Month: April 2005

On Monday I had the pleasure of sitting in on my wife’s first grade classroom. She’s getting her masters degree and needed an observer for later comment on a specific lesson.

Here’s an excerpt from her paper on the lesson…

I asked my husband, Mark, to come in to observe me teach the first day back after spring break. He visited my classroom not infrequently in my first years of teaching because he was still in college and would stop in when he was on a break. Mark really hasn’t been in since we got married, though, once his own work schedule infringed on that free time. This observation was nice timing for us. Mark is a stay-at-home dad who also works as a cartoonist. Spring break was a good time for me to better realize why he is so tired at the end of the day; our son is easygoing, but he is twenty-one months old, which means he talks all day long, tries out the word no rather vehemently at times, and is on the go for most of the day. Since I had just had the opportunity to understand Mark’s typical day better, it was nice for him to have a similar opportunity.

I read this Thursday morning while printing it out for her evening class and was sort of touched. It’s always interesting to get such a clear look inside another person’s head, especially when it’s someone you know as well as my wife and I know each other.

She hadn’t necessarily intended me to read it, so I was very pleased to read about her observations on my stay-at-home dad/cartoonist role, and it prompted this blog.

Often I think I take my wife for granted. Let me tell you, I’m not always the easiest to get along with; sure I have a good sense of humor, but it’s often balanced by severe fits of spontaneous unprovoked grumpiness.

In addition to putting up with me, she takes care of all of the household finances, laundry, keeping track of important family dates, a fair amount of cooking and probably a hundred or so other things that I’m not going to remember here.

She’s also a great teacher. She teaches a bilingual first-grade class and cares deeply about her students, often visiting each of their families at home at the beginning of the school year to introduce herself and make everyone feel comfortable.

There’s really no significant cartoon content in this post, but I just thought it was important for everyone to know how great my wife is. She’s not just a brilliant mother and teacher, but the best partner a guy could imagine in just about every way.

My wife sums it up nicely at the end of her paper:

While it was interesting for me to see my classroom and teaching through Mark’s eyes, I think he also found it interesting to come back into my classroom instead of just relying on my descriptions of my days. I think it has been a good week for Mark and me to better appreciate what the other one does.

I love you, honey!