On the coolness scale, I'm about 1/2.

Somewhere along this bumpy path, we’ll call it the 2000’s, I’ve spent an obscene amount of money on Dunkin Donut’s coffee and an equal amount of mental energy on trying to be cool. Some people are laughing at this because nothing about me screams “cool”. Nothing about me even softly whispers “cool.” But that hurts my feelings because I have tried. (I wear skinny jeans, I bought Sperry’s in 2012 and Cardi B is on my Amazon Playlist) And now, I eat Greek yogurt, drive a mini-van, sing the Lion King soundtrack and my job involves talking to myself with hand puppets. I also spend a great deal of time figuring out how to talk to adults who don't have small kids. Like, what do you talk about? So on a coolness scale of 0-10, 10 being Angelina Jolie, I’m now a solid 1/2. And that’s only because my 7 year old taught me how to do “The Floss”.

In elementary school, I wanted to be a singer, a professional flute player, a tap dancer on Broadway, a dentist and a competitor in some sort of food eating competition. As I aged, my goals became slightly more refined. In 10^th grade, I wanted to be physical therapist. In 11^th grade, I wanted to be a social worker. In 12^th grade, I decided I wanted to be a teacher. In all the grades, however, I knew the one thing that remained steady was that I wanted to be a mom. In even my craziest of aspirations, kids were always in the background. Like, pack up, kids. We're travelling to London for the International Blueberry Pie eating contest.      

And now here I am. So uncool. Singing nursery rhymes into plastic croissants. Not knowing what to talk about with other adults. Pretending to be the bad student so my 2 year old aspiring teacher can practice putting my clip on red. Crawling around on the floor with a 1 year old on my back, choking me with the collar of my own T-shirt as he clings to me like a spider monkey. And I laugh because this is it. This is all I’ve ever wanted.

So, no I’m definitely not cool. And there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to grow up and be the grandma that wears sweatshirts with kittens on them. And unless fashion changes pretty drastically between now and 2048, I probably won’t be cool then either but God answered my prayers in such a mighty way. So I'm going to choose to love this stage of my life like I knew I always would. 
   
Ok, moms. Tell me the coolest uncool things about you. 

       

Four letter words

When I get the urge to write something, I try to grip it tightly so it doesn’t slip between my fingers in tiny wisps of smoke until all that’s left is a few uninspired droplets of something that could’ve been much bigger. And sometimes I don’t make it. It sort of reminds me of coaching my toddler through holding in her pee until we get to her plastic toilet where she can finally breathe a sigh of relief at having a safe place to put it. 

This post is two-fold, and a little chaotic, much like my day to day functioning. Our daughter has ADHD. When I bring it up in conversation, I sort of mumble those letters together in one long string of sound like I do when humming the parts of a song I don’t quite know. If we’re being honest here, I don’t know what they imply anyways so I’ll just skip to the parts I know, like the chorus of a Bon Jovi song. I know that society has a clearly defined idea about these letters. The general population makes light of them. Educators generalize. These 4 letters can thrust children into a part of a statistic that may or may not link them to a school’s state funding. There are many things the letters could mean to many others. I’ve been mulling over and over what these letters mean for us, for her.

My husband told me a story recently about his golf swing. I never use the right words when I talk about sports so I’ll refrain from saying things like birdie and par, but I know he’s very good based on the newspaper clippings from his childhood that could probably paper a wall in his parents’ house. He was awarded a full ride scholarship to a University where he played on the Men’s golf team. He said his game changed in college and he wasn’t as good anymore and then something interrupted us. Most likely a crawling child trying to stick something metal in an outlet. I brought it up later and asked what he thought the change was and he told me that his coach made him change his swing. He gripped his pretend club, pulled it way back and told me that this was how he had swung in high school. He said it was like John Daly, to which I nodded and agreed because I like to pretend I know all the things, like who John Daly is. Because of his unique swing, his coach wanted to streamline it to improve his game even more, to teach him how to hold a club the way that works so well for most others. Maybe it would make him even stronger. But he described it as being similar to someone suddenly telling you to use your opposite hand to write with. While he is still mega-talented and modest and humble to a fault, he can pinpoint when he lost his footing in the game. The time someone changed his swing.

And now my daughter has to change her swing. Just slightly. Just enough to quiet the voice in her head that is rapid-fire telling her to act first, do what comes naturally, and to continue to do it until someone tells her it’s wrong. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. What’s natural for her isn’t the norm. She’s the John Daly of the first grade. And so now we’re face to face with the task of streamlining her approach. Finding a way to shift all of her right-handed tendencies to the other hand. And it’s hard for her. I want my baby girl to swing her swing, strong and proud with a hint of fearless. So together we navigate this weird territory of left-handedness and strange 4 letter words. We smile, do the best we can and figure out how to tame our tiny girl's swing without losing her footing in the game.

Top 5 Things I Wish I Had Known as a New Teacher

Top Five Things I Wish I Had Known As a New Teacher

(And it has nothing to do with Math or Reading) 

5.) The kids will know if you’re faking anything. They have an extra sense that works like an 11^th toe. The foundation of their trust in you depends on how firmly they can stand balanced on your words so there are no secrets. Don’t like teaching Science? They’ll know. They’ll hear the small wisp of a yawn that you sneak in behind the big, bulky Houghton Mifflin when you are certain they’re reading page 114 with their shoulder partner. Nope. They heard it. Even if you emerge from behind the book victoriously with a wide and toothy smile, too late. They know.

4.) They’re always watching. If you feel eyes on you while you sneak a bite of the apple on your desk, tomorrow you’ll have 12 more mystery apples waiting for you. Think they’re reading their books independently? Nope. Softly drop a 3 ounce paperclip and watch who barrels across the room over desks and bookshelves to pick it up for you.

3.) Build social skills into every day. You think Tanner knows how to handle it when Emma finds his pencil on the floor and then WRITES WITH IT? Nope. He doesn’t.

2.) They want to do hard things. They want to know the big words. They don’t want it watered down for them so it can seep into their brain like a secret, liquid formula that moves them onto the next grade level. They want to feel the success of completing something difficult and then look back and say Hey, look everyone. I did that. Trust them with the big stuff.

1.) They want to know that you’ll forgive them. If they fail at something that’s hard for them, will you love them anyways? If they have a bad day, will you put a calm hand on their arm and tell them to take a quick bathroom break to cool down or will you make their bad choice into a teachable moment with them standing red-faced at the center of your improptu lesson? Whatever you choose in that moment will either build walls between you or build a foundation for them to grow on. 

Don't let Meredith Grey stop you.

I was sitting down to type this blog late last night. My husband had resigned to his sinus infection and had crawled in bed by 9. My house was quiet, save for Meredith Grey who was somewhere in the background being profound. This is it! I told myself. I had a minute, a quiet minute and I was armed with a familiar itch to create something.

I want to be a blogger. There. I said it out loud. I spoke it into existence and now it’s another real thing that I have to feed and keep alive. I want to create writing that people read. I want someone to find themselves knee deep into my blog archives trying to find a post they remember from back in 2015 that said the thing about the thing. I want to maybe someday make money from it. I want part of my daily routine while my kids nap, to be sitting in an over-sized knit sweater, black leggings, dark-rimmed glasses and a pair of neutral-colored slouchy socks and have words flow from my fingertips like ribbons while I sit back and drink coffee like a middle-aged hipster. I want the things I say to mean something to someone.

As I sat there last night thinking about this giant, greasy tractor wheel of a task that I wanted to somehow heave into motion, I heard a voice again. Turns out, if you watch Grey’s Anatomy enough, your doubts and insecurities can be narrated to you in Meredith Grey’s steady and raspy voice. Weird, I know. She, true to form with her intentionally long pauses and purposeful fragments, reminded me of all of the writers who are better and more talented than me. People that I know. Writers who don’t need to ask SIRI how to spell words with too many syllables. Writers who can find a way to make the words slink and dance across the page like smooth, satin streamers compared to my familiar and stunted, tree trunk prose. She reminded me that thousands of blogs sit untouched and unread each year because, to be successful, you have to have something new to talk about, something original that people haven’t heard before. She reminded me that thousands of suburban housewives have cornered the market on Mommy Blogs and take far more appetizing photos of their innovative vegan dinner recipes than I could ever take of my dry Mac and Cheese and overcooked pork chops. Thanks Meredith Grey. I already know.  

          And then, I kid you not, for the first time in my life, I turned to my proverbial Meredith Grey.. which looked a lot like me staring at a wall.. and I slowly lifted my hand and flipped her off. And she shut up. I’ve now spoken this blog into existence. I’m going to keep it alive and feed it. Probably dry Mac and Cheese.   

What is something you've always wanted to do but your Meredith Grey told you you couldn't?

I Wanted Chili to be our "Thing."

I really wanted eating chili on Halloween to be our “thing.” I wanted my kids to grow old and proudly tell their babies “When I was little, we had chili every Halloween. My mom would cut our cornbread into tiny little ghost shapes.” And then all of their children (my grandchildren, I suppose) would feel all warm and fuzzy, nestled safely inside a cocoon of generational tradition.. and naturally they would age to become brilliant humanitarians and doctors because reliable chili is the key to all of that, I think.

And so it’s been years and years of me trying to make this a tradition. Most likely six years, since I think I vaguely remember, as a single mom, eating a bowl of chili in front of my 9-month-old who was dressed as a chicken, wondering if I was doing this right.

This year though, after many years of watching my kids and husband pushing their kidney beans around in their bowls with their spoons, stirring in fistfuls of crushed saltines and sprinkling it with spoonfuls of shredded cheese, I had to swallow the thought that chili isn’t going to be our thing. And worse than that, we may never have “a thing.”

Chances are I’ll find a way to mess up most traditions. Knowing that my intentions are good, I hope they forgive me for forgetting that we were going to mark their height on the door jamb each birthday and that those well-meaning baby pictures taken each month for their first year of life are missing months 3, 4, 5 and all the ones after that.

I’m open to the idea that the only things that are going to consistently be “things” for us are the ways we handle every-day life. It’s all I have time for. This crazy bob and weave of struggle and success; problem-solving and maneuvering. The way we’ve woven God and faith into the fabric of our daily being and we’ve built our own safety net out of our thick ties to those we love.

I  hope “a thing” for us is that when we see garbage on the ground, we continue to feel shocked and horrified and we safely pick it up.  I hope “our thing” is that we feel deep empathy when we see a homeless man on the street and instead of guessing whether he chose that life or not, we say a prayer and wish him well. I hope “our thing” is that we always eat dinner as a family and we brake for squirrels. That we forgive others as God forgives but we love ourselves enough to draw lines. That we watch football on Sundays and cook things that smell good in the crockpot. I hope that we work hard enough to show our kids that nothing is free and that struggling through a difficult task develops character but asking for help is ok, too. I hope our kids remember the familiar creak of the stairs of our very first home and their mom and dad’s office in total disarray; puppets and flash cards, receipts and hand-scrawled notes.

So, instead of trying to make everything a “thing”, I’m going to give it up. Life will ebb and flow, push and pull. There will be missed traditions.  I think I’ll just sit back, watch the beautiful chaos of our messy lives unfold. We’ll endure boundless stress and google tiny, furry animals when we’re sad. We’ll cry and laugh and yell. We’ll snuggle under blankets and watch Project Runway and spend whole weekends in our pajamas. We’ll eat taquitos for breakfast sometimes and chase each other’s shadows on the sidewalks. Maybe that will be our “thing.” That’s enough for us.

VIPKID A (maybe a little biased) Complete Review from a Career Skeptic

I began my journey with VIPKid in June of 2017. So… like… a few months ago. Based on that date, it looks like I would be anything but an expert. So here I am, not claiming to an expert.. but having a minute to type up a transparent and honest review of what I’ve experienced so far. I'm a career skeptic. I'm hesitant of anything that appears to be too good to be true so if you've got any reservations, trust me, they've crossed my mind in twelve different forms already. I didn't believe in this company and spent my entire hiring process with my guard up wondering when the other shoe would drop. If you are wondering if you can trust me to be completely transparent, I’m eating pickles and M&M’s for lunch and sipping on a cold cup of coffee while I type this. I’ve got no shame here.  

This is kind of one of those jobs that once you pick it up, it’s like riding a bike. Except, unlike accidentally pretending to pedal and steer in public, I find myself using exaggerated hand motions to strangers at the grocery store and smiling way too big over my own children completing average tasks. You see? Once you become a VIPKID teacher, it becomes who you are. In a beautiful and raw kind of way.

On top of this part-time gig, I am also a full time elementary school teacher so I can only speak from that perspective. I’ll gladly share the ins and outs for those of you possibly considering it or for those of you that are bored on a Saturday afternoon and looking to read something only slightly interesting.

The Unexciting Details

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE: It’s a total English-Immersion program which means you do not need to know any Chinese. Not even “Hello”.  Classes are completely one and one and are taught through a Skype-type platform. You meet each student in a different classroom. The sessions are 25 minutes long and you are expected to type semi-detailed feedback to the parents about the new vocabulary they learned, what they did well and what to practice. The class plus feedback equals 30 minutes per class.

The Good: The classes move quickly! Before you know it, you’ve got 4 classes done and 2 hours have passed. The lessons are completely designed by VIPkid’s curriculum team in a powerpoint format. You simply review the lesson before the class to see what props you may want and become familiar with the lesson. NO LESSON PLANNING REQUIRED.

The Bad: Classes move quickly. Some lessons have a lot of material to cover. Some lessons don’t seem to have enough material. Some of the kids may struggle and some of the kids may get it super fast. Twenty-five minutes flies by. 😊

WHAT DOES IT PAY:

The Good:

I get this question a lot! In terms of part-time jobs, this is a no-brainer. You work from home when your babies are asleep. There is a range of pay so I can only speak for myself but I hear the range only shifts by a dollar or 2 per hour. I personally make $8 per class which equals $16 per hour. BUT WAIT! If I open my classroom camera right when class starts, I get an extra dollar. EASY! If I do it two classes in a row, it makes $18 per hour. BUT WAIT! If I teach 30 classes in a month, I get an extra $.50 per class which makes me $19 an hour. BUT WAIT! If I teach 40 classes a month, I make an extra $1 per class which makes $20 an hour. They also offer incentives each month and encourage you to set goals so they can give you bigger bonuses.

The Bad:

This is a hot ticket way to make a good deal of money. The bad? You are an independent contractor. That means, you are responsible for taking out and setting aside your own money. For those of us who are no frills, just take the money out for me, type of people, this will be a hard adjustment. I personally set aside 25% of each paycheck but every one’s tax situation is different.

HOW ARE THE KIDS?

The Good:

Every child I’ve worked with has been sweet. They are anxious, shy and nervous in their first few classes as new students but they become comfortable and a lot of them will bring their own props to classes to show you. Their school teachers don’t provide the same type of warmth that teachers in North America do. Their schools are run in a fashion that helps them master the material and become very knowledgeable. What VIPKID looks for in teachers is to not only help them master the English language but to make the experience fun for the whole child, not just their brains.

The Bad:

They are children. Other teachers in the forums I’m part of have had some difficult students and parents. I have had a student continue to cover the camera with his foot, kids who scribble on the slides, tell me “No”, fall asleep and I’ve had many that just stare at me and blink so I just teach the lesson to my puppet and pray for the best. It does happen. Other teachers have had worse experiences. When you open yourself up to a population targeting millions of children, there are bound to be some handfuls. If you are not cool under pressure or don’t think you have it in you to be overly excited when a child FINALLY understands that you want them to use their mouse to draw a circle around the big letter A, then this might not be in the cards for you yet.

WHAT TIME DO YOU TEACH? I’M NOT A MORNING PERSON:

I get this question a lot, too. I also am not a morning person. I’ve developed a love affair with coffee and if I’m being honest, I couldn’t give the company what they wanted if I didn’t have the coffee.

The Good: If you’re a single parent or a parent of small children or if you find yourself in a position where you HAVE to take on a part-time job, this one has the best hours. While not convenient, they save you from having to leave your kids to work an 8 hour shift somewhere. I am in the Eastern Standard Time zone which puts us 12-13 hours behind the students in Beijing. That means during the weeknights here, they are in school. I personally teach from 6:00-6:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday mornings and then leave for work right after. On Friday nights I teach from 9:00 p.m.- midnight and on Sunday mornings I teach from 6:00-8:00 a.m. These are all times when my babies are sound asleep so I can teach without paying a babysitter. I began as a VIPKID teacher just teaching one class on Friday night, one on Saturday morning and one on Sunday morning until I got my bearings. They want you to teach more but there is NO requirement for how much you have to teach each month. You can take your time and get your feet wet before you jump in completely.

The Bad: You get tired. I’m in the business of being honest. Sometimes waking up at 5:00 a.m. smack dab in the middle of the week to make $40 is tough to muster considering I’m also juggling a full-time classroom. I also miss drinking a glass of wine on Friday nights with my husband and unwinding after a long week. Instead, I’m sipping coffee, talking with hand puppets and high fiving children on the other side of the world.. ok that doesn’t really sound so bad does it?

IS IT A STABLE JOB? CAN I QUIT MY JOB AND STAY AT HOME?

As far as stability, let’s just lay the cards out on the table. You’re an independent contractor. Similarly to a real estate agent or a travelling taco vender (ok maybe not that), you’re counting on others to want the service you’re providing. Parents choose the teacher they want for their children. I’ve referred many teachers who have been successful and I’ve referred a couple great teachers who just couldn’t get booked. You count on parents giving you feedback and ratings and those are viewed by other parents. It took me a few weeks to get solid bookings but now I see the same 12-15 students each week. The company is also quick to terminate your contract if you cancel 6 or more classes per contract (the contract term is 6 months). I’ve personally seen this happen. Like with any company, if a parent books you, that is an agreement you have with that parent to be in the class at that time. Their culture is not lenient when it comes to breaking a commitment. However, they were mildly understanding when I had to cancel 5 classes to flee from an impending hurricane. They are still on my record but they are soft cancellations and they don’t count against me.

The Good Stuff

Here is the good.. all the good I’ve got.. the reason I stick around. The joy it brings me.. the richness it’s added to my life. If you don’t like cheesy honesty, don’t read anymore. I am firm believer in positive affirmations.. fake it till you make it. Talking yourself into being happy.  Forcing myself to smile even when I’m tired, shaking off the tired and preparing to wave emphatically at a little boy who is shaking in his seat because he’s so excited in that 30 seconds before my camera opens, listening to an 11 year old boy read the Ugly Duckling to you because it’s the first book he’s read in English and he wants to share, having a little girl walk you around her house to introduce you to her family, the kids showing you pictures they drew of you when you weren’t there, this is IT. It’s all the reason I personally need, to keep doing it. These things have changed me down to my core. They’ve made me happier in my daily interactions. They’ve made me love my students in my brick and mortar classroom in an even more gentle way. They’ve made me aware of my own facial expressions. My body language. I will work for this company until they won’t have me anymore. Not because I’m a die-hard VIPKID employee. It’s a business. They have flaws. Not because I’m so poor that I will always need the extra income. It’s because this is LITERALLY the coolest thing I’ve ever been involved in.

If you find this may be something you’d be interested in trying, send me an email. I’d love to help. If you think this is something you would not be interested in trying, you can still send me an email but include a picture of tiny, furry animals because we all need more of those.

Click my referral link if you want to sign up with me so I can coach you through the process.

https://t.vipkid.com.cn/?refereeId=5657451&refersourceid=a01

Click this link if you want to sign up independently.

https://t.vipkid.com.cn/faq/becoming_teacher

This is from a class I taught on Halloween. She couldn't wait to show me her costume 

  

To my daughter's teacher

I type this letter to you knowing that it may leave your memory merely moments after you read it. That in the hustle and shuffling of trainings and papers and the climbing up and down off of stepstools and tiny student chairs to hang bulletin boards, you’ll file this letter in the back of your mind as something you can remind yourself to remember later. I’ve been there. I know the craziness of making to-do lists and leaving them all around your chaos of a classroom and slapping yourself in the forehead because you forgot to buy sticky tack for the 6^th year in a row. I know you need to catch up with your teacher friends over a blueberry muffin at your PTA back-to-school breakfast. I know my daughter is just a name on a name tag right now so I don’t mind if you put this out of your memory for a while. But there will come a time when I hope you’ll remember this.

My daughter isn’t easy. Just know that I know this. I also want you to know these few things. On a 21 hour long car trip, she spent 2 hours just holding her hand up in the air to block the blinding sun from her infant brother’s eyes. She cries when her siblings get shots. She doesn’t know if she wants to be a Pediatrician or a Shark scientist but she knows she’s going to live at home with us forever. She starts each day with a cotton candy frozen gogurt. She has a habit of letting her hands move faster than her brain and you’re going to have to remind her an obscene number of times to keep her hands to herself. We are teaching her not to give her toys and cash to her friends that come and play and that her time with them is gift enough. She is a follower down to her core and cares deeply about what others think of her.  

She will walk into your classroom with her summer tan and her hair in braids. She’ll have the standard brand new sneakers and most likely a plastic backpack since she prefers flair over quality. She’ll be missing a few baby teeth and her anxiety over the new setting will come out as loudness and awkward silliness. I just hope you’ll remember to be tender with my girl. We are working behind the scenes to help her mold herself into the person God has meant for her to become. We are listening. We see and understand.  When your patience wears thin with her, as it most likely will, just remember she is the glue that holds me together and she is valuable beyond words. This little person will do big things.