Time for a pop quiz! Let's see if you can guess. Of the two pictures below, in which is Bryce actually sleeping?

A.

B.

Brownie points of happiness for those of you who guess correctly!

I am a reader. Once a month, I go into Ellie's second grade classroom, volunteer badge around my neck, and spend an hour working with the kids on Project Cornerstone. The stories I read to them are surprisingly powerful; One has been a personal favorite thus far.

But I hadn't intended to step into this role. No, if anything, I've tried to keep my commitments as low as possible to avoid burning out. However, when the pleas came out for help -- there hadn't been any parents who'd been willing to take on the role -- I stepped forward. 

Before I'd started, Felix and I shared a few laughs about it. I'm not exactly the "warm and fuzzy" type and often roll my eyes at such bibble-babble sentiments. So imagine my surprise when I realized how much I was enjoying myself. The kids and I talked about standing tall, about defending our friends, about refusing to be bullied. I was stunned by the information collected by Project Cornerstone's survey, and the goals they were trying to support no longer seemed so absurd.

In truth, elementary and middle school were not easy years for me. I was a small, shy, un-athletic bookworm, and I struggled for a long time to figure out my place in the world. Among Ellie's young, eager classmates, I saw glimpses of myself from a more innocent and optimistic time. I found myself wanting to do more, to help empower these children to be stronger than I had been.

So I read. Every month. With joy and the feeling that I am making an impact. And when the kids complete their various projects -- this month, we drew and colored flowers that revealed nice gestures we'd done for others and the ways in which those actions made us feel -- I am filled with genuine awe at the love they carry around in their hearts. Bibble-babble aside, I can only hope that I'm inspiring them at least as much as they inspire me.

Fall is a tough season for me. At the peak, I'm easily working 70-80 hour weeks. In some ways, after so many years, I've become accustomed to it -- the ebb and flow rhythm of my cyclical schedule, the absurd amounts of caffeine I consume to keep myself awake, and the pure delight of my students, as they share this small but wonderfully crazy part of their lives. I love it. Truly, I do.

But when I sit at my desk and watch the skies grow dark, there's always that corner of my mind, that tiny piece of my heart, that wonders what's happening at home. I miss dinner, I'm not there for bedtime, and Felix and I are reduced to mere passersby. I used to squeeze phone calls in between appointments, awkwardly hoping my toddlers could trade a few words with me before they drifted off to sleep, but hearing their sweet baby voices would just as often bring tears rushing to my eyes, so I didn't do it very much.

Instead, to my joy, as my kids have grown older and more adept at communication, the means by which we can connect have also improved. I don't deny the problems -- as a society, we're too wrapped up in our gadgets and addicted to our internet connections, glued to a screen instead of engaging face to face. Yet in those moments when I'm watching and laughing over Ellie's antics, or I glance down at my phone and see that Keira's sent me a text, I can't complain. Sometimes, it's just what I need, and for that, I'm simply grateful.