Parents NEVER Lie… Much

Warm weather has set in in Virginia, and summer vacation is almost upon us. Keeping with annual tradition, tonight we blew up the inflatable kiddie pool in the back yard and prepared to fill it will chilly (FREEZING) tap water. For the second year in a row, we pulled swim diapers on the twins and tugged suits onto the squirming bodies of our three children.

Realizing I had left my camera inside again, I settled in to watch them giggle and squirm as they laughed and jumped both away and toward the water hose. Laughingly, I learned that the twins liked the water but didn’t want their suits to get wet. Why would anyone want to get water on a perfectly dry bathing suit?

Stranger still was the educational conversation I had with Maddie. It went something like this:

ME: When we go to the big pool, should you go swimming by yourself?

MADDIE: Yes!

ME: No… (Insert explanation of why she needed an adult and who counted as an adult.)

MADDIE: (jump jump jump splash jump jump) Squeal

ME: Remember, we can’t run when we’re at the big pool either. You might fall and break your head.

MADDIE: Like a zombie!

ME: (pause… consider my answer… decide to take the moral high ground and tell her the truth) Yes! Exactly like a zombie!

That’s just how we roll.

Have Phone… Will Talk

The twins like to talk, correction, LOVE to talk… when they want to.  This is often not when I want them to or about what I would like to discuss.  In fact, we have reached the growl, whine, and stomp phase.  They favorite words are “MOOO!” (move), “eenaa” (banana), “abba” (apple), and “peet-zaa” (you can figure that one out).  The also like the phrase “Mine, aaaa mine!”  What they also can say, but often don’t, are things like “please,” “more,” and “I love you.”  (They like to wrestle, smack, and occasionally try to use their teeth as weapons of minor destruction.)

I find it strange, however, that when you put a phone in their hands, they can talk for ever, often in a language I don’t speak, but heaven help you if you try to take the phone from them.

Ahh… they are truly girls… and just think, I have three of them!

 

Please send chocolate.

(Abby at top and Makayla at bottom)

Big Fish/Small Pond: Student Entitlement

Eleven years in, there are still some things that just floor me. Looking at the general population of students at the small school where I teach, from the bottom of my heart, I know that they are good humans. They will grow and mature, become vital members of our community, and someday raise families of their own. There are some, however small that minority, who are so assured of their status in this world.

They make me cringe.

My filter, which is always worn thin by this point in the school years, has great difficulty not reminding them of who they are and where they are (and sometimes where they come from). I manage to refrain.

When, oh when, did we- a civilized group of human beings- start raising a group of children who are so lost in their own expectations of entitlement that they forget to see the value of work and sacrifice, or even determination?

Why do they assume that they get to roam the halls just because they feel like it? In groups of seven or eight? For thirty minutes at a time?

Why do they get to use the bathroom in another building just because they don’t “like” the one only a few feet away from my classroom door? When did their trips start involving being gone for twenty minutes or more, and what do they think they need to do with a cell phone while they are there? When did the expectation become that teachers are to be ok with this? Teachers, who are lucky to get a two minute bathroom break, are expected to sacrifice the content and context of a lesson so that students can take good care of their colon and their Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Snap Chat account.

When did it become an assumption that deadlines don’t matter? Work can be turned in at random, partially completed, and we are expected to simply put a check on it, log in a perfect score, and return it without complaint.

Who made the rule that only certain students need to monopolize classroom discussions, as if their peers have nothing else to say? Or that they should determine the topic of said discussions? And the duration, volume, and intensity?

Why is it assumed that I will award extra credit for being a good student, or following the rules, or being a human being?

Most importantly, what will become of these individuals who suffer from big fish/small pond syndrome when we are no longer around to support their delusions?

“Hello… Yeah, It’s been a While. Not much, How ‘Bout You” (AKA- I Need Your Help)

As a child in the ‘80s, I remember the above lyrics as background music to life in the town house I lived in for four years.  Mom liked the light stuff; Dad would have had something a little more Rock-n-Roll on the dinosaur sized stereo/record player.  I don’t remember who sang it, and I could look it up in a blink thanks to modern technology, but sometimes I like things to remain nostalgic.  (Bonus points, however, to anyone else who remembers hearing it on the radio.)  Needless to say, when I thought of a posting directed at an audience of those I may or may not have met, these lyrics sprang to mind and became the title for my inquiry.

As today would have it, extenuating circumstances have kept me away from work… think of it as teacher hookie.  I have an amazing idea in mind for my next post, but no time to write it as today (since I’m here anyhow) MUST be dedicated to grading.  (See above real life picture of what plagues me.)  After all, the seniors do need to know if they will graduate in two weeks or not.

In true teacher style, I have set a timer for myself… I must work for X-amount of time before I can get back to writing.  So here’s your assignment:

While I write this blog for myself (therapy) and my children (They may read it in the future… who knows?), I do really enjoy interacting with an audience.  Most of you are family and friends, and I do hope that you are enjoying a glimpse into my erratic brain!  Some of you, I am pleased to say, are people I have never met.  The fact that you are willing to read this must mean that I’m doing something well.  Hello to all!

Now the homework  I have so many ideas, and I need to know where to start.  (A blog I read yesterday aslo encouraged asking readers what they would like to see.)  Tell me what I should write about next.  Between my kids, my job, and strange memories from the past, hopefully there is something you would like to see me pontificate about.  If you don’t have a request, please do me the favor of “liking” anything you enjoy and providing tons of feedback.  Follow me if you would like.  I, like my students, thrive on positive reinforcement!  I also, someday, would like to turn blogging in to something bigger, so your constructive criticism is appreciated as well.  Feel free to leave all comments in the comment box.  Help me to be a better writer, and in return, I will try to give you all the worthless knowledge and humor I have to offer.

Thanks for the help… I will see you again soon.  You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.

Finding a Boy in a Tree May Just Change Your Life

Thinking back, there were things that I was allowed to do that would scare the crap out of me now. Being a parent myself, I understand why children can’t roam unattended, but days were different then, and apparently there was a network of moms, unannounced to their kids, who worked together to keep an eye on our location. As I grew up, I truly do remember days when the lightning bugs came out before we went in. Our moms were somewhere in the background by that time in the evening, but all I remember was the fun created by a random game in someone’s yard.

For the life of me I can’t remember how I managed this freedom, or how I escaped the back yard without an armed escort, but I’m so thankful for whatever trick I employed that lead me to the woods behind our yard when I was only four years-old. The memories are fuzzy, but I know that was where I met the slightest of children, blonde and pixie like. Staring up into the heavens, she stood looking at her brother, but I am sure she was placed there for me to find.

As an adult, I now know that finding a male in the top of a tree is cause for alarm. Then, however, it seemed just as amusing to me as it did to her. I don’t know why he chose to climb a tree behind my house, it was nowhere close to theirs, but I do feel that it was kismet that we met, almost thirty years ago, and I know my life would not be the same today if he had chosen any other tree.

That was the summer of 1984.

As fate would have it, our moms also grew to enjoy their time together, which made it so much easier for the three of us to spend countless hours. I still have the layout of their home ingrained in my memory for it feels like I spent as much time there as I did in my own home. Her family was my family. School, Girl Scouts, camp… we did it all together. She and her brother even sat in the hall with me when my brother, eight years younger than I, was born.

Then the Coast Guard called, and they had to leave…

Off to Florida went my best friend, with the rest of her family and my heart. A year later we moved, and that’s where the story gets really amazing. At the age of eight, I lost all of my friends and had to start over in a new school, but one of them remained despite being separated by four states. Phone calls and letters, newspaper clipping and pictures, somehow we were still a part of each other’s lives.

Then they moved to Michigan, where apparently it snows at least eight months out of every twelve, and still she stayed in touch. Somehow we grew up together, even though we really didn’t.

She was back for my high school graduation, stood as my Maid of Honor at my wedding, and has come after the birth of my children. She is the sister my parents didn’t give me, and for that and much more I am ever so grateful.

Her family is my family, her parents an extension of my own.

As for that boy in the tree so many years ago, I continue to give him thanks. Had it not been for him, I would not have met her.

I would not have received the text yesterday: “Box #1 sent out today.” You see, that means something more to me than it probably does to most people. It means her stuff is on the way… and so is she. There’s no turning back now.

Look out world… Auntie Gina is coming!!