Joy Sprinkle ~ Day 55 ~ Thankful for a Teacher

To help inspire ideas for the joy spreading challenge, I have been thinking of people for whom I am thankful.  This prompted me to give the children's piano teacher a little something from my kitchen, along with a note expressing my appreciation.

For Day 55, The Princess' theater teacher came to mind.  This woman is utterly amazing, a calm smiling presence in the midst of the swirling energy of children of all ages, children whose class time is almost entirely spent moving, in a very small room. Children with speech delays, behavioral issues, extreme shyness, strong egos...

And then there are the mothers.  Mothers who want to help.  Which is not always... helpful.  She is usually able to manage even the mothers with grace.

I can't imagine how she does it.  Sometimes I listen to the clatter and clamor and just want to put my hands over my ears and crawl under a big down comforter and breathe.  But she smiles and sings and dances and coaches, and they adore her.

This is not something I could offer our daughter.  Nor could I provide the big creaky wooden stage in the real theater in which she is privileged to perform.  I have learned a tremendous amount from this teacher myself, about watching for children's gifts, about letting them pick their pace of risk-taking, and then sometimes, pushing them a little harder, and watching the bud bloom.

I even, {gulp} got on stage myself this spring, because the class lacked enough actors to stage the script they had chosen.  It was hard for me, and my old brain.  Hard for me to memorize lines.  In the end I loved it.  I wanted to do it again.  Some day I will.

So... to sprinkle... not much.  A fresh loaf of homemade bread.  A jar of homemade jam.  A little note, that was altogether too brief, and as I reflected on it, entirely unsatisfactory.  So perhaps I will send her to this post.  :-)

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