obese petite

flow it, show it long as God can grow it

2012-02-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

I’m so done with school and writing curriculum right now that I just can’t possibly think of anything original to write. BUT. But…I thought I could hold myself accountable by posting something totally trivial and shallow to everyone but myself. A few weeks ago, while visiting my sister in law in San Francisco, we began talking about hair and how she grew hers out in the past few years. I’ve been toying with the thought of growing mine for ages, but after we talked about it, I decided that it was time for a change in my follicles.

Hair. People place such high standards on hair. They write songs about it. There is a musical about it. Believe me, people are judging you for your coiffed ‘do. Or your roots. Or your bad home color job. Or your unwashed, messy bedhead. Trust me, even though I hear the, “I wish I could wear my hair that short!” comment over and over again, what I really hear in my head is, “good lord, your hair is SO short. I can see your wrinkled neck so much better now. You really look like a soccer mom!” And I love that the only people who ever comment on my hair in an absolutely positive way every. single. time. are black women. Probably because they recognize me as the one who got away. I swear I was born to the wrong race.

I digress. My point is that I am growing out this ‘do. Partly because it’s just time for something new, and partly because last night my kids got a set of Polly Pockets and I look vaguely like one of them. The one named Rick. Before too long, I’ll be old and I’ll be expected to have short, old lady hair. Not that I think my hair is old lady-ish now – in fact, I think it’s pretty fun. But, it’s time for a change. It’s time for me to be something other than the girl with the SUPER SHORT hair. And if I don’t have time to write anything for myself these days, at least I can take pictures of my progress. Please hold me to this – tell me I look amazing – even when you see the picture that makes you want to cry out, “CUT IT OFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!” Anyone who has ever grown out the shortest of short cuts knows, I’m going to need some support. And I’ll take all I can get.


hair project - week one

worry wart

2011-12-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today began quietly. Like any other day, really, until I went to wake Lucy up and she rolled over and said to me, “I don’t think I can do this.” It progressively got worse, highlighted with my carrying her upstairs to brush her teeth (she refused) and holding her while she bawled and shook, saying over and over again that she “just didn’t feel well and couldn’t possibly go to school.” This is how many of our days have started lately, and it’s hard for me to write about it because it’s so raw right now, but I feel like I have to. I’ve written before about Lucy and her anxiety, but somehow at six years old, she’s found new and different things that trigger it, and we are yet again searching for answers to this situation.

When she finally got out the door this morning (and before the two subsequent phone calls from her teacher and the nurse, each saying she was fine but needed to talk to me…and each supporting Lucy to the best of their abilities) I sat and cried. I cried because it’s the week before Christmas and my six-year-old daughter is miserable – not just miserable but just plain sad. I cried because I somehow feel responsible for her emotions, even though I know deep down that I have very little control there. I cried because I knew I’d have to finally break down and call our pediatrician and try to explain to him what in the world was going on. Has been going on. And finally, I cried because my sweet baby girl is six. Six years old. Way too young to have these feelings, right?

I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about depression or anxiety in the clinical sense of those terms. I only know that I was a very anxious child. I pushed so many of those memories back into the recesses of my brain – back where I’d never have to pull them out again…until this week. I was a worrier, I worried myself into barfing, I was homesick even with my parents right down the street. I put my parents through hell, and now I guess I’m getting paid back. I would, however, like to state for the record that if payback is a bitch, I get it and I’d like this to stop. I understand but this is enough.

The thing is, I’m trying to toe the line between giving Lucy the acknowledgement that she needs to know her feelings are valid and real and telling her she’s being silly. The one memory I have of being that scared, anxious kid was feeling like I was at fault for feeling those things, and when I couldn’t control them, how could I possibly be to blame for them? What a lonely thing for a little girl to feel. I remember that clearly, and I’m trying to show Lucy that her feelings matter while also trying to figure out how to get her beyond them. We met with our pediatrician, are meeting with the school counselor and are also meeting with a behavioral psychiatrist as soon as they can get her in.

Why am I telling this story? Simply because I want people to know that it’s not unheard of for young kids to have these issues – they are real and need to be taken seriously. I realize that one day Lucy might look back and be mortified that her mother gave away her secrets – sold her out for a blog post – but instead I hope she knows it’s just because I love her and have to write in order to sort out my own feelings about this. Oh, sweet, sweet Lucy B…one day I hope we can look back and laugh at this day.

fart sandwiches.

2011-12-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

So, I've not posted in so long that I forgot my password. Blogger kindly told me "you changed your password THREE months ago." Just like that. Thanks, Blogger. Life is insane here, and tonight I'm sitting in bed while my eldest child is laying on the floor next to me getting up to barf every few minutes. I called this post 'fart sandwiches'. I usually say poop sandwiches when things suck, because you can really sink your teeth into a turd, but this is more elusive suckage. The barfing? Total shit - I'm going to let you in on a secret: I FUCKING hate barf. Hate it. I have anxiety about people getting sick. Seriously. I'm happy to say that today has taught me it doesn't matter at all - someone is always going to barf on your shoes in life. Might as well be your cute kid. And, because there are a lot of other elusive suckage issues going on, I just thought I would share something I wrote for a class instead.

I'll preface this by saying that I've been taking the world's worst internet class. The professor has asked us to write 250 words weekly about articles or books she's asked us to read. Now, if you know me (and if you're reading this blog, chances are you know enough about me to believe this) I can't write 250 words. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY WORDS is for pussies. It's like asking me to write 5 sentences about something that I could write a book about. And the worst part is that no matter how much I write (trust me: over 250 words. every. single. week) the professor has not ONCE given me personal feedback. Ever. Which simultaneously makes me want to punch her in the face and write like eight pages just to see if she's paying attention. I digress. So, for the final project we were asked to write the usual 250 words about the "state of education" or what we as educators will find most challenging in our future. Again. Something I could write a book about. But today, I read a friend's Facebook status that read something about getting her K-4th grader ready for college and I just had to share this. I figure if the dummy professor isn't reading it, I should at least share it with you all.

I seriously hope that none of you have a barfing child anytime soon. And if you do, that you have a large amount of wine to fill up on while you're holding the hair out of the puke. I figure it's killing the germs...at least for me. Right? Enjoy:

I have started to write this for about three weeks in my head. I start, think I know what I’m going to say, and then something else happens either in the media or in my job as a teacher to add fuel to my fire. I believe that the biggest challenge that educators face is a generation of children who would like to be spoon-fed the answers, are not able to conceptualize, who get frustrated when asked to think critically, and many of whom are unable to make informed statements about anything they didn’t first hear from someone else. In the past few weeks and months, I have had conversations with educators from all walks of life and from all different teaching backgrounds and sadly, I feel like we all say the same things – we are worried about kids.

Naturally, we teach in a society where we are forced to think about funding and testing and all the other frustrations that those go along with, but while they are frustrations, they aren’t really all that new or different. There is always, always going to be red tape in education. Always. It’s time to turn our focus toward something that we CAN fix. Just today, I read about the number one worst baby toy in 2011 – an electronic device similar to an iPad. For an infant. And I wonder why children come into my preschool classroom and don’t know how to PLAY. It’s been my experience over my ten years as a preschool teacher that children are more and more unable to be in open-ended play situations without being guided in some way or another. I’m a preschool teacher and part of the joy of my job is that it’s so child driven. I get to do what the kids want to do and make my lesson plans based on their interests. Recently, though, I’ve noticed a trend toward more teacher led activities – because the children can’t seem to come up with ideas on their own. When I ask, “what do you want to learn about?” I get blank stares. I want to say to them, “listen up! This is the last time it’s going to be like this – someone is going to get to tell you WHAT to learn for the rest of your life beyond this point!” It’s sad and shocking and it’s no wonder these same children are failing in grade school and beyond.

I believe it comes down to being an advocate for these children rather than trying to place blame. It’s hard work, for sure, but it becomes an issue of advocating for play in early childhood classrooms (early childhood means up to and including the age of EIGHT) and for different approaches in teaching older students. More play, less rote memorization. More writing, less homework. More questioning their opinions, less teaching them to fill in the right answer. While I know that I am starry eyed in some ways about this, I do believe that we can change the future of American education. I’m not certain yet how that will be done, but I do know that I will be a part of that work in some capacity.

back up.

2011-10-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve been pretty vocal the past few days about throwing my back out, and I’ve had a lot of advice – from a lot of people. I completely appreciate it. Really. But lots of people were asking the root of my back issues, and so, very briefly, I wanted to explain. I danced for years, and years, and years…on cement floor. Oh, it was covered in tile, but all that did was make my tap shoes sound better. Years of leaping and jete-ing landing on shitty floors did a number on my spine. Then, about 8 years ago, Steve and I were on our way to meet my now sister-in-law and her then husband for dinner (this is only noteworthy because I like to think about how long ago this was and how much has changed for Kelley and me since this day!). At the intersection of Oak Street and 55^th Street in Kansas City, a VERY young teen-aged driver on a cell phone ran the red light and crashed directly into the driver’s side door of our brand new Nissan Altima. I was driving. I was wearing a seatbelt, but the impact of that wreck sent me sideways into the passenger seat – and knocked my spine into some state of, well… I don’t know any better way to say that the wreck completely jacked up my spine.

The MRI I had following the wreck showed two severely goofy discs in my spine – the L5 and the S1 – or the lowest two discs near the tailbone. One of those discs was bulging, and the other was degenerative. Probably the degenerative disc was a result of the concrete floors from my tappin’ days, and the bulging was a result of that dumb ass teenager on her cell phone. Regardless, those results were enough to warrant physical therapy and several facet injections – which numbed the nerve endings around the two discs so that it wasn’t as painful when they rubbed up against my muscles and whatever else was hanging out back there around my discs. Aaaaand…those didn’t work. I found that yoga helped – really anything that kept my core strong helped my back. I also found that regular visits to my chiropractor (whom I adore and would recommend to anyone – just ask) helped my spine. Other than that, I really had no control over it, other than watching how (and who) I lift, and how I bend – which has proven very interesting in my profession.

Fast forward to this past Friday afternoon. I was getting ready to get on the road to St. Louis to visit Steve’s parents when I went to put on my pants and wham – out when the back. Which might not have been that big of a deal, but riding in a car for four hours there and back, as well as sleeping on a bed that wasn’t mine, as well as having a coughing and nose blowing fit, and I was a steaming hot mess by Sunday afternoon. This is where everyone has an opinion: get surgery, get and MRI, get to bed! All of these are valid (and thank you for your concern) but long story short, here is the plan. I saw my chiropractor yesterday – he adjusted me, because part of my issue is that one of my legs is also a bit longer than the other. I’m a mutant. He believes that when I bent to put on my pants the other day (why couldn’t this have been a better story, like I was lifting a couch or something?) I tore some of the scar tissue around those discs leaving my nerves and muscles in some sort of battle. Then, he did some deep tissue massage, which felt terrible and left me with what feels like a bruised ass, but has definitely worked because I can feel my right leg today. Finally, he used some really fantastic gel on my lower back, which numbed the area for a while.

Tomorrow I go to my general practice doctor (whom I also adore – but, no, this isn’t an advertisement for my medical preferences) and I’m to request a prescription for a cortisone and steroid mix that should take the swelling down in my back. After a week, I get to see my chiropractor again, and if that hasn’t helped I get to have another MRI and then look into more injections. Whew! Aren’t you glad you asked about my back?

why I write

2011-10-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

The National Day on Writing is on October 20th. I wrote this in honor of that day. You can read more about it here.

I write because if I didn’t, I would certainly not be here today. I write because it’s the best and cheapest form of therapy out there. I write because I have something important to say, even if it’s something as simple as, “I’m angry”, or “I’m frustrated” or. “I’m so proud”. I write because I don’t know how better to express myself, it’s the way I deal with the world around me. I remember writing pages and pages of letters in high school, it’s probably the first time that I remember feeling like putting pen to paper would solve something. I wrote to boyfriends, my parents, my friends. I wrote to heal broken hearts, to soothe my angry soul, to process my parent’s divorce. I wrote because I thought people might think me crazy if I told them aloud the things that went on in my head. Now, I don’t care what people think of me – I know I’m crazy. But, now that I’m not an angsty teenager anymore (I’m more like an angsty adult) I still write to process things: my relationships, my marriage, my children, the path I’m on at any given moment.

I write because one day I want my kids to look back and know that what they said and did mattered to me. That I wrote down their experiences and I laughed with them and at them and I noticed all the little things that they did. I write because earlier this week Lucy asked me why kids remember so much and grown ups don’t. I told her it’s because adults have more years and more memories clogging their brains, but really I write so that I DON’T forget everything that happens – even the little, seemingly unimportant day to day things.

I write because some days I think if I say the words out loud that I write down on paper, I might curl up and cry. I write because I’m one of those people who look around me at the grocery store and thinks, “I’m the ONLY ONE who knows what I’m thinking right now.” I think about that a lot – how when I look over at my husband I only see what I see – I will never know what is going on in his head – even if I think I do. It’s such a lonely thought and so I write because it keeps me from losing my mind. I write because I’m so busy that writing seems a little like I’m talking to a friend – something I don’t get to do nearly enough anymore. I write because it’s in my DNA. It’s in the very fiber of my being. I write because I can't imagine what I would do if I couldn't.

I (still) do.

2011-09-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today I made myself sit down and write about all the things that I’ve not let myself say in the past few months. I knew this past weekend, on the eve of this 10^th anniversary of 9/11, that something was wrong with me. I was entirely more concerned about the state of my family than I was about what that terrible day would bring. I’m just going to say this: marriage is hard. Of all the things I wish I had known before I entered into my own marriage – I wish someone had said, “Kate, one day you will wake up and you will find you have lost important connections with the person laying next to you.” This is not a post about my marriage unraveling. It’s not – and I assure you that, God forbid that ever happens, I will not be writing about it on my blog. It’s a post to say, I get it now. I understand that no one tells you those things because if they did, no one would get married. Sort of like if people told you the truth about childbirth, there would be way less children in this world.

I get it. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about marriage. My own, my parents’, Steve’s parents, the upcoming nuptials of a friend, that of a good friend who is living here in KC while her husband is working in another city for a few months. And I just need to put it out there that this life that Steve and I have created is the hardest job I’ve ever had. Recently, I started back teaching after a summer off, I also started grad school, and Steve is still working full time as well as teaching two nights a week at the KC Art Institute. We also have a home we try to maintain, two young children, a dog…you get the picture. We hardly see each other, and lately we’ve not been very good at making all of the pieces fit in this difficult daily puzzle of our lives. It’s like you think everything is running smoothly, or at least is at status quo, until reality tells you differently.

One of the reasons I fell in love with Steve is that, while it might not happen all that often, he has the ability put it all out on the table and let you know how he feels. I suck at that. I will bottle up how I feel and get resentful and mean and ugly until I finally blow up. It’s not a healthy way to live – and it’s not a healthy way to have a relationship. I’m also really lazy. I’m not going to lie, I am super, super, way lazy – I would rather sit on my ass or keep to myself than do the hard work – including relationship work. It’s hard to find time to compliment my husband – even if I DO love him and I DO appreciate him, finding times to tell him that is not my strong point. It goes both ways, for sure, but at the end of the day when people have NEEDED stuff from me all day long, the last thing I think about doing is laying on the compliments. I would much rather lay on the couch.

I'll also say selfishly that I pretty much hate keeping this house together while other people get to reap the benefits of being with my family - the babysitters, the teachers, the people my husband works with. I feel like for all the driving, cooking, cleaning, laundry, general problem solving I do, I should get to enjoy the reward of being with my family, but right now, in this time - that just isn't happening. Instead, other people get to enjoy the energy of my kids and my husband while at the end of each day, my kids are either already in bed when I get home from school, or Steve and I get to do the catch up game instead of really enjoying each other's company. I hate that other people are getting the best of us, but I digress.

My point is that I’m trying to hold myself more accountable for doing the hard work. I’m putting out there that I know my married friends are doing the same hard work that we are doing here and I respect you all immensely for it. I’m not saying that there aren’t amazing things about my marriage – I love the life we have made with each other and with our children. We started a relationship built upon laughter and we continue to do a lot of that – we are raising two amazing, hilarious little girls, and I think all things considered we do a pretty great job of it. I also know that the rat race we are in right now is temporary and one day I'm sure I'll miss the hustle and bustle (to an extent!) I just feel like people don’t like to talk about this and it’s been bothering me. So there. I said it for you. You’re welcome. Also, I should probably apologize for throwing my husband under the bus in order to prove my point. So…I’m sorry, Steve. See ya tomorrow!

these are a few of my favorite things...

2011-07-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Lately, I’ve had quite a time with anxiety and just feeling down. It’s not something debilitating. In fact, it’s not even something that I was going to mention. But today I went to visit my doctor and he made me feel so much better about my health in general that I decided to start writing down all of the things that make me happy. Once I started thinking of things, I honestly couldn’t stop – what a great exercise, really. I started by posting them as my Facebook status today, and when the responses from people started to make me laugh, or sigh, or just remember WHY I have such great friends, I just wanted to write more about it.

It’s really the little things, I guess. I was talking with my Aunt Karen yesterday about how we are always looking for the next big thing to come along. How, even when we have amazing moments (the example we both thought about was sitting on the beach recently) we were still thinking about the next better thing that might happen. I guess it’s just our American way to think about stuff like this. So I started focusing about all the little things that I see or hear or smell each day that make me happy. Things I often look over with the hope that bigger things might be on the horizon.

I started a list. I will continue to add to it – it’s simply something to remind me that there is happy all around me. I just need to look more closely…

The smell of sunscreen. Swimming at night. A great glass of wine. A snuggly blanket and a good book. Scoring a new, bestseller at the library before anyone else. Bright red nail polish. Ludacris (please don’t ask me why he makes me smile every time I hear him!) Thunderstorms. Seashells. Clean sheets. Getting dressed up for a night out. Fancy heels. Finding the perfect swimsuit. Doritos. Cheetos. Long talks on the phone with friends. Long talks anywhere with friends. Fart jokes. I stole this one from my cousin Amanda: the phrase, “to the window! To the wall!” – makes me laugh every time. Bacon. Hot air balloons. My writing project friends. Preschoolers. Old school R&B music. Full bookshelves. The Jersey Shore (what?!) Cinnamon toast. Coffee with real cream. Black dogs. Hats, in general. Bridges – but not being under them, only going across them, I don’t know why. Bow ties. Naked baby butts. Reading out loud to an attentive audience. Boat rides. My sister. Singing out loud – REALLY loudly. Road trips. New blue jeans. Fireflies.

I just realized that I could probably go on with this until I bored each of you to death. It’s not my intention to do that and I plan to continue with this “project” of sorts. I hope it inspires you as well. Also? Sadly, maybe? When I check my Google analytics and see that people are actually reading this stuff? That makes me happy, too. Thanks a bunch.

outlasting my tan...

2011-07-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have a tan. A real, live suntan. Those who know me should be stunned by this news. Also? I got this suntan even without a sunburn…even more stunning, I know. Vacation this year was really good. Really, really good, and something Steve and I both needed. It was a whole week of just being lazy: lounging by the pool and lounging on the beach and reading. I read TWO books in one week. Ca-ching! It was a week of watching our girls perfect their swimming techniques. For Lucy, it was just getting back into the groove of swimming again after a long winter. For Zoe, it was actually learning how to swim without floaties – and she did it! It was a week of collecting shells and sand dollars and taking early morning walks on the beach to see what washed up while we slept: mostly jellyfish and other weird stuff. It was a week of Lucy figuring out the southern drawl – and slipping it into conversation at the most perfect moments. Of Zoe deciding that she and her sister were more alike than different, perhaps signaling a real change in their relationship? Meh, I’m not that starry-eyed. But, it was nice while it lasted. I have to say, though, that the part of our trip that has stuck with me, in fact, keeps haunting me, is something that happened in the first two days we were there.

I am a light sleeper. Thanks, kids! I’ve never been a very good sleeper (aside from maybe in my late teens and early twenties when I was a lazy fool) and I literally jump up at the slightest sounds. The second day we were there, I woke up to what I assumed was someone getting lucky in the next condo. I laid there for a while, thinking, “jeez! 4am is a little early OR late for this squealing, but whatever.” And then I started getting pissed because I realized that it wasn’t someone getting lucky, it was a child screaming bloody f’ing murder. It took me about an hour, but I got back to sleep. And the next morning, I woke up furious at the parents who thought it was totally fine to let their child scream and cry in the middle of the night. (I need to say that I was the mom who would go and pick the girls up if they started crying while we were either A: on a trip in someone’s home or in a hotel, or B: ever if I thought they would disturb someone.) I’m all about the child learning to sooth himself, as long as I don’t have to hear it at 4am.

So, the next day, my family and I were out on the beach and next to us sat a big family with a bigger umbrella. Under it, was a special needs child. I don’t know what the child’s story was, but after hearing the child wail uncontrollably when the mother put on his sunscreen, I knew that this was the night-time squealer. I felt like a giant asshole. I honestly had the wind knocked out of me as I processed what I was feeling the night before (anger) with what I felt at that moment (sadness). I came home from this vacation with a pretty awesome suntan, that is true. I also came home from this vacation with the reminder that you never, EVER know what a person’s story is. Ever. I was humbled by the experience, and while it was something seemingly simple, it is something that will stick with me much longer than my suntan.

oh, paper. I'm so sorry.

2011-06-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

My inlaws recently gave us a gift. One that I, admittedly, was uncomfortable with. They gave us a brand new iPad…and even though I fought it, I do love it. I’m still trying to figure it all out, but I have a confession to make: I downloaded some books. To read. On iBooks. There. I said it. I am reading a book right now on a digital device. Just typing that makes me feel dirty and scandalous.

I couldn’t help but to see what it was all about. Really, can you blame me?! I will say that I feel like I’m having a bit of a tryst. Maybe more of a ménage trois? I’m torn. I love books: the smell of books, the feel of a good heavy book in my hands – the excitement of buying a new book and cracking the spine. I know. I’m a complete dork, but whatever. Reading a book on an iPad is just weird. There is really no other way to describe it – using the touch screen to turn the page seems wrong, but it’s also so easy. And, I can hardly wait to get to the beach and have not just the three heavy books I will STILL tote with me, but also the 15 others that I’ve downloaded onto the iPad. You know, just in case I can’t pick the right one to pack.

I know I wrote this about digital readers, but I guess I’m growing and changing with time. Or else, I’ve just lost my mind. Either is possible…I’ll keep you posted.

36

2011-06-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

This week I had a birthday. Normally, birthdays sort of bother me. I spend a lot of time thinking about particular birthdays of the past: the one, at 16, where I hung out in a car until midnight with my sweet friend Amy so we could celebrate our birthdays together (hers is June 12). The birthday I spent crying about the boy who had broken up with me earlier that day…and that was the one where I was skinny and hot, but also? Who does that? Shame on him. My 21^st, where I wore a shiny gold dress to a club called The Edge and danced in a cage and then fell down half a flight of stairs – drunk on Midori sours…seriously. The thought makes me simultaneously laugh and throw up in my mouth a little bit. The one right after I had Lucy where I drank half a beer and thought I would die – I was 30 and remember thinking about how people did BIG things for 30^th birthdays. That day I mostly felt like a giant boob. My point is that, at 36, I’ve decided to not ever be bothered with that trivial stuff anymore. I’ve decided this is the year I will take back June 11^th.

This year has been one of the best years of my life. Honestly. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m really happy with my work – I’ve found a happy place in teaching – or if it’s because my children are old enough now that I can stand back a bit and relax and enjoy them more? I’m not sure. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve finally decided that this extra 20 pounds is really not that big of a deal. I just feel like each year gets a little bit better for me, and that all the stuff I worried about when I could fit into that shiny gold dress doesn’t matter at all anymore. Sure, I’m not that skinny and cute, but I’m also not that skanky and stupid.

I’m hoping that my 36^th year will include more traveling and less whining. More eating delicious food and drinking really good wine, and less worrying about where those calories are heading. More time spent with family living far away and less time crying about that family not living in Kansas City anymore. My 36^th year will be about FINALLY getting started on my masters and not letting the excuse of kids, money or time get in my way. It’s not a new epiphany…it’s just about finally getting off my own back. Women are way too hard on themselves and I’m finally seeing some of that. This year will be about loving myself more and criticizing myself less. I hope that some of you will hold me to it.

the power of play

2011-06-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this while sitting on a flight from Minneapolis to Kansas City. Earlier tonight, my mother-in-law asked me if I enjoy traveling alone. I do. A lot. Part of it is the tiny break from the day-to-day madness of having two kids under six. Part of it is exploring somewhere new. And part of it is simply remembering what it was like before I had people who depended on me for everything. I’m not writing about some wonderful self-discovery here, I just think traveling alone is a rare treat for me, and this weekend I got to do just that when I flew to Rochester, NY, for a quick weekend with my Aunt Karen and her family.

During the weekend, Karen and I drove to New Paltz, NY, which lies on the Hudson River about an hour and a half outside of New York City. It’s a beautiful area, truly, with mountains and the Hudson River and the Erie Canal, and all of these tiny towns tucked into the scenery. I attended a workshop put on by the Hudson Valley Writing Project in New Paltz. Yep, this could totally be yet another love letter to the National Writing Project and all of its local sites, but I will spare you that. Again. You’re welcome. This weekend I got to spend time with early childhood educators and it was fantastic. The best part? Meeting 80-year-old Deborah Meier and getting to listen to her talk about her experiences and stories.

Deborah is many things: first and foremost a teacher, she has opened schools, she is a public advocate for education and education reform. A mutual friend called her, “...a piston. One of our true legends in the field.” She truly should be an inspiration to educators everywhere. She spent a lot of time this weekend talking about how schools in the United States spend an inordinate amount of time teaching kids the right answers. I wanted to jump up and clap when I heard this, because I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the current state of our education system and particularly about how schools are no longer teaching or empowering students to think critically…about much of anything.

We talked about the power of play in early childhood classrooms and about how when children learn to play, they in turn learn to think. Ok, really, I could write a book about that last sentence – I’m REALLY dumbing that down for the sake of time and space and not boring you. We talked about how many kindergarten teachers these days are encountering children in their classrooms who have no idea how to play. Teachers are having to model play in classrooms because these children aren’t playing at home, and the early childhood programs they may have attended are doing away with play in favor of more "concrete" learning. Can you believe that? It’s terribly sad to me.

One of my favorite quotes from Deborah this weekend was “children know how to play until we teach them not to.” Like I said, I could go on and on and on about my feelings on this subject, but mostly I wanted whomever might read this to simply think about it. How did you play as a child? What did you pretend to be? Do (or did?) your children play? How are you embracing and encouraging the play that is happening in your home? Yes, that’s right, I said encouraging play. Do it.

Right now I’m reading A Child’s Work, the Importance of Fantasy Play by Vivian Gussin Paley, a book I picked up this weekend. I’m sure that I will have plenty more to say about this book as well, but I just wanted to present the idea of play to you. In a time where schools, particularly early childhood programs, are doing away with play, and turning preschool curriculum into sit-at-a-desk-and-learn school school, I think it’s super important to look at WHY play is so important for children. I can’t tell you how nice it was this weekend to sit with a group of smart early childhood educators who agree with this stuff – it’s proof to me that we are going to do something to change the way things are going in early childhood education…one superhero or princess at a time.

stormy weather

2011-05-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today I’ve been very thoughtful. Sitting in a makeshift tornado shelter with more than fifteen children under the age of six will do that to you. I won’t pretend that I have a worse or different story than anyone – Lord knows the weather in the Midwest has done enough without my making light of it. I was fine. The children were fine. But, for a while there, we didn’t really know what was going on today, other than there were tornado sirens and talk of several touch downs in our area. We do tornado drills several times a year, but nothing quite prepares you for the real deal.

Aside from having no cell service or internet access, and therefore no way of knowing what was going on outside those walls, I think the most scary thing was that I tell my students daily that it’s my job to keep them safe. What if, on the second to last day of school, I could not come through on a promise that I’d been making all year long? I mean, really? I ask my little ones all the time, “what’s Miss Kate’s job?” and inevitably, they will say, “to keep me safe.” Not, “to read to me,” or “to wipe my nose,” or even, “to build giant Lego towers with me.” All of which I do on a daily basis. These kids know that above all, it’s my job to keep them safe.

At noon today, I wondered several things. Fresh off the media frenzy surrounding the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes, I wondered if we’d all be blown away. I wondered if my husband would actually heed warning and go to the underground parking garage like his employer insisted or keep sitting at his desk avoiding the “Stromboli” that was headed his way (his damn autocorrect made for the funniest part of the day). I wondered why little Zoe thought what we were doing was hilarious, and I wondered if my Lucy was safe (though, that was a thought I kept pushing back. I honestly couldn’t even bear to think about it while we sat there). I wondered mostly, though, if I was going to be able to keep my word to eight children who have trusted me all year long.

I got to Lucy’s school today for her Grand Spectacle (her fabulous kindergarten show!) and when I saw her teacher I thanked her repeatedly. She gave me a weird look, but after what I’d been through, I just wanted her to know that I appreciated her help in keeping Lucy safe, even if it was just second nature to her. We place our kids in someone else’s care every single day without ever thinking that something catastrophic could really happen. I’m so glad it didn’t happen today, and I hope to never have that experience again. I’m way better at keeping snails from crawling out of their jars, or getting playdough out of the couch, or just wiping noses.

for Splitt

2011-05-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Today, Kansas City lost a local baseball legend when left-handed pitcher Paul Splittorff lost his battle to cancer. When I heard this news today, I found myself thinking about the days of my childhood, many of which were spent at the ball yard with my dad. While I know that in recent years, Splittorff was synonymous with Royals broadcasting, I will always remember watching him on the pitching mound on hot summer afternoons. When I was about 14, my dad took me to see the Smothers Brothers. Another great Royals pitcher, Dan Quisenberry, was the opening act. He recited Casey at the Bat and later, I found out that he, too, was a poet in his own right. Someone wrote something earlier today about Quiz and Splitt hanging out again, and I thought it was only fitting to pull out Quisenberry's book of poetry, On Days Like This. I thought this poem of Quiz's was a fitting tribute to Paul Splittorff today. Enjoy.

Old G(love)

mushy leather

burnt brown

light cracks

saddle creaks

your strings held up well

mine have too

we look trim enough

to still play

you protected me

Wilson A2000 XL

only glove I really liked

though I flirted with others

you were the one for me

I love your dark center

your womb

rich as Iowa soil

tight feel to my left hand

a worker’s glove

you brought slap shots

stinging in my palm

but I knew where they were

so I could grab them quick

now you look so small

do you shrink like old men

stiff and less flexible?

me too

we’re both on the shelf

but you still look nice

and holding you

feels so right

* you can find Quisenberry's book here.

reflecting.

2011-05-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Last year during my annual review and conference with my bosses, I walked in and cried. Literally, I walked in the door, sat down and started bawling. I was pissed, and hurt, and frankly, done with teaching. Honestly, I felt like I had sacrificed an entire year of teaching for nothing – and it had sucked. I didn’t expect to cry. I really didn’t even know what I was going to say. Maybe, “I quit”? I’m so glad I didn’t.

Last summer, as everyone knows, because I talk about it any chance I get, I was a fellow in the Greater Kansas City Writing Project’s summer institute. It was, quite literally, what saved me as a teacher. I left the SI and went back to the preschool classroom determined to give early childhood education one more chance. I was determined to harness all the creativity and the strength and the validation I got from the GKCWP summer institute and put it to good use in my classroom.

I am telling this story because I just sat down last night to fill out my self-evaluation for this year’s annual review. I’m happy to say that there will be no tears at this review…at least sad ones. This year has been amazing. And, I teach preschool…I have stories upon stories of things that have happened this year that weren’t amazing, but those stories are nothing in light of all of the good things that happened in my class this year.

Last summer’s self-reflection taught me that I owe it to everyone to stand back and let children learn without my guiding every single moment. I’ll add my own little caveat here: I don’t do this as often as I should in my own home. I don’t know if it’s because I have control issues with my own kids, or if sometimes, at the end of a long day with other people’s children, I just need things to go my way? I’m not certain. But I will say that the Dinosaur kids have had some pretty amazing experiences this year. I’m guessing most parents will rank field trips and special visitors as the top “amazing experiences” but I’d like to tell you what I think was amazing, if I may…so here’s a list, in no particular order:

We created jobs and each chose one daily. We made a “helpfulness board” and our “kindness catcher” watched for kind acts that we documented and posted on our bulletin board. We baked and cooked and ate lots of new and different foods. We were the authors and illustrators of our OWN stories – and we know what the authors and an illustrators actually do (!!!!) We grew vegetables and plants and flowers. We hatched chicks. Out of eggs! We watched caterpillars turn into chrysalis and then butterflies and we set them free. We learned how to have gentle hands and also how to tell our friends about our feelings. We learned when we need some “safe” time…if only everyone would recognize when they need those moments! We painted with all sorts of different mediums. We wrote in journals, we drew with crayons, pencils and markers. We scooped and shoveled, and dug and sorted and counted and patterned. We passed out lunches to each other. We learned to sit in a circle and listen to a story together and how to guess what the story might be about and even what might happen next. We were really LOUD some days, and other days we needed things to be quiet. We taught a teacher, who was thinking this might not be her calling, to hang in there and to absolutely LOVE what she does.

I’m not certain what the future holds for me, but this class of kids has encouraged me to be my best: every. single. day. And not maybe the best I could be, but at least the best I could be for that day, for that child. And, really? Isn’t that what early childhood education is all about?

good riddance...

2011-05-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Well, well…well. Stunning news tonight about Osama Bin Laden. News that I thought I would never hear. Dead. Which, might make some people really, really happy, but honestly I just feel a little bit sick to my stomach. Bin Laden – the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, that took the life of my cousin Karleton along with nearly 3,000 other people. Bin Laden, who has been hiding, for lack of a better word, for nearly 10 years. I have a lot of feelings about Bin Laden, many I’m sure you can guess, but now I am worried about the repercussions of this…what happens next? Dancing and celebrating to be sure, but then what happens tomorrow and the next days to come?

I have always felt that there will never really be true closure for myself after September 11, 2001. I don’t really know how all of my family feels about this, but it’s how I have always felt. I mean, of course there was a memorial service, and those concrete things, but when you hear the words 9/11 every. single. day on the news, in passing, somewhere in the day – there really is no true closure. Imagine, if you will, that images of your loved one’s murder were shown nearly daily on the news or over the internet, or that your loved one’s murderer had been on the loose for the past decade. It’s always seemed a bit like a band-aid getting ripped off the wound. Over and over and over again.

I guess my hope is that the families and loved ones of 9/11 victims can feel like a chapter in this very, very long story has finally ended. I don’t know that this it will ever feel like closure, but it’s a start.

a Saturday morning thought...

2011-04-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

If you daughter has children and you haven't seen them in nearly three years, and they don't know who you are, and when you call here they refuse to talk to you because they don't know who you are? You are NOT allowed to call yourself a grandmother. And if your stepson has children, do not call your daughter on a beautiful Saturday morning and tell her you are a grandmother again. You aren't one to begin with...there is no again. I'm just sayin.

look at me learnin' on a weekend...

2011-04-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended Faces of Learning Kansas City, which was a coming together of educators and concerned citizens to talk about how we learn. Essentially, it was a discussion of how we might change what learning looks like in our city and across the country. Faces of Learning is the brainchild of my new friend Sam Chaltain, and Sam traveled to Kansas City yesterday to have a community conversation about learning. I am sure to sell the idea behind this campaign short, so I completely suggest going to Sam’s website to check it out for yourself. What I will say is this: the idea that the best learning comes from the inside isn’t rocket science. It’s not even a new theory. We must consider HOW we learn and what the ideal learning environments might look like. It should be what school districts from San Diego to Boston and Minneapolis to Dallas are asking of their students and what we are asking pre-service teachers to consider before they ever step foot into a classroom.

We talked yesterday about what learning looked like for each of us. How my friend Steve discovered his potential for learning and pushing himself when he was faced with the daunting task of teaching a chemistry lab in college. Steve is now a high school English teacher, and while he is certainly, among other things, the most organized person I know, he’s no chemist. Sorry, Steve. He spoke about how that challenging experience led him to see himself as a teacher. Laurie talked about being a teacher in Los Angeles and how she was constantly told what she could and couldn’t do by the administration – and in effect, how that changed her teaching and her learning. Maggie talked about what she has learned about herself and about learning environments by being in charge of student teachers in early childhood classrooms all over Kansas City.

I tend to learn like a four-year-old learns. Perhaps it’s the hours I’ve spent on the floor with four-year-olds in my own classroom, but I need to be hands-on with learning. Whether I’m learning something about technology (did I tell you I’m on the tech team?) or about cooking, I’m not absorbing anything unless I am getting my hands dirty, so to speak. My best learning comes when I’m pushed to question everything – to wonder about things and to make connections with like-minded people. Yesterday, I recalled being a 14-year-old and spending three weeks of my summer at what is now Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. I was a part of the Joseph BaldwinAcademy, and that summer and the one after it was spent taking college level classes with about seventy of my peers. Not only was it the first time I was away from my family – how grown up of me – it was the first time I was truly challenged to think outside of the box. AND, it was the first time I was with a group of kids who weren’t judging me for wanting to learn. At JBA learning was cool, and I still get that giddy, excited feeling when I surround myself with people who are excited about learning, just like I did yesterday.

What struck me about the conversation we had yesterday is that it shouldn’t be so difficult to ask teachers in Kansas City to consider how they learn and what the ideal learning environment might be. Imagine what it would look like if teachers considered the immense diversity in learning patterns in their classrooms. In a city where our public schools are not something we are bragging about, we should be taking ALL of these things into consideration. This conversation about learning needs to continue in our schools, in our churches, and in our communities.

I really don’t want to get into education reform. I am lucky enough, for now, to be (as a teacher) relatively unaffected by the way our government handles education. I also know that once I start writing about it, I might not stop – so I will spare you my thoughts. I will just say that I walked out of that conversation – which continued, over hot wings and beer, I might add, with some of the most amazing teachers I know in this city – and I was excited about what the future of education and learning in Kansas City might look like. Not only am I a teacher, I am a mother of two beautiful girls who I believe deserve only the most amazing opportunities when it comes to learning. I believe we owe it to our children to continue these conversations, and we mustn’t stop until we are truly satisfied with what we see happening in our schools.

**if you're interested locally in KC in joining this conversation, please take a look at this

**you can also get more information here

signs, signs, everywhere signs...

2011-04-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

I have written before about my weird cardinal sightings. As in, they are everywhere I go. After my grandparents Bloom passed away, I began to think that the cardinals were sent as a sign from them – you know, just reminding me that they still had an eye on me. I know, you might think I’m nuts. It’s fine. I know the cardinal’s song so well that when I hear it, my eyes start searching for where the bird is perched. A few weeks ago, during a particularly bad day with Lucy, I thought to myself, “I wish I had some sign that I’m not alone or that things will be ok,” and I didn’t even get that thought fully out before the most beautiful male cardinal flew over and sat right in front of my car. A few seconds later, the female joined him. I love moments like that, even if it was pure coincidence, it reminds me that there is more out there – more beyond the human eye – and I fully believe that people who have passed on have a role in those moments.

Like, the time in Boston when my cousin Karleton’s widow and his son were at a park on a day not long after Karleton’s death (if memory serves it was Karleton’s birthday or an anniversary?) and his son Jackson found a UNC hat at the park that day. Karleton graduated from UNC and then lived in Boston. What are the odds of that happening randomly?

The day of my Grandpa Bloom’s funeral, my sister and I went to Loose Park in Kansas City to spend some time together. We had plans to fly to New York the week after that, and as my grandfather died very suddenly, we decided to keep our original plan and to spend time with my Gram after everyone else had gone home. So, that day at the park, instead of attending his funeral, we fed the geese. My grandpa was an artist and loved to draw geese and ducks – and he had a song about being kind to ducks that we loved to sing with him. While we were feeding the geese, a white duck came barreling across the pond at us and shot up out of the water to stand literally about three feet from the two of us. He raised his wings up over his head and did a little dance for us and then went right back into the water. Lisen and I stood there completely silent. There were no other ducks around – just this one, and it was pure white. A few days later, I went back to the park to try to find the white duck and it was nowhere to be found. I still keep one of his feathers that dropped during his dance in a little box in my bedside table.

The other night, my Aunt Karen called with a story about a lost earring. She told me she had to call me because she knew I would understand. Apparently, she took a shirt off a few weeks ago and with it came off an earring that she loved. She had searched high and low with no luck, until her eldest daughter put on a sweatshirt and out fell the earring. My aunt had never worn that sweatshirt. That happened right after a particularly difficult weekend for my aunt and her family. She and I both laughed about how my grandfather had made it happen so she’d know he was watching out for her.

I know people might think I’m reaching a little bit. That’s fine. I guess I just think if more of us really watched what happens around us – really paid attention to the things we just can’t seem to explain – more people would believe in something beyond ourselves. I don’t mean spiritually beyond ourselves, I just mean that I see things all the time that I can’t quite explain – and I like to think that someone out there, or up there, has sent me a little sign. And, coincidentally or not, they often come when I most need them.

*PS: It’s been a long time since I’ve given myself time to write. There is no better time than getting some sort of mystery flu/cold to lie around and write, right? I would like to say thank you. Thank you to all of you who commented about Lucy – people I’ve never even met wrote some of the sweetest words to me, and my sweet Pa had some great words of advice and reminders about my own childhood. I really, truly thank you. Lucy has had a really, really good past week or two – she’s still not eating at school, but she’s not so terribly sad and anxious anymore, and honestly, we are so glad to have our funny kid back that we are willing to believe the rest will work out eventually.

recently

2011-03-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

I haven’t written about anything very personal in a while. Mostly, because in the past few months, Steve and I have been preoccupied, dealing with our eldest kiddo having some sort of bizarre anxiety. It’s sort of like how I imagine potty training a rabid, ferocious bear might be. I don’t want to talk too much about the details, but it has to do with food. We think she might have some sort of post-traumatic stress brought on by a stomach bug she got right around Christmas. Seriously, she’s not been herself since then, and it’s the best explanation we’ve come up with so far. Our pediatrician has chalked it up to a “phase” and this week (after two months of this “phase”) he was subsequently fired. A “phase” doesn’t last months and drive parents to cry and to drink excessively.

I don’t know a lot about anxiety, but I’m learning. I know when I was a little girl I would worry myself until I barfed. A lot. Over the past few weeks, I’ve looked back on that time and wondered what in the world my parents did to get through it. Now, as an adult, I worry a lot about things I can’t control. A lot. I hoped beyond hope for years that I wouldn’t pass that stupid trait along to my kids. And, guess what? Looks like I’ve done just that. The hard thing, aside from feeling like we’re all on a roller coaster without any brakes, is that I wonder what in the world my sweet girl will be like at age 10. Or 15. Or even in her mid-30s. How can I give her the tools to work through this, when, now, she really doesn’t even know how to express what is going on in her head? It’s painful. And I know if it’s painful for us, it has to be excruciating for her.

As a parent, all you ever want is for your child to be happy and healthy. In the past few months, my child has been about half of both those things. She’s not totally happy OR healthy and it’s quite frankly fucking terrible. I have no better words to describe it. It’s awful to try to find words to give her, but not to put words into her mouth. To try to explain to her what she’s dealing with, without over-explaining and confusing her. To try to make sense out of something that is completely senseless to me. It’s kept me up at night and has challenged me to my core. I told my sister the other day that I felt like a black cloud was following me. And here’s the thing: I know in my heart and in my head that people are going through WAY worse stuff than this. Way. I know this. But I also believe it’s one thing when your child is sick with something that can be pinpointed and treated, and something much different to wonder and question what is actually going on with a child who has up until recently been happy and healthy and is now struggling just to put a smile on her face.

I don’t know why I decided finally to write about this. Maybe because I just want people to know that kids really do have issues like this. Kids who are not yet able to explain what is going on in their heads. Kids who are not going through a “phase”. Also, because I’ve felt very alone while dealing with this, and I want others to know they aren’t alone, because this sucks. I don’t know what the solution is – we’ve enlisted the help of a few highly recommended professionals and hope that will help, but, really, all we can do is believe we are on the right path and believe that one day we’ll have a happy, healthy kid again. I’ll just say that I don’t know if I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.

save the NWP

2011-03-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

On March 2, all direct funding to the National Writing Project (NWP) was eliminated as part of a Congressional effort to eliminate earmarks – federal funds legislated to support certain programs like the NWP. As a result, Congress has eliminated a program proven to strengthen both teaching and student writing. According to Sharon J. Washington, executive director of the NWP, “This decision puts in grave jeopardy a nationwide network of 70,000 teachers who, through 200 university-based Writing Project sites, provide local leadership for innovation and deliver localized, high-quality professional development to other educators across the country in all states, across subjects and grades. In the last year alone, these leaders provided services to over 3,000 school districts to raise student achievement in writing.”

I could give more examples, but I would be remiss if I didn’t just tell you personally how much I think this stinks. I was part of the Greater Kansas City Writing Project’s Summer Institute in 2010, and it was hands down the BEST professional development experience I’ve ever had. No, let me rephrase that: it was also just one of the best all around experiences I’ve had in general. Period. I’m a preschool teacher with an English degree. I had been taking education classes so that after my own young children went to school, I could teach English at the high school level. I love my job as a preschool teacher, but often felt like I wasn’t using my English degree to its full potential, and as a result, was feeling lost as to where I was heading professionally. Before I attended the 2010 SI, I was dreading going back to my education classes – I was torn because I love working with young children but thought I should be doing more with my expensive undergraduate degree! I entered the 2010 SI thinking I would use whatever I gained from the experience later on as a high school teacher. I could not have been more wrong.

What I gained during the 2010 SI can’t easily be summed up on paper. I walked in on the first day of the SI not knowing if I even wanted to teach anymore and specifically not knowing what, if anything, I could contribute to the group of talented, smart and funny teachers from all over the city. I walked out of there four weeks later knowing I’m doing the right thing, knowing that it’s good and normal to question my motives and my practice, knowing that my very best wondering comes from my wandering.

In the SI, I was allowed to think, to listen, and to reflect. I often wonder what schools in this country would look like if ALL teachers got this kind of opportunity. How often, in the hustle and bustle of day to day teaching, do teachers get opportunities for reflecting on their teaching practice? Part of the beauty of the NWP is that local sites are connected on so many levels. Thanks to the NWP, I have had opportunities to meet teachers from across my state and from across the country. I have gained ideas and had the chance to collaborate with people I would never have met before last summer. I have absolutely become a better teacher, and yes, a better preschool teacher, because of the NWP.

We wouldn’t expect a runner to go into a marathon having never trained properly, just as we can’t expect to win any educational “race” if we are not giving teachers opportunities for the best training skills. How can we expect teachers to do their best work in and out of the classroom if the opportunity to participate in programs like the NWP is eliminated? We must support ongoing teacher training and therefore better student achievement. We must continue to support the National Writing Project.

shhhhhhhhh...baby growing

2011-03-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Jackson,

Jax. Little Buddy. Nubbins. Sweet tiny little butter bean. Someday when you are big and strong and you can wrestle with your cousins (they are waiting patiently) I will tell you the story of visiting you in your tiny incubated baby grower. Of the time I walked in, not knowing either how tiny your sweet body would be – all 2 pounds and 10 ounces of it – or how much I would love you. An underdog? Only by defining your situation, certainly not by your stellar performance in the NICU so far. Ounce by ounce, you will grow stronger, even though turning your tiny head from one side to the other while lying on your belly this week was more than impressive already.

Seeing you hooked up to all those monitors and wires and watching you receive a blood transfusion the other night was nothing like I ever imagined. Not only was I blown away at what the human body, particularly your tiny body, is capable of doing, I was also amazed at the nurses watching over you. A NICU nurse might as well be a saint in my book to maintain a cool disposition when your tiny body forgets to breathe, as you often do (your brain isn’t mature enough to give that signal to your lungs every time…not just yet).

Your mom and dad are learning so much, and they need reminders to take care of themselves and of each other so that they can be strong for you. I can only imagine what this time is like for your mommy, who is not only dealing with the emotional tornado of new motherhood, but also doing it while not even being able to hold you whenever she wants. I believe, for most people anyway, once someone becomes a mother – however they become a mother – the instinct and the fierce need to protect your child never quite goes away. Not at age five or at 15 or even at 40, but especially not at two weeks. There is no honeymoon period for the parents of preemie babies – that time when all you can think about is how amazing your child is – that time before the excessive worry kicks in. The worry for you has been there from the moment you were born. Your mom has always had a heart as big and as wide as they come, but now she knows what it’s like to make a deal with the heavens, to offer up her own health just to keep you safe. Motherhood is both a blessing and a curse – once she knows that feeling, she can never go back to the Kelley she was before you came along. Your daddy, while he keeps strong for your mommy, has been changed already by what it is to be a dad. You, sir, have been born into a long line of wonderful, caring and funny Willaredt boys – your daddy will teach you well and I know one day we will comment on how wonderfully you fit into that line.

I hated leaving yesterday because I can’t stand being so far away from you or your parents. I want you to meet your Uncle Steve and your cousins, sure, but more than that, I wish you were closer so we could be more of a support – not just by phone or text or email. I want to hate San Francisco for taking you so far away from us, but the truth is that I loved the city where you were born and I know we’ll be making visits there as often as we can. We’ll make it work, and soon you will know all of your crazy relatives, people who would literally lay down their lives for you. I’ve never met a bunch like them and wouldn’t trade them for the world. You, my little Pea, are a very lucky boy.

Love,

Aunt Kate

I'm taking my heart...

2011-02-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

I just looked at this blog and realized I’d not posted anything in exactly one month. How did that happen? I mean, I pretty much know the answer – I’ve been busy and a bit lazy, and frankly – mostly – in a weather and winter related funk. But, a whole month? Even for me, that’s a lot of time to go without writing. And still, I don’t have much to share, but I wanted to say this – hug your family. Tell them you appreciate them and that you love them. In the past 24 hours, enough stuff has happened to make me appreciate the family I have close by, and to make me crazy wishing that the family who is across the country was closer. That’s all. I am serious when I say that this month has pretty much sucked. This winter in general has pretty much stunk it up. I’m ready for warmer weather and I’m ready to not feel like a cloud is following me around. I know. I KNOW. I’m way overdramatic and I have a lot to be thankful for. More to be thankful for than to be bitching about, but this is my blog so I get to choose how much I bitch on here.

I am taking a trip to San Francisco next week to see my sister in law. I never in a bazillion years thought I would miss my sister and my friend so much. I hope when I get home that I have plenty to write about and share on here – good news of travel and of warmer weather and of good friends sharing laughs without peeing their pants or accidentally pushing a baby out.

disappointed in the system

2011-01-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting here tonight working on portfolios for my preschoolers’ parent teacher conferences next week and as I sit here working, I’ve started to get upset about the talk of axing the free pre-K program in the Kansas City, Missouri school district. First, let me say this: I know that our school district, like everyone else, is reliant on state and federal funding for these programs. I also know that funding is getting more and more stretched, perhaps it is even gone completely. Even more, I also know that I’m preaching to the choir in most of what I’m about to say.

I understand (please correct me if I’m misguided here) that the KCMO school district is thinking about a tuition based pre-K program for those who can afford it. And I honestly am so torn about this that I hardly know where to begin. I know plenty of people who are sending their children to public pre-K programs in KC who can afford it. I also know plenty of people who send their children to K-12 schools in KCMO who might be able to afford tuition, but who have chosen public schooling. We are one of those families. What I would like to know is where do you draw the line at who can or can’t afford your program? And, who decided that $6000 a year per child would be the price tag?

I teach preschool. The research is there. Attending a Pre-K program is probably the best gift you can give your child. Children who attend preschool are more likely to succeed in kindergarten. Blah, blah, blah…you get my point. Here’s what the research doesn’t tell you. We don’t really prepare your child for kindergarten. I cringe when I read about a pre-K program that will have your child “kindergarten ready”. What does that even mean? I don’t sit your child down and teach the alphabet or numbers and I certainly don’t expect your child to know how to read or write. I tell parents that it isn’t my job to get your child ready for kindergarten. It’s kindergarten’s job to be ready for your child.

I might not teach those things, but guess what? When we count our friends, our fingers, the windows in our room? Math. When we sing and dance and read every book the library has on the shelf? Early literacy. When we walk outside and collect leaves or discuss the weather? When we plant seeds and watch them grow? Science. Your child is a sponge – he is learning, learning, learning ALL the time. And what better gift to give your child but the gift of preschool? The catch? Not all people will be able to afford it, and those are the kids who will most likely need a structured program. Most importantly? Those are the children who will also need the MOST important thing one can learn in a preschool classroom, in my opinion: social skills. What your child learns in preschool are the skills to communicate with his peers, to ask for help, to trust in adults and in other children. No math or science or literacy lesson can beat that.

Here is what will happen in KCMO…and it’s disgusting. Parents of students who are deemed wealthy enough to pay for a once public pre-K program will pull their students and opt for a private program, likely with the bonus of a smaller class size. And, why shouldn’t they? I should be thrilled, as it might raise the number of children in the private program where I work, but I’m not. In fact, it upsets me because I worry about those who will be lost in the shuffle. Students have their entire lives to dislike going to school – why start at age 3? You don’t think those children will pick up on the stress of their families paying for a once free program? Or, how about just not being able to attend at all? This city is doing a disservice to the tiniest citizens of our communities by not figuring out another option to this mess.

birthday etiquette

2011-01-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret that I would do just about anything to protect my girls. As in, I will shank you with my giant car key if it means keeping them from being hurt. And so, when I picked up Lucy from school today, I had to turn and leave as quickly as I got there because I thought I might have to do just that.

Those of you with children over the age of three know that part of your job as a parent is to start stomaching all of those, “well, now you can’t come to my birthday party” comments. Your own child might utter those despicable words, or you might overhear them, say, at the table in your preschool class. Oh, wait. That’s just me. My point is that somewhere around three and a half, kids start realizing that the birthday party is perhaps the BEST means of leverage and social status beating out even the “playdate”. Please. Please do not get me started on that word. Seriously. Who made that up? Moving on.

Here is the catch. PARENTS: you have a little control over the hurt feelings. While you can’t control what comes out of your child’s mouth (don’t I know it?) you can control HOW the birthday party arrangements are made and what comes out of your own mouth so that I don’t have to hear, “oh! see you at the party tomorrow!” or “you’re going to so-and-so’s birthday party, right?” Right. In. Front. Of. My. Daughter. And this was not out of the child’s mouth – but the mother’s. For real.

The look on Lucy’s face was enough for me to know that number 1, she understood completely and without further explanation that she hadn’t been invited. And number 2, that I needed to get the hell out of that classroom before I said something. What the hell? I’m certainly not suggesting that my child should be invited to everyone’s party. Absolutely not, I get that. What I am saying is that if you know my child isn’t invited to your kid’s party? Shut the hell up about it when you’re right in front of her. She’s smarter than your kid and she’s onto you.

I think we as parents need to dig back and remember the times we were left out of something. Picked last (or not at all) for kickball. Not making the play. Not invited to THE party. It might have been a while, but I’m guessing we can all still remember how that felt. I know I can. We could do ourselves – and our children – a favor if we did just that.

the kindness of strangers

2011-01-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

I like to think about the human spirit. You know, the things that make us tick. I write about it often, as you know, and something happened at our house this past weekend that reassured me of the goodness in people. Sometimes, in this house, I feel like I’m teetering right on the edge of something. Like I could maybe snap at any given moment just because there isn’t a clean swimsuit for Zoe in the middle of January. Or because I decide to spend an hour cooking something specifically for the kids only to have them tell me it smells stinky. Or just because it’s Thursday. And lately I’ve noticed that I’m a bit socially awkward. Probably those who knew me a while back will be as surprised at that little realization as I was – what happened to the girl who didn’t know a stranger and was out and about all the time? Sometimes I just don’t know if I like people anymore.

And so, when my husband told me that he had invited his friend Warren over for dinner, I’m not going to lie, I was a little…well. I was mostly neutral about it. As I get older, I find the thought of meeting new people and the “getting to know you” chit chat just plain overwhelming. Good Lord, I sound like a hot mess. Anyway, Warren had been asking if he could bring us dinner – just because. And I’m all, “why would anyone want to do that for us?” and in true form, I had to second-guess everything. On Sunday, he did, indeed, bring us dinner. It was delicious. And all he asked in return was to sit and talk with us and enjoy our kids. After they asked Warren about their mutual love of Iron Man and told him what zombies eat (brains, duh) and offered him multiple slices of chocolate bikini cake (or chocolate zucchini cake if you’re not three) the girls scooted off to color and we got to sit and chat – like real adults! And I have to say that I’m so glad I didn’t say no to having him over. It isn’t often that it happens, but once in a while you meet a person who is just plain good. Not good for any reason other than just having a good soul. A person who wants to come over and bring a meal, and then books for the girls – in both English and French, and then writes a thank you note. TO US. It was a while after Warren left that night when I realized that the human spirit I like to think about had just slapped me upside my head and said, “HEY! Quit doubting me, lady!”

Getting Sirius.

2011-01-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

This morning as I was dropping off Lucy and then driving to work with Zoe, I had the Sirius radio tuned to the ‘80’s on 8’ channel. I’m not going to lie, maybe my favorite part of the new car is the satellite radio – and I’ve not had a lot of time to listen to different stations, but this one is pretty awesome. As we drove, we heard Wham, Genesis, Dire Straits, Cindy Lauper and even Michael Jackson. I made Zoe sit in the parking lot at work so I could hear “Thriller” in its entirety – I mean, what’s the point of listening if you’re not going to hear Vincent Price’s laugh at the end? She was none too pleased. I began to notice that I knew most, if not all the words to each song that came on, and I began thinking about how music really does create the soundtrack to our lives in many ways.
When I was a kid I had an olive green radio – it had this terrible fabric that covered the one giant speaker, and it had all of these huge knobs. It had probably belonged to one of my parents decades earlier, but it didn’t matter, really, because it still worked and was the conduit between KY102 and my little eardrums. Somewhere along the line, I also acquired a large black tape recorder, and often I would hold it up to the green speaker and tape songs straight off the radio. Then I would play them back over and over and over again. Ahhhh, technology. My point is that my love of music started early, and my memories were shaped by music beginning around that time. I never really thought about it, though, until this morning.
Like, how when Keith Parrish broke up with 14-year-old me, the song “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was the soundtrack. Even though in my mind the song was about me making out with the first boy who ever kissed me and not about creepy ass Bret Michaels and his breakup. When I was 16 I became a Prince junkie. Probably not so much because I loved Prince (Calm down. Later I really, really did), but Tarek Thorns loved Prince. I can’t hear “The Arms of Orion” without thinking about that time in my life. The Cure’s Japanese Whispers provided the soundtrack to one Thanksgiving trip to Woodstock, Illinois to visit my then aging grandparents. I was maybe 16. It was probably one of the last trips we ever took there for a holiday and one in which my sister and I were equally emo and moody – my poor, poor parents. To this day I can’t listen to “Let’s Go To Bed” without remembering rewinding the tape (yes, tape. So?) over and over again.
Later, the Indigo Girls and Tracy Chapman would be the soundtrack to beach week after my senior year of high school, when I traveled to North and then South Carolina with my cousin Erin. I met a kid named Travis Bales, and boy, did that throw a wrench into the supposedly wonderful relationship I was having back in KC. Later, I rapped, I raved, and I techno-ed through the late 90s after going back to the same supposedly wonderful relationship. I did that until I gained some sense and left that ass hat. The lovely Ani DiFranco provided the soundtrack to that hot mess. I have seen the woman in concert more times than I can count and still – live or not – when I hear the first five notes of “Both Hands” I get teary – and then defiant. Man, I wish I could shake that woman’s hand for helping me through that time. And then helping me again when the next relationship soured, as I pretty much always knew it would from the start.
About a month after I met the boy I would later marry, he made a mix tape (on CD – it was the turn of the millennium don’t you know!) for me. He had covered the CD itself with a black and white photo of a heart. But not just any heart – an actual human heart. And while he never said anything about it, I took it as a sign that he really liked me. Turns out I was right. I’m not sure what all was on that CD, because I only remember two of the songs. One was A Perfect Circle’s “Three Libras”. One day, a few years later, I almost ran over Maynard with my car while he was walking on the Plaza – talk about a perfect circle of events. I digress. The other song was the Barenaked Ladies singing “If I Had a Million Dollars”.
I can name you a bunch of other songs that have had some impact on my life, but I realized today as I was driving that after I had my kids, the effect of music on my life has been much different – and I hope that can change. I have music I like and I have artists that I gravitate to, but it seems like the soundtrack sort of stopped all those years ago and that songs are more of the background music (the Musac?) of my life anymore instead of the soundtrack. But, never in a million years would I have imagined that Phil Collins singing “Throwing It All Away” would have sparked this.

a new year...

2011-01-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." Benjamin Franklin

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions are for dummies. I’m certain that there are stories of successful resolutions…I can assure you that I don’t care. I do, however, think that the start of a new year calls for planning ahead. In 2011, I am going to try to spend more time doing nice things for my husband, for my children and for myself. By ‘nice things’, I simply mean, the laundry can wait on a day when the weather is too good NOT to go to the zoo. The computer or the book can be set aside after the kids go to bed: even if it means we just sit on the couch and watch more TV. And, doing nice things for our family means we really should spend more time with family and friends – we have fallen into the habit of hibernating on evenings and weekends – which feels safe and cozy, but we really should be inviting friends over…if we still have any.

I am going to try to read more this year, and not just US Weekly or Facebook statuses. I could count for you the number of books I read in 2010 on one hand. And probably a few of those were for a class or the Writing Project…I MUST do better this year. I am making lists and, of course, welcome any suggestions. I’m cautiously patting myself on the back because in the past two weeks, I’ve finished two whole books and just started the third tonight. See? Progress.

I want to push myself more this year to get my writing out there – beyond the walls of blogspot, and not just in the torn up journal I keep near my bedside mostly used for grocery lists and jotting down “to dos”. I would like to push myself to write for a purpose other than clearing my head, whether it is for the educational magazine where I serve on the advisory board, or just to take a chance and submit my writing somewhere new. I will never get anywhere if I don’t try.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time beating myself up for the things I do or don’t do – eating too much, not working out enough (or at all…) having that extra glass of wine when I probably shouldn’t. In 2011, I would like to ease up on myself. I would like to look in the mirror and not see the woman with the body that has been changed so drastically by children and time. This year I vow to look beyond those things and see more meaningful stuff. I would like to say that I would try to eat and drink less, but like I said, resolutions are for dummies.

the liberry

2010-12-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

Sunday I went to the library. I love the library like a fat kid loves cake. Seriously…the smell, the shelves, the people watching. The entire experience is nearly spiritual for me. Anyway, I spent a while there, and I started thinking about how I choose books and something I would do if I were an author.

To be fair (to myself), I already DO believe I’m an author, but only in my mind, and even then I like to imagine myself wearing fancy scarves or horned rimmed glasses. I digress. So, I started thinking about how I tend to look for the same authors or in the same places when I go to the library. I am a fan of Elizabeth Berg, Alice Hoffman, and many others, and usually I head the B or H section of the fiction books to see if there are any new offerings from my favorites. I got lucky this time in that lately, I have been to the library so infrequently, there were a few new books I hadn’t read. And I started to think that if I wrote a novel, I might just go by a pseudonym or rename myself altogether. Like, perhaps, Kate Updike (imagine how many people wouldn’t find The Witches of Eastwick and would turn to me for solace). Or, how about Kate King – which would put me right before Stephen, and right near Barbara Kingsolver – two of my favorites. I could pick something like Kate Meyer. I wouldn’t feel badly stealing any of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight fans. She got lucky. VERRRRRY lucky – she told a great story. But, her writing? Terrible. I could go on and on - not only about Meyers but also about different options for my new name...

My point is this – I can’t write like these people. Not even close - or at least I've not been lucky enough yet. But if the majority of people who frequent the library are like me, I could really win big by dropping Willaredt and going with something more accessible. I mean, really. Because who is reading this? I’m just saying.

parting ways

2010-12-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. ~Henry David Thoreau

There are certain emotions that even time and space cannot begin to heal. Even as an adult, I sometimes find myself with my feelings hurt beyond what should be normal for a 35-year-old woman. I take things way too personally, and right or wrong, I have strong opinions that I find hard to keep to myself. All that considered, the past several weeks have been trying at best. I haven’t been writing, and I have needed it. I write because it makes me feel better. I write because it helps me put things into perspective. I write because sometimes putting it on paper is easier than trying to find the words to tell one of my dearest friends that I don’t want her to move away.

Someone I love dearly is moving away from me and from my family. And I know it’s for good reason, and I know that it’s a wonderful opportunity for her and her new husband, but I still hate it. There. I said it. I hate that I won’t be able to call up last minute and ask them to join us for dinner. We won’t be together for holidays or birthdays anymore – at least not many of them, as it’s unlikely we’ll be able to afford traveling to see each other more than once a year or so. But most of all, I hate it for my kids. It makes me sad that they will have two less wonderful, funny people who love them right here in this city. I’m sad that Zoe might not remember having them here for as long as we did, and mostly I’m so, so sad to think that my girls won’t get to know their new baby cousin. That nearly knocks the breath right out of me.

I’m being selfish. I know I am. I’m well aware that in the Skype age we’ll be “seeing” a lot of each other and we won’t ever be more than a phone call or a text away, but still. I’m certain they know we only wish the very best for them, no matter where this road takes them. But that doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier.

growing up?

2010-11-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

I had to take a few days to gain some perspective on a few things that have happened this week, and now that it’s behind me, I had to write about it. I’m not going to tell you the details of what happened; just that what came out of it was the realization for me that not only am I an adult, I’m responsible for other human beings and the reckless, goofy, boob flashing (sorry dad) days of my past are just that – the past. I feel a little conflicted about this. I mean, I know I’m a grown up, but at what point does being grown up equal boring? At what point does being grown up mean wearing mom jeans and driving a minivan? (I know I’m probably offending some of you out there, I apologize, it’s just my feeble attempt at trying to make a point)

Clearly, I’m going through a time in my life where I don’t want to lose my identity as “Kate” and yet, some of that identity is tied up in where I was ten years ago, or even earlier. I can’t quite get past the fact that I have two little girls who look to me every day for guidance, rules, examples…and yet, I still think fart jokes are REALLY funny, and talk of body parts sends me into pre-pubescent fits of giggles. I’m sorry. I just can’t help it. My girls are getting older, and with that, there comes more responsibility on my part to show them what is acceptable behavior, not only for myself and for them, but also for girls in general. What does that even mean? Frankly, I’ve never been one who feels comfortable with “acceptable behavior” – just look at my hair, my tattoos, my multicolored Chuck Taylors and my off color sense of humor. How do I display what should be while not losing myself in the process?

One of the things no one tells you when you become a parent is how much of yourself you will lose in the day to day stuff. That one day you will wake up and grab the keys to your minivan and wonder where the girl went who said that she would NEVER drive one. You will go shopping and grumble under your breath about the rise of jeans or the length of skirts. You will get your hair bleached blonde – something that used to be fun and part of your persona – and afterwards, you will look in the mirror and wonder if it’s just too much anymore. You will hit your mid to late 30s and you will wonder where the line is between the fun girl you used to be and the example you are setting for your own young girls. I guess in the end, I don’t know why it’s not ok to share my love of fart jokes, crazy hair and off color humor with my girls – because, really? What is life without some sort of humor?

I’m trying to maintain some of that humor these days. I’ve realized that life is too short to worry that much about what is the right or wrong thing to do. A former student from my preschool passed away this week at the age of seven. Seven. And I can’t even imagine what that is like for a parent to deal with - that is another story altogether - but I’m guessing that at the end of the day, even Cameron would tell us not to worry as much as we do about all the details of right and wrong. Because, in the end, the fact that your child can tell a wicked fart joke probably means less than the fact that he or she was loved unconditionally – crazy hair and all.

getting sucked in

2010-11-03T19:52:00.001-07:00

Last year we bought a Dyson. It rocks. Like, perhaps the best gift I’ve ever given myself that I can write about on here. Today I was running it, as I tend to do every single day…we have a giant hairy black lab beast who sheds and brings in mud clumps and just generally tears up the house. Anyway, while I was sucking up dog hair and tiny Barbie shoes, I put my hand on the hose attachment to check the suction. Why? Because I’m like a moth to the flame, I guess. I don’t know why, I just did. And when I did that, I had the sudden thought that I might get sucked into the vacuum. That thing means business! And then, I started to wonder, would being sucked into the vacuum while three girls are screaming (yes, three – I watch 5 and 5/8 year old Stella after school along with the regular suspects) be such a bad thing?

Like, really. As I was cleaning I started thinking about literally getting sucked into the vacuum and out of the madness of every day life. Sad? Probably. But mostly I started thinking about my happy place. Could I be transported there? The dock that was recently built over the rocks on the shore of Jekyll Island where I sat and read for hours on end this summer. That happy place. My literal happy place – the place where the children don’t wake up in the morning screaming, or walk out the door to go to school screaming, or come home from school screaming, demanding snacks and shows and puzzles and a swimsuit to wear (yes, it’s November) because she is playing beach. Don’t I know??!!!

Some days are just like that for me. The hope that something swoops down from the sky and hoists me up and out of here sometimes is completely overwhelming. I’m not going to lie, there are days I sit in the car in Lucy’s school parking lot and I think, “I have to go in there and pick up not one, but two 5 year old girls. I have a 3 year old in the backseat who is already unhappy about just being 3. Life is full of wonderful stuff, but HOW did I get here?” And not, “how did I get here” like I don’t enjoy my life – please don’t get me wrong. It’s just that some days I honestly have to remind myself that I’m someone’s mom. Certainly I’m way too young and hip for that, right?! RIGHT?

Huh. As it turns out, the answer is nope. Not young or hip…just cranky and busy and recently noticing dark circles under my eyes. Some days I’m just the dust waiting to get sucked into a different, alternate reality. And that’s ok, really. I mean, really. Life is wasted on the young and the hip.

a little self reflection is never a bad thing

2010-11-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

There isn’t a day that goes by in my teaching this year where I don’t use something I learned this past summer in the Greater Kansas City Writing Project's summer institute. I think it’s both a blessing and a curse, if you will. A blessing because I am MUCH more reflective about my teaching practice – I want to really think about what I’m doing with the children and why I’m doing it. I guess that is also where it’s a curse, because I am so much harder on myself this year than in years past when it comes to what I’m doing! Today I reread the burning issue paper I did in the SI because I’ve been trying to write a piece for Teaching Young Children magazine, and I wanted to write about the experience I’ve had bringing what I did in the SI to the classroom. Reading it, I was thrilled because I have done SO much of what I set out to do, from giving the parents a blank book and asking them to be a part of the journaling process for the kids, to being intentional when we read books about discussing who the authors and illustrators are. Last week, I was doing some paperwork in my classroom while my assistant teacher did circle time where she was reading to the kids. She said who the book was written by and started reading. Little Alta, who is three going on 33, said, “WAIT! Miss Linda! But, who is the illustrator??” and in that tiny moment, I wanted to cry.
This year has been really challenging for me so far. I’m not sure if it’s just figuring out how to juggle a full time job while having one child with me and another one at a different, new school, or if it’s the challenge of teaching in a multi-age classroom for the first time. I’ve had a hard time finding a groove, but I feel like now I’m starting to do just that – yes, I know it’s November! I often beat myself up for doing TOO much reading and writing and perhaps not enough of the hands on, manipulative or scientific stuff. I wonder, am I losing certain kids along the way? And the answer is complicated. I think I’m reaching my kids in the best ways I know how, and being more reflective now gives me a different perspective, maybe even making me hyper-aware of what I include or don’t in everyday activities. Like I said, it’s both a blessing and a curse!
I no longer have to wonder how to answer a parent’s questions about how I teach reading and writing – in fact, I overheard a coworker saying a parent asked her about that at conferences and I was quick to point out all that she does in her teaching already – for TWO year olds, nonetheless! One look in my classroom – or on my classroom blog (something else I would have NEVER thought to do before this summer) will give anyone that answer. I’m proud so far of what we’ve done this year, but I know that every year beyond this one will be shaped by what is working, or not working today.

on my own...

2010-10-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the better part of the past week trying to figure out how people handle single parenthood. Seriously. I’m a giant wimp. Huge. But I just don’t know how people manage this all the time. I know plenty of women (and men, for that matter) who are single parents, and they just seem to make things work, but I’m that girl who will put it all out there for you and I have to say that I suck at this. Steve is out of town on business this week and while it’s really quiet at night – something I always long for, to be honest – I’m just sick of being the bad guy all the time, simply because I’m the ONLY guy. The juggling of schedules and packing of lunches and bathing of bodies and wiping of butts is one thing I’m pretty good at and I don’t mind. I think I would lose my mind if I weren’t this busy. It’s the lack of adult contact that is driving me insane. It’s knowing that no one is going to walk in the door at 5:30pm and just run interference so I can cook dinner or pack lunches or just talk me off the ledge the kids have forced me upon, even if I bitch and complain about that person. Which, I have been known to do – just ask him!

My point is that I have a new respect for all of those people in my life who are raising children on their own. Big children, small children – really, anyone who is making rules and keeping them without losing their mind. And honestly, I would like to write more about this, but I’m more tired than I’ve been since having a newborn, so I will leave it at that.

a story worth revisiting

2010-10-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

I rarely feel the need to write about the same thing twice. Well, unless it’s my children, myself or my mother. So, nevermind. I should say that I rarely feel the need to comment on a news story more than once. Today seems different and I have been glued to the television this evening. I sobbed and bawled watching the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. It’s honestly been amazing to watch. The stories of these men and the time they spent in that mine are really nothing short of astounding. That they were able to ration food, ration the lights in their helmets, drill into a natural water source, and, in the midst of such uncertainty, maintain their wits – or at least it certainly seemed that way watching the rescue – the future is bound to tell that story. My favorite story to come out of this so far is of the two men who were driving one of the trucks in the mine. I watched one of them (miner #11) get pulled from the mineshaft this morning before I left for work. These two men stopped to look at a white butterfly that they saw flying by them – 2000+ feet down. In a MINE. That white butterfly surely saved the lives of those men – as they were stopped to see the insect, the mine collapsed. If they had kept driving, they would not have survived. I have said before that I believe in signs and if that wasn’t a sign of some sort of divine intervention, I don’t know what is.

I don’t know. I’m pretty emotional these days. Maybe I’m way too invested in this story. I’m just so happy to have been able to watch this unfold and to share some of it with Lucy. The ending of this story could have been so different. Mostly, for me, it’s been a reminder to me in a time that I really, really needed a reminder, that people really are good. That, deep down, the human spirit is truly something phenomenal.

this is not butcher holler.

2010-10-11T20:49:00.001-07:00

I’m completely claustrophobic. That, and I don’t like to know about other people’s bodily functions. So, pretty much what I’m saying here is that I would be in the first group of people to leave the Chilean mine this week. Well, maybe not the first group, but I’d definitely be in the “crazy” group. Seriously, I’ve taken a sort of sick interest in this story. I mean, it’s terrible to begin with, but there are all of the unknowns that no one seems to be talking about. Like, where do those guys poop? (what? Like you didn’t wonder?) or, what could you possibly talk about or do for TWO months that could be entertaining? Or, has anyone gone completely batshit crazy? Because, really, that is the action that I would love to be in on. I mean, it sounds really terrible, but really I just want to know what it’s like to be down there.

I would like to state for the record that I don’t care how much it pays or how much Mountain Dew you can drink, mining is perhaps the most insane profession on the planet. I’m not going to lie, I honestly think that something must be wrong with a person who decides to go into that kind of work. What, exactly is it that keeps you going down there every day? I know. I really do – I watch PBS and I know that it’s a great salary for those people who aren’t willing or able to finish school or work in different jobs. It has to be a huge temptation for those kids. Wanna know why it pays that well? Here. Let me tell you. One day, you will go to work and the way you get to work will crumble down behind you, and you will rely on a device similar to a bank tube to get you out of that mess. And that’s if you survive. I’m just saying – mining is just a little crazy. I feel like maybe, had I lived in the rural south or maybe even in Chile, I might have dated one of those miner dudes in my past life – I do like the crazy, you know.

I know that I’m not saying anything rational or even very nice about this terrible situation – I mean, really? Is there anything rational to say? I’m just saying it’s been amazing to watch. Sort of like Baby Jessica in that well all those years ago – remember that? I wish only the best for these poor men. I hope that this ends up to be a story of hope and of salvation – because it’s been too painful to watch over the past two months for any other outcome.

trying to get a grip.

2010-09-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

I have about twelve different posts that I've started in the past weeks and had to stop writing. I don’t know what is wrong with me lately – a combination of exhaustion, lack of time and a funk that has come over me in the past few weeks, I suppose. Tonight, though, my goal is to get something…anything, really, on the blog. Writing has always been my escape, and I can tell a difference in my entire personality when I get writer’s block. Recently, I have been thinking about women, mothers in particular, who are really hard on themselves. I fit into that category, as do a multitude of my friends. Why are we like this? Why, at 9:30 on a Thursday night am I just now sitting down to do something for myself? We beat ourselves up because our houses aren’t perfect, our children aren’t perfect and there just isn’t enough time every day to accommodate everything that needs to be done. I just had a conversation with another mom about this very thing tonight. Who is holding us to this ridiculous standard but ourselves? I, for one, am sick of trying to be someone I’m not.

I’m getting used to juggling working full time again. Honestly, I really love it, but I just don’t know how other people do it, really. Are the other women out there just lying about getting things accomplished? My kitchen is constantly dirty, the sink is full of dishes and there are crumbs on the counter. Dirty laundry has piled up so high I hardly know where to start. And you know what? I haven’t worked out in 15 months. Yep, I said it and no, you didn’t misread that. And you know what? That is the part I beat myself up over. The laundry? We have clothes (thank God for school uniforms and the fact that I can get away with wearing crap to work most days) and we have food both on the counter and in our bellies. I’m going to admit something else (wahoo! Look at me!) I would much rather sit my fat ass down with a glass of wine and a good book – or some Thursday night TV than even think about going for a walk or to yoga. Yep. I said that, too. There are just not enough hours in my day for me to be skinny again. Sounds terrible, but it’s true – I have to choose to sit and read or write when the girls are in bed because if I don’t, I will lose my mind. I promise you that I will. And, I would much rather be out of shape and happy any day. Now, if only I could figure out how to get my brain to stop running over the “have to, should have, need to” list while I’m trying to relax…I suppose if I could do that, I could also find time to work out. Meh. Nevermind.

again.

2010-09-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

I wanted so badly to write about this upcoming anniversary. I am stunned, in a way, that it has been nine years. In other ways it seems like it has been nine times nine years. I sat down here tonight to get my feelings out about all of the hate and ignorance that I have been reading about in the news in the past few weeks: Koran burnings, mosque protests…just general ridiculousness. But the truth is, that stuff makes me tired and angry and really, what good does that do for me, or for anyone? My opinions of current events aside, I would like to think that Americans are smarter somehow, or better than they have shown the world this week. I don’t know why I expect that anymore, I just do. I feel like we should set a better example, that somehow we should be able to come together for the sake of goodness. I am so wrong. It embarrasses me, really.

I am finding that I can’t write about September 11, 2001. I just can’t put into words what that day was like for me or for my family – I wouldn’t dare begin to explain that. I would just hope that you would all spend a little time with your family this Saturday. I wish that you would take a moment or two to tell your family that you love them and that you appreciate them. Tell your children you love them. Call your father. Your mother. Your grandmother. Yes, even your in-laws. This is what I wish people would do to mark these anniversaries: instead of rehashing the past and watching streaming video of the terrible events of nine years ago – pick up the phone and call someone in your family. Take a few moments to think about what you would say to those people if it was the last time you could say anything to them.

Dear Lucy,

2010-08-29T20:28:00.001-07:00

It’s okay to be nervous. You wouldn’t have been sprung from this body without inheriting that gene. Go ahead and worry, but please, not so much. I always thought that the one thing I never wanted my children to get from me was the worrying…the constant worrying. And look at what I produced: a five-year-old who carries the weight of this world on her tiny shoulders. It’s enough to make a mother cry, but a mother who has taken you to kindergarten one day and then pulled you out that afternoon to start at another one? Well, my dear…one day I know you will hardly remember this time, but it seems so very important right now. I spend nights fretting about you. You seem to understand so much. You always have. But mostly, I worry that you’ll one day do what I’m doing and have sleepless nights about things that, in the end, are really not that serious. We’re pretty lucky, you and I. We have a lot of nice things and we have great family on all sides who somehow love us unconditionally…but I know sometimes it’s hard to focus on that.

I guess these are just the challenges that moms and dads face: not ever really knowing for certain what the right thing is for their children. I have friends with kids headed to college who say this never really changes. Maybe it’s because I’m hyper-sensitive about mom stuff. Maybe it’s because I see so much of myself in you. Maybe this is just how it is. I’m not sure. I do know this: you are smart and funny and sweet and loving and you have a sense about people that I didn’t have until I was well on my way to adulthood. You will be fine in whatever situation is handed you…I just know it. You are going to be amazing in school. You have the curiosity of your daddy mixed with my need to KNOW everything. You are artistic and you are crafty and you know how to get along in nearly every social situation. You can do this – even if right now you don’t know French and it’s confusing and even I question if it’s the right thing (and yes, one day you’ll see this, but right now I can’t let on that I wonder these things!).

Soon you will be (as a friend told me today) parlaying the Français with no problems. Until then, I’m going to stay up with you at night when you call me in to tell me about your worries. I know how it feels to need someone to do that. I love you so much little Peaches.

coming up for air

2010-08-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

I’m not dead. I’ve just been trying to figure out how to juggle everything these days. I just started back to teaching preschool, and it’s the first year since Lucy was born that I am working full time. It’s a lot to figure out, this new schedule. Then, we had a great surprise just hours after Lucy got home from her first day of kindergarten, when we were contacted by the French immersion charter school (read: free!) in our neighborhood and were told that they had an opening for Lucy. We had been on the waiting list since April and had pretty much given up all hope that she would get in – and wouldn’t you know she did – right after getting home from an excellent first day elsewhere! I was an emotional basket case last week, starting with her first day of kindergarten, and then immediately deciding to pull her to start her in a different school and having to explain all of this to her. It wasn’t something that we decided overnight. We mulled over it all summer long, ultimately thinking we would never really have to make the choice. We picked a wonderful Catholic grade school in our neighborhood…one that I hated to leave, but in the end it came down to a financial decision. So, in the midst of all of that, I started teaching full time and also decided to take a short trip to upstate New York to surprise my aunt for her 50^th birthday party. When I planned that trip, I had no idea of the week I would have had just before! It was a great get away – perhaps at just the right time!

My point is that it’s been a crazy few weeks in the W house. But we keep going as we always do. I just haven’t had the time or the energy lately to keep up with writing. I can tell a difference in myself when that is the case, and I know I am a better person for taking a few minutes out of every day to write, no matter where my writing takes me. I have a few stories I want to share, including something that happened to me on the flight back to Kansas City yesterday afternoon. I will do that when things calm down a bit. In the meantime, I just wanted to say hello.

look up.

2010-08-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Late tonight I sat out on my front stoop and looked up. For a loooong time. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower. I figured, hey! I’m up, and it’s nearly midnight, why not get a giant kink in my neck and try to see something cool? I’m so glad I did. I didn’t see a meteor shower. I didn’t have the patience to stick around long enough, I assume, to see whatever the night would bring. Instead, I got a stern reminder of my size. I can’t tell you the last time I sat and looked at the stars. I’m up late - a lot. But I'm not sure when was the last time I sat and looked up and really felt my place in this world. Even as I type this, my neck is a little stiff. What I saw was reminder of how tiny we are on this planet. All those concerns I have about myself, about my children, about my marriage…they seem relatively, well…insignificant, I guess, when you consider the width and breadth of the universe.

As I craned my neck to witness whatever was going to happen above my house, at 11:30-ish pm, with the front porch light off, I saw a shooting star. Not a meteor shower, but a single, fantastic shooting star. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one before. But I do know this: weird things happen to me. A lot. Weird things in my own mind, probably. Things the rest of you would merely scoff at, or make fun of. I know…it’s okay. My husband takes every opportunity to remind me that I might be crazy. Just a little bit. After my grandpa died, I started seeing cardinals. Red birds. Everywhere. Seriously, I am the cardinal whisperer. There is a giant one at my work that lives in the tree above the parking lot. One in my backyard who frequently flies onto my porch when I’m leaning over my kitchen counter looking out the window. I’m a firm believer in signs. Signs of what? I’m never quite sure.

Tonight? I saw a shooting star. It quite literally took my breath away. I sat with my right hand over my heart just breathing in and out for a while. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know that it means anything at all. But it was amazing, and it made me feel tiny. Tiny and safe. Because if there is someone looking out for me up there – or out there – that was pretty freaking cool. Thanks.

anything but nothing...

2010-07-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

I just finished the novel Iodine by Haven Kimmel. I liked it very much and at one point toward the end of the book, Kimmel writes about the interesting differences in relationships between fathers and sons and mothers and daughters. She writes, “At some point a father is expected to say to his son, Here is the key to the kingdom, and hand it over. But mothers? They say, Here is the key to your catastrophe, and they keep it on their key ring as a sign, nestled among the spare change, the linty gum, and the used Kleenex at the bottom of their decaying bags.”

This comment about the dynamic between mothers and daughters struck me probably more deeply this week than it would have in the past. This week my mother was put into an assisted living facility. She is 65 years old and has some sort of dementia. No one seems all that sure of her diagnoses, but she is no longer able to care for herself in the ways deemed fit for independent living.

I live nine hours away from my mother. I don’t have a particularly good relationship with her to begin with. This week has been difficult because I don’t know what to feel. At all…not a clue. Kimmel’s fascinating commentary on the peculiar relationship between mothers and daughters has left me numb. Silent. Pondering. As much as my mother and I released our connection years and years ago – maybe even at my birth? I still can’t seem to let go of the nagging feeling that she is indeed the woman who birthed me, so, I should feel something more about this situation. Right?

I do feel sad. Sad for her loss of freedom that she no doubt feels in this situation. Sad for her that she is likely 20 years younger than most of the other residents at the facility. Sad that I don’t know the right thing to say. Sad that I don’t know if there is a right thing to say. I feel sad that my hands are her hands, my face and my mannerisms are hers…I see bits of her when I look into any mirror. I hear her voice when I speak. But I am not my mother. And other than those eerie characteristics, I feel nothing.

I remember literally digging to the bottom of my mother’s purse as a child. I can still smell the lingering scent of cinnamon gum. I can still see the dust from old Kleenex surrounding everything in that space. I know this is not really what Kimmel meant, but I understand the message she is trying to convey in her writing. Mothers have a way of letting go, but not. Of wanting their girls to become women, but also to not stray too far from the example they were given. This week I feel like I have to break away from the example I was given in order to see more clearly and to feel…something.

an ode to dance...

2010-07-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

So, my 35-year-old, post-baby body doesn’t probably show it, but I used to be a dancer. Not that kind of dancer, silly. I started dance classes when I was 3 and I took classes several times a week until I was at least 18. I took tap, ballet, jazz and what apparently is now known as contemporary. I danced until my feet hurt and I had back problems and my hips began to snap, crackle and pop all on their own. After I quit classes, I taught dance (mostly tap) for about 10 years. Dance. It was part of me. I loved it. I still do, although years of wear and tear on my body have resulted in my not being able to take classes or even try to do the things I used to do.

I feel like I have to live vicariously through other dancers. Which is why I’ve grown to love So You Think You Can Dance. I have to be honest. I refused to watch the show for the first few seasons it was on TV. Really, I was just so frustrated with my aging, creaky old body that I didn’t want to see young, vibrant dancers at the beginning of their careers heat up the stage and make me feel like shit. I’m serious, and yes, I’m that jealous of people I don’t even know. But through the years, I’ve grown to really love and respect what that show is doing for the dance world. I love the amazing choreography, and how the program is willing to give choreography to former dancers on the show – what a way to channel amazing talent!

When I was probably 11 years old, I saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform Revelations. I will never forget the way the silk tapestry moved across the stage during “Wade in the Water” and I remember watching the late Gary DeLoatch perform “I Wanna be Ready.” During the intermission, my sister and I snuck up to the side orchestra box at the Folly Theater to get an up close look at Mr. Alvin Ailey himself. This was the defining moment of dance for me. I knew at that very moment that I wanted to dance, and that it wasn’t something that just interested me – it was in the very fibers of my being. Later, as a dancer, I participated in some fantastically terrible competitions, traveled throughout the US and to Seville, Spain in 1992 to dance at the World’s Fair, and fought tooth and nail with my former boss to prove that gymnasts must also have a dance background – a fight I would not win in the end.

Years later, I now live with constant pain from deteriorating discs in my lower back. I exercise irregularly, in tiny spurts, a process that both aggravates and annoys me to no end. I do yoga when I can because it’s the only way to gain balance and to center myself without excruciating pain. I try to explain this to people who knew me as a dancer and they just don’t get it. I don’t understand it myself, it’s like my spine has failed me. And it sounds ridiculous, but I absolutely adore watching those kids dance each week on TV. It makes me remember why I loved choreography. I remember why I loved being on stage. But mostly I remember why I was touched by dance in the first place – how the graceful, wonderful movements of the human body can inspire even those of us who can no longer move like that.

teaching myself...

2010-07-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

I have been planning to write about this for a while, but have been trying to get into the swing of things since my summer really just started this week. I was lucky enough to be a part of the Greater Kansas City Writing Project’s Summer Institute this year and I spent the past four weeks with about 25 other teachers from all over this city reading, writing, talking and reflecting. It was hands down the most phenomenal continuing education or professional development opportunity I’ve ever had and I’m so glad that I was able to work with such amazing people, even for just a short time. I was accepted to the SI on the basis of my being an early childhood (preschool) teacher. However, I honestly thought that what I would learn in this experience would be useful for me down the road when I finish my certification and am in my own high school English classroom. That could not have been further from the truth.

In essence, I was given four weeks to revitalize my teaching spirit, to reflect on all the ways I really love what I do right now – not what I might do down the road. And, I was validated on so many levels as an early childhood educator. I thought I might not have much to bring to the table every day – we deal with SUCH different classroom dynamics – at least I thought we did! It turns out that much of what I do is happening in classrooms all over the city, and I assume all over the country. The biggest difference is that I have these kiddos at the beginning of their educational journey, and they might be a little bit smaller! I was immediately made to feel at home, and my thoughts and inquiry were supported and validated by the other fellows.

I made the decision in the past four weeks to quit my education classes and spend one full year focusing on what I’m doing right now. I feel like I owe it to myself and to my employer to give as much of myself as possible this year – to really reflect on why I teach these little people and how much I really affect their lives. I simply never saw myself as a preschool teacher for the long haul…all that money spent on my English degree? Where would I use it? The answer became quite clear throughout these weeks: I am using it, and I can use it in so many ways that I’ve never explored in detail. I’m really excited to not have to think about papers, reading books other people have assigned me, and just being gone several nights a week from my family. I’m anxious to focus my energy on my preschool classroom in a way I’ve not been willing or able to in the past few years. I feel like this is really a new beginning for me in many ways.

I honestly cannot say enough how thrilled I am to have had the SI experience. I got to know a fantastic bunch of funny, smart, motivated teachers, teachers who give me hope that our schools have promise and a bright, bright future. It made me realize that too often we overlook the people who are doing great things just to focus on what a mess the system has become.

Tom

2010-07-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

Pushing against these four walls.

Pushingggggg.

Screaming. Screaming. screaming.

In my head.

And then. Then. Why not?

Laughter outside the windows…

Music permeating the walls -

Boys night. 3am.

Boys morning?

Beer bottles. High fives. Chuck Taylors and red t-shirts.

Boys night with no boys. Only men.

Men. Boys. Boys. Men. Men with thinning hair. Big ears. Fat thumbs.

Shattered dreams and wandering eyes.

I watch, squinting, between closed blinds. Dark room. Sleeping family.

Hooray for boys! Men. Boys.

I wonder about the conversation. What they are laughing about?

What? Who?

Oh yes...voyeurism.

Laughter.

Laughter…

Men.

High fives. Red t-shirts.

His son, dead…

Not in on the joke.

when death comes

2010-07-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

We spent time today at the GKCWP talking about teaching and poetry with Glenn North, the poet in residence at the American Jazz Museum here in Kansas City. Glenn was amazing and a wealth of great information. He had us do a writing prompt based on the poem "When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver. Here's what I wrote:

when death comes like a strong wind

when death comes like a headache, dull and fuzzy and only slightly uncomfortable

when death comes like being carried out to sea with the undertow

I want to step through the door full of clarity. I want to see clearly for the first time things that I’ve questioned all my life

and therefore I look upon everything as catalyst for that journey. where the reasons for my actions are clear and the actions themselves are meaningful, if only to myself

and I think of each life as remarkable. alone. sort of like realizing at last that I’ll never really know what’s going on in your head

and each body as a vehicle. a machine. a treasure chest.

when it’s over I want to say, “that was worth every single day”

when it’s over I don’t ever want to wonder what I missed

I don’t want to end up with regret.

walking out

2010-07-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

I shed the clothing.

The “I don’t want to lose me and look like a mom” shoes.

The ill fitting, post-children skin that sometimes feels like wearing chewing gum that was blown into a bubble, popped and then stuffed back into my jeans.

That skin, often bruised from playing.

Hands rough from washing. Loving. Washing.

Walk away from obligation

Walk away from guilt

Walk away from all that I’ve become.

“They” would see the mess of me, no longer hidden by all that…stuff

Scattered clothes, scattered letters, scattered thoughts

“They” would see bad back, achy knees, wishful thinking, a woman who desperately needs attention…but not that kind.

“They” would see the heart full of funny, magical, little girl love. That heart, its beating made bright and vibrant by those two, often needing reflection

“They” would see that there isn’t much of me that is hidden beneath that skin – my journey is an open book.

The “I shoulds”

The “I wants”

Left behind: the confusion that changes shape and color like the remnants in a glass of red wine; sitting in the sink, filling with water, turning that wonderful shade of blue gray and then fading completely

Free of these things, I peek into windows

Listen to conversations

Find answers to all the questions without real answers

Is she really crazy?

How much does she really know?

Does he have another life? Ulterior motives?

Could I have prevented this?

Like eyes blinking clear of the haze of sleep.

Free of these things, I see.

the power of place...

2010-06-24T20:52:00.001-07:00

Magda Helmuth was very tall for a woman. Looming. She wore short, pin straight hair and had giant hands. She had a thick German accent and smelled like cabbage. Her preschool room was neither inviting nor comfortable. She was the antithesis of what a preschool teacher should be. But my parents didn’t think so. They thought she was amazing and inspiring, and so I was sent to the Purple Dragon a few mornings a week for preschool. I remember sitting in a circle and trying artichokes as a group. First of all, who brings artichokes to a group of four-year-olds and expects any good to come of it? And, why was it acceptable for Mrs. Helmuth to berate me in front of the class when I gagged on the tasteless leaf in my mouth? Perhaps it was because it was 1978 and that’s just how things were done. Perhaps because I needed an experience like that to shape where I would go, in teaching, in my parenting, and in my relations with others. I knew even then that I didn’t want to ever, ever make someone feel the way she had made four-year-old me feel.

Here is where the irony comes in: I now teach in the very same classroom where that experience occurred. While there is now a wall splitting what once was a giant room into two, and the tables and chairs might seem a bit smaller to me, I still remember that experience when I walk into my classroom at the beginning of each new school year. That classroom might look very similar in composition to the one I attended 30 plus years ago – predominantly white and upper middle class – but the experience I intend to give the students is vastly different than the one I had.

I went on to attend schools in the Kansas City, Missouri district. What were once known as “cluster schools” (Hartman, Hale Cook and Marlborough elementary) became “magnet schools”, and these fed into several local high schools. I attended Lincoln College Preparatory Academy. My experience in the KCMO district was a good one, and my parents were active in the schools and in district politics as they chose to stay in the city rather than cross state lines in the “white flight” of the early 1980s. I don’t feel like they sacrificed my education or my educational experience for their idea that public schools can and should work. I also think it was brave and bold of them, and a handful of other parents that really stood by the system. I wish there were more parents from our Brookside/Plaza neighborhoods (myself included, honestly) who would be brave enough to do the same today.

As a student at Lincoln, I had friends who haled from all parts of the KC metro area: Independence, Blue Springs, downtown, the West Bottoms, you name it. The only sense of community was the community inside the school. I couldn’t invite my friend Amanda to come over after school because it meant that she’d have to ride my school bus and then one of our parents would have to trek across town during rush hour to pick up or drop off. I simply didn’t get a chance to know my peers the way that my friends who attended other, neighborhood schools did. I often wonder how that might have changed my path. I always felt a bit disconnected from school because the kids who did live near me were not the ones I would have chosen to associate with outside of school. Plus, most of those kids knew way too much about me, from the girls who once formed the “I hate Kate” club on the playground during third grade recess, to the kids who knew my mom was having an affair with our minister. I didn’t want my dirty laundry aired like that, and so my social community became the friends I made at dance class.

I see such connections (and frustrations) between my experience in school all those years ago and where I currently stand in my teaching and in my life. I am back living in the same south Brookside/Waldo neighborhood in which I grew up, and I believe that our sense of community is still very broken. People will be quick to tell you how our neighborhood is full of local businesses and family owned establishments: we are proud of these things and it’s one of the main reasons I wanted to come back to the area. But what happened to the indispensible tie between the community and the schools in a neighborhood? In many ways those ties don’t exist in this area of Kansas City. We might fool ourselves into thinking that they do, but the schools with the best “community” feel that way because they are church based, and the church is the core of “community” there. The public school options are plentiful, yet, in my opinion have done less to welcome the people of this community than to alienate those of us who are interested in attending them.

When I brought this up to friends in conversation, I heard people throwing blame around. Parents want to blame the school system as a whole; teachers want to blame the parents, students want to blame teachers…on and on. When will we find a middle ground or some way to get past the blame game and begin to try something new? My opinion on the system and my sense of community has been really put to the test in the past few months as we have struggled to figure out my daughter’s path to kindergarten. I can honestly say that I understand how my parents must have felt when their friends, the parents of my friends, pulled their children from public schools to move to the suburbs.

My thoughts keep returning to the proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” and I wonder, where is my village? We have backed our villagers into corners, alienating them and have left them to fend for themselves in the most important task of raising children. I often wonder how different my journey as a parent and as a teacher would look if we had the kind of community in our schools as I feel in my own small group of friends. I don’t know what the answers are to these questions, but I must believe that I should be a part of the solution.

I consider the definition of my current “location” as physical, geographical and personal. There are days when I find myself quite literally walking with my children down the same sidewalks I walked as a child, and yet I know the experience I am giving them is at once vaguely similar and entirely different than my own. I am reminded of my own history each day I step foot into my preschool classroom. I am reminded that I must do things differently than they were done for me. I am reminded of all the ways I would like to make the journey different for a new group of children. I feel in many ways like my location is geographically quite exactly where I started many years ago, and yet miles and miles away from where I intend to go.

dancing to a fascinatin' rhythm of their own

2010-06-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

What do sequins, French braids and lipstick have in common? No, not Vegas and Little House on the Prairie, silly…dance recitals! When I was three, or somewhere near there, my parents bribed me into potty training with dance lessons. I started dancing: tap, ballet…and with each successive June came the thrill of the dance recital. Lights! Costumes! Stage makeup that would turn a seven year old into a street-walker! I danced for 16 years, and then taught dance for another decade after that. Year after year, June after June, came the promise of more sequins, more hairspray and bobby pins, and more face time on the stages all over Kansas City for me.

Last night I attended my niece’s dance recital. It was also the 60^th (yes, SIXTIETH) recital for my former dance teacher. Sixty years. Imagine that. How many hundreds, if not thousands of little girls and boys that woman has made an impression on in six decades? I digress. I sat watching the show and it occurred to me that I should first apologize to my friends and family who had to endure the HOURS long performances of my yearly dance recitals. There comes a point as a teacher where you should maybe consider not including every single dance you ever choreographed. I’m just saying, it could probably shorten the length of the recital by maybe three hours.

Watching those girls on stage reminded me that there’s always a bossy one in every group. And it starts early. You know which one I mean: the one who looks at the little girl next to her who isn’t paying attention and pushes her or shakes her finger at her. Oh, you just wait – she’s going to be the prom queen, the captain of the Cheerios. I don’t know why, but recitals bring social hierarchies to mind for me. Also? If you are on stage in a sparkling get-up complete with a feathery headdress? You might want to consider your motivation. Really. I am totally all about adults dancing. It’s a great workout and I miss it so much that I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered going back. But dancing on stage next to teenagers in a gaudy costume? I just think it’s weird.

My niece Olivia was the bright shining star of the show. I know I’m biased, but that child has natural talent and it was honestly a joy to watch her. She made all the other stuff tolerable and that is saying a lot. A friend of mine suggested earlier today that the Pentagon ought to look into considering dance recitals as a form of torture, and I’m thinking she has a good point. I’m off to write my congressman.

I'm still here.

2010-06-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

I really am. This week I started the Greater Kansas City Writing Project's summer institute. When I'm not so darn tired, I will write about the GKCWP and all the amazing things they do. Until then, I just wanted to say hello from the trenches and assure you (were you wondering?) that I have been writing like a madwoman - and have had more inspiration in three days from these wonderful people than I've had in months. I can't wait to share...but not today!

35

2010-06-10T21:09:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I turn 35. So, thus far, I’ve outlived Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jesus. Not necessarily in that order, but probably so. Today I was catching up on some blogs that I frequent, and one I love was linked to another – a blog where the writer asked women to submit letters to their 20 year old selves. How intriguing this was to me – how fascinating (and scary)! And it inspired me so much that I present you with this:

Dear 20-year-old Kate,

All that searching you’re doing right now? The wondering who you really are and where you belong? Get used to it. Apparently it’s ingrained in who you are, and it’s something you’ll continue to do well beyond your angsty teens and twenties. But, the worry that goes along with that searching? Good Lord, girl. Drop it and enjoy life. Grab it by the balls and don’t look back because one day, the worrying will envelope so much more than just YOU.

The body that you look in the mirror and scoff at? It’s amazing. Wear the short dress and wear the sting bikini while you can. That body will one day bear your children and become something much different, but right now? It’s hot. Keep dancing as much as you can. Don’t quit because some boy wants to spend more time with you and don’t give up the thought that you might someday dance in New York. Stop telling yourself it’s not worth pursuing that dream. Don't sell yourself short.

The boy who makes you crazy with emotions you can’t explain? One day you will vaguely remember why he made you feel that way. Don’t sacrifice your plans for ANYONE…no matter how important the reason seems at the time. In the end, you will only have yourself, so whatever path you choose, make sure it’s something you’re happy with. Someday you will have daughters of your own and you will no doubt have to watch them go through these same emotions. When that happens, please try to remember how it felt to be 22; it could be the best gift you could ever give them.

Wash your face more. Drink more water. Don’t smoke so much. Stop and enjoy the little moments more often. Don’t ever look back.

Love,

35-year-old Kate

seeing the sea...

2010-06-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Vacation is always such a weird thing. You either love it or you hate it and you either really, really want to come home or, like me this time, you wish you could figure out a way to live at the beach, rather than in the ho-hum Midwest. I know that soon enough I will be wrapped up in the day to day stuff again and I will not feel like this, but right now I’m having a hard time feeling good about being home. I thought a lot this week about sitting down to write, I really did…but something always seemed more important, like watching the sun rise and then set over the ocean, or watching my eldest daughter learn how to swim (!!) or watching my children interact with their grandparents and their aunt and uncle in ways that just never happen when the hustle and bustle of daily life get in the way. Yes, those moments took precedence over writing, and I’m glad they did.

I thought about writing about the drive over the bridge that connects Jekyll Island with Brunswick and St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, and how I literally get the shakes when I have to drive it alone. And that the first night my in-laws were there, they tried to get over it only to find it was closed because someone had tried to jump off of the bridge. I thought about sharing the experience we had getting trapped in a torrential downpour in Atlanta after deciding it was too nice outside to drive to the aquarium…whoops! My girls had their fist cab ride and you would have thought Lucy had won the lottery. “MOM!!!! You can ride? In a car??? WITHOUT a carseat???” Yes, honey. Welcome to the South…

But, instead, my mind keeps coming back to something I witnessed one afternoon. Something probably only I thought was interesting, or astounding, or heartbreaking. (Sometimes I honestly wonder if I never really grew out of having emotions like I did when I was twelve.) We had taken our things down to another part of the island during one high tide because the beach outside our condo was non-existent when the tide comes in. While we were sitting there, I watched a mother take the arm of her blind child (a girl in her late teens if not early twenties) and lead her to where the waves were hitting the shore. The first thing that struck me was how sweet the gesture was, and then I got really choked up thinking about what must have been going on in the mother’s head. See? This is when most people would be all, “what do you mean? You are making this up – no one thinks this much about people they don’t even know…” but I do.

How would I even begin to describe the ocean to my sight-impaired child? How could I convey the way that the water looks first thing in the morning when the rising sun hits it and it sparkles like a thousand tiny mirrors? Or how the sea gulls and pelicans search, bellies nearly touching the water, until they see what they want and then dive down for their meal? How schools of teeny, tiny fish washed up with each wave, only to be pulled back into the ocean with the undercurrent? How do you put into words what it’s like to watch two dolphins do a dance, of sorts, up and then down again in the water just feet from where you stand?

There are things I imagine you could describe with ease to someone who might never have seen them with their eyes – trees, cats, even people with their particular features and distinctions. But, the ocean? Ever-changing. Light and dark, wide and deep. Mysterious. Elusive. I keep coming back to that scene, replaying it in my head, and each time I think of something else I might say to that child, another explanation – something else I might have missed the first time…I imagine that mother knows how this feels. It’s a little like feeling guilty for having the gift of sight.

georgia on my mind

2010-05-25T20:12:00.001-07:00

This week I’ve been knee deep in suitcases, swimsuits and sunscreen. We are leaving for a week at the beach and it could not come at a better time. Tomorrow is the last day of preschool for my children – and for me as a teacher – and when we return I will start the Greater Kansas City Writing Project summer institute. A week on the beach is in order, for sure. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind packing to MOVE to the beach. There is something about sea air that just calms me and makes me feel like a different person. Thinking about it nearly brings me to tears. And I have to be honest, and totally cheesy, there is something so magnificent about the ocean I can hardly wait to be closer to it.

Starting when I was about 15, I spent a few summers in the gulf coast with my then best friend and her family. We spent hours and hours on the beach, coming in only to eat pimento cheese sandwiches for lunch with sliced tomatoes. At night we would have bottle rocket wars on the beach and in the water. We slept in a loft-style room full of windows and to this day one of my favorite memories is of laying still as can be on a twin bed with the window and the shades up as far as they could go. I can hear the waves crashing and smell the salty air. At the beach, the stars seem to multiply and go on forever. That beach house was completely pink. Ceiling to floor pink. Outside and inside it was pink. Even the piano was pink…and it was perfect. In the “kids” room upstairs was an old juke box that contained only a few 45s: Rod Stewart singing “If You Think I’m Sexy” and Dr. Hook and the Cover of the Rolling Stone singing “You Make My Pants Wanna Get Up and Dance”. Why I remember that is beyond me, but I do. I learned to smoke stolen Virginia Slims in that room, and at night my friend’s younger, more daring brother would steal beer for us to sip as we played cards at the pink table.

I don’t know why all those memories just came rushing back. That was certainly not what I intended to write about when I sat down tonight.

I’m looking forward to hearing the waves while I sleep with the windows open next week. I don’t care if it’s hot as hell, I get one week a year to do that and I will. I am looking forward to leaving the stress of work and school behind for a few days, but mostly to watching my girls experience the majesty of the ocean again. I’m going to be watching at night for the lights of the shrimping boats off the coast. I know when I see them that I’ll feel like I’m home again.

for lucy bloom, on the fifth anniversary of her first day

2010-05-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Every year on my birthday, for as long as I can remember, my mother would say to me, “I sure am glad it isn’t (X number) of years ago today!” I used to laugh at her, not fully understanding her labor joke. And then I had my own children. My eldest daughter turned five today, and each birthday, for each of my girls, I’ve sat with them and reminded them how lucky I am to have them as my daughters, and that every day reminds me how happy I am that I had them. I thought a lot about this today, and also about all the things I’ve learned in the past five years.

We were sent home from the hospital with Lucy after spending two extra days there due to her severe jaundice from her fairly awful delivery. I remember spending the first night at home in our living room because Lucy was wrapped in a “bilirubin” blanket – which was light therapy for her jaundice. The blanket needed a three-pronged plug and our old house only had the outlets with three prongs downstairs. We were so tired that it never occurred to us to use an adapter and bring baby Lucy upstairs with us. At one point during those first days, Steve looked at me and said, (and I quote) “if this is how it’s going to be, we’re going to DIE.” The good news is that we didn’t die. The bad news is that having Lucy, and then her sister Zoe opened up an entire floodgate of other stress-inducing stuff for us.

Being pregnant with Lucy taught me to see my body in a whole different light. I had always beaten myself up for weight gain or changes in my body. When I was pregnant with her, it was the first time in my life that someone told me it was actually good to gain weight. That’s what you’re supposed to do! What a change – and such a hard thing to grasp when you've spent your entire life trying to lose it. More recently, I’ve become more conscious of the things I say about my body. Complaints of “I’m fat” or “I shouldn’t have eaten that” are kept to myself or sometimes lost altogether, in an attempt to have my girls grow up without body image issues – at least until much, much later in their lives.

Five years ago today, I gave birth to a tiny human being. I will spare you the details (you’re welcome) but suffice it to say that I was amazed and astounded at what I did. I made a person (with some help, thanks Steve). And she came out of my body. I did that…and it still sort amazes me, even five years later. Someone once said that having a child was like taking your heart out and letting it walk around outside of your body. I’m certain I’m misquoting it terribly, but that is what having Lucy (and later, her sister Zoe) did for me. I watch that child throughout the day and every little thing she does gives me an emotion I didn’t know existed until she came along. I get angry when she’s had her feelings hurt, I get sad when she has a hard time at school, I get embarrassed for her when she tells jokes and kids don’t get her silly, wonderful sense of humor.

Mostly, though, I have learned from Lucy and her sister what it means to love unconditionally. Amy Tan wrote, in The Joy Luck Club, “I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.” Happy birthday, little fish.

yo' mama

2010-05-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that my relationship with my mother is rocky at best. I don’t want to talk about her, but this week I’ve been thinking a lot about being a mom. I would like to preface this by saying this post is not about anyone in particular. If you would like to get offended by what I say here, go ahead, but it won’t be because I was talking about YOU. Whomever you are.

First I would like to say that I think mother’s day is a sham. I mean, I’m a mother every single day out of the year and I don’t need one silly day for people to kiss my ass. How come people don’t feel like that stuff is important on other days? I will not say who I think came up with mother’s day, because it has offended my husband, but I just think the entire day is ridiculous. I find it offensive that there is only one day out of the year that we call our moms and say thank you. Shouldn’t that happen more often? I mean, really.

So, this mother’s day, my husband told me I could do whatever I wanted to do. I chose to go shopping all by myself. Any of you with children know what a special gift that is. I even went to the grocery store ALL by myself – no little hands putting extra things in the basket, no one throwing her body on the floor because I chose the wrong kind of fruit snacks. It was a little piece of heaven – and yet, most of this week I’ve gotten the stink eye from other moms when I tell them about my day. I don’t really know why it’s caused such reaction, but maybe I should say that it’s the one upside of having a shitty mother – I don’t have an obligation to spend time with her one Sunday in May. The downside? I don’t have a mother. Want to trade?

Here’s the thing about myself as a mother: I believe the only thing that matters is that my children are healthy and happy and mostly well behaved. I didn’t have children to fulfill some empty place in my life – frankly, I had kids so I could see who they’d look like – me or Steve. I wanted children because I love my husband so much that I wanted to make a human being with him, not because I needed something to do with my time. My children are my soul, but they do not define ME. Inside, I am still the same person I was before I had them – and I still need time to myself. Actually, I covet time to myself. And while the quantity of that time is wayyyyyyyy less than it was before the girls came along, it is still very important to my mental state and I make time for me every week. I MUST, or I will lose my mind.

I don’t know how my children will look at me when we are all older – will they remember playing Candyland and laughing at old MGM cartoons until we thought we might wet our pants? Will they remember that I read Goodnight Moon every single night of their lives thus far? Or will they remember me as that lady who never cleaned her bedroom until their daddy threw a fit, and who sometimes made breakfast for dinner because she was just too damn lazy to do anything more? I don’t know. But I do know this: my own mother did all the things that moms were “supposed” to do back in the day, she stayed home with us, made all the meals, did all the laundry, served on the PTA and the church committees. Where did it get her? She was miserable and still is, and we don’t have a relationship at all. Clearly, I don’t know what particular qualities make a good mother. I only know how to be me, and I know that sometimes “me” doesn’t quite fit the traditional mold. If I teach my girls anything, I hope they learn that they don’t have to fit into any particular category, and that just being who they are is always better than forsaking themselves to fit in.

This week on CBS Sunday Morning, they aired a great piece on the writer Erma Bombeck. I remember my grandmother having her books, but I wanted to know more about her so I did some digging. While she raised her children and wrote about those trials in a much different time, much of what she wrote hit close to home for me. Especially these words about a different kind of mother: “She wanted children too, but for another reason. They fulfilled a strong desire to love, raise, and leave as a legacy another human being. But they didn’t fulfill her ambitions, her struggle for individuality, or her need to make a contribution to this life, no matter how small.” I wish more moms would think about these words and spend less time catering to other people and more time worrying about themselves. What a place that would be – a different world for ourselves and for our children.

a story

2010-05-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

My story is still incomplete. A work in progress, if you will…but it is comprised of many, many moments that make me…well, me. The days of my youth were spent trying to figure out who the “me” was. I honestly, truly believe – without a doubt – that I only just started to know the answers.

When I look back I remember deep orange shag carpet in the living room, replaced years later by pale blue. When we arrived home from school, there would be lines in the carpet from the vacuum. Today, I firmly believe that my mom would sit around ALL day long and just vacuum right before we walked in so that it looked like she’d done something while we were gone. I remember a white Easter dress with a yellow blazer, a hand me down from my cousin Amanda, whom I didn’t really know until we were much older and we found out how much alike we are. That dress came with a bright yellow hat and when I wore the outfit, I thought I was a star.

I remember sitting in the “waiting” room at Betty Tillotson’s school of dance while we watched my big sister’s dance class. I wanted nothing more than to strap on her tap shoes and run out there…I bet I was no more than three. Later, I danced until my knees ached and my toes bled and it is the best memory I have of feeling driven toward something bigger than myself. I remember walking to the Masterman’s house two blocks away from my own, where you could create “experiments” with the lotions in the bathroom and where no one worried about messing up the lines in the carpet. They had a cat named Nike and later, the biggest black cat I’d ever seen, aptly named Inky. I always secretly wondered if Lucy Masterman was my real mom, as she was SO much cooler than my own. Maybe I just wished it.

I remember making myself sick with anxiety about who might like me – at school, at church, in our neighborhood. I wish I could tell my 12-year-old self to straighten my shit up and realize how cool I was without even knowing it. Or maybe I wasn’t cool, I still don’t know. In high school, I learned about race by falling hard for the one kid who wasn’t sure he could be with a white girl. In retrospect, it was for the better, but I learned a lot about myself and even more about how people relate to one another from that experience. I remember thinking that my entire world would collapse when Justin Peck told me he didn’t want to go out anymore. Which is pretty funny now, considering we never actually went anywhere. That angst is still so palpable I can nearly reach out and touch it. I remember riding in the backseat of my parent’s car to Woodstock, Illinois to visit my grandparents and listening to The Cure’s Japanese Whispers album the entire nine hours. That album will always bring me back to plaid shorts from the thrift store, white t-shirts and old Chuck Taylors.

My story includes two early 1980s Chevy Chevettes. One blue, one turd bucket brown…each more embarrassing than the next to my 16-year-old ego. What I couldn’t see back then was how lucky I was to have a car at ALL. I remember the feeling of freedom that came with driving. And I can recall sitting in the driveway of our home with my sister after she had driven us home from school one spring day. We knew my mother was lying to all of us, but that was the day we started investigating. And when a mother tells such a deliberate lie to her children – much less to her husband – it is then that a relationship must change forever. That part of my story led to a relationship with my smart and funny and amazing sister that I might not have had otherwise. A relationship that I treasure and hold close to me in the deepest part of my heart.

My story includes boy after boy whom I tried to change. Time and again I would sacrifice myself to please someone else, or just to keep the peace. My story includes a lot of other stories that I won’t repeat – things I am not proud of but that I would not change, as they are things that shape who I have become. The one who told me I was fat and stupid, who left my self esteem so completely broken that I was merely a shadow of who I was before I met him. The one who was good to me but just didn’t know how to love me without a mountain of drama to accompany that love. I learned that the only person who could change the way that story would go was myself – and it took me far too long to figure that out.

My story is about a boy, the best one ever, the one who finally just let me be me. Who still patiently lets me figure out who “me” is and never, ever asks me to pretend I’m someone different. The boy who makes me laugh every single day, the one I can’t wait to grow old with. My story is about two amazing, smart, beautiful and funny little girls who make me want to be a better person. My story is important because I can and I will teach my girls all the things I didn’t get from my own mother, things that I needed to hear (and might still need to hear) and the lessons that I couldn’t learn from her. I try to remember that the one lesson she did teach me many years ago does not ever have to shape who I am today. My story is realizing that I am not so different from my kind and gentle father, that we share a passion for words and language and a knack for avoiding conflict. All those years I spent fighting to be someone different, running from what I thought was so wrong, only to find that those are the very qualities that define me.

the days of my youth...

2010-05-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I shared the day with twenty plus teachers from across this city at the Diastole center on Hospital Hill here in KC. We were there for a pre-summer institute meeting of the Greater Kansas City Writing Project. I’m participating in the GKCWP this summer and until yesterday I’d been hesitant to get very excited about it. While I’m in school for my certification to teach English at the high school level, I’m currently an early childhood teacher of children age three to five – not quite the same thing. I got accepted into the GKCWP as an early childhood teacher, and I had been fairly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the group in any effective way. I’m happy to say that I no longer feel that way. In fact, I’m now more inspired and anxious to get started in June. So, part of the meeting yesterday was spent learning how we’ll be presenting a little workshop on a “stuck place” in our teaching. Dylan Carter, a creative writing instructor at Shawnee Mission West high school in Overland Park, Kansas, gave an example of his workshop from last summer. Dylan’s stuck place was getting his students to connect with their personal story – and how to inspire his students to dig deeper to find their stories. His students start the year by reading Beowulf (gahhhh! I get high blood pressure just thinking of teaching this book!) Dylan uses Beowulf’s quote, “The days of my youth have been filled with glory…” as a writing prompt for students. They were to start, “The days of my youth were filled with…” and just write.

And so, Dylan had us write our stories. There were some amazing ones, more than a few brought me to tears. I’m always astounded and inspired by great writers, by people who can express feelings through words, and I was not at all let down by this group. Chinua Achebe said, “To be human, one must have a story.” I’m still working on my story. But as I write I start to see the patterns of my “youth”, the things that come up over and over again in my writing. I will share when I finish, but I wonder, what filled the days of your youth?

if I have to walk I'm going just the same...

2010-04-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

In about 1991, the only place I thought was worth visiting in the 18^th and Vine area of Kansas City was a run-down old Wings ‘N Things restaurant. On warm spring days, we would often sneak out of the side door at Lincoln Prep and walk down Woodland Street for some wings. I never thought about my safety in those days – it never occurred to me that the safest place for a white girl might not be walking by the dilapidated old homes lining that street. My parents would have killed me. Or maybe they’d have been proud of my tenacity. I might never know. What I did know, even back then, was that the neighborhood in which my high school was located was full of rich history and amazing stories – even if that history had faded over the years, replaced by empty storefronts and only the stories of what once was there. The area of 18^th and Vine in Kansas City, Missouri has a story to tell, and this past Sunday afternoon, I tried to share a bit of that story with my family.

We left our home in the Waldo area after lunch on Sunday and drove north down The Paseo, heading toward the once thriving historic district. It had been nearly 16 years since I had driven that route and I was struck, sadly, by how little had changed. There were newer houses, sure, and the occasional new apartment building that had sprouted up around the Rockhurst University campus, but in all, much was the same as it had been in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was in high school at Lincoln. All of the dilapidated old homes that once lined the street across from the school are now gone, replaced by overgrown brush and trees. The building itself looks entirely the same, save for the “Blue Ribbon School” signs hanging on the outside. Good for you, Lincoln.

When we turned right onto 18^th Street, heading west of Woodland, we caught sight of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum as well as the historic Gem Theater, and I got really excited. Then, I saw the lack of people and cars and I started to realize that the shiny new buildings and attractions are great, but only if they draw a crowd to the area, right? I guess the answer to that is “maybe”. In the late 1980s, many millions of dollars were spent to revitalize the old historic district, and to the bare eye, it’s clear that there are new apartments and buildings as well as a few restaurants, but where are the people?

Well, quite literally, the numbers are like this:

· Number of people per square mile in the 18^th and Vine area: 2,744. Number of people per square mile in Kansas City: 1408.

· Median household income here ($27,508) is significantly lower than US average ($56,604).

· The median age here is 30.6. There are 3,542 men and 3,243 women living in the 64108 zip code. Of those numbers, 2,197 are African American.

· The average home value here ($46,500) is significantly lower than in the Kansas City metro area as a whole.

There are three primary schools, one middle school and two high schools in the zip code, but the first thing you see as you drive into the area is the boarded up Attucks building, sitting at the corner of 19^th and Woodland. Attucks is the communication and writing magnet school that has since moved to 24^th and Prospect and it is rumored that Charlie Parker was a notable alumni. He was also a Lincoln High School alumnus.

It was disheartening to see the beautiful old Attucks building sitting empty, but it would be only the first of many boarded up buildings we would see. Steve described 18^th street as being akin to an old Warner Brother’s cartoon. Remember the old Wile E. Coyote cartoons where he would spray paint a horizon or a scene and whomever was chasing him would go crashing into it? Those are the cartoons I’m referring to. There is an entire block of storefronts painted to look like they are the old historic district, but there are no stores occupying them. There are blocks of apartments with “for rent” signs up in the windows, and I counted at least 3 boarded up churches in the area.

The saving grace of the old 18^th and Vine historic district are the museums, which we toured and really enjoyed, but I left feeling like we had only begun to discover the deep history of the area. I wanted to know more about the original shops and restaurants and the people who founded the area – not just the brief description we got in the Horace M. Peterson visitor’s center and gallery. I wanted to know about the place that people would often compare to New York’s 52^nd Street. Where is the “…community full of spirit, diversity, and an incredible hub of commerce, culture and entertainment…” as the visitor’s guide touts?

According to the Jazz District Revitalization Corporation, “When the 18^th & Vine District was at its peak, Kansas City was strictly segregated, African American homes and businesses traditionally sat north of 27^th Street and east of Troost Avenue. When desegregation occurred in the mid-1960’s, many residents moved to other neighborhoods. Because of segregation, 18^th & Vine became a self-contained, self-sufficient community. Black-owned business ranged from law offices to accounting firms to dentins – even the first African-American owned car dealership in the U.S.”

I realize that much time has passed, but for the amount of money that was put into the area for revitalization ($81 million according to the Downtown Kansas City Council), I had hoped to see more. I wanted to see an area thriving with people, shops and things to do – and what I saw were a lot of businesses that didn’t make it, closed up storefronts, lifeless streets, and the façade of a neighborhood that just doesn’t exist anymore. While the experience we had at the Negro Leagues and the Jazz Museums was both interesting and educational, I was disappointed that we didn’t also find a neighborhood thriving once again. Probably one-time visitors such as myself have a lot to do with that. It made me wish the people of Kansas City (myself included) would embrace the rich, fascinating history that is right at our doorstep. Maybe then we would be able to claim responsibility for something positive instead of having to watch another failed restoration project in our city.

I'm with stupid...

2010-04-20T21:18:00.001-07:00

I’ve always prided myself a bit on pointing out the stupidity of others. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m better. Well. Okay, maybe I do. But mostly I just feel like God gave me a knack for spotting ridiculousness. Tonight I was telling Steve and Kelley about some things that happened to me today and I suggested that some people are naturally talented at things like, maybe singing, dancing, or coming up with a haiku on a whim. Personally, while I might be really bad at sports and say, not spending all my money in one place (sorry, Dad), I am really good at a few select things: laughing, writing, drinking and…pointing out ignorance. Today gave me plenty of opportunity to do the latter.

What I’m saying is this: if the X-Men suddenly appeared in Kansas City needing help, the situation would go as follows: “Hey! Hero UP! What is your super power?” And the answers from others will vary: “I have sharp claws, I can teleport myself, I have a radioactive dog who can sniff out bad guys…” (Is it clear that I’ve fallen victim to the Super Hero Squad?) My answer? “Um...well. I am good at matching my clothes, I can name that tune in three notes or less, AND...I am fantastic at pointing out stupidity”. And really? Isn’t that more helpful than sharp claws? Really. I’m not sure it will help me save the world, but I can certainly weed out the idiots who are collectively bringing us down on our way there.

Last night we were watching “Glorious Funniest Videos” – or what the layperson might call “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (we dance to a different tune at this house) and finally I looked over at Steve and told him I felt badly because really, the only thing funny about the show was that we were laughing at other people’s misfortunes. They should call that show “America’s Biggest Dumbasses Who Didn’t See That Crotch Shot Coming” or “Seriously, What Is Wrong With You People???” The more people falling off of bikes and getting slapped in the face the better, I say. It’s like Darwinism with a whiffle ball bat to the groin. My children love this show, and I am secretly thrilled that they like it so much because I feel like I might be passing down to them my need to laugh at morons. I mean, really? Is there anything better?

if I were a boy...or a girl with some junk

2010-04-10T21:04:00.001-07:00

I might or might not have had a little wine tonight, but I was on my way home and in my CD player was something Steve made for the girls. On the CD was a Beyonce song called “If I Were a Boy.” Twice today I’ve listened to this song and on the way home tonight I was a bit more attentive and I got all up in arms about it. I’m a girl and am the mother of two girls and I do NOT want my girls to listen to songs like this and get any crazy ideas. First of all, how come you have to be a boy to roll out of bed and throw on whatever you want to wear? I’m pretty sure I do that every day. I know I might not be the typical lady, but for the love of God, teaching girls that they need to be all dolled up to leave the house is absurd. Maybe I embrace my sweats a bit too much, but give me a break. Then, Beyonce sings that if she were a boy, she’d put herself first because the girl would be faithful. What the WHAT? Come the hell on, people. I know I’m an old lady and I’ve had my share of dumb boy experiences, but this song is officially off limits – no matter how catchy and fun it is to belt out at the top of my lungs after a little tiny bit of wine.

Seriously, though. I have two sweet baby girls and I will say this – no one did me the favor of telling me it was okay to be strong and cute at the same time. It took me a lot of years to figure that out on my own. Oh, but I did. I was told to be smart and…well. I’m pretty sure I was told to save my money and to not flash anyone. It’s probably sad that Beyonce Knowles has given me a little push to teach my children how NOT to be. Oh, Mrs Jay Z, your song makes me want to siiiiiing…but not about being a ridiculous pushover.

the best ship of all is friendship

2010-04-09T20:38:00.001-07:00

Today I had lunch and hung out with one of my dearest friends in the world. She has a five-month-old baby and we hadn’t seen each other very much since the baby, (or my babies, for that matter!) it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to hang out on a regular basis. We lived together for a few years before I met Steve, and by far she’s the best roommate I’ve ever had – and I miss sharing her closet and her bed. Before you jump to conclusions – go head, jump, why don’t you? – I’m a huge slob and when my bed was too covered in clothes, I would go sleep in Julie’s room. I still ask her if she’d like to spoon every chance I get.

We were sitting on my front stoop talking and watching my girls get along for once in their lives, and I started thinking about the best kinds of friendships. The ones where you don’t see each other for four months, but you talk as if not one day has passed. The best friends are the ones who are friends regardless of your finances, your weight, or the fact that you would some days choose wine and cheese over your family. A true friend will love you for all of those things and will not pass judgment when you talk about your marriage, your job or, when, in the middle of lunch, your daughter announces that her “butt is like garbage.”

Our lives have changed immensely from our days at the LaBobbi, which was the name of our apartment complex – and also the entire reason we chose to live there. We no longer have the luxury of time in our friendship. Time to shop, time to sleep, time to decide over brunch to get a tattoo that day, or even time to fight over who got the couch and who got stuck with the big chair during lazy Saturday afternoon TV marathons. What hasn’t changed throughout the years are the things that matter the most – oh, and also that if I asked Julie to sleep in her bed, I’m certain she would scoot over for me. Her husband? I’m not so sure.

his eye is on the sparrow and mine is on everything else

2010-04-03T19:52:00.001-07:00

This morning I attended the funeral of a coworker’s mother. During the service, the minister talked about death being life’s one true common denominator, and while that is certainly true, I also think it is true that death is something people deal with in a million different ways. I don’t like funerals – maybe because the ones I’ve attended have all seemed so stuffy and regimented to me. I’m just going to say this, there is not really any PC way to do it, so I’ll just put it out there – white people, in my experience, tend to think of funerals as a part of the grieving process, and therefore, they are sad, weighty, terrible events – never really celebrations of life, even if that is how we think of them.

This funeral, in a room filled to capacity with African Americans of all ages, shapes and sizes, had its sad and solemn moments, but was mostly a great celebration of a long life well spent. I sat there watching and listening to this event in awe; I was so taken by the way these people turned to God in their moment of great need. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not hugely religious, I am what one might consider a religious bystander. I grew up in a church and I can recite scripture, prayers and I know a handful of hymns by heart. I am interested in the history of Christianity and other religions and scripture and the Bible are intriguing to me. But I have problems with organized religion in general – problems that I won’t go into for various reasons…mostly because, try as I might, I can’t put them into words that would make sense to anyone but myself.

What I took away from this funeral is that there is more than this life. But this was a group of people who knew this already and seemed to have a faith and an understanding of God’s love that spanned generations and generations. I love the idea that it doesn’t matter what your faith looks like, how you come to your faith, or how it comes to you. You don’t put a suit and tie or a flashy dress on your faith to dress it up every Sunday so people might think you are someone you are not. The lesson today was that death is the thing we all share in life – the common denominator, and there is no time like the present to consider this notion. The woman I attended the service with lost her husband very suddenly and tragically several years ago and is raising her two sons by herself. I admire and respect her more than just about anyone I know, and after I got home, I began thinking about how she and I must have heard the same words at the funeral very differently today. It made me think about how our individual experiences shape faith more than just about anything else.

Probably the best part of the service (I know that sounds crass, but there really was a best part to this funeral) was the little old lady sitting several rows up from us – whom we later learned was the sister of the deceased. This woman was VOCAL and praised the Lord every chance she got. At one point, the minister was quoting a verse from Matthew and he paused, and she finished the verse for him! It was such a moment for me – that this little tiny thing KNEW the exact verse, and that she stepped up to finish the scripture for the minister. It was amazing and I’m glad I went today, it was definitely an experience I won’t soon forget.

lucky number 7

2010-03-28T19:48:00.001-07:00

Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Tomorrow is my seventh wedding anniversary, and tonight while we were getting the kids ready for bed, Steve jokingly asked me what happened to us. We went from spending our days and nights in relative ease – hanging out, dining out, enjoying good conversation and lazy Sunday afternoons. Seven years ago tonight I was ~~stumbling~~ dancing to “White Wedding” on the bar at the Peanut after our rehearsal dinner. Tonight, we were talking to Lucy about pooping. I think it’s safe to say that our life has changed.

The night I met my husband, I was dragged out by my then roommates, Julie and Kathy. They wanted to watch a Chiefs football game and I had just flown home from New York where I had been with family after the death of my grandfather. I didn’t want to go out – didn’t really even want to leave the house, but the girls picked out the clothes I would wear and told me to get my ass in the shower. The bar where Steve was bartending that night was a last resort for us – after we found no place to sit at our normal hang out, I wanted to go home and they wanted to try one more place. I’m so glad they did. Later that night, after I stuck green beans in my nose and stole a bunch of firewood (please do not ask me to explain this), I gave my phone number to the boy who would become my husband. After our first date, I came home, shut the door, and announced that I would marry him someday.

I’m not going to pretend that our life is all wine and roses. It’s WAY more wine than it is roses, but I made a good choice and I married a good man. I hope that we are teaching our girls that love knows no limits, speaks no particular language, and accepts strange obsessions with old British sci-fi shows and comic books. Love is being able to talk about poops – it’s about laughter.

COUSINS!!!!!

2010-03-22T20:20:00.001-07:00

My cousin Amanda gave birth today to her third child – her first girl! Our family happily welcomed baby Harper with open arms…even these arms that won’t get to hold her for several months! My cousin and I are very close, we talk in some way (email, phone, Facebook) at least weekly if not daily, and I feel like we are very much a part of each other’s lives even though she lives in Chicago and I am in Kansas City. Today, while I waited with bated breath for news of Harper’s arrival, I thought a lot about cousins.

Recently, I’ve gotten to “know” two first cousins of mine via Facebook. It’s a strange way to get to know someone, particularly a blood relative. But when the opportunity arose, I took it, thinking mostly that if my grandparents were still alive they would agree it’s pretty great that someone or something has finally connected us. I don’t feel like the details matter so much to the back-story, but some family drama (what else?) led to my sister and me to not ever meet some of our relatives. I never thought that much about it until I started learning more about them. I have to say, getting to know someone through Facebook status updates is pretty unusual…and fairly difficult. But these people are my first cousins – and I just can’t get my mind around not knowing anything about their entire lives until now.

It is unfathomable to me that in the same day I can have one cousin who gives birth and I nearly cry because I can’t be there, and I have other cousins whom I barely know anything about. Suffice it to say that it’s a weird feeling. I’m sure most people would just figure that it is what it is and they’d move on, but I feel like this connection was made for a reason and I feel like it’s important for us to know each other in some way. Even if we have to muddle through the fart jokes to get there.

blessed are the peacemakers

2010-03-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

This morning I attended the baptism of several babies and children – one was the daughter of my best friend and her husband. Another was my best friend’s niece - the daughter of her brother and his wife. I love the sacrament of baptism in the Presbyterian Church – I might like them in other churches, too, but I don’t recall ever attending one, so who knows? One of the things I remember most about my own girls’ baptisms is the part where the minister says something like “…all this is for you – and you don’t even know it yet.” There is something quite touching about babies not knowing the depth and breadth of God’s love.

I’m not attending a particular church right now – for many reasons – but I always get a bit choked up during ceremonies like these. I suppose it’s the tradition and ritual of it that reminds me no matter how far or long I’m gone from church, some things remain the same. I find comfort in that, and perhaps that is way this morning I got teary-eyed while watching my two friends’ babies being baptized. Perhaps it was also that I couldn’t help thinking about the sheer amount of stuff that these two families have experienced in the past year: divorce, the deaths of a mother, a dear friend and a grandfather. Long before this year, my friend and her brother lost their father, and I always get teary thinking about how he didn’t get the opportunity to witness these sacraments and how proud he would be of both of his children.

My friend asked us to be a part of this day so that one day we could help tell her daughter about her baptism. I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday, but I will try to help her when the time comes. And I hope that one of the things I can tell her about this day is how many people came together for her, and how many people love both her and her cousin. There is something to be said about the way that babies bring people together and how, if only for one day, people put all sorts of things behind them for the sake of a child.

During the sermon today, the same one where, midway through, my 4 year-old daughter says “Mom! This man is a talking machine!” the minister talked about the Beatitudes and about the peacemakers being called the “children of God”. It occurred to me that indeed, children are peacemakers for many families, this one included.

selling myself...short?

2010-03-16T20:51:00.001-07:00

Recently I’ve been updating my resume. Initially I did this to submit with my application to the Greater Kansas City Writing Project (I got in, y’all – hooray for writing!) but when I was writing my cover letter, I started thinking about how hard it is for me to talk myself up. I’m almost 35. I thought I was far away from the days of insecurity and false advertisement. I mean, I think at this age you get what you get. I might have been able to sell you something different or flashy ten years ago, but not today…not only would you not believe it, I don’t have the energy anymore to pretend I’m someone I’m not. I got really frustrated putting my resume together because for a potential employer, it looks on paper as if I’ve not really done very much with my life. I’ve had two jobs that are worthy of noting in my resume – as much as I learned from bartending and waiting tables, I don’t think they have much to do with writing or who I am now in my life. The rest of my time? I’ve spent much of it in school – man, UMKC should thank me for all the money I’ve dumped at them just for being a nerd. Here is what I would like to share on my resume that I can’t or won’t: I gave birth. That should be worthy of note, I think. I had a med student shove a foot long needle in my spine and then I gave birth. BIRTH…you know, birth. Twice.

I nursed my babies and changed their diapers and got up with each of them multiple times a night. One of my girls (I won’t name names, Lucy) didn’t sleep through the night until she was 13 months old. We were so excited when she finally did that I got knocked up again. I have cleaned up barf and poop and boogers and more spilled food and drink than I would care to recall. I have read Goodnight Moon 1,368 times. I can cook the shit out of a chicken nugget. I am the mother of a child who has food allergies and because of that I have learned more about food and nutrition than I care to share. Seriously, I am a plethora of ridiculous food based knowledge. I can multitask like nobody’s business. I can talk on the phone while changing a diaper and cooking dinner and wiping a nose. I wash my hands 68 times a day. I make a good princess and an even better superhero. I can drive safely while two children sing at the top of their lungs to Lady Gaga. I can name every one of the Seven Dwarves, all of Dora’s friends (even that crazy taxi driving squirrel) and, sadly, I know what happens in every Disney movie released in the past three decades. I can make a mean glass of super chocolatey chocolate milk. I give fantastic hugs.

I started to get down on myself when I was looking at my resume and at what I considered my lack of experience, but then I just got irritated that I couldn’t figure out how to include any of the stuff I just listed without sounding crazy. It looks on my resume like I spent much of my adult life unemployed. When, in reality, I work for two of the biggest hard-asses around. I’m going to teach them how to talk their mama up, because I should use my girls as references.

...like the corners of my mind

2010-03-09T19:18:00.001-08:00

Memory is such a strange thing. If you ask three different people to describe a certain event, there is no doubt that you will have three different answers. It happened today over lunch: my dad, my sister and I were recalling the morning of September 11, 2001. I don’t want to detail any of those events here, suffice it to say if there was one day I would like to never revisit, it would be that one. What I found interesting in the conversation we had is that each of us remembered different things about that morning: phone calls, emails, meeting as a family at my sister’s house – but we all agreed that the details have become more and more blurry as the years pass. I often see bumper stickers that say something to the affect of “9/11 – we will never forget” but the irony in those stickers is that forgetting is inevitable – we just do.

It got me thinking about things that happened in my past and how those memories that struck me at the time as so very important have faded over time. Like the memory of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Levin, and how she instilled in me a love of reading; but mostly it started with a game she played where we got prizes for the number of books we read. I really just wanted the prizes, never realizing until much later that my love of books would be the true prize. There’s the memory of being 16 and having my heart broken for the first time. Really and truly broken. Oh, the angst…I can almost reach out and touch it if I think about it too much – but dragging out those memories has become harder over time for me.

I wish I could remember the sound of my grandmother Bloom’s voice – she lost her voice box to throat cancer and the last seven years of her life were spent speaking through a stoma in her throat. But I can still hear my grandfather saying, “Katerino!” (he would draw out the last O for what seemed like minutes) whenever I arrived to visit – I can hear that voice like he’s in the next room even though he’s been gone almost 10 years. I wish I could remember exactly what happened the night I met my husband…bits of it are as clear as day, but not everything. And the one that has always baffled me are the memories of childbirth. I always say that if women remembered everything, we’d all only have one child – but there are moments from both of my girls’ births that are fuzzy at best.

Among other issues, my mother has some sort of dementia. Her memory is different from day to day and while now she is very lucid, it’s unclear how that will progress. I can’t think about memory without thinking about how she must feel and how scary it must be to actually lose memories. Because, even though I struggle with the details of them, I can still remember important things. The brain doesn’t seem to be very picky about what we remember or what we don’t. I have as much trouble fetching the fantastic memories as I do the ones I’d rather leave forgotten. I suppose after so many years of life the brain is so full of memories it squeezes out the old to make room for the new.

trying to be an advocate for my kiddo

2010-02-28T21:16:00.001-08:00

I got all heated and kicked the cart today in the “health food” aisle of the grocery store. People probably thought I was nuts, but grocery shopping for my family, which includes a child with some pretty serious food allergies, can be infuriating to say the least. My almost three-year-old daughter Zoe is allergic to just about anything you can name: ALL dairy or milk proteins (and YES, this means cheese, yogurt, whey, casein…including Cheez-its and Goldfish crackers, people. I would just like to reiterate that if there is cheese in the name, there is a 100% chance that she can’t have it.), soy proteins (not soybean oil or soy lecithin, but including hydrolyzed soy protein, soy flour and the mysterious modified food starch which is in EVERY single processed food imaginable), we also avoid, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts and shellfish. Oh, and just in case you were wondering? The ONE thing that people are really concerned about now and making plenty of accommodations for are wheat allergies – or gluten free foods. My child actually CAN eat wheat gluten – she is not a celiac. So, while I think it is fantastic that there are so many options for those people, I just wish someone would spread the love to the rest of us.

In the past, I have been able to buy rice-based cheeses. I’m not sure now if Zoe would even eat them – she is hyperaware of her allergy and SO concerned about what she can and cannot have that she gets easily confused. I made a pizza from scratch for her the other day – one that had a fresh tomato sauce, lots of veggies, ground turkey – and NO cheese. You would have thought I had poisoned her for all the screaming and crying she did. “I DON’T EAT CHEESE!!!!” she screamed until I finally gave up and gave her the same GD chicken nuggets she eats at every other meal. She’s mystified. What three-year-old wouldn’t be? We tell her all the time she can’t have pizza and then I make a “safe” pizza for her. Why would she understand that she won’t get sick? Back to rice-based cheese…who is eating this stuff? Not the vegans, as it has casein in it – a milk derivative. Why do companies even produce these things? They are clearly not allergen or even just dairy free. And “Rice Dream” ice cream? I checked it out today, thinking it might be a nice option to go with birthday cupcakes. While it is processed on machinery that is supposedly not cross-contaminated, the carob chips might contain milk. WHAAAT?? Seriously, people. Can you see why this is frustrating?

I don’t ask for much. I have learned SO much throughout the past three years that I’m actually excited to make Zoe’s birthday cake this year – store bought frosting and all. And recently, I found out she can eat Oreos. Oreos!! Who knew? Yes, they are an entire week’s worth of processed crap, but the point is, it’s something she can have. One less thing to be singled out for…and that makes it ok in my book.

selfish

2010-02-28T08:54:00.001-08:00

I’m probably going to offend someone with this. Probably someone in my very close family – maybe someone who is upstairs right now. As human beings, we are constantly striving to find companionship and relationships and we are wired to be social creatures. But what happens when that social part of our lives takes over and there is no longer any time for being alone? What happened to quiet? I struggle with this and lately it’s really been something that has consumed me. I wouldn’t change my family life for anything. Really and truly. I love my husband and adore my children AND the time we spend together, but I miss being alone sometimes. It occurred to me this morning that I couldn’t remember the last time I was alone in my home. I’ve been married for seven years and for nearly five of those years there have been children here, too. When I’m in a bad mood or need alone time, I feel guilty about it because now it affects other people. It used to be that my bad moods were just that, and I could wallow in them for a while and move on – but now I feel like I have to apologize for them. Yesterday I got out to run some errands and left the kids home with Steve and the entire time I felt guilty because it’s the weekend and aren’t weekends for family time? These are the things that people don’t tell you when you get married and have kids – I know it sounds ungrateful and crass, but I also know I can’t be alone in my thinking here – other people must share this feeling sometimes, right? Recently, my credit card’s magnetic strip has stopped working at our local gas station’s pumps – the one that is well lit and safe – and so I have to either wait until I’m alone to get gas (which, as you might guess is a rarity) or unbuckle both kids and go inside to have them process my payment manually. These are the little things that you don’t think about until you are faced with making the decision in 12-degree weather – do I wait with the gas light on, or do I just drag the kids in and out of the car in the freezing cold?

I know. I sound like an asshole. My kids are almost three and almost five and it has gotten easier over the past year to sit down or to get things done, but they are still really needy. When you spend nearly 30 years of your life doing things for YOU before kids come along, it’s a hard transition to constantly have two (sometimes three) people looking to you for everything they need or want. I wouldn’t change it – I am fully aware that there are people out there who can’t have children or who long to be in a relationship like mine. I know people like that might gladly trade places with me in a heartbeat. And I am fully aware that one day my house will be quiet again and I will long for the screaming fights between my kids, the getting up at 6am with one after being up half the night with the other, the “I want a snack!”, “Moooooommmm!!! She hit me!!!”, the hugs and snuggles and laughs and stories. The good definitely, without a doubt or a second thought, outweighs the bad, but some days I have to step back and reflect in order to see that clearly.

free willy

2010-02-24T16:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, people. I’m going to just say this – they are called KILLER whales for a reason. Seriously. Why does a story like this surprise people so much? I don’t consider myself a champion of animal rights, but, maybe I should. I would just like to say that when you keep a wild animal (a huge whale who belongs in the ocean, perhaps) in captivity – problems WILL ensue. I have been to Sea World, it’s really ~~expensive~~ interesting and I’m sure it’s a great experience for children who aren’t witness to a whale trainer getting eaten by her muse. I’ve never understood people who can get all chummy with animals – whales, dolphins, elephants…tigers (can you say Sigfried and Roy?) and then are shocked when something tragic happens like this. Also? This is the THIRD time this particular whale has killed a human…when do people think enough is enough? Maybe I should just consider myself a champion of Darwinism instead.

trying to make sense of some madness

2010-02-23T18:48:00.001-08:00

I don’t know what it’s like to be a victim of sexual abuse. I hope I can always say those words with such conviction, but lately my confidence and security has been shaken to the core. There is a serial rapist on the loose in my neighborhood. He has attacked five women now and seems to be flaunting that he’s still out there – FIVE attacks – and his face is plastered on nearly every street corner. This monster has targeted women living alone and he is coming into their homes by way of unlocked windows or doors. Once, he forced himself inside a woman’s home when she let her dogs out late at night. It occurs to me that there is nothing scarier than not feeling safe in what is supposed to be your safest place. I have always been watchful of my surroundings, keeping and eye on things and being careful when I am alone, but now I’ve taken to constantly watching over my shoulder when I’m out. We have started setting the house alarm even when we’re home – just to be safe. I hate this. Rape is the most heinous of crimes in my opinion – all the more disturbing and disgusting because of the planning and details that have gone into what this man is doing. I can only hope that the police catch this beast before the neighbors do, because I have a feeling they will string him up and tear him limb from limb – as they should.

People, especially women, living in the Waldo/Brookside neighborhoods, here are some good links for information on this case – please be safe and look out for one another: kcmo police chief blog, kcmo police twitter, nbc news story

out of the mouths of babes...

2010-02-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

Tonight as she was getting ready for bed, Lucy asked me about my t-shirt. It says “New York” on it and she asked if that is where the Madagascar guys lived. I told her that it was, but it was also the place where her great grandparents used to live. She asked me if they still lived there and I told her they didn’t. She asks, “Did they die?” and I replied that, yes, they had both died some years ago. We talked about missing them and then she says, “Will that happen to me?” Death. What a hard question to have to answer from your four-year-old. “Yes,” I told her, “but I hope you will live many, many, many years. Maybe even 100.” Her eyes got big considering this, and then she said to me, “yeah, but when someone dies, you worry about YOU and not them anymore.” And I asked her what she meant. “People in heaven are looking for energy…” she answered, and then turned over and told me she was going to sleep to get energy for dancing tomorrow.

A little boy who was a former student of my preschool is currently undergoing treatment for leukemia at a nearby children’s hospital. Today the children in our preschool classes took pictures with big posters that said, “We love you!” and other inspirational messages that will be sent to the child. Because I know him and because he isn't much older than my own children, I think often about what his parents must be going through. I wonder how his mother would have answered Lucy’s question.

I try to do well by my children by being honest to them and not making up stuff that isn’t true just to sugarcoat an ugly subject. Lucy has started asking some hard questions, ones that I don’t really know how to begin to answer all of the time. I just think it’s a good lesson for me that I’m sure I learned more from my daughter in that conversation tonight than she learned from me. I’m also sure she has plenty of angels up there looking out for her who appreciate her energy.

thinkin' about inkin'

2010-02-13T19:04:00.001-08:00

I’m pretty sure I have a sick obsession. I love tattoos. I am obsessed with them – looking at pictures of them, watching TV shows about them, getting a few of my own. I remember as a child meeting an older gentleman at my grandfather’s church who had an old, faded anchor on his forearm and I was so intrigued by it. Even at a young age I knew that that piece of art meant something to that man. When I was 17, I spent a few weeks in Spain dancing at the World’s Fair, and there was a young woman who was staying at the same air base with my dance group who had the most amazing fairy tattoos across her back. They were so beautiful and I said right there that one day I would have my own ink.

As I sit here tonight watching a marathon of LA Ink, it occurs to me that the reason I love tattoos so much is that they are very much like a living, breathing autobiography. Most people – the ones who aren’t sporting Daffy Duck on their asses (ok, and even some of those people too) – have amazing personal stories about each one of their tattoos. One of the things that I love about my own tattoos is that each one reminds me of a particular time in my life. My first, now ruined by two pregnancies, is a funny reminder for me of my rebellious late teen years. Another, the word “bloom” on my right wrist, is not only my maternal grandparents’ last name and my eldest daughter’s middle name, it reminds me that it’s important to keep growing and changing. I won’t describe all of my five tattoos – or my hope that I can add to my collection someday soon, but each of them is meaningful to me for reasons that will be important to me even when the butterfly on my shoulder is now wandering around down by my wrinkled old butt.

a birthday wish

2010-02-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

On September 11, 2001, when the first plane careened into the World Trade Center, many, many families lost loved ones. My family lost a tall, funny, handsome, smart young husband and father. My cousin Karleton was on that plane and even though he’s been gone a long time now, I still think of him often and miss his incredible sense of humor. Today, Karleton would have celebrated his 40^th birthday. And so, in remembrance of him, I thought I would share just a few memories. When Karleton was probably 14 or 15, he used to come to Kansas City during the summer and stay with my family. One summer, he brought an LP of Steve Martin standup. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Karleton (and Steve Martin) for teaching me the proper way to drop an F bomb – it’s something I still do on a daily basis and I’ve gotten really good at it. Also, during one of his summer visits, we took a trip to Hannibal, Missouri to do the Mark Twain touristy thing. We stayed in a hotel with the nerdiest family you’ve ever seen – sort of like the Griswalds times four. So, Karleton aptly named them the Hillfikers. To this day, my sister and I see a family like that one, and we call them the Hillfikers. In the summer after my senior year of high school, I flew by myself to North Carolina to see Karleton’s sister, my cousin Erin, graduate and to spend a week after graduation with her in Myrtle Beach. I spent an hour or more stuck in the plane on the runway during the connection in Atlanta because we had to wait for a tornado to cross the runway ahead of the plane. By the time I got to Durham I was a nervous wreck and running so late for Erin’s graduation that I nearly missed it. I just remember Karleton picking me up from the airport and making me laugh so much that I quickly forgot how crazy that flight was. He had the ability to do that. Like the time he and I flew back to Kansas City and were seated in the very back seats on the plane – you know, the ones right next to the engine? On that trip, we arrived in KC and couldn’t hear because of the engine noise – we just kept yelling at each other and laughing. WHAT??? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!

I don’t want to go into all the sappy stuff I could say. I just wanted to remember and share some funny stories about a man who is missed very much. Happy Birthday, KDBF.