Spring Break 06

The best thing about being a teacher is you always get to stay a kid.

I measure my life in chunks of time:

summer

spring break

Christmas

Easter Sunday Caitlin and I packed up our battered sleeping bags and headed off for an adventure.

We drove over to Dauphin Island with a brief stop to pick up the intrepid Desiree.

We pulled up to my dear friends Leisa and Peter's house, two refugees from a Jimmy Buffett song and livers of the good life.

 We pile into the boats for a ride to Sand Island, which is a big sand bar out in the Gulf. Sky so blue it hurts your eyes, silver dolphins glinting in the sun, white caps bumping your bottom on the bow.

Three days with my daughter and her friends on the island where we were not just mom and child, but equals working together at playing hard.

Late nights around the campfire.

drinking too much

eating too much

getting too much sun

Too much of everything is just enough!

I renewed a friendship with Ila, made a new one with Theresa, enjoyed Caitlin's friends Samamtha, Jessica and Will, who when I asked him who made him so pretty, his mom or his dad, replied, "It took both of them", with his perfect white smile.

We laughed over things that are so funny at the time and so impossible to explain. I will always remember the lipless coyotes.

It was like this...nope, cant' explain it.

The birds fly around and around the island until it makes you dizzy to try and follow them with your eyes.

The only sounds are wind and waves and laughter.

If I could get a supply boat to come out there, I wouldn't come home.

 

with a song in my heart

I love to sing.

It always gets a response.

Once when a handicapped child in my class was having a fit ,I softly sang Amazing Grace to myself so I wouldn't become tense.

Later on, calm restored, I was doing some paperwork and humming. The child came up to  me   & said,in an aggreived tone,"I'm bein goood now, you aint gotta sing no more!"

To share with my kids my love of life and give them a happy memory, I always awakened them with a rousing chorus of "Good Morning Starshine"

Somehow it has metamorphosised into, "Get up or I'm gonna start singing!"

The Sad Story of Saintly Overworked Mom

Saintly Overworked Mom comes in from number 2 job after going to the store.

Drunken Husband grills steaks...

 falls asleep...

Saintly Overworked Mom chisels 25$ worth of shoe leather off the grill and feeds it to the cats.

Slutty Older Daughter is off with Wont'  Marry Her Boyfriend.

Lazy Cheerleader can't wash the dishes due to mysterious pains in her leg that cause her too much agony to stand at the sink but do not in any way prohibit back flips.

No problem that can't be solved by evicting Mariah,

divorcing Tom,

putting Caitlin up for adoption,

 burning the house down,

 changing my name

& going to Mexico!

Arsonist Anonymously,

Marti

Chronicles of a Cheerleader

It is March 20.In many ways, an important day for Caitlin.

2 years ago, she shattered both bones in her right leg and ended hopes of winning first place in the state in gymnastics.

Last year on this date, she went to a neighboring town to see Slipknot with her older sister and Terry, my son-out law, Mariah's eternal boyfriend.A Slipknot concert is not a place you send your baby without some trepidation, but Terry is big & Mariah is mean& they both think the sun rises and sets on Caitlin, so I felt she was probably safer there than she was on the porch with Tom & me.

This year, she made junior varsity cheerleader on the oldest and most prestigious squad in Mobile County.(we here in the south like old stuff.) And you know what high society folks we are, right? Right, we are the kind of people who get drunk and paint the porch chairs tie dye with red and blue spray paint. (we actually did that last weekend)

It happened this way....

the girls go in groups of 4 before judges. No parents are allowed on campus.After try outs , everyone must leave campus and come back at nine o'clock to look on the door to see who make the cut. (I don't' know why the security issues... Is there a problem with rioting parents?)

Caitlin's name was there.

There were tears,

squeals,

 hugs....

I love the drama of teen hood!

We went out for milk shakes with Samantha and her mom Gina....

a new adventure!