full circle

ever since i can remember, i've wanted to be a teacher. even in preschool when i was asked what i wanted to be when i grew up, and everyone around me had fascinating ambitions like dinosaur tamers and ice skaters and astronauts and circus performers, i held fast. my area of discipline would often change -- some days i thought i'd pursue music education, others inspired me to focus on creative writing -- but at every point in my life, i just knew that God had called me to teach.

it was on the day that i stepped foot into my sixth grade math class that i decided that i would become a math teacher, and i never looked back. in the sixth grade, my math teacher was mrs. wall. out of all the stellar teachers i've had in my life, mrs. wall will always remain one of my favorites. she was funny, she was kind, she was interesting, and she was an excellent educator. long after i left the hallowed halls of apex elementary, i kept in touch with her. we would get together for dinner when i was home for breaks from college, i'd pick her brain for advice while i was student teaching, and i even interviewed her for a college paper i had to write. and it was mrs. wall who set in motion one of the most important meetings i would ever have. when i called her to share my news of accepting a teaching position up in alexandria after graduation, she asked me, "do you know chris mann?" it turned out that one of her son's best friends was also moving up to the DC area, and she thought it would be a grand idea for us to meet. "i'm going to give him your number," she told me. "promise me you'll talk to him!" and so, when he called me up a few weeks later, i did.

it is a little mind-blowing to contemplate how different my entire life would be, had apex elementary school in 1985 randomly assigned me to some other math teacher's roster.

thirteen years after i was a student in her math class, mrs. wall was at my wedding, and her son was one of our groomsmen. and a few pews away from her, across the aisle, sat stacey holladay.

that year, i was a sixth grade math teacher myself, and stacey holladay was one of my students. i still remember the first time i met her, as a bubbly eleven-year old with wavy brown hair and a beatific smile, who walked into my fourth period class in august of 1998. and, much like i did with mrs. wall, i have kept in close touch with stacey long after she left the hallowed halls of dillard drive middle. she has gone on to do great things: she graduated magna cum laude from nc state, secured a fantastic job, and became engaged to an equally amazing young man named jonathan.

and, thirteen years after she was a student in my math class, i was at her wedding. and my children, who count miss stacey as their favorite babysitter ever, were her program attendants.

i don't personally know any dinosaur tamers or ice skaters or astronauts or circus performers, but i can't imagine any profession receiving back more than teaching. i sat there at stacey's wedding and felt it fitting that thirteen years ago, part of the curriculum i taught stacey and the other girls around me focused on circles. we circled together later for pictures, my arms linked with young women -- a nurse, a marine biologist, an HR professional, and a fellow teacher -- peers of mine by now, but who all still call me mrs. mann. just as i will always call mrs. wall, my sixth grade teacher, mrs. wall.

and i realized what a full circle moment it was.

wordless wednesday

the kids were in a wedding this past saturday.  an outdoor wedding, mere hours before tornadoes ripped through the very area where the wedding took place.  but more on the wedding a bit later!  in the meantime, feel free to marvel at their cool moves on the dance floor.  they might need to hone their skills before going professional, but i think they've got their sweet sibling smooch down pat.

delusions of grandeur

last night, at bedtime, chris requested a kiss from the kids before he left for his soccer game.  liam planted a big one on his cheek before turning back to his almanac.  but susanna actually turned away, almost coyly.  chris feigned heartbreak and asked her why.

" oh daddy, i will kiss you.  i just don't kiss you that fast."

"why not?"

"because i'm a princess," she stated quite matter-of-factly.  "and the way princesses kiss is like this."  she closed her eyes, puckered out her lips, and stuck out her chin towards him.  "and then i move myself very, very slowly towards you."  and, sure enough, she did -- moving inch by inch closer to him, eyes still firmly shut.  "and then, when i kiss you, the music plays!"

i feel almost sorry for the unfortunate sucker who's going to give her her first real kiss as a teenager, for he apparently has some mighty big shoes to fill. 

oh, wait -- what am i saying?  i actually don't feel sorry for him at all.  upon second thought, i think i'll encourage this fantasy of hers.  she needs to know that she has no business kissing any boy until there's a 42-piece orchestra waiting in the wings and thousands of lanterns being floated up into the sky like rapunzel had in "tangled".  yep, i'm thinking her expectations are perfectly reasonable.

wordless wednesday

i finally got chris to figure out fixed the video camera, and found this long-lost footage of our visit to sea world with my parents back in february.  (and you thought i was finally done posting about our florida trip, didn't you?)

as i wrote on our form to request an excused absence for educational purposes, our sea world excursion was indeed quite educational.  i think this clip puts all doubts to rest as to how much liam learned at one of the exhibits.  at the very least, i have footage of just how brilliant and mature our six-year old can be.

donuts with dads, part 2

"donuts with dads" took place this morning at preschool, and i honestly believe susanna was just as excited about her special morning with chris as she was about christmas.  it has been all she could talk about this week -- she must have asked me, "how many more days until daddy comes to my class?" a hundred times, and last night she had trouble getting to sleep because she could hardly contain herself.  finally, the day arrived, and off they went at 9:00 a.m., susanna perched on a booster seat in the cramped back seat of chris's two-door car. 

below is susanna's description of her daddy.  seems i snagged myself a good one: older and taller than i am, but not overweight; a man who loves church so much that it qualifies as his favorite restaurant; and who is so in touch with his feminine side that when he's not working, he's playing with dolls.  what a man!

(for the first installment of donuts with dads, click here.)

snort

if you'd ever like to see a walking, breathing, living example of spring allergies, look no further than liam mann.  watery eyes?  check.  runny nose?  yep.  eczema around the eyes and nose because of constant rubbing?  of course.  chapped lips, cough, and fatigue due to restless nights?  yes, yes, and yes. 

i'm not a big believer in medicine.  i take my epilepsy medication on a daily basis because if i didn't, i wouldn't be allowed by the state of north carolina to own a driver's license, but other than that, i tend to balk at drugs.  i just don't like putting foreign stuff like that in my body.  it goes hand-in-hand with body piercings in the convoluted world of the sara mann philosophy.

but i finally caved in with liam.  after listening to the poor child blowing his raw little nose at all hours of the night, and walking into his room in the morning to find hundreds of balled up wet tissues littering his floor, i realized that it was time to take him to the pediatrician.  and sure enough, she deemed him one of the worst cases of seasonal allergies she had seen this year -- which is saying a lot, since she said she had seen about sixty kids in the past week with the same issues -- and prescribed claritin and flonase. 

which reminds me.  in my next life, i'm going to come back and name prescription drugs for a living, because surely i could do better than "flonase".   around here, we've started teasing poor liam (we are a sensitive bunch, aren't we?) by cackling, "SNORT!" each time he attempts to suck up all that runny snot and bypass the tissue box.  so i think i shall name my new prescription drug Snort Abort.  quite catchy, no?  i already have the commercial planned out: a cute six year old blond boy, yearning to play outside, who cannot because of the pollen.  and then he takes a whiff of Snort Abort, and he can now enjoy his backyard play area!  and his father, also riddled with the same woes, can now enjoy working on his SUV!  and his sister, holding a racket, can now play tennis!  yes, the tag line might look like this:

SNORT ABORT

to enjoy your fort ...

or your carport ...

or the tennis court ...

or things of all sorts!

hmm.  maybe i need to stick with teaching.  regardless, liam could be the poster child for Snort Abort.  he's just the cutest miserable little guy i've ever seen, if i do say so myself.

please, no retorts.