62 pestañas

We write in our other languages on Fridays!

Day 31 of 31 at TWT!

El último día de marzo. El treinta y uno. El último día del desafío. ¿Qué escribiré hoy?

Me siento un poco raro porque no escribí cada día. Tomé un descanso de ocho días durante la semana de las vacaciones de primavera, y aunque estoy contenta con esa decisión, me hace sentir un poco fuera de lugar hoy. No llevo conmigo ese sentido de ímpetu, de orgullo, de celebración. Por eso, no escribiré ni una reflexión ni una entrada de festejo, aunque sí estoy satisfecha con mi experiencia durante este desafío y las 23 entradas que he escrito. 

Tampoco quiero escribir un cuento corto de algo que me pasó hoy. No me faltan ideas posibles: 

Podría escribir del almuerzo especial cuando me reuní con mi hija mayor y mi esposo para comer juntos un camión de tacos en la escuela de la hija (que se encuentra al lado de la mía), y le introduje a ella a la riqueza del agua de jamaica, que a ella le gustó tanto que se lo tragó por completo y tuve que comprar otro para mí. (- ¡Es el mejor almuerzo que nunca! - proclamó ella varias veces.) 

Y podría escribir de nuestra noche de película, cuando vimos Tinker Bell: Secret of the Wings y las dos hijitas se conmovieron tanto cuando Tinker Bell y su hermana recién descubierta tuvieron que separarse que casi no podíamos continuar con la película. (- ¡No quiero separarme de Sis nunca! - gritó Arco Iris, brincando de una esquina al otro antes de esconder su rostro en mi regazo.)

O podría escribir de mi orgullo y regocijo cada viernes cuando veo la participación de varias personas en MultiLit Friday, y sé con certeza que he hecho algo especial, he marcado para siempre esta comunidad y las experiencias de estas personas, porque tuve la valentía de preguntar si podríamos ofrecer esta oportunidad de afirmar y honrar el multilingüismo cada semana.

Pero, no sé por qué, no me apetece por completo ninguna de estas ideas. Entonces, sin saber qué escribiré, abro mi ordenador. (¿el español de España otra vez, se notan? jaja) Abro Chrome, con mis pestañas tras pestañas de planes y actividades para mis estudiantes. Intento no mirar al trabajo que me queda, que me sobra, y abro otra ventana con mi cuenta personal. 

La ventana se abre en blanco. Sin pensar, abro Gmail y Blogger. Creo una entrada nueva, y, cómo no puedo decidir qué escribir, abro Two Writing Teachers. Quizás visitaré a las otras personas que han escrito algo para MultiFri, y escribiré una entrada sobre la alegría de leer sus entradas... me digo... cuando, de repente, me doy cuenta: ¡MIS PESTAÑAS! 

¡Ya debo tener abierto Two Writing Teachers en mis pestañas! ¡Y todas las entradas interesantes que quiero leer un día de estos! Me apresuro al historial, antes de que se limpie. 

Historial... busco rápidamente con los ojos la colección de pestañas... 62 pestañas. ¡Allí está! Antes de hacer clic, miro dos veces. ¡¿62 pestañas?! ¡¿Sesenta. y . dos. pestañas?! ¡¿SESENTA. Y DOS?! ?¿Realmente he dejado abierto sesenta y dos pestañas abiertas? Sé que tres son Gmail, Blogger, y Two Writing Teachers. Pero todas las demás son las entradas muy interesantes que he encontrado en la colección de enlaces cada día de marzo, y que me han sobrado después de visitar los tres que más he querido leer, dejando las otras por otro día - cuando tenga más tiempo-.  ¿Realmente he dejado pendiente 59 entradas para leer otro día, en mi optimismo eternal? Me río, casi a carcajadas. Sabía que tenía unas cuantas entradas que quería leer... pero... ¿sesenta y dos? Entrecierro los ojos y examino las pestañas. Además de las tres al principio, he dejado también mi blog con la entrada de ayer publicada, y al final, encuentro el tesauro. Pero, sí, las otras 57 son las entradas muy interesantes que leeré un día de estos. Me río otra vez. Cincuenta y siete entradas abiertas que me han sobrado después de dejar comentarios en tres entradas cada día de los veintidós que he escrito antes de hoy. 

Quiero calcular. Al menos 3 entradas leídos cada día (sé que a veces leí cuatro), por 22 días... son al menos 66 entradas de las que ya me he disfrutado... ¡y todavía me sobran 57! ¡Casi igual! ¡Me tomaría otro mes para leerlas, en vez de un día! Una carcajada sí me escapa ahora. 

Entonces, si no he dejado un comentario para ti en una entrada particularmente interesante, hay una posibilidad bastante buena que tu entrada se encuentra entre mis muchísimas pestañas. No sé si acabaré leyendo todas o si algún día decidiré darme por vencida y cerrarlas, pero sé una cosa con certeza: me encanta esta comunidad. 

Me encanta escribir con Uds. Me encanta leer lo que han escrito. Me encanta echar un vistazo a sus vidas y presentarles la mía. Me encanta notar las estrategias de escritura que han utilizado y jugar con las palabras, experimentado con lo que aprendido y dándome el reto de mejorar un poco cada vez que escribo.

 Y sobre todo, me encanta el apoyo y la amistad que he encontrado con Uds. 

¡Feliz fin de marzo! ¡Feliz día final! Feliz Multi-Lit Friday. Les veo los martes, vecinos, les prometo este año. 

(¡Mira, he escrito una celebración y una reflexión, después de todo!)

Salamander stories

Day 30 of 31 at TWT!

"... and we got to TOUCH a salamander! We had to put water on one finger with a magic spray bottle!" Rainbow Girl gestures wildly, eyes bright and wide, in full story-telling mode. Her declarative tone of voice almost matches the grand reading voice she always uses when reciting books she's memorized, but with slightly more pep to it. "My teacher... the worker... the teacher..." she pauses, not quite sure how to describe the person leading the MetroPark program, then dives back in at full speed. "... told me they don't have teeth, so they can't hurt us!" She leans forward with a big grin, crinkling her eyes and curling her shoulders inward. 

"Wow! That sounds really special!" I lean across the corner of the kitchen table and kiss her on the cheek. "What did it feel like?"

"Slimy!" She sits bolt upright in her chair. 

touching the salamander! (picture from our nanny)

"And what did you learn about salamanders?"

"Hmmm," she taps her pointer finger on her chin repeatedly in the exaggerated "thinking" gesture that she's developed over the past few months. We're not sure where it came from, but it's hysterical. "They have bones!" she announces with rather more excitement than I'd expect from that fact. "Like us!!!"

"Ohh," Husband, Sis, and I grin at each other across our plates of spaghetti. "Cool!"

"AND we MADE a salamander!" 

Sis grabs the paper pile in front of her. "Ooh, is this it? Hi, Sally!"

"NOOOO!" Rainbow Girl screeches. "HIS NAME IS CUTEY!!!" She snatches the paper and cradles them in her arms. 

"He's a little shy," she coos. She pats the paper salamander and starts sliding him inside the 3D paper log that was under him. "He's going to bed!" she informs us, slipping him almost all the way into the log before dipping her head down to gently kiss his green paper head. 

sliding Cutey into his log

"Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to slee-ee-ee-ee-eeeeep," she softly croons to the tune of Brahm's lullaby. "Go to sleep, close your eyes, go to slee-ee-ee-ee-eeeeep!" She tenderly pats the paper log.

singing him to sleep! <3

Abruptly, she announces, "You can touch him, but you have to get your finger wet. Here's some Magic Spray!" She brings his log to the couch and directs each of us, pumping her tiny finger to squirt us with an imaginary spray bottle. "One finger!" She slides him partway out of the log, tapping him with her dainty finger to show us how. 

my turn!

A few minutes later, it's time for bed. Cutey and his log have to come up and participate in the whole bedtime routine, of course. She and Sis brush their teeth with "sala-paste", and then Cutey gets his own turns reading pages from Llama Llama, Red Pajama in her toddler bed. She makes him crawl out of the log to read his pages, then tucks him back in when he's finished.

"Can he stay with me???" she pleads, blue eyes large, when she's had her bedtime sips of water.

"You might smush and wrinkle him if he slept with you," I contend, "but he could sleep beside your bed, with giant Minnie Mouse!" 

She carefully chooses a place for him on the floor, but then decides that he needs to fly and rock with us. This is my first time rocking with a paper friend, but after rocking, she finally does settle him back in the spot she chose beside her bed, leaning down with one arm to pat him like she often does with Minnie. 

"Meemaw and Granddaddy will be SO SURPRISED to see a PAPER SALAMANDER tomorrow!" she proclaims, wiggling with excitement.

Slices of this day

Day 29 of 31 at TWT!

One of my favorite parts of the Slice of Life community is being inspired by other writers. Whether it's a unique craft move, a new format, or a story idea I connect to, I love discovering ways to improve as a writer, notice-r, thinker, and liver of life. 

A couple of days ago, I enjoyed Sherri's post, "On This Day". It was so much fun to see her dive back into her past writing to catch glimpses of her life, on one certain date, over the years she's been blogging. It was striking to consider the enormity of time passing, the differences in life moments and writing ideas from year to year, and the accomplishment of participating in this challenge for years. Immediately, I was excited to dive back into my own past slices across time and see what I might find!

11 years ago, I was nearing the end of my very first March Challenge, after slicing on Tuesdays for about 6 months prior. On March 29, I wrote the 3rd post in a series about a particular EL student, and when I first re-read this post, I couldn't figure out which student I had written about, because I thought I was teaching EL at the time, but the story didn't match any students I remembered from my years at the first building I taught EL. Suddenly, I realized that this story was written back when I was still a Spanish teacher, and I got to help out with EL students at one of my schools for one period. This was truly a lifetime ago. Right away, I rocketed through a time tunnel, and I could see this student perfectly. Her whole story came rushing back to me. Little did I know then that she was just the first of so many incredible EL students with inspiring resilience that I would have the pleasure of learning with, learning from, and yes, teaching. What an amazing girl. 

10 years ago, it was Spanish Friday, and I remembered watching the Good Friday processions in Spain years before. Now, I was teaching high school EL for the first year.

5 years ago, I skipped writing on this day, but the day before, I (ironically) wrote about writing when it's hard, and the day after, I wrote another Spanish Friday post about the processions. Now, I was an experienced EL teacher and a mom of 1, recovering from a year with two pregnancy losses and praying for a rainbow baby.

Last year, I wrote about spending time with the Afghan refugee family we met as part of our district's collaboration with a local refugee resettlement agency. Now, I was a mom of 2, living through a pandemic, teaching middle school EL for the first year after having taken a year off to keep my girls safe and healthy, and back to fully slicing every day in March.

This year, after having chosen to take a break from writing during my spring break, I'm enjoying the last few days of the challenge and looking forward to presenting the classroom challenge to my students. For the first time, I've gotten several colleagues to slice with me, and I happily churned away this afternoon pulling together my favorite resources for them to use if they decide to try the April challenge with their students. On my wrist, my new bracelet reminds me how sweet my girls are and how much I love them.

So many slices. And on them, cherished comments from blogging friends old and new. Such drastic change, and yet so many common threads. I love to teach. I love language. I love writing, even though it's hard. I love this slicing community. I love making a difference. And I love my family.

I can't wait to see what next year will bring.

Woven together

Day 28 of 31 at TWT!

"How did I do last night?" Rainbow Girl, nestled in my arms, looks up at me expectantly. 

"I was just going to tell you how great you did!" I make sure my voice is extra enthusiastic. "You talked for just a little bit, and then you went right to sleep!" (Lately, she's been talking and playing in her bed for over an hour after we put her down, and we've been trying to get it back down to a more reasonable amount of time.) I gently lay her in her toddler bed and pull up her covers around her. Leaning closer, I loud-whisper, "I think your new Mama-love bracelet helped!"

She nods vigorously, pulling her wrist up to her face and wrapping her other arm around it. "It kissed me! The Mama-love bracelet kissed me in the night! And hugggggged me!" Her big eyes crinkle in the duskiness. "And I kissed and hugged it!" She smushes her wrist against her cheek and squeezes it with her other arm. 

Her eyes fly open wide and she half-sits up. "Can I kiss yourrrrs?"

"Of course! I would love that, Sweetie Pie!" I pat her head.

Moonlight glints off the tiny bronze heart bead as I extend my wrist towards her face, and I remember how she'd pointed out the shine yesterday afternoon when I surprised her and Sis with these matching bracelets. ("The heart is GOLD! It will SHINE in the dark!") Her tiny hands grasp my arm and tug it against her as she sweetly smooches my bracelet over and over. 

"Mama love!" she sighs, and I slowly back my way out of her room after one last huggle, waving the "I love you" hand sign and blowing kisses like every night.

As I close her door, I glance at the pink strands on my wrist, just as I did often throughout school today. I picture the way she squealed and kissed her bracelet as soon as I pulled them out of the bag after school yesterday, the way she keeps announcing, "It's waterproof! Coo-wohl, right?" every time she washed her hands, and the way she carefully pulled up her sleeve just enough for the bracelet to peek out at bedtime. I remember her big sister happily declaring, "These bracelets are perfect, Mommy!" after school today. 

I bought them so the girls would feel connected to me and each other through the last couple of months of school after spring break, but I'm sure feeling the magic in mine too. 

Hearts sometimes apart

but always connected still,

 woven together.

<3 <3 <3

Constructing a dance with language

Day 27 of 31 at TWT!

"I'm a dancer! Will you be my audient?" Rainbow Girl's sweet little voice pipes up cheerfully to my husband as she hop-prances around the room. 

Did she say "audient"? I grin and lean closer. Husband starts explaining that he needs to get to work. 

She tip-toe bounces over to me. "Mommy! Will YOU be an audient?" 

She did! She said "audient!" And she even said "an" before it. The language nerd in me is fascinated. At 4, she can read letters and is starting to try to sound out simple words, but of course she's never read the word "audience", only heard it. She must imagine it as "audients", and knowing that an audience is a group of lots of people, she must've have concluded that 1 person watching someone do something is an "audient"! 

I imagine more Lego-like building blocks just like the prefixes I wrote about yesterday: "Audients" = many - snap - "audient" = 1! A creative little builder with words, just like with her blocks and Magna-Tiles. Wow. That is some truly brilliant language construction.

In front of me, she begins to twirl, leap, and kick, mixing imitations of her big sister's Irish dance moves with her own dainty whirls and swoops. And I, the audient, lean forward, rapt, trying to freeze this moment as she dances her way into the sweet girl she's becoming, one creatively constructed word at a time.

Wouldn't you like to be an "audient" for this moment? <3

Prefix power

Day 26 of 31 at TWT!

What's today's date, anyway?! 

I check my watch, recalling how many times I've asked myself the same question. 

Just like those other moments throughout the week, I feel a slight twinge of emotion when I remember that if I'd chosen to keep writing every day, I'd certainly know what the date was, and I'd be feeling that unique, lung-and-heart-filling exhilaration-replacing-exhaustion pride of a runner pounding into the last lap or rounding the last corner. 

I can't quite find the right word for whatever emotion it is that has come to me in these twinges. 

It's not guilt or regret; I've felt completely at peace throughout spring break with my choice to take a break from writing during this break from school. Even though I love to write, my brain and heart were nudging me to disconnect during spring break, and I'm filled with a deep sense of calm about my decision to not touch my laptop for the past 8 days.

It's not disappointment or defeat; I've completed the full challenge so many years now that I don't feel I have anything to prove to myself, especially because this break was a choice, not a matter of missing days because I couldn't write. 

It's not even quite a feeling of missing out; the timing of the break was perfect because I built up such great momentum for the first 17 days, and I know I can dip right back in to finish with a good stretch of 6 more in a row that will allow me to feel that rhythm of daily writing, commenting, and connecting. I even kept thinking like a writer in my 8 days "away", noticing potential slices and thinking about how I'd capture certain details, purposefully taking the kinds of photos I'd include in a slice.

It's more of a sense of disconnection, which, despite its many negative connotations, is not an entirely negative word. A little twinge of disconnection each time I realized I didn't know the date, knowing this community was still going, still writing, still commenting and connecting, without me. A much milder jolt of the surreal disconnection I felt when we'd visit Rainbow Girl in the NICU and time would just stop for us, although we knew the world was still going on outside. (That's a whole other post - or series of posts - on its own!) 

Though I didn't have that word in mind specifically, I suppose disconnection is really what I was going for when I decided last Saturday to just not write for the duration of my spring break: a real break. As much as I love to write, thinking about opening my laptop felt like a slippery slope to thinking about school, and as much as I love teaching, it felt right to disconnect from school during this break. No laptop, no writing, no reading school books or blogs or articles. No Girl Scout work either. Just a happier version of our NICU bubble: special family fun time for nine whole days. (Rainbow Girl, who is just starting to understand time, finally understood last week that spring break was going to be nine days of having me and Sis at home, and kept track of which day we were on throughout the break!)

This break feels like a demonstration of the power of prefixes: it's so easy to add and remove these small word parts to completely change the meaning. And having participated in the SOLSC for so many years, I feel so comfortable in the power of this experience and this community that it really felt that easy to customize this year's experience: to add, remove, and change a few letters around the central element of this challenge: connection. 

CONNECT with my writing life and friends new and old for 17 days in a row.

DISconnect for 8 days to connect with my family and the heart of my self, to rest, and to recharge.

RE-connect now, on the eve of returning to school, for 6 more days of writing and community. 

Like a row of Legos, Magna-tiles, or snapping blocks: click, connect, snap apart, rebuild. 

It fits just right.

Recuerdos verdes

We write in our other languages on Fridays! 

Day 17 of 31 at TWT!

"Hoy tienes recuerdos..." Estoy emocionada para hacer clic. Me encanta la herramienta "Recuerdos" y el hecho que varias aplicaciones en mi móvil (¿Uds. han notado que yo estudiaba en España? A mis estudiantes hispanohablantes siempre les parece raro mi uso de móvil, jeje.) me presentan fotos adorables del pasado cada día. Cada día, empiezo o termino el día viendo las fotos seleccionadas como recuerdos en las aplicaciones de Fotos y AmazonPhotos. Con frecuencia, comparto unas fotos en Facebook sólo porque quiero verlas como recuerdo en los años que vienen. Cuando no se me olvide, guardo tres fotos cada día en la aplicación HappyFeed para verlas más tarde también, especialmente porque tengo un widget con aleatorio de ellas de forma grande en la pantalla de inicio. 

Como día festivo, tengo muchísimos recuerdos para ver hoy. Me sonrío mientras deslizo mi dedo hacia arriba:

Hace 12 años: Vestidas de rojo, mi mejor amiga de la universidad (quien se convirtió en mi "hermana pequeña") y yo desayunamos con panqueques con jarabe verde con mi familia antes del desfile de San Patricio de mi cuidad, en una tradición de muchos años. 

Hace 11 años: Mi esposo y yo, con camisas verdes debajo de nuestras camisas rojas de Ohio State, nos sonreímos en Pittsburgh con una cancha de baloncesto al fondo. Antes, habíamos tocado nuestros instrumentos en un bar lleno de aficionados Buckeyes, como parte de un grupo de exalumnos de la banda de marcha. Recuerdo ese día como la primera (y única, hasta ahora) vez que escribí mi blog post un día antes y lo programé para publicar en el día correcto, para que sólo tenía que pegar el enlace en TwoWritingTeachers en ese día tan ocupado. 

Hace 8 años: He escrito una noticia que aprobé la prueba de tolerancia a la glucosa de tres horas, en mi embarazo con Sweetie, después de pasar todo el día antes enferma.

Hace 5 años: Cenamos con Sweetie en un restaurante nuevo (que ahora no existe) con ropa verde, leche verde, y un espectáculo de danza irlandesa, después de una mañana típica de jarabe verde y el desfile. 

Hace 4 años: Ahora somos cuatro en casa, y nuestra bebé del arco iris descansa en mis brazos mientras todos, vestidos de verde, intentamos atrapar copos de nieve con las lenguas, cocinamos un postre verde, y descasamos juntos en casa. 

Hace 3 años: Escribo que tuve éxito en el primer día cuidando a las hijas durante el día y preparando lecciones en casa para mis estudiantes hasta las diez de la noche (jaja, esa hora resultó ser temprano por esos meses) al principio de la pandemia. Ah, ¡qué optimista era! No sabía que no volvería a ver a esos estudiantes nunca, ni trabajar en esa escuela jamás. No sabía que tres años después, todavía estaríamos intentando esquivar ese virus maldito.

Hace 2 años: Durante nuestro año en casa, Sweetie se sonríe mientras Rainbow Girl llora porque no quería posar para una foto. Pero consigo unas fotos adorables después cuando se abrazan jugando al aire libre durante un paseo en bici, y Sweetie captura su primer duende irlandés en la primera trampa que construyó. También habíamos visitado el zoológico para la primera vez desde el inicio de la pandemia, una visita tan especial que escribí varias entradas sobre la alegría y la emoción de Rainbow Girl, la niña que creció con la pandemia. 

El año pasado: Llevando una mascarilla de unicornios y el uniforme de su escuela de danza irlandesa, Sweetie baila en dos espectáculos para los eventos de San Patricio de nuestra ciudad. Rainbow Girl la imita, intentando bailar también mientras miramos a Sweetie y sus compañeros. Sweetie, la mejor hermana mayor del mundo, lanza un señal de mano especial hacia Rainbow Girl mientras baila. Las chicas atrapan un duende adicional. 

Tantos recuerdos, tantos trozos de mi vida guardados en fotos y palabras. 

Hoy, las niñas han capturado los duendes irlandeses nuevos con sus trampas mejoradas. 

Imagínense qué aparecerá en nuestros recuerdos en los años que vienen.