Hi Everyone~
It’s been a busy spring for me. I’ve been shaking up the place a bit.
What’s new?
January zipped by, as it always does, school starting again for Sophie and me. All my new students to meet, all those new papers to grade! Oy vey!
But let’s start off with my temporary teenage daughter.
I don’t know if I mentioned, but my family has been hosting an exchange student from China through an organization called PAX. It has been just wonderful. We love our loaner teenage daughter like a second daughter, and wish we had a second daughter! LOL. My husband is trying to think of an international incident that he can cause so that China will not allow her to return home, and too bad for her poor parents, for whom it is difficult for us to have sympathy, because we want their daughter!
OMG, we love her to bits, and Sophie, our daughter, sees her as a sister. And loaner teenage daughter has been a sweet big sister. So willing to play dolls, or make crafts, or play board games, or even babysit for us once in awhile.
I could not have imagined, when we picked loaner teenage daughter up at the PHL airport in August, that I would love her so much, that she would fit right in as if our lives had just been waiting for her, that the year would fly.
As happens every time I add a living thing to my home, whether it be spouse, pet, or child, I had the thoughts “Oh my god, she/he/it is always going to be here! That is going to be annoying and feel like forever!” And, as happens whenever the new creature/human comes to live with me, I end up, instead, thinking, “How did I live without him/her/it? Will I ever be happy without him/her/it again?” And the answer is, no.
Well, in truth I will still be happy after loaner teenage daughter leaves, because I have other wonderful people and pets in my house and life and all that jazz, but I will never have the same kind of happiness I had with her here. And I hope that her parents feel we did a good job. I don’t know how they didn’t cry forever without such a great kid, and I am so grateful they loaned her to me. A school year, in some respects so long, in other respects, so fleeting, it has not been enough for me. I mean, I am glad to be almost done teaching for this semester. Spring Break makes the spring semester unbearably long. However, I am not done sharing my life with loaner teenage daughter. *sigh*
In any case, after January was in my rear view mirror, we had February, which, around here, is always a bit busy, and this year was even busier:
Feb 1st: Mom-Mom’s birthday and loaner teenage daughter’s birthday.
February, second week, Chinese New Year and a Valentines party at a friend’s.
February end-of-the-month, Sophie’s birthday, which we have not yet been able to have without having a party because, well, I mean, she’s really adorable. How could we not? This year we did a “Nancy Drew” theme that we put together last minute, because that is my whole MO in general. C’mon people, I’m no “Mommy Blogger” here; I’m a creative person, the undisciplined kind. So, we sent children and parents out with a map to go all around our development on a scavenger “clue” hunt to find the prize box full of the take-home goodies. It was fun. 🙂 I cannot remember what kind of cake I made, but I remember it was good, and Sophie chose it, and then she wouldn’t eat any because it was made by scratch instead of with that oily store-bought crap. Typical Sophie and me. 😉
For loaner teenage daughter’s birthday, she and I made one of those cakes where you take thin chocolate wafers and cover them in whipped cream and wait…. It’s heavenly. I want some now. We also sent her to “high tea” with her friends, and took her out for sushi with us.
All-in-all it was a great start to my “spring semester.” I am incapable of thinking of the year in any way other than college semesters and summer session. Yeah. I’ve been teaching a long time. But wait! There’s more! That’s right, and unlike usual, I promise a new post soon, because, wait! There’s more!
