It Is Time

Posted on April 13, 2015 by missemtoo

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(An earlier version of this post was published last year. For a variety of reasons, I’ve updated it and am putting it out there again… because here we are again. If you’re looking for the text for the original post, you’ll find it here [scroll to the end].)

Plain and simple, I believe that the current standardized tests in ELA (English Language Arts) and Math, given annually from grades 3-8, are poorly designed and age-inappropriate and, ultimately, should be entirely revamped. I’ll go one step more: I think that a lot of families have no idea what’s happening.

Lemme break it down.

1. Testing isn’t going anywhere
Tests have been around since the dawn of schooling (and probably before that; you know that cave people were totally devising hunting “challenges” for one another). Standardized testing in the United States has been around since at least WWI. Pretty much anyone who’s lived in the USA over the last 40-50 years has heard about our “failing” education system, how we don’t “measure up” to other nations, etc. – so, clearly, something had to be done. Hence, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed which, in 2002, turned into No Child Left Behind where – I’m simplifying here – in order to receive federal funds, schools needed to prove that their students were showing academic improvement. That act was met with such vitriol, this past December, the Obama administration rejiggered it into the Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Whether or not American schools are, indeed, “failing” is up for intense debate, but the fact remains that standardized tests have been around forever. They offer one small snapshot into one moment of a student’s academic year. Taken alongside the numerous other evaluations that are performed throughout any given school year, they can contribute a few brushstrokes to a child’s academic progress canvas. If these tests are well-written, developmentally appropriate, and accurate, they can also provide some sort of (small) basis with which to compare schools and teachers.

I’m down with standardized testing, as a general concept. I think most parents, teachers, and families are.

2. Common Core confusion
States adopted the Core standards with a very specific goal in mind: money. Not education reform, not improving student learning, not evaluating teaching practices or helping teachers to better their approaches, but cold, hard cash. See, there was this thing called Race To The Top (RTTT) that was rolled out in 2009-2010 that essentially said (I’m paraphrasing here ever so slightly): Hey, governing people! Want to earn more FUNDING for your states for education? THEN COME COMPETE FOR IT!! All you have to do is prove that you’re evaluating teachers more stringently, identify and turn around failing schools, promise you won’t prohibit the formation of more charter schools, adopt some common standards, and create some nifty data systems! The faster and better you do that, the faster you can earn MORE MONEY!!! It’s like a carnival up in here!

In theory, a set of shared standards isn’t such a bad idea. I like the Common Core benchmarks, broadly speaking. I like the idea of everyone in the US learning some basic, shared content. I like the thought that, if your kids changed schools or districts or moved across the country, you could count on them not being too far behind (or ahead) because everyone’s learning the same stuff at the same time, from poverty-stricken inner cities to wealthy suburbs.

In practice, because of the whole SHOW ME THE MONEY thing, the standards were written in a bit of a hurry – and, many people assert, they were written without any educator input. No, for real: according to many experts, not one single K-12 educator or child development expert was included in the creation of these standards. So they’re a bit off-base in terms of what’s developmentally appropriate for each grade level, by which I mean that they’re asking kids to know a heckuva lot more, and to use an awful lot of more complex thinking, than they’ve done before.

Which, in itself, might not be so bad — maybe even inspiring and hopeful — if the standards had been adopted at a reasonable pace with teachers being given adequate support and training to properly teach the new material.

But because there was money on the line, and because states had to act super fast if they wanted their share, they adopted Common Core with lightning speed. There was no gradual roll-out. No trying-and-seeing to determine if this set of standards was reasonable, achievable, or appropriate. No oversight by anyone in the field of education. Buckle up!

3. Many of the tests are poorly written
Even so – even with way more complex standards written by non-education people that were put into practice before anyone had a chance to review them – things might have been okay had the accompanying tests that were meant to measure performance been good, strong, accurate evaluations. But many of them are not.

For one thing, they – like the standards – are written by non-educators. (I understand that in New York state, the tests before the Common Core-based evaluations were also written by non-educators, so this is nothing new, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their authorship, the tests have been found to be riddled with errors. The test questions themselves, especially on the ELA portion of the exam, are often written at reading levels two to nine grades ahead (asking, say, third graders to read and evaluate passages that are actually appropriate for 5th- 12th graders).

These are taken from the PARCC ELA test…

Yes. Our eight year-olds are probably familiar with the idea of “luring” someone into “a false sense of security.”

Many of the test questions are vague or even deliberately misleading, which makes choosing the answer more of a guessing game than a true demonstration of understanding.

4. The results don’t mean anything
Given that the tests are badly written, error-filled, and are developmentally inappropriate, it seems safe to say that their results don’t really mean much. Additionally, since student results aren’t provided until the end of summer (or even into the start of the next school year), the child’s teacher can’t use the scores to adjust his or her instruction to better serve those kiddos.

Sure, in theory, a teacher could look at the results from last year’s class, see a deficiency in a particular area, and think, “Oh, I guess I didn’t do a good job teaching Main Idea. I’d better work on that with this year’s batch of students.” In fact, I would bet that the vast majority of teachers try to do exactly that. But the information that teachers are given – at least in New York – is rather limited.

Teachers aren’t allowed to see the actual questions from the test, nor to know ones were answered incorrectly – they only receive a broad overview of concepts and standards and whole-class percentages rather than individual student breakdowns. Did last year’s students really not understand Main Idea, or were the Main Idea questions vague? Were they deliberately misleading? Were they “sample” questions that are thrown out there each year just to see how kids do on them? Were they just plain incorrect or filled with typos?

Even if the data was reliable – there’s one final catch: the passing score changes from year to year and is determined… AFTER THE TESTS HAVE BEEN SCORED. I wish I could say that I’m kidding, but I’m not. Movable passing scores!!

5. Teachers are more than just a (faulty) number
Here’s where things get really personal for me. Let’s just backtrack for a moment and pretend that the current tests are awesome. Let’s pretend that they are appropriate, accurate, and superbly written. Even if this were the case, I think we can all agree, still, that they represent merely one moment in a child’s education, several hours out of their lives. They don’t actually demonstrate all that children have learned – not even the best tests in the entire world – because most of what we call “learning” cannot be shown in a two-dimensional standardized test.

What standardized test results really show us is how well individual children tested on a particular day. And yet many states have decided that test scores do accurately demonstrate how well teachers are teaching, often counting the scores for up to 50% of a teacher’s evaluation.

And let’s not forget about the rest of the teachers. Tests are given at only at certain grade levels in certain subjects – meaning that that the majority of teachers do not teach these subjects/grades. K-2 teachers? 9-12 non-Regents class teachers? Gym, music, art? Science (students are tested in science but not in every grade), social studies/history, foreign language, library, computer, home ec, graphics…?

And yet 50% of their evaluations are also based on test results. Based on the performance of students they may never have laid eyes on IN SUBJECTS AND GRADE LEVELS THAT THEY DO NOT TEACH.

This is fair, appropriate, or okay because… why?

6. Greed is a powerful motivator
For decades now, politicians have been talking about how American education is failing. Thus, politicians find it pretty easy to gain financial backers for education reform. After all, once a school is determined to not pass muster, something must be done — new curricula, new textbooks, new resources.

One of the largest supporters of Common Core is Bill Gates – yes, that Bill Gates – who has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into its adoption. While I believe that Bill Gates genuinely wants to help, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Microsoft and Pearson – one of the largest producers of Common Core materials – have banded together to get additional Microsoft resources into schools.

Many people have taken issue with the fact that companies such as Pearson [which authored a) the Common Core standards, b) the great majority of the current Common Core tests, c) the “modules” of instructional materials that are sold to schools to prepare students for said tests, d) and – as of 2015 – the teacher certification examinations in eighteen states] is a business company, not a company run by education or child development professionals. (I acknowledge that pre-Common Core, tests were still written by contracted, outside companies; that still doesn’t make it right.)

That would be galling enough, but even more maddening is that Pearson is positively rolling in the money it is making off of its materials. Since Common Core was adopted so quickly, school districts had to act fast to provide their teachers with adequate curricula resources. Who better to provide that than the author of the Common Core standards? Enter the Pearson instruction modules! Need additional support materials? Pearson’s got those, too!

7. Teacher demoralization
I’m just going to put it bluntly: because of all of this Common Core testing and the hoopla surrounding it, many of our teachers* feel like crap. They have been told, in no uncertain terms, that the jobs they were doing weren’t good enough. No matter how well-liked they were, how many kids graduated from their classes, how many years they’d been teaching, how many children they taught to read or how to multiply, how many hours they stayed after school, how many hungry children they fed, how many concerts they attended… it wasn’t enough. They have to change, fast. And if they don’t? Their very jobs are at stake.

All of the teachers I know – the ones for whom I sub, the ones with whom I sub, the ones with whom I went to college, the ones with whom I used to teach, the ones who teach my own children, or the ones I’ve met along the way by happenstance – have said, unequivocally, how much they love teaching. They love their students. They are fiercely proud to be educators. But it is getting hard – really hard – for many of them to continue. You hear talk of those who are seriously considering leaving the classroom because they can no longer teach; now, they have to teach these modules, teach to the test, jump through hoop after hoop. It’s exhausting and maddening.

Losing our teachers would, obviously, be a tremendous problem; that problem is compounded by the fact that there has been a steep decline in the number of new teachers being certified in recent years. Even those who do decide to enter the profession don’t stick around for long.

To be sure, teachers have often felt under-appreciated, misunderstood, and underpaid, but rarely has their ability to do their job been so strongly questioned. Never have they been so micromanaged. We are losing some of our best teachers. We aren’t getting enough new ones. This is happening right now, all across the country, and it is terrifying.

(*Obviously, I realize that I’m speaking in very broad terms here. I have not interviewed every teacher in the nation. But I am certain that the teachers with whom I have spoken – and this is a helluva lot of teachers – have expressed their dejection, sadness, and frustration.)

8. How do we get an objective measure?
Many people who acknowledge the shortcomings of these particular tests maintain that we need them because we need some objective measure of how our kids are doing in school. We need some way to compare teachers, schools, and performance, from rural West Virginia to suburban Idaho to inner-city Houston. We need to be able to determine teacher growth and student success. Kids from the most poverty-riddled communities deserve access to the same quality education as their most affluent peers.

I hear that. I absolutely believe that all children deserve a quality education; the disparity is, indeed, unfair. I also think it would be great to, say, move across the country and be able to glean, at a glance, how a school or district compares to another.

But here’s the thing: I think we’re looking for something that doesn’t exist – not because we haven’t figured out how to do it, but because it’s just not possible. Maybe education and learning aren’t things that can be measured any more than a musical performance can be measured. Maybe teacher growth and student success aren’t confined to numbers. Maybe a one-size-fits-all assessment works nicely for obtaining a driver’s license but not so well for determining whether or not fifth graders can identify subplot or if their teachers are doing their jobs. Test scores do not indicate success or failure; they are merely numbers.

9. Quite whining! How about some solutions or ideas?!
I’m not saying that we should give up. I’m saying I think we need to – dramatically – change our approach to how we evaluate education, students, and teachers. In my Magic Wand World, I’d take a (lot of) page(s) out of Finland’s book (it is well-acknowledged that Finnish students perform among best in the world at international exams) and our teachers would be as well-respected as as well paid as our doctors.

Since it’s unlikely that we’re going to adopt too many of Finland’s ideas, I suggest that we work with what we already have to reconfigure our view of success.

We should de-couple the current standardized tests from teacher evaluations, period.
We can keep the Common Core – as I said, I like those standards – but only as a portion of what each child should learn; we need to leave the rest up to individual states, districts, schools, and teachers.
We should give teachers several years to become familiar with the Core standards so that they can rework their lesson plans, see where there may be deficiencies, and take it from there.
Standardized tests aren’t going anywhere (in the USA), but we should have new, fair, developmentally appropriate tests that have been written by educators from across the K-12 spectrum.
Those tests’ scores should come back before the school year is over so that the students’ current teachers can use the data to inform their instruction.
And then those numbers should be just one of many other things that combine together to form our opinions of teacher success and student learning. Let’s factor attendance into the equation. Graduation rates. The percentage of high school graduates who go onto college. Post-graduate success. AP exams – how many are given? What are the scores? Teacher-student ratio. Teacher retention; how many are still teaching there after three years? Five? Ten? Extra-curricular activities. Class sizes. Poverty levels. Parent involvement. Principal and superintendent evaluations. Student portfolios. Additional test scores.

Education “success” cannot be measured by any one, single thing. I will happily sing you the praises of my daughters’ elementary school, which I adore, but none of those praises – from small class sizes to close relationships with other families to the devotion of the teachers to their annual Halloween parade – has anything to do with test scores.

10. Become informed… and then do something
I’m not really the “take a stand” type. More typically, I talk and think a lot. I write letters, I sign petitions, I discuss with family and friends. With this, it was different. I’d been talking, for years. I’d been signing petitions. I’d been writing letters, dozens of them, from the governor to my locally elected officials.

Finally, last year, it became clear to me: talking, thinking, letter- writing, and petition-signing weren’t working. Our legislators weren’t listening. And in the meantime, our children and teachers were suffering.

Enough was enough. And so, after much research and consideration (and after having participated the year before), our 4th grader opted out of the tests. She was extremely nervous about taking them – and we were extremely upset that her teachers were being evaluated based on student scores on poorly-designed tests – so it seemed like an appropriate solution. Turns out, many, many parents and children in New York state came to the same conclusion. As I wrote last year:

To paraphrase the incomparable Maya Angelou, when you know better, you do better. Parents and teachers are speaking up. We are knowing better. I hope, as our voices swell – whether our children take the tests or refuse them – that our politicians will hear us and that, some day, they will do better, too.

You know what? Our New York legislators heard us. BY GOSH, THEY HEARD US! Our voices swelled and our message was clear: This situation needs to change. And so the change has begun. Test scores are no longer being used to evaluate New York teachers (CAN I GET AN AMEN!). Students may now take as much time as they need to complete the exams. As of next year, Pearson will no longer be writing the tests or curricular materials. NEW YORK IS TRYING TO DO BETTER.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Because of the changes that have been made, my husband and I did not feel as strongly about refusing the testing this year, instead leaving the decision to our daughters (after sharing the above information with them, to the degree that they can understand it). Our oldest, again, has opted out; her younger sister is taking them. We feel very comfortable being a house divided.

No, the tests aren’t perfect (then again, what is?). With the exception of tying them to teacher evaluations, everything else remains (essentially) the same, so there remains (much) work to be done. (While I appreciate the removal of the time limit, it seems that some students are taking up to 6 hours per day to finish their tests… which is not exactly “doing better”…) Still, I acknowledge and greatly appreciate that changes are being made. It’s a step in the right direction.

Some analysts and educators argue that high-stakes tests should be banned, period. Others claim that the tests are successful. Although they’re reaching different conclusions, they’re doing so after having thoroughly done their homework (a pun!).

And that is what I encourage everyone to do: learn more, then go from there. Find out who writes the tests in your state and how teachers are asked to teach the material. Read up on others’ opinions about how valid and appropriate the tests are. Discover when the test results are returned, what information the teachers and schools receive, and how they apply that information. Learn whether or not your child’s educators are evaluated based on test scores. Inquire about what your options are.

Then, if you feel that the tests are not measuring up, ask for better. If you feel like they’re cutting muster, speak up! Maybe that looks like writing letters. Maybe it’s signing petitions. Maybe it’s attending town hall meetings. Maybe it’s talking with neighbors and teachers and administrators. Maybe it’s opting out. Maybe it’s opting in. Maybe it’s a little of everything and a lot of other things, too.

No matter how you feel about Common Core and the state tests, I think we can all agree that our nation’s children deserve awesome. Let’s work together to be thoughtful, committed citizens. Let’s help our children receive the awesome they deserve. Heck – let’s change the world.

Now and Ten

Posted on April 8, 2015 by missemtoo

We have reached that strange, familiar-yet-unfamiliar place: neither separate nor together, too close or too far, always. She wants me to listen but not overhear, to offer advice but to allow her to figure it out on her own, to catch her and set her free, all at the same time.

Some days, she is exactly who she has been all these years. Our exchanges are easy and bright, familiar and relaxed. We both find our footing and walk forward together. Other days, it’s as though she is an entirely new and different person. Nick and I ask each other, “Wait… where did she go?” The ground beneath us is unsure, our steps tentative, maybe even backward.

And then suddenly, without warning or preamble, she bursts through again, radiating humor and happiness and contentment. Nick and I say to one another, “Oh look – she’s back!” Of course, she has always been there; just sometimes, there are a lot of clouds obscuring our view. disney01

So it’s been for a while now, but recently everything feels intensified. The clouds, when they come, are thick and far away, offering cover that we cannot quite peek through. They blow over more quickly, however, and when she returns, she is more sparkling than ever before. Or perhaps I just appreciate her light a little more, somehow.

These past few months have brought a helluva lot of figurings-out and thinking-abouts and growings-up – I was going to say for her but now I realize it’s been for both of us. As she navigates her space, she has been pulling me close, both physically and otherwise. Sit by me, Mama. Can I read this to you? Would you come talk with me, Mama?

Still, she is working hard to be Independent and Strong, and I am constantly reminded that, despite her small stature, she is no longer a little girl.

But sometimes… When I go to tuck her in at night, I slip her hair behind her ear and just watch her breathe, the rise and fall as steady and peaceful as the tide. When she plays the piano, I am struck by her beauty, by the gracefulness of her fingers. When she asks if I can pick her up and hold her (yes, even now), I no longer even pretend that she is too big. She is, of course, but these moments are so rare, I’ll gratefully oblige.
“People say we look alike…”
Taken on the plane. Shared with her permission.

Spring break was last week; as before, we visited my dad and stepmom in Kiawah and it was wonderful. Our final flight home had us taking off well past bedtime. If we were lucky, we’d get home before midnight. The girls were troopers in the airport, but they were exhausted by the time we took our seats on the plane.

She wanted to sleep – desperately – but couldn’t find a comfortable position; snoozing while traveling is just not her thing, an unfortunate trait she inherited from me. She tosses and scrunches, stretches and curls up, but nothing feels right. I murmur sympathetic noises over my crossword puzzle, illuminated by the blazing personal light that I’ve clicked on above us.

When she shifts again, I notice the exhaustion on her face, her whole being drooping like a wilted flower. I tug my sweatshirt from behind me, where I’ve balled it up to get it out of the way, and drape it across my right side. I hold out my arm, reaching around her shoulders. “Here, sweetie. Come, pull in beside me.” Unexpectedly, she does, tucking herself in against my chest. Within minutes, I can hear and feel that her breathing has slowed. I reach up with my left hand and and turn off the light.

Unable to work on my crossword, I just sit, my arm around her, my chin resting on her head. I sniff her hair; it does not smell like shampoo or sweetness, as it did when she was a baby, but instead of chlorine and sunscreen and salt and sweat – a perfect encapsulation of a day well spent in the sun, by a pool, having fun. I inhale deeply, taking her in, as though I can see her dreams radiating around us.

After ten minutes or so, my eyes have fully adjusted to the lack of light and I take up the crossword again (with one hand), somewhat half-heartedly. As we begin our descent, there is some slight turbulence. She slides forward a bit, away from me, her head tilting. I tighten my grip on her shoulder and attempt to do 39-Across.

By now, she has slid even further down. Her head is lolling forward; I’m afraid that she’ll awaken. I move my hand from her shoulder to her head, pulling her back in to me. Once more, I put down my pen. It is awkward and a little uncomfortable sitting like this, my hand pressed to her forehead as though feeling for a fever, leaning into her with each bump and dip so that she doesn’t tip right over. But I don’t care. I don’t know when we’ll be sitting like this again. I can do so little to protect her these days; these moments feel like a gift. We stay just like that until the flight is over.

When we land and finally arrive at our gate, her eyes flutter open – although she is so tired, they can hardly remain so. She says she wants to come with me to get the car (rather than wait inside for the luggage with Nick), despite having to walk in a downpour to retrieve it. She is patient and quiet when the CD player consumes our parking ticket and I have to produce my driver’s license to exit the ramp. Once we get home and I am tucking her into bed, she insists that she wasn’t actually sleeping on the flight – she was merely resting.

But minutes later, when I check on her and find her fast asleep, I watch the rise and fall of her chest again, like it had been on the plane, like the tides, and I know she was mistaken. I sniff her hair one last time – still perfect – and leave her to her dreams.

Grace Notes (aka The Great Pajama Debacle of 2015)

Posted on March 25, 2015 by missemtoo

When we arrived at school yesterday, the crossing guard cheerfully asked if the girls were comfy – given that it was pajama day. Insert *mass hysteria* because they were not, at all, dressed in their pajamas. THE HORROR.

There was some blaming… on both parts (“Mom!! It was on that sheet that came home! HOW COULD YOU NOT REMEMBER!” “I never read any such thing!” “YES YOU DID! IT WAS ON THE SHEET!” “I believe that it is YOUR job to be in charge of things like pajama day, my dear…”). There were some angry, hissed words… on both parts. There was sulking… on both parts. There was full-on denial of any responsibility… on both parts.

As I came back home, I kept replaying it in my mind, how wrong my offspring had been for not taking responsibility for themselves, how they need to remember their own stuff, damn it! Then, after a bit of pondering, I realized that it was, indeed, a confluence of many errors – not just theirs. One daughter’s teacher did not mention pj day to the class at all (resulting in 3/4 of those classmates not wearing pajamas). One daughter did not remember that her teacher had mentioned it, and thus failed to don appropriate loungewear. And one mama (*cough*) only scanned the informational sheet that had come home rather than reading it thoroughly (although we did send in pennies on Monday and nickels yesterday for the All For Books collection, so this mama got something out of the handout…).
Still… no pajamas. My bad.

Once I realized that I’d had a part to play in The Great Pajama Debacle of 2015, I blamed myself. Harshly. I mean, if one of my kiddo’s teachers never even mentioned pj day, and it wasn’t announced over the loudspeaker, the only way she’d even know that such a thing existed was if her parents (or, in this case, me – ’cause Nick is out of town) had fully read the communication that came home and informed her of said pj day. Which I did not, and she got screwed.

So, basically a total parenting fail on my part. Which is ironic because, I mean, how many times have I berated students (and angrily chided fellow parents) for not following the directions or actually reading the emails I so dutifully type out?? HOW IS THIS SO HARD?

I felt awful. Chalk it up to another Bad Mom Moment. I DID IT AGAIN.

This photo has nothing to do with anything other than that they’re cute.

But then, for reasons I can’t quite place, I sat back and realized that, yes, I did do it again. I made a mistake and my kiddos suffered the consequences of it. But the thing is, I’m going to keep on making mistakes because (and this sometimes shocks me) I AM HUMAN and that’s what we do. We make mistake after mistake; hopefully, we don’t do it on purpose. Hopefully, we learn from them. Hopefully, we apologize when an apology is warranted and we mean it. Hopefully, we try really freakin’ hard to do better in the future. But mistakes are natural and normal and, even when pajama day is not remembered (cue tiny violins), even when my kids stand out like sore thumbs in jeans instead of flannels, it will be okay.

Upon this realization, for one of the first times ever, I decided to give myself a little bit of a breather. I decided to let go of the guilt, of the should-haves, of the yuckiness gnawing away at me when I looked at the bar I’d set and saw I hadn’t come close to reaching it. I decided to give myself grace – not necessarily in the religious sense (I’m not quite that powerful; see above: forgotten pajama day), but in the I’m Doing The Best I Can And If I Make Mistakes It’s Okay So I’m Not Going To Beat Myself Up For It sense.

I’ve been reading a lot about the concept of grace, especially from Glennon Doyle Melton on her Facebook page and in her book. Glennon is really just the absolute shit – funny, poignant, thought-provoking, absurd, well-spoken – but it’s what she’s written about grace, about forgiving and embracing your whole scattered, imperfect, crazy self, that has really struck a chord with me.

But man, has it been difficult to put into practice.

I’m naturally hard on myself, asolutely my toughest critic. I’m not much for keeping up with the Joneses. I don’t feel outside pressure to look a certain way, parent a certain way, be female in a certain way. I don’t worry so much about appearances (see the previous post about my duct-taped car and stain-covered clothing). Some of this is just who I am, and some of this I attribute to my ADHD – so I choose to let it go. I mean, if there’s a great likelihood that it’ll take me 37 steps just to put away the laundry, it would be expecting a helluva lot of myself to have a perfectly organized house all the time.

That part is nice – the allowing myself to just be… me. To not hold myself to impossible visible standards. But the secret is that I hold myself to impossible invisible standards; the ones I’d never expect of anyone else, the ones that are ridiculous, the ones that no one else knows about but me. And when I don’t meet my own expectations – because they’re, you know, all but unattainable – I come down on myself. Hard.

If I’d tried more. Started earlier. Listened better. Said no. Said yes. Been more organized. Gone to bed earlier. Focused differently. Paid attention. Worked faster. Put in more detail. Worried less about the small stuff. Asked for help. Done it myself. Been open to change.

You name it, I’ve failed at it.

Honestly? All of this failure just plain sucks. It’s exhausting. It’s disappointing. It’s maddening. It’s stupid.

So, I’d like to be done with it. I don’t mean I’d like to stop screwing up (that would be awesome, but it’s not what I mean), but rather that I’d like to be done feeling like a failure because I don’t live up to my own unreachable standards. To allow myself to be human, to be me. To give myself grace.

Attempting some Irish dancing after seeing it live on St. Patrick’s Day.
Again, this has nothing to do with anything. Carry on.

I decided to start yesterday. Yep – I didn’t read the memo thoroughly. Yep, I didn’t inform my kiddos that it was pajama day. Yep, they felt left out. And it sucked. But it’s okay. It was a mistake – a small one, at that. It’s okay. I’m okay. In fact, I’m pretty damned awesome.

When the girls came home, there was not one mention of pajama day. They did not come through the doors in tears claiming I’d ruined their lives (over pajama day; I’m sure they’ll be happy to come up with other ways I’m doing them in). Still, I wanted to at least acknowledge what had happened — after all, I’d completely denied that I had any responsibility in the forgetting; I needed to set the record straight. Before I left to teach piano, I leaned in and said, “Hey – I just wanted you to know that I double-checked the note from school. You’re right; pajama day was mentioned. I didn’t read it fully, so I didn’t know. That was my fault. I’m sorry.” Without missing a beat, they looked up and said, “It’s okay, mama. We didn’t remember on our own, either. It’s not your fault.”

Which, I guess, is what it all comes down to, right? This parenting thing? Growing and learning and admitting your errors and celebrating who you are and starting over again with love and a new perspective and probably a glass of wine?

They will find out whether it’s okay to be human from you. Insist to them that it’s more than okay by apologizing and then PUBLICLY and SHAMELESSLY AND BOLDLY forgiving yourself. And then Begin Again. And Again and Again and Again and Yet Again Forever and Ever Amen.

Don’t show those babies what perfection looks like- show them what GRACE looks like.
– Glennon Doyle Melton

I am shamelessly and boldly trying. It sucks, but I’m trying.

(Damn good thing, too, considering that this morning we all remembered that it was Crazy Hat day… but, in our rush to leave the house a little earlier than usual so that I could sub, some less-than-stellar moments were had, including the moment where I might have crouched down low right in my daughter’s face and growled the phrase, “If you ever say that again, you’ll be in for a world of hurt.”

So… yeah. A world of hurt. That’s neat.
I’m having a little trouble with the grace thing on that one, but you’d better believe I’m going to apologize. And begin again. And again. And again.)

Maybe you can drive my car…

Posted on March 24, 2015 by missemtoo

I am not so much what you would call “fancy.” Most of my clothes have been spilled on or contain dog fur. I use our iron approximately twice a year, usually to iron on Annie’s Girl Scout patches. My sunglasses are purchased either at a gas station or a grocery store (which is a good thing, since I lose them so frequently).

This lack of fancy-ness also extends to my gadgets and electronics. For more than a year after the screen on my laptop came unhinged, I continued to use it anyway, held together with binder clips. My current cell phone will – not infrequently – just power down, claiming no battery (even though it was last at 56%); my contract isn’t up until June, though, so I just make sure I bring a charger everywhere with me. One spring, for a good six weeks, we used a toaster – daily – whose “on” button had to be held in place by a butcher knife.

I’m not saying this was safe or smart… I’m just saying that’s how it was.

It’s not that I’m cheap. It’s not even that I’m frugal. I’m more than happy to spend on things that I find important… like Starbucks and Amazon Prime and going out to eat and birthday presents and vacations and cheese and chocolate. It’s more that I’m lazy… And also just not that impressed by bells and whistles. If I can get by with what I have, I’m just fine, thanks.

But then there was the car. My car. The minivan that we’d purchased ten days before Annie was born (the one which, after retrieving it from the parking garage to pick Annie and me up at the hospital main entrance, Nick promptly backed into a concrete pylon). That car was our everything; we basically lived in it.

This was taken with some super-old phone way back in the day, which explains its general craptastic quality. Technology!

We drove that van from our home in Westchester County to our new home – and new life – in Rochester. That van took our girls to doctor’s appointments and preschool. It took us to Broadway shows in New York City, weddings in Boston and Maine, visiting family in Vermont, and on a ferry across Long Island Sound. We picked up our first CCI pup in that van and used it to return the others for Advanced Training.

Car napping, 2009

We went through infant carriers, five-point harness carseats, full-backed boosters, regular boosters, and plain old seats. We’ve hauled around more children to more games and recitals and parties than I can count. We took our Christmas trees home every year atop that van and folded down its rear seats to make way for new furniture. That van had been puked on, peed on, pooped on (dog, not kid), and had enough pieces of God knows what strewn across its floor to be classified a scientific hazard.

Rear view, 2011

We took sleeping children home in that car. We read books in that car. The girls did their homework in the backseat and changed clothes before dance class. We listened to the entire audio series of Percy Jackson in that car, drove to see the holiday lights each year, and seriously rocked out to our favorite songs. We laughed and cried – a lot – in that car. Essentially, that car was the chronicle of Annie’s life; it had been with us for all of her eight years. It had 105,000 miles; it had worked hard and well.

Counting down to the New Year in… where else? The car!

As with anything that’s been well worn, the car had some… issues. The rear sun screen thingies had long since been broken by overenthusiastic children. The front charger ports (originally for cigarette lighters, now for phones and devices if you had the right adaptor) had stopped providing a charge more than two years ago (although if you strung an extra-long cord from the very rear of the car and snaked it through all three rows of seats, you were still in business). The battery – although recently replaced – was unreliable; I’d had to call neighbors for jumps at least three times in the past twelve months.

The side mirror was cracked (after smacking it on the garage doorframe); I reasoned that I could still see out of it, so there was no need to get another. The windshield had been replaced a few months back after having been hit by an rock; the replacement wasn’t fitted properly, however, so it whistled. The rear passenger door had become increasingly erratic – sometimes, it would slide open seamlessly. Others, it would open halfway and then close up again. Basically, every time we got in was an adventure.

We’d driven over a particularly rough snowbank last year and part of the undercarriage had just ripped off; since it was plastic and didn’t seem to be doing much, I took it inside with me and drove on. When more of the undercarriage began to fall off and drag along the street, I just duct taped the rest in place and hoped for the best (this was not so noticeable at high speeds but was enormously loud when driving around the neighborhood; more than once, I had a neighbor flag me down to let me know that “something was happening” under the car).

I was completely willing to live with all of these little deficiencies – they gave the car character. More to the point, I’d been saving up for years and years to purchase a new car, deciding I would do so around the time I turned 40… which is in November. (Not so much a 40^th birthday present, because a new minivan for one’s own birthday seems both incredibly opulent and really lame, but rather it just seemed like a good goal.) I could scrape by (literally) for less than a year. It was all fine.

Then, without warning, the rear driver’s side door broke – when it closed, the system wouldn’t register it, so every time the car was in “drive” the vehicle emitted a non-stop, ear-piercingly loud, there’s-no-way-you-can-drive-like-this beeeeeep to let us know that THE DOOR ISN’T LATCHED STOP RIGHT NOW. Except that it was latched – the electronics had simply failed to acknowledge it. I found that I could disable the alarm by flipping the auto-door switch to manual, but that was unsatisfying and tedious (those doors are freakin’ heavy).

After doing some research, it appeared that a repair would cost, at minimum, a couple thousand dollars… Which, considering I’d been saving up money to purchase new car later this year anyway, seemed really stupid. And so, with both rear doors functioning poorly, I finally decided the time had come to admit defeat.

I didn’t want a nice new car; I simply wanted one that actually worked. When I told the dealer that I had no interest in taking the show model for a spin, he was visibly taken aback – but I knew there was no point. I liked my current van, Consumer Reports had rated the newer model highly, and I knew I wanted another. End of story.

Since I was trading in our 2008 towards our new car, the dealer – understandably – had to look ours over. The first thing he said upon completing his inspection: “Ummm… you do know that the underside is held together with duct tape…”

YEP. Got it. Totally aware. Thankfully, they took the trade anyway, and a few days later, I drove home in my new minivan.

You guys, this car is… awesome. The dash is all electronic and touch-screen crazy. The backseat is configured differently so Ella and Annie don’t have to sit right next to each other, THANKS BE TO GOD. I splurged (see, do sometimes go for the gold) and got heated seats (cloth seats though, because leather and I are a bad combination). As with many newer cars, I have the super-fancy option of using my cell phone straight through the car, which is pretty cool. Most importantly, the windshield doesn’t whistle, the power adaptors work, the side mirror isn’t cracked, and all of the doors are fully functional. TALK ABOUT BELLS AND WHISTLES, Y’ALL.

Like most new-model cars, there are no keys; it’s all keyless starting – you just step on the brake, press a button, and the engine awakens. I’ve never really liked the whole keyless thing; it just doesn’t feel right to me, to not need to insert the key into the slot to get a car to go. And indeed, from the very first time I got into the car and wondered what was wrong with it (“Uhhh, Em… You’re pressing the stereo button, not the ignition button…”), I knew that the keyless entry system and I would not be buddies.

Fast forward to last week, when I took Fenwick with me to run a few errands. I put the puppy in the car and had just begun to pull down the driveway when I realized that I’d left something inside. Rather than pulling all the way into the garage, I elected to leave the car where it was and just run back into the kitchen. As I did, the car emitted this faint “beep” to let me know that the “key” (which was in my pocket) was no longer as close to the engine as it should be. I had no idea what would happen if I got too far away — would the engine shut off? Would the car lock itself down? So, to play it safe, I took all of my keys out of my pocket and placed them on the hood, right by the windshield wipers – so they wouldn’t slide off, naturally – and promised myself that as soon as I came back out of the house, I’d grab the keys and be on my way.

Did I remember to grab the keys when I got back in the car? OF COURSE I DIDN’T. I am me, after all.

I didn’t realize my mistake until I’d arrived at the grocery store (Fenwick in tow) and powered down the car; the moment I moved to get the keys so I could lock the car via the key fob, I knew that I didn’t have them. How on earth the car had managed to continue driving – when the “key” was nowhere near the engine – without warning me in any way, I didn’t know; I also didn’t know where the keys were, given that I’d driven away with them sitting on my windshield wipers.

Thankfully, Nick was in town that day (as opposed to on a business trip), had the extra “key” with him at his office, and was able to meet me at the grocery store posthaste and hand me the replacement (I even managed to get my shopping done in the time it took him to arrive, so I didn’t waste a second – ADHD filling-every-spare-moment FTW!). When I returned home, my keychain was sitting patiently for me on the driveway – so, all in all, it ended just fine.

But still. I posted about my experience on Facebook and within minutes, several friends chimed in that they (or their family members) had gone through similar headaches with their keyless-entry vehicles — driving away from the keys, reaching the destination, and then effectively being stranded. Although, obviously, I’d been responsible for not bringing the keys back into the car with me when I headed to the store, there are soooo many completely innocuous ways that this scenario could occur…

You could jump into the car with your partner, start driving, mistakenly think you had your keys with you (when, in fact, they were at home or the office or wherever), and then only discover that it was your partner whose keys had started the engine after dropping him or her off. And then driving away. And then you’re stuck. Or, heck, the keys could fall out while you load groceries, or help your grandma in the car, or go around to buckle your kids in their carseats. AND YOU’D NEVER KNOW, BECAUSE ONCE THE ENGINE IS RUNNING, THE CAR JUST KEEPS DRIVING WITHOUT WARNING YOU THAT THE KEYS NOWHERE NEAR IT!!!

Car manufacturers! Listen up! This is a major design flaw. The instant a seatbelt is disengaged, a loud, audible alarm rings out inside the car – justifiably so. There is no reason for the same not to occur when a keyless vehicle gets x-distance away from the key fob. This is not rocket science, car folks!! Get with the program!

Getting stranded aside, I’m a big fan of my car. There have been a few other hiccups… Since I got it in the middle of a Rochester winter, I only worried for about 0.47 seconds about keeping it clean – because everything within a 500 mile radius of any road just winds up being covered in salt, anyway. Additionally, the car is about 2″ wider than my previous van – which was already tightly tucked into our garage – so I’ve managed to lightly bump both side mirrors on the garage posts. More than once. BUT THE MIRRORS ARE STILL FULLY INTACT.

Overall, my new car is fantastic. It is a little fancy for me – I’m still figuring out how to work all of its bells and whistles (and, woo boy, actually getting it to call someone using only voice recognition is an adventure unto itself; I’m still not sure why “Nick Work” and “Target” sound the same, but whatever) – but, with due time, I’m sure I’ll have everything straightened out.

At least I’m not trying to start it anymore by turning on the stereo. Progress, people. Progress! (Plus, um, I’m fortunate enough to have a new, safe car… which is pretty much winning in every single way, in my book, is it not?)

Can we fix it? No, we can’t.*

Posted on March 18, 2015 by missemtoo

For the first time in my life as a parent, I was unable to fall asleep last night because I was worried about my children.

This is not – at all – to say it was the first time I’ve worried about them, nor that it was the first time I’ve struggled to get some shut-eye because my mind and heart are racing. But up till now, worry for my daughters hasn’t prevented me from sleeping.

It was not a welcome occurrence.

I suppose we’ve been tremendously blessed – lucky, fortunate, whatever works best for you – that Ella and Annie haven’t really given us much to worry about. For the most part, they’ve been healthy (knock wood). We can afford to clothe, feed, and house them. Academics come easily. They’re socially and emotionally well-adjusted. Sure, there have been nights when I’ve been concerned about the latest stomach bug, and the times when one of them appears at my bedside like Cousin Itt aren’t exactly the moments I count among those I want to “savor because it all goes so fast.” But overall? It’s been pretty smooth.

Even now, the stuff that I’m worrying about isn’t exactly of the life-or-death variety – more of the growing pains variety – but it’s taking up enough of our waking hours (and, apparently, my sleeping hours) that I’m having a hard time not thinking about it. (I’ve carefully considered whether or not to describe these situations, even vaguely or as an anecdotal aggregate of many stories. There’s a part of me that wants to because I know we’re not alone and I think there’s tremendous benefit in forming connections with someone else who’s walking the same path, in feeling that someone out there understands. That benefit, however, does not outweigh the responsibility I have to my daughters to put their best interests first. Out of respect for them and their privacy, I’m choosing not to write about the specifics.)

But here’s the rub: I want to fix it. I want to step in and take the difficult stuff away. Not all of it, of course; I’m a firm believer that kids need to suffer disappointments and setbacks and struggles in order to grow and learn and become competent, capable human beings. But some of it – the nonsense, the stuff that, in the grand scheme of things, is just asinine and they’ll look at it in later years and say, “Gosh, that was a waste of time” – I want nothing more than to make disappear.

Or, at the very least, I want to magically be able to give them the tools and the moves to face their problems squarely, to stand tall and proud, to be utterly confident in themselves and their beliefs. “If you just use this wand and wear this cape and do this roundhouse kick and read from this book and say these words, you will be victorious every single time. You have GOT this. Ba-BAM!”

I’m learning the hard way that it isn’t that easy.
By God – and this is the hardest part of all – they have to learn to do it themselves.

Me and my best big girl, Ella, age four.

I know that struggles are normal. I know that essentially no child makes it through to adulthood without some drama, without a time that was rough, without growing pains. My therapist reminded me that kids are supposed to bump into things and into one another; that’s how they feel their way, how they learn and mature; it’s normal. This reminder was simultaneously helpful and maddening.

Yesterday, we learned the wonderful news that an extended family member is expecting her first child. As I chatted with her on Facebook, she confessed that, in addition to feeling elated, she’s also worried “every second.” I so remember those feelings. For nine months, you don’t let down your guard. You check the toilet every time you pee (which is often). You wonder if the baby is moving too much, then grow alarmed when there’s not enough movement. You question each ache and pain – is that normal? Is he in the right place? Is she big enough? Am I giving her enough nutrients? What if I get gestational diabetes? Is he getting enough oxygen? What did that thing on the sonogram mean? You’re excited and anxious and basically don’t fully let out a breath until the baby takes his or her first one.

(Or, at least, that’s how I felt, especially with my first pregnancy. Maybe this is why I wanted to slap everyone who called pregnancy “magical” or touched my stomach, unsolicited.)

Then, the baby is here, in your arms – success! Pregnancy, check! The worrying is over!

Until you realize that you have no idea what to do when the baby won’t stop crying. And when was the last time he ate? Please wash your hands before you pick her up. Where did this rash come from? What do you mean she isn’t gaining weight like she should? You did put him down on his back, right? And the carseat is properly buckled? And he’s not wearing too many layers? And the music isn’t too loud?

When the danger of SIDS has passed, you tell yourself, that’s when you’ll relax. When you’re getting more sleep, you’ll be less concerned.

But then there is crawling. And baby-proofing the outlets. And making sure they don’t fall down the stairs. And cutting grapes into fourths. Toddlerhood is exhausting and all-consuming because you have to watch them or contain them every single minute. You worry that they’ll never drink from a sippy cup, potty train, sleep through the night, give up the pacifier. Surely, when they’re older – when they don’t physically need you as much, when you can go to the bathroom by yourself for the love of God – you won’t worry so much.

Those worries do fall by the wayside. I mean, I haven’t cut a grape for my kids in years – these days, they even cut their own steak. But the old concerns are replaced by new ones, and these problems are a lot more complicated.

More to the point, I can no longer fix them.

Me and my best little girl, Annie, age three.

Immediately before I exchanged Facebook messages with my friend, I’d been collecting myself after tucking Ella and Annie into bed. I’d closed my eyes and sorted through what I wanted to tell Nick – who is out of town – about how worried I am about the things that are bugging them, how worried I am that I have no idea what the heck to do, how freakin’ hard this parenting stuff is. After reading my friend’s words, I wrote back to tell her that I understood… but that we never, ever stop worrying – about our kids, about ourselves as parents, about whether we’re doing it right or enough, about how much their future therapy will cost.

When do you step in? When do you let them figure it out on their own? When they’re bumping into things, do you redirect or do you just let it happen? What do you do when they ask for help? What do you do when they don’t ask for help? Why are little girls so darn hard on one another? Why is friendship so difficult to navigate? How do you not laugh when your child lists the things that are overwhelming her – including seemingly fun stuff like playdates and parties – and says she’s “just falling apart”? How does your heart not break a little, too?

I called my mom and told her that I don’t think I’m up for this. I feel completely unprepared and unskilled; I don’t know how to be the parent my children need me to be. I asked her all of my questions and, after allowing me to ramble and sniffle and sigh, she gave me a wholly unsatisfying answer: Just be there.

Just be there. Listen. Be their ally. Hug them. Offer ideas when asked. Ask questions that help them form their own conclusions. Support them. Love them to pieces. Be there, always.

But, beyond that, they need to figure all of this — life — out on their own.

Damn it. I think my mom is right. THIS PART OF PARENTING SUCKS, Y’ALL.

I think I’m a pretty damned good mother, but the truth is, I really don’t know how to do this. Thankfully, I’m learning – day by day – to listen to the people who do know: Annie and Ella. They know themselves. They know what they want and what they need. Yeah, they don’t always know how to express those needs and wants (hell, a lot of adults don’t know how to do that), but if I give them the chance, they can almost always figure it out – sometimes with my help, sometimes alone. But it happens… I just have to let it.

I have a strong feeling that I’ll never stop worrying (although I hope I don’t lose too much more sleep) – about them, about me, about us. I’ll make mistake after mistake and apologize over and over again and hope, with everything in me, that they accept my apologies and still trust me. Their path is theirs to walk – but you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be here… cheering them on, biting my lip, banging my head, arms open wide.

I’m still shutting the bathroom door, though. That “me” time was hard won and I’m not giving it up anytime soon.

Also, I’ll definitely be here when we get to try free soda. Ba-BAM!

* Yes, the title references “Bob The Builder” – a children’s television show I’ve never actually seen but whose theme song I somehow know. THIS IS WHY MY BRAIN CANNOT STORE IMPORTANT INFORMATION – it is full up, you guys.

Our Frozen Oasis

Posted on March 14, 2015 by missemtoo

Here’s the thing about having a skating rink in your backyard: it’s not for the faint of heart.

It seems so sweet and idyllic, right? Your own private skating oasis; gleaming ice ready any time you want to use it; no one rushing you or bumping into you, no waiting for the Zamboni to finish, no new-fangled music that’s all the rage with kids these days; a cozy house to warm up inside; hot chocolate simmering on the stove.

In reality, you do have your own oasis – that much is true – but you have got to work for it, from the moment you lay down the framing and the tarp to the day you call it quits for the season. It’s a commitment, this rink thing – one that, in many ways, must be undertaken by the entire family. (I remember a neighbor, years ago, telling me that they too used to have a backyard rink but they’d finally scrapped it after she got tired of her husband calling when he was out of town and asking her to shovel it. I laughed at the time.

Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.)

We’ve had our rink for four or five years now, and each year we learn something new: how and when to flood it (a layer at a time or all at once? Before the first big freeze or not until you’ve got several sub-freezing days in a row?), how deep to fill it, where in the yard to put it, how often – and with what – to clear it off, how to smooth out the inevitable bumps, how to avoid chips and cracks, what kind of tarp to use, how to secure the tarp, how large the frame should be, and so on.

This year, we wound up having to flood the rink in a hurry to take advantage of some particularly frigid temperatures…

… which would explain why Ella and Nick are doing this at night in a snowstorm…

But, in the end, the hard work paid off because two days later: strong, skate-ready ice.

We were so excited to use it, we couldn’t wait until the following morning.

Who needs sun when you have floodlights??

What followed have been – absolutely – many many idyllic afternoons, evenings, mornings, and weekends spent on that rink.

We’ve skated…

We’ve tried our hands (and skates) at hockey…

We’ve invited friends over to share in the fun…

We’ve gone through gallons (literally) of hot cocoa, seemingly never-ending bowls of popcorn, numerous skate guards, at least one broken hockey stick, and dozens of pucks – long buried in the snow. In a lot of ways, it really has been sweet and idyllic.

This is pretty much my dream winter set-up: perfect rink, fire in the fire pit, path for friends and neighbors to join us.

Much to my dismay, however, a smooth, skateable, nicely maintained ice rink does not just happen by magic (no matter how many Harry Potter spells I try). First, there is shoveling.

When the snow is minimal, we use our indentured servants to help.

Next, there is more shoveling.

What’s more fun that shoving ten inches of snow off the driveway? Shoveling ten inches of snow off the driveway and the ice rink!

As we’ve learned the hard way, you can’t just let the snow sit on the rink, no matter how much you’d rather relax on the couch. It creates this insulated cover and blah blah insert something science-y here and before you know it, the ice is all melty and bumpy and weird and then you have to not only shovel but also scrape the lumps off and fill in the holes.

Exhibit A: the rink after our one and only day of sleet this year.
This was after I’d already shoveled. It was basically very cold sandpaper.

Exhibit B: the wonders of a scraper tool
That one corner took 45 minutes. THIS IS A LABOR OF LOVE, PEOPLE. A very labor-ful labor of love.

Long story short, it really works best to shovel that puppy clean as soon as you can – which, in our case, means removing snow from an 816 square foot surface. On purpose. Voluntarily. We choose to shovel 816 square feet of snow in addition to our driveway and front walk basically every time it snows – whether it’s an inch or a foot, whether Nick is home or out of town, whether it’s below zero or above freezing – because we have a doggone ice rink in the back yard and we’ll be damned if we let it go to hell in a hand basket!

See what I mean about the whole commitment thing?
A (functional) backyard ice rink is a really bad idea if you’d rather hibernate in the winter.

Beyond needing to keep the rink clear of snow, you need to remove everything else from its surface, too, be it paw prints (the dogs do not respect the sanctity of the rink) or twigs or errant pucks. (One time, the dogs knocked a goal and some pucks onto the rink overnight and when I found them in the morning, they’d already created little ice molds for themselves.)

I’m melllting! What a world!

In addition to shoveling and clearing, there is also the flooding of the rink – sometimes with the hose, sometimes with buckets of hot water; sometimes a thin layer over the entire surface, sometimes just a bit here and there. If you do it when it’s snowing, the snow can freeze into the ice layer and cause bumps. If you wait until it’s warmer, the ice won’t set properly. It’s a science, but a very inexact one; maybe this is what it’s like to be a meteorologist.

Oh! And there is also… shoveling.

There’s a rink out there somewhere…

First step: clear the edges and divide into fourths.
Next: make sure someone has a bottle of Aleve waiting inside.
Or a glass of wine.
At least you won’t need to go to the gym today!

Finally! If you’re not too sore, you can skate!

You might think, with all of the work – with the backaches and the frostbitten fingers, the late nights spent waiting for just the right time to lay down another coat of water – that it’s somehow not worth it.

But, oh. You’d be wrong.

It’s quiet in the backyard. You can barely see the cars in the cul-de-sac; for all you know, you’re the only people around. Your skates sound so crisp as they scrape along the ice, carving pathways and messages. No matter what else is going on – the vomiting dog, the broken car, the fighting children, the burned dinner, the crazy project, the looming deadline – everything seems to fade away the moment you step foot (skate?) on the ice.

With a backyard ice rink, everything you need is right there. In an instant, you can go from stressed to calm, worried to serene, simply by venturing out over those boards. (Or you can get out your aggression by slapping some pucks around. Either way, it’s a win.)

You see beauty, too, in places you hadn’t before – the ice takes on different hues depending on the time of day, how sunny it is, how much snow is surrounding the rink. It’s like looking out onto an ever-changing portrait… except nothing has changed at all but your perspective.

See what I mean? 8 a.m….

… and 3 p.m.
(I could have Photoshopped out the dog pee but I decided to keep it real. #NOFILTER, baby.)

As I mentioned earlier, this winter started off relatively mildly; we didn’t have much snow (for Rochester) through January. As February wore on, we saw not only the coldest month in Rochester’s history but also an additional 50″ of snow. Although we normally see that much snow (twice it, actually) over the course of each winter, it typically falls in a steadier fashion rather than a lot at once. This was, therefore, the first year where we had significant snow build-up around the outside of the rink.

Personally, I think it added to the isolated, idyllic feel.

Early January was pretty slow.

By mid-January, the ground cover was solid.

By early February, the rounded edges had begun to form.

Then came… OMG SO MUCH SNOW.
(See: piles along our walkway as tall as the girls.)

By the end of the month, the rink was completely encircled.

All of our previous rinks have been just fine, but there’s always been at least one problem with each of them. Some never properly froze over. Others were inadequately flooded, resulting in chipping ice and exposed tarp (we prefer more modest tarps over here). Still other years we didn’t get ourselves out to the ice quickly enough to clear away the snow; when you don’t commit, it isn’t pretty.

This year, the stars aligned. The cold February made for fantastic ice conditions. We finally understood how and when to fill the rink. We purchased portable floodlights so we could skate after dark. We learned from our past mistakes and were bound and determined to make sure that we took good care of the surface, to keep it clear and shoveled and smooth so that, any time – day or night – we can pop on our skates and go for a spin.

Quite frankly, we’ve all been loving it so much, it’s almost been easy. (In the emotional sense. Physically? NOT SO MUCH.) We’ve skated ourselves silly on that rink.

The frigid temperatures and unrelenting snow persisted well into March like a stubborn child’s tantrum – until, just like that, they’d exhausted themselves and were done. This week has brought forty degree temperature increases and days of glorious sunshine. Because the past month has been so brutal, the return of spring feels nothing short of miraculous.

But I am sad to say goodbye to our rink.

Yesterday morning, we awoke to temperatures in the 20s for the first time in five days – meaning that the ice, which had been evaporating and bump-filled all week, had somehow glazed over, leaving the surface just smooth enough to skate on. With the forecast calling for continued above-freezing days, I knew this was probably our last chance to go for a spin… and so, before school, the girls and I did just that.

An hour later, I texted Nick to tell him that he’d left his lunch in the fridge – and that if he wanted to come back and get it, the ice was still good enough for him to take one last skate. It was an offer too good to pass up; for thirty minutes, he and I went around on the rink, savoring every moment.

He came straight from work; note his dress shirt and bow tie. That’s how we (he) roll(s).

Soon enough, the remaining ice will turn to water. We’ll dismantle the boards and let it drain, carefully storing the pieces for the summer. I don’t know what next year’s winter holds; it’s certainly unlikely to be as record-settingly cold as this. No matter what happens, though, we’ll be ready to make backyard memories again – come hell or high ~~water~~ ice.

Changed (aka Perspective, Part Two)

Posted on March 2, 2015 by missemtoo

Coming off of our visit to the homeless shelter right before February break, I felt like little could match that experience. That feeling lasted all of ten days because a week ago, Annie and I joined her Girl Scout troop to host a birthday party at another local homeless shelter – but, unlike last time, this shelter is specifically for families with children rather than just adults.

You read that correctly: children. Kids, like my own… Except without homes.
Homeless children and their families.
It doesn’t get much more gut-punchingly real than that, y’all.

We had known the following going in: there were four children at the shelter with February birthdays and we were in charge of the birthday party. Our job was to provide goodie bags and some kind of craft – not only for those four kiddos, but for the other 24 children residing at the shelter. In keeping with the celebratory spirit, we elected to bring cupcakes and juice boxes for everyone (including the 14 adults living with them). We also brought some paper goods and simple decorations. The shelter itself would provide gifts for the birthday children.

And so the girls decorated the goodie bags (“Happy Birthday!” “Smile, it’s your day!”) and got together on Monday afternoon to decorate dozens of boldly-colored cupcakes. Then, on Tuesday evening, we climbed into our minivans to carpool to the shelter (since it’s in a not-so-great neighborhood, we’d been told to bring as few vehicles as possible, to leave nothing of value in the cars, and to not use our cell phones where anyone could see us), all prepared to make a difference in these impoverished children’s lives! Go, us!

We laughed at ourselves as we hung the decorations; I kept draping the streamers way too low and the “Happy Birthday” sign had come undone, so until we taped it back together it read, “HAPPY BI”. It was embarrassing, really – here we were, trying to make the room a little more festive because this was the only celebration these children would have, and it looked like somebody’s parody Pinterest page. Craft supplies were scattered across tables and our girls posed for pre-good-deed photos.

The wonderful woman in charge – S. – gathered the troops (literally, ahem) to tell them a bit more about who would be attending the party. There were twelve rooms in the shelter; each family was allotted one room. The kids were all ages, from not-yet-one to teenagers. Some were with both parents; others were with only their mothers (some of whom were escaping domestic violence). Families stayed an average of five to six weeks and then moved on; there was a monthly celebration for each child whose birthday occurred during that month and everyone was invited to attend.

S. talked about why these families were here, about how difficult it can be to hold onto a home, to pay rent. Our little ones cocked their heads, confused. “What’s rent?” they wanted to know. It was simultaneously hilarious and mortifying, these second-graders with absolutely no concept of what it means to not be able to afford a place to live, or food, or clothes. “What are food stamps? Like the kind of stamp you get on your hand at the end of dance class?”

Then, the residents were called in to join us… and our daughters, who moments ago had been yukking it up as they counted cupcakes, suddenly went silent. It all became very real: here were other kids their own age, kids they’d never met, kids who looked just like them… except they lived here, in this building in this dangerous neighborhood, because they didn’t have a home. There were infants toting bottles filled with juice; toddlers and pre-school-aged kids; quite a few children roughly our own girls’ ages; and several middle and high-schoolers. They were black, Latino, and white. I heard English, Spanish, and a language I didn’t recognize but that sounded maybe like it was from Eastern Europe. One girl wore a shirt that said, “Jesus Is The Way” while three other girls wore full, brilliantly-colored and bejeweled hijabs.

Seeing our daughters’ trepidation, we adults stepped in and began cajoling everyone – kids and parents alike – to the tables. “Want to make a craft? Come on over! There are really cool bookmarks! You can do one of these cute animals!” In no time, each table was filled with children and adults using glue and stickers to create their own masterpieces. There were smiles all around and lots of talking. “What’s your favorite color? How old are you? Isn’t it so cold out?” Our parental pride swelled as, gradually, our Scouts joined in, helping the littlest ones glue on googly eyes and chatting it up with the older kids.

In no time at all, our daughters had crossed the imaginary barrier separating us and them, quickly and cheerfully making casual friends the way that many children do so naturally. For me, however, it wasn’t quite that simple.

Breaking the ice was easy. “What’s your name? I’m Emily! What color bookmark would you like?” But as the conversations continued and I went from table to table, I discovered my own ignorance and awkwardness; I had no idea what to talk about. Obviously, asking where anyone lived or what they did for a living – two of my preferred get-to-know-you inquiries – were out of the question. (I later learned that many of the adults did have jobs; homeless and jobless are not synonymous by any means.) “What grade are you in?” seemed rude, because I didn’t know if the kiddos were currently attending school. I even felt uncomfortable with my “standby” small-talk topics, like favorite movies or books or restaurants, because it seemed wildly presumptuous of me to assume that anyone could easily afford to go to the movies – but, likewise, presumptuous to assume that they couldn’t afford to go to the movies simply because they were living in the shelter. I didn’t even know if asking about favorite sports teams or television shows was appropriate because I had no idea how often they could watch TV or keep up with their favorite players.

It was very strange, this no-man’s conversation land… Every topic that came into my head made me feel like I would either wind up sounding like a spoiled, clueless asshole – or like I felt sorry for or disapproved of them. Yes, they were homeless (something to which I cannot relate), but they were still so very human (something we, um, share in common)… and yet my liberal, socially progressive self didn’t know what to talk about.

As the crafting session came to an end, S. suggested that we play a game; after a vote, Bingo emerged the winner. You guys, this was no rinky-dink operation but a full-scale GAME — cards for everyone, colored markers, a spinny wire basket with Bingo balls and a large board on which to store them after they’d been chosen and called. It was on.

Our own girls didn’t get Bingo cards, instead helping the other children with their boards or simply cheering people on. It started off slowly, with a few disappointed groans as unpopular numbers were called (“Aw man, I don’t have B-13. I have B-14!”), but then it began to pick up speed. As one of our Scout’s fathers – the only dad in attendance – called out the numbers in his rich, booming baritone voice and each five-in-a-row was achieved with the jubilant “BINGO!” being declared, whoops and hollers erupted throughout the room as the victors thrust their fists triumphantly into the air. Every winner received a prize from the relatively sizable prize box, which our Scouts insisted on carrying/lugging themselves from table to table, commenting supportively on each selection (“That car is so cool!” “Ooh, crayons – I love to color, too!”).

It soon became apparent that we were going to continue playing until every child got at least one Bingo; we would not stop until everyone had won. As the games went on and the atmosphere became more electric, S. came over to me and whispered, “I know this is taking a long time, but over the four years that I’ve been running these parties, we’ve found that they really do make a difference.”

I was about to comment that, of course, the parties made a difference when S. continued, “I mean the games themselves – they make a difference. Whenever our residents come back to visit us years later, we ask them how they’re doing, what they remember. And every single one of them says that they remember playing Bingo. Not just that it was so joyful while they played – it was, yes – but also that it was one of only a handful of truly happy memories from that time. When they looked back over their mental rolodex of good things – you know, like we all do, like how you and I recall a vacation or going to the beach as something positive when we’re going through a rough patch? Well, these folks don’t have vacations, but they do have Bingo. They tell us that the memory of Bingo games is what they call upon when they’re struggling… so we will keep playing this game until everybody has had a chance to win so that we can keep this magic alive for as long as we can.”

That was the first time I had to hold back tears.

When Bingo was over and the prize box had been thoroughly examined by every kiddo, it was time to eat. We made sure that each table was cleared and that each child kept his or her crafts. As I looked over the bookmarks clutched possessively in their little fists, it occurred to me that many of these children might not even have a book in which to place their bookmark… but I didn’t have much time to contemplate this sad reality because help was needed in handing out the cupcakes and juice.

The frosting we’d chosen was absolutely, fantastically neon-bright. The juice boxes were small, but still, they were juice – containing sugar and all of the other stuff that, you know, juice contains. We had more than enough for everyone to have at least two, which we happily doled out, but I couldn’t help but think, “Man, we’re giving these kids a lot of junk tonight. Artificial colors and sweeteners and HFCS and who knows what other crap. I wonder how their parents feel about…”

And then it dawned on me: these parents do not have a home right now. They can afford very, very little; many – most? – cannot afford to feed their children. So actually, I’d guess that they feel pretty damned excited and happy that their sons and daughters get to have not one but two cupcakes and juice boxes tonight, to be able to give their babies juice in their bottles… because it’s food. Food is important. Food is good.

Earlier in the day, a friend of mine had shared an article on Facebook about seemingly child-friendly foods that we should “never” feed our children. I’d read it and found myself shaking my head in disgust at the foods to which I’d been subjecting Ella and Annie, from Goldfish to GoGurt. I’d vowed to look even more closely at what I feed them; like many families I know, we’ve already all but eliminated HFCS and food dyes, we make sure they drink soda and juice very sparingly, and we buy products made with as few (easily pronounceable) ingredients as possible… but we can do better, damn it!

It had never before occurred to me what an incredible luxury it is to feed my children healthily. To be able to worry about how much juice they drink. To be concerned with how much sugar they consume rather than worry that they won’t get enough food to keep them from being hungry. To be able to afford something other than juice for my baby’s bottle. We are positively spoiled – and I hadn’t even realized it. (This doesn’t mean that we’re gonna go stock up on Cheetos and Fanta. Because I do have the luxury of worrying about what my girls eat, I’ll still continue feeding them as well as I can… but wow. Perspective really is something. And, hey, maybe the judgment I’ve passed over the years when I see people feeding their kids less-than-stellar meals could be adjusted. Just a smidge.)

While everyone was digging into the celebratory bounty, S. began handing out the actual birthday presents – gift bags filled to the brim with items for every birthday kid. One boy was turning seven. One girl had just turned fourteen. Another I mistook for an adult; I assumed that her child was the one celebrating a birthday. But no, I now realize that she, herself, was not yet eighteen… So, even though she was a mama already, she was being honored at the children’s party. She may not have felt much like a kid anymore, but she certainly deserved to be treated like she was important and cared for just like the rest, if only for a day. Or an hour.

And then there was the baby. She was turning one in three days. One.

I remembered my own girls’ first birthdays – just simple, family celebrations (no full-on parties like many of our friends had done; we didn’t know that many people locally!), but still… They were special. I giddily made chocolate cakes because, according to our pediatrician, they could eat chocolate starting at 12 months. We bought presents – loads of them. We sang. We took countless photos. I spent hours painstakingly making birthday videos – because one is important, you know? Your baby’s first birthday? A milestone.

But here was this little girl celebrating in the shelter. Because she didn’t have a home. Turning one in the shelter.

And I felt my heart just kind of crumple into pieces. This time, I couldn’t hold back the tears.

I did turn around to compose myself, however, because it somehow felt very inappropriate to cry in front of everyone, because of everyone, as though I were looking at a motivational poster. “You! The underprivileged! Your plight has moved me! I see things differently now because I have witnessed your struggle! I am saddened by what you are going through! You have given me the gift of perspective! Thank you for sharing your challenges with me!”

It also felt wrong to cry for them. “How difficult this must be! I don’t know how you’re able to do this! You must be so broken down! My heart aches for you!” Yes, the residents at that shelter needed help. They needed compassion. They needed someone to listen. But no one needed my tears at that birthday party. They needed smiles and Bingo and cupcakes and juice and more smiles. So I got myself together and turned back just in time to see S. hauling out a milk crate filled to the brim with books.

Books. For every single child.

AND OMG THE TEARS AGAIN STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.

You guys, when these kids saw the books… They honestly didn’t quite know what to do. Some were thrilled, others seemed bewildered (“My own book? Seriously?”), but everyone had the opportunity to take a brand new tome – or several – with them. They had a place to put their bookmarks. Suddenly, the overflowing bookshelves in our own home – the ones whose disarray I’ve bemoaned, on whom dust has gathered – seemed practically indulgent.

While the parents and kiddos munched on their cupcakes and admired their new books and chatted with our daughters (there were more than enough cupcakes for our girls to have one, too; they were ecstatic – and I, for once, could not have cared less about the neon frosting), the other Girl Scout moms and I flitted from table to table, clearing trash, engaging in conversation, making sure everyone had had their fill. For much of the last hour, Annie and her friend, A, had been sitting on either side of one of the residents – a little girl who appeared to be roughly their age. They’d oohed and ahhhed over her crafts, cheered her on during Bingo, and had eaten their cupcakes together.

All of a sudden, Annie motioned for A to get up from their seats and have a whispered conversation behind the other little girl’s back. They conferenced vigorously, shaking their heads emphatically, and were just returning to their original places beside this girl as I began to make my way over to chide Annie for her lack of manners. (Telling secrets! Behind someone else! HAVE I TAUGHT YOU NOTHING!!) Before I could say anything, however, Annie and A looked at one another, shrugged as if to say, “If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me,” and then asked in tandem, “So… do you want to be our friend?”

I’m pretty sure their new friend said yes but I can’t be certain BECAUSE OF THE TEARS THAT HAD AGAIN OVERTAKEN MY EYEBALLS.

I really felt like I could burst. Here were these kids, these strangers – some ridiculously privileged, others without a roof over their heads. They had just met an hour ago. And yet, there they were… friends. They were in second grade and they liked the color blue and they loved to laugh and do art and eat cupcakes and so, by God… friends. The rest – socioeconomic status, race, where they went to school, what clothing they wore, where they went on vacation or if they even could go on vacation or any of the other stuff that we (and by “we” I mean my own friends and myself) get so caught up in – meant absolutely nothing. Or at least not nearly enough to not be friends. It was really something.

When I turned around again, Annie and A and their new buddy were nowhere to be seen; they – and the other Girl Scouts – had absconded into the hallway and were showing off their cartwheels. And giggling. And running and hollering and having the grandest time of all. Part of me wanted to tell them to calm down, to lower their voices, not to disturb anyone… But I caught myself before I interceded because this was a celebration, damn it, and joy is not something you should contain; it’s something you should share.

While they played, I tidied – and tried (in vain) to take in all that I’d seen. It was more than I could consider, though, and I kept coming back to the people themselves. To the parents of the baby who was turning one and their outright astonishment when they opened her birthday gift bag and saw half a dozen brand new outfits for their little girl. To the other one year-old at their table, the little girl with the swollen eye who’d just returned from the ER where she’d spent the last three days, having bitten into a Tide pod (you know, the kind that you put in the washing machine) that, she decided, looked like a toy.

I thought of her parents, how exhausted and relieved they seemed after having been in and out of the hospital, blaming themselves for their daughter’s injury (despite the fact that, I was told, the ER sees 1-2 cases each week of children who have monkeyed with laundry and dishwasher detergent packets that then exploded in their faces. When you think about it, those little pods do look like toys. I know my own girls have touched them; how easily it could have been us…). The husband recounted how frantic he’d been when he received the call at work (yes, again, homeless people can have jobs); the wife told me she was so grateful to “make a memory” with her daughter doing these crafts and eating the cupcakes.

I thought of the three little girls in their gloriously-colored hijabs and how they were so genuinely thrilled for one another when one of them got a Bingo. I thought of the boy who was turning seven and how his mom told him to thank all of us for giving him a birthday celebration – and how he chose to thank us by doling out hugs. I thought of his sister, whose face I recognized the moment she sat down but who I couldn’t quite place. It stumped me; I wasn’t just familiar with her – I knew her. I’d spent time with her.

But… when? How could it even be possible that I knew this girl? Where on earth would I have come across her?

At last, I remembered: school. Teaching. My long-term sub job last year. This beautiful, cheerful girl with the mega-watt smile had been one of my 7th grade music students. She had come and gone with her classmates, completed all of her assignments on time (and well), participated openly in class, and had just been – you know – one of the gang. The idea that she had no home was more than I could wrap my head around.

The questions wouldn’t stop… how? When? What happened? I noticed nothing last year that would have told me her family was struggling. Were they, then, and I just never knew? Did something change? I mean, I teach in middle-class schools where students sport gleaming backpacks and new clothes and shiny lunch boxes. How is it even possible that some of those kids are homeless?

We talked; she said she knew me from somewhere but couldn’t recall where. When I reminded her that I’d been her music teacher, she gasped with recognition. “Oh yeah! I totally remember that now!”

It was her smile that gave her away; ear-to-ear, real, gorgeous. Whether they’d arrived at the shelter that week or last month or whether they’d been bouncing from place to place since last year, I don’t know. Whether they’ve struggled financially for a long time or whether an emergency situation took them from their home, I have no idea. I do know that, regardless of whatever else was going on, whatever led her family to the shelter, she kept on smiling – not on the surface, but way deep down. I obviously have a lot to learn from her.

All too soon, it was time for us to pack up and head out. As we gathered the leftover streamers and cupcakes, Annie and A’s new friend came over and gave me a full-body hug. “Thank you for the party!” While we all shouted our good-byes and nice-to-meet-yous, she came up again, saying, “I can’t remember – did I already give you a hug?” I told her that she had, but that if she wanted to, I’d love another. Her face lit up. “I love hugs!” Her arms only reached around my waist, but it was definitely my heart that felt the squeeze.

S. walked us to our cars, thanking us for coming out and providing all of the supplies. As we attempted to protest, she held up her hand. “I know – you want to thank me. I tell people this is always what happens; you think that you’re coming here to give back, but when all is said and done, you feel like you’re the ones who received the gifts. That’s why this place has birthday parties booked out for more than a year from now! Everyone wants to feel as incredible as you all do right now!”

Incredible is one word for it.
The others… Well, I don’t even know.

How do you find the words to describe an experience that made you reevaluate your life? How do you sum up what it meant to see everything you have, who you are, what you’re doing on this planet, from a completely different perspective? How do you attempt to gather your thoughts about something that has humbled you, made you cry, and prompted you to see your fellow human beings in a new light?

I guess you don’t.
Instead, you – I – vow that, from now on, I will appreciate more. I will let more roll off my back. I will be kind, be kind, be kind – because, seriously, you never know what someone is going through. I will view the other people with whom I share this planet – this town, this school – as humans, not statistics, not problems waiting to be fixed. Just humans, like us all, who sometimes – hell, a lot of times – need a little help.

(Also, I will write a ridiculously long blog post about it – but, really, how else was I to share this with you?)

And to think that this night never would have happened if our glorious group of Girl Scout slacker moms hadn’t decided that it might be good for our daughters to help out; to see what it’s like – just for an evening – to live a life that’s completely unlike their own, where rent and food stamps are a regular part of the vocabulary; to get outside of themselves for just a moment and maybe make a change…

I never imagined it would be I who would come away from that evening feeling so changed. Maybe we’re not such slackers* after all.

* we totally still are.
Even slackers can make things happen when we work together and have our hearts in the right place. That shelter is some place, y’all. Wow.

Perspective (part one)

Posted on February 27, 2015 by missemtoo

I had planned on continuing to talk about our vacation – the stories behind Nick’s birthday and my getting hypothermia are tremendously riveting – but something happened over the last couple of weeks that made me realize I need to take a slight detour.

Hang on.

Two days before break, the wonderful little women’s church community I’m a part of delivered dinner to a homeless shelter. We divvied up the cooking and supplies (pulled pork, cornbread, baked beans, coleslaw, and numerous drinks and homemade desserts), took everything to the shelter, and served the meal. We agreed that families would be invited to join in, so I brought Annie and Ella along.

(More accurately, our awesome babysitter, B, brought them because I was teaching piano lessons immediately prior to dinner. They arrived before me and I don’t think I’d ever seen their eyes wider than when I walked into the shelter and they found me.)

As far as homeless shelters go, this one seems to be pretty solid. They have a large, new warehouse space (after having recently made headlines when they were controversially kicked out of their tent city in December) – which, although lacking any cooking facilities or running water (hence the need to bring in prepared food; there are port-a-potties on site and a van takes the residents to other locations with bathing facilities), is almost cozy. Every resident appears to have his or her own tidily-kept sleeping space (with the vast majority on mattresses); donated and purchased winter clothing is handed out; there’s a communal TV and a few couches on which to watch it; employment-location services are provided.

I mean, it’s hardly posh – and I’m sure that all of the residents would rather be in their own homes (if they had them to return to…) – but I imagine that it beats huddling down beneath underpasses or in abandoned subway tunnels, especially in this particularly freezing Rochester winter.

It’s no secret that I’m amazingly fortunate to have grown up white, affluent, loved, and educated. Still, although I haven’t spent time in actual homeless shelters before, I have volunteered at soup kitchens, lived in the projects, worked with poverty-stricken kids, and made my way through Harlem (while in grad school) enough times to not have been shocked or taken aback by the experience at Sanctuary Village. My girls, however, had never seen anything like it – maybe not even on television or online. We’ve donated to disaster relief, watched videos of people displaced by tsunamis and earthquakes and tornadoes and violence, and discussed how very privileged we are… But, for them, seeing it in person was astounding.

They couldn’t believe that there were only mattresses, not beds (the lack of a bed was somehow very powerful to them). They were taken aback that so many people shared the same space (the shelter is absolutely overflowing beyond its capacity because of the weather). They could not comprehend that the belongings scattered around each person’s living area – most of which could fill a single trash bag – were likely everything that these people possessed.

Ella and Annie were also thrown off-guard by how exceedingly nice everyone was to them, to all of us. Here were these strangers who had seemingly everything in the world to complain about – or, at least, every right to be grumpy – and yet they were so kind. They thanked us up and down for bringing the food. They said “please” and “excuse me” when they lined up for dinner. They engaged us in pleasant, friendly conversation and told the girls they look like twins.

Our group, post-meal.
Photo from the Sanctuary Village and Sophia Community Facebook pages.

In short, they were… human beings. Not statistics. Not people who had made mistakes or who “should” be doing any number of things to get out of “this situation.” Just regular folks who found themselves unable to keep a home, for one reason or another, and who had no place else to turn. It was humbling and eye-opening and nothing short of incredible. We discussed it long into the night and vowed to better appreciate our own safe, comfortable, warm homes.

And then, our food supply completely depleted, we got in our warm car and drove to the grocery store and spent more money purchasing dinner from the prepared food bar for the three of us than I had procuring baked beans and coleslaw for 60.

We had never been more grateful for a meal.
Nor, I thought, had I ever had a more moving, potentially life-changing (or at least perspective-changing) experience.
Which shows you that I really do have another think coming…

(Part Two to be posted soon.)

Won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise?

Posted on February 25, 2015 by missemtoo

After our stopover in Epcot, we were totally stoked to depart on the cruise. GranMary met us at the hotel and we traveled from Orlando to Port Canaveral together, all set for the adventure to begin.

Annie had decided that she wanted to meet (and get autographs from ) as many characters as possible – and so, knowing that we’d have a slight wait at at the terminal, we took full advantage of the opportunity to get a little personal time with Goofy.

GranMary defined the term “good sport” for the entirety of the trip.

We’d elected to get a room with a balcony (actually, by the time we booked this cruise, all rooms except those with balconies were sold out, so it wasn’t much of an “election” but still…). While it’s hardly an essential, we did enjoy being able to hear the ocean and feel the temperature (something that came in quite handy by the end of our trip).

Not quire sure why, but I love this photo.

Nick turned 40 on the second day of the cruise and, as part of the celebration, he requested that we do the meet-the dolphin excursion at the Blue Lagoon while in Nassau, Bahamas. It was, hands down, one of the most incredible experiences any of us has ever had (more on that soon…).

It looks as though we’re shrugging in response to a question, but really, the water was just freakin’ cold.

Thumb war battles on the ferry back from Blue Lagoon.
Why was GranMary the one who got roped into declaring thumb wars? See: GOOD SPORT.

For the remainder of the trip, we simply enjoyed what Disney had to offer – and it was a lot. (I won’t go into everything [you’re welcome], although you can feel free to read a bit more about it here and here.)

We shuffleboarded (is that a verb? If not, it is now)…

GranMary and I lost, but we put up a good fight, I assure you.

We took in numerous ship-board activities…
Cheering babies on during the fastest crawler race.
I’m not kidding.
It was an absolute hoot.

Watching movies while swimming? Yes, please.

We – um, Annie – met characters. And characters. And more characters.

Captain Jack Sparrow took his role very seriously.

It was pretty damn great.

When we returned from last year’s cruise, we said that it was the best vacation ever. And it was. Hence, as excitement mounted for our cruise this year, Nick and I were careful to remind Ella and Annie (and ourselves) that this would be different. Not bad, not at all – but different. It was basically going to be impossible to top, or even match, last year’s experience.

Turns out? We were right.
And you know that? That’s okay.

Something that was way better on this ship: the AquaDuck water slide, which encircles the entire upper decks of the ship. Seriously awesome.
Doing their best princess waves as they passed by…

See, last year, we neeeeeeded that vacation. We’d lost Bill the previous summer and were still emotionally exhausted; I’d started a new job; the girls both took on additional activities which made it hard to find our legs beneath us as our schedules became absolutely nutty; and our winter had started off with ridiculously cold temperatures, meaning that even I – who adore snow and chilly days – was desperate to get warm.

This year, it’s different. We still miss Bill very much, of course – and talk about him often, with tears coming at unexpected times – but the pain is not quite so raw, the roller coaster a little more rounded and not quite so exhausting. My job has remained steady and Nick’s has changed for the better. We’ve grown accustomed to swimming and soccer and after-school craziness – which doesn’t make it less crazy, but makes it unsurprising, so we’re steadier on our feet (although our white boards are used just as often, thank you very much).

The mixology class did not necessarily make us steadier on our feet, but it was absolutely delicious.

And the weather… well. January started off just fine, even nicely. We Rochesterians commented to one another that this was a good winter — not frigid like last year, no huge snowstorms, just a good, even, steady, sunnier-than-usual winter. At least we’re not Boston, hahaha, amIright??

AND THEN CAME FEBRUARY. February, with piles and piles and FREAKING PILES of snow. February, which is already the second-coldest on record (and which, with single-digit temperatures forecasted this week, might become the coldest on record). February, which may be the shortest month of the year but OMG IT SEEMS LIKE IT WILL NEVER END.

If February had come before January, I would have been dragging my frozen butt on that airplane just as maniacally as I’d done last year. But because it hadn’t – because our winter had started off nicely and evenly – none of us was absolutely out of our minds to get someplace warm. (After being home with historically low temperatures, however, we might just storm the airport and try to stow away.)

Which, as luck would have it, was a good thing because this delightful cold front slid right down the eastern coast of the USA, meaning Florida and The Bahamas? Not so warm. Record setting cold in Orlando, as a matter of fact! I even got mild hypothermia while at Castaway Cay!! (There are two exclamation points there which makes it seem like I’m jesting or laughing, but in all seriousness… hypothermia. But that’s another story…)

In addition to being chilly, it was also more than a little overcast and stormy on the day we landed at Castaway Cay…

… which basically meant that we had the snorkeling area to ourselves.

So, the weather was a definite bummer. While we were tremendously grateful to be, you know, on vacation – I won’t go whining about it or anything – it was still a bit of a letdown to miss out on the activities we’d planned (plus, being cold in the Bahamas just feels wrong, yo!). Additionally, high seas and choppy conditions caused most of us, but Ella and me in particular, to become quite seasick – something we hadn’t experienced at all on our previous cruise.

And you know those storied kids clubs that I raved about last year and that the girls couldn’t wait to visit again?? The ones where Ella spent nearly all of her time using the computer bays to write elaborate stories and create digital cartoon thingies? Well, it seems that not all Disney kids clubs are created equal; the ones on this ship didn’t offer the same computer programs (apparently, because our other ship – the Disney Magic – had recently been retrofitted and revamped, they updated their kids club technology). Which meant that Ella didn’t really want to spend time in the clubs. Which… was not awesome.

Also not awesome? The line to meet Elsa and Anna.
I do love how Anna has her hands on her hips, though. Very method.

As such – with the weather, the seasickness, and the change in the clubs – this trip had some hiccups, whereas last year’s had none. (We didn’t help ourselves by going to Epcot for a day this year and not Universal; when you’ve walked a mile in Harry Potter‘s shoes, almost nothing else can live up to that hype.) It’s difficult – impossible, really – to compete with perfection.

Thankfully, we didn’t need to enter that competition because we didn’t need this vacation in the same way we did a year ago. It could just be exactly what it was – fantastic.

If anything, the bumps in the road (the waves on the sea? How far can I stretch this metaphor?) showed us that last year wasn’t just a fluke: we really do love Disney cruises, even when things don’t always go as planned. It was particularly neat to be able to share this year’s experience with GranMary – to laugh with her while we watched the girls zoom in and out of the pools, to stifle groans as we waited in line to meet the princesses (GranMary helps the time pass by much more quickly!), to see her come waaaay out of her comfort zone time and time again (let’s just say that dressing as a pirate and kissing a dolphin on the lips are not usually part of GranMary’s routine), to watch as she and Ella and Annie sang and hugged and took in every moment of vacation and joy and fun.
Although she is very convincing here, I can assure you that Mary does not typically “arrr!” like a pirate.

As I sit here listening to the dripping of the icicles inside our front door (no, for real, inside the door; when all of this begins its meltdown [because, for the love of all things holy, IT MUST MELT AT SOME POINT, right??] it’s not going to be pretty), squinting as the sunlight reflects off the feet of snow in the backyard (but at least it’s sunny!!), the memories of our trip seem that much sweeter.

Even without this doozy of a winter, however, the trip would stand on its own. How fantastically lucky we were to have taken it!

Pirate night, me hearties!

We Soared; aka Epcot in a Day

Posted on February 23, 2015 by missemtoo

So, hi there! Long time no see!

I could try to make excuses about not writing, but really we were simply out of town, so there was no writing during that time, and before that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off getting ready to go out of town.

Woe is me. I know. I’ll just stop there.

Like last year, we went to Florida and on a Disney Cruise… and, like last year, it was fantastic.

That time, it was the Magic – this time, we sailed on the Dream.

Before we got there, however, we made a detour to Epcot in Walt Disney World (Nick’s and my favorite Disney park – and, we figured, a relatively easy one to “do” in only one day without running ourselves ragged). YOU KNOW YOU ARE EXCITED FOR A PLAY BY PLAY OF OUR VACATION. Get ready, folks.

Because I’m a bit of a Disney ~~freak~~ fanatic, I knew that we’d need to arrive early if we wanted to do our very favorite ride, Soarin’, without waiting in a ridiculously long line (we already had FastPasses for TestTrack but couldn’t double-book two “top tier” attractions, so Soarin’ had to be a walk-on). Good sports that they are (and not wanting to wait in an interminably long line; their mama didn’t raise no dummies), the rest of the fam agreed – and so we greeted the Epcot gates prior to the park even opening.

Oh, what a beautiful morning!
That’s Spaceship Earth peeking out behind us…

My ~~evil plan~~ thoughtful preparations worked: we walked right on Soarin’, and Nick and Ella even got to ride it again with hardly any wait at all. Score!

Truly the most perfect way to start a day…
By 45 minutes after the park opened, the wait for this ride was over an hour. THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM, FOLKS. Or at least two no-wait rides.

When my three housemates had okayed my early morning plan, they’d done so in part because I’d promised that, once we’d finished with Soarin’, we’d be free to just wander the park and take things in at a leisurely pace – something we rarely, if ever, have the time to do when we actually visit WDW for any length of time. But this time, we did – ambling through The Land pavilion (where Soarin’ is housed), riding one of the other rides, spending a looong time at the aquarium tanks there (we’ve never taken that opportunity before; it was refreshing and lovely).

I love this photo of the girls and the sea turtle.

We rode rides when the mood struck. We had a relaxing breakfast. We shopped (picking up the Mickey ears that Nick thought were merely to surprise GranMary, who would be joining us for the cruise; they were – but the girls and I had a master plan to get him a special, surprise set of ears for his 40th birthday occurring two days later…).

At last, our TestTrack FastPass time arrived, so we headed over and were through with the line and the ride in less than twenty minutes.

Ready to ride!

This is really a terrible shot – I snapped it with my phone off of a computer screen after the ride’s end – but I love it for Ella’s absolutely giddy face.

With our Future World dreams fulfilled, we grabbed a bit to eat at a couple of the pavilions in the World Showcase. Eleanor was beyond thrilled to stand inside the phone booths at the United Kingdom pavilion… JUST LIKE IN HARRY POTTER OMG.

‘Ello, guv’na!
(Is that really a thing? Did I just offend all of Britain?)

She also insisted on shadowing me as I shopped in the UK pavilion specifically so she could listen to everyone’s accent (“They sound like they’re in the movies!”) and read the names of their hometowns (“That man is from Oxford! THAT’S WHERE EMMA WATSON IS FROM!!”). At last, hot and tired from walking, we walked back to our hotel, which – mercifully – was situated right outside of Epcot.

Truth be told, by late afternoon the pool was a bit chilly, but the girls loved splashing and running in the sand and Nick and I loved sitting idly beside the pool, beverages in hand.

Adding to our enjoyment was the moment when I checked my phone and discovered that it felt like 75* by the pool… and -21* back home. For those of you bad at The Math (like me), that’s nearly a 100 DEGREE DIFFERENCE, y’all. ONE. HUNDRED. DEGREES. We could not even wrap our brains around that absolute insanity, but we certainly appreciated our breezy, sunny afternoon by the pool, let me tell you.

That night, as planned, we headed back over to Epcot to take a tour around the world for dinner. This is one of Nick’s and my most cherished rituals – grabbing a bite to eat at the various “countries,” poking through the shops, trying the drinks. As people who have yet to truly travel the world but who would absolutely love to, there’s something wonderfully satisfying about Epcot’s World Showcase; we couldn’t wait to share it with the girls.

Alas, as we’d feared, they’re a bit young yet to really appreciate it (“Do we have to walk all the way to China? What’s so special about Norway? Can’t we just eat caramel corn at home?”), and by that time Ella had developed a killer headache (for which she refused to take any medication, so our sympathies largely went out the window; we are excellent parents), so it wasn’t really the blissful Around The World experience we’d hoped for.

Still, it was a beautiful night. We ate ourselves silly. The caramel corn really is that good. (And, best of all, Nick had a brilliant idea: to celebrate my 40th birthday this fall, he and I will come back to Epcot for a day to attend the annual Food and Wine festival – HOLLA!!) We went to bed exhausted, slightly cranky, but overall happy and extremely excited for the cruise to come.

(No, I won’t go into that part here; this post is long enough, don’t you think?
Besides, who doesn’t enjoy reading several blogs’ worth about someone else’s vacation?? Stay tuned…)

All Together in a Scattered Sort of Way

Finding humor in even the most inappropriate places

Tag Archives: parenthood