School Daze, Part V

3/12/10 Big pile 'o files, recycled; Womb sounds tape, returned

Today I concluded my week of school downsizing with, arguably, the most important purge: getting rid of old files. As a generally organized person, I tend to keep rather orderly and detailed files both at work and at home. Ever concerned about being able to reference important documents from the past, I also keep these files much longer than reasonably necessary.

With an unusual ruthlessness, I took less than fifteen minutes this morning before work to cull some of the obviously obsolete files from my office cabinet. I'm certainly getting better at this, since in the past I would have poured over each piece of paper before discarding it. Today, on the other hand, I made flash decisions based on the title on the folder tab. Scary, I know.

I also returned an audio cassette to our Speech & Language teacher, who had lent it to us as a baby shower gift. It contained womb sounds and became one of the more significant gifts we received. We've since discovered that Chase really is calmed by these sounds, and I downloaded my own copy and put it on CD. In fact, as I write this, he is sleeping soundly in the living room, with the rhythmic -- and slightly creepy -- heartbeat sounds pulsing all around both of us. Pam wanted her original tape back, so she could hand it off to future new parents. They will certainly appreciate her thoughtfulness.

One final note to close School Downsize Week: As I supervised playground duty this morning, I noticed a familiar book bag on the back of a kindergartener. Sure enough, it was one of the downsizes from Day One of this week, now providing safe book transport for a little girl who badly needed it. Kinda makes me feel like a good teacher.