Pre-Valentine.

Yesterday at bus time, after my fitful afternoon, Audra slipped a note into my hand. The intensity of Valentine’s Day is bubbling at the surface in what I like to refer to as ‘Pre-Valentine’s’ – a few days of holiday excitement in itself.

I could tell Audra was a little shy about by the note. She blushed as I opened it. There was a picture on one side and writing on the other:

I was totally impressed. She really captured my likeness quite accurately. The kids always have fun with my curly hair. Let’s face it, curly hair is a lot more fun to draw than straight hair. The day before, I’d spent a few minutes during Writing Workshop detailing the way to draw hands with five fingers and she nailed it… I don’t think my hands are so particularly enormous, but at least the fingers are there. She also remembered my glasses… a detail often left out by less careful illustrators.

Her writing also wowed me. Two of the words on our lists from The Three Habits of Successful Reading Teachers are ‘be’ and ‘my’… last year, before I’d read the book, I would have seen ‘B’ and ‘mi’ for sure. She also had most of the sounds in Valentine. The teacher in me loved these successes in her writing.

I’m quite positive Monday will be a flurry of Valentine frivolity… but I’ll always enjoy the more quiet Pre-Valentine’s notes.