the mud

I've never been good at song lyrics. I make them up as I see fit even if they make no sense. As long as they sorta make sense to me. My cousin has always been better at this. She knew every commercial jingle when we were tweens, back when that word didn't exist. Anyway, all day the only song that comes to mind is Bittersweet Symphony, by the Verve. Today we said goodbye to our German exchange student. Paul was here for two weeks and was with us 24/7. Two Saturdays ago, it was like bringing a new baby home from the hospital. Will he like us? Will we like him? Will he eat? Will he sleep? Will he get sick? What will we do if anything happens? What if he wants to leave? Yet today, after he left, our daughter said, "It's so sad. We'll never see him again." Although we assured her we would, or at least that she would and her brothers would, it is so bitter to say good bye. There is an uncertainty, a longing to have what you had. We will really miss ...

As I sit here on a Sunday morning, consumed with thoughts of lesson planning and wondering, perhaps wrongly, why we don't teach the whole dollar first and not the penny, which is 1/100 of a dollar and that just doesn't make sense to a first grader necessarily, I am distracted by the words of one of my old students ringing in my head. He came to camp this summer after being on vacation and he was surprised and happy to see me standing in front of the amphitheater in the woods.  He said, "You know me, right?"  I said, "Of course I know you.  I've missed you.  How are you?" and we shared a hug.  As the others in his troop filed in he asked them, "Do you know her?" pointing up to me.  They nodded and shook their heads unsure of how well they actually did know me.  Then he would ask me, "Do you know her?", "Do you know him?"  And I replied, "Yes I know them, from camp.  But not like I know you."  As we ran through our ...

Living here is really great. There are five other people who live here, and while my husband might be from Mars, and I might be from Venus, I am not sure where my kids are from. Yeah, heaven and all that stuff, but sometimes, I'm just like, "Where are you from?" "Are you new here?" Like they don't know where their bedrooms are, because I say, Put That In Your Bedroom and five minutes later it's on the stairs. That is not the bedroom, that is the stairs. And I feel a little crazy explaining that to 13 and 15 year olds. My ten year old knows where his bedroom is. He doesn't know where his feet are. Today I came in from my run and on the Kitchen Counter are about 4 pairs of rolled up dirty socks. I cannot explain this. Either my husband had a Meltdown Moment and gathered up all the socks from the floors and put them there so they would be noticed and put away Before Mommy Gets Home or the kids are losing it. I just want to walk ...

Last week I said ‘So Long’ to what was my first class of my own students in a very long time.  The boys looked a little more nervous than excited about the summer awaiting them, not as confident as their fifth grade counterparts who knew what summer held for them.  The first graders have quickly forgotten what it’s like to be a child again for the summer.  The school routine quickly takes over their lives and they adjust and assume that this is what it means to be ‘big.’  It’s what we teach them from an early age – ‘ so big!’ we say with smiling faces and great anticipation, yearning for the time when they are so big and can do more things for themselves, can go to school, can tie their shoes, can write, can draw, can put their clothes on by themselves .  This is what we tell them, and this is what we tell ourselves.  That they will be big and that we will have five minutes of peace.  So the boys learn to be so big, doing and keeping cadence with a ...

For some odd reason, I really crave going to coffee shops.  I'm not some snobby know-it-all coffee barista or connoisseur.  It's not that I'm looking for an escape from home, although it is a good excuse not to do household chores.  It's not that I'm looking for friends or someone to talk to.  It's not the coffee that lures me in.  It's not the ambiance, although I do like a certain local shop for it's funky decor and art.  But really no, it's not that either.  I mean Dunkin Donuts does not have ambiance.  Starbucks tries, but there's bound to be trash on the floor, crumbs in the leather chairs, and someone talking a bit too loudly. When we went to Seattle, we bypassed the original Starbucks store, on our way to brunch at a place a little fancier.  On the way back we passed it again and were not about to wait an hour in line just to see the inside of a cute little shoebox of a store. No, not the ambiance.  Maybe the smell, no.  ...

There's a saying going around on the internet, I don't know what it's like to be a millionaire but I bet I'd be darling at it. It dates back to ? Kate Spade has a bag and a cuzi for your phone with it emblazoned on them. Well, gosh darn it, Duh. Don't you think we'd all be darling at it?  Really I would. About ninety percent of the people I know'd be darling at it. It's being darling at the hard stuff that counts. Like being a good mom. Or a homemaker. Or a cook. Or a wife. Or a coworker. Or a daughter. Or a sister. Or a skier. Or a skater. Or a seamstress. Or a whatever the hell you want to be. You see I tried to be darling this morning.  I woke up early to get my son ready for the Klondike derby for Boy Scouts.  I went in his room and quietly whispered to him that it was 6:20 and what would he most like for breakfast?  Anything. Pancakes? Waffles? (Even though the waffle iron is down the basement and the basement is really cold this morning.) A...

It's another cold winter morning in the Northeast, with more snow predicted!  That's fine by me.  I can handle one more wintery blast, although my toes would argue.  They are in their own permafrost.  We came across an old baby calendar a few weeks ago, mixed in somehow with the Christmas decorations, and I had written down funny things the kids said.  According to the calendar, Jay called it "Snow Bites" instead of frost bite.  That's how I feel, snowbites, on my toes.  All the time. Anyway, my surefire cure-all for snowbites is Cream of Wheat, that childhood comfort food like no other.  Morning, afternoon snack, or dinner, Cream of Wheat is so good.  Butter, honey, sugar, whatever.  The funny thing is that this is one of the few things I had in common with my brother.  He and I were very different in lots of ways, but Cream of Wheat was one of our strongest bonding points.  No one else in our family really liked it all that...