The Gift That Keeps on Giving (and Giving...)

See the veritable jungle planted here in my morning room? Now, look closely... 

Do you see the blue pot up there on the kitchen table, the one with a lighter blue stripe toward the top edge?  THAT is the spider plant from which all the others pictured here have sprung.  (Yes, even the teensie-weensie one perched on the stool in the bottom left corner.)  And, as you can see, the offspring are just as fertile as the original.  

I started thinking about these guys when I visited Michelle's My Semblance of Sanity blog the other day, and she mentioned in her post a plant she received as a gift - a sort of family heirloom type deal.  The problem is, she just can't seem to keep it healthy, and was looking for advice for what to do with it.

Well, that original spider plant up there was a gift from my mother-in-law.  I can't remember anymore if she was my actual mother-in-law at that point, or if she was still just "my boyfriend's mother." Either way, I've had that plant longer than I've had my kids, and almost as long as I've had my husband.  

When she gave it to me, it wasn't doing too terribly well.  It was a bit brown, and in need of a larger pot.  I think I remember her saying something along the lines of, "Here. You like plants. Maybe you can do something with this."  So, I took it home, gave it a new pot and new soil, watered it, and waited.

It turns out you don't have to do much to keep spider plants alive. Mine have lived through weeks of me forgetting to water them during the early months of new babies in the house.  They have survived toddlers who grabbed handfuls of dirt from their pots, then gleefully threw the nice black dirt all over Mommy's nice white carpet (not naming any names, but she is my first-born). They have survived other toddlers who have skipped the digging part altogether, opting instead to simply pull the pots off their stands, and then play in the whole pile of dirt all at once (again, not naming names, but he is my second-born). They have traveled with me through four interstate moves, squeezed in the back of moving trucks and SUV's and pick-up trucks.  

Despite all of that chaos, and probably lots more that I don't even know about, they are not only still alive, but thriving. Like I told a neighbor I passed some off to - err, I mean, gave some as a gift to (hee hee! Hi, J!) - you can't kill these things, even if you wanted to.

Since I can't bear to just throw the babies out, and I can't keep them all, I end up rooting them in cups of water and trying to find homes for them.  Sometimes, my entire kitchen table (and parts of the floor) are literally covered by plastic cups crammed with spider babies.  I have kept a few, but I have given away maybe a hundred or more!

I gave some to my mom in a pot painted by her granddaughter. (No grandma is going to refuse a gift like that, right??)  I think I gave some to one of my grandmas a few years ago, too.  I gave some to my mom's best friend for her morning room.  I gave some to the very first movers we had.  I gave some to the kids' teachers (at Christmas AND end-of-the-year) for the last two years running.  I gave some to at least three sets of new neighbors as housewarming gifts.  Last summer, I planted about twenty bundles of them in plastic cups and pushed them on my mom's family.  Then, I took another 15 bundles or so and dropped them off on neighbor's porches before they got home from work - anonymously.  I even sent my kids, spider plants in hand, to neighbors who are always home, hoping they wouldn't say no to their sweet little faces...

And now, as you can see in the picture up there, I am bombarded with babies again.  So, who wants a nice spider plant?  Or two?  Or three?  I have to warn you, though, even their babies have babies. Lots and lots and lots of babies...

 

A Failure(?) to Communicate

My journey down the path of motherhood has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Things I never knew BK (Before Kids).  Like, I never knew that, on occasion, a mother's frustration with her kids can interfere with the speech her brain sends to her mouth.  I remember, as a kid, how funny it was to witness this phenomenon. Of course, now that the shoe is on the other foot, and it occasionally happens to me, it's not so funny.  But still, in this last installment of "A Few Words," the star of the show is my own mother. (Sorry, Mom, but even you thought this was funny... after a while!)  

Mom, my brother D and I took a family trip to the shore one summer when I was in high school, and my best friend, her sister, and their mother went with us.  We stayed for a week at a hotel fairly close to the beach.  We spent our days in the sand and surf, and our evenings out at dinner, walking the boardwalk, playing mini-golf or hanging in the hotel rooms.

One afternoon, though it was a perfect beach day - warm, sunny and breezy, we kids were still lazing on the beds, watching TV. Mom did her best to verbally dislodge us from our perches and get us outside, but it wasn't working.  Eventually, she started getting ready to go to the beach herself, and told us she was going with or without us, but even that failed to motivate us to turn off the tube.

Mom loudly went on with her preparations, trying to drown out the TV and force us to get moving, but D just kept turning up the volume.  Finally, she had reached her limit.  (As I wrote in Pride Goeth Before the Fall, our mother is no pushover, and she wasn't about to give in this time, either.)

Marching over to the TV, she angrily punched the power button. Then she turned and glowered at us as the show we were watching abruptly shrunk down to a tiny white dot in the center of the screen, then disappeared.  As if suddenly awoken from a trance, we sat up and launched a barrage of complaints: the show was almost over, and couldn't we watch 'til the end, and all other sorts of excuses to avoid actually going out into the fresh air and sun.

"That's it!" she shouted, cutting us off.  She then went on with a scathing lecture: something about the money she and my friend's mom spent to get us there, how lucky we were to be there in the first place, and a few other admonishments that I don't really remember.  

But then she came to her grand finale: "I DIDN'T PAY FOR A ROOM WITH A TV IN IT JUST SO YOU COULD WATCH IT!"

Everyone froze.  None of us dared look at each other.  Then someone snickered. That was followed by a muffled laugh.  Then a few giggles floated out into the room.   My friend's mom stood near the doorway, a hand covering her mouth. When I looked at my mom, her lips were pressed in a thin red line as she struggled to keep the corners from turning up.  Then her cheeks turned red, and her eyes watered as she looked down at her feet in one last desperate attempt to maintain composure.  

Finally, the tension was too much, and we all burst out laughing at once!  I remember D's laugh being the loudest as he stood up and repeated her quote in his best "mom" voice, shaking his finger and frowning at us in mock disapproval. By then we were all howling and wiping away tears.

Twenty minutes later, all six of us were traipsing off to the beach, still giggling as we chattered about Mom's outburst.  It may have cost her a bit of embarrassment, but she did still get all of our behinds up and out the door.  

Just like she wanted.  

We Don't Talk About...

Everyone has their pet peeves. This installment in the "A Few Words" series stars my husband, C.  His pet peeve is potty humor.  Lots of people have an aversion to this, and most of them are adults.  Unfortunately for C, I am not one of those adults.  I just never outgrew it, I guess.  And a few years ago, he had taken just about all he could take...

We were in the car, driving to our sweet girl's first-ever parent-teacher conference. Everyone was in a good mood, laughing and joking.  And then... it happened.  Our two-and-a-half-year-old son broke out the poop jokes.  (I can't imagine who he could have heard them from...)  

Anyway, C kept staring straight ahead as he drove, with a very disapproving set to his jaw.  The rest of us were in a fit of giggles.  Well, that just adds fuel to our little guy's flame, so he kept repeating the same two jokes at ever-increasing volume.  (His repertoire of potty humor wasn't too vast at that point.)  It kept getting funnier for the fact that he was not yet in preschool, so his versions were not exactly word for word.  The shenanigans finally devolved to the point where he just kept repeating the word "poop" over and over, which got him giggling at himself, which got his other two partners in crime giggling even harder.

The whole time, I was sneaking glances at a visibly frustrated C.  He was gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, and it wasn't because of traffic.  Finally, when we neared the school, he very calmly but in no uncertain terms suggested we calm down, as that kind of talk wasn't appropriate at the school.  

I wiped the tears from my eyes, struggled to stifle my laughter, and tried to put on my best "serious Mommy" face.

"OK," I said, peeking around to the backseat.  "Daddy's right.  We should save this for only at home, and just for fun."

"Right," said my relieved husband.

There was a short moment of calm as the snickers subsided.  Then...

"POO-OO-OOP!"  Our little man shouted with glee, then unleashed a slew of uncontrollable belly laughs.

That burst the dam all over again, and First-Ever Conference Girl and I dissolved into a new round of helpless giggles.

Well, that finally did it.  C slammed on the brakes in the middle of the parking lot, turned around, and fixed our boy with a piercing stare.  "We. Don't. Talk. About. Poop!"

Silence.

Our little guy returned his father's gaze.  His mouth screwed up in a funny little grimace.

Uh oh, I thought.  Here it comes...

Then, our son leaned forward, burst into a giant, face-consuming grin, and shouted out in a sing-song rhythm, "WE DON'T TALK ABOUT POOP!!!" 

Now, I know I should support my husband, since he is usually such a patient soul with this, but I just couldn't help it.  I was in hysterics, laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks!  I could barely breathe!  Of course, the kids followed my lead, and by then, C couldn't help but give up and join in.

We did eventually calm down, and took a minute or two as C parked the car to compose ourselves.  But it wasn't easy.  

To this day, every once in a while, one of us will smile craftily and say, "We don't talk about poop!" And not even C can keep a straight face.

Sound Effects

In this installment of "A Few Words," I'll share a short list of descriptions, courtesy of my little sweeties, from a few years back. You won't find many of these in the dictionary, but when you've only been on this Earth for a handful of years, ya gotta make do with what ya got!

dinosaurs and rocks - the sounds of a particularly wild thunderstorm.

krangle-ing - the sound of a stuffy nose sniffling.

I not!  I don't!!! - pretty self-explanatory...

Q/p/ - the sound effect of a dog licking your face, as in, "Mommy, the doggie qp'd me!"

poop snake - the product of a particularly successful trip to one's potty chair, usually uttered with a mixture of pride and surprise, as in, "Mommy, I made a poop snake!"

hangerber - a lunch selection, usually contained within a bun, and garnished with ketchup, mustard, and pickle.

stuckinere - something is stuck... in there.

Shove a cookie - misinterpretation of song lyrics from "I Like to Move It," from the "Madagascar" movie soundtrack.  The actual phrase from the song is: "jungle boogie."

pretty school - the school kids go to, before Kindergarten, when they're three and four years old.

Happy TO you - special emphasis on the "TO;" a birthday greeting.

pickle - a popsicle, of course.

fridge-a-lator - the kitchen appliance in which you keep perishable foods, and about which you wonder, does the light really go off when I shut the door?

Well, that's all I've got.  What "kid-isms" might you have to share?  Please leave them in the comments section...

And Now, a Few Words

Words are powerful.  Words can do lots of things.  But the one thing I like most about words is, they can make you laugh - especially when they're used in unorthodox ways.

I have lots of fodder here just from raising my two kiddos, and I have far too many stories to cram into one post.  So I'll do a little series, and let's see how far we can go with this. Please feel free to drop down to the comments link and leave your own stories about words used in funny ways - I'd love to hear what you have to tell!

Today, the star of the show is my daughter, when she was about five.  I was helping her get ready for bed one night, and had just pulled her jammies out of the drawer.  As she climbed into her soft, fleecy footies (still her favorite style of pj's to this day), she turned her little face to me and said, "After this, we have to pound me."

"What??"  

"We have to pound me, Mommy."  She stared at me as if I had dum-dum printed across my forehead in big capital letters.

As she shoved her arms in her sleeves, I zipped her up.  Looking into her big brown eyes, I said, "Pound you?  Honey, I don't think I understand what you want."

She slapped her arms down at her sides, exasperated.  "You know," she said, her eyes wide with frustration, "that thing in your room you stand on, to pound you."

I gazed at her stupidly.  That thing in your room that you... "Ohhhhh!"  I grinned.  "Sure, sweetie.  Let's go pound you."

Then we walked into my room, and she stepped up on the bathroom scale.  So we could "pound" her.

Raising Them Right...

"Hail to the Lion, Loyal and True!

     Hail Alma Mater, with your White and Blue,

 Penn State forever, Moulder of men (and women!),

        Fight for her honor, Fight, and Victory again."

- Chorus from The Nittany Lion, by James A. Leyden '14

It may not be "White and Blue," but it is proof positive that we are raising some true little Penn State fans...

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

I have only one sibling - my brother D.  We both have our own families now, and we live about 12 hours apart.  We get along great these days, and I love him to death.  But it wasn't always like this. Growing up, he used to call me "The Perfect Older Sister," (no compliment intended), and I always called him a pain in the... ahem.  Well.  Moving on...  

I'll tell you one of my favorite Little Brother Stories.  It's a scenario that has happened many times before in one form or another to lots of people.  But when the star of the show is your own little brother caught in his own net, it's just too deliciously funny not to share.

It was somewhere around the late 1970's, and D and I were elementary school age.  We were out shopping with our mom at the local department store.  (It was called Hill's, but I think it's out of business, now.)  As Mom weaved in and out of aisles with her shopping cart, finding what she needed, D and I were "helpfully" bickering about nothing important, though it certainly felt all-important at the time.

As Mom rounded another aisle, D and I lagged behind, and the arguing escalated.

"I can get anything I want from Mom," D boasted, once she was out of sight.

"No you can't," I said.  "She won't just give you anything you want!"  Our mother was definitely no pushover by any stretch of the imagination.

He smirked and insisted that yes, indeed, he could get whatever he wanted, because he had a secret, no-fail weapon.  "I can make myself cry," he explained.  "If I do, she feels bad for me, and I get what I want."  He flashed me a self-satisfied smile.

Now, I had seen this crying thing in action before, but I didn't know he was making himself cry.  Being the self-righteous kid that I was, my speaking volume increased in direct proportion to my rising indignation that he had actually been getting away with this.

"You can't do that.  Nobody can make themselves cry," I insisted.  "You're lying!"  Then I spun around and stomped away, looking for Mom.

Understand, D did not like to be told - not back then, and certainly not to this day - that he couldn't do something.  So when it happened, he worked like a fiend to finally accomplish whatever it was, and darn the consequences.  He delighted in proving the naysayers wrong, and I have to admit that much of the time, he succeeded. 

"Yes, I can," D shouted at my back, "I can make myself cry, and I can prove it!"

This last outburst brought our mom careening around the corner.

"What is going on over here?" she demanded, as she glared at us with utter exasperation.  

So, as the "dutiful" (D would have said "tattletale") daughter, I filled her in, fully expecting D to cut in and deny everything.  To my astonishment, he not only agreed with my account, but also defiantly proceeded to demonstrate this "talent" of his.

I stood, staring in wide-eyed disbelief, as D's eyes reddened, and then filled with tears - right on cue!

As he finished up his performance, grinning his I-told-you-so's at me, I glanced up at Mom.  

She stood with her head slightly tilted, regarding him coolly.  

D's grin slowly faded as Mom finally spoke.

"Well," she said, "that won't be coming in very handy anymore, will it?"  

A 32nd Flavor??

One evening several years ago, I took my two little darlings out for ice cream at Friendly's.  I noticed my son, who was about three years old, looking at me strangely as I ordered for us.

When the waitress left, he turned to me and said, "You want coffee ice cream?"

"Yes," I said.  "It's just a type of ice cream."

He stared at me with a very odd expression.  As we continued to wait for our order to arrive, he kept repeating his question, each time with more and more confusion evident on his face.

"You want coffee ice cream?"

"Yes, honey, it's just a flavor.  That's all."  But I could see that was not going to be the end of it.

When our order arrived, my little guy leaned w-a-a-a-y over to inspect my ice cream, but said nothing.  He kept glancing warily at me as he dug into his bowl of mint chocolate chip.  

I couldn't contain my curiosity any longer.  "Is something wrong, buddy?"

He turned his drippy, green face to me.  "That's coffee ice cream?"

"Yes, coffee ice cream."

"Oh." 

He took another bite of his bright green confection, then squinted his little brown eyes up at me.

"But, won't you cough?"

Taking Credit

I'll wrap up my memorable elementary school teacher posts with this one.  This teacher taught me quite a lot, but the most important lesson I learned from him had nothing to do with finding sums or knowing parts of speech.  And that lesson has stuck with me ever since.

Mr. Billard was my fifth grade teacher.  He was one of those people who always had a smile lurking, just waiting to escape.  He was of medium height (from my about-5-foot-tall perspective), and wore glasses. His short-ish brown hair had just enough curl to give it a flip at the ends, and it gave way to bare skin on top (but only a little bit).

Our class had just finished reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien, and Mr. Billard gave us a writing assignment to follow up: write the sequel.  I looked forward to this, as I enjoyed the book immensely, and worked hard to create an authentic story.  After painstakingly hand-printing my good copy, and stapling it in between a custom-designed construction paper cover, I proudly handed it in, sure of getting a good grade.  I wrote it for my eyes, Mr. Billard's, and my parents, but didn't think anyone else would see it, let alone hear it.

A day or so later, Mr. Billard called us all to the part of the room where he did read-alouds.  Usually I loved read-alouds, but this time was different.

"Today, instead of reading other people's books, I'm going to read your sequels," Mr. Billard announced.

The blood drained from my face, and my stomach felt like hundreds of tiny butterflies were flitting around in there.

"Then," he went on, "I want you to guess who you think the author was."

Well, I thought, maybe this would be fun. 

The more sequels he read, the more my butterflies quieted.  We laughed and smiled and called out our guesses after each reading, and it was fun... until I saw my sequel resting in Mr. Billard's hands.

I sat as still as possible, listening, as Mr. Billard released my words out into the air, where they floated freely into my classmates' ears. My thoughts.  My words.  I could feel my face getting warm, so I looked down the whole time he was reading.  

"So," Mr. Billard said, "who wrote this one?"

The class broke into a flurry of guesses the same as before.  When one particular person's name (not mine) was unanimously called out as the writer, I looked up and chimed right in with that name, too.

Mr. Billard looked at me curiously and let this go on for a short time, then held up his hand for quiet.  He told everyone it was my work, and then he spoke directly to me.  "Why would you do that?" he asked.  

I squirmed in the silence.  He kept looking at me, and so did everyone else.  After what felt like 10 years, I looked down and mumbled, "I don't know."

"Kim," he said firmly, but not unkindly, "this is very good.  You did this.  It was your work."  

He paused for a moment, and when I looked up again, he said one last thing: "Why would you give credit for your own work to someone else?"

I didn't know what to say.  But from then on, I did know what to do.  Or rather, what not to do...

A Lesson in Contradictions

In an open space school, it is expected that you keep your attention in your own classroom area, but sometimes it just isn't possible. However, as my son and I always read in the Captain Underpants books, "Before I tell you that story, I have to tell you this story:"

There were only two fourth grade teachers in my elementary school, and almost no one looked forward to being there. Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Probst were probably the sternest (and most feared) teachers in the school. The journey through fourth grade was an important rite of passage. If you could survive that, the rest of your educational life would be a snap.

I had Mrs. Probst for math, and Mrs. Murray for everything else.

Mrs. Probst had short, sort of gray hair that probably spent each evening imprisoned in curlers. She was a formidable woman with a habit of calling all us girls "girlie." (I don't remember what she called the boys.) Poking kids in the chest during a reprimand was another of her habits. No one, and I mean no one, dared to even so much as sniffle out of turn in her room. Woe to those who got on Mrs. Probst's bad side. But, if you worked hard and did your best, she could be your fiercest supporter. Mind you, it wasn't a warm and fuzzy sort of support, but she did have your back.

Mrs. Murray also had a reputation as a no-nonsence woman. She had dyed, dark brown hair that she piled up on her head in a sort of low-profile beehive. Every other day of the year, she was known to crack a joke or two, or even smile, but she was rather sparing with both.

However, Mrs. Murray broke the mold each year on one day, and one day only: St. Patrick's Day, the day keeping your eyes in your own room became virtually impossible for everyone in the pod, except Mrs. Murray's students. Every March 17 (or as close as she could get, if it fell on a weekend), she made a grand entrance to her classroom dressed head-to-toe in a kelly green leprechaun suit! She played traditional Irish music as she danced Irish jigs. She spoke with an Irish accent, and smiled and laughed (laughed, I tell you!) as she cracked leprechaun jokes. She read aloud Irish stories, and was generally in a fantastic mood all day.

Once March 17th had passed, though, it was back to business as usual.

Fourth grade... it was something else...

A Legend

Picture this: You're 8 years old.  You walk into your third grade classroom for the first day of school.  There sits your new teacher. You skirt a wide path around her, smile nervously on your way by, and hurriedly find your seat.  Once there, you sit perfectly still, and wait.  And try not to stare.  And wonder.  Is it true?  Is she really?

I don't have to picture it.  I lived it.
  

My third grade teacher had a reputation that was passed on from the outgoing class to the incoming one each year.  The old class delighted in the mild panic that rose to the face of each new third grader as he or she was told the whispered details about this teacher.  And so, we new third graders of 1977 came into our classroom on the first day of school with a healthy dose of trepidation, and an irresistible sense of curiosity.

Once we were all seated that morning, our teacher smiled and told us that her name was Mrs. Mathews (and no, I did not misspell that).  She had a lovely, genuine, but also mischievous smile.  She was a petite, well-dressed woman with coal black hair and large-framed glasses.  She sat perfectly straight in her chair, and when standing or walking, her shoulders were always back.  This was not someone to be trifled with, especially knowing what we had been told.

She went on with the usual first day stuff - class rules, where the bathrooms were, keep your eyes in your own class. (Remember now, from yesterday's post, this was an open space school.  There were no walls, or doors.  The classroom spaces were delineated by strategically placed low bookshelves, carts, tables and chart holders.  So that last one, keeping your attention with your own class, had high importance.)

We all listened dutifully.

Finally, she came to the crucial part of the morning.  The part we had all been waiting for, and at the same time, the part we had all been dreading.  Was it true?  Was she really?  And even more important: who was going to be the one to ask?

"So," she said, smiling, "what questions do you have for  me?"

Silence.  Our eyes swiveled in our sockets as we scanned the room for that one brave soul.  Finally, someone (I don't remember who, but it wasn't me) was brave enough to raise their hand.

"Yes?"  She was still smiling.

"Umm... well... I... I mean we... well, how old are you?"

You could have heard a pin drop.  Not an easy feat in an open space school.

With a twinkle in her eye, Mrs. Mathews raised herself up to her full height and said, "I am one hundred and two years old."

Whispers and giggles broke out all over the room.  It was true!
 

Then, she called out over the commotion, "And, I am a witch!"

There was a collective gasp.

"But, if you're a good kid, you don't have anything to worry about, do you?"  Then she laughed.
 

A few giggles broke out, then a few more, until finally the whole room rippled with laughter.  All the tension flew out of us with each new cackle (no pun intended), and the rest of the day was just like any other first day of school.

I had the good fortune to have Mrs. Mathews twice.  By the time I got to sixth grade, so had she!  She was still "one hundred and two years old" and she was still a self-proclaimed witch.  But, even though I'd had her before, and thought I'd seen it all from her, she was still throwing things at us that we didn't see coming.  (Literally - if you were misbehaving, you could expect any number of missiles to fly from her hand and land with a crack on your table - chalk, erasers, pencils, whatever was handy.  I should know - I was a talker, and a giggler, and was on the receiving end of those projectiles a number of times!)

And yet, Mrs. Mathews is on my shortlist of favorite teachers.  She was fun, and she laughed like she meant it, and she kept us all in line, and we learned so much.

I'll never forget her.

Saving Face

My twentieth high school reunion is coming up, and that got me thinking about... elementary school.  Yep.  Elementary school.  (How's that for a non-linear thought pattern??) Which got me to thinking about the teachers I had there. Several of them stood out in my mind, each for a different reason, and I'd like to tell you about them.  It would make too long of a post to cram them all into this one, so I'll highlight a different one each day.

My elementary school was in town.  At that time, open space schools were all the rage, and that's what mine was.  We had a fenced-in blacktop playground with no playground equipment - but we did have painted lines for hopscotch and things like that.  Our building was several floors high, and it had this really cool open central stairwell that ran top to bottom, with lots of windows.  Two of the floors held the main classroom spaces, and each floor was called a pod. When I first went there, the higher of the two pods was for grades K-3, and the next one down was for grades 4-6.

The earliest teacher I remember was from second grade. Her name was Mrs. Armstrong.  She was so calm, cool, collected, and most of all, caring.  I loved being in her class. As she passed out our last report cards for second grade, she told us not to come up to this pod next year, because third grade would be moving to the lower pod.

 

I didn't give school a shred of thought until three months later, when the bus dropped me off for the first day of third grade.  Walking slowly through the school's entry doors, I thought back to what Mrs. Armstrong had told us, but wasn't sure I trusted my memory.  I started to climb up the stairs, until I got to the landing between floors.  There I stood, rooted to the spot, my gaze switching between the familiar pod I'd always gone to, and the ominous Big Kids Pod. 

Finally, I went with what was comfortable, and continued up the stairs.  Halfway there, I heard someone call my name.  I looked up, and there stood Mrs. Armstrong at the landing for the upper pod.

"Hi, Kim," she said brightly.  "You must be coming up to check on your little brother, right?"

Crud, I am going to the wrong floor, I thought.  I could feel my face heating up as I nodded feebly.

"You know, I just saw him, and he's in his new Kindergarten room - happy as a clam.  Why don't you go on ahead to your pod, now."  She gave me a very warm smile and a reassuring nod.

"OK.  Thanks," I said.  As I turned around and headed downstairs to my new pod, I saw a bunch of my classmates looking up at us.  They were all headed to the right pod.

Thank you, Mrs. Armstrong. 

The Power of Words

Pregnancy stories.  People tell them all the time - often sprinkled generously with far more details than their audiences bargained for.  I can relate.  I've been through two pregnancies, and though they resulted in two lights of my life, the process was less than fun.  But one day, early in my second pregnancy, I saw how powerful those stories can be, and how indelibly they imprint themselves in the minds of others - in a way I never would have anticipated.

My first pregnancy found me unable to keep much down for a solid 6 months.  When I found out I was going to have Baby #2,  the old familiar stomach distress followed soon after.  Not wanting our nearly three-year-old daughter to be alarmed at my constant dashes to the bathroom,  we decided to tell her about her impending Big Sister status sooner rather than later.  We told her there was a new baby growing in Mommy's belly, and that sometimes it makes her tummy upset.  We told her that's what usually happens, and that though Mommy wouldn't feel good for a while, she would be fine, and soon there would be a new baby in our family.

Our daughter seemed to take that in stride.  She was very matter-of-fact about it, and didn't seem in the least concerned.  Every once in a while she would ask, "Is the new baby wiggling?" when I emerged from behind the closed bathroom door.  I always assured her that's all it was, and she seemed ok with everything.  She was excited about being a Big Sister.

Then one chilly Saturday night, we all went out to see my brother-in-law's high school wresting match.  We got our little one a hot dog and a drink from the concession stand, and settled into our bleacher seats to cheer on our favorite wrestler.

After a while, our daughter started to look a little pale. Before I could finish asking if she was ok, she started to gag.  I grabbed her up and dashed toward the gym doors, but the reappearance of hot dog and soda (partially digested) began, so we had to make a pit stop at a well-placed garbage can.  Our poor little girl began crying unconsolably.  It was a cry I'd never heard before, and my alarm level increased.  With the first wave over, I scooped her up again and made a beeline for the women's bathroom.  The second wave was beginning, but we made it in time, and I was able to get her to a stall.

"It's OK!  It's OK!"  I said.  "Your tummy is just a little sick."  I rubbed her back and held her as she leaned over and emptied her stomach again.

Then she really started wailing, but it seemed like she was done being sick, so I picked her up and took her to the sink to clean us both up.  All the while, I was reassuring her that it was just a tummy ache, and she was just a little sick.

"No!" she screamed, "No-no-no!  I'm not sick!  I'm not sick!"

I wetted a paper towel with warm water and gently wiped her tear-streaked face.  "It's ok, honey, you're just a little sick."

She cried harder and whipped her head back and forth. "I'm not!" she shrieked.  "I'm not sick!  I'm not!"

This was not like her, and a shiver of fear went through me that something really big may be wrong.  I sat on my knees in front of her, held her little hands, looked into her eyes, and said, "What's wrong?  Why are you so upset?  It's just a tummy ache.  You're OK."

She looked at me.  Her bottom lip quivered as her eyes spilled over with fresh tears.  "Mommy!  I can't be sick!" she sobbed.  "I don't want a baby in my belly!"  Then she collapsed into me and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, squeezing me with all she had.

My heart broke as I thought of what had been going through her mind.  I hugged her tight and reassured her that only Mommies and Daddies had babies, that there was no baby in her belly, and that sometimes kids get tummy aches, but it's not, not, not because there's a baby in there.

She gave me another squeeze, then let go and looked at me.  The relief in her face was so great, it seemed to fill the whole restroom.  "No baby in my tummy?" she said.

"No, sweetie.  Just Mommy has a baby in her tummy.  But there's no baby in yours."

She took a big breath and blew it out.  "OK.  I want to go home, now."

"Sure, sweetie."  I reached out and smoothed her sweaty curls.  "Should we go out and see Daddy, now?"

She nodded.

I wrapped her up in my coat (hers was covered in... well, you know), and carried her out.

My husband rushed up to us as we stepped into the hallway.  "Is she OK?" he said.  

Our little girl had already started to close her eyes as she snuggled into my neck.

"She's fine," I said.  "Probably a bad hot dog."

Lifting her head, our daughter looked at my husband.  "There's no baby in my tummy, Daddy."

"OK?" he said uncertainly.  He shifted his gaze to me.

"I'll explain on the way home." 

If Only

Before I was a wife or a mother, I was a teacher.  My kids were inner city little guys, second graders, in a school with a population of mostly minority students.

In February of my second year there, I began a Black History Month celebration.  As part of the unit, we researched famous African Americans, read about their accomplishments, discussed what we learned, then wrote up reports to display around the room and in the hallway.

One day, we had just finished reading about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the term "racism" was used in the book.  I decided to do an informal comprehension check.

"We read that Dr. King felt racism was wrong, and he worked hard to change how African Americans were being treated," I said.  "So, what do you think racism is?"

I waited, watching their seven-year-old minds whirring.  After a second or two, a few hands went up.

I scanned the room, then settled my gaze on Juan.  He was practically bursting at the seams, waving his arm furiously and bouncing in his seat.

"Juan?  What is racism, do you think?"

He flashed a proud, dimpled grin, and said, "It's what drivers do!"

I'm not sure what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn't it.  I pressed further.  He seemed so confident in his response.  What was he thinking that I wasn't?

"Drivers?" I asked.

"You know," he said, gripping an imaginary steering wheel in front of him.  "A race driver, with the cars... he races 'em!" 

Sign of the Times

Kindergarteners are so fun to work with - they tell you exactly what's on their mind, and they don't muck up their answers with a lot of fluff.  If you sit and listen to them long enough, you can learn a lot about puppies, baby sisters, dirt, bugs, scabs, and why they don't like Great Aunt Eunice ('cause she smells like carrot juice).  You can also learn a lot about the English language.

Case in point: I volunteer at an elementary school, helping Kindergarteners do KidWriting - a program designed to strengthen both their reading and writing skills.  (Yes, reading and writing.  You would be amazed at what these little guys can churn out.  Seriously.)  Anyway, I'm sitting in this tiny chair, with my knees crammed up to my ears, scooched up to an impossibly low table, listening to the chatter that always accompanies 5-year-olds wielding papers, pencils and crayons.

"Guess what I'm writing about," a sweet girl with long dark hair, no front teeth, and the cutest lisp, says to me.

"What?"

"You have to guess."

"She's writing about her hamster," her tablemate informs me, never looking up as he carefully draws a stick coming down from a small circle.  "That's what she always writes about."

"Well?"  My inquisitor persists, gazing up at me.

"Hmmm."  I tap my lip with my finger and squint thoughtfully at her.  Never mind that I was sitting right here when The Informer spilled the beans.  A question, once asked, demands an answer.  I open my eyes wide.  "Is it... your hamster?"

"How did you know?"  She shakes her head and smiles as she draws a kind of lumpy-looking brown ball.  She adds four short lines underneath the ball, then puts a little pink scribble at one end.  "That's her bow.  She's a girl.  Her name is Chloe."

"Ahh.  Chloe is a lovely name.  Are you ready to write about her, now?"

She nods, then stares up at the "Firecracker" chart to choose her sentence starter.

I turn to The Informer.  "What's happening in your picture?"

"It's me and my dad playing football."  He puffs out his chest.
 

"So, what do you want to write?"

"We-are-playing-football."

"Great!  So, start with we," I say, pointing to the first line on his paper.

The Informer's pencil hovers over the paper.  He looks up at me.  "How do you spell we?"

In KidWriting, we help the children stretch out the sounds, or send them to find the word if it's posted somewhere in the room.  Just as I open my mouth to stretch out wwwwweeeeee, Hamster Girl beats me to it.

"That's easy," she says.  She leans over and taps his paper three times as she spells it out: "w-i-i."

Wonder and Trust

I made my way clumsily through the familiar waiting room door - crying toddler daughter and very soggy blankie hanging over one shoulder, diaper bag and purse slung over the other.  I managed to get signed in without dropping the baby or the stuff, exchanged knowing looks with the receptionist, and caught a few sympathetic glances from the grandmotherly types waiting their turn to see the doctor. Choosing a corner chair as isolated as was possible in the closet-sized waiting room, I settled in and dug into the diaper bag for distractions.  

Books weren't working today.  Neither were keys, toys, juice, animal crackers, Cheerios, or even a self-conscious rendition of "I'd Like to Visit the Moon."  Sitting in one place was just not cutting it, so I had to resort to movement.  After several minutes of pacing back and forth in a three-foot-square space, patting my first born's back as she pulled at her ears and cried and wiped her nose on my shoulder, it was finally our turn.  Holding my daughter with one arm, I reached down with the other to gather our things, then hurried to follow the nurse.  That little bit of forward momentum brought a temporary reprieve in the shrieking as my red-faced sweetheart looked around in surprise to see where we were going.  The silence didn't last long.

The nurse led us to an even smaller examining room, where the crying began again in earnest - hers or mine, I can't exactly recall now...  The nurse shouted the usual questions, and I shouted back answers.  In between, I stood in place, doing the "Mommy sway" we all do to try to soothe the tears.  Somehow, the nurse managed to get my little girl's temperature.  Then she said something about "doctor" and "soon," smiled, and was gone.  Now I had a bit more room to pace and sway and bounce and sing, but it still wasn't working. 

Finally, in breezed Dr. Walsh, his face a picture of genuine concern as he had me sit in the chair and hold this poor little one in my lap so he could take a look.  She gazed into his blue eyes as he hunched down in front of her and talked and smiled and cooed, and gradually the cries stopped.  She stared at him, mouth open in a little "o," her mostly-brown eyes wide as golf balls.  She reached out to touch his white hair, then grabbed his offered hand.  He looked back at her, glancing up at me every so often, asking questions, all the while using that same sing-song voice that had her entranced. 
 

Finally, he asked her, "Can I look in your ears?" 
 

She shook her head.  "No, no, no!" 

"Oh," he said, "It won't hurt.  I just want to see if there are any bugs and bunnies in there."

She stopped mid-head-shake, then swiveled around to look at me, cupping her hands around her ears.  I smiled down at her and nodded.  She looked back at Dr. Walsh.

"Don't you want to know if there are any bugs and bunnies in there?" he asked, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

She slowly nodded and dropped her hands.
 

"Let's take a look," he said.  All the while, he kept up a running commentary about bugs and bunnies, and how they love to hide in little kids' ears.

My sweet girl's eyes were round with wonder, and she sat perfectly still, letting him check both ears.

He sat back and smiled at her.  "Nope, no bugs and bunnies in there," he said.  "But I'm going to give Mommy some medicine for you to make your ears feel all better.  Is that OK?"

She smiled then, a big, two-toothed grin, and hugged her little knees and fell back against my chest. 

Not a tear in sight.