Once a year, parents get to meet with their child’s teacher to check his progress. This annual conference lasts ten minutes and happens every fall.
Then, most parents don’t see the teacher again until … the following year. I don’t know how they survive without – at least – chaperoning a field trip, or volunteering at the book fair, or helping out during a class party.
I treasure the ten minutes like it is pure gold. Bill and I went together to Shane’s fifth grade conference.
Shane’s teacher this year is a man who has been teaching since I was in fifth grade. Experience is awesome, but this man also has infectious enthusiasm. I’ve learned more from him in visits to his classroom than I could have ever imagined possible. He is wholly engaging and passionate about his work, and absolutely brilliant. He loves history, and tells fascinating true stories to make history come alive in the classroom.
So when we talked to him about Shane, I had real respect for his opinions. He showed us Shane’s grades – a system I have yet to understand – and we talked a lot about math. Shane completed a survey before the conference, saying that math was his biggest challenge this year.
“It’s interesting that he struggles in math,” Bill said, “because he loves numbers.”
“You can have a great appreciation for art,” said his teacher, “even if you can’t paint a beautiful painting. How do you know he likes numbers?”
“Since he was a baby, he’s been interested more in numbers and statistics than anything else.” Shane’s favorite picture books were all numbers books – something that took me years to realize – with Bicycle Race being the one he loved best. “He still opens a book to see how many pages it has before reading it, and books with numbered lists are his favorites.”
“So he likes statistics. Have you tried giving him almanacs, books like that?”
“He loves them,” I told him. “He likes Weird But True, Guiness Book – all of that. He reads two or three different years and compares what happened in 2010 with 2012.”
“That’s a real GT characteristic,” the teacher said. And he went on to tell us how he liked statistics when he was a kid – how he’d read almanacs and newspaper sports pages, soaking in the numbers.
When I told Shane later that his beloved and brilliant teacher also liked numbers as a child and suggested that Shane had “a real GT characteristic,” the pride on Shane’s face was unmistakable.
Shane tried to choke it down, but someone had identified yet another piece of Shane that marks him as brilliant. He absolutely glowed. Quiet as he is, and different as he is from his loudly gifted brother, it’s wonderful for him to realize that there’s more than one kind of “smart.”
I love seeing that flash of pride in him. I hope he discovers it more and more often, all by himself, until the glowing is permanent and shines through everything he does.
I have this thing about parents talking on the phone when their kids are around.
I’ll see a mom chatting away, oblivious to the child reaching for her hand, and I’ll think, She’s missing it. She doesn’t even know her child is there. And that child will be gone in the blink of an eye.
I take my phone with me now, like everyone does in this age of cell phones, but I try to make the conversation brief when my kids are nearby. We use it together – to call Daddy, or the grandparents, to announce an accomplishment.
If the kids aren’t otherwise occupied and I get a call, I cut it short so that I can pay attention to what’s going on with them. I’m not perfect, but I really try to be there – not just physically, but emotionally – for my kids.
Not everyone feels like I do.
One morning, I saw a mom chatting away in the drive-through, drop-off line at school. She had her phone on her ear, one hand on the steering wheel. Not only was her behavior illegal, but her daughter got out of the car without even a simple “goodbye” from Mama. Mama never stopped her phone conversation even to wave.
The thing that really irks me is that that daughter – that child – is going to grow up to be just like her mom. She sees mom on the phone, so that’s what she’ll do when she grows up. She’ll be chatting on the phone blindly, not realizing that her child is leaving the car – and her life – before her very eyes.
Or maybe the daughter will be one of the statistics – one of the kids who learns from her parents that texting or talking while driving is “just something grown-ups do.” Maybe the daughter will think she can handle it, just like Mama. And maybe the daughter will get away with it, and go on to live a distracted but okay life.
Or maybe the daughter will kill someone else’s child.
Maryland, where I live, is one of only ten states where hand-held cell phone usage is illegal. Until now, I had no idea that the entire country isn’t on board with the cell phone laws.
Why on earth wouldn’t the whole country be on board?
Not that the laws are doing much good. I drive all the time, and the number of people I see talking and/or texting as they’re driving down the road is unfathomable.
And now that Dylan is nearing driving age, I am much more conscious than I was, even a year ago.
The kids will do what their parents do.
Mine will have other issues, thanks to me. But that’s a story for another day.
We went to a college football game on Saturday. It’s a small college, and we could tailgate and watch the game, all from the same great locale at the top of a hill.
Dylan and Shane spent the vast majority of the day rolling down the hill and climbing back up, to roll down again.
So Dylan took his phone out of his pocket – his $150 SmartPhone that he bought with his own money. And he plopped it in the grass on the top of the hill.
I saw him do it. I thought, Nah, he wouldn’t leave it there. He’s not that stupid. And then I forgot all about it.
Until around halftime – when Dylan came over and asked if I had his phone.
“Oh no,” I said. “You didn’t leave it on the ground, did you?”
“I left it right next to my chair!” he said.
He didn’t. It was a good three feet from his chair, in the grass. And any one of the dozens of people who walked by could have picked up that phone and walked away.
Then I watched Dylan go into a ritual walk that I’ve seen him do before – the panicked, I-have-to-find-it walk, where he basically just goes around in circles like a dog looking for a place to sleep, hoping against hope that he’ll find whatever he lost.
But it was gone. I was certain that it had been stolen. We were in a small town, at a small college. But coming from the D.C. area and two stolen purses plus a devastating car break-in, I have little faith in humankind.
I asked someone at the tailgate party if there is a “Lost and Found” – on the off chance that it wasn’t stolen.
“What did you lose?” he asked.
“Someone stole my kid’s phone,” I blurted.
“Well there’s security right there,” he said. He pointed to a security officer eating a hot sausage sandwich, at our very own tailgate party.
I interrupted the sandwich to tell him of my son’s woes.
“I think we have a phone,” he said. “What color is it?”
“Orange,” I said.
“Yep,” he said. “Let me call it in.” And sure enough, within ten minutes, two security officers delivered Dylan’s phone to him at the top of the hill.
Later, I learned that both my mom and Shane had been praying for the phone’s safe return.
I had almost wanted the phone to stay lost, to teach Dylan a lesson. It never occurred to me to pray. Still, I was tremendously relieved at the miracle of the phone’s return – and a little bit of my faith in humankind may have been restored.
Now I just hope that Dylan learned his lesson during that tense half-hour where he walked aimlessly, looking for something that was likely never to return.
Five days a week, I get up and look at my calendar. Some days, I drive Dylan to school. Some days, my dad drives Dylan to school. Some days, my dad drives Dylan home, too. Other days, my dad takes Shane out to breakfast and drives him to school, so that Shane isn’t alone in the morning.
After school, Shane doesn’t ride a bus. His friends sometimes take him home and they have playdates. Most days, my parents pick up Shane at school while I pick up Dylan. We all meet back at my house. Or, sometimes, Shane goes to my parents’ house and they have some quality play time.
Today, Shane has a field trip, so both boys had to be at school at the same time – 15 miles apart. My dad came over this morning, hugged everyone, and drove Dylan to school so that I could take Shane. My dad acted like it was no big deal to drive for 90 minutes at 7:00 in the morning.
“Thanks, Dad!” I yelled as Dylan and he left, relieved to concentrate solely on getting Shane to his field trip.
“Anytime!” he called back. It was like a scene from Father Knows Best. Sometimes it’s like living in Father Knows Best. Stranger still, my dad actually means it.
Any. Time.
This afternoon, Shane is coming home from a field trip that I wasn’t chosen to chaperone. I can hardly wait to hear how it goes, what he did, what he learned. Those first ten minutes after school are so precious. So I mentioned this to my mom in an email, that I’d love to pick up Shane from school today.
“I’ll get Dylan,” she emailed back. Perhaps she hesitated, thinking about the long drive, but I’ll never know. And off will go my mom at 2:30, for a 90-minute drive into the country and back, shuttling a different kid today.
Just yesterday, she was at my kitchen table when I got home with Dylan, downloading a song for Shane on her iPhone. The day before that, she picked up Shane from school, fed him, and drove him to church for his weekly youth group.
My parents are not bored, nor do they lead boring lives. My mom plays tennis several times a week, and is a Stephen minister at our church when she’s not providing random acts of kindness elsewhere. My dad plays softball from April to October, volleyball when it’s cooler, and rides his bike 20-40 miles if weather permits. They both take long walks on a regular basis, have weekly date nights, keep their house up-to-date and beautiful, and keep up with the world and all its technical advances better than I do.
So it’s not like they have “extra” time. Yet they make that time, for me, for my husband and for my children. They are the grandparents every child wants, who love my kids unconditionally. And they listen to me talk about my day, and help me raise my kids far better than I ever could have done alone.
I know, every day and with every fiber of my being, that I am so incredibly blessed to have a mom and a dad in my city, in my life and in my kids’ lives, who are such a present part of our family. There are no words to thank them for all they do. Nothing can thank them for all that they do.
So I’ll do what I can – which is to pray that someday, I’ll be just like them.
Shane missed a magician at school on Monday. Magic is his life, and had we known that there was going to be an assembly of any kind, we would have scheduled his doctor’s appointment for a different day.
But he’s been having some pretty bizarre dizzy spells, so instead, we went to the dizziness specialist.
It started back in July, or maybe August, depending on whether or not you count the headaches that were ruled out as caused by video games. Shane will be sitting there, reading a book, or relaxing on a bed, or playing hide and seek, or – well, just sitting there – and he’ll say, “Mom, I’m dizzy again.”
These are not debilitating dizzy spells. But he says he feels like he is spinning, and I’ll be looking at him, and he’s just sitting still. They only last ten seconds, or a minute, and then they subside.
After six weeks of this, I decided to find the cause. The pediatrician sent me to the neurologist, who said that if the headaches were gone, I should first see our ear doctor. The ear doctor ran a few tests, and said they had no idea what it was – but that I should go to the neurologist.
Since Dylan has a really good neurologist, we went to her – and she declared Shane fit and fine. She said he didn’t have any brain symptoms, and that it had to be an ear issue.
“He could have the aura of a migraine,” she said, writing a prescription. “If these pills work, that’s probably what it is. If not, it’s his ears.”
Well, he didn’t have any symptoms of a migraine, aura or otherwise, so we didn’t even fill the prescription. Instead, we called the ear doctor.
“We might want to check his hearing,” I told them, after days browsing “dizziness” on the internet.
That’s when they sent me to the dizziness specialist. And that’s who we saw on Monday, when Shane missed the school magician.
We were in the office for three hours, and Shane was seen by two top doctors and an audiologist. His hearing is perfect, and we were all thrilled about that.
“But if he’s dizzy,” I asked, “is that a good thing?”
“Yes,” she said. She explained that hearing loss accompanies a lot of different issues – so great hearing rules out all of those.
However, Shane was declared “positive to the left” by the doctor – meaning that when he marched in place with his eyes closed, he turned his body to the left.
No one has any idea why. They have ordered more tests. We have made more appointments.
I worry and I pray and I hope and I think and I try to have faith. And sometimes, I do have faith.
Meanwhile, my gall bladder is pounding. I have a little cough (like once every three days) and I can’t determine if it’s the change in the weather or lung cancer. I have a sharp stabbing pain in my lower left quadrant that has been with me for as long as I can remember. I just turned 50. And I don’t go to the doctor for any of it.
But for Shane, for these tiny instances of dizziness, I go.
I really tried to feed my kids the right foods. When Dylan was a baby, I didn’t give him sugar for a year. Then, of course, I gave him a giant chocolate Elmo cake for his first birthday, and it was all over.
But I bought some fairly healthy foods, and introduced my kids to a lot of vegetables. Even at 10 and 13, we force-feed fruit with every breakfast, and aim for at least one vegetable for dinner. But I don’t cook much, and I use too many processed foods, and I know that. To make up for it, we limit sodas, fruit juices and Gatorade to a few per month, and we buy cookies made without high fructose corn syrup.
I read labels, and I taught my kids to read labels. I know why an unprocessed peanut is a better choice than “honey roasted.” We eat salads with little or no dressing, and we don’t even visit the Froot Loops at the grocery store. We make pancakes out of wheat germ, whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt, and we use all natural maple syrup.
We have been avoiding the deadly sodium nitrate for years – and buying meat has been a nightmare, but we’ve done it. We buy only whole grain breads and pastas. We even buy organic produce to avoid pesticides.
So when I watched Fed Up on DVD, I was utterly stunned. How could I have been so clueless?
In one 90-minute movie, I learned why our society has gone from thin to fat, why I can’t lose weight, and why my low-fat and sugar-free choices are actually making me – and my kids – sick. I learned that the government has been bowing down to giant food conglomerates, who are only out for themselves, and that the media isn’t able to get past the double-talking to teach America what is really wrong.
I learned how and why sugar is now in everything we eat, and how different types of sugar – including what we call sugar “substitutes” – do the exact same things to our bodies as sugar, turning perfectly good body cells into fat storage. Sugar substitutes and “low fat” foods are actually making us gain more weight than the purer foods of our past.
For example, I gave up caffeine years ago, and gave up “regular” soft drinks decades ago. I drank Caffeine Free Diet Coke for years, until I learned that it contains cancer-causing caramel coloring (which is in virtually every brown soda on the market). I thought I was doing okay with one daily soda, a Diet Sierra Mist – no caffeine, no caramel coloring.
But it’s no better than the other sodas, since my body reacts the same way to both sodas. It screams, SUGAR! SUGAR! and turns everything into big globs of fat.
For breakfast the night after watching the DVD, I fed my kids hummus toast, a banana and milk.
And that was the end of their daily intake of sugar. While the hummus was harmless, and the banana a natural (allowable) sugar, each slice of whole wheat bread has three grams of sugar. The milk – fat free, as it was – has 12 grams of sugar per eight-ounce cup.
As I’ve been told in the past, if a squirrel won’t eat it, it’s no good.
So once again, we are learning to eat healthily.
And, I hope, the entire world will watch Fed Up – so that someone, somewhere, will fix the problem that ails the entire country.
Like everything else, we are starting at home.
In the past, I have had pets. Even the smallest has come forth with a large personality. For example, a fish has as much personality as a dog. Because of its confinement, it’s harder to discover.
But if you get to know your fish, you will find that it (or they, since “fish” is also plural) does things that show its likes and dislikes. It keeps itself entertained in specific ways, attacks (or nibbles) its food with specific force, and even mellows as it ages.
I had the privilege of chaperoning a field trip with the private school this week. I rode the bus with two teachers (one who drove the bus) and 12 kids. By the time the day-long trip was over, I had discovered the strong personalities in each one of those kids.
I would imagine strong personalities abound at every school. But on a larger bus with more kids, I spend so much time wildly searching and counting the kids that there isn’t much time to get to know them.
We started our trip with all 12 kids crowded in a cluster at the door. They had to be forced back to get on, and all of them piled on top of one another to get in. The talking never stopped, and no one wasn’t talking. There were iPods and phones blasting music the entire time, an occasional shriek that – for the first hour – I thought was a teenaged girl. It turned out to be a boy named Victor, whose random and unnecessary shrieks somehow usually made the rest of the group laugh. (These shrieks did not have that effect on me.)
While I got to know the various kids, I realized something that had never been the case on a public school field trip – even though it was a field trip. On this trip, with these kids, every, single kid was smiling.
There were no fights – although there were disagreements. The kids genuinely like each other and even after short squabbles, they settle back into niceties. They are kind to one another. They share their lunches. Their make sure everyone has a spot where they can see. They take care of one another.
I watched Dylan break up his brownie bar – something he thoroughly enjoys – and give two pieces away, just so his friends could try it. Actually, lunchtime – where I sat with the students and observed like a jungle cameraman – was the most enlightening time.
This was not a public school cafeteria. All the kids shared – food, ideas, photos, jokes. At one point, a girl told a boy to bring over another chair so someone else could fit at the table. I thought to myself, YOU get the darn chair. He’s eating! But the boy never thought twice about doing it. He jumped up, got the chair, made a space, and showed the other boy where to sit.
I think what startled me most was the genuine generosity of heart.
It was really like traveling with a small village. I was constantly reminded of the word “village” while being in that group. Everyone knew everyone else. They treated each other with respect. I thought of Little House on the Prairie and couldn’t help but see the way everyone worked together.
It was just a field trip. But to me, it was a small town on wheels.
Today I had a meeting at Dylan’s public high school, to see what we need to do in order to have him succeed in 9th grade. This is assuming that he passes 8th grade, which he seems to be on track to do.
The man with whom I met is designated on the school website as “RTSE.” I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, except that “SE” sounds like “Special Education” to me. After emailing a number of random people, this is the man who got in touch.
He is wonderful.
He introduced me to Dylan’s possible future guidance counselor, who was also wonderful (but stayed only briefly). We talked about Algebra I and Physics, and how to make sure the credits transfer from private school. We talked about the requirements for high school graduation, and what’s expected if we’re looking for a four-year university. We talked about the variety of math options for Dylan, whose struggles do seem somehow centered in math class – now that he mentioned it.
We put together a service plan which, surprisingly, designates that we are allowed to have Dylan attend one public school period per day, should we choose to follow that path.
I imagined, quite briefly, driving Dylan 45 minutes to school, driving 45 minutes home, taking Shane to school, then driving back up to Dylan’s school, bringing him back (another 45 minutes) to his public school, letting him work for one period at that school, then driving him 45 minutes back to his own school – then just sitting there for an hour while Dylan finishes his day at the private school, then driving him home.
It took longer to type the scenario than it did to deny it emphatically in my head.
But it was nice of the school to offer (as required by state law, apparently).
So we set up a plan, and we talked about registration options, and we looked a bit at Dylan’s old plan and his test scores and discussed the foreign language options in his case.
My job now – which is so funny, because I am already on it – is to contact them in January about how and when to register Dylan officially for 9th grade. And – my favorite thing! – to find out which colleges accept sign language as a foreign language requirement.
Given that he has an IEP, I learned today, Dylan doesn’t have to take any foreign language requirement – something that would have been nice to know when I was arguing with the school over the Spanish requirement at his current school.
Dylan, by the way, is getting an A in Spanish, in spite of the fact that he doesn’t know one single word in Spanish after two months.
Anyway, some of the class options for graduation are theater, piano, chorus, horticulture, forensics… I can hardly wait to see a full class description booklet. Dylan’s going to have a blast in high school.
Well, except that it will still be school.
Dylan has a lot of good ideas. And he likes to drive, too, so we’ve been letting him mow the grass – on a lawn tractor. It’s a win-win for everyone.
So this weekend, when he asked if he could give his brother a “hayride” by using the lawn tractor to pull Shane around on a little wagon-trailer-thing, I realized it had just been a matter of time. Bill had been pulling the kids around the yard since they were little, and now Dylan wanted to give it a try.
At first I vehemently said, “NO.” Bill wasn’t home at the time, and I didn’t think Dylan could even get the lawn tractor out of the garage without Bill. But he swore he could, and had no trouble doing so – as well as getting the wagon attached for Shane.
“Is it okay if I take this up on the road?” Dylan asked, as he was heading out.
“NO!” I said. “You need a real driver’s license to ride on the road, no matter what vehicle you choose.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I am sure,” I said. I limited him to the yard – which is substantial enough to give a good hayride.
When I looked out the window, Shane was lounging comfortably in the wagon and Dylan was driving cautiously around the yard. It was so cute, I ran out to the car to get my camera.
As I got to the car, I saw Dylan on the driveway, stopped at the top of a cliff. We have a little creek on the other side of our driveway – about six or eight feet down a sharp-angled hill. Dylan had the tractor poised at the top of the hill, as if he were considering going over the edge.
Then, he went over the edge.
The tractor went down with one big clunk – about two feet down – and stopped. He’d ridden over a log.
The noise from the tractor was too loud for me to yell from where I was, but I yelled anyway. I screamed, “DYLAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Clunk! He went down another two feet.
He was actually considering taking that tractor down over the side of the hill with his brother in the wagon behind him.
At this point, I started running, screeching at the top of my lungs – wailing even – “STOP! DYLAN! STOP!”
He saw me coming and, common sense possibly returning, turned off the tractor. It hung halfway over the side of the hill, stopped by the two logs used by our neighbor as “steps” to go into that area. They certainly weren’t meant to stop a lawn tractor, but thank God, they did the job.
“I trusted you,” I said. “What on Earth would give you the idea that this was okay?”
“Shane looked bored,” he said. “I wanted to give him a more exciting ride, and I just wasn’t thinking.”
He wasn’t thinking. He is 13 and he just wasn’t thinking.
I left him alone to remove the tractor from the ditch – realizing only later that I could have left him to die under its weight. Someone happened by and helped him pull it out at about the time I realized what I’d done – and Dylan, remorseful, was grateful for the help.
I don’t think he’ll do it again.
And I thank God, sincerely, that no one was injured or died. This time.
Yesterday, the kids had dental cleanings scheduled, so I picked up both boys from school.
I went to Dylan’s school first, making the 40-minute-by-highway journey without Shane in tow. I parked the car in front of the office, left it unlocked with the window open, admired the fall breeze and the gorgeous landscape – then went inside.
The headmaster saw me, and called me in. We had a brief follow-up discussion about Dylan’s switch into Algebra I and Physics. It was an easy conversation, and we touched on Dylan’s focusing issues a bit. Within a few minutes, Dylan came dashing down the sidewalk with his backpack. I stopped across the hall, signed Dylan out, and we left.
Then I went to Shane’s school. I parked in front of the school, made sure the windows were up, got out of the car (with Dylan) and locked the doors. The two of us went up two sets of stairs and I pushed a red button to be let inside. We stood outside on the concrete, waiting to be buzzed in.
We went inside where two rather harried secretaries worked. One asked if she could help me, and I explained that Shane was at lunch.
“My older boy would like to get him, if that’s okay,” I told her. “He used to go to school here, and he’d like to see it again.”
The cafeteria was directly across the hall from the front office.
“Hmmm, I don’t know,” she said, glancing at the other secretary for some form of approval. We knew what she was thinking: He shouldn’t be wandering around in the school unsupervised The principal wouldn’t approve.
We were still discussing it when Shane appeared at the office door, his backpack on and ready to go.
The secretaries breathed a sigh of relief when we all left.
Private school – especially one so far away – has its own set of issues. It is small, and there are fewer teachers, and the social events are severely lacking because of the lack of people.
But public school – even so close to home – has its own set of issues, too. Safety and security (and the fear of lawsuits) are first and foremost in the minds of the administration. Even elementary school is not a coddle zone.
Dylan’s private school – unlike all private schools – is very much a coddle zone, even for the older kids. It’s one of the reasons it’s such a wonderful place to be. The teachers actually care for the kids. Safety is always important, but with only 90 kids in the entire school, it’s much easier to maintain a safe environment.
With all the tragedies in unsuspecting schools throughout the country, I do understand the reason I have to stand outside and wait to be buzzed in.
Still, I prefer leaving my windows open when it’s warm, and admiring the beautiful day, and being able to walk in and say hello to everyone.
It’s too bad our world has fallen prey to so much bad that we can’t keep kids both safe and happy.
Today, I feel grateful that Dylan’s school reminds me of the old days.
