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Words

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It is 6:40 in the morning, and I am sitting in my car outside the high school. The drizzly not-quite-rain, not-quite-ice precipitation that has been falling for days has rendered the darkness a sooty mess that severely limits visibility. As on every way-too-early weekday, I am waiting for my son to wake up enough to exit the car, cross the street, and board the bus.

Our morning drive and wait time are sometimes quiet and sometimes filled with talk of this or that. Today, the sound of the wipers, intermittently slopping a mix of water and ice from my windshield, punctuates my thoughts, which center on an early meeting and the morning tasks that stand between now and that commitment.

The radio drones on, barely noticed until a clip of The View is played in which Whoopi Goldberg purportedly broke wind on air. Next to me in the front seat, I detect some movement from my son. The laughter of the DJs on the radio catches our attention, and their discussion moves to the etymology of the word “fart.” My son snickers.

The word, from Old English, has been kicking around much longer than I would have guessed. When the DJs start in with the Middle English, farten, and they speak in funny accents, both my son and I begin to laugh. We mimic their accents, and I sense this will not be the last time I hear this particular phrase spoken in this particular manner. We are still laughing as he says good-bye and gets out of the car; the DJs move on to another topic.

It was a perfectly timed radio segment. It grabbed the attention of the teen in the car, and shook him awake more effectively than I could have. And as an English teacher, I wonder what could be better to wake a kid than a rousing discussion of etymology? Sometimes, discussions of emotionally (socially…?) charged words have practical use as well as philosophical merit.

Oddities

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In my refrigerator this morning, I found the juice container with half a sip of juice barely visible in the bottom. Essentially, it was empty. I poured myself the little that was left, just to see if it might be at all satisfying. It was not. There was not even enough to wash down one tiny Vitamin D pill. I have a difficult time believing that the person who returned this container to the fridge couldn’t possibly ingest even a few lingering drops of juice. Really, I can’t imagine.

My first thought is laziness. The person who—by all reasonable standards—finished off the juice didn’t want to have to rinse out the container and throw it in the trash. That’s a lot of work, right? Most likely, the culprit was also considering the fact that the next person who wanted juice might complain that the person who used it all should be responsible for the trip to the basement to grab more juice…. But I’m speculating here.

My next thought is consideration for the needs of the next person to want juice. In fact, the culprit did not finish all of the juice, thereby leaving some for the next person. Or not.

Possibility number three: Science experiment. While we typically have numerous science experiments going on in our house at any given time, they are more likely to resemble something that would be confiscated in an airport security screening—metal and wires and miniscule electronic parts and battery packs that might have started a small fire once or twice in the past week or two. So “science experiment” would be a stretch in this case.

No, I am left to believe that this is the work of the teen brain. The culprit took out the juice, poured a desired amount into the cup, and put the container back where it was. There is no hidden agenda here. It wasn’t consideration for or a lack of thought for the next person. It was, in fact, a lack of thought. Juice goes in the fridge. End of discussion.

With three teen brains wandering my house, I know there will be more bizarre discoveries for me to question and obsess over. In fact, my house most likely holds a treasure trove of the not-quite-right. Discovering these oddities gives me food for thought, keeps me on my toes, and—oddly enough—inspires creativity!

Mornings

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It was crazy in our house this morning. On a Monday, waking up does not happen quickly, so I do what I can to fuel the flow of energy. This morning, as I made sandwiches and packed lunches, I made up a song about cheese. Yes, cheese. I dubbed it The single most boring song on the planet because all of the “rhyming” words were the same word—cheese. The cat didn’t seem to mind the song, but my younger son did his best to ignore me in our cramped kitchen. The other two children sleepily stumbled downstairs, my oldest stared blankly into the open refrigerator as teenagers so often do.

“I know!” I said, in an effort to spark conversation (or shock the Monday morning right out of them). “I think we should live a musical! From now on, we should sing everything!”

“Yeah,” C replied dismissively, shutting the fridge. “I’m not coming home anymore.”

“Well…. I’ll come home,” my daughter piped up. “But I’m not participating.”

“Oh….” I drew the word out long and slow. “You’ll participate.”

“I’m pretty sure I won’t, Mom,” she said as she popped two pieces of cinnamon bread into the toaster.

“I’m pretty sure you will,” I retorted.

“Whatever.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” I continued on my train of thought, daring someone to derail it. “We would just break out into song whenever we had something to say!” I broke out into song here in demonstration.

“Ugh!” I heard from the vicinity of the kitchen table. I put a sandwich in a lunch box and zipped up the top. I turned back to the sink to put spaghetti into a thermos.

C came walking through the kitchen with his backpack, whistling loudly. “Stop!” my daughter commanded. “That’s loud and piercing.”

C stopped in his tracks, feigning a look of shocked innocence. “What? I thought we were in a musical!”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help myself—his timing was perfect! If we had been keeping score, he would have been declared the winner, though my daughter would not have admitted it. But we were not keeping score. In fact, we all won. We all left the house wide awake, a little happier, and perhaps just a little sillier.

Flashbacks

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It is just past eleven, and I am flying up the highway faster than I should be in my present state of exhaustion. Between my son’s work schedule and my own, I have been driving this highway too late every night this week. My son is in the car with me, and he chatters on, animatedly telling me about his night at work.

On this night, he trained the “new kid,” and I remind him that he is the new kid. I can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “Not anymore!” He’s been working not quite three weeks, and he is already training other workers older than he is. He’s in this job to move up, but he understands he has to start at the bottom.

He keeps talking, and I force my eyes to stay open. Just a few more minutes, I tell myself. Despite the fact that I believe I am driving faster than usual, my speedometer says 60. The speed limit is 65, and I blame fatigue and the fact that it is dark and rainy and the road surface could be slick at this time of year. I don’t linger for even a second on the thought that I am getting older, and driving in the dark is not what it used to be.

For a brief moment as my son talks, I have a flashback to a time when he was little. Very little. (Think Steve Martin in Father of the Bride when his daughter is sitting across the table telling him about her wedding, and all he can see is this tiny little child telling him about her plans.) My son was in pre-school and he was at a birthday party. I always thought of him as somewhat of a shy-ish kid, especially in social situations. At this party, I was in the kitchen and there was a bit of a chaotic scene in the family room as the children tried to work together on a project involving string and glue and various pieces. All of a sudden, I heard my son’s voice rise above the voices of the other children. “Guys,” he said. “GUYS!!” and then he proceeded to relay the vision he had to make order out of chaos. At the time, his authoritative voice caught me so by surprise that I quickly moved to the door to watch what his four-year-old self take charge. In that moment, I saw an early flicker of his leadership potential.

Now, as he navigates his late teens, he is beginning to find his niche. He is involved in activities in which he feels comfortable and confident, and his leadership abilities are beginning to burn brighter. What once was a flicker is now a steady flame. It is amazing what can happen when a kid—anyone, really—finds his or her passion. I only hope he will continue to follow his passions, and not get distracted by the things that don’t matter.

I look forward to watching his journey, sharing in it with him, and helping him along the way. And I am hoping for many more of those crazy flashbacks to his childhood to remind me how far we have come.

Bullies

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This week, the final week of the semester, the hot paper topic seems to be bullying. I have read papers on bullying and suicide, the role of bullying in school shootings, bullying and Asperger’s, and bullying in prisons. So today, I am revisiting an experience we had with bullying….

My daughter was in kindergarten—riding the bus with elementary students through fourth grade—when she experienced bullying for the first time. It was the first year of public kindergarten in our town, and some important guidelines hadn’t yet been established. In fact, not long after this incident, one of several incidents on our school busses that fall, kindergarteners would be restricted to seats in the front of the bus, so the driver would be able to keep an eye on them….

Because my tiny daughter had a big, second-grade brother on the bus, she rode toward the back to be near him. But one day, not long into the school year, a fourth grade boy got on the bus and sat in the seat with her. He was big and tough and willing to use his size and age to exert his power wherever he could. On this particular day, he exerted his power over my five-year-old daughter.

When the bus stopped to let the kindergarten, first, and second graders off on their playground at school, this fourth grader turned his back, talked to his friends, and refused to budge, purposely blocking my daughter’s exit. By the time the bus drove around the school to the “big kid” playground, my daughter was scared and in tears, knowing she was in the wrong place. When she got off the bus, a fourth-grade safety patrol student came to her rescue, walking her around the building and depositing her with her class.

Not long after, I saw this young bully playing with his friends near our house. “You should really pick on people your own size,” I told him as I walked by. Interestingly, he knew exactly what I was talking about.

“The principal believed me when I told him I didn’t do it,” he responded, his eyes wide and purposefully innocent.

“That’s fine,” I said calmly, still walking. “But my daughter doesn’t know enough about busses and bullies to make up a story like that,” I shrugged, letting him know I knew the truth, and I continued on my way.

His response came about 15 minutes later when the boy’s mother knocked on my door, trembling with anger. “If you ever speak to my son again,” she said, but she didn’t have an end to her threat—you know, the part that is the actual threat. As she went on about the virtues of her son and the fact that she believed his side of the story, her continued threats of “Don’t you ever…” kept trailing off into emptiness. Her son stood behind her, smug and satisfied that his mother was putting me in my place.

When I finally had enough, I turned around, stepped inside, and calmly closed the door, shutting her out and sealing in my family, my home, my peace. I turned to see my children—all three of them, then three, five and seven—wide-eyed and stunned, looking to me for reassurance that this wasn’t as scary as they thought it to be.

“Well,” I said with a sigh and a wink. “Now we know where that boy learned to be a bully, don’t we?” Their little bodies relaxed as they nodded their agreement in unison.

Indeed, children who watch their parents bully others are at risk of becoming bullies themselves. On the other hand, children who have good role models at home… they can change the world for the better!

Layers

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My daughter sits across the table, playing a cutthroat game of Connect 4 with my boyfriend. The competition between them is (playfully) fierce, and she is adamant that I not give him hints. Doing so would somehow constitute cheating, despite the fact that I am not a player in this particular game.

She arranges and rearranges the game pieces, jokingly scolding me when I even so much as look like I am going to help him with his next move. She knows that I am perceptive, and that somehow, most likely because I am her mother, I am able to anticipate her next move.

I find myself watching her with fascination. Her interaction has an ease and comfort to it. She laughs. She tries to trick him, and he laughs. She manipulates the pieces, looks up as though she is hiding something, and in the next moment, she is deep in thought. She is complicated and multi-dimensional, and watching her (and her brothers) grow throughout her life has given me insight into people—and their layers—that I might not have otherwise gotten. I know that she has grown this way by piling experience on top of interaction on top of practice and more experience. It is not a simple thing to create such a complex individual.

Recently, she and I took an art class in fused glass. We chose brightly colored pieces of glass, piled them on top of each other in a way that looked appealing, and sent them off to the kiln. The pieces came back smooth and beautiful, the layers had melted together and become inextricably combined. This process is much like what has occurred in my children as the incidents and experiences, both good and bad, have combined to make them who they are. Each of my children is multi-layered in his or her own way. The ways in which they navigate the world, the relationships, the simple moments of every day life make me marvel at all of the things each of them has learned. Even when they were little, I would watch—from across the table or across the room—as they worked on a craft project, a game, homework, etc.

I watch my daughter now, and in my mind, I trace the lines of her face, comparing the lines and expressions to what they were a decade ago… a year ago… yesterday. I memorize these same lines and expressions for tomorrow. This face, this moment, is fleeting, and I want to hold it in my head, a snapshot for the future. This is today, right now, and I want to be present in this moment.

Lessons

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“It’s 4:13. It’s been exactly 24 hours since I set the microwave on fire!” My son proudly makes this announcement as he’s packing to leave for the holiday.

The previous day, when I drove up to the house, my youngest was sitting on the front steps. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“I was getting a headache in the house, so I had to come out here.” A man of few words, that one. It is unseasonably warm at 60° outside, so I thought he was just spending some time enjoying the weather.

My face must have been an indication of my lack of understanding. “C tried to set the house on fire, and it smells, so I had to come outside.” He gets up and starts walking toward the car.

“What happened?” I ask.

“He was heating pizza in the microwave, and the foil started a fire.”

“He put foil in the microwave??”

I see him hedge just a bit. “You’ll have to ask him. He put a pan on it to put it out.”

Now I am totally confused. A pan? Foil in the microwave? He is old enough to know better than to do that. I gather my stuff from the car and go in the house where I am greeted by the sharp odor of smoke and my oldest child. “Did he tell you the story?” His expression is cautiously smug.

“He told me his version. Now I want to hear yours.”

“Well, I was heating some pizza so I could eat before work.” He pauses. I recognize this tactic—giving me one piece of information at a time and making me work for the story. He thinks I’m going to feel sorry for him. He underestimates me.

“And…” I prompt in a tone that indicates my post-work lack of patience.

“I opened up the foil and put the whole thing in the microwave, and I put a paper towel across the top. The foil caught the paper towel on fire. So I picked up that pan,” he points to the 8×8 square baking pan that I had used the previous night for the overflow chicken parm, the few pieces that wouldn’t fit in the bigger pan. “I put that over it to put it out.”

I must say, as shocked as I am that he put foil in the microwave, I am impressed with his quick thinking. “So…” I choose my words and tone carefully. “Did you learn anything from this experience?”

“Don’t put foil in the microwave…?” he raises his eyebrows and smiles at me as he states the obvious. But I can see there is more. Even though he might not be able to articulate it in that moment, he knows that in his ability to respond quickly, he averted disaster.

As adults, we sometimes do things that are not very smart when we are not thinking. We are busy, and our minds are cluttered with the stress and goings on of everyday life. We should expect the same from our children. Putting leftover pizza in the microwave (foil and all) was an honest lapse in judgment—one that anyone could have made. The important thing is that he learned from it—he learned, first hand, that foil and microwaves don’t make a good combination. He learned that if there is a small emergency, he can handle it. And he learned that he can think quickly and solve problems under pressure. In this situation, real life experience provided better lessons than I could teach my son. And these lessons—they are priceless.

Roots and Shoots

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The plants on my windowsill have been growing pale and leggy with neglect, so the other day, I transplanted the most needy of the lot. One of them had been pushed off the windowsill in the midst of a cat-fight months ago; it was lacking dirt and trying to hold itself together in a cracked pot. This plant was my first patient. After some loving attention, it is still struggling, though I am hopeful it will overcome the recent stresses it has faced.

My Christmas cactus was my second patient. It had outgrown its small pot and was craving a larger space in which it could stretch its roots—spread out a bit. I had no idea how bad it had become until I slid the roots from the pot. It was—essentially—all root. There was little dirt in amongst the tangled, pot-shaped ball. This plant has begun to recover from the stress of roots that were too tight.

The third plant to warrant my attention was purchased as a miniature plant, but had clearly moved beyond “miniature” status. A new, larger pot, and it is doing just fine, thank you. This plant is standing straight and tall, undaunted by its early days tagged with a “miniature” label. It is healthy and shiny and reaching toward the sun.

The experience of re-potting these plants has made me see that sometimes, we also become “pot bound.” We long for more in our lives, and we look for change—something new or a new way of doing things. We might need to stretch our own roots and move on to another phase in our lives. We might start something new or end something that isn’t working. We might re-plant ourselves in a different location, putting down roots in a new area, or simply spreading our roots where we are as we readjust the path of our journey. Or, we might, instead, send up new shoots by taking on a new project or a new way to challenge ourselves. Whatever you choose, I hope you find the space you need to stretch, to spread your roots toward stability, to grow tall, and to stand proud.

Stories

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“Mom, I have a story to tell you!” Sometimes, I am greeted excitedly at the door, and sometimes, I hear this later in the evening, as we are eating dinner or working through homework. The teen who starts with this introduction launches into an excited re-telling of something that happened at school or on the bus, often spinning the effect of the story for the specific listener—drawing out the action, leaving out some detail or other, or adding in suspense and emotion.

Over time, the stories have changed as the children’s lives have become more complex. Gone are the days of stories of the deer outside the classroom window or a special activity at a friend’s birthday party. Today’s story, for example, included a misguided miscreant who pulled a knife on another student, and the conversations that resulted from that occurrence. These stories, they are not designed to encourage a parent to sleep peacefully at night. But they are stories of events that need processing. They are stories that allow the teller to think about the information, to figure out how it fits in the big picture of life, and to know that someone has heard… is listening.

At times, I wonder how we got from, “Mommy, can you tell me a story?” to “Mom, I have a story to tell you.” Not that I am complaining. As I think about the path we take, I realize that stories are woven to help us figure out certain aspects of our lives. With very small children, parents tell stories to help them understand things that are happening or to alleviate their fears. As kids grow, the roles switch, if we let them. The kids take the lead in telling the stories they need to tell. Stories emerge from their experiences, and they often weave in their fears, their hopes, their dreams, allowing them to process the full range of emotions in their heads.

I hope that as they move through their lives, my children will keep telling me their stories. I hope they continue to find value and comfort in the stories they tell and the stories they hear. And I hope this is something they pass on to their own children.

“Normal”

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“Mom, why don’t you ever act like this when our friends are here?” It was breakfast before school. So early that the sky was still gripping its blackness—the dark before the dawn. The winter night chill of the kitchen was just beginning to retreat into the corners. I had been singing silly, cheerful songs, both to wake myself up, but also to ease (shock, really) my sleepy kids into the routine of the day. As teens, they are more than used to my craziness and uninhibited um… extroversion.

“As I recall,” I thought back to the memorable moment. “You once told me to ‘never act like this’ in front of your friends.” And, being the type of mother who would never want to embarrass my children, I obeyed. Though I will admit, it was tough.

“But Mom, when we tell them how crazy you are, they don’t believe us.” My son, the oldest, rolled his eyes but said nothing.

“So…,” I thought carefully about how to phrase what I would say next. “You want me to start acting ‘normal’ when your friends are here?” I watched her face, then my son’s. A flicker of horror on his face, a brightening of hers.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. My son raised an eyebrow—a talent he learned from his grandmother—and still said nothing.

I looked him in the eye, no kidding on my face. “You agree with this?”

“Whatever.” He shrugged, turned, and walked away. Yes! We have a new normal! (But I will still try to behave when we have company).