Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration on her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives in my week.
1. Funny attachment language. My son has been trying to articulate how his feelings for me have changed over the past 3.5 years. Just saying he loves me isn’t enough, though he usually starts with that. But he is letting himself feel love for the first time in, well, a lot of years, and words feel inadequate to him, which I understand. That doesn’t stop him from trying to find words, however. With mixed results. This week, he has told me:
- I love you more than football.
- Your skin used to be like acid to me.
- The first time I had to kiss you, you tasted sour, but now you’re yummy.
- I used to be 100% scared of you, but now I’m 5% scared of you and 90% love you.
I can’t wait to find out what the missing 5% is! When he says some of these awesomely tweaked things, my eyes light up, and he sighs.
“You’re gonna write that one in your notebook, aren’t you?” he says.
You bet I am.
2. Snow! I woke up so cranky on Monday morning–not enough sleep, which has become the story of my life. But then I opened the curtains and saw this:
Something about snow always puts me in a good mood–especially when it comes on a day when I don’t have to drive anywhere. We had another couple of inches last night, and it’s so beautiful outside.
3. Working on my planner for the NCTE Convention next week. NCTE is one of my favorite events of the year, and I’m super excited that it’s next week. I’ve got my whole schedule mapped out, and it includes seeing many teachers in my PLN and many wonderful authors and illustrators. Once again, my excellent institution agreed to support attendance for some of my pre-service teachers, so I’m bringing a small group of pre-service teachers with me too.
4. New metaphors for school. A couple of weeks ago in Digital Literacy class, we were describing the conditions, routines, spaces, and attitudes for and of creativity and contrasting those with what we typically see in school. Several metaphors couldn’t help but emerge from our description of school: prisons, hospitals, factories. It was kind of depressing. I challenged my students to find a new metaphor for their classroom, and I love what they came up with:
Check out why Nicky wants her classroom to be like her living room and why Kelsey thinks school should be like a circle.
5. Cold temperatures bring on much cat snugglies. 
the dirigible plum 
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