Another Major Milestone in Our Family

This time it's for ME!

I just today got my official, embossed, sealed, American Montessori Society issued Montessori teaching certificate!

I began the program in 2002, after the sudden and precipitous change in my hearing in 2001. I sat in my car in shock at the discovery that I was no longer just "hearing impaired" but that I was going deaf. My first thought, coming out of the audiologist's office, was, "Okay, God, I guess You want me to go teach at AGBell!" This has been a very long journey, especially with two kids in high school (and one struggling), having my hearing gradually get worse and worse to the point of qualifying for a cochlear implant, changing churches (with less than ideal attitudes toward it), having my dear friend/therapist/mentor/pastoral shepherd die suddenly, and just the many vagarities of life in general.

I am SOOOOO HAPPY!!

"And I'd like to thank my dear husband, Joe, and my two sons, David and John for their love and generous support, putting up with their wife/mom being distracted, busy or gone to class and not taking as good care of things like housekeeping and making dinner. And I'd like to thank Andrew Cole, post-mortem, for all his care and encouragement over the pasts 10 years, and his belief in my gifts and talents with children that helped me begin to believe in them, too. And I'd like to thank the directors and teachers of the Midwest Montessori Teacher Training Center for their patience and for modeling the Montessori philosophy even in their everyday interactions with us as adult students, for being positive and encouraging and believing in me when I struggled to believe in myself. And I'd like to thank Kimberly for being my first deaf student way, way back when and introducing me to cochlear implants and to Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School. And I'd like to thank her mother Karen for telling me for four years that I should go teach at AGBell, because now I love it there and I have never felt so completely in the center of where God wants me to be. And I'd like to thank the staff, parents, and students at AGBell for being so welcoming and gracious and loving as I have taken so long to get through this whole certification process, and especially as I have continued to adjust to my slow onset of deafness. And I thank my precious Father God, Who gave me these gifts and talents in the first place, and Who continues to give me great joy as I use them; to Him be glory and honor and praise! Thank you, thank you, thank you all!!" (You'd think I watch the Oscars or something...)

(Yes, I am grinning my silly little face off!!!!)

I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up!--and not a moment too soon, as I just turned 47 a week ago.