welcome to the north pole

we almost didn't do this...

for a lot of reasons.

first of all, i'm tired.

and so is j.

he's teaching full time and coaching so his days are loooong.

i'm teaching part-time and growing a baby all while literally running after littles.

peach has been getting up in the night to go potty - which is good.  she's waking up dry.  but one of us is up with her, helping her through the fog of sleepiness and back to bed.

tulip had an ear infection that i treated with a home-made concoction.  i'm proud to say it worked, but it took a while and for the past couple weeks, she's been up multiple times during the night, needing momma or daddy to rock and soothe her back to sleep.

needless to say, when i look in the mirror, my reflection is one that sighs, "there's not much i wouldn't trade right now for a nap."

on top of that, a fellow 7th grade teacher at my building passed away last weekend and i've been clinging to God by my fingernails all week for words to explain something that i don't understand to the hundred and twenty five 13-year-olds that i teach every day

despite all that...j and i agree that these opportunities to really love our kids will only be here for a short time

some day, i'll sleep again and the bags under my eyes will disapper (hopefully?!??!)

some day, the endless trail of toys strewn about the house will cease

some day, we will have all the time in the world to pursue our own interests.

but today, for a brief moment, we have the opportunity to make some magic with our kids.

so, ignoring our exhaustion, we pulled together our second annual north pole party....

thursday night i was excited as i got the house ready.

friday i got the gut-wrenching news about what happened in Connecticut.

what?!

how?!

i almost turned tail again.

all i could think was...how can we (a bunch of teachers and their kids) get together and whoop it up when families on the east coast were hurting so desperately?

that could have been us....our school...my classroom...our students

but the house was clean and looking very polar.

and peach was bouncing from room to room chattering about santa and sleighs and bells and reindeer.

sometimes we're tired...

other times we're sad...

and those are real, valid feelings.

however, at the end of the day, all we can do is pour out all the good we can into this world.

and hope that it is enough for these kids that are in our care.

so, our friends showed up in jammies...

and we all made Santa's nice list :)

we ate yumm-o cookies

and drank ice-cold milk

we mixed up some magic reindeer food...

wrote letters to Santa and J read the story of Old St. Nick by flashlight

as the littles laid on the floor and watched J project the images of reindeer onto the ceiling in our dark basement, i was so glad that we did it.

i don't say all this to make us seem like more than we are.

we're human and just like all parents, sometimes we give in to the exhaustion, cut story time short, put them to bed early and just veg on the couch....

sometimes, even though we've got a kitchen full of nutritious food, we make them mac-n-cheese because we know that no one will complain about that...

sometimes we yell.

we are not perfect.

even though i'm still left with lots of "why" after the past week,

i know that i have little opportunities, like this one, to make the world better.  to love my kids and the others in my life extra special.  so that when the sad and the bad comes (as it surely will), they will have a foundation of goodness to stand on.

i've heard that it takes 10 positives to outweigh one negative.  maybe glittery oats and sprinkles on cookies are a lot more important than we give ourselves credit for.

maybe these jobs of being parents, grandparents, friends, aunts, uncles, teachers, day care providers,...although they seem monotonous and mundane....maybe they are the biggest, most important jobs.

maybe sweeping cocoa from every corner or my kitchen is one little thing that adds up to all the other little things to outweigh the one really big bad thing.

the house was a disaster after everyone left, but as i washed dishes,  picked up the remnants of a pillow fight, put toys back in their homes and prayed for families i'll never know, my heart was happy to have the blessing of cleaning up after a bunch of energetic little munchkins.  

may i never, ever take that privilege for granted.

i've got monday staring me in the face.

last monday i groped for words to explain to my students that a really good man's heart just stopped working while he was out shoveling snow.  i explained, with tears streaming down my face, that the room just downstairs, will now be occupied by a new teacher.  that was tough.

one week later, i've got to figure out how to convince them that, despite what happened in Newtown, our school is still a good place to be.  i've got to try my best to make them feel safe and make learning exciting - to help them see that education is a gift. 

this is tough stuff.  and college didn't prepare me for it.

but, i've got a bucket of candy canes and a whole weeks' worth of little opportunities to do a lot of good.

Lord, let it be enough.