Me, sensitive?

A couple of weeks ago, I modeled how to get writing ideas from the newspaper to my sophomores (who don't know newspapers at all). Since I often try but have trouble getting them interested in the real news, we started in the Life section with Dear Abby and moved on to the comics. So last week, when the kids had the papers again, one of them said, Miss, you've got to see this cartoon. It was your cartoon where the girl says to the boy something like, Don't you want to find out about your birthparents? Turns out this is an ongoing story in the comic strip.

















In the month since Charlie's birthday, this subject keeps coming up everywhere I turn: this story was on NPR last week, in a Woman's Day I read while I waited for my car to be inspected. And this Hallmark mailer came to haunt me, too:



And then, another medium, another adoption message. Three weeks after Charlie's birthday, we find out on Grey's Anatomy that Izzy is a birthmother; we find this out as she finds out her daughter, now 11, needs a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, I was only able to see bits and pieces of the show because the recording is very pixelated.

is April adoption awareness month or something??? No, it isn't. I looked. That's in November.

But thanks to Google, I did find this:
"The new wave in adoption is the so-called Open Adoption, where the mother “picks” the adoptive family, there is an agreement to exchange pictures, updates and etc. The Industry professionals do not inform the Natural Mothers that it is legally unenforceable and that fully 80% of open adoptions close within a year of the final papers being signed."

It is not comforting to know that my experience is so common.

And finally, the thing that threw me over the edge happened on Friday. At school, we send out invitations for parents to write their senior sons & daughters a letter to be read at the last TEAMS meeting of the year. I have 3 seniors, and after school on Friday I received the second letter. I opened it just to see what it was (I requested it and it was addressed to my care) and a word or two caught my eye:



So I lost it. But, thankfully, I was in my classroom alone. It's good I didn't have to read that for the first time in front of a room full of teenagers. I still don't know how I'll get through it this Friday.

Fingerprints concert at Twilight Thursday
I asked David to get a scene shot. It was lovely out!
Gabriel enjoyed running around the whole time.

Carmen stayed with us part of the time but ran around with Gabe a lot, too. The third girl above is a random kid who latched on to ours out there. She was cute. But the bad thing about this is I want to enter the annual city recreation guide cover contest this year and since I don't know her, I can't use this picture.

But anyway, this picture reminds me of an interesting phenomenon. Interesting to me, anyway. Science-minded people could probably explain, but please don't. I like to think of it as magic. A few years ago, our relatives came to visit and were here on July 4th. We wentt to the park early for the annual city fireworks display. It was very crowded, but we spread our blankets and waited. There was a band playing, but that particular year, they were loud and not very good (in my opinion). Some of the kids with us were whining about the noise, the volume, etc. And someone noticed (maybe my engineer brother-in-law, but I don't think so) that if we were flat on the ground, the volume dropped significantly. This time, we didn't stay flat on the ground long. Fingerprints was good, although they played the same stuff David had heard them play over 10 years ago.
Paloma enjoyed the music. . . (someday, when I have time to figure out how to post a video, this will be one I want to share--her dancing--hilarious!)

and she was Stayin' Alive after bedtime,
but her favorite part was, she met a nice couple (who have a granddaughter her age in Japan) with a dog named Maisy.

I got into a long conversation with the couple when I couldn't drag/ keep Paloma away and with us. It turned out that the woman had substituted for me before. Small world!

Anyway Paloma & the dog were very interested in each other (Paloma is interested in ALL animals) and the couple let her feed Fritos to the dog.

It obviously made a big impression on her, because it's been several weeks and she tried to tell Abuelo about it on Sunday. Dog! Fritos!

Got a letter this week from a company telling me I had unclaimed money they could help me claim. But I wasn't too keen on paying a fee plus commission, so I looked it up myself, and sure enough, I left money in a checking account that I had in college.
I always thought I'd go back, but I never did.

So to get my money back, I need my driver's license, social security number, and proof of my address & mailing address from 20 years ago.

So after dinner, I looked in our shoebox of checkbooks to see if I had any that old. There weren't any from my college address, though, but there was a check register from when I was in high school! It lists, in the fake-neat writing I adopted in high school, payments for an SAT prep class and my cap & gown, among other things.

I remember being proud of myself for opening a checking account. The "bank" was a savings & loan in a trailer that changed names and owners dozens of times over the years. I still have the account, mainly for sentimental reasons. It's with Wells Fargo now. I wonder who will buy them.

So after that fun little jaunt down memory lane, I had not found what I needed. The next place I looked was not so fun.

The artifacts wouldn't look like much on the surface: one report card from junior high, one from high school, a couple from college, and lots of bills from college that listed courses I took, dorms I lived in, etc. There were also my letters of acceptance (pending an Algebra II course), letter of acceptance once I had taken the course, my AP test scores, LSAT scores and a letter of interest from UT Law School after I'd taken the LSAT.

But then there were the painful things: the letter of concern from A&M about my grades, add/ drop forms, degree counseling information, and a letter telling me how to reapply for admission after my academic probation. Everything that happened AFTER.

I found what I needed, but I was devastated. I told David the next morning, it was not worth the amount of money I'll get back. My emotional health is more valuable than that!

I'm posting some M&M party pics even though I am too tired to write tonight.

Gabe's preschool Easter program & party were both fun. I was in charge of the craft and some of the games. We made the bunny headbands, then played games like the egg relay. One of these pictures shows him with his best friend Ollantay.

The weather was lovely for our Palm Sunday activities after church. Paloma didn't hunt for eggs last year, but she got the hang of it quickly this year!