Tell Me About Your Child

I was just fine until I got to the Tell Me About Your Child form. The first day of school is always busy, a whirling of early waking and getting there and getting through. And we did it. We had a heck of a day. I liked my students, my kids liked their teachers and everybody liked the spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

And now they are all in bed. (Take THAT late summer nights!) And the lunches are made and the uniforms laid out and I have settled in with my ballpoint and pile of forms: the usual permissions and doctors’ phone numbers and handbook agreements and then this.

For the first grader, tucked at the back of the pile, a questionnaire. Oh, the things I could tell you about my child. There is suddenly a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye and I don’t understand how a school form just stops me dead in my tracks.

And I am not sure how to condense his whole self into six questions on a form.
Oh, to put all the dreams on this paper. My goals for my son? His special qualities include? How does he approach learning?

Does she really want to know?

He approaches learning, that’s for sure!! I’m not sure she can handle the truth: the animal habitats that he makes in the yard (and the dead frog attempted-resuscitation on the air hockey table), the cardboard collection that clogs the basement stairs and collects in his closet, the Lego world that tumbles through my dining room.

She’ll learn soon enough that he is everybody’s friend. Trust me, it won’t take long to see him hug his buddies and check on someone who falls on the playground or demand that someone give him a piggy back at recess. And they always do. He is pretty magical.

He won’t finish anything. (Well maybe now that he is at the ripe old age of seven, but I think he had a pretty solid non-finishing policy last year.) Oh, he’ll start with gusto and a passion I’ve rarely seen, but it takes a pretty amazing Lego set to keep him going to the finish. He lives in the moment, and he lives with fire. The heat may surprise her and it will certainly keep her on her toes.

How do I tell her all of this in a few lines on a form? That he is the one that will take care of me when I’m old. That with his twinkling eyes and crooked smile, he is starting to look a lot like my long-dead father. That he is a boy beyond my wildest dreams and I have no idea how his creativity was born. That he works hard and plays hard and dreams big and oh, if you REALLY want him to do something, you need to offer him cold hard cash.

Tell her about my child? It won’t take very long for her to figure him out herself. He wears his heart on his sleeve and a few tricks up it too. And I am hoping she can love him like I do.

Dear Parents:

Dear Parents,

Summer is drawing to a close. I am sure you have purchased a bunch of pens and white polos and two-pocket folders by now. But before you start the Halleluja Chorus and send the sweet little beasts back to me, let’s get a few things straight. I love your children. I said that out loud to you last night at Meet the Teacher, and you were probably wondering about me. I said other odd things too (and your children will report these continuing idiosyncracies throughout the year I’m sure); I like to shake it up a little, and the love comment probably had you furrowing a brow. But think about it: why ELSE would I hang out with thirty 14 year olds every day, masochism aside of course? And especially your kids? You know how they can be!!

I suppose even after 15 years of teaching I am still a Polly-Anna of sorts. I still think I can change the world with a bit of passion and a couple teaching strategies up my sleeve. I’ve honed my style for years and have a few letters after my name to prove I am highly educated in my field (MAT if you were wondering). Not quite a Master Jedi, but it will have to do! And I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I will teach your students how to write this year and communicate effectively in a variety of ways. And I have actually been paid to do this myself: to write, to edit, to publish. Just so you know. And although I am an old-fashioned kind of gal, I will do my fair share with the active board and ipads and grammar ninja interactives this year. I know all about Facebook and text messaging and all these new-fangled things so they can’t pull the wool over my eyes. Don’t you worry.

Because I love your children, there are a few things you need to know. With love comes responsibility: theirs and mine. First of all, I want what’s best for them, just like you. I want them to think creatively and critically and make new friends and enjoy their chocolate milk cartons at lunch and bring their homework to class. And I also want to challenge them to be BETTER than they think they can be…at thinking, at compassion, at writing, at living. Sometimes it is smooth sailing and we do our lessons and write our vocabulary sentences and eat our Smarties and everything is hunky-dory. But sometimes the little dears may require a little more TLC: Tough Love Camp. (Ask my own son why he is often sitting on the step in time out or losing out on the baseball cards he was trying to earn.) Discipline is the key to success in all aspects of life. And if your children need a little dose of discipline to get them on the right track, just know that they will get it. If we do the small things well, we can move to success in the big things.

Please know that I do not lie awake at night thinking of ways to torment your children. Believe me, I need my sleep and I am usually snoring before my head hits the pillow. This job is exhausting. Three hundred decisions a day. “Can I go to the bathroom?” “Is this the right answer?” “Where do I put this test?” (and I bite my tongue to resist the snarky answer since we have put EVERY test in the exact same spot and it is APRIL!) “Is it time for lunch?” “Can you talk to Johnny? He just punched me.” The all-day answering machine (me!!) gets pretty worn out. Not to mention the kids with the real problems like a father with cancer or a mother in another state. I used to haul dirt and rocks for a landscaper in the summer. I was MUCH LESS tired after ten hours of landscaping in the sun than from a day in the classroom. So no, I don’t have time for vendettas, or to pick on your individual children. I like them all equally!

Middle school is a difficult time; let’s make that clear at the beginning. It is my privilege to help your children navigate a world where they still appreciate smelly stickers on their spelling tests but they are starting to deal with puberty and drugs and friends that are enemies and bad influences that look pretty darn appealing. But I cannot coddle them. Growing up and breaking up are both hard to do. Life is not always fair and bad things DO happen to good people. I would be re-miss if I did not try to teach your children these truths. I will be gentle (mostly) but some of my best lessons from my own father who loved me dearly came at pretty ferocious speeds and very high decibels. I will do my best to teach your children well.

My hope for them this year is that they will become articulate, fun-loving, passionate, and hard-working. We will have our moments of disappointment and great joy this year, I am sure. (Everything is larger when seen through the lens of middle school angst.) And yes, I will love them. Love them with all my might as we navigate together this middle passage. I pray for calm waters and smooth sailing, a sturdy boat and a lot of hands on deck, and it should be a pretty great year!

Things I Never Thought I Would Have to Do

1. Create a family rule that goes something like this: “No sitting on the couch without underwear.” This seems, at first glance, to be something the offspring might know intuitively, but in actuality it is an oft-quoted and difficult to enforce rule.


2. Pry a flattened, dead bird from inside my sobbing son’s makeshift banjo. (Think empty blackberry container covered in tin foil and strung with three or four rubber bands.) In a cemetery. And the crying was NOT because of his two dead grandpas buried in said cemetery, or even the fact that the poor bird was dead, but his giant hiccupping cries were because he wasn’t allowed to take the dead bird home!

3. Supply endless plates, sponges, pieces of foil et al. for the frog habitats being built in this yard. This place is just JUMPING with frogs. And little boys who want to build them homes, (whether the creatures want them or not.) And the little architects are pretty miserable that there is no netting or chicken wire available. Poor things.

4. Flush the toilet every single time I walk by the bathroom. This one is self- explanatory.

5. Dole out popsicles, fruit snacks, pretzel rods, snack crackers and juice boxes like some soup kitchen on steroids. Really, how could these waif-like kids eat this much?! And still maintain their skeletal figures?

6. Insist that the offspring change their clothes at least several times a week in the summer. (Sometimes they also take baths, although they maintain that the chlorine in the pool scours them just fine.) I probably could have saved a ton of money on the wardrobes. This does not include, of course, the costume pieces, which can never be too prolific. And summer apparently is the perfect time for tiger suits, dragons with head- pieces, and full body sharks.

7. Cower in fear when my son comes to hug me because I have been burned one too many times by the Fake-Hug-Drop-Worm-Down-Mom’s-Shirt move.

8. Catch my breath when the little guy rides his bike at breakneck speed down the sidewalk to cross a street or his brother front flips off the diving board. My heart is strong but these daredevils give these poor valves a work out, both in the intensity of my love for them and the heart-stopping rhythms with which these kids live their lives.

Ready to Roll

“Can we just have a little race, mom?” The kid is funny. First day on his new bike. He starts in costume, and soon realizes that the dinosaur tail and hood hinder mobility, not to mention it is over 80 degrees.

The costume gets flung aside quickly, and his grin widens as he realizes what this two-wheeler (four if you count the trainers) can do for his mobility.

And the race idea is funny. He doesn’t require another racer or a course or really much of anything for a “race”. All I need to do is say “Ready, set. Go” and he is off!

It’s a good metaphor as he grows and begins a new school year. My baby is four. He is entering pre-kindergarten this year (oh where do they get these monikers?) Apparently this just means extra time with crayons and letters and flinging pairs of socks at classmates in the large motor room (don’t ask).

He’s grown up a lot in the last few months. I see it in the way he talks to people, the aunts he knows so well and the kids he just meets at the playground. I marvel that he can fully dress himself (as long as we don’t mind if the cow shirt is backwards). And I get a little misty as I watch him ride his big boy bike all the way to the library. His churning legs keep up with the big kids and his face barely contains the giant grin and the pride in his eyes.

I hope he keeps this energy, this optimism, this flinging himself at life. The costumes will not last forever (well I guess you never know in this

family.) The bikes will be outgrown. The new markers and teachers and scissors will all dull with age, but I hope that this one thing will always remain. A precious boy with a zest for life and a desire to try new things. A boy who takes the job seriously when his mother says: “Ready, set, go” for whatever the future may bring.

Reflections

It occurs to me tonight, with the sun still bright on the water and the strong stench of fish in the air, that so many of my moments are nearly replications of the past. The break wall is hot under my legs as I stretch out to watch my kids play this evening, and I spy the fossil of a shell like I did as a young girl. There are buckets, shovels, the building of castles and the inevitable sand and water in the eyes.

Marty takes off down the beach, creating a carefully orchestrated bouquet of seagull feathers as he walks. He keeps right on walking. He hops on the slanted break wall, and I bite my tongue as I am about to yell at him to get down. Those were MY rules when I was a little girl, and I never thought to question them. But Marty helps me question everything. Why CAN’T he climb there? He is built like a monkey, and perfectly safe. I let him go. He wanders with head down, finding treasures. I turn to watch the other two build and splash and throw rocks in the water. They have not yet mastered the art of skipping them. When I look up, Marty is gone. My heart quickens for just a second, but I give him a few minutes to return on his own.

He saunters around the bend on his way back, sees me and runs over with an apology. (I am smart to dress him in yellow. He is easier to find.) But I am not even mad. I am learning so much about this boy, things I first learned from my father and the way he lived. But I was too tentative to live so astutely myself at such a young age as seven. Or nine. Or thirty. I was a rule follower, a nervous Nellie, a “good girl.” It has taken me nearly forty years to start questioning and walking on break walls and finding my voice.

I envy my son his freedoms and his ability to do this already. It strikes me tonight that they are much alike, my son and my father, though maybe it is just the presence of the lake that makes me think of my dad. But Marty understands somehow what his grandpa knew. Do what you want. Follow your heart. Test limits. Have fun. Question everything. Find your passion. Sing the song first and pay the piper when the music ends. Play first and worry later.

Maybe it’s like the baldness gene or a penchant for musicality, and full-throttle life, living without boundaries, has to skip a generation. Or maybe it is just easier to learn the lesson the second time around. No matter what, I am lucky to have such fine teachers, both my father who paved the way for me, and my son who reflects the lessons even as the slanting sun reflects upon the lake tonight.

Delicious Language

My children love to play with words. They come by it naturally, I suppose. Can’t fault children of two English teachers for knowing their way around the language. And these three are especially full of verbage, let me tell you! The oldest flaunts her adverbs as only she can, the middle guy spouts his philosophies and prose, but this little one: the things that come out of HIS mouth are as diverse as they are unique.

My favorite is the way he says thank you. I can’t remember when it started, but somewhere between the sweetness of age three and the professional two-ness of it all, he coined a phrase that has been inaugurated into the family lore. It was some mundane occasion, probably on a Tuesday, and I was most likely handing him his milk, or MOKE, as we say in our house. He looked at me, brown eyes bulging, two freckles along his upper lip, and with a smile pronounced “Why thank you, my grand gate!” It sounded so regal coming from his lips, and certainly beat the mumbled “humph” of his brother. And I have continued to receive such thanks for the last half of the year. It has also morphed into usage with requests such as “Can I have my yogurt, my grand gate?”

Now where did he get this vernacular? I’ve quizzed him countless times in the last few months, thinking it had come from a show or a book or a pre-school teacher, but he remains firm in his denials. It just arrived here, with his giggling lilt and sparkling looks. Out of the mouths of babes, I suppose.

He just uses the language to suit his needs. (Something his mother has often been accused of, if the truth were known.) And he somehow makes the world look rosier through his language, or at least knocks you off balance long enough to sneak in a slur. With age four has come a bit of obstinance, for instance, and anger when he doesn’t get his own way. And then he looks at me, face strong and fierce, and proclaims “You bad old stump.” Now, really, who says this? Who walks around calling people stumps?

This young charmer of mine, that’s who. I prefer the positive spin of course, and I am tickled pink when I hear his sweet little words when I tuck him into to bed and hand him his “vitamint” at the end of a long busy day: “Why thank you my grand gate.” And I know I am the only mommy in the world who ever hears those whispered words!

Portrait of the Artist as a (Very) Young Man

The boy is pure magic. He lives in a world where corn husks and sticks become characters and props for a production only he can understand. And the pipe cleaners. Oh, what this boy can do with pipe cleaners. He creates his wares and then lays them out carefully in a makeshift gallery on the front porch. Except for the ones he carries: homemade slingshot and bow and arrow tucked lovingly in the pocket of his navy cut-off shorts, ready for any mischief or battles he may find in the yard.

He sees what others cannot see. I don’t know how he does it. But he fills his notebooks with page after page of sketches and whimsy and creatures. He talks me through them, toothless grin and wild voice and energy selling his soul. I am a willing customer. Drawing was never my thing, and I marvel unceasingly at the way his hand creates upon the page.

His art is larger than life, and not held back by realism or truth. He knows just enough to be dangerous and doesn’t let historical fact get in the way of his creations. His battle droids take on Civil War soldiers, from Great Britain. And the Irish flag is hoisted with the victory. Unfettered by data, this charmer with a Sharpie paints the world with a vision all his own. He will draw on anything: a rock from Achill, some Presque Isle driftwood, and his brother’s stomach if I ever have the audacity to shower.

The entire house is his studio, and I am forever tripping over his ever-growing supply of materials: string, electrical tape, rocks, legos, bits of ribbon and bird feathers and a giant cardboard collection. Did I mention the shoe boxes?! The artist is on duty at all times, grabbing for the empty margarine tub I am trying to recycle or doodling on the day’s newspaper.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t wait to see where his love of the Indian headdress will take him, or his penchant for drawing and creating. Or hat-wearing. He has yet to outgrow his love of costumes, of glue and tape and string and markers, or his desire to be constantly creating. And the gleam in his eye when he picks up his notebook or rescues the perfect material from the recycling bag tells me that he never will.