-
Feral
06.30.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on FeralOur son is so tender, so sweet, and SO UNPREDICTABLE! Each summer (and weekend) morning has begun the same so far. I wake up about 15 minutes before Jude does. I’ll hear him pad down the hallway and he opens our door slllooowwly. Soon I’ll see the top of his little head peeping around the corner, followed by his body as he makes his way closer to the bed, studying my face. It’s funny to watch him do this. He can’t see me, though my eyes are adjusted to our dim morning room, his are not. He is blind to me, not seeing if my eyes are open and shut. He has this mixture of fear (like I’ll leap out at him or something), curiosity, tentativeness and hope. Hope that I’ll be awake and he can snuggle up with me.
If I am not awake, he stares at me, inches from my face, breathing that little snuffly 4-year-old morning breathy sound until I open my eyes. He always jumps when I do. When he finds me awake, I open the covers and he crawls under. Sometimes we will lay quietly like this for some time, sharing kisses and nose-ies and our most recent dreams. Other times he is ready for the day and a quick kiss is all he needs before he heads back to his room to play while I get to doze.
Then there are the great times. The fun times. The times we all wake up together, open the window to welcome the sun to our day.
Sunlight streams in and Gigi hears us and comes in and all four of us, all the people I care about, everything that matters in my world is in that one place, in my bed. We giggle, tickle, laugh and roll, and eventually things get wild.
We laugh and wrestle, whack one another with pillows, aggressively tickle, play bite and simply GO FERAL, go wild, go nuts. And that is exactly what is happening in this picture series. I love summer mornings with my feral babies!
-
Strawberries
When I was a little girl, each June, shortly after school was out, My mom would amp us up for a trip to Biringer Farm. Biringer Farm was our local, u-pick strawberry field. When I say Biringer Farm, I’ll bet you anything anyone from my generation or right around it who grew up in Marysville can conjure up memories of that place. In the 70’s and 80’s, it was the place that kids 13 and up could find a summer job.
Both of my brothers worked the fields day after day, riding their bikes to work to collect their $1.00 per flat, or whatever the going rate was. Me? I waited until I was 19 to work the fields. I had the good fortune of being a row boss and worked with the migrant workers who came from miles and miles around to earn $1.50 per flat. By that time, child labor laws had made it hard for the younger kids to work the fields, and those who did show up were quickly discouraged by the small pay, long hours and they would pick 2-3 flats before they would take their half a day earnings of $7.00 or so and hit the DQ on the way home.
But I digress. When I was a really little girl my mom would rally us to the fields, each with a flat and a basket in our hands. We would pick the strawberries doggedly – for about ten minutes. Then the whining would start, “Are we done yet? Can we go? How many berries do we NEED?!” My mom would patiently answer our questions and continue picking as quickly as she could before WE started picking at one another.
She brought drinks and sandwiches and invented games for us to play. We were surly, I am sure, and drank our drinks and ate our sandwiches while whining, I am certain. My poor mom! Finally she would determine that we had enough. We would load our many many flats of berries – I think she usually picked 5-6 flats or so – and we would hop back onto the trolley and to the barn to pay. Upon arriving home my mom would become a whirling dervish, processing strawberries for jam, for shortcake and for freezing whole. We were strawberry supplied for the entire year, thanks to my mom’s forethought.
It occurred to me recently that I have never given my own kids the opportunity to visit a farm in the summer. We usually do the fall/pumpkin/corn thing, but had never visited a working farm. Given my own background, it seemed shameful that we had never been to one and we made a goal to pick some berries this summer. Yesterday, we met that goal!
Gigi loved the farm. Upon stepping out of the car she started talking about the wide open spaces, the clean air, and even the manure smelled clean! She was so cute. She has been reading the Little House books again and I can hear Laura’s words coming out of her mouth.It makes me love her even more, if that is possible.
Jude, for his part, took after me. He spent a good 3-4 minutes picking berries and then it devolved into being an army guy (a hut-hut, as he calls them) and he was protecting us, I believe. Whatever it was, it wasn’t picking berries!
Unlike my mom, our goal was not to be terribly industrious, rather to experience what a farm is, to see where food comes from. Gigi wanted shortcake and a batch of jam, so we made that our goal and picked until we felt like we had enough.
We met our goals,with the shortcake and the jamand the yum yum yum, but the very best was Gigi proclaiming at the end of the day that this was THE BEST DAY OF SUMMER EVER! Three days in and she has said that every day. I think that is an even better goal to have met!
-
Bittersweet
Yesterday marked the last day of the 2011-2012 school year for Gigi and me. The end of the year is always bittersweet for me. While I look forward to the end, to the chance to be with my family in the summer sun for two solid months, I also have a hard time saying goodbye to the year. This year was a difficult one for me. There was a perfect storm that when it swirled it left me shaking like a leaf, swirling higher and settling over and over, but never long enough to actually find a rhythm, to catch my breath. Finally, I was able to let some things go towards the end of the year and found myself connecting deeply to my students and finding support in my relationships. So while I am glad that another year can be tallied on the chalkboard, I am going to miss these people I love so much.
This year’s ending was compounded by a few key people at my school leaving. Our librarian has the driest wit, who can see things in our staff that the rest of us are blind to, whose library I stopped walking through because I enjoyed talking with him so much that I wouldn’t leave until my planning time was over, he retired. I’m going to miss him terribly. Our staff psychologist, the one who was not only there for many students in times of need but also was there for me, who is one of the biggest child advocates who I have ever met, who reminds me more of Mr. Rogers than anyone in the world, she retired too. My partner in crime for MSP testing left the building, and a dear colleague of mine is transferring to another school. She is that person who, when she chooses to share her thinking at staff meetings, makes me sit up and listen. She’s that person who, if it was one of the rare times she chose to share her thinking, it was probably going to be something that I wanted to hear. I’ll miss her, I’ll miss them all. I’ll miss my kids. I had a special group, and I know I say that every year, but we got really close again and every year it kills me to say goodbye to them all. Especially the ones who are moving away. I had an intern all year long and boy, did we ever become close.  She was reliable as a friend and colleague…
Perhaps the most difficult to bear this year is that I drove my daughter to and from the school we shared for the last time yesterday. Next year she will go to our neighborhood school while I continue to teach at Hilltop. It shouldn’t seem like a big deal. Most people don’t get to work where their family spends their days, but every day we had our little touch points. Sometimes it was hard to get there on time, but almost every day I got to hold her hand as I walked her into the building and to her line where I would kiss her before I left her. Each first and last recess, for most of the year, she would bring her pals into my room where I got to watch her being a little girl with her friends. I learned who they admired, about their games, their interactions and I learned who my daughter is as a friend (she’s a good one, if you were wondering). At lunch we would cross paths for a quick smootch as I was walking my students into the gym and she was headed to recess and at the end of the day she would come to me and hold my hand as my students left with their families, then it was just the two of us in my classroom. She would do homework, I would get some stuff done, then we would leave, hand in hand, to see our boys. I tried to treasure that time enough but, my goodness, I am going to miss that girl. There were times I needed a hug from someone I loved and she was there. And it was wonderful to see her onstage for every little thing, to hear the stories about her from my colleagues, to capture a glimpse of her schoolwork adorning the halls, and spy her long tresses here, there and everywhere.  Oh my, I am going to miss her. Terribly. It makes my heart ache with sadness. And I second guess, over and over, if we are doing the right thing by taking this little, short window of magic where we can share a school away from my daughter and me.
So that’s the bitter.
Here’s the sweet.
I’ll start with my Gigi. Friendship is really hard for little kids these days. I remember when a new little boy moved in across the street when I was about five. I hollered, “HI!” He hollered back at me, “HI!” We did that back and forth a few times, learning names and other basics before my dad told me to scram and get over there already, to stop hollering. Friendship was born and I still keep tabs on that kid. I think he’s a doctor now. Or a cop. Anyhow, the point is that it was simple and easy. Friendship for children does not work that way anymore. My generation rebelled against the latch key nature of our upbringing in wild neighborhoods where kids ruled and roamed free by becoming helicopter parents who need clear beginning and end times to playdates and who want to hang out and chat while the kids play. Kids don’t roam the streets anymore. If they are outside, it is with a parent on a planned activity or securely behind a fence. We can’t meet kids in our area so she is isolated here. It is also hard for people to drive 20 minutes to our house from Hilltop versus having friends who live closer. Economy of fuel, money and time keep a lot of kids away, and people don’t invite her over very often. She’s lonely and wants to play with someone besides her 4 year old brother. Who can blame her? So we arrived at this decision together, to go to a school where she can make local friends. In the future, her transition to middle school will be easier with a support group that she can, hopefully, build with her peers at this school. In another year, Jude will go to the same school, Bradley can walk them to and from AND volunteer easily. It all makes so much sense. And it will get easier over time.
My passion is returning. It’s funny to think that the house, this wonderful place, built with so much love and care by my husband, grounded in generations of family heritage, this house could have thrown us into such a tailspin. At first we thought recovering from building the house meant recovering from physical injuries that Bradley sustained during the process. Certainly, that has been an ongoing part, but what has been truly significant is coming to terms with who we are as a couple, as the Lj’s. Planning and building the house while raising a young family, working and doing the boards was a lot to take on and it took its toll. I won’t go into details, but Bradley and I had to reconnect, and when we found one another again it became an intense and deep connection. We often refer to how we love and have always been gushy for one another, I know, but it amazes us how we continue to find ways to love more. And we have. As we continue to wake from this coma we’ve been in, I am re-engaging with my family as a mom in a beautiful way again, I am doing all my artsy craftsy stuff again, I’m writing, organizing AND BECOMING PASSIONATE ABOUT TEACHING AGAIN. I’ve been passionate, but I am re-engaging again in that initial crush, like OMG-must-look-at-pinterest-for-more-awesome-teaching-ideas-LOVE-IT… Yeah, I’m one of THOSE teachers right now. To be clear, though, my inner dialogue does not sound like a valley girl. I just left one year behind but am already planning my next one. Right now, I am excited about it and I am letting myself be a whirling dervish of education excitement. And pinning on pinterest does make me feel like I’m doing something. Ha ha! But still, I’m having fun with my work in a way that I haven’t in a little while. It feels GOOD.
While I had to say goodbye to my colleagues, there was a benefit to me, personally, when my friend left her grade level: it opened an opportunity for me to work on a grade level team with people I have admired for years. I’m terribly excited about the work we will get to do together and the relationships I get to build with them. For years I said I wanted to work with the third grade team, I taught splits to facilitate an ongoing colleague relationship with these amazing teachers, and now I get to do it for real! While I didn’t leave my school, I do feel like I am getting a fresh start. I have a new team, a new classroom and semi-new grade level, I also have the comfort of a familar staff, it’s the same building and the biggest bonus is that I’ll be working with Gigi’s cohort, so they are kids I know. I’m tremendously excited!
And then, it is summer. People can complain about the weather all they want.  Yeah, I’d like to see the sun too. That would be ideal. But for me, it all boils down to spending time with the three best people in the world, rain or shine, indoors or out, wet or dry. That is the sweetest of all.
-
Nice View
Our babies were poolside last night. This was the view from the upstairs window. What sweet little nymphs…Â
Life is GOOD!
-
Popsicles
06.20.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Popsicles
Jude and I met up with Tamara’s class at the park for their field trip today. There was lots of fun stuff going on. I got to help do face painting with Tamara, there was a water balloon fight that culminated with Tamara getting slooshed in the head with a big, juicy water balloon, and there were popsicles. When Jude got his big, blue, two-stick popsicle he was so excited. He turned to me and said, “It has two sticks daddy, so I can share my blue popsicle with you!”
I actually didn’t want a popsicle and almost, ALMOST, said, “no thanks”. But then my daddy brain kicked back in and I realized that my boy’s first instinct wasn’t to horde his popsicle, my boy’s first instinct was to share this great, neon confection. So I dove in and enjoyed my half of the syrupy blue icy-ness for all it was worth.
Jude, may you always share, may you always think of others, and may that instinct bring you happiness and bring happiness to those who orbit you. Thank you for the blue popsicle; it was so good.
