This month, I was honored to be chosen Teacher of the Year for my elementary campus. There was a big hoopla at the downtown Hilton for all the TOtheYs.
Many people have asked me if we got tangible awards.
Well, yes! I got a nice printed certificate and a reserved space in the teacher's parking lot.
I'm pretty sure that's what the people at Enron got as bonuses. Right?
I really don't know how to take this award. I know that soon my certificate will find itself at the bottom of a pile of paperwork, and the parking space will turn over to someone else.
But the award that keeps giving? Motherhood.
The early Mother's Days brought me hugs and sticky kisses, which were later replaced by drawings and homemade cards. I still have them all.
And now those children? All adults; all scattered across the country. Got to have lunch with The Boy and his girlfriend yesterday. He will turn 22 in Costa Rica this summer during his Study Abroad trip. Got two great calls from The Married Daughter in Missouri.
The best gift? Seeing those adult children heading off for their futures with hope in their hearts. Surely that trumps the combination of certificate/parking space. In spades.
And I close with my favorite lines from my favorite read-aloud book, (read endless times to my now-adult children) "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch.
"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My babies you'll be."
Do You Want to Build a Snowman?
1 day ago
3 comments:
R, you are Teacher of the Year every year in our family, even though the youngest left your target market a decade ago. It's hard to imagine how they could have selected anyone else.
Congratulations!!!!!!! You will always be teacher of the year in the Smith house! About that "Love You Forever" book...that isn't the creepy one where the mother takes a ladder and crawls into her grown son's house to rock him to sleep? Okay if it is, maybe I'm just missing something...
Love your closing quote. It reminded me of one of my favorite parenting quotes from The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown: "If you become a bird and fly away from me," said his mother, "I will be a tree that you come home to." This is a choke-up moment each time Ava pulls if from the shelf.
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