Couple of things.
One, how adorable is that photo????
Snapseed. Y’all.
I made that!
I have been having just the absolute best time playing with the Snapseed app. I take a really awful picture with my trusty phone and with a few tweaks, Snapseed makes it into something just lovely.
I’m totally smitten.
And also, I’m spending way too much time taking pictures to play with.
I might need an intervention soon.
Nevermind. IT’S FINE.
Maybe.
Two, we have less than a month left in this school year.
And I just really have no explanation for how that happened.
Where did the year go?
We settled so quickly into this new life and new rhythm, it almost feels like we have been here forever.
So this school year is closing out and I genuinely feel like I missed most of it simply based on the speed at which it flew by. Y’all.
Does childhood slow down at some point?
(That’s a rhetorical question.)
(I realize it does not.)
Now, on to the gratitude!
This week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Yay teachers! We sent flowers and her favorite candy bars to our kinder teacher and my son drew special pictures for his teachers. Then he went ahead and wrote a whole “book” about his teacher. She practically blushed telling me about it.
I love teachers. My mom was a teacher. My husband is a teacher. My MIL was a teacher. My sister-in-law is a teacher and my other SIL was a teacher, too.
Basically, I’m surrounded.
(Also under-educated since all those teachers have multiple degrees.)
(Can we say HIGHLY QUALIFIED?)
When I was in college, majoring in English, kind and concerned individuals would ask, “Oh, are you going to be a teacher?”
Um, no.
I had no intention of working that hard.
I watched my mom leave for work in the mornings before my brother and I were even out of bed. Work all day. Then come pick us up from whatever practice we had after school. Get dinner on the table, TALK WITH US (really, I’m exhausted thinking about having to listen to more children after listening to ALL THE CHILDREN at my job), and finally sit down to work after the rest of the family had gone to bed.
ALL THE NOPES.
Teachers are superheroes.
And I am not.
Teachers perform miracles with limited resources every. single. day. I have no idea how they have the spiritual, mental, and emotional margin to care for an ever-increasing number of children. How the state determines the number of students per teacher is some sort of tea-leaf-reading voodoo. It’s the exact number just before the teacher loses her ever-loving mind.
Bless.
This year, my precious, sensory-sensitive, left-handed girl has had just about the most amazing teacher (outside of my family) ever. EVER.
From the beginning of the year, when she suggested we let my daughter change into her tennis shoes just before PE class instead of having to wear them all day until recently when she saved my daughter’s graduation pictures.
Here’s the thing about graduation pictures: You have to wear a cap and gown.
I know.
None of us is shocked by that but that’s kind of a new concept for my daughter.
I showed her the sample pictures and y’all, she just started tearing up. She doesn’t do hats or anything on her neck. Ever.
So I emailed her teacher to let her know my daughter would not be having her picture made and it was okay with us. We were not interested in stressing her out over a picture.
Unfortunately, the pictures weren’t so much of a voluntary thing. Every kindergartener gets their cap and gown picture presented to them on awards day. She would be the only one not getting a picture.
Well.
She asked if she could give it a go of convincing her to try and I enthusiastically agreed. I recognize children often do things for their teachers they would not normally do for their parents.
Like, follow directions.
Use their manners.
Etc.
Later that day, I got an email from her teacher. She had come up with a sensory-sensitive position for the pictures.
Just look at her.
Swoon.
My daughter was completely thrilled with the idea and I was so happy she wouldn’t be left out on awards day.
I went up to school to have lunch with her and I saw her teacher. She said she was watching Pumpkin in line and with every step closer to the pictures, she could see the anxiety growing on her little face. She said, “It wasn’t worth all that!”
So true.
Every time I look at that picture, what I see is my miracle daughter, incredibly created with her sensory issues, and her teacher, heavenly ordained to guide and protect my miracle during this year of transition.
I see God.
Friend, He is so involved in the details of our lives. He hand-picked this amazing, kind, sweet teacher for my girl. And it has simply been wonderful.
Teachers have so much on their plates. And I feel like it’s more now than ever. Even though I have never taught a single minute of my life. Kids come to their classrooms with so much brokenness. Some come with trauma. Some come flat hungry. Some come with undiagnosed needs. And some come with unseen emptiness.
My daughter is a quiet, obedient, rule-follower. Not until about mid-year do teachers tell me they are just starting to see her little personality emerge. Which makes me laugh out loud every.single.year. Because there’s nothing “little” about her personality. But, y’all, she’d be the student to be over-looked. Easily.
But she wasn’t this year.
Her teacher saw her and loved her just as she was.
And I am so incredibly grateful.
Thank you, Father, for giving us our kindergarten teacher. You always amaze me at how you love us.