Adjustments

This has been a time of adjustments for us.

The bus thing is working well for the Lone Star Girl and I am starting to calm down about it. She is doing well with the beginning of middle school in terms of seeming to have plenty of friends to hang around with at lunch and P.E. That would have been my main worry about middle school, so I am pleased for her. She is still discontented, however, as she does not much like most of her classes and it is not in her nature to accept the whiff of prison that is somewhat necessarily in the air at large middle schools.

After a happy week or so in her new class at school, the Lone Star Baby started having some very rough mornings at drop-off. Although I know she loves her class, being with all those "big kids" all day is doubtless a bit exhausting still and she wants her mommy. She has been mostly placated now by a program I call Better Mornings Through Hashbrowns - I am stopping for papas at the Whataburger drive-through on the way to her school and that happily absorbs her.

I am teaching at the same place as last year. I kind of frittered away my summer trying to find a better way...but we are just not there yet. I came rather close to accepting a pay-cut of half of my salary to take a para job working with parents at the Lone Star Girl's school on the principal's expressed hope of the greater funding they expect for next year...but I had to face that we really don't have the money...and I really don't think they will next year, either. I am teaching two grades instead of one this year, which means even more work, although I find that I really enjoy the sixth graders best after all. I so prefer Texas History that I thought I would always want to teach seventh out of the three middle school grades but, if I had a choice of just one, now I would pick sixth.

Lone Star Pa is as enthusiastic as ever about his seventh graders in a small neighboring town. His only adjustment is that having us around means he cannot immerse himself in his job the way he naturally would if he could.

Auntie Jazz is getting used to college life and having her here is the best of all the adjustments we have had to be sure...she adds great richness to our lives with her presence!