Seeping Panic

Oh, so stressed I am as I sit in the faculty lounge at WKU today just before my oral exam. I haven't slept this week. My stomach is in knots. My bones ache. I try to tell myself that I know this and I know that I do. I try to tell myself that it's just like an interview of sorts - and, I do well at interviews usually. I try to tell myself that these professors are on my side - they like me and I respect them. I try to tell myself all of this and I suppose I know all of this. Yet, here I sit about to vomit on my lap and leave this building as panic is seeping through my every vein. I know that this too shall pass and that this will all be over and I know that too many before me have sat through this. I know! I know! Still, ahhhhhhh! I just want to pass with distinction. I don't want them to ask me anything that I don't know well and about which I can't give deep insight. So, here I go! I'm sure I'll blog how it all goes!

Blog About It

I think I'll write a book much like Ralph Fletcher's A Writer's Notebook about the benefits of blogging. I know that many of you don't like it or you feel that it's a "girly" thing to do, but the more I read your blogs the more I see you growing and maturing in your writing. I'm so excited to see those changes and I think it's because you're writing about topics that are your thoughts and things you genuinely care about. I know that sometimes you feel you're writing about the same things or that you don't know where to start, but I find that once you do start you typically have good things to say. About the 10 Blogs Per Month: I know that's a lot. But, once again, I find that if you write at least ten times in a month, you'll find good things to say and you'll get past the surface to a deeper level of self-exploration. I'm glad you're all blogging :) And when you have problems, exciting moments, scary days, heartbreaks, annoying situations - I'll continue saying those words you love to hear, "You should BLOG ABOUT IT!"

Tiny Marshmellows?

Even the food that two children from the same parents will eat is completely opposite - like most everything about them: so completely different than the other. One likes reading and writing, the other building and constructing. One is fairly passive and docile, the other needs to always be in the middle of the action. One of my favorite things to watch though is how they address each other's differences and try to make sense of it.

But, back to food - yesterday, while eating at Moonlight (an Owensboro claim to fame, but oh, so expensive - we won't do that again for a while!) Jackson wanted some cottage cheese - a food Brock wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole because of the temperature and consistencey. He brought it back and Brock asked where Jackson had gotten those tiny marshmellows. I was tempted to let him steal a spoonful just to watch his reaction, but I think he really would have thrown up.

Some people say that you should force your children to try everything on the table or that they should have to finish their food. Really? I believe they have to right to say "I don't like cottage cheese." Heaven knows I don't like it, either. Or to say, "I'm finished but I'd still like ice cream" (to a certain degree, I know). Aren't there days we all want a cookie instead of our helping of veggies? I think these differences and these choices and these liberties are just part of the fun of living. They're healthy - they make good decisions (cottage cheese or marshmellows) so while they do I'll keep letting them make their own way with little nudges of guidance from me. This is the only way I can think of so far to not have them rebel horribly when they're older.

Where the Wild Things Are

Max tires quickly of being king of where the wild things are. If only more people were like this - oh, the trouble they could spare themselves. To want to return home after feeling lonely in this world of parties and "wild rumpus's" - to return where someone loves best of all.

I was talking to my mother yesterday about certain school issues and she reminded me of my 7th grade best friend, Kendra, who started visiting her own land of wild things. She would walk, everyday, to the little fast food joint beside the middle school. I was supposed to walk to the YMCA for our swim team practice, but one day I had time to kill, so I walked with her. I was shocked at what I found and in my too naive 13-year-old innocence, I just couldn't believe my eyes! My friend and her "new," much wilder, friends, gathered in that parking lot to smoke cigarettes. I was astonished and so sad. We had spent holiays together; my mother loved her like one of her own; she was like a sister I had never had. And here she was...smoking! I told her how I felt - "Kendra, I think you're hanging out with the wrong kinds of people. The new friends are not good for you; they're leading you down a wrong path." I chose to not stop there with her again and our friendship was torn apart. But, now I wonder why. Why did I have enough sense that this was not something for me. My brothers would have stayed - probably would have found a way to provide for their bad habits. I wish I knew what makes one person say "Okay, why now?" and another say "No way!" so that I could better protect and prepare my own children to not linger too long in the land where the Wild Things Are.

January Thanksgiving

A picture from the morning of Thanksgiving gazes back at me with three beautiful faces of my three precious boys. My husband, to whom I've been married for a long time. My brilliant writer and precious caring little ones. If only we could remember to have a little Thanksgiving everyday - even this day in January. To just think and list and reflect on all for which we have to be thankful. I am thankful for my boys today.

Little Footprints

Footprints in the Florida sand swept away even before we graced the path again. But the warmth of this moment in time fades not like sand through the hour-glass for I hold it forever in my heart - even long after my boys will surely grow and begin their own lives.

Our jackets wrapped around us because it was actually too chilly to be at the beach; the sand was cold under our feet and our toes were almost numb after the time there upon it. How, then, can gazing upon this memory leave my heart and soul so warm?

I relish this day when the sun shone bright on the emerald sea and my boys believe their right at the edge of the world. And, they are, I suppose. Their young lives have adventure in their future. May they always embrace the chilly temperature to play under the sun in the sand - and may they always leave their footprints upon the sand of their worlds.

Snow Days!

Even after a two-week break, there's still nothing better than going to bed anticipating that maybe, just maybe the meteorologists did (for once) sort of know what they're talking about - that maybe, just maybe, the snow they predicted would fall at midnight as they said it would. Just maybe. When Jackson woke up to potty around 11:40 in the night, though, I started to have doubts. There was no snow. Don't misunderstand: I love school. I'm glad to have the opportunity to teach - to do what I love. But... a snow day!? What is more magical than that. I went back to bed a little bummed out that my hopes had been raised only to be dashed. I woke back up to that beautiful sound of my husband saying my favorite Winter-words: "School's out!" No, I didn't jump out of bed, shouting praises. I tucked the blankets up around my neck and shoulders, rolled over to my other side, and drifted ever so peacefully back into bliss. This was no dream. We get our first snow-day of the year. And what a restful day it has been!