>220, 221, Whatever it takes

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>The entire school is bouncing. I expect the building itself to go boing, boing, boing any time now, with the amount of pre-holiday energy inside it. One of our specialists commented the other day, “Ms. M. has the ‘too-cool-for-school’ class this year, and you have the energetic one.” She was right. My class, full of really nice kids from wonderful parents, has turned into the elementary equivalent of Animal Planet. Since tranquilizer darts are frowned upon in public schools (I’m KIDDING, I’m kidding!), I had to resort to creative drama to bring them to attention.
My class, as a whole, was quiet exactly twice yesterday.
The questions of the day revolved around Christmas and Santa. All. Day. Long. “Is Santa real?” “How many reindeer does Santa have?” “Is Santa Claus real?” “How did all this Santa stuff start, anyway?” “Is Santa real?”
These are 6th graders, ages eleven and twelve. They’re old enough to know the truth, but do they? I can’t take a chance on destroying someone’s innocence and having their parents hit the roof. So I gave them my stock answer: it depends on who you ask. Well, that didn’t last long.
A few years ago, I took a class in storytelling from a professional storyteller. I relied on those skills to get the students’ attention yesterday. When they asked me how many reindeer there were, I stopped, put on my hmmm, there’s a story in here somewhere pose, and waited for quiet. Amazingly, quiet descended almost immediately.
“How many reindeer? Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask Clement C. Moore, he’d have said Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen.” They were almost nodding along with me. Some were counting on their fingers. “Now of course you recall the most famous reindeer of all.”
“Rudoph!” they chimed in.
“And Rudolph makes nine. But there’s a tenth reindeer, too. Do you know her name?”
One highly gifted child knew. “Olive!!!”
Yes, Olive the other reindeer… you know, the one who “…used to laugh and call him names.”
And that was just math class.
The “Is Santa real?” question wouldn’t die. They finally cornered me during Classroom Guidance on my “It depends on who you ask” with the statement “We’re asking you.“
Thank goodness for the Internet.
I found a copy of Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, told them the story, and read them the editorial. For those few moments, they were spellbound.
I’m not sure what kinds of tricks I’ll pull out of my hat next week. Or the week after that. Know any good holiday stories for tweens? I’ll take them!

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>Tea bags and sanity

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Anyone who is a parent or works with children knows that the excitement of Christmas can cause some escalating (read: wilder and wilder) behavior. We have twelve days of school left until the winter break starts, and the kids in my class are already bouncing off the walls. At least, their pencils and pens are.

I went into the office at lunchtime with a pink referral slip in hand. A fifth grade teacher took one look at me and said, “Oh! I need one of those, too!” By the end of the day, the principal had a mailbox full of pink. I guess I’m not alone in having a bouncy class.

My email to the guidance counselor had an image of Dr. Seuss’ Grinch. We decided that any of our mediators who haven’t returned their contracts will be suspended from the fun we have planned next week. We ask these kids to be responsible role models, and they’ve had all kinds of reminders and extra copies of the contract. Second chances? Heck, they’ve had four or five! Enough is enough, even if it’s a Grinchy idea.

So I went into the teachers’ lounge at the end of the lunch period and filled up my Lombardi mug with Good Earth Original Tea, the decaf version. Mmmm. It smells wonderful, total cinnamon heaven, and the mug is large and Lombardi, of course, is inspirational. As I waited for my class to come in from lunch recess, I was already feeling calmer. I remarked to my 6th grade co-worker that if the Grinch had been drinking Good Earth tea, maybe he wouldn’t have robbed the Whos down in Whoville.

I didn’t start this post with the intention of it being an ad for herbal teas. What the heck, it works for me! I felt like my “small heart grew three sizes” when I started inhaling the aroma.
And yes, here’s a picture of the mug.

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>Baby, it’s cold outside!

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Oh, the weather outside may be frightful, but it’s still delightful inside. I can stay indoors, sip a cup of coffee, and listen to Christmas music.

Yes, the truth comes out. I Like Christmas Music. I could listen to it all year round. When the stores start playing songs of the season, my family will listen closely and identify our favorite songs, artists, and arrangements. My (our) collection of Christmas music is quite, um, varied. Some might say eclectic. It leans toward acappella groups and jazz/blues artists, but not entirely. Some are contemporary, some traditional, some old, some new. Some names you’d recognize, some you wouldn’t. Many of the unfamiliar artists’ albums are my favorites.

I’ve been playing Gloria Estefan’s “Christmas in your Eyes” when I get to school in the morning. I wave my ID card in front of the locked entrance, come in, start the coffee, and get myself settled at my desk. As soon as I’m ready to work, I push play. The heat’s not on yet when I arrive, so I depend on the music to warm me up. Gloria’s music comes through for me every time. She sings a luscious arrangement of “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” with the back-up of Singers Unlimited. Her “Silver Bells” makes me want to stand up and dance. My favorite on this album has to be the simple yet lovely Silent Night, sung in both English and Spanish. I can’t sing along with this one; I need to sit back and listen.

While the thermometers may read below zero, and I need my fingerless gloves to type when I arrive, inside my classroom it’s all warmth — the warmth that comes from good tunes and a good mood, a warm heart and warm thoughts.

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>It’s not easy being Green at Christmas time.

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>Martha Stewart doesn’t live here. Let’s make that clear right off the bat. Once in a while I do something crafty, but that’s as far as it goes.

That said, Christmas is a tough time for someone who teaches environmental science and wants to walk the talk.

Take wrapping paper — please. It can’t be recycled, it can’t be burned in the fireplace, it doesn’t compost. The only reasonably “green” option is re-use. Skip it? Not unless I want “Scrooge” to be my middle name. Well, my family gets all over me about re-using wrapping paper.

“Mom, just rip it open! Hurry up! Why are you folding the paper? You don’t have to be so careful with the tape. Mom, it wasn’t expensive. Geez.”

I drive them crazy.

But this tendency to reduce, re-use, and recycle can come in handy. I take good care with the wrapping paper we do buy, re-using gift bags until they fall apart, saving the bows every year, and refusing to throw away the small pieces of wrap that seem useless. I said SEEM useless.

As I said before, I’m not Martha. No one would come into my house and think she lives here. But I am rather proud of these two presents. Using a strip of green shiny foil (too small for a box) and a batch of plain brown packaging paper that came with a cookbook, I made these two gifts look pretty. Pretty good, even. The tags are made from last year’s Christmas cards.

(haha, Petite one, the smaller package is for you!)

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>not so random thoughts about medicine

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>Disabilities are part of our family, our daily life, the little things, the big picture. Doctors’ offices? A familiar place, a comfortable setting. Amigo saw two doctors in two days last week. He noted the fact, but didn’t complain or think it was negative.
He’d been complaining of minor discomfort in his right ear. When he told me it was getting worse, that his ear hurt, I called the pediatrician’s office. Nine times out of ten when Amigo complains of ear pain, he has an infection. He is almost never wrong. Sure enough, his right ear was (as Dr. put it) “a prototypical infection”. Then she took one more step, and asked if we would allow the medical student to come in and take a look at it. Her logic was “This will give the student a chance to see a poster child for an ear infection, but in a child who will sit still.” Amigo is in his teens, and the medical student would get a good look at an infected ear without the squirming of a toddler or two-year-old. Amigo was personable and friendly with the medical student, discussed her alma mater’s basketball team, and showed her a perfectly infected eardrum.
The next day we headed to Children’s Hospital of Milwaukee for an annual check-up with the pediatric neurologist. She’s an amazing professional with incredible depths of knowledge about children and their brains and bodies. We discussed Amigo’s participation in a study, and she agreed that yes, his participation would be a good thing.
The only issue is money. This is no simple blood test. The cost estimate is around $1300. I am gathering my courage to call our insurance company. I’m certain they will say no; they really balked at the genetic counseling recommended for us. Next, I’ll apply for financial aid through the research center itself. Their forms, however, are on a web page still under construction.
I’ll keep at it. Project 3000, as the study is called, is an ambitious and worthwhile undertaking. We’ll do our part for Amigo’s sake and for the sake of others with this cause of blindness. Fortunately, doctors’ offices are familiar and comforting places for our family. That makes it, not easy, but at least a little less difficult.

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>Winter or road construction?

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We have a saying in the Northern realm. We say there are two seasons: Winter and Road Construction. Winter came back this week and it looks like it’s here to stay. I’m fine with that, because winter is one of the beautiful things of living in Wisconsin. La Petite sent me an email saying that they have so much snow on her campus that they cancelled classes. Snow Day! At home, it’s time to hang out and read a book next to the fireplace and look out the window at the pretty flakes drifting along. Snowflakes, that is.
The garden is resting under a blanket of raked leaves and covered by a layer of snow that will insulate the soil until next spring when I put the new compost in. We finally got the deck furniture inside. The lawnmower is emptied, the bikes are hanging in the garage, and the snowblower (dare I say it?) is ready for use.

Remember this?

Now it looks like this.


When spring comes, I’ll get some new herbs for the cappucino mugs and something to grow in Kermit’s cute little hat. But for now, I’ll curl up with a good book and enjoy watching the snow fall.

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>When siblings grow up…

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>…it can be a beautiful thing. La Petite took this last summer while Amigo was reading to me in our backyard swing. His hands are very graceful when he reads, and she saw a picture in it. One of the best parts of this story is this: he had a bit of sauce on his hand from the lasagna we’d had for supper. She had to airbrush it out using Adobe Photoshop. Ah, some things never change.

La Petite entered this photo in a contest at her University and won 1st prize in the category. She called Amigo to tell him first because it was a picture of him.

Happy Love Thursday, everybody.

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>Things I’ve learned from participating in NaBloPoMo:

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>I still can’t figure out how to add a logo to my sidebar. Sorry, Yoda. Text link, yes. I guess ads will have to wait.
Coming up with topics to post wasn’t a problem. If nothing interesting was going on in my life, I posted another coffee mug & its story. Nothing going on? That rarely happens in my life.
Love Thursday is as much fun to post as it is to read. Go to Karen at Chookoloonks for more. If I can figure out how to load the logo, I’ll join her “Nice Blog” community as well.
Many other blogs have the same template I do. That either means I share their good taste, or I’m too lazy (or cheap or inept) to create a unique template and banner. Nah, must be the first one.
I’m more interesting some days than others, but there are bloggers that are even less interesting than I am!
Life can be more interesting through the eyes of a writer thinking, “Hey, I could blog this.”
Stat counter has been interesting.
Most of my readers turn up in the evening and overnight.
Now that both my teens read the blog regularly, I have to be cautious how I talk about them.
Connecting with other bloggers, mommybloggers and otherwise, has been a gift. It’s great to read others’ posts and find out that I’m not alone.
There are many progressive moms and dads out there expressing themselves through the blogosphere. It’s reassuring to read and hear from other like-minded folks, especially since I live in a rather conservative town.
Thanks for the idea, Mrs. Kennedy, it’s been fun!
Thanks, too, to Lane for the Randomizer. What a great way to sample the participating blogs!
(Um, yes, I know there’s one more day. I’m not done yet!)

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