Sick of Your Friends’ First Day of School Photos?

“The Admonishment”

My son got off the bus with a stern warning, “You can’t participate in those jokes,” said the monitor. She was very nice. Declan was listening to jokes, not telling them, she explained, but they have no place on the bus. I bet they were pirated from those teen-rated cartoon shows I’ve been trying to censor. Most people have smiling pictures of Kid Getting off Bus. Mine’s blurry. “The Admonishment” came out clear as day.

We all posted first day of school pictures–little public and private school uniforms, smiles, one family on a boat with no official first or last day of school sailing around the world with life as the teacher.

“Oh look, Johnny got a sticker.” Action shots on Facebook. “Ahhh, Suzie’s first chocolate milk” Ten more action shots. We keep posting.

The rest of you–you know who you are–must be sick of us.  Smiley photos of little people standing by busses holding pencil cases, over and over and over again.

I feel for you…you retaliate with pet photos, but this backfires, because some of us have kids and pets. We simply figure you want to see more “cute” and post Fido and Kid.

“WHO CARES that your kid got a yellow belt, pitched a no-hitter, won the Olympics, will be valedictorian in 12 years, just got seed funding at age six or cured cancer?” you say. “Fifty Facebook pictures of him a day is enough!” 

I try to be objective like the BBC. I post the good the bad and the ugly. When Declan learns to read fluently and discovers I’ve been writing this stuff, I might be an empty-nester sooner than I planned. This is good for you–you won’t be plagued with photos of Kid Standing By Bus. Instead, you’ll be reading his blog entitled “Insane Mom.” It’ll be a new game altogether. Stay tuned.

 

Friending the Pope on Facebook

The Pope crossed my Facebook stream. I wondered if it was really the Pope. I’ve friended Jesus H. Christ, Jesus M. Christ, and Jesus (Plain) Christ already, just to make sure I get the right one. I couldn’t find the Buddha on Facebook but Rumi is on Twitter–he’s pretty inspirational, and of course the Dalai Lama says something nice to me every morning. I love his tweets.

Yesterday, when I saw El Papa (that means “the Pope.” “Big Papi is someone else). I was pretty excited. I checked his friends so see if it was really him. Much like watching people look for mystery mechanical malfunctions under steaming hoods of cars, I must confess, I don’t really know who his friends would be–I guess I was looking for Cardinal this, Father that, or Rabbi Schmuley. I did see a bunch of good Catholics I knew from growing up, which means that they think this is the real Pope, too.

I had a fleeting thought that some computer nerd put the Pope’s likeness on Facebook. You think computer people are serious, but that’s really not true. This is just the type of thing someone who’s been coding too much drinking eighty Red Bulls a day would do, “Hey, guys, I can’t find the bugs, let’s take a break and answer some prayers.” I can see them responding to all the in-box confessions right now. Or it could be the kid in my Period  3 class who’s always looking down at something.

But just in case it’s really the Pope, I wanted to be in on the festivities before he got five thousand friends and I can’t be one. I have one friend like that who hit his Facebook limit. He has too many friends and Facebook won’t let us be friends. I have to be his follower. I don’t like to be my real-life friends’ followers, because next they’ll expect veneration or something. That wouldn’t be so bad for the Pope, but for a normal person, it can go to their heads pretty quick. And anyway, how can Facebook put friend limits on God’s leaders?

As I continued to look through the Pope’s feed, I noticed a few things that made me think my Red Bull theory might be true–or at least the one about the kid in my Period 3 class. There are mistakes in grammar and use of texting protocol in posts, such as the lowercase “I.”  Jesus would never permit the bastardization of grammar. Certainly, the head of his church wouldn’t post in textspeak. Unless…texters are the target audience to be saved…

Also, there is a request to email a Yahoo address for donations. There is no organizational link to this organization. I wonder if the IP address will be in some country I can’t spell that is in the international news for fraud. Hmmmm… But we should trust, I guess, and helping some guy using proxy servers to solicit donations is probably as good as helping the actual disadvantaged, because if it weren’t for the “donations,” he’d be disadvantaged too… Right?

I’m going to keep “the Pope’s” friendship. It’s a small price to pay if it is the real Pope. And if it isn’t, I might just send some prayer requests to Red Bull coder or Kid in Period Three or whoever you are.  I’m not sure what I’ll pray for, but I’ll make sure it’s good and juicy. Like salvation on crack. And it’ll be up to you to answer, oh God of Red Bull…

Let’s see what you come up with. Our eternal life is on the line…

When’s School Start, Anyway? Notes from The Bad Mom Files

We were all ready to go. We had our five outfits picked out for the week–sure, Labor Day was Monday so there were only four days, but you never know when you’ll need an extra outfit. The boy doesn’t suffer change well–most weeks we need five outfits, so we started by preparing things in groups of five right away.

We picked out four pencils and sharpened them. Two were yellow, one said “You’re cool,” and the last one was red–his favorite color–and had his name. The principal sent a supply list at the end of kindergarten, requesting two glue sticks, two pencils a month, crayons for September and the middle of the year, and a few other first-grade weapons of mass destruction.

“Pick an eraser, buddy.” It was the last thing to be packed into the red pencil case. There was an old-school pink trapezoid eraser and several Cat in the Hat fancy ones that didn’t look like they’d erase very well.

“Can I have two?”

“Sure, you planning on making a lot of mistakes?” The question went unanswered.

“How bout three?” That’s the way he negotiates. He’s pretty good.

“Okay, three. No more! You have to carry all this stuff.”

“Mommy, I need a new lunch box,” he said.

“You don’t. It’s fine.” I’m not the kind of mom who buys crap because it’s September. I buy things when they are needed. Or more embarrassing yet for his impending little future–I make them. Who doesn’t want recyclable wraps for their sandwiches?

“LOOK!” There was, indeed, the tiniest point where the ribbing had separated from the corner. “I need a PackIt. Regular lunches only keep your lunch cold for two hours. The PackIt keeps it cold for ten hours. That’s five times longer than a regular lunch box. By lunchtime my milk could spoil! That’s not healthy. I need that.” I have given birth to an infomercial.

“This will be fine for tomorrow.”

Except that there is no school “tomorrow.” The phone rang. Robo call. “Hello, this is the principal calling to tell you how excited we are to see your first grader on Wednesday.” The message was to indicate that the regular teacher was ill and there would be a substitute on the first day. That was a kind message. But Wednesday?  School starts after Labor Day. “After Labor Day” is Tuesday.

I’m a bad mom. I never even checked. Nor did my husband. This is his home town, for God’s sake. I thought he inherently knew.  I called Declan’s friend’s mom. The phone–it’s a real phone–was busy.

I remembered my friend, Google. “School’s Wednesday, dummy.” Thanks Google.

Wednesday. Now, what to tell The Boy. At least we were tipped off so he wasn’t standing out there in the rain with his little pencil case waiting for the bus that never came. That’s what happened last year at the old school when the kindergarten bus forgot him and the lady at the front desk of the school was really mean.

“Hey, GREAT NEWS!” The “great news” approach never fails. “Turns out you have an extra day of summer tomorrow. School starts Wednesday.”

“Yooo HOOOOOOO!” he said. “I can play dinosaurs and watch Netflix.”  Yesirree, you can. That’ll help you start the school year off right.

But in the mean time, I need to pay more attention. There are going to be a lot of forms, fliers, and signup dates flooding my life. On paper. I’m going to have to scan them and set alarms to avoid missing all the good stuff.

At least this year I won’t get yelled at by the school for packing a chocolate chip cookie. I really like this school. I think he’s going to have a good first grade, even if it’s one day late.

 

 

[images: Declan’s closet (the horror!), PackIt.com, and d118.org]

Work Less. Smile.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she said. “I can’t teach first graders to sit for 180 days. I don’t even have time for my own kids.”

Do you feel this way?

Here’s two from my playbook: “I just corrected two hundred fifty packets and didn’t cook dinner.” And, “I’ll play in five minutes. I just have to finish this.”

Teaching has the highest burnout of all careers. Higher than emergency responders and doctors.

It’s hard. We set expectations for ourselves. The system sets expectations, too. Kids expect instant results–ironic, because they don’t always give me their stuff instantly. I’ve set a high bar—one I could easily meet if I agreed to work 24 hours a day.

The problem is, I no longer do. I’m learning this lesson slowly, but surely.

In a prior career, I worked hard. It wasn’t my job. I ended up doing a lot of translating. I’ll say “translating,” but what I mean is communicating. I hack through languages with all the skill and fluency of someone moving to the United States barely speaking English.  I love languages, so, I give people my respect, and in the process I can usually solve the issue.

“Hello, may I help you?” I answered my phone, hearing a synchronized slam two cubes over, indicating someone blind-transferred the call to me. It was really their call.

“Hola. Necesito hablar con alguien…” I took the call, helped, and moved on.

Problem was, once the floodgates opened, it happened more and more.  I took calls in every language–some I spoke, most I didn’t.

These were the days before Google translate. I’d call the AT&T center.  A translator would conference in the parties, calls ranging from $2–$4/minute. First, I had to be able to identify the language. I was working with dialects of Spanish, Mandarin vs. Cantonese, Cape Verdian, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, Thai, Cape Verdean, Cambodian, Ukrainian, Albanian, Armenian, Romanian, Polish, Laotian, Hindi, Gujarati, and once in a while Japanese. Recognizing the cadence, rhythm, and indicators of a languages, the ethnicity of the last name–that’s doable for me. The hard part–telling people to hang on for the translator. In their language.

All of this takes time and skill.

Meanwhile, my own stack of work….growing…morphing into a monster I couldn’t control….cascading off my desk…threatening to crush my very existence.

“Send the call to Casey, she speaks…”

“I DO NOT SPEAK HINDI!”

My work wasn’t getting done but I was “being a team player.” This happens in teaching.

While taking others’ calls, I’d ask for help. “If Joe Smith calls, ask him…” Instead, I’d return to a pile of pink message slips. I was doing two jobs. I wasn’t getting help.

I decided to ask for a raise, bringing the logsheet of the calls I’d taken, showing the value of the services I provided.

“I’ve saved you tons of cash. Let’s split the difference.” Even “the difference” was a lot.

Laughter. Serious laughter. Comedy Central laughter. Watching Comedy Central while drunk laughter.

“Nice one, Casey. No. Get back to work.”

“Okay, but I’m no longer providing this service. I need to focus on my work.”

From that point on, I “wasn’t a team player.”

This happens in teaching. We overextend. We want to help for the good of the school–to be a team player. We do too much. We join committees, sponsor clubs, we never say “no” when asked to contribute, whether it’s in terms of time, talent, or treasure.

“It’s just one night.” The problem is the nights, meetings, planning sessions, after school trainings, and things add up. Sure, it’s going to be a great training session–I really want to participate. But the choice becomes two hours every day after school for a week or seeing my own boy. In the past, I’d chosen work because it was important, even though it was on my time. This year, I choose my family, hobbies, and me.

That’s not a bad thing. That’s the part that has to sink in for the majority of dedicated teachers.

Teachers overextend. Families feel neglected, relationships suffer, we get sick. A day can’t be 30 hours in it no matter how much coffee we drink.  When we cut back to “realistic” and “human,” we feel we’re not doing our best. This Lifehacker article, “Don’t Be A Work Hero,” got me thinking. Read it. Ruminate.

I decided to be human this year. I chose to do one thing for school this year–something I love, tech.

This decision feels pretty good. I notice a difference in mindset already. And by the end of the year, I hope my students, family, and friends will, too.

 

[images: greatergood.berkeley.edu and ruiram.com]