I’ve come to treasure ordinary days. They’re entirely too rare in my life. That’s probably true of everyone, but I don’t see “everyone’s” life from the inside, I see mine, with glimpses into those of my friends.
This morning I subbed for the other second grade class, for the teacher my son had for second grade. She’s truly amazing; I’ve come to appreciate just how amazing more and more as I’ve seen other teachers. She was proctoring for the ISTEP test, so I had her class. Unlike the other second grade class, a lot of these kids know me. They have siblings a couple of years older in my son’s class, and they’ve played with him at their homes or ours. So I walked in to a chorus of “Hi, Mrs. D.!” Of course my name tag, prepared by the office in advance, reads “Ms. C.”, so it creates a bit of confusion, but only a bit – and it is Mrs. D. that sticks. Everywhere else in the world I’m known by the name I was born to, and kept when I got married. In my son’s school, I am “Mrs. D.”
But of course, since they knew me, they thought they might get away with a few things, and they were much put out to find I was not willing to be pulled off into tangential discussions of new toys, games, bikes, kittens, or whatever. We were going to do our reading – and science – and math. But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t have fun. So the discussion of desert environments included the difference between the sound a real roadrunner makes and the one the cartoon Roadrunner makes, eluding yet another of the traps and schemes of one Wile E. Coyote. A good “meep-meep!” is great for making second graders laugh. But best of all was hearing a little boy say, as I was getting my purse “Mrs. B., can we have Mrs. D. when we have a substitute after this?”
And then, of course, there is the kitten. She’s about 4 months old now, full of playfulness, much better able to get into mischief as her size increases and coordination improves. Her favorite perch is still my shoulder, but she no longer drapes herself like a stole. Now she’s much more likely to sit up properly, peering at whatever I’m doing and commenting right beside my ear. My husband says she looks like she’s practicing to be a raptor when she grows up. “I’m gonna be a hawk. I’m gonna be a hawk, and I need to practice.” Given that her “swoop” tends to happen as she leans further and further forward to see what I’m doing until she falls into whatever it is, I’d say she needs lots of practice. But she’s mastered the art of being lovable, and that’s the one that counts.