04.24.2003 | 8:18 pm

I have been visiting with my sister who is here from Sandpoint, Idaho. She has many more children than I, but seems to have weathered the storm of pregnancy, labor and delivery much better than me. Right now, her second child, Marian, is in labor at the hospital. Soon there will be a new little girl to bless the world with a happy smile and cheerful personality. Marian, my niece, has been living here in the Phoenix area for almost two years. She returned from a mission two years ago and decided she wanted to come to Arizona to teach. I was able to help her get an interview with the school district in which I teach, and she has been teaching music since that time. I have been so lucky to have her as the music teacher for my own class during this time too.

Last year, she met and married her husband, Ryan, who is an important, smart person at Intel. Now they are having their first baby, packing up, and moving across the country to attend school in Boston at MIT. Ryan was accepted in some sort of program for super smart people with excellent grades and impeccable resumes. This will be the third to my nieces with spouse to move to Boston to attend MIT. I don�t know quite how I am able to associate with so many brainiacs, but they are all dear, sweet girls with equally sweet husbands. As I write, it looks like a long night for Marian. If she hasn�t started to dilate at about one AM, I think the doctor is going to do a C-section. EEK!

The nut tree was nutty today. When the wind blows, the squirrels race about as though the sky is about to fall. Ask any teacher about a windy day, and they will tell you the same story. Wind blows through their ears, into their skulls and messes up their tiny thinking processess. I don�t know why�.but it is TRUE.

I realized today that I am not going to be able to cover the entire math curriculum before the end of the year. One nice thing about looping to second grade with the squirrels is that I can keep their old first grade work books and use them next year for a review/starter approach. Maybe they won�t be too thrilled about using a book from the previous year, but I know it won�t hurt them. In the meantime, we will carry on with great fortitude, trying to cover as much as possible in the next 19 days. Doesn�t that sound wonderful�only 19 days of first grade, and then it�s on to bigger and better things!

catsnapples~ in first grade, for 19 more days and at life

You are half baked !!! A mellow medley of emotions and a pleasant
personality. You get even the busiest of bees
to stop and smell the roses. Rock on !

What Ben and Jerrys ice cream flavor are you ?
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