mental acuity ramblings.

I am up late. Again. The other night I was up until 4:30 am. I have no idea what is wrong with me, other than maybe I know I don't HAVE to get up early in the morning. Or if I do HAVE to get up early in the morning, whatever it is I'm doing will not require great amounts of intense mental acuity. This, I have come to believe, is the one and only reason I chose teaching as a profession: 8 weeks each year not requiring any strenuous mental acuity. That, and I just dig kids and how their brains work. And I wanted to make a difference. And I like cutting and pasting stuff a lot. And I get to play Design Superstar, Classroom Edition.Sometimes up to 10 times a year if a bunch of hooligans land in my room.

There is no point to this blog entry; really, it's just that I'm up late and having random thoughts and I thought maybe typing them down for (potentially) all the world to see would help that somehow. And so if you're reading this, I promise (1) to keep it relatively short (I tend to head off on long, rambling tangents when in random mode), and (2) try not to ramble. One or the other, but probably not both.
 
1. Teacher bloggers. God bless them and their creative brains. I'm convinced it would not have taken me 10 years to get a clue about teaching had I had access to this stuff back in 1995 when I started. I really feel for just-now-graduating teacher candidates: on the one hand, they're jumping into an ocean of a plethora of resources; resources I, as a 1st year teacher, didn't even know I could dream about...on the other hand: Race to the Top and Michelle Rhee. Man, I hate that for them. Sucks.

Anyway, I have pinned and swiped borrowed so many ideas for 2nd grade/beginning of the school year since the last week of May, my head is spinning. At last count, in my "teacherly" board on pinterest, I'm up to 520+ pins. I have other school idea boards there--Reading, Writing, Math, Literacy, Classroom Set Up/Organization, Beginning of Year, End of Year, Children's Literature, Technology. Possibly well over 1,000 ideas at this point. That's called "internet crack addiction," in case you were wondering.  Which is why, when I started thinking of starting a teaching blog I said to myself (very forcibly and out loud), "NO. NOOOO!!!! Are you on crack??? Also, all the ideas you have are pilfered from others. Nobody wants pilfered." Also, once the school year is under way, I sort of tend to wander away from this blog (and my other one--a "get fit" blog I abandoned waaaay back in March, along with the "get fit" idea) and get lost in the desert of stress and life and work, never to resurface until the next time I can have insomnia and not worry about mental acuity.

So I started a class website instead. I have a problem (this was pointed out to me by a handful of sweet and deeply concerned coworkers, and I was ordered to go on bed rest the rest of the summer. Which I am doing. Except for the cute welcome letter I'm currently working on). Really, it's just a love of internet clip art. (I'm not SAYING I may have bought $20 worth of clip art from a fairly well-known internet clip art site called scrappindoodles.com, but I'm NOT saying I didn't.) (Nobody tell C. He thinks my excessive computer time is me looking up fun beach trip stuff.)

2. Melissa. Man, she's wearing me out. On the one hand, I love her. I love that she's 3 1/2. I love that she's drawing people now: ridiculous big balloon heads with 2 legs and 2 arms coming out of them and crazy stuff inside she calls "The Face Parts." I love that we can have actual conversations. Conversations that always revolve around how supercalifragilisticexpealidociously awesome she is, while all the other kids get stuck in the class Thinking Spot for various infractions all day long.

Also, during bath time, we've invented a new game. I call it: At MY Birthday Party. It goes like this:

Melissa: At MY Birthday Party, there's going to be a big, big cake and balloons and princesses.

Me: Well, at MY Birthday Party, I'll have 100 balloons, a 200 foot tall cake, 500 princesses, teddy bears, Dora and Diego and Boots will give me 1,000 monkey kisses.

Melissa: Well, at MY Birthday Party, I'll have princesses, a cake, Grammy and Grandpa Harry and teddy bears, and Boots and princesses and cake and Dora and Diego and Boots kisses!

Me: But at MY Birthday Party, all the Yo Gabba Gabba gang will be there, with clowns and hats and a million people and princesses will sing me Happy Birthday and I'll get a cazillion dollars.

Melissa: At MY Birthday Party, I'll get a a a ca hillion clowns and people and hats and dollars!

And then I'll say something about how Daddy will be giving me kisses at MY birthday party, and we have to end the game because tears are shed. Daddy is HER Daddy and not allowed to kiss me. Go get your OWN Daddy, Mommy!!!!!!! (I'm not SAYING Sigmund Freud was correct about his Oedipus Complex theories, but I'm not NOT saying he was incorrect.....I guess what I'm saying is Sigmund Freud would be watching this process with a fairly smug look on his chauvinistic, cigar smoking face.)

3. Oh, wait! I never finished #2. I love all of that about Melissa. Except for the psychotic aspect of life with a 3 1/2 year old. Nothing can ever be experienced half-way. It's either extremely full of joy and excitement, or deep deep dark well of depression and fury-rage. Like living with a tiny, super cute manic depressive. Or with me, about mid-January through March.

4. I met my sweet friend Jackie for lunch today and we saw The Hunger Games. I've read the 1st book but not the other two. This movie reminded me: Man, those Hunger Games people were messed UP. And just thinking about the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, and the Bachelor/Bachelorette (I promise I don't spend a lot of time thinking about these people; only when I talk/write about The Hunger Games), I can see that being America in about another century or two.

5. Speaking of Hunger Games: Obama says children of illegal immigrants can stay. While this makes me, someone who loves children deeply and instinctively strives to protect them no matter their immigration status, insanely respectful of his bravery in these dark and angry times and really really  happy to see someone in government do something human for once (because God knows Obama's Race to the Top plan does NOT), many other people's panties are in a wad about this. They're mad about jobs. I'm not sure what jobs they want that the illegal immigrants are doing; they're certainly not any kind of job *I* want to do. And also, most of these wadded up panties belong to people who wouldn't vote for Obama should he somehow conclusively prove he's Jesus Christ arisen, so it wouldn't even matter if Obama were Jesus Christ and he magically made everything super perfect and awesome. He's clearly a Marxist Socialist Fake American Muslim from Kenya and those are BAD.

I'm just surprised everybody's upset about immigration and healthcare and socialism and Obama's suspect immigrant status. Obama's done so much worse than all that combined in his presidential term...I submit Arne Duncan and Race to the Top as Worse Presidential Ideas EVER. And yes, that includes Watergate. Five years ago I was saying that about Bush's No Child Left Behind, never imagining a Marxist Socialist Kenyan Fake American Leftist president would make it worse. (I'm still voting Obama in 2012, though; don't get excited conservative friends. My Communist choices are extremely limited in the 21st century, and Romney strikes me as a snake oil salesman...whereas, Obama strikes me as just the snake oil.) (Do you see what I just did with that? No, I do not either.) Anywho...

I'm not sure how I feel about illegal immigrants. I do know they aren't all from Mexico, though, and I hope those of you reading this do too. So I wish people would  just stop using the term "illegal immigrants" and replace it with what they really mean: "Mexicans and possibly Central Americans but since I can't tell the difference we'll just call them all Mexicans." Because that's who they really mean. I suppose they know if they say it that way, though, they'll look a tad racist-y. Ignorance and hatred are so much more palatable when you use general, inclusive terminology.


On the OTHER hand...it really chaps my buns when I run across people who admit to living in the USA for longer than 10 years and they refuse to learn English, or claim they can't (insert reason here). Come on, for real? I know it's a hard, crazy language with no logical rules at all. I'm so glad it's not a language I needed to learn as a 2nd language. But seriously. In 10 years you've lived here, you've never ever figured out how to say "Where's the bathroom?" or "I can't speak English well."?

Okay. That last part I just wrote was probably a tad on the ignorant side. I'm sure there's a very sound, logical reason someone would move to another country with a primary language other than their own and never even feel the slightest bit interested in learning how to count to ten or know how to say "Help! Police!" But I feel perfectly justified in allowing it for now since I DID take the time to learn Spanish, for no good reason other than once upon a time I wanted to move to Puerto Rico to marry a member of MENUDO.

So that's the end of political rant/rambling.

5. Wait, no! I'm also really chapped at people who get on the internet to write hate-filled, ignorant things about immigrants and Obama. At least spell properly, for God's sake, the whole world can see you. We're already the fattest people on the planet. At least let us be the Best Spellers.

Okay. So it's almost 1 am and this concludes my ramblings. I feel better to get that immigrant/Obama stuff on my chest. My panties are completely unwadded now, and I'm sorry if anything I just wrote got yours in a wad. Start a blog! It's incredibly liberating.

Also, I'm slightly sad Melissa isn't awake to play the At MY Birthday Party game, though I'm relieved she's not demanding to play games or watch inappropriate Nikki Minaj videos on youtube. I may go pin 10,000 more things to one of my pinterest boards. It requires zero mental acuity to pin stuff that amuses or bewitches you at 1 in the morning. If you don't have a pinterest account yet or you do and haven't pinned anything so far (how is that even humanly possible?!? it's like someone has placed a large slice of delectable cake in front of you and you don't even take a sniff! egads, non-pinning, freakishly normal friends!), may I suggest it as a good stress reliever? It's like one of those squeezy balls, except you just scroll scroll scroll and occasionally CLICK. So awesome.

2nd grader, at last.

Soooo....Remember way back in September when I was all: But I don't know if I can do this! Third graders seem weird and psychologically puzzling. And then I was all: No, wait. I got this. Third graders are really weird and psychologically puzzling. But all I have to do is give them my nastiest teacher stink eye and make them skittish about what I'll do next.

Yes, well, I'm done with that. I'm headed back into the classroom next year (which is exactly what I was trying to avoid when I gave up my ESOL position in the first place months ago, because I thought ESOL was headed for the big, giant Toilet in the Sky) (note: I no longer think ESOL is headed for the big, giant Toilet in the Sky; I now believe ESOL is simply headed toward a really sketchy Title & Pawn shop on that one corner by the police station all the ladies of the night traipse down at all hours in clothing of questionable taste).

Anyhoo. Due to budget cuts (shaking my fists and casting ginormous stink eyes on YOU, you scurvy, greedy Wall Street tycoons responsible for the world financial mess), we have lost 8 teacher points. Eight whole teachers! That's like one whole grade level, peeps. Which means no more Science/Social Studies model (unless 3rd-5th grade classroom teachers want 30 kids in their homerooms next year...which might put the Science/Social Studies classes up to some crazy number like 35, 40 kids in some groups depending on how they split up their classes when they do ability level) (I know that only makes sense to me and the people who taught the model, so just know: what matters most right now to you are the mind boggling phrases "30 kids in a class"!!!  and "crazy number.")

Long story short: I will be a 2nd grade classroom teacher next year. Frickin' Universe--always playing me like that. Just when I think I've outsmarted It, It throws me a wide, speedy curve ball.

I'm excited and nervous. Excited because I've missed having that ownership of a class of kids--being their mom-away-from-mom. Also, it'll be nice because I'll only have to plan for 24, not 90...there were so many cool things I chose not to do this year simply because the number of students I had made these cool things logistically (and often financially) impossible.

But nervous because I simply do not do well with aggressive, confrontational parents. And, man, I witnessed some aggressive, confrontational parent behavior this year in 3rd grade. Professionally, I can't go into fine details here on a public blog. Just know: for some individuals in the world, I'm wondering if there is just not enough Xanax or mental health professionals. (I actually don't think they're crazy. I think they're just looking out for their child...in a really scream-y, being-part-of-the-problem-not-the-solution kind of a way. And I think they're acting from a place of love. Dysfunctional, confining, knee jerk-reactive love. But we all need to start somewhere, I suppose.)

True confession: difficult parents are why I left the classroom ten years ago. I got some doozies, three years right in a row. And it was really bumming and burning me out...I just needed a parent-on-a-warpath break for awhile. Hello, ESOL teaching for 9.2 years. Which I loved, because I love language. And hello Science/Social Studies teaching for 8 months.Which I loved, because I've decided Neil Degrasse Tyson is really hot, in a nerdy, very professional and astute kind of way.

But I was very different person back then, when I was a classroom teacher. For one thing, I had bad hair. No, seriously. I had this biscuit bang flip thing going on that was a total holdover from the late 80's and I wore tacky holiday sweaters starting the day after Thanksgiving all the way to New Year's Eve. And I thought I was swank, people. Really, really swank. I'm still really upset with people in my life who let me leave the house looking like that from 1992-2002.

Secondly, I wasn't married to C, and C hadn't worked his C magic on me yet. Honestly. If you need help setting yourself straight in some area(s), C knows how to do it. Right now, for example, I'm on something called the "30 Day C Plan," which is supposed to whip my sorry self back into shape professionally, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I think I'm at Day 15. I've done two out of ten directives. It is not going well, not going well at all. (fyi: I did the same thing with the Atkins Diet.)

Thirdly, I hadn't met/worked with some of the most awesomest teachers on Planet Teacherdom. All decent teachers will tell you they didn't become proficient because of Dr. So and So's class at Teacher University. No, no. They'll tell you they lucked out and got put on a team with Ms. Amazing Teacher, Ms. Creative Teacher, Ms. Gutsy Teacher, and Mr. Reality-Based Teacher...who all taught them everything they know today. (Guess how many college textbooks and lesson plans I still use/own today? Zero. Big, fat zero. But I have exactly 3.5 billion files, lessons, and other artifacts I do still pull from that were given to me by coworkers along the way over the last 15+ years.)***

And last, I wasn't a mother. You don't have to be a mom to be a proficient teacher. But because I've become a mother, I can see my child in other people's children. (I mean, honestly...my 3rd graders this year responded to the exact same Pavlovian techniques that work brilliantly on 3 1/2 year old Melissa.) And I'm hoping that makes me far more compassionate than I was ten years ago...as a parent, I will go to my death fighting for what's right for my child and my hope is that, should I get some boxing champ-wannabes in students' parents next year, that will translate over in parent-teacher conferences and we'll reach magnanimous understandings of great and helpful proportions.


Oh, and! I did NOT have the droll, smarmy humor about life I possess today. A sense of humor about the pure awesomeness of bizarre, dysfunctionality that exists all around us possibly could have extended my classroom teacher shelf life at least another 5 years.

So yes. I'll be a classroom teacher again next year. I'm pinning away furiously on pinterest right now, stealing ideas from teaching blogs left and right, blatantly and without regard. My 2nd grade colleagues will be bandit-ized as well, come August.

But my favorite, FAVORITE part of this whole, crazy school year was this past Wednesday.

Remember my Promethean board, the one I lovingly nicknamed %%$#@&$#@!%&$? I was lucky enough not to have to pack up my million boxes of stuff and move elsewhere, and the trailer I'm currently in (despite the fact I must continue to share it with %%$#@&$#@!%&$) is really a very nice trailer as far as classroom trailers go--a tad bit longer or wider, I can't decide which, than other classroom trailers--and it's in a prime location (practically on top of school, and some restrooms). So that is all good, and I am glad. But %%$#@&$#@!%&$ continues to take up way too much space on my white board, rendering it practically useless for classroom teaching.

And then, then! I discovered THIS while watching DIY network late one insomniac night: dry erase wall paint! You prime your wall! You paint it with 3 coats of dry erase paint! You now have a new dry erase wall, any shape, size you want! This, friendly friends, is when the craziness of 21st century living finally pays off.

So, Wednesday, last day of school for children, I primed each end wall on either side of my real dry erase board. I did not ask if I could do this because (a) I knew a teacher who'd taught in this trailer before me had painted the whole thing a few years ago...sadly, just regular paint not dry erase--which would have been so ridiculously awesome had Lowe's carried dry erase paint back then and she'd turned the whole place into one big dry erase room--I'm practically salivating right now just thinking of it, and (b) one of my life affirming, important mottoes is: Asking forgiveness is always better than asking permission. Another nugget of wisdom from a good teacher/coworker along my path years ago.

So 3rd graders were playing board games, and I was priming while insisting to several overly helpful girls that, seriously, I only had ONE paint brush roller. There would be NO fun wall painting the last day--I let them know I also knew they would probably get into some type of primer paint fight and that was NOT going to sit well with me that day. Go play Uno for the love of god.

And also I had to keep fending off K, who kept watching me prime my end walls suspiciously while asking in an accusing tone, "But did you ask first? I bet you're supposed to ask first." I taught her my important motto about forgiveness vs. permission, but I could tell: she's a total third grader version of 2002 Amy--if I'd had a couple more weeks with her, I bet I'd have had to put her on the 30 Day C Plan.

Anyway. Who should show up? My old principal. (Did you know? The principal we started this school year with, who's been our principal for the last 4 years and is quite frankly one of the kindest, best, most wonderful principals I've ever worked for, was tapped to be one of our district's new, big shot area superintendents.) (Of course you didn't know, if you don't work with me--I've neglected this blog for months.)

So she stopped by our school for a visit, saw me in the doorway, and stepped inside my room to say hello to me and all the kids. And when she saw my walls, she said, "Amy, are you painting?" And I said, all guilty refusing to look at K who I was positive was certainly gloating, "Uhh, yes? Kind of?" And she just shrugged and said, "Oh. Okay."

Man! That was a beautiful moment. I shot suspicious, accusing K a triumphant look so fast! A glorious finish to a long year: the fricking area superintendent says it's cool, K! No need to even ask for forgiveness at this point, playa! Watch and learn, grasshopper, watch and learn.

The other glorious, beautiful finish to a long, long school year? Every year as the buses pull out for the last time to take all the kids home, all the teachers line the sidewalks and wave good-bye and the buses honk and honk and pull away. So soul-satisfying. This year, the bus at the head of the line, the one that was supposed to honk and honk start the Grande Finale pull away broke down immediately when it tried to leave. All the other buses had to back up and pull out...starting with Bus 20 waaaay in the back. Took forever. So all the buses, except for Bus 1, have long gone and all these kids on Bus 1 are stuck and don't get the teacher wave...I mean, we DO wave. But only as we're leaving to head to our cars. Gotta go, Flo. Have a great summer, kids. Stay cool!

And then? Then, I saw my two worst offenders of the whole year were on that stuck bus. And that's when I knew: the Universe really loves to throw me curve balls, but occasionally it throws me a big bone, too, just to let me know it still has my back. Awesome.

*** Side note: if Michelle Rhee and her Waiting for Superman friends are really serious about fixing public education, they should lose their lame, unhelpful anti-teacher attitudes and start with our teacher education programs...but that's another rant, for another day.

winter whisperer.

   I'm having sort of a rough spot at school right now with classroom behavior (the Pencil Situation is the tip of the iceberg). Do not be alarmed (I'm not; just tired). It's not anything above and beyond normal for this point in the school year--the months of February and March are just rough, yo. They were rough when I was a classroom teacher, rough when I taught 1st grade ESOL, and they're rough now. If I were teaching straight A students in Tahiti they'd be rough. I think there's just a natural, circadian pattern to every school year, and February and March just so happen to be its darkest hours.


For one thing, it's cold. And outside is simply not attractive--trees are naked, grass all grungy brown. This winter for us has been unseasonably warm then cold with lots of rainy and low barometric clouds. And for someone like me, that is just a recipe for depression.

And then two, you're heading into the home stretch. The kids who have learning issues and have really struggled all year right now are starting to give up, and you can see it. And you're getting exasperated at the fact you can see them starting to give up and you know you need to throw them some kind of lifeline but dude, seriously. It's February/March, the two longest months of a school year and you're all so frickin' tired. Do you think Lowe's sells lifelines? I hope so, because my creative, hope-y juices are at a yearly low.

And then Spring hits. In all its fevered glory. Or, you know, if you're like us in the South where global warming is alive and well, you've been enjoying Spring Fever since about mid-January as the temperatures have only been truly wintery for a total 3 days.

Have you ever experienced Spring Fever at an elementary school level? It is not for the weak, let me tell you. I remain convinced Spring Fever is the entire reason teachers continue to be given 2 month summer vacations. If Wall Street experienced Spring Fever and/or its cousin Warm Spring-like Winter Spring Fever, they too would be taking long summer breaks (....actually, knowing Wall Street, they'd be taking 6 month summer breaks and charging us all for 24 months' of work).

So yes. I've been having some behavior issues at school. And I don't even have these kids all day--I deal with the issues an hour at a time. Their classroom teachers? Wow. Somebody needs to give those people a $50,000 a year raise. Or at least a 5 star all-inclusive vacation to Bora Bora. Something. Do SOMEthing, educrats. (Because your pay-for-performance ideas are less than stellar.) (As if we're trained seals, willing to do higher back flips for more fish. Fish that's not even fresh. Please.)

But I digress.

So I'm having a month. And every day when I pick up Melissa, I'm starting to get notes on her daily report that say things like:

"Melissa had a hard day today. She didn't listen to her teachers and ran in the classroom."


"Melissa did not have a good day today. She yelled at her friends."

I do not know what to do with these notes.

As a teacher, my instinct is to light into her and support my fellow educators. First of all, I think there should be ZERO light of day between your parents and your teachers. You should know this, and it should be feared. Second of all, I know how it feels to have to deal, all day long, with people who don't want to listen to you, who run in the classroom, and who spend a lot of time yelling at their friends.

So we've had a lot of sad, teary discussions on rides home that go like this:


ME: Why did you yell at your friends?
HER: I didn't!
ME: Your teachers say you did. Teachers don't make things up. Why are you yelling at your friends?
HER: I didn't!

Over and over. Is she lying? Yes. She yells at me, so I totally believe her teachers when they say she yells at her friends. She also doesn't listen to me, so I totally believe her teachers when they say she doesn't listen to them.

But she's 3. Isn't this what 3 year olds do? Yell at people, run around, and not listen? If she were, say, 7 years old and doing that in her 1st grade classroom, we'd have a big problem. But I get these reports, read them, and go: Yeah. That's what 3 year olds do. Are they supposed to be different nowadays because it's 2012 and when they start school in about two years they'll have to pass a high stakes test? Probably. (Curses on you, George W. Bush and your NCLB drafters.)

Last night  I watched the documentary BUCK. It's a movie about Buck Brannaman, the horse whisperer. The most important thing I took away from it was the part where Buck says something like, "People hire me to help them with horse problems, but usually what I end up doing is helping horses with people problems." After a tense, just-what-the-holy-hell-is-happening-here-exactly?? kind of week, I could almost audibly feel something click inside of me, internally.

I need to start thinking like a horse whisperer.

Which is why I've decided to handle the Melissa notes like this: let her know what her teachers have said about her, tell her it's not okay behavior but that I also recognize she's just being 3, and then I give her a hug and a kiss and say, "I love you. No matter what. Forever and ever. I love you."

And so I'm thinking this is the approach I should start taking with my 3rd graders as well: tell them it's not okay behavior but I recognize they're 8, 9, and we're all heading into that home stretch of school year. Then pat them on their heads and say, "I'm writing on your behavior card because what you did was so SO inappropriate--I mean, seriously? This is school. You can't do that in school. But I do still love you. This doesn't mean I don't love you and please know I know you're just being a kid. But still. Stop doing that at school. Stop it now. Seriously." Because I do. I do love them. Very, very much. (Oh, wait. Except for that one kid...man, that one kid makes it so hard to find my love. So hard!) (No, seriously. The horse whisperer's bag of tricks would be depleted in 10 seconds flat.)

Plus it could also just be "that" time of year. February/March simply aren't my favorites--if poopy crap is going to happen, it usually happens in one of these two months. And outside looks so drab and grungy. And it's been a rainy winter. And I hate those.

Now. Having typed all that, let me off-track myself a bit and also admit that I'm chuckling my little teacher/mommy butt off right now, thinking of an article I just read the other day about bigwig education reformers,wanting teachers to compete for a paltry $20,000 extra a year for good test scores. Those guys need to see BUCK, too. Because if they really understood how teachers work, they'd approach us much more gently, with pure love. They'd put daily chocolate in teacher lounges, every Friday we'd have $100 gift cards to the grocery store and on Mondays there'd be a $50 restaurant gift card. Once a month there'd be free massages and pedicures, and every summer there'd be a paid vacation to anywhere in the world we'd like to go. On top of all that, every five years we'd get a year long paid sabbatical. WITH benefits.

Or, you know, at the very least, reduce our class sizes by 10 kids. If we can't have gift cards, massages, free flowing chocolate, all-inclusive vacations, and sabbatical packages, we'll take 12 kids per class per year, please and thanks. Teacher satisfaction and stress relief would be so huge our test scores would shoot up in ways that made the Chinese, Russians, and Iranians all nervous enough they'd start holding secret "what the heck do we do NOW??" meetings. I feel certain Mr. Buck Brannaman would agree with my gentle version of education reform.

Except that won't happen because nobody in government thinks like a horse whisperer. And plus it's February/March. Poop.

tales of some 3rd grade pencil nabsters

At this point, I am neck deep in 3rd grade,  well on my way to becoming fairly well-versed in 3rd grader psychology. For example, let's talk about The Pencil Situation. I understand it's an issue in 2nd and 4th grade as well and it can just get completely outrageous in 5th. Every year, there seems to be numerous Pencil Swipers amongst the school hipster set...when not chewing on, ripping off erasers, and sharpening them down to mere nubs, 2nd-5th graders spend a great part of their day plotting many different ways to swipe pencils not belonging to them. Kindergartners and First graders apparently fall under Pencil-Destroyers-in-Training.

At the end of October all the way through December, I attempted the Rent-a-Pencil solution: You need to borrow a pencil from me? You'll need to rent one. With what money, you ask? No money. Just one of your shoes. (cue squeals of delighted laughter) Which shoe? I don't care. Pick one and put it by the door. If you want your shoe back, give me back my pencil on your way out. What if you want to keep my pencil and it's very very cold and/or raining that day? I guess one of your feet is going to be extremely wet and/or cold that day. Or, better yet: Try to bring your own pencil on cold/rainy days. What if your mom gets upset when you come home with just one shoe? Tell your mom to call me so I can explain how upset I get when I have to keep buying pencils because they keep going home with people they don't belong to. What if you forget to wear socks on a day you need to rent a pencil? One of your feet will be stupendously cold, sorry, hate that for you. What if your feet are stinky that day? Make sure you bathe and powder them every single morning. Just in case since you never know. What if you need a pencil AND an eraser? I'll require one shoe for each. Yes, that does mean you will be working in your bare feet. Just like old timey country folk.

Sadly, my Rent-a-Pencil plan did not thwart them. In fact, they began purposefully NOT bringing pencils and erasers with them just for a chance to work barefoot. And I can't blame them; quite frankly, shoes simply aren't as comfortable as working in bare feet. Shoes get overly hot and by the end of the day, your feet can feel way too pinched. Don't even get me started on stilettos. Whoever invented that nuttiness surely was a sado-masochist. However, my pencils (along with erasers, too, now) began disappearing more rapidly than at the start. I was Mohammed trying to bring the mountain, and the mountain refused to come. The mountain, in fact, decided to stick its tongue out at me and flip the bird.

So I started taping my pencils. With pretty, pretty purple tape that would be totally hard to miss if someone attempted to walk out the door with it. And please know: I absolutely was under the assumption this Pencil Situation was all a giant misunderstanding. I was certain the walk-offs were just accidents--people in a hurry to leave, innocently forgetting to return a borrowed object. And so I thought: a-HA! Purple tape! Surely, seeing my purple tape would remind them: Oh yes, must put this back.

That's when I discovered the deep seriousness of The Pencil Situation: these people weren't just accidentally walking off with my pencils. No. These people were nefariously taking them. My poor, innocent pencils were, gasp!, being pencil napped. And yes--you read right. I DID just use the words "nefarious" and "pencil napped." Right out from under my nose! Nefarious! Pencil napping! In broad daylight. Just like C does with magazines from doctor/dentist offices ("What? What?" he says, "They put those in there because they want you to take them. They're just a bunch of old magazines sitting around. They put them there so people will take them home so they'll stop cluttering up the waiting area.").

Anyway. I started finding purple tape on my floor, stuck under my tables, placed strategically low on my walls, behind my &^%$#%^& smart board that still never works right and gives me issues. We had to have a long talk about the differences between accidentally forgetting to return something one borrows vs. actually concocting devious ways with which to keep it.

I was pretty ticked. Yeah, they're just pencils. But if you add up how many bags of Starbursts, Skittles, bottles of glue, AND boxes (yes, BOXES) of pencils I've bought since taking over this position in September (not to mention a handful of bulletin board sets, a couple of teaching idea books, some Science materials, holiday treat bags(times 100), three packs of black construction paper because I ran out of that color, and ten extra scissors ( as some of those have disappeared, too), we have now reached a grand total of exactly one house mortgage payment, half of which has left my classroom in the form of pencils.

Still. I had to be so careful. SO careful! As I discussed The Pencil Situation with my sweet friends. I don't know who these pencil nappers are, exactly, or if it's even a plural issue. Out of my 100 kids, it could just be one lone diabolical pencil napper. Plus, I don't know if you've noticed or not lately, but teachers in America seem to be landing on the 5 o'clock news in less than proud ways (personally, I think the 5 o'clock news just needs more to do--it's clearly got far too much time on its hands).

The heart warming aspect of this is that I must say: They were all so wonderful about it. Really. Every single one of them. Every single kid sincerely expressed deep, honest concern over my bank account situation, my rising blood pressure levels whenever I looked at my dwindling pencil supply and/or found more evidence of purposeful tape removal. Every single kid was indignant. Indignant! In fact, if you were to stop anyone of those boys and girls and poll them on how they feel about The Pencil Situation in Ms. S's room, I promise--they are as hot about it as I am.

In addition, many people clearly on their way to successful careers in law enforcement, law, and/or political and educational reform jobs offered up several very creative ways I might use in my attempts to thwart the Pencil Swipers. James Bond-like security cameras were suggested, and offers of full-time security guard work were given. One sweet girl noted once watching a movie about bank robbers having to deal with explosive ink on money--maybe I could rig up some type of explosive ink to my pencils that would explode as soon as a pencil nabber attempted to exit the room? Wonderful, impractical ideas only the innocent can think up. And, while not one person ever came forward and confessed the day we had The Pencil Talk, I did find one of my purple taped pencils quietly returned the next day...all chewed up and nubby, eraser completely gone. I was deeply touched by that person, whoever s/he was. If I'd seen them return it, I'd have hugged him/her and given him/her a couple of Skittles for being so honest (finally).

Fortunately, I've come up with a solution to The Pencil Situation in 3rd grade. I call it Duct Tape Solves Everything. I think I even saw on Pinterest once you can clean an entire two story house with a single piece of duct tape. (Ha, I'm just messing with you. Duct tape will not clean your entire house. But it will function pretty handily as a cat hair scraper upper.) So I sifted through my big, scary drawer o' junk, found a little hot pink number, and promptly wrapped up about 6 pencils. Besides fixing leaky pipes and electrical wiring (when not moonlighting as a prom dress or a purse), do you know how hard it is to get duct tape off stuff? No kid in 3rd grade knew. I have completely confounded them, and have retained every single one of my Rent-a-Pencils.

....for now. I'm sure my Pencil Swipers are putting their heads together at recess every day figuring out creative ways to quietly remove it. My classroom has become their pencil swipage dojo, and I their pencil swipage sensei. Onwards, grasshoppers of pencil grifting. Next, I'll be wrapping fake flowers to all my pencils and chuckling mirthlessly as 3rd grade boys get all huffy about having to use girly stuff in class (I don't actually think I need to go as far as strapping fake flowers onto my pencils to keep them where they belong; I just get highly entertained watching 3rd grade boys get all huffy about having to use girly themed stuff).

boobies and breast feeding (aka: this whole blog is an overshare)

My child is obsessed with boobs. I don't know why; I suspect it's my fault (when she's sitting in a therapist's office in 15 years most everything will be). But she's obsessed with them...actually just mine. (Overshare #1 begins here) She likes to talk about drinking milk from them, and I constantly have to ask her to stop attempting to manhandle them. I'm sure her daycare teachers wonder (out loud, possibly in staff meetings) why Melissa is so obsessed with her mommy's boobs, but mostly why hasn't Melissa's mommy told her not to talk about it in public? (Because I haven't found a way to properly frame it yet: I find using the words "can't," "don't," and "stop" make Melissa more determined than ever to be the very opposite of what I envision for her.)

Here's why I'm sure the booby obsession is my fault: In Psychology 101 in college, I learned about the Oral Fixation phenomenon. Apparently, people who don't get breast fed (like myself and everyone else born when formula was considered best) wind up with oral fixations--chewing on pencils (I do it), overeating (yup), constantly needing a cup of tea/coffee/water/soda/adult beverage close at hand (guilty), biting nails (only stopped when I slapped on acrylic fake ones, still occasionally find myself biting on those)...etc and so forth. Have I mentioned I was addicted, nay, psychotically attached to, my pacifier when I was tiny? I called it my "Binky," and I was simply not myself without it.

Melissa didn't do pacifiers (her father, a former orthodontia specialist, thinks they're of the devil), but she's well on her way to all those other things. I wasn't able to breast feed...or maybe I was and just didn't try hard enough. Breastfeeding wasn't a fun experience for me, either way; I was fairly miserable about the entire process--the latching on hurt (I was told it shouldn't if I was doing it properly and when I showed hospital nursing experts how I was doing it they all said I was doing it properly...yet my child and I managed to find a way to make it still hurt), and the milk production just wasn't forthcoming.

True story*: I called my doctor office's Official Breast Feeding Advocate/Lactation Consultant for help. I knew I was doing the latching on properly, as at least 5 separate nurses in the hospital all watched my technique and gave me thumbs up on it. I just got a body that wasn't really into producing milk. (Which is so ironic, because while pregnant all I craved was dairy; if I could have tethered a cow in my backyard and drunk straight from the teet, I'd have been in pure pregnancy heaven.)

And meanwhile, I was doing all of these exhausting things to supplement that really had me questioning what the point of breast feeding in the 21st century actually was. (Overshare #2 begins now) Like, to simulate breast feeding but provide nourishment while my body worked on making milk, I had this extremely thin little tube. I'd tape it right on top of a nipple, run it through to a bottle of formula that was rigged up to some type of drip drop contraption. Then the formula would run down through the tube into M's mouth--she wasn't getting actual breast milk, but she was getting the simulation of breast feeding.

I'd do this 8,9, 50 times a day and think: seriously?? Did the cave women do this? Because if Melissa and I had been cave people, she'd have totally been dead of malnourishment by her 3rd day on earth. (Actually, I would be dead, too, from childbirth, as she refused to come out during natural labor.) Which, I feel, is the whole point of being a 21st century mom: You have some options available to you, and the feminist power to flip people off if they decide to be judgmental d-bags about it.

But here's the thing: breast is best. I got it, everyone on planet Earth gets it at this point. We've all been exposed to the research studies' findings, we read articles about it every month in Parenting magazine, our ob/gyns give us long lectures on why we should really try to breast feed if we even wonder out loud about formula. We hear you, breast feeding militants: breast is best breast is best breast is best. Women who give their kids their breast milk end up with Nobel Peace Prize winners; women who use formula spend a lot of time at the wailing wall, praying over their sons and daughters doing hard time for bank robberies. We got it, for the love of God.

So, for months I'd been bombarded with the breast is best/if you don't do this your kid is going to suffer message, and there was a lot of guilt on my part about the fact I should be breast feeding but (a) was miserable doing it because it hurt so much and so I wasn't really bonding and top of that I was having to do this ridiculous contraption set up 100 times a day while I waited for my own milk to come in because (b) I was painfully aware my body was unable to properly nourish my own child and I was just stuck in this vicious circle. And the post-pregnancy hormones were no help: I could literally feel a funky funk of a depression setting in.

By the end of week 3 really, I just wanted to stop...I was utterly exhausted from lack of sleep, flattened psychically from the hormones, and if the whole point of breast milk feedings was better nutrition, then Melissa was already screwed--she'd been chowing down on formula for the better part of her first few weeks on Earth.

Desperate, I called a Lactation Consultant (aka Militant Breast Feeding Advocate) for help, or at least some encouragement. I expressed my frustrations, described our contraption and my current milk production predicament, moaned about the very real depression I could literally feel myself sliding into about this and begged her for help. I got told it was a supply vs. demand issue. If I truly wanted to breast feed right, I'd need to do the following:

1. breast feed on one breast for an hour (/end overshare #3)
2. breast pump on the other breast for the following hour
3. take a brief 30 minute break
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3. For 24 horror movie hours at least but possibly more like 72.

"But that sounds terrible!" I cried out, "I already feel like a cow...now I'm going to actually be one of those farm factory cows. Are there any other options?"

She was was humorless and unmoved. "If you really want to help your child, this is what you need to do," was the response.

And so I re-iterated that I could really feel myself sinking into a deep depression over this--I wasn't getting the cozy, lovey dovey feelings supposedly associated with breast feeding and was worried about the bonding I wasn't feeling, and I dreaded the whole feeding thing in and of itself. Mostly I was basically feeling like a failure, and I was really scared. Would it be really terribly so bad if I just switched to formula and bottles, the end?

"Well," said Militant Breast Feeding Consultant, "I think you need to really think here. Are you switching to formula because it's easier for you? Or are you going to do what's best for your child?"

Looking back on that conversation, I think the best thing for me to do would have been to end the conversation by asking to speak to her boss and then having an emotional, psychotic breakdown over the phone with that person like I did with the one Target manager several weeks ago. Instead, I whispered &%$%#ing &itch! and hung up the phone. (/end overshare #4)

And please understand: I am the most mild mannered, nicest person ever. I only use cuss words at other drivers while driving or I stub my toe or I'm very, very afraid. I never even cuss in front of my husband, and I know a lot of women who cuss at theirs. So if you and I are ever interacting, and I launch a raunchy word directed straightly at you, please also understand: You totally deserved it. You f*&^%$ing &^^%$#. Got it?

I was beside myself. I mean, obviously, my mothering skills sucked. I couldn't even feed my own child. And now I was literally going to have a baby on one boob and a contraption on the other. In between diaper changes, screaming cries, and nights of little sleep, I was (for 24-72 hours and/or until my body finally produced enough milk) to have someone sucking on me (/end overshare #5)and then follow that up with a machine milking me. Just like a factory farmed dairy cow.

It was too much.

Fortunately, I have a good friend who, while excelling at the act of breast feeding as she does everything else (Hi, Valerie!), is also a practical, nurturing thinker who likes life to make sense. After hearing my dilemma, she reminded me that her daughter had been a voracious breast feeder and still had a few, tiny little health problems so that whole breast-fed-kids-are-superior-health-wise wasn't necessarily true all the time. And that if breast feeding was making me miserable, it was okay to stop--no one walks around with EXCLUSIVELY BREAST FED or ALL FORMULA PRODUCT stamped on their heads. And also, that Lactation Consultant was clearly a real ^&^%$$# *&^% and I was right for whispering it into the phone in a way she probably didn't even hear me before I hung up on her.

And that I was right: what babies most need, above and beyond breast milk, are mommies who aren't depressed. That's way more important than breast milk vs. formula nutrition.

And then I had an ob follow up and told my doctor what had happened. And when your ob practically says, "Wow, what a &^%%$*   B*&&^," you know you're in the right. Also, she told me that she was raised on formula and now she's a doctor. So while breast milk is undeniably, technically better and pretty much far superior to formula, your kid's not going to turn into a Quasimodo if you feed them formula. Go for it.

And so I did. And voila! I instantly began to bond with M. I loved, loved, LOVED our feeding times together. I got her on a schedule, and it was almost like instantly she could sleep a whole 3-4 hours straight (yes, because she wasn't starving). And I sent that stupid milking contraption back to whence it came. And we were happy. We were happy for ever after.

............Until we went to Target yesterday. And I needed a bra. And I entered the bra section. And Melissa said (and she might as well have used their intercom system for this since she has that Voices Carry quality to her that I suspect all 3 year olds do possess):  

MOMMY, IS THIS THE BOOBY SECTION?? 

Yes, honey. Yes, this is indeed the booby section. And SHHHH! Lower your friggin' voice. (Of course that makes it into a game, and so now we have to use a louder voice and repeat ourselves over and over over, especially and when a creepy-looking man walks by just as I'm debating between a striped black number and a polka dotted one.)


*This true story is why I get a little militant with the breast feeding militants. Please know: I am not advocating for one way or another in this blog, simply relating my own personal experiences with the act of breast feeding/pumping. Adjusting to a newborn is a full-time job and a nerve-wracking process. I say: do what you need to do to get yourself to the other side of that and keep yourself out of a full-fledged post-partum depression. And if any #$%#&*^ s*&^%$ m*&&^% b**&&^% wants to make you feel bad or guilty about that, cuss them out and hang up on them. And then call me. We'll go have coffee and talk about what d-bags they are and how awesome we are.


*And furthermore and finally, I remain unapologetically thankful I was not born in the Dark Ages and/or China.

*(China likes to put lead and poison in most everything; I recommend you only buy sweatshop-produced bras from that country.)