The Dish Canary (or Joan is a Crappy Mom)

Tonight after dinner, Brian was dealing with a client crisis on the phone, Thomas was starting trouble with his sisters, I was trying to clean up the dishes while keeping the kids quiet for Brian and stopping the fight.  Solomon came in to me very seriously and said:

Solomon:  Mom, I need your help, I'm starting a Dish Canary.

Joan (not really paying attention)...I told you to leave them alone, Thomas!  Get up to your room and practice your clarinet and don't make me tell you again!

Solomon:  Mom, Mom!  I need you right now!  I'm starting a Dish Canary!

Joan (increasingly annoyed and only slightly paying attention):  What is a Dish Canary?

Solomon (with huge eyes and great shock in his voice):  YOU don't know what a Dish Canary is?  You're a TEACHER!

Joan (finally paying attention but completely blowing a gasket):  Solomon Martin, I am tired of all this ridiculous attention-seeking behavior!  I do not have time for whatever nonsense you have going on right now and if I said 'what is a Dish Canary?' then I obviously do not know what a Dish Canary is!  Now if you really want my help then tell me what you need and stop wasting my time! 

Solomon (quietly and with regret):  Well, a Dish Canary is a book that tells you all the words and what they mean.  I saw it at school and thought I could write one.

Joan:  A dictionary?!?  You mean a dictionary???  You want to write a dictionary?

Solomon:  Well, yeah.  I said I needed some help.
 

What kind of a horrible mother yells at her kid who wants to write a dictionary?!  I laughed out loud, got down on my knees in the kitchen and hugged him and said, "I'm so sorry I yelled at you.  Where should we start?"  and Solomon grinned and said, "How about 'absolutely'?  I don't think I spelled it right."

First Day of School

Six weeks ago was the first day of school.  Here's what everybody looked like on that exciting day!

Thomas started sixth grade and is now in the middle school.  Notice the dark porch?  He catches the bus at 6:50am.  He is loving having his own schedule, more freedom and independence, the challenge of multiple teachers and more homework.  He is playing clarinet in the band and he is AMAZING (that is his critical self-analysis).  He intends to switch to saxophone later this year and follow in his Aunt Mandy's sax footsteps.  He is following in his dad's footsteps by running cross country and he's doing pretty well with that also.  He struggled at first remembering gym clothes, instrument, homework, lunch, running shoes and everything else every day, but he seems to be getting the hang of things now and seems very happy overall.

 

Tinsaye started fourth grade.  She skipped third to catch up with same-age peers.  She is doing much better emotionally this year.  She has gone from crying about something at least once a day (usually more) to maybe tears twice a week.  She has just settled in and leveled out emotionally.  I think her growth is settling down too... she grew 5 1/2 inches and gained 25 lbs in her first year here.  Hopefully that will slow because we can't keep her in clothes.  

  So far she is doing fine in fourth grade in spite of some pretty big gaps in her learning.  On her last math unit she started out with a 30% on her pretest.  At the end, her final test was 90%.  She is just a really hard worker.  She adores her teacher and is developing a whole new set of fourth grade friends.  Her vision is 20/20 in her good eye but she is legally blind in her bad eye.  It doesn't seem to affect her, though.  In another year or so we may get her a contact for her bad eye because it is correctable to about 20/150, but the ophthalmologist isn't sure her brain will use that eye even if it works.  

 

 

 Meredith started third grade this fall and I think she's having her best year yet.  She does not love school like the other kids do and her usual answer to "how was your day?" is "fine" or "okay".  This year I'm getting "GREAT!"  She likes her teacher and her class and I think she's catching up academically to some of the other kids her age.  She is still taking piano lessons and doesn't love to practice, but she loves her teacher and she loves to be able to play the pieces she finishes.  Her class will go on an overnight trip to Mackinac Island in the spring and she is very excited about doing that all by herself (no sisters or brothers or parents dragging along!).  Mere is taking gymnastics with Tinsaye on Saturday mornings and she really likes that (and it's not too taxing on our overloaded schedule).

Solomon  is in second grade this year.  He was disappointed that none of his best first-grade buddies were in his class and he was nervous about getting glasses in August and starting school with his new glasses.  All his fears were unfounded however, when everyone loved his glasses and he made lots of new friends right away (plus he still sits with his old friends at lunch).  

His vision continues to improve.  He had surgery to correct his wandering eye in May and now he has improved depth perception.  The eye drops continue to lower the pressures in his eyes and now his vision is correctable to 20/40 and 20/60.  Solomon started karate this fall and he is going to be a Ninja for halloween.  He's all about kicking, punching, jumping, spinning, and any other smashing that he thinks counts as "martial arts".  He loves to read and is the kid we never have to remind to do his daily reading minutes.  He also does math worksheets for fun.  It relaxes him.  Seriously.  He's the child of my heart, but clearly not my genetic material.

We could not be more proud of these terrific kids that God has given us!

Catching Up

Catching up.  It's what I do.  It's how I roll.  It's what this blog should be called.  I never seem to be able to stay on top of everything in my life, so I'm always "catching up" with something or someone. Since my last post in July (!!) many things, of course, have happened.  Nothing monumental, just life.  We spent lots of time at the cabin, worked our tails off on the house and yard, got everybody ready to start school, started school, started fall activities.  Also started going crazy, losing perspective, working too hard, and forgetting to laugh.  Started developing a short temper, unrealistic expectations, irritability, and impatience.

So now I'm catching up.  With this blog, with the people in my life, with my priorities.  Will it ever be thus?

Here's my new motto:

Find the joy.  If you can't find the joy, find the grace.

God put this in my head a few weeks ago while I was developing my crappy habits of irritability and impatience.  It seemed lovely.  When it came to me, I was like, "YES!  That's what I need to do!  My life is full of joy and grace.  This will be easy and will totally keep my perspective!"  

I was wrong.  Finding the joy is really, REALLY hard at 9:10pm when I am exhausted and Tinsaye is whining and Meredith STILL hasn't brushed her teeth and Thomas just remembered a math test tomorrow and Brian is yelling at Solomon that he CANNOT buy "crazy cheesy bread" for lunch tomorrow because it is garbage and he'd better get in there and make his lunch RIGHT NOW and all the kids should have been in bed 45 minutes ago and my whole body aches and I just want to crawl under the covers and never come out.  

Finding the joy is also really hard when it's 4:15pm and I have foolishly used up all my energy on my 225 students and am now late to pick up Thomas from cross country practice on my way home to get the other three off the bus and get someone to the dentist, the doctor, the therapist, church, a friends' house, Target, a piano lesson, or the library to return late books (see previous post) before figuring out what to make for dinner that is not a) expensive, b) fattening, c) more complicated than 3 ingredients, and d) going to take longer to prepare than 15 minutes.  

Finding the joy would also be considered difficult at 11:30am, when I have already seen 150 adolescents, have 30 minutes for lunch and am starving, but have to answer the 15 emails and 2 voice mails that have appeared since 8:20 when I last checked, have a stack of makeup quizzes to grade, have a blown speaker that needs repair and three mp3s that need to be burned to disc, have to call the counselor about one student, call a parent about another two, and write one up for behavior, have a concert next week that needs parents called to help out, two fundraisers that need attention, a trip that is not getting planned because other things need to happen first.

But this is my life.  And there IS joy.  And lots of grace.  When I am completely blowing my stack, Brian will say in a quiet (and definitely snarky) voice, "How about that joy, Joan?  Did you find it yet?"  (See what I live with?).  But when I stop and take a breath and pull back from the minute, I can almost always find the joy.  

Working with kids at school definitely brings me joy.  The paperwork and deadlines are bad, but the kids are wonderful.  I love what I do, I love that I am good at it and that the kids leave my room happy.  

Spending 5 minutes alone in the car with Thomas on the way home to the insanity is joyful and precious.  He is changing into a teenager before our very eyes and I love the quiet minutes alone with my oldest baby as I listen to his latest negotiating strategy to get a cell phone.  

There is grace at 9:15pm when God gives me the patience that I no longer possess on my own to remain calm and move each kid steadily toward bed.  And then there is joy at 9:30pm when I have a clean face, clean pjs, a warm bed, and my Nook for 30 minutes of quiet.  Plus a couple Tylenol PMs.

See, it's always there.  You just have to look for it.  I think it's getting easier for me to find.  

Blogging helps me find the joy and grace in my life so even though it's another thing to do, I'm going to keep at it.  I will backtrack a bit to catch up on the last three months.  Thank you to everyone who gently said to me, "I miss your blog posts!"  I haven't even posted on Facebook for a month, it's been that crazy.  So thanks for your patience, support, and prayers.  We are still alive, even though we've been media dark.  We've just been finding the joy.

$!*@&*! Library Books!

Seriously, I have a major problem with library books.  We love our library and go all the time to get new books, but we seem to be forever on the hunt for missing items.  Theoretically, there should be 14 library books at our house at all times because each of the four kids is STRICTLY LIMITED to 3 books each and I generally have a fiction and a non-fiction that I'm reading at the same time.  That should be completely manageable.  Plus, we have a System!  All library books MUST be kept in a basket in the living room, easily retrievable when it's time to take them back.  14 books, The System, clear expectations, completely foolproof!

This plan works flawlessly for all of us...unless there was one book that we weren't quite finished with and kept, or one that we couldn't find and renewed online and still can't find, or one that someone got when they were at the library with a friend, or one that we got at the library up north, plus the school library books, plus classroom library books, plus the extra one that I found on the new book shelf from my favorite author that I had to get, plus the one that I had a hold request on and it just came in!

And the books do NOT want to adhere to The System.   They wind up under the car seats or under the bed or in the basement under the couch or shoved down in the side of the chair cushions or in a pile of papers in the kitchen or in a bag that went to the pool or a laundry basket full of dirty laundry from up north.  No one told our cleaning lady about The System and for months she was shoving them in the bookshelf full of our own books, never to be seen again! 

I have tried to come to terms with this problem.  I have made the kids pay their overdue fines with their own money.  I have forced them to retrace their steps and remember where they were reading the missing book (they all blame their sibling who 'wanted to read it after me').  We have held FBI-quality manhunts at 9pm for missing books.  But I am, undeniably, a librarian's daughter, and nothing makes me feel like more of a social degenerate that when I go to the library website, log in to check my account, and it says, "USER IS DELINQUENT".  Me!  A delinquent user!  How did this happen???  Why can't I get this under control?

I know, I know, I should be glad they are reading.  And be grateful that we can borrow books instead of forking out cash at a bookstore for all these millions of pages we are going through.  But it just drives me crazy when we go to check out our books and the little library clerk says sweetly, "It looks like you have a small fine due today..."

Summer Joan

I feel like I have an alter ego in the summer.  Call her Summer Joan.  She even looks different than regular me.  Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself walking past a mirror and think, "whoa, who is that?".  I am tan, I have little or no makeup on, I'm wearing Teva's instead of heels, my hair is either wet, scrunched dry, or if I'm at the cabin it might even be under a bandanna that no 40-year-old woman has any business wearing.   More significantly, I"m not frowning and I don't have stress wrinkles all over my forehead.  I even stand up straighter since the weight of all my responsibilities is mostly off my shoulders:  200 students a day? Not my problem.  Hostile parents/administrators?  They are mad at someone else right now.  Car needs fixing?  I've got all day to sit at the shop.  Sick kid?  Bring it on, that's what I'm here for.  Last minute party and I need to get a gift, make a dessert, and buy new shoes before tomorrow at 7?  Sounds like fun!  See, these are not my normal responses to these situations.  Summer Joan has nothing but time so nothing freaks her out. 

One of my favorite responses to frustrating situations is "I don't have time for this!"  Brian and my sisters make fun of me a lot for this stock line.  I say it all the time:  water heater breaks at 6am?  zipper on kid's winter coat won't zip on the way out the door?  phone call from kid's teacher comes in while I'm driving down I-96 in a storm late for a meeting at church?  towel bar rips off the wall while I'm drying my hands after cleaning up a quart of spilled orange juice and yelling at the kid who spilled it?  I DON"T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.  But what I actually mean is "I am already overloaded and I don't need another little frustration adding work to my day and making me late for something that I think is important."

I wish I could have more of Summer Joan's attitude all year round.  The reality is that I do have to work full time and so does Brian and we have four kids all of whom are involved in school and activities.  We generally have a very full schedule that is not going to get any less full for about a decade.  Plus, I look WAY better with makeup, heels, and a close relationship with my blowdryer.  So, as always, it's about finding the balance.  Remembering the calm feeling of unscheduled summer during crazy times and prioritizing people over deadlines.  Acknowledging that there will always be broken appliances and spilled juice and that IS life and I DO have time for it. 

The View From A Year Into This Life

It’s been a year now since Solomon and Tinsaye came home. 

In the middle of the day-to-day struggle to figure our new lives out, I NEVER thought I would feel sad to see these days behind me.  And believe me, I am really grateful to be able to relax a bit and say things like, “Let’s go to Target” without having to explain seat belts, automatic doors, the giant signs hanging from Target’s ceiling, credit cards, and that you’re not supposed to stand next to the checkout lady to see what her cash register looks like up close. 

However, I do feel a little wistful that their innocent fascination with American life is over.  For them, everything is no big deal now.  They understand how American life works.  They know what they like (and more importantly DON’T like) to order at Wendy’s, they understand the rules for riding the school bus, they can use amazing American technology like the toilet (you can put the paper IN it!), the pencil sharpener,  and the microwave (which they called ‘microphone’ for a long time).  They understand and are no longer fascinated by the tubes at the bank drive through (which I actually still think are really cool).

They can also program the DVR, Google anything, download songs from iTunes, and find a Selena Gomez video on YouTube within seconds.  Additionally, in the last year they have learned how to ride a bike, swim, dive, kneeboard, drive the waverunner, canoe, skateboard, rollerblade, ice skate, sled, hula hoop, play basketball, baseball, and soccer (with rules).  In other words, they have accumulated an American kid’s lifetime cultural knowledge in 12 months.

Their English is so good now they aren’t even funny.  Everything they said sounded cute with improper pronoun usage (“Me is so hungry”), lack of prepositions and conjunctions (“what is bagel? Is like donut?”), and general massacring of all grammatical structures so as to sound remarkably like Yoda from Star Wars (“Me is verrrrrry hungry!  Bagel is hard, like tire, no soft like donut.  No sweet like donut too.  Where is sugar?  Maybe bagel is need sugar?”).  The thing that stinks is that this sounds hilarious and precious, but when it is accompanied by a kid climbing on the counter to get the sugar and then dumping it all over the kitchen floor in the 30 seconds I was out of the room, it is not funny, it’s just stressful.  So life is easier now that they say “let’s go to Tim Hortons!  Can we get chocolate glazed this time?” but there’s nothing funny or wonderful about that.  I wish there had been a reality TV crew following us around the whole last year filming.  Then I could watch it all after the fact and enjoy it more.

I feel exactly like I have spent the last year climbing a mountain with a huge pack on my back.  It has been really hard going and required all my focus and energy just to move forward a day at a time.  I wish I had been able to look up and notice the amazing view more often.  Now we are all at a plateau and the pack is lighter and the incline is less steep, but the scenery is not as breathtaking.  I feel like that is true of all our life’s journey.  When we avoid the risks, the hard stuff, the challenging places we are called to go, we miss out on the richness of this life. 

So I’ll keep blogging just because I enjoy it (as I said to my friend recently, “I’m such a massive dork that I write narrative essays for FUN!”), but the days of stories of the wonder of discovery are mostly behind us.  Now, however, both Thomas (11) and Tinsaye (10) are just starting down the path of adolescence.  I’m seeing glimpses of surly attitudes and emotional blowouts.  The day will come (sooner that I’d like to acknowledge) when all four kids are flaming teenagers living under one roof and I will spend my days trying not to kill them or allow them to kill each other or me.  Then you can all remind me of this blog post and tell me to look around and enjoy the breathtaking view.   

4:21pm

Every afternoon at 4:20, the school bus stops on our street.  Every afternoon at 4:21, four kids burst through the door, dump backpacks, coats, shoes, papers, lunchboxes everywhere and fight over who gets my attention first by yelling over each other in a non-stop stream of overlapping voices.  The following is an actual transcription of actual 4:21 statements I heard in the past week.  Recognize that I do not actually respond here, this is all four kids talking over each other:

              “Mom, read this note!  It’s super important!  Mrs. Rohde said so.”

              “Mom, can I have a snack?”

              “Mom, Solomon got in trouble on the bus!”

              “NO I DID NOT!”

              “Yes he did, Mom.  I saw the whole thing.”

              “Mom, mom, mom, you will not even believe it…today was the best day of my life!  I got 100% on my math test!  LOOK!”

              “Mom, I seriously need new shoes right now!  Look at these!  Today on recess I kicked the ball and they flew right off and then my sock got all muddy.  So can we go get some new shoes right now?”

              “Mom, you HAVE to volunteer for Field Day or we can’t have it!  They said we need more moms RIGHT AWAY.  Maybe you could take the day off work?”

              “Mom, are you going to make me watch the Reproductive Health video at school?  You have to sign this paper.”

              “Mom, do I have to go to Thomas’s game tonight?  Can’t I PLEASE go to Carly’s house?”

              “Mom, someone stole Jessica’s popcorn money and she was crying and I said ‘you can have mine’ and then she stopped crying.”

              “Mom, what are we having for dinner?”

              “Can we have mashed potatoes?”

              “No, yesterday she said we were having tacos tonight.”

              “I hate tacos!  Are there any leftover mashed potatoes?”

              “Mom, can I go play with Alex?”

DING DONG (doorbell rings, random neighbor child comes in)

              “Mom, when is dinner?  Do I have time to play basketball with Derek and Pujan?”

              “Mom, look at my art project!  It’s a bird!  Some of the glitter came off her wings in my backpack.  Actually, kind of a lot came off in my backpack, now it’s all over my folder.  And my lunchbox.  And my sweatshirt.  Oops.”

              “Miss Joan… can I use the bathroom?” (remember the random neighbor kid?)

              “Mom, guess what?  Miss Johnson’s dog got sick and pooped all over her house!”

              “That’s disgusting!”

              “Yeah, I know.  Joey said that happened to his dog too.  When is dinner?”

There is no way that I can actually respond to this overlapping litany of urgency.  After they wind themselves down (about 4:27) my response is usually something like this:

“Put the papers on the desk, go outside and clean the glitter out of your backpack, dinner is tacos and no mashed potatoes, I don’t want any complaining, and we’re eating in 20 minutes, you can play for 15.   I’m not volunteering for anything, we’ll get new shoes on the weekend, I did NOT need to know about Miss Johnson’s dog and there had BETTER NOT be trouble on the bus.  Great job on the math test and that was really nice to share your popcorn money.   Hey Carly, when you get out of the bathroom go ask your mom if the girls can stay at your house while we’re at Thomas’s game, and yes, Thomas, you have to watch Reproductive Health and then we’re gonna TALK ABOUT IT!  Muahahahahahahahaha!”

               

Next fall, Thomas will come home before me.  There are only a few more days of the craziness of 4:21.  Believe it or not, I think I will really miss it.