It has taken me awhile to get to writing this, but it has been quite a busy time since my last posting.
I went to bed Wednesday evening, setting my alarm clock 20 minutes later than normal knowing that I had not gotten much sleep at all this week. Of course, I still did not get to sleep in. In fact, I was awoken by my husband earlier than the normal time that I wake up (4:00 am). His reason being… our dog was giving birth!
A little background on my dogs is needed to explain how this event came to be. Before marrying my husband, I had lived in a much smaller town with a roommate who is a fellow teacher. She had a dog, so my male dog and her male dog were friends and were used to be around each other all of the time.
There came a time that my roommate didn’t like the way that the dogs “rough and tumbled” with each other as we took our dogs to school with us each day and didn’t want her dog to play too roughly with her kids (she taught grades K-2). So I started keeping my dog, Dwight, in my room with me more often and naturally, he became somewhat depressed that he couldn’t play with another dog anymore. So started the search for a companion for my dog.
After much searching, we found a blonde miniature dachshund (Dwight is a brown one) and we fell in love instantly. I laugh looking back at the day we picked her up. We put her in the car, and Dwight literally sat in the back window of the car. He was so unimpressed. I’m not sure if it was because she was a female or because our attention was on her, but this was definitely not the reaction we were hoping for.
You would think that eventually they would have been best of friends, but it took an extremely long time for Dwight to accept her at all. Even to this day, when he tries to play with her, she sits down and puts her nose in the air as if to say “No way!”. And if we give any attention to her, he runs over to interrupt and get all of the attention for himself. What a dog! So the pregnancy came as a bit of a surprise to say the least. And, needless to say, she is getting fixed after this.
This is Dwight and Utopia in their Christmas sweaters given as gifts from their Grandma Furrow for Christmas 2012.
So early morning delivery was quite a surprise. Neither my husband nor I had ever been present at a puppy “birthing” before, so we were hoping all would go well. But when he had noticed she was giving birth, we noticed the puppy still seemed “attached” to her. After some investigating, it was. For some reason, Utopia (the mom) had seemed to clean all of the puppy, but the umbilical cord was still attached. I completely am so thankful for my husband as he looked up on the internet what to do, and he himself tied the floss and and cut the umbilical cord. I don’t know what I’d do without that man!
I tried to set up a box and towel for her, but she seemed so unsettled and very shaky. She had never had a litter before either, so I’m guessing she was a little scared. She didn’t stay in the box though. She carried her puppy over to her pink bed, and as the one puppy was feeding, we noticed her stomach literally jumping up and down. We didn’t think much of it as she was still licking the puppy, acting as if nothing was going on. It didn’t take long until I noticed something black… and there was number two! This one she delivered totally on her own. They were the two most beautiful little puppies. Both black. I took some pictures, and she seemed to be relaxing with her puppies, and unfortunately had to get ready and leave for work at 6:00 am.
Utopia with her two black puppies before I left for work. She was doing so good!
So after I had gotten to work, I went about my usual morning routine: change the date on the board, double check the permission slips and money (it was a field trip day) and setting up my laptop, and attending teachers worship. My students came in, we had worship together, and I shared with them my surprise: pictures of the puppies. The students were happy and questioned whether there would be only two. Since we had less than half and hour until we had to leave, I allowed the students to play Four Corners in the classroom (they love that game!). Meanwhile, I stepped out of my classroom as my husband had called. I returned his call, and a huge surprise, there was a third puppy! I do not have a picture yet of the third puppy, but he is much lighter in colour than the other two. Sort of a mix of Dwight’s brown and Utopia’s blonde. I was so excited and of course I have students telling me “I told you so!”. They are the absolutely most adorable, tiny creatures. I can hardly wait for them to open their eyes and start walking around.
Utopia has been a phenomenal mother. Anytime they start whining, she always tries to see what is wrong. She literally spends all day in her bed with them, and any time Dwight goes near them, she growls. We were worried how she would be as a mother, but we could not have asked for anything better. She is a pure example of extreme dedication to her babies. Sometimes we even go to her bed and lift the food and water bowls to her face so she can eat or drink since she hates leaving her puppies for anything.
What a surprise! But now that I’m thinking… I’ll share my second surprise that happened that day. This surprise involves my students.
As I already mentioned, we had a field trip that day. Normally, my husband would come on the field trip with me as an adult supervisor, but with the puppies being born, he was not attending today. So I had my class on my own. Three of my students did not show up, so I had a total of 18 students for this trip. To add an extra twist, we were not taking the bus, we were walking to our location, in the city. I have to admit, I was worried. Even when I’m at school, I do not trust my students when they are left alone. I have a class that is overly talkative, and seem to get into mischief whenever I’m not in the room.
On our walk, my students were very responsible in waiting for traffic lights, walking quickly and staying on the sidewalks. At the center we were at, my students went through their activities with no troubles at all. At lunch time, I became the most worried.
At our location, there is a large room, set up with tables for large groups to eat. Only 5 of my students were ready to sit and eat right away. The rest of my students either needed a microwave (in a downstairs party room) or to buy their lunch (at the downstairs cafeteria). All of a sudden, I needed to be 3 places at once.
Knowing this would be a test that could either show me my mistakes and teach me a lesson that I would learn forever, or completely shock me about my students, I had no choice but to leave the few students upstairs and go downstairs with the others, walking back and forth between the party room and the cafeteria. I was even questioning whether some of my students knew how to price food with gst involved without running over the amount of money they had.
They all made it through the line without a problem and I was the last person to go back upstairs to the eating room. I was expecting to see messes on the tables, students running around, etc. To my complete surprise, there were my students, occupying 3 tables, all sitting down and eating at a beyond acceptable noise level. Where did I get these students from?
Since some students were done eating before others, they began organizing and playing their own “Four Corners” in the room we were in (nobody else was in there) and I honestly could never have been more proud at how well they cleaned after themselves and for their excellent behaviour.
After lunch, we spent time going through the 4 exhibits that were set up, and each time we moved to a new exhibit, they were very cooperative with lining up and leaving at the times that were set. They were having such a good time!
Even when we left and stopped at the gift shop on the way out, they were so good at making sure they had enough money for what they wanted and lining up in their pairs to get ready to leave.
The difference between being at school and being on our field trip was literally night and day. I have struggled so much with this class this year, and I was almost in tears about how good and responsible they had become on this field trip. This is one out of the very few days from this school year that I would repeat again. I left school that day being the happiest I’ve been in quite awhile. I left loving and appreciating my students.
Sometimes when life gets tough, and those times last for quite awhile, you need those little unexpectedly “surprising” moments. I had that today. I often wonder if my students really know how much I care about them and want them to become the kind and responsible students that I know they can be, instead of seeing me as the teacher who tells them what to do or doesn’t let them have “fun”. I sometimes feel like some students must think I hate them from the amount I have to basically stand over them to make sure they are actually working and focusing on what they are supposed to be doing. In fact, I almost died once when one of my students asked if I hated them. But that same student later came to me and said that he loved me (clarified as a teacher for sure) and it gave me assurance that at least some of them do.
I hope, for all of you that are struggling in life, that you know you are not alone. There are always people who are struggling, and often many people struggling with the same problems that you are. But it is my prayer that you have the surprises that you need to get through the tough times. Hold on tight to those good moments, because it is the good moments that will get you through.
And for those of you that are teachers, never give up on your students. I have had some of the worst struggles with this class, and it has been 8 months for my students to show me that they can be responsible. Sometimes the students you struggle with the most are the very students you’ll learn to appreciate the most. I’m not perfect with this, but taking time (Time? What time? Find time.) with each student and knowing them on a more personal level is entirely key to having those students know that you care and therefore making them want to impress you. I teach grade 6, so this is extremely important to me while they are going through their pre-teen years: thinking that they are teens already and they know everything, when in reality, they are still very much children. Your students will often be a result of the amount of time and effort you invest in them. It gets harder and harder as the generations seem to become more difficult to deal with, but there will be a day that they will catch you off-guard and make you smile and cry. Hold on to those moments as deeply as possible so that you have a mental image of the good inside of each of your students. Some days you’ll need to reflect on these images when the bad behaviours are present. Nobody will ever understand the difficulty of a teacher’s job with the emotional distress and physical stress involved, but I applaud teachers for the work they do and the part of their lives that they give their students. As Joshua 1:9 says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Calm in Christ and Fitness 