Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

It's been raining here-a lot, and almost every day for a week. It seems the April rains we should have gotten are not missing, but only delayed until June. So, I guess we're catching up.

I like the rain, but it's just odd for this time of year. Yesterday, we got downpours. So much so that (get this) the school held the AM kindergartners until the rain stopped. I'm voting overcautious on this one, personally. This school called for snow days this Winter when it didn't snow, and now didn't send home the kindergartners because it was raining. I did not know this, so I stood outside in the rain, waiting for my daughter. When I had been outside quite a while, I figured something was up. I came back in, and discovered that the school had left a message that they were holding the AM kindergartners until the rain cleared. This is something I could understand if there were say, major lightning, thunder and wind, but this was a fairly garden variety thunderstorm, so I don't really understand the issue. I'm guessing they sided with over caution because of the litigious society we've become. Who knows, but that's my guess.

It is the end of the year. My daughter has 2 days left, and she's out for the summer. I am still making the plans as to what I'm going to do with my two while there's no school to occupy the one of them. We'll have to find things. The end of the year also brings about that dilemma of dilemmas--what to do for teachers and bus drivers and such. Does anyone else get hung up about this? I can never decide what's enough and what's too much? Do you give a gift to a bus driver? What if the bus driver has only been the driver for half the year? What do you get them? Do people give the teachers gifts anymore? What do they give? Does the teacher really need any more items with apples on them? Do they like items with apples on them? My vote would be no, and that teachers, if they are going to get a gift, would probably prefer something more personal or useful. But what? Does anyone actually know their kid's teacher well enough to get them the perfect gift? I don't think that's possible, is it?

I'm not going to say I'm losing sleep over this whole thing, because I'm not. But it is something for me to think about yet again. For the bus drivers, I think I will bake something (so I'd better get on it). But for the teacher, well, that's a whole other kettle of fish.

My daughter LOVES her teacher. And, though I've only met her a handful of times, and spoken to her little more than that, I really like her too. But more importantly, I like the WAY she taught. And not so much in the curriculum sense, though my daughter learned a lot during the year, it was more in the way she delivered the information. She has a very straightforward, honest approach to teaching. If she thought something was off, she told the students. She challenged them to think. In the day and age of "memorize and spit back at test time" teaching, that's not common. One time, my daughter brought home a little story they had read in class. It was basically a conglomeration of words in form of a very loose "story" to teach the words to the kids. My daughter read through part of the story and then stopped. She looked at me and said "My teacher said this story is weird". She then finished the story. And yeah, it was weird. It made no real sense. But I found it completely refreshing that her teacher would call that to the kids' attention. That makes them think. It makes them look at things that are written and challenge the ideas within. It's totally something I would have done. So I appreciated it immensely.

As I wanted to do something nice for this woman who has meant so much to my daughter, I made her this:

What do you think? Good? Too much? I hope it'll do. I think it's pretty. I don't know if it's my daughter's teacher's taste, but I hope so. That's a hard thing to judge. I thought to personalize it, my daughter could write the quilt label for the back. This is what she wrote:

I hope that will be nice for her teacher. I hope it's not too much. I never know what's appropriate in this situation, or if people give teachers gifts anymore at all. Ugh. I hope it's all right.

On Thursday, I am going to the Vermont Quilt Festival. Woo hoo! Vacation! I'm off with my mom for 3 days of fabric, fabric, and more fabric. I am looking forward to it. it'll be the start of my summer, and I'm hoping that when I come back, I'll have ideas for how to manage the couple of months my kids are off, so that we don't go insane altogether. Or at least I'll have a fresh outlook on things. I need the break, I really do.

So, until I return friends, enjoy your days! I will bring home pictures, that's a promise. I am packing my camera as I type!