Awesome

It amazes me how much my kids effect me. It really does. Gustavo disappears or refuses to read or shows up with burns on his hands and I sleep less at night. Jessenia starts dating one of the sleaziest boys in the seventh grade and my stomach does flip-flops because I don't want to think about what she's doing after school.

Daniel tells me that before this year he didn't like reading, but now it's his favorite thing to do and I walk around with a goofball grin on my face for the rest of the day. He likes reading. He really does.

And then yesterday Leonardo, who on most days annoys me to the same level that a four-year-old in desperate need of a nap and coming off a sugar high annoys me, walks up and asks me if I like rock music. Often questions like this do not go well.

Miss do you like rock music? Yes. Want to meet my brother, he dropped out of high school and started rock band. Um, no.

Miss, you don't eat meat right? Right. I told my mom that and she thinks it's totally weird and says you won't be able to have kids. Lovely.

Miss is that a tattoo on your wrist? No, it's sharpie. Oh, so you write it on there every day? Yes, and I answer all your questions in this sarcastic tone too.

So, yeah, usually these types of questions go downhill very fast, but not on Monday. The minute I told Leonardo that I did like rock music he whipped out his hand and showed me the name of a song and a band I had to see the music video for.

They used the outsiders Miss. They did. They put themselves in as the characters. It's so cool. Can we watch it?

That, right there? That's a miracle. That is Leonardo who hates reading and talks back in Spanish (even though I KNOW SPANISH) and never seems to pay attention to anything. That is Leonardo making a connection. A text-to-world connection. Or maybe a text-to-rock band connection.

He was so excited he asked me to pull up the video four times before I had even taken attendance. When I did pull it up, we watched it together and he could tell me each of the characters the band members were portraying and what scenes of the book this was from.

It's been three days and I'm still a little giddy. He made a connection. He came and told me. He didn't mumble under his breath in Spanish.

Awesome.

Here's the video: