MLM has returned to the bosom of his family, the Bear's behavior has improved (probably because there are no cousins around to get him all excited) and we've had a near-perfect Saturday. For a change of scene we took a drive out to the local fancy private college (they also have a teacher credential program, for maybe two or three times the price I'm paying to go to Rattlesnake State), wandered for a bit around the perfectly groomed campus, admired the gardens, courtyards, and fountains, etc, and visited their art museum, which had a nice landscape exhibition. There was some kind of sporting event going on on campus, and we were the only ones in the museum. The students staffing the front desk seemed touchingly grateful to us for coming in, and they even took some artsy-looking wooden toys they had for sale out of a locked cabinet and let the Bear handle them. Needless to say, this was not my idea, but fortunately he was good (influence of other adults besides us in the room) and didn't cause any damage. These toys were very cool and really not that expensive. I might have bought him one if I hadn't known it would be broken within an hour of coming home.
Well, tomorrow is Sunday and the last day of summer for me! OK, we have almost month off in August, but still. The last day of my innocence, before I am initiated into the mysteries of teacher education! Thanks for your comments, Betty and Mystery Teacher. I am definitely going to try to keep all the good ideas in a file. And teaching math, and how to teach kids of all different kinds of abilities, are all the kinds of things I'm hoping to learn a lot about. After so many years out of school, I am really looking forward to LEARNING again! That is, of course I've learned a lot in the past twelve years--but most of it has been the tough, annoying, learning-from-bitter-experience kind of thing. Sitting in a classroom absorbing new knowledge just sounds so refreshing! Well, we'll see how I feel about it after a four-hour lecture (summer quarter is short so these classes are pretty intense) but I think it can handle it...
Watch this space!