New York visited....

I'm in New York right now, the grandest city in the world, on a Saturday night, and staying in the beautiful Hilton New York. I'm attending the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Conference. This is a conference hosted by WNET, New York PBS....the creator of Sesame Street, among other top notch programs. I have been looking forward to this getaway for months. It has been enlightening and awesome! I have seen David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, speak, Queen Latifah speak and host a panel of students talk about "what makes for a good education", and saw my mentor, Nancie Atwell discuss the impact of the writing and reading workshop and how it affected one student that she thought with whom she would never connect.

I have cried, shaken my head YES to the thought of changing that one student's life, and have found that I miss teaching more than ever. I love my job, don't get me wrong, but I miss my students, I miss sharing my love of reading, and I miss connecting with my students on an intellectual level. Am I crazy?....yep, probably, but I know what a great teacher I was....and still am. I'm not sure what my future holds, but I'm going to pray about it, and hope that God leads me in the right direction.

As for being away from my family, I can't say that I haven't enjoyed it. I have had a king size bed all to myself, no one yelling "momma" every ten minutes asking for a graham cracker or anything else that is somewhat in reach, but not quite in reach, if that makes sense. HOWEVER, I called home Thursday night to check on the family, John put the phone on speaker so I could talk to Matthew, and for the first time ever he talked on the phone, and said, "Hi momma." If I could have hugged him through the phone at that moment I would have, or even hopped on the next plane for Richmond, I would have done so.

We had a bad weekend last week. We took Matthew to the Aviation Museum, and were having a blast, when Matthew decided it was feasible to vomit everywhere in the kid's section. That's right folks, we left our mark there ten minutes after paying $12 to look at the exhibits. We then took the hour drive back home, I ran to Food Lion to get applesauce and any other bland foods for the next few days, and went back home to try to get our little boy back to being "Matthew." Sunday, things seemed to be fine, so John and I were suspecting food poisoning instead of a stomach virus. Sunday evening, my tummy started to churn and the diarrhea began for momma. I ended up laying on the couch most of the night, and even most of Monday. I give my kid credit for being the best kid ever while Momma was sick. He stayed in the great room while I slept on and off, watching PBS all day and playing with his toys. At about 6 pm, 24 hours after it all began, life...for me anyway....began getting back to normal. John came home Monday puking his guts out, so here we go again. It had been one hell of a week and I'm glad to call it history.

We have had our share of illnesses this year, and sometimes I ask why? Why us? Then I look at others, friends with kids who are sick with diseases that will plague them the rest of their lives, a girl who was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer whose life will be cut all but too short at the age of 35, and friends who have parents who are drug addicts or alcoholics....my life ain't so bad. I need to just breathe deeply and put it all into perspective at times. My life's little issues are nothing compared to what others experience, so I pray they find the guidance that they need.

Despite last Saturday's fiasco, we had a good time at the aviation museum, so here are some pics. I hope all of you have a blessed week.
Cindy