I’m sure every school-aged child is thinking the same thing I am, on this, the last day of winter break…NNNOOOOOOOOOO! Teaching high school gives me flashbacks to my own unpleasant experiences, some of which I share with the kids. This time of year I am reminded of my freshman year when I loathed high school so much. We had a few snow days immediately following Christmas break and even though I knew it was only delaying the inevitable, I wished it would keep on snowing forever so I’d never have to go back. I really did not enjoy that time in my life. But, it makes me that much more empathetic. I still cringe when I think about how I felt back then and while not all of them despise it as much as I did, it’s a difficult time for everyone.

Iris must pick up on my love/hate relationship with the teaching profession. That, and/or she’s extremely insightful. She said something odd to me and I actually had a bad dream about it a few days later. Back up here a bit. It was the weekend before break and she insisted that I get her presents from the truck to wrap them while she stayed upstairs. My intention was that she could open two of them before hauling the rest up to Jennifer’s and as soon as I had the last one wrapped, she came downstairs, started inspecting them, and announced that she was going to go ahead and open one now. (Who’s in charge of who, here?) I told her that, yes, you may open one now and another in a week. Less than ten minutes after wrapping this present, she tore into it. A little piggy bank to paint. She thought it was pretty cool and had it painted in short order and was ready for the next one. No, not now. She negotiated until I conceded that she could open the second one tomorrow. Thinking the matter was settled, I decided to take the wrapped presents back out to the truck, lest she gets tempted.