What Days This Summer Taste Like

Do you ever have those moments when you wish you could snap your fingers and instantly record exactly what was happening?  I had two of those this week and I have to write them down before they become part of the blur that characterizes my child-rearing years.

The first moment involved Nicholas, my middle son.  I wrote last summer about his reluctance to swim and the breakthrough he had when he finally learned to dunk his head under the water and swim with a flotation device.  Due to a relatively cool June, our pool time hasn't been very consistent, but the last couple of weeks have given us the chance to get into our morning pool ritual.  After a few days, Nicholas asked me, "Why can't I swim yet?" I reminded him that he had refused for the last two summers to allow me to teach him.  "Are you ready to learn now?" I asked.  He definitely was.  After a few minutes practicing kicks at the side of the pool and reminding him to make his arms like big spaghetti spoons, he was ready to try.  He pushed off from the pool's steps, and with that, he was swimming!  Just a few feet at first, but by the end of the hour, he was really getting the hang of it.  Only three days later, he is jumping into the deep end and swimming to the sides all on his own. He still needs to keep practicing and improving, but he is now a swimmer.  On that first day, he looked at me with his wet, shaggy hair falling across his eyes and a smile that could not get any wider and said, "I am so proud of myself!"  My heart must have tripled in size. After years of watching him wrestle with the desire to dive in and the fear that held him back, I couldn't help but have a few tears fall as he reveled in his success.

The second moment this week happened just a couple of hours ago.  I was reading to the boys from Because of Winn-Dixie by Katie DiCamillo, a book none of us has read before.  We haven't even seen the movie, so each night's reading is a fresh experience for all of us.  After a few chapters, particularly sorrow-filled chapters, I finished up and went to kiss my oldest son good night.  He said, "Mom, I think I might be too sad to fall asleep."  It isn't out of character for Michael to be strongly impacted by the situations in a book or movie; in fact, it happens regularly, but tonight, I asked him, "Do you know why it is good for us to read stories even though they make us sad?"  He shook his head and I continued, "Because when we read what other people go through, even thought it is hard and might make us sad, it makes us better able to love people in real life because we understand them better.  Reading stories that make us feel helps us be better people.  Does that make sense?" He understood and we chatted in whispers a bit more about how books do this.  Michael is a challenging boy, but his heart is about as tender as it could be.  I told him that if we keep reading books together, the things he struggles with will become easier to control.  That boy's sleepy eyes and soft smile made me want to lay down right next to him so we could fall into dreams together.  Alas, laundry beckoned and so I sang him a requested lullaby, turned out the lights and left the room where my three boys lay fast asleep.

Funny how the chapters we read in Because of Winn-Dixie tonight were the ones about the candy made with sweetness and sorrow.  Root beer, strawberry and melancholy all swirled together-- I know exactly what that tastes like.

PS: I didn't mean to ignore Lucas in this post; I'm sure I will share a story about his antics/poignant moments this summer soon!

#Poemaday 16: Whatcha readin'?

Whatcha readin' ?


Drive by Daniel Pink
The Lacuna (pulling me into its dangerous deep pools)
by Kingsolver and Because of Winn-Dixie,
a chapter before each day's goodnight.
A few student essays.
Poisonwood Bible chapters -- already annotated, but I need to
see it again with eyes a year older
because the students are pushing through read #1.

And there's more.
Blog after blog after blog.
Comments, replies, requests.
Tweets that line themselves up twenty four hours a day.
Trends and hashtags.
More student essays (they haunt me) and,
I confess, a copy of People at the hair salon.
Bit.ly linked articles
Status updates.
The space between the lines.

On my best days, your face,
the back of the cereal box
and something like this by me, but better.

Elvis, Lullabies and Magic

When I was in the 5th grade, I tried out for the school choir.  I was new to Alta Loma Elementary School and had to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to a few of the upper-grade teachers.  I remember sitting across from these teachers at a green picnic table, its paint chipped and peeling, outside the classrooms.  And I remember using a falsely-soprano voice to sing the song.  I guess I assumed that was what they wanted a girl to sound like.  I didn't make the choir.

The next year, I tried out for choir again.  This time, as I sat across from the now-familiar teachers at the same picnic table, I decided to sing in my real voice.  I made the choir and was convinced this was a lesson in being true to one's self in order to get what you really want.  However, my mom's reaction when I told her I made it was, "Of course! Now the teachers know how smart and good you are, so they want you to be in the choir no matter how you sing."  Reputation, not skill, was my saving grace in her opinion.  She was probably right.  When I prepared a duet for the Christmas performance with a friend of mine, the peer who was accompanying us on the piano nearly quit when I couldn't perform to his standards.  Apparently, we took this stuff pretty seriously back then.

Singing has always been a skill I have envied and desired.  I have made peace my lacking in this particular talent.  I often tell my students, "We each have our  own gifts" and I realize singing is not mine.  So, I am taken aback when someone compliments my voice. In fact, I can remember very clearly the few times this has happened.  Once was on the summer of 1991.  I had turned 18 and was celebrating with an evening in Beverly Hills with a few of my closest friends.  We went to the Hard Rock Cafe, the Beverly Center, and then my favorite restaurant ever, Ed Debevic's, for dessert.  We had all squished into my mom's Ford Taurus and my friend J. was driving.  On the way home, almost everyone else had fallen asleep.  We were listening to the oldies station (which may have contributed to their slumber) and an Elvis song came on.  (BTW, the pic above has no connection other than the fact that this peanut is dressed up like Elvis. It is located in the Visitor's Center in Dothan, Alabama and the boys loved it, even though they do not know who Elvis is.)

I began singing along and J. said, "You have a really nice singing voice."   Of course, this was much like the choir story.  I am sure it was not the quality of my voice, but the quality of my character that allowed my friend to enjoy my voice. Or maybe he was hearing more Elvis than me. Either way, the truth is, I had an incredible crush on J. so the fact that he was complimenting me on something I felt was less-than-good about myself made it an even sweeter moment.

Not nearly as sweet, though, as the moment I had yesterday.  As I have shared, the boys and I are reading James and the Giant Peach together each night.  On Thursday, we read the chapters with the Cloud-Men who attack the peach with hailstones.  When I finished, my oldest son Michael asked me to sing them a lullaby because the story had scared him a bit.  I started to launch into "You are My Sunshine" which is a favorite of mine, but he stopped me and said, "No, the one about us."  He was referring to a lullaby I made up when he was only hours old.  As I held him in my arms, just the two of us in the hospital room, I couldn't help but sing to him.  The song just came to me and over the years, many times, all three boys have had it sung to them, with their names in place of Michael's.  The song's lyrics are:

Michael, our little angel,
Sent from the Father up above.
Michael, our little angel,
we will share with you a world full of love.

You're our happiness
You're our joy
You're our beautiful baby boy
And we know that you're a gift
So up to the Lord we lift

Our baby Michael
Precious Angel
Sent from the Father up above.

I finished the song, we said our payers, and I kissed the boys good-night.  The next morning over breakfast, Michael said, "Mom, did you know that every time you sing that song to us, I don't have nightmares."  And then, he exclaimed, "When you sing, it's magical!" My heart nearly leapt from my chest with joy!  Then, reality check -- my son likes me, so his compliment shouldn't necessarily be considered accurate, right?

Then I remembered the letter.
 
When my father lived in another state to find work, he sent me a letter.  I was in the fourth grade.  My dad was always embarrassed about his writing, always commented on how he couldn't spell or punctuate correctly.  In fact he often had me proofread what he wrote so that I could fix any errors.  To my dad, his writing was a weakness, but to me -- holding that letter in my fourth-grade hands, missing him with my fourth-grade heart -- his writing was magical.

Michael was right. It is magical that the thing I always thought I was bad at has the power to take my sons safely into dreamland.  Through our children, we are given the amazing gift of seeing ourselves through new eyes,  eyes that love us without question. Because of that, our flaws, our weaknesses, the things we often try to hide, are the very things that our children adore.  And if that isn't magic, what is?

Books-n-Boys

One of the new features I will be working on this summer is a chronicle of the reading experiences I have with the boys.  We usually read together at bedtime and while we sometimes choose short children's books, we often read several chapters of a novel.  I've blogged about this before, but now I am interested in blogging through our reading adventures.

Yesterday, we went to the bookstore to buy our first novel of the summer.  I suggested we choose three books, then vote on which one we would buy.  Michael selected Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.  I selected The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.  We sat on the floor in the children's section and I read the back of each book to the boys.  They all voted for James and the Giant Peach.  I am fairly certain it is because Michael loves all that is Roald Dahl and because the boys had seen the movie. I was hoping for The Phantom Tollbooth because I have fond memories of it from elementary school, but I think i will have to keep talking it up before the boys will be ready to select it.

Even though my entry had not been selected, as we settled down for reading time before bed, I was eager to begin.  I have never read James, nor seen the movie, so the story is completely new to me.  The first few chapters, however, proved to be a bit different than what I expected.  The protagonist loses his family, and begins a miserable life with his abusive aunts.  In fact, the first two chapters were so troublesome that I made myself read a few more even though my eyes began to sting in hopes of closing our reading time on a less disturbing note.  The boys even asked me to sing them a few lullabies to help their brains focus on sweeter stuff as they fell into slumber.


Tonight, I thought the boys might be less eager for reading time because of the nature of the novel's opening.  As bedtime neared, I gave them the option of one more episode of The Upside-Down Show or getting into bed for reading time.  To my surprise, they unanimously chose reading time and without delay clicked off the TV and headed for their bedroom.  The reading tonight was not much more uplifting, but the boys are totally engaged in the saga of poor James and I am quite certain they will rush off to bed tomorrow night to hear more about the peach which is beginning to bulge at the top of the tree.

My boys often do the opposite of what I expect, but this time, I was pleased by it.  Michael said the reason they still wanted to hear the story even though it started of with such sad details is because they like to see justice done in the end.  I can't guarantee that it will be, in the book or in their lives, but it gives me some peace of mind to know that he feels that is how the world should work.

This time we spend reading together not only fills our minds with stories about  the lives of others, it gives us a greater understanding of each other and an opportunity to share a vision of the world.  Who knew a peach could do so much? [I'm guessing the peach is going to do more than I could imagine, actually :)]

They Know the Ending

My sons and I are reading Old Yeller.  The boys are 7, 5 and 2 and they are totally into this book.  Well, the two year old is more into swinging from the bed posts, but the other two -- completely engaged. A couple of times a week, as they wind down for bedtime, I read a chapter or two aloud to them.  And no matter how long I read, they groan when I say it is time for us to stop for the night.

How I wish this was the same reaction I got from the students in my classes!  And lately I have been wondering why it is not.  As a teacher of 13 years, this certainly is not the first time I have pondered this idea.  But this time, I am looking at from a fresh perspective.  Instead of thinking about what is going wrong in the classroom and how that keeps students from being engaged in our reading, I need to think about what is right in the reading situation I have with my boys.

First, I chose a book for the boys that I believed they would be interested in due to the subject matter.  They have been drawn in to the life of this young boy in rural Texas who has responsibilities they can hardly imagine.  He hangs from tree limbs to mark and castrate pigs and I do not even let them use a butter knife!

Second, I made reading more about experiencing the moment than finding out "what happens."  Often, that is all my students want to know, which is why SparkNotes is so tempting. Many of them believe that novels (or plays or even poems) are written to tell the chronological events of a story and to hold the reader in suspense until all is revealed in the end. But for my sons and I, the journey is the part we love.  And because I am reading along with them, it is a shared journey.  This sharing of the road is what drives us, not the destination. In fact, the boys know what happens at the end of the book (we are only three pages away from the tragic scene!), but that hasn't assuaged their interest in hearing the story.  They are more interested in the how and why than they are in the what.

Finally, the story does not stop when we close the book. All of the novels we have read together, from Charlotte's Web to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, have become a part of our family experience.  We bring up characters and conflicts we have encountered in these worlds in our daily discussions. We compare their experiences and responses to our own.  My oldest son wants a dog and we have told him that when we move into a larger home, he can have one.  In the meantime, we read about Travis and Yeller and talk about what is wonderful about loving a pet so much and what is also really hard about it.  I have no doubt that sharing this story together will impact his own dog stories later in life.  

Upon reflection, what makes the reading such a powerful experience for the boys and for me is that we all learn from it, about the characters, the time period, the conflicts and even more, about ourselves.  So, even when the boys know the ending, they know the story never really ends.