Good and bad stuff this week.  I’m doing a lot of stuff with the elementary school – it’s both the obligation and the reward of being a stay-at-home-mom.  I’m working with the school newspaper, class mom for the fifth grade, and helping out with my kids’ former 1st grade teacher.  I don’t spend quite so much time with the kids as I do, say, vacuuming and washing the floors, or even doing the dozen or so loads of laundry a week, but it’s way more rewarding.  Just the fact that the kids get all excited and hug me and celebrate when they find out I’m coming in to school makes whatever I do so much more important than it might seem superficially.  Seeing those faces when I read the last two chapters of “Old Yeller” or talking about how to turn an interview into an article, or seeing the face of a child who’s read a book well for the first time getting an excited reaction from an adult – these are the things that let me know that my children are not the only ones who benefit from my not working a regular job.

On the other hand, after seeing all the great progress and happiness of the children, I find out that a sibling’s long-term spouse has made a selfish decision about his/her gender assignment that benefits no-one except this person, and maybe not even that.  My sibling has been put through a heck of a lot, much of it at the hands of this spouse, and the only good thing is that this selfish action will finally propel things towards a positive end – without the persistently errant spouse.  It just drives me nuts how people can make self-centered decisions and then criticize the people they hurt for not being “supportive.”  Screw that.  Life is about more than just you.