Ode to Aug 1, Revised for Pandemic

Bring it on.

Bust into my classroom laughing too loudly.  Please come in at a respectable distance, and if you laugh, please keep it to a closed-mouth minimum behind that mask, mister. Bumble down the hallways on the legs you grew over the summer without noticing who you just body-checked.  Walk down the hallway at your allotted time, at a safe distance, and please sanitize your appendages if they touch another person. Allow Sharpied unicorns and fairies to dance over your folders while you experiment with profanity on the bathroom walls. Please vacate the bathroom as quickly as you can, as it is not properly ventilated. Complain to me about your parents, (from a respectable distance, again. I will listen from behind a plexiglass divider, and my eyes are not judging, I promise) and then complain about me at lunch in the classroom in which you will consume food. Just put on your mask prior to complaining.  Forget your pencil again, and again, and again, but don't expect to borrow one--we don't share supplies. Flirt shamelessly in front of me and then blush when I call you on it For the sake of our safety, middle school flirting (i.e. slapping each other) will not be allowed.  Laugh out loud Muffle your laughter behind the mask when someone comments on your outfit, and please sanitize vigorously before you sink in your desk the rest of the day.  Wear Cookie Monster on your T-shirt and "Leave me alone" on your face on the part of your face that is not obscured by your mask.  Wear "Leave me alone" on your face on the part of your face that is not obscured by your mask and please know I wish to receive your hug me when I ask how you are. 

Make me have at least three back-to-school nightmares that portray me as helpless alone, isolated, covered up in a room of a reduced number of my precious thirteen-year-olds. Make me mask my intimidation mourning on the first day of pandemic school while you mask yours.  Make me agonize over a lesson plan only to toss it out and "wing it" ponder what to do when I see question marks in your eyes you're out for two weeks because your sister has a fever. When you're out for the semester because your mom is immunocompromised.  Make me sing with joy and tear my hair out while grading one class set of papers simultaneously managing my virtual and in-person classes.  While grading one paper simultaneously managing my own children's learning and yours.  Make me find the perfect book for you online...the classroom library books are shared supplies, remember? (and then make me have to work to peel you away from it).  Make me wonder if we're connecting I'll know you the whole year if you choose a full-virtual learning option.  Make me cry at least once in front of my colleagues, at least five times at home because more than anything, I want to be surrounded by you, hand you a book, give you a hug, hear you socialize in the hallways and cafeteria, have no barriers between our smiles.  Make me do back flips to keep your attention make you feel ok, and connected, and to maybe still love learning in the suckiest of circumstances, and make my heart glad when you raise your hand we find a way to thrive.  Make me think I know how you learn this all might go down, every last tragic second, and then make me rethink it hopeful.  Make me teach you the best way I know how--no matter how far apart we are--and still not be satisfied be satisfied that we are DOING this, that we will make it, that we will be ok.  Make me learn for you while I yearn for you.

Keep me awake at night.  Keep me alive during the day.  I'm ready. We can do this. Bring it on.

To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self: Embrace Baggage

An old friend recently posted a picture on Facebook, which of course sent me down a rabbit hole of bittersweet nostalgia. I dug out my tub of high school memorabilia, which included an old manila envelope titled "Time Capsule." I remember that students at my high school put together time capsules in honor of the new millennium, and then received them back at their ten year reunions.

Inside the time capsule was a Teen magazine, some pictures from 1999 that had captions written on the backs, a class schedule, some notes on torn-out notebook paper that had clearly been passed in class, and a paper with a series of prompts aimed to help us capture some information that might be fun to look back on in the future--favorite movies, the cost of gas, best friends. On the back of the paper, I wrote a short note to my future self:


"Hey there! This is you from 10 years ago (whoa, that's weird). Anyway, I hope that everything is going well, and that you try to be a kid at every opportunity! Being 16 is fun, so I'm enjoying it to the fullest. You're only 27 once, so enjoy that like you did when you were 16, kay? Have fun!"

Reading that made me want to retroactively knock on my sixteen-year-old self's bedroom door, offer her something chocolate, a huge hug, and a talk about how you can't fool your future self into believing that sixteen was all fun and games. At sixteen, you can fool yourself, though. You can tell yourself that sixteen is the pinnacle of life, or that it's the worst Hell you could ever possibly experience. Either way, you'd be wrong. I fooled myself into the former. It was too hard to peel back the layers of reality and stare my baggage in the face.

So I'm writing myself back, systematically addressing the bits of information I decided to supply for my future self at sixteen. I'm doing it as a Back-to-the-Futureish way of soothing my past to fully appreciate the life I have at thirty-four.


Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Me,

Instant Messenger is going to die. I'm sorry. You'll still use your original password occasionally because no one's guessed it yet, so why not? Also your brain has shrunk and unfortunately in certain networks, you have to come up with 180 unique passwords before you can recycle one. So you stick with what you know when you can.

No one asks a/s/l anymore. People are lying when they answer it anyway. Stay out of chat rooms, in general.

Mark McGwire is a sham. The Cubs will win the World Series eventually. The future is a scary place.

People will carry computers in their pockets in the future. They'll use them for everything from making phone calls to watching TV ("binge" watching a show for multiple hours is, like, socially acceptable) to organizing a protest to taking pictures of their genitals and sending them to other people. Thank God every single day that you do not have this device, and won't until your frontal lobe is fully developed.

Press "save" right away on that Chem paper in Microsoft Word. Save early, save often.

Try not to sweat it that you won't get your license until seventeen. It gives you a whole year to not accidentally back into someone's Saab, have to knock on their door to tell them, and pay them a few Dierberg's bakery paychecks' worth of cash to replace their damaged headlight. You don't have to tell your dad. I won't either.

Good on you for not getting drunk at this age. But, stop being an asshole to friends who do. They're figuring things out, and probably the best thing you can do to protect these friendships is to get off your high (that is, sober) horse. They're good people.

Your body is beautiful. It will continue to change as you age, and trust me, you love your sixteen year old body. Wear the bikini! You'll work really hard in the future to love your body at all of its various stages.

Take some time to get to know people of other races and cultures. There's a lot you don't know.

Ask Grandma how she felt parenting newborn babies, boys, sensitive kids, smart kids, rebels. Ask her if she ever felt anxious. Ask her to share some of her writing with you. Ask her, write it down, keep it sacred. She'll be gone this year.

Log on to AOL and do some initial learning about anxiety and depression. Ask someone to help you with it, and don't feel like that means there's something wrong with you. You don't know it yet, but you don't have to be viewing the world the way you do right now.

Right now, you think that your worth has something to do with who likes you and who doesn't, which boys are looking at you, or calling you, or wanting to take you to a dance. Rejection hurts. Yes, that one boy really does like that girl more than you. It will happen many more times. It's an ego bruise, for sure. But that's all--you're still loved by many more important people. You're enough, even without a boy attached to you. You have some girls in your life right now who will work tirelessly to help you understand your worth well into your thirties and beyond. Put your focus there--on that friendship with people who love you. It's gold.


But since there's no way I'll be able to completely turn you away from boys, that guy you're going on dates with? Literally the least significant romantic interest of the whole lineup. He's going to be a tiny, microscopic blip in the scheme of your life. He's going to be a jackass, and then there will be a few other jackasses after that, and then some genuinely good guys who don't fit, and then your husband. But don't necessarily go avoiding the jackasses and ill-fitters. They are a perfect road map along which you will mold and define what you're looking for in an ideal partner. And you will end up with your ideal partner. Right now, as you write this letter to me, your future husband is living less than two miles away from you. You already know him, actually. Don't get excited--it's not time yet.


Divorce sucks, and there's no easy way to navigate blending two families together. I'm going to do you a favor right now: This is not your fault. You are a child. You're trying to sort through some feelings that just don't go away on their own, nor are you able to view your family life through an objective lens. Do not allow yourself to believe for one more second that you are the reason your family is in turmoil.  Be patient with you, and be patient with the family. It will get much, much better in the future. Just don't carry this burden alone. Everyone in your house is hurting.

Sixteen clearly feels like a party, based on your advice to your future self to enjoy my late twenties like I enjoyed sixteen. But I remember the truth. You spent hundreds of minutes waiting to the tune of squeaky alien noises while your dial-up internet connected, and you waited with equal agonizing patience for your next opportunity to escape the parts of life that didn't make sense. You were on a quest that necessarily included mistakes and lessons learned the hard way. Learn to embrace the baggage, because it's what you carry that makes you beautiful. Luckily the burden you carry will change over time--sometimes it'll shrink to fit in the palm of your hand, and other times, it'll threaten to smash you like a pancake. Don't feel sad that you have it. Don't ignore it.

The point is, you will find the people that will carry it with you. I know, because I can say confidently that at thirty-four, it gets better.

;-) (sideways winking smiley face),
Future You

Post-Baby Body Zen

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”   -Victor Frankl

Another mama friend and I were pushing our strollers through the Japanese garden at the Botanical Garden. We wondered out loud about the things we fear as parents--sleepless nights, public, inconsolable meltdowns, any number of perceived maternal failures--and how we could possibly be more "zen" in our parenting. I mean, isn't "zen" allowing things to be without attaching emotion or response to them? Meaning, all things in the universe are just there. They have no inherent meaning until we attach meaning to them.  Example, in verse:

Look there. The clock says 1:32 a.m.

The baby is wailing.

I reinsert the pacifier.

Silence.

Retreat to bed.

Pull up covers.

Close eyes.

The baby is wailing.

Look there. The clock says 1:37 a.m.

Emotional response? What emotional response? There's no reason I should be emotional at this moment!!

The wise old Gavin Rossdale of the most distinguished Bush was correct when he musically philosophized (in his super-attractive gravelly voice), "Everything zen/ I don't think so." (As an aside, he also said in the same song, "I don't believe that Elvis is dead." This discredits him a bit, but no matter.) The point is, it is ridiculously hard to experience life with your own flesh and blood and not be deeply, inarguably emotionally responsive. Baby wakes for the fifth time tonight, you watch the numbers on the clock tick by, your internal clock says sleepytime, your external clock (ahem, baby) says wake time, and you start fearing the moment you actually have to get up for the day armed with fewer and fewer minutes of rest. Popular emotional responses to this are exasperated tapping of your partner resulting in a harshly whispered argument, tearful rocking of a tearful baby, oft-uttered curse word(s), or the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Anguish!

It seems like babyhood inspires a big ol' stress monster to wander into your sleep-deprived noggin and take up residence for the next couple of decades. I find it easy to commiserate with other mamas about frustrating baby situations. I can coach myself, especially with the help of some girlfriends and Riesling, in responding more healthily to an external factor, such as my children's behavior. However, what if my most stressful parenting issue has very little to do with my kids at all? The stress monster and I have engaged in many-a sword fight, but no battle inspires as many wounds as the one that takes place in front of the mirror postpartum.

Here are things that produce an emotional trigger in me: ripply stretch marks swirling around my abdomen. A belly button that went from being surprised [o] to being sad [(]. Skin hanging limply over the elastic waistband of my shorts. A size number that's bigger than what I already decided was too big. Creases or dimples in once-smooth surfaces. The term "baby weight." Weight numbers. Tugging on clothes that used to fit. Full body photos. Full body photos from 20 lbs ago. Other hot moms.These are things that cause a big, fat stress response in me.

I wonder what it would be like to live one whole day and not care about these things. To be zen about it. I wonder if I would believe myself if I said, "These things are simply these things. I don't have to be ______ (sad, angry, ashamed--fill in emotion word here) about them." Because it's true. But, I bring ALL the feels (but, like, mostly the bad ones) to the mirror every day. Probably every day since I was about ten years old, actually. How does one dig oneself out of a body-shaming hole one dug oneself? How does one become zen about one's lumps and bumps?

I have no idea. I guess as a woman, my appearance has always been integral to my identity and ultimately my perception of how lovable I am. Family members always called me "cute," until that day in fifth grade when my grandpa told me I had "fat arms." And then when I went through puberty one summer, I shed what was referred to as my "baby fat" and my dance teacher couldn't stop talking about how good I looked and that she didn't even recognize me. And then boys were obsessed with boobs in junior high, ergo so were all the girls (to stuff or not to stuff?). Some boy at camp said I had "nice tits" (by the way, I had "no tits" at the time). On and on and on, until in college and beyond, social media became both the instigator and antithesis of loving your own shape. Just below a post catering to the trends in body positivity will be someone's selfie that they spent at least five minutes perfecting--head tilted just so, slightly downward angle, right eyebrow slightly raised, lips slightly pouted, hand on hip, one leg slightly in front of the other. Photography tricks. I know this because I've done it. I cover up not-beautiful feelings with carefully controlled beauty. However, controlling how pregnancy impacts your body is damn near impossible. A body out of control breeds stress when below the surface, feeling unattractive means feeling unloved.

So, is it possible to let go of beliefs that have been anchored in my brain for most of my life? Can I really be zen about my postpartum physical self? Someone more experienced in zen philosophy might suggest I start with allowing my body to just be my body, allowing changes in my body to just be changes without emotional meaning tagging along. My body has changed because it grew three babies. My body will change again. A stretch mark is a stretch mark. Size is what it is. My body is my body. Can I make these statements and avoid mind math that states size + shape + weight = self-worth? The route to changing my emotional response is by changing my thought process, I think. Instead of "I can't button these jeans, so I'll be ugly the rest of my life," maybe I can say this: "I can't button these jeans because I just had an eight pound baby (high five, vagina!*)"

(*Don't high five your vagina.)

It would take the most concentrated, deliberate effort to catch myself in the space between stimulus and response, between mirror and horror, to nudge myself along a different path. One that's more zen and less self-deprecating. To simply let my body be, and to be free to determine a new response that is less emotional either way (which means not forcing myself to respond with a positive emotion either). I'm certain I could, if I really dedicated myself, acknowledge my body and all that it's been through without immediately determining it's not good enough. It might take some naked yoga and a lot of practice maybe. (Ok, scratch the naked yoga. Totally not ready for that. Yet.) Say it: my body is just my body. Repeat. Zen.

So let's say I become an almighty body zen master. That's all well and good, but what's most disturbing to me is that looking back, almost as far back as I remember, I've been dissatisfied with my body. Body image became this treacherous mountain before me that the world taught me to conjure out of thin air. I mean, my five month old doesn't have body issues as far as I can tell. My eight year old, on the other hand, might already have some body image associations that I may or may not have accidentally reinforced when giving my seal of approval (or disapproval) on her outfit choices, for example. I mean, I try hard to emanate body positivity to her. I really do. I resist in every way possible sharing with her how self-conscious I am about my body. I don't talk with her about losing weight. I also try not to comment on her body, even with potential compliments ("You're so skinny! muscular! physically beautiful!"). I want to avoid at all costs my daughter thinking that how she looks physically is key to her success. If my body is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, then I can't afford to just be zen about my body. I have to focus on being zen about my children's bodies, too, because before I know it, I've taught them how to struggle.

I need the world to be zen about the female body, honestly. I would like to see less emphasis on physical beauty, in general, which includes campaigns in which women of all shapes and sizes are featured in their underwear so that we can all feel "okay" about our imperfect bodies. I can appreciate the insinuation that models are not Every Woman and we should celebrate this. However, we don't project a similar physical image of men on TV or in magazines so that they feel more secure. Why do we have to emphasize what the female body looks like at all? Let's make our bodies not a thing. Let's allow every woman the freedom to decide what she'll do with the space between her reflection and her heart. We'll have to work hard together to do that, to be zen mamas. But I think we're up for the challenge. We have to be, for all of us.

A Year of Not Middle School

I left my classroom for maternity leave feeling tired. Not just 39-weeks-pregnant tired. It’s the most insane kind of multi-layered tired that teachers feel from time to time.

It’s a joyful tired; it’s hours of joking with middle school kids, spending your lunch playing Bananagrams with competitive sixth graders, designing lessons and activities that are creative and fun (even though you could have just gone with what you did last year), getting hugs from former students who say they miss you.

It’s also a physical tired; it’s being on your feet for hours, running to the copy machine for last minute copies only to discover that it’s out of order and you have to run to the copy machine upstairs, postponing a bathroom or water break to finish an email or rearrange desks, it’s shelving and re-shelving books in the classroom library simply because you can’t wait to hear, “Oh my gosh, that book was SO GOOD!” Staying up late at night thinking about a certain student or parent and researching ways to help.

It’s an intellectual/emotional tired; it’s trying multiple strategies to help move a student forward and having difficulty seeing results, it’s managing a class of middle schoolers whose particular group dynamics are arguably academically toxic no matter what you do, it’s trying a new activity in class on the day your administrator comes in for an evaluation. It’s being told your lesson “was a mess” and being given a new book to read. It’s coming home to get dinner on the table before heading out to soccer practice and losing patience at bedtime with your own children.

When I left for maternity leave, I was at a place that my intellectual/emotional tired was much more pronounced than my joyful tired. And to me, a teacher and parent who is mentally tired more than he/she is joyfully tired needs to take a step back and find joy in his/her teaching, his/her kids, and him/herself. With a tiny human joining my family, I saw what I eventually determined to be a necessary opportunity to refocus and reenergize. I owed it to my students, my family, and myself. I decided to take a year off.

So today is the first day of not middle school. I’m not in my classroom anxiously waiting for sixth graders to walk through my door. I won’t have name tags set out, and I won’t walk anyone to class. I won’t give high fives. I won’t be memorizing names. I won’t be looking around the corner for my now-seventh graders who are coming to say hi after a long summer. I won’t be calling any parents, telling them that their once-nervous new middle schooler had a fantastic day. I’m somewhere between an identity crisis and a slow realization that I’ve won the lottery (only this decision to stay home this year has been very expensive). I have this feeling that I’m at an important crossroads - I’m able to explore myself as a mother, as well as put some time into figuring out what my gifts are and how to use them meaningfully. Why is it that a year off from teaching is what it takes for me to really be able to do this?

In some ways, it feels like I’m standing on a cliff of “what ifs.” As a teacher, by nature, I plan things, and the next 180 days or so are largely...unplanned. So, what if I realize that staying home with my daughter is something I’m not “good” at? What if, despite my intentions to renew and rejuvenate, I actually feel more isolated and confused? What if I love teaching so much that I have trouble enjoying being away from it? What if I love being away from teaching so much that I don’t want to go back?

I guess I have to go with what my gut is currently telling me. This time right here...it’s a gift. I know a hundred teachers who love their job intensely, and yet crave time to nurture their creativity and personal talents. They wish their buckets were more full for their families. That’s me. So I’ll put my hands over my eyes, take a deep breath, and step over the ledge, trusting that the breeze will carry me to an unseen destination where I can take root in new soil. When I get my bearings, I think I’ll look pretty much the same, but with a new view. With any luck, I’ll see that the landscape is friendly, the air open, and the fruits ripe for the picking.

To My Daughter: Divorce Happens. Except When It Doesn't.

Dear Gracie,

One night not long ago at bedtime, you asked me, “Mommy, why do people get divorced?” I had a feeling that you were inspired to ask based on the many people in your life who have experienced divorce in some way. I also felt a tinge of anxiety in your voice. I think your brain was holding onto a follow-up question: “Will you and Daddy get divorced?” I wanted to answer you honestly and compassionately without inadvertently oversimplifying marriage and divorce. It was pretty hard to craft an answer that fit my aforementioned personal criteria in the weary last minutes of our bedtime routine. I said something to the effect of, “Sometimes people get divorced because they can’t be happy together. They try hard, but they can’t make it work for some reason.”  My explanation satisfied you. I knew I could do better.

I can’t sum up for you quickly why a marriage could end in divorce any more than I can sum up why a marriage could NOT end in divorce. To understand divorce, you’ll have to understand marriage. Understanding marriage fully pretty much requires you to participate in one, and participating in marriage does not make one a marriage expert. Suffice it to say that I am not a marriage expert. The only way I can think of to educate you on why divorce may or may not happen is to speak about my personal experience.  

When you start considering what marriage might be like, I’m betting you’ll start with the dress, which will quickly evolve to flowers, bridesmaids gowns, venues, cake. The wedding day is a pretty spectacular way to celebrate the vows you’ll make to your partner-to-be. On that day, the “I do” is signed, sealed, delivered. Champagne glasses clink. But there’s an asterisk at the end of the church bells and champagne that refers to a tiny, yet significant clause: *The undersigned do understand and agree to saying “I do” hundreds of times per day, in hundreds of different situations that don’t involve flowers and cake and string quartets of happiness. “I do” will be when no one is watching. “I do” will take place in your fat pants. “I do” will smell like a sippy cup of milk that disappeared in the house somewhere last week. It’ll sound like a drawn-out exhale just outside of the laundry room. It’ll taste like leftovers. Feel like crumb hitchhikers on the bottom of bare feet in the kitchen. “I do” is an unending series of choices. Yes, Gracie--marriage is a choice, and so is divorce.

When I was exactly your age, my parents called me into the living room of our two story house. My dad sat on the beige recliner and my mom lay on her side on the couch, shiny wet lines on her cheeks. Dad lifted me onto his lap and explained they were separating. I suppose it was partially my naivete, and partially shock and denial, but I began to cling to the idea of having two of everything like the main character in the book series I was reading. I remembered that chapter two of every book in the series featured the character sharing about her parents’ divorce--notably that she lived in two houses, had two pairs of roller skates, had a cool new stepdad, and a new stepsister who was running a bad ass babysitter’s club. Separation sounded okay to me, but I didn’t understand why my parents were doing this. It was easier for me to focus on twice as many presents at Christmas than it was to know that my parents at one time had promised to be a part of a family with me, and then had determined by their own choosing that they had to break it apart for reasons unknown to me. My parents actually chose to not choose each other. They chose not to choose us. I never saw it coming, and inside my soul, there’s a part of me that won’t fully recover.

My parents’ divorce didn’t stop me from choosing to marry Daddy, though. But to tell the truth, in the beginning of our marriage, I had the same question you’ve asked hiding inside me. Why do some people get divorced? Will it happen to me? I suffered real anxiety about my marriage to Daddy vanishing into thin air one day without warning. When I finally had the courage to confess this to him (multiple times), he wrapped me in a tight hug and told me that he loved me and that he’d never leave. Never. He repeated this to me as often as I needed it, until his words became part of my inner voice. Daddy reminded me that marriage is a choice, and he will always choose me. What’s silly about this is that he told me this in so many words on our wedding day. But I had to hear the “I do” every day for awhile to really allow his commitment to be my truth.

“I do” is our lifestyle. It’s our creed. And it’s not always easy. We choose “I do” by going to the grocery store and scrubbing the toilet. We choose “I do” by washing the dishes when we’d rather be watching TV. We choose “I do” by saying “I love you” every night before bed, even if we’re annoyed with each other. We choose “I do” by fighting fair and owning mistakes.

Except when we don’t. The reality is that every potential “I do” is accompanied by an equal and opposite potential “I don’t.” Sometimes Daddy and I choose the “I don’t.” We choose convenience over consistency, or selfishness over service. We choose egos over humility. Really, it’s the “I don’ts” that test the character of the marriage.

I’ll repeat that I’m not a marriage expert. I feel I am an expert in Daddy and me, though. We’ve made it to ten years of marriage because we pay attention to the “I don’ts.” We don’t pretend that our marriage is free of them. When “I don’ts” start piling up, we choose to repair rather than retreat. We choose to love each other despite the “I don’ts.” We make sure that all of our arrows are pointing to “I do” eventually. We refuse to give in to “I don’t.”

So why do people get divorced? They choose it. For their own reasons, they choose it, and sometimes they are happier for it. Sometimes not. Sometimes choosing to divorce is heavily influenced by a partner who chooses an emphatic “I don’t.”  I feel immensely blessed that I can sit next to you, look at your brown eyes, and tell you sincerely that I chose to marry a man who chooses me day in and day out. It’s a true gift that I can tell you with confidence that Daddy and I will always be together, that I can redesign the story that started in my two story house when I was eight. We can rest in the comfort of knowing that I’ll never have to tell you that our family is splitting apart. Daddy and I have chosen each other, we’ve chosen our family, and we’ve chosen to shape the future together into something of which we can’t quite conceive yet. I pray that when it comes time for you to consider marriage, that you do it prayerfully and take seriously your power to choose. Choose with conviction, and know that Daddy and I will be in support of you.

Love,

Mommy

The Sculpting of a Middle School Teacher

The last time I was at a school function, I was chatting with a board member. She remarked that she felt she had watched me grow so much as a teacher over the years since my second year when I had taught her son (in my record book, she was the first parent to really yell at me, and in her record book, I am the only teacher of the distinguished line of her children's teachers that she has ever yelled at.  Historical for both of us).  Anyway, the board member came back to me later and said she hoped she hadn't come off as condescending--that she really meant that she has enjoyed journeying through my career with me, and that my "growth" she was referring to was not in the, "Our baby has grown up before our very eyes" sort of way, but rather an appreciation of the careful sculpting of a teacher.

I didn't take offense at all.  Back then, I was one teacher.  But now, I'm twenty teachers.

I see myself really as a ball of clay that gets bigger and changes shape each year.  I started out as a small square of gray clay, fresh out of the package ten years ago.  I was smooth without a single fingerprint on my surface, but also flat and monochrome. Then gradually, I met other teachers, other unique shapes who had once been brand new, like me, but who had since been molded with other teacher clay, resulting in a whole medley of colors and shapes.  Some were soft and warm and marbled from years of working and kneading.  Others were lumpy with blotches of color stuck to the surface, not yet totally blended. Each teaching experience united me with other shapes and colors, twisting me in and making me new. I am never going back to flat and monochrome, because I am now twenty educational colors and textures.  I am twenty teachers.

Therefore, I'm going to make an indulgently long list of what I know so far in my career about how to win at middle school.  Often, best practice isn't written in a policy or professional development book somewhere. Every item on the list has been learned by taking pieces of some outstanding educators in my lifetime and carefully patting them into my skin.  I wear these teachers every day, continuing to let myself twist and fold and blend with them until they all seep in and embrace my students with me, or talk me off the ledge at the end of a hard day.  Enjoy, but more importantly, consider who else has seeped into your skin over time, rounding out your edges and changing your shape.


1. Strike these words from your vocabulary: balls, erect, sack.
2. Keep spare bars of deodorant in your desk drawer for those Spring days when the children reek.
3. Keep Kleenex for drying tears or for gently breaking it to the nose-pickers that people can see you doing that.
4. Have a plan of action to restore calm in case a kid farts loudly and a) everyone notices, b) you think it's funny, or c) a combo of a and b.
5. Appreciate when a classroom door has a mechanism that prevents dramatic slamming during a teenage tantrum.
6.  Become well-versed in planner/binder/locker organizational systems.
7a.  Become well-versed in Tiger Beat titans, XBox games, the latest "I'm a teenager fighting authority" trilogy, and those new songs that remind you of a mix between Color Me Badd and Jay-Z.
7b.  Listen to their stories with sharp focus and sincere interest.
8.  Be a friend.  "No one will even notice that zit, I promise!  It's miniscule!"
9.  Be a parental Life Coach.  "He won't always be this way, I promise!  You're doing a good job!"
10.  Fib when necessary to preserve self-confidence.  See numbers 8 and 9.
11.  Answer every question with patience as if no one asked it already.  One minute ago.
12. Know and accept that in your students' lives, friends are most important.  They need time to practice socializing and handling conflict safely.
13. Encourage play whenever possible.
14. Plant seeds knowing that some will sprout right away, and others will sprout two (or four, or ten) years from now.
15. Hold the bureaucracy at a distance.  Hold your students close. Sometimes a full-out hug is necessary.
16. Watch those Youtube videos your students recommend.  What's not funny about a ten-minute montage of cats licking lemons?
17. Ask them how their days are going.
18. Don't let them congregate at the drinking fountain.  Trouble ensues!
19.  Save their poetry.
20. Get to know their parents.  If you do nothing else, let them know how much you love their child.
21.  Look for the voices that aren't present, whether among students or parents, or whether in the texts our children read or the viewpoints they study.
22.  Don't assess everything.  We shouldn't physically be able to keep up with the writing, thinking, and discovering that our students do.
23.  Make mistakes, be open about them, and celebrate them with your students.  Be open to and celebrate their mistakes, too.
24.  Your sense of humor is the key to your survival in middle school. Even the most irritating situations with thirteen year olds are most likely hilarious to someone.
25. Pretend you have swag.  Then decorate your room accordingly.
26.  If you have pillows or cushions, wash the farts out occasionally.
27. Find embarrassing stuff from when you were in middle school/junior high, like old notebooks or diaries, or school pictures, or even recall stories, to share with your students. Try to make light of the most difficult period of their lives by showing how ridiculous you were (and yet obviously, you survived to be cool now).
28. Beware of creepy dads.
29.  Find a coworker to whom you can ugly-cry.
30.  Don't be afraid to derail your own lesson plans (or someone else's lesson plans) because you learned something exciting that you can't wait to share with students.
31.  Open up your space to students without fretting over supervision.
32.  Realize that your connection to your students and colleagues is divine. More than you know.
33.  Wear weird outfits. Costumes. Wigs.
34.  Work harder than your students.
35. Don't work so hard that you lose your connection to your other support system outside of school (in my case, my husband, children, and friends).
36.  Bake for your students if possible.  Or give them little inexpensive gifts, like notes.
37.  Clean your desk. Just in case you're absent the next day and someone has to look for some sort of lesson plans or class lists and ends up finding your yogurt spoon from last quarter.
38. Take your students outside.  Explore, climb, play, and cheer. Fight for opportunities to do so.
39. Find ways to make sure your students are questioning more than answering, investigating more than memorizing, and creating more than copying.
40. Instead of complaining about the way things are, listen, study, and change them.

What can you add?

Capturing Three

Three is hard.  Three yells and screams when Three doesn't get his way.  Three interrupts your instructions with a litany of "no's," and puts his four-inch-tall hand in your face, and tells you--more clearly this time--what he's doing and why he shouldn't be doing what you told him to do.

Three sits at dinner and blows bubbles in his milk until his dad is forced to set down his fork and tell him to stop.  Then Three blows a few more bubbles, more slowly and purposefully, yet recognizably more forcefully, staring straight ahead like a warrior marching into battle.

Three listens for when his sister has been told not to go down the slide on her back and head-first, and then launches himself down the slide after her...on his back and head-first.  Because no one told Three not to do this.

Three also listens for when his sister is tearfully in the Time Out Spot, and then he casually walks by, waving and smiling.

Three runs excitedly over to see what his sister is so excited about on the patio...a tiny roly poly cradled in her cupped hands.  When the roly poly hugs itself into a petrified ball and rolls off her hands to the concrete, Three stomps on him.  Three doesn't like most insects.

Three has been praying for his friend Helena and also his second best friend, cupcakes (no, not anyone's name. I'm talking about the baked goods, in general), for about 200 consecutive days.  Three has called his mother "Mr. Pricklepants" for the last 250.

Three asks for privacy when pooping, and then shouts a simple, emphatic, "DONE!" when it is time for you to come wipe his butt.  Three reports the number of poops he had this time.

Three pushes buttons.  Forever.

But it's not really forever.  Not at all.  In fact, Three will be over in less than five months and then I'll be writing about Four.  Three isn't always easy, but Three can fade in the most well-intentioned memory.  I know, because trying to remember what my five-year-old was like at three is difficult, with only wisps of memory coming through, with the help of pictures and video.

Three demands to be captured.

Not too long ago, I was introduced to yet another amazing poem by Billy Collins, called "To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl." With this poem, Collins easily captured what 17 looks like--extraordinarily, and not so extraordinarily--in a poem addressed to said 17-year-old.  So, challenged by a colleague in the spring, I decided to take Collins' poem and write for my Three, mimicking Collins' style and borrowing some of his words.

After a trying week at the end of summer with Three, it felt good to come back to this poem.  Enjoy, and capture.

To My Favorite 3 Year Old Preschooler

“Do you realize that if you had been already 6 months old

on the day you were born,

I would have weathered the first six weeks so much better?

Of course, then your gloriously unmedicated birth would have been another level of Hell.

So never mind; I think I needed you to be so small and vulnerable,

even if it wrecked me

for awhile.

At your age, you can lead a charge against Daddy’s requests

more fiercely than Joan of Arc,

and you can make yourself a martyr,

pounding on the other side of the door,

declaring that we are mean and it’s not nice to put people

behind doors.

Of course you know there will be time to argue for liberation

again tomorrow,

or later today,

so when you give up the fight

and come out of the room,

you look refreshed

and Daddy is a sugar cube left out in the rain.

But did you know that at your age

you sing more beautifully than Judy Garland

after the lights are out in your room,

even if you’re singing about

Thomas’ latest adventure?

For some reason I keep remembering that

when Gracie was your age,

I was excited for her to be older.

But now that she’s five,

my years of holding her against my heart

as I travel around the house

are almost up.

And you, you might only have

two years left

of your whole life

that I can carry you with me--

two bodies

and only one pair of feet on the floor.

I know that this is true now

and so I want you to know

at your age,

you sing our family’s song,

you lead the charge,

but that doesn’t mean that you’re not

mama’s little buddy,

my favorite version of you

two feet off the ground.”