1st Grade

1st Grade! I can hardly believe it. The summer went so quickly and before we knew it, it was back to school night. Maddy and I headed over the Calvin Smith Elementary to meet her teachers, see her classroom(s) and get a feel for the coming year. 

This year is a special year, not only because it means a whole day at school, school lunch, three recesses, only a few hours after school at Miss Swendy's (sad tear) but also the start of the Chinese Immersion Program. Maddy applied and was accepted to this 6 year program where for half of the day she is taught by Mrs. Bryant who only speaks to kids in Chinese. 

They are fully immersed in the language and also are taught math and science - did i mention, all in Chinese!? Like, the teacher doesn't speak any English??!! I was very nervous. Nervous that I wouldn't be able to help her with her homework, nervous for her because she also was a little unsure "I won't know what my teacher is telling me". We talked a lot about how none of the kids would understand and "you don't remember but when you were a baby you didn't understand what daddy and I were telling you but you learned English pretty well didn't you?"

We visited her home room and took a picture of her at her desk and looked at the other names in the "blue class" who would be with her throughout the day, taking special note that Brody was in her class - she and Brody were great friends in Kindergarten so she was excited.

We then went next door to meet Mrs. Dean. After lunch, the kids in the "blue class" grab their backpacks and swap rooms with the "red class". Mrs. Dean teaches reading and language arts, and all the other non-math and science subjects. Maddy again found her desk and found it to be acceptable.

And then two days later the first day of school arrived! I had purchased Maddy an alarm clock in hopes that it would help her get up a little bit better in the morning as, this year, I wouldn't be able to park and watch her run to her classroom door and also see her go in to the office if we were late. Her first grade class lines up at a hall door that remains locked all the time. If we miss the teachers coming to let the kids in, she has to go around the front of the building to go in to the office - and I would lose sight of her. So, my goal for this year it to get there always with enough time for her to get to her line and go in with the other kids.

The alarm worked well (as probably aided by first day of school excitement) and she was up and dressed before I even came out of my room. We packed her lunch the night before so we only had to pull out the fridge things and get her all set up, take the obligatory picture and off to school.

She was very excited and happy and I'm so glad that she didn't seem to have the jitters that many kids there seemed to have.

It's now been a few weeks and she has settled into the routine of school including the Chinese. The homework is okay because all math instructions are in English and while she is learning to count in Chinese and to write the numbers with Chinese characters, we get to do our math problems with 1,2,3,4,5. Phew!

She has taught me to say "Hello, teacher", "I have to go to the bathroom", "I need a drink" as well as counting to 20. Not bad for just over two weeks of school. I can only imagine how well she will know the language after she's had 6 years of practice. Neat program. I'm excited for her, and for me to learn a bit as well. She no longer gets up well with the alarm clock. We tried.

Also, we decided it was time to remodel the upstairs hall bathroom when we had a problem with the power and couldn't fix it without fishing around in the walls for wires. Figured that we might as well work on it now.

And Scott and I celebrated our 13th anniversary with a trip to Tsunami for a sushi dinner and then a visit to Home Depot. Tres Romantique.

And because Rachel sent it over and I love looking at it - us when I was 10, in San Francisco at Terrantinos, Papa's favorite restaurant to take us to (if we promised to be on our best behavior) at Fisherman's Wharf.

I posted the picture on Facebook and many people said that Maddy looks like me. I didn't see it. I can see it a bit more if I reference the picture above with me below, but hard to see it just looking at me. Also, lots of people say I look like mom. What a compliment. She is lovely. Cute little family.

Letters to Missionaries

I sent a letter to Rebekah today and decided that since this blog is supposed to be a journal of sorts, the letter was exactly the types of fun things I might like to remember some day so I'm recording it here for posterity.

27 August 2015

Dear Rebekah,

Today has been an overly busy day and so I’m taking a quick mental health break. I was going to check my blogs or personal email but decided that maybe I should take a quick minute and write you a letter. Today seems to be the day for sending letters to nieces and nephews.

A week or two ago I got a call from a mobile number but it didn’t say who was calling. After I said hello, the boy called me by name, said it was Josh and proceeded to tell me about the 24 hour run that his school was doing. I couldn’t quite place the person’s voice. We have a Josh that lives around the corner but it didn’t sound like him. I figured, however, that he’d been away for 2 years on a mission so maybe he just wasn’t as familiar any more. I pledge to pay 15 cents per mile run and I told him good luck with the run.

Later I told Scott about the call and he teased me about giving money to people without knowing who it was. He also said “why didn’t you ask his last name”. Well, I didn’t want to offend them by not knowing who it was . . . Anyhow, I wouldn’t pay anything until when he came to get a check from me after the race and by then, I’d know who I sponsored! See, it all would work out. Well, I got an email from Josh Campbell, your cousin, yesterday where he told me about his race and the 208 miles they ran. He reminded me that I had sponsored him so would I please send a check for $31.20? Ah mystery solved. Josh my nephew!!! I think I should feel bad because I didn’t know him when he called but he didn’t call me “Aunt” Melissa, which would have solved the problem and also, Josh has NEVER called me before. So there is it. I sent him a check today.

So, two letters to some of my favorite teenagers today.

I love reading your emails home. They are filled with optimism and happiness and the Spirit and your testimony. I know that there are certainly hard times, probably times that you handle less well than others and you maybe don’t share them in your emails. When those happen I know that you are turning to the Lord in prayer to help you to not be discouraged. I have a young woman who went into the MTC about 3 weeks after you, called to the Houston, TX mission. Her mom was telling us in Relief Society last week about how sometimes she gets letters talking about many investigators who seem to be progressing and then they drop off the planet (you’ve had plenty of those too I’ve read). Her mom said that it seemed like more dropped off than actually continued through to baptism and in a moment of discouragement in proxy for her missionary daughter she had written about this. The sister missionary wrote back and said “I’m planting seeds mom”. We talked a lot about how we are always planting seeds with every interaction we have with a non-member or less-active member – or nourishing the seed that somebody else planted. It’s not often that we get to be the one to harvest but more often we are in the process planting, watering, nourishing, tending to that seed as it grows. All those stages are important though.

As a member missionary who has a hard time sometime with the big gestures (invite someone to church/missionary discussions/read the Book of Mormon), it was nice for me to hear that these people might just need me to plant the seed or help it along the way. Or maybe, the seed has been planted and nourished and they are ready for harvest. I guess that is when it becomes extremely important to listen to the Holy Ghost and to put trust in him and let him put in my mouth what I should say.

Well, Maddy has started 1^st grade. She’s been there for a full week now and I think she is enjoying it. She is in a Chinese Immersion program so she learns math and science from her Chinese speaking teacher Mrs. Bryant, before lunch and then after lunch she goes to Mrs. Dean who speaks English and teaches reading, language, arts, and all those other subjects. She has taught me to count to 9, say ‘I have to go to the bathroom ‘and to say ‘I need a drink’ in Mandarin. I must say, she is learning it faster than I am! By the time she graduates the program and goes to Junior High she should be fairly fluent.

We start Chorale a week from tonight and I can’t wait. This summer break is such a long one and I miss having my family fix each week. I miss your mom and Katie and grandma and grandpa! Our cousin Liz Birnel (one of our Laudie cousins) is joining chorale this season. Her sister Joy plays the violin in our orchestra. So, the Dalton family connections expand to one more. It will be fun to have her join us. Maybe one day you or Julianne will live in the area and could join too. My favorite rehearsal of the season is the first one because it is so exciting to see friends I’ve missed all summer and open my folder to see what songs we’ll be singing and whether I know any of them, and then we sight-read through them all. Now that I think about it, it was kind of like the first day of school where we get all dressed up cute and was friends who’ve been gone all summer and we got our books and our syllabuses and were so excited to see what we would learn that semester!

Well, you are probably bored but maybe it’s nice to get a letter that is all about nothing and is just about plan normal life. Or maybe that’s simply foreign to you.

We love you. We are praying for you all the time and I am so pleased to see your beautiful, smiling face in each picture that you send home to your mom. I’m so glad you are enjoying yourself and experiencing such a wonderful country and meeting so many different people from different places. I am smiling like a goof as I sit here thinking about you.

I love you dear Rebekah! I’ll leave you with a nice quote that has been nice when I’ve come up against challenges “I didn’t come this far to only come this far”. Keep going, endure to the end, choose happiness, make it Your Best Day Yet, and know that these goofy people love you.

Love,
Aunt Melissa