School Day

I wonder if my students might be as excited as I am to get back to school. Is it possible they too got just a bit bored with the limited options at home, when we were snowed and slushed and rained in?

I finally got back on my bike yesterday, for the ride to church. Most places, the bike lanes were free of snow, but it was kind of thrilling to my macha self-image to bike past snow piles!

This morning, the sun is out, but probably not for long. Probably I'll be rained on as I bike home, as I was yesterday.

But that's okay. I love to ride, and I love to tutor my kindergartners.

As I packed my bag for school -- leftover pasta with roasted leeks and mushrooms for lunch, NYT book review for lunch reading, bike pump, rain pants... -- I was having a conversation in my mind with my unruly boys. "Is there anything you'd like to know how to do?" I ask them in my mind. "Read about a soccer star? Learn to play better? Someday find a job on Craigslist? You're going to need these words we're learning!"

In my mind's eye, I see them giggling wildly, as they do, and pulling up their shirts to flash their nipples, as they do, and saying, "Chi-chi's! I want to read about chi-chi's!" (At least, to me it sounds like "chi-chi's.")

Nevertheless, I do think something is getting through. Last time we met, they each got a sticker. Unprecedented.