1. Like a Millennial and 2. why teaching and fun are important

This is the second year that my neighbor and I are seeing Broadway shows together. 

She orders season tickets; every month or so we go out to dinner and afterward are entertained for two hours by people who have more talent in their pinky toes than I do in my entire body. 

At last's month night out, I was telling her about my mindf*ck resulting from my grad class, in which I feel/felt like "not a real educator" because I don't teach full-time in a district school. 

My friend, who has two 20-something children, promptly responded, "Pshaw." 

She then went on to tell me that I am actually far hipper than I realize because I am, essentially, a Gen Xer who is living a Millennial-like professional life. I'm not tied down to one gig and have a much more interesting life because of it. 

She reminded me that not every person gets to interview local "bigwigs" around town, the kind who have donated millions to various civic projects. (That piece will come out in 2018, and one of the "bigwigs" even told me I'm a "fun interviewer.) She reminded me that not everyone gets a byline. 

After her cheerleading session, I began to look at my odd professional career with pride. 

Not every English teacher has an actual almost 8-year portfolio of published writing pieces. Actually, I'd be willing to bet that most don't. That is something special I can bring to my students, even if I don't teach that many of them. (Here is a nice article about this.)

I had thought to myself, "I'm not a real teacher because I have small classes," but I had to remind myself that my college professor only has 11 students in my grad class. It isn't the size of the class that makes you a teacher. Just because I haven't taught thousands of students doesn't mean those I have taught haven't learned something valuable from me. 

I recently received a text from a mom of two of my former students, both of whom now attend the local university. She text was short and sweet and basically said, Ms. V's English class is harder than college English classes. 

I can hardly think of a better compliment. And I know that even though my class is challenging, my former students had fun. They looked forward to being there. 

It is very important to me to make English fun and interesting, to be funny and interesting to my students. Back in the day when I taught in the district, I think I brought fun and interest to the class. In moments when I think about going back to the district at some point, I wonder whether I would still be able to do that with all the testing and data-driven instruction that is done. 

In this class, as we've been designing lessons and thinking up plans, I have realized that I'm pretty good at that. I'm pretty good at thinking how to take a piece of text and make it teachable. 

For not being a "real professional," I'm not half-bad. 

Getting my head back on straight

I am finally getting my head back on straight from this graduate class, and I am feeling a renewed sense of "I do NOT suck."

I suspect I will always have a chip on my shoulder, a feeling of "I am not a real teacher because I haven't taught full-time in x many years," until or unless I do teach again full-time.

But what I have begun to realize for myself is that I have a tremendous amount to offer students because I haven't been in the classroom full-time for 13 years.

I have done a lot in those 13 years, including being a professional writer. It matters a great deal, I think, that I have real-life experience in interviewing, listening, writing, editing, and networking with people outside of the school world. For the most recent article I submitted, I interviewed some local "big-shots" in the community, one of whom told me I'm a fun interviewer.

I'm not the type of person to be awestruck (I don't care who you are or what amazing things you've done, you have had an occasion when you've had poop streaks in your underpants), but I admit that it made me feel pretty good to have someone who has created a millions-of-dollars enterprise offer that compliment.

I have taught for the past 5 years in a setting that has given me a tremendous amount of freedom. I have created my own plans from scratch, and I have taught very difficult texts to students. I do it well, and I know it.

I have taken close to 20 additional hours of graduate class beyond my master's degree in literacy and instruction.

And I substitute teach, which is trial by fire if there ever was such a thing.

I will still be tremendously glad when this class is over, but my attitude and self-esteem have improved.

Talking out both sides of my mouth: The state-test letter

It's that time again....state-testing time!

The time when the conscientious kids wind themselves into balls of anxiety, reminding their parents to feed them high-protein breakfasts and put them to bed early.

The time when the kids who don't give a shit continue to not give a shit.

The time when the kids who care and just don't get it continue to care, just not get it, and then have whatever pittance of self-esteem they still possess dashed.  Again.

The time when parents are encouraged and/or instructed to write their 3rd graders letters of encouragement.

I did this with N, and I did it with G, and I still don't think I'm doing it correctly.
Am I supposed to say that this test is important?
Because it is within the window of right this second.............
......and it is totally unimportant within the window of the entire rest of their lives.

Like the unimportance of my ACT, my SAT, my GRE, and my PRAXIS.
Completely irrelevant in this moment.
There are times I wish I could sprinkle a little dash of magic fairy perspective on my children's heads so they wouldn't wind themselves into fetal balls of fretfulness.

School lunches

Once a week G hassles me to come eat lunch with him.  So I do.

And sadly it is sort of a treat for me to eat a public school lunch.  

I dislike kitchen work to the extent that I don't even want to fix myself a sandwich.  

(For those of my friends who are amazed at how much "energy" I have because I write and read books and do house-related projects, I want you to let that sentence sink in: 

Too lazy to fix own sandwich.)

School lunches get a lot of flack for being tasteless or unhealthy, but I haven't found them to be that way.  

I'm in no way suggesting it is the stuff of Michelin-starred restaurants, but they are better than some of the crap I see kids bring from home.

Today I noticed the boy across from me was eating a Lunchable that included Oreo cookies.  

Now I am not a fan of Lunchables mostly because I can give my kids pepperoni and crackers for WAY less than $4.  I also don't think they are a terribly healthy choice since if they come with a fruit or vegetable at all it is an overprocessed one.  (N is allowed 1 Lunchable per year; G and M don't know what they are.)

But one Lunchable in and of itself is not the end of a kid's nutritional life.  

However, what I really noticed was that the kid also had a container of Hunts puddling, a sandwich baggie of Fruit Loops, and a package of fruit chew snacks in his lunch box.

It was at that point that I thought, "Holy f*cking cow!  That is a lot of junk in one lunch."

I'm a label reader for one reason:  my gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with N.  It changed me for life.  I also happen to be writing an article about kids and nutrition for a local magazine, so it is on my mind.

It is my nature to internally rag myself about what I could be doing better as a mom and as a person, in general, which is probably everything.  

But I now try to use comparative analysis to help me feel like I suck a little less.  

When I feel like I'm not a very fit person, I read this, even though I know it is geared to an older population.  But hey, I'm 40 now.  

When I feel like a terrible dresser, I read this.  (Although I should probably review my state just to make sure I haven't actually made the site with my own brand of "I don't care what I throw on.")  

When I feel like a terrible mom for fussing at my kids, I read (WARNING: if you have postpartum mood issues and aren't in full recovery, you better skip) this.  

And evidently, when I feel like I'm not feeding my kids all that is good and wholesome, I just need to go eat lunch with my kindergartener.  

You aren't all you are meant to be as a kid (a comment on all this standardized testing bullshit)

I try, try, try mightily to not get hung up on grades or test results.  I spent most of my educational career prior to my master's degree too concerned with what grade I got.  After teaching 6th graders who could not read, I became very unimpressed with the whole concept of grading.

Of course, it is an altogether different story as a parent because I want my children to do well, to as often as they are able do their best, to take their education seriously, and grades are, unfortunately, part of that equation.  

Last year, N took the CogAt to determined whether she is "AP material."  She scored a 23.  I started looking a bit into middle schools and discovered that a downtown school that feeds into one of the best high schools in the nation has a 24 as their minimum score for acceptance into their "gifted and talented" program.  So I suggested N take the AP test again this year....just to see.

When I opened the result yesterday and saw that on her second go she scored a 21, I was briefly disappointed because 1. this score was lower (and lower always means bad, right?) and 2. it means that downtown middle school isn't really a feasible "plan" (her mother's plan, I mean) anymore. 

But after that feeling, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders because the decision of whether to attend this particular school was taken away from me/us without any stewing, hemming or hawing on my part.  

Sometime this fall, after a discussion with my book club momma friends, I began to consider the idea of whether it would be better for N to be a "big fish in a small pond" or a "small fish in a big pond."  Her personality would be much better suited to the former, and the honest truth is that if she had scored well enough to get into this particular downtown middle school, she would be a small fry.  Any anxiety she might suffer as a result of this situation would, of course, become anxiety for her mother.  And we don't want that, even if we temporarily thought we might.

I am working diligently to remind myself that all this testing and AP and pre-emptive middle school decision-making is really and truly ridiculous.  I "get" the need for proficiency and the desire for distinguished, but none of these kids is who they are meant to be.  In all our efforts to reform education and make a common core of knowledge, we forget, I think, that these minds are so young and unformed and...stupid, in their own wonderfully naive way.  

As a 40-year-old, I am far, far more intelligent than I was a kid.  I understand math problems in a way I never, ever, ever dreamed I would as a 3rd or 4th grader.  I can read a book I read as a high schooler and be amazed that I only got a 1/4 of its meaning and depth out of it.  

When I get to worrying that my children aren't as smart or witty as I think they should be or I worry that they don't understand math as deeply as they might or their vocabulary isn't exactly where I think it could be, I think about all the things I wasn't when I was in elementary and middle and high school.  

I think about all the things I'm better at now that I'm older.  All the ways in which the knowledge I had as a kid has been filtered through experience and change and practice and wisdom, and these are not things that standardized tests of any kind will ever be able to measure or appreciate.  

Body image at "this close to" 40

In May I joined a gym with child-care.  I love my trainer and my bootcamp friends, but for a couple reasons, I have not been able to attend regularly this summer.  I have been trying to get to the gym two times a week, but I know my solo workouts don't challenge me in the way my trainer does.  It is better than doing nothing (something I try to remind myself when I'm feeling particularly lazy and unmotivated).

I made the mistake of taking advantage of a new gym "service," which is having body fat assessed.  Now I've had this done before, numerous times, but not 6 months post-end of breastfeeding and post-vacation when I ate junk food like a boss.  At 5'7" and 144 lbs, my body fat is 25% according to the hand-held monitor.  Depending on the chart you read, this is either considered "very good" or "average."  The chart they used at the new gym when they provided this service said "average."

I've never been one who is "ok" with the notion of being average in any respect, although I've dialed it down a lot over the years.  With this milestone birthday looming, I'm having a difficult time with the whole idea of aging (and how my body is adapting to that phenomenon).  There is no getting around the fact that I have the mid-section of a woman who gestated three children.

It seems petulant for me to "complain" about my body fat percentage, and I don't expect a whole lot of any sympathy, especially when others look at me and think, "What body fat?"

I jokingly remarked on FB that I could workout like mad to be in the "very good" by age 40 or I could just wait until my 40th birthday and automatically be "very good" just by being bumped into the older age category.  One of my bootcamp buddies said I could workout a ton and be in the "awesome" category by age 40, and a part of me likes the challenge of doing this.  A part of me would like to look washboard ab awesome at 40.

But the more realistic part of me, the part that continues to be a mother to 3 kids on a full-time basis for another two weeks until school resumes, the part that must clean her own house and shop for groceries, the part that is still trying to plan her curriculum for the part-time teaching job this coming school year---that part of me is working tirelessly to remind the insecure, almost 40 part that I am doing the best I can given my circumstances and that having more toned abs can happen, just maybe not right now at this particular moment of my life.

I wish boosting my self-image counted as strength-training.

George Bailey days

I don't watch it often, but It's a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies.  Not only is Jimmy Stewart simply wonderful as George, conveying the frustrations that even the best experiences of life have to offer, but the general theme of the film is powerful.

How did I, and do I, make a difference in the world of my family, friends and beyond?

Many years ago I told my best friend, K, that if I were ever killed in some freak accident or tragedy that under no circumstances was she to say, if ever she were interviewed by the news people, that I was a "sweet person."

I can think of few things worse than being called or considered a sweet person....whatever that actually means.

Anyone who knows me even a little would never call me a "thoughtful" person.  I would like to aspire to be thoughtful, bringing someone a little trinket or cookies just because, but I am 1.) far too cheap to buy things that don't have some boring practical value and 2.) I hate to cook and only barely like to bake.

Yesterday and today, though, I have been smacked in the head with unplanned, weird experiences that have me thinking deeply about my place in this world.

At the pool, while I was trying to lure G and M out of the kiddie pool to come eat lunch, I noticed a woman staring with a look of horror into the 3-foot end of the pool.  It was break time so only adults could be in the pool since the lifeguards were away from their stations.  When I followed her stare to the pool, I saw a small child bobbing in the water.  I waited an instant to see if she would come up, and she did, but only to the bridge of her nose.  She made no sound.  She didn't wave her arms.  She was in the act of drowning.

Before I knew what was happening, I found myself jumping in the pool, lifting the girl out of the water and setting her at the ladder on the concrete.  The woman whose gaze I had followed knelt down and starting checking the girl with me.  I said, "Is she yours?"  The woman replied, "No."

All of a sudden I heard, "Are you kidding me?" "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" and looked to see a woman walking over from the kiddie pool enclosure towards us.  When I followed the direction of her yells they were at her husband, who was in the big pool all the way across in the 4-foot section.

The girl was fine.  I don't know whether she fell in, jumped in, or what, but it wasn't long that she was in the water.  She was conscious and scared to death.  The parents said nothing to me.  This may be selfish or prideful, but I maybe a little bit expected one of them to say thank you.  I know if someone had done this with my child, they would have had to pry my fingers off them from the big bear hug I would give them in gratefulness.

My heart beat rapidly for a good 45 minutes, and some 24 hours later, the rhythm quickens when I think about this experience.

Today's oddity was at Walgreen's, where I went to pick up photos from N's time at day camp.  At the photo counter was an old man asking the photo guy where a certain insurance office was located.  I stood there waiting to pick up my photos and was drawn into the conversation by the old gentleman who showed me his letter from the agency and asked if I knew its whereabouts.

Since I'm still in the world of "dumb phones," I called D at home and had him mapquest the address on the letter.  I wrote down things to look for and told the old man he could drive with me and we'd find it.  This man, whose name I never got, said he had his car, but I was afraid of not being sure where I was going and getting him even more lost.  Plus, it was raining so I didn't like the idea of this 89-year-old frail gentleman driving aimlessly on a busy parkway following someone who wasn't 100% sure of where she was taking him. I explained my thinking to him, and he opted to come with me.

The man explained to me that he is hard of hearing, lives a bit aways across town from this insurance agency and thought it would be a good idea to drive to find the office before his actual appointment with the agent.  I drove him to the door of the agency and wrote down the bank it is directly across from to help him when he comes back.

He said he didn't know the words to thank me, but said his higher power must be looking out for him.  And that my higher power was looking down on me with pride.

I dropped him off at his car and returned home, feeling contented and sorta mind blown.

When the man was in the car with me, commenting about a higher power, I felt like that, like he,  was god embodied in this little old dude.  I know this sounds dumb (and my husband will almost certainly roll his eyes when he reads this post), but what made me think this is that the old man didn't say "Jesus" or "God," but higher power, a term I use often and most comfortably when thinking about my own beliefs.

I guess I felt like, with yesterday's experience so fresh and today's experience so out of the blue, this was higher power telling me in no uncertain terms, "Carrie, you done good."

I'm not sweet.  Or thoughtful.  Or so many other things.
But I do make a difference in this world.

The place to make girls think they have to look like hookers

When N was 3 and we took her to Disney World, we did not allow her to go to the Bippity-Boppity-Boutique (BBB).  The first reason is because it is insanely expensive.  The second reason is because the girls who came out of there looked like trashy bimbo princesses.

Unfortunately where I live a cheaper version of the aforementioned BBB has opened called Club Tabby, but it is equally tacky.

Girls can get "full makeovers" for $29---eyelashes, hair in an updo, etc.  They can also have parties at the back of the store where they and their friends grace the catwalk to loud thumping club music.  I have seen girls come out of there after being made up, and they look like white-trash Muppets.

I fully expect that within a few years N will want to wear cosmetics, at which point she and I will visit a legitimate department store makeup counter where she can learn from a professional how to apply makeup so that it looks natural.  Seriously, I have watched Lord of the Rings special features enough times to know that Weta Workshop did prettier orc makeup than some of the girls I've seen at Club Tabby.

Of course N begs to go in there whenever we are in the mall, and fortunately I have the boys as my excuse for why we cannot set foot within the premises.  I did allow her to go in one time so she could see what it was, and I was immediately turned off.  Getting made up to go clubbin' is fine if one is in her twenties, but not such a good thing for a 7-year-old.

I will admit that I went in recently to purchase N a stencil book for Christmas that Michael's used to carry but doesn't anymore.  As much as I hate to spend any money there, I know N would really enjoy this stencil, so I sucked up my pride and stood at the counter.

The girl who checked me out asked if I was purchasing a gift, and I told her it was for my daughter.  She replied with something on the order of, "Oh, well you can buy me a gift.  There is so much here I'd love to get.  Like that.  And that."  I think this was her ill-advised attempt at being super friendly and perky.

Now this "girl" was in her early twenties, at least, perhaps her late teens, but I thought Seriously, if my daughter gets to be your age and is into this shit I will effin knock her block off.  I'm hoping she's thinking pre-med by your age.....not feather boas, glittery diva wall hangings and her future in pole-dancing.


I try desperately not to be a prude.  I don't expect my daughter to read nothing but Little House on the Prairie and wear high-collar dresses that hit her shins.

But there are just some things I cannot stomach, and one of them is the slutting up and dumbing down of girls, especially my girl.  A young girl can be incredibly smart and fun and vivacious without glittery blue eyeshadow and her tits whacking her in the neck.  

Messages about being a woman

I really work hard to send my daughter positive messages about being a healthy and satisfied-with-oneself woman.

I eat well with occasional treats allowed (and no saying, "I was bad. I had some cake.")

I exercise as much as I can given that two little boys in the house wake me up through the night on an all too regular basis.  

I don't wear makeup at all (thereby sending the message "I am fine as is").

I don't dress skimpy or provocatively.  (A nursing bra flap hanging out does not count.)

I wear my hair short because it looks good on me (thereby sending a message that women can still be feminine without long hair).  

And I try to tell myself that it is what she sees me do that is most important.

But I sometimes worry what message I am unintentionally sending when I get my subscriptions to Allure and US Weekly magazine, which are chock full of women all gussied up in expensive clothes, Spanxed to death, with at least 2 layers of makeup on.  They look fantastic, but they aren't real.  Because on top of all the primping and sucking in, they are Photoshopped to boot.  

And then there was the time I wanted to purchase new underwear when N and I were at the mall, and so I went to Victoria's Secret.  I just wanted some panties that weren't all stretched out from pregnancy, but since I haven't stepped into a VS in years (since before my first pregnancy in 2003) I forgot how sexy everything is.  How luscious the models are with their pictures lining the store walls.  It made me feel more than a little weird with my 7-year-old standing there taking it all in.

Of course, truth be told, I feel weird in a VS by myself.  I'm pushing 40 but I still don't feel like I'm grown-up enough to be there.

I'm not losing any sleep over this, but I do wonder how N will perceive her body and her femininity as time goes by.