Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

I am watching Robert Cabral talk about the tragic dog attack in Tennessee, the one that killed a 5 month old and a 2 year old. The mother ended up in the hospital in critical condition because she was trying to protect her children.  Just tragic. No words. None. When this happened, I sat and cried for those kids and that mom. I'm crying again because it didn't have to happen. Cabral mentioned he thinks the baby started crying and it was the crying that set the dogs off. That was my first thought when I heard about this. And it took me back to a moment in a dog park when Angel Baby was five. We had taken Max, our black lab mix, to the dog park to run and play. My kids brought their softball gloves and ball to toss around. Lovely Beautiful Daughter tossed the ball to Angel Baby. The ball rolled out of his glove, up his forearm and smacked into his nose. He started wailing. A high-pitched, my nose hurts wail. Blood streamed down, over his lips and onto his shirt. I was about five ...

The "have-to-go-to" meetings are out of the way. Really, they weren't so bad. I don't mind sitting through a meeting these days. Not too long ago, I would have been singing a different tune. I remember a retreat my dean required all of us to go to, and I wasn't happy at all about having to go. It was a Friday, a day I used to mark on the calendar for grading since we have no classes on Fridays, and the retreat was scheduled at a time during the semester when I had a ton of papers to read/respond to. Yeah, I was in a foul mood when I arrived at the retreat. The person brought in to run the retreat said hello when I walked in and told me to take a name badge. She then said I didn't have to put my name on it. Instead, I could put how I was feeling. So I put "Annoyed." When my dean saw this, she gave me a look of half amusement half disappointment. My foul mood didn't improve as the morning wore on. If anything, I became even more resentful for hav...

The current argument around the house these days stemmed from Angel Baby bemoaning something that had happened at school, wondering how he could get his friend to change. My response was that the only behavior he could change is his own. If he doesn't like something his friend is doing, he can tell his friend this, but he can't expect his friend to change. Upon hearing our discussion, Hubby jumped in, basically saying I was wrong and that I changed people's behavior all the time due to my position as teacher. For quite some time, we went back and forth, with me, Beautiful Lovely Daughter, Funny Delightful Son, and Angel Baby all saying I wasn't changing anyone's behavior, and Hubby adamant that I was. While I understand what Hubby was saying, I truly don't believe I have changed anyone's behavior. I don't have that kind of influence. I offer the tools with which to work to become more proficient writers, but what the students do with those tools is tot...