BCU Night

Dear Students, There have only been a few times in my life when I was told I was "cool" or even "so cool" just for showing up at an event. The others included my brother's Boy Scout badge nights and clean-up crew at a Kiwanis pancake breakfast. And in those cases, I am pretty certain that "cool" was synonymous with "civic-minded" or "sad" or "somewhat pathetic."

Tonight you were the cool ones, though. You put on a really brilliant BCU night. I was informed, moved, entertained, proud by all of you. Wow. I wish everyone could have seen you looking so smart in your Cliff Huxtable sweaters and finery.

Here are a few moments, now etched in my mind's eye, forever.

Love, Prof. SL

P.S. Thank you to Mrs. Hargrove for being my slick date.

*** Georgia and Chanel (a.k.a Brooklynn)

Abner was such an excellent host. LJ was a good t-shirt boy.

The Huxtables.

Barbershop

Shana en pointe with Church Announcements, Amen

Chanel gracing us

Bros

Bring on 'da anti-Funk

This week, this job of teaching has been unusually easy for me. I never say that. Usually I get through a class and have pit stains under my shirt because diagramming sentences is apparently an aerobic activity. But this was a rare week. I didn't have much prep because I had already taught these concepts before. I just came to class, I taught the things, and the students smiled. Or they slept. Let's be real, plenty of them slept. It's that last full week before spring break. They need to sleep during the day, not sleep at night, and then they need to go on spring break. When they come back, their bodies will be here but their brains will never fully come back from spring break. It's a natural rule of the order of the academic year.

And who can blame them? The brains. They would rather live in Jamaica, don't you think? :)

I exaggerate. I teach such bright people. I was just grateful that this week had been without the usual helping of drama or pocket full of stressies. Oosh. All so bad for my complexion.

*** This is not to say that I wasn't in a bit of a tired funk this afternoon when I was coming up the driveway, carrying my boring piece of credit card mail. I said a prayer, the length of a mere three heartbeats, God, can you just turn me inside out? I hate feeling funky like this.

And then two little sunbursts met me halfway. The girl was running clumsily and I realized that it was because she had lost one of her shoes but it didn't stop her. The boy was racing after her and he realized that what his big sister was doing looked like fun, clever idea this one-shoe running, so I watched as he paused and kicked off one shoe, all the while smiling, and then my heart swelled as two half-shoeless sunbursts crashed right into me, blessing my heart and answering my prayer in three heartbeats.

Check-up

I was watching a video of 18 month-old Baby Girl today, and just that 1 minute 30 second of poorly captured bathtime frivolity reminded me of how much I had forgotten. Like how instead of saying, "Ciao!" she used to say "Bye, Chow!" like there was this invisible playmate named Chow who followed us around and only wished for an occasional adieu. So I thought I'd offer myself and anyone else who can bear the unremarkableness a little check-up on the fambam at this present moment in time, January 2013. *** Mr. Loverpants

Working: hard at building up his client load to about 10/week. Teaching 2 courses this semester. Reading: the usual mixed cocktail of Boston Globe, Chatt Times Free Press, NYT, Slate, etc. Exercising: regularly, and playing frisbee just about every weekend Learning: about teaching Aging and Society Enjoying: riding the motorino all over town

Baby Girl

Working: hard on teaching Little Man to express emotions through words instead of pushing hands Reading: short books with simple vowel/consonants! Exercising: at swim lessons which begin soon! Learning: how to pray with intention rather than just repetition Enjoying: My Little Ponies and drawing unicorns, particularly ones with legwarmers

Little Man

Working: on staying in his own bed all night long. Reading: books involving vehicles of any kind. Exercising: by running, running in all directions, as children are wont to do Learning: how to sing church songs--he has such a sweet voice! Enjoying: Thomas the Train ad nauseum, building tracks and playacting scenes with Baby Girl.

Kendra

Working: to stay organized and on top of grading--so far this has been the most focused semester. Reading: a book on antiquing by Maureen Stanton and finally reading A Thousand Gifts Exercising: trying to hit hot yoga once/week and running 4-6 mi/week, some weight training Learning: more about design, typography, and the publishing industry Enjoying: getting crafty with my kiddies, watching NBC Parenthood and of course Downton Abbey Season 3