Dimples

Recently, I took the kids to visit a close friend and her newborn son. Because I'd been tied up in my first year teaching and she was absorbed in pregnancy/new motherhood, we hadn't seen each other in several months. When my youngest--a sturdy little dude of five--stepped through the door, my friend remarked, 'My, what a big boy he's become.' Her remark highlighted my own silent, sad observation. My youngest, who just five years ago was a drooling, diaper-wearing carpet monster, has no baby left in him.

In all my kids, the hallmark of the transition from little to big kid is not the typical mile marker of diapers to underwear, or the abandonment of the crib. Rather, the evidence of big kid is in the elbow--really, in the disappearance of their elbow dimples. Those adorable little depressions just above the elbow were the most lasting signature of baby on my kiddos--well after the diapers were (thankfully) retired, the roundness of the cheeks thinned out, and the sippy cups disappeared, those little dimples persisted. I loved pushing my finger into the little indentation and feeling the baby chubbiness push back. What I had noticed months earlier on my little guy was verbalized by my friend--all sign of baby is erased from my son's now long, summer-browned, big boy arms.

I am not a baby person--I didn't cry when they lost their first tooth or when they turned one. I enjoy holding a friend's baby, but I love that my kids have grown up into kids. I feel as though I am parenting more now, and babysitting less. Still, the loss of my last baby's elbow dimple gave me pause.

They really do grow up so fast.

Lisa 'mommy' C

Weighing In...

Weighing in on cultural/celebrity/internet goodies...

#1: The Sopranos Series Finale: If you were stupidly watching The Sopranos only for mob violence, well, yeah, Sunday's episode likely pissed you off. If you watched this likely-to-be-called-best-TV-drama of all time and never noticed that what made it better than any other mob story ever was the tragic hero/family dynamic...well, clearly you were stupidly watching. So stop crying. Of course Tony wasn't going to get whacked...

#2: Paris Hilton: Says acting dumb was an act. Agents dump her. Nuff said.

#3: The Today Show: Other than always being amused when they say, 'Tomorrow on Today', I sometimes catch a great interview--like one I saw the other morning. I have a thing for reading war memoirs (shout out to my boy Hagburg who let me read his handwritten journal from his time in Iraq). I caught an interview the other morning with Matt Lauer and a former Navy Seal by the name of Marcus Luttrell. The sit-down focused on Luttrell's experience in a firefight during his tour in Afghanistan from which he emerged as the sole survivor. He wrote a book about it (I've already requested it from the library). But the real gem is the interview--follow the link and watch the actual video (scroll down a tiny bit and click 'Launch' where you see his face): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19173935/ What he says toward the end of the interview is heartbreaking, and a head's up that my generation will have to carry the burden of many stories from many a heart-broken veteran.

#4: Books (of course): Just read a book called Feed by M.T. Anderson. It is on the Summer Reading list for our 10th graders and since they're tested on these books within the first week of school, I figured I'd better read all the books. Feed is set in futuristic America--people no longer have external computers, instead they now have 'feeds' in their heads. With these feeds they can do everything we can do with PCs now, and more. The characters are constantly bombarded with ads and banners (think pop-ups in your brain), and are always IMing one another. It is definitely an interesting concept--but ultimately, I didn't like the book. I hated the main character and I felt that some of the writing was all over the place, and the futuristic 'English' was just ridiculous. Now I am reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Yes, the same Wicked that was made into the hit musical. It is the true tale of the Wicked Witch of the West. I haven't seen the musical, but the word on the street is that it is significantly different than the book. So far it is very interesting, and totally different than what I thought it would be about.

That's all for today...

Lisa "Logging Off" Cillessen

Mrs. C's End of Year Reflection

If you were wondering, no, I am not drunk. (Yet.)

Well, now, don't stop reading...I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity for drunk-blogging this summer.

I am so happy my first year is over. I can honestly say that this past year has been the hardest year in my life. More difficult than when I had Madison, tougher than when Jeremy and I had problems, and rougher than the time my family tried to force me into AA. (Wait, that last thing hasn't happened yet...maybe I can just feel it coming...)

My first year in a nutshell (and if anyone just thought of Austin Powers, I love you):

I've taught 118 students how to be better readers, better writers, and better people. I've graded well over 1,000 pieces of paper. I coached a speech team. I had to tell 26 sophomores on the second day of school that a classmate died. I made students cry, and I made students laugh. I told them 'Friday Stories' and watched as they blossomed into storytellers in their own right. I read 24 books since the start of the school year because it was the only thing I could do for myself that still somehow paid off in the classroom. I had a failing student tell me that it was okay he failed because he was taking more away from my class than just a grade. I had a student tell me that she fell back in love with reading because of my class. I had a student tell me to not admit that I hated teaching poetry because it made the class hate it, too. I had a student tell me if there was an All Star game for teachers, I'd be in it--because rookies can dream, too. I watched Freedom Writers with my sophomores because so many of them said that it reminded them of our class. I offered extra credit for students who wrote a letter to a senator after they watched a documentary about child soldiers in Africa. I had to give first semester finals in January after a December blizzard cancelled school for two days. I had a student tell me thank you for being like a mom to him and the whole class. I baked cookies for my students, and they brought me caramel corn, cookies, Starbucks, and Arby's. I had a parent tell me he thought his son had plagiarized something because he couldn't believe how much his son had grown as a writer--and he then told me that my class was the only one his son ever talked about. I worked with several other dedicated teachers to ensure that students were well fed before they took the CSAP. I worked myself into panic attacks and finally after confessing it, several other teachers admitted they, too, had the same thing. I worked alongside some of the most brillant people I've ever met--and I often felt intimidated by the collective brain power in the room. I told the story of Jeremy's cliff falling accident and had a student start bawling; when I asked her what was wrong, she explained her father had been killed in a fall only 7 years ago. I kicked my entire fifth hour out of class when they made me so mad I couldn't see straight. I made kids call their parents during class for neglecting to complete their homework. I had more than one student say this was their best English class ever. I had a student thank me for understanding her learning diability and helping her. I taught Dante's Inferno, Oedipus, Latin American literature, Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, two different types of research papers, The Crucible, Siddhartha, Fahrenheit 451, and a Coming of Age unit. I learned.

I taught.

Lisa "I'll be back for more in August" Cillessen