To help pay for college, I worked every summer as a nanny in one of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. When I started, the three kids were five, three and eighteen months and my last summer they were nine, seven and five. This winter I reconnected with them via holiday cards and was shocked to see how grown up they are looking (they are now 13 (!), 11 and 9). Today I got an email from the oldest and can I just say that the fact that she is now in the seventh grade completely blows my mind! Also, seventh grade girls are all alike. The email is full of "OMG" and words with lots of extra letters "sooooooooooooooooo" when really "so" would suffice. And the text is pink on an aqua background (hard for my aging eyes, let me tell you). BUT her favorite class is social studies (of course) and she sounds a lot like the energetic, intelligent girl I once knew.
Also, my "son" stopped by school again today to say hi and show me the tattoo he got this summer. (For those not in the know, I had a student last year who pretty much adopted me as his mother and, much like my HS nickname, talked about it so much that the label just stuck.) He's looking more and more like a grown up each time I see him and it kind of freak me out. But mostly it is just really good to see him. :)
Spelling bee practice tonight was awesome. Not that the kids nailed all of the words, but still - they are getting so much better. On average, when they do get a word wrong, they miss it by one or two letters. At the start of this whole process, we were lucky if one or two letters were correct! The bee is next Wednesday, so here's hoping it is a success!
I promised my seniors that I would grade all of their papers tonight. This is a huge undertaking for me, but it is long overdue - I have been carting this folder full of papers around for weeks (in fact, it traveled with me to Chicago and back)! Time for a trip to Cosi for lots of Diet Coke, no internet connection and maybe a sandwich (yum...).
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