Making Mistakes or you know, it's Motherhood

     In the small town next to our small town, we have a gluten free bakery. It's tucked away in a plaza that shares space with the local sanitary district, an occasional used car salesman and various other businesses that survive for six months and then blow away with the constant prairie wind. 

    Years ago I went to a church housed in one of the bigger office spaces. I don't remember much except they had made a spaghetti dinner for after the service and it didn't smell that great. Now, I have been to many a church function and some of those church ladies, they know how to make a spread. This was not one of them. But it was significantly better than the fundraiser I visited this spring inside a church and the church ladies had made boiled hot dogs. Do you know the color of a boiled hot dog? LOL - not a natural one and Baby Blueberry had to have one. 

    Now, to catch up new readers, I must say that Baby Blueberry is no longer a baby, but instead is a teenager. And if you're a reader from the start, then if you feel old, imagine how I feel? I don't feel old until I realize that my surprise baby from a pregnancy in my mid-thirties is now a teenager. This is why poets and songwriters make art about time slipping into the unknown. It is the most elusive element in science. 

    But I digress, as I often do, even in real time conversations. My best friend from when I was a teenager, we will call her SB, often joked about how we would bird walk in our conversations. When I moved half way across country, we were pen pals for a while and then it slowly died out. I missed her. Sometimes there's nothing as intense as a teenage best friend, besides maybe first love. A couple of years ago I started to get the intense urge to look her up. I would dream about her. She would pop into my head uninvited. 

    And so I looked her up. Her obit was the third down on the search. She had died just shortly before that of cancer. At 43. Grief is hard. Regret of not connecting again before she was gone is harder. 

    She had ended up being a fifth grade teacher. Something she had adamantly said she would never be. And now, I'm teaching fifth grade. Also, something I had said I would never do either. I wish we could joke about that. She would enjoy the irony in it. 

    But again I digress and now we go back to the bakery. This bakery is a must visit if you ever come to my area of the world. The baker has worked countless hours to make goods that taste delicious. Not it's pretty good for gluten free, but actually yummy. And so the other day I had the Husband, who does not get the moniker Hero Hottie anymore, because that relationship is in murky waters, pick up two blueberry lemon muffins. One for Baby Blueberry and one for me. 

    I did not eat it that day. I'm recovering from the second of two major abdominal surgeries - thank you Crohn's- and was not hungry yet. 

    The next day I went to get it out of the fridge and I find one muffin with the delicious and best part of the muffin - the top munched by someone else. I started crying and fuming. How could someone eat my muffin? I angrily toss it in the air fryer and ate the bottom of my muffin. 

    A little while later...Baby Blueberry is searching through the fridge, pulls out a whole muffin, not touched and munched and asks, "Where is my muffin? I was saving the bottom of it to eat later." 

    I stare at the untouched blueberry muffin and then look at her. I look back at the muffin and realized that I had grabbed her saved muffin. I sigh. 

    I tell her what happened and then offer my whole, untouched muffin in return. It does seem rather petty to demand the top of the muffin. The best part. The part she now gets to have two of, but I graciously offer my muffin to her. 

    She shared a bit of it, since she realized I didn't get a whole muffin. But man, I really missed eating my entire treat. So the mistake I mentioned in the title - you thought it would be me confessing to some mistake with my child? No, it's the mistake of grabbing the wrong treat in the fridge, believing someone had taken mine, not bothering to look further because if I had, I would have found it, and then missing out of the best part of the muffin. 

    If only I could have hidden my muffin in my secret chocolate stash in my underwear drawer. I used to hide the chocolate in the cupboard, but they - the children - found it. So it had to go where no child is going to search - their Mom's underwear drawer. 

    Anyway, that is how good those bakery treats are - that I wrote a blog about a missing muffin top. Maybe I should put that in a Google review? 

 And also, having treats and kids is the definition of a paradox. 

Divine Signs in the Sky or Maybe it's Just Science...But Also, Mom sends me rainbows

 My mom sends rainbows. They are little gifts that show up randomly. 

    According to the internet, most places will experience a rainbow less than six times a year. So out of 365 days - not really that many chances to see one. 

    Then you think about how many days of the years are full of sunshine - in my location over 200 days and the odds grow smaller. 

    And then for you skeptics out there - rainbows are a natural occurring phenomenon and can not be sent by our deceased loved ones. 

    But what if they could be?

    What if the world is this wonderful blend of the science we've learned and the divine just on the other side? And what if sometimes that rainbow, or that song on the radio, or that butterfly landing on you is the bridge between here and there?

    Just a whisper. An invisible thread like gossamer. Where you can only see it when the Light shines just right. 

    My mom loved rainbows. They made her happy and I completely regret not asking her why. Did the colors soothe her soul? Was it just a flash of color that brightened her day? Or was it her link to her ancestors and their whispered encouragements? Did she feel the same tug I do now when I spot a rainbow arching across the stormy gray clouds in turbulent skies and shimmering behind big, fat droplets of water?

    One of the first rainbows came on December 24th, 2020. Her blue heeler had already been sick and old when she passed in March that year. And when my mom was dying, I promised her I would take care of my dad and her dog. That holiday, my dad decided to visit his siblings. He needed to get away. The first Christmas without is a lost feeling. You can try to decorate it and wrap it in pretty paper, but the box is empty underneath the bow. 

    He left the blue heeler with me.

    And when he brought her in - he had to carry her inside the house. She was already ready to go. 

    I didn't want to be responsible for this.    

    I just prayed she made it until he got back. 

    She would not. 

    The day before Christmas Eve, I called him and explained as gently as I could...

    She has to go in. It's just too much to wait. 

    He said call him in the morning.    

    And I did. And so before the girls woke up on Christmas Eve morning, while the house was quiet and decorated with a tree and lights...

    The husband gently carried her to the back of the car - and laid her on her dog bed which we had set back there to make her journey comfortable and soft. 

    We drove her to the vet and sat with her while she left this earthy plane to join my mom. 

    And when we walked into the parking lot, there was a full color rainbow in the winter sky. Just in the clouds. No storm. No rain. 

    Just a rainbow. With colors. 

    And as we drove home...the rainbow ended up being over our house. 

    Over our house. A rainbow in winter. 

    And I bawled. 

    And my mom didn't seem so far away. 

Actual photo of the rainbow on that winter morning. 

    

 Can we throw out the bath water without throwing out the baby? 

    Since the first week I've been subbing full-time in a fifth grade class. Honestly, it wasn't my first choice. Nor was it my second choice. I tried to obtain two other long-term subbing positions and at the last minute they both were changed. 

    The only one that was left open was fifth grade. It took me two days to decide to apply for the position. I've subbed fifth grade.

    Horribly. With disaster. With tears. 

    Mine, by the way. Not theirs. They were unfazed. 

    Perhaps the universe decided I needed to learn something. Or it hates me. Or it's laughing at my expense. 

    I took this fifth grade position and like Bean reminded me. "Mom, you get paid even if you come home crying." For the first two weeks it was my mantra. 

    And then I started to figure out the 10-11 year old lingo. Their hormones. Their obsessions. It's an intense age and the wrong look from a student can send someone into the depths of despair. For the first few weeks their vocabulary was like listening to a string of Tik Tok videos all day long. In fact, some of the students were even writing in this annoying lingo. I was about ready to crash out. Did they even know English any more? We were heading straight for Ohio. Their writing scores were cooked. 

    Luckily, living with Baby Blueberry, who is 12 now, keeps me hip and cool by keeping me updated on the new Tik Tok trends and internet references. I quickly learned if I used words like, 'Ohio,' Sigma, Gucci,' I could get the students to stop using them because I made them uncool. 

    Whoops. My bad. 

    Now I wish I could say my students were very demure, very mindful -  but they aren't. They're a rowdy and busy group who has experienced sub after sub over the last four years. Do you know what kinds of bad habits you develop as a student when you don't have a consistent teacher? 

    I have students who don't know their 3's on the multiplication chart. Do you know how difficult it is to learn two and three digit multiplication when you don't know your basics?

    But get going. We have a schedule. Lesson 6.1 is on Monday and don't get behind. Students don't know- that's too bad. Keep going. Keep pushing. 

    Do we move to middle school? We're dumb, Ms. H. We're cooked. I got an F. I'm flipping burgers at Wendy's. 

    I'm working at McDonald's, says another student. 

    Is the focus starting to happen? Can I clarify things for you? These students will finish fifth grade feeling dumb and incapable.

    But at least we did Lesson 6.2 on Tuesday, right? 

    Should the education system change?

    Absolutely, yes. 

    Today, I had an admin come into my room to have my students write apology letters for a trip they took and I thought they did pretty good. Perfect, hell no. But good. 

    But here they were writing apology letters. I think the idea was so their behavior was even better next time. 

    But I had a student ask if he needed to write an apology letter because... he wasn't there. 

    He wasn't there. 

    And the answer was...yes. He needed to write an apology letter too. 

    I can imagine how I would write it. "Dear so-so, I'm sorry for my behavior on the trip I didn't take." 

    Can we change the education system without throwing out the baby? 

    We have to. 

    Our kids. 

    Our grandkids are depending on us. 

    But we need to start with an empty tub and figure out what should go in. Because my students aren't even ready for Lesson 6.3, and we're supposed to be on Lesson 6.5 by the end of the week. 

    Maybe we can memorize our 3's by then.