Mumbling Madly

It’s probably time to start posting about things other then my job. The issue is that when people I haven’t spoken with in a while ask what I’ve been up to my mind draws up a blank…what have I been up to? Usually I respond with, “Well, um, actually my time is consumed by my job.” This sounds lame, so I’ve changed it to, “Well, my time is consumed by teaching.” This sounds a little more noble, especially when people learn that it’s kindergarten. Images of me rolling around the floor with a bunch of super cute kids comes to most people’s minds as they envision my life a carefree playground of laughs and giggles. When I start talking about the dynamics of the job, I usually include the weary hours, early mornings, and the poor health aspect of the profession that I had no idea would be involved when I started in August. I also have to mention that it’s a temporary gig, ending in June, resulting in an upcoming job search (once again). Many people shrug all this off and say anecdotally, “Oh, the first year of teaching is always hard.” To this I say, “No, it’s always pretty hard on some level.” Am I coward for not wanting to continue? I’m all for the administration aspect of education, or being a dance/theater specialist, or returning to being a buyer for a dance store, (although this job does not exist in Seattle since their dance retail is in sorry state).
When I’m not being asked about teaching, for some reason people are really into talking about the housing market in Seattle. HA! What market? It’s becoming woefully clear that there is little to nothing available for young people within the city limits. Visions of having to move to Issaquah haunt me…but I’m tired of renting. This large, looming, idea of leaving the city and setting up somewhere else must be kept in the back of my mind. Certainly, this is inevitable. Friends of Josh’s, who make over 100,000 a year are losing bids on town homes in West Seattle. It fatigues me to even think of the uphill battle house hunting will cause us, so I try to hold the positive stories of home buying in Seattle close to my heart. As our market creeps up to San Francisco prices, the anxious “We have to get on this NOW” feeling pushes at our consciousness.
Snowboarding has always been a secret love of mine. I say secret because when I started I was 23 living in the mountains of Colorado, maintaining a long distance relationship with a modern dance company, and swearing up and down I would not get hurt. Of course, several concussions later, I did not get hurt (seriously) and the dance company disbanded. I mention the company because a characteristic of most dancers is an extreme neurosis about their bodies. Getting injured always lingers in the background of an aspiring dancer, and the fact that I was performing while learning an outdoor sport was a bit of a faux paux. Now my dancing is limited to one ballet class a week, and my yearning for the mountains continues to tug at my heart. Josh, Sammy (who is now learning himself how to snowboard), and I went to Crystal Mountain four weeks ago and it was glorious! I felt like I was king of the world! After the trip I went and bought expensive gear, replacing my old heavy Vans boots with stealthy, lighter, models and trading in my pain-in-the-ass-never-coming-undone-when-I’m-totally-stuck-in-powder bindings with nice, new, easy to remove ones. Then we went to Alpental, an ancient ski resort about forty-five minutes away. The snow was glorious, the weather dark and overcast, and I was faced with all black diamond runs. In my mind, I was still the ambitious young snowbunny from my Summit County days, and I dove in face first (literally) to what the mountain could offer me. The mountain beat me back with a fierce fervor that resulted in one of the worst days of snowboarding history for me. Twice I found myself stuck, having managed to wander off the run and into a pit of powder where no amount of struggling could free me. With sweat running down my face fogging my goggles, I managed to dig myself out both times, cursing furiously the entire time. And who was I kidding? I’m not interested in black diamonds…I have no desire to tackle steep terrain. Give me a nice fast blue, one that I can roll and bump and glide upon any day. Suddenly I couldn’t remember how to turn, the result of the strange feel of my light flexible boots, and I bitterly ate it over and over again. Up until that day I had prided myself on no longer falling when I went snowboarding. After the first rocky year of learning, usually by myself, on some gloriously groomed run in Breckinridge, I resigned myself to being an average intermediate snowboarder. Sure, I enjoyed the occasional foray into trees, and briefly I explored the art of tricks–including jumping over things. But I quickly moved on, realizing that my dislike of falling and my inner dancer screaming to preserve my body, were overriding my desire to ever become a daring, risky, snowboarder barreling down the mountain. My beanie is off to Josh, who has succeeded not only as an expert rider but also an excellent trickster, and glides down the mountain as if he has made it his bitch, the snow rising to meet him with his grace and calm nature overriding any hurtle in his way. I on the other hand, became so furious and worked over by Alpental two weeks ago, that I gave in to fits of loud bawling, sobbing and struggling with my new gear and broken gloves, cursing up a mean storm that shocked every skier who sailed past. There was a point in my snowboarding history where I spent days in a furious, sobbing, stupor as my will to overcome the mountain gave in to huge failure and painful bruising. At one point I swore off Vail entirely, because every time I went I ended up sulking in the lodge. I had thought those days were largely behind me, but alas, I was wrong. Alpental, stupid little Alpental, with its rickety two chair lifts and overzealous Seattleite clientele (such a far cry from the over crowded, egotistical, tourist hell of Summit County), reduced me to a pile of snowboard nothing. Once again I found myself sulking in the lodge, this time sharing my space with a church youth group who were up skiing for a day. “Now listen, “I said, sternly to myself, “You’re 28 now, no longer a dumb 23 year old trying to learn, you need to suck it up.” But I was woeful for the rest of the day, and with a firm resolve that black diamonds are the bane of my snowboard existence, I’ve sworn to return to the gentle runs of Crystal Mountain.

“So what did you do this weekend?” I asked The Screamer.
“I helped my Dad carry some Heinekan into the house,” she said causually, “He bought two cases! We really can’t believe how fast he and Mommy go through it.”
Just a regular kindergarten morning for me…I find it interesting how people sometimes talk to kids like their infants. This poor guy did a presentation at our school and he spent the entire time talking to the kids in this weird falsetto voice…must of killed his vocal chords at the end of the day. One learns pretty fast that cooing at four-year-olds is exhausting…writing about them is much better.

I had a book thrown at me this morning…it missed. The best part was when the kid defended himself with, “But I MEANT to hit June!” Needless to say it didn’t fly and we engaged the old “You Throw, You Go” rule. This should not be confused with the “You Hit, You Sit” rule which implies a different action but similar consequences. (I sure wish I could have enforced these rules during my time in retail).
I also watched this kid almost wipe the nastiest booger on his friend’s leg–only to wipe it on the rug when I caught him. I made the punk wash his hands…and then I couldn’t stop staring at this humongous booger on the floor.
I found this little gal hiding under a table with a pair of scissors and a piece of hair wrapped in her fingers. I caught her right before she took a big chunk out of her hair. Kids show up all the time with weird bangs and hunks of their hair-do missing but there is no way that’s happening on my time!
The end is near with report writing…but I just learned that we’ll be doing the whole thing over again in May. That sucks so bad…I can’t even tell you. That gives me four months to somehow make this process easier…somehow.

My dear readers, I have been a slave to Word…and by this I mean writing reports has consumed my life. After pounding the keys for several hours intermittently for the past two weeks, it’s hard to find blog writing inspiration. Shame on me! I must prove to the Blog Gods that I am still a faithful blogger.
Speaking of writing let me paraphrase a recent story a student of mine penned entitled THE LOVE. The following is almost word for word and you have to imagine that it is accompanied by random illustrations of lightening, jars, and colors galore:
Jars of love rain down on the land. The jars can’t break. If you open them you will have a good life, which is what you are suppose to do. No lightening. The lightening is bad! The lightening strikes the jars and turns them into bad magic. Bad magic is the only thing that can break the jars…they are now filled with iron and steel. This person was lucky not to be killed but had to go to the hospital. There are 9 billion people in this land and at least once in their life they will get hit by bad magic. The bad magic and the good magic fight against each other. The bad magic destroys the good magic. The people give the good magic an award. The jars of love rain down and the secret is the jars are filled with hugs and kisses. They will give you a good life.
Needless to say I was quite touched by the idea of jars of love. He dictated the story to me, drawing pictures and then instructing me with what I must write. At some point I was so rushed in trying to include all his words that I may have forgotten my spelling. It’s too late now because the book is bound, the labor of love for this student and me. We worked on it all Friday morning and part of lunch. Then I read it to the class during read-aloud and it was met with much praise. Is it implied that this is my troubled student? The one with all the social issues and the vacant hope that his friends will conform to the stiff rules and penalties of his imaginative games?
In other student related news, on Friday a student run puppet show went awry. The two boys, who have endured a tumultuous relationship since the beginning of school, were putting on a puppet show. At some point the puppets began fighting, and one of the puppeteers was clocked in the nose. Being the more emotionally unstable of the two, he immediately threw his puppet aside and gave in to loud bawling. It was hard to sympathize with him since I had watched his puppet throw the first punch. I pulled them aside and got them to admit equal responsibility. The two boys apologized to each other and we agreed that it was good the weekend was upon us so they could “take a break from their friendship.”
A quick side note: It should be mentioned that “June”, the little girl who almost lost her tooth during the lock down last week, kept her tooth barely hanging in her mouth until the following Monday. The dear thing wanted to lose it at school so she could get her much deserved tooth necklace!

On Friday afternoon, five minutes before afternoon pick-up time, the school was given orders to lock down. A crime was committed a few blocks away; the suspect crashed his car, and ran on foot. Considered armed and dangerous, a massive man hunt went down and the man was last seen near the library 1/2 block from the school.
I was in the middle of one of the most difficult days I’ve had in a while. Working solo for most of the day, I’d already had to negotiate my way through several fights–one of them resulting with a kid elbowing another kid in the back. During the ‘let’s talk it over’ part after the altercation, one of the kids tried to hit and kick the other one (again). I marched his ass to the head of the department and made him sit in her office. The interesting thing about this boy is he only beats up girls; I can’t tell you how many times he’s gotten in trouble for losing control of his body. Needless to say, this combined with his dwindling attention to academics makes it difficult for me to feel sympathy. With the entire lower elementary down one teacher (there was a huge meeting in progress); we let five kindergartens loose on the playground. The kids went crazy, running laps around the playground like caged animals. When we dragged them in, I began the arduous task of getting them to clean up the room. Did I mention there was indoor recess and the kids trashed the place?
I was barking out orders, sending kids to dump garbage, and grab the lunch bin from downstairs, when suddenly another teacher ran in and said, “Did you know there’s a lock down?” Well, my room was so loud I didn’t even hear the announcement. “I’ve never done this before,” I said, helplessly. “Do you have a key? We need to lock the door,” The teacher said. Of course, I didn’t have a key. While the other teacher found a way to lock my door, I yelled, “Everyone on the rug, NOW!” Kids were still wiping down tables and one of them said, “But I’m CLEANING the table!” Lights shut off, my kids and I huddled in a corner out of sight of the windows and doors. Everyone in the room but me had practiced a lock down before so the kids were amicable and willing to get down on the floor. I tried to remember everything I could about the procedure, but the underlying thought I had was, “Oh my God, someone armed with a gun has entered the building.” Leave it to me to think of the worst case scenario. Thank God, the other teacher sat with us while I quietly read five chapters of King Tut Tut. About half way through the lock down the kids started asking questions: “When is it going to be over?” We told them it was probably just a practice drill…thank God they couldn’t tell time. While I sat reading I watched the clock go from 2:40 to 3:05 and I knew it wasn’t a drill. What I didn’t know was that the parents were being evacuated from the parking lot. Parents who were already outside the building were rushed inside and shoved into classrooms while the whole place shut down. Police cars were swarming the area and the security team for our high-profile children was providing information from the parking lot that even the police couldn’t give. In the back of my mind I wondered if any of the security team was going to penetrate the school and find their way into my classroom. (In hindsight, I was probably the safest classroom in the lower elementary).
In the middle of reading out loud one of the kids raised his hand and reported that June, the girl next to him, was about to lose her tooth. June smiled and showed us how she could fold her bottom tooth down horizontally in her mouth. “Yay!” The kids exclaimed, “Can we pull it out? If you lose it you can go to the front desk and get a little plastic tooth necklace to keep it in!” I had to squelch the excitement, “Um, June do you think you could hold off on losing your tooth? I can’t let you go to the office during a lock down.” June smiled and flipped her tooth back into place and the reading of King Tutt Tutt continued. At 3:05, the Art teacher crept through the tiny door that separates my classroom from the class next door. “Five more minutes, “he whispered, giving us no additional information. With total and utter relief, I turned to my kids: Most of them had caught on, and some of them were looking nervous. Several of them had scooted closer and closer to me with every chapter. “Hey guys, did you hear that?” I said, “Only five more minutes…now I want to take a moment and thank you guys for being so brave and so great…a big silent cheer for all of you.” Together we all silently raised our fists and pumped them in the air and whispered, “Yaaaah.”
The announcement came across the intercom, “The lock down is over.” A real cheer erupted from the classroom next door. My kids looked at me, alarmed, as if they had already accessed the brevity of the situation and found it no vocal cheering matter. Immediately several of them ran to the bathroom to relieve nervous bladders. Parents streamed into the classroom with nervous smiles and wide eyes. Many of them herded their kids off quickly, a few of them asked questions…the situation was revealed to us, the man was never apprehended but the ‘area was secure’ according to the police. The kids were very excited; one of them ran up to me and said, “I can’t believe it was a REAL lock down!” “Wanna know a secret?” I knelt down so I was on the kid’s level, “That was my first lock down ever AND it was real.” The kid regarded me with huge eyes as if I was unbelievably brave. I realized that I had been scared, but that during the incident I had found a rock hard place of resilience. Phones were ringing, the place was buzzing, and for some reason I went into cleaning mode. While the Lead Teacher (who had been locked in the Teacher Education Center) fielded questions, I wiped down tables and cleaned up abandoned snacks. It wasn’t until all the kids had been cleared from out of the room that I started crying…it wasn’t because I was in any real danger. It was because of the enormity of what I was protecting: Sixteen children. The reason they were all so incredibly good throughout the ordeal, was because I silently communicated to them a steely promise: There is no way I would let anyone hurt you…we are totally and entirely safe. Once that promise was proven, I fell into an exhausted state. Several teachers, including my boss, surrounded me with words of, “you were great,” “it worked out, the kids had no idea, one of them even claimed this was the ‘best lock down ever,’ ” and “it’s scary but it’s over.” But, I was still shaken. Today my throat hurts, probably from reading King Tutt Tutt in a strained voice for a half hour.

I work at a school that does not have grades. I think this is excellent. I think it would be difficult handing out a letter or a plus, check, or minus to a student regarding different things. This way we get to WRITE about, in detail if we want, what the child is really learning. Of course there are all sorts of stress because it means we have to write little novelettes about a child and reduce them to two pages maximum. The residents only have to slog through four reports while the lead teachers write thirteen. There are a few designated in-service days where we get to write all day but they’re far and few between, (and as we just found out, the residents have to work in the day care program on one of those days, BOOO!)
Anyway, some interesting notes I’ve come up with regarding the kids academically (I’ll put up the social stuff later as it’s bound to be juicier). Please note that this is not the same child but several of them:
1. Documentation is beautiful, colorful, and detailed (due to her creative nature). Ex.: Ornately drawn snowball men and women, 11 x 3 = 22 SOBOLS (snowballs).
2. Child spends time drawing elaborate mathematical grids but does not use them for numbers. Rather, she uses them to demonstrate her knowledge of a grid and moves on.
3. Currently been reminded to TAKE HIS TIME, his tendency to rush results in bad handwriting; numbers are usually backwards and sloppy.
4. Becoming more confident with place value (18 instead of 81).
5. Using A/B patterns, ex: red and green color tiles decorate a picture of a shirt.
6. Enjoys Venn Diagrams.
7. Spends large amount of time with details, colors, filling in empty space with bright drawings and additional decoration.
8. During Shape Shop she favored octagons.

Interesting observation regarding birthday wishes. Whenever it is a kid’s birthday they sit on the special birthday chair and are showered with special wishes and congrats. This is a prelude to the cupcake carnage, a really nice time for kids to reflect on what they would give this peer if they had the means or the magic to do so. What’s the number one wish for the birthday boy or girl? That they receive “lot’s of money.” It’s gotten so out of hand that we had to have a talk about how money is a material thing and not as special as a true wish of good health and humanity. A genuine “Happy Birthday” far surpasses any currency one could receive–or so we tell them. “Well, my Dad said you’re not supposed to talk about money with other people,” pipes up one boy, “It’s private.” “That’s right, “I nod in recognition, remembering that this kid has a house in the Hamptons, “Money is a personal matter.”
It is unfortunate that today’s children are already money-centric. Perhaps they hear grown-ups discuss finances or maybe they know that in order to have presents one must have money. At any rate, after the first few “happy birthdays” are spread around, the kids start wishing the birthday person a “million, billion, dollars” or “all the money in the world.” Then we have The Discussion and the wishes change to “I hope you land on Fairy Island” or “I hope you get a rocket ship.” Things you would normally associate with Kindergarten…

My one big drink of the night: EmergenCee Vitamin Packet and vodka with a twist of lime. I was feeling a little under the weather that night but the amazing thing is the drink WORKED! I felt better the very next day. (Unlike SOME people who were on their death beds from a night of splurging).

Chris and Joey sporting fabulous New Year’s Looks, (check out that back lighting).

Katie, the hostess, with Joey.

New Year’s Party perspective shot.

Moments after the New Year was rang in.

Classic co-host KB with party streamers and tipsy affection.

Josh leans in for a Big One and get’s denied.

A big batch of holiday pictures comes your way!

Sam and Gina out on the town the night before Christmas Eve. Kris very thoughtfully had a gathering at Ringlers. This was my sister’s first foray into a bar with her siblings having newly turned 21 several weeks prior.

Dena, Mara, and Gina. Dena and I lived in Seattle together for two years when we first started college. She’s now an established Botanist and world traveler.

Gina outside of Ringlers.

Christmas Tree at Mom and Dad’s!

My father showing off his new Robosapien.

Josh and his little nephew.

Waiting for sandwhiches in Vancouver.

Lucky number eight orange.

Josh and his sister at, where else, the Pike Place Market.

Piroshky shop behind the scenes.