#Microblog Monday: A Very Good Day

Last week I had a spectacularly bad day; the kind that makes me call Bryce to say I need Five Guys, Ping Pong, and wine, stat. 

But I don't want to talk as much about that day, which left me feeling exhausted and utterly drained. 

I want to talk about Friday, which was amazing. 

One of the things that made Thursday hard was an emotional moment where a student of mine who is in foster care (not a foster family, but foster home) shared that her birthday a week ago sucked, and it was so hard being away from her family, and her mom didn't have money for a present, and she had cake with her foster parent but no presents, and it was the same as her nephew's birthday and she was missing that, and she just cried and cried. I asked if she had wanted anything in particular, if she had something that she'd been hoping for but didn't get...and she said, "If I could have anything, I would just want my family back together." And my heart just broke. She asked for a hug, which I gave gladly, and then she said, "You give really good hugs," and my heart hurt a little more. She went down to lunch, and I went to the back of my classroom and sobbed silently, and then my TA suggested that I go take a moment in the lead teacher room. 

That's mostly bad stuff, though. The good stuff started to happen when I was in the lead teacher room, because that's when I called the school psychologist to see if maybe, just maybe, we could have a little birthday party on Friday, and I could run out that evening to pick up some small presents and then wrap them all up separately and then bring them in and we could make her 13th birthday a little more special than it seemed it had been a week before. 

I was worried this was a boundary issue, but the psychologist said no, this was an unusual situation and there was no reason why we couldn't. 

So I may have gone a tiny bit overboard...

Fancy coloring book, set of gel pens, brainteaser puzzle (she loves those and is freakishly good at them), happy cactus bookmark clips, lip balm, a set of scrunchies (because those are cool again somehow), and a bag of lemonheads. 

I wrapped it all up in tissue paper and butterfly stickers and had two cards, one for me and one for the psychologist, which we weirdly wrote very similar things in completely separately. My TA had a metal cat magnetic board for her door (to put pictures of her family on), glow in the dark sparkly butterflies for her room, three yummy chocolate bars, and a card too. 

We set it up so 9th period my students stayed with the science teacher and we all met at the school psychologist's office eventually. She was guarded but when we said it was for her, she perked up and opened the cards first ("because that's what you do" she said), then the presents, and was excited but (understandably) understated. We had cupcakes, and hugs, and I went back up to work with my students who are not separated from their families and have nice birthdays, but who at some point will need a little something extra and I will be happy to provide that for them, too. 

She stayed after school and came back up to my room, and I asked her if it was too much, because I was worried it might have been overload. She said, "I LOVED it. I just want to hug you guys forever. Thank you so much." 

To be safe I called her guardian before she got home on the bus to let her know we'd had a little celebration and that was what the bag of loot was, and that we just wanted to do a little something to make her 13th birthday special, just to cover our bases. 

And then I sat at my desk, and felt all warm and fuzzy and like my heart was exploding. That was probably one of the best days of my teaching career. 

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!