbial "pause" and told them all to put down their crayons and pencils and look at me. I gazed out at them for a moment or two and looked at each one of them. One by one, throughout their array of student desks I made eye contact with them. In my shame for growing so quickly impatient with them, I could feel a tiny tear welling up in my eye as I began to speak to them all.
"You guys, it's obvious that I didn't do a very good job of giving you the directions for this assignment. It's the first part of our day and I've forgotten that perhaps you might have something else on your mind right at this very moment besides finding the geographical center of the North American continent right now. Please forgive me that I was impatient with you. Let's start over. Is everyone set to listen now?" And with that, we did and the lesson went smoothly from that point on.
As a teacher, as a person, this 36th year of being an educator has taught me so very much about what a good teacher is supposed to be like. I find myself more and more stopping to reflect about what I am doing within the four walls of my classroom and the impact it has on my students in the world beyond our room. This year, nearly four decades into this life of working with students, I am sharing more and more of those reflections with the students that I work with. If I learn a lesson about myself, more likely than not I will share it with them. Since we spend more than 7 hours of our day together, it seems fit and right so to do. So to those 9 and 10-year olds, the woman that they call "teacher" says a sincere word of thanks for coming to school each day and allowing me to present lessons both from the books as well as from life.
Funny, I have said some things over and over to those fourth-graders of mine in the months that we have been together. They can repeat them, word for word, in their hearts and minds.
"All summer long I was looking for you. I was sad and homesick and I thought I'd never find you. And then, just as I was ready to give up there you were, waiting for me here all along."
Don't think I'll ever go down in the history books of teaching for those quotes above but my students know what they mean and that's all that matters to me."Two things I want you to know. If you ever have a teacher who doesn't love you, then you need to find a new teacher and if you ever have a teacher who says that they never make a mistake, well then you need to find a new teacher."
Well the microwave time display says that an hour has passed by in the time that I've been writing this blog. Time to get busy and start this day. Dear friends and family, know that I am ok and actually beginning to figure out life here in this new land that I have moved to. Strange to imagine that already 9 months have passed since Mike and I were married back there in Kansas. The children that sat around us under the basketball goal in the gym at school and watched us get married, are now nearly another year older too. Time flies when you live life, I guess. May YOUR lives be at peace. Carrying you close to my heart, each of you. This is Saturday, the 22nd day of February in 2014~a great day to be alive in!
Some pretty decent advice from the "Good Book"~
Hard to imagine that little guy will soon be a daddy~
The view from Whidbey Island~
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