Long time no blog. While 99.99% of our new house is
absolutely wonderful the other 00.01% leaves us temporarily without internet
access. I’m so disconnected. Fortunately we’ll be back online in just a few
weeks. Until then I’ll have to rely on free wi-fi (which I’ve found is becoming pretty common
in more and more places).
In the time since my last post a lot has happened. The boys
and I hiked fifty miles through North Carolina. Some highlights included one
six-mile climb, three observation towers, and twenty-one really cool mushrooms.
We again escaped the rain and, although I crammed an air cast into my pack, I
somehow avoided yet another ankle sprain. Good times.
Not long after returning we began school. Having spent a
couple of weeks moving about from place to place (while we waited for our house
to be finished) it was nice to return to some normalcy. Well, the sights,
sounds, and rhythms were normal. The kids were not. After three hundred and sixty days of learning, laughing, and playing together,
my group from the past two years moved on to a new teacher. They are just two
doors down (literally eight feet away) but it’s weird to see them walk by and
not come into the room. Many wave, and a few even run over for a hug, but
they’re on to bigger and better things in fourth grade. They’re on their way to
outgrowing me.
In the meantime I’ve been busy getting to know a new group.
New groups take a while to adjust to. There are always a few days where you’re
kind of mourning the loss of your old friends and wondering just who these new
ones really are. Who are the funny ones?
Who’s going to recommend books to me? Who loves to share stories? Who has a big
voice that will lead us all in song?
The big voice is actually quite important. I can’t hit more
than two or three notes so it’s always critical to have someone able and
willing to lead the rest of the class in song without having us so far off-key
that the neighboring teachers come barging in with hands clasped over their
ears. It winds up this year it’s Laila. She sings out strong and has a
beautiful voice. I’m so thankful for her. She has us all sounding pretty
doggone good for only two weeks together.
We’re taking it slowly. The first week we learned two songs.
This past week we learned two more. We’re generally a bit shaky for a day or
two but we figure them out in time.
Hoping to help, I asked my old class to come in this past Friday to sing
with us. I was hopeful they would jump in to help this new crop of singers find
the melody and develop enough confidence to sing out strong. Boy did they ever!
The fourth graders could have forgotten the smaller nuances
of the songs. They even could have come
in and acted a bit too cool to sing with us. But they didn’t. They sang so loud
and so joyfully. It was such a touching moment. It was another small reminder
of how special our time together was.
This new group is warming up. They’re about ready to shake
off the rust of summer and do some wonderful things. Among them will be to sing
a lot of songs and even write a few together along the way. I can’t wait to see
their personalities come to the surface as we develop a strong bond of our own.
And, rest assured, we will. Two years from now I’ll be watching them pass by
our classroom door as they steal a quick peek on their way to fourth grade. And
I’ll long for the days we will have spent together.
