my cell phone doesn't go on vacation...

The thing about opting not to get a land line in Texas is that the only number I have to give to people is my cell phone. I take my cell phone with me places. I leave my cell phone on when I sleep. My cell phone rings at 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning when the father of one of my students finally decides to call. I'm on vacation and school is following me.

I guess I'm not really upset about this (although I was not so happy about the 7 a.m. wake up call). Nathaniel is kind of a big pain in my class and the annoying thing is that DeUndre follows him around like a little puppy. So whenever Nathaniel is in trouble, you can bet DeUndre is too. Nathaniel is in trouble a lot. For whatever reason, Nathaniel lives with his Aunt. She is a very nice woman, but she's very very old so her bark is much worse than her bite. Apparently after last week's suspension she had enough and finally got Nathaniel's dad in the mix. He decided to call me on Wednesday to discuss Nathaniel. It's very hard to remember your own name let alone details of one of your students when someone wakes you up at 7 a.m. when you're on vacation. Apparently things are going to be different, apparently Nathaniel is going to improve. At least now I have his dad's cell phone number.

One of my students also called me. Isabel called to see if we had homework over the break. I'm not really sure how she missed the big seventh grade homework packet that went out on the last day of school, but I'm not going to question it. I think she was just lonely. Her parents were working and she was home alone. Her behavior isn't amazingly better, but she is improving. I wonder what her dad will think about her calling a long distance number from her home phone.

My favorite "you can never get away from your job" message came on Thanksgiving day from my little nerd child, Irma. She sent me a text message (many of my students are too shy to call so they text me and then I call them back) wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and telling me I didn't have to call her back. So cute.

So here it is Friday and I've had plenty of communication from home sweet home to remind me that I really need to get on the lesson planning train and get some work done. The munchkins will be waiting for me when I get back... heck, they're waiting for me now.