Mumbling Madly

After a night where I just didn’t sleep–do you ever have those?–I had to force myself into Halloween Party Mode at school. Each person in the lower elementary faculty had to represent a letter and mine was appropriately the letter “M”. I was the superhero of magic! Mystique! Marvelousness! I performed a coin trick that was eventually sussed out by the more magic savvy of my students. This picture is very representative of my day: Crazy, manic, thrown together, with papers under my arm, and M&M’s abound.

Just a mess of pictures I’ve been meaning to put up:

I like this one because I feel like it really captures the Pike Place Market.

Gina and Justin in The Pumpkin Patch parking lot on Sauvie Island. Sweet sunglasses!

Sam was so excited that it was sunny on our Pumpkin Patch day, he ditched us for a last minute bike ride around the island.

My Mom surveying the pumpkin patch.

Josh and I enjoying the festive cupcake offerings at Cupcake Royale: Pumpkin with cream cheese frosting and apple spice with buttercream!
Note: I’m trying out bangs for the first time in eighteen years. I had an informal thumbs up or thumbs down poll going on in my classroom two weeks ago. Verdict: Thumbs Up!

Behavioral problems are not void at an affluent, private, school. Dealing with troubled youngsters is a new thing for me. Not that I thought kids would be perfect, it just somehow flew over my head when I accepted this job that I would have little kids crying and fighting on occasion.
The “You Hit, You Sit” rule has been applies several times with a certain student while out on the playground. Sadly, his relationship with another girl has turned domestic. Her Mom says at the conference, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with them being friends…if she was a teenager I certainly wouldn’t want her to have a boyfriend who hit her.” This might sound dramatic but it is an interesting point. Kids wail on each other all the time, but is it more poignant when it’s a mixed-gender battle? At what point does it become a really big deal to hit a girl? Perhaps it’s because it is within a school setting that makes this problem more distressing. After all, my brother and I were constantly beating each other up. But, it’s entirely unacceptable to smack your buddy on the playground during recess. Plans have been drawn up, the leash is tightened, and the child sits in the advisor’s office during the rest of recess. I feel further and further away from this boy, as if all the psychology mumbo jumbo I am so unfamiliar with has created a wedge between us.
Yesterday the students were gone and we met with parents all day. Students who have two working parents and no nannies are dropped off for all-day care. The entire faculty met for lunch. While we were eating the librarian saw one of our students climb the playground fence, hurl his body over the edge, and land on the sidewalk. He took off running. What a commotion! Several of our male faculty members were soon chasing after the boy as he fled school property. They caught up with him several blocks away. He was escorted back to school and placed in the vice-principal’s room; Head of Security guarded the door while the little boy played for FOUR HOURS until his Mother finally came to pick him up.

Imagine me on a hay bale, on a wagon behind a tractor, surrounded by people singing, “Pumpkin, pumpkin, I’ve been thinking…” and I realize: This is great but I just don’t feel well. I foolishly forgot gloves and a hat this morning. We drove out into the wilderness to a great pumpkin patch and I was freezing. My immune system gave in.
Aside from that I’ve been knee deep in parent/student conferences lately. This takes surprising amounts of energy. I’m learning the lingo:
1) Instead of saying, “your kid is ‘stressed’ out” you have to say ‘anxious.’
2) ‘Slow’ is never ok, instead it’s ‘meticulous.’
3) A lazy kid needs to start working on his/her ‘leadership skills.’
4) A kid who cries when recess is over is ‘working on his/her transitions.’
5) We must do everything we can to ‘empower’ a shy child.
6) Informing parents that their kid is a butthead is considered a conference with ‘hard messages.’
7) An extremely gifted reader would not do well going all the way up to the third grader’s room to read…the third graders would not socialize well with a kindergartner.
8) A child being extra hard on herself is usually due to birth order. The oldest child excels. The middle child tries to compete with the oldest yet secretly yearns for the nurturing of the youngest. The youngest child is capable and competent but devastated when their aspirations fall short due to academic immaturity. (More than half my students come from families of three kids).
9) Parents of kindergarteners are more concerned about how their child is doing socially than academically. (Do people like my kid? Does my kid do mean things? Is my child a future sociopath?) This all changes when they reach first grade. (I understand my child has no friends, but CAN SHE READ?!)

Things have been hectic, what with parent/teacher conferences on both Fridays, an upcoming trip to the Pumpkin Patch, a cold I’ve been trumping for days now, and yes, a foray into baby-sitting last night. Josh’s sister has three children who are under the age of four. They needed a baby sitter so they could attend a wedding on a boat. Josh felt that as an uncle and aunt who live relatively close by (3 hours) we should pitch in and do our extended family duties. The little girls really love their Uncle Josh, and although they throw me some dap occasionally, their adoration for Josh is HUGE–one of them even slipped and called me Uncle Mara.
On the way over to my sister-in-law’s pad we agreed that Josh would do girl patrol and I would be on baby patrol. The little boy is six months old, a real charmer, and until a recent weight gain, the spitting image of my husband when he was tiny. He’s a classic younger child of three, meaning he’s pretty capable and ambitious and frequently over shadowed by his two older sisters. We were enthusiastically greeted at the door. The parents were rushing around trying to leave, the baby was asleep, the girls were sitting on the kitchen counter, and last minute instructions were thrown at us. Now I have to tell you, I hated baby-sitting as a teenager. Like many youngsters who got into the Baby Sitter’s Club series, I was really excited to turn twelve and start my career in child care. Little did I know how lame it having an uncontrollable baby crying in your face. I dabbled in baby-sitting for a little while until I officially swore it off at age thirteen. (One time it was so bad, my Mom had to come over). I admire the nannies, baby-sitters, and child care workers out there but have never identified myself as being capable of nurturing for money (Although here I am corralling four and five-year-olds every day, no wonder I’m feeling out of my element). Well, how bad could it be, right? I’m an adult now, those baby-sitting disasters were years ago, I’m on top of my game…plus, I have Josh as a back up.
Initially, it appeared that Josh had the harder job. The two girls were running around, climbing up book shelves, shouting. The middle one is a real handful at age two, slapping and punching the older one when we weren’t looking and stealing the baby’s binkie when we were aiding her sister. Josh came up with a great plan of having them get ready for bed really early so they could watch a thirty minute video before bedtime. While Josh navigated the pajama swap, I had the difficult task of changing the baby into his pj’s. The kid was squirming, fussing, his binkie kept ejecting out of his mouth while I tussled with his clothes. I tried pulling his tiny shirt over his enormous head and was met with much resistance. He squealed and struggled while I unevenly snapped up his pants. While Josh was patrolling the pajama escapade with two kids in one room I had barely started with the one kid in the nursery. Finally it was Video Time and all of us crashed out in front of the Little People Farm Video. The baby even watched from his mechanical swing; several times I had to bat the middle girl away from stealing his pacifier. Bedtime with the girls was going fairly smoothly but slowly the baby was getting pissed off. I fed him a bottle which he only seemed mildly interested in. For the second time that night I tried burping him over my shoulder. He sensed what a novice I was and began whimpering and squealing. I threw him over my shoulder and started pacing around. His little arms pushed and strained against my shoulders and he started bawling. I passed him over to Josh, assuming that the kid was just sick of me. I read a story to the oldest girl, who had found her way into the spare bed in the baby’s room. Downstairs the kid howled. When I ran to the living room, the baby had projectile vomited all over Josh’s shirt. He was screaming and squalling and Josh handed him over. I paced around for about five minutes with the infant and he only grew more agitated. His face was turning red and he was screaming at the top of his lungs. At that moment Josh called his Mom. I changed his diaper while Josh received tips from his Mother. At this point I realized the baby was over tired and enduring a severe case of Stranger Anxiety. He kept rubbing at his eyes with his tiny fists. I was growing hot and sweaty from holding onto this seething creature. I called my own Mom, realizing that this was a strange repeat of history. I found myself asking my Mom if she wanted to come over. She assured me we were doing all that was possible. The baby howled in the background as Josh attempted to pat and rub the kid’s back as he’d been advised by his own mother. My Mom told me to lay him down for ten minutes, let him scream it out, and than pick him up again. We realized that the oldest daughter was now sleeping in the baby’s room. So I put the baby on the floor of the downstairs study and put boxes around him so he wouldn’t roll around. The little boy was hollering, fat tears rolling down his little cheeks, breaking my heart with each scream. We left him in there so we could have a break.
The doorbell rang and it was a pair of missionaries dropping by a business card that had been requested by Josh’s sister. I have to say they were a nice diversion. While the kid screamed in the next room I paced around the kitchen while Josh made small talk with the Mormons. I prematurely entered the study, picked up the still screaming baby, and while the missionaries talked to Josh I paced back and forth with him. I put him back down on the floor and set the timer for ten minutes. I called my Mom, trying hard not to cry. Josh sent the missionaries on their way. After ten minutes we began the pacing up and down thing again. At this point it had been forty-five minutes of solid screaming and the kid was starting to tire. Josh had this look in his eye that said: No way in hell. I realized that any hope I had of convincing him how cool it would be to have a kid was diminishing. Finally the baby slowed down…he whimpered and than let out several ear piercing screams at two minutes intervals…and than he was down to five minutes…and than he was only whimpering. We passed him back and forth, back and forth between us….finally he passed out in my arms. After several false starts we laid him in his crib, and once we were sure he was snoring we collapsed on the living room couch. He woke up fifteen minutes later and the regiment began. This time he spared us the screaming and settled back down quickly. My arms were exhausted, my lower back ached, and my body was super tense. I realized that I was experiencing just a small taste of what is, without a doubt, The Hardest Job In The World.

Because they’re awesome and they love Seattle, Gina and Sammy visited us over the weekend. The three of us haven’t all hung out as siblings in a while. Our dynamic is pretty good, lots of eating, walking, and movie watching. My sister and I hit up the U District’s very yummy vegan bakery, The Flying Apron. We were shocked by how much selection they had, and Gina almost passed out with excitement. She’s used to only one or two choices (if any at all) and she typically has to do a lot of hunting and searching for good vegan pastries. Here she is in non-dairy, non-animal, eating ecstasy:

There were candles on the table during our traditional meal at St. Clouds. Sammy insisted on a candle lit, romantic, shot of he and Josh…it took several tries because I was laughing so hard:

Sam bought some European beer with Adam on Saturday. True to European custom, he did not refrigerate it. The beer tasted awful. We convinced Sam to forgo tradition and put it in the fridge for a while. The following morning he woke up with a hankering for heavy ale (note: it did taste better):

Sweet picture of Gina and Sam:

Another vegan score! Gina found vegan cinnamon rolls at Pike Place Market:

Sam paid tribute to my mad puppet skills by performing his own show with a silicone pot holder:

There was a reason I used to record songs off z100: 1990 was an incredible year for top ten songs! I discovered this while prepping for my reunion last month. To put myself in the mood I listened to some top 10 hits from the early 90’s. While listening to Whitney Houston belt out “I’ll always Love You,” I realized how meaningful that song had once been to me. Sure this song would eventually be replaced by other more significant tunes by Boys 2 Men, Roxette or Phil Collins, and ultimately they were abandoned entirely for Nirvana. But let me tell you: “Everything I Do” by Bryan Adams still makes me want to slow dance to this day.
All this aside, the 1990 roster is chock full of really excellent songs. Remember The Body Guard? That movie was suppose to be my First Date back in 10th grade with this one kid, let’s call him “Maurice,” my prospective Tolo date at the time. Maurice was a kid who rode my friend’s school bus to school, (cringe), and we took a shine to each other…meaning we talked awkwardly on the phone for hours. Maurice was fastidious, and perhaps, come to think of it, gay. He ironed his jean shorts before school, (I still can’t get over that), and he wore ties and sports coats. Neither of us had ever had a relationship before and I doubt we knew how to go about it. Maurice was kind of mean too, he made fun of me a lot, but I supposed that was because he liked me. Anyway, we bantered back in forth for a little while, unsure of how to proceed. Two Big Nerds in a sea of bad fashion, waning big hair, and nothing but school in common. I remember thinking, well, maybe we should start holding hands…something he never initiated and I wasn’t sure if I should. Than I round-about asked him to Tolo, because it was sort of expected of me, and well, maybe that would fire things up. Here’s a sign of the times: Our matching outfits would consist of jean shorts and flannel shirts. And let’s clarify the term “jean shorts” since I know that means something entirely different now:

It should also be noted that I’m currently listening to “Because I Love You” by Stevie B. repeatedly. Josh almost vomited and made me shut the door. Fine, I’m switching it to “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor. Anyway, at some point, I realized that maybe the problem was that I just wasn’t attracted to Maurice. I don’t know if this is exactly true, it could have been that I was just an enormous chicken and not ready for a relationship. (I also know that my standards were unrealistically high; I was still secretly pining for football players and upper classman with muscles and letterman jackets at the time). Anyway, I was left in the awkward position of breaking off the Tolo engagement. Maurice didn’t take it well…he demanded an explanation and I didn’t know how to proceed. I couldn’t tell him, well, I don’t find you attractive, or, I’m just not ready for what this first date might entail. I don’t know what I said, actually. I felt kind of bad, but something in my gut warned me away from the whole situation. Maurice recovered by taking my best friend at the time to see The Body Guard where he placed his hand on her knee…he never put his hand on MY knee. I was insulted. My best friend was torn. Further drama ensued. We eventually ditched Maurice for our girl partnership.

Field trips are fun. Field trips are stressful.
After a trip to Foster Island–which was sunny and beautiful, thankfully–we got back on the bus. I’m such a nerd, I have to sit in the front of the bus, facing forward or else I get horribly bus sick. I was accompanied by three other kids while the rest of the class sat in the back of the bus with the Lead Teacher. One of the kids was my Screecher, who actually screamed at one point during our hike: “I hate this field trip! I wish we had never gone here! I HAVE TO GO POTTY!” Well, there was no potty available, so my responsibility was to distract her from going Number Two in her pants. The other two boys were just ready to be separated from the group. We waited for twenty minutes inside the bus while it remained parked, waiting for the other class; I pulled out all the stops. I created an impromptu puppet show with Mr. and Mrs. Hand. (Sometimes I can’t believe the length I go to in order to keep the peace). Mr. Hand was naively talking about ‘his hair’ with Mrs. Hand who kept telling him: “But, you don’t have any hair!” The three kids thought this was hilarious.

Finally, the rest of the student body made it onto their respective buses, journals and snacks and jackets intact. The bus made the slow trip up 15th Ave., passing the University of Washington. There were students milling about everywhere, the sun was shining, everything fresh and alive was coming off the campus. “Look, “I said, “College kids.” My three students peered out the window, clamoring about Husky games and parents that are alumni. I’m not sure if someone asked or if it became clear that none of them really knew what ‘college’ meant so I volunteered this analogy: “Imagine if each class in our school had its own building, that wouldn’t even come close to how big the University of Washington is.” The three kindergarteners mulled this over. Finally, one of them asked a pressing question: “Do they have Reading Buddies?” Priceless.
The best part was having to answer the question. I think I said something akin to, “Well, I would imagine the English Department has Reading Buddies, although college is for kids 18 and over…so maybe they’re reading on their own…I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask someone who goes to the school and find out if they have Reading Buddies or not.” This lead to the discussion of Kris B., the one person I know who goes to the U.W. The great thing is that many of these kids know a “Chris” or a “Kris” of some sort, so they all started clamoring: “I KNOW him! I know Kris!” I was skeptical: “Really? You know my friend, Kris?” “Yes! Yes!” They insisted. Slowly they realized that no, it wasn’t the same person, not the same Chris after all. All except one boy, who absolutely insisted he knew Kris B. (What am I going to do, call the kid a liar?) I thought it was great that he was so confident about his knowledge regarding “Kris with the dark hair! He has dark hair, right?” “Well, yes, he does have dark hair.” “Oh,” The Sceecher was crestfallen, “The Chris I know has blond hair.” At this point I was starting to feel bus sick. The kids and I relaxed in our seats and they enjoyed the rest of the ride.

I sit here, hoping the powerful effects of airborne will seep into my system and keep all the gunk, germs, and cookie slobber from invading my delicate immune system. On Friday we gathered in the main area with all six kindergarten classes and their parents and sang songs. Than we went back to our classrooms and devoured homemade cookies and milk. I have to admit, the kid’s songs were catchy. I found myself swaying and shaking to the classics, “I’m Gonna Shake My Sillies Out” being my favorite. I also rediscovered the classic tale of Abiyoyo, a book we had on tape as kids. It was narrated by the author, complete with sing-a-long. How nice to hear the story told, twenty years later to a new batch of kids. Remembering parts of my own childhood usually happens when I discover books I loved in kindergarten still there and alive in the classroom. We forget so much of that relatively short part of our lives, the part where we were little…seems like I’ve been an adult forever and than I’ll come across Steven Kellogg’s tale of Pecos Bill–I loved that book!
The little boys who spit on a co-worker of mine moved on to the Spanish Teacher on Friday. Not only did he spit on her, but he bit her as well. The boy was sent home. The faculty rallied together, trying to figure out how to support the parents, the boy, and the slowly growing club of teachers who have collectively been spat on by this child over the past year and half. You’d think we’d all be furious at this boy, but that’s the nice thing about this school. They want nothing but to help him…turns out he’s got a lot of troubles and when he’s not angry he’s sweetly giving me love letters. I walked passed his personal conference with his teachers and the principal…he was crying. I’m sure he doesn’t have the language yet, at four-years-old, to communicate why he spit on the Spanish teacher.
It still hurts me when these kids cry…I’m not immune to it yet. One of my students fell on the playground, knocking the wind out of her and biting her lip. She was carried inside by another teacher. She was crying and her little sleeve was all bloody from holding her hand up to her mouth. We patched her up and gave her a popsicle to ease the swelling. I walked her back to our classroom for the remainder of recess. When I tried talking to her she told me, “I knocked the wind out of my body…I don’t feel like talking.” So I left her sucking on her popsicle and reading a book. (Why can’t they all be that good?)
Friendships still remain tense between several students. The four-year-old girls are commanded to be last in line during follow-the-leader. They share this responsibility by holding hands. The leader is always a five-year-old. They create complex games where the four-year-olds are always last and sometimes they are pit against each other. Because we are largely responsible for these kids’ social growth, there is nothing much we can do. Instead I observe these endless follow-the-leader games and wonder when the littler ones are going to rise up and revolt. Occasionally the strongest of the four-year-old crew will freak out at another in her clan–”Stop holding my hand!”–which results in a slapfest and eventual crying. The Wise Leader will try to intervene, but usually it’s more than her five-year-old mentality can handle. A teacher is called to resolve the issues between the fighting four-year-olds.
I don’t think this job is for me…meaning I can’t imagine doing this next year. I might be wrong, of course. But the level of exhaustion, not to mention illness that I feel constantly is kicking my ass. However, I feel that I’m relatively good at this difficult job, and that makes me feel a lot of satisfaction. I learned that ten other people interviewed just in my Lead Teacher’s room alone. The fact that I beat out all these people really gives me strength when I feel like I suck at teaching. When do I feel like I suck? When I don’t know how to discipline a kid for hitting another one…when I don’t know the language to use…when the parents ask me hard questions. But I’m constantly discovering new parts, new things, and having great conversations with people under the age of six.

Today I realized something: It could be much, much worse. I realized this because another student in another class spit in the Resident Teacher’s face. I have never seen a teacher so angry. Spitting is pretty low-down, it’s almost more insulting than if the kid took a swing–although there was some debate about that. Is spitting–which includes the insult plus the germs–equal to a four-year-old fist coming at you? Maybe I’m just thinking about how, culturally, it’s a pretty horrible yet subtle insult to spit on someone. Violence is pretty straightforward but spitting in someone’s face? Big Insult.
Tragedy struck when a recent engineering project involving molding clay and black gems to make a bridge proved faulty. The clay never dried correctly and one by one the bridges came down on their paper foundations. We had a discussion about this during Circle Time. One child, let’s call him Omar, did not hear this conversation due to his social nature. He spies his broken bridge during play time. Immediately he assumes it is his best friend, “Chad,” who destroyed it. He retaliates by destroying Chad’s bridge–one of the few that had originally survived. Chad is hysterical; he destroys Omar’s Lego ship. Omar is furious. Chad begins to cry when he realizes that destroying something of Omar’s did not replace the pain over losing his bridge. Omar feels justified because he “wanted Chad to feel as bad as I did.” The two have to be separated. Chad is beside himself. We have to talk with his Mom during pick-up time. The next morning his mother informs us that Chad is still upset over his broken bridge. He retold the story to every single family member and he still feels betrayed. Chad walks over to Omar, places his hands on his shoulders, looks him in the eye, and says, “Omar, I don’t want you to be in this class.” Omar is so offended he marches over to tell me about it. The two of them are split up again until recess when the Lead Teacher has a private conference with the two of them. They agree to be friends again…despite hard feelings, they continue to struggle to make it work, (kind of like a bad marriage).
We attend a puppet show at a nearby theater. I have forgotten how difficult it is to sit in a folding theater chair when you weigh less than fifty pounds. The seats practically fold my students in half, sucking them up into the crack between the back of the chair and the cushion. It is a struggle especially for the small students, and many of them opt to stand in front of the seat rather than sit in it. I recall my own difficulty in sitting in folding chairs at the movie theater when I was young. How old was I when my weight finally allowed the chair to unfold naturally?