Off We Go!

Kevin, Maelin and I are off to San Diego for our first ever family vacation. We are planning on taking Mae to the beach, the zoo and we figured we'd take her downtown to see what a new city looks like. She's such a good traveler: I've taken her to Traverse City, MI, Seattle and Disneyland but this will be Kevin's first experience traveling with a child.

We'll see how he does. I was going to go get him some "rescue remedy" from Vitamin Cottage (it's a natural Valium) but I think he'll be okay. I'll let you know.

We were lucky enough to even get a babysitter for one night while we're down there so Kevin and I can go out. A friend of mine has a good friend who lives about 5 minutes away from our hotel so I talked to her a few days ago and Karen is very excited to come meet Maelin and play with her. I'm excited about that because in general, my favorite part of vacations is the night life. We won't be clubbing it up by any means, but it'll be nice to be able to see what the Gaslamp district is like after dark.

Maelin is so excited: she keeps talking about the airplane, the beach and the koala bears. It's going to be awesome to experience this through her eyes. She also really likes the train at DIA, so we're in for some fun with this little one.

You know I'll post pictures when we get back. And we're off!

Love and Pain...Mother Love??? Some thoughts about Chinese Foot Binding

One of the reasons I love summer vacation so much is that I finally get to catch up on my reading. I've always been a voracious reader and I'm so busy during the school year (and frankly exhausted by the time I get home and get Mae to bed), that I have a stack of books that I'm just dying to read by the time June gets here.

I've been slowly making my way through some excellent reads. Finally got to "Twilight" and loved it (going to bring the other three books in that series with me when we go on vacation next week.) "Eat, Pray, Love" was next and I thought it was an extremely well-written account of Italy, India and Indonesia (the best part of that book for me was recognizing all the places Liz visits while in Italy).

Yesterday I started "Peony in Love" by Lisa See and I finished it today. I'll preface this blog post by saying that I adore Lisa See: one of my favorite books of all-time is her "Snowflower and the Secret Fan." She is a master at Chinese Historical fiction which is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres. However...there is a aspect to Chinese history that has always turned my stomach. Even more so now that I'm a mommy to a beautiful girl.

The practice of foot binding is mentioned (and actually plays a significant part) in both of See's books that I've read. Honestly, I didn't know a whole lot about the practice until I read "Snowflower." It had such a disturbing account of the barbaric procedure that one of the ladies in my book club actually stopped reading "Snowflower" because she just couldn't stomach it. I read that book before I was a mommy and was disturbed, but didn't really think too much of it. "Peony" has another gruesome account of the practice and I decided that I owed it to myself to find out once and for all what this practice is, who did it, why, and how it affected girls for their entire lives.

Basically, foot binding begins when a girl is 5-10 years old. Her bones are more pliable and soft then. Mom or Grandmother (if the Mother couldn't bear to do it), would take the 4 smaller toes and fold them underneath the foot and wrap it tightly with bandages. Then the child would spend 2 agonizing years walking around on these feet. The bones would eventually break. Death from infections was common. The goal was to achieve the perfect "Lotus Blossom" shaped foot...which was visually pleasing and if her foot was smaller than 4 inches, guaranteed to help her get a valuable husband. I'm not going to go into the procedure much more because I respect the fact that this is a stomach-turning topic, but click here for a link to an excellent essay complete with pictures of foot binding.

I imagine some of you who come to this blog to see pictures of Maelin or to amuse yourself with my latest classroom story are asking yourselves why on earth am I tackling this horrendous topic? Well, it's not because I broke my little toe tonight (oh really, I totally did and I'm in a huge amount of pain right now). As ironic as that would be, that's not why. The reason why I'm bringing up this barbaric (in my opinion) custom is because of the writings that I've read during my research for this post about the opinions and actions of the mothers who carried out this custom for 1,000 years. They have chilled my soul.

Here are a few of the quotes I have discovered that were commonly told the girls or each other as their mothers and grandmothers and nurse-maids were physically holding them down to break their feet:

"Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"

"Give your daughter the gift of your Mother Love"

"Every pair of small feet costs a bath of tears".

"When a Celestial takes into his hand a woman's foot, especially if it is very small, the effect upon him is precisely the same as is provoked in a European by a young and firm bosom..."

The reason I wanted to research and write this blog post was because of the 2nd quote. "Give your daughter the gift of your Mother Love." In Chinese, the written character for mother love is composed of two elements: love and pain. During the foot binding procedures, it was generally an elder female member of the girl's family or a professional foot binder who carried out the initial breaking and ongoing binding of the feet. This was considered preferable to having the mother do it, as she might have been sympathetic to her daughter's pain and less willing to keep the bindings tight. A professional foot binder would ignore the girl's cries and would continue to bind her feet incredibly tightly, thus achieving the ideal "Golden Lotuses" shape. "Mother Love" seems in this case not to refer to the staggering pain the girls went through, but the pain the mothers went through inflicting it.

As parents, we all have degrees of "Mother Love." The first time you tell your child "NO!" and really mean it and you see that little baby face crumple into tears tests your Mother Love. When your kid cries because he doesn't understand why mommy and daddy don't live together any more tests your Mother Love. Discipline in most forms tests your Mother Love (the old, "This hurts me more than it hurts you"). However, reading about these procedures physically turned my stomach. Now that I'm a mommy, I can't imagine inflicting this sort of Mother Love on Maelin. It's staggering. I totally understand why some mothers snatched their daughters away and ran off with them, never to be seen again. That was the minority. Most of the mothers gladly went through with this custom believing it would help their daughters secure their positions in life and achieve higher social standings. Thus the Mother Love.

Now I know there are blogs, essays, articles out there that use this practice as another way to point to how women have been mutilated throughout different cultures, different centuries. I agree with them. However, I wrote and researched this as a way for me to work through the emotions I had when I read about the Mother Love. I can't stand it when Maelin has a cold. I cried real tears when she had the flu and I couldn't help her. When she was 15 months old, she had a seizure in my arms. It was the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me. At the hospital afterwards, the nurse made me hold her down while she inserted a catheter into her bladder to get a sterile urine sample. I remember holding my baby down while she screamed and fought and cried and looked at me with such confusion in her eyes. She seemed to be asking, "Why Mommy? You're supposed to be the one keeping me safe, not hurting me!" I cried right along with her.

Love and Pain. That's the closest I ever want to get to it again.

So in conclusion I imagine all of us are glad this practice has stopped. We're happy to be Americans and live in a country that has never practiced any severe female mutilations. However, I know I will do some more research on what I can do to help the millions of girls who undergo neck stretching, or genital mutilations, or countless other atrocities that are performed in the name of culture. As I hobble off to bed on my poor little broken toe (just one...not the entire foot) with my ice and my Advil, I know this for certain: sympathy and apathy walk a thin line. Easy to do on two healthy feet.

Wordless Sunday Picture

Auntie Kat told me a while ago that if I was going to do a "wordless" picture, it'd better be about Maelin. Since Auntie is in Germany for the next few weeks (and missing Mae terribly, she told me), I'll indulge her.

Here you go Auntie Kat!

Is Real Love Chance, Work...or Choice?

Now that I'm home for a few more weeks (how fast summer flies by will be another post), I've been able to catch up on some reading that I've been putting off. I finally made it through Twilight (LOVED it!!) and I'm hoping to finish the other 3 in that series before school starts again.

Another book I've read recently is The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I was somewhat "assigned" to read this (more about that in yet another post), and although I'm usually not very interested in self-help books, this one had some good things to say. In fact...I think I believe most of it.

The premise of this book is this: have you ever been in a relationship where you just felt that you and your partner were speaking different languages? Where you couldn't believe how hard you worked to let your partner know the things you needed and wanted and your partner responded with exactly the opposite? Have you felt that you were talking Swahili to your partner? Or your words just flew right over his/her head? If your answer is yes (which I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I bet that's most of us at one point or another), Chapman's view is that you and your partner speak different love languages.

I bet some of you wanted to stop reading at this point. I'm starting to go all Oprah on you...this is something she would do, right? She reads some amazing book (Eckhart Tolle ring a bell???) and tries to get everyone on her bandwagon on how it totally changed her life and we should all start a book club this very day and read this book.

Well...I'm not Oprah. This blog doesn't reach millions of people. However...I know some ladies who read this blog semi-regularly when they're up late and don't feel much like watching another Snuggie infomercial who might actually benefit from reading this book. It sure beats the cost of marriage counseling...

But, I digress. The idea is that there are 5 love languages that each of us speak. In general, we have one primary language and one secondary. These can change during the course of our lives (the language that you speak is different during your courtship and changes after you've had a baby, etc...) but for the most part, your primary language is what speaks love to you. I'm not going to write a huge posting about every point I liked from this book because minus all the Jesus talk (which wasn't too bad...I was able to skip over it), I agreed with pretty much everything Chapman had to say. This post would be huge and frankly, I'm too excited to go start New Moon to write a real book review. You can also look that up here on Amazon if you want. There are tons of positive reviews and you can read those too if you have already read New Moon.

There are 2 points to this book that I'll take away with me. The first one is:
"The in-love-heady-feeling you get when you are first together with someone ISN'T real and DOESN'T last." Wow. So what he's saying is that all those romantic books, movies, songs that I've taken to heart in the last, oh...34 years aren't real???? You mean most people don't talk until the sun comes up after they've been together for 15 years??? (oh come on...you know you did this at least once with someone you had just started dating!) You mean to say that after I've been with him for 13 years my heart won't skip a beat when I see his name on my caller ID???? Hmmmmmm....

The point that Chapman is making is that the heady "in love" experience that we all love (the "new" feeling) has been studied and is temporary. It is impossible for your system to maintain that sort of intensity for longer than 2 years. 2 years! That's what we get people!! That's it...of that wonderful, dizzy, can't-think-of-anything-else feeling. The problem with this is during that 2 years is when most of us move in, get engaged, possibly even get married. Then what??? Who hasn't heard someone complain, "It all changed after the wedding."? Who hasn't watched some wonderful "The Notebook" or "Serendipity" movie and wished their love life was as passionate years down the road? Those aren't real and are in fact, fiction. Having my MA in Behavioral Sciences, I kinda knew that already but it sure was pleasant to have it confirmed by actual studies.

The other point I enjoyed from this book is the actual "Love Languages" themselves. As a veteran of many relationships (some better than others, but that's neither here nor there), I know how hard it is to make a long-term relationship work. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe because I'm the 3rd child, I seek too much control. Maybe it's because of the crazy religion I was raised with. Maybe it's because I'm a master at being passive-aggressive. Maybe it's because I'd happily move to Disneyland and work in the Candy Kitchen wearing the red and white striped outfits. I don't know. Or maybe...it's because I was speaking the wrong language.

Now before you start screaming "Oprah!!" at me, hear me out. This really does make sense. Has your partner ever done something for you (ie: told you he loved you and you sure do look nice tonight) and you said thanks, but deep down you were cursing the mother f$%#@$ because what you really wanted was for him to get off his lazy a$%# and fold the friggin laundry? Or have you spent days, weeks, months on locating the perfect gift (scoured Craigslist and eBay) for the first edition of the Radiohead anthropology, had it shipped over from London, wrapped and ready to go on the 6th anniversary of your first kiss...and he says "Thanks." Then proceeds to look confused and asks, "Was I supposed to do something?"

Sigh...

I'm willing to bet we've all found ourselves here at one point or another. The problem isn't that he doesn't care or you are just a screaming, nagging hag. The problem is that you aren't speaking the same languages. You may as well be speaking Latin.

Here are the five languages. See if you're lucky enough to be able to spot your primary and secondary language right away (then you won't need to read the book!!)

Quality Time***Words of Affirmation***Gifts***Acts of Service***Physical Touch

(I'm going to say that before you start moaning that ALL men speak Physical Touch, it involves way more than just sex. Enough said.)

Here's your challenge if you want to improve your current relationship: you need to figure out which language is your primary language and communicate that to your partner. The book also gives plenty of ideas and examples of things you can do for your partner in THEIR language. You also need to figure out which language is your partner's primary language so you can start speaking it.

So that's it. That's my new soapbox. We'll see how long I stay on it. For now, I'll leave you with this quote that a friend sent to me recently:
No one falls in love by choice, it is by CHANCE.
No one stays in love by chance, it is by WORK.
And, no one falls out of love by chance, it is by CHOICE.

Summertime Fun

Oh, but we're having a busy, fun summer! Even though we've spent most of the summer so far helping out Aunt Heather, we've managed to squeeze in some fun. Now that we are getting into our groove, we're having a great time!

We've joined a music class. In true Maelin fashion, we don't really do what the teacher wants us to do: ie, we don't listen, follow directions, spin or dance when we're supposed to. We do that just when we want to and when we're darn good and ready for it! It's really cute. The other thing that cracks me up during music class is that there's a little girl who totally loves Maelin but Maelin could care less: she loves the boys. Alex and Adam, specifically. She follows them around while the little girl follows Mae around. It's hilarious. Kevin and I are in trouble when Mae is a teenager, that's for sure.

As we have memberships to both the Children's Museum and the Denver Zoo, we've been having a great time at both places. It's so nice to have a membership and to live so close: you can go for a couple of hours a couple of times a week and not feel like you're wasting any money. Maelin LOVES both of them and starts squealing when we get close to either of them: she knows exactly where she's going and asks for them by name "Mu-zee-m!" or "--ippos" when she wakes up in the morning. We're also very lucky to have some great friends who are also off for the summer and have been meeting us at the zoo or museum: Maelin's best friends Makenzy and Andrew. They are 7 and 5 and they love Maelin as much as she loves them. She follows them around and they are super sweet with her and they all adore each other. She's so lucky.

We've also been hanging out with family quite a bit (for obvious reasons). Aunt Heather is recovering nicely and in the meantime, Auntie Vanessa was out visiting from Seattle and Nana is on her way from MN and our Uncle and Aunt from Florida were here this week. This is their first visit in 10 years so we were very excited to introduce Maelin to them.

One sad note: Aunt Kat and Uncle Jeff are going away for a while. Aunt Kat will be gone for a month and Uncle Jeff will be gone for about 9 days. We'll really miss them. However, they'll be in Germany, Austria and Prague so I'm sure we'll be getting some really choice gifts to make up for their long absence! :-)

I adore summertime. I love getting to know my little girl again, I love hanging out with my friends without having to worry about work, I love knowing what Maelin does all day long and I LOVE being the one who wakes up with her, gets her breakfast, plays all day, lays with her during naps, picks her up when she falls, cleans her boo-boos and is the one who cuddles with her at night. Although 10 months out of my life are extremely stressful and crazy, these 2 months are so amazing and I'm loving every minute of it!


Going into the pool at Kat and Jeff's house...not quite sure we like it yet!


"MaeMae Painting!" at the Children's Museum


Uncle was putting the cone on his head to make Mae laugh and Maelin loves him so much, she just had to try it herself!


Mae and I at cousin Coely's 3rd bday party...she loved his birthday cake!


Maelin and the firedog at the Museum...she calls that "Fire Hat!"


Riding "Brownie" at our Aunt Laura's house...


Maelin looking very stylish in her new playhouse (wearing her cousins' apron)


Riding "zeee-bra!" at the zoo


Maelin and her best friends: Andrew and Makenzy at the zoo


Quite a bit of our family: my dad and his wife, Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Monika, my grandpa, Aunt Laura, Kat, Jeff, Heather, Kevin, Maelin and I.


Maelin at Boulder Creek...no, I did not let her get in the water but she had a great time watching the tubers!

Fun Times at the Zoo

We've been spending quality time at the zoo lately. Since Heather has been released from the hospital and is resting comfortably at my dad's house (and getting great care over there, by the way), Maelin and I have finally been able to enjoy a little bit of summertime.

Kat and Jeff gave us a zoo pass for Mae's birthday and we've been putting it to good use. Mae LOVES the zoo. She asks for the animals by name and she starts squealing the second we start getting close to parking. She starts yelling, "ZOO! ZOO!" and starts giggling. Then the minute we get inside, she's running off towards her favorites: the "Ippos" and "el-phants". We usually ride the train and she sits there and pats my knee and is just all smiles.

Here's a couple of pictures from the zoo. Honestly, I have tons more but I haven't had time to download them off of my camera lately, so I'll put a whole bunch of summer-fun pics up soon. Enjoy!

Our Little Artist

Finally got around to taking Maelin back to the Children's Museum this past week. Heather is at my dad's house resting and Mae and I went to go play for a bit. Although we've been going to the Children's Museum since Mae was about 9 months old, this was the first time I thought she was ready to explore her inner artist.

She LOVED painting. One of my best friends Emily is an artist AND she has the same birthday as Maelin, so we've always been looking for similarities to Emily as she grows. How much she loved to paint is a pretty big one that we thought was great. I took this painting home and framed it. It's in our room now and every time Mae sees it, she says, "Mae painting?" and is super proud.

I love summer and how much time it gives me to get to know my little girl again. She's so much fun and awesome company!

Cancer Surgery Update

My sister has had her surgery and is now on the slow road to recovery. Her surgery actually went better than was expected: it only lasted 6 hours and she didn't have any affected lymph nodes on the right side of her neck like the surgeon had originally thought. Therefore, she has only lost all feeling on the left side of her neck. That's a really good thing. Her scar is smaller than they thought it would be as well.

She's resting now. Her pain level is an average of 4 (from 1-10) and we're all taking turns being here at the hospital with her. Maelin is not handling this very well: she woke up screaming this morning and is extremely clingy and upset. She can tell something is happening and mommy just isn't around like she is supposed to be.

There are so many heart-warming stories I could share with you about all this. I could tell you about the friend who drove 2 hours to bring my family dinner (complete with desert and wine) while we were waiting in the ICU during Heather's surgery. I could tell you about the countless messages of support we've all received...most from people we barely know. I could tell you about the wonderful care and love we've gotten from the outstanding nurses and doctors who are so critical to Heather's recovery. I could tell you about the coffee that was delivered late at night for us, the help with Maelin that's been offered, the dinners that have been yet to be cooked but are on their way, the housecleaning that's coming and the hundreds of messages of "We're thinking of you" that my family has received.

It's amazing and humbling. Every time I open my email or check my phone, there's more of them. People have offered to give up their precious resources and free time to come to the hospital and show my family a bit of their generosity and spirit.

To all of you I offer a very heart-felt "THANK YOU" from Heather, my parents, my siblings and I. We couldn't have made it through this as well as we have without you. The road to recovery for Heather is going to be long and painful but it will be brightened by all of you.

A Scary Time Ahead...

I come from a rather large family. Not crazy "18 Kids and Counting" large, but large by today's standards. We have 4 kids in our family and my dad's family had 5, so we have all sorts of wonderful aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. So we're a loud and crazy bunch (emphasis on the loud...)

We've always been really lucky to be really close to each other. Even though we were raised by a crazy religion that kept us somewhat isolated from everyone, family has always been very important to all of us and we've kept in close contact. I'm happy to say that even though we're too loud, too much in each others' business, nosy, and crazy, we've never really had too much serious drama or sadness.

Oh sure, we've all had our problems. We were very sad to lose our Aunt Cacky to a brain tumor about 9 years ago. My mom has battled different health issues over the years but for the most part, we've all been really lucky to be healthy and happy.

This week is going to put all that to the test...at least for a little bit. My older sister Heather was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer and is undergoing a major surgery on Friday. For more information about this, (I'm calling it PTC for short), click here. My sister has always been really healthy: nothing major ever wrong with her. She has 2 boys: a 5 year old and a 3 year old and is in the middle of getting divorced. Which makes the timing of this just evil. She is still on her ex's health insurance for now, but for how long remains to be seen.

So anyway, she's undergoing a 9-12 hour surgery on Friday. They have discovered some lymph nodes in her neck that have been affected by the cancer so they need to going to remove them before they spread further. They are going to cut her neck from ear to ear and slowly remove all the infected lymph nodes, her thyroid, and try to put her back together as best they can.

She has a 4% chance of never talking again. She is also facing being on thyroid medications for the rest of her life. There will be "extensive damage" to the nerves in her neck and shoulders and she'll have to go through physical therapy to rebuild the muscles and nerves there. She will have to have radioactive iodine inserted into her neck to try to kill any other cancerous growths that the surgeon isn't able to remove. There are other problems that are possible but to be honest, I try not to think about them too much. You can do your own research if you're curious.

One good thing is at this point, it doesn't look like she'll need chemo or radiation. They are planning to have her in the ICU for about 2 days and then in the hospital for a week. After that, she's planning on coming to Denver (she lives about 1 hour north of us in a small town) to stay with my dad so he can help take care of her and there will be a safe place for the boys.

I'm really starting to get nervous for her. I know she reads this, so I'm staying positive, but honestly...my family has been so lucky health-wise in the past that I really don't know how to best be there for her. I'm going with her on Tuesday afternoon for a full-body PET scan to see if the cancer is anywhere else in her body and I'm going on Wednesday to meet with her surgeon for her pre-op appointment, but that's about all I know how to do. Just being there helps, I guess.

Cancer is such a scary word. You hear it and you immediately think "death" even though people beat it all the time. I'm so sad and mad about this: why does my healthy, young sister who has 2 young sons to take care of have to go through this? Why are we worrying about whether or not she'll be able to talk? Or as she says...she doesn't want us running a race in her honor. (a bit of joke but somewhat true.) Instead of enjoying the start of my hard-earned summer vacation with Maelin, I'm scheduling who is going to stay overnight with her in the hospital each night. I'm arranging where family members who are flying in are going to stay. I'm figuring out where to put Maelin while I'm with Heather during the surgery and afterwards. I'm not planning anything for her recovery time in case something comes up and she needs me. It is all-consuming and only goes away when you're sleeping.

I've always been the "care-taker" in my family. Maybe it's because I'm the middle child, maybe it's because it's just in my nature, maybe it's because I like to be busy and have things to do so everyone has just expected me to fall into that role. Up until now, I didn't mind that job. I liked knowing what was going on with everyone and helping to take care of everyone and being the planner in the family. However, I'm finding the role to be overwhelming and exhausting now. Heather needs me now more than she ever has and although I will ALWAYS be there for her no matter what, there are times I just don't know what to say. She will call me immediately when she finds out some more (seems like it's always) bad news and my first impulse is to freak out right along with her and burst into tears. That's not being a care-taker though so I stop myself, think of positive things to say and calm her down a bit. Then I hang up the phone and start to hyper-ventilate. I refuse to let her know how worried I am about her (she'll know now though... :-) while she's processing the scary new information so I keep it inside.

My good friend told me the other day that I needed to take a small step back from the care-taker roll and let other people help. She said it was starting to affect me and I needed to allow myself to feel the fear and the sadness about this...it's okay not to be the strong, stoic one all the time. I don't know how to do that but I think she's right. I'm going to try.

Aunt Kat is going to come along on Wed for the pre-op appt so Heather and I aren't there all by ourselves. Kat is going to help ask questions and help keep us both calm because I don't think we can do it by ourselves anymore. We're too involved: Heather is worried for her life and I'm worried for her. That's not a good combination when you're supposed to be calm and reasonable and asking intelligent questions.

So there you go. I might do a post or two this week if I find myself alone during the surgery on Friday with nothing to do. Maelin will be in daycare or with friends so at least I won't have to worry about her. I'll be spending most of the next 2 weeks spending the nights in the hospital with Heather so she's not alone with her thoughts...that can be pretty scary. We'll try to laugh through the pain and the fear and I KNOW we'll come out okay.

I'm scared...but the care-taker in me knows that this is just something yucky we have to get through. We WILL get through it and our family will go on being as loud and crazy as ever.

I know it.



Heather and I partying it up on New Years

Starting Her Out Right...

Everyone who knows us knows that Kevin enjoys his video games. However, he's been really good about not playing them when Maelin is awake. The one exception to this is Guitar Hero. We tend to break that out when Uncle Jeff is over or when Cousin Peter is in town visiting. Then it's Guitar Hero all the time. Honestly, it doesn't usually even get turned off.

It seems that Maelin has picked up the nuances of Guitar Hero. Kevin is so proud...

Wordless Tuesday Picture

Bet you can guess where this was taken...

Field Day

We had a great field day today! It started out pretty gloomy: very cloudy and misty like it was going to rain any minute. The kiddos were a bit disappointed because it seemed like field day may actually be canceled. However, things brightened up when...

Sgt. Alex from the Air Force and 4 other officers came back to hang out with us! For those of you who remember, Sgt. Alex and the Air Force officers are so important to my kids. They were the ones who answered my call for school supplies, clothes, toys and games last Christmas. They showed up in my classroom in December with all sorts of games, toys, presents, etc. and brought us all to tears. For a recap of that amazing day, click here.

So we were getting ready to go outside to Field Day today and who showed up again?? Sgt. Alex and his friends! My kiddos cheered and cheered and we all went outside. We had a great time. The kids had so much fun doing all the different games and relays and the officers did them right along with us. We all played tug-of-war together and the potato sack relay and climbed the rock wall and gave high-fives to the winners and cheered everyone on. We had a great day.

I just love how some adults answer the call to help our kids. The kiddos I teach are amongst the "have-nots" in our society and it breaks my heart every day that I can't help them more than I can. I love that just by giving up a little of their time, these officers are making a huge difference in the lives of these kids. Every child in my room was beaming and feeling special and important because these very important men took time out of their lives to spend with them.

Days like these I love my job. There's no where else I'd rather be.

Thanks Sgt. Alex, Sgt. Troy, Sgt. Chad, Cptn. Levi and Cptn. Jacob. These kids will remember you forever. And so will I.