Summer Lovin'

You may have noticed that we're keeping summer hours over here at chez Molassy. That means I'm not around so much, although I'm really trying to avoid the total desertion that both of you may remember from last summer. The kids and I have been spending our days sleeping in and eating late breakfasts of Cocoa Crispies, swimming at the Y, swinging (and sweating!) in the back yard, and, Genevieve's current favorite, playing with pans and buckets of water on the front porch. Who knew that transferring water from an empty gallon ice cream bucket to a pan with flaking non-stick coating via teaspoon could be so rewarding? Who cares if it makes our front porch look like the Clampetts' before the move? Good times.

The kids are enjoying the break from school. Genevieve, especially, is thrilled to have Mama full time to boss around, cling to, and play with. Her most fun developmental leap right now is the emergence of empathy. If she enjoys something, she now realizes that other people might enjoy it too, and that their enjoyment is desirable. So she will say "Mommy rubbing my back" which usually means her tummy, and then after a minute she will scramble up to a sitting position and say "Do Set-Set!" prompting me to call Somerset into the room. This has worked out nicely for Somerset, as she is getting a lot of belly rubs and cradling baby-style as I sing the mockingbird song to her on Genevieve's command.

All the time with the kids is great, but G's bursts of kindness are interspersed with extreme clinginess and tantrum throwing two-year-old style, which has started to wear on me a bit. To remedy that, I have purchased a little weekly chunk of freedom for myself at the rate of $10 an hour. Our new once-a-week sitter, home from college for the summer, started today. I went to the regular Monday Monkeyless lunch with BD and the gang. After being unable to attend all year, it's fun to finally be able to go. Next week I've shifted the day to Tuesday so as to have childcare while I get tatted up. Yeah, I know it's sexy the way it looks like my right foot is sewn on, but the old green, skinny vine is being covered over by a new, prettier, much more tendrilly and climbing design. Pictures to come...

Just in case you mistakenly thought of me as smart...

Let me tell you what I did today.

After BD cut the grass this morning, the kids pointed out how the side of my van was all plastered with stray bits of grass and dirt. We decided it would be fun to wash the car and get wet in the blazing, unseasonable-even-for-Memphis heat. I went in the house to get a big pan (the plastic bucket is mysteriously bottomless) and soap and rags, then came out and pulled the hose out from the uncooperative reel. Remembering that I was out of washer fluid, I decided to fill the receptacle with the hose before I did anything else. In the winter I use real washer fluid but it's not like it has a chance to freeze anytime in the next four or five months.

You may see where this is going now. I popped the hood, propped it up, and looked around at the various caps that opened onto fluid receptacles. I knew that putting water in the wrong one would be bad. I saw two that were obviously the wrong ones, and one right under the windshield that had no discernible markings (that I could see), and after looking over the whole works one more time, I chose that one, uncapped it, and put the hose to it. The opening under the cap seemed very small and I sensed without it really registering that this didn't seem right. After a few minutes I stopped, looked around under the hood some more, and saw what I'd missed--the actual washer fluid receptacle. Crap!

I alerted BD to what I'd done and he came over to see that I had, in fact, put water where only brake fluid is meant to go. I went ahead and filled the actual washer fluid tank, and then the kids and I washed the van before I headed out to the oil change place a few blocks from our house. There was a young female employee greeting cars as they pulled up to the bays, and when I told her I needed my brake fluid drained and replaced, she shook her head and said "Oh, we can't do that." I think this is a lie, but I went on about half a mile or so down the road to a bigger tire/service place. I could tell the guy wanted to turn me away because they were so busy, but then he seemed to take pity on me because he called the mechanic in and asked if he could do it. He could. "You'll have to just leave it here and come back at four because we're so covered up," he said kindly.

I started to call BD to come get me, but reconsidered when I remembered the kids playing happily in the neighbors' sprinkler with their son. Instead, I went next door to Krystal, bought a pomegranate freeze, and set out for home on foot. It really wasn't a bad walk in spite of the heat, and the occasional honk from passing cars reassured me that if I have to be dumb, at least I'm still passably hot from a distance if the car is moving fast enough. The only downside to the walking was that I had on flip-flops. I was just recently told by a podiatrist not to wear flip-flops or any other cheap, unsupportive shoe if I'm going to be walking or on my feet for any period of time. At least these were the ones with the inch-thick foam footbed that actually does have some arch support built in, but the top straps are rubber and the left one had rubbed skin off the top of my foot by the time I got a few blocks from the house.

Once I made it inside, I stripped down to my skivvies and lay spread-eagle under the fan for about five minutes to cool off. In spite of the heat, loss of foot skin, and acceptance of the fact that I'm not very smart, I felt proud of myself for cleaning up after my own mistake without creating a hassle for anyone else. As it turns out, it's probably going to cost the exact amount I just received for my first paid writing gig. So I'm the only one paying for my mistake, in every sense of the word. At least that's something, right?

You Have Been Here and You are Everything

When I was fourteen years old and just starting tenth grade, I was not what anyone would call a happy or well-adjusted girl. I also wasn't as badly off as I probably liked to think back then, but a summer's worth of Dead Milkmen and Violent Femmes will make you morose if you're not careful. I was, however, a lucky girl. In fact, I was the luckiest girl in the world. I just didn't know it yet.

When I was fourteen and just starting tenth grade, I met the love of my life. I met the boy I would grow up with and have babies with and, I have no doubt, the man I will grow old with. And fourteen years ago today, I married him. It was the best and smartest thing I ever did. Every good and beautiful thing in my life involves him and grows from our relationship.

Happy anniversary BD. Your unwavering willingness and ability to love me have, do, and always will astonish me.

Happy Birthday Genevieve!

You are two years old today and I can scarcely believe it, the time has flown by so quickly. About two years and 34 weeks ago, it was slowly dawning on me that you might be with me, a stowaway secreting yourself in small, warm, well-broken-in quarters until the time was right for you to show yourself. I wish I could say that I was immediately overjoyed at the thought of you, but see, I didn't know you yet. Only two weeks before I had ended the 50 straight months of nursing your brother then sister, uninterrupted by my pregnancy with her. For the first time in over four years, I didn't have a nursling or anyone in diapers. Your Daddy and I had wrestled with the idea of having another baby, and even though four children were what we had once imagined, we were tired and thought maybe three would be enough after all.


Thank you so much for knowing we were wrong. Thank you for staying with me and bringing your tiny blue self into the world, knot in the cord and all. I can tell you in all honesty that you have brought joy and beauty and searing love to me every single day of your life. You were only weeks old and so very tiny when you showed me how much you had to say, when I would prop you on the pillow in front of me and you would lock your eyes onto mine and kick and wave and make all manner of coos and grunts. Your story was already fascinating and it only grows more so with each passing day.


So now you are two. You look more and more like your big sister as you get older, but you are the only one of golden hair with highlights that no amount of money could buy. You are fiercely independent in some ways but you still love your mama. You love to swing and to be outside as much as possible. You love to go to the grocery store and run up and down the aisles and try to convince me to go "dif way!" You throw a mean tantrum and can turn from stingy to generous on a dime.


At night when you finally admit defeat and snuggle into my body to nurse and sleep, I smell your hair and rub your back and know how numbered those nights are now. You are my last baby, and hardly a baby at all anymore. I know this and the understanding is deeper than it was with your siblings and all the more bittersweet.

Home Stretch

Remember the last time I wrote a real post, like a week ago? Well I'm still here. At work. With no students. As of today, no one at my school has any students anymore, though, since Friday was the last day of classes for all schools in the district. But while other teachers scurry to get grades done, I had to do all that a week and a half ago. All I have to do now is go through the checkout process. This is somewhat like a scavenger hunt, only less fun and instead of collecting stuff, you get rid of stuff and collect signatures. You give your receipt book and summer address to the financial secretary and she signs your blue form on her special line, you give your AV inventory to the librarian and she signs, and so forth. I can't find anyone to take my offspring and sign off on them, though. There's no line for that.

Yes, it's that time of year when my own children come to work with me since they have nowhere else to go. At least I only have to work today and then until lunch tomorrow. And actually, the kids do great while they're here. Mostly. First they play games on the computer. This involves me a lot of me having to come over and try to figure out why the desired game will not work right. Then they draw on the whiteboards. This is the phase we are currently in. Calvin is drawing a variety of dinosaurs, both winged and non, and Somerset is drawing food and trees. Joshua is still on the computer. Somerset has also had a brief interlude with markers and construction paper that resulted in a lovely card for me, delivered to my desk organizer for work-to-be-graded, which is otherwise blissfully empty. Later the PTSA is feeding us lunch, which means I'll try to find something among the meat trays and pasta salad and crackers that my kids will eat and it will all end in Joshua having a chocolate chip cookie the size of his head for lunch.

Hang the DJ

My Pandora stations:

1. Al Green radio
2. The Smiths radio
3. Blue Mountain radio
4. Drive-By Truckers radio
5. Paolo Nutini radio
6. Lucinda Williams radio
7. Joni Mitchell radio

Now playing: Garrison Starr radio

In Which I Sit Here Wanting A Fountain Coke

We've reached the portion of the year when I no longer have any students. Since I teach all seniors, and said seniors have taken their exams and will be graduated this Saturday at an hour of indecent earliness so that several other high schools may cycle through the too-small venue on the same day, I'm done. But not done. I still have to come to work every day until May 23, and then come back for the two administrative days after Memorial Day even though I had to bust ass to get all my grades and debt slips and what have you turned in yesterday.

I enjoy the quiet time, but it's also somewhat frustrating in a "hurry up and wait" kind of way. It's almost as if there's a moratorium on getting anything useful done during this time. For example, I have to stay after school today to hand out caps and gowns to my homeroom, because we do not want Them back in the building during school hours, roaming the halls out of uniform and mouthing "suck it" to their underclassmen friends through the little steel-mesh-sandwiched windows of their classroom doors.

I also can't go home and clean my sty of a house or go get my oil changed and find out why the little engine-shaped light in the van’s dash is coming on suddenly. I could, however, go down the street to Exxon right quick and get a big Coke and a bag of Doritos. I'm starving! And sitting here all by my lonesome knowing I could go get naughty snacks is not helping me any. When my students were here, I didn't really think about how hungry I was, because the time seemed to fly by until lunch at 11:50 (twenty seven minutes of frozen, low-cal meal. Mmm-Mm!), and it's not as if I found Chip-Juice at all tempting. (For the record, Class Day was replete with Chip-Juice references that ranged from revealing shout-outs to premature nostalgia to an edgy spoken-word piece in which the two performers at one point shouted alternately at each other "Chip!" "Juice!" I am not making that up.)

So what will I do all day, you ask? I do have some things I want to do, like organizing books and cleaning out my junky desk and what have you. Sometimes I'll be called to cover classes for absent teachers, since most of the subs with any sense have gotten the hell out of Dodge by now. Mainly I'll read and play on the interwebs and try to stay under the radar. And try not to succumb to the siren song of sneaking off campus for empty calories.

I'm a cliche!

All my attempts to distance myself from whiteness have failed, apparently. I am not kidding or exaggerating when I say that I lecture either BD or SAM on the virtues of the Oxford comma at least once a week. In my defense, it's usually when asked to edit something they've written, or when they're forced, reluctantly, to remind me that I can't use my beloved Oxford when I'm supposed to be employing journalistic style. This usually sends me off on a rant about how journalistic style is barbaric writing for the illiterate. Because I am that person.

Mothers Acting Up

If you can squeeze in an hour or so amid your Mother's Day activities this Sunday, come down to Cooper-Young for the Mothers Acting Up parade. The theme is Reclaiming Mother's Day and eight local mamas will be recognized for work in the community, including (blush) yours truly and my girl SAM. The parade will start at Mothersville (800 S. Cooper) and end at Peabody Park. This will be a very kid-friendly event with stilt walkers and such, and of course the playground. Come on out!

S is for a Stitch in Time

Last night as I lay in bed, just as I was drifting off to sleep, it occurred to me that I had barely had any contact with Somerset all day. BD picked the kids up from school so I could have a little time to myself in the afternoon, so I missed that pick-up and ride home conversation. She played with a friend all afternoon with me intermittently fussing at her for various infractions. We did all sit down at the table for dinner, and it was a pleasant meal with minimal complaining and the kids talking a little about their day. But I don't think she and I had even a minute of meaningful or significant contact between just the two of us. That realization made me want to cry.

I feel like of all my children, Somerset has the greatest potential to be damaged and have her life ruined by me. She was my baby, the only girl and the object of her two big brothers' affection for almost four years, and then one day, she wasn't. And she knew it. She still knows it. She's a lot like me in that she's stubborn and has a fiery temper. When faced with trouble she will usually laugh in its face, but it's mostly bravado. If I poke at it even a little, her face will crumple and she will dissolve into tears. She fights with her brothers almost constantly because she knows the brotherhood bond between them is forever and unfairly closed to her. I try to make her believe that if she would just stop pestering the crap out of them for a few minutes they might be nicer to her, but she's not buying it. Maybe she shouldn't. What do I know?

I'm the oldest child. There are almost five years between my sister and me and another five between her and our brother. All I ever wanted from them was to be left alone. That was mostly all I wanted from my parents, too. I knew I was loved and taken care of, but for whatever reason, I never craved or expected a closely-bonded relationship with my parents. My kids do, though. Somerset remembers when she was my baby and I held her and carried her around and nursed her until her third birthday. She remembers when I looked at her with nothing but pure, unadulterated love and adoration, and she's aware that too often now, all she can see in my face is frustration and annoyance. She needs attention and the more she raises hell to get it, the more I push her away in ager because her behavior makes my day more difficult.

I have to do better with her. She deserves more than what she's getting from me, and she knows it, and if I don't get it together there's going to be hell to pay later on. I know that as certainly as I know my own name.

World according to Calvin

On the way home from the grandparents' this evening:

"If cars were people, that one would have a unibrow. And it would be mad all the time."

Casual Friday

As the school year draws to a close, my seniors are mentally checking out. Right now their main focus is signing yearbooks and taking pictures for the Class Day slide show. I thought you might enjoy seeing me with some of my fifth period.

The War Prayer

My favorite source of classroom inspiration right now is the website of a Chicago teacher named Joe Scotese. I'm introducing his "illuminated texts" idea in my classroom today. I wanted to show you my favorite one because I find it to be both very timely and extremely moving, all the more so because it was created by students.

A Prayer For the Lost

You can read the complete text of "The War Prayer" here. I like that Mark Twain.

Idiocracy

Have I mentioned that we have not been able to file our taxes because we can't find Genevieve's Social Security card? Yeah, we haven't been able to. And I want my money. At the beginning of this school year, when BD made his annual pilgrimage to get replacement copies of the kids' birth certificates and such in order to register them for school, we had all four of their certificates and Social Security cards together in a manila envelope, and we put it somewhere safe. Very, very safe, apparently, because exhaustive searching has turned up Calvin's original, missing-until-now birth certificate, as well as Joshua's that could not be found at the beginning of this year, but not the most recent batch.

I tell you all this as background for the most ludicrous example of red tape that I personally have ever encountered. Having finally given up on the search, I decided yesterday to bite the bullet and just go get a replacement card. Before leaving work, I went to the Social Security Administration's website and patted myself on the back as I printed out the form and filled it in, then stopped on the way to pick up the older kids and got a certified copy of GK's birth certificate to show as proof of her identity. I continued on the midtown-downtown loop, picked up the kids from school, then stopped in at the SSA's office on Monroe before getting the baby from Montessori school.

I walked in and was directed by the security guard to take a number and stand behind the red line near window A. These directions were repeated in a sign posted next to the elaborate computer set-up that was there in place of the usual "Please Take a Number" ticket dispenser. I pressed the number one and "enter" and a printer printed out a numbered receipt-like ticket. That's thousands of taxpayer dollars well spent, I thought as I took my place behind the one other person waiting. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. The kids were in the row of chairs right next to me thumb wrestling and behaving reasonably well, but that would only last so long and I didn't want to be late to get Genevieve to the tune of $20 per minute for unplanned after-care. Jeez lady, I thought, studying the curly do of the woman at the window, just give it up already. She was having what sounded like the same four-sentence conversation with the two women at the window in a continual loop. I gave myself another mental pat on the back for being prepared. I'm not very smart, see.

When I finally got to a window, I told the woman I needed a replacement card for my daughter and handed her the completed application along with the newly-acquired birth certificate and my driver's license. When I say "completed application," I mean complete except for one blank: the one where her social security number should go.

"What's her social security number?" a voice droned from behind the propped-up application.

"I don't know," I replied, "that's why I need a replacement card."

"Uh oh," she said "you up the creek then."

That's right. According to an office of the United States Government, I can not be told my child's social security number because I do not already know my child's social security number.

We ran through a list of possible places I might find the number. School form? Pediatrician's office? That blank is blank, because I don't carry my child's card around with me, on account of I live in a crime-filled craphole and I don't want my kids' SS numbers used to open fraudulent credit card accounts. Last year's taxes? Um, not filed yet. I know, I know! We're working on it. I want that money too! So no, her number is not written down anywhere. We don't have it. We can't find her original card, that's why we need a new one. If I knew her number, why would I need her card? So she can apply for a summer job?

I went round and round with this woman. I explained why we don't have her number anywhere. She told me stories about how they can no longer do an "alpha search" for anyone's number because when they enter a person's name and DOB, more than one name pops up. And that might result in them, employees of the United States Social Security Administration, seeing people's information. Information such as their social security numbers. And that would be bad, see? And then I would say "Okay, I can accept that you can't look up the number for me. But there must be a procedure in place for this. I'm not the only person who has ever needed a replacement card and been unable to produce the number. What's the process here? What do I need to do?" And she would stare at me blankly and tell me there is no process. Then we'd start again. At one point she said to the empty area behind her head "Can anyone think of a way she can get her child's Social Security number?" Crickets chirped. She got up and made a show of criss-crossing the apparently empty back office. Then she sat down and we had the whole conversation again, with the added info that some schmoe earlier claimed that the east office had looked up numbers for him recently, and maybe they would do it for me, she didn't know, they're not really supposed to but you never know what people in other offices will do. So that was reassuring. Unwilling to drive a half-hour to the east office on the word of some guy who, for mysterious reasons, apparently has regular and repeated need for look-ups of unknown social security numbers, I countered her "There's nothing you can do" with another "I don't accept that." Tired of me at last, she waved me toward the waiting area and told me I could ask a supervisor.

Out of both time and patience, I growled at the kids to "Come on!" and stormed toward the door, cursing and muttering under my breath much like the three other people who had left the office during the time I had been there. Why had I been so smug? How had I assumed that I was somehow better equipped than the lady with the large body and tiny head who had left window C in such a huff? I realize I'm a screw-up for losing my kid's SS card and not having written her number on any one of many official forms, but I presumed that I was not the biggest lost cause the government had ever seen. I can't decide what's scarier: that I might be that bad off, or that the agency in charge of the nation's social security is stymied by such a small request.

Read 'Em and Weep

I just added book number 500 to my shelves at GoodReads. Catch me if you can, suckers!

(Click on my widget over there to join me.)

'Cause I Can't Stand to See You This Way

You may have read that BD and I had the pleasure of going to see Elvis Costello in concert last night at the New Daisy on Beale Street. BD is the big EC fan in our house, although I like him well enough. I don't have much to add to what he said about the music, except that strangely, my hearing is fine today in spite of spending two hours in front of a giant stack of giant speakers, and that although I involuntarily know every word to at least a hundred Costello songs, I knew maybe four he played last night. Oh, and we were, like, 20 feet from the stage, off at an angle so that even my short self could see perfectly the whole time, and I only almost had to take down one really testy trollish woman who was terrified that we would try to take "her" spot. At which point SAM was quick to assure me that she does not have my back in a bar fight. Like that's news.

So, see that up there, where the venue was called The New Daisy? Doesn't that sound all fresh and spring-like? It doesn't sound like a place where one would enter the bathroom and thank the goddess of tile that she had on a short-ish skirt instead of jeans because this stroke of wardrobe genius has spared her from dipping the bottoms of her jeans in a puddle of suspicious-looking "water." And yet, that is exactly what kind of place it is. It's the kind of place with general admission and no seating except in the balcony, and a high ceiling with black acoustic tiles missing. Back in the day, we would go to friends' small shows there (when "Jim" was "Tippi" and the band was Judge Crater) and, I kid you not, I would dance barefoot in front of the stage. Ditto the Antenna. That was then. Last night, I stood in my spot and danced an appropriate amount, in place, and my back ached a little and I wondered if there was a way to calculate how much sooner in my life I would go deaf as a result of this one concert. I'm old, my friends. O.L.D.

Although, although! I also realized as we stood out front killing a little time before the show and observing the people milling about in front of the Daisy and on the street, that I should really get out more because it is great for my self esteem. People, they do not look like they do on TV and in movies! It may be possible that I am not in as bad a shape as I think I am. Of course, it may also be possible that this particular crowd was exceptionally dorky and old, but we don't have to look at it that way. Well, when I think about that big group of old guys herking and jerking in front of the stage and looking like night of the living dead, I may be forced to look at it that way. And the one guy with his arm stabilized to his body with a big brace and his other arm up in the air making the rock and roll finger sign while he thrashed about, reminding me of Joan Cusack's unfortunate character in Sixteen Candles. Now that I think about it, the crowd was not only graying and bookish in a not-so-sexy kind of way, it was predominately male. There were women, sure, but there were a lot of guys there with no women. Of course, two girls who were way cuter than moi had to spoil the illusion by standing in my sightline near the end of the show, but their day will come. Won't it? Tell me it will!

Simmer Down Now

List of things we'll have to do before moving to parts southward and beachward:

1. Get our house in shape to sell. This probably includes getting a new roof.
2. Hope the housing market improves while we wait so we can make a little moving money.
3. Get our finances in order.
4. Get jobs in our intended destination.

This is all going to take at least one year. And as much as I'd love to pick up and run the day school gets out this year, I know we can't do that. It could realistically be two years before we can go, but that's my absolute deadline. Calvin has two years before starting middle school, so that could work well anyway.

I know that some of you are having a hard time understanding our motives or my view of Memphis. A lot of the current mood is the direct result of a rash of armed robberies that have affected people close to us. Once a gun enters the picture, it becomes harder not to think about how easily things could go horribly wrong. I don't feel scared all the time; I do feel fairly certain that my time will come, and that odds are that my kids will be with me when it happens. That's just unacceptable to me. Why would I choose to live in a city that had about 150 homicides last year when I can live in a city that had one. One homicide. And the beach! It's ugly here. It's beautiful there. I have always said and felt that life is too short not to live in a beautiful place. It just feels like a no-brainer to me.

Home is Where the Heart Is?

Big Daddy and I never planned to raise kids in Memphis. I spent my entire childhood and adolescence hating this town and vowing to leave. But then I discovered midtown, and I realized that my suburban existence really had nothing to do with living in Memphis. I got accepted to Rhodes College, which happened to be the only school I applied to in my haze of oblivion. Luckily it was a good school and a great fit for me, although it would have been nice if the guidance counselors at Kirby could have pulled their heads out of the student council's collective ass long enough to let me know that my ACT score qualified me for free tuition at just about any state school in Tennessee, if not elsewhere. Oh well.

We got married two weeks after I graduated from Rhodes, and about a year later, we did leave town. BD's mom, step-dad, sister, and two brothers lived in Panama City Beach at that time. We are both beach people, we both wanted to move away, and on a visit to his family, as we sat on the deck of a beach-side restaurant and watched the sun set spectacularly into the gulf, he said to me "See that?" I knew then that we would move. And we did, not to PCB, but to Panama City proper, on a little peninsula off downtown that put us a few blocks from the city marina, a bayou that housed a smaller marina, and the St. Andrews Bay. We lived in a tiny, generic little apartment but in a great neighborhood, and we broke the mold by being the two people who live near the beach and actually go to the beach. We rode bikes around the marina and through Bunker's Cove (imagine Chickasaw Gardens on a bay) and ate at Joe's on the bayou and Schooner's on the beach, where I also waitressed for a while. Those parts of living there were fun, and BD was happy to be near his family for the first time in a few years. But there were no good jobs, and the only culture was the culture of low-brow tourism. We left with the intention of moving to Taos, New Mexico, which lasted a week. That's a whole other story, but the end result was that we ended up, unexpectedly and against all my swearing that we'd never live here again, back in Memphis. In the next few months I learned I was pregnant, had a difficult miscarriage, got pregnant again, went back to the school where I had taught before the move, and supported BD in the decision to buy The Tobacco Bowl. So just like that, we were entrenched in Memphis again.

I noticed way back in elementary school that new kids who had moved all over the country came here and never moved again. I didn't understand until adulthood that relatively high salaries combined with a low cost of living combine to make the standard of living for the middle class enticingly comfortable. There have been a few times in the past few years that BD and I have talked about moving and looked around at jobs and housing in various places. But every time, in almost any city where we would want to live, I've faced about a $10K a year cut in pay and said "maybe not just now." Memphis teachers make the highest salaries in the Southeast except for those in Atlanta. And we're still poor! Money is the biggest reason we've stayed here so long, followed closely by proximity of family and friends.

But the list of reasons to leave is growing. Lately it seems like crime in Memphis is spiralling quickly out of control. Too many of our friends and family have been victimized. The break ins while no one was home were a lot easier to take than the recent and all-too-in-person hold-ups. At gun point. I don't like feeling like I'm just waiting for it to be me, or BD, or another person we love. I don't like wondering how I will help the kids feel safe again when, not if, our house gets broken into. When I feel like I'd carry a loaded gun strapped to my person if I didn't have kids, but at the same time like I need the gun to protect my kids and wonder if a taser will be good enough, I think we are approaching time to go.

There has been some exciting talk within BD's side of the family this week about all of us moving beachward, not to Panama City this time but elsewhere in the Florida panhandle. There are still a lot of details to work out, but I know that the idea of living near more of his family again, for the first time in adulthood, is very appealing to him. And of course, we'd love to be near the beach, and also to raise our kids in a place where the crime stats are not even close to the numbers we see here. The decrease in my pay is looking less important when balanced against the increase in peace of mind.

Bragging Rights

Big Daddy's first installation of his new column in the local paper was printed today! You'll have to settle for the on-line version if you're not in Memphis, but it's so impressive all the way down the side of the front page of the "M" section!

Congratulations BD. I'm so proud of you!

Chip-Juice

We have a phenomenon here at The high school that, while assuredly not unique, does go by a name that may not exist outside this building. It's called Chip-Juice.

Chip-Juice refers to the practice of selling snacks out of a back pack. But not just any snacks. No, here at The high school, Chip-Juice means precisely Hot Cheetos and Capri Sun (flavors of Capri Sun may, however, vary.) The term Chip-Juice can be used as either a noun or a verb. It can be used as a response to a complaint or question, or in place of a person's name. For example:

Student A: "Man I'm hongry!"
Student B: "Chip-Juice!"

or

Student A: pokes head into classroom, obviously scanning
Student B: "Chip-Juice?"
Student A: nods head
Students A, c, and G: "They got him last period!"

Which brings us to another phenomenon: the Chip-Juice bust. A Chip-Juice bust is bad for everyone on different levels. For the Chip-Juice himself, it means loss of revenue and possible suspension, depending on his record (Chip-Juice is always male. Girls sell Fruities, which is a different post). It's bad for potential clients, because at any given time there are only two or three Chip-Juice in the building (the plural of Chip-Juice is also Chip-Juice) so they will have to go without snacks for at least another hour. It's bad for a teacher who happens to be housing the Chip-Juice at the time of the bust, particularly if said teacher's trash can is full of empty Hot Cheeto bags and flattened Capri Sun pouches, because this indicates that said teacher has turned a blind eye to the practice.

This morning during third period, the principal and two assistants came into my room on rounds. They were looking for two things: uniform violations and, you guessed it, Chip-Juice. One of the VPs was wearing a back pack, signalling his victory and showing that one C-J had already gone down in flames. The search was uneventful, but a few minutes later, a certain student who we'll call Mr. Chocolate (in honor of his promise to make me a chocolate statue of myself after a particularly merciful report card grade) returned to the room from Guidance. The class erupted into cries of "They came in here and they didn't even see your bag sitting there! They looked right over it!" Apparently Mr. Chocolate is Chip-Juice number one, and this morning he dodged a bullet.

A Whole Lot of Wrong

I've been digging around, researching this Life Choices place. If I was angry before, now I'm horrified and enraged. Among the most disturbing information:

1. It's tax funded!

2. Although it presents itself as a "clinic," it provides no medical care and has no medically-trained staff.

3. It's tax funded!

4. One of their tactics is to make "patients" wait up to an hour for pregnancy test results while being shown gruesome footage of dismembered fetuses well beyond the development stage of a first-term abortion.

5. So-called "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" have received $60 million in tax payer money since 2001.

6. One example of where the Bush administration has sent tax dollars is the Tennessee-based Life Choices Pregnancy Support Center, where the staff believes "without reservation or qualification that the Scriptures teach that human life begins at conception.” The Post review shows that it had revenue of $81,621 in 2001. Two years later, the center received a $534,339 grant to teach “abstinence-only” programs. By 2004, annual revenue totaled $617,355. *

7. Girls who have been lured into these places thinking they will be presented with all options have been handed baby dolls and scissors and told "This is what your baby looks like now, so if you want an abortion, just take these scissors and cut this baby up, because that's what you'll be doing."

8. In March of 2006, the state of Texas announced $5 million in grants for crisis pregnancy centers. A report from the NARAL Pro-Choice Texas Foundation documents the other desperate health needs that are going unmet, just so that politicians can pursue their anti-abortion agenda:

• Texas ranks 50th among states in the percentage of women with health insurance. Yet the state chose to fund crisis pregnancy centers rather than real medical care. Crisis pregnancy centers don’t even provide information about birth control options!
  
  • Texas ranks 46th in the percentage of women who’ve had pap smears in the past three years. Pap smears help detect cervical cancer, but instead of helping more women get this vital test, the state cut funds for the service.
    
    • Texas ranks fifth in teen pregnancies—but instead of investing in more sex-education programs, it’s sending money to crisis pregnancy centers. *

Nothing like an unconstitutionally-tax-funded religious fake clinic elbowing out a legitimate small business. Nothing like teaching abstinence only to pregnant girls. Thanks W!

* Numbers six and eight were taken directly from this article.

Not How It's Going to Go Down

When I moved Mothersville to Cooper Young a few years ago, I knew I was moving into a neighborhood that embraced the values my business supported. These days the store is owned by my best friend, and she recently became very excited about the idea of moving into the larger double bay on the corner of her current building at 806 S. Cooper and sharing the space with Trillium Woman Care. The new space and the partnership with the midwives would help Mothersville serve the community of mothers and support them in their desire to embrace motherhood and survive its challenges.

Unfortunately, it now seems that the space at 806 S. Cooper is to be leased to Life Choices. This is one of those despicable anti-choice organizations that masquerades as a resource to support pregnant women, when in fact its goal is to intimidate and horrify women in crisis into having babies they may rightfully believe they are not equipped to carry and raise. Their website presents marriage as an alternative to abortion. They also encourage men to stop their sexual partners from aborting, no doubt through any means necessary.

When I was pregnant with Genevieve, a crazy woman came up to me once and went on and on about how she "volunteers" to "educate" pregnant women by standing outside abortion clinics and yelling at them. She felt that I would appreciate this because, since I was pregnant, I must share her belief that if I can do it, anyone can. I do not share this belief. She looked at my giant belly and said "Well, I just look at you and think 'if she can do it, why can't they?'" I told her I doubt that most of the scared women and girls coming into those clinics are thirty-something, happily-married mothers of three who drive minivans and have good-paying jobs.

I just happened to receive an email from Planned Parenthood about Life Choices the other day. Here's the part I found especially onerous:

Anti-choice Commercial Appeal columnist Marilyn Loeffel advocates for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in her April 8 column. As a board member of a local CPC, she encourages women facing unplanned pregnancies to visit her facility for "nonjudgmental" education of the "full facts that you need to make an informed decision".
Unfortunately, Life Choices, the CPC Loeffel endorses, neither provides accurate information nor enables women to prevent unplanned pregnancy. Life Choices does not offer birth control or sexually transmitted disease testing or treatment. Instead, it preaches abstinence to women who find themselves already pregnant.
Worse, Life Choices deceives women about the dangers of abortion. Women seeking the full range of options are warned, falsely, of "post-abortion syndrome," despite the American Psychological Association's insistence that no such condition exists.

Marilyn Loeffel is the same idiot who made a stink about the large public art installation at the main library because it included, among hundreds of quotations from a wide range of literature engraved on the sidewalk out front, the words "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." She also snarked that one of the columns included in the installation was "already broken," when in fact the object to which she was referring was a representation of a broken column from a ruin. Not the sharpest crayon in the box, to say the very least. The fact that she is on the board of Life Choices makes me more certain than anything that this place has Got. To. Go.

Life Choices does not serve women and it does not represent the values of the midtown community. I ask you to join me in letting the leasing agents know that Life Choices is not a good fit for Cooper Young. Write to the building owner, Joe Canepari, at 360 Roseland Pl Memphis, TN 38111, and let him know that leasing to Life Choices is going to bring controversy and disruption to his property that will likely lead to Life Choices being run out on a rail and breaking their lease after all the very expensive build-out they are requesting. Contact Life Choices at the link above and let them know they can take it someplace else. Join me in raising nine kinds of hell to keep these people at bay.

Story of an Hour

Last Thursday, it was determined that BD would pick the three older kids up from school because of various after-school activities, leaving me with a rare hour and a half between leaving work and picking the baby up from Montessori school. I offered to come down and have a late lunch with the husband, but was told it was silly to come downtown on the one day I didn't have to. I thought about going to the gym, but it's also downtown. Then I figured I'd just go home, but I was scolded that I'd just feel like I should clean or something.

"Go do something fun," I was told. "You always complain about not having time for yourself. Here's some time." I do not in fact always complain about not having time for myself, but I do occasionally chafe at the fact that BD has more freedom of movement than I do. It's not his fault; it's a result of our differing work situations. He owns his own business downtown, so he has some flexibility in when he comes and goes (although he works an insane number of hours) and can leave for lunch or to run errands and can have friends hang out at the shop. When he leaves work, it's just him, since he usually fulfills his child-related duties in the morning with the huge task of getting them all ready and to school. I don't begrudge him any small freedom he may have, I just envy it. I work shorter hours, but they start at 7:15 so it's all I can do to get myself up and to work on time. Approximately. I finish work at 2:30 if I don't have a meeting and pick the older kids up at 3:15. I squeeze in 30 minutes of gym time about three times a week, when I'm motivated enough, but that's about it. For all practical purposes, if I'm not at work, I have four kids with me. Even running errands can be a challenge.

BD wants me to have time to myself, and it's a source of frustration for him that I won't always jump at the chance to "do something for myself" when he suggests that I can or should. I think this is very sweet of him, and I appreciate the fact that he cares about my mental well being. But Thursday was a perfect example of why we aren't able to communicate well about this issue. He suggested I go to a new coffee shop that he has already visited a few times. Everyone is talking about this place, and he has enjoyed sitting with a cup of coffee and writing when he has an hour here and there. But while I did want to try the cafe, I do not like going to restaurant-type places alone. It's not because I'm embarrassed or uncomfortable about being seen alone; it's just not fun to me. Who am I supposed to talk to? He suggested I have tea and read (I don't drink coffee), which sounded lovely, but if it's just going to be me, I'd rather do it at home. And you know, maybe on another day, I would feel like sitting at the cafe alone, but that day I didn't, and that's where the whole issue of general freedom of movement comes in. Having one hour on one day and being encouraged to make the most of it just puts too much pressure on that one puny little hour.

So, I went anyway. I grabbed a book off my classroom shelf that I've been eyeing lately and headed over to Cafe Eclectic. I ordered the Charlie Brown, an ice cream sundae involving peanut butter and hot fudge, and a much-hyped Mexican Coke with the real sugar instead of corn syrup. I read my book. Sounds nice, doesn't it? And it was nice, really, except that I felt strangely agitated the whole time. I felt like I was wasting something rare and valuable doing something that wasn't really what I wanted to do. That's the whole trouble. An hour to myself shouldn't be so rare and valuable that the way I spend it matters so much. And again, it's no one's fault that it is this way. It's just the way it is. I ended up leaving before 3:30, even though I technically have until 4:00 to get Genevieve from preschool. That also irritated me, because if I'd gone home, I would have stretched the time as far as it would go. And I don't think I would have cleaned. I would have plopped down in my bed and read.

I knew that what BD wanted was to hear me say how nice it was to sit there on my own with no kids to chase or fetch for and just read. I know that time alone in a cafe is something he savors, and he wanted that experience for me because he loves me and he wants me to have time to recharge. But I just couldn't do it, so I didn't really say anything about it. He asked if I read and I said yes. I could feel his frustration with me so I tried to explain, but it's a hard thing to communicate that I just feel like my time is never my own, and one hour of one day can not fix that. And also that I crave time with him even more than I crave time to myself, so sitting alone someplace I know we would enjoy together is frustrating to me. When was the last time we were able to sit at a coffee shop with no kids and just talk? It never happens.

I know that things will not always be this way. I already feel like our kids are growing up so quickly. Most of the time, that's enough to help me bide this time that is never my own. Sometimes it's not, but that's just part of life as I know it.

What Happens to a Dream Deferred?

The city is awash in Tiger Blue today as people across Memphis show support for the U of M basketball team heading into the Final Four. At least, I think that's the deal. I'm not a sports fan, to say the least. Still, it's nice to see Memphians united for once, for any cause. Big Daddy made a special trip to the Tiger Book Store to get the kids shirts, since most of the district's schools granted special permission for students to wear Tiger Blue in place of their regular uniform shirts today. Even Genevieve and Mr. Baby got one. BD wore his Tiger hat. I don't own a royal blue shirt, and I'm not sure I could bring myself to participate in a show of sports fandom on any level, but I hope we're not playing anyone whose colors include red, because that's what I have on.

Nevertheless, it is April 4 in Memphis, Tennesee. It's the day that this city became a notorious symbol of racial divisiveness and violence. Politicians are here to parade through the streets in a show of bipartisan respect for the memory of Dr. King. McCain, Clinton, Obama, and who knows who else will be seen gazing at the wreath hanging from the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights museum. I wonder what sound bites they will produce, what photo ops.

At my school, we will be hosting students from Central High Schools all over the country for a Pen or Pencil assembly. The "pen" is short for "penitentiary." I'm not sure what to expect from the two-hour assembly. It's the culmination of two years of work; the press will be here, and politicians are in town event hopping, so anything could happen. I'm gald that the day will be marked in some way, though. It seems wrong to let it pass without taking at least a moment to focus on the legacy of the visionary leader who was felled on our watch, in our home.

One of U of M's most promising players, Andre Allen, won't be on the court this weekend, or ever again, because he failed a random drug test and is now suspended for his final year under NCAA guidelines. Why did he so willingly trade his dream for a cheap, momentary high? His coach was on the news last night entreating the young man's friends and family not to be angry at him, and to pray for him because he's hurting and sorely disappointed. Footage of Andre happily cutting down a net after a good game showed a kid who looks a lot like many of my students. I couldn't help but wonder about the choices they will make as they leave my classroom and head out into the world. Some of them have big dreams. Will they fall just short of achieving them because you can take the kid out of the street but you can't take the street out of the kid? Is there anything I can do, anything I can possibly say that will stick with them, come back to them in that future moment of decision that could ruin everything they hope for?

What will happen to Andre now that his dream has been deferred? Does he have it in him to take responsibility for his actions, learn from the mistake, and move on with his life? I wonder if he has learned anything in school, or if, like so many college athletes, he has been prized only for his ability on the court and allowed to slide on the college part of the package.

What will happen to my graduating seniors over the next ten years? Do they have it in them to dream big and not fall short of their own expecations? Do we as a country have a future to even offer them?

What will happen to this city that still struggles and flounders under the weight of racial tension and a socio-economic divide that persistently falls along racial lines? Do we have any dreams left in us? Or do most of us just dream of leaving and raising our kids in a city with less insurmountable baggage?

I don't know. I just don't know.

Who's On First?

The kids have been looking forward to a book fair at their school for about two weeks. Yesterday they got to go down and peruse the offerings. Today and tomorrow, they get to buy what they have money for.

You may not know this about Joshua, but he is already training up a powerful shopping addiction. The child likes new trinket. It can be the cheapest, crappiest Happy Meal, Dollar Tree, plastic, made-in-China piece of soon-to-be garbage, but for the ten minutes that it takes for the new to wear off, he's on a high most people would need a Big Gulp full of bath tub crank to achieve. So as you can imagine, he was quite eager to make sure he'd be able to purchase something at the book fair.

"Mr. C said we need to bring five or ten dollars to buy something with," he told me repeatedly on the ride home from school yetserday. Ten dollars, really? That seemed a little steep for a first grader. I settled toward the lower end of that range and mentally planned to give each kid $5 for the fair. Or more accurately, to tell Big Daddy to give each kid $5, because I never have any cash. Never one to wait once he's got something on his mind, though, he started right in on the calculations and the money round up as soon as we got home. He somehow had three dollars, including two that he "found" somehwere. I'm still not sure where that came from, but my don't ask, don't tell policy kicked in once his mumbled explanation left me more confused than I started out. Apparently there was a "How to Draw Pokemon" book that he wanted for $4.99, but also some other book that cost $3.50. Gradually he came up with a zip-lock bag containing the three dollars of questionable origin plus a lot of quarters given to him by Calvin, which he may or may not have gotten from the jar of change BD empties his pockets into daily, all of which added up, allegedly, to about $6.50. "That's great!" I told him. "That's plenty of money to get the Pokemon book you wanted." This made him really happy. For a minute.

"But Mr. C said we need five or ten dollars to take. "
"Right," I replied, a little confused, "you have $6.50 to take."
"But that's for the book I want. He said we needed money to get something at the book fair."
"Yes baby. You have six dollars and fifty cents to take to the book fair to buy the book that you want."

We went on like that for a few rounds before he sighed deeply and said in his frustrated voice "I know! I just got a little confused up here," he said, pointing at his temple. He still did not have it straight, I could tell, but he wanted to drop it, so I did.

When I told this story to BD later, he said "But we're still not worried?" This was in reference to a sort-of on-going discussion we have about this particular offspring's level of normalcy. Joshua is really a lot like I was as a child. He's kind of off in his own little world, gliding through the blur of days somewhat obliviously. His occasional cluelessness doesn't bother me because I know what it's like to be that child, and because in most ways he's totally normal. Or as normal as he can be as the oddball in an odd family of kids.

Spring Break Wrap Up

So as I was saying, Thursday we didn't do a whole lot early in the day. Around lunch time, we met SAM and her peeps at Peabody park for a picnic lunch and some play time before heading off for haircuts. Both boys' hair had gotten really long and shaggy. Joshua kept complaining about his being in his eyes, so I had actually trimmed it up a bit and done a fairly decent job, but I wanted it cleaned up a little. Calvin, on the other hand, has grown quite vain of his thick, longish, Zach-and-Cody-esque blond hair and made whimpering sounds whenever I mentioned getting it cut. I promised him repeatedly that we were just going to trim it a little, and he reluctantly agreed. Last summer, I bobbed Somerset's long, tangly, ash-blond hair, and we all decided it looks much better cut above the shoulders. But it had grown out over the winter, along with her bangs, so I wanted to get it bobbed for the upcoming warm weather. I had also bobbed Genevieve's hair when she was only about eight months old, because she was born with a lot of hair that never fell out, and it was hanging in little rat tails down her neck. Genevieve and Joshua both inherited my mother's extremely fine, thin, silky-straight hair, although G's is an astonishing gold with highlights that no amount of money can buy. Hers had grown to shoulder-length since that first haircut, and I missed the adorable bob, so I was hopeful that she would allow her hair to be cut, and she did! She practically wrestled Somerset for the chair once Calvin got out, and she sat on the booster seat with the giant cape spread in a complete circle around her and the chair so she looked like a little floating baby head in a magician's trick.

Later that night, Aunt E and Uncle T came over for our weekly family Thursday Night Dinner. The kids engaged in their usual antics and showed off their newly stylish locks while I made a quick run to get Easter basket stuff, since I wasn't likely to get another chance before Saturday night. It promised to be a busy weekend. SAM hosted our weekly cocktail hour so her folks could hang out with her friends (whether or not that was a wise decision remains to be seen...), and we had a great time. The kids and I left fairly early when Genevieve started begging to go "night night night night night night!" except for Somerset, who stayed to prolong an abnormally good run of play with Miss M by sleeping over, and Big Daddy, who stayed to watch a stupid basketball game, because aliens have taken over his body.

Saturday I used the free tickets SAM had generously passed on to me to take the kids to the Botanic Gardens egg hunt. We met up with Stacey and the rest of her family and set about hunting for the elusive prize eggs hidden at random all over the grounds. I found one almost right away and tried to let Calvin claim credit for it, but the prize was a $50 gift card to Sachi, an upscale teen girls' boutique, so it's my prize after all. I think I can find a pair of jeans, a skirt, or some jewelry if nothing else. The rest of the eggs proved to be hidden extremely well, as none of us could find any more. The kids did get to participate in hunts for their age groups though, which yielded multiple McDonald's coupons and Putt-Putt Golf passes.

Saturday night, we had a sitter! This is an extremely rare occurance, as paying a sitter to keep four kids gets expensive rather quickly. We needed a night out, though, and we headed downtown to enjoy a nice dinner at Lolo's Table and then a $9 Mojito at Sauces. 1:00 a.m. found me straightening up the wrecked living room, assembling Easter baskets, and hiding eggs.

Sunday the older kids got up and rifled though their baskets and found eggs without bothering to roust us out of bed. We lay there half asleep, listening to the hunt and receiving periodic updates on the one egg still unaccounted for, until Genevieve woke up. She promptly dumped a lot of small, beady candy into our bed and demanded bites of her chocolate bunny on a stick. Once we got up and moving and fed, I took the kids to the playground while BD went for a run. We'd hoped to check out the new Cooper-Yound neighborhood playground behind Peabody Elementary, but the yellow caution tape strung all around sent us to our usual park. The new playground looks great, though! We can't wait to help break it in. When we got home, I started making the lasagna that I was taking to share with SAM and her family for Easter dinner. We had a lovely meal (sorry about the tablecloth SAM!) and Calvin enjoyed his now customary nap on his new favorite napping spot, SAM's couch.

Monday was the last day of Spring Break, and we didn't do much of anything that I can recall. Stayed in our jammies for a good chunk of the day, played outside for a while in the fabulous back yard of my old friend Kimberly, and just generally hung out. I couldn't decide if I was sorry to see the break end or not. On one hand, it was nice not to have to follow the routine, and to spend time with the kids doing whatever we wanted. On the other hand, the week really drove home for me the extent to which I have not one minute to myself when we're out of school. At least on school days I have my 45-minute window between leaving work and picking up the kids. I use that time to go to the gym or grocery shop or run errands, and it disappears when I don't work. I'm a little apprehensive about summer now. I'd love for all four kids to go to the more relaxed version of G's Montessori school a couple of days a week, but it's not worth paying that much for childcare that isn't essential. I think I'll try to get a sitter to come in once a week, maybe. I won't have any time at home alone, but at least I can do some running around without four kids in tow.

Spring Break Days Two and Three

I know, I know, I'm behind. We'll say it's because I've been too busy frolicking with the kids to post, and not because of the annoying fact that Blogger logs me out of gmail each time I log in here, and I usually forget to log in here first.

Sooo, what have we been doing? Tuesday promised rain, which prompted reminders from the kids that I had promised a rainy day movie. I checked the listings for the $2.50 Malco in Bartlett and we decided on "Enchanted." Our last attempt at seeing a movie in this theater ended with me driving in circles cussing and wishng aloud that all of Bartlett would be wiped from the face of the earth, so I made sure to get directions off the interweb and write them down. (I'm pretty sure I turned right on Sycamore View last time, when I should have turned left--a fact which was not obvious to me because one end of Bartlett looks identical to the other.) We made it there uneventfully and in good time (because...it's a straight shot! There's something wrong with me, clearly), got our snacks and drinks, and settled in. I thought the movie was surprisingly good. I'm not one for musicals at all, but there was enough irony to satisfy my inner cynic, while the kids just liked the catchy tunes. The acting was mostly good and the story engaging. There were a few cringe-worthy moments, like Patrick Dempsey singing along with that sappy ballad, (am I the only one who remembers those raunchy pictures of him in some magazine, what, ten years ago?), but I liked the way the ending made it ok for the princess to stop being one, but also ok for the street-smart city career woman to become one if she so chose. G slept in my lap, which was great until I had most of a big Cherry Coke in my bladder. Hoping against hope, I laid her in Calvin's arms, and she stayed asleep.

Wednesday the kids seemed content to hang at home, since we'd had plenty of activity the previous two days. We pretty much stayed in our jammies all day, only venturing out for a quick run through the Taco Bell drive-thru. Thursday we met SAM and her parents and offspring at the park for a quick picnic lunch and a little playground time, then headed for haircuts. More on Thursday later...

Parental Multi-tasking

Or conversation held with a five year old while unloading the dishwasher...

Joshua: Why can't we have video games?

Me: Because I don't want you to play video games all the time.

Joshua: But we won't.

Me: Yes you would.

Joshua: Darn it!

Day One, Part Deux: the Recap

Before I talk about today, which is just starting, I thought I'd recap yesterday's announced activities.

The Germantown egg hunt was crowded, as I knew it would be. We left around 4:30 to beat the traffic, which worked until we hit the trafic turning into the park. After winding through the full lots in a line of cars, I parallel parked in a space not more than a foot longer than my van. We walked over to the main area and met up with SAM and her parents and kids before proceeding to the inflatables and petting zoo. The petting zoo featured baby ducklings and chicks that had been dyed unnatural shades of red, orange, and green so they could be squeezed and dropped by hundreds of stubby little hands, which made my heart hurt. There was also a tiny pig in a pink sequined dress and a trailer full of goats that the kids could feed. Once we had exhausted all of those options and tired of the crowd, we decided to kill time on the playground until time for he egghunt. Some people were already swarming ove to the fields, which had been designated for specific age groupings. The boys wanted to go ahead, so I sent them on and asked Calvin to take Joshua to the field for his age. Genevieve was loving the super-tall playground, which was really designed for older children. I circled the equipment ten feet beow her as she gleefully ran from one end to the other and slid down the towering slides in her big sister's lap. Before long, a dejected Calvin came back with the news that he was too old for the egg hunt. The highest age grouping was seven and eight year olds. He was really disappointed, and I started on a mental tirade about how we complain about kids growing up too fast in this country, but then we treat ten year olds like their childhoods are over. I suggested he just go to the eight year old one, but he said two people over there had already asked him how old he was. Of course, that set me off on the mental tirade about how as soon as they get too old to be cute little dress-up dolls, we treat boys like they are threatening and suspicious. Pretty soon, though, I remembered that there was a flashlight egg hunt scheduled for ages 10-12 later that night. It just never occurred to me that this meant that age group couldn't participate in the daytime hunt. How can my baby be too old?

Genevieve refused to leave the playground, so we stayed and played while SAM and her multi-generational entourage took Somerset and headed off to the hunt. Calvin tried to buck up and played with Genevieve, sliding with her and making sure she didn't fall. Pretty soon we lured her away with the false promise of swings and headed toward the hunt areas. We stopped by the giant inflatable slide, which had been passed over before because of the long line but now stood practically abandoned. Calvin offered to slide with Genevieve, but I didn't think he could carry her up the steep, laadder-like steps to the top, so he slid alone. Genevieve still wanted to slide, so I climbed up and slid with her in my lap, which she loved.

We finally made it to the ball fields, where the plastic eggs had been strewn about on the ground. Just as we walked up, the siren sounded, prompting parents in the nearby one and two year old area to clutch their offspring to their chests while attempting to run faster and farther than any of the other adults. I marveled as the ground was mysteriously cleared of eggs in an outward-moving arc, even though I never saw anyone bend down to pick them up. It was like locusts moving over a corn field.

A dejected Joshua came ot with only one egg, having dropped the second and final one he found. Somerset and Miss M did okay, each finding about five eggs, one each with a "You've won a prize" message inside. Somerset's prize was a neon blue "Bubble Wand." I felt so bad for the boys and their reluctant but cooperative agreement to go to Los Tortugas, which seemed less than promising to them, that I heaved a deep sigh and asked if they wanted to go to CiCi's pizza instead, which perked them up considerably. So I wrote myself a mental raincheck for Los Torugas and set off to the wilds of Poplar Plaza and the $3.00 pizza buffet.

Spring Break, Day One

I thought I'd keep a log of What We Did Over Spring Break in an effort to make myself feel like we actually did do something with our spring break besides not travel. Sooo...

Monday, we woke up and had breakfast, played inside for a while, played outside for a while, etc. At one point I climbed up in the attic in an attempt to find something green for Calvin to wear besides the god-awful ugly Scooby Doo tshirt with lime green accents, which is all he can come up with and we must wear green because it is St. Patrick's Day, for the love of all that is Irish! Remember being a kid and thinking all holidays were an equally big deal? I didn't find him anything, by the way, but I did find a dress for Somerset and a cute embroidered butterfly shirt and khaki capris for Genevieve.

The roof guy I called, like, a month ago finally called and came by to give me an estimate. I'm waiting to see what the new guys who fixed our neighbor's roof last week say. Right now I'm just killing time until our 4:30 ETD for the Germantown Easter Egg Hunt, which was moved from Saturday to today because of rain. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to make the trek out to G'town and let my kids bounce in a crowded moonbounce and pick up fleas in the petting zoo before wrestling a pack of preppy suburban kids for a few Hersheys-filled plastic eggs, except that A) it's free and I am my mother's daughter, and B) I loved Easter as a kid and it makes me kind of sad that my kids don't get some of the same experience with it that I did. So, church is out of the question, but I can do plastic eggs in the burbs.

While we're out that way, I'm finally going to experience the much-hyped wonder that is Los Tortugas. I'm excited about the food but apprehensive about taking the kids out to eat by myself in an unknown setting. More on that adventure later, if I don't chicken out.

Just a minute ago, I started thinking I should pick up the house a little and do dishes before we leave, because I know Big Daddy enjoys coming home and finding the house neat and cozy, and I like to do that for him when I can. But then I remembered that I'm taking four kids on an Easter Egg hunt and out to dinner by myself and decided that he won't mind doing the dishes himself.

Input your input

Memphis City Schools invites you to fill out a survey about qualities you think the next superintendent should possess. And no, I don't think "bullet-proof" or "super-strength" is on there.

Sleep, the other white meat

It's Monday, the day after the shift to Daylight Saving Time, and I am a sleepy girl. Why, because I lost one hour of sleep on Saturday night? Of course not, that's ridiculous! (And I like DST, for the record.) All that did was put my bedtime at 2:30 instead of 1:30 that particular morning. And why haven't I been sleeping? Because my night owl husband has corrupted me, that's why.

I'm a good sleeper. I am the kind of sleeper who lays her head on the pillow, closes her eyes, and is instantly asleep. Over my ten years of parenting the spawn of Mr. Insomnia, I have had my sleep patterns disrupted and shortened and violated in ways so far reaching and long lasting that it would give some of you nightmares if you even knew. I have gone stretches of two to four years with almost literally not a single night of uninterrupted sleep. And then gotten a short respite, only to have more babies and start all over again. And really, it wasn't that bad. It turns out that I function pretty well with interrupted sleep. It probably helps that I can always fall back asleep immediately.

But this is something new. What has been happening is that I drift off for a bit while nursing the baby to sleep, then wake up to move her, and get sucked into watching a movie or talking or something with BD, and then before I know it, it's midnight, or one o'clock. I try to keep it closer to 11:00 on school nights, since I have to be at work at such an ungodly hour that I am required to get up at 6:00 a.m. (theoretically, if I want a shower). But I'm not always successful. I admit, it's hard to resist the allure of adult time after all the kids are in bed, because there's just so little of that kind of time these days. But if mama doesn't get some sleep soon, things may get ugly.

Updates

1. When BD saw Calvin yesterday afternoon after school, he asked him what had happened with his homework. He said he'd done it all first thing that morning, before class started. When his Dad said something to the effect of "See, you got it done. It all worked out," Calvin replied "Yeah, by cheating." When BD asked if he had copied someone else's work and was assured by a mortified Calvin that of course he had not, he asked why it was cheating then. Apparently, C is under the impression that doing homework in the morning rather than at home, at night, as the term homework implies, is cheating. His father attempted to convince him that it isn't, but I'm not sure he bought it.

2. I think this is my new favorite blog. Out of blogs not written by people I know, of course.

3. It's choice transfer time in Memphis City Schools. Since most optional programs begin in first grade, most of you will need a choice transfer for your child to go to kindergarten at a school outside your zoning area. Some of the zoning boundaries have changed. Look here to see if yours has. Look here to see if your assigned school is on the naughty list. If you don't even know what your assigned school is, look here. If your school is a "High Priority School" under NCLB guidelines, the district must approve a transfer to a school in good standing. All the other information you might need about open enrollment can be found here. Good luck!

4. Uncle Toby may have temporarily derailed the train to Beach Body '08 last night by baking and bringing the best homemade pound cake ever to Thursday Night Dinner.

5. Calvin's play was yesterday. I now believe he should wear an exaggeratedly-floppy newsboy hat every single day. He was too adorable. Aunt Elizabeth got some pictures (see TND link above) but it's kind of hard to see the costume. (It's kind of easy to see how very pointy my nose is, though!)

It's All Small Stuff

Last night, Calvin came home from play practice and promptly vanished. For a while I thought he had gone for a run with Big Daddy, but then I saw his mop of blond hair sticking out from the wad of covers on his top bunk. I figured he was just tired and crashed, which happens sometimes. But when he woke up while we were all eating dinner, I could see that something was wrong. All I got was a shrug when I asked what it was, so I took him into my room and cradled his whole ten-year-old lankiness in my lap. "I forgot my homework folder," he said tearfully, burying his face in my chest. I asked him what was in it, expecting something major, but it sounded like just basic homework stuff. I marveled once again that this child came from me as I asked him if he was upset because he thought his teacher was going to "yell" at him. Yep, that was it. I said "You know, when someone is angry with me or yells at me, I just think to myself 'This person is angry with me, but that doesn't hurt me. It makes her feel better to yell at me, but her words don't touch me. They're just words.'" This is actually a greatly cleaned up version of what I would be thinking, and BD pointed out when I told him this later that no one yells at me because I am scary, but still. You get what I'm saying.

"You know," I told him gently, "all you can do is say 'I'm sorry I left my folder at school and couldn't do my homework. I'll have to turn it in tomorrow for a late grade.' And then, in a couple of days, you won't even remember it happened. Your teacher will not be mad at you and you will still have straight As on your report card like you always do. It's okay." He seemed dubious, but he had to agree that this was his only option. I coaxed him back to the dinner table with the promise of a warm buttered roll.

I tried to cheer him up over dinner by assuring him that everyone forgets things sometimes, and that maybe this teacher will cut him some slack since she's in charge of the play he has been practicing for and which is today. But all along, I was ruminating on the irony of me, a parent, trying to basically teach my child that none of this crap really matters, but without actually saying that. When you are a laid-back borderline nihilist with a semi-anxious child who still believes that everything matters, parenting can be tricky. On the one hand, I feel that I am spared a lot of the emotional grief and drama that I see other people struggle with by the simple fact that I do not care about almost anything except the people I love, my family and friends. There really is not anything anyone can do to me that will phase me in the least as long as I and the people I love are healthy, alive, together, and not homeless or starving. That's what I've stripped it down to. In any other situation, I will play out the scenario to its possible ends and feel assured that nothing of real consequence can happen as a result of my being "in trouble" for whatever reason.

Of course, I don't want to turn my sweet boy into a smug cynic. I realize that my complete lack of ability or desire to buy into any ideology or participate in any structured, organized group or team is probably not the best thing to pass on to my offspring, although I am fine and happy with it for myself. So I have to strike a balance, and try to help them learn not to sweat the small stuff without telling them yet that almost none of it really matters in the long run. And I'm also aware that just as I have to help Calvin see that some things are not such a big deal, in a few years I will be singing a different tune, trying to make Somerset care if she gets in trouble at school or makes bad grades. Maybe I should leave that one to BD.

Beach Body '08

Since I have been slacking on my weight loss goals lately, I thought it might be good to put my intentions in writing and post them for all the world (ok, all twelve of you) to read.

In the past year or so, I've lost almost 30 pounds. Almost. I started 2007 weighing almost 170 pounds, and now I weigh about 143, give or take a fluid pound or two. I haven't been in the low 140s since my third child was about six months old, back in 2003. I had my third baby in September (14 months after my second baby), turned 30 in October, and after the initial post-partum weight loss, began a slow gain that had me pushing 170 by the time I went back to teaching in 2004.

It feels good to be back near 140, but it also feels like I should make a short-term push to get to 135, which is just ten measly pounds more than my ultimate goal of 125. I weighed 125 for three years as a married adult, and for a year after my first child was born, so I think this is a reasonable weight for me and my 5'3 frame. It's not like I'm shooting for the 105 I (effortlessly) weighed when I graduated from high school. I might be happy with 130 if I had a more typically-feminine, pear-shaped body, but I don't. Instead of carrying weight in my hips and butt like my Mom, I carry it mainly in my belly, and all the way around my torso. It ain't pretty, and it's certainly not healthy. Belly fat is bad for the heart, and since I very seriously plan to see my hundredth birthday, I need to work on that.

So, it's back to the gym for me today. I was supposed to go back four weeks ago, but illnesses--mine and the kids'--have kept me from going. And then there's my own laziness factor as well. But I'm trying to motivate myself by thinking back to this time last year, when I had (once again) given up my gallon of sweet tea a day habit, was exercising at least three times a week, and the pounds were melting off like butter. I'm renewing my commitment to stick to the low-cal frozen lunches at work, which, combined with my daily granola bar for breakfast, allow me to sit down to dinner having eaten only about 500 of my allotted 12-1500 calories a day. That said, I also need to watch my portions at dinner. I love my own cooking. It is a curse.

If I need any more motivation, I can always bust out the pictures of me in my grannified, looked-like-a-house-dress bathing suit from beach house '07. Because I won't have a one-year old, adorable baby girl clinging to me and cleverly disguising my bulging midsection so much this year. And I need to save up calories for the week of mojitos.

For all the haters

Here is a list of things I ate at the International Students Club luncheon yesterday:

1. Two small veggie eggrolls and one with meat. They even had the spicey sauce that I won't eat at Stacey's because it looks sweet (it has the viscosity of sugar syrup, but with crushed red pepper in it) drizzled over them.

2. Lamb with Greek rice.

3. Something that reminded me of a small, triangular empenada, filled with ground meat and a tasty green herb I couldn't identify. The triangular shape and phyllo wrapper make me think this was also Greek.

4. Penne pasta with chicken and carrots in a cream-based sauce that was slightly pink, possibly from small bits of sun-dried tomato.

5. A small chicken enchilada with green tomatillo sauce.

6. Some other kind of rice.

Only thing I didn't eat: a bowl of Asian soup that looked like egg drop but had some various seafood in it. I tasted it and it would have been good if it hadn't been lukewarm. Seafood+tepid+last lunch of four=bad idea, right? So that wasn't a pickiness issue. And I noticed that some people had some Indian food, like green rice with peas and a vegetable samosa (pakora? I get them confused. Not the fritter one but the wrapped and fried one) that I wanted and didn't get!

Let the record show that the Spanish teacher on my hall refused to go, saying "I don't eat horse meat," and a teacher sitting next to me left 3/4 of the food on her plate untouched. Last year, we went through a buffet-style line, with each student serving the food he or she had brought and telling us what it was. This year they had us come in and sit down, and they brought us a plate. This was nice and much faster (we only get 27 minutes for lunch), but I'm going to suggest they print a little menu next year so we'll know more about what we're eating. It was all really good, though!

All This and an International Students' Club Luncheon Too

We have had quite the theme of brotherly love here at The high school today. This morning was the program-formerly-known-as the Black History Program, now called The Brotherhood Program. My biological kids were calling theirs the same thing, so this must have been handed down from on high. Anyway, it was actually really good. And since most of you don't get the privilege of spending your days inside a MCS high school, I'm going to describe it for you. I know you're excited!

As we came into the auditorium, images from a Discovery Learning civil rights documentary were being shown on the giant screen on stage, to the accompaniment of our jazz band's alto sax and another instrument I don't know how to identify because, like, I totally was not a band geek in high school! Once all 1700 students were seated by homeroom and settled, the montage was stopped and a student gave some introductory remarks, followed by presentation of the colors and pledge of allegiance by the ROTC (I don't participate in this but I always stand respectfully). Then we all sang the first stanza of "the black national anthem," Lift Every Voice and Sing. I know this song now because it has been sung in so many programs at schools where I've taught, but it was probably the first time in too many years to count that I have had the experience of singing along with a large group of people. I can't sing, in case you were wondering. But it's always touching to me, the way the kids are so familiar with each unusual inflection, exaggerating with the rising and lowering voices as they build to the ending. It was nice.

Next a group of about seven students of multicultural variety came out with candles and performed a...skit, sort of, called "Unity Circle." This consisted of a girl I had in my class briefly at the start of the year blowing me away by singing a song called "Soul Has No Color" that she helped write and perform a few years ago as part of the Echoes of Truth Choir. She sang in an incredible voice, a cappella, with remarkable spunk and confidence, and meanwhile the other students on stage lit each others' candles and repeated the words "I am you, you are me" to each other and the audience as they did so. That part was a little cheesey, but the song was great.

Next, a group of six refugees from Barundi who have been in this country and at school for about two months came out. One of them played an African drum and they all sang a song in their native language in loud, clear, un-self-conscious voices. Based on their easy familiarity with the song and the different parts that each girl took, I would guess it was a song from their childhoods. I was really worried about how all the other kids would respond to their performance, but once they started, you could have heard a pin drop. They finished to an explosion of sincere applause. (Later, someone in a class was talking about how those girls smelled, but a boy countered by saying "That joint was bumping, though." Which is obviously high praise for their song.)

After that, a small group of seniors took turns at the lectern recounting milestones from the Civil Rights movement, each one beginning and ending by saying "Dream, Believe, Achieve." Next, our excellent mixed choir came out and sang "Thank You Jesus." I can pretty well imagine the image most of you will have when you think of a predominantly black teenage choir singing a gospel song, but the reality was probably about as far from what you'd imagine as it could be. Our choir travels this country kicking the ass of every other high school choir they meet--rich and poor, public and private; we beat them out in every competition there is. Imagine a group of African-American teenagers, two white guys, and maybe one or two white girls, wearing tuxes and black floor-length gowns, backs perfectly erect, heads straining forward, faces contorting in the way of the classically-trained singer without a trace of self-consciousness. They sing with no musical accompaniment about 95% of the time, and at one point today the sopranos sustained a single background note for at least three straight minutes. And yes, this is public school, and yes, I said "Thank You Jesus." I've taught at schools where there was prayer at every meeting, basketball game, program, and assembly, and my current school is probably the least offender against the separation of church and state of any school where I've taught. But you are just not going to have a black history program with no Jesus. I've accepted it and moved on. Later the smaller and more highly-competitive concert choir came back out and sang "In My Father's House There Are Many Mansions."

There were also a few solo performances, including the obligatory recitation of "Phenomenal Woman" and an interpretive dance by a brave girl who mostly left me thinking "Damn, I wish my arms looked like that!" And once again, she made it without being laughed at, which made me proud. Because really, it was kind of something you would expect that many teenagers packed into an auditorium to laugh at.

In the end, the principal decided to make a few remarks, which made me think "Oh Crap" and wish that I prayed, so I could pray for him to please god not say anything stupid. He did OK. He chose to use the moment to appeal to the collected student body to curb the recent and unusual outbreak of fights we've had this week. This was a continuation on the theme of Taking Back This Building that started with the bitching out we got in faculty meeting yesterday. He sort of uncomfortably tried to chide the kids for possibly forgetting the struggles and sacrifices that were made to get them here, but mostly redeemed himself by saying he knows he's a white male and can't really understand those struggles. But mostly, I wished he'd just praised the kids for being so well-behaved and sent them back to class.

I secretly believe

That the universe won't let me win the lottery because it knows I would use some of the money to hire nannies and eventually send my kids to boarding school. I try to balance this by mentally promising to give a lot to charity.

How I Spent My Weekend, by Sassy Molassy

I kicked off the weekend by finishing off my March Lamplighter column about five minutes before leaving work on Friday, because it was due that day and I knew if I didn't finish it then, it would be late. Again. Speaking of which, I don't think I ever linked to my February column. February was the Cooper-Young businesses issue, so of course I wrote about my own former business, Mothersville, and all the fabulous things that Andria and Melissa are doing over there these days. And...apparently I'm not going to link you to it now, because their PDF just locked up Firefox three times in a row. Maybe later.

Friday night we were invited to take cocktail hour on the road to the Chez Click, where we enjoyed some delicious appetizers and wine, some sparkling conversation, mainly harmonious playing among the many children, and only a mostly-ignored little bit of "Across the Universe," which was only made more fun by Stacey's constant asking "Is there supposed to be a story line?"

Saturday morning I made breakfast for our family and then some before Big Daddy headed off to work. When will I stop making so many home fries, knowing I'm just going to eat them all? Damn you Chahula! The kids and I played outside for a while, since that is Genevieve's favorite place to be. When Somerset got out her bike, Genevieve started chanting "My bike! My bike!" until I brought out her tiny tricycle. When she got frustrated with that and I asked if she wanted me to push her in her little pink car, she replied adorably "Yes, please." This is how she answers all questions now. Except when her answer is "NO!" We sat on a quilt with Mr. Baby for a bit until Genevieve decided that he, too, wanted to drive the pink car. We strapped him in and set off down the street, to his great delight. He held onto the steering wheel like an old pro, at one point even resting his arm on the back of the seat. Smooth, Mr. Baby. Very smooth. Eventually I took the kids out to my folks' house, where they swapped their usual activity of watching "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody" until my eyeballs bleed for playing board games on Bud's computer. (Yes, they call my dad Bud, and yes, it was my idea that they do so.) Calvin is a natural at Mah Jong, as it turns out.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling like I needed to find the truck that hit me and throw myself under its wheels. Yes, it was time for round two of the dreaded stomach bug that has been making its way through our circle of friends and Genevieve's Montessori school. This time the, uh, "output" (thanks Stacey!) wasn't as violent, but I felt so, so much worse. Fortunately, our very good friend SAM was nice enough to come help BD corral the kids, and I slept until 2:00 p.m. Occasionally I'd drift toward consciousness, roll over, and think about turning on the TV or trying to read, but I never managed to do more than open my eyes for a few seconds before I was under again. Toward the end, Genevieve came in and went to sleep with me, and when we woke up, I was feeling a little better. By dinner time I was just a little shaky and weak, but my attempts to eat dinner weren't very fruitful. I really didn't get my appetite back until today, but unfortunately it's back with a vengeance. If I'm going to get the same evil bug twice, is it too much to ask that it put me under the 140 mark? Sheesh!