another saturday night.......

Here I am lying in bed, in my pajamas at 10:22 on a Saturday night. Ended up going out a little too hard last night (big woops) and was at work all day today. So I came home, made some spaghetti, watched some movies and thought really hard about unpacking some more, but decided to come and check in on blog world. I've missed it..

My sister is on the east coast this weekend. Normally a resident of San Francisco, she is back home for a wedding. I felt bad that I was happy my little brother, who is back at the 'rivah' working at a sailing camp for the summer, isn't home. If the whole family had been together and I wasn't there, well, this one would not have been a happy camper. With S all the way out in San Fran we really are only all together for Christmas. Though only just about 4 hours away, I wish my parents and I were closer. Maybe then I wouldn't call so much..... maybe :)

I hope you don't read the following and start thinking I'm sketchy. So hear me out please... Working in a kindergarten classroom, with 5 year old children, there is a lot of physical contact. Be it helping zip up coats, holding hands so they don't run down the hall, seperating fights, handing out snacks, giving high-fives. And hugs. Some teachers do not show emotions and are not affectionate in anyway. I assure you, after being in the school system for 2 years now, I know the fine line between affectionate and affectionate. I love to give the kids hugs, pats on the back, and I will hold their little hands all day if I could. Some of the kids come from homes with 4 other siblings, single parents, care givers working multiple jobs. Sometimes they need loving from wherever they can get it. I miss my hugs. It hasn't even been a week and I miss my kids. On the last day of school, my little Chyna was sitting in the corner during free time normally the most chaotic thing we ever do. When I went over to see if she was okay, I saw she was crying. She saw me leaning down to talk to her and just reached out putting her arms around my neck almost sobbing saying "I don't want to leave Kindergarten because then you won't be my teacher every day". Well you can guess how quickly she wasn't the only one in the room crying. I stood up with her hanging from my neck and carried her out in the hall where we 'popped a squat' and had some one-on-one time. I just told her how much I was going to miss her, how the summer was going to fly by and when she's in 1st grade next year we'll just be across the way from each other and she can come visit me all the time. I assured her though that she would soon be way too cool for Ms. T and she's forget all about me. Expecting a laugh or chuckle or something, I was shocked when she started crying all over again. Thrown a little off guard I asked why that made her sad. She said if she forgot about me, then I would forget about her, and how do people that love each other just leave and forget about each other??? This is why I hug, and why I miss giving them. She nearly broke my heart. So I hope that you have people in your life that you get to hug. Hug them, and hug them often. It's good for the heart :)

Later that day, we teachers, in celebration of school being over, had a 'mandatory staff meeting' at the Flying Saucer (a bar... and it wasn't really a meeting). There were over 20 of us there when our waitress came up to the table telling us that all of our beers, the entire tables first round of drinks, had been payed for by a patron in the bar that didn't want to be recognized. They wrote us a note though. "Please accept my small offering to try and say thanks for all that you do. Teachers are out there doing all the heavy lifting for the rest of us".