Teacher Appreciation Week at Dixie Elementary

Teacher Appreciation Week is on us and I have so much to be grateful for. We moved to the Dixie School District almost 2 years ago from the funky and eclectic gourmet ghetto in north Berkeley. We were walking distance from all sorts of culinary treats, every ounce of baby weight I gained with both kids was pure decadence. Our tiny little cottage was perfect (but tight quarters), we could have made it work. We loved it there.

Then along came kindergarten.

Every parent makes choices, no one is right or wrong, these are choices ... we chose to move. We had heard great things about the Berkeley School District, but it seemed you couldn’t beat San Rafael for raising a family, oh and the commute — did I mention that was halved. It was a no-brainer for us. We packed our bags and said our farewells to our funky little neighborhood and hello to suburbia.

Nowadays we have to drive to Starbucks for our morning treat, the food we’ll talk about another time, but I love it all. I can say it might be a slightly more shallow love, but it is love. I was so excited to start appreciating my daughter’s first-grade teacher that we brought our treats in a whole week early. Another mom (who makes it all look so easy) informed me of my mistake. My daughter went from pride to complete embarrassment in an instant.

“I am so embarrassed,” my usually confident 6-year-old said with her hand over her eyes.

I smiled and exclaimed to her teacher as she entered the classroom, “We appreciate you so much we couldn’t wait a whole week to show you. We wanted to get this started early!”

My daughter’s wonderful teacher smiled and said, “I’m going to tell all the other teachers what I got and none of them will have anything yet. Only the best teachers get celebrated early!”

My daughter was full of pride once again. She returned home that afternoon telling stories about how her teacher shared the fun pink strawberry challah we had made for her. Of course it made me feel good, how could it not. As a working mother of two I find myself so overwhelmed with it all. To say I barely remember to brush my teeth is cliche, but it’s true.

Remembering teacher appreciation week was so important to me that I jumped the gun. But in the end the lesson my daughter walks away with is that when you do something from your heart, it's all going to be fine. No one ever complained of too many scones for breakfast. 

Thank you to all the teachers at Dixie Elementary! You are all amazing and we really truly deeply appreciate all that you do for our children.