Board Approved

The school board is approving my new position tonight, so I'll finally be official.  When I posted about this a couple of weeks ago, a few of you were sweet enough to e-mail to ask whether my new job involved becoming a principal.  HA!  While I appreciate the vote of confidence, that step is still a long way off for me.  However, I will be the assistant principal at a brand new middle school that is opening in my district.  The opportunity to open a new school doesn't come along very often, and I'm just thrilled to be part of building this new community.  I'm excited about working with the principal, about bringing together teachers from a variety of different buildings, and about blending students from various neighborhoods.  An added bonus happens to be the fact that my new school will require a 10-15 minute commute, as opposed to the 45-minute one I currently make.  That's really just the icing on the cake, though.

Yesterday afternoon we went back to the pediatrician for a re-check after a week+ of breathing treatments for Sara's wheezing.  Our last two visits had been with other doctors in the practice, and yesterday we were able to see our regular doc.  When I asked whether Sara's wheezing, which has subsided some but still remains, would go away with allergy season, he told me the main thing to consider is the fact that her wheezing is hereditary.  It's probably here to stay, at least for a while.  He put Sara on a daily dose of over-the-counter Claritan and not-over-the-counter-but-very-pricey Singular.  We'll recheck mid-June.  If she hasn't improved, we'll take another step involving more intense breathing treatments.  Pray that we don't have to cross that bridge.  While all of this is scary, expensive, frustrating, etc., etc., etc., like I told my mom tonight, I know we could have it so much worse.  We'll take the wheezing (the no good, very bad breathing treatments and all, pictured above).

Sara's two favorite things right now - in no particular order - include reading books and being naked.  The last few nights after her bath, she's made a quick escape from her towel, and has taken great delight in running from room to room in her birthday suit.  Exhilarating.  Freeing.  Against the rules?  Fun!  Truth be told, a good, old fashioned drip dry never hurt anyone, right Junior-year-Mexico-spring-break-roommates?!

Here is Sara doing both of her favorite things at once!

The last couple of weeks have been rather treacherous, to put it gently.  This week has started off much more smoothly (I hope I'm not jinxing it), and the fact that Bret Michaels is expected to make a full recovery after his brain hemorrhage is great news in my world.  All of the talk about him on the radio has had me thinking about when I fell in love with Poison.  My dad bought me my first Poison cassette at Target when I was in third grade.  A couple of neighbor friends could NOT believe that my dad bought me the tape despite the parental warning labels attached.  Maybe he was trying to be cool.  Maybe he just didn't know better.  Either way, the parental warnings against Poison's subliminal (or not) drug and sex references were nothing compared to what's available today.  And I turned out just fine even after listening to that tape on repeat in my boom box.  I don't have tons of clear childhood memories - one of the things my sister and I have in common, unfortunately - but I do clearly remember getting my Poison tape.  I remember feeling so cool when "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" would come on at the roller rink (it did so often), and I knew the words.  Because I had the tape.  Tucked inside the cassette case were the lyrics.  Bonus.  I've loved Poison ever since, and I'm relieved that Bret is on the mend.  I guess it's true after all: every night has its dawn.  So much wisdom wrapped up in the 80's music that still rocks my world.