Not long ago I shouted from the rooftops about a student who has just ripped open my chest, reached right into my heart, and grabbed ahold of my beating ticker. She is more than a thousand kinds of amazing. I get to have the luxury of complaining about my job, but I have a job so I know I should stop doing that. I also have the luxury (or curse? is it a curse?) of really enjoying some parts of my job. For instance, a former student stopped by yesterday to show me her new baby. She let me squeeze her bundle of joy and smell her and I kicked off my shoes in my office and got right down on the floor to enjoy this new life. To an outsider, it looked as if I’d lost my mind but this is what babies do to me. I’m extremely happy for her and I keep encouraging her to continue her education.

“I’m going to give you some advice,” I said. “Are you listening?”

She nodded and smiled a knowing smile that said You ALWAYS have advice.

“Sleep when the baby sleeps. Smell her and cuddle her and give her massages after her bath. Read to her every single day. Possibly sing to her. Can you sing? Do you have a decent voice? It doesn’t matter. Do it anyway. She’ll know she’s loved.”

I was a high school parent myself. By the time I graduated high school my daughter was three years old. (Don’t. I know what you want to ask me. The answer is I DON’T KNOW HOW I DID IT.) Why did no one  at my school ever give me this kind of advice? It doesn’t matter anymore because I learned it on my own and did it anyway. I probably talked to Mallory like she was an adult and not a baby which made sense to me at the time and explains why she’s always been a little adult even as a 1st grader.

My recent post was a direct result of me worrying about telling these stories about students and I think, after listening to the advice in the comments, that I’m over it. How will people ever know, I wonder, about the magnificent human beings we come in contact with if I don’t highlight these jewels of my work day?

There are these kids, these students, that just jump right off the page of life into every spare moment of my life. Lots of them. I have all these little notes stuck everywhere.

There’s the kid who says, “Good morning!” to me every day and nods his head ever so slightly as to resemble an Englishman heading to Sunday church. Cracks me up. I don’t know why.

There’s the kid who checks out my outfits every day and gives the “Yeah, I like” or the “Nah, it’s not workin’ for you” look. I tease her about giving me crap now.

There’s the kid who has a pronounced limp and a killer smile. He’s happy in life despite physical limitations.

There’s the kid I say hello to and on occasion he responds. Mostly, he ignores me because I know he’s just sad all the time. Twice now he’s reached right out to hug me. I don’t know what that’s about but he needs something.

There’s the kid who comes to visit my office daily who likes to harass me about putting him in the “hard classes”. (To which I just smugly respond, “YOU’RE WELCOME. YOU’LL THANK ME SOMEDAY.”)

There’s the kid who beckons me with her finger when I visit a classroom because she wants me to sit by her and help her understand the text. Even when she already understands the text.

There’s the kid who talks to me about her favorite coffee that she brings in her thermos every day.

Here is Clarissa’s story. For once, I’m not using a fake name because it’s a story published with her permission in the newspaper. It also happens to be a story of a friend, Tammy, who taught with me at a middle school ten years ago. My teaching experience has been a lucky one in that I’ve met some incredible educators who turn into friends for life. (Also? For some reason a lot of my teacher friends are named Tammy which is why I call them all by their last names to avoid confusion. It makes us all sound like a bunch of gym teachers.)

There are just these amazing kids I get to teach and guide. I’m listening to them. I hope you will, too. Don’t miss it.

In the year of our Lord 2009 I was reunited with an old friend. Janie and I spent our twenties going out dancing at clubs (we were total rave queens, maybe even rave ninjas) and then I kept on having babies and working and Janie ended up being our nanny. We loved saying the word “nanny” because she came to our house but we were, by no means, well off enough to have A Nanny. Janie even did the laundry and sometimes started dinner for us and I encouraged her to teach the children Spanish. More than anything, Janie became a friend to me and we weren’t employer-employee. It never felt like that. She became a friend to me in a new town where I didn’t know a lot of people. We started playing sand volleyball together, we lamented over relationships, and we shared clothes like sisters because she’s my one friend who is tall like me. We’ve even vowed to visit her native Puerto Rico someday but I fear we would never return from it and then somewhere, on the side of a milk carton, our faces would show that we were missing. Our tanned, happy faces.

This year, after about ten years of not seeing one another or speaking, we met once again. This is the part that gets fuzzy for me: I can’t remember for the life of me why we quit speaking. There was nothing that happened, no scandalous my-hubby-humped-the-nanny story line, no argument that lead to us to stop talking and calling each other. It just stopped. It’s a sad thing when that happens because once you pass a certain time limit then you begin to question, “Why hasn’t she called me?” and “Well, crap! Why haven’t I called her?” and then you just let it go and too much time passes. But I’ve learned that’s not true. There’s no such thing as “too much time” passing. If you get a chance, then take it. Janie and I took it again and I got to be her friend once again during a relationship, an engagement, and a wedding.

I haven’t given up on love yet. Honestly, I haven’t. But in the past two years it’s been hard to attend weddings and see happy couples just embarking on that journey. 2009 brought Janie back to me and let me be really happy for a couple. Her new husband is being deployed to Afghanistan next year and they invited me to his Going Away Party where he spontaneously sang to her. In the background there is my other new friend from this year, Patrick, who DJ’d her party and played the BEST salsa music to which Janie’s aunts taught us all to dance.

I only wish you could see more of her face here. For that matter, I wish everyone could see her heart.

Damnit. They’re so cute.

It’s nice to finally be really happy for some people in love again.

There’s a church in my neighborhood that I pass nearly every day when I walk my dog. It’s a pretty church with long, thick white columns. The congregants seem nice enough, too, as they don’t speed out of the parking lot in my quiet neighborhood on Sundays or when the Boy Scouts are having their meetings. All in all, I like this church. This building. There is a sign out front that poses a question to all passersby:

This sign has bothered me ever since I’ve read it. But this isn’t a post about the passive-aggressive message contained within. In fact, I could very well answer the question with the fact that I’ve used my powers for good once before and was overwhelmed with the compassion of friends and regular readers of this blog. (For those who don’t know the story, I offered to donate a dollar for each comment I got on a post about three students who wouldn’t have had a Christmas and readers responded with generous hearts and selfless motives until we reached over $1,000 for which to buy gifts for them. The story still chokes me up when I think about it and it’s all I can do not to blame it on hormones.)

Are you ready for a strange segue? Here goes…

SO! My school has been in the news a lot lately and it’s nothing short of fifty shades of SUCK. It’s no secret that the media beat us up and I already work at the district step-child high school. It’s also no secret (to readers of Mocha Momma) that I adore my co-workers and students and go into work every day to the hardest, most unappreciated job in the world. Some days call for me to take the hit that I don’t deserve. Other days I am challenged by those I work with one second only to be in a position to defend them passionately in the next. Right now I refuse to even link to those stories and I never read the online comments to newspaper stories because then I feel the need to apologize on behalf of all educators who have left those people behind. WE’RE SORRY YOU DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “YOUR” AND “YOU’RE” OR “PRINCIPAL” AND “PRINCIPLE.”

That’s about as much as I can say about work-related stuff without getting into trouble. I have a deficiency in the area of shutting-the-heck-up-when-I-should. There’s not a pill or anything that works to make that better. 

As I walk into work each day the poverty of my schools’ students is never lost on me. Yet, I watch some of these students who come from more than difficult home lives continually come to school where they want to learn. Even more impressive is that they come to school and help with blood drives, canned food collections, and other community service events even when they themselves are in need. It is not lost on me that they are themselves inspiring to the adults who gladly work with them. In a million years I didn’t expect to have a career that I loved this much. The things I get to witness and the growing I get to watch astounds me.

Recently, because of a response to the media trashing us, we are hitting hard on some things in our school. Students have never been allowed to carry backpacks, but the issue that keeps coming up are the girls’ purses. Hey, I’m as fashion forward as the next gal so I know that big purses are here to stay. When my male students complain that girls get to even carry purses I remind them, gently, that as soon as they have to carry around tampons and Midol this won’t be an issue. 

Some of the biggest complainers have come to see me in my office or caught me in the hallway or a classroom:

Why can’t we carry big purses? I saved up $50 to buy this and it’s the only one I have! I can’t buy another one.

This is stupid! I’m a good girl. Why are we always getting punished?

Who even SELLS small purses? Everything in the stores is big. 

These girls are right. They’re also pretty whiny when they come talk to me so I decided to take something ugly and turn it in to something pretty. I asked seven girls to help me coordinate a Purse Drive for school and I’m using my blog to spread the word. 

Do you have an old, small purse you’d be willing to donate?

Can you purchase a small purse that we can use for our Purse Drive?

My intention is to take all donations and sell them for the set price of $5 for any girl who wants to come to the Purse Shop I’m setting up in school and then give the money to the school. My seven girls will help me set it up, arrange the purses for display, collect the money, and do a really good thing. A small thing, but a good thing nonetheless.

Here’s what I was wondering: can you help? More details on where to send purses coming soon. Maybe a widget! A button for your blog! But most importantly, you get that really good feeling of doing some good in the world and showing compassion to a bunch of teenage girls you don’t even know.

UPDATE on November 8, 2009: Yes, the purse drive is still going strong. Perhaps I should have mentioned that there are nearly 700 girls in my school and we’d love to see this as a sustainable project. So, if you’ve been meaning to send purses and haven’t done it yet, please consider doing so. We are grateful for any and all donations.

That day I’ll always remember. That was the day I gave birth to my second daughter. The one who would be adopted by another family and find me many years later to reconnect. It hasn’t been like some overwrought, overacted Hallmark movie, either. In fact, it’s been painless and joyful throughout. We are very lucky to have had such a transition and I’m amazed at the ease of how our family grew. As much crap had been handed to me during 2008 I was infinitely grateful for this blessing, this gift, this undeserved grace. My thoughts, naturally, turned to this blog and how much to share. At first, I did so willingly and then it became overwhelming to write through the experience and I pulled way back to give it the attention and respect it deserved. Then, I kept getting e-mails and messages and notes that this was a good thing and that people were happy for us and, yes, some admitted to just being curious about how this was all working itself out in our lives.

So, while I happily share some private pictures and thoughts, I know that I won’t always want to put it all out there. But it’s become something I’m comfortable discussing and now when I meet someone new and they ask how many children I have my mouth and heart gladly say, “Four.” It’s been a painful question to hear up until now and normally it was my mouth saying, “Three” while my heart murmured, “Four”. 

Photo of me and the kids when Maddie visited for the first time. 

Today is Maddie’s birthday (and yesterday was my sister’s – Happy Birthday, Trayday!) and for the second time ever she will be here with me to celebrate it with my other three children. It’s gonna be pretty damn amazing and there’s no need to wax poetic about how incredible tonight will be. 

Photo taken last October when all four of the kids (and the dog) jumped in my bed. A most awesome moment.

Happy 22nd Birthday, Maddie. I promised to give you whatever it was you needed, but you gave me more than I ever expected.

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The Acer Laptop Winner, not to be outdone by this sorta sappy entirely sentimental post, will be announced on Friday! Check back then!

NPR called.

I have just always wanted to say something like that. As if they had my personal number and just picked up the phone to chit-chat over some Fair Trade vanilla coffee and a chocolate chip biscotti and tell me that they wanted to interview me.

It doesn’t really happen that way, but you get the gist.

There’s an interview here with Michel Martin (fast-talking, full of wit) on her show “Tell Me More“. Also included are Christine Koh of Boston Mamas, Catherine Sabonis-Bradley of This Matters This Day, and Jamila Bey of The Washington Examiner, discussing the business of blogging and integrity and marketing and product reviews and writing and social media and world peace and how to get your children to eat their vegetables and hair issues. So that was a bit of an exaggeration, but you’ll just have to listen to hear it all.

In other news, I am struggling with my SHORT curly hair. My diffuser just broke (yes, TODAY, when I haven’t used the damn thing in forever and now that I need it? Broken.) and there are about 12 different hair products and for some reason the back of my hair is curling differently than the front and YES, I’M TAKING TIME OUT OF MY NPR-INSPIRED MOMENT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW I CAN’T DO MY OWN DAMN HAIR.

Go have a biscotti and listen to the other rational, knows-how-to-do-their-hair women. I’ll just sit here fussing with my hair.