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?