OPEN HOUSE!!

Well, it is 9:41 pm. Don and I just got home from our Open House at Eden Park Elementary. What a full day! We got our class list today and I had 16 kids on it. I have mostly Hispanic children with some Haitian-Creole students as well. I have not seen a more respectful group of young kids! "Please" and "thank you" was all I heard. One little girl, apparently, was doing some "interviewing" of sorts. She came up to me late in the evening and said, "my mama picks you". I asked her what she meant by that. She said, "well, we are signing up tomorrow for school and you are our favorite! Can I come in your class?" OMG! How cute is that?
Also, the other big news of the evening is that I am going to be in the newspaper. The press was at our school because it was a new-open. Apparently, this photographer spent a little time in Kalamazoo. I told him a little about myself. While I was talking to him, the little girl whose mama "picked me" came up and was acting so excited because she was going to be in my room (little did she understand that those decisions must be approved in the office lol). The photographer started doing a photo-shoot (of sorts) as the girl and I were talking. I think it will be neat to be in the paper.
A sad story for the evening and one that made me get tears in my eyes: I have a little boy who wasn't even there tonight, but his grandmother came in to check out our room. I asked her if she was his mother. She said, "no, he is my grandson. His mother is deceased two years ago. She was killed in a drive-by shooting while we were all sitting on the porch."
Now, this grandmother is raising her four grandchildren on her own. She told me that her grandson is good in school and told her that "I haven't ever failed and I never will fail." Awesome. Hispanics have a very close knit relationship with their families.
I miss mine.
I have a feeling after tonight that I will have a lot to blog this school year.