Shane hand-delivered his letter to the Morning Show supervisor.
I’d walked him in, to show him where the studio is located, and we waited so that I could show him which adult was the Morning Show teacher.
Meanwhile, one of Dylan’s old teachers saw me – and came up to me with arms outstretched.
“How is Dylan doing?” she asked excitedly. “Is this his little brother?”
Shane smiled shyly but politely. I said, “It is – this is Shane! And Dylan’s doing great! We were just talking about you yesterday!”
At about the same time, the Morning Show teacher appeared in the hallway. I pointed him out to Shane. Then I started yammering on with Dylan’s former science teacher, forgetting the entire reason that I’d come into the school. We chatted like long lost pals.
Next thing I knew, the science teacher was headed to her room – and Shane was headed off with his backpack down the hall.
“Shane!” I called. “Come here!”
“Okay,” Shane said, hesitantly coming back to me.
“Did you give him the letter?”
“Yeah.”
“So what happened?”
“Nothing,” he said. He seemed anxious to go.
“Okay. But you gave him the letter. So where are you going?”
“He said I could stay and watch,” Shane said. “I have to put my backpack in my locker.”
“Oh!” I said. “Okay, go! Have a great day!”
Shane had taken care of everything. He was allowed to stay and watch!
That evening, I asked him how it went. “Fine,” he said.
“Did you ask the teacher if you should come back on Tuesday?” (All this happened on the Friday before a three-day weekend.)
“No,” he said.
“Well, what did he say when you left?”
“Nothing,” Shane said.
Three days later, over breakfast, Shane suddenly asked if I could drive him to school so that he could go to Morning Show.
“Sure,” I said, astutely aware that Shane had not been officially invited back. But I wasn’t going to keep him home if he wanted to try again.
On the way to school, I reminded Shane to do the right thing. I said, “You need to ask your teacher if you are part of the show or not.”
“Okay,” Shane said. “But last time, he just told me they needed more help in crew, so he told me to go in there and work.”
“So you’re on the crew?” I asked. How did he not tell me this?
“I guess so,” he said.
And that – I think – is how Shane joined the Morning Show.
Dylan stayed with his grandparents for the weekend and I had a “special” vacation weekend with Shane. During this time, I went to visit my husband during a work conference near the Bay. We got there late on Friday and left on Sunday morning – and it rained nearly all day on Saturday.
Here is what I have learned:
- Shane only wants to watch TV. He would be fine sitting in a hotel room, watching TV for 16 hours.
- When Shane finally decides to do something other than watch TV, he is perfectly happy with whatever it is – a game, a walk, a snack. The trick is to get him to agree to do something different.
- Sleeping with Shane is much more difficult, now that he is 11. He takes up way too much space on the bed.
The day after I arrived home, we needed to pick up some concert tickets that Dylan won. So I drove the boys to D.C. in the car. It’s not a long drive, but it’s long enough. Having not seen Dylan for awhile, I was out of practice. Here is what I learned in the one-hour car trip:
- Dylan’s normal teenage sense of humor is always on my nerves. I spent the entire trip reprimanding Dylan for being rude to me and Shane.
- There is nothing, nothing, nothing I can do to change Dylan’s need to be right all the time.
- Shane will never not defend Dylan – and even if he is hurt by Dylan’s words, he will not fight back. Whatever Dylan says or does to Shane is okay with Shane.
When I came home, I whined to my mother about how she “put up with” Dylan for two days while I was gone. She said he was wonderful – kind, polite and mature.
I said that I left the kids at the park because I couldn’t stand them anymore.
So she reminded me Dylan needed a Job.
I had forgotten that getting Dylan focused on something of importance for an hour can keep him focused for up to three consecutive days!
So when Dylan comes home, he will be creating a restaurant for the family, complete with a menu, and making lunch for us. This is something Dylan loves to do – and he is quite good at it – so it should be a rollicking success.
Thanks, Mom!
Shane’s middle school has a wonderful, student-run program called “The Morning Show.” In lieu of standard principal-fed announcements over an intercom, they have a TV broadcast that goes into all of the classrooms by way of each room’s Promethean board.
Dylan worked on the morning show. He ran graphics and credits, and sometimes put the announcements into the teleprompter. Students also run the teleprompters in the studio, where students also anchor the news and run the giant TV cameras. Other students do mic checks, record the program and yell “cut” when they go off the air.
It’s a great opportunity and a lot of fun for anyone interested in the inner workings of television. Unfortunately, sixth graders can’t take part until after the mid-January auditions. It was hard to wait for Dylan – and even harder for Shane, who has been longing to be an announcer, and who is extremely interested in videography.
So it came as a complete surprise when, once again, three of Shane’s best friends suddenly appeared on “The Morning Show” during the first week of school.
For anyone following the blog closely, these same three friends were all patrols last year, too. And Shane – who was oddly overlooked for patrol duty – sat alone outside every day, waiting for the doors to open, while every single one of his friends “patrolled” their elementary school.
Now, with no warning, three kids who’d never even mentioned an interest in the Show were pulled from the vast pool of 300+ sixth graders, and plopped into the Show, four months early and without so much as an audition.
Shane came home from school and told me about it, his eyes glistening just a bit.
“So I guess they’re all on ‘The Morning Show’ now,” he said. He tried to act nonchalant.
I was on the computer so fast, it made my own head spin. I emailed the man in charge – a really nice guy – and begged for an explanation. Whether or not he appreciated it, I even told him the back-story about Shane’s frequently getting overlooked for things for which he is perfectly suited.
The overworked teacher responded very quickly:
“Please encourage your son to write to me directly about the sorts of jobs he is interested in doing (reporter/anchor, camera, sound, captions/teleprompt, etc.), if I have an opening, I will consider taking him in early instead of waiting until winter.”
So, there’s hope that, this year, Shane will somehow be … well, not as overlooked. We shall see.
After day two of school, I found Dylan in his room, awake, with his light on. “School” means that he’s got to get up at 6 a.m. Plus, he seemed to be doing something quite hastily when I arrived.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m just turning off my lights to go to bed,” he claimed.
“Okay,” I said. “What were you doing before I got here?”
He seemed to realize his error – but still wanted to cover it up.
“I was just saying goodnight to my friends,” he said – meaning “I was using electronics after 10:00.”
“You were on electronics?!” I asked, astounded. He’d done so well, all summer, putting away the gadgets at his assigned time. And now, only two days after the school year started, he was back at it again.
“Um, yeah…” he stammered. “What time is it?
His red-LED-light skull clock glared knowingly in the corner: 11:36.
“Seriously?” I said. “You expect me to believe you have no idea what time it is?”
He glanced at his clock. “Oh, yeah, well I don’t really look at the clock.”
Long story short: Day Two and Dylan has already lost his electronics privileges for the week.
We will try again during Week Two and see how it goes.
Meanwhile, I wonder what it is about the school year that creates so much stress, so much angst, or so much excitement that the kid who broke almost no rules this summer is suddenly breaking them again.
Is it the influence of his friends, again?
I remember in preschool when I blamed all of Dylan’s problems on Nick. I couldn’t wait until Dylan got out of preschool, so he could get away from that darned troublemaker, Nick.
Midway through the first month of kindergarten, I realized that Dylan was the one causing the trouble. Poor, blameless Nick hasn’t done a thing wrong since.
Maybe it’s just the sheer freedom of being away from parental rules all day – and being back with a group of kids whose rules aren’t quite so strict.
Do I change the rules? Do I change the consequences? Do I get stricter, or more lenient?
What works?
As with everything else, I just have to guess. And then I have to take the next step forward.
In Geometry class, Dylan’s teacher was using students – human-sized objects – to demonstrate a concept.
He asked two students to stand on opposite sides of the room. They did.
“This,” said Mr. F, “is an imaginary straight line. The distance between these two students is a line. Can everyone imagine that?”
“Yes,” the class said in unison.
“Okay,” Mr. F said. “I need someone to come up here and show me a space that is equal distance from each of the two end points.”
He called on a student to be the third “point.” The third student walked to the center of the classroom – directly between the first two students, and basically on the line itself. He stood almost exactly equal distance between the first two “points.”
“Does that point work?” Mr. F asked.
“Yes,” the class agreed.
“Great,” said Mr. F. “Who else wants to try?” No one answered, because the classroom is full of teenagers who only reluctantly volunteer to do anything.
So Mr. F called on a fourth student, who reluctantly volunteered. But he was confused. He was sure there was only one midway spot, and someone was already standing in that spot. So the fourth student got as close as humanly possible to the third student, and just stood there next to him – almost midway between the first two “points.”
“Does that point work?” Mr. F asked.
“Yes,” the class agreed.
“No,” argued Dylan, loud enough for the whole class to hear him.
All heads turned and looked at Dylan.
“Why not?” asked Mr. F.
“Because he’s not really the same distance from both points,” Dylan said.
“Do you want to show us a more accurate point?” asked Mr. F.
“Okay,” Dylan said.
Dylan got up from his desk, looked around, then went to the back of the room and stood there. He was nowhere near the original line – and yet, he was equal distance from both of the first two “points.” In fact, Dylan probably created a pretty nice triangle.
Much of the class was visibly confused. So Dylan stayed standing as the teacher explained that, indeed, Dylan was equal distance from both points.
He just wasn’t standing on the original line. Dylan was, instead, thinking completely out of the box.
I love that he stood up for what he knew to be right. I love that he went against the entire class to prove it. I love that after two years of struggling with algebra, he seems to be perfectly suited to geometry. But most of all, I love that his brilliance just shines sometimes.
I met Shane halfway between home and the bus stop, because I couldn’t wait to hear about his first day of school.
“How was it?” I asked excitedly.
“It was good,” he said – his standard answer.
“How were your classes?”
“Good. Except for Health. We basically just sat there and did nothing for the whole seventh period.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because there was nothing for us to do. We were just sitting there with all the kids from P.E. in the gym and they were talking to us about P.E. but I have Health so I didn’t have to do anything.”
“So what did you learn about P.E.?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I have Health. And the teachers just stopped talking after a few minutes, so we all just sat there and looked at each other.”
The more I listened to this line of conversation, the more I believed that Shane was supposed to listen to the teacher. But if the teacher wasn’t talking, perhaps there was something else Shane was supposed to do.
Shane is a very attentive student. Even if he’s not looking at the teacher, he soaks in every word. He hears everything. I think it’s from years of vision processing disorder, when he over-developed his audial sense. So if he said he was supposed to just sit there, he was probably supposed to just sit there.
Or maybe he actually missed some vital instruction. We may never know.
The next morning, Shane announced that he was only late to one class because he couldn’t find it.
“That’s great!” I said.
“And I wasn’t late to Health, except there was a note on the door that we were supposed to meet in the gym.”
“Are you going to the Health room today, or the gym?”
“I think we have to go back to the gym.”
“So you can sit there and look at each other again?”
“I guess so,” Shane said.
And sure enough, that’s what they did the next day, too. I’m not sure Shane is ready for plain, boring middle school. But he seems content – and that is such a relief, and such a wonderful thing, that I’m not going to worry for a second.
I could hardly wait to hear about Dylan’s first day of school. As usual, he was far too exhausted from focusing all day to be bothered with my curiosity.
“Tell me about your classes,” I begged.
“Well my Spanish teacher really liked me. She said I was awesome, like, twice. And the English teacher is really good and I did really well in there. And yeah, all the classes were good.”
“Do you have any homework?” I asked, probably too soon.
“Yeah.”
“Is it in your calendar app?”
“No,” he said.
“Put it in your app,” I reminded him.
“Well I can remember it.”
“I want you to go to college, Dylan,” I said. “Unless you want a whole bunch of zeros and a job at McDonald’s instead, put everything in your calendar app.”
He picked up his phone and poked at it.
“Do you have math homework?” I asked. They always have math homework.
“No,” he said.
“No? Okay. Did you have a paraeducator?” Other than a word processor, the paraeducator in math is the only real accommodations that Dylan needs, according to his IEP.
“No.”
“You didn’t have a paraeducator?”
“Why would I need a paraeducator?” he asked, utterly oblivious. “I’m not a special needs kid or anything.”
If it hadn’t been so scary, I would have thought he was kidding.
“You’ve had trouble focusing in math since you were born,” I told him. Then I went into a four-minute lecture about the new state law, math requirements for graduation and what colleges require.
“What does this have to do with whether or not I need a paraeducator?” he groaned.
“You need to pass Geometry!” I said.
“I don’t need a paraeducator just to help me focus,” he spat. “You haven’t sent me to public school with medication in, like, years!”
I didn’t say, Gee, that’s because you haven’t been in public school for a year, and we couldn’t find a suitable medication that worked.
Instead I calmly went to my computer and emailed his case manager to check on the availability of a paraeducator for 7th period Geometry. And he doesn’t. But that’s a story for another day.
Today is the first day of school for my boys. Maybe I have mentioned it before. It is Dylan’s first day of high school, and Shane’s first day of middle school.
If the transition is tough for them, I can hardly tell. They enjoyed orientation last week. Neither of them wants to go to school, but they are already talking about the friends they want to see, places they want to go with these friends, things they want to do. In other words, like they do every year, they are leaving me again.
I think sometimes that having kids is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It is by far the most rewarding, most engaging, most fun and most exciting thing I’ve ever done, too. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
But I think, almost every day, about the day they will leave for college. Because he’s the first, Dylan’s leaving will be unbearable. And because he’s the last, Shane’s leaving will be unbearable. If I have a hard time with middle and high school, I can only imagine my displeasure when they go to college.
I imagine Dylan standing at the curb, waving. I imagine leaning out the window and yelling one last bit of advice: “If you are craving potato chips, eat a banana!”
(Often a potato chip craving means that one needs more potassium. A banana is loaded with potassium, so eating a banana is a healthy way to help alleviate that particular craving.)
Of course, Dylan doesn’t even like potato chips, so I’m not sure why that would be my last word of advice.
Shane, however, loves potato chips. Maybe I should start feeding him more bananas now.
I can’t even imagine dropping off Shane at college. I try to imagine him waving from the curb, but he didn’t even say goodbye to me on his first day of preschool. He surely didn’t wave – or cry, like I did, in the car all the way home.
I imagine dropping off Shane at college, unloading the car – carrying the heavy stuff up three flights of stairs. I imagine dropping the last box in Shane’s room and him looking at me saying, “Okay, bye,” then running off to explore the campus with his new roommate.
I imagine watching him dash down the hall, then turning to Bill and saying, “Well, I guess we can go.”
I imagine our minivan rattling emptily all the way home.
For now, it’s just middle school and high school. But I can feel it coming like a tsunami on my heart.
I was a quiet child. I was a rebellious teen.
I got hurt a lot. My defensive walls went up subconsciously, and kept me from getting close to people. I married a man who put up with the walls, who could see what was on the other side. I made a few close friends along the way, and a lot of acquaintances.
I tried hard not to care too much about anybody.
But then my babies were born, and the walls crumbled like stale cookies. The love poured out, literally overflowing, whether or not I allowed it to happen. And once the floodgates opened, the rest of the world got pieces of that love, too. I couldn’t help myself.
Over the years, I’ve tried to keep my tough exterior, but I am more like a blackened campfire marshmallow. I cry when I’m happy. I cry when I’m sad. I cry when I realize how much I love a song, or a well-made TV commercial. There’s not much of the wall left to hold back the tears.
But I spent years avoiding people, keeping them at bay, not letting too many people get to know me. I tried not to make too many friends. Not because (as I often said) I hated people, but because of the immense fear of getting hurt.
I knew that, somewhere down the line, I was going to lose the people I loved. They would hurt me or leave me, betray me or abandon me. And if all my attempts to keep away from people failed, eventually they would die. And then I would be alone anyway.
So I tried not to love too much. Even after the kids were born, I tried not to love too much.
Unfortunately, it was already too late.
I forgot that I come from an enormous and wonderful family. My parents come from huge families, and their siblings had families, and so I have so many cousins that, even though I’ve counted them repeatedly, I can never remember exactly how many I have. And my cousins grew up with me, and got married, providing me with more cousins, and second cousins, and first cousins once removed…. And as impossible as it is to believe, they are all really great people. And I have loved them for my whole life.
And now we’re getting older. And things are happening that I don’t like. Beautiful people have died. Some are very sick. And even though I pray and pray, I can’t seem to stop the bad things from happening. And I can’t seem to stop the worrying that is supposed to be buried by my faith.
So I just keep praying. And I cry a lot more than I would like – not because I like a song, but because it makes me sad that we have such a limited time here together. All of us, together. The older I get, the shorter the time seems.
Because it is shorter.
And while I wouldn’t change my life or my past, I realize that all those years of pushing people away were utterly useless. I care so much and so deeply that, no matter what, it’s going to hurt. Bad things happen to good people, and it’s agony.
But instead of pushing away the hurt, today I will feel it. Sometimes it’s the pain that connects us to this earth, to its people, to my family, to Love itself.
Today I want to be here, and live, and enjoy each moment as it comes.
There’s simply no other way to live.
This year, Shane starts middle school. Dylan starts high school. We are having a year of serious transitions.
Luckily the schools have realized that these are “big” years, and they’ve scheduled a half-day orientation for both 6th and 9th grades. The boys will get up in the morning and ride the bus to school, just as they will on the first day – with the notable and significant exception that the older students who attend the schools will not be there.
So Shane, who has never taken a school bus, will be able to have one somewhat peaceful ride. And Dylan, who was shuttled 45 minutes each way in a car last year, will be able to experience a much, much shorter ride. They will both have their schedules and be home by noon – something that makes me incredibly happy.
Something should make me incredibly happy, because Orientation Day is also My Birthday.
A lot of people like to overlook their birthdays, especially as the infernal aging sets in. But I see it as a day where, quite frankly, I can do whatever I want.
Of course I am old, so usually all I want to do is eat.
But I do not want to send my kids off to orientation. I am already sad enough about the prospect of sending them back to school. I don’t need the added emphasis on their transitions on this particular day.
So I am planning to take myself out for breakfast. Because I have signed up for every email list known to man, I am inundated with “free entree” coupons every year. One year, I just spent the entire day (while the kids were at school) running around, spending birthday coupons.
For lunch, I will pick up another free entree – although I will save it for the next day, because I will be too full from breakfast. Then, the kids and I will go to Ben & Jerry’s for my free ice cream cone.
And I will pick up my personally designed tie-dyed ice cream cake. (I get $3 off because it’s my birthday. Ben & Jerry’s gives out two coupons every year.)
In the evening, I will have my mother’s spaghetti sauce. The woman is a saint, and makes it for me every year. And then I will go to the parent orientation meeting at the high school, because I wouldn’t miss that for anything in the world. Even though I already know everything.
So I will eat like a swine and then, as I do every year, I will wait for the school year to start and then I will go back to the gym. I will plan to go every day, to work out furiously five days a week, until I lose 20 pounds.
And by next spring, I will be much more fit and even eating more healthily – although mysteriously those 20 pounds will still be with me – until summer comes.
And then I will stop working out and eat too much all summer long, culminating with my self-indulgent birthday fest, at which point I will decide to go back to the gym and attempt to lose those same 20 pounds.
I love my birthday. Even if no one else does.
