Grapefruit Pie, Benchmarking & the 1st Shower

Tues. Jan 20th – I don’t remember much from this day, oddly enough. It was probably another hectic day in the morning, downtime from 10-11, lunch at 11:30 and organizing the rest of the day.

I know for sure I didn’t want to go anywhere that evening. Mrs. Ruiz had brought me a huge bag-full of grapefruits from her trees at home a few days before and I had every intention of eating/using them. I decided I wanted grapefruit pie that night and I made it with Mario’s help. I hate making it because peeling the grapefruits is so tedious and it takes forever. I’d only made it once before this and I wasn’t too happy with the results at that time. As we were peeling the fruits Alaethia kept running over to us like a little puppy, opening her mouth for some grapefruit and running back to her room. She loved it. If all she could eat is fruit all day she’d be such a happy baby.

When the pies were done I stuck them in the fridge to cool. It was torture knowing I’d have to wait till lunchtime the next day to eat a piece. I’d be leaving one at home and taking one to work.

Wed. Jan 21st – I knew we’d be Benchmarking that day but I had no idea we’d be closing the library and testing kids there. We had a total of 3. Mrs. V. asked me to finish up the bulletin boards, and I really felt a sense of panic because Friday would be my last day and the bulletin boards were still not done. It’s not really like I could have done much anyway during the previous two weeks since I was busy with the usual every-day work, but still. I happily took my packs of construction paper to the copy room and got started using the die-cut machine. Mrs. V. called me from the copy room about 15 minutes later and asked me to sit with one of the kids testing in the library. I said sure. The cool thing was I could read while the student was testing and I actually got a bit further with my Twilight book.

The student I’d be sitting with was Orlie, one of my kids who usually came to visit me at the library. Or should I say who’d try to skip at the library LOL. He wanted to go at a faster pace than the other two students so he wanted to be separate. He reminds me a lot of Eenan. Eenan has to get distracted for a little bit with drawing or talking because he gets bored, or else he’ll become disruptive. So I let Orlie have some breaks and draw and then get back to work. He did my last name in these awesome graffiti letters and I laminated it. I kept all his drawings from that day, to remember him. He used to drive me nuts since last year—he never did what he was told and would roll his eyes or just plain ignore me when given a directive. He made a complete 360 from last year. He actually asked me not to leave, aww.

Since the library was already closed Mrs. V., Mrs. Ruiz and I all ate lunch together. We ate with the dance teacher, nurse, and a substitute. I offered everyone some of the grapefruit pie and they all loved it. I promised I’d type up some recipes and hand them out the next day.

The social committee had a baby shower after school for Mrs. Saenz and me. There were so many co-workers who couldn’t make it because they had afterschool activities, but they promised to get me a gift. I felt so odd and humbled at the same time. I wish they’d gotten a chance to actually be there and just have fun and not worried about gifts. They got to play 3 games and we ate and just talked about the babies and pregnancies. Mr. Dennett stopped by when everything was over and he, Mrs. V. and Mrs. Duty all stood around talking. Eric, one of our students, showed up later and helped Mrs. V. and I take things to the library and he took some cake with him to his guitar class. When I got home I opened my gifts and found out Mrs. Ruiz had given us a very generous gift! I couldn’t believe it; I even called to ask her if she’d maybe made a mistake! Of course she said she didn’t. I couldn’t believe how generous everyone was. We’re truly blessed to know such amazing people.