A trip home

10 years ago.

Laying backwards in my bed. Trying to catch up on my assigned The Hiding Place reading for Mrs. McMichael’s class the next morning.

My mom comes to my room and shares news about my classmate. I shook my head trying to clear the confusion and shake back to reality. She said the same thing, again.

It couldn’t be true.

I went next door to my friend’s house to confirm the news.

It was true.

I went to Spencerville today and my mind flashed back to that night ten years ago—the night that my classmates and I grew up and closer as we mourned the loss of a friend.

I thought about the lessons we learned and the memories we shared. I thought about what seemed so important then and what matters now. Being a high school teacher, I feel as I’m in a bit of a unique position to watch that cycle play over and over again. My student’s experiences are so incredibly different than my experiences. In so many ways, I wish for my students to have my experiences. Today, I think I realized why.

Friday nights dressed ridiculously in order to support the best team, even if that meant we lost.

Life lessons in Calculus that began with, “When you’re in college, friends are going to come and ask you to go out for root beer and…”

Dressing up for every basketball game, never passing but always handing off the ball to the ref, and striving to create a repetition of a class act.

Reciting commitments to “Make the best better” and “…pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country and my world.“

While that only scratches the surface of what flooded my mind as I drove back to Lima today, I realized the building blocks of my foundation. It was more than team spirit and clubs. It was life lessons. Lessons that impact my life.

I don’t know that those teachers and leaders knew then when they shared stories or managed their classrooms how often tidbits flash before me still now 10+ years later. But they do. They are an inner voice. A reminder. A goal to strive for.

I guess that’s what brings me back to my students. It has been a trying year. A very trying year. One class period makes me want to quit my job nearly daily. A combination of that and upperclassmen making “next step” decisions, I’ve been asked a lot, “Why did you become a high school teacher anyway?!” In many moments I want to respond, “I don’t even know.”

But today, I was reminded.

I want to be a part of the building block foundation for my students’ lives. I want them to know that they are cared for. I want them to know what it means to be passionate and committed, even if that happens in the 53 minutes they are in my class each day. I want them to know that they are a part of something bigger.

I want it to be 5 or 10 years later and they make the right decision because of an inner voice, a reminder, a goal, a lesson from my classroom. 

Dear Ainsley [Week 24-25]

Baby Cakes--

Well my goal was to write you weekly for the first 6 months of your life and then monthly thereafter. Well I completely missed last [last] week. Drats! So thinking back to Week 24--which is my favorite number which makes the absense even lamer sadder--the biggest thing was Papa and my amazement with your movement! That backwards wiggle is getting better and better and Papa is convinced within 2 weeks you'll be crawling forward!

Also that week of your life included the Super Bowl. We headed out to Grandma & Grandpa Massie's, enjoyed a lot of food, and some watched the game! I had you as an excuse to not pay one bit of attention to the game--who won anyways! ;)--and realmly, you'll soon learn, the Super Bowl is translated commercials! Those weren't even that great this year. Ah, well.

Last but not least, this week's development/change we've noticed is that instead of sucking on your entire hand or your forefinger and thumb, you've begun to suck just your thumb. I'm not sure why the change, but for some reason it's incredibly cute--perhaps because it's YOU! ;)

Thumb Sucker

Now on to Week 25. This was one looong week! I had Parent-Teacher Conferences which means 2-12 hours days, but the wonderful part is that I was off Friday to compenstate for the late nights and we were cancelled Tuesday--your first Valentine's Day so it bad more some great Momma & Ains time! [Remember lil' one, your papa is your first Valentine, and any future Valentine's should be of his caliber!]

Someone found a bite of V-Day cookie!

In addition to the time we got to spend together, you also spent some time with your Aunt Joie and cousins Sondra and Stuart. I'm sure you were just taking in all their energy, but I know they sure enjoyed time with you!  As you grow older, I hope you have a special bond with your cousins. I hope Sondra is one you can look to as an older friend and Micah, Silas, and Stu are your adventurous protectors!

Clum Cousins

Thursday evening, you had your first slumber party guest--none other than Sondra Ray! She just. loves. you! We had a great time together and I look forward to many "Girl Cousin Sleepovers" in the future!!

Such a great cousin/helper!

Ay, ay, ay! This week has making me think to the future and cling to the present! Love you little one!

Momma

Friday

This made my Friday worth it.
Thanks Tonya!

Hindsight is such an interesting view.

Oh how I love the bluntness of those that I work with!

If I received a dollar everytime one of my previous students used the word huge or fat today, I'd be able to take a full 12 weeks maternity leave and not worry about being paid!! In their defense--in addition to the fact that they are teenagers afterall--99.9% of them haven't seen me since week 29 and I have grown a lot in these last 11.5 weeks!

40 weeks Pregnant
Hello Baby Belly!!

Today was the first day of school and it went realitively smooth despite getting very little sleep last night. Even after 20 night-before-the-first-day-of-school nights, I still have those jittery nerves wondering what the day will be like. Combine that with some crazy thunder/lightening, rain on the metal window awnings and feeling like a beached whale everytime I wanted to flip from side to side last night, 4 hours of solid sleep did me well with today's students! :)

1st Day of School
A little sleep deprived +
running a little late =
Funky "smile"!
:)

I got to school early right on time and headed up to my classroom, half expected my substitute to already be there. He wasn't, which wasn't a big deal so I went on in and waited for the day to start. This year I have 1st period planning, so it's nice to arrive and not have to hit the ground running. I took time to make sure my ducks were in a row before the sub got there. This was unsuccessful as the one thing I needed to do yet was bring an extension cord for my projector and much to my overlooking the projector has 3 prongs. My cord? Only 2. Whoops. Good things it wasn't really needed today!

8 o'clock school start time came and went and still no sub. Now in reality this wasn't a big deal because obviously I haven't had the baby and I don't need a sub yet at this point. But he was supposed to be starting today regardless and there each day until after my maternity leave, just in case I have to leave partway through the day. Also I only have electronic copies of lesson plans and such because I handed over big ol' binders of hard copies to him last week. So with a text to Mr. Sub [thinking he was maybe elsewhere in the building] I was off to find a computer/printer combo that worked. [My desktop computer isn't hooked up to the printer and the printer my laptop computer is hooked up to was down for maintanence and jammed. :S]

I got what I needed for the day printed and received a response saying that he was in the ER all last night and therefore was not able to come in today! Holy moly! He reassured me he was "okay" and is planning on being there tomorrow, but today he was told to stay home. Suddenly not having hard copies of my lesson plans wasn't such a big deal.

The one thing that I kept saying to myself throughout the day after receiving that message was "hindsight is such an interesting view'. I mean seriously, I was due on Monday and every day for the past week or so I woke up and thought, "Welp! I guess the baby didn't want yesterday to be its birthday!" Throughout my day I commonly think, "Welp! This is complete!" or "That is now taken care of, so what else are youu waiting on baby?!" I'm okay with still being pregnant, really I am [hence the reason I forwent the c-section option on Monday despite the threat of a "large baby". I'm not uncomfortable despite my whale-like turn overs in bed. I mean heck, who else gets to enjoy the fair 6 out of 6 days so fair at 40 weeks pregnant?! :)

But this morning after receiving that text I thought, "Good thing I didn't have the baby last night! I wouldn't have had lesson plans for my sub's sub, nor would anyone had known that I needed a sub for my sub!" Isn't it funny how everything works out? I know that's how things will continue. Not only with this babe, but with my materinty leave/school year in general.

My sub is still planning on being there tomorrow though, and I am going to enjoy the fair again tonight, so Baby Massie, I think everything is in line now if you'd like to come tonight! ;)

Emotional [Sun]day

Pretend you are reading this on Sunday; I’m a bit late posting. :)

Today was an unexpectingly emotional day. It’s Father’s Day and since it’s Sunday, Chris and I headed to church. We went to Sunday School and then across the parking lot to church. As we entered into church there was a commercial video playing about Man-dles aka candles with man scents. Think locker rooms, jock straps, and cut grass. It was quite humorous, but that's where the humor ended.

The choir sang a song [which I don’t remember what it was called] and while they were singing there was a video playing that depicted an elderly couple sitting on their couch looking through an album recapping their lives. Cute, in love elderly couples always pull at my heartstrings, but this day was particularly pulling. As I watched this couple on the big screen, I thought about how each of my grandmas were sitting alone for the first time in decades on this Father’s Day. I couldn’t even imagine. It was hard to think about. By the end of the song, with a couple deep breaths, the tears had dried up, but the thoughts were still running ramped.

Then Pastor Jonathan sang a song about a relationship between a father and a son and how the dad wants to be sure to live his life like Christ’s because he knows that his little boy wants to be just like his dad and dad wants the little boy to be like Christ. Go on, pull at my heart some more. Instead of the somber thoughts of my grandmas being without their husbands and my parents both being without their fathers for the first Father’s Day in their lives, my mind went to how in 2 short months, Chris will be that dad, and the joy that that thought brings. I am so confidence in his role as a father and I’m sure just as often that I catch myself smiling gazing at our lil’ babe, I’ll catch myself gazing at Chris interacting with our babe! I’m already guilty of that when he interacts with our niece and nephews. :) So there were some [more] tears there, but I’m pretty sure I saw some welling up in Mister’s eyes as well having similar thoughts.

Pastor Charlie preached and then concluded the service with a challenge. He charged all the married men in the church to come forward. Now usually at this point there are maybe a handful of people who go forward for one reason or another, but this morning was different. Nearly immediately Chris and many, many other men went forward to pray. I’m not 100% sure what it was, but there is something about men being men and standing up to lead that hits deep. As Pastor Charlie continued to challenge the men, more and more came to the front. It was awesome. To be completely real, what he said to them, was probably the best words that I have ever came out of his mouth. It was like I was a fly on the wall that was able to hear men talk heart to heart and challenge each other to be better—better men, better husbands, better friends, better fathers. I could sit in on that conversation every Sunday day!

Lastly after church Chris helped me pack for a week in Grand Rapids. I have training for school through Friday and while I know that it’ll be good and productive, I hate the idea of being away from Chris so long! Ten miles out, I had some tears welling.

 ******************************************************************************

And now it is Tuesday, and I wished that/feel like it should be at least Thursday. I miss home. I miss Chris. I’m going to continue to try to get everything out of this conference so I can be best prepared—well so that I can best prepare my long-term sub—for the kick off to the year and beyond, but Friday at noon I'll be celebrating all of my 3.5 hour drive home! I may even make it home in less time! :)

Waterpark & Another 5k

Last Friday I chaperoned a field trip to the Columbus Zoo and its attached waterpark, Zoombezi Bay aka Wyandot Lake! On Tuesday at our teacher workday, my coworker who was heading up the trip mentioned that they needed more chaperones--they only had one who was able to ride the bus and stay all day--so I thought "What the heck?! Sign me up!" I didn't have plans and Chris was working all day and night so it wouldn't take time away from us either!

So Thursday night I laid out all my stuff and headed to bed. It was a good thing I did. Friday the bus was scheduled to leave at 8am and we were supposed to be there by 7:45 in order to eat breakfast prior to take off. I woke to my alarm reading 7:50. Awesome.

"Aaaahhhhhh!!! Chris! The bus leaves in 10 minutes!" I leaped out of bed and threw on the clothes I had laid out. Brushing my teeth, I determined my hair was a hopeless hot mess so I quickly grabbed a hat and was heading for the door. As I made the corner out of the hallway towards the door, Chris was standing there with his hands out. Keys in one hand and water bottle in the other. What a man!! A quick kiss and I was out the door. Lucky for me, I live a hop, skip and a jump away from the school. Unlucky for me, I hit all but two lights in that hop, skip and jump! Regardless, I pulled in at 8:02 and half the students were inside using the restroom one last time before departure. I plopped myself in the bus seat waited for everyone to load up and we were off.

When we arrive at the Zoo it was raining pouring and because of lightening, Zoombezi Bay was currently closed. Nevertheless we unloaded in the rain and headed to the entrance. Soaked by the time we got there, we huddled under every available covering. When it let up a bit, we were off to the zoo to check out the indoor exhibits. We managed to keep decently dry for a couple hours going indoor exhibit to indoor exhibit and eventually the rain let up.

After meeting up for lunch, Zoombezi Bay was open and that's exactly where we were headed. I had four students who pretty much stuck with me the rest of the day. We started off "tame" on the lazy river and then the students were ready for some slides. Now I recognize that I was nearing 30 weeks preggo, but that wasn't going to stop me from having a good time.

The first slide they went on I passed. It was like the burlap sack slide at the fair, but instead you laid on your stomach on a foam mat. Many people think I'm crazy for being as active as I am while pregnant, but fear not, I drew the line on this one.

I passed on this one. I'm sure the lil' one--
and my mom--will thank me!

That's the only line I drew. My students even saw the signs that said that pregnant people weren't to ride the rides and questioned me. I informed them I wasn't pregnant, just fat. You can imagine the interesting conversations and odd looks that occurred when the girls would start a conversation, "Well Ms. Massie, since you're fat..." :)

The anticipation to this ride caused the most fear.
Rightfully so. I was a bit scared as we dropped into the
giant toilet bowl! We were all smiles in the end though.

I rode and even held hands with shaky-nearly crying-15 year old girls and encouraged them to ride all the other slides. We had so. much. fun! It was fun to see and be a part of these teenagers' lives. One girl in particular said countless times that she's never done anything so fun, even though she was the fearfullest of them all. [I told her not to worry, we're at a waterpark, if she's scared and pees her pants, no one will know! :) ]

Despite the rushed and wet morning, the day turned out beautifully and everyone had a great time. And I managed to closely resemble a lobster.

The next morning my parents picked me up for 5k #4 of the year. Mister was unable to join us as he had to work that morning. We arrived at Harrod for the Pork Rind Festival 5k, registered and received my neon-highlighter yellow participants shirt. After waiting for the start time to near, we were off. There weren't very many participants but I was fairly certain there were at least some walkers so goal #1: Don't be last. would be easy to accomplish. They fired the cannon to start us and we were off. Less than a quarter of a mile into the run, the 10 year old daughter of a coworker of mine was walking back in tears. Her dad was a head of me and she sobbed to him, "I can't do it! I'm going to pass out! I'm going to pass out!" We both knew that she just started off too fast trying to keep up with the top runners, so we encouraged her to turn around and walk. I knew that her dad was willing to walk with her, but I could tell he wanted to run it as well. So I volunteered to walk with her. I told her and her dad that I'd walk with her as long as she needed it and then if she felt better we could jog again.

She dried her tears and agreed.

I explained to her that we could just walk as long as we needed and then when she felt good again we'd jog. If she got tired, we'd walk again. That's what I do after all anyways. After about 2 utility poles, she looked up to me and said she was ready to jog again, so I said, "Alright, let's do it!" Now I forgot that to a ten year old "jog" meant take off sprinting--a lot faster than my typical wogging! So I began to jog and she was off! [She ended up finishing in less than 30 minutes, and didn't pass out!]

I continued at my own rate and felt pretty good except the fact that my sports bra straps were bouncing on my freshly burnt shoulders. My goal is always jog the first mile and then I give myself permission to walk if need be. Well there wasn't a mile marker, but I thought I remembered where the 1 mile mark should be about from GoogleMaps so I jogged there plus 2 utility poles' distance. I noticed the water station was just ahead so I jogged until that point then walked as I drank my water and then got to the next house [I like to start and stop jogging and places that I can go back and find on GoogleMaps to be able to see how far I jogged/walked/wogged. I continued jogging, and only stopped to walk one other time towards the end.

In the end I finished with a 38:30 time. Which isn't my worst but wasn't too bad for 30 weeks pregnant. I think I would've been about 37 minutes had I not stopped with Kianna at the beginning of the run. I was proud of myself for two reasons though:

1. I have never only stopped 3 times to walk before--and that includes stopping with Kianna. I've never counted how many times I've stopped before, but I know it was much more than that!

2. When I went back and GoogleMapped my walking distances, it was less than .5 miles. I'm sure this was this least amount I've ever walked before as well.

So in the end I was proud of myself for the amount of time I wogged even though it was a slower pace and that I only walked 3 times. Oh, and I got a sweet door prize and a medal for getting 2nd in my age group!

Coming soon will be a post about our nursery that's nearing completion as we have less than 10 weeks left in the countdown! Craziness!

Until next time, friend.

Why I love [and currently miss] PA!

So I was planning on writing this about a week or so ago, but with all the snow and what not and break from school I haven't had time to type it up. That's a lie! I have had PLENTY of time to do a lot of productive things, I just have chosen not too. I am lazy lately. I accept that!

What I wanted to put on here were some "humorous" reasons why I love my job at Lima Senior Progressive Academy aka PA! Overall it can be summed up into 2 reasons:

1. I feel as if I am truly able to make a difference.

2. I never know what is going to happen from day to day!

For this post, I'll focus on the latter. Each morning I head to class with a mind set of what I am going to do that day, but what I don't know is what my students are going to do/say. This makes it so. much. fun! As a teacher I feel like I have two options in response to this: 1. I can embrace it and get a kick out of it or 2. I can get upset and expect them to behave/say/do what happens at "other schools". I choose the first   options especially because I love how honest and real they are. No masks here!

So below is a few quick examples of embracing humor instead of reprimanding "misbehavior":

The students were asked to find x. Perhaps from here on out I should put "solve for x"! : )

This obviously had nothing to do with their geometry problem.

Brutal honesty!

I have one more story, but remember that previous post about being cautious about what I write on here because I never know who might read it?? Well that comes into play here are well. Let's just say that with one of my classes if I need to remind them to get on task all I do is remind them that I am a pimp and they are my hoes. It was their idea really! Ask me about that one in person! ; )

Well I am going to sign off for today and perhaps be productive! I look forward to getting back to school with all my crazy students and hopefully they look forward to this crazy teacher again too! I like days off but not ones that I am not able to be out and about! I'm thinking we *may* be delayed tomorrow as well. The windchill is supposed to be -17... Yikes!