The Absence of Wind on a Crystal Clear Lake or Happy Birthday Ms. G

Since Helen was a year and a half old and Lauren a year, they have been in one form of school or another.  There was Mother's Day out, preschool, public school in Plano, a charter school in Richardson, and now a public school in Allen.  Once you put your child into "the system" you come face to face with the reality of underpaid, overworked, tired, frustrated, over managed teachers.  As if this was not enough, they end up providing a ridiculous amount of supplies to the class room.  Every parent who has winced at the $60 -$70 worth of beginning of the year supplies should feel the pain of a teacher who looks around mid September and realizes, her classroom of kids who had fresh beautiful supplies 3 weeks ago are running dangerously low.  I have one chronic looser of pencils and one who goes through paper like I go through Cheetos.  All the hours I spent encouraging my toddlers to express themselves artistically accidentally transformed them into mindless supply eating zombies.

Elementary teachers have some well of patience and love that keeps them functioning at extraordinary levels in the classroom.    But they have another well, one of anger and resentment that is sometimes hard to keep contained outside the classroom.  It is heart breaking to watch talented classroom teachers wither under administrative bureaucracy that has lost touch with the magic experienced in the classroom.  I saw this more in the charter school than anywhere else.  Teachers were being paid $10,000 a year less but with the project based learning, their planning was twice as long.

We parents don't always help morale either.  We mean to, of course.  We talk about how much we support our teachers.  Some of us donate time, others supplies.  But.....there are those pesky tests.  The ones a good many of us are revolting against.  And the new partial absence policy after 8:15 rule.  And the fact that if you forget your driver's license, on a day you forgot to get lunch up, until 2 minutes before your kid's designated lunch time, well you are just S.O.L.  After all, you wouldn't want to jeopardize their safety, never-mind that low blood sugar.  Oh, and while we are on the subject of blood sugar don't even think about the bad last century habit of bringing birthday cupcakes to your kid's class.  This is nutritional treason.   Henceforth there will be birthday pencils!  Which does a nice job of circling the conversation back to replenishing supplies.  The point is, even after meaning to support the teachers, we often get so pissy with school policy that it leaks into our interactions with the teachers.  There is an undercurrent of disgruntled flowing through public schools that threatens to reach flood levels soon.

It is for this reason that I was unprepared for Lauren's 2nd grade teacher.  You get use to the current.  Its absence is as noticeable as the absence of wind on a crystal clear lake.  I noticed right away though I hadn't yet identified it as absence of current.  I just assumed it was young can do attitude. One day in the car pool line after only a couple days of school, she made a point to come up to my car and discreetly let me know Lauren had had an accident.  I cringed.  Last year's teacher had cringed.  I expected this teacher to cringe.  Instead, I got, "Don't worry, I have a plan for this.  From now on when Lauren goes to the resource room she will go to the bathroom first."  There has not been another accident since that day.  We had a few other hiccups in those first few weeks and this young, fresh faced woman deftly handled all of them.  She knew Lauren had never participated in the classroom before.  Her solution: create a small group where Lauren would be a critical part of the group where her participation is a goal of the group.  Everyone is rewarded when Lauren uses her loud and proud voice.  This makes everyone love to interact with her and she with them.  Brilliant.  She knew Lauren can't write more than a few words to participate in classroom work.  Her solution: Have Lauren tell her what she wants to write.  The teacher writes it as Lauren says it, then Lauren writes it and she is graded in a way that we can all see how much of the lessons are being comprehended.  I am the most amazingly proud Mom knowing that my child who I had thought incapable is consistently making strong C's, some B's and the occasional A (Insert me doing a happy dance).  And so the year has proceeded until wa la, first 9 week teacher/parent conferences.

You get 15 minutes for a teacher/parent conference.  Not a lot of time.  I try not to load up on coffee because my mouth is not the one that needs to run.  This is time to be quiet and hear the heartbeat of your child's day.

I sit down in the very small chair.  I am very aware of its smallness.  I realize how at home the teacher is in the other small chair.  Of course, she sits here with them, it is her day home.  She smiles the dazzling smile that is reserved for magical second grade teachers, genuine, warm but confident and strong.  "I want you to know that Lauren has the absolute right teacher this year.  I decided in 2nd grade that I wanted to be a 2nd grade teacher.  This is what I have always wanted to do.  I was pulled just like Lauren to go to the resource room from 4th grade on.  She doesn't like to be pulled, she doesn't like to leave the classroom but I told her I did it to and went to my resource teacher Ms. Rose and she helped me reach my goals.  I asked the children their goals.  Lauren wants to go to Fairy college to be a Fairy.  Ms. McGurk, I want you to know I know someone who grew up to be a fairy.  She is a tooth fairy and she goes to schools talking to kids about health and taking care of their teeth and she loves her job.  Lauren can absolutely be a fairy if that is her passion and the fact that she is willing to go to college.  Did you notice that?"  She proceeds to take 20 minutes instead of the allowed 15 to tell me lots of things.  She is missing class on Friday for a personal day, the first one she has taken in her 5 years of teaching but it is for a wedding, but she hates to leave her class...  What I heard was what every parent wants to hear from a teacher.  She loves her class.  She believes in Lauren.  She wants with all her heart to teach my child without trying to turn her into someone she is not.  She is teaching the class to accept who they are and others even if they are different.  Most importantly, for me, I could tell she wants Lauren to believe in Lauren.  I also heard and felt someone living her dream.  All the things that are negative about school melt in the presence of such a person.

When I turned to leave I hugged this teacher.  I don't do that.  I know she is use to the kids hugging her but I am not so sure she is use to parents spontaneously breaking into a hug.  There was no other way to express how overwhelmed I was to be in presence of someone with such a strong, tender, persevering heart.  A teacher's heart.    

 

   

Poetry and Death

Random thought number 1.

When I want to be vague I write poetry.
In my head there are a million words spinning, swirling, taking up space.
But poetry is 5 card draw.  Reach in.  Take one from the deck and place a bet.
I was looking for a power adjective and grabbed a pronoun.  Damn.
Even better if I can grab words that rhyme.
The couch they kissed upon was orange.
It felt cold and sweaty and.....sporange.
Damn.

Maybe I will write a cookbook instead.

    

Random Death thought #1.

Death stood in the doorway.
Together.  Hand in hand.
Because death is too frightened to be alone so it comes in twos or threes.  This time it was two.

Death stood in the doorway, waiting.  Not wanting to intrude on life's final moment.
Despite what people think, death has impeccable manners.
Death can wait for months or even years.
It is life who decides how quickly death will come.
    
Death stood in the doorway, like Adam and Eve.  Tempted by the apple.
Even barely rasping breath, and body ravaged, life's beauty mesmerizes.
If death is peace, it is so in the way water is peaceful in its stillness.  In the way a room is quiet with no children in it.  It is not the peace of a full belly or a picnic blanket after a bike ride.  Death longs for the bike ride.

Death stood in the doorway, ready as life frolicked away.  They walked hand in hand and covered the place where life had pulsed with wavelessness.  They held each other as sadness fell into them.  When there was no more heartbreak flooding the space where life had been, the three of them left.

Inside this Life

we live
love
write
forget
remember
start over.

days
weeks
generations
all of us intent on being something
we already are.  

American Morning Snapshot

I wake up at 4am because I have spent most of my life being a slacker.   This morning I have to get Helen to school by 7:15am so I am too stressed about missing it to sleep any longer.  This is choir practice for God's sake.  If she misses more than one because slacker Mom did not get her ass out of bed, she is off the bleachers.  No 'Texas our Texas' coming out of Helen's little mouth at some future PTA meeting.

I get up, gathering necessary sundries from the dryer and drop them on the stairs for the trip up.  I head to the fridge and gather the ingredients for lunches.  Okay, this makes it sound like I did something.  On stressful mornings I make a deal with the food devil and give my kids lunchables.  I can never in good conscious brag about cooking organic, non-gmo, non-processed real food because at least once a week my kids get a lunchable.  They are kids and they celebrate those days like I have taken them to the other food devil, McDonalds.  Oh yeah, I guess that is another reason I can't brag about our food habits.

I take up the assorted clean clothes items and let the kids pick through until they find the right mix of comfortable.  Thank God they are not yet into stylish, non-rumpled and comfortable.  I am dreading that day.  Everyone is excited it is jacket weather finally so they put on their jackets and hop around outside for a few minutes.  They spot me pulling shoes out of the closet so they hop back in.  It is the last day of the shoe drive at school.  The last day I can pull old shoes out of the closet and let my children donate them to children on the other side of the planet who don't have shoes.   I have had at least three weeks to do this.  Slacker.  Particularly since I know my children.  Breakfast and putting on their own shoes is now of very little interest.  Not to mention the negotiation process with Lauren who will someday be on a tear jerking episode of hoarders where she will not let go of the same pink cowboy boots she demanded we keep today.  "Mom, these are from my old school.  These are my memory boots from Katelyn.  They are the only reminder I have.  You can't give away my memory." The pink boots stay.  The tap shoes, rain boots, cinderella "glass" slippers, dilapidated crocks and perfect sketchers that only fit Lauren for about 10 minutes go.  The carnage is left on the floor in the hall to deal with later.  Time wise we are still okay, which is a miracle.  Of course the children are not eating their breakfast, they are writing notes to the children and sticking them in the shoes.  I can't complain.  I brought this on myself.  Slacker.

Helen has become a pro at inhaling food.  She is the slowest eater but when push comes to shove, she can cram an entire waffle with 4 inches of Reddiwhip into her mouth.  I kid you not.  Gone are the days of cutting up grapes, the ultimate toddler choking hazard.  The new normal is watching this process and thinking "Good, that will hold her over until lunch."

We pull up to the school just as I see a student go in with the music teacher.  They disappear.  It is 7:08am.  I have a moment of panic.  Helen has a moment of panic.  We knock on the door like bears are about to attack.  Ms. Gibson comes out and opens the door.  "Were we suppose to be here at 7am?  I am not a responsible adult.  I can't remember if it is 7 or 7:15am."  Yes, I actually said this.  Fortunately Ms. Gibson is a goddess and assures me we are fine.  It is in fact 7:15am.

Lauren and I pull around to the front.  We made it but now have a gap of time where she and I can sit in the parking lot together before she needs to go in, well, and in fact before they will even let her in.  Schools are one of those precise timing things, like trains in Switzerland.  Doors don't open until 7:30am.  2nd graders and under go to the cafeteria between 7:30am and 7:50am.  The first bell rings at 7:50am when kids can head to their classroom.   The tardy bell rings at 7:55am and the doors lock.  After 8:15am your kid is considered partially absent for the day.  I am an ish person.  As in, I will be there around 9ish.  Hence, the reason I was up at 4am worrying.

We sit together and watch the rest of the choir students go in and the people putting up the tables in the cafeteria.  We see the students whose parents drop them off in front of the school before the doors open because they need to be to work early, the kids who volunteer to help in the drop off line.  Lauren has her little notebook and draws me her imaginary tree house.  It is fantastic.  She starts with the ladder.  It has a slide down into a pool and the slide looks like a rainbow.  She draws a pokemon lamp.  The wave of kids starts to swell.  In the middle of the wave is a policeman with his strawberry hair cut whisker short.  He is probably my age or a little older.  He high fives every child as they go by, one at each hand.  He positively radiates good natured fun.  The kids adore this authority figure who squats down to the shortest scholar and raises his hand high for the tallest.  He makes every child he greets feel important, but it is completely symbiotic.  I imagine the dose of adoration sustains him through encounters with grumpy housewives who have been up since 4am doing 50 in a 40 on their way to Starbucks.

I hated getting up this morning but I loved watching the whole morning process unfold.  It had the feel of stop motion photography.  I was sitting still in a whirlwind and watching it whirl.  The earlier risers, the walkers, the little brothers and sisters.  And of course my people, the ish people.  I watched their kids dive into the doors before they locked and gave a little cheer when I saw the last imp make it in.          

A Trip to the Store.

Yesterday was grocery shopping day.  I had put it off for as long as I could after vacation but 3 days with no bread, eggs or milk for my coffee, it was time.  I should have realized as we walked into Kroger's and the alarms went off that this was not going to be a smooth trip.  I stood frozen for a moment anticipating a cavity search when the Starbucks guy waves me in, so off we head to the pharmacy.  It takes about 15 minutes to get the prescription during which time Helen carries her sister around the tiny pharmacy room.  They look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa on a drunken Segway.  Great parent I am, I choose to ignore them, if they run into something or someone I will turn around and pretend I did not realize they were being obnoxious and ceremoniously ground them from their ipads.

They tire of this when they remember the last time we were here they begged for the pink digital thermometers on the end cap.  That day I said no.  They are only $2.99 apiece so this time I relent.  I am sure there will be a plot to reprogram them to hot since school starts in less than two weeks.

Sadly this Kroger is arranged in such a way that we now have to cross the entire store and semi-exit to get a cart.  We do this and again set off the alarms, only this time the girls have the thermometers.  "Go back!! Go back! Go back! Go back!"  I say.  "You are holding the thermometers!"  The girls rush back into the store while I hurry in with the cart.  At this point we are feeling a bit criminal.  No one else has set off the alarms.  

We proceed to the produce section.  Maybe the kids have not gotten out much this summer but they set upon the fruits and vegetables like a virus.  Lauren goes off in the direction of the apples.  "Mom I want apples.  I am going to get 4 apples, one each of my favorites."  I hurriedly get her bags for each apple.  The checker is going to love us.  Helen decides we need to attempt cooking our own beets.  They discover purple cotton candy by the melons.  We are only a third through the store and I am hungry and beaten down.  We are putting every bad choice in our line of sight in the cart, powdered donuts, pink iced sugar cookies, frozen fast food french fries,  purple cotton candy and candy orange slices.  I have to get those, Grandma Reddy use to keep those in a lovely little candy dish.  Maybe I can find a lovely little candy dish.  Maybe the beets will offset some of the sugar.  

Around the luncheon meat the kids are suddenly done with shopping and start farting on each other.  Now I am done shopping with them.  I smile thinking, oh boy, this is the last trip before school starts.  Hoorah, my Happiness Happens moment of the day, no more shopping with the banshees for the rest of the year.

We head to the checkout where I escape into the People magazine, thankful I am not married to Ben Afflick who appears to have been boinking the Nanny.  How cliche.  Poor Jennifer.  Why can't 40 something year old men just be happy with their 40 something year old wives, especially when they look like Jennifer Garner.  Oh crap, I am up, the children are being obnoxious again and this time I really did not notice.  I better swipe my card before I hold up traffic, can't wait to get home and break into the candy orange slices.  

"Ma'am, your card has been declined."  I look at the checker blankly.  This is impossible.  John got paid Friday.  He put money in.  I haven't spent any money yet.   "That is impossible." I say.  "Please try it again."  The checker who has just rung up 10 different produce items, one per bag and all the other items tries the card again. "Ma'am, your card is still declined."  

Crap, crap, crap.  I move over to the side isle, start checking my account which is indeed in the negative.  I start looking back, convinced I have been the victim of identity theft.  No, I am the victim of John forgetting to put money in my account Friday and me forgetting to make sure there was money in my account before a $200 grocery trip.  

This is the moment John dreads.  The moment when he is out of town and I bombard him with nasty texts and phone messages.  On about the 6th call (he is in a meeting in Manhattan), his admin. picks up.  I will say that I did a bang up job not saying one curse word while explaining the situation to Yolanda.  I am known in certain circles for dropping uncontrollable f-bombs.  I had lots and lots of Captain Kirk pauses where I said them in my head but none came out of my mouth.  

Yolanda messaged John, about two minutes later he texted that the money was in my account.

During the 20 minutes I was waiting, texting and feeling mad enough to pop, a woman walked over to me and asked if I needed a ride, she offered to buy my groceries.  Lauren was crying by this time and she helped diffuse that.  I was too much in angry mode to acknowledge how kind this lady was.  I thanked her of course but I wish I had said more because I realized this was my real Happiness moment of the day.  Anyone who is willing to approach a situation where another human being is seeping hostility and anger from every pore just because they recognize someone in need deserves to be recognized for their exceptional kindness.  She did help but it was by listening.  I feel guilty, at least I could have paid back the money, there is no payback for listening to a stranger rant.

I stood back in line.  Rechecked out.  This time the card worked.  Yippee! As we exited the store we set the alarms off for the third and final time, this time, we just rolled with it.  

A Blue Deer

If there is one thing I have learned from my 9 years of being a Mom, parenting is not like riding a bicycle.  There is no mastery.  I forget what I am doing and crash almost daily.  Take for instance yesterday.  It is appropriate that we started the school year with a paint party and finished with one.  The first one the kids behaved badly.  At this one, it was me.  I know, I know, I know, after all of my righteous indignation over the little girls walking around judging whose hearts looked like they were “supposed to” and whose looked bad; I sat there being very grumpy that Lauren’s deer did not look like everyone else’s.  What can I say?  I got swept up in the completed piece sitting at the front of the class with it’s sweet little face, standing in the snow, speckled with spots.  It was precious.  I could just see it hanging over her bed.  Alas, we came home with an entirely blue deer since Lauren’s deer was swimming.  No snow.  No sweet face.   

I sat there, watching as everyone else went from the sky, to the outline of the deer, to the inside of the deer, the ground and the final touches.  Lauren had wanted me to sit right by her, giving her confidence and protection from any outside forces that might hamper her mojo.  Instead, she got this.  “Don’t forget to put the blue lines where you want the sky to end like the teacher said so the blue doesn’t go down too far.  Go ahead and outline your deer so you don’t loose it honey.  Do you want the brown on your brush for that? “  I was a constant stream of suggestions.  Soon, she had become timid with her brush strokes and was chewing her hair.  I hate people standing over me when I paint.  It is a process, one that often looks stupid while I am in the middle of it.  I wouldn’t want over suggestive Mom hovering over me.

Soo, I went outside.  I made the mistake in my foul mood of saying I had to leave because I couldn’t take it.  Of course I got the subtle tisk-tisk from the Moms who were in full-blown Zen mode with their kids painting whatever and however they wanted (of course for every single one of them that included a brown deer with a sweet face, a blue sky and solid ground).  I understand, I too have been the tisk-tisk Zen Mom.  I have looked at high strung women and thought, “Life is too short to get all worked up over what your kid is painting.  What is wrong with you?  Lighten up.  Let them have fun, that is what this is all about.”   But for me, I realized, the fun wasn’t what it was all about.  It was about Lauren being different.  All year long she has struggled with not making friends because she is different.  She struggles because the way she learns is different.  The way she interprets the world is different.  So of course, absolutely the way she paints is going to be different.  But sometimes, I just want her to be like everybody else.  I want everyone to look at her deer and see a brown deer.  Not a blue silhouette of a deer splashing in an endless sea of blue where the sky and the water meet barely distinguished one from the other.

In the midst of my parent pity party, the little boy sitting next to Lauren looked at her picture and in complete earnest said, “I really like your sky.  It isn’t like mine but I really like how you are doing it.”

I hate to admit I left the party still sulky even after that little boy poignantly delivered the Mom lesson I needed to hear.   By the time I got home, I started to get some perspective.  I started to see the beauty in this painting my 7 year old had done with nothing but blue and white.  It wasn’t how I would have done it or how 20 other kids would have done it.  It is totally different but just as beautiful.  It isn’t easy to have a different child.  You worry because the majority of people are never going to get them.  But, some people do and that is worth more than 100 sweet-faced deer with browns coats and white speckles. 

The Top 3 Reasons I love you.

Helen has this brilliant teacher, Mrs. P., she has these great ideas that turn things like reading time into something special.  Friday the kids made towel and chair forts, turned off the lights, then curled up with a good book.   Last week she also had the kids create simple yet thought provoking 3, 2, 1 Mother’s day cards.   The card consists of the Top 3 reasons each child has for why they love their Mom.  Helen listed them as follows.

Number 3:  You take us to do lots of fun things.

Number 2:  You’re always there for me.

Number 1:  You will love me no matter what.

It was such a gift for me to know these three things.  I have just spent a good portion of the school year yelling at them for loosing at least 100 socks, for spending more time getting up from the table than eating at meal time, and for turning their rooms and playroom into the pit of despair.  I could go on and on and on but the bottom line is that a whole lot of parenting is spent in a grumpy state.  I have been particularly grumpy with Helen because she is 9 and now at the Bart Simpson age.  Before I was a parent I had no idea Bart was portrayed at that stage of life for a reason.   9 year olds are obnoxious.  I was obnoxious.  John was obnoxious,……sometimes I think men never really leave the Bart Simpson phase, it just morphs into Homer.

I see how Helen looks at me now when I correct her.  It is no longer the hurt little girl who is sad and remorseful for doing something wrong.  She gets sullen and mumbles under her breath things like “I was JUST trying to be funny.  I was JUST trying to make a point.  I was JUST reading a book and enjoying being engrossed in another world and didn’t notice you leaving Target to go get Lauren from tutoring which is why you had to have the store put in lock down while the book and I were being located.” 

Ah, we are entering the stage where being a parent means spending a lot of time being disliked.  So, to get a card that says “I love you for taking us to do lots of fun things, you’re always there for me,” and most of all, the one I love reading more than anything because it is so true, “You will love me no matter what,” brightens even the rainiest Mother's Day.

Thank you Helen and Mrs. P for the rainbow.