Dear Reader:

Like Rutledge, Lachlan, and Eloise…it had been weeks on end since I saw Jake and Eva Cate. But Saturday night I babysat while John and Mandy grabbed some precious “alone” time for dinner at the Mustard Seed to talk without interruptions.

Until you are around children a lot, or grandchildren, adults quickly forget how difficult it is for adults to talk with another adult with children vying for their attention or asking a zillion questions… if they can do this or that?

John is going to be gone most of this week at some work-related conferencing…leaving tomorrow…so I will be ‘back in the “Boo Boo” saddle’ again…helping Mandy get the kids up and out in the mornings for school (toughest part of the day) and then helping with homework, supper, baths, etc. in the afternoons and evenings…second toughest time of the day. It really does help to have a second pair or hands and ‘lungs’ to survive daily “dual” challenges.

Yet when I saw Eloise again last Thursday and Eva Cate and Jake Saturday… both times my eyes teared up…they all had grown up during the January/ February cough/congestion blues. It was scary listening to Eloise talk in complete sentences off and on throughout the day and have Jake write his full name (Jake Dylan Turner) for me.

Eva Cate …who struggled early on with attention deficit  and learning disabilities…such as writing her name when she was much older than Jake ( who is in the four-year-old class ) has learned how to compensate using her strength and natural abilities in art.

(*She showed me how she likes to sign her name….with an artistic twist…a late-starter but how far she has come. She has definitely got her mother’s art genes in her, along with other family talented ancestors.)

Thank goodness…some games of childhoods past remain the same. Jake and Eva Cate both love the outdoors and begged me to let them play Hide and Seek...before it got dark. What we do for love…I put on my big coat against the cutting wind and out we went.

Both children were very creative in hiding places and for four years difference in their ages played very well together with Eva Cate stopping the game to tie Jake’s shoes over and over…a good big sister.

Jake hid in his favorite tree and Eva Cate climbed in the back seat of my car.

The kids picked out “Back to the Future 3″ for their movie (Jake climbed in his cowboy outfit to watch it…I had forgotten how entertaining those movies were when I took my own kids to see them…we ate pizza, watched movies, and danced to some “Dino” rap songs…Jake really got into the moves…clothing attire and all.

I can’t help but think that children, left to their own devices, figure out their own learning styles based on their interests and passions. As a teacher it always seemed like an oxymoron situation when we teachers spent summers and staff development days learning about differentiated learning and how to address it with all the different styles of learning in a diverse group of students in a classroom..

…Only to turn around and give them the same national or state standarized grade assessment (throughout each nine-weeks and at the end of each year) or the S.A.T type assessments for all students wanting to go to college their senior year… the type of assessment that only benefits the visual easy learner and “linker.”

When I saw this cartoon the other day it made me smile…my sentiments exactly.

As I pulled out of John and Mandy’s subdivision yesterday this message on the community board made me smile and beep.

***The posts this week will be shorter than usual…with so many to write before I leave tomorrow… since I won’t be back until the weekend…but I hope you might find a pearl or two hidden in at least one of them along the way or better… a laugh or hidden chuckle!

So until tomorrow...Two things you discover when you’re older and wiser — you’re not actually any wiser, and behind the wrinkles, you’re not any older, either. ~Robert Brault

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

“Posin’….on a Sunday afternoon…..”