Santa's Slip

Merry Christmas to all!

It's been a wonderful Christmas day.  I am now eating the delicious, leftover mushroom and zucchini quiche from last night's dinner and my little Christmas elf is sleeping.  The fire is blazing, Norte is dozing and Mama is at work so the house is quiet except for the clacking of my typing.

This year might have been my favorite Christmas yet despite Santa's slip.  Angelines and I were sure to buy each other a little something from Santa.  Do you remember last year's fiasco: Angelines running off to buy presents last minute after Emily was so devastated that Santa had apparently forgotten us?  This year we were so prepared. It turns out our subscription to Amazon Prime was a blessing!  My neighbor has been playing post woman for the past month receiving all our packages for us while we've been in Granada during the week and then delivering them over the weekend (we baked her a "healthy" tray of Christmas cookies as a thank you).  And still, with all our preparation, this years slip was worse than last year's: Emily discovered her Christmas present!!

We ordered her a huge doll house, which required about an hour's worth of assembly.  Being so on top of things, I put it together the night of the 22nd.  I left it in a closed room upstairs...but didn't think to cover it with anything.  On the 23rd Emily was calling me when I was in the patio sweeping leaves.  When she heard my distant answer, she went upstairs looking for me.  From the patio all I heard was the shout, "A giant toy house!!"  I panicked and called her downstairs after throwing down the broom and racing inside.  Meanwhile, she was running down to call me up and show me this amazing discovery of her's.

I am against outright lying to my daughter...even if it is about something fun like Santa Claus.  I prefer not to play it up and when she asks questions I usually ask them back to her as a way of avoiding the answer.  She asked who it was for and I asked her who she thought it was for.  Her answer, "Eloise and Jibril?" (my co-teacher and her son, who stayed in that room at Thanksgiving) made me laugh despite how upset I was. I told her it was a present for her from Mommy and Mama, but that it was supposed to be a surprise and I was sad she'd discovered it ahead of time.  I explained that at Christmas sometimes we hide presents for a surprise and asked if we could pretend she was still surprised.  I also told her she couldn't have it until Christmas day.  Bless her, she didn't even try to go upstairs again.  Instead, she took some of her toys and hid them  as presents from her. ;)  Hiding gifts was apparantly an attractive game to play.

This morning when she saw the doll house together with other presents from Santa, her first question was, "Did real Santa bring them?".  I asked her what she thought and she decided that he had.  Later in the day, she asked again if real Santa brings the toys or just a person dressed up.  I asked what she thought and she said it was a person dressed up.  I said maybe that was true.  Then she started trying to guess who it was...

Despite the slip and the questions, this year was still a favorite because Emily was so happy about her presents and so excited to give us the things that she had wrapped with Ga over her autumn visit. It's just so wonderful to see how truly "Christmas"-spirited she is.  She really isn't obsessed with the gifts, there's no post-unwrapping let-down, she loves watching us open ours, and truly enjoys the morning.  I know that for some kids/people, Christmas without Santa isn't fun...or loses it's magic, but I really feel as though Emily doesn't really care too much about Santa and I hope to keep it that way simply because enjoying the giving and the togetherness is really what Christmas is about and Santa can easily turn into a distractor from those true holiday values.

Last night, as is now tradition, my mother-in-law ate Christmas dinner with us.  Before dinner, she and Emily watched Frosty the Snowman (the old 1960's version--a personal favorite) and The Grinch (also the animated 1960's version).  Then we sang and danced and laughed until Emily couldn't keep her eyes open.  After she was asleep, however, Angelines and I enjoyed our meal and dessert while being regaled with the most outrageous stories of La Rodian (sp??) history/family history.  Abuelita was in a storytelling groove! Angelines didn't take her home until past midnight.

Once again, it was the togetherness and really just enjoying each other that made me feel like it really is Christmas.  Today we ate lunch over at Tita Toñi's house and after a wonderful afternoon bike ride with my girl and my dog, primo Francisco came over to watch Moana with me and Em.  Finally, we topped off the day with a quick skype call to Sierra Valley.

I hope your Christmases have been as merry and well-spent.  I'm going to get at least one more blog in before the new year.  I promise.  But for today, I just wanted to focus on our lovely Christmas celebration.

...And to all a good night!

Thankful

I realize that this is now a record for virtual silence.  I haven't even bothered to look at the date on my last blog because it's embarrassing!  All I know is this is long overdue and I do miss blogging terribly.  As usual, however, I can make no promises to be bettter in the future, so let us just enjoy the moment and I will take advantage of this quiet time at two in the morning with a pie crust in the oven to just reflect and be thankful.

I know I am early for Thanksgiving, but we are celebrating tomorrow.

This year my South African co-teacher, my "partner in crime" as she says, has come to La Roda with her son to join the celebration.  I am so happy and thankful to be able to share the best of American holidays with yet another international friend.

And best of all, my mommy is here to partake of the feast (and help cook...or clean up after me, as the case may be). ;)  She's been here nearly two weeks and flys home Sunday, so our celebration isn't a moment too soon.  It is so special for me and maybe especially for Emily that she can be here with us.  She even adventurously took the bus on her own into Granada center today in search of fresh cranberries...and was successful!  At 4.50 each for a small basket, I'm afraid it was rather an expensive endeavor, but we will have the most delicious cranberry relish this side of the Atlantic, for sure!

I am thankful for my hard-working wife, who actually is the reason I can even afford to work this crazy job which leaves me with no time for anything, but does at the end of the day feel rewarding and important.  She's the reason we can give Emily a different kind of education, and one that I feel is empowering, enriching and far superior to the public system.  She has my back, despite frequent grumbling ;) but in the end I couldn't do any of this without her.

I am thankful for my beautiful, intrepid, increasingly naughty, funny, dramatic, amazing daughter.  She delights me every day.  It is such fun to watch her play and interact with her Ga.  They are two peas in a pod.

I am thankful for my job.  I am thankful that it allows me a means to continue learning and growing personally and professionally.  It is stressful and hectic and far from perfect...but things quite often are.

I am thankful for quiet moments like these when I can sit and send a message out to all of you whom I love so much and are so far away.  I am thankful that you can read this and know I am thinking of you and wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving with your own families and friends.

The smell of pumpkin pie calls.

Breaking the Block

This is the first of my long over-due posts after our wonderful trip back to the States.  We were away from home for exactly one month!  In some ways I wish I had been more diligent in using other people's computers and posting along the way; but in trying to capture all the moments of each day, I am sure I would have missed out on actually just being and enjoying.  I have been digesting that month for nearly a month now and with the end of summer (announced this evening with a violent thunderstorm) closing in on me, I have decided the only way to get over my writer's block is by writing.

Our trip was an extravaganza of visits and reunions.  Emily was introduced (or in most cases reintroduced) to quite a large ammount of family.  The other day at the pool she calmly offered to stay with her cousins while I went back to the towel to fetch her swimming goggles--they weren't cousins at all, but I guess she's begun thinking that she could be related to just about anyone!

We began meeting family even here in Spain, as we decided to leave through Barcelona rather than Málaga.  I have been harassing Angelines to take a trip to Alicante (about half way between here and Barcelona on the Med. coast) to visit her father's family, and so cheap flights from BCN seemed like just the ticket (ha ha).  Emily and her cousins Julia and Marco hit it off from the get-go.  Especially Julia, who is just a year older, was enchanted with Emily.  They were inseparable for the two days we were with them.  We also visited Angelines's two aunts and a few other cousins while in town.

In Barcelona we were able to stay with friends and leave our car with them for the month we were away.  By the time we reached Seattle with Maggie, we had slept in three different beds and two planes in a span of just four days! 

Emily was a champ through all of our travel.  In the car she was great and on the plane she only became fussy when sheer exhaustion clashed with uncomfortable airline seating...haven't we all been there?  She's finally just big enough that it's getting hard for her to get in a good sleeping position on a plane.  Somewhere over Canada she finally went out but by the time we made our return journey, she was a pro at sleeping while travelling. ;)

I am going to skip over details in this first entry.  Fitting a month of travel into a reasonably sized blog post just isn't possible.  We were able to spend time with both my sisters, although each of them is now a flight away from my parents' house, spend nearly three weeks with Ga and Papa; and also visit many friends and family.  It was wonderful to be there for so long, because it really meant that our time with my parents wasn't at all rushed, nor did we feel the presure of trying to balance and fairly divvy visiting time among loved ones.  Of course, we were left wanting more time together, but we had had so much time to just BE that I felt we really had a quality visit as opposed to constanly trying to squeeze things in. 

I am especially grateful for all the time Emily was able to be with my parents and also see and experience the U.S.  As my mom said, "I think she really got a feel for our life".  She has repeatedly said she misses them since we've been back and talks about our next visit.  Everyone in La Roda has heard about "her" horse Hobo in California and how she rode all by herself.  I think, however, that our next visit to the States may be somewhere other than my childhood home.  As much as I love to visit and see all the other people I love on the West Coast, it would be nice to explore other parts of the country with my family.

Now we are back home and recovered from jet-lag.  We have been playing catch-up with projects around the house, getting the cars tuned up for the weekly Granada commute, and trying to beat the heat at the city pool.  Next week I go back to school and Emily officially starts the following Monday.  Angelines is looking forward to it with dread.  Emily is, I think, slightly indifferent, although she has more than once made mention of friends and teachers from school.  I am looking forward to having a year under my belt that can constitute some kind of experience from which to continue building and growing.

In this last week we are planning to make the most of our precious time together as a family.  Having zero free-time with the three of us all together, has been (and will be) the most difficult part of our life between two cities.  Tomorrow we're planning an outing to a cave since Emily is obsessed with prehistoric life (?!) and Wednesday we will go to the beach (Norte, too).  We are wringing all the goodness out of summer and charging our batteries 100% for the coming school year!

Science Park For the Win!

Fast friends

 As promised, here I am again!

We are leaving La Roda tomorrow to make our way up the Medditerranian coast to Barcelona, where we'll catch our flight to LA on Wednesday.  I can hardly believe it's finally time to fly!  I have been prepping and packing for the last half of the week...and really at the moment I should be getting a few more things in order.

Even though we don't plan to leave until around 4pm tomorrow, I know the morning will fly by and Angelines is always very annoyed if we are rushed at the last minute.  In the interest of a good, smooth start to our vacation, I really shouldn't be long posting.

I just wanted to fill you all in on the lovely day we spent Wednesday with our friends from the States.  They made the drive from their rental place into Granada capital and we met at about 3pm in the Parque de las Ciencias--a science museum that is very kid friendly.  It's the perfect place to spend a hot afternoon.  We bought a season pass since we've moved to Granada because it is also a wonderful place to spend cold, rainy days. ;)

Tiger doing yoga...

After the first few moments of shyness, Emily, Sarah and Rachel were fast friends. It was such fun to watch them playing and interacting together.  Emily was so excited.  She knows her way around and was dragging Sarah from pillar to post.  Sarah finally said, "Stop pulling me!" We went through a music exibit, played in the water outside, visited the butterfly house, spent some time in the children's room exploring and then went to an exhibit about animals in motion.

The girls enjoyed it all, but I think they may have been most impressed with the stuffed animals in the last exibit we saw.  Rachel, who is just over 2.5, took one look at the leopard and said, "Look at that tiger doing yoga!" :)  Ha!  I think that was a highlight of the day for me.

All three of the girls are so inquisitive, bright and engaging.  It was fun to see their different personalities and the way they got along.  After the Science Park, we headed for dinner.  Finding a place that is ready to serve food at 8pm is more challenging than you might think!  We were the first to sit down at the lovely outdoor, enclosed terrace restaurant we found, and we were the only ones until around 9:15 when Spaniards slowly made their way out into the streets for the cool of the evening.  All through dinner the girls continued to play--hide and seek, tag, ballerinas, house...

It is too bad we aren't a bit closer to Granada to have been able to meet up again while they are here.  I did think about making the drive for a second play-date, but with prep for our own holiday, it just wasn't in the cards.  Still, these short, sweet visits are wonderful because the girls are left wanting more.  Emily and Sarah remembered each other from two years ago, so I am sure that this visit will stick in their minds.  I am sure, too, this is just the start of many visits yet to come.

The three muskateers (stooges??)

Keeping cool outside.

They held hands all through the museum--adoreable!

School's out for the Summer!

I was slipping off Emily's water wings at the city pool this afternoon and I had to smile.  Just like that the stress and craziness--the extra time and hours and worry and prep and late nights and early mornings--slipped away into the past.  It's summer!  I'm on vacation!

Although school was over for the kids last Wednesdays, we teachers had to work Thursday and Friday packing up the classrooms, taking inventory, etc.  Even today I went in for about five hours to do some final wrapping up and take stock for next year.  But after a hot drive home from Granada between 2:30 and 4:00, when I slipped on my bikini and hit the cool water of the pool, I realized summer is really here.  It feels so good.

Angelines and I just finished watching an episode of a new TV series we've found on Amazon, and I was about to follow her to bed, but then thought better of it.  What better way to really treat myself on this first day of summer break, than to sit down and blog in the darkness of my living room?

Work details are best left for offline chats.  Thankfully, I'll be seeing most of you in just a few short weeks and I am sure we'll have plenty of time over coffee or wine or delicious food to catch up on the nitty gritty.  Suffice it to say, I have had zero time and less energy to keep up with my blog.

And as is so often the case when one is running on empty, the day after our last official day at work, I got terribly sick. My throat was swollen and sore and I was even covering myself with blankets on the couch even though the outside temps were up near the 100's (and no, we don't have AC).  Sunday, Angelines talked me into going to the ER and this time a very kind doctor immediately prescribed antibiotics although I was unsure if I'd actually had a fever (Do you all remember the wackoo back in January who refused to treat with more than ibuprofen for lack of fever even though my tonsils were the size of golf balls and riddled with puss pockets?).  On my third day of antibiotics today and I do still need the ibuprofen for the pain, but am feeling much better.

I also wanted to get in a quick post before tomorrow because we are meeting up with my childhood best friend's brother and his family who are here visiting Spain!  We're going to go to the Parque de las Ciencias in Granada and spend the afternoon/evening together. I am so excited to see them.  Don't get me wrong, I love when my parents visit, but we are fortunate enough that their visits are frequent and therefore slightly less "eventful" (not for Emily, of course!).  Anyway, it's just so fun to think of sharing a bit of my life here with friends from home whom have never visited us here, especially since one of their girls is just a bit older than Emily and they remember eachother from our last visit to the US. :)  I do love playing tour guide!

Other news: Emily has finally taken the leap toward swimming--she dunks herself underwater.  She has been terribly averse to getting her face wet and would refuse even to blow bubbles in the water, much to her mothers' chagrin.  Angelines has been especially worried and insistant that this year she MUST learn to swim, that she's getting too old to not know. While I do agree to an extent, I am a firm believer that children have their own developmental schedules and timetables to fulfill...and so far I haven't seen the need to push her with swimming. 

As it turns out, yesterday she was playing about in the little city wading pool with lots of other kids and watched a few of them dunk underwater.  She turned to her mama and said, "I can do that!" ¡Voila!  She was showing everyone who'd look!  And then she even dared to go in the big pool without her water wings on!  She's not acutally swimming yet, of course, but just that she's feeling comfortable enough to do this is a huge change.  I am sure that she'll be dog paddling by the end of August (earlier if her mama has anything to do with it!). 

She was so excited about taking off her water wings that she was shouting at everyone who was near us, "Mira! Con no manguitos!" --Look! With no water wings!  The English translation sounds okay...but in Spainsh it's completely awkward not to use the preposition "without" sin.  It was pretty cute and got lots of laughs.

So here's my summer kick-off post.  I will be online a lot more now, I promise.  I do miss writing on here when life gets so hectic.  It really is calming to sit down and put words on the screen, especially when I know you all are somewhere out there reading them. ;)

Happy Summer!

Too Good to Let it Go

I've been working on school stuff these past two hours, but I cannot go to bed without blogging about today even though that may mean I'll be sleepy tomorrow...

Today and yesterday were days off school (Yippeee!).  Unfortunately, my parents left Thursday mid-morning and so we couldn't take advantage of my time off to be all together.  Emily, however, skipped school Wednesday to spend their last day in Spain doing something fun.  She and mamá took Ga and Papa to the Parque de las Ciencias in Granada--they spent most of the day there and had a blast. :)  It warmed my heart to get pictures of their adventures at school.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting is because Emily and I opted to stay in La Zubia despite not having school in order to go to ballet today.  For various reasons, we've only been to class once a week for about the last four or five weeks and I think the lack of routine is taking its toll on Emily.  She has started to hang off me and even has gone in crying the last few classes.  I know she really does like it (in spite of what she says) because she always comes out of class happy, but it's hard to know what to do when she hangs off my leg claiming she doesn't like ballet and she doesn't want to go. :(  I don't want to force her if she really, truly doesn't want to; but it is important, too to learn to uphold commitments and persevere when activities become difficult. 

Anyway, I thought that if she made friends with some of the girls in class, that it might help her feel more comfortable and look forward to going more.  In chatting with the mother of one little ballerina, we discovered that we're very close neighbors and swapped numbers to arrange a play-date.  Thursday we sent them a message, but they were busy.  However, I was not to be disuaded so easily, and immediately asked if they wanted to get together at our house for pancakes before ballet Friday (today). They agreed, and so the day's first play-date was scheduled!

Yes, you read that right: "first" play-date.  On Thursday afternoon, after my parents and mamá had left us to our devices in La Zubia, we began calling all our friends to get together...but all of them were busy or away.  However, one friend from school asked if we could get together Friday morning.  I had already arranged for a personal "play-date" with friends from work at a river nearby.  We were going to have a picnic and hang out from about noon on.  So I told Emily's friend that if she could meet up in the morning, we could certainly see each other.  Suddenly we had our whole day booked with activities from 10-18:30!

Although we did have a full schedule, everything was quite laid-back and nice.  I'm happy that Emily got some play time in both with a school friend and her ballet buddy.  She was still a little reluctant to go into ballet class, but was really happy when we left and I think that our pancake, pre-dance snack has opened the door to further get togethers.  I am sure that making a friend will make a difference in Em's attitude.  Plus, today we got her dress for the dance recital in June!  Emily was pretty excited.

Our picnic at the river was also fantastic.  The río Dilar is a beautiful, well cared for place, more of a creek than a river, with lots of picnic tables and shade trees.  Today, being a week day and during work hours, we were virtually alone.  Norte spent these two days with me and Emily, since I didn't have to work and could therefore walk him.  He was THRILLED to be free to run around, swim and explore at the river.  We just sat snacking, chatting and playing in the freezing snow-melt while he ran himself silly!  Needless to say he was a very calm puppy the whole drive home to La Roda.

Whew!  It's been a long, but wonderful day.  This was certainly just what the doctor ordered.  As the end of the year approches and we scramble to get everything taken care of before the term ends, it is nice to take a day to do everything BUT think about (much less do) anything related to work. :)

Tech Excuses

Aside from being busy and hectic, my computer has conspired against me and know my "n" and "b" keys often stick or just flat out refuse to function, which means blogging and tediously having to backspace or press keys for extended periods of time in order to get a properly spelled sentence out is just too time consuming.  (Please forgive any missing letters I don't catch in this post)

The school year is coming to an end and rather than winding down, I feel like the opposite is happening.  There are so many things to do to make next year's school year start smoothly, it's hard to see how they will all happen.  The school year has been crazy and challenging as you already know, but it is rewarding to see the progress the children have made.  I suppose those rare moments when you can see your hard work paying off, is what it's all about.  Anyway, I cannot wait for summer, but at the same time I am dreading the work to get there, and then the work I will most likely have to do during the holidays to get things up to scratch.

Other news: my parents are here! :)  I didn't even blog about my mom's January visit this year...  Now they have both come for just a quick two weeks before heading to the Rotary International Conference in Hamburg, Germany.  It's too short a visit, but we'll actually be seeing them again so soon that it's alright.

Emily is thrilled to have Ga and Papa here. Monday and Tuesday of this week she stayed home from school to be with them.  They have been painting, playing prehistoric people, building duck ponds, doing puzzles and reading LOTS of books.  It's wonderful to have them and especially to see how happy Emily is that they are here. Their Spanish is much improved, which makes them more idependant, and especially my mom knows our schedule pretty well after her frequent visits, so they both quite easily slip into our daily routine.

Mostly, I just wanted to post SOMETHING so you all know I am still here... It's difficult to gather my thoughts for a blog post, when so much time has gone by and so much has happened since and even BEFORE my last post.  Blogging and writing is something I really enjoy and it helps me process all the craziness...some how I need to find a way to work in some more blogging.  Maybe I'll have to start with getting my keyboard looked at!

Just do it!

That is what I am telling myself as I sit here: "Just DO it!"  It's been too long since you've all had word from me, and if I continue to put off blogging until I actually have time to sit and write... you may not hear from me until well into July!

I will appologize ahead of time for the scattered nature of this post.  I have so many thoughts running through my head that this will very likely lack a narrative thread.  Sorry.

First on my mind:  I have never hated Daylight Savings more than this year!  Jumping forward has never been a favorite, although since living in Spain, I have come to savour the long, light, evening hours in which to sip wine on an outdoor terrace and snack on delicious tapas.  Those lovely evening hours make up for waking to darkness.  However, this year has been AWFUL! 

I suppose that Emily's not being in school was a luxury I took for granted.  Getting used to having a real schedule to follow has been hard from the beginning, but pushing everything forward an hour has been a nightmare!  Emily is a rare case in Spain, as she goes to bed before 9pm every night and really closer to 7:45-8:00.  With the time change, Angelines (in true Spanish fashion) was proclaiming a necessary change to her schedule...but I argue (and she has concieded) that the hours of sleep remain the same regardless of a 9pm sunset! 

We changed the clocks on Sunday, the same day Emily was diagnosed with pink-eye.  That kept her out of school until Wednesday, which meant that there was some lag time changing her biological clock.  Sunday she cried and cried at "bedtime" because it was not "night" and only close to 10:00 (new time) did she finally fall asleep.  That same story has repeated itself all week...and I am one fed-up mama! 

All of this is particularly distressing when considering our upcoming visit to the US (yoohoo!).  If my daughter freaks out with an hour difference in her daily schedule, what will happen when it's nine!  Gone are the days of chest pack wearing and breast-feeding through museum visits, subway rides or long chats over coffee with friends.  I am suddenly confronted with the reality that my daughter will most likely be a crab who refuses to sleep, and therefore visits with friends will be truncated by crying or calling for attention...

Tonight, for the first time in seven days, Emily went straight to bed  at around 8:15 with no tears and no problem.  Let's cross our fingers that the trend holds!

Other Emily news is that we have signed her up for ballet classes (take two).  She went to her test class to see if she liked it on Friday.  Although she was very eager and even chatty when we went to speak to the director of the municipal music school last Tuesday, she was suddenly tearful and resistant come 5 o'clock Friday.  She insisted that she didn't want to go, that she didn't like it...  It took all my powers of persuasion to connvice her to get dressed--this from a girl who would kill to wear a tutu!  We talked about how hard it can be to start something new, but how important it is to try things and keep learning.  On our walk to the casa de la cultura she was swinging between being okay and pulling me the opposite direction saying she didn't like ballet.

We got there early and shortly after arriving a mother and daughter pair came up the stairs, the little girl sporting a pink leotard and dance skirt.  I jumped at the opportunity to make a friend and asked if she was there for ballet.  She was and we introduced ourselves.  I explained that Emily was a little nervous and the little girl was very happy to show Em some pliés and jêtes when I asked what kinds of things they did in class.  Emily warmed right up to little Claudia, and soon the two of them were dancing around the hallways together. :)  A friend from Emily's school is also in the class, and so when she arrived, the deal was sealed.  She gave me a big hug and kiss after ordering me to stay just outside the door of the dance room, and then headed in with her friends.  The teacher was chatting with some parents still and so I was able to spy on her in the reflection of the large wall mirrors through the open door.  She was happily, running and jumping and engaging with all the other little girls.  My heart was happy.  I then spent an hour reading--a true luxury!--until class was out at 6:30.

What a difference from last year when we tried classes at a town near La Roda.  She is, of course, a year older, but also the confidence she's gained from being in school and social skills from all the peer contact, make a world of difference.  I think, especially as an only child, that these kinds of extra-curricular activities will be really important to her.  I am not a fan of those parents who book their kids' after school schedules from 4-7 every day...but I do think that for Emily, spending two hours a week with different children learning and doing something that she really does love, will be wonderfully enriching for her.  Oh!  And the icing on the cake is that the end of term recital will be Swan Lake!  Emily was thrilled to find that out. :)

Now I am going to wrap up.  Although it is Sunday and I would normally be in La Zubia, I have stayed in La Roda because once again Emily is sick with a really runny nose and horrible cough.  She won't be going into school tomorrow so that means I get to make the 1.5 hour drive from here tomorrow morning so she can stay with mama.  And as I type, I can hear mama pulling in from work, so it is off to have dinner with my wife and then to bed with me...6 o´clock comes all too fast!

The Most Important Thing I Haven't Told You

Way back before Christmas in the craziness of the end of the year and also managing the classroom solo, as my co-teacher was hospitalized, I took my final exam for my Montessori 3-6 training.  In the end it was a lot less stressful than I had feared, and really did end up being more of an opportunity to show what I'd learned as opposed to fretting about trick questions meant to fail me.  It was a practical exam over skype with one of the course teachers.  We had to present four different materials (selected at random from a pre-established list) and then also orally answer some theory questions.  I was worried that I hadn't extented myself long enough in my answers to the theory questions, and I did make a few mistakes in my presentations; but I passed!  And just a few weeks ago I finally got my diploma--It's official!

It's feels strange to have a diploma certifying that I am a trained 3-6 Montessori educator when in my day to day there are so many things that I struggle to do propperly.  So much of being a Montessori educator is about personal growth, reflection, self-control and patience...all things that are still so difficult for me.  I am still growing into this role, and I suppose it is probably something that will conntinue to develop and improve for many years to come.  The diploma is only the very tip of the iceberg, but I am so happy to have begun this journey.  I know there is so much good in it for me, for my daughter and for the world.