Lucky us!!

When we bought our home, I didn't really look much at the school district, since I figured we'd be gone before our children started school (hah!).  I sort of vaguely knew that it was supposed to be good, but I was only thinking about it in terms of resale value.

Fast forward a few years and my children's elementary school is suddenly SO important in our lives! Fortunately, we have an amazing amazing amazing school with fabulous teachers (it's even a federally recognized Blue Ribbon School).  I cannot even tell you how much I love our elementary school, and how grateful I am for the wonderful teachers who have been so influential in my children's lives.  (Seriously. They are out of this world.)  Did I mention that I love their teachers?

And incidentally, one of the (many) cool things about our school is that it has 2 courtyards that the students regularly use (Abigail's first-grade class often had writer's workshop time out by the lily pond).  The photos in this post are all taken in the outdoor classroom.

The school that my older two children currently attend (Isaac's preschool is equally amazing and I love his teachers dearly, who also taught Juliet, but that's another post) is a really cool melting pot.  Last time I checked, it had students from 45 countries, many of whom are here for a few years while their parents complete graduate degrees.  There are 1060 students in the elementary school (it's the biggest in the district, if I recall correctly), and about 50% of them are in families whose income falls below the federal poverty level (hello, graduate students!).  One thing that's pretty neat is that a lot of the students are either the children of professors or graduate students, so education is a top priority for many of the parents (sadly, that's not always the case, but I've been really impressed by so many of the parents that I've met & worked with in the classrooms).  And they have a fabulous principal--he knows all of the kids by name and enthusiastically greets me by name as well (probably because I have a horrible habit of jamming the copiers so he knows to watch out for me).  Both of my children's classes had lunch with the principal & the vice-principal in the past two weeks, and many times when I've been working in my children's classrooms or attending a classroom event, one or both of the principals is there.  And of course, I am still so amazed and grateful that the school has dedicated high-ability classes that both push the kiddos and make learning fantastically fun (i.e. for their economics unit they've been helping to run the school book fair).



Abigail's class has been studying the moon for the past month or so--she's been keeping a journal every night where she draws & describes the position and appearance of the moon.  One of the atmospheric science professors from the university came in to talk to the class (his son is in her class) about the moon as well, and they wound up the unit with a moon-viewing party for students & families.  (Okay, I don't know about you, but my elementary school experience was not like this at all.  Did I mention that today Juliet attended a play at the university for a class field trip?)

They had a half or dozen or so telescopes set up and focused on the moon--you could just wander up and check it out whenever you felt like it.  It was really neat to use the various telescopes to see particular features.  I seriously loved it!  (Abigail, Isaac, and I were the only ones who went; we didn't stay super long because we wanted to get back to visit with Neil's parents, who were briefly stopping by on their way to begin their second full-time church mission.)

And since all fun parties have fun treats, the teachers had kept going with the moon theme--there were Moon Pies, Milky Ways, and--such a great idea--a whole bunch of sugar cookies that the students had coated with various amounts of frosting to represent the phases of the moon.  

As we were driving home Abigail told me that she will miss her school most of all once we graduate, and I had to agree whole-heartedly.  We have been so, so, so blessed in our time here, and I am and will be eternally grateful to the amazing opportunities and teachers my children have had thus far.

(And this really has nothing to do with the post at all, but I was thinking today about how mature Abigail's getting these days--she made a batch of lemon bars all by herself after school--and tonight I wore a pink velvet blazer that I would never have dared to buy on my own, but she was with me and talked me into it, and then told me several times how much she liked it tonight. So fun to be with this kiddo!)

I love doctors

**No icky pictures, but this is about Juliet's ear, so consider yourself forewarned.  I found it fascinating, but if you get a little woozy at the sight of blood, you might not want to read any more.**

Today we went to see Juliet's specialist about her ear.  He checked her out with the otoscope and frowned. 

"Let's move across the hall," he said.  "I need the microscope."

So then we got to check out the ear microscope, which was really sweet.  He frowned again and I thought back to our conversation a couple months ago about how she'd likely need general anesthetic in the hospital to have her tubes removed.  And our conversation a week ago about how she'd need the same thing to have the granuloma in her ear removed.  I winced mentally as I prepared myself to go through scheduling another surgical visit for Jules, who celebrated her first birthday in the hospital having ear tubes inserted after 9 successive ear infections.

He looked at Juliet sitting incredibly still and quiet on my lap.  She hadn't moved a muscle or made a single noise through the whole visit.  He asked her to hold super still, and picked up a slender hooked needle about ten inches long, then inserted it into Juliet's ear. 

Juliet didn't twitch.  Her eyes looked a little sad, but she didn't make a peep.

He asked her to turn her head and snuggle more closely into my neck.  She did.

And then he extracted--without surgery or general anesthetic!!!--the granuloma in her ear.  It was about the size of my fingernail (I cannot fathom how it fit in her ear!), and was a mass of granulated tissue and blood that had grown around her dislodged ear tube.  The tube had somehow irritated the skin of her ear, and when the skin began to grow closed over the irritated portion, it grew right around the tube, just like a pearl forming in an oyster.  Eventually, it outpaced its blood supply, which is when it burst and began leaking blood and other ooky stuff (and smelling really awful). 

Okay, so maybe I'm weird, but I thought it was really cool to watch him dissect the granuloma afterwards--Juliet and Abigail and I were all peering over his shoulder totally fascinated, to see the tube in the center.  It reminded me of that story in one of James Herriot's books where Siegfried just pops the tumor off the cow and the skin closes right back over it.  Amazing.  And the best part was when Juliet smiled very wide and said in a tiny little voice, "I can hear again!!" 

I love the fact that he was willing to do a procedure in-office that he could have billed much more for in the hospital, and that he told me when talking about the follow-up prescription, "You don't want to have to pay for those ear drops ($100/bottle and we needed two)--let me go get you some samples." 

And that is why I love doctors.  Because they can do amazing things, and most of them are so kind and generous and caring.  It seems like we hear a lot about this trend to not trust doctors and avoid unnecessary procedures and follow your instincts and it's all about money and crazy insurance companies,etc. etc., but my family has been blessed so much by wonderful doctors.  Our pediatrician is amazing; she not only knows what's going on with each of my children (and remembers their history without having to flip through the charts), but she remembers details about me and what's going on in my life.  My obstetrician made a special point of being in the operating room when I had surgery 28 weeks into my pregnancy, even though another surgeon was actually performing the operation--and she wasn't even scheduled to be in that day--but she wanted to check on me and make sure I knew she was there--and she was by my side in the recovery room afterwards and gave me the updates on the status of the baby.  Juliet's audiologist and ear specialist have made a world of difference for her; her eardrums are completely healed and her hearing is totally normal again. 

And I just want to say that I think we are SO blessed to live in a time where medical training is widely available, and where there are dedicated, talented, and intelligent men and women who can make such a difference with their skills and compassion.  I'm so grateful for the medical advances we have today.