Sacrifice

      At around nine o'clock this evening, I dragged myself from class to the parking lot, thinking of nothing but my pajamas and a glass of chardonnay. As I climbed into my car and turned the key, the CD player awoke to blast the album that has pretty much become the theme of my life lately: Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown.
     And then it hit me. Tonight is Green Day's LA concert. As I looked at the clock I thought, they probably just took the stage. The past six months flashed before my eyes -- buying tickets to the Las Vegas concert, realizing we were too broke and too busy to afford it, selling back the tickets, Green Day announcing the LA concert, Marc asking me about buying tickets, me checking my calendar and saying, "No, we can't, I have class until late that night and it's the last one before the paper is due... besides, we can't afford it."

      Sacrifices.

     Like the fact that I haven't even met my new niece yet. Or that I didn't even see Tiana's beautiful face at all today. And that I am not taking a personal day tomorrow to spend with Marc and the kids (Vinny has no school tomorrow). Priorities.  There is just too much to do.
      So, as I pulled out of the parking lot, I pumped the volume up to an intensity that would allow me to feel it in my bones, and pretty much cried the entire way home.
      Ironically, as I pushed the knob towards a certainly dangerous decibel, a providentially appropriate chorus filled my soul:

"Well I, I just want to see the light

And I, I don't want to lose my sight

Well, I, I just want to see the light

And I need to know what's worth the fight." 

      What's worth the fight?  My students are worth the fight.  The obvious progress they make each and every day -- worth the fight.  My education is worth the fight.  The impact my masters program has had on my teaching -- worth the fight.  Finishing strong and keeping my commitments -- worth the fight. Pushing my drama students to strive for excellence in exceedingly difficult endeavors... like performing Shakespeare -- worth the fight.

     And I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, I truly do. It's just that life is an insane marathon of work right now.  Much Ado About Nothing hits the stage on May 2nd, and we are far from ready, so there is much work to do on that front.  The next round of report cards is due May 7th and I have a huge pile of papers to be graded (and more on the way).  My graduate school work is all due May 9th.  I have this feeling of impending doom, like, if I let my guard down for a minute, one of my carefully cooking pots is going to boil over and burn past the point of salvaging.

Here's to friends willing to read a 32 page paper.

     And honestly, a tunnel is truly not the best description of my current situation. The light really is not at the end, but all around me.  The light is in friends from afar who post encouraging comments on facebook.  It is in my truly dedicated comrades who spent hours last Thursday sitting around my kitchen table, reading and responding to my thesis paper. The light is my devoted husband who arranged for his parents to bring my son home from youth group last night so I could have a few uninterrupted hours to work. It is in my daughter who understands that mommy needs to be on her computer and is willing to bond by just cuddling beside me on the couch in the evenings. The light is the friend who cheerfully gives of her last few days in California to help my students do Shakespeare well. The light is my incredibly selfless mother, who cleans my house and does my laundry and does whatever she can to make life... well... possible.  I see the light.

     And, I, don't want to lose my sight.

     Because it truly does take a village.  And when I get that ever-loving piece of paper on May 23rd... it is going to mean so incredibly much more than I had ever really imagined to me and to them.

Because that is the power of community.

Stiff Neck, OCD, and College Ministry - My Weekend in a Nutshell

I'd like to start off by saying that this blog is dedicated to my mother, whom I would be utterly miserable without. 

This was an interesting weekend.  Long.  You know all that stuff you hear about the physical effects of stress?  It is so true, and I wish I could just choose not to stress, but sometimes there just is no avoiding it.

Friday night, Marc and I spent hours working on my grading. He graded vocabulary homework and entered grades for hours, while I tackled the last of the essays I've bee trudging through for weeks.  Around midnight, exhausted from hours hunched over papers, we finally went to bed.

Those hours hunched over papers took a toll. I woke up Saturday morning feeling unable to move.  You know that feeling where, the second that you get out of bed you feel stiff and sore all over?  I felt it before I even got out of bed.  I woke up and went to roll over in bed for a little more sleep, and I couldn't roll as usual. My neck felt so stiff I had to try to roll my entire body in one slow, smooth motion to avoid any twisting. I laid there, contemplating getting out of bed, and could barely make myself do it. When I eventually did, every single robotic motion hurt. This happened to me last time I had grades due too.  The only difference is that last time, it happened literally THE DAY, grades were due.  It took me nearly two weeks to recover.

After several cups of coffee and many hours of cuddling with Tiana, I attempted to get up and grade papers or clean my house or something, but alas, all I could do was call my mom to complain.  In the process of complaining, my mom insisted that I take the pre-paid massage appointment that she had scheduled for that day.  I felt so guilty and refused until she absolutely insisted. 

Fortunately, this woman was amazing.  (If you need a really good massage therapist, ask me about her).  Within that hour, I regained some of the motion in my neck, which was fantastic. I was feeling good enough to actually enjoy my cousin's birthday last night, even if I did have to move my entire body to look at the people to my left and right.  I didn't feel completely better yesterday, and woke up a little sore again still today, but by this afternoon, I was feeling pretty much normal, which is AMAZING, considering the fact that last time this happened it wasn't nearly as bad and it took me about ten days to get back to normal feeling and range of motion.

Anyhow... moving on to the other elements of my interesting weekend -- 

For those who do not know, Vinny has OCD.  We have good days and bad days, but mostly we function alright. The saddest part of all is that even the months in therapy did not help us to overcome Vinny's super protectiveness of his bedroom.  It is his space and his sanctuary, and I respect that, but at the same time, the feelings of panic he gets really ruin things for him, and as his mom, I want to see him live life to its fullest, so that's hard.  Today, he was setting up his stuffed animals as an audience for his show. He is always putting on a show. Tiana says, "I want to be your body-ence!" but he shoved her out.  I tried to talk him into it, but he wigged out and was all upset simply because she was looking around his room at his stuff. You could tell that in his head he was afraid she might misplace something simply by thinking about touching it. I ended up putting her down for a nap and taking Vinny aside to talk.

We talked about how a lot of the things that he says to her when she goes in his room are really mean and hurtful and most importantly, how he is missing out on a really cool relationship that he could be having with his sister. He actually agreed. He compared it to an episode of a cartoon he watches, where a brother and sister used to share a room and then they fought and stopped sharing a room, but they ended up missing each other and wanted to share their room again. I said, "See, you could have to share a room with her, but you don't."

His reply?   "Actually, that might be kind of fun."

I was shocked at this openness, which he has never exhibited about his room, particularly not in regards to Tiana, so I decided to run with it.  I suggested that he and Tiana temporarily share a room so that he could see what it was like. He was thrilled with the idea, even though I insisted that he would need to let her just be herself and do what she wants and not follow her around grabbing everything she touches. He excitedly agreed, so we went about clearing a space for her. 

This change in attitude meant a great afternoon for the two of them. They played happily together all over the house and yard, two peas in a pod. He let her see his pet fish and play his keyboard and didn't bat an eye.  Okay, he probably batted an eye, but he let it be, and that was the goal.

Until bedtime tonight. Things were mostly okay, but the meltdowns started. I think it was the thought of him not being able to control her in there if he fell asleep before she did.

During the meltdown period, Marc was pretty upset. "Why are we doing this again?" 

It was hard to explain, but I was, in some ways, doing it FOR the meltdown.  I knew that sharing his space would mean that Tiana would disrupt his order and his routine, but he somewhat needs to experience these disruptions, and then see that nothing terrible happens. Before we went to therapy, we used to spend all of our time trying to meet Vinny's demands -- illogically zipping zippers that were already zipped and putting books back in the same exact spot as before -- but out therapist explained that this is terrible for someone with OCD because it reinforces this emotional sense they have that disaster will strike if they don't (fill in the blank).  By doing whatever it is that the OCD sufferer wants done, you actually reinforce the thought that something bad would have happened if it hadn't been done, which makes the urge that much stronger the next time. If I can just get Vinny to see that nothing terrible will happen if Tiana touches his stuff or disrupts his routine, then he will hopefully learn to relax and allow himself to enjoy her company as much as I can tell that he wants to. Sigh. Tiana isn't sleeping terribly well in Vinny's room, but even a day or two of this will probably be enough to help Vinny make some progress.

Tonight was also interesting because Marc and I had the first meeting of what we hope will become a regular college ministry. We used to lead a college small group Bible study at our last church and we really enjoyed it.  Our new church is small, but we started to sense the need for one. 

College ministry has a special place in my heart.  It's interesting to me that most churches actually don't have a college ministry, despite the fact that college age people, in many ways, have the most freedom to really live life together in the way that the people in the first church did. College is when my faith became my own and when I truly realized the importance of fellowship, and I credit a strong college ministry.  Even through rough times in my faith in future years, I never desired to walk away from the church -- even if I felt rejected by it -- because I knew that fellowship could be life changing and faith sustaining, so I refused to walk away. Even when it was hard.

Today was so not the ideal day for this though.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I told Marc to schedule it for today.  With how crappy I felt yesterday, my house was a disaster and grades are due in two days, so my plate was full to say the least.  But, again, Mom to the rescue. My mom rushed over and spent an hour cleaning my house. As my mom commented, and I unfortunately must agree, she can do in 45 minutes what would take Marc and I two hours together.  I am a remarkably effective grader when sitting in my kitchen watching my mom do my dishes. Why is that?  I got SO much done. Now, if only the grade system wasn't down so I could enter all this stuff...

Suburbia

      When we were house shopping four years ago, we sat down with the realtor, and she had a stack of papers with houses in our price range. As she laid them out on her desk, I immediately nixed about 8 perfectly good houses at excellent prices. Why? Because they were on main streets. I grew up in a neighborhood where the neighborhood kids and I climbed trees in my front yard, played kickball in the streets, and rode our bikes around the neighborhood and to the neighborhood park. Although I always loved school, my fondest memories of childhood are certainly not from school -- they are of my friends and I walking to the Foster Freeze down the street from my house and dumping piles of loose change on the counter to get ice cream cones. I figured that, if we would not be living the exotic expatriate life I had imagined for myself, then I wanted my children to at least experience the advantages of living in a suburban neighborhood in one of the safest cities in the country. Living on a main street really isn't conducive to that. 

      We looked at a couple of houses that just needed too much fixing up and were in neighborhoods I just didn't feel like matched my personality. Then, we drove down this street, and the realtor had to slow for a kid riding a bike in the street. A bit further down, a few kids were playing basketball in a driveway.  I knew almost instantly that I wanted to live here. At the very edge of town (so much so that we are technically in an unincorporated area of the county), the neighborhood is on the edge of woodsy rural area, and the local elementary school, less than a quarter of a mile away, is tucked away in a tiny nook of the hillside we view from our backyard. It has just enough of an anti-establishment feel to suit my tastes, and as the streets appeared to be brimming with kids, I imagined an elementary age Vinny (he was then only two years old) playing in the streets with his friends. 

     Up until now, that hadn't really happened yet.  But this week, Vinny made a friend.  He lives a few houses down and is a couple years older than Vinny, but they have become very fond of each other.  The two have spent the afternoons this past week riding up and down the street on their scooters, running from our house to his house, playing gleefully without sweaters in this early springtime heat wave. 

      I'm so glad he has a friend, but I just can't believe he has grown up so quickly. It seems like just yesterday he was a tiny toddler in my arms and my visions of him dribbling a basketball on the driveway were distant dreams, but that's precisely what he is out front doing right now.  Where does time go?

What "leaning in" looks like for me

To say this past week has been full would be an understatement.  I can hardly believe it has only been a week.
     Last Sunday, Marc and I were passing the baton in this game of tag team parenting that we know so well, literally unpacking Marc's stuff (from winter camp) to pack my stuff (for the charter schools conference).  On a side note, you would think by now we would own at least two decent suitcases, but truth be told, we have one really sturdy one.
     Monday, I had a frantically packed day at work. Not only was I trying to wrap up my sub plans for the week and prepare my students for the high school exit exam they were about to take on Tuesday, I was also, being the tenth grade level lead teacher, coordinating all the nitty gritty details of administrating a test that only 25% of the school takes. This gets complicated and somewhat stressful, to say the least, even when I am on campus, so knowing I was going to be away from campus just upped the importance of getting it all right. To top it all off, there was a department meeting during my prep period.  Unbelievably, my colleague and I still managed to hit the road for San Diego by 4:30.  (Be impressed).
     Fortunately, we got some great advice on the best way to take down during rush hour and actually managed to make it within three hours. We sat in very little bumper to bumper traffic, and since I enjoy the company of the teacher who came with me, I would almost call the drive pleasant. Almost.
    One of my administrators was invited to present at the conference, and he asked me to join him as a co-presenter. I was grateful for the opportunity, since I had been thinking about submitting an application to present, but I had a lot of grad school work due right around when the applications were due, so I never got around to it. Presenting at an educator's conference is actually on my buried list, and has been for quite some time. It is even in the top 50, and I wrote the top 50 all in the first day, right after seeing the first episode of The Buried Life on MTV, back in 2010.
     Well, anyway, he and I stayed up rather late preparing for our presentation. We are both perfectionists, although polar opposites in artistic preference and personality style, which makes for truly interesting collaboration (not being sarcastic here). We literally spent time discussing the angle of photos in the powerpoint slides. (I like to play with the angle button -- I think placing pictures at an angle is stylistically eye catching -- but he prefers them neat and tidy).  We are both flexible enough to compromise and laugh off our differences, so ultimately, the result was a presentation we felt well prepared for, and I think we were proud of the positive feedback.
      The weather in San Diego was absolutely beautiful, and although we spent most of the time inside, I have to say that it really did add to my enjoyment of the conference. I went to some great presentations where I learned a lot, and the keynote speeches by Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada were truly inspiring.  Michelle Rhee made a point that it's okay to not always be liked by everyone. I am a leadership-minded, outspoken individual, and in my career (okay, in my life in general), I have occasionally stepped on toes or turned people off with the things I have said or done. Over the past year, I've done a lot of self-doubting and holding back, frustrated with myself and the mistakes I've made in "teaching like my hair is on fire" (will explain this metaphor later). I will not say that I have no regrets (because that's not true), but Michelle Rhee made me realize that when a passionate woman is willing to put herself out there, she truly can make a difference.  That doesn't mean that there will not be mistakes and that there will not be pain, but, as they say, no pain, no gain. She also reminded me that the stakes are just too high to not occasionally take risks, because every student is someone's little boy or little girl, and every mom wants the best for their children, but not every mom has the same opportunities. Until that is no longer true, we must continue to, as Geoffrey Canada reminded me, refuse to accept failure. He spoke of what most educators unfortunately already know: that children in classrooms all across America continue to fail quietly while teachers try to excuse it away, instead of making each and every failure a crisis.
    When I thought of that word, "crisis," I was reminded of an award winning teacher I once heard about on TV.  He has a book called Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire (which, incidentally, I have not yet read). He explained that he decided to title the book that because he once, in trying to help a student with a science project, accidentally lit his hair on fire, but didn't even notice until the students started screaming. It's a great metaphor, if you really think about it. Saving those students who are quietly failing requires turning every failure into a crisis and without being too afraid to sometimes make mistakes... like accidentally catching your hair on fire.
     
     And so, slightly worn from long days of walking around the convention center, but invigorated, I returned home Thursday to attend class, pushing towards the prize of my master's degree, which is so close I can almost taste it. Friday, I worked another long, full day, then rushed home to make it to mother son bowling night with Vinny. Watching him and his little friends chuck those balls was just too cute. He's growing up so fast.

       Somehow, in the midst of all the work I am terribly behind on, I found time to read the minutes to the last local school board meeting and email one of the school board members, to sign up for Educators 4 Excellence, and to write a letter to my Congressman.
   
       Then, Saturday, Marc and I headed out to the Holi festival.

I may never have caught my hair on fire, but I can now say that I have had it covered in powdered colors. I do a unit each year where my students study India, which has, in previous years, involved a Saturday trip to eat lunch in Little India.  When I found out that there would be a Holi festival in Little India this year, I assigned extra credit and encouraged my students to attend.  So, yesterday, I danced bhangra yoga around my students while I sprinkled bright yellow dust over their heads and gave them tips for starting conversations with Indian people to learn more about life in India.

      Today, I promised myself that I would get serious about action research report.  I've been staring at the research and trying to make sense of it all for several weeks now. I have results. I have an idea of what it might look like in writing, but I just need to make it happen. I thought that, if I really devoted my afternoon to it, I could make a serious dent in it.  Sigh.

      My research report is essentially a twenty page paper in which I describe my action research project. It is divided into the following sections:
- Intro to my topic
- Background (review of professional literature about my topic)
- Procedures (what I did, where I did it, the data I collected while doing it, and how I analyzed the data)
- Findings (the results)
- Discussion (what I think the results mean)
- Conclusion

      The intro, background, and some of the procedures were essentially "done" when I did my research proposal a year ago.  Or so I thought...    My plan today was to spend just a little bit of time "polishing" those sections, and then to explain the data analysis and move on to write up the findings. I figured that was a totally do-able amount to get done in one Sunday.

      Boy was I wrong.

      When I really started to look at it all today, it needed much more revision than I realized.  Things in my action research project ended up looking somewhat different than I had initially imagined them, and although the differences between the proposal and the implementation were slight, they were enough to involve loads of revision on the sections that I thought were basically "done."

     Between the time I got home from church today to the time I clicked "save" and closed the file before starting this blog tonight, I spent probably six hours on the darn report today, and all I did was revise. I didn't even get to starting the part I thought I was going to finish today. On the plus side, I feel really good about what I have so far.  On the downside, I know I still have a lot of editing to do -- it is supposed to be a 20 page paper, and I'm already on page 19 with half of the required sections not yet written. Graduate school is significantly harder than I had imagined.

      But I'm fired up and feeling good. Feeling... empowered. Last night, I read this great article in Time magazine by Sheryl Sandberg, an executive at Facebook, "Why I Want Women to Lean In."  She reminds women that "no one has it all. Nor can they. The very concept of having it all flies in the face of the basic laws of economics and common sense. Being a working parent means making adjustments, compromises and sacrifices every day. For most people, sacrifices and hardships are not a choice but a necessity—and tougher than ever because of the expansion of working hours. In 2009, married middle-income parents worked about 8 1⁄2 hours more per week than in 1979. Just as expectations about work hours have risen dramatically, so have expectations of how much time mothers will spend focused on their children. An employed mom today spends about the same amount of time reading to, feeding and playing with her children as a nonemployed mother did in 1975."

      I keep seeing all these Facebook shares telling moms to put down their phones, their computers, their to do lists, and just enjoy their children. I did not ignore my children today. I took them to church. I laughed with them and joked with them while I took them grocery shopping with me. I ate lunch with them. I helped Vinny print new sheet music and find piano tutorial videos on YouTube. I listened to him play the same three songs about 500 times. I took my niece and my daughter on a walk and sang "Bippidi Boppidi Boo" for like half an hour. I had my niece over for a sleepover and gave them a bath together and got them in their jammies and tucked in to bed. 

      I'm not a bad mom because I left for a conference for a few days or because I poured six hours into my computer today. I'm just leaning in towards my future and theirs.




Read more from the Sheryl Sandberg article above at: http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/why-i-want-women-to-lean-in/#ixzz2NsFZeq3t

Much Ado About Drama

Vinny's wisdom sometimes blows my mind. To process it... I must write it.  I hope you will read it. 

Wednesday night, I was preparing for a discussion I was supposed to be semi-leading on arts in education, and I thought that Supertramp's "The Logical Song," would be a good intro.  Vinny heard me listening to it and was captivated.  He has been watching it over and over again on YouTube since. 

(The rest of this will make much more sense if you listen to the song before or while you read it).

We had a pretty interesting discussion about the song that night, but right now I want to talk about what happened tonight.

      He hands me his tablet. "Mommy, can you help me find the song about the guy who thinks life is a miracle and then gets sent to jail for being crazy?"  Um... what?  Eventually, I figured it out. So, he's watching it and he says, "When I grow up and become a director, I'm still going to think everything is a miracle, but don't call the cops on me, okay?"  This was just too funny.

     Then, we're eating dinner and he says, "Why doesn't he know who he is? Doesn't he have a name?"
I decided it might be interesting to take this deeper.  "I don't know. Who are you?" 
"I'm Vinny."
"Are you?  Or is Vinny just your name?  Is it really who you are? Aren't there other Vinnys?  What makes you... you?"
"I'm an actor."
"Well, isn't that just what you do? Is that really who you are?"
"I don't know.  Maybe that guy's confused because he doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up."
"Maybe. Or maybe he already grew up and still doesn't know what to do."
Vinny then thinks for a minute and says, "He really should be an actor, because then you can be whoever you want whenever you want."

     And with that, Vinny told me who I am.

     What is life without acting?  How does one survive life without the magic if?  How do you not tell so-and-so off for being such a you-know-what unless you are able to imagine what you would do if you were that person in that person's given circumstances?

      At Bible study a couple of weeks ago, someone brought up the golden rule ("Do to others what you want others to do to you"), and then someone else said, "I prefer to think of it as, 'Do to others what you think they would like done to them,' because not everyone is like me."  Wow. What wisdom in that statement. I stored that thought in the back of my memory until earlier this week, as I was frantically grading an intro level character analysis assignment that my drama students did last week. The final question on the page was, "Do you like your character?  Why or why not?" 

      A few students had asked me what that meant. "What do you think it means?" I replied. 
 
       One student responds, "Like, would I be friends with this person?"
       "Sure," I replied.
       Another student suggests, "Or maybe it's more like, do I like being this person?"
       "Sure," I replied, again.
      "Well, which is it?" the first student inquires.
       "Yes," I replied with a sly grin.

      They gave me that look that students give you when they really dislike the fact that you are making them think. 
     As I graded the papers, it became clear that many of the students do not "like" their characters yet, and for understandable reasons. They were only at surface level at this point. We'd only really begun identifying consistent traits. Now that we've begun to dive deeper into their characters' backgrounds and histories, they are starting to "get" their characters. As they process their characters' circumstances with their own individual personalities, they react in ways they find surprising themselves.
       One student, a rather sweet and gentlemanly boy, was initially bothered by Benedick's utter disdain for women. I know this kid and his family rather well, and I'm not surprised he dislikes Benedick's attitude. This kid is surrounded by amazing women, so it is no surprise he treats women well. As I've pushed him to understand his character and to create a background for himself, he's started to get into it. At the end of rehearsal yesterday, totally out of the blue, he looked Beatrice in the eye and called her a wh****.  He was kind of joking, but I am fairly certain it stemmed from a character development exercise I'd used to begin class. He caught everyone so off guard that he rendered most of the class speechless.

     It is easy to dislike those who do things we don't understand. It is harder to try to understand them. Even when we do, we might not dislike them any less, but it just puts us in a place of looking at the world, at life, and appreciating circumstances.

     So, what do you do when all you've ever learned tells you to be sensible, logical, responsible, and practical, but you just don't feel like being dependable or clinical or intellectual? Do you become cynical?  Do you let them make you presentable?  Give in like a vegetable?  

Or do you become an actor? 

     I'm raising my kids to be actors.

      

Goodbye February

I feel like I should have all sorts of interesting things to say, but I don't really.  As usual, I just have some amusing reflections.

Tiana is so... Tiana. Most strong-willed kid ever. It's funny, we sort of let Vinny name her after the Disney Princess Tiana, because we were toying with the name "Giana" (I wanted something nice and Italian to match Vinny), but he kept saying, "No, Princess Tiana."   Besides that, I kept getting irritated at the fact that it is rising in popularity and that everyone I would say the name to would say, "Oh, I have a (cousin, niece, goddaughter, etc.) named Giana, and we call her 'Gigi.' "  I dislike the nickname Gigi profusely.  I dislike it for numerous reasons. For starters, I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but it sounds a little bit like a phony name that an exotic dancer might use.  Second of all, when Vinny and his cousin were born and became the first great-grandchildren on my dad's side of the family, his mom thought it would be soooo cute to have them call her "G.G" for "great-grandma."  I was not a fan of this concept.  I didn't like it because, before they died when I was a teenager, I called both my great-grandmothers just "grandma" like my mom and dad did, and I always called my dad's mom "Grandma," and I wasn't about to start calling her "G.G" at that point. It just felt weird. Neither of the kids latched on to it (they both just call her grandma), and she was not happy. I think she still signs Christmas cards "G.G" Whatever... but I certainly wasn't gonna let my daughter be called Gigi. Giana had to go.

      I was washing my hands in the bathroom at prom the spring before she was born and one of the students asked me, "Does she have a name yet?" I said, "We think it's going to be 'Giana," and she misheard because of the water running and said, "Tiana?  That's a beautiful name!" I mentally gave in at that moment. "Yeah... it is," I replied. From that moment on, she was Tiana. And so very much like the movie character she truly is.  My mom and I were talking about little strong-willed Tiana last night and I said, "She is going to be one determined woman. She will be able to get whatever she wants in life."  For now, however, she is just an incredibly determined two year old, which means that, if she doesn't want to get dressed, and you are the one attempting to dress her... heaven help you.

The yellow is last year, the green is this year. 

      Last week I was feeling rather disappointed in myself in the fact that we have spent above our budget in almost every category.  I set very strict budgets this year that would allow us to really truly only spend what we earn, and we didn't quite make it this month. We didn't go further into debt either, but I was not pleased at our spending... until I clicked the button on Mint.com that allows you to see a comparison to the same month the prior year.  We have actually spent less this month than we did in every area last year.  That is what comes from at least having a strict budget, I suppose. The most significant difference was in shopping. We basically haven't shopped. We essentially barter for everything we need - although not directly. If we need something material, we sell something used of ours, then we take that money, and buy whatever we need used. Its a wonderful advantage over traditional consumerism. While we may not have stayed under budget this month, we did improve, and for that, I am pleased.

      There are all sorts of exciting things happening on my career-educational front these days, but I'm not even really ready to process them all yet. My happiness action research project is, so far, appearing to actually have really worked... as far as the data I have analyzed at this point suggests. I still need to look at the actual correlation in chart form to see if there really is a trend, but I am optimistic.  I am also applying to speak at an educator's conference, which is both an item on my buried list and an assignment for school. I am excited about the potential of getting accepted, even if it is a crazy last minute shot, since the applications are due Monday.  Yikes.  (And I'm blogging instead of writing a proposal... right?)

Vinny and I went exploring last Sunday.  It was a lot of fun spending quality time with him out in nature.  He is growing up to be an interesting young man. I'm glad I got these pictures of him when I did.  His long hair can get kind of messy, but when it is brushed to the side just above his eyes, I think it's adorable. Unfortunately, he decided definitively this week that he was done with long hair. Yesterday, my mom took him to get it cut.

 This weekend I feel kind of bad because Vinny wants to have some sort of adventure, but it just isn't in that cards.  I have grades due on Tuesday and that proposal due on Monday, and the whole thing is just too overwhelming to try to plan some big excursion this weekend.  Oh well... maybe next weekend.

   

Gratitude

I am permanently convinced that the secret to a happy life is gratitude.  So, today I am reminding myself of how grateful I am for all the things I love in life.

Things I love....

• when my new Time magazine arrives each week (yes, I'm a geek. News excites me)
• feeling a sense of community with my family, friends, and neighbors
• having a mechanic in the family 
• supporting local artisans by buying homemade goods
• my mother's enthusiasm for knitting
• my mother's enthusiasm for everything
• when Tiana wraps her arms around my neck and says, "Mommy, I really love you!"
• the taste of coffee in the morning
• the relatively little effort involved in making a cup of coffee with my Keurig
• thinking about Maui
• deep dish chocolate chip cookie ice cream pies
• the sun
• wearing a tank top in February
• being barefoot
• my friends, because quality is most certainly more important than quantity
• the Honda family (not the car -- people at my church)
• Joel Stein's column in Time magazine (99% of the time.  I kind of want to write him a nasty letter about the misinformation he spread about the Common Core Standards in a December issue). 
• that the brilliantly sarcastic student in my sixth period class has figured out I intentionally  don't hear the things he mutters under his breath
• Flocabulary
• the kindness of strangers
• that Tiana loves our minister and yells, "Paater Gey Ree!"  whenever she sees him
• my bi-weekly produce delivery from "Farm Fresh to You"
• how my husband will pretty much do anything for me
• my crock pot (by far the best kitchen gadget ever invented)
• salsa 
• garlic
• the view from my back porch
• my son's tiny neighborhood school
• teaching at a charter school
• Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This
• having thirteen cousins and a huge extended family
• dark chocolate covered raisins from the bulk bins at Sprouts
• that I got lucky with one boy and one girl
• family photos, especially when I occasionally look good in one
• the feeling of sand between my toes

Perspectives, Dreams, and Home

Feel the need to take a break and blog, despite the pile of stuff in my bag that is calling "grade me."

Happy Mardi Gras! I celebrated by working until 5:30, then heading to the pancake dinner at church (pancakes before lent -- apparently an old English tradition... who knew?). My adorable kiddos were so adorable and loving tonight. Tiana was giving Vinny kisses and saying, "That's my brother! I love my brother."  While they were playing with all the other little kids, my two were practically inseparable. She was hanging on his sleeve most of the time.  Just so darn cute.  She was in a particularly affectionate mood this evening. She didn't even resist when her little two-year-old boyfriend went to give her a hug (in fact, she even gave him a kiss on the cheek and giggled -- doesn't normally go down that way).

Today was a good day overall.  Busy and exhausting, and I had to threaten to keep my sixth period after school (I hate making threats, particularly because I never make a threat I won't keep my word on). In the morning, during break, a couple students came in to get cozy and read. One of them told me that my classroom is "home."   :-)   She pretty much made my week.

This was always my goal for my classroom, and I feel like I have achieved it. My glass menagerie is a place where students feel camaraderie, and where they feel comfortable and taken care of.  They know where the leftover cereal is kept and feel comfortable helping themselves. During winter dry skin season, they know that there is usually lotion in the bathroom drawer. They stop by in between classes to order books. If it is cold outside and they just want a quiet place to read at break, they know I'm usually there, just setting up for the next class. They occasionally fight over the most comfy spots, but it's first come first serve and they know the early bird catches the worm.

When I was doing my credential, one professor put this question on the final exam:
"Describe your ideal classroom set up. Include more than just the seating layout. Describe the atmosphere you hope to create."

I answered that my ideal classroom would be warm and cozy. There would be couches and rugs and cozy chairs where my students will cuddle up with good books. The desks would be in a circular shape, so students face each other and me, on an equal level, to remind them that I am not a "sage on a stage," but that we are all partners in an educational journey. There would be crayons and markers and paint within arms reach, because art and color belong in all classrooms, not just elementary classes or art studios.  It will always smell like coffee or hot chocolate, like home.

The professor commented, "Cute ideas, but not very realistic."

Really?  Why not?  And I thought he said "ideal" not realistically acceptable?  And why can't I have my ideal classroom?  His comment bothered me almost as much as the fact that he marked me down for not remembering his acronym for the signs of teens considering suicide. (Never mind the fact that I  accurately described the signs and gave detailed examples of each. I mean... who cares what you know about depression if you don't have an acronym to fit it into). But I digress....   My point is -- I am a dreamer, which I say with no shame at all.

When I was 19 years old, I heard a man named Tommy Barnett preach on a tiny verse, easily scanned right over... Proverbs 29:18, which basically reminds us that (paraphrasing my own version of the modern point behind this) without dreams, life is pretty pointless. He wrote a really great book, Dream Again (which, incidentally, I have never read all of, but still want to someday - I wonder if it is sitting in Marc's office -- further digression, but it's that kind of night), about the fact that miracles happen everyday, and that God wants to give us the desires of our hearts.

   Well, my heart desires to create a safe haven, where students learn, love, and grow, through literature that opens their eyes and changes their perspectives.

      Speaking of perspective, that reminds me of a conversation I overheard yesterday.  While the students were previewing picture books they will be analyzing tomorrow, one student said, "These have all got to have something in common, but I can't even imagine what..." Another rather insightful student, an exceptionally bright underachiever replies, "That's because she [meaning me] did an amazing job of picking books. She wants us to see different perspectives."

Exactly.

"Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize." 
-- Chimamanda Adichie 

Walking the Walk

     This week, I have unintentionally turned Vinny into a radical environmentalist.  He was complaining again about the kids at school making fun of his reusable snack bags. They told him they were for "babies," whatever that means. I'm so sick of hearing this, and so very much desire for Vinny to be comfortable being different, that I decided I needed to just explain it to Vinny. 

     "Vinny, do you know why mommy sends those?" 

     "No." 

     "Because I don't want to send you with plastic baggies that will end up in the landfill. Do you know what a landfill is?" 

     "No." 

     "Let me show you." 

      At that point, I got on the internet and together we looked at pictures of landfills. The first thing he noticed in the photos was how many birds there were, so I pulled up some pictures of birds who ate plastic. We talked about how sometimes trash gets picked up by the wind and ends up in storm drains.  I showed him pictures of the great Pacific garbage patch, and this upset him a lot.  He is particularly fond of sea animals.  "Mommy, does my favorite sea animal eat plastic?"  

      Vinny loves sharks.  I've never heard about sharks endangered by plastic, but I decided I would give it a look.  Sure enough, we found a video of a shark with plastic wrapped around his mid section, cutting into his skin.  It had created a gash about 3 inches deep.  A man was trying to rescue the shark and was eventually able to catch the shark, get the plastic off, and release him.  Yikes. 

     We had some great conversations that night about the fact that people just don't realize the damage that they are doing, and about how its important to do what we can to help.  He has always understood recycling, so we also talked about how recycling raises some issues with pollution, but is still better than nothing.  I was glad to see him go to bed that night feeling secure and confident in his ability to deal with his friends.  He said, "I'm gonna tell my friends that I'm not a baby, I just don't want to fill the earth and the ocean with trash because I love birds and sharks."  Haha.  The type of person Vinny is, he probably will go on to educate his classmates about the importance of reusable containers. 

      The next morning, we packed Vinny's lunch like usual and off he went.  He came home, opened his lunch box, and said, "Mommy, I brought home my trash so we can recycle it."  I try to send waste-free lunches, but there are some things that the kids like that involve trash.  He took out the leftover container from his squeeze applesauce and a wrapper from a breakfast bar.  

      "Those aren't recyclable, sweetie. They go in the trash can." 

      He looked at me with this look of utter distaste and confusion. "Then why did you send them?" 

     "Because they are what you like.  But we can try to find alternatives if you want.  I mean, Tiana really likes the squeeze applesauce, but you can bring your applesauce in a container with a spoon tomorrow next time, if you want." 

      "Yes, do that.  I don't want to make trash!" 

     I sighed and realized I had opened a bigger can of worms than I had intended to.  I would truly need to be more conscious of my shopping.  I've tried to take this one step at a time -- I mean, five years ago, I didn't even recycle because I was too lazy to get a second trash can and walk the extra ten yards to the recycling receptacle in our condo complex -- but Vinny doesn't really take anything one step at a time. 

       Trying to do the best I can, I decided to check out Sprouts, since I heard they have a bigger selection of bulk items than Whole Foods.  I packed for the trip and brought lots of containers for my bulk items.  It turns out they are much less "bring your own" friendly than Whole Foods, since they apparently have no way to remove tare weights.  It was kind of a hassle.  I'm just going to have to find cloth bags that are equally lightweight, because their system just automatically removes the bag tare. They were really apologetic though and did their best to accommodate. Ultimately, their bulk section is really something amazing. I'd heard that they have bulk spices to fill your own spice jars too, but I couldn't find them. They do have all kinds of bulks snacks and cereals and dried fruits and candies and grains and coffee and well... you name it.  I got a snack mix somewhat like the Cheez-it snack mix that the kids like so much.  I also got dried cherries and chocolate covered pretzels and some dark chocolate covered raisins (which are totally going to be my undoing since they are amazing). Tiana wanted to sample all of it.  So cute.  She insisted that we get wasabi peas.  A worker overheard my insistence that she wouldn't like them and offered to let her try one. Oh man.  Am I terrible mom for thinking that was funny?  She first said, "Yum," then started to panic and looked like she was going to cry. He handed her a chocolate covered pretzel and she eventually got over it.  Needless to say, we didn't get wasabi peas. I also got a ton of their French vanilla granola with the intention of trying to make my own granola bars so Vinny doesn't have to feel bad about throwing the wrappers away.  It was a very long shopping trip, but we really stocked up on stuff, which was good. 

      So, today, I am trying to do more than talk the environmentalist talk, but it turns out that walking the walk can often be harder than it looks. Until you really start thinking about all the trash your groceries produce, it's easy to ignore, but as I unpacked my groceries today, I couldn't help but think about the fact that, despite my efforts, the groceries I was putting away would eventually produce quite a bit of trash. Sure, we could go waste free if we stopped buying things like cheerios, of if I could make everything myself and never buy things like frozen pizzas or frozen burritos, but I work full time. I hate to admit it, but there are boundaries. There are not enough hours in the day for me to homemake things like bread and crackers. And I envy people who speak of great grocery stores where they will cut off a block of parmesan and stick it in your cloth, but I have yet to find a local grocery store with such a bulk cheese section. Oh well. I bought locally farmed organic cheese instead. Can't have it all, I suppose. What is it that that song says?

     "Keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change." 

     

Ministry and Marriage

Like anything else, I suppose, being married to a youth minister has its ups and downs.  For one, you never really disappear at church.  Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure if this is an up or a down.  Its mostly an up. Like the Cheers song says, "Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name."  Everyone at my church knows my name (okay, at least my last name, I get called "Mrs" at church quite often"), even if I don't know everyone else's names yet.  We've been at this church for over a year, and I am still learning names, but there are several hundred people in the church, and I am not very involved, so it takes time. 

There are definitely feel good moments.  At the annual church business meeting yesterday, the president's report said such remarkably nice things about my husband that I was practically moved to tears. Having other people remind you of all the reason's you married a person.... definitely a perk. 

But there are downsides. Like all the traveling.  All youth ministers travel.  If you were involved in a high school youth ministry as a teenager, then you know what I mean and why.  The most meaningful times of bonding and ministry are on trips and overnighters and things like that.  Plus, there are also conferences and trainings.  In addition, Marc is in graduate school now through a distance program, which means he travels to Iowa several times a year.  I don't begrudge him these trips, but it can be a difficult, lonely time, especially for a parent. When I was younger and did not have kids, I would fill these times with activities with my friends. Other times, I would even go with him. Now, my kids keep me home for most of these.  There is a youth pastor's wife who blogs regularly and she talks about "camp season," with the same sentiments.  She says, "It’s hard to stay strong and supportive of my husband after being alone for so many days and nights."

And it just never seems to happen at a good time.  This weekend, Vinny had tech rehearsals all weekend.  The theatre is about half an hour from our house, and the drop off and pick up times just did not coordinate well with Tiana's sleep schedule.  With a lot of help from my mom, I made it work, but add rain and cold to the mix and it is just yuck inconvenient.  Last night was the final dress rehearsal, so, as you theatre people will understand, it of course ran late. As we waited outside in the cold, while it drizzled on our heads, I was one of the only parents there with a little one.  I chatted with the moms around me, and many of them have younger kids too, but they were of course home with their husbands.  

Such is life.  Everyone has their struggles.  I'd certainly rather parent solo a few weeks/weekends a year than for months at a time like military wives.  

A Worthwhile Journey

      If you had asked me in Spring of 2012 for my opinion of the Master's program I am enrolled in, you would have physically been able to see my blood pressure rise. I would have begrudgingly admitted that I was learning a lot, but I would have also told you that it was draining my will to live.
     
       As I begin my last semester of graduate school, I am feeling much more positive, reflective even.  Reflective is probably a good way to be feeling, given the portfolio I have to compile and present in order to graduate.  We were officially assigned the portfolio project last night. With memories of my credential program all too fresh, I have anticipated this project with anxiety and dread.  Now that I am actually looking at it and starting it, dare I say that I might even enjoy it?

       I'll admit it.  I am enjoying parts of it.  In class last night, we brainstormed possible options for each "artifact" we are required to present.  In thinking about these classes, I began skimming through folders in my computer, looking at the work I have done over the last three semesters.  I continued this process tonight, flipping through physical folders of graded papers, handouts, and class notes. My metacognitive process could be likened to an out of body experience, as if I am observing the past three semesters of my teaching, as well as the past three semesters of my learning, from a distance.  I re-read a paper I wrote in my first semester of the program, and I didn't even really remember writing it. I found myself chuckling at my own sense of humor and my quirky writing. I rejoiced in my own stories, if that makes any sense at all. I got to the end of the paper and read my instructor's comment, "A pure delight," and thought to myself, "Yes, this was truly delightful."  Reading the paper, I mean. I don't really remember writing it, so that part must not have been particularly delightful.

      I would be lying if I claimed that this entire experience was a delight. Graduate school has been many things, but delightful would not be at the top of the list.  Exhausting, eye-opening, and enlightening, would probably be my top three descriptors.  But today, I have to admit that it has been a good journey that has stretched me as an individual, pushed me as a writer and as a teacher, and has changed the way I view education. A worthwhile journey for sure.

How worthwhile?  $10,000 worthwhile?  Well...  you might want to ask me that a year from now when my student loans enter repayment status again.

The Joy of January

Most years, I make plans like crazy all January.  (I have this month off of school).  Before Vinny was in school, I used to use this time to travel, but I would also schedule myself full of other activities as well. This month, I have done the opposite. I have done a lot of staying home and a lot of not making plans.  I don't regret this at all.  It has allowed me to enjoy and appreciate things I have not always had the opportunity to in the past.  I have gotten into habits I am enjoying.  I have been home cooking almost every single meal.  We don't eat lunch or dinner out. We ate one meal out at Knotts Berry Farm on Friday, and that is the only meal we have not eaten at home all month.  This is huge for us.  At first, I was kind of grieving our decision to stop eating meals out.  I enjoy take out. It tastes good and its easy. Now, I have found that I am enjoying the routine of eating each meal here. I like being able to make each meal just the way I like it.  I have enjoyed experimenting with new stuff (my homemade macaroni and cheese was a flop, but hey at least I tried). I have even started making breakfast regularly.  I am not big on breakfast, so this is new for me. I usually don't have anything but coffee in the morning. I made a huge batch of waffles and froze the leftovers.  We have a "bagel slice" toaster, so I can reheat them easily in there, and you know what... homemade belgian waffles taste much better than store bought frozen waffles. 

Best of all... when I designed a monthly budget for this year, I cut our budget for food by $200.  I was nervous about this decision and didn't know if we would really be able to make it work, even without eating meals out. As a result, I have made extreme efforts to be incredibly frugal with my food usage.  I have become more aware of portion size and have tried to cook only what we will use, and I have also tried to be more aware of our leftovers to be sure not to let them go to waste. As a result, we are about 64% of the way through the month, but we have only used 39% of our food budget!  Woo hoo!  Go me.  This extra money can go to pay off our debt faster.

I've spent much time in introspection. Recent events in my life have made me really question a lot about my life -- who I say I am, who I really am, what I really value in life, and what I want for my future and what I am doing to get there.  It has opened my eyes to a lot. Some of it has been somewhat painful, but I think for the best.  I am proud of myself for the personal progress that I have made. 

I am nervous about going back to work and keeping the commitments that I have made to myself.  I want to try to be mom first and teacher second, so that I can keep making homemade meals and packing Vinny healthy lunches.  It's just hard to describe what happens to me when I am working.  Teaching has a way of completely taking over your life.  Even when I want to be mom first and teacher second, it is just really hard to do.  Teaching is kind of all hands on deck. 

Outside the box

       Last week, Marc and I watched a movie called No Impact Man that a friend recommended.  Great movie. What really surprised me was how some people reacted so negatively to this man's one-year experiment to try to be as environmentally friendly as absolutely possible. I will never understand why people act negatively towards people who are trying to make changes for the better.

      But come to think of it, people do occasionally act like I am a crazy person because of the little things we do differently.  A woman at Knott's Berry Farm once watched me changing a cloth diaper while she waited in line for a stall. By the time she got to me, she actually looked at me and said, "That's disgusting." It was only a wet diaper, not a dirty one, so I was confused. 

       "Huh?"

     As I closed the wet bag tight, she replied, "The raggy diaper. What are you, Amish?"  

      Amish? Huh?  Lots of modern people use cloth diapers. Enough for there to be a company dedicated just to driving around the greater Los Angeles area picking up our diapers to wash them.  I'm really not sure what is disgusting about it either.  Yeah, changing diapers is kind of gross period, but I don't see how me throwing them in a bucket for a diaper company to wash is any grosser than throwing a paper diaper full of poop in a trash bag to sit in a landfill for the next century.  I think sometimes people imagine that I take the diapers out to my backyard and wash them by hand with my washboard. It's 2013. I'm cloth diapering, not churning butter.

But I'm in the minority and people don't always understand that. But I've grown as a person into not caring if people understand.  I mean, some of the things we do in life, we do just because that's the status quo. We've never thought about doing them differently.  I kind of think we should think. 

Like, why do we use paper towels and paper napkins?  Rags tend to be much more effective at cleaning up messes, not to mention less expensive.  Not that I think paper towels are some huge injustice or anything like that. It is just not a big deal to wash a few rags and cloth napkins in the midst of each load of laundry we are already doing. I mentioned this to my mom and she's like, "That's true. I have a lot of cloth napkins. I should use them. I just don't think of it." 

       Vinny takes his lunch to school in reusable containers, which apparently gets him made fun of sometimes. And he doesn't always bring the classic packed lunch - he's not huge on sandwiches. One day this week, he brought leftover stir-fry, which he was really excited to have.  On the walk home that day, Vinny says to me, "Sam says I don't eat healthy."

       "Because you brought Chinese food today?  What does he have against Chinese food?" 

      "I don't know. He says its junk food." 

       "Well, what was Sam eating?" 

   

       "A lunchable, I think." 

     I laughed.  I imagine this came from a good place. Sam's mom is probably trying to make good decisions for her family. I imagine she told Sam that it isn't healthy to eat school lunch every day, and so he has to bring lunch. Since the school lunch is usually corn dogs or pizza or chicken nuggets, I would have to agree that his lunchable is probably a better choice, but clearly this first-grader does not realize that some lean chicken w/broccoli and carrots tossed in a sesame ginger sauce is probably a healthier choice than processed meat and cheese. Why should he?  We raise kids to think in boxes. Disposable plastic ones, to be specific. School lunch is limited to a few boring choices, but I don't think it should be.  Apparently Vinny didn't care that much either, because he ate every last bite. 

     And I'm willing to be the weirdo who defies the status quo. And if my son grows up willing to defy the status quo, then I will be a very proud parent. 

      

Not SuperMom, Just Super Me

     My mom is pretty much "SuperMom."  She is just really good at it. What is the "it" of which I speak?  The "it" is the standard by which society judges a mother. Those of you who are mothers probably know what I mean.

     The world is constantly evaluating women based on what it means to be a "good" mom. The tide is always changing on some things -- there was a time at which women really thought they were ensuring their child's best health by feeing them formula, while now the tide has shifted so far in the "breast is best" direction that you almost have to hide in shame if you did not breastfeed your infant -- however, there are other societal expectations of mothers that remain fairly universal:

      Good moms keep a tidy home. 

      Good moms get their laundry done and make sure their children have clean clothes. 

      Good moms make sure their children always look neat and put together. 

      Good moms look after their children's nutritional needs responsibly. 

      Good moms play with their children as the ever-willing participants in whatever schemes they may devise. 

      Good moms look after their children's education by getting them to school on time and ensuring they do their homework and being actively involved in what they are learning. 

      Good moms always put their children first in life, no matter what. 

     By all these accounts, my mother is super mom. I always kind of knew this too. I would go to friends' houses and see stuff like unwashed dishes in the sink and think "Geez, my mom would never leave dishes in the sink." I had friends who did their own laundry in elementary school. I didn't even do my own laundry in college. My mom couldn't even braid hair until I was seven, yet some of my earliest memories in life are of standing in front of the mirror in my mom's room  while she would use her gold-plated brush with the soft bristles to brush the tangles from my impossibly thin hair and form it into some sort of tidy hairdo. I have vivid memories of needing to drink a glass of milk at dinner table every night, and I knew never to even think of asking for soda on a weekday (although, if my dad was in a good mood, and I ate all of my dinner, I could sometimes convince him to help me make root beer floats for dessert). My mom made the best voices for my "little people" and was even willing to play the  boy parts if I wanted her to. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I was ever late to school (and if I was, it was probably because I threw some fit about getting dressed). As the ultimate PTA mom, my mom knew practically every kid in my elementary school -- she still remembers kids I don't think I ever even knew.  In fact, my mom is such the SuperMom that now she SuperMothers my children (and sometimes me). It is as if being a mom is just what she was meant to do. 

       It's not that I don't think I am a good mom.  I know I am a good mom. My kids love me and are excited to be with me. They are happy when I come home from work and enjoy the time that I have off work. When Tiana plays "mommy," with her dolly, she kisses that doll constantly and strokes her affectionately. She lays the doll down in her crib (yes, her doll has a crib) carefully and sweetly tucks her in and says goodnight. If our kids are a reflection of ourselves, then I think I'm looking at some pretty good parenting. 

     But I am certainly not society's good mom. I'm not a "type A" person, so although I do have a sense of organization to what I do, my home is not typically seen as having "a place for everything and everything in its place." Now that my mom takes care of my kids, I find it "practically perfect in every way" every day, but this is not at all my doing or my nature. The puzzles on the floor just don't bother me. I'm going to organize them later. I'm going to write in my blog now. I rarely know what to do with Tiana's out of control hair, so I settle for just "out of her face" most of the time. My mother-in-law keeps trying to schedule hair appointments for Vinny, but if he wants to grow it "as long as Rapunzel," well then I'm content to let it be. Some of my friends had qualms about using fruit snacks as bribery for potty training. Heck, I broke out the last of the halloween candy. Poop in the potty?  Have a pack of Skittles kid, you deserve it. While I will sit and do puzzles with Tiana for hours on end, I hate sitting in her playhouse -- it make me feel claustrophobic -- and I am guilty of refusing to sit through a two-hour "one man" reproduction of Vinny's favorite musicals. As much as I hassle my advisory students about their tardies, I must admit that I overslept and dropped Vinny off late to school one day this week (it was only by three minutes).  Because I am a teacher, I do get many weeks where I can just be mom, and I really love it, but I wouldn't quit teaching, even if I didn't need the money. 

       My SuperMom worked through much of my childhood, but I never thought it was because she liked working more than she liked me or anything like that. I knew if it were up to her, she would just stay home and be supermom, but I knew why she worked -- so that we could live in a beautiful suburb with some of the best schools for miles, and so we could have a great house where I had my own bedroom, a playground in the backyard, and even a pool.  Although I know that many people feel strongly convicted that a mother's place is with her children, I can tell you that I wouldn't have wanted my mom to stay home if it meant I had to share a room with my sister. And I wouldn't have wanted to give up our pool. And I certainly wouldn't have traded my excellent education for anything -- not even a stay-at-home-mom. 

     You know what I do wish I could have changed about my childhood?  I wish I didn't have to feel bad that my parents worked so hard to give me those things. I always knew that my mom didn't want to deal with cranky customers. She did it for us. She did it just to get by. I hated that she had to just get by. And I hated the times when they hated their bosses. I hated that my dad had to get up before dawn to run call centers when I knew he wished he was using the theatre arts degree he was still paying off.  But, as they say, c'est la vie. My parents did the best they could, and I could not be more grateful. 

    Neither Marc, nor I, work just because we have to. Our jobs are not just work. Sure, we would just work if we had no choice, but we've been dealt a good hand in life and have been able to have jobs we love and enjoy. We also have to work really hard at these jobs and sometimes this takes time away from our kids. But it doesn't mean we don't put them first. It means we continue to exist as people, not just as parents -- even me as a mom. I don't think that being a mom means you have to stop being a person. Nor do I think it would make me a better mom. My dad recently stopped me in a conversation when I mentioned taking some of "my kids" to New York again in a few years, and he said, "You shouldn't call your students your 'kids.' They are not your kids." 

     I sort of chuckled. "Why?" 

     "Because Vinny and Tiana hear you call them that and they're your kids."

     I honestly don't think my kids feel that they are in some sort of competition with my students.  I am sure there are times that they get irritated that I am so busy, but if you asked Vinny if he wanted me to quit, I know he'd say no. I am a role model to Vinny. He wants to be a director when he grows up. He is more irritated with the fact that I am not putting on a kid-friendly show this year than with the fact that I teach. On the occasional times when Vinny has visited my classroom, he stands in awe and asks questions like, "Where do you stand? Do your kids get to use these computers whenever they want? Do you write on this board a lot?"  

     A lot of people act like the absolute best thing that a mother can do for her child is to be home and be just be the best mom she can be. I think that is only true if that is what that woman really truly wants. I think the best thing I can do for my children is to be the best ME that I can be. This applies universally to the "to work or not to work" issue, as well as all the other expectations of parenting.  

      

      I am not a naturally "neat and tidy" person. I like things clean and organized, but leaving dirty dishes until the morning does not really bother me. I could force myself to be better at all the household chores. But I wouldn't be happy; I'd be stressed.  When I'm stressed, I'm a terrible mom.

     But when I do things I want to do... like taking a beginning dance class... then I have the patience to spend an hour a day helping my son get over his conceptual block against counting money (fingers he can count, tiny little boxes, tally marks... pretty much anything other than money - I'm working on it.  I think we had a breakthrough today).  When I do things I want to do,  and I'm not stressed, then I'm in the mood to cuddle up in Tiana's tiny toddler bed when she asks me to lay down with her before she falls asleep, even if my tush does hang off the edge of the bed. 

     By society's standards, I'm not supermom. But every day I become a bit more "super me" and that's all I want for me and my kids.

Eating within our means...

So, the past few weeks, as part of our commitment to live within our means this year, we have promised ourselves not to unnecessarily eat take out or dine out. Take out has actually been a very big part of our lives. I track our spending on Mint.com, I realized we spent over $5000 last year on eating out. This was more than 33% of our food spending! Whoa!  

      When I realized this, it seemed the only logical step would be to cut out that spending, or at least as much of it as possible. Like I have talked about before, it is redefining how we live. It is about re-defining the difference between necessity and luxury, and the fact that we can't afford luxuries at this time in our life. 

    Please, if you are reading this and don't know us well, don't think that we live a life of flippant luxury, having steak dinners at five star restaurants or anything like that.  Totally not the truth. It averages out to less than $100 a week, and I can pretty much tell you what that is -  family take-out dinner Friday + family take-out dinner Saturday (~30-40 each) + a few other meals throughout the week. There are a few main restaurants we eat at Freebirds, Urban Cafe, Sharky's. I eat take-out almost every Thursday because I have classes from 4-10pm. Add an occasional take-out lunch. A dinner out with friends every other month or so. How quickly it adds up. I just didn't really realize.  

     But now that we do, this is our opportunity to make a change. In some ways, it is sad for me. This is our lifestyle for a reason. Yeah, it's easy to cook every meal at home right now while I on break, but when I am working 40-60 hours a week... taking a break on weekends is nice. The saving grace is that Marc is learning to cook and getting pretty good. He can much more easily share the burden now.

     So, instead of finding my comfort in not having to plan a meal, in being able to enjoy a cayenne  tortilla wrapped burrito from Freebirds, I am learning to find joy in creativity and the comforts that certain foods bring me. I've experimented this week. I made baked chicken strips coated in crumbs of Tiana's favorite cereal (Gorilla Munch), and then, when I realized we didn't have any barbecue sauce, I quickly whipped up some of my own. I was able to give it just enough kick, and I loved it. That brings me joy.  Tonight, we had pasta - Marc's request - but I added my own little touches. I kicked the arrabiata sauce up a notch with some diced fire roasted tomatoes and green chiles. I made homemade croutons for the salad. 

     I could choose to be sad that we have to change our lifestyle. I could choose to be angry that there are so many people who can afford to spend $100 a week on fast food without going into debt. 

OR...  I could remember that I am among the wealthiest 5% in the entire world. Yes, you read that correctly. Recent figures show that the median income, when examining the entire world, is just $1,225 a year. The 1% figure in the U.S has come to mean all sorts of things and have all sorts of negative connotations, but when you look at what the 1% is on a global level -- well, most of my friends and family members are probably pretty close; the wealthiest 1% in the world take home $136,000 or more. Yes, here in California... that's pays for a house, two cars, and leaves a small budget for spending, but that is wealth to the world. While Marc and I aren't in that 1%...  I know we must be in the top five. How's that for perspective?  

     It's all on how you look at things. Is it strange that... after getting a "low balance alert" on my checking account today... my heart was just filled with gratitude at how fortunate I am?  I truly am blessed.