14 School Days until Christmas Break

My New Schedule

On October 30th I began looking for a new afternoon job. On December 1st I got my first check from Pier 1 Imports, my new second employer. After working 50 hours a week at one location, two employers, for over two years I get to leave campus when the sun is still shining. It puts a skip in my step to leave the parking lot while parents are waiting in their vehicles to collect their children. I even beat them to the grocery store occasionally.

I love working at Pier 1. The store is a giant Christmas Village. The customers are most always happy and the glitter is everywhere. All the employees always seems to have a glitter glow. Last night I dusted and swept through the store. My tub had a glitter puddle as I stepped out. 

I wasn't sure how much decorating I would do this year since I work at Santa's workshop during my second job. I started decorating today after mopping the kitchen and washing all the linens. Once I began looking at the boxes of decorations above the washer more came out than I was expecting.

The least I have ever put on the sideboard

A single new ornament and holder, no tree this year 

Cleared the counter, it's real here
 (dishes in the sink)

No front yard Nativity, just my little ceramic

One lonely stocking on the real fireplace mantel 

Traditional repair of a nutcracker

Time to Think

I am working a lot few hours in the hope I will be working more hours this summer. I had not realized how little time I had to just think in my old routine. All my time not working was spent preparing for the next day and researching craft projects to do with the kinders after school. I may have put 50 hours a week on-sight, but easily worked another 10 at home on my computer every week.

Now I have conversations in my head that do not have to do with the kiddos and parents at school. I have been remembering sweet things my own children have said in the past and funny ones too. At my second job I work with a great team that not only want to help the public, they want to help each other. It is great that I have no outside prep needed.

One of the things I have ruminated on a lot lately was how I raised four children, some with learning challenges, to be such amazing adults. No doubt there was a lot of God's grace and prayer as the basis. My attitude toward my children's learning difficulies was not based on labeling the problem as much as just trying different teaching tools for different learning styles. My children were given labels, but not all of those labels can be 100% accurate. You may say, "A child is on the spectrum." Being on the spectrum of autism is a vague ways to describe a child.

Every child will have growing spurts in their physical, emotional and mental development. Being consistent and flexibility were my most used tools. I was consistently trying new things and flexible to understand that not all size 10 shoes have the same comfort level. 

My philosophy from the beginning was: Special Needs kids become quirky adults. Quirky adults are the most interesting people and have the most fun. I came to accept that I am one of those "quirky adults". Growing up, I would have been labeled, "Special needs." My A.C.E. score is on the high level and I would have been in a reading group. We had no "resource specialist." My dyslexia was not discovered until my late teens. By that time I had learned to read and compensate for a world that was upside down and backwards.

Today I can read fast enough, I can write upside down, backwards and use both my left and right hands independently at the same time. I teach reading, because I have compassion and I believe every child can grow. Before my resent "Thinking Time" I had been going through the motions. Now I know why I am doing what I do 180 days a year. I guess that is a little like the "walk by faith, not by sight," part of my life. I don't always get the explanation, but it sure is sweet when I do get to know what I am doing and the why.

 

Creative and Quirky?