I Work at the School of Making People

Last night at dinner, we started talking about the kids' birthdays and how old everyone is getting. This time of year is birthday season in the Nealon House. Ryan just turned the big "10" last month, now in the double digits. My baby, Molly, will be eight in just a couple of weeks. Shannon will be turning 14 just a few weeks after that, on her way to high school in the fall. That's just plain crazy! Timmy, 10 days after Shannon's birthday, will be turning 12, his last birthday before he will be a teenager. I am not the first mom to say, "Oh, where did the time go? How did they get so big? How can I possibly have a high schooler?" But here I am, with my children hitting these milestones and me sitting here wondering what the next step for myself will be. 


My life has definitely flip flopped over the last couple of years. When I had babies and toddlers, the craziness of the day was during the day, watching the kiddies, bringing them to preschool, play dates, changing diapers, trying to stick to a schedule with meals and naps and then the day would slowly come to a close with dinner, bath time, and a good night story, everyone in their beds with the doors closed by 8:00. Not an easy job! By this time, I had a moment to breathe, throw in a load of wash while watching a show or two, or even pull out a book to read if I wasn't too exhausted.


Now that everyone is in school, it is the day that is quiet, and it is the afternoon and evening that is crazy. It all starts at that 2:35 pick-up of Ryan and Molly. Homework, CCD homework, reading, studying for upcoming tests, after-school activities depending on the day...CCD, horseback riding, dance, girl scouts, four basketball team schedules to keep track of with games and practices, travel soccer, indoor soccer, training sessions, practice sessions, piano lessons. Last week, Shannon had a soccer game at 9:50 pm. Yes, long gone are the days of 8 o'clock bedtimes and sitting on the couch watching a reality show. It just doesn't happen!


But during the quietness of the house during the morning with two puppies sleeping by my feet and Queen Elizabeth perched by the window watching the outdoor happening, I think: Should I go back to work? Can I make it work? Can I be one of those moms that can "do it all?" Right now, at 10:00 in the morning, while I am writing this, what would I be doing in the classroom? Would we be writing stories? Would I be helping a small reading group understand inferring and the author's message? Would we be getting ready to go to PE or music? But everyday, 2:35 hits and craziness starts all over again and I think, "I can't do it all...at once!" I can do it all, I just can't do everything at the same time. I think God hands us each a plate when we are born. Some of us have these great big platters like waiters in a restaurant, they can carry many things at the same time, and have great balance as well so that nothing ever gets dropped, everything gets to where it needs to be, orders are never mixed-up and they are never delivered to the wrong table. This is not me! When God was handing out the platters, I missed it. Some people have little tea cup saucers. I know people who get overwhelmed with just the littlest change in schedule or routine. They can't handle anything new. This is not me as well. I am somewhere in the middle. I envision my plate to be one of those smaller platters that they use at parties to serve the appetizers, bigger than a dinner plate but not as big as the giant platters the servers use in a restaurant. I know if I put too much on my plate, I will drop something. I will not be able to balance it all. And so I will fill my platter up and when it is empty, I will go back for seconds. The second time round may not look like the first. I may change it up a bit. Maybe I'll be ready to try something new or maybe I'll go back to what I loved to do so many years ago...teach.


But for now, I think about this thought I read in a magazine.

"Parents teach in the toughest school in the world- the School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, the classroom teacher, and the janitor."


I would add a few more to this...bus driver, school nurse, school counselor, just to name a few.


Last week at church, Shannon's math teacher was sitting behind us. At the end of mass, when we were walking out, I introduced myself and said thank you to her because Shannon had just gotten an A+ on her report card in Algebra. I told her that she must be doing something right because Shannon was definitely "getting it" and was doing great in the class so whatever it was she is doing she should keep on doing it. She then told me how great Shannon was and that she was "easy peasy" and a joy to have in class.


Another time last week, when I dropped Shannon off at a soccer game, I saw one of Timmy's teachers. This is the teacher that wrote a great thank you note for candy bars Timmy gave him as a small Christmas gift. I went up to him and introduced myself and he talked to me for twenty minutes...he talked to me about how great Timmy is...he talked to me about how Timmy has "brightness"...not that he's just smart but a brightness about people and others and life in general. He said that Timmy gets "it".  You know that "it" we are all looking for...Timmy has "it".  And then he looked at me and told me to keep on doing what I'm doing...that I was doing a great job! No wonder this was Timmy's favorite teacher. I felt like I was eleven years old in that moment and just got an A+ on my test.


So for now, I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing, I work at the School of Making People right now, and when my appetizer platter is empty and it needs to be refilled, who knows what I'll fill it with next?

Today I Will Percolate!

We are fairly new to the cat world. Neither Chris nor I had cats when we were kids. We both grew up with dogs. Elizabeth came into our lives about 5 months ago. Every week Ryan and I spend time at the horse barn while Molly takes her lessons. Miss Debbie, the owner, has a number of barn cats. My kids love all animals. They really don't seem to have a preference to just one kind. In Ryan's eyes "our home is like a zoo." Words taken right from his published essay for all to see. 

But Miss Debbie had a litter of kittens, not from one of her own cats, but from a stray cat. She couldn't keep them. She has four cats of her own already and so she had the kittens in the barn and said that they were up for adoption. Each week we would go back and there would be one less kitten, until there was only one. That last little one was going to the pound if she wasn't adopted. That's how we got Elizabeth. 

Over the last few months, I've gotten to see the differences between cats and dogs. Elizabeth is an observer, she sits and watches. She sits and watches what goes on outside from her cat perch near the window. She sits and watches the fish tank from the kitchen counter. She sits and watches the dogs from the top of a chair in the family room. She's mulling, pondering, thinking, considering, ruminating. She reminds me of the post I read the other day of the lady that picked the word "do" for 2012 because she is "done" mulling things over. It's good to think, study, mull things over, but eventually there needs to be action, eventually you need to "do" something after all that observing.

Thursday is my volunteer day in Molly's classroom. It really is one of my favorite things to do. I work with some of the kids one-on-one with their reading, I read aloud to the class on that day, and while the kids are at lunch, the teacher usually has that busy work for me to do that every teacher never seems to get caught up on: copying, folding, stapling, making booklets. I don't mind this work. My hands are busy, they almost seem to have a mind of their own and then it gives me time to think, to mull things over. Last week I was making flip books in the teacher workroom...fold, fold, staple, staple, fold, fold, staple staple. My hands took over. As I was standing there a sound came from the other side of the counter. It was the coffee machine. Someone must of just turned it on before I came into the room because it started percolating. My hands knew what they were doing fold, fold, staple, staple, but my brain was thinking about the word percolate. What a great sounding word, percolate! I have a book L is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue. It's filled with great sounding words, flabbergast, diabolical, and flibbertigibbet just to name a few. These would be great words on a spelling bee. Fold, fold, staple, staple, percolate, fold, fold, staple, staple, percolate. Everything seemed to be in a rhythm. The word percolate is now running through my head. Percolate has two meanings. The first is to pass through a porous substance: filter; ooze; seep; trickle but it also means to become active, lively, spirited; to show activity, movement or life: to grow or spread gradually, germinate. I want to do this. I want to percolate. I want to filter out the bad stuff in my life but I also want to become active, lively and spirited...I want to percolate!

There are times to mull things over...fold, fold, staple, staple, fold, fold, staple, staple...but then we have to become active, lively, and spirited and percolate...fold, fold, staple, staple, PERCOLATE!

A Lesson from a Bull

Last week in Molly's class, I was reading one-on-one with a little girl. We were reading a nonfiction book about cows, and cattle and bulls. She learned that all cows are girls. She learned that there are dairy cows and beef cattle. She learned that bulls are dangerous. I asked her if she had ever heard of The Story of Ferdinand. She had not. I told her it was a story about a bull in Spain. I told her about bull fighting. I told her about Ferdinand. Ferdinand was not like all the other bulls. He didn't like to run and jump and butt heads with all the other little bulls. He just liked to sit quietly and smell the flowers. One day, men came to watch the bulls to find the fiercest ones to bring to Madrid for bull fighting. At that moment Ferdinand got stung by a bee. Well, Ferdinand went crazy and the men decided to take him to Madrid. When Ferdinand got in the middle of the ring he saw all the ladies with their beautiful flowers and he sat down quietly and smelled. "He wouldn't fight and be fierce no matter what they did. He just sat and smelled."


Studies say that the sense of smell elicits more memories than any other sense. More than sight. More than sound. I believe it. I vividly remember the morning when Shannon was six years old and I found her in Molly's crib with her. There was a familiar odor but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. 


"Shannon, whatcha doing?" I asked.


"I thought I would help you out by washing Molly's hair," Shannon responded. 


"That's great, but you need to wait for Mommy, and we usually do that in the bathtub."


I still couldn't figure out this familiar smell...and then I did!!!


"Shannon, what are you putting in her hair?"


And there it was, NAIR HAIR REMOVER!!!!


I grabbed Molly so fast.  I threw her in the tub and nearly drowned her as I tried to get every last drop of Nair out of my baby girl's hair. 


Now, if Molly was one of those little baldy babies, it wouldn't of really mattered. But this is what Molly looked like a few days after coming home from the hospital.

It all turned out fine. Shannon must not of used enough and I must have rinsed it out in time because this is Molly at her one year picture. 

There are so many good smells at this time of year. Christmas trees, goodies baking in the oven, candles burning. 


The last line of Ferdinand is, "And for all I know he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly. He is very happy."


Today I will remember to be quiet and sit still for a moment to smell Christmas in my house.

Hearing a Lesson from a Night Owl

Early bird or night owl? There are two clubs and most people only belong to one. I am in the latter. Last night after the kids were in bed, Chris was downstairs on the computer working on a project, I was upstairs in our room wrapping presents by myself. I popped in a movie, The Family Man, a modern version of It's a Wonderful Life and then wrapped and wrapped and wrapped. It's the last week before Christmas and like everyone else, I have a busy schedule.


Monday: buy those last few things and finish the wrapping
Tuesday: prep crafts and activities for two class parties
Wednesday: two class parties and Chris' birthday
Thursday: laundry, clean and pack the car for New York
Friday: The Drive...and that Christmas song is wrong, you know, "From Atlantic to Pacific, gee, the traffic is terrific." It never is! But that's what we do...we go home for the holidays.


But last night when the movie ended (it was 12:36am) my room was quiet. I was still finishing up a few things, writing my "to-do" list for today and then I heard it...an owl. I've heard him before but not for a few months. I read that owls are one of the earliest birds to mate. They mate in January and February and so you might hear them hooing to each other in December looking for their mate. It's such a lonely sound and yet comforting to know that there was someone up with me.

Not only is the owl's heightened senses enable it to see well at night but its hearing is even better than its sight. They are patient, quiet observers. They also are one of the most adaptable birds to their environment. They can be found all over North America, in cold climates as well as warm climates and they can be found in forests, suburban areas, as well as city parks. They are also very protective parents. Words such as knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, intuition, mystery, independent, protection, and bravery are all words associated with the owl.

I want to be like an owl. I want to use my senses to be a patient, quiet observer. I will adapt to what comes my way and protect the ones I love.

Messy Glory!

Yesterday was my day I volunteered in Molly's class. I am one of the room moms and next week we will be having our holiday party. I was trying to think of a craft for the class to do and I came across these snowmen from another mom that used to be a teacher. She and I used to teach second grade together many years ago. I love that the snowmen are looking up to the sky as if to see if it's going to snow or thankful for the snow that is falling.

But then I thought, wouldn't it be nice to get the kids into the picture with the snowman. So yesterday during their recess time, I went out with my camera, told the kids to look up to the sky and ask, "Will it snow?" They really enjoyed it...hands outstretched, faces to the sky, and some of them screaming the question, "WILL IT SNOW?!?"

After taking all the pictures of the class, I started looking at them. They seemed familiar to me. I've seen pictures with arms outstretched before. I started looking through my pictures and there they were...my little Miss Molly.

Arms outstretched to pop bubbles...

Arms outstretched to dance...

Arms outstretched just for fun...

Arms outstretched for balance...

Arms outstretched to welcome others...

(one of my boys) 
Arms outstretched for holding on and knowing that you are close by...

Arms outstretched to say "we are here"...

Arms outstretched as if to say...Isn't this awesome? Isn't this beautiful? I am so thankful to be here!


In the children's book Each Little Bird That Sings, Uncle Edisto tells Comfort to:


 "Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart with all its messy glory!"


 Messy Glory!!! Hmmm...reminds me a little of Happy Chaos.


Today I will open my arms to life!  For fun, for dance, for balance, for welcoming someone, for holding on or just to say, "Isn't this awesome!"