It's not so bad.....

To give you the brief rundown since the last time I posted, things have been looking up for me in the 5th grade.

It took a few days after Christmas for the students to realize that I wasn't going anywhere. And to be honest, it took about the same amount of time for me to realize I wasn't going anywhere either. Even if I thought about it on a regular basis in those first few weeks.

Somehow after Christmas, everything came together. The students grew to genuinely  like me and vice versa. Now I don't get that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when I go to school and no one stands on their desk and throws pencils at me when I turn my back.

Now, the kids bring me thin mint chocolates and one student wrote a letter actually telling me I was her favorite teacher that she had ever had. I thought about framing it. But instead, I tucked in a safe spot to take out and re-read on a rotten day.

They even rolled their eyes and huffed and puffed when I told them I had to have a subsitute come in for half a day so I could sign paperwork. Because, they told me, they would rather I was with them. I couldn't believe my ears.

Maybe time was all that was needed. At any rate, I'm glad I stuck with it.

The Forgotten Door

Today was a teacher's typical Tuesday.

Mondays are the gem of the week. The students are sleepy, they don't talk a lot. They are still in a fog. You teach, you think they are listening, and from the dazed look you sure hope they are. Mondays are easy.

It is a lot easier to tell a student to wake up then it is to tell them to stop talking, sit in their desk, and for the love of pete keep their hands, feet, and objects to themselves.

That's what Tuesdays are for. All the energy they stored up in hibernation mode on Monday, they save it for Tuesday.

So Tuesdays are my days for wine and this blog. Thank you, blog. Thank you, week-old wine.

In the midst of yelling today and explaining things over and over and over again, I had a spare minute and I thought I would check the cabinents for a microscope.

I figure you can't be a legitimate science teacher if you do not have a handy dandy microscope.

I couldn't find it, but I did find something a gazillion times better.

Every since I took over that classroom a few weeks ago, I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt.

I'm not sure of the organizational system that was in place by the previous teacher, but I feel like treasures are tucked in ever nook and cranny.

Today, instead of a microscope, which I'm sure is in there somewhere, I found this:

The Forgotten Door.

It is THE book that made me:

• want to be a teacher - because my fourth grade teacher read it to my class with such energy that I wanted to be her
• want to be a writer
• tell Mr. Yardbird for the past 7 years I have to locate it

After my teacher read this book to us, I went on to write "The Magic Necklace" that year and other half finished short stories. I still have many of them in my old room at home. I couldn't stop writing because of this book and I started reading just about every suspenseful book I could get my hands on.

Finding this book, made me realize that:

• Oh yeah, I want to be a teacher
• Maybe this all might work out after all

I'm kidding, it was nice to find it though.

So,with all of my excitement upon finding the book, I called my class to attention.

Two people looked my way and I said "I want to read ya'll this amazing book for ten minutes everyday." I went on to read the back of the book and a few kids looked up with interest.

"How's that sound?" I said, beaming with happiness.

No one said anything.

Then I asked them to raise their hands if they were interested in that.

Guess what?

One person did.

So, I shrugged my shoulders, stuck my treasure in my bag and decided I'll wait to Ham gets bigger and read it to him.

Life with 5th graders.

Choo-Choo.

Ralph, Eor, Jerry, Scout, Copper and Todd.

These were all of Ham's potential buddies.

Some kids have blankies or lovies. Some have that special stuffed animal they lug around everywhere.

But not Ham.

We tried and I'm not even sure why we tried so hard to make him that kind of friend.

I think we thought it would ease transitions.

A new start at daycare, we packed Jerry.

Long road trips, we brought Scout.

Bedtime pals that Ham could read to, well Copper and Todd were his right hand dog and fox.

There was even a point when an unnamed stuffed animal squirrel made such an impression on Ham he wouldn't eat his dinner without it tucked behind him.

But low and behold Ham finally figured out which bedtime friend he could not make it without. I thought for a moment it might be one of his cars, the small plastic cars he asks me to put in his bed every night.

No, apparently nothing compares to "Choo Choo", Ham's train.

For the past few nights, Ham's love for Choo Choo makes it nearly impossible to rock him to sleep, because the rocker barely has room for the two of us anymore. There's definitely not room for the three of us, Choo. And as much as I love our rocks together, my arms and face are not into being Choo's railroad tracks. I told Ham it's either me or Choo and I watched his knuckles turn white as he tightened his grip on it.

And last night, when he woke up screaming for who knows what reason and I rushed to his side. He didn't say "Mommy, hold me", he said "Where's Choo?". And I reluctantly put the same Choo back that I snuck out of his crib the moment his eyes shut. He lowered himself back down onto the mattress and wrapped his arm around Choo pulling him tightly to his side. I can't see how that's comfortable, but who am I to judge?

And Choo went with us as we left this morning. Here he is mid "Choo".

And Choo takes part in his "terrible two" activities such as climbing on the table.

Maybe it's just a phase or maybe Choo's his new sidekick.

Happy 2013!

I always say that you can tell how good of a time someone had by how few pictures they took. My reason being that when a good time is going on, no one wants to waste time taking pictures.

And so that being said, I only have one picture to show for our big family new years party at Aunt Christine and Uncle Frank's.

At one point in the beginning before droves of people arrived, I snapped this picture of Mr. Yardbird showing off his mad yo-yo skills to my cousins.

They seemed really impressed.

The next day, Ham and I went back over to Aunt Christine and Uncle Franks to catch our out-of-town family members one last time before they left.

The boys played football in the yard for a while, we ate and then set to work on cleaning up the toy room. Not only did the adults have a great time at the party, but the kids appeared to have a pretty awesome time too with my aunts never-ending supply of toys.

My Aunt has toys from the 1970's with all of their pieces. This blows my mind, because I can't keep up with the pieces to Ham's toys two seconds after he opens them. There are toys in my aunt's play room that I remember playing with when I was a kid and it was neat to see Ham excited over the same ones I loved as a kid.

While we were cleaning we came across a proton pack, a radar gun and something to catch the ghosts with.
 
So we loaded Ham up with all of the Ghostbuster gear and he got to work looking for Slimer.

Which made me smile and think of this guy.....

My brother Jason

 Man how time flies!

15 minutes

For the past six months, I've been busier than ever. I started and finished student teaching second grade, finished my masters and started teaching 5th grade.

Teaching second grade was a dream. I loved my students, they loved me. They gave me beautifully decorated construction paper cards and they brought me flowers.

On the other hand, my fifth graders despise my existence and liken my role as their teacher as a dictator who hands out homework, keeps them busy with classwork and  oh, makes them mind their manners and abide by the rules.

Plain and simple, they hate me. That I'm sure of because they tell me so when they aren't calling me "Ms. Garbage".

But, while it might seem like I should have thrown myself a pity party over the Christmas break, I didn't. Even though I really desperately wanted to.

Instead, I reverted back to my stay at home mom days, boy do I miss those, and tried to soak in as much time as I could with this guy.

Today, for the first time in such as long time, Ham fell asleep in my arms during nap time. It was a miracle because neither one of us can find a comfortable position in the rocking chair anymore. We've finally outgrown it, which makes me really sad.


But that's the territory we're embarking on now, the toddler years.

These days, I don't have the lengthy rocking chair sessions I use to when Ham was a baby. Now bedtime is much different.

It always starts by reading Ham his usual favorites, Otis, Otis and the Tornado, Are You My Mother? and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

He sips on his milk and makes the faces he's sees in the stories. If Goldilocks yawns, then he stretches his arms out and yawns with her, which in turn makes me really yawn.

And when we are done, Ham says "The N (End)", I turn the lights out and sit him in my lap and we spend the next 15 minutes in the dark talking.

If you jip Ham out of these 15 minutes of quality time, he is sure to cry. If you abide by it, he gets into bed fifteen minutes later with no fuss and asks for his plastic cars to sleep with.

I don't mind it though because these are the best 15 minutes of my life.

On days when the 5th graders have torn my ego to shreds. On days where I've yelled and screamed and called parents that don't care. On days where the grades do not reflect the time I spent teaching, I have these 15 minutes to look forward to.

A time when all is quiet and all is still in the house, except for the sound of the rocking chair creaking and Ham leaning in and whispering "What's Zat (That)?" to every creak he hears.

Sometimes he sit in my lap, facing me and he pretends to get dizzy from all the rocking. He says "Wa-Oh" and puts his arms out to balance himself. Sometimes he shakes his straight blond hair just to see it schwoosh from side to side. And other days, he examines my face for "boo boo's", which there aren't any, but he kisses them anyway and rubs my face softly with his hands. He reminds me that I have eyes and that he has eyes and we sing songs we made up about the moon. Then we check outside his window to see if the moon is out there, but we never see it.

Then it is time to lay him down. I lower him into the crib and he reminds me that his cars are not there, I tell him I'll be right back and I rummage through the house searching high and low for them. When I get back I hand him the cars I found, he tells me, "Dank Q" and he leans in to give me a goodnight kiss.

And as I creep out of his room and bring the door to a crack, I am thankful for our one-on-one time no matter how short it might seem in these toddler times.

Bob's Orchid Tree

The sun was setting down past the trees and there was still a little time to squeeze in a walk around the neighborhood.

Ham was growing frustrated with one of his toys and I suggested he take a drive in his car to cool off for a bit.

"Tay (Okay)" he replied and stood by the door.

Gripping his arm with one hand and lugging his plastic car down the steps, we squeezed through the potted plants and down the steps.

I fastened my makeshift seatbelt on him, a polka-dotted blue ribbon that I'm sure will embarrass the heck out of him one day.

The car rumbled down the sidewalk so loudly that I often wonder if people can hear us in their houses.

We headed straight past our usual spot.

I noticed one of our neighbors was out and we stopped for a moment to talk to her. As we waved goodbye, I motioned across the street and mentioned we were headed to our favorite tree. I always start our walk by giving Ham a leaf off the tree.

Once we had a good leaf or one that Ham thought was good enough, we headed around the corner past this super prickly plant that causes us to veer onto the road for a bit.

That's when we bumped into Bob.

Bob came running around the house waving his hands as if to tell us to stop.

I glanced down at Hammy holding his leaf, the leaf we technically stole off of Bob's tree.

I grimaced at little, thinking that maybe Bob wouldn't appreciate that at all.

"Watch out for that prickly bush on the corner!" he exclaimed. He motioned over to the bush that sits in the corner of his lot, the one that Ham and I artfully dodge every time we turn the corner. It's leaves could take your eyes out if you weren't paying any attention. 

"Oh thanks, we'll be careful."

And while I had Bob's attention I thought I might just bring up that beautiful tree in his yard.

It turns out Bob had a lot to say about it.

"It's an Orchid Tree. It's from the Carrribean." He said. "My mother was visiting one of the islands and fell in love with the trees there. She got her hands on some of the seeds and tried to bring them back into the country with her"

He shook his head remembering her story, "But they won't let her in with the seeds. They said she had to throw them away, that they wouldn't allow her to bring a plant or seeds into the U.S."

He smirked a little bit before saying, "So my mom went to the bathroom and put two seeds in her brassiere and walked right back through the line."

He motioned over to the tree. "This tree is a product of one of those seeds. The other seed didn't make it."

I was amazed. I told him I was growing a tree from a sapling I took from the tree over at my house in a pot, until I could figure out what to do with it.

He lit up as a thought crossed his mind and asked us to sit tight for a moment because he was going to run back into his house for a moment.

Ham and I waited outside. Ham was growing impatient. He pulled at the ribbon around his waste and arched his back, whining and squealing.  I tugged the ribbon loose and lifted him into my arms, bouncing him like he was an infant. He didn't appreciate it. I tried my best to keep him entertained while we waited.  Plus, if Bob turned out to be a crazy person and I had to retreat, I could abandon Ham's car and make a run for it.

Before long, Bob was back with old medicine bottles in his hand. I started to get nervous. He handed one over to me. I held it up in the light and recognized the butterbean shaped seeds of the Orchid tree. He handed over another medicine bottle of them. Inside each there appeared to be handwritten instructions.

"I made these for anyone who was interested in growing one. I wrote down instructions on how to care for it."

Amazing.

"Wow. Thanks....If the one that I'm growing doesn't work out, I have back ups" I shook the medicine bottle in the air as if it would tell me how many were in there. I imagined our future house surrounded by Orchid trees.

Bob went on to tell me more of the story, but Ham wouldn't stand for it. Ham crawled out of my arms and started pushing his car towards the direction of our house.

"Well I need to get him home," I said while trying to keep Ham from veering his car into the street.

I apologized to Bob, but he wasn't worried about it. I thanked him for the seeds and for the story.

I told him that Ham and I loved that tree, that it was the highlight of our walks.

We smiled and waved goodbyes.

And Ham and I headed back to our house with two medicine jars filled to the brim with Orchid tree seeds.

Butterfly Tree

"...Edging the golf course of the club was a glorious sweep of glowing purple. Even before I was near enough to identify the trees, the rich, heady perfume which filled the air told me they were Bauhinias. The sight left me breathless and it was then I realised how difficult was the attempt I was making to describe in mere words the trees I know better how to paint..." (D. Cowen, "Flowering trees and shrubs of India")

I said I would never write about this again but here I am writing about it.

So, remember when I talked about that tree in the neighborhood Ham and I love, the one I took the sapling from and tried to grow for myself in a pot?  (If you don't remember click here and here.)

Well....

It has been growing....

and slowly and surely I moved up its pot size twice.

And it even started growing bark.


The end.


That would be the end of it if I planted it in the ground but I haven't done that yet. For a while now I didn't even know what it was!

But have no fear. Mr. Yardbird and I researched and researched and finally we found out... it is an....

Orchid Tree!.....or sometimes called a Butterfly Tree. Or in scientific words Bauhinia blakeana.

Which explains a whole lot.

If I'm boring you.....stop here.

I need this for my records. When I'm old and senile. When I can't remember what that cool  tree is growing in my yard. When I want my grandkids to be impressed by my weirdness...

I can pull up this blog or hopefully I'll have it all nice in a book and say yes, grandkids of mine this tree has history.

And they can nod their weary heads and act enthused.

Anyway, the Orchid tree.

From what I know, it originated in Hong Kong, but also grows in India and some subtropical areas. Some guy named Sir Henry Blake found the tree and named it "Butterfly" tree after his wife, who was an avid painter of butterflies, trees and plants. Apparently, she really loved butterflies (about as much as I do) and found them buzzing around this tree's fragrant flowers.

The leaves which are huge and remind me of elephant ears were referred to as "clever" leaves because students in Hong Kong were asked to use them as bookmarks when studying. Ham uses them as a fan for now ------>

Henry....painter.... lover of butterflies....the pea pods I found at Aunt Carrie's house, being clever?

Can there be so many things to connect me with this tree? I'm kidding about the being clever part.

But knowing the name and the history of it are only part of it. Somehow this tree ended up in my neighborhood and today I found out how.

More on that in the next post.