Wild Beast

I've been meaning to write about one of my piano student's younger brother. I have written about the piano student in a earlier blog, and I referred to him as the Reluctant Pianist. His little brother is a handful, and I shall refer to him as Wild Beast. I'll never forget the first piano lesson with Wild Beast peeking around the corner staring at me to see what I was doin' at his house. He was sportin' a devilish grin, and he has turned out to be as impish as he looked that first time I saw him. He did something today that probably has been done a hunerd million times by some little kid to some adult, but it's just that I'm an elementary school teacher who has never had children and am not around preschoolers that much, so I was caught off guard.

I hate to use my client's bathrooms. I go in their house every week for a piano lesson, and I don't want to make a regular habit of dumpin' or whizzin' my load in their house every time I arrive, so I make sure I relieve myself BEFORE the lesson. That way I have a little class and I don't potty every time I'm there.

Except I had a cold. I'm fightin' this one off with everything I have. Expensive juices, VSC, NyQuil, DayQuil, NoonQuil, and lots of liquids of every kind. What this means is, my kidneys and bladder are workin' overtime. So I'm at the Wild Beast's house preparing his older brother for his first piano recital when all of a sudden I realize I'm not going to make it. I check my watch for the amount of time left, the rapidly swelling bladder, and it doesn't take Stephen Hawkings to calculate that I won't make it back to my house, or possibly even my car. So I ask the mother if I may please use their restroom, and she graciously says yes.

I'm in their bathroom taking a relatively long time because I am in my post radical prostatectomy eager bladder and minuscule urethea days, when the little Wild Beast yells out, "HE'S IN THERE PEEIN'!!" I realize that Wild Beast is standin' outside the bathroom door announcing what I hate to do at any client's home and that's use their bathroom. The one time I do it, it's being announced by a kid with vocal chords stronger than a Bose MAX 6000 public address system. I feared he'd start givin' a play-by-play!

"He's unzippn' his britches! He reaches in and pulls out his _ _ _ _ _ _, grabs it in his hands and makes sure it's pointin' in the right direction because the one time you don't want to aim wrong is at someone else's house. He's holdin' his _ _ _ _ _ _ in his hand and is now lettin' it fly. Oops! It's more of a dribble. How come it's not shootin' out? I bet he's bein' careful not to let it dribble on his pants. He'd have to stay in there for a long time if he wets the front of his pants. Boy, this is takin' some time. I'd be done by now. It's slowin' down. Say, Mom, I think he's almost done. The flow is slowin' down now. I just hear drops. Uh-oh! Here comes more. What is with this geezer? Folks, it's a pitiful display of excretory muscles. If it warn't fer gravity, this pee-pee would never come out. Wait a minute, everybody! I think this is it. He's probably giving it a good shake now because the last thing you want is to reposition your _ _ _ _ in your pants before it's all finished. Grown men hate leakage. He's takin' his _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and shovin' it back in there. I hear the zipper goin' again. It's official! He's done!!!

When you're at the Reluctant Pianist's house, you don't have to worry about being embarrassed all by yourself. The whole house is in on it, thanks to Wild Beast.

It's Because All of Her Nicknames Are Food-Related

You know by now that Olivia is little. She is all of twenty-eight inches in length and a whopping 16.5 pounds as of her One Year Old Checkup. And that 16.5 pounds includes a saturated diaper that I hadn't changed since eighteen hours before to get her statistics at least "on the charts" in her file. I felt like that episode of Andy Griffith my father loved so much, the one in which Barney couldn't meet the weight requirements of a deputy. They ended up putting the whistle he wore around his neck on a ten-pound industrial chain and he just squeaked by.

The nurse told me that if she hadn't grown in length since the last visit, she'd be worried. But she still had a look of consternation as she left the room. However the doctor succeeded in allaying my fears where she'd failed, adroitly pointing out that with Eric's 5'8" and my 5'4" and 112 pounds, how big were we expecting her to be? My little ballerina.

He queried me on her eating habits and I had brought a hastily scribbled diary of her typical food schedule.

6:00 a.m.: seven ounces of formula
8:30 a.m.: bowl of oatmeal and jar of fruit, sometimes a scrambled egg with that, and if we go to Starbucks together, a croissant.
10:30 a.m.: second bottle, seven ounces
11:30 a.m.: lunch--meat and vegetable, fruit
1:30 p.m.: third bottle, seven ounces
2:30 p.m.: snack (fruit, cheerios)
5:00 p.m.: dinner--meat and vegetable
6:00 p.m.: final bottle, six ounces

The doctors eyebrows confirmed that I was, in fact, giving Olivia enough nutrition. I even omitted the snacks she enjoys throughout the day: just that morning I had fished out of her mouth some carpet, some stickers, a sunflower seed (shell intact), and a portion of Jake's list of classmates . The point is, Olivia eats. She eats, and then eats, and then craves a little more. And woe be the person who traipses by Olivia with their own sustenance. She wants yours, too.

She'll get bigger, inevitably. And we all live in our house quite accustomed to her appetite. As Jake said the other day--without looking up from his homework--as I searched and called for Simon: "Olivia ate him."

Immunity

I am reasonably sturdy regarding my baby Olivia. If kids want to gather round her and touch her little hands, I don't completely sieze up like I used to when Jake was an infant. I feel confident that a side benefit from breastfeeding O for eight months is a killer immune system that could tolerate a bag o' spinach. We won't discuss whether that is fair compensation for the fact that my breasts now require an engineer-designed pulley system tucked neatly into my Wacoal's.

The other day tested my germ-compatability to its limits. I was in line at the airport to get a Coke to drink, and noticed that there was a woman in front of me alone with her little toddler son. He was repeatedly sticking his hands down into the backside of his pants and furiously digging around. "Mommy," he whined. "My butt hurts." She kept retracting his hand and checking for a poopy diaper--if I had wanted a hamburger at this point all desire would be squashed--and trying to distract him. "Justin," she whined back. "Please keep your hands out of your pants." Out of your dirty behind. She made no move to exit the line and hit the bathrooms which to me seemed an appropriate decision.

"Justin, look at Mommy. Uh, Justin look at the lights. Oh, oh, Justin," and here's where apparently my family steps in to assist her, "Look at the baby!"

Justin turns to see Olivia and I behind him. O, in her stroller and unaware of the E-coli incident occuring directly in front of her, smiles and waves. Justin rushes towards us, hands outstretched, and without hesitation, I whip her stroller around me so fast that Olivia goes lurching backward into the seat.

"Justin, don't touch the baby." Her words were on my side, the side of reason, logic, and propriety, but her glare at me showed how she really felt about me. She threw me some really nasty looks until my coke arrived and I ran off with Olivia to board the plane.

And you of course know the rest, that she was on my plane and two seats behind me.

Word to the wise...if you have a ticket on Continental, seat 19B, bring some Lysol.

Reader's Digest Material

Some literature is frowned upon by persnikety snobs, and Reader's Digest is a likely candidate for criticism. However, it was in a Reader's Digest that I read the short story, "The Year the Yankees Won the Pennant" which was the inspiration for the Broadway musical and the movie "Damn Yankees." To a nine year old boy, that short story was a revelation, and I was captivated by it and exposed as a shameful Yankee fan. As my Boston Red Sox brother Jack once said, "Rooting for the Yankees is like hoping that Bill Gates wins the lottery." But I digress.

Lately I have been writing cute comments that belong in Reader's Digest. Just remember....I am a Reader's Digest fan. Here is the latest entry:

Today during spelling in my fifth grade class, I asked the kids to put one of the spelling words in a sentence. "Who can put magnifying in a sentence? Yes, Tanner."

Tanner seemed sure of himself but he said, "I magnified an ant in the sun."

I was skeptical that he knew the correct usage of the word. "Tanner, what do you mean by the word magnify?"

"Well, it's when you burn up ants." (Appropriately, the class laughs.)

"No, I don't think so, Tanner. Magnifying means making something appear larger in size. A magnifying glass makes things appear bigger than they really are. You were using a magnifying glass to fry the ants. Magnifying does not mean frying."

Akira politely and helpfully pipes up, "Well, Mr. R., maybe Tanner was magnifrying the ants!"

A Little Getaway: Lost in Good Food

My wife and I rarely go on a real vacation, but we do go to Taos, New Mexico for little getaways. They last three or four nights, and we go three times a year if we're lucky. We recently went on one of our little getaways this last Labor Day and savored the sleeping, the dozing, the cable TV, and most of all, the exquisite cuisine. Here is a PalmPilot (low quality) digital photo of the almond crusted baked brie at the Apple Tree Restaurant. It was better than it looked.








We also enjoyed the locally grown chantrelle mushrooms over puff pastry topped with fresh asparagus at the Trading Post and the wilted spinach salad and the ravioli with a red pepper coulis at the Downtown Bistro. In fact, everything at the Downtown Bistro is superb, and the Bent Street Deli serves the best Ruebens we have ever had. For snacks I would eat Taos Cow ice cream which doesn't have the cute names that Ben and Jerry have, but the ice cream is heavier and less foamy. It's incredible, and I wish I was holding a scoop each of: Pinon Caramel, Cinnamon, and Cherry Ristra (with cherries, white and dark chocolate chunks, and nuts). Three scoops, by the way, takes two hands to hold. The stuff is heavy (figuratively and literally).

But we're home now and it's back to fat free cheese, turkey bacon, low-fat yogurt, fruit, vegetables, and salads. D!

Melissa Says The Darndest Things Part lll

Melissa, my clever piano student, was on another roll yesterday during her lesson.
I am planning a program for all my piano students that will be held in September, and I am adding a very brief biography about each performer. I asked Melissa to tell me about herself, what interests she has, etc.

"Well, I like using up money. And if I had three wishes, the first one would be to own the Cottonwood Mall. And I really enjoy going to the beauty salon and having my nails done."

"Melissa, I'm not sure we want to put that in the program. Can you tell me more about yourself, about the real you?"

She batted her eyes and said, "We wouldn't want to tell anyone TOO much about me, would we?"

Then, later in the lesson she was playing "If I Had a Hammer."

"Melissa, you need to play 'If I Had a Hammer' with more enthusiasm. Let's look at the words.
'I'd hammer out danger! I'd hammer out a warnin'! I'd hammer out love between my brother and my sister! I'd hammer out justice! It's the bell of freedom!!' You have to play the song like you mean those words. When you play this song, you should be crying out for justice. You should be crying out for it because there is no justice in this world; there is only law and order."

Her face lit up and she cried out, "Yes, and it's been on for seventeen seasons!"

According to the website, she is correct. Seventeen seasons!

Because I Just Don't Believe That The Up And Coming Language Is Chinese

Eric decided that we were being remiss in Olivia's development, so he asked me to purchase a book and DVD on Baby Signing. The book has pictures of how to sign words that are essential in your baby's daily communication, like "milk", and "more". All this of course prevents your child from rendering tantrums in the checkout aisle of Publix for that pack of Gatorade Gum because they are no longer frustrated from not being able to get their needs across to you. As I have a similar problem as a wife, I am waiting for the Marital Aide on Signing to come out soon.

Olivia's favorite object right now is light. So we immediately turned to the extensive glossary to find the word and open up the secret of that universe to her. There was no hand-signing translation for light. I poured through the entire glossary searching (lamp? light? bright?) and ascertained that while I have the tools before me to teach her to say, "Look Mother and Father, the saxophonist is on fire, can I have some more milk?" there was no reprieve for the fact that she is willing to say "wha's zat?" as she points to the overhead one thousand times in a row.

The book outlined for us the way to teach her this new language, and that the future advantages of her communication were extensive. Children that learn to sign at a young age, the book claims, are showing a better overall ability to communicate when older, are higher performing at school, and are exhibiting an ability to hang around the hearing-disabled children at a party and be invited to share their cocaine quicker than the kids who are unable to sign.

Believe me, Olivia seems quite skilled daily in getting her point across without the signing. Much like the time I had Botox on my forehead and one of the mothers--who was a psychotherapist--
pointed out she was concerned about a society that would be unable to get across their emotions and I implored her to trust me, Jake still is conclusively aware when I am angry, I ask that you trust me that I do not unwittingly change her diaper when she is merely screaming for her dinner. But I applaud Eric's commitment to his daughter's contentment. I just wish he were as committed to teaching Jake to sign and perhaps I would get a little peace and quiet around here.

Olivia refuses to say the word Mommy. We have tried everything, and she will oblige with all other sounds. "Rooooaaaar," she says when prompted what does the tiger say. "Shoe", "table", "shit", "woof", "daddy". No problem, Eric convinced me, as he demonstrated the sign gesture for mommy repeatedly.

The fifty dollar investment has already paid off. Imagine my pleasure when she finally presented her own interpretation.

Mr. Doofy's Chorus

Remember how I vowed not to run the school chorus program again? How busy it is to be a teacher and yet also throw in running a one hundred plus member elementary school chorus? Remember how I gave my notice to the principal? And it was final?

The principal called me into her office last May on the second to the last day of school and handed me a stipend voucher for $1620.00 for doing such a good job. I was happily shocked! Then the principal asked me if I would consider doing chorus again next year if another stipend could be found. I told her my answer would come if I started it up next year.

Next year is here, and of course Mr. Doofy (that's me) is organizing a chorus. We have 148 members signed up and they will soon be crammed onto 6 risers. That makes our chorus larger than the Dallas Vocal Majority, with an average age five times younger than their members, and a little over twelve times as entertaining. My new chorus director is an "alumni" of the elementary school, and an ex-chorus member and spotlighted soloist in many of the chorus shows from about six years ago. She is now a junior in high school and willing to take on such a daunting task. How many of you would like to be charge of 148 third, fourth, and fitfth graders for a little over an hour and a half for the purpose of teaching them to sing songs?

I'll blog some photos with reports on how it went after our first rehearsal on September 14.

Signed,
Mr. Doofy

As MBF Tracy Says, It's ALL About Them

Eric and I had an argument this morning. A thundering, bellowing argument. It was regarding a convulated quagmire that I will not drag you into, but it involves Eric and a whole mess of money skipping him (us, m'fing us, which means I don't get this) and going straight to Olivia, when she's presumably too old to snort it right up her nose. As the mom of two (egads) kids, our argument was my fault* because I felt my lioness shackles going up regarding Jake. We gained our control, agreed to talk later, and about five minutes later Jake walked into the room.

Jake ambled in donning a strange expression, and I felt really disappointed in myself. I wondered how damaging this morning would be on him and I inwardly cringed. "Hey," I said to him.

"Hey," he responded. "I heard you guys arguing."

I felt so ashamed. "I'm sorry, dude. Were you scared?"

His eyes lit up. "No! It sounded like you guys were arguing over who loves me more!"

Hey, I'm nothing if not here to make your day.

*You will never hear this again.

Mad Diary 9.5.06

I'm sharing yesterday's meltdown with you because I am relatively assured that most of my days are governed with a modicum of sanity, and I am also blissfully unafraid of my more, uh, interesting side.

Olivia is probably one of the easiest babies in the world, and while that makes for some pretty banal posts, it helps doing this all over again at the crazy age of 43 be more bearable. So when yesterday, from 12:00 on, she decided to be beligerent, stubborn, and incredibly mom-needy, it came as a great shock to my system. But it probably would have been easier for me to handle if Jake hadn't walked through the door with, on top of his regular homework, 21 pages of grammar and sentence structure homework.

I felt the panic rise up within my throat, the wave of maternal drowning crashing over me. Jake, historically, has found ways to make one sheet of homework last an hour. So, we were now possibly looking at retiring for bed after one o'clock in the morning. Olivia must have fed off my panic, because for the first time ever, when I needed her to take a nap--or at the very least play with electrical outlets while in her walker--she simply would not have it. What started as whimpering, turned into full-scall screaming by seven o'clock. And the reason I am jumping ahead to that hour of the evening is that you do not want to hear the details in between, some of which include:

• insanely screaming "Verb, Jake, VERB!!!!" to "assist" him in understanding what a predicate is

• freebasing Ativan.

What the end of last night showed me was that I do not get to ever call Jake unmotivated again. With few outrageous promises, he finished his homework at seven pm sharp, with minimal complaining. Olivia--having performed enough uncontrolled screaming that my babysitter handed her to me, muttered ear infection, and ran--fell asleep after I rocked her and gave her full attention. The house was a veritable rat's nest of dirty dishes, turned over and half-consumed bottles of formula, toys askew. I was unbathed, still wearing the mismatched sweatpants and top I had thrown on that morning to drive Jake to school.

I let everything get out of proportion and lost so much focus. That very focus that my kids depend upon. I should have appreciated Olivia's clinginess. I claim to have wanted that since Jake in his infancy was so very happy to go to anyone who would hold him.

Today I held her with extra special tenderness, and in my newly regained sanity, thanked her for needing me. And Jake, he said it all after I apologized for yesterday. "Mom," he laughed. "You just love me too much, that's what it is."

My Inspirational "Students of the Month" Speech

September the first arrived and I chose the top two students in my fifth grade class, Calvin and Melissa, to be the September Students of the Month. This was the first important honor bestowed on any of my students this year and I wanted the presentation of this award to be a serious and uplifting moment.

"Class, the month of September has arrived and I am about to announce the first Students of the Month. I have carefully reviewed test grades, quality of homework, participation and attentiveness in class, and behavior both in the classroom and on the playground. I am pleased to announce the September Students of the Month are...........................CALVIN AND MELISSA!!" (appropriate applause) "Calvin and Melissa, you are receiving this award because of your outstanding accomplishments in August. However, I want to challenge you to continue your excellent example in September, to continue leading our class to academic excellence and personal achievement as you did in the month of August."

I should have left it at that, but Calvin and Melissa just sat there. I looked at Calvin and he seemed to be in shock or something. I asked, "Calvin, did you understand what I just said? Calvin? Calvin, are you payin' attention?"

"Huh, Mr. R.?" (appropriate laughter)

I should have known what was coming. Melissa saw her chance when I asked, "Melissa, do you understand the challenge, the responsibility I have given you?"

Melissa mumbles loud enough for the class to hear, "Yeah, whatever."

Nurture vs. Nature? It's To Hang Out Where His Friends Are

There has been an positive change in the atmosphere in this house. We are blissfully watching Olivia growing in mind, becoming more aware and enjoyable, and closer to that day that we can legally require her to get after-school employment. Simon is aging and not on his constant biting campaign. But bigger, and better, is the New Jake that has been coming to the table.

I have shared with you before that I have been surprised that, considering my uber-parenting, Jake is able to talk to me as if I were not only the unhippest human on the planet, but also as though I sport an I.Q. that hovers on the low side of the eighties. And just as I was getting used to such treatment, he morphed into someone else. Someone who seems to occasionally give a damn.

Eric and I have been spending the last few days with our mouth hung open. (His can possibly be more attributed to the fact that he had two wisdom teeth wrenched from his jaw bone. It hurt badly enough for me to scrap my earlier, well-thought out plan of bringing him Tylenols while I squirreled away the percs for my later use.) We are basking in the joy of saying something once and by God It Has Been So Decreed. This is previously unheard of, and I am shocked by some of the responses I have been receiving. Ones that include, "Okay, Mom, I'll do it." or "Oh, sorry Mom, I forgot, let me do it now." or "Hey Mom, I put away the clothes that you folded." And these phrases, accompanied with an appropriate pleasing tone, are all actually followed up by the promised actions. Add this on to a week of one hundreds on tests, highest scores available on the weekly behavior reports, and homework finished without cajoling before 4:00. I was floating on a cloud of success, feeling that my mothering had ultimately won. Sweet Jesus, it worked; the way I have been parenting is a panacea, and clearly I need to write a book on childrearing.

It turns out the book content is small, his true motivation for the amazing see-what-I-can-do-and-how-responsible-I-am-now behavior can be reduced to one paragraph, only because I am pithy. It is merely one sentence for people more concise. And for those that would rather not even get a phone call from me about it: it's this link.

Well, I Couldn't Be More Proud

You know when your kid really looks like a celebrity?





As I am a realist, this is the celebrity my child resembles:

No Child Left Behind: Adequate Yearly Progress: Government Run Amok

I like the title of my blog. I think it says it all.

Some of you may want me to elaborate, but I don't have the time. I am too busy trying to invest all my heart and mind into teaching fifth graders, work on the side for a little extra money, prepare my students for the asinine and mandated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) testing, and work on covering-yer-ass, jargon-driven governmental regulations that could impress the hell out of a bumpkin but to an educated citizen make no real difference in the classroom.

I don't want to complain about any of my fellow citizens who voted for the present idiots in office; hopefully they've learned their lesson. I do want to complain about the Republicans my fellow citizens voted into office. I was a Republican long before most of my readers were, including a stint as a Young Republican in the 1960's, fer cryin' out loud.

Iraq and the national deficit surely concern more Americans than NCLB. Not me. What impacts my life and the kids I care about? No Child Left Behind! I am more concerned about governmental regulations that vainly attempt to improve our children's education yet are nothing more than monumental boondoggles that remind me of President Lyndon Baines Johnson's "Great Society" and "War Against Poverty." I don't know whether to gloat because I did NOT vote for the Republican Party in the last election, or whether to cry over its shameful decline.

I haven't got the time to complain about some of the details, the precise problems that NCLB saddles our educational system with, but I will complain later, and you'll get an earful. As soon as I have time.

Lost In Adults

Last night Eric and I went to dinner at a friend's house, and even though we spent a good hour pre-packing Olivia's necessities and Jake's swimwear, the evening ostensibly was for us. I must confess we teased Diane mercilessly. She is the only person I know that can actually add on to every conversation with "I read a book on that and...". I really like her husband, but I feel a responsibility to introduce her to an ex-boyfriend of mine, someone who is the only person I know that can actually say, "When I read the original German text of Nietzsche...". Joe meet Diane, Diane: Joe. Now y'all excuse me while I go off and watch The O.C.

They have (in a brief spell of unending good fortune for me) a son in the fifth grade at Jake's school. While this may have me some days cursing the smallness of the blogworld and prohibiting me from freely writing about Jake's schooldays angst, it made last night's dinner even more mirthful. If you have any experience with The Transformers with your child, then you know my son is the one that morphs into SaranMan and can wrap himself around me at any function until I cease breathing. But last night he enjoyed himself immensely without requiring my constant witnessing of his doing so. And don't rain on my parade: if they were smoking ganja in the bedroom, then clearly--based on his leaving me alone--he is old enough to make those decisions.

Olivia scooted around on her walker, most contendedly, as Hurley was kind enough to let her play with his cellphone. As this is one of her most fervent desires, she will have a constant soft spot in her heart for any bearded man that gives her trinkets. She was her usual amicable self, and probably more so in the desperate itch for her parents to actually be invited back and develop some semblance of life outside of her.

The adult fest continues for me today, as Jake is over at a friend's basketball court (this being a real indoor one with wood floors, not the nerf version Jake sports atop his bunk bed), and Eric has driven Olivia over to Miami to visit her great-grandmother. I now have had an hour alone and have already found several excuses to amble in to Olivia's room and visit the baby smell. Having had more grown up indulgence in the last fifteen hours than I have had in over twelve months, I am now sated. Repeat this back to me by eight o'clock this evening, when Jake reminds of me of some major styrofoam-requiring project due tomorrow, oh yeah, didn't I tell you?

A Dumb Conversation

I love dumb conversations, the kind that are just silly nonsense. I had one with one of my fifth grade students the other day.

"Mr. R.! Look at this! What is it?"

I looked at Gregg and he was pointing at his finger. "That's your finger!"

"No, not there! Here!"

I looked and he wasn't pointing at his finger. To be precise, he was pointing at the spot between two fingers on his left hand. "That is the space between your two fingers."

"No! Look closely. What is this, Mr. R.?"

I put on my reading glasses and lowered my head very close to his hand. Taking his hand in mine, I turned his hand slowly and carefully, and putting it in just the right light I was able to see a tiny speck of what looked like skin that was whiter than the rest of his hand and probably felt like a microscopic bump. It was about the size a small pimple would be if the pimple was on a BB and the BB was a human head. I was really proud I was able to even locate this minuscle imperfection. I looked up at Gregg and he asked, "What is that, Mr. R.?"

Now this "thing" needed to be put in its proper perspective. That meant eliminating it as even a topic of conversation for two intelligent human males, but then I'm not a normal human male, and neither is Gregg. "Well Gregg, it looks like a banoteur."

"What's a banoteur?"

"A banoteur is the spot where a banshee bit you in the middle of the night."

Gregg paused to reflect on this and then said, "AWESOME!!"

Joe's Remark

Joe got himself a little snicker from me today and almost in big trouble if his remark had been audible to the class. I told my fifth graders that no one seemed to be having any problem with the math work, but tonight, if they needed help, they could ask their parents. Andrea raised her hand and informed me and the class that the previous night she had trouble with one of the math problems and went to her Dad, but her Dad wasn't exactly sure how to do the problem and was unable to help her.

Now I am very willing to cover for parents and that is what I did, and I am not going to express any amazement at adults who forgot how to do such a simple arithmetic calculation and yet are able to make three times my salary at half my age. So I covered for this man. "Well, Andrea, your parents haven't been in school for a long time. Some of the stuff they forgot. They have been busy making a living, working at a job, shopping, taking care of a house and a home, raising you and your brothers and sisters, being a neighbor or a friend to other adults, and doing other things."

That is when I heard Joe mutter under his breath, "Yeah, and spending time cuttin' the cheese."

I have a few ideas where that came from, but I don't see how my reflections on that statement will serve any useful purpose.

Fifth grade boys!

The Lollipop Guild

Starbucks is one of little Olivia's favorite ways to start the morning. Mommy gets her maiden coffee and becomes someone that is safe and gentle, and Olivia gets admired by everyone who walks through the door. Fair genesis of the morning for under two dollars.

Today produced us no less than the usual. She was receiving praise from a woman who then asked me Olivia's age. One year on Monday, I proudly told her. Now: raised eyebrows and the inevitable, "Ohhhh, she's so little."

My sweet little Thumbelina. She is precious and petite, but is developing a set of lungs and mouth on her that belies her diminutive stature. This might be one of those times to look up and say shit, Miss O.

The woman went on, "We have several pajamas like that in our house." Because I haven't had coffee so no, Olivia isn't dressed yet.

"Yes," I nodded. "I really like the brand."

The woman agreed and then said, "The only problem I have found is that they shrink too much."

Don't burst my bubble at 7:00 please. Because you know Lady, in our house we call that shrinkage a growth spurt.

Gregg's Summer Vacation

I was talking to Gregg, one of my fifth grade students, and I asked him what he had done over the summer. He told me that he went on a cruise to Alaska.

I want to begin by saying that I am happy for Gregg. His parents have a lot of money and spend it on incredibly wonderful extravaganzas, such as a cruise to Alaska for the whole family. However, I sense a discrepancy in how we would have "viewed" this excursion.

I asked him how it was. He went on and on about airplane flights, snow mobiles, hiking on glaciers, blue ice, and majestic mountains.

However, he is a slender fifth grade boy and I wanted to hear something about the food on a cruise ship. I have heard they have twenty-four hour a day food service. Buffet tables that overflow at breakfast: waffles, blueberry pancakes, eggs Benedict, biscuits and gravy, sausage, bacon, ham, omelettes, every type of juice imaginable, fruit compotes, and pastries made by some fellow in the bowels of the ship who should be made Captain of the World. Lunch buffets that spill onto $600.00 a square yard carpet becuase they are overloaded with Ruebens, chicken, shrimp, catfish, and lobster po' boys, bar-b-qued everything, grilled everything, burgers, onion rings, french fires, sandwiches you never dreamt of, cakes, cookies, pies, and ice creams from around the world. At dinner you have to eat because it's the best meal of all: lobster, shrimp, prime rib, steaks, Chicken Molecka, caviar, oysters Rockfeller, fried chicken, fried shrimp, fried mushrooms, puff pastry, every variety of cheesecake ever imagined including Caramel Dark Chocolate Macadamia Turtle Sexual Orgasm Nirvana Cheesecake, and you "finish up" with ambrosia, and mana.

I asked little skinny Gregg what he ate while he was on the cruise ship.

"Well, Mr. R., I ate noodles. They had these noodles that were good."

"Noodles? You ate noodles?"

"Yeah. They were good! I ate noodles. I ate 'em fried and boiled and I ate noodles the whole trip."

Fifth grade boys!!

La Maison de Chapeaux

Olivia's first birthday has apparently brought out the milliner in us. This one is our handmade Birthday Hat:


And this is our bought version:
And, in the same "I can't stop now" spirit as when an open bottle of champagne is placed before me, here is a hat retrieved from a stuffed-bear present from her favorite pal, Hayden:

Alan's Goals For The Fifth Grade

In my fifth grade class this year, one of my students, Alan, is providing consistent fodder fer blogs. Everything he is doing in my 5th grade class is either humorous or outrageous.

On Friday my students turned in their first writing assignment, "My Goals in the Fifth Grade." It's a boring prompt, but also easy and gets them writing. Every kid wrote something to the effect that they wanted good grades, improved grades in such-and-such subject, more friends, perfect attendance, schoolwide recognition for some incredible cognitive feat, a Presidential Award for Physical Fitness in P.E. (the Coach must have made a dynamic speech), grades that will warrant college scholarships some day (I'm not making that one up), pleasing their parents and Mr. R. (that's me), or they could take a different tack, like Alan. This is his published assgnment after editing help from me, his teacher.

"This year I want to have fun. I don't want too much pressure on me so that I can't just enjoy myself. This is my last year in elementary school and so I want to just have fun. Next year will be hard work and agany. I won't have any friends becuase I will be at a new school, so this year I want to make lots of friends and have fun. I want to play at recess more. i want to talk to people more. I want to have less homework so I can talk to my friends on the phone. Those are my goals for the year. I want to have fun. I don't want to be miserable. I want to concentrate on enjoying life. I don't think there should be any pressure on me. I don't think that anybody should yell at me or beg me to be doing something. What is the good of that if you can't have fun? That's why i want to have fun this year. that is my goal for the fifth grade."

Well, he had an inadequate introduction, but the body of his writing was detailed and clear. There was no paragraph structure, but to tell you the truth, it was one subject: FUN! It had an adequate closing, so I gave him an A-. Why shoot him in the heart so early in the year with a low grade, right? But I want to strangle him. Trust me........Alan knows how to relax. He's already good at it, and now he wants to reach professional status.

Grand Theft Auto, Boca Raton

"Mom, a friend of mine has this really cool Playstation game where you drive around and shoot and get hookers."

"Um, hookers? Uh, what's a hooker, Jake?"

"You know, where you take someone out and buy 'em dinner and stuff and they have to have fun and smile."

No, Jake. That's a date.

But Next Year, Send In Those Clowns

Olivia's first birthday is Monday. And as I have already told you I am unwilling to spend much on toys, I had, as of Saturday, not purchased a present one.

I am funny about the first year milestone. I comprehend it is a big one, momentous, substantial. I am aware that you only have one one, that children must be made to feel special, and that I should take precious photographical documentation. And I know that one year ago she was lifted out of my midsection while I, having spent the last nine months vomiting every ten minutes, dreamed that in just a few hours I would be hungry enough to eat a meal that I would only know once. So it dawns on me that my reluctance to throw a party that, as in the case of one of Eric's friends and first time parents, the child comes riding in on an enormous stuffed elephant on wheels, is based on some selfishness. Because that first year (and the first one only), the real person that party is for is me. Now lest you descend upon me with hateful comments about my narcissism, or send out those pesky CPS minions, let me promise you that birthdays number two and on get full attention.

Olivia has grown, surely, and achieved so much. And as I have written about before (ad nauseum you're thinking), I am happy to give her the world and feel no competition that now the world I'm prepared to hand her is in fact, already her oyster and she will have no need to wrestle it from me. But the celebration of this year, these twelve months, belongs more to Eric, Jake and me than it does to O. Jake has been an amazing big brother, much more so than I anticipated. And Eric has been a true co-parent and trooper, while making me want to kill him only every third or fourth day. And I...well, I have just been sick. Either sick when she was in me, or dramatically sleep deprived while she took eight months to pull a full nighter, or having migraines, or appendicitis, or....well, you get the picture. Much like looking forward to eating again after Olivia's birth, I am anticipating a day very soon where I can have a day go by without a medical bill in the mail.

Today, unfortunately, I suddenly got inspired. But it was too late to order this, or this, or even this (hey, I would let her borrow them). We have a cake for her tomorrow, and a couple of small presents purchased by Eric, and lots of hugs and kisses for her to writhe away from. But on her actual birthday, Monday, Eric is out of town on business. And I might just get a sitter and take Jake out. I think it might be novel to celebrate his one year of Excellent Big Brother-ness. And it would serve a dual purpose. It also gives Olivia some decent fodder for the inevitable stories about my parenting she'll be reciting to her therapist.

Historical Empathy

My fifth grade students were being taken through their first lesson in the new social studies textbook, and we came across a difficult vocabulary word and concept, historical empathy.

"Class, the textbook has brought up the subject of historical empathy. It's probably a new concept to you. Who understood what historical empathy is when we read about it?" (No hands go up.) "Who knows what empathy means?" (A hand goes up.) "Yes, Lauren."

"I think it means something like when you........like..........well............ if a person is like, going..........I don't know."

"Is there anyone else who may know what empathy means?" (No hands go up.) "Well then I will tell you what the book tried to tell you. Historical empathy means the historian, the person living today who studies history, tries to understand why people in history did things, what they were thinking, and maybe even how they felt. The historian, and that means all of us because we will be studying U.S. history, must try not to put our own values and thinking into what people in the past should have done. We should have historical empathy for the people who lived in the past. It is like we are there and understand what they must have been going through. We studied some U.S. history last year. Is there anyone in history that we have studied that you have empathy for? It's almost like you understand them?"

Joe immediately raised his hand. I called on him right away because he seemed so sure. I anticipated Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Patrick Henry, or someone that we studied in class, but then I knew that Joe read outside of class about World War II and so it might be Dwight Eisenhower. I was curious as to who it could be. "Yes, Joe. Who do you have historical empathy for? Who do you think you understand, who do you know what they might have been thinking, what motivated them, or how they must have felt?"









Joe proudly yells out, "Barry Sanders!"

Fifth grade boys!

Olivia The Sailor Baby

Jake has been provided with a grand sense of (ten-year-old) comic relief lately, and he is becoming expert in finding humor where I find none. A few days ago Olivia was acting quite cranky and I was desperate to find a way to pacify her, so I parked her unwilling butt into the playpen that Eric had filled with (no doubt toxic) McDonald's-like plastic balls. She was unimpressed and I pleaded with her to just have a good time.

"Olivia, please honey, don't you want to play in the balls?" Titters from Jake's bedroom where he and his friend were playing.

I tossed a ball towards O. "Look O, look at the red ball." That, of course, brough peals of laughter from the boys.

In the same vein, Olivia has been Jake's grinder monkey for the last two weeks. She has been known to throw out the word shit, and I have spent countless hours figuring out where she has picked up such foulisms, God knows it cannot be from me. So when Jake has an audience, or you know, when not, he has taken quite a bit of delight in getting her to say the word. This takes some amount of skill, as she is still in the mimicry stage and he is not allowed to prompt her to curse in any way. (A rule that, by the way, I feel awfully proactive and responsible in setting up.) Her timing has, in defense of my ten-year old Benny Hill, been sometimes humorous: "shit", she says when a toy drops. "Shit," she trumpeted yesterday when I dropped a bowl. "Shit, shit, shit," she's been heard joyfully crowing. Such effective and appropriate usage of the word had even me slightly convinced that she was well aware of what she was truly saying.

I think, however, that I have figured out what is really behind that word. I ask you, what phrase is hollered out around this house, more times per day than any other? Well, okay, behind "where'd I place my m'fing martini". This one: "Simon...SIT". Because yesterday she pointed emphatically at Simon and yelled it out.

Shit.

Alan's Favorite Restaurant

I have blogged about Alan before, and you may see a theme.

It was the first day of school: Monday, August 12, 2006. I was so happy to be back in the classrooom. I love my job but I am also a blogger, and kids in the classroom provide such wonderful material. I thought to myself, "There is no way that on the first day, like magic, some kid is going to say something that will make a great blog." WRONG!

As part of an icebreaker activity, I asked the kids to pair off with a partner and interview each other. I provided a list of questions that would bring out some interesting facts about their summer vacation and their personal interests. However, if you finished before the others, you could make up your own questions. Alan didn't have a partner, so I volunteered to share an interview with him. With my help, we finished early and started asking each other impromptu questions.

"Mr. R., if you could be in China, what places would you want to visit?"

Now this an interesting question for a kid to ask his teacher. I happen to know that Alan has been to China, and having studied Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu for many years and dreamt of traveling there, I already had an answer.

"I think I'd like to see the Forbidden City."

"I've been there and seen the Forbidden City."

"You sure are fortunate, Alan. I'd love to see it. Did you see the Palace of Celestial Harmony?"

"Yes. It was big."

"Did you get to go into the Hall of Supreme Harmony?"

"Yes, I did."

"Cool! Now it's my turn to ask a question. Alan, if you could go to any restaurant in the whole wide world, where would you go?"

"Well, Mr. R., there is a restaurant in China . I don't know the name of it, but I'd choose it." Then he paused and continued to contemplate fine dining.












or maybe Hooters."

Fifth grade boys!

Maybe If I Listen In On His Phone Calls

There is a ton of planning that goes into heralding the first day of school. And by God this was first day of fifth grade, you understand. Even Jake cared about the condition and procurement of all school supplies, a haircut, and a first day outfit. We've had discussions about his new teacher, his friends, girls, lunch menus. He has been forthcoming, enthusiastic, and downright garrulous.

Additionally today was the first day ever of riding the bus home. Olivia and I, escorted by Simon, walked down to the end of the block and parked ourselves under a palm tree and waited for our little man to exit the bus.

I had been surprised at the lack of difficulty or fanfare with which a child becomes a bus rider. Apparently when you are a fifth grader, you are allegedly armed with enough sense to get on the correct bus, behave, and get off on the correct stop, all of which this hovering mother believes Jake can handle about as well as, say, Olivia. And as the minutes ticked by, post-dismissal, my ADD kicked in full-force and my memory went decidedly blank. Did I tell Jake the right bus to get on (Bus Aqua)? Did I tell him where to get off (he'd recognize our street, right)? Did I tell him to ride the bus today, or were we starting next week? Should I run home? Should I run to school? No, no, no. I gathered myself. He knew what to do, we had talked about everything during the last week. I had explained, he had listened, we were completely in a communicative, engaging relationship now.

The bus pulled up and Jake jumped off like a truly seasoned public transportee. I kept my distance to allow him to look cool in front of the other busriders, as I am reminded daily what an embarassment I can be. I couldn't wait to hear about the day, all the gossip. We would share so much, he'd been so looking forward to this. And remember, he and I had turned a relationship corner--we were confidants! He grinned big when he reached me, and petted Simon and Olivia.

"Well," I hugged him conspiratorially. "How was it?"

"Fine." He said.

And as of now, at 9:36 pm, that is still all I know.

Yet Another One of Those "It Wasn't Like That In MY Day" Posts

In keeping with my Bad Attitude posting kick I seem to be on, I am going to rant about school today. So sit back and ride along with me. Either you have children going through this, or you have avoided the whole mess, or you're Mr. Holland, who has a whole 'nother list of complaints about education to regale us with this year.

As I proceed to let you know what a pain in the ass elementary school is for parents, keep in mind that I know where I am lucky/strategically successful. Arriving at this school while Jake was in the third grade meant not knowing who were the best teachers, and much like your family moving while you were in the tenth grade and trying to procure a treasured cheerleader spot, I was at a huge disadvantage. But I ended up lucky enough to land in the "good class", the one with the uber-Room Moms. And I have been lucky enough to land every class with them. (Except a brief stint last year when overcrowding pushed Jake to another teacher. He involved himself in some Trouble and was moved back to the number one fourth grade teacher, at her request out of fondness for him.)

This Friday, at 3:00, the class assignments were posted at the school. Jake and I raced over, and found his name on the fifth grade roster. After spotting his name, I furiously searched the rest of the class list, looking for the two last names of the World's Best Room Moms And Their Knowledge of The School's Best Teachers. There they were, and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I was absolved of the battle to get Jake relocated. But this year, mere room-placement was not enough. Jake bee-lined over to yet another posted list: Safety Patrol.

Yes, boys and girls, all the hoo-hah of 2006 in this house is the desire to don the outfit of losers of my days. That yellow sash, that pseudo-authority, that honor-roll requiring award: the school has turned it around by putting a year-end trip to DC with it and convincing parents that it will get you in to the college of your choice. No one may be considered popular without this duty, so woe be the child that misses his opportunity to tell the kindergarteners to quit running, for pete's sake.

Jake's teacher last year made sure Jake was on the list. She wrote the requisite letter, reminded administration of his consistency making honor roll, and the citizenship awards she had bequeathed him. So with great confidence he ran up to the list Friday. And when he turned to me with a contorted expression that clearly would spew forth tears any minute, my heart dropped with a thud. We silently walked back to the car, where we discussed what went wrong. All the while I am thinking, my God it's Safety Patrol.

A phone call to last year's teacher netted the news that she wanted me to fight this by God, Jake deserved this honor and it was taken from him by administration's disappointment in his transgression last year. And by now you are dying to know what kicked Jake off the running, aren't you? Well, in a fit of curiosity, a few boys took it upon themselves to use the school computer to search for a girlfriend. Problem is, it was my double-dog-dared son who actually typed in Naked Girls in the google search box. Clearly a desire to look at breasts (and my eight months of milk-laden ones popping out everywhere does not count) denies you the opportunity to monitor the street-crossing ability of first graders.

Jake now is facing embarassment about School Day One (on Wednesday). He is re-ashamed of his transgression. He is dejected, and feeling futile about his achieved success in fourth grade. And I now have to have meetings and fight the system. Holy cow, it's the school year again. And I feel like I have gone back to fifth grade.

Time to get my letter writing skills honed, run by Starbucks for giftcards for thank you's for teachers' help, and to schmooze my son's way (maybe) into the Safety Patrol. This will require challenging the administration's authority in a way that lets them know how much I respect their Early Childhood Education Expertise and dropping off large boxes of Krispy Kreme. And lest you missed my point earlier, I'll repeat it: for God's sake, this is for the Safety Patrol.

Knucklehead of the Year

There are some kids in my fourth grade class last year that I want to nominate for "Knucklehead of the Year." I will use only fictitious names to protect the innocent.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE...........






Denise! who thought of licking the teacher's apple before she gave it to me. I saw her do it and asked her if she thought I should take a bite after "SOMEONE" licked it. The look on her face was memorable. She got into trouble for that.







Isaac! who wanted to talk to his friend Alec during class, but wasn't happy that I had moved Alec so he called him on his cell phone. The whole class heard Alec's cell phone go off in his backpack, watched as Alec raced over to the coat rack to dig it out, listened as he answered the call, and heard Isaac whisper, "Alec. It's me. I can't talk loud!"







Joe, who was sent on an errand to retrieve a two liter bottle of root beer from the school's cafeteria refrigeration unit. It was for a class party, and Joe must have been mighty excited because his gangly legs galloped back to the classroom, and Joe's arms jiggled like a bartender high on crystal meth shaking up margaritas, and Joe probably dropped the bottle a few times too, maybe like Keith Moreland used to drop routine pop flys during his Chicago Cubs days, and Joe furiously snatched up the bottle in a wild attempt to make up for lost time, and increased his tempo by pumping his legs furiously and demonically as he carried out the important mission of bringing that bottle of root beer back to the classroom as quickly as could conceivably be done by mere mortal legs. At least that is what everyone in the class figured as soon as the foaming went down and we realized Joe was completely out of breath.



And the winner is...................







ISAAC!!!



I have another school year coming up and I'll have a new "Knucklehead of the Year." My wife may want to throw my name into the hat, but I won't win because I would never vote for myself. After all, it is my award.

The Most Memorable Book Report I Ever Heard

A kid reads a book, writes a report, goes up in front of his class, and tells everyone about the book they read. Big deal, right? Two days later, who remembers, right? But imagine this. A fifth grade boy does a book report just like that, yet it is such an incredible, amazing, and memorable report that one of his classmates can still vividly remember it almost fifty years later. My friend Jim did a such a report when we were in the fifth grade together, and I still remember his words.

"I read a book called 'Captain Blackheart' and it was about a pirate. The pirate's name was Captain Blackheart. He had his own ship, and it was a sailing ship, and he would travel the seas stealing everybody's treasure. His men were tough guys and they had knives and sabres and swords and they killed people. But Captain Blackheart was the meanest of 'em all. One time one of his men argued with him and wouldn't do what he said, so Captain Blackheart took out his knife, stabbed the man in the chest, ripped out his heart, and started chewing on it!! Captain Blackheart was so fast that the guy was still alive when he started chewing, so the last thing the guy saw was Captain Blackheart chewing on his heart."

I have thought about this a lot, and I am sure the teacher did not stop him. Nowadays the teacher would lose four pounds just from jumpin' up and down like a Mexican bean when they heard those words, but in my school days that was just vivid imagery which I still remember.

That was one helluva book report.

What Have I Done?

I am giving piano lessons to a nine year old boy. I have written about him before and how he is a Norman Rockwell designed, stereotypical American boy.

About two weeks ago, at the end of his piano lesson, his mother and I were talking and she commented that he is able to catch live birds with his bare hands. I questioned this remark. "He catches birds? Are they sick and dying? Does he use a trap?"

She calmly replied, "No. They're healthy, and he catches them with his bare hands. I think he sneaks up on them or waits for them. He'll spend a long time just waiting, and then he just grabs them, and I think he has caught about three in the last couple of weeks."

I questioned this again. "How is that possible? How can you catch a bird? They're too fast!"

The little boy volunteered his strategy. "They're not that fast. The birds move slow for a second. You can catch 'em when they're takin' off."

I was pretty amazed..............and skeptical. I looked the Mom square in the eye and asked, "Did you see one of these birds he caught?"

Very offhandedly she replied, "Oh yeah. They were just normal birds, and I saw all three of them. He showed them to everybody. They were alive and unhappy, but he held onto them and then he turned them loose. They flew away. He didn't hurt them."

That stuck in my head. Here is a kid who is a throwback to an old fashioned American boy. He plays with swords made out of plastic PVC pipe and the walls in his house show wear and tear from hard playing. In his front yard is a giant sycamore tree, and way up at the top are a few toys, and you ask him what they are and he says, "Those are my supplies when I am in the crow's nest!" Pretty amazing for a modern day kid.

Now remember, I'm a bit of a knucklehead, and so after his piano lesson this week I nonchalantly asked, "Can you catch me a bird?" He said, "Yeah. You want a bird?" I replied, "Yeah. Catch me a bird. I want a brown one about this big." I then held up my thumb and forefinger about four inches apart.

What was I thinking? If I wasn't shootin' at the poor creatures with a BB gun when I was a kid, I am ordering up their capture at the hands of Red Chief. Poor little birds. And what do I do with the poor, feathered creature when he catches it? What have I done?

I'll let you know if he actually "takes care of my order."

Who Bugs Ya, Baby

Recently a friend (DONNA) made me laugh by telling me that she was absolutely irritated by everyone, and she meant everyone. "Do you know what I mean?" she asked. And then, hastily adding the lie, "Well, not you." Hey, I may have an ego, but I am smart enough to know that when you feel that everyone is irritating, even my beguiling ways may bring some eye rolling.

I wish that I had no idea what she means, but I can exactly relate. The other day the bank teller annoyed me. I pulled out one hundred dollars, and instead of frolicking in that free wheeling ten-minute high you get from five clean twenties, I was fuming that the teller took it upon himself to make me "special change". A fifty, a twenty, two tens, and a five and five ones (ones, for pete's sake?) later and I didn't even feel like I had a hundred on me. And as I drove off (irritated, Donna, you know?) I realized that I am developing an attitude problem.

Where is happy go lucky anyone anymore? I'll tell you where. They're watching the news, which always discusses war, and which tonight, for kicks, threw in a busted pipeline and an increase in gas prices starting, say, tomorrow morning. They're flipping the radio station and hearing Fifty Cent (Fitty Cent?) sing about some ho's big ass riding around in his Escalade. And they're trying to raise their kids in a godforsaken time when no one even pretends that some houses live like Father Knows Best.

Apparently everyone is irritating everyone. Your kids, well my kid, watch 7th Heaven with you, roll their eyes, and say "Mom, no one talks that way to their parents" after the cherubic children had just performed some extreme oral embarassment like saying thank you to the parents. But lest this post sound like I am yet again harping on Jake's imperfect behavior, it isn't. I am just annoyed. I have an impending sense of futility, a horrible feeling that some strange, lean, and frightening times are ahead of us. Iran is pumping around 40 million dollars an hour into Hazbollah, my house's worth dropped about a hundred thousand of "theory money" in six months, and by God tell me I haven't finally been heaven-sent my precious little daughter only to have WWIII break out, gas become $22.13 a gallon and completely blow my being able to get me her those ballet and English Riding lessons.

Yes, Donna. I know just what you mean.

Because It Just Isn't My Turn Anymore

For me, having a daughter has made it easier to face my own aging and the sometimes awful process that it is. As I watch things droop or fall--much of it expedited by having that aforementioned daughter at age 42, for pete's sake--I have many times claimed that it is okay, I am ready to pass the baton (of beauty, of men-catching, of ambition) on to my diminutive chunk of immortality. However, every time that I sit in the hairdresser's chair, ticking on one more color to the highlighting process, or purchase a new restorative face cream, I am reminded that maybe it is a joke I say, a verbal mattress placed to strategically catch my future fall.

The other morning I was listening to a pop song that had a catchy little beat, and a sound that makes you picture the video without ever having seen it. The singer sounded blonde, gorgeous, thin and fun. And often I listen to these kind of songs and think how absolutely fun it would be to be that person singing. How hot would it be to have an entourage, a limitless supply of Louis Vuitton, dates with Jake Guyllenhalls? And despite having no singing talent, connections, or actual real-life desire to be a "star", there was always a feeling of "hey, ya never know."

I became aware, a few days ago, that even daydreaming about possible fame and non-small-scale adoration (cause I still get it from Simon when I am holding a Krispy Kreme donut) was at its end. Because as I drove home from Starbucks, bopping to that peppy little tune I told you about earlier, I had a brief fantasy: wouldn't it be wonderful if that girl singing on the radio was your daughter, enjoying all the spoils from such attention. And wouldn't it be cool to tell people, "oh yes! That's my child!"

Poor Olivia. I see how easy it is to become a Joe Simpson. What pressure for her as that baton goes from my hand into her little fist, the one that currently can barely hold a Zwieback.

"How Was Your Summer?"

Although I am not required to be there, two days ago I returned to my fifth grade classroom. Teachers don't start getting paid until next week, but I want to go in to get ready for the new school year. I want to move all the furniture back to the correct spot, get all the supplies ready, make lesson plans, get all the lesson materials ready, hang welcoming stuff on the wall, arrange desks and seating, do required paperwork, and visit and chat with the other teachers who are so gung-ho that they go in a week early.

Also, you start seeing kids. There are neighborhood kids who ride their bikes or walk to the school grounds and then stroll through the halls saying hello to the teachers. These are the gung-ho kids, and who they are is always a surprise. They aren't usually the little geniuses with the high grades. It can be troubled kids who find school an escape from the unhappiness at home. Bored kids. Bike riding kids who find themselves at school. Kids whose parents have some business at the school and had to go along. In any case, it's fun to piddle away time yakking with kids about their summer.

The hardest part of returning to school is hearing, "How was your summer?" four hundred times and coming up with a nice bit o' patter. I don't want to say, "I vegged out in front of the tv, gained weight, went to two funerals, procrastinated on a lot of chores, developed a couple of warts and one of them bled on my new shirt, went to visit a couple of ill friends in the hospital, and I've been dreading coming back to work." I prefer, "I read several good books, rode in a restored Studebaker Avanti, had a great visit with my niece who visited me from Florida and brought her family, flew to Houston for my mother's ninetieth birthday, and I am glad to be back at school and see The Little Nippers again. How was your summer?"

By the way, how was your summer?

Family Reactions After Deciding to Eat at a Mediterranean Restaurant in San Francisco

Walter Loves His Great-Nephew and Great-Niece

My Mother Lesson No. 2,754: Drop the Preconceived Notions

You have a mental vision of what your child is going to be, don't you? Or was it just me? Maybe me worse than others, as poor Eric probably has to live up to what my mental vision of a husband is supposed to be. And my dreaming about a girl...well, let's just say the fates are gonna be guffawing.

She started out, as you all have known by now, a little slower and smaller than other babies. She is still significantly smaller. Yesterday we visited the mall with the dual purpose of some sale shopping and allowing strangers to admire Olivia, her favorite pasttime. We found Olivia some shoes and my little girl--one year old in less than a month--barely fit the six-month sized shoes I purchased.

Diminutive? Yes. Little sweet docile pumpkin that she started out as? Not so much. Olivia's favorite thing to do is now treat our bed like a mosh pit and dive head first everywhere. Her little legs will not even sit still while eating, vibrating like a little humingbird. Her favorite words are duck, table
(because of this table in her room that I made: can you absolutely believe it Debbie?) and, accompanied by a vehement shaking of the head, "NO."

"Olivia, come here." "NO."
"Olivia, want a kiss?" "NO."
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. (As I typed this she just looked down at her terrier-clad feet and said "shoe". Then, "NO", head-shaking, and attempting shoe-removal.)

Olivia is turning out to be exceedingly verbal and observant. She touches an object and looks at me quizzically and lifts her arms to say, "What is this?" An answer of the object's name produces a sophisticated chuckle and you can see her load the information away. She is rougher than Jake was as an infant. She doesn't like to cuddle, has never ever tolerated being cradled in your arms, prefering from as little as two months old to be held facing outward, observing the world and avoiding that smothering affection.

Who would have thought Jake would turn out to be my sweet little cuddle monster?

I am reminded yet again that children are who they are, not who you expect them to be. I am surprised that I am actually having to relearn this: I already have a child (and friends, and family, and co-workers, all who have their own personalities) so there is no excuse of naivete. And at the same time, I am being educated on exactly how much Jake was exactly what I pictured in an infant and toddler.

Jake comes home tonight from his ten days away, and I think I'll share my new insight with him. As he demands that I snuggle with him before bed tonight, I am going to of course oblige. And tell him that he is everything a mother could want in a little boy. I think he'd like to know. He'd probably appreciate my spending more time thinking about that than about all the ways he isn't what I'd like him to be.

And if you already know this lesson, I'm glad for you. I don't mind admitting I'm behind.

"Kids! Why Can't They Be Like We Were, Perfect in Every Way?"

Do you remember the song. "Kids!" from the musical "Bye Bye Birdie"? Click on the highlighted words in this blog. It will take you to a song lyrics website that has the very clever lyrics to a great song. The chorus that I founded sings that song every few years because I find it so amusing. Here's one reason why.

Recently I was visiting my elderly parents in Houston, Texas, and I found myself in an automobile travelling south on the Gulf Freeway towards Galveston. I started laughing and my mother asked what me was so funny. I told her that it was nothing and just forget it. That was the end of that.

I will tell you what it was, though. I will tell you what I was laughing at.

When I was ten years old, I went to spend the night at David's house. David was a friend of mine from school who lived on soda pop and therefore had weak little bones that snapped like twigs. I say that because he fell out of a tree in my front yard that he had not even gotten into yet, fell a very short distance, and yet broke his arm. As an adult, I am sure that it was because David lived on soda pop and never drank milk. David also slept on his back constantly as a baby. Now I'm not so sure this is true, but that was my theory as a ten year old boy because the back of David's head was flat as a pancake cooked on a level stove in the Texas panhandle. Anyway, I digress.

Driving down the Gulf Freeway as a mature, grown man with my wonderful mother and sister, I saw the billboard that reminded me of that night at David's house. We slept in a tent in his backyard, and after some difficulty falling asleep, we started "messin' around." We were probably having trouble sleeping because it was summer time and Houston gets mighty hot, humid, and sticky. It could also have been the mosquitos that are so humongous that their proboscis will wake you up when they penetrate your epidermis. Or it could have been our conversation.

"Want do you want to do?
"I don't know. What do you want to do?"
"I don't know."
"I know! We could go climb the billboard."
"What billboard?"
"There's a billboard down the street that's right on the freeway. It's all lit up with big floodlights and we can go climb it and stand right in front of the sign."
"Neat-O! Let's go."

We walked down the street from his house to the big freeway, and David showed me how to climb up on the huge, lighted billboard. I found myself ("I found myself" is an appropriate expression, as if I fell off a turnip truck and there I was) standing in front of a giant picture of a cold, sweating bottle of beer, and beside me, my flat headed friend.

"Can anyone see us?"
"If they're looking they can."
"Well let's wave so they'll see us."

That became tiresome rather quickly.

"What if they do see us? So what? All they'll see is a couple o' kids wavin' at 'em. We need to do something that'll really shock 'em.
"What can we do?"
"I don't know."
"I know! We could strip down to our underwear and then stand here and wave. If anyone sees us then they'll say, "Oh My God! Look at those two kids there!"
"Yeah! And then the other person in the car will say, 'What kids? I didn't see any kids.' "
"Yeah! And then the first person will say, 'Those two kids on that billboard. They were in their underwear!' "
'Yeah! Let's do it!"

So off came our pants. There we stood, two fourth grade boys in our underwear standing in front of a giant bottle of Schlitz waving at people driving down the Gulf Freeway at midnight.

I know firsthand that boys will do stupid stuff. So when your kid does something stupid, don't be surprised. Don't even act surprised. But you might want to wonder what other stuff he has done that he hasn't gotten caught doing. And then you can worry about how the little demon will turn out! That ought to keep you up at night. And this'll scare you out of your wits: David became a lawyer! And as for me? I became an elementary school teacher and spend my spare time writing blogs like this that serve no purpose whatsoever!

That's why I love the lyrics to that song so much.

A Kid Learning About Putting Your Foot in Your Mouth

Everyone learns about the dangers of "putting your foot in your mouth." I learned about "putting your foot in your mouth" around the age of ten, and I learned that it can almost be sensed. Instinct can almost warn you of its coming. But not quite.

Every time my father took his three sons on a vacation, his youngest son, my little brother Jack, would get car sick. Jack would roll the window down and vomit, upchuck, throw up, blow chunks.

A new trip was planned. We were going to Colorado! And I started up on Jack. "Jack, I don't want you throwing up in the car. You are going to have to get your mind and your body in sync. I am tired of your rollin' that window down and spewin' yer lunch all over the back o' the car. One time some o' yer vomit travelled around the back windshield and came into my window. Now I have to roll my window up when you roll yours down, and I have to listen to that vomiting sound and smell that stink and I'm tired of it. You are going to have to git yourself under control. It's all in your mind. You have to start thinking of the car's motions as soothing. You're jus' gonna have to control yourself and I don't wanna see you sprayin' out the window all over the highway. It's ridiculous for this to happen every time we go on a gall-durned vacation. This car sickness is in your mind! Your little bitty mind. Your stupid little mind. You gotta git control! Do like I do. Git control of your life, of your stomach, of your insides. Keep it down! Don't let it come back up. I'm tired of your gettin' car sick every time we head out for a good time in the car. Are you plannin' on sprayin' all over Colorado, fer cryin' out loud? What's the matter with you? You gotta quit gettin' car sink and vomiting all over the place and blah blah blah blah blah."

I went on and on and on for weeks before the trip. I should have felt it coming.

We traveled to Colorado. Dad bought some peaches. I ate one. The flavor of that peach started repeating. Soon I sensed what was going to happen. I fought it. I fought it with all of my heart. I fought it with all my mind and with all my my strength. But that peach came back. I rolled my window down and blew peach chunks all over Highway 285 and the back o' my Dad's '55 Chevy. When I was finished, I rolled the window back up and glanced over at little Jack. He never said a word. He just had a most satisfying grin on his face. And he never threw up that whole trip.

The Ten Commandments: Cecil B. DeMille vs. Holy Scripture

I teach Sunday School. That means I am a Protestant, a United Methodist to be exact. I was raised to remain a Catholic because Protestants were heretics. I didn't know what that meant when I was a kid, but it had something to do with taking a wide berth around the Lutheran and Methodist church buildings on the way to Mass.

I was doing a lesson on Exodus and we hit the part about the Ten Commandments. I thought it would be a great idea to compare the Bible's version to the Cecil B. DeMille, Hollywood version. So we went through the Bible all the way to the Hebrew's entering the land of Canaan, which is where the movie ends. Then, I brought in the video and we watched The Ten Commandments.

At the end of the movie I asked my students what the difference was between the movie and Scriptures. John said, "The movie had more kissing."

Uncle Walter Loves Me Enough to Make Me a Gooseberry Pie and Wreck His Diet

and I love him enough to eat it all and wreck my diet.

Lost in a Ten Year Old

Emergency surgery aside, the family vacation was fun for all. I promise to post pictures of our visit with Walter, and it was a never-ending laugh fest just as we expected. Olivia adapted to time changes, plane travel, and different sleeping arrangements with aplomb. Eric and I attempted to feel like adults on vacation once in a while, and Jake did his best to let us know that he is fully in the throws of ten-year old angst and that we were solidly, as parents, to blame.

I know Walter hinted to you that Jake was a charming challenge, all solveable by John Rosemond-educated, non-wavering, nerves-o-steele Mom and Dad. Oh, he's stronger than that, my friends! He is currently in a bit of warfare with us right now, and as it is my job to make his life miserable, I am actively lobbing missiles right back at him.

When he is not with me, which is the case right now for the next ten days, I get a very clear mental picture of how to raise my son. Emotionless, consistent discipline is the key, I know it is. But then real life throws in things like times of the month for Mom, Dad just wanting to watch the game dammit, and mandatory household staples running out like toilet paper, milk, and bourbon. Real world has bills that you didn't expect, or a small car accident, and yes, I admit it, all these things affect my parenting. I am not the coolest head on the planet, and while I won't bother you right now by listing all the thousands of positive attributes that come with that type of personality, I will admit that it fails to provide Jake with the kind of unflappable mother you admire on tv.

I also am willing to lay out my mothering skills (and lack thereofs) on the table. I am the idiot who will yell at her kid right smack out in front of anyone, so I'm sure people assume I lose it even worse in private. Not so. Although in private I probably am in a housedress and holding a martini/cigarette while doing so--kidding, kidding.

When I check with parents, Jake isn't doing anything so much better or worse than other children. And I don't want to paint the picture that he is not a ton of fun (which he is) or loving (very). Rather a lot of it is based on my expectations of him, which if you are anyone in any kind of relationship with me, you know can be quite high and demanding; ask say, my drycleaner. Either one day he will appreciate it, or you will find my lifeless body, petrified and attic bound, while he runs some cute but fatal bed and breakfast.

My resolve the next week before Jake's return is to recover from surgery and reprioritize what expectations I have of Jake, and not in that order. My problem as I look over the list is that it is difficult to put them in order as I want them all, of him and for him.

Pass Me a Percoset

After my hospital stint in Atlanta, I feel optimistic for the future: I really have very few internal organs left. Well, I've got about an inch and a half of colon, and my reproductive organs, and a gallbladder (that the doctor noted had stones). So I figure that I am actually ready for entering the very healthy portion of my life. One where I can eat and drink all I want and it merely just falls out the bottom.

I am thinking of writing a book about various hospitals to visit around the world. There's a nice one in Nice, France; Atlanta's experience was satisfying; and I have been in one in New York City that Geraldo Rivera escorted me to after he bumped into me, wandering the streets with pneumonia and a 103.5 temperature. Me + travel = hospital visit.

People think I am sickly. I am not, I protest. I feel I am like a Volvo. Little things fall off (lights, doorhandles), or stick (like electronic windows, or right-turn signals), but the engine keeps running forever. Look for me one day in the nursing home, filled with straw certainly, but still moving.

But what I don't get is why they couldn't have given me a itty bitty tummy tuck as they removed my appendix....

Crashing

Sometimes a child begins a long, downward cycle of repetitious, improper behavior, and the child drags an adult into their circle of negativity by not responding to criticism or punishment. The child misbehaves again, for the thousandth time. The adult disciplines again, and due to an excess of practice, tries to raise their voice a little differently, maybe even try a little calmness. They might as well fuss at the kid with a Scottish brogue for all the good it'll do.

This downward spiral reminds me of World War II Air Force movies where the pilot is pulling desperately back on the stick hoping to avoid a crash landing as the plane heads straight for the rapidly approaching ground. As an adult, you feel desperate, and hoping at the last minute that the plane will come out of its dive and all will end well. However, kids are not P-51 Mustangs that finally pull out of their dive, not because the pilot is tugging at the stick with all his might, but because the air gets thicker at sea level. Kids won't finally respond when the nose diving plane of life gets to thick air at sea level. You are in a nose dive with your child, and you, the pilot, better change your flight tactics.

Here comes the hardest part of all to swallow. Adults are in charge. We have the experience and the wisdom to realize that we are in their plane, and we are spiraling downwards with them. It is up to us, the adult, the pilot, to pull that kid out of his nosedive. This is our responsibility, our task. But how?

If you are a parent, I'm not the one to help you. I have been trying to help a friend with his daughter for years, but when I make a suggestion for consequences for rude treatment his wife and he receive from her but do not deserve, he responds, "That won't work. She just refuses to do it. I can't MAKE her go to her room or clean her room or talk politely to me or not cause the family problems."

Just because I can't help my friend or my readers doesn't mean I can't recommend experts who can. I highly recommend reading John Rosemond who is one of the first of an increasing number of family psychologists who help parents deal with the failure of American children to respond to expectations and discipline. Super Nanny , a popular television show, shows parents how to raise their expectations, stick to the consequences they mandate for their children, and make time for quality family activities. I strongly recommend Dr. Phil who is popular on television and has written numerous books. He has taken a similar stance as John Rosemond. Dr. Phil emphasizes finding a child's currency, what the child considers highly valuable, then taking that currency away when the child fails to follow the parents' instructions. None of these experts encourage spanking. They do encourage American parents to raise their expectations for their children's behavior, to lay down common sense rules, to firmly yet calmly punish unwanted behavior, and to stand up for themselves.

I won't dwell on this issue anymore, but I will encourage all parents to expect their children to heed discipline and not avoid correction. Take the advice of the experts. Here comes the catch: Listening to advice is easy; following advice is difficult and goes against the grain of human nature. To quote Katherine Hepburn's character in the classic film, "The African Queen", "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above."

Keeping Your Feet on the Ground

I had a fifth grade student six years ago named Kevin. Kevin is a wonderful boy with leadership ability and a soft-spoken demeanor.

I saw Kevin at the supermarket this week. I asked him how he was doing, how was school, how was the family, etc. Then, as we were saying goodbye, I gave him my little speech about continuing to work hard in school and blah blah blah. The last thing I said was, "Kevin, keep your feet on the ground."

Kevin's face lit up. He reached into his wallet, took out a piece of paper, gave it to me, and said, "I will, Mr. R., but sometimes it's hard." Then he turned around and left. I looked down at the piece of paper and it was a photo...........a photo of Kevin flying thorugh the air on a BMX motorcross bike, and he must have been thirty feet in the air.

An Insider Joke Outed, Part 2

Teachers crack jokes that are hilarious.........to other teachers, but we wouldn't want parents to hear them. Here is one of those jokes. Please, please, try not to take this too seriously. It's a joke. Just try to remember that you can only get INSIDER JOKES right here at lostinkids.

The fourth and fifth grade staff at my school were in a meeting discussing placement of next year's fifth graders with teachers. Placement is a sensitive and important issue. Which teacher would be best for each student? A good question, right? All of you parents want to hand pick your child's teacher, but there is a tragic consequence of such a policy. One of the many problems is you will chase away many of the male teachers. I was at a school where parents could pick their teacher. If you read some of my previous blogs, you will remember that I left that school. Here's one of the reasons why. All single mothers with a troubled son wanted their child in my class because I was a male teacher. I also developed a reputation for being strict, despite the fact that there were female teachers AT EACH GRADE LEVEL that all the teachers agreed were more stern than I was. A male sternness is different, and I had been typecast. That means every year I received the toughest, most troubled kids, especially boys. One year I did not have a single, traditional family containing a father, mother, and children in my class. All the students in my class were being raised by grandmothers or single moms, yet this wasn't typical of the school community. It was typical of who I was expected to teach. I also taught very few girls. "My child needs a male father figure" was a mantra that caused me consternation, and many female teachers would say to me, "I'm sure glad I don't have that boy in my class." I'd reply, "He fits right in with all the other troubled kids." All staff members agreed with me that I was getting tough classes evry year, but that was the system.

I transferred to another school in a much nicer community. Not only was this community more stable and supportive, the staff and administration did not let parents choose the teacher for their child. The parents were, however, given a survey to fill out and suggestions could be taken from the surveys to accomodate their child's wants and needs. No specific teacher could be requested, but suggestions could be made. However, does anyone out there realize the immense job it would take to read over 745 surveys that would be carefully scrutinized and used as placement? It is an almost impossible task. Remember, every second grade teacher would have to read every first grade student survey, and there are 140 surveys.

So this year, the fourth and fifth grade teachers took it upon themselves to discuss the possibility of advising the administration of dropping the idea of the survey. It was a waste of time for the parents because actually using them to place students with next year's teacher was a formidable and daunting task that could take several weeks of the summer to properly accomplish. In the middle of this discussion, one of the other teachers whose name will be kept anonymous said, "I think we should keep the survey. It serves an important purpose for our school community. It gives the parents a false sense of input."

I roared with laughter, and that pretty much ended our idea of eliminating the survey. I bet there isn't a single parent out there that laughed.

Maybe the Supreme Court said the same thing after the 2000 election. "Let's keep the voting system intact. It gives the voters a false sense of input." Is that funnier? Probably not.

Laura's Luck

The late breaking news is that Laura had an appendectomy and will be released from the Atlanta hospital on Wednesday, July 19th if her recovery goes as expected.

Eric and her two kids are staying in a Ronald McDonald House next door to the hospital and all is well. The only complaint Laura has is that she has not eaten anything except a small cup of beef broth for three days, and yet her circumference is increasing due to post-surgical swelling. Well, she actually has some other complaints, but they might make a good blog so I'll not mention them.

Soon everything should be back to normal, at least after adding in our family's Normalcy Supplementary Adjustment Allowance. I'll be glad to have her back.

Regarding Laura

As our frequent readers can surmise, I have been carrying the biggest share of the blogging load while Laura is on vacation. I have been anxiously anticipating her return because:

1. My writing ideas are running dry as a really dry thing.
2. The pressure of doing all the writing weighs on my mind like a
really heavy weight thing.
3. The ideas for all the writing are really hard to think of because
they are like not there.

Nevertheless,I will have to continue to plug ahead. Laura is in Atlanta after having an attack of abdominal pain on her return plane flight home from San Francisco. She is in the hospital as I write, waiting for a berium milkshake to arrive at 4:30 on Tuesday morning.

I asked Laura how she was doing and she replied, "This sucks, although it could be worse. I am losing weight because the doctors will not let me eat anything except berium, I have cable TV, and I have all the pain meds I need delivered to my bed."

I will let everyone know how she is doing as soon as I know.