Days with the Dorans

A few days before Thanksgiving, Ali Jane's class performed the " ABCs of Thanksgiving" along with a fun song. As I have mentioned before, one of my occupational hazards is that I can rarely (or should I say NEVER) make it to these fun day-time gatherings. Jeff was able to take a half day last year when Joe did the same thing in his class but this year the way the times worked out, there was no way that he could miss school and so we were stuck. And so I did what I always do when I am stuck... I called my mom! She happened to be watching the Littles that day so my dad came over to watch the Littles so she could go up to the school and watch Al and give me a report back. Of course Ali Jane was nothing but business which didn't surprise me in the least. When I first saw the note that came home with her attached lines a few weeks ago (and that Ali was one of a few students who would have two letters), I wasn't surprised to learn that she had already memorized ...

On the last day of school before Thanksgiving, the Bigs each had exciting things going on in their classrooms. Of course I was unable to go see them because I was busy in my own classroom painting hands that would soon turn into turkeys. Thankfully, my mom was able to go up to school to see Ali Jane's 'Pow-Wow' in the morning. In the middle of painting my students' hands, I heard my phone register that it had a text message. It is odd for anyone to contact me during the school day so I had to check to see who it was. The message was from my mom and it said two words, "No camera". I felt so sick getting the text because I was thinking about both Bigs all morning and felt a bit sad that I would miss them. I kept trying to think how my mom could get me pictures... borrow someone's camera... use her memory card... ask a teacher if they had a camera she could borrow... when suddenly I got another message, "Camera's working!" And so it was an...