Teacher Calls

This week has been quite active! Sal was out of town for the first part and the daily activities did not slow down! But, to add to the excitement this week, the teachers were calling! Tuesday, after returning from my conference, I received a call from Clarissa's teacher. Clarissa had decided that she was mad at the teacher and so she wasn't going to do any work! Not the kind of call you want to get ESPECIALLY when you are a teacher yourself! So, I spoke with Clarissa through gritted teeth, reminding her of why she was at school and that I fully believed the whole "spare the rod, spoil the child" Proverb, hung up and prayed that I had made a believer out of her because I sure didn't want to have to leave my school to go to hers and PROVE myself! At the end of the day, I received an email from her teacher thanking me for my support and letting me know that Clarissa had been an angel the rest of the day. Tuesday evening wasn't too much fun around our house because there was still consequences to dish out! Wednesday on my conference I received ANOTHER call, this time from a teacher at Jonathon's school. It starts out like this...."Is this Jonathon's Mom?"; for a brief second I wanted to say no.....but I didn't! So, I owned up to who I was and prepared myself for what I THOUGHT was to come.....but I was wrong. One of his teachers was calling to tell me how much she enjoyed having him in her class, how he was such a model student for others to follow, and that she just wanted me to know. WOW! I was speechless. Just 24 hours before I was speaking through gritted teeth! I quickly knew that I needed to celebrate Jonathon and what he was doing and I felt bad for Clarissa and knew it would upset her because in her eyes, Jonathon NEVER gets in trouble!

INSERT NOTE - Don't ever leave God out of the equation....HE is SO good!

Right before I left school that day, I checked back over my email and had received an email from Clarissa's teacher. It said.."Just wanted you to know that Clarissa is back to her wonderful self today. She was her sweet, hardworking, great attitude self. Just wanted you to know!" It brought tears to my eyes! Now, we can all celebrate and we did! (Ice cream and gum....that's a whole other blog!)

The week ended with another call from the counselor and Jonathon's school, wanting to share with me some words that she had heard from teacher's about Jonathon.....all so pleasing to a mother's ear and then last night at Clarissa's fall festival, the coach telling me how sweet and cooperative Clarissa is.

So why blog about all of this? Well, for a couple of reasons. One, to let folks know that even teachers get those yucky phone calls from their kid's teachers. Two, never underestimate your kids! Three, remember at all times to celebrate the successes more than the failures. Finally, to thank God for using my children to make me a better parent AND a better teacher. I plan on making more POSITIVE calls this week than those yucky ones!