In which I teach Kindergarten and pack

Julia drew this and informed me that it is the moon. she has since made several other moon drawings, but that's the only thing she's named so far.

She's in to drawing in general, markers and pens are her favorite, and body decoration follows paper decoration. Watercolors are also favored, though crayons will do if nothing else can be found

I knit this sweater-vest for her, but it turned out rather big. I think next winter it will work.

it looks more like a dress than a sweater!

She's latched onto a "chicken" stuffed animal that we swiped from my friend Andrea's baby when we were visiting. She insists that the chicken get a hat too when we go outside.

Two days this week saw me waking up unusually early (8 am!) to go to school with Julia and be the kindergarten sub. Helen, the teacher's aid has the kindergartners for much of the day and she was gone all week for medical appointments. Out of the three, I had two show up both days, Jolene and Steven. They were generally well behaved, but getting them to do any of their work and keeping Julia happy at the same time while also figuring out the small quirks, such as how to get to the bathroom without leaving them unsupervised was completely exhausting.

Jolene, and Julia behind her with the Jr high.

Julia wanted to join the Jr high.

By the second day, Julia was so tired that when we got home, she fell asleep waiting for me to come nurse her. I thought this was excellent, until she woke up with a fever. Poor baby. She had thrown huge tantrums that morning while I was trying to get us out the door and probably felt terrible all day. She was better by the next morning, and I was pretty thrilled not to be the sub any more. It's good for me to do that once in a while though, to better appreciate what Dave does to provide for us daily! He's officially resigned his position here in Chuathbaluk. He didn't have to do it this early, but wanted to give them the best opportunity for finding a good replacement. He's got 41 job applications sent out as of yesterday, and we've heard back negatively from two so far. He's applied to Washington, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Juneau, and Maine, mostly for principal positions. We're hopeful and anxious, cut free from one job while waiting to see how the job market will treat us this year. Our priorities are to be near one set of family or the other, and to be somewhere where I can take classes towards midwifery, but who knows if we'll be in any position to be choosy. I've been busy packing again. Spring break will be upon us in a week, and it is likely that Julia and I will head south to Klamath Falls sometime during that week. My last Anat and Phys class starts April 2nd, but we are hopeful that there will be an interview request sometime soon, so that we can fly as far as Seattle together. Julia turns two on March 22nd, and that marks the end of free flying for her. We want to get this last flight in before she reaches her birthday. Dave will join us when the year is up, in mid May. We are hoping that we'll spend the early part of the summer moving, but it is impossible to know how things will end up! It has been good for us to be with Dave but remote Alaska in winter is a hard place to have a small child. There's very little to do that gets you out of the house, and not so many days with weather that makes you want to get out of the house. I'm looking forward to being with family again, and with having the activities a town provides for Julia, and with having the work of a class for myself. I'm doing Developmental psych in correspondence form right now, but it's pretty boring just to read from a textbook and take the tests. I like going to class. I'm trying to get the psych done before A and P starts up, but I still have a fair amount of work to do. which I will go and do now.