bird by bird

The good part about making a big pot of chili on a Sunday afternoon: Leftovers for a week. The bad part: Leftovers for a week. Day 5

I am not a teacher anymore. I am a nanny. It's been an adjustment I went from a school bag to a diaper bag, from changing verb tenses to changing diapers, from dismissing class to putting to bed. I went from standing up in front of 15 adult students every day to sitting on the ground with three kids under the age of six. And I'm getting paid more ?! Yes, but my new job is poopy. Very, very poopy. It's not all different though; I'm still reading a lot of stories, correcting vocabulary mistakes, and giving encouragement. Also, I am still laughing. Still laughing a lot.

Followed by why I sorta kinda miss being a teacher:

I'm a nanny now. Actually I prefer the term "governess" because it sounds less like something I used to do when I was 13 to make money to buy scrunchies from Claire's. But it's essentially the same thing. I've had some ups and downs in these last couple of weeks, but my lowest point so far (God help me) was last Wednesday. Everything I did was wrong, and I found myself wanting to flush my M.A. down the toilet because I don't deserve it. I'm an idiot. The whole day I felt like that children's book character Amelia Bedelia who, like me, is kind of an idiot. She misunderstands all of her instructions by her employer which creates ridiculous and often comical situations. The difference is that Amelia almost always wins everyone over at the end of the book by baking a delicious treat, and Amanda, well she doesn't. So here's my story: I take all three boys to school, and drop K off first at 8:00. Then, JJ and baby J and I walk to Lenny'...

Go be productive.

Today a guy told me, "Hold me, and don't ever let me go." He was 6 and needed a spotter on his pogo stick. I'll take what I can get.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Mama L and I rolled into Verm-town around 5, dumped our luggage, picked up my auction aunt (she likes to go to auctions, I didn't buy her at one), and headed to Careys for live music and free popcorn. I ordered a Colorado bulldog, sat back, and soaked it all in. I didn't recognize a single person there (except the one and only Steve Ward), yet just being there I felt like I was surrounded by friends. The band played a Neil Young cover and I thought, "Does it get any better than this?" Then I remembered my Viejo date with the girls, so I said I silent "yup!" and headed to BL's Prentice St. address to pick her up. A funny thing happened as I saw each of my oh-so-missed friends in Mexico Viejo. First it was BL, then JF, MR, and finally GG and MW. The lights dimmed, a spotlight shined on their faces, and a movie star fan blew back their movie star hair, all in slow motion. Or so it seemed to me. I was just so happy to see them all, and so grateful that the...

A lot happened when I was back in South Dakota two weeks ago (cats remembered me, drove my jeep all over town, found out I have a cavity), but a lot of really funny things happened on Thursday. Thursday, September 29th: Today I had meatloaf at the monastery. I went to the Multicultural Center first, to holla at my sistas, Teresa and Ida, and to tell them all about my new big city life. I also needed to get the dirt on the apparent kidnapping that had taken place at a dairy farm where they teach (and where I once taught) ESL. When I read the article in the paper, I was afraid that Sister Ida had been shoved in the horse trailer as well, but I was relieved to learn that no nuns were harmed in the kidnapping case (just poor, poor Sergio...). After the sisters cleared that up for me, Sister Ida rode shotgun in my jeep and we drove up to the monastery for mass and lunch. We didn't sing "Piano Man" on the way, but I could tell Sister Ida wanted to. The sun was in my eyes f...

Looking at this: Listening to this:

Happy Birthday KG!! Miss our nights of funk and grad school complaining. Mostly just miss you.