My Sliver of Life

My A Game

2011-12-16T16:43:00.007-06:00

When I started teaching at my current school, I was a little nervous about the open space floor plan. We don't have walls. We don't have doors. We may as well have microphones, because everything we say is broadcast to at least three other classrooms. My principal described it as teaching in a fishbowl, and that's how it felt at first. I was intensely aware of everything I said, especially if I said it in my mean teacher voice.

Over time, I've stopped focusing so much on what I say, and instead, started paying attention to what I hear: the teacher next door. In an open space school, I'm not just a teacher; I also get to be a student. All day long, I have the opportunity to learn from a master. I'll admit, she sets the bar so high, sometimes it's a real challenge even trying to keep up. But it's the trying that's making me better. Every day, I have to bring my A Game. I'll still never be as good as she is, but every day, I'm better than I was before.

Here are a few of the new and improved things I did this Christmas.

Classroom Project

Presents for Mom and Dad

Presents for the kids~handmade, personalized capes. Yeah, I would have done that on my own.

Please Pass the Sugar

2011-11-23T13:05:00.011-06:00

If your child's a picky eater like mine, I have a recipe for Thanksgiving turkey that is guaranteed to be a big hit at the kids' table. And it only requires one ingredient: sugar.

Thanksgiving Turkey Pops

Ingredients

Lollipop-shaped Sugar

Barrel-shaped Sugar

Fruit Slice-shaped Sugar

Worm-shaped Sugar

Mix all ingredients well.

Sweet!

They'll gobble them up.

Practice What You Preach

2011-11-03T19:42:00.009-05:00

Starbucks is big on Community Service. They say so right on their website:

We believe in being good neighbors.

Every Starbucks is a part of a community, and we’re committed to helping neighborhoods thrive wherever we do business. It’s a commitment rooted deep in our heritage and the belief that we can use our scale to be a catalyst for positive change.

Now, more than ever, communities are relying on the private sector to share resources and help drive meaningful change. At Starbucks, we’ve always valued community service, and our partners have been fostering this “culture of good” since we opened our first store in 1971.

But when I walked in today and asked them to donate 20 little paper cup sleeves so my kids could make these cute ships, they said something else.

They said no.

I wonder if they've read their website?

Where the Sidewalk Mends

2011-09-21T18:44:00.014-05:00

When school was over today, instead of their usual playground fun, my son and a couple of his friends got down to work. On their hands and knees, they clawed at the gravel like dogs burying a bone. Pebbles rained down into holes in the sidewalk, patching the path till the surface was smooth—more or less. I asked them why they were working so hard instead of playing.

"So nobody's wheelchair gets stuck in there."

It's Grandparents' Week at our school and the grandparents we've seen run the gamut. Some are smoking hot grannies, owning the halls in tight jeans and high heels. But others are very, very old, making their way to their grandbaby's classroom only with the help of a wheelchair—and three sweet little boys.

Good Hair Day

2011-09-01T12:24:00.013-05:00

I wasn't in my classroom five minutes this morning before my students' behavior had me in tears. In this case, it was a very good way to start the day.

One of my little princesses was having a hair emergency. This is more common than you might think among four-year-old girls. It's important that one look one's best for a full day of nose picking and Barbie playing. And this little girl did not have what she deemed an adequate hairstyle for her agenda. When Dad brought her to the classroom, it was evident that she had made her dissatisfaction clear on the drive to school. Apparently, very clear.

I wanted her to be happy, so I did my best to find a ponytail holder to solve her problem, but I struck out. I needed to move on with our day, so she was going to have to wait.

But not for long.

Another little girl in our class, let's just call her My Favorite, was paying attention. Without being asked, she took the ponytail out of her own hair and used the holder to take care of her friend. Gently, she smoothed her friend's hair into place and, without a word, returned to her seat.

I wish I could teach them half as much as they teach me.

Putting My Big Girl Panties On

2011-08-27T12:16:00.029-05:00

My bedroom has a built-in state-of-the-art security system. If anyone heavier than Stuart Little tries to enter the room, the floor CREEEAKS so loudly that it not only wakes us, it wakes everyone within a three house radius.

And that is why I went commando today.

It was 6:30 this morning when I was tippy toeing around in the dark, trying to piece together a decent outfit to go garage saling in. My only real criteria was that everything be close enough to reach in three creaks or less, and clean enough that it passed the sniff test. In only two creaks, I managed to dig a skirt and bra out of the dumping ground I have created on the top of my husband's dresser. Three creaks later, I scrounged a shirt off the floor of my son's closet. One more creak, and I was slipping on a pair of shoes waiting by the door.

I was fine with the fact that my naughty bits would be getting a breath of fresh air. Anything that helps keep me cool on an Arkansas summer day has to be a good idea, right? Well, you'd think so. Except for one critical garage sale design flaw. When they run out of tables, they just stack stuff on the ground. And unless you're Sharon Stone, do you really want to be caught in that position?

Luckily, there is a law of garage saling that is as steadfast as gravity: If you need it, it will be there. And today, I needed undies.

Yes, they do go up to my armpits and make me feel about as sexy as Andy Rooney, but they're new and they fit and they were only a buck. I would have preferred something a little less Victorian and a little more Victoria's Secret, but you can't always get what you want. You get what you need.

Changing of the Guard

2011-08-04T10:21:00.019-05:00

Today is the last day of summer vacation.

More to the point, today is the last day I get to share all my time with my boy. He's been my shadow all summer long—like a puppy, following close on my heels. It's been indescribably sweet, and I'm savoring the last hours.

Good puppy. Sit. Stay!

I could get good and sad about this special time coming to an end, if it weren't for the fact that all my days are filled with special time just like this. Only the faces change.

Who says teachers aren't paid well? I'm rich, I say, rich!

A Penny $32.60 Saved

2011-08-01T20:41:00.024-05:00

Author Kyran Pittman isn't just a talented writer, she's also a genius couponer. And what's more, she's generous enough to share her secrets. After every major score, she rushes to Facebook and shows us all exactly how to join her in the game. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, she even comes to your house and hand delivers a detailed game plan.

a detailed game plan

Like a good straight A student, I followed her instructions obediently. As directed in Step #1, I went to Walgreens and purchased four of the six specially marked items.

Already, I'm doing pretty well, since cereal is up to about $20.00 a box these days. Scoring my favorite brand for $2.50 is a great way to start. But it's only the start, because Walgreens then gave me back $5.00 in a lovely little thing called Register Rewards.

Following Step #2 in the plan, I combined a handful of store coupons, graciously supplied by my mentor, with my Register Rewards to buy this—

Yes, you are reading that right—all those school supplies cost me .47 cents. Which is especially awesome, because I would have paid $47.00 for that KISS notebook. But wait! There's more! They gave me back another $2.00 in Register Rewards, which I used to buy these treats for my boy—

That smile was my best Reward of all.

(What are you just sitting there for? Get thee to Walgreens!)

Big Love

2011-07-26T17:11:00.000-05:00

I thought you should be the first to know.

I have a new boyfriend. And it's serious.

Don't worry. My husband knows all about us. In fact, he introduced us. And he completely understands my attraction.

Meet Paulo.

He's beautiful, no?

You must understand, this is no casual affair. It's destiny. Our new house has forty pairs of shutters, you see.

FORTY!

I spent three weeks painting the first pair by hand one day.

muthashuttas

At that rate, it was painfully clear that the house would be finished just in time for us to move into assisted living. So my husband invited Paulo home for a threesome.

It was love at first spray.

Me and Paulo, getting it on

It didn't surprise me much to discover that Paulo, in the end, turned out to be quite high maintenance. All the great beauties are.

But I don't mind taking good care of him. He's totally worth it. I have a feeling we're going to be very happy together.

Den, before

Den, happily ever after

Smoke and Mirrors

2011-07-22T18:20:00.012-05:00

Remember when I told you how much I love the new paint color I chose for my office? Well, I'm not so sold on the paint I chose for the dining room. The color is so safe it hardly even counts as a color. Because I'm too lazy and cheap to just pick another color and paint again, I'm trying to make it work by adding so many extra colors to the space that people become too confused to notice the walls. Smart, right?

So I found this fabric remnant at an estate sale today. I think it may have come from circus folk.

I decided to use it to cover these bland old dining room chairs of ours.

The first step in this process was to gently pop the seats out. Once that was done, my next step was to break my stapler. Because breaking an essential tool is ALWAYS step 2 in my DIY instructions.

After trying every tool I could think of to fix the jammed stapler, I came back to my old standby—cussing. Why I don't try it sooner I don't know, because it always works like a charm.

Voilà!

Boring walls? Where?

Don't Try This At Home

2011-07-15T17:30:00.015-05:00

Remember that old ad campaign, Take the Nestea® Plunge?

The premise is that if you're lucky enough to have a cold, quenching glass of Nestea Iced Tea in your hand, even the harshest environment magically transforms into cool, refreshing water.

My husband decided to try the plunge in our pool a couple of days ago.

Our pool, a couple of days ago

Unfortunately, he wasn't lucky enough to have the tea. In which case, even the harshest environment just stays harsh, and instead of getting refreshed, you get a broken shoulder.

Oh sure, you can all lavish sympathy all over him—poooooor baby—but I'm the one you should be feeling sorry for. All he has to worry about is a lousy six to eight week recovery period, constant pain, almost complete loss of the use of his dominant hand, and an awkward, hot, uncomfortable sling for two months.

Whatever. The garbage isn't going to take itself out for two months.

Man. This really sucks for me.

The Office

2011-07-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

With the exception of the kitchen and dining room, which fell victim to the tragic wallpaper plague of the '70s, every wall in our new house is white. And not hip, modern white, either. Dingy, old lady white.

Like this—

We've lived here nine months. While some women piss away nine months making people, I used my time to make something really important—my first paint decision.

Morning Fog—Blue and Gray's Beautiful Love Child

I was so happy to finally have a can of paint in my hand that I sprinted to the checkout before that temptress Martha Stewart could lure me back down the aisle with her siren song of samples. I was halfway home before I realized that I might need some way to actually apply my beautiful new color to the walls. Details. I figured I must have some crusty old brush lying around a closet floor somewhere, maybe a roller that didn't have too many chunky bits.

And then I found this—

♫ Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! ♫

I'd forgotten all about it. My husband's sweet nephew drew my name for the Christmas gift exchange. He knows me well enough to understand what my idea of a perfect present is. He also knows me well enough to anticipate that I'd be too cheap and/or flaky to remember to buy this kind of stuff myself.

Thanks for a great present, Joe. I love my new office. And now that the old lady white is gone, I swear my husband looks ten years younger in there.

A Fourth of July Miracle

2011-07-01T11:13:00.022-05:00

I'm not exactly what you would call an especially rational person. I'm more of what you might call a recreational worrier. When things go wrong, only the worst possible ending seems plausible. I find a wet spot on the floor, and I'm SURE the roof not only has a leak and needs to be replaced immediately, but probably is in fact dripping some highly toxic poison into our home which will kill us all by dinner. It could happen. My seven-year-old gets a strange bump on his genitals, I'm convinced it's fatal scrotum cancer. Even after my husband shows me the tick writhing in the tweezers. Ticks can cause fatal scrotum cancer, you know.

I have a word for this kind of thinking. That word is "pragmatic."

My husband has a different word.

So this morning, when we woke to a hot house, dread began swirling in the pit of my stomach. We'd need a new unit for sure, maybe two. Certainly all new duct work. Probably months of expensive labor. We'd have to find somewhere to stay. It was going to be a nightmare. There'd probably be locusts!

But then, something crazy happened. Not two hours after we noticed the house was hot, it was cool again. My responsible husband called our reliable AC guy and he fixed it. Just like that. All it was was this little old part.

A part which cost $41.00.

Then he stayed and tuned our son's guitar.

I'm sure we'll have a disaster for me to worry about soon enough. But it looks like today's not the day.

. . . and justice for all.

2011-06-28T13:07:00.017-05:00

Even though my HUGE teacher paychecks just keep rolling in all summer long, I still like to supplement with a little extra income when I can. Summer nanny gigs are the perfect solution, mainly because I'm way too lazy to get a real job, but also because it keeps my only child out of my ass for a few hours a day. (I mean that in the nicest way possible.) For me, it's a part-time job; for him, it's a part-time brother.

Because I'm such a quick study, it's only taken me two weeks to get to the heart of the strange dynamic between my child and my charge. They aren't so much acting like friends; they're acting, well, like brothers. After two solid weeks of bickering and pissing contests, I've got them figured out. They don't give a hot damn about happiness or fun. They are completely unimpressed by even the most ambitious attempts at entertainment. The ONLY thing they are interested in, in fact, are obsessed with, is justice. I could lock them in a room full of snakes and rotting meat and all they'd care about is that they each got equally poisonous snakes and exactly the same portion of rotting meat.

"His meat is stinkier than mine!" I can hear them complain.

"He got more maggots than me! No fair!"

But now, I've got their number. I know where it's at. Screw fun, they just want fair. So today, we baked cookies. And not just any cookies—peanut butter cookies. We made chocolate chips last week, and it didn't go well. The randomness of the chips led to anarchy and near mutiny. But with peanut butter, I had some control. I explained to the boys that each and every one of these cookies belonged to both of them. They were going to work together, side by side, equally. They took equal turns with the beater, and got equal licking rights.

Notice my son, reaching for the other child's beater. Punk.

Next, I rolled the balls and handed them to the boys, one at a time, to roll in sugar. Even Steven. I had one boy press in all the vertical fork prints and the other, the horizontal. What could be more fair? There was only a brief uprising when vertical boy yelled, "Hey, he's smashing MY cookies!" Old habits die hard.

They'll probably continue to fight like brothers for the rest of the day, but who cares. I intend to eat the entire batch of cookies and be drunk by supper.

Special Effects

2011-06-17T08:36:00.018-05:00

This never happens.

I'm one of those lame joke tellers who has to pause twelve times to mentally run through the punchline. My ghost stories aren't a lot better. Five-year-olds have been known to sigh impatiently and walk away to check the score on the game.

But this time was different. This time I had a secret weapon. This time, I had special effects.

We were exploring a wooded creek, my son and I and two of his friends. One of the boys discovered some debris on the bank and got to wondering where it came from.

I decided to fill him in. I started weaving this spooky story about a strange old man who had been in a horrible accident, the result of a group of seven-year-old boys—boys just like you—ding dong ditching him. It ended badly for the old man, and he vowed to get revenge on any seven-year-old boys who ever had the bad luck to wander too close to his home—this creek.

A dog barked.

"He trained his dog to bark," I told them, "Whenever seven-year-old boys came around. That's his signal. He's probably getting ready even now."

Their eyes grew wide.

I continued with my tale, adding details as the scenery dictated.

Then one of the boys said, "What's that smell?"

"Yeah, what smells so bad?"

The smell was unmistakable—death. Right on cue.

First we spotted the maggots.

Then we saw the fur.

Some bones.

A spine.

A tail.

A head.

And the creepiest part of all — a butterfly, floating in stage left. A little too Silence of the Lambs for my liking.

The two friends, sensible little boys, were properly disgusted and eager to get far away from the source of the stench. It was my child who wanted to investigate further. My child, who is still afraid to go to the bathroom at night in his own home, was suddenly fearless. He would have carried the skull home in his back pocket if I'd let him.

In fact, I think I'll let my husband do the next couple loads of laundry. Just in case.

Ebb and Flow

2011-06-12T15:58:00.020-05:00

Our pool holds approximately 22,000 gallons. On a good day. But she's almost fifty years old now and she's starting to have a hard time holding her water. I'm coming up on fifty myself; I can empathize.

Original owners' inscription beneath diving board

Now don't confuse empathy with acceptance, because I'm here to tell you that I was not exactly feeling understanding when we discovered that the old girl had sprung a leak. Concerned doesn't quite cover it. Worried, maybe. Disconcerted.

As the gallons continued to mysteriously dribble out for weeks on end, concern turned to anxiety. The pool guy just kept scratching his head, unable to determine where our fault line was hiding. He was taking the kind of wait and see attitude only one whose name is in no way associated with the water bill can take.

By the time the pool was half empty, anxiety had morphed into full on obsession, a lie-awake-at-night frenzy of panic and fear. Our girl was silently bleeding out, and the doctor couldn't save her.

This was terrible. This was catastrophic! Could this be any worse?

The answer to that question was waiting for me in today's paper.

Photo by STEPHEN B. THORNTON

Exactly a year ago today, it wasn't receding water, but rising water that gripped the hearts and minds of every person in Arkansas and her surrounding states. Heavy rains inundated the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers, causing them to swell and rage, consuming the Albert Pike Recreational Area where men, women, and children slept. Best friends Candace Smith and Kerri Basinger were there, camping with their families. The flood took both of their husbands and four of their children, ages two, five, six, and eight. The water claimed twenty lives that night.

The pool guy will find our leaks and patch them. We'll lower a hose in the empty hole in our yard and let the water flow. It will all be made right with the simple act of signing a name on a check. My mother always says, "If money can fix it, it ain't a problem."

As usual, she's right.

Tonight, I get to curl up in bed with my husband on one side and child on the other. How is it possible that I needed reminding that nothing else really matters?

If a lingering worry does creep up tonight, I'll shoo it away, and replace it with a prayer for the families of the Albert Pike flood.

The Blindside

2011-06-08T19:44:00.010-05:00

It happens every year.

Just like the last shopping day before Christmas, or the psycho killer showing up the second the hot girl takes off her shirt, it always catches me by surprise. I know damn well it's coming, but then, every time, it blindsides me.

The last days of school.

You're right if you think the teacher is counting the minutes until that last kid is ushered away, heading off for a summer with mom or dad or the nanny. A summer with anyone but me. I am counting the minutes, and each one is a little harder than the last. Each one pushes me just a little closer to the brink.

I never know what exactly will be the tipping point, what will throw open the valve and unleash the tears I've been pushing back for days. Yesterday it was my little Latina child. She was working on her Pre-K Memory Book, documenting for posterity all the things she liked best about school. When we got to the teacher page, I prompted her to come up with an adjective to describe me. But she didn't quite understand the concept.

So I said, "What do you like about me?"

She looked me in the eye and said, "You heart. I love you heart." And then, a split second before I curled up and died, she added, "And you hair."

This is one of the other children I have to say goodbye to. Look at that face, and tell me how.

Tomorrow is the last day.

Send me luck. Or vodka.

Pretty in Pink

2011-05-29T14:07:00.009-05:00

Friends were coming over for the official pool season opener. As I got ready, I wondered what might be the perfect thing to wear to a pool party where I had absolutely no intention of getting anywhere near the pool. The ingenious idea I came up with was jeans and a shirt. Because I'm creative like that.

It wasn't until after the first guests arrived that the answer came to me.

~The lovely Sofia, modeling pool party perfection.

Elegant, easy, summery, comfortable, forgiving (not that Sofia needs forgiving). Perfect.

I want one in every color.

Cracks

2011-05-23T12:52:00.028-05:00

I was nearly 40 when I got married. Some might have called me a spinster, but I preferred to think of myself as fashionably late. I'm late for everything, so why should this be any different. Since my name belonged to the only family I'd ever known, I decided to hang onto it. But I wanted it both ways, remaining a part of my old family and incorporating the new, so I tacked them on with a hyphen. It's a cumbersome mouthful to spit out, and a pain in the ass to spell over the phone when the receptionist can't quite figure it out. But I like the symbolism—a house united, two families become one.

One of my favorite people on earth is living the flip side of this story—a house divided, one family become two. I don't much like the negative term "broken home," but it's certainly apt in this case. Their family is broken—snapped like a twig over a knee, splintered ends flung to the farthest corners of the forest.

Having never been divorced, I find myself gorging on delicious righteous indignation, an all-you-can-eat-buffet of criticism. It's easy for me to harshly judge the choices they've made, never having faced them myself. But it's not easy to watch. When their family broke, my heart broke right along with it— not for the adults so much, but for the children, especially that child who is one of my favorite people on earth. I don't know what they're going through, or what it took for their lives to snap so utterly and irreparably in two. What I do know is that every time I want to point my damning finger and try to assign the blame, I should offer my hand instead, and try to assist the healing.

This family is broken, but the people in it aren't. When they landed on their opposite sides of the continent, they suffered injuries for sure—a few hairline fractures, a couple of cracks. But Leonard Cohen got it right, "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

photo credit Gabrielle Kai Photography

Superdan

2011-05-15T20:12:00.012-05:00

There were two things worthy of celebration at our house today—

1. I am now one semester closer to finishing grad school.
2. It's almost summer in Arkansas and we needed jackets.

I'm seriously not sure which is bigger news in my book, but they both make me very, very happy.

We decided a celebration was in order, and as luck would have it, there was a festival in town—the Jewish Food Festival. After soaking in the music, culture, and delicious aromas, we made our lunch selections and found a seat by the river, enjoying our meals as we watched the children burn off their blintzes in a bouncy house.

Like this one—

Apparently a little distracted by his latkes, some clumsy reveler tripped over the cord, taking a bit of the bounce out of the house.

Like this one—

Well, my falafel was really good. So good, that I just sat there, chewing and gawking, as the house collapsed upon itself, trapping all the helpless children inside.

Thank baby Jesus my husband uses his head for something other than food intake, because he didn't even swallow before bolting into rescue mode. He dropped his plate and ran to the house, propping up the flaccid door as children wriggled out around his feet.

It was like he didn't even care that his kabob cost eight tickets.

I'm One Lucky Mother

2011-05-08T09:32:00.019-05:00

Facebook is overflowing with articles, poems, pictures, songs and salutes to moms today. But it was this one that really got me thinking.

A real woman always keeps her house clean and organized, the laundry basket is always empty. She’s always well dressed, hair done. She never swears and behaves gracefully in all situations and under all circumstances. She has more than enough patience to take care of her family, always has a smile on her lips, and a kind word for everyone. ... Post this in your status if you too suspect that you might be a man.

My house is clean and organized. My laundry basket is always empty. Additionally, my fridge and cupboards are filled regularly, my bills are paid on time, my checkbook is balanced meticulously, my coffee is ready minutes before I wake, and my meals are cooked and served with love.

In my house, the Mother's Day accolades aren't mine, they're his—

It doesn't make me less of a woman that I don't take care of these household chores. It makes him more of a man.

Especially when he wears that hat.

The Eye of the Beholder

2011-04-08T16:25:00.009-05:00

Due to an unfortunate playpen accident when I was an infant, I have the ugliest baby toe in America.

No, I'm serious.

It's repulsive.

Really.

You do not want to see this.

Okay, if you just have to.

You were warned.

So today, I'm having a picnic with the four-year-olds I teach. In the chaos of the moment, I forgot about my hideous appendage and kicked off my shoes in the grass. And that's when something truly amazing happened.

I felt someone caressing The Toe.

I looked down and saw that the hand touching my repugnant growth was one that belonged to my little Hispanic student. We'll call her Maria. Although Maria started the year speaking exclusively Spanish, her English is now nearly perfect.

And it was in that perfect English that she said words I never dreamed I'd hear, "You toe ees so preetty."

She was stroking my freshly painted toenail, a shiny sliver of salmon glistening atop my meaty, red pork chop. But she didn't see what I see. All she saw was the shimmering preety pink.

Why can't we all be four?

200 mgs Perspective: repeat as needed

2011-02-19T16:14:00.018-06:00

Cindy Crawford has her mole. Angelina Jolie has her lips. Me? My trademark is phlegm. What can I say? All the good ones were taken.

For as long as I can remember, I've had a disgusting, rattly, wet cough and perpetual runny nose. I'm Hansel, but instead of crumbs, I leave a trail of dirty Kleenex. My husband is one lucky son of a bitch.

Well I finally got sick of being sick and went to the doctor. After putting it off several decades, you really wouldn't think I had any right to get impatient, but after about an hour in the waiting room, I did. After about an hour and a half in the waiting room, I started looking for the hidden camera. This is a big practice, with eight doctors and a legion of nurses, all holed up behind locked glass doors. I could see into the their mysterious land, but for some reason, they weren't letting me in. Over and over again, smiling nurses would come to the portal and call a name. But never my name, just the names of the other patients, the lucky patients. This happened no less than forty times. Without a shred of exaggeration, thirty patients who came in after me were taken back, treated, and released. While I waited. I am not making this up. I tried my best to keep my sense of humor, asking the receptionists if I'd done something to piss them off, or if I'd score some free drugs for my trouble. But all they could do was apologize and scratch their heads. An hour and forty-five minutes into my wait, I finally had the good sense to get up and walk out. I was only going to my car to see if my book was there, but they didn't know that, so it had a nice dramatic effect. So much so, in fact, that a receptionist chased me out and told me it was finally my turn. If only I'd gone for the book sooner.

Once inside, I was escorted to another room to continue waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Just as my blood pressure was topping out, I began to hear sounds penetrating the wall between me and the adjacent exam room. In the span of fifteen minutes, some poor invisible soul vomited more than I have in my entire lifetime. Loud, violent, horrific, gut-wrenching, intestine-ripping vomiting. I tried to figure out which one of those earlier "lucky" patients it might be. But I couldn't imagine who. Nobody out there even looked sick to me; they all just looked chosen, better off than me.

And right about then, sitting quietly in a chair for two hours didn't seem so terrible after all.

Weathering the storm

2011-01-09T18:25:00.006-06:00

When the forecast calls for snow here in Arkansas, everyone races to gather necessary supplies to assure survival, even if accumulations rise dangerously above an inch. Well don't think that just because I'm a Yankee I'm any different. The minute that first flake flew, we got busy.

Whew. I think we're gonna make it.

About Face

2010-11-09T08:11:00.026-06:00

I sat for a long time this morning, considering the face in the mirror, surveying the damage like a landlord deciding whether or not to return the security deposit. When did all these spots get here? Brown and red, small and not so small. And lines. Long ones between the brows from years of reading with expression, small ones framing the lips from hours of shushing noisy children. Above the face, errant grays, below it, gathering jowls. I see my mother. Oh Sweet Jesus, right there, on the left cheek, my Grandmother.

Happy birthday?

Some people are gracious about aging, mature, grown up. They see their wrinkles as the reward of years of laughter and love. Their spots and splotches are badges of honor from time well spent.

I'm not one of those people. I just see middle-age. And I liked youth better.

I am 46 today. I can almost feel myself cresting the peak, beginning the steady descent. Let's just hope Frank Sinatra was right—the best is yet to come.

As I scrutinize this tired face, my son's voice intrudes on my self-pity. He is laughing and chattering like only children do. Beyond him, the familiar sounds of my husband, fixing lunches and pouring egg nog into my coffee, just the way I like it.

I'd trade this old face for a young one in a second. But not if it meant returning to a life before them. I may even take a new wrinkle or two, if that's what it took to keep them.

Happy birthday indeed.

Keeping His Head

2010-10-31T17:15:00.019-05:00

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My seven-year-old has a mind of his own. Even when he doesn't have a head.

He never wants to be whatever the popular costume is. Never a transformer or a superhero. Never anything Disney. And I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise. When your kid was watching Batman cartoons, ours was memorizing Michael Jackson's zombie moves in Thriller.

Last year he was a mummy. This year, The Headless Horseman.

He loved it, for about 12 minutes.

Then the shoulders started slipping.

And the layers got too hot.

So he ended up trick or treating in black jeans and his mom's white button down shirt. When people asked what he was, he called himself a cowboy.

But I think he's an angel.

Or a Muslim woman going to disco.
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My Little Tiger

2010-10-03T15:44:00.008-05:00

And he's still got that new cub smell.
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A Friend in Need

2010-09-26T07:55:00.032-05:00

My friend Melanie has it going on. She is blissfully married to the man of her dreams, has two healthy, successful sons, is partner in a flourishing law practice, has amazing friends and is still smoking hot well into her forties. If she weren't so damn fun to be around, a girl could really hate her.

I know it sounds like Melanie has it all, but sadly, she is still one critical level shy of climbing all the way to the pinnacle of happiness.

Melanie's Hierarchy of Needs

Thank God she has devoted friends like me who are there to throw her a rope and help pull her up to the summit. And last night, we made time in our busy lives to do just that.

Knowing that true self-actualization can only be reached by going the distance alone, we stepped aside and let Melanie negotiate the final steps of the ascent.

She gave it her all, from the comprehensive Google search of fall cocktail recipes to the thorough scouring of liquor store shelves, but I fear I must report that Melanie's efforts were not successful. Her attempt to grasp the perfect fall cocktail turned up instead something that she herself best described as tasting "like ass."

And so, Melanie will continue to seek perfection, in life, and in cocktails. And her friends, loyal to the end, will stand by her side, drinking tirelessly until at last her quest is fulfilled. Because that is what true friends do, people. That is what true friends do.
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Too Good To Be True

2010-09-14T17:41:00.018-05:00

Because I like living indoors and eating at regular intervals, I avoid blogging about any school related topics that could be construed as negative or critical. If you don't believe me, just see if you can find a single word in my archives about my previous aide.

Moving on.

But then, I moved to my new school. And there was Sarah. The words "new and improved" don't begin to cover it. Sarah, in a word, is perfect. She has an innate understanding of how a classroom, my classroom, should be run. I think it; she does it. Truth be told, she's smarter than I am and much more organized. I should be her aide. Sarah is in grad school and next year she'll be a full-fledged teacher herself. For a brief sliver of time, the kids in our room have had the rare privilege of two equally qualified teachers. However, through a fluke of bureaucracy, Sarah is not qualified to be a Pre-K aide.

Yeah. Moving on.

So tomorrow, she's leaving me. When something seems too good to be true and all that. I'm sure her replacement will be just fine; everything at this new school seems conspicuously better.

I just hope I don't hate her for not being Sarah.

Thank you, Sarah, for the best 16 days of my teaching career. I miss you already.
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Happily Ever After

2010-08-27T19:14:00.026-05:00

It was last spring when my principal broke the news. Due to the shifting student population, my school would be losing one of our three Pre-K classes. Due to lousy decision making skills resulting in a complete inability to pick a career until my thirties, I had least seniority. I was being transferred, like it or not. As an elderly person, I did not embrace this sudden and involuntary change. Given the choice, I would have stayed put, surrounded by the comforting known.

Sometimes, it's a really good thing I don't always get what I want.

I've been at the new school seven days now, and even with my trusty Merriam-Webster Online just a click away, I couldn't possibly find the words to say how happy I am. Over the moon happy. Clicking my heels happy. It's 2:35 already? happy.

Strange things happen at this new school that I hope I never get used to. Things like the principal going out of her way to make sure I have what I need to be happy, even on a Saturday. And a teacher wishing me a "winning" year, and handing me a lottery ticket. Or an aide showing up out of the blue, wondering if I needed anything done. Then there's the (handsome!) counselor stopping by just to read to the kids.

The Lunch Lady isn't even mean.

Weird, right?

And then there's Sarah, my aide, who is sweet and smart and hard-working and reliable and agreeable and cooperative and very possibly perfect. If I had to, I would pay her myself just to have her with me every day.

But I haven't even told you the best part yet. Every once in a while, just for a second, I see him.

And, well, I just don't have the words.
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Look Moms, No Hands!

2010-08-10T12:44:00.016-05:00

When a Pre-K teacher meets her new parents at the beginning of a school year, there are certain questions she can expect: What time should I pick him up at the end of the day? Can she have a teddy bear for nap time? That sort of thing.

But this year I got a question I wasn't expecting: Can you touch the children?

The first person to come up with a sadder or more disturbing question than that wins the deed to my house! Hell, I'll even toss in the dog, because I know nobody's coming up with anything to top that.

Can you touch the children. In Pre-K.

sigh . . . .

Unfortunately, she didn't just pull the question out of thin air. She asked because her sister's kids go to a popular new school in our area that has a strict no-touching policy. Because I'm sure if some creepy pedophile does happen to get a job there, he wouldn't think of breaking policy. Well, I was going to defile that kid over there, but damn the luck! There's a policy!

There are bad people in the world, it's true. And there's nothing that should be more jealously guarded than our children's safety. But denying a child a comforting hug, a deserved pat on the back, or a reassuring hand to hold, in my opinion, has the potential to cause more harm than it prevents.

As for my Pre-K kids, I started the year by giving them each a beautiful little welcome gift ~

Bubbles

Sidewalk Chalk

Rainbow Marshmallow Twist

And a big hug.
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Hot Dog!

2010-08-01T17:35:00.024-05:00

No matter how sweltering the weather, it rarely bothers me as much as it does most people. My husband will be sopping wet with sweat while I'm tucking an afghan around my knees. Somehow, my body just seems to stay cooler than normal humans. I may well be slowly dying from poor circulation. But I'm okay with that, because even in Arkansas, there's rarely a day hot enough for me to resort to air conditioning in my car.

Today was one of those days. August is not pussyfooting around, y'all.

When I ran out to do a few errands today, the temperature was every bit of 100° with a heat index of 368°. By the time I walked from the house to the car, I looked like a Salvador Dali painting. There was no way in hell I was sitting in that car without cranking the AC as high as it would go. And why not? No one in their right mind would be caught dead in an un-air conditioned car on a day like today.

At least no one who could help it.

When I opened my car door at the Office Depot, the first thing I noticed was the oppressive slap of hot air across my face. The next thing I noticed was the barking. It was coming from a sleek, sexy silver sports car. Or more specifically, from the frantic bite-sized Yorkie trapped inside it.

Sadly, I am not making this up.

Despite the rotisserie-like temperature, goose bumps immediately crowded my flesh. I began muttering cuss words under my breath, more or less. I don't think I could have been more livid if it had been a child. And I'm not even an animal person. God help the poor son of a bitch who does this in my sister's neck of the woods.

I huffed to the front door and waited a long minute or two, deciding what to do. Minding my own business was the first option ruled out. Soon enough, a beautiful young couple strode out of the store, hipsters with too much disposable income and not enough sense. I glared at them as they sauntered toward the car, debating whether I should deliver a searing lecture or stay more true to character and just talk smack about them behind their backs for the next few weeks. It was the woman who made her way to the driver's door. "Awww . . . look at this poor doggie," she sighed. And they went to their real car and drove away.

Once inside the store, I all but accosted the first uniform-clad body I saw. In the most controlled voice I could dredge up, I spat, "Somebody has their fucking dog locked in a car out there. Will you please make an announcement and tell them that I'm waiting five more minutes and CALLING THE POLICE!" I'm nothing if not classy.

I heard a small voice say, "It's my dog." I turned to see an attractive blonde woman at the check out. She was wearing strappy high heel sandals and a slinky white dress that gave her a Greek goddess quality. I wondered if I could kill her with an EXPO marker.

Although I hardly even yell at my own husband, I definitely heard myself say, "SISTER!? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HOT IT IS OUT THERE?!"

"I only had to run in for a minute," Venus explained.

"REALLY?! WOULD YOU SIT OUT THERE IN THAT CAR WITH THE WINDOWS ROLLED UP FOR EVEN A MINUTE? WOULD YOU? WOULD YOU!!!?"

Surprisingly, she didn't answer. But I'm sure I'll see her again. She's probably my new principal.
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It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It

2010-07-30T09:38:00.025-05:00

Another year as summertime nanny to a couple of sweet little boys has come to a close. Because I'm not grown up enough to wait for praise and affirmation to come naturally, sometimes I might give a little gentle nudge, just to assure my fix. So I came right out and asked each of the boys if they'd miss me. (I know, pitiful. Shut up.)

The older boy said what I wanted to hear, but not exactly in the way I wanted to hear it. He said, "Yeah," but his tone was exactly what one might expect if I had asked him if he'd like to tag along on a trip to the fabric store.

The younger boy, though?

"I'm really gonna miss you," I prompted. "You think you might miss me, too?" His little forehead contorted slightly, his big brown eyes brimming with confusion.

"Well yeah," he said. But if you heard his tone, you might think I had just asked if he'd be disappointed if Santa skipped his house this year. While I usually cringe at the duh inflection, this time it was music.

I've always loved those boys equally. It's not right to have favorites. But if you asked me right now if one of them took up just a little more space in my heart, I'd probably answer, "Well yeah."

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Easy Rider

2010-07-27T08:34:00.029-05:00

"How much longer?"

"Are we almost there?"

"This is taking for-ehhhhh-ver!"

I swear, if I heard one more complaint about how long the drive to Florida was taking, I was seriously going to choke somebody.

Except, the only one to choke was me.

From me, my six-year-old got his bright blue eyes and his ability to work a room. But thank God (or St. Christopher), it was from his father that he got his traveling genes. His father, who thinks it would be "fun" to get in the car and head west, just drive and drive and drive, until we reach the other side. Or I jump out and let him run me over, whichever comes first. The two of them were happy as clams each of the excruciatingly long hours we were trapped in our Subaru, completely oblivious to our state of painful captivity, our inescapable, interminable inability to move. Nary a peep from either of them. But I suffered each mile, not wasting precious mental energy keeping my misery to myself. As we rolled past a string of correctional facilities, I envied the inmates their freedom to stand up and stretch. Lucky bastards.

I've always been like this, counting down the mile markers, anxious to be there, wherever there may be. All that clichéd garbage about life being a journey? Bullshit. Just get me to my destination already.

But not my kid. He was amazing. Miraculous, really. Almost twelve hours strapped into his booster and the closest thing to a complaint I heard out of him was, "Do you mind pulling over a minute so I can poo?"

Even though my DNA had nothing to do with his incorrigible happiness, I'm still taking partial credit because I was the one who packed his "Little Bag of Tricks." While I have no idea how to keep myself from becoming suicidal on the road, here are a few ideas if you're traveling with kids.

Little Bag of Tricks (contents may vary)

several quiet activities, like magnet board games
a variety of art supplies, including markers, crayons, rubber stamps and ink pad, notepad, and even a dreaded coloring book (you can worry about fostering creativity later)
quart sized Ziploc bags filled with Matchbox cars, animals, guys
electronics — we went with his Leapster, a portable DVD player and an iPod*
movies on DVD, books on CD
a lapdesk
plenty of road-ready snacks, like trail mix and pistachios

The original plan was for me to be master of the bag and only toss back activities as needed, but then I remembered that I have feet and would need a place to stow them. So the bag ended up in his control, and other than a little more mess than I had envisioned, he did great managing on his own. In fact, next year we might let him sit up front and be the grown up while I curl up in a fetal position in the backseat and whine.

Don't think I can't see where all this is leading — his love of the open road, his eagerness to go anywhere and welcome whatever adventure comes next. But I'm not going to worry about it yet. I'll probably be long gone before it comes to this . . .

Especially if we take that road trip out west.

* That part about me getting credit for packing the bag of tricks? Truth be told, our wonderful, generous, genius friend Melanie gets all the credit. The iPod, which entertained him for about ten out of the twelve hours, was her contribution, complete with its Beyoncé and Lady Gaga packed playlist. It kept our boy rocking down the highway. Maybe I should have been listening in with him, instead of finding every boring NPR station in five states.

Thanks, Melanie!

Catch .22

2010-07-13T12:06:00.027-05:00

When you do 90% of your shopping at garage sales, it tends to make you a bit naïve about the real world of consumerism. I'm sure I'd be the worst failure ever in the history of The Price Is Right, what with my impossibly sheltered exposure to reality. A brand new Cadillac Escalade, Bob? I'll say $10,000!

Well turns out it's not just my idea of what things cost that's warped. Last night we went to Academy Sports to pick up a few necessities for our upcoming vacation: water shoes, sunglasses, swimsuits, that sort of thing. I strolled down the beach accessory aisle, contemplating the potential of SpongeBob boogie boards and Jumbo Castle Molding sets. At the end of the aisle, I took a right, and found myself suddenly in front of a display of items not on my list.

Other than that living-under-a-rock thing, I have no excuse for how shocked I was. I'm fully aware that the Second Amendment is alive and well in America, I just didn't realize it was subletting space next to the yoga mats and soccer balls at my local sporting goods store. I get it that hunting is a sport. I can even buy in to the idea that it's necessary and noble, although my husband will never see me naked again if he ever pulls into our driveway with a bloody deer splayed across his Subaru.

But handguns? PINK fucking handguns?! Really? REALLY?

Not one for playing it cool when completely over-reacting is an option, I grabbed my six-year-old by the arm and yanked him out of the aisle like it was on fire. They may as well have been selling freshly severed human heads. But then I couldn't help but wander back, over and over, while my husband kept my son a safe distance from the clearly hazardous unloaded weapons. Eventually I struck up a conversation with the man behind the counter, Max, who is probably writing about me in his blog right now, too. I needed to know why the pink. Why the intentional effort to make lethal weapons look cute. He told me what any normal woman would have instinctively known, "Women like to accessorize." Then he laughed and added, "And when the manly men come in and make fun of them, I just tell 'em, 'Well wouldn't you feel foolish if you had to tell somebody you got shot with a pink pistol?' "

Oh Max, I think feeling foolish would be low on his list of pressing concerns.

So then I asked about the ridiculously adorable Deringers on display. These fun-sized versions of the weapon that John Wilkes Booth carried into Ford's Theatre to do his part for the Confederacy are now, apparently, all the rage with ladies who lunch. According to Max, the infinitely concealable Deringer is the way to go, especially in the summertime, if you don't want your piece messing up your silhouette. Linen can be so unforgiving.

I had to ask Max, how many ordinary citizens are there walking around Arkansas with these things lurking amid their Kroger cards and Altoids? At first he said thousands, then shook his head and corrected himself, "No, tens of thousands." At which point another employee walked over and really blew my mind, "No, it's more like 300,000."

I'm not going to rage against the Second Amendment. I understand that people have the right to bear arms, and to protect their families. But I don't think our founding fathers could have envisioned The Real Housewives of Little Rock accessorizing their ensembles with pearlescent pink .22s. Just as toy guns should not be made to look real, real guns should not be made to look like toys.

The Children's Defense Fund offers this chilling statistic: In one year, more children and teens died from gunfire than from cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined. If you must own a gun, at least have the sense to pick one that looks scary as hell. Then lock it in a box painted with zombies and tarantulas and bury the box in a pit full of pythons.

And don't invite my kid over.
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Olly Olly Oxen Free

2010-07-07T10:28:00.024-05:00

Days like this don't come around every day in Arkansas. Well they do, but not until October. In July, the combination of cool temperatures, low humidity and intermittent breeze falls somewhere between a gift and a miracle. Which is why I did what I can only assume all good mothers did today: I locked my child out.

Literally.

At first, it was a bit like a prison break in reverse, him and his pals searching for breaches in the security and sneaking back inside. At one particularly low point, I even caught them crawling through the doggie door. But I was undeterred. I ignored their protests, shooed them back out and wedged heavy furniture in front of all points of entry. I won't kid you, there were a few moments when I was in serious jeopardy of mutiny. But they're really too short to do much damage, so I persevered.

A little later, a neighbor girl noticed the signs of life on the lawn and came out to investigate. Her nanny conscientiously came over too, to see if maybe we were evacuating because of a fire or carbon monoxide leak. When the little girl decided to join the boys in the yard, I felt a tiny surge of success. Right up until I overheard her say, "My nanny said however long I stay outside, that's how long I get to play Wii when I go in." Of course she did.

I'm coming to the unnerving conclusion that children are losing their ability to play. It makes me wonder: Has Kick the Can kicked the bucket? Has Donkey Kong killed Pin the Tail on the Donkey? Has Hide and Seek gone into hiding? Or is it our children who are in hiding? When our kids are holed up on the couch, playing video games or watching TV, there is comfort in knowing that they're safe. Our neurotic fears of kidnappers and child molesters and 16-year-old drivers texting behind the wheel get to take a breather. But I don't believe kids are really any more at risk out in the world today than we were as kids. Since 1993, crime rates have actually been steadily tumbling. It's just that we've developed an insatiable hunger for coverage of the crimes that do occur. How can we help but imagine every horrific way our child could be harmed when television pumps an endless stream of images into our brains. And we refuse to look away.

There are dangers out in the world to be sure, but to my mind, the greater danger is in not sending them out. We may be protecting their bodies, but we're killing their souls. What seeds can a child plant in the fallow land of his living room? It is only beyond those four buffering walls where discoveries are made, where unique thoughts are cultivated and sown. Toy manufactures know this, and take names like Discovery Toys and Creative Playthings. But what discovery can be made when another human being has already done all the creating? Children need to explore the world with their own eyes, not experience it through a facsimile of someone else's perception. They need to feel the cold lake on their toes to know boundless possibility. They must hold the wriggling frog in their own hand to know the pulsing energy of life.

Rachel Carson never had children, but she understood nature well enough to know, "A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood." Parents stand with their hand powerfully poised before the dimmer switch. We can choose a low setting, or we can throw open the back door and send our children intrepidly into the big, bright, limitless world.

If we don't, who will design the video games for their children?
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Come On In, The Water's Fine (limited time offer)

2010-07-03T07:52:00.000-05:00

While I can't recommend giving birth in Arkansas in mid-August, there is a silver lining. (Or, if you want to get technical, a bright blue vinyl lining.) Every year, just in time for his birthday party, Big Box stores are tripping over each other trying to move swimming pools.

My thrifty husband had been keeping an eagle eye on the sales, watching the prices get whittled ever thinner as summer wore on. Just in time for the party, he found a price so good he bought two! (I am not making this up.)

Because we had been waiting out the price war, or perhaps because we are morons, we waited until the morning of the party to set up the pool. Come on, it says Easy Set right on the box, how hard could it be? Well, turns out, pretty freaking hard. We dutifully consulted the directions, right after we noticed that our pool looked more like something discarded on the floor of a truck stop men's room than a pool. There may have been one or two vague allusions to the benefits of a level surface. Something along the lines of YOUR POOL ABSOLUTELY MUST BE SET UP ON AN ABSOLUTELY, PERFECTLY LEVEL SURFACE OR IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT HOLD WATER AND SWIMMERS WILL BE AT RISK OF IMMINENT DEATH AND DISFIGUREMENT blah blah blah. So, funny thing, turns out the hill in our back yard may not have been ideal.

But the kids were troupers. Even if there were only 11 inches of water, all perilously hovering in a thin ridge along the back wall of the pool, it was wet and they were happy. As for the adults, we buy alcohol by the case, so no one seemed to notice. The minute we sobered up the next day, we dumped out what little water remained and dragged the soggy shell up under the deck to dry before neatly storing it away for winter.

Three weeks ago, when I decided to give the pool another go for this season, it came to my attention that neat storage is not our strong suit. The liner was dejectedly waiting, right where we abandoned it ten months ago, in a moist heap on a lawn chair. To its credit, it made the most of its downtime, cultivating close personal relationships with all manner of slimy lifeforms. It seemed almost a shame to break them up they'd grown so close, but after a few hours on my hands and knees, scrubbing with bleach in the Arkansas sun, the only slimy thing left in the yard was me. I found the most level surface we own, turned the hose on high, and let the cool water slowly rise around me.

For most people, this would be the happy ending. But as I mentioned above, I am a moron. You'd think several hours of intimate contact with slimy green microorganisms would have given me a clue, but it never occurred to me that my cute little Easy Set pool would require care. I thought I'd just fill 'er up and add kids, but the algae had other plans. Within days, the pool went from sparkling cool and clear to this . . . .

No, really.

We're not entirely sure how the squirrel bit it, but our money's on nut allergies.

The good news is, I've gotten so handy at scrubbing the pool with bleach that this time it only took an hour. To date, that brings us to about 25 hours hard labor and 9000 gallons of water for an hour and a half of fun.

Totally worth it.
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The Way to My Heart

2010-06-26T14:19:00.019-05:00

Earlier this week, we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. After so many years together, my man knows the most direct route to my heart. That's why he didn't take any detours to flower shops or wrong turns at the mall. He headed straight for the one thing that never fails to bring a smile to my face. And he saw that smile, the second he walked through the door with that beautiful box in his hand.

No, not that box.

This one.

Because really, when a girl has all of this, what more could she possibly want?

Happy Anniversary, baby. What say we go another ten?
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Reunited and it feels so good

2010-06-21T07:56:00.044-05:00

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There were only 23 people in my class.

Most of the folks who witnessed me hiding under Miss Lawrence's piano on the first day of kindergarten were by my side still as I smiled and walked away with my diploma. The lot of us lived on the lower tier of middle class, small town girls and boys, every last one of us white as Wonder Bread. The range of diversity spanned only the tiniest sliver of the color wheel, from olive-skinned Vinnie Cappabianca to alabaster Erin Brannigan. Something else we share in common is a collective apathy about reuniting. For many of us, the moment our paths diverged in 1982, we became strangers. In almost thirty years, we have yet to so much as get together for a beer. Some of us have made the virtual reconnection made possible through the magic of Facebook, and some have come together for a smattering of lunches and cocktails. There are also a precious few friendships that have stood the test of time, people whose lives have been forever intertwined by the shared experiences of youth. But for some mysterious reason, an overall sense of communal belonging has eluded us. Or at least it's eluded me.

Last weekend, I attended my first class reunion . . . not with my class, but with my husband, and the Little Rock Central High Class of 1980. And it was magical. I left it with much more than aching feet and a mild hangover. I left with inspiration. Watching these old friends reconnect was a beautiful thing. It was clear that these people didn't just walk the same halls together thirty years ago, they didn't just share notes and giggle about the same teachers. Somehow, they became a family. I watched as they embraced and laughed and danced and reminisced. Their smiles were genuine. When one woman fell ill in the midst of her old friends, their concern was equally genuine. These were not just classmates, these were friends, bound by more than just the past.

But what was it, I wondered; what made this class so special? Was it their size (nearly 500 strong) or their diversity (smiling faces in every shade from ivory to ebony). Maybe each of them has been forever changed, made better, simply by the unique privilege of having shared a place and time with their extraordinary classmate, Roosevelt Thompson. Or, maybe they had no choice but to come together to weather the devastation of his life being cut tragically short. Or perhaps there is just something in the air at Central High, some lingering essence that students pick up through osmosis simply by sharing classrooms that were once rife with hatred and struggle, intolerance and cruelty. Within the walls of this school, injustice was fought, ignorance was challenged, history was made. Perhaps just spending time there imparts the profound understanding that friendship is no small thing, but an honor, a gift to be cherished and preserved.

Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock Central High, 1957

Whatever it was that knit this group together, I was proud to be in their presence. And I feel certain that Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Beals would be proud, too.

I am inspired, and I'm funneling that inspiration into plans for my own 30 year reunion. Not so that I can compare what we had to what my husband's class had, not so that we can compare how far we've come or how much we've changed. But so I can remind myself of what these people already know, that friendship is precious and we should grab it with both hands, and hold on.
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Nice Work If You Can Get It

2010-06-10T09:31:00.016-05:00

I was eight months pregnant as the 2002-2003 school year came to a close. Although we'd miss the income, I was committed to my plan of giving up teaching to stay home with my son until he was ready for Kindergarten. But then, one of my best friends scooped me up to watch her son a few hours a week.

Over time, everything grew — the job, the boys, the friendship, my gratitude. I still can't believe she pays me for this . . . .

I swear some days I feel like I should be paying her. But please don't tell her.
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The People in My Neighborhood

2010-05-31T14:45:00.009-05:00

When we moved to our current house, we weren't so much moving to something as away. Let's just say I didn't get along with my old neighbors and leave it at that.

We expected to be happier here, but how could we have imagined this.

There's a name for neighbors like these: magic. And I hope it never ends.
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A Three Hour Tour

2010-05-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

My new best friends forever, Sherry and Dallas, just bought a boat. And she's gorgeous. I felt just the slightest pang of envy when the first pictures appeared on Facebook — the beautiful vessel, the happy new owners, the promise of endless summer fun. Then yesterday, they posted pictures that told a different story. Their most recent trip to the lake was a disaster — engine malfunction, stranded for hours in the searing sun, then lost in the pouring rain. Everything that could have gone wrong did. It looked horrific.

When our mutual friend, Susan, called me early this morning, the first words out of my mouth were, "Wow, weren't you glad you didn't get invited on that trip?"

"Funny you should say that, because we're invited today!"

I was out of the shower and in the car so fast it didn't even register that they were calling for the same weather today. And why would it? It looked so pretty.

At first.

And then, well, who could have predicted this? I mean besides everyone with a TV, newspaper, radio, or computer.

It didn't just rain. Have you ever been in one of those showers where the water spigots come at you from all directions? It was that, but with a broken water heater.

We all huddled low, trying to shield ourselves from the freezing torrent. Which seemed like a good idea, until the floor got so saturated that icy streams began to flow around us. In case that wasn't quite cold enough, the sky opened up and began pelting us with ice cubes. I am not making this up.

Just then, a menacing swarm of birds appeared out of nowhere.

Okay, I am making that up.

The truth is, the weather couldn't have been worse if it tried. But the company couldn't have been better. And if they ask me to go again next weekend, rain or shine, I'm there.
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Houston, we have a problem

2010-05-15T17:07:00.006-05:00

Here's a riddle for you:

What do the Houston Chronicle and Houston Nutt have in common? As of this minute in time, they are the only things Houston that Google finds more interesting than Houston Teacher Beats Student.

Houston Teacher Beats Student!

Holy Headlines, Batman! What could be more delicious than a teacher, the epitome of noble trustworthiness, completely losing her shit on tape? We're gobbling it up, salivating all over our front row seats as a human being self-destructs before our very eyes. Boom! One minute, a highly respected and effective educator, the next minute, a horrible monster, the target of international ire and disgust.

Maybe you haven't seen the video yet. Maybe you can't bring yourself to watch, to see a child brutalized by a trusted adult. I understand. It is gut-wrenching. Don't watch if don't think you can stand it. But I hope you'll listen.

From what I've read, the victim, 13-year-old Isaiah Johnson, was making fun of a mentally challenged girl in his classroom. The girl became angry and threatened to hit him if he didn't stop. Isaiah provoked her and encouraged the fight. And the teacher, Sherri Davis, snapped. “You want to hit a girl? Hit me!” But by this point, her thought processes were choked off by rage. She was reacting, not thinking, propelled entirely by her reptilian brain—her fight or flight response.

People are quick to say that teachers should be patient, should be in control at all times. And of course, in a perfect world, that would always be the case. But Sherri Davis doesn't live in a perfect world. She lives in the real world, where real children cause real stress. And in one horrible moment, she lost her head. All logical thought was gone, replaced by irrational, animal instinct. You want to believe a teacher is immune, but we're not. Sometimes we snap.

I'm not excusing her behavior. She has been fired and justly so. A teacher has to learn coping mechanisms to handle the stress of the classroom. One teacher I know says you should always wear clothes with deep pockets, and shove your hands way down in them the minute you start to feel anger. Another uses the STAR treatment: Stop, Take a deep breath, And Relax. Jim Fay, of Love and Logic, encourages teachers to adopt a special empathy phrase to call up when blood pressure begins to rise. “Oooh, I wish you hadn't done that,” one might say to the child who is misbehaving. It's not designed to remind the student of his misdoing, but to stall the teacher (or parent) just long enough to get back into thinking mode.

But Sherri Davis wasn't thinking, and she'll pay for her one minute lapse for the rest of her life.

It bothers me to see an adult lose control in such a brutal way. It does. But what bothers me a whole lot more are the abusers who carefully choreograph their cruelty. The adults who put great thought and planning into the pain and humiliation they inflict on children. Adults like the parents, teachers and principal of Itawamba Agricultural High School in Mississippi. Last month, they put their narrow-minded little heads together to hatch a clever plan to discriminate against a handful of students. In order to protect their children from the discomfort of interacting with the weird kids, the lesbians and the learning disabled, they staged a decoy prom for seven losers and a secret prom for everybody else, the normal kids, who will no doubt follow in their bigoted parents' footsteps, growing up to spew hate for another generation to come. Normal kids like the girl who told Constance McMillan, her lesbian classmate, “I don't know why you come to this school because no one likes your gay ass anyways.”

I'm probably in the minority, but I'll put my kid in a classroom with a teacher who would kick a bully's ass rather than kiss it any day. And I think the administrators and teachers involved in the Itawamba secret prom scandal should suffer every drop of the same shame and punishment Sherri Davis will.

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Teach Your Children Well

2010-05-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

Katie* is a perfectionist, which isn't usually much of a problem, because as luck would have it, Katie is practically perfect. She's the oldest child in my Pre-K classroom, easily ready to move on to Kindergarten where she will spend another in a certain endless progression of years at the top of her class. Her hair, yellow and sleek as corn silk, flows down her back. When she runs, I expect to see a camera crew in hot pursuit, capturing the lustrous beauty for a Baby Breck commercial. Her skin is peachy perfection and her eyes, blue as the sky. Another teacher at my school calls her Jennifer Aniston, but when I tried to find a childhood photo of Jennifer Aniston to give you an idea of Katie's beauty, turns out Jennifer Aniston was no Katie.

I like being employed, so I won't post her actual picture, but this may very well be her sister. The homely one.

Katie's special talent, as if she needs one on top of all her other natural gifts, is art. The spectrum of artistic abilities in my room ranges from mad spastic scribbling to, well, Katie. She has an unusual eye and the intense focus to stick with a project until she reaches the goal she's envisioned. Which brings us to the problem.

Katie is a perfectionist.

When Katie's hands won't produce a perfect replica of what her mind has created, she falls apart. I try to assure her that her work is wonderful and she should feel proud, but she's too busy flogging herself to hear.

This is a picture of her most recent hysteria-provoking failure.

Did I mention this is Pre-K? And this, in case you haven't seen Pre-K work lately, is AWESOME! The butterflies had just emerged in our Science Center, and I'm telling you, she nailed them. She even tried to spell it, in perfectly formed little letters. But when she was finished, she threw the paper on the floor and kicked it, crying hysterically. It wasn't good enough. She wasn't good enough.

I got my Googler warmed up and tried to see if I could find some answers to Katie's problem. Lurking in the text of the very first website, I discovered something I hadn't expected to find: myself. Each of the ten traits they listed had my name neatly typed all over them, from the tendency to be particularly self-critical to the low self-esteem to the oddly paradoxical penchant for procrastination.

It made me wonder: Am I teaching my kids more than I intend? If so, I'm sorry Katie.

*Katie is not her real name. Her real name is much more beautiful and perfectly suited to her.
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Shipping News

2010-04-24T10:48:00.000-05:00

About a week ago, I made my usual frantic eleventh hour search for a birthday present for my mother. On the very first website, I found just the right thing. It was something she would really love. It was beautiful; it was meaningful; it was spiritual; it was useful. And, best of all, it was on sale!

I should have known it was dipped in fail.

I found it during my lunch hour at work. But since I'm not a real grown up, I didn't have a credit card with me and couldn't place the order. When I got home, I headed straight to the website, credit card at the ready. But my perfect present had vanished. I couldn't find it anywhere. The Internets ate it. I called the 800 number to see if a human being could help me find it, but apparently, I had imagined it. They deny it ever existed.

I should probably stop shooting up at work.

I searched a little more and found a suitable backup present. To assure that this one wouldn't disappear in a puff of cybersmoke, I got on the phone immediately to place my order. I'm naïve enough to believe that interacting with a real live customer service representative will guarantee success. If you need further proof of my shopping naïveté, when the woman asked for the name on the card, I said, "Oh, you can just say Mom."

"No," she explained patiently, as if speaking to a particularly dense mentally challenged child, "the name on the credit card."

Oh.

But today the good news came that I wasn't the only confused party in that conversation. The present just arrived.

At my house.

1500 miles from my mother's house.

A week after her birthday.

And now, not only did I pay shipping to get it to my house, I get to pay shipping again to get it to hers. There aren't many things I'm careful about, but not wasting money is top of the list.

See.

I was specific to the point of being obnoxious that this was a gift for my mother, who lives in Argyle, New York, not Little Rock, Arkansas. "Now you've got that address right, right?" I said. "It's not coming to Little Rock; it's going to New York. Right?"

Right.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

PS, Does anyone else find it ironic that the name of this company is Women of Faith?

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All I Really Need to Know I Learned from my Kindergartner

2010-04-15T08:18:00.022-05:00

Most of my visits to the dentist are blissfully uneventful. In a strange way, I actually even enjoy them. A little. The office is staffed entirely by pleasant, attractive women. They hover around me, tending to my needs, caring for me. I guess I'm revealing a sexist bent, but I'm pretty sure women have an extra gene devoted solely to nurturing. (This, in a nutshell, is why I'm actively pestering my husband to let us get a sister wife.)

Twice a year, Misty cleans my teeth, chatting affably as she goes. I softly grunt my end of the conversation, relying on my eyes to express the appropriate emotion. The doctor makes a cameo appearance, staying just long enough to deliver the good news that diligent brushing and flossing have paid off again.

Except for this time.

This time, she actually had some work to do. One of my old fillings had given up the ghost and needed to be replaced by a crown. I wouldn't say I was scared exactly, but I did have to steel myself a bit as she headed into my mouth with a series of disconcerting objects. As the first needle pierced my gum, delivering its sting of Novocaine, I pictured my six-year-old.

And I thought — Just be as brave as him.

I wonder what he'll teach me next.
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Felices Pascuas

2010-04-04T23:02:00.002-05:00

We gathered together I don't know how many times, heads bowed, listening to Charlie humbly ask God to bless our meal. When he finished last Easter, we kept our heads down a little longer than usual. We weren't ready for it to be over. We all knew it was the last time.

Cancer. We had just found out.

Forty days later, he was gone.

Lillian, his bride of 60 years, has been amazing. My respect for her continues to grow each time I catch a glimpse of the enormous poise and strength that fills this tiny lady. She's faced their anniversary, his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and all the days in between with remarkable grace. But Easter was too much to ask.

So this year, we gathered together in a completely different way. Instead of a blessing, we placed our orders. Instead of a ham, we had enchiladas. Instead of tradition, we had change. But even though we did our best not to mention Charlie, he was still with us.

He always will be.

Happy Easter, wherever you are.
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Memorandum

2010-04-02T15:41:00.013-05:00

To: All Teachers and Staff
From: The Principal
Date: April 02, 2010
Re: Parent Contact

We know that emergencies sometimes arise which require parent contact throughout the school day. However, if a parent does not answer her phone, please leave a detailed message. Do not hang up, leaving the school's phone number looming ominously.

Should you choose to disregard the above policy, and said parent calls the school to find out which limb her child has broken, please do not leave that parent on hold for 12 minutes and then fucking disconnect her. If you do, she may hurt you, and we will not stop her. Because you really have it coming. Really you do.

Thank you and have a nice day!
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Don't Stop Believing

2010-03-29T18:24:00.008-05:00

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The secret of success is consistency of purpose.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Mile Marker

2010-03-21T23:10:00.000-05:00

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Yesterday, we waited for his first tooth to come.

Today, we waited for it to go.

Tomorrow, buzz off. We're not ready for you. Not even one little bit.

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Armed to the Teats

2010-03-09T19:22:00.015-06:00

Although I myself have no first hand knowledge to speak of, I hear tell that some women use their breasts as weapons. And just as with guns, sometimes when you wave those things around, people get hurt.

Woman charged in breast milk assault on jailer

Published: Mar 7, 2010

OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) - A woman in jail for public intoxication was accused of assaulting a jailer by squirting breast milk at her. WYMT-TV reported that a 31-year-old woman was arrested Thursday on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication. But as she was changing into an inmate uniform, she squirted breast milk into the face of a female deputy who was with her.

The woman now faces a felony charge of third degree assault on a police officer. Her bond was set at $10,000.

This story, as you probably know, has gone viral. Millions of people are getting a good chuckle out of this dingbat. But I must be getting old and crotchety, because I don't get the joke. I breastfed my son until he was well into his twenties.* You'll never meet a more staunch believer in the power of breast milk. But I won't be getting in line to high five her creative civil disobedience. I'm too busy creating possible scenarios that would make it okay to be simultaneously nursing and so drunk that you end up in the back of a patrol car. I'm too busy hoping somebody was, and is, taking good care of her child in her absence. I'm too busy hoping that she's able to make bail soon, so she can get back home to the child she left behind.

This story doesn't make me laugh. It makes me sad.

* Slight use of hyperbole. Do not contact your local Child Abuse Hotline.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2010-02-20T20:41:00.003-06:00

We Slivers are in a bit of a culinary rut. Mr. Sliver does most of the shopping and cooking, but let's not blame him. I know how hard it is to put food on your family. Every week, he prowls the Manager's Markdown bin hunting for bargains. The equation of frugality plus testosterone always adds up to slabs of meat the size of our six-year-old, all with menacing expiration dates. The bottom shelf of our fridge perpetually sags under their weight. If it's not a pork loin doing an impersonation of a human thigh, it's a roast shrouded in plastic sacks like something buried at the bottom of Tony Soprano's dumpster.

Despite all the words up there to the contrary, I'm not complaining. Really. I love the discount. He learned to shop like this by watching me, back in the dark ages when I actually used to help around here. What wears on us both, though, is the commitment. I've had exes who didn't stick around as long as our meat. Every night we're faced with the challenge of reinventing the roast — roast tacos, roast Stroganoff, roast ala King, chicken fried roast. If colon cancer doesn't do us in, boredom will. Suicide by Manager's Markdown.

So we're experimenting with new recipes, and entirely new sections of the market — sections regular folks shop in, not just us and the Duggars. Join us on our maiden voyage out of the doldrums as we prepare Beef Rendang, an Indonesian dish traditionally served at ceremonial occasions and to honored guests, like you.

RENDANG DAGING — Dry-Fried Beef Curry (Just trust me, okay.)

(click to enlarge)

Step 1: Gather mise en place

I learned that term in Culinary Arts school. It's all I remember, so I try to use it as often as possible. It's French for get your shit together. Sometimes I use it with my class, like this, "Boys and girls, if you plan to go to recess today then you had better mise en place right this minute!"

The Buddha isn't officially part of the recipe, but we think he adds good mojo.

Employ child labor whenever possible. It's an Asian dish.

Step 2: Cut beef into 1 inch by 2 inch strips.

(Before)

(After)

Step 3: Put onion, garlic, ginger and chilies in blender with 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Find a small child or someone you don't like much to blend it until smooth.

Step 4: Wait several hours for the burning of his eyes to subside.

Step 5: Pour pureed toxic onion goo into a large saucepan. Swirl remaining coconut milk into blender container to get every last drop of pureed toxic onion goo. Pour that into saucepan, too.

Step 6: Add all remaining ingredients except tamarind liquid and sugar to saucepan. Mix well.

Step 7: Add meat to saucepan. Bring quickly to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and add tamarind liquid.

Step 8: Cook uncovered for as long as you've got. Hours and hours and hours. Watch a movie, get a pedicure, call your mother.

Step 9: When gravy is thick, reduce heat to low and cook, and cook, and cook some more. Don't watch a movie this time, maybe just an episode of Mad Men or The Office — something interesting, but forgiving enough that you can get up and stir frequently until gravy is almost dry.

Step 10: When oil separates from the gravy, add sugar and stir constantly. Allow meat to fry in the oily gravy until it looks dark brown and delicious.

Like this:

Serve in prawn crisps as an appetizer, over rice as an entrée, or over Idris Elba for dessert.

If you try it, please let me know how it turned out. Or better, invite me over.

*No joke, when you seed your chilies, wear gloves. Or a hazmat suit. Or poke them with long sticks and scrape the seeds out with your toenails. Under no circumstances should you touch those seeds. Only a real idiot would touch those seeds. But if you do, find somebody to help you use the bathroom for the next several hours.

Don't ask.
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Love — 1, Some Assembly Required — 0

2010-02-13T21:37:00.017-06:00

Somehow, we've managed to enjoy ten years of happy marriage and perfectly respectable sex without ever owning a bed. It was just one of those priorities that never managed to claw its way to the top of the list. I sleep blissfully sandwiched between my husband and our son, three spoons in a drawer. Marking the boundaries above and below hardly seemed necessary. Besides, our mattress was manufactured in heaven. I climb on and barely have time to mutter a few words of sincere appreciation before I'm drooling daintily on our down pillows. Who needs a bed?

But I guess it's time. If we're going to sleep in a Family Bed like a couple of aging hippies, we should at least have the decorum to do it in a proper bed. And is there a better time than Valentine's Day to absolutely push your love to the brink of divorce? I can't think of one.

It wasn't buying the bed that challenged us. Buying the bed was a little miracle; we agreed on the first one in the first store. In retrospect, that should have been a clue. Nothing is that easy. The hard part was lurking quietly in the shadows, mocking our solidarity, waiting to pounce, smug in its invincibility.

Some Assembly Required.

Oh, it was good. It took a minute or two for Some Assembly Required to find our Achilles' Heel, but once it did, it chomped down mercilessly. After watching us strain gently to get the first three cumbersome boxes into the house, it had all the information it needed.

It bided its time until we got to the final, largest, heaviest box on the roof of the car. Then it lunged, pushing the box brutally out of our hands and onto our six-year-old's foot. The bastard.

After a few minutes kissing away tears, we redoubled our efforts and were back on track.

Some Assembly Required wasn't at all pleased that we got the boxes into the house without death or serious bodily injury, so it decided to fuck with our minds. While our backs were turned, it maliciously shredded several pages of the instruction book. All we were left with was a random list of hardware and a vague suggestion that we should make it all stick to each other.

And, for added fun, we should do it in an area that is actually several square feet smaller than the bed itself.

Oh, he almost had us.

Better luck next time.

The neighbors are having twins. We'll tell them to expect you.
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Passing the Hat

2010-02-05T23:41:00.004-06:00

Go ask your child what he learned in school this week. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Yeah, that's what I thought. It's in there, I promise. But it's trapped under thick layers of video game cheats and plot lines to every SpongeBob ever aired. The stuff they learn in school gets mired in mental quicksand, unless it's tethered to their heart. The limbic system of the brain controls thinking and learning; emotion is its on/off switch. If we want to make kids think, first we have to make them feel.

Today my school had a fundraiser — Caps for a Cause. The kids were invited to donate money in exchange for permission to wear their favorite hat to school all day. The money would be going toward the relief effort in Haiti. But these are little kids, few of whom have crossed Piaget's invisible line from concrete learning to abstract reason. An earthquake? In Haiti? We may as well be speaking French as we try to explain what that could possibly mean to a bunch of kids in Arkansas. So we got concrete. The day before the event, we showed them a video of who they would be helping, and why — just graphic enough to give their little limbic systems a good jolt, but not raw enough to disturb them.

Five minutes later, every child in the building understood. They went home, carrying the children of Haiti in their hearts. And they came back the next day, determined to help. The $350 we collected isn't much, I suppose, in terms of what Haiti needs. But our kids learned something invaluable — we all matter; we are all powerful; we can change the world. All we need is the capacity to care.

It's not too late. Have you done something to show you care?
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The Drinks Are On Me

2010-01-23T20:37:00.025-06:00

My mother once taught me that when you give a gift, you should imagine the person happy and give them the thing that would make it so. For my last birthday, she gave me this. Sometimes, it's like she peeks into my soul.

I'm not exactly what you'd call a big spender. And my slack code of ethics has plenty of built in wiggle room. Not only am I comfortable sneaking snacks into the movies, I actually kind of get off on it. I teach Pre-K for Chrissake; I take my thrills where I can find them. And to me, making it past the ticket guy toting a full buffet and open bar is a tiny adventure.

I know, I know, they have rent to pay. But I refuse to feel (very) guilty if they're going to charge twenty bucks for a watered down Coke and Crisco-coated popcorn. Besides, you know that stuff will give you a heart attack. I'd rather invest my money filling my breasts with a nice Red Zinfandel. For my health. I have a child to think about.

I wish I'd had the courage to just sashay right in, jiggling my new jugs for all to see. God knows it would have been a first. I wasn't so much blessed with jugs as jiggers. But I'd never worn the Rack before and I wasn't entirely confident that I wouldn't slosh or leak. Imagine the guy's face if just as he handed me my ticket red liquid started oozing down my chest, like a victim in a Quentin Tarantino film. So I kept the girls under wraps until the lights dimmed. Turns out, I worried for nothing. It worked like a charm. There was a brief learning curve, sitting in the darkened theater trying to figure out if the thing worked on gravity or pressure. But at the very moment I was trying to initiate wine flow by vigorously squeezing my pretend breasts, Penélope Cruz was generously revealing her real ones. I'm pretty sure nobody noticed me.

If you're ever in the mood for some PG-13 quality naughtiness and a movie that's already gone to video, I'm your girl. Just stick a baguette down your britches and some brie in your bra and meet me at the dollar theater. I'll be the one with huge, gently sloshing rack.

Cheers!
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Hair like Jesus wore it

2010-01-13T16:21:00.023-06:00

As a Pre-K teacher, I am intimately, passionately aware of the need for rules and procedures. A classroom absent rules and procedures is filled instead with chaos, confusion and high blood pressure. Rules and procedures are our friends. But as with real friends, quality trumps quantity. Particularly with the younger set, the fewer rules you attempt to establish the better: Don't hurt each other, keep it to a dull roar, and if you really must play with your wiener, please go do it in the bathroom. I went to a workshop once that suggested boiling it down even further, to just one succinct rule: You can do anything you want, as long as it doesn't cause trouble. I thought of this today, when I heard about Taylor Pugh and his terribly troublesome hair.

Taylor Pugh's hair has earned him several weeks of in-school suspension. As you can plainly see, Taylor's hair has been very, very bad. It is not following the rules. That's because where Taylor goes to school, just outside Dallas in a place called 1947, students are expected "to adhere to the code of conduct." And his hair is not adhering. The district categorizes Taylor's hair as "distracting" and therefore disruptive to the learning environment. I am not making this up.

I couldn't agree more that hair can be distracting, disruptive and downright annoying. Several of my little girls wear so many beads and barrettes that my room sounds like Tito Puente's percussion section. I also have a little girl with flowing blond hair so enchanting that some of my boys will stroke it during class or tug it in line. And you should see the ruckus when the boy who normally wears tiny plaits shows up with his hair loose, which turns out to be a fabulously fluffy fro. Even I can't keep my hands out of that! I'm 45 and hair even distracts me. So I suppose we should just borrow some hair nets from the lunch ladies and get back to work. We can't have these four-year-olds distracted from the rigorous academics of Pre-K.

A school board member asked if Taylor's "parents value his education more than they value a 4-year-old’s decision to make his own grooming choices?” If you ask me, they do. It's just that their definition of education, like their son, doesn't fit inside a tidy prefab box. It appears they include radical concepts like thinking for oneself and challenging antiquated ideas that don't make sense. They also seem to be including the lesson of generosity and love, since Taylor plans to eventually donate his long locks to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients.

Meanwhile, what is this school teaching Taylor?

PS, Hey Taylor, I like your hair. It's pretty, and I bet it's really quiet, too.
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Game On

2010-01-09T21:29:00.004-06:00

Little Rock has done something most unexpected this week—it's become winter. Some idiot tipped it off that January is supposed to be cold and it's decided to play along. Today, although the sun was dutifully holding up its end of the deal, we just couldn't seem to get on the right side of freezing. And I am not amused. My six-year-old, on the other hand, is having a ball. He's been merrily running around the neighborhood for the past two hours with his open coat flapping in the frigid breeze. He refuses to zip it, though, because then the neighbors couldn't see what's underneath—his new jersey.

Last Christmas, we went to see my nephew tear up the court at his high school basketball game. Alex is the best player on his team and watching him play lit a fire in my son. He came home eat up with the game, wanting to play it whenever and wherever he could . . . including inside our house. Clearly, a change of venue was in order. We got one today.

Upward is sports with a stiff God chaser. It's three parts team spirit and one part Holy Spirit. At least that's the blend we're hoping for. It's not that we're anti-God by any means, we're just not fans of proselytizing. We're even, to be honest, a bit cynical of organized religion. We've already planned our evacuation route the first time they bring a snake on the court or start speaking in tongues. But so far, the message has been positive and benign. The focus is on sportsmanship, fundamental skills and having fun.

They don't even keep score so everyone can be a winner. Although, clearly some kids have a bit more winner in them than others. Take our kid, for instance. From the initial evaluations a few months ago, it was evident that the child has talent. He dipped into his father's DNA and pulled out a heaping helping of grace, coordination and athletic ability. There was no doubt he'd do well when actual games began. So today, when they called his name and he joined the rest of the starting line up, I was proud, but not surprised.

The surprised part came about three minutes later. Turns out, he didn't escape the womb without a dollop of his mother's DNA. This became apparent right around the time he darted off the court, mid-game, to exchange high fives with a classmate he suddenly noticed sitting on the sidelines. And again when he drifted off for long minutes at a time to gaze at the cheerleaders. And certainly when he ran most earnestly into the middle of another game in progress on the next court over, completely oblivious to the fact that none of the players were on his team. It was a good five minutes before we could corral him and return him, at least in body, to his own game.

Okay, so he sucks. But he couldn't be more adorable while he's sucking.

Can I get an Amen?
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The Full Mommy

2010-01-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

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When I first moved from New York to Arkansas, I felt compelled to travel back home four times a year. There was a lot of me left behind, and it took that many trips to scrape together the pieces. Each visit was packed with an extensive itinerary of people and places I thought I needed. But as my life in Arkansas filled out, my requirements from New York were conversely whittled. By now, it's pretty much down to family, a few lifelong friends, and Helmbold's hot dogs. Not necessarily in that order.

Diane is one of those cherished friends who always makes sure to see me when I'm in town. We grew up together and now, in bits and pieces, we get to watch our children grow up together. She and I share history not only because we lived in the same town, but also because we lived through a similar experience. We both have wanted children forever, and it seemed to take us that long to finally get them. And like that first bite of chocolate after a Lenten fast, going without for an extended period does wonders for one's appreciation. I've never seen a mom more committed to making her children happy. Which works out really well for my kid when we hang out with them.

Past visits with Diane have included trips to the amusement park, swimming in the lake near her house and playing in the indoor Disneyland that is her home. (There is a trampoline and swing set in the play room. I am not making this up.) This trip did not disappoint. In fact, it was interesting right from the get go: "Did you pack swimsuits?" No, no swimsuits. Snow pants, but no swimsuits. But that little detail didn't stop her from taking us here:

Ciccotti Family Recreation Center, Albany, New York

My six-year-old was raring to go in his SpongeBob boxers, which passed adorably as a swimsuit.

My middle-aged, out-of-shape, unprepared self, however, needed a bit of priming. The first hurdle was getting comfortable with the idea of purposely getting wet when it's ten degrees outside. That just ain't right. Since I never imagined for a minute that my brain might talk my body into it, I didn't waste any time at all getting it prepared. And believe me, in the middle of winter, it needed some prep. I don't know about you, but I'm not on speaking terms with my bikini wax come December. Or my razor. Or my pedicure set. Or, apparently, my pride. Those are all affectations for summer. Winter was made for binging and burrowing in forgiving layers. And I had no intention of shedding a one.

But then . . . there's Diane. How could I disappoint her when she so consistently shows us a good time? So I shoved my ego in a locker and accepted the black camisole and spandex bike shorts she thoughtfully provided me. Diane, as I have suggested, has a very big heart. A heart almost as big as her enormous, magnificent knockers. (Did I mention I was wearing her camisole?) Which was hardly an issue at all. Except for that small period of time, somewhere between three seconds and eternity, when one of those randomly timed dumping buckets of water released its contents on my head, suddenly ripping the camisole several inches below my navel. Which was good, really, because having my teeny tiny B cups involuntarily exposed to a roomful of strangers instantly put a little embarrassing leg hair right into perspective.

That list of places I need to go when I visit New York just got whittled again.
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Lost and Found

2009-12-23T23:15:00.000-06:00

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My six-year-old has developed a real affection for cooking.

He's become a pro at flipping pancakes and an expert at cracking eggs. More or less. So when I sat down to think up presents he might like this year, cooking gear was top of the list. As it turned out, that was a bit more challenging than expected. Plenty of stores offered tiny, babyish pots, pans and tools, but nobody seemed to have exactly what I was looking for, namely, tiny oven mitts. This may be because most people have the sense not to let a six-year-old stick his hands in a hot oven.

Yesterday was the day I set aside to finish up my shopping. Since I had a long and varied list, I started at K-Mart. If your goal is to squash the last drop of Christmas spirit right out of your soul, this is your place. I left with nothing more than a vague sense of anxiety and frustration. From there I headed to T. J. Maxx. My Christmas spirit was already limping and bruised. Two hours of aimless wandering later and it was on life support. By now it was pushing suppertime and I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so the plan was one more stop and call it a day. Heights Toy Center is only blocks from home, so that would be the final destination.

While they didn't have what I was looking for either, they were chock-full of what I had lost. Before I knew it, I was happily walking next door to Wordsworth, and across the street to The Toggery. And then around the corner to The Freckled Frog and on up Kavanaugh to Eggshells. As I walked, the cool air churned with a perfect sequence of delicious smells—Browning's Mexican Restaurant topped off with Starbucks. With each step, my spirits inched upward. As I shopped, the store owners and clerks took genuine interest in my search. If they didn't have what I wanted, they instantly suggested a neighbor store who might, like Kris Kringle kindly sending me to Macy's. If they did have something my budding chef might like, they patiently took me by the hand and showed me. Then they served me coffee and white chocolate macadamia cookies (dinner!). In each and every shop, there were more people behind the counter than in front of it. And all with smiles on their faces! I had stepped into a parallel universe.

When I returned to my car in the Heights Toy Center parking lot, I had a bag full of really cool child-friendly tools and a sweet "professional chef" apron, which I dropped off inside to have embroidered with his name. By the time I made it home, I still didn't have oven mitts, but what I had was much more valuable—a renewed sense of the season. Okay, I wasn't exactly thinking of baby Jesus in the manger. But I was thinking about the importance of simple human interaction, kindness, and peace. And I bet if Jesus had Christmas shopping to do, this is how he'd want to do it.

Merry Christmas! And if you find a pair of tiny oven mitts, give me a call.
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Southern Fried Sledding

2009-12-21T20:47:00.005-06:00

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Kids who come up in the harsh conditions of the north tend to become hearty and rugged adults. Miserable and suicidal, but hearty and rugged. Kids who enjoy the milder clime of the south, on the other hand, tend to get creative.

Exhibit A:

Now why don't y'all come on in for a nice sweet tea?
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Tradition

2009-12-13T09:55:00.010-06:00

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Since moving to Arkansas seventeen years ago, I still feel a little uprooted around the holidays. You'd think seventeen years would be plenty long enough to establish new traditions of my own, but turns out, it's not. The only reliable patterns that surface year after year are the inevitable knock-down-drag-out with my printer while making the annual calendars and my inability to book a flight to New York until ticket prices soar higher than Santa's sleigh.

A part of me still pines for the days when my big brother would come bounding into the bedroom I shared with my sister, loudly announcing the long awaited date, "It's Christmas! It's Christmas!" The day would then follow a predictable itinerary, which over time wore grooves in my long term memory. These days, rather than traveling comfortably in the groove, each year presents another opportunity to carve a new one. And this year, I think we're on the right path.

Motley's Tree Farm is the south's answer to a perfect Norman Rockwell family Christmas experience. It has all the things that say Christmas to me, just with a thick southern drawl. Before I sipped my first cup of complimentary cocoa, I knew it would be our new family tradition.

A One Tractor Open Hayride

Do You Smell What I Smell?

Here We Come A-Pig-Racing

When we finally headed for home, the tree that rode along with us was a living Leyland Cypress. When the season's over, we'll find a home for it in our yard. Maybe we can take root together.
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Family

2009-12-04T21:42:00.002-06:00

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A couple of years ago I was in New York for Christmas, visiting with my fifteen-year-old nephew. I was admiring how he had transformed his bedroom, a room that twenty years before had been mine. The scene couldn't have been more comfortable and relaxed if Enya had been there, gently humming and rubbing my shoulders. For me, that is. What I didn't know was that he was inching his way out onto the skinny end of a limb. He was about to jump, crossing his fingers that I'd be there to catch him.

"Aunt Sue? Um. Did you ever, er, think I was . . . gay?"

"Honey," I said with gentle wisdom, "I've known you were gay since you were four."

You'd think having known he was gay since he was four I actually would have had time to prepare such warm and accepting words. But instead I think the brilliant response I dredged up was, "Uh, yeah." Even though I didn't have the right words on the tip of my tongue, they were always in my heart. Words like, you are perfect and I wouldn't change a thing about you. Well, maybe one thing. I've always secretly wished he was my son instead of my nephew.

The big news he was sharing wasn't really news at all. But what did surprise me was his courage. He was only fifteen when he came out. Fifteen! And his father—the strong, silent, scary type—couldn't have been an easy audience. I was as proud of him that day as I am disappointed by the New York State senate today. Their decision to reject the gay marriage bill makes me embarrassed to call myself a New Yorker. I guess Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor was right when he said, "You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the senate."

But just when a person could get good and discouraged, there's Laurie Berkner to give us hope. Smack in the middle of her Family video, she casually welcomes a gay couple. Just like it's normal.

Now if we could just get senators to watch Noggin.
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I was made for loving you, baby

2009-11-01T10:10:00.020-06:00

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Somewhere back in my innocent impressionable years, a babysitter with particularly poor judgment allowed me to watch a scary movie. Its title is long forgotten, but the fear of dolls it instilled is alive and well. I haven't been much for scary stuff ever since. My son, however, can't get enough. I won't even tell you how old he was the first time we introduced him to Michael Jackson's Thriller. My punishment for questionable parenting is the million times he's made me watch it since. When our YouTube screen isn't featuring MJ as a zombie, it's blasting something by his favorite band—KISS. Seriously, The Wiggles just can't hold a candle to Gene Simmons' blood-drenched tongue. Scooby Doo, Monster House, even roller coasters are some of his other favorite places to turn for a good thrill. Some parents discourage or even forbid this trip to the dark side. Not me. Because the scarier it is, the more often he's going to say, "HOLD MY HAND!" And I'll take all of that I can get.

I wasn't surprised when I asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween and he decisively announced: A mummy. Okay, I thought, how hard could that be? In a word—hard. In three words—really fucking hard. As with most projects, it started off fun—my six-year-old and his Dad working together ripping a sheet into shreds. Destruction's easy.

And at first, the construction was, too. I enjoyed the feeling that I was using my own hands to create something that would give my child happiness. I sat a little straighter knowing his costume wasn't coming out of a plastic Wal-Mart bag and instead would be dripping with his mommy's love and creativity.

Me, hour one

But about 20 hours and 178 needle pricks later, it was most assuredly not fun. And what it was dripping with was his mommy's blood and almost palpable bad mojo from a steady stream of seriously R-rated vocabulary.

Me, hour 25

Day One of the project kept me up until after midnight and only got me halfway there—just the pants. I started in on the top at 10:00 Halloween morning. We were set to head out Trick or Treating at 6:00. When my husband nonchalantly announced that it was 5:00, I wasn't even close. I began sewing like Lindsay Wagner on meth with Tourette's. My husband poured me a tumbler of wine and started on hair and makeup while I banged out a steady beat—stitch, cuss; stitch, cuss; stitch, cuss, cuss. At 5:55, he was pulling on the pants while I was knocking out my final frantic stitches.

At 6:01, he was here:

And just in case that adorably satisfied little smile wasn't enough to make all my effort totally worth it . . .

A few hours later, he was here:

Check, please.
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As long as I'm living my baby you'll be

2009-10-26T22:27:00.003-05:00

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School, if done right, is equal measures education and inspiration. Case in point, one of the courses I'm taking right now called Reading and Writing about Nature and the Environment. We're reading Thoreau and Emerson, Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard—some of the very best writing ever done on the subject. As I read, I can actually feel the authors tugging at my shirttail, pulling me outside. Even in class, I find myself drawn to the seat nearest the window. It seems almost cruel to be stuck indoors talking about the ocean and woods and sky while thick slabs of glass and concrete (and Louisiana) obstruct our access to it.

This weekend, the shackles were dropped. We crammed the back of the station wagon with all the essentials—tent and lantern, logs and blankets, marshmallows and wine—and didn't stop driving till we hit a mountaintop. Curiously, we also brought along a bag containing enough size 5 boys clothes to wardrobe an entire Cub Scout troop. This proved a bit gratuitous, as my six-year-old returned home on Sunday night still wearing the same outfit he put on Friday morning. I think. It was hard to tell under the thick layer of mountain he smuggled out on his body. Hygiene goes the way of vanity in the woods. It's natural, after all, to drop the pretense of polite society when far removed from it. Which, when you're six, is about as good as it gets.

My child has splashed in the waves of the Atlantic and the Pacific, ridden horses at a ranch and roller coasters at Disneyland, fished in a New York lake and returned six months later to build a snowman in the same spot. His happiness is not in short supply. But I don't think anything will ever top camping.

In the woods, he is utterly happy. Complete. Aside from fire, sticks, and marshmallows, he doesn't need one thing.

Not even . . . me.

When you're camping, you can count on raccoons, maybe even a bear, but I never expected to be ambushed by independence. Right before my eyes, my little boy grew up. Hours stretched to days and he didn't need me once. He was inches away, yet I found myself missing him. Or maybe just missing being needed by him.

The temperature dropped below 40º at night. You might think sleeping in a tent in conditions like that would be unpleasant. But bedtime was my favorite part—snuggling close under the blankets for body heat. For a few hours, my little boy needed me. Even if he didn't know it.

Anybody buys him a sleeping bag for Christmas is dead meat.
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A Time to Love and a Time to Hate

2009-10-22T12:31:00.000-05:00

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And so it begins—indoor recess season. Help me Baby Jesus.

In Pre-K, the children must have two thirty minute gross motor periods a day. They need it. And really, don't we all? If I ran the world, every single person would get outdoor recess every day, rain or shine. CEOs and CPAs would hang the closed sign on their office door, skip outside and climb on a jungle gym for twenty minutes. Then they'd have some animal crackers and a tiny carton of milk, topped off by a bedtime story and a nice little nap. Now wouldn't that be lovely? I speak from experience when I tell you—yes, it is lovely indeed. In fact, next to 2:35, recess is my favorite part of the day—having actual conversations with other teachers on the playground, breathing in some fresh air, getting a dose of Vitamin D, saying hey to Mother Nature.

Two teachers at my school at the start of recess.

The same two teachers, thirty minutes later.

And I'm dead serious when I say I think they need it every single day. I'd take them out to dance in the rain if I didn't think I'd lose my license. Come on, kids, grab yer galoshes; we're gonna make mud pies! That, would be awesome. But of course, that's crazy talk. Last year I got stopped mere inches from the door, by the school nurse of all people. Behind me stood an excited queue of kids, bundled up to experience the first snowfall of the season. But this is Arkansas, and there are laws in place down here protecting children from the menace of Nature. Southern children, as well documented by science, cannot endure temperatures below forty degrees and will die sudden and painful deaths upon impact with precipitation. So we were sent back to our room, me properly chastised and them thoroughly crushed. What was I thinking, taking kids out to play in the snow?! What kind of reckless monster am I? So indoor recess it is, if it rains, snows or is deemed too cold to go out—too cold being a ridiculously subjective term which I shall not discuss further for fear of angering the school district gods. While I thoroughly enjoy being outdoors, I'd rather not end up living there.

I'm sure there are a thousand perfectly peachy ways to handle indoor recess, but for the life of me, I can't seem to find a one. How does one manage allowing twenty four-year-olds to be physically active for thirty minutes in a confined area while still maintaining even the illusion of control? Yes, I admit it, I am a card carrying Control Freak and I cannot allow my classroom to turn into a mosh pit. Not unless they're willing to lighten up a bit on their Victorian attitudes about alcohol on school grounds. Seriously, just a little nip would smooth a lot of rough edges on a rainy Friday.

It's tempting just to let them watch a little TV—educational TV, of course. They'd be happy, and more importantly, they'd be still. But again, that pesky drive to remain employed clears its throat and shakes its self-righteous little head at me. Bitch. Okay, okay . . . gross motor it is—active, yet controlled. Go when I say go; stop when I say stop. I've got it! Musical chairs! Perfect.

Or not. I don't know what sadist invented this horrible little game, but I'm guessing it was Darwin. As it turns out, the whole object is to make every child in the room lose, one by miserable one, until they are all dejected and crying. In order to accomplish this goal, players must aggressively muscle their way into whatever chair they can wrench away from their weaker, slower and more polite friends. The eventual winner holds no special talent or athletic ability, aside from being the meanest badass kid in the room. Yay for you! You're gonna make us so proud in juvie! Or Washington.

Damn it's gonna be a long winter.
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Café au Lait

2009-10-16T11:43:00.015-05:00

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Well let me just be the first to commend New Orleans Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell. Bravo, sir! In this day and age of outsourcing, shoddy workmanship, and work ethics about as strong as a wet sheet of Charmin it is heartening indeed to finally find a man with the courage of his convictions! I praise you Justice Bardwell, and thank you for standing bravely on the lonely island of reason. Or . . . sitting.

In case you missed the story, thanks to Justice Bardwell's finely honed IQ, which is reportedly well into the single digits, another batch of "mixed race" children has been spared the difficulties of living. Whew! According to Bardwell, "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage. I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it." But instead of thanking him for his laser-like foresight, some reckless interracial couple is actually selfish enough to be upset that he refused to marry them. Of course this thoughtless couple should not be allowed to marry and produce offspring! Any reasonable person knows how insanely risky that would be. I mean, really, they barely stand a 50/50 chance of staying together! Who would take those odds?

I'm sure Justice Bardwell has researched this topic extensively, deriving empirical data from his "piles and piles of black friends." Did you know he even lets them use his bathroom! Just like they were regular people! Gosh, if only more people were so evolved. Imagine the world we could live in! One where the children of interracial couples actually might be accepted.

sigh
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"If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve." David Sedaris

2009-10-13T22:24:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time, a grown man pulled on "green velvet knickers, a yellow turtleneck, a forest-green velvet smock, and a perky stocking cap decorated with spangles" and began the process of transforming himself into Crumpet the Elf. What he couldn't have known at the time was that he was also beginning the process of transforming himself from talented unknown to literary superstar. Day after humiliating day, David Sedaris endured the indignities of working as an elf at Macy's, suffering miserable children and even worse adults. He let the experiences percolate in the twisted coils of his mind, then pressed them through his exquisitely sardonic filter. What poured out was an extraordinarily entertaining diary. One night, in a Chicago club, he read it to an appreciative audience, including, serendipitously, radio host Ira Glass. Glass mined the gold, showcasing Sedaris on his local show The Wild Room. And what happened next was NPR's Christmas gift to the world—in December 1992, Sedaris read his SantaLand Diaries on NPR's Morning Edition. It was love at first listen; he was an instant celebrity, earning a two-book deal and regular appearances in Esquire and The New Yorker. To this day, when he's not busy writing or reading from one of his many best-sellers, he can be heard on Ira Glass's nationally broadcast This American Life.

My husband gave me tickets to Sedaris's recent reading as a gift, and to be honest, I was skeptical. A hundred bucks to listen to someone read a book? The frugal part of my brain was giving the gracious part some serious lip. But as you probably guessed already, he was right. As always. Sedaris may be the most brilliantly funny writer alive, and he's an even better reader. To understand how much better his stories are read in his own voice, ask your partner to rub your back. Then pay the sixty bucks and let an actual massage therapist have at it for an hour. Yeah, that.

I won't sully his words by trying to retell one of his stories, especially not the one about the strawberries and the case of condoms. Instead, I'll just encourage you to treat yourself to an amazing evening if you ever get the chance. In the meantime, a bedtime story for you. Enjoy.
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Getting a Woody

2009-10-05T12:31:00.018-05:00

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Last week my husband sent me a link to his University classified ads. Usually, these links take me where I want to go—nice places like community garage sales or cheap iPods. My man knows the way to my heart. But not this time. This time, just a few seconds before clicking send, he apparently took up crack smoking. What other explanation can there be for the link he sent? A link that, inexplicably, took me to some nice lady who found some nice doggie who needs a nice home. I'm sorry; have we met? Because if we had, you might remember that I'm really not so much an animal lover. Remember, I'm the one who wouldn't even clean the fish bowl until it turned to paella. A dog? Really, honey? Really?

But then, ruthless manipulator that he is, he pulled out those three little words he knew I couldn't refute: Isn't he cute?

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I guess he was sort of cute. But not near as cute as my couch, and its eight hundred dollars worth of fancy Cynthia East upholstery. So the topic was dropped, my husband entered rehab, and the doggie was forgotten. For about five minutes. And then he was ours.

My husband is right an impossibly, infuriatingly large percentage of the time. It may well be his worst flaw. This time was no different. Woody is a perfect fit for our family. I'm not even sure why, but I loved him instantly. And every day, I love him a little more. Weird, right?

Thank you, honey, for ignoring me and doing what you knew was right. Sometimes you know what I need before I do. I love you for it, almost as much as I love Woody.

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Say Ack!

2009-09-30T15:32:00.002-05:00

On a good day, my morning drive is timed perfectly to coincide with Dr. T. Glenn Pait's Here's To Your Health radio spot. His smooth velvet voice and genial authority are soothing as I hurtle my tiny car through the crush of SUVs zooming along Cantrell Road. There's just something reassuring about having a kindly old doc along when a fiery crash is imminent.

Except for today. Today, Dr. Pait, I'm afraid I had to pull over, grab you by the stethoscope and show you to the curb. Come on, Dr. Pait, seriously; what were you thinking? Have you run out of body parts to dispense advice about? Isn't Swine Flu sexy enough for you? Has it really come to this:

Black Hairy Tongue

Oh how I wish Ashton Kutcher were behind this nightmare. But it's for real. Black. Hairy. Tongue.

According to Dr. Pait, Black Hairy Tongue is a temporary, harmless condition resulting from an accumulation of debris, bacteria or other organisms on the tongue. Would vomit count as debris, Dr. Pait, because I just threw up a little. But I should be okay, because the second I got to work, I French kissed a bottle of Purell for twenty minutes and then gargled with boiling bleach.

This, Dr. Pait, is how people end up listening to Rush Limbaugh. At least they're prepared to end up wanting to puke.
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Kindergarten: The Sequel

2009-09-19T13:23:00.030-05:00

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Leo couldn't do anything right. He couldn't read. He couldn't write. He couldn't draw. He was a sloppy eater. And, he never said a word.

Leo is a late bloomer. As luck would have it, he's also fictional. He lives in the pages of Robert Kraus's classic children's book. But we live his story for real at our house. Our six-year-old is a late bloomer, too. He crawled late; he walked late; now he'll be going to first grade late. So I take offense at the New York Times' description of Leo as "underachieving." According to Merriam Webster, underachieving means that one fails to attain a predicted level of achievement or does not do as well as expected. Late blooming, on the other hand, is all a matter of timing—they get to the party with bells on; they're just fashionably late.

This is also why I took such offense at the interrogation I suffered at the hands of miniature Barbara Walters on the playground yesterday. Oh, she had all the hard-hitting questions: Why is he in kindergarten again? Well if he's six, shouldn't he be in first grade? I'm six and I'm in first grade. Will he EVER be in first grade?

I had a few questions of my own: Is your mother deaf? Does she not realize this may well be hurting my child's feelings? Are you always such a precocious little piss ant?

The instinct to swaddle my child in bubble wrap is unrealistic, maybe even unhealthy. But it's there nonetheless. It's filed right next to the instinct to inflict minor yet memorable pain on any child thoughtless or cruel enough to hurt him. Nothing serious, nothing that would leave a mark. (Especially on anyone under the age of eight. I'm going for vengeance, not a felony.) We're expected to shield our children from adult language; isn't it just as valid to shield them from the hurtful words of kids? This, after all, was the very kid I'd been worrying about all summer. Except I imagined her ugly, and a boy.

I admit it, my brain had some work to do when his teacher first brought up the subject. A parent doesn't just say, "Oh, awesome! My kid is failing kindergarten! Vo-Tech, here we come!" For starters, I had to politely ask the word fail to leave the room. Who needs the word fail any way? Then I packed embarrassment's bags and showed him the door, too. There's no room here for your kind, mister. Suddenly, things were getting roomy. There was space for words like opportunity and maturity.

Which brings us back to timing. Our son's birthday is August 13th, so he turned five about twenty minutes before kindergarten started. Other kids in his class turned five in, say, February, giving them eons of extra time to develop and mature. And everybody knows six months equals about ten years in little kid time. Malcolm Gladwell knows it. In Outliers, he says, "Most parents, one suspects, think that whatever disadvantage a younger child faces in kindergarten eventually goes away. But it doesn’t. . . . It locks children into patterns of achievement and underachievement, encouragement and discouragement, that stretch on and on for years." If a kindergartner is struggling to keep up with classmates who had the developmental windfall of earlier birthdays, it can be a big mistake to assume he'll naturally catch up later. The struggle can cost the child his education, his self-esteem, even his life. Gladwell suggests that suicide is sometimes the ultimate price of this mistake. After reading that, I could clearly see another year of kindergarten for what it is—an opportunity, not a failure. And I thank both his kindergarten teachers for giving it to him.

About five minutes before our impromptu playground interview, our son's new teacher pulled me aside to tell me that everybody's noticing how much better he's doing this go 'round—his reading, his writing, his drawing. We see it, too. He's blooming.
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Recoil

2009-09-13T20:43:00.001-05:00

Growing up, a major theme in our household was, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it." My mother was all about tone. And the only tone she really wanted to hear from her children was a pleasant one. Sarcasm, whining, bitchiness and sass were all best muttered into a pillow in the privacy of our bedrooms. Even then, the woman could hear an eyeball roll and smack it back into place without leaving her seat.

All these memories flooded back to me in room 404 of Stabler Hall the other night as my professor discussed the importance of delivery in effective rhetoric. Rather than lecture, he let the music do the talking. We each got a copy of a mysterious song's lyrics and were instructed to guess the style of delivery. Was it man or woman? Fast tempo or slow? Country, rap, rock? Absent the artist's delivery, it was all up to our imaginations.

What would you have guessed:

I want to know how it'll end
I want to be sure of what it'll cost
I want to strangle the stars for all they promised me
I want you to call me on your drug phone
I want to keep you alive so there is always the possibility of murder later
I want to be there when you learn the cost of desire
I want you to understand that my malevolence is just a way to win
I want the name of the ruiner
I want matches in case I have to suddenly burn
I want you to know that being kind is overrated
I want to write my secret across your sky
I want to watch you lose control
I want to watch you lose
I want to know exactly what it's going to take
I want to see you insert yourself into glory
I want your touches to scar me so I'll know where you've been
I want you to watch when I go down in flames
I want a list of atrocities done in your name
I want to reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back
I want to remember when my nightmares were clearer
I want to be there when your hot black rage rips wide open
I want to taste my own kind
I want to be wrapped in cold wet sheets to see if it's different on this side
I want you to come on strong
I want to leave you out in the cold
I want the exact same thing... but different
I want some soft drugs.. some soft, soft drugs
I want to throw you
I want you to know I know
I want to know if you read me
I want to swing with my eyes shut and see what I hit
I want to know just how much you hate me so I can predict what you'll do
I want you to know the wounds are self-inflicted
I want a controlling interest
I want to be somewhere beautiful when I die
I want to be your secret hater
I want to stop destroying you but I can't
And I want and I want and I want
And I will always be hungry
And I want and I want and I want...

So, what did you hear? Who did you see?

For me, it was her:

But I was wrong. Give a listen and see how close your perception was to reality.

The Deep End

2009-08-27T19:55:00.002-05:00

I love my job. I love my students. I love my hours. And I could pin June, July and August down and kiss them full on the lips. But as a teacher in the great state of Arkansas, my salary leaves a bit to be desired. With each passing year of service, the dollar signs inch ever so gradually away from the poverty line. But without my master's, by the time I retire my salary will still be in the same tax bracket as your average paperboy. Of course, we won't have newspapers anymore by then, so a teacher's salary may be in a class by itself.

Surprisingly, we're doing fine. Our ends are always neatly dovetailed. Jesus thought he was all that with his loaves and fishes trick? He should see what I can do with a bag of pasta and a can of beans. We don't need more money. Still, I've decided to go back and get my master's. Honestly, it probably has more to do with my ego than my wallet. It rubs me wrong that other people in my building are making more money than I am for doing the same job.

And so, last week, school began—both the one where I am the teacher and the one where I am the student. Immediately, a strange inverse relationship became evident between my confidence levels in each role. As a teacher, I'm kicking ass. Already, I have my new group well in hand and foresee a very smooth year. As a student, however, the tables are most assuredly turned. Other than mandatory "professional development" sessions, I haven't been on the receiving end of a lesson plan in a solid decade. It's daunting. I feel like I've just jumped into the deep end of the pool without my floaties. Meanwhile, all around me, everyone is kicked back on a chaise, slathered in Hawaiian Tropic, margarita in hand. In each class, I sit smack dab in the front row, biting my fingernails and trying to remember to breathe, while my classmates all look more like customers in the waiting room at Jiffy Lube than grad students. Maybe I'm mistaking apathy for confidence, but I really wish just one of them would do me a favor and quit acting so damn comfortable.

Here's a tidy example of the disparity between me and the rest of my classmates. Just last night, one of our professors expressed her concern that she had packed our syllabus a bit too full. A concern, I am not ashamed to admit, that I shared. So she offered to lighten the load by dividing the reading list among us. One group would read this stack and the rest of us would read that one. Before I could even get the sigh of relief out of my mouth, a twenty-two-year old named Jennifer chirped, "But I think we'd get a richer experience if we all read ALL the books, don't you?" Thanks for your input, Jennifer!

So I'll keep treading water, keeping my head above the surface until the doggy paddle comes back to me. I may never become Michael Phelps, or Jennifer, but I'm not going under either. Wish me luck.
. .

Golden

2009-08-22T13:39:00.006-05:00

Before an actor takes the stage, well wishers tell him to break a leg. In my father's case, it was his good fortune to break an arm. After he did, his best friend, Art Connery, came by the hospital to visit. Art's girlfriend, Judy, tagged along.

Today, Judy and Ed celebrate their Golden Anniversary. And we celebrate them.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for showing us what true love looks like.

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Did you see God?

2009-08-05T23:30:00.001-05:00

I had spent the day at Six Flags and still hadn't quite gotten over it. My body held up remarkably well. At 44, I had my doubts. Three minutes on a playground swing and I'm left retching and wrecked. Other moms arrive and find me there, pale and quietly heaving. They cast a scornful eye at me, scan the ground for telltale empties, then usher their kids to the far end of the park. Even the rhythmic sloshing of the spin cycle is enough to set my belly on edge. Which is why I have no choice but to leave laundry duty to my husband.

But at Six Flags, my stomach was on its best behavior. We had an unwritten pact that I'd continue to fill it regularly if it promised not to surrender its contents in public. Or maybe it just understood that I was shelling out forty bucks for admission so it better not give me any shit. I know where it lives.

Instead, it was my psyche who decided to get uppity. I forgot to consult her going in, but she was determined to get the last word. It wasn't my fault, really. The trip to Six Flags was so spontaneous I didn't have time for a debriefing. Of course, in retrospect, I can see where she's coming from.

One minute, we were here:

A phone call later, we were here:

You can see why she may have been upset.

Sasquatch.

Sasquatch looms in the distance as you make your way north into Lake George. You see it there, a comfortable mile or two away, and think: Oil rig? Cell phone tower? Electric Substation? What you do not think is: Golly, in a minute or two my ass is going to be strapped to that motherfucker! You park the car, still a good mile from the actual park even on a slow day, and Sasquatch continues to rise in the horizon. It demands your attention, but in a completely nonthreatening way, like a Republican candidate on a presidential ballot. Oh, I see you there, but ain't no chance in hell I'm getting anywhere near you.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself sitting on Sasquatch's lap. I'm still not sure how it happened, but my money's on Rohypnol. The first thing I remember is an apathetic seventeen-year-old named Baku. He set aside his BlackBerry just long enough to give a perfunctory tug on the scrap of fabric securing the skinny metal bars assigned the responsiblity of stopping my body from becoming a projectile. I wouldn't say Baku was bad at his job, it's just that I give more focused attention to my popcorn in the movies. What with him keeping me on this side of the morgue and all, I hoped for that extra touch. Maybe just ramp up the enthusiasm to, I don't know, awake.

As soon as Baku had jiggled the fabric between all his ~~prisoners'~~ passengers' legs and returned to his Shakira video, we were ready. Three seconds later, we were teetering two hundred feet above Baku, my sister, my son, and what remained of my sanity. And there we sat, precariously perched on the ledge of a twenty story building.

(Me, seated third from right.)

We were held hostage, dangling in the clouds, for somewhere between ten seconds and eternity. If I were a bigger pray-er, that would have been the time for it, what with us being walking distance to God's house and all. But instead, I limited my activity to more pressing bodily matters, like coercing an eye open and a bladder shut. Not that peeing on the strap before Baku had to touch it again would have been the worst idea of the day.

Tom Petty knew what he was talking about. The waiting is the hardest part. Except for the dropping. After the torture of being held captive in another latitude, Baku has a sudden change of heart and releases you, allowing you to free fall back down to earth. Your body knows what's coming and does its best to escape, rocketing itself upward until it strains the metal bars thrown loosely over your shoulders. Miraculously, the bars hold. Your body isn't hurled into space as you are sure it will be, but a tiny splinter of your sanity is thrown clear.

That night, I curled up in bed with my five-year-old and told him all about being up there in the sky. Fresh waves of terror churned the pit of my stomach with each detail. All he wanted to know is, "Did you see God?"

Yeah, honey. I think I did.
. .

The Capacity of Hope

2009-07-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

. .
I just went to the funeral of a five-month-old boy, the baby brother of one of my favorite students. I don't know the parents well, but the part of my brain where that fact is stored wasn't consulted when dread arrived on the scene. Between the day I first heard the news and the moment I arrived at the funeral home, dread had settled in, unpacked its bags and made itself good and comfortable. I've never exactly looked forward to a funeral, but there's a special brand of apprehension when it's the funeral of a child, a funeral no one should have to attend.

I set my brain on Hi and I waited, and hoped. I hoped that if I thought long and hard enough I might find words that would offer solace, but those words haven't been invented yet. I hoped that if I really tried to imagine their pain, I might come up with a gesture that could ease it for a moment, but again the bar was too high. So I headed to the visitation with a goal I thought I could actually pull off: Just be there so Ahkeem knows I love him. That, I could manage.

My brain had done its homework and ushered me into the funeral home well-prepared. The air was heavy with sadness, tears, impotent words of condolence and offers of help that would never be fulfilled. All the things I had been braced for. The open casket threw me a curve ball, but I cried only the appropriate amount and managed to get out without saying anything regrettable.

My brain, however, was unarmed for the task of prepping me for the funeral. It could find sadness and loss in its files, but what was coming at the church was not a part of the database. The funeral was held at a black Southern Baptist church. I am currently submitting applications to become Southern Baptist, and black. It, was amazing.

My only clue of what was to come was the line in the obituary where the family requested that guests wear bright colors, not all black. Now, it makes perfect sense: this was not an occasion for mourning, it was a celebration of life. The music, the words, the atmosphere were all laced with jubilation. There was sadness, sure, but the degree to which it was offset by joy was totally unexpected. How could there be anything in this room but grief and misery? I pre-set my dial to Grief and Misery mode. But this, I didn't even have a setting for.

So I sat back and watched, a marshmallow bobbing feebly in a pot of boiling hot cocoa. I watched the family, so numerous they filled the entire center section of the church. When the preacher said they shouldn't question God, their agreement was unanimous. When he said God had a plan, their acknowledgment was loud and clear. When he said they'd see their baby again in heaven, they shouted their belief so wholeheartedly they left no room for doubt. And that's when I understood.

I went just hoping to give Ahkeem a hug.

I left with a completely different hope: I don't believe in heaven today, but I hope by the time I need to, I will.
. .

A few things I learned coming up in The Depression

2009-07-13T10:44:00.003-05:00

. .

A friend of mine has decided to start pinching her pennies. Something about the economy . . . blah blah blah. My ears glazed over at that point. All that economy stuff. Bor-ring. Anyhoo, she asked for some tips to help her save money. Why she's asking me I don't know. I'm not an especially frugal person. It just happens that some of my character traits end up inadvertently saving money, so I guess people confuse that with frugality. Perfectly normal things, like:

1. Patience: Most people just can't keep it in their pants. (I'm talking about their wallets, Mom. You have such a dirty mind.) They have to have the latest greatest thing yesterday. I'm good with tomorrow. Or some time after Thanksgiving. Where's the fire, people? If you can just hold tight for a few months, the movie's exactly the same at the fifty cent matinee as it was in the fancy schmancy first-run theater for $8.50. They don't change the ending or cut out the dirty parts or anything. All they cut out is $8.00. And the cleaning staff.

You can also take advantage of off season or off hour bargains. Willow Springs Water Park in Little Rock, for example, offers a P.M. Swim at about half the rate of going during the day. So there's a little more pee in the pool. There are also fewer UV rays in the air. A little pee in your mouth is a small price to pay to avoid skin cancer.

2. Humility: I had a really sweet car for a few years there and you know what, it only raised my insurance, not my self-esteem. If you get off on driving a status symbol, bully for you. We all have to do what makes us happy. But at our house, we park our hubris at the door and drive away in these:

Combined they cost under $9,000, cash. That's a lot of leftover latte money. If I bought lattes.

3. Pragmatism: This is my husband's cell phone:

He lovingly calls it his Phonosaurus Rex. I think his mom got it for him in case he ran out of gas driving to the prom. She's good like that.

This is my cell phone:

Because whatever you have to say to me, it can wait till I get home. (See item #1 above.)

4. Stamina: Malls are for pussies. Everything you need, reliably and attractively arranged in one place for your shopping convenience? Hell, where's the challenge in that? I don't mean to brag, but it takes an intrepid shopper to completely outfit a family, equip a house, and satisfy every gift-giving obligation from Christmas to Mother's Day out of the discarded crap strangers toss on their lawns every Saturday morning.

That, my friend, is dedication.

5. Courage: Before I added a hyphen to my last name and a dependent to my W-2, I was a free spirit in more ways than one. There were years when I traveled back and forth across the continent without benefit of airfare. Sadly, the days of creative travel are probably gone forever, at least for me. Instead of trying to stowaway on a plane or in a stranger's car, you might settle for stowing cocktails into places that would prefer to sell them to you for roughly the price of airfare. Might I suggest . . .

For the lady:

Or the popular unisex Beer Belly:

If neither of these solutions appeals to you, I can also recommend simply removing the vacuum pouch of your favorite wine from its box and slipping it into an emptied sixteen ounce Cheetos bag. Shhh . . . it's our little secret.

6. Adventurousness: I don't even want to know what you people are forking over for your fancy pool memberships. I personally can't imagine a bigger waste of money when there's a perfectly refreshing creek just right down yonder. And as long as we're out of there before sundown, we hardly ever see any Cottonmouths.

7. Tolerance: People have gotten too soft. Everybody's all comfort this and pleasure that. It would do us all good to toughen up a bit. I say, if it's 95° outside, 90° should feel pretty good by contrast. So there's just no reason to set the thermostat any cooler than that. You know those drastic temperature swings are nothing but bad for you, right? And in winter, there's no law that says you can't wear your coat and hat inside. Set that thing at 50 and find somebody to snuggle. Al Gore thanks you.

8. Traditionalism: I like electricity. I'm a big fan of sliced bread. And I'd totally like to shake the hand of whoever invented indoor plumbing, figuratively of course. But there's one convenience modern Americans can't seem to live without that I just can't wrap my head around:

$8.18? For water? Not a month's worth of showers and clean clothes and tended lawns, but three bottles. Of water. If I'm paying $8.18 for three bottles of something, then I better be drunk by the time I finish them. Otherwise, I must have been drunk when I bought them.

9. I'm sorry. I really intended to come up with a nice round ten for you, but I just have to stop now. Like most people these days, we generate our own electricity by peddling an exercise bike and my thighs are killing me here. Why don't you guys take over and do the next two. I could actually use a few tips to start saving money. It's not really something I've ever thought about.

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Pandora's Xbox

2009-07-05T20:23:00.014-05:00

. .

When Bill Gates was in the eighth grade, his school started a computer club. He found himself instantly addicted and his little obsession, as you might have heard, turned out pretty okay for him.

So what's my problem? Why am I actively discouraging my child from having the same experience? I've never been there, but I'm relatively sure Mrs. Gates isn't living in a 1207 square foot 1950s ranch with Formica countertops. Even if she's dead, I bet her ashes are in swankier digs than our house. I should be duct taping my kid in front of the computer every time he tries to go out and piss away another afternoon with the neighborhood ne'er-do-wells. Tire swing my ass, kid. How exactly is that going to translate into a cush job?

But I don't. Instead, I keep a steady stream of daylight between my boy and video games. I just don't quite trust them to keep their sneaky little hands to themselves. I was a kid once, too, don't forget. I remember how innocently it all starts. A little Pong after school with your buddies. Next thing you know, you're moving up to Tetris . . . just at parties, of course. Then it's Donkey Kong and Frogger and before you know it, you're messing around with email right in your own house and your parents still don't suspect a thing. You've got it under control, nothing to worry about. But you drop your guard for a minute and some friend turns you on to Facebook. Next thing you know, BAM, you're on Twitter. And that's all she wrote, people. You're hooked and there's no getting out. I want a better life for my kid, is that too much to ask?

The other day, I caught a few of his friends experimenting. I don't really want to be the one to narc them out, but I'm really pretty worried about them.

Mostly, what worries me is exactly how hard these kids are going to kick my kid's ass in the job market fifteen years from now. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-Hour Rule: how it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve total expertise in any field. The Beatles, Bill Gates, even Mozart didn't really start knocking folks' socks off until they'd clocked 10,000 hours. These boys started computers while they were still in diapers. By the time they're in middle school, they'll be inventing Microchip Mascara or something, so people just have to blink their thoughts to each other.

And my boy?

Well, nobody rocks the Winnie the Pooh slippers like he does. I'm seeing a catwalk in his future. And an endless supply of school yard ass whoopings.

sigh . . .
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