we recently had our parent-teacher conferences for bella and alex. during bella's, her teacher slid a folder across the table and said it was story bella had written for an assignment. he said he felt it was very good and suggested we read it. he then said he wanted to ask permission from bella and marty and i if he could offer it to other teachers in the school to be used as a teaching aid for students learning to craft stories.
obviously quite proud, i later asked bella if i could post her story on my website. without looking away from her book she said "sure, the more people that hear the message the better, right?" some parents are nice to their kids because they know that one day in the future their children will be responsible for their care and they want them to have fond memories so they care for them well in their old-age. the only difference between me and and other parents of ten year olds is i fear that day is going to happen about six months from now.
so allow me to present bella's first bound, and by bound i mean triple stapled, story, Something I Learned From Another, or it's alternate title, Knitting Army.
in response to aleo's card yesterday, a friend sent me a note their kid wrote, saying she wished she could claim aleo's instead of her daughters. while i wouldn't trade aleo's note for the world, i can confess to being crazy jealous that one of my kids isn't responsible for the following: please come see me.
so this week of occupied marty has given us a pretty realistic taste of what our life may look like after marty goes back to work. my only salvation rests in the hope that the real change will come with a little better notice so we can plan and prepare a touch better. my residual fear is that it is hard to prepare for a constant state of unbalanced back-peddling.
and the below image is in no way intended as a guilt-inducing tactic. it simply stands as my favorite visual that captured the sense of the week. we all, including marty, wanted to lean on a similar defense this week (in case you're not seeing it, spy bella's note to her teacher above the grade).
much more colorful and succinct than my age 10 response would have been
bella had an homework assignment. it asked her to envision what the start of a day would look like in her adult life. in the middle of working on it, bella read a cut at the work to the boys and i as we settled into bed for reading. it went:
I woke up and looked around my cozy room. it wasn't enormous but it wasn't small. the walls were posted with pictures of animals and their owners. i put on anything i wanted, as long as it didn't embarrass me. I walked into the kitchen grabbed a bagel and started out the door. I walked for about 5-10 minutes and then saw my office. St. Louis Animal Rescue Center. I walked in and the room erupted with people politely greeting me.
a year or two back i was in a large bathroom stall of a public toilet with all three of my kids. one of them had just gone to the rest room and i leaned over to flush the toilet. bella put her hand on my arm and said in an alarmed tone:
BELLA
whoa! what are you doing?
TROY
what? i'm flushing the toilet.
BELLA
you can't do it like that.
TROY
like what?
BELLA
standing like that.
TROY
why not?
BELLA
don't you know that a toilet can shoot spray from the bowl, like, twenty five feet into the air when it is flushed.
TROY (straightening back up)
uh. no. i didn't know that.
BELLA
uhhh. yeah.
TROY
where'd you hear that?
BELLA
at school.
TROY
oh.
BELLA
and just think if there is pee or pooh in there.
some things:
what bella doesn't know is that while i'm surely fearful of pee or pooh being jettisoned at me in the form of a fine mist, clean water from a public bowl disturbs me almost to the same degree.
since that day, i have never flushed a public toilet without thinking of that moment with bella (not to mention using an outstretched foot and turning away as soon as the flush begins).
also since then, i've come to believe that she (and her teachers) are right in that a few times after flushing the toilet in my office, thanks to a bright frosted window in the stall, i can see small droplets flying through the air in volcanic-like antics.
and, by the way, where the hell was that lesson in my sixteen years of schooling?
i will confess that, as a grown man, it sucks to have your eight year old child so effortlessly place more obstacles for your neurotic mind to navigate. she's exerted more energy asking to have the potatoes passed her way.
bella loves containers. all sorts. all sizes. by most counts and any definition she's a container collector. as for what she does with them, she puts all the other things she collects (including containers) in them. her love of containers became curiously useful about midway through the last school year as bella went through a few-month period where she didn't want to go to school. she'd begin eve...
my sister-in-law has four kids, most of which are older than ours (the eldest is already driving-age). at a recent gathering the sister-in-law and marty were exchanging notes about their summers thus far. marty commented how our bedtimes had already shifted back an hour or two and how it changed our home's dynamic, especially for her time-sensitive-regimented-neurotic-insane husband. the sister-in...
the school bella has gone to since kindergarten just closed after its 98th year of operation. it is the oldest and possibly most storied school in the district. a number of things led to the changes our public school district is going through but things have sadly gotten to the point that the administration is stuck making decisions that aren't always done because it's the best or right option, but because it is the only option left. i was at the school when it let out for the last time. i was there picking bella up for her special end-of-year day out. there was lots of tears and hugs on the playground in what would stand as this building's last education-related act (it was very hard all year to not play the "this is the last time ..." game at every bend and turn). after saying our goodbyes bella and i stole away to begin our ritual-celebration of her completing another year of school.
later in the day while eating at a restaurant, bella slid her notebook across the table and said, do you want to read my story about delmar-harvard. this is what i read (transcribed further down the page)
Watching from the back of the window I watch Delmar-Harvard get smaller and smaller. This was my last day running up its pavements, worrying of being late, my last time raising my hand in those oh-so memorable desks, my last time feeling that proudness swelling up inside me when someone asks "what school do you go to." and why I'm proud is because that was my home away from home, those teachers my relatives, those room my rooms, and last that school myself!
As I melancholy walked outside I saw all around me all my teachers/family and siblings/students hugging with tears in their eyes, I saw part of myself being left behind.
But I know that I would only build that part back, that arm or leg, then lose it, just to rebuild a newer version, because that rotation is called life.
if i held it together on the playground, i surely almost didn't after reading my ten year old daughter's first reaction to the event. and i'm doubly impressed that she caught the emotions of the moment as it was unfolding. i'm crazy jealous of her work.
and i am to blame for her use of the word melancholy. she had asked me about the word and i gave her bum feedback for what she was looking for.
friday was anthony's last day of school. i left a morning meeting at 11am and set out on the ten minute walk to his school. on the way there, i reminisced on some of the moments from anfer's first year of school. like how he would occasionally leave his classroom for another if the other room looked to have better stuff going on than his own. or the time he he tussled with his best friend over a stuffed animal, which culminated with someone getting bit and me getting to apologize from my work phone and say that he wasn't usually a biter. or the time anthony left the school, as in left the actual building, because he was done for the day and was confident he could walk home "by his own".
after ten minutes of these mental rambling in spectacular mid-day weather, by the time i came upon the school i was feeling very sentimental and soft. i looked at the lawn of the school where the kids were lined up and sitting on the small grass hill awaiting their pickups. on this particular day, because of the achievement, there were many double parents and video cameras and grandparents in attendance. after anthony saw me approach, i knelt down for the big running hug i usually get from him when he sees me (his excitement stems from my presence usually meant he got breadCo for lunch). on this day though, he walked slowly towards me dragging his backpack behind him. when he got to me he looked at my face and loudly proclaimed, "my butt itches dad." with this unfortunately audible declaration, he reached around and dug in good and deep through his sweat pants. i raised up looking at my rooting kid. i then looked around at the other smiling, hugging, recording, gap-ad looking kids with my wispy bubble of anticipation freshly popped over my moment, leaving me dotted with the goo it was made of.
but as he always does, anthony pulled it out. while we strolled under the canopy of trees that line our neighborhood streets, anthony observed that the houses looked like they were made of candy and that he thought we might live in a fairy tale village. i smiled. he then went on to theorize that the sidewalks were made of candy books which further supported his suspicion that we lived in a fairy tale village. i smiled more at his fanciful take. and then when a neighbor stopped to talk for a minute, anthony, tired of waiting, said in full exasperation, "dad, let's go. my butt still itches!". more bubble goo.
my 2nd favorite thing: the face of a student who gets/sees something they didn't a moment earlier
yesterday was the last day of my class. this was the third year i taught this particular course. someone recently asked me what my favorite part of teaching was. after a moment's pause, i said my favorite part of teaching was not teaching.
to elaborate, i really, really, really like teaching but it is an all-consuming and way-taxing and ever-relentless duty and the minute that duty ends, wether for the day or the semester, and you don't have to prepare for class in a week or a month, the air around you just feels lighter and the minutes more relaxing. so saying the best part of teaching is not teaching is just an awkward way of saying teaching makes you appreciate your time in a way you otherwise wouldn't if you didn't know the pressure of preparing, performing, and assessing a semester or year long class curriculum.
i teach a college class. it is called Presentation Matters. it is a class i designed from the ether three years ago. presentation matters is about, in short, applying the traditional creative process, as taught in basic composition and the like, to technology and/or digital problems. this may seem obvious and unnecessary, but i've got a semester-long curriculum backed up by 1.4 trillion bad powerpoint decks and generic files that says otherwise (and yes that was a troytistic!). if i could have renamed Presentation Matters in the second year i would have called it Thought Matters. and, if i could rename Presentation Matters this year, its third, i would call it Focus Matters. what happened to zavisa and the recipe, as detailed yesterday, is what i try to get to happen for my students. his saturday afternoon is a study on the power of passion, intent, and focus. more importantly (most importantly!) is that the experience zavi had can be captured and ridden, like a horse in the wild. one just has to go look for their palomino on the prairies and in the woods.
when we're doing things we don't like, our minds wander, often to things we do like. so if you're able to position yourself doing what you like, good things are bound to come from such focused time. if nothing else, we'll all enjoy our workday a bit more which translates to a little something called our professional lives.
were i saying this to bella, her brow would have furrowed several sentences back. in fact, if she made it through the fifth sentence, i would have been glad to get that far. but odds are she would have held a hand up pausing me long enough to say i was getting "lecturey". if you feel as bella surely would (and surely will again), apologies, but it can't be helped as such things are a passion of mine, they are my horse, and i get excited every time i see one dash by.
if you need further evidence, check out the final product of zavi's passion product which i forgot to share yesterday. hopefully he won't mind that i plundered his facebook gallery for this week's content. i steal only in the name of love and respect.
anthony was standing in line at school. he reached forward and took something from the boy standing in front of him. the boy started crying. a teacher seeing this approached the boys and told anthony that we don't take things away from our friends. anthony looked at the boy and then back to the teacher and said, "but he's not my friend."
yesterday was anthony's visiting day at preschool. he was ready eager to go sitting on his bike in the front yard a full thirty minutes before we had to leave. i couldn't hold him off to the for real time so we left quite early and arrived before the doors had even been opened to the public. he made himself at home in a sandbox he has played in many times before due to its close proximi...
marty has a sister who lives in new york city, typically around the village. she's very good about sending birthday cards and occasional notes of thought. her messages are always bright and colorful, just as she is. recently she helped bella out with a school project (as did one of my everyman judges noted in the below message) and sent the following update to us which i thought was colorful enoug...
the school nurse stopped calling back in the first quarter
marty's stay home from school policy is this:
if you can't produce blood or puke, you are going to school. if you just think you're going to puke, it doesn't count and you are going to school. if you puke while at school, then you can come home.
as for the blood, i'm pretty sure you only get to stay home while you're bleeding. once it is cauterized or the hemorrhaging relents, grab your backpack. you'll be met at the door.
i seem to recall the rule used to state that if there wasn't blood, puke, or poop (ed. like involuntary poop), you were going to school. i also recall bella looking a little too reflective about the poop option one day and that is how it got dropped from the rotation. hell, i know grown men who'd crap their pants for a day off work. and i got five bucks that says if bella did gravy her drawers to stay home, she'd be so excited, taking a shower wouldn't even be the first thing on her list of things to do with the free day.
once a year bella and alex's school has a pajama day where all the kids get to wear their pajamas to school. this day, to say the least, is wildly popular among the little ones.
at some point during this last pajama day someone must have asked if they could wear their pajamas the next day. to this, the principal of the school said that they could not and you could only wear pajamas on pajama day.
four days after pajama day, i saw bella getting ready for school. she was pulling her pants on over her pajama bottoms and we had the following conversation.
TROY
what are you doing bell?
BELLA
putting on my pants.
TROY
but your pajamas are still on.
BELLA
i know.
TROY
well aren't you going to take them off.
BELLA
no.
TROY
uhhm. ok.
three days after that bella wore her pajamas to alex's soccer game, sans outer clothing. during the game an older student from the school who helps with the coaching asked bella why she was wearing her pajamas. she told him that she had been wearing them since pajama day. he said that was over a week ago. she she said, 'yup'. he leaned into me and asked if she's been wearing those pajamas all week. i glanced at bella and remembered her pulling her pants on over them and replied that as far as i knew she has been.
it's now four days beyond that and bella's still holding strong. the scary part is she's not boasting about it or touting some point she's trying to prove. she's just waging a quiet battle against an invisible foe called principle. i can't wait until she swings these guns around in my direction to prove some point or subtlety to me.
the fourth guy to make me think getting old just might be fun
i recently overheard a story in the office about a young woman who had just earned her phD and was getting ready to embark on her first job. she was understandably nervous about the transition from student to professor and consulted one of her mentors for advice. he was one of the older faculty members on staff and very near retirement. when this skittish girl in her mid-twenties came to him for counsel he said to her ...
to be a college professor you just need to remember two things: make sure you always have a box of kleenex in your office and never scratch your balls with chalk in your hand.
has a young woman entering professional adulthood ever received more inspired advice? i confidently think not.
a memorable moment from each of the kids over the last few weeks.
everytime we drove by a nativity scene, anthony would call out, "hey! baby genius! baby genius!"
and during our christmas meal thank-yous at my parents house alex led off with "i'm thankful we have food to eat and that none of us died before this christmas day."
and while driving home from visiting friends bella enlightened the family with the following bit of wisdom:
BELLA
don't ever say 'sitting' while holding your tongue.
TROY (after thinking it through)
where'd you learn that?
BELLA
school.
TROY
from who?
BELLA
i don't remember. but they taught a bunch of people by telling them to all say "i was sitting on the toilet the other day" while holding their tongues.
i hope your break was equally irreverent, insightful, and educational.
i don't want to say i was first, but ... uhhmm ... i was first
last month i talked about my friend e-love and what a special teacher he is. yesterday the Milken Family Foundation was talking about him when they recognized him with a national educator award and a check for $25,000.
i don't want to call the milken folks a johnny come lately but me and my people have already been there. sure they came with an extra 25 large but to me that kinda smells like someone trying to assuage their guilt for not being the first to applaud my man's gifts.
and as if the national award, the check, and the troy shout out weren't enough, the dude also welcomed his second child into his family last sunday.
kudos on all your successes my friend. there isn't a soul who knows you who would say you didn't earn or deserve this recognition eric. although, if i may make a suggestion, you might want to spread the props out a little more evenly. you're creating a pretty high stick for your next twenty years in the classroom.
From the pressline: "the Milken award is so prestigious it's been called the oscars of teaching." love it!
