Love is...

being willing to drive into the depths of Los Angeles not only once, but TWICE in a three day period so that you can spend time with your brother. And I now have proof that I do indeed love my baby brother. And since he willingly spent the day with me and my roomful of pre-teenagers, it has been pretty well established that he loves me too. Or at the very least is willing to go to great lengths to ensure that I will feed him dinner. :)

There is much going on during this, the final week of school and I am increasingly saddened by the thought that I won't be seeing these terrific kids very much longer. They all SAY they will come back to visit, but it is so rare when one actually does. There are so many kids, both from my 5th grade this year and my 4th grade last year, who I am going to miss. The smiles, the stories, the jokes, the cheerful greetings in teh hall (Dogg - your pup is a great one for that) - all of this is going to be hard to give up. I don't think that the kids or the parents truly realize how much I invest in my class each year and how much it hurts to have to let them go. This year has been particularly hard on me because I can't tell myself that I can always ask next year's teacher how they're doing. They will be in a different school, in a different atmosphere. I can only hope that the knowledge and love that I poured into them while they were with me will help them in the future. Perhaps someday some of them will come back, all grown up and successful, to show me that they still remember the lesssons they learned in my classroom.

Okay. Enough of that maudlin stuff. Mostly I am thrilled to see how terrific my kiddos are.

I would tell you more about the stuff that is going on, but my brother is only here for one more evening and I am not going to waste it. Buh-bye.