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Month: January 2013

There and Back Again

Thursday 31 January 2013

K and the Boy have returned from two weeks in Poland. We spoke on the phone, we video chatted via Skype, but the simple fact was they were there while the Girl and I were here.

And yet we look through the pictures K took and it’s just as if we went there: the familiar visits; the time spent around the kitchen table; the walks in the fields around K’s folks’ house; the pictures at the small chapel on the way to the river; breakfast with the sun streaming through the window; the silly play on the kitchen floor.

We weren’t there, but we can see the whole story in a handful of pictures.

Final Night

Wednesday 30 January 2013

One last night without K and the Boy, which means one last morning without K and the Boy. While L and I missed them terribly, a lot of good came from our single-parent experience. With a little extra work and planning in the evening, the morning ritual has been cut substantially. Having to do double duty in the evening mean pushing some tasks onto the Girl, so she can now complete the evening bath project, from drawing the water to dressing, without any help from an adult. Life in generally has just grown a bit more streamlined — at least the redundant, daily things that we tend to push through to get to the more interesting stuff. And yet we’ve also re-discovered that those redundant, daily things that we tend to push through can be the interesting stuff: the eternally relearned lesson.

A Day in the Life

Tuesday 29 January 2013

Chalk dust is a thing of the past, as are dry erase markers. Today, I’m more likely to be frustrated with some technological glitch rather than dry skin from chalk dusk or headaches from whiteboard cleaner. The advantages, of course, vastly outweigh the disadvantages.

Of all the high, sophisticated advantages, there are some more simple, basic boosts to productivity.

For example, I can save every single thing we put on the board. Which I’m sure can be somewhat overwhelming to some students.

Reasons

Monday 28 January 2013

It’s that time of year: Romeo and Juliet with the kids in the two sections of high school English I have the privilege of teaching. We’ve finished the second act, and today students took the act quiz. One element of the quiz is the quote identification.

“It’s not a question of memory,” I told them when I introduced the idea at the beginning of the unit. “It’s a matter of logic. I choose quotes that you can logically piece together and determine who said it.

They generally have done well, and this year’s group is no exception. Still, there are some who surprise me. For example, one quote from today’s quiz was Romeo’s response to Juliet about how he got there: “With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls; / For stony limits cannot hold love out[.]” One student explained it thus:

You know this is Romeo because he is the one who climbed over the Capulet’s wall to go to Juliet’s balcony. He is also the fatalist, so he would be the one that would do anything to see Juliet, even risking being caught or injury.

Another passage: “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

The person that said this line had to have been Romeo because when he says this about Mercutio, it’s directly after hearing him tease Romeo about his personality. He is justifying that Mercutio is saying these things because he does not know what it feels like. Mercutio would be the one to joke about Romeo’s love because he is the “joker”. Romeo is just testifying against what he says with an excuse for the reason Mercutio says this.

And just a few weeks ago, they claimed the could never understand the Bard.

Counting

Sunday 27 January 2013

A Sunday morning apart: the Boy and K in Poland, the Girl and I in the States, linked by technology that makes the distance literally disappear. We talk about developments here; we talk about developments there. L and I miss them terribly; everyone’s falling in love with E’s constantly joyful demeanor. We suffer a little bit that others might enjoy what we are tempted to take for granted. It’s more than one thing to be thankful for.

At Mass, I find myself thinking of the communal nature of Catholicism as expressed in the opening lines of the Confiteor:

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti,
et vobis fratres,
quia peccavi nimis
cogitatione, verbo,
opere et omissione:
mea culpa, mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.

It is those first two lines that get me thinking: “I confess to Almighty God / and to you, my brothers and sisters.” Sin in Catholicism is a public issue, a community issue: we sin against each other as often — if not more — as we sin against God. Indeed, sinning against each other is sinning against God: there’s really little difference in a sense. Yesterday, while L was packing up her things from her friend’s house where she spent the afternoon, the friend’s father confided in me that L said to him that I’d been fairly grumpy lately. “He’s had a lot of stress,” our friend explained to our daughter. “Grumpy” might be a euphemism for sinning cogitatione, verbo, opere et omissione.” “In thought and in word, in what I have done and what I have failed to do.” It is true: lots of stress in life of late, much of it left unmentioned here. Still, no excuse. And so I have another thing to be thankful for: a daughter who can talk comfortably with a friend’s father, and a friend who will tell me what she said.

After Mass, lunch. There’s really no question what to cook. L has several foods she adores: Ukranian barszcz is her absolute favorite, but that’s something for K to prepare. I cook shrimp, marinated in a bit of soy sauce and garlic, sauted in butter. It makes her day.

“Cook it like this every time!” she says.

“I do,” I laugh in return.

I steam some broccoli, lightly sauteing it in butter afterward to add a bit of creaminess to the flavor, and even though L swears she doesn’t really like it, she eats seven or eight spears. It’s probably not the broccoli that does it, though. Most likely, it’s the “Yum” game. It’s as simple as it sounds, but it gets her eating broccoli. It doesn’t really work with other food, though. Still, she eats broccoli. Another thing to be grateful about.

After lunch, we play a little while — tickling, the Bear Game, and a handful of other improvisations that have morphed into regular “games.” After a while, I head to the computer to do some preparatory work for tomorrow’s school day as she watches a couple of episodes of Martha Speaks.

We consider a bike ride, but since it’s in the low forties, a walk in the park seems more sensible. Besides, there are always the physical challenges along the jogging/walking path to entertain us. One exceptionally long monkey bar set up proves overly challenging. She tries to make it through the whole course, but drops halfway through. “I’ll try it next time,” she says as she starts walking down the path. Then she stops, turns around, and says firmly, “No. I’m not giving up.” Tenacity in one’s child: the count increases yet again.

A little further down the path, a bit of love-struck vandalism.

“My?” the Girl asks. I explain they are initials.

“Like ‘Michael Young.’ Yours would be ‘LS.'”

“No,” she corrects me. “LMS. That’s just ‘my.'” She can read and make some sense of the world of writing surrounding her. More thanks.

We continue along the path to the fenced dog run that has a sculpture by the entrance titled “High Four.” The Girl reads the sign, gives the dog a high four/five, then climbs him.

“Under the picture,” she says as she settles into a comfortable seated position, “Write ‘climbed up alone by herself.'” As we walk away, she suggests an addendum: “climbed down alone.” Pride in accomplishments — it’s a day of thanks.

Further down the path, a boulder. She virtually leaps on it though it’s stomach high, and then noticing its shape, crouches down, growls, and proclaims, “The Lion King!” A child with an astounding memory and great imagination. It’s almost to the point that I need not count anymore: I’ve had enough to be thankful this one day to last me the rest of the week.

Just down from the boulder, L watches as a young man goofs on the parallel bars, then tries them herself. She’s unable to do the arm bends he did (twenty of them — his girlfriend stood by counting), but she figures out something else to do. Ingenuity. That’s what, a thousand things today that remind me how much I have to be grateful for?

Across the path is an inclined sit up station. She strains and manages to do one sit up. Yet I know what she’s had on her mind this whole time: the massive playground that we walked through in order to get to the walking path.

“After our walk, if you do a good job and you’re not fussy, we can spend some time in this playground.” Nary a peep, not a single “When can we go back to the playground?!” Could she be finally learning the benefits of delayed gratification? It would be too much to ask for. I’ll take with joy this small advance.

Nose and Stone

Saturday 26 January 2013

“You really don’t have to,” says Kinga often enough when I trudge upstairs to keep my little posting streak going. I think I’m on month four of daily posts, and I really sometimes think it’s not worth it. What’s the point? But then I think, I can always cheat.

Hidden Skills

Friday 25 January 2013

“Teachers, please check your email now. Again, teachers, please check your email now.” With the weather forecast that students had been bouncing around among themselves before school started — snow, sleet, blizzard, nothing, depending on the individual student’s optimism — it seemed obvious what the email would tell us. Sure enough: “School will be dismissed early today. Will let you know more details later.”

I finished reading and, turning around, met a chorus of pleas: “What did it say?!” “Tell us!” “Are we getting out early!?” I just smiled and continued with where I’d been in the lesson.

“Come on!!” was the only response I got.

Still, I pressed on. We were working on using transition words as markers in an argument. “Even if” was our phrase of the moment, and I smiled and gave as an example, “Even if we have early dismissal today, it won’t affect our first period class.”

Still later, a trickle of announcements begins interrupting our work: “Jane Doe, please come to the office for early dismissal.” “Michael Smith, please come to the office. You have an early dismissal.”

It seemed obvious by now, but still, I said nothing.

Finally, though, the clincher: “Those students who borrowed a belt from Mrs. Thomas, please return them now.” With a mandatory belt a part of our school’s dress code, Mrs. Thomas has taken to lending belts to students who arrive without in an effort to help them avoid the inconvenient consequences. But that’s not what the students heard. They heard, “We’re getting an early dismissal.”

It was a teachable moment I couldn’t pass up. Recalling a student’s comment earlier in the year about how she never infers as part of her day, I asked the class, “Since you all now think you’re getting an early dismissal, would you mind telling me what skill you’re employing to reach that conclusion?”

Miss I-Never-Infer-And-Likely-Was-Only-Trying-To-Be-Contrary said, “We inferred!”

We went through the observations we’d made in order to make that inference:

“You got that email. No one ever makes an announcement for teachers to check their email!”
“You used that ‘Even if’ example!”
“We’ve been having half the school called to the front for early dismissal.”
“Everyone only has to take their belts back to Mrs. Thomas. You only have to do that at the end of the day.”

I agreed to each one, probing a bit further to get them to express their reasoning a little more fully. Finally, I asked, “What about the most obvious piece of evidence?”

Seemingly all hands in the room pointed to the window. “The weather!”

Only one thing to do — put a bow on it: “So don’t tell me you don’t infer endlessly on a daily basis.”

Overheard

Thursday 24 January 2013

Overheard, after passing out report cards:

“My parents don’t care what I get, as long as I pass. Sometimes, when I brought home an F, my dad would yell at me. But I yell back. He knows better. He sometimes forgets, but I yell back, and he backs off.”

Empathy

Wednesday 23 January 2013

The questions for the anticipation guide were seemingly straightforward. One would think that responses — “Do you agree or disagree and why?” — to these questions would be somewhat predictable.

Sometimes, it’s better to remain ignorant about certain things.
It’s fair to treat people differently based on their intelligence.
It is better to be smart and lonely than unintelligent and happy.
Our relationships with other people, not our achievements, are what fulfill us.
It is better to accept your fate than to try to change it.
It is important to have empathy for others.

Granted, for question one, adolescents might not necessarily have learned the beauty of ignorance. It seems unlikely that any adult would disagree with the statement, and in fact, a slight majority of the students agreed this afternoon.

Question two is a bit tricky: most kids think of it as a question of politeness and manners. I’m almost always the only person indicating agreement with the statement. When I explain about differentiation and remind them of special education services, most students understand where I’m coming from and smile at how I “tricked” them.

Question three is fluff. It gets conversation going, but there’s really no expected response for what I (and I hope others) would consider a well-adjusted, emotionally healthy individual.

Question four hints at the shallowness of materialism. Students seem split on the issue, but for eighth graders, one might expect that.

Question five is an interesting question for my students because so many of them — particularly those who struggle in school — are completely fatalistic. Perhaps they don’t see that in themselves, though, because many disagree with this statement.

Question six, though, seems almost painfully predictable in a room of well-adjusted, emotionally healthy individuals. The inability to feel empathy, after all, is one of the most horrifying aspects of sociopaths and one of the most tragic facets of autism.

So when a young man looked at me this afternoon with an expression of disgust and almost anger when I asked him why he didn’t think empathy is important, why he disagreed when almost everyone else agreed, why he seemed put off by the fact that I was unable to hide my surprise at his response, it left me briefly speechless.

“You mean don’t think it’s important to try to understand the lives of those less fortunate than you?” I asked after a moment.

“I never thought about it,” came the flippant response.

“And now that you’ve thought about it?” I continued.

He shrugged and glared.

My Tongue Twister

Tuesday 22 January 2013

Do icy icicles ice on icy icicles? Icy icicles ice on icicles.

I like this because it’s winterish, and now it’s winter.

This isn’t the perfect winter, though. My perfect winter is snowy. Poland snow! That means it’s higher than a horse.

I saw snow that deep on Curious George. They were at their country house. And it started snowing and they didn’t know. But then, the snow was higher than their house and came into their house. So then the Man with the Yellow Hat had to clean it up. I wish I had that much snow I could play in the snow and make a snow angel and eat snow. I once did eat snow. It was freezing cold and white. I spit half of it out.

This is the first of probably many posts by the Girl. She tells me what to write; I write. — gls

Eyes

Monday 21 January 2013

They’re supposed to be the window to our souls, and I find that the more problems a kid in my school might have with social and basic academic skills, the less likely the kid is to look in a person the eyes when speaking to anyone, especially an authority figure. There must be some truth to it, then. Consider also how we often keep them shut to block a slice of reality that is just too difficult to accept.

Sometimes, though, someone or something else closes our eyes. In that case, it can rarely be positive. But it can certainly be positive when these same eyes open, just a bit. Do a Google image search: “eyes slightly open” and you’ll find picture after picture of people lying in hospital beds, various tubes and apparatuses trailing away from the body.

And it makes sense: those are the times when a slightly opened eye is the most beautiful thing one can imagine.

Counting Fears

Sunday 20 January 2013

It all began with a Magic School Bus episode. Yes, that’s right: an episode of the Magic School Bus terrified the Girl at the end.

“There was a ghost!” she explained frantically. “You couldn’t see it. It was a ghost on the telephone but you couldn’t see it. You could just here the voice.” She collapsed into my arms. “I was scared!”

Afterward, she was terrified to be alone. And to go upstairs alone while I was downstairs — out of the question.

We’ve been through this countless times. I take her around the house; we look in each room and confirm that there’s nothing — nothing — to be afraid of. This time, I took a different, slightly sarcastic approach. We walked around the house, and suddenly I shrieked in terror.

“Don’t go in there! Do not go in there! There’s a, a bed in there!” I turned around, then more horror. “Oh no! It’s a door knob!” I pivoted and fell to my knees. “Oh! Oh! Another door knob! They’re everywhere, and they’re terrifying!”

Then I stopped and looked at L. “It’s terrifying, isn’t it?” A slight smile was on her face.

“No. It’s a door knob.”

I stood up, and we went from room to room — the same game, again and again.

“Oh no! A towel!” and I ran out of the bathroom. Soon, she was positively giggling.

“And so what in the world is there to be afraid of? Isn’t it a bit silly?” I asked.

“No, you’re silly!”

One fear down, one to go.

This one has pleasure on the other side — what kid doesn’t love riding a bike?

Despite a few setbacks, it didn’t take too long to regain her bike balance.

Saturday Duet

Saturday 19 January 2013

“We’ll talk to Mama tomorrow on Skype,” I said to a sniffling L yesterday when we came back home.

Of course, once we get Skype loaded and everyone in their places, the silliness among cousins begins and K and I leave them to their devices.

“Let me show you something!” L shouts.

“Let me show you something!”

“The Boy is awake,” says Babcia. “Let me show you all something.”

But with just the two of us in the house, we’re soon off to work, the computer shut down, the dusters and brooms out.

“You clean your room. I’ll get the bathrooms,” I tell L. “From there, we’ll see where we stand.”

“When I finish, I’ll tell you,” she says. After some time, she comes: “I’m finished. Can you make sure I did everything?”

Her work tables are clean; her bed is made; the clothes on her floor have disappeared.

Such work deserves a reward: homemade pizza.

Which, it turns out, was only fun to make.

The Games We Play

Friday 18 January 2013

The surest way to get the Girl to do something she’s reluctant to do? Turn it into a game.

Say you’re on the third floor of a building. (Which would be the second floor in Poland — the ground floor doesn’t count I guess.) Say you’re not keen on using the elevator because it’s so painfully slow. Say the Girl complains about being tired. How do you get her to go along with your scheme to use the stairs?

Simple. Turn it into a race.

It helps if Nana is there to be the opponent, of course.

Departure

Thursday 17 January 2013

The house feels empty: the Girl, asleep in the other room; K and the Boy, somewhere over the Atlantic. It’s an odd feeling, this quiet, not entirely unwelcome after the stressful departure. Rain, rain, and more rain, and a delayed departure from Munich which meant a delayed arrival in then departure from Charlotte. And then there’s the question of further delays from Munich to Krakow. So it’s been a fairly up-and-down evening.

When the Girl discovered the up escalator paired with “stairs that don’t move,” the up-and-down became literal. It was a good distraction: the Boy was hungry and the Girl was fidgety.

Everyone else was, too. Especially in this part of the airport — baggage claim. It’s the worst part of any journey, especially the return home. All you want to do is get back to your own comfortable and known reality and you’re waiting with dozens more people for the worst carousel in the world to do its job.

After some slightly stressful difficulties at passport control, K and the Boy disappeared into the labyrinth of departure gates as L and I walked away, with one of us shedding enormous tears and the other only worried about the journey home and how long the wait for the shuttle bus to the parking — Douglas airport is adding parking garages, which ironically makes for nightmarish parking — will take.

A slow tearful return ends with the Girl in bed while I put off shuffling to an empty bed for as long as I can.

Departures stink.

Packing

Wednesday 16 January 2013

Packing is seldom fun. It should be an event filled with great anticipation, but the stress of forgetting something usually ruins that.

K is getting ready for a trip to Polska, leaving tomorrow. I tell her, “Except for the moonshine, there is nothing you’re taking that can’t be replaced in Poland should you lose it or forget it.” And as for the shine — bought in a liquor store with an official seal, it can hardly be called shine, so even losing that’s no big loss.

“How I dislike packing,” she says. “How I used to like packing when I was younger. It was a sign of adventure. Now, it’s just trouble.”

Instant Smile

Tuesday 15 January 2013

It’s hard to get a candid shot with the Boy. He’s turned into a true poser: any time he sees the camera out, the smile emerges. The hands start waving. The squealing begins.

Friends and Siblings

Monday 14 January 2013

Of late, the Girl really enjoys playing with the Boy. Not pestering him; not hanging on him; not kissing him mercilessly. Playing with him. Granted, she still does all those things: she gets a little carried away with her affection. (But then, who doesn’t?) Still, there’s been more developmental play of late, trying to get the Boy to do this or that. More gently some days than others, but still. Improvement is improvement.

40

Sunday 13 January 2013

Four thoughts, one for each decade:

The Banner

There was a banner across the entrance to the house when my mother’s cousin turned forty. “Lordy! Lordy! C’s forty!” It seemed to be such a big deal, her turning forty. She was aghast, horrified. Or at least she pretended to be.

I was more curious about the banner they might hang the next decade: the only thing I could think of to rhyme with “fifty” was “nifty.”

U2’s “40”

Thirty

When I turned thirty, I had a party. Not a lot of people; not a lot of food; not a lot of anything except dancing and the other thing that goes along with Polish parties.

It was a fun and funny night, with my best friends and my then-girlfriend, now-wife.

Being Forty

Doesn’t feel like being thirty-nine. Or twenty-nine. But who would have thought it would? Or should?

Morning Sky

Saturday 12 January 2013

Some mornings, you’re lucky. You wake up. You wake up and see the sky. You wake up and see the sky filled with clouds. You wake up and see the sky filled with clouds and hear the rain.

And in spite of all the gray, you’re happy.

And then you realize you can trick yourself into doing it every morning.

And then you realize it’s not a trick.

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Matching Tracksuits

There and Back Again

Final Night

A Day in the Life

Reasons

Counting

Nose and Stone

Hidden Skills

Overheard

Empathy

My Tongue Twister

Eyes

Counting Fears

Saturday Duet

The Games We Play

Departure

Packing

Instant Smile

Friends and Siblings

40

The Banner

U2’s “40”

Thirty

Being Forty

Morning Sky

Time Machine

Calendar

Trips to Poland

Random Posts

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