Grateful Friday

School the week before Christmas is not for the faint of heart.  The children are keyed up.  I have not helped the situation because I love Christmas and have been adding to the mayhem.  We could do some quiet bland worksheets and calm everyone down.  But no, let's read another Christmas story, I say.

Yesterday was Ugly Sweater Day a.k.a. the day none of us run errands after school. I love my third grade team! 

I'm grateful at the close of the 2020 year for the place where I work.  That place is all heart.  The teachers were recently sent an email to stop donating coats because they were running out of room to store them.  A kindergarten teacher is also a Young Women leader and for "Girls Camp" in pandemic times, they had a food drive and donated all the food to the school.  When the school hears about a family in trouble, food is loaded up and delivered.  There was a giving tree where we bought gifts for needy students.  

We can't do much to lift the burdens on these narrow shoulders but I'm so grateful to be at a place where everyone does what they can.  The errand of angels is given to women.  They inspire me to be better.

When I was in high school, I had two teachers tell me, when they found out what my career plans were, that I was "too smart" to be a teacher and I should choose something else.

Even at the time I recognized it was an awful thing to say to someone.  (Also, they were teachers....)

Here's the thing.

I'm not too smart to be a teacher.  If anything I'm not smart enough.

It takes all my brain power to manage all the personalities, to differentiate learning, to pantomime to non English speakers, to keep them engaged, to keep their masks on, to switch gears when a lesson isn't working, to motivate the daydreamers and recalcitrant defeated ones who don't want to try, to address learning disabilities and how to work around them, to plan lessons and keep track of all the things.  

Keeping track of all the things could be a job unto itself.

Then I have to be able to use technology.  I'm tech support for my students and they push random buttons that do random things to their Chromebooks.

(I've been known to text Adam for advice.)

I have to be flexible to all the crazy things that happen (the bloody noses and broken shoes and spilled contents of desks and/or water bottles.)  I need to wade through the tattling after recess and decide which things need to be ignored and which need to be dealt with.  I have to notice the students who don't have warm enough coats and who are hungry.  I have to not cry when they show up in clothes so dirty you can only imagine the chaos they live in, when one of them is heartbroken over a death in their family or they tell me that their family doesn't have enough money for Christmas this year.  (I have to not cry in front of them; I cry plenty when they aren't around.)

I'm not too smart for this.  Not by a long shot.

I'm grateful no one has noticed and I get to keep trying.

The secret is out

I have been fielding lots of questions about Santa.  I have students on both sides of the question and some who are on the fence and want answers.  

I am firmly on Team Santa.  I will die on that hill.

I was having my literacy student create sentences about Christmas themed words.  There were elf and Santa and sled and snow and tree and a lot of other words.  They could create their own sentences using the words or a variation on the words.  Capitals at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end of sentences were non-negotiable.

And a comma at the end of the sentence was not OK.  (They asked.)

They were working along and one of them asked, "Are you Santa?"

I approached the sentence warily, thinking of all the other third grade conversations I'd had on the subject.

"You are Santa, and we're your elves!" he declared.  "That's why we have to do all the work."

Then a realization dawned on him.  "Wait," he said. "Are you a teacher so you don't have to do any work, so your students have to do all the work?"

Yes.  Because that's how the world works.  There are these sentences that need writing.  If I weren't a teacher and didn't have students to write the sentences for me, I'd have to do it all myself.

Here's the takeaway:  if you're tired of doing all the work, become a teacher.  You can make your students do all the work and your life will be easy town and you'll be the mayor.

These kids delight me.  Daily.  That's why I became a teacher.  (Them doing all the work is just a nice side benefit.)

My biggest boy

Last night Mark was gone and we were having one of our weird empty nester dinners.  We were just pulling random stuff out of the fridge.  

Braeden came over to use the garage for some car maintenance.  

I pushed the last of Mark's chocolate cake on him.  He happily complied, ate it right off the cake plate.  I poured him a glass of milk.

I offered him a toasted cranberry English muffin with cream cheese.  He took two.

I offered him pea pods.  He said no thanks.

Adam offered him fish sticks that he was just pulling out of the air fryer.  Braeden had half of one.  He explained, "I've already had dinner."

I'll never get tired of feeding my kids.  They can come over any time.  

I told Braeden about the conversation I'd had at school.  Yesterday, my literacy students were asking me about my children.  They said, "You have an 18 year old?!?" (I told them that my 18 year old hated The Amazing Christmas Extravaganza which I was reading to them.)  I told them I had older kids too.

"Do they all live in your home?"

I said only the 18 year old.  "The other two are in college."

One boy said, wide eyed, "I'm not going to college.  I don't need people yelling at me all day."

I told them that was not what college was like.  I told them I liked college.  I told them no one yelled at me in college.

I said, "That's how I got to be a teacher, by going to college."

They all just looked at me in sort of wonder.  It occurred to me that they maybe didn't know anyone who had gone to college.  Anyone besides me.  This felt like the first conversation about college they'd had.

I don't know.

But I hugged my college boy extra tight.  He told me about his grad school applications.  He showed us a clip from Jimmy Kimmel.  He talked to his dad about obscure political things.  They don't talk about the things you get from the headlines.  They delve deeper.

For the millionth time in my life I felt grateful for opportunities that were handed to me so I can in turn hand them to my children.  I'm grateful for plenty of food.  Even if we eat it in weird combinations sometimes, we have enough. 

The contest

I used to love playing Monopoly with my sisters.  We had our own elaborate rules and it sort of ruined me for regular Monopoly.  I used to keep a deck of cards in my purse to keep Mark occupied at restaurants when he was little.  He was a world class fidgeter and we would play War which helped him not to climb the walls.  Besides that, I'm not really into games.  I like Boggle OK, but mostly because I always win at Boggle.

Games mostly bore me.  I'm not competitive.  It's one reason (and also I'm not very coordinated) that I'm not into sports.  I have no competitive drive to put my body into peril.  I never have.

So that's why it was a pretty terrible idea that I'm the "team lead" for the competition at school.  My team consists of the third and fourth grade teachers.  I was assigned team lead.  It's some sort of virtual competition.  After school, the fifth and sixth grade teachers were walking around the school with their laptops open, finding clues and talking to each other over google meet.  I was making copies.  I felt an obligatory pull to stop making copies and go rally my troops and solve some clues.  

I had the copy machine singing though and I was making progress on those copies.

The principal walked through and I said, "What's the deal with all these clues?  Are they something?"  They seemed like they could be red herrings.

He laughed like they probably were red herrings.

At the first faculty meeting he was in charge of though, he told us whoever had a sticky note under their chair would get a free day off.  We all looked under our chairs and there was no sticky note.  I told him that day that he was going to give us trust issues.

He said, "You'll get an email tomorrow with instructions about the contest."

So maybe ignore those "clues."  But I have trust issues with that guy.

But I also wanted to make copies.

If my team stages a coup and gets a new leader, I will understand.

More birthday celebrating

We celebrated Mark's birthday again on Sunday with "the kids" as Mark calls them.

I knew full well that chocolate cake would be on the menu.  I asked Mark what he wanted for dinner.

He said, "I don't know..."

I started listing things I know he likes.

He said, "Well...what I want...well, I don't know...maybe...I don't know..."

"What?" I asked, thinking he was going to make some impossible request.

He said, "Well, I want spinach egg casserole.  Do you think you could bake bread to go with it?  Is that too much?  Is it too hard?"

Sweet sweet Mark.  He misses me making bread but he is the first to put his arms around me and tell me that I'm doing important work and "those kids need you!"when I lament that I'm not the homemaker I used to be.

I said, "I'll make bread."  After all, Mark is a little bit of the king every day, not just on his birthday.

Baking bread isn't hard at all, it just takes a block of time.  I told Mark that it actually felt empowering to bake bread because maybe I am not as sad sack tired all the time as I thought.  (It is getting better.)

I baked bread.  And I did take a nap.  Still.

Sunday I pulled out the special birthday plate and when it was time to blow out the candles, I told everyone to stand by Mark so I could take a picture.  Emma said, "Let's all stare awkwardly at Mark."  I'm not sure why she thought that would make a good picture, but I kind of liked the result.

It looks a little like they're all staring adoringly at him.  Awkward and adoring.  That's my kids.

Grateful Friday

Yesterday was the first time I had ever felt actually sad about one of my children's birthdays.  Mark growing up just hit me.  I'm grateful for understanding friends who...you know...understood.  Jamie, who has kids about the same age as mine, prescribed Oreos and watching a sad movie and just crying it all out.

We went to Red Robin instead because that was the birthday boy's wish and he was king for the day.  I feel less sad today and he is no longer king.  It was a one time deal for both of us.

In general, having grown children is kind of delightful.

I love that our kids are able to pursue their dreams and follow their passions and have opportunities.  I know what a blessing and luxury that is!  

This week, Braeden gave a lecture at BYU.  Adam and Mark watched the broadcast but I was teaching math at the time.

Adam took a few pictures for me.  I love this one because I can tell he is about to say something witty.  It's the same expression he'd get when he was three and he was telling me knock knock jokes.

He inserted a few jokes into his presentation that he knew Adam (and only Adam) would get.  

Braeden for president!  He'd have my vote.

 

18 things I love about Mark

He is always willing to help  and he is competent at whatever you need him to do (minus decorating the tree).

He handles having diabetes like a champ.

He loves creature comforts.

He has so many playlists created that he assigns them Greek letters.

He doggedly pursues his passions.

He can argue with the best of them (we are a family of arguers and debaters--I blame Adam and graduate school).

He can fix things--things I think are beyond fixing.

Give him an IKEA package and an Allen wrench and he will give you furniture.

He loves his siblings with a pure and loyal love.

He is a good friend.

He works hard at his job.

He is good at talking to adults.

He is understanding when life shifts.

He is loving to his parents and will give me a hug if he senses I need one or text his siblings to warn them of maternal storms brewing.

He is wickedly funny.

Having diabetes has made him more empathetic and I love seeing that.

He is great company on a road trip.

He is 18 today.