After school on Fridays I usually collaborate with two of my colleagues.
Today, like most, we went into my neighbor and teaching partner's classroom and sat down, talking about students and what to try next week. Then we started talking about Wordle. I understand that Wordle is a big trend right now, but it is very new to me. A few days ago, the same teaching partner introduced me to it, and I've been completing it with my class. 2 of the 3 of us hadn't done today's puzzle so we sat. And we laughed. And we promised not to give it away... while offering a clue or two. It was so simple and unexciting, but exactly the social connection I needed at the end of this week.
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Today I picked up 2 kids from 2 different places and got in a Target drive up order before heading home.
For the first half of the drive I listened to some messages from friends. Then the kids started singing. I paused what I was listening to and just smiled to take in that moment that they weren't yelling at each other, or throwing shoes, or kicking the seats. My 2 1/2 year old sang "Baby Luga in the deep beeeyouuu sea. Heben uh-bub and da sea below. Little white whale on da go!" And at the same time, my 4 year old sang "The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout!" They weren't quite in sync, but it was still beautiful music. Peanutbutter and jelly?
Again? Sure. We don't have much else. Agh. We're out of bread. Will he eat the "butts"? It's that or no sandwich. Yogurt. Apple. Red pepper. Veggie Straws. 4 M&Ms. Always a spoon from home with a "K" written on the back. I don't know if he cares, but the one time I told him I wrote a "K" on the back, and he liked it. He cares. I saw him look at it today. A riveting lunch-packing conversation. Today I happened upon a list of positive affirmations. I don’t know where it came from. Maybe I printed it at one point, or it was passed to us at a professional development workshop. It isn’t a big surprise to me that I would randomly find this type of thing. I am not exactly an organized person and sometimes I come up with gems like this.
At the beginning of our writing block I just threw it under the doc cam and told students to grab a post-it note and pick one that they needed today and write it down. Some stuck it on their desk. Some put it in their locker. Some tucked it into a book. I scanned the list and grabbed my own post-it note. “Good things are going to come to me.” And now that is what is staring at me from my computer keyboard. Good things are going to come to me. If you've ever seen the movie Dispicable Me, you remember the scene where the youngest of the 3 sisters excitedly squeezed her stuffed unicorn, proclaiming, "IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE!"
I felt much like that unicorn tonight when my 2 1/2 year old daughter came up to me, put a tiara on my head (calling it a helmet), and then looked at me with the biggest, cartoon-puppy-dog eyes and most genuine smile I've ever seen. She wrapped her tiny arms around my head and squeezed shouting, "I just want to hold you!" And my heart burst into 3 million pieces. I don't deserve her. Last night I laid in bed as the storms picked up outside.
I kept refreshing my weather app, checking the radar. I kept sitting up in bed, listening, and questioning, "was that the tornado siren?" As an adult I've developed considerable storm anxiety. I'm worried about the tornado siren going off and needing to wake the kids to bring them into the basement. I'm worried about the power going out and the sump pump failing and our basement flooding. I'm worried about actual tornadoes now too, since the one that swept through the town next door to us felt too close for comfort. I laid awake for hours listening to the thunder, the rain smacking the windows, and the phantom tornado sirens that were all in my imagination. I thought of summer nights as a kid when, after hours fast asleep, I'd wake to the squeek of the window crank in my bedroom. My dad would sneak around the house if it started to rain, and close the windows so the water didn't get in. I remember the smell of the wet wooden windowsill when he didn't get to it fast enough and a few drops came through the screen. As a kid, I never had any anxiousness or fear about the house or the rain or really, even the sirens. I knew that my dad would handle it all. And though I now know for certain, he too spent nights awake and listening, my dad never showed that he was worried. He just snuck in, closed the windows, and then, I'm sure, sat up and waited for the storm to pass. My kids were not made for cafes.
They were made for forests and fields. While we tried on both today, only one ended with a large hot coffee splattered across the floor and onto another table of diners. One experience was free and sunny and limitless and full of laughter- muddy boots and burrs on pants. One was frustrating and full of rules and stress and looks from strangers. Both were messy. Someday will be our time for cafes for breakfast and hot meals and coffee. Today, they were explorers and adventurers. By my third baby I've made a vow to savor little things that are too easy to forget.
Tonight I held him, rocking in the glider, thinking about the way his whole body fits in my arms. I made note of the way that his legs folded like a frog on my belly. And the way his little arms tucked under at his shoulders and his sleepy eyelids fluttered, staring back at me. Thinking about it now, I'm remembering so vividly picking up that used glider, before our first baby arrived, from a family who listed it on Facebook Marketplace. I looked for a long while and then decided that used was the way to go, especially since at the time, I didn't really know how many, many hours I'd be spending in it. We walked into the strangers' townhome, my husband and I, along with my giant pregnant belly. "Woah, you do need this chair!" the mom commented. Two blonde kids ran through the house, and I distinctly remember the littlest one's name, Mason. The mom explained that it wasn't in perfect condition- the foot stool was a sagging a little, there was some purple marker on the back of the chair- but we didn't mind, it was very minor, and the price was right. She commented on how many hours she had spent with her babies in that chair. At the time I didn't know why this moment felt significant to me, but looking back, now, I do. This was the end of an era for her family- parting with the baby things, letting go of a sentimental representation of the years of sleepless nights- and years of staring at fluttering eyelids and reclining beneath a frog-legged infant. There was a saddness... and a relief in the mom's letting go. For the last 5 years I've been rocking one baby or another in that chair, and while my youngest still isn't quite a year old, there's an element of the unknown future of our family, and here I wonder when I might be ready to let go of this phase. But, whatever comes next, that time has not quite come. So for now I'll rock, and I'll stare, and I'll savor this little human, while he is still so little. I heard a car horn honk and immediately looked up, embarrassed, expecting to see that the light had changed to green.
But when I looked, it was still red. So I glanced around and, to my right, saw two very fast-waving, smiling-faced people in the car next to me. One of my students and his mom were very excited to be waiting at the light next to me. My logical brain said “Wave. Roll down the window. Smile.” My anxious brain said “Did they just see me scratching my nose? Did they think I was picking my nose? I hope they didn’t see me scratching my nose. I swear I was just scratching.” And after a moment of small talk and “Ope, my light is green! Have a great night!” I pulled away feeling wrongly accused (though I wasn’t accused at all) and very empathetic for Jerry Seinfeld. It was one of those moments I looked around me and thought “What’s even happening here? What is my life?”
I was standing in the kitchen holding an ice cream container with one hand, and a White Claw with the other. I glanced over to see my nearly-nude 11 month old with a bag of tortillas, dropping the entire thing down the gaping hole in the floor where he pulled off the vent cover. This was the aftermath of clearing out and salvaging what we could when we got home to the surprise of a not-so-cold refrigerator. Exhausted and just plain over it, I grabbed a spoon to polish off the ice cream, only to realize it wasn’t even solid enough to be spoon-able. I tipped back the ice cream container, soupy, with chunks of cookie dough, and took a slurp. The contents of our broken fridge were spread out all over the kitchen. I just kept reminding myself, “It could be worse.” I’m working on perspective, and though I question how I maintain a shred of sanity some days, it certainly could be worse. |
Author5th grade teacher, wife, mama to my 3 magical babies, ally, advocate, doggy foster mom... just stumbling on. Archives
March 2022
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