Marshfield Mom of the Year

...goes to one of the Brady moms down the block. This lady works nights--she gets off at 1:30 a.m., with Monday and Tuesday off. But she and her 2nd-grade daughter showed up on my doorstep at 11 a.m. today so her daughter could read me a Disney story in English for her Reading Fair project. If I understood her mother correctly, usually one of the older children would work with the little one, but right now the older sibs are in Mexico for the holiday. I also think she told me her older daughters are even doing some studying while they are down there. She asked me something I didn't really grasp about scholarships, so I suggested we talk about it when she comes back with her daughter on New Year's Day afternoon (it's a Tuesday so she has off).

When we were trying to figure out when to get together again, she asked about Monday and suggested evening, like 8. I reminded her it was New Year's Even and she had an "oh, yeah!" expression on her face. Not much holiday for her, clearly.

I've seen this mom at LSC meetings. She is really looking for some supports out here. She told me back at Whittier (or Whitney? their old school in Pilsen) there was a parent group that helped her a lot. Hedges has one here, but as far as I know Chavez only has the formal committees-bilingual, LSC. I don't even know if they have the NCLP parent involvement thing going or if it would be any good if they did.

Anyway, this poor woman was nodding off on my sofa while her little girl read me a story about Ariel the mermaid. When she finished, I had to write a reaction to the story as the "generational connection." The Ariel story made the point that busy dads like King Triton need to spend time with their Ariels, so I referenced that and then said that her mom lived it by being with us for the story when she didn't even understand English. I told her daughter to explain the story to her mom in Spanish after Mom gets a nap!