Snow, School, and Serentiy

It has been an eventful and positive couple of days. Yesterday afternoon we were finally able to meet with my son's teachers. We were able to give them the full history of his mental health issues and it seemed like most of the teachers had a new understanding about what was behind his classroom behaviors. His Language Arts teacher is just a phenomenal teacher who clearly takes her profession very seriously. According to my son, who has always hated Language Arts, she makes the lessons fun and engaging. She's also really good at using technology to communicate with parents and keep us in the loop. So I think she's going to try some new techniques with my son and because he likes her so much I think we're going to see a good result there.

My son has two Science teachers who do a job share. Because of schedules, we've only ever met the one at parent-teacher conferences, and she said she didn't have any issues with our son. The other Science teacher and the Social Studies teacher (who just recently returned from maternity leave) are both very young teachers. I don't know that either of them have much experience with issues like my son presents, but they both seem like they'll take cues from the Language Arts teacher and I think they'll see better results also. Then there's the math teacher. I don't think she's coming from a bad place, I think she's just very old-fashioned (although I think she's younger than me) and thinks that there is one way to teach math and one way to learn it, which is quietly doing exactly what she does. As someone who loves math, what I enjoy about it is solving logic puzzles and figuring out how to get to an end result, and unfortunately I think her type of teaching can kill that love and exploration of math. So we're going to look into math club so my son can continue to be exposed to math as fun. The good news is that I think she won't keep fighting him quietly sitting in class but not taking notes verbatim. I think this is just one of those teachers that my son isn't going to click with, but I'm hopeful that this class will be a little smoother for the rest of the year.

After we left the school meeting, my husband and I headed up into the mountains for a weekend getaway. I was able to really put my new Xterra through it's paces. I had to put it into 4-wheel drive to get over Vail pass, and I was extremely pleased with the decision to get a manual transmission because I could just down-shift and I barely had to touch my brakes headed downhill in the snow and ice. We're staying at a lodge outside of Edwards, and the area is just beautiful. These pictures were from our balcony this morning. I took the picture before the sun came up barefoot in my pajamas, so that one was out the balcony door but from the room. I got dressed for the others so I was actually out on the balcony.

We went for a wonderful hike on the East Lake Trail. The sky was an amazing, bright blue; it was completely silent except for the sounds of birds. We saw deer but no other people until the very end of the hike. There are several pictures below, but they were so pretty that I had to share.

I imagine this trail was beautiful in a different way between four and six weeks ago when the hillsides were probably pure gold in aspen leaves.

This weekend is exactly what I needed. I'm feeling refreshed and ready to be the mother my children need when I get back home. Facebook presented me with a good article (which still creeps me out) about celebrities with mental health issues who shared them so others wouldn't feel alone. One of the celebrities who has many of the same issues as my son is John Green. My son really likes him, so I'm hoping that when I share that with him he'll feel less alone and realize that he can still do whatever he wants in life.

I'm also really excited about starting my new job on Wednesday. I'm hopeful that it'll be a better fit and since it's in a suburban setting I'll be able to take walks in nature at lunch which always soothes my soul. So the upshot of this fairly long post is that things are looking up, and I feel better equipped to manage my life.