Juggling Life

Friends in High Places

This metal door-hanger was a gift from Suzy Soro. This is the biggest reason  I’m part of the blogosphere.

Where else would a mother and teacher who is married to her high-school sweetheart and has lived in Southern California her whole life enjoy the friendship of a hot blonde comedian who has never been married and has traveled the world making people laugh?

If you every really need to really know what’s up, this woman can tell you. And she’ll be right every time.

Plus, she got the last chocolate babka on Seinfeld and that’s just hawt.

In the Beginning

I wrote this post over the weekend. I can tell by yesterday’s comments that this post isn’t really necessary—you know me really well. The comments were wonderful Since I’m sick I’m going to use it anyway—my head is too congested to think of something different to write.

I am ashamed to say that I’ve just recognized “The Bachelor” on “Dancing with the Stars.” I totally blame Social Butterfly. Left to my own devices I would watch nothing bug PBS.

After the whole “Jenn is a pathological narcissist” comment, I started thinking about my motivation in starting this blog.

First, every single person that blogs has a certain, and not necessarily unhealthy, dose of “look at me” in them. If we didn’t, we could all write in private journals. We don’t—we want to share our lives with others and interact with them. I certainly do.

Secondly, when I was thinking about starting a blog, I noticed that many of the blogs out there, while well-written and entertaining, often focused on the downsides of motherhood and marriage. While I consider those bloggers experiences valid for them, I thought there was room in the big, wide internet for a different perspective—that of a happy person who enjoyed and was satisfied with a life built around motherhood and homemaking.

My life is not perfect. I am not perfect. My kids are not perfect. My husband is  not perfect. Even my dogs aren’t perfect.

That said, I really love my life and all the aforementioned aspects of it. I’ve worked hard and had some luck. I’ve suffered losses and had setbacks, but it has all worked out okay. I am an upbeat person.

I am frankly peeved that I am being attacked for being well-adjusted, hard-working and happy.

If you really are a reader of my blog you know that I struggle with my weight, that my younger son was once suspended for fighting in the 10th grade, that I have epic battles with my youngest daughter about her clothes, that my husband uses the elliptical as a clothes rack (this drives me nuts) and that I’m having to train my family to help out more around the house now that I’m working full-time. You know that I had very difficult relationships with my sister and mother and that I miss my mother very much.

In short, I really don’t believe I’m trying to portray my life as better than anyone else’s or myself as perfect.

I do portray my life accurately—though with the blogger’s penchant for exaggerating the elements that make it funnier.

I am very organized. Why should I apologize for or deny this? I treasure my ability (both cultivated and natural) to be organized. It allows me lead a very full life and get a good night’s sleep.

My house is pretty much always clean—why is it somehow more “real” to have a messy house? You do it your way and I’ll do it mine.

I got a kick out of my kids when they were little and I get a kick out of them now. Do I get a kick out of them every minute of every day? No, but I’m very happy to have had these kids and I’m not going to pretend that they’re sucking the life out of me in order to make someone else feel better.

I love my husband and he’s a really great guy. Sorry if that offends someone. We are not a lovey-dovey in public couple, but I met the man 30 years ago and I woke up Saturday morning to the newspaper and a vase of fresh daffodils on my nightstand. I had a wicked cold and he thought he’d brighten up the room for me so I could spend the day in bed reading and nursing my cold. I think that makes him pretty damn swell. Plus, today her brought me Lemon-Chicken soup from Daphne’s.

I am a helluva teacher. Again, this is both innate and cultivated. Kids that HATE school love my class. Kids that routinely refuse to turn in school work are writing essays for me. Woohoo! I am sure not going to downplay that.

I do write about my family, friends, neighbors and students. I change names when I need to and anybody that is at all close to me (including in-laws, friends and neighbors) knows about my blog. I don’t say anything negative about anyone that I haven’t or wouldn’t say to the person’s face.

I do not believe that hiding your light under a bushel makes you more moral than I am. It’s a style thing and it’s not my style.

If you don’t like the style in which I write about my life, don’t read my blog. I take no offense. But don’t tell me that my being a competent, happy, person who holds and voices strong opinions means that I have a serious psychiatric disorder.

If It’s Good Enough for Dooce . . .

Do you remember how Dooce was monetizing the hate? Well, I can’t actually monetize anything blog-related because I decided a long time ago that entrepreneurialism stresses me, but I can share the hate.

Last week I sent you over to my post at The Women’s Colony to see what you thought and to read the comments. In an addendum to the post and in the comments I admit that I did a less than stellar job of making my point—I did go on to clarify it and there were those that appreciated my point and agreed with me. I love those people beyond all reason.

My point being that, almost universally, when we try to avoid going through pain, we end up with our pain multiplied later. I chose a poor example to illustrate the point. I regret my choice of examples as it caused pain to some readers.

That said, the party in the comments really got started after you all went home.

 

I’m really at a loss as to how I have meaningful relationships with people in the real world and the blogosphere and how I make a difference in the lives of my students after receiving this diagnosis from a person I’m sure is a highly qualified professional in the psychiatric field.

Highly qualified psychiatric professionals do make diagnosis in internet forums regarding people they’ve never met, right?

After careful study of a significant sample of your writing, I can tell that you are a know-it- all, who clearly loves to tell the world exactly how you are better than anyone else, with your better kids, better husband, better relationship, better laundry skills, more organized household, better shopping style and always perfect punctuation. (Yet, you will not hesitate to write about in-laws, family members, neighbors, and the soccer moms, behind their backs.)

I can tell you with certainty that you are a pathological narcissist. I am not saying that in a pejorative way, I am saying it in a clinically diagnosable way.

I guess I need to add therapy to my busy schedule—too bad this capable professional didn’t leave her name.

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Tropical Breezes . . .

I assigned a Response to Literature Essay on Tuesday. It was to be completed in class on Tuesday and Wednesday and was due by the end of class on Thursday.

Football Player Dude: I’m not going to have time to finish this, so it’s a waste of time for me to even start.

Mrs. Juggling: Why won’t you be able to finish it?

FBD: I’m going to Hawaii tomorrow.

Mrs. Juggling: Umm, taking off school to go on vacation does not mean you don’t do the work.

FBD (in genuine shock): It doesn’t?

Mrs. Juggling: It doesn’t. Get started today and you can email it to me.

FBD: I don’t think anybody is going to take a laptop.

Mrs. Juggling (heads to her desk and then returns): Here’s an envelope with my home address on it. It’s a 5 or 6 hour plane trip. Finish it on the plane and mail it to me. It needs to be postmarked by Friday.

FBD: You’re . . . not . . . kidding?

Mrs. Juggling: I’m not kidding.

Budget Cuts: What they Look Like in the Classroom

I often wonder if people really understand what “doing more with less” looks like in real life. The following is an example of what it looks like in my classroom.

I teach struggling readers. High school freshmen who are about two years below grade level in their reading and writing skills (and, honestly, “at grade level” would not set your hair one fire).

One of the greatest techniques for increasing reading comprehension and study skills is annotating a text. That’s why highlighters are such a big deal and many of us own college textbooks that are marked up, written in and flagged all over.

When I do short stories or expository texts with my students I copy the stories from a variety of books and magazines. My copy allowance is so limited that I can only make one set—4 different periods share that set.

That they cannot mark up the text makes it harder for me to teach and harder for them to learn. In the end I’m sure it costs the school district and the community more money in that the kids don’t make the progress they otherwise might.

Little things count.

Also, may I point out that this is one reason the “achievement gap” exists. The teachers at my kids highly-rated, suburban school just tell the kids to ask their parents for $10 to go toward his/her copy fund and we gladly contribute. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not an option in a less-affluent area.

Sweat Shop

Proving the adage that great brains think alike, Suburban Correspondent also did a hoodie post this week.

I was doing laundry the other day. I knew Social Butterfly had a lot of sweatshirts and hoodies, but it suddenly occurred to she had really a lot of sweatshirts.

We don’t buy winter jackets at all here—sweatshirts are good for everything but snowboarding and it would never be cold enough to wear a snowboarding jacket out and about.

So, it’s sweatshirts and hoodies.

I realized today though, that if we bought winter jackets we’d only by one. We own a lot of sweatshirts.

We would come out way ahead if we lived in Minnesota!

She was wearing her SRHS Aquatics sweatshirt when she bought her UCSF sweatshirt. They hang in her closet next to Midwestern University, Cal Poly SLO, CSU Fort Collins, SRHS Cheer, SRHS Swim, Red’s Meadow, Mammoth, SR Softball and a couple of striped numbers. I don’t even want to do the math.

Safari Time

Going for the realistic look, this is how Social Butterfly (my Amazon daughter) and her friends interpreted the safari look of the party they went to Saturday night. On a party bus no less (because my neighborhood is nothing if not excessive).

Yes, I have stories. I’m just going to wait to tell them.

If you’re the mom with the camera, tripod, ability to serve a nice dinner and the willingness to stay up until all hours of the night, you’re lucky enough to get a firsthand look at a lot!

A Hint: #9 and #12 are the Winners

I have a post up at The Women’s Colony that I had doubts about when I wrote it—my instincts were right; I don’t think I got my point across at all—but you can go read it and judge for yourself if you’d like.

An important part of doing a giveaway is picking a winner. Sorry I’m a week late!

By Random Number Generator, the winner of the 39 Clues Giveaway is:

Um - you reading my mind? I just posted on Facebook yesterday asking for book ideas for my 13 year old boy! Whether I win or not doesn't matter - now I have something promising to add to our list for the year because I know he would love these!

Posted by: Chrisitna | March 09, 2010 at 12:14 PM

and

My 7 year old son - this week is book fair week at school and he was so excited to get new books. He is in the first grade and just starting to read, and loves to be read to.

Posted by: Katie | March 09, 2010 at 04:49 PM

Send me your snail mail info and I will forward on to the company so we can get these in the mail for you. Congrats!

Sometimes you Need a Fence

I’m sure your familiar with the term “free-range parenting.” It’s a hot topic. In general I agree with the theory. I think we tend to infantilize older children sometimes in our desire to protect them from harm.

I’d have to say that I think free-range parenting has a lot more going for it than helicopter parenting.

Then again, I think there is a middle ground between these extremes that can be very successful.

I don’t know where I read this (I’ve read more parenting and child-development books than you can imagine), so I can’t give credit, but this has always stuck with me:

Children raised by authoritarian parents are often unhappy adults. Children raised by permissive parents are generally happy adults if they live to adulthood. Children of authoritative parents tend to survive to adulthood and are reasonably happy.

Can you guess which style I strive to employ?

I recently read this post  by Ann Nichols on OpenSalon. You really should click and read to the very end. In case you can’t, let my synopsize for you. She has a 13-year old son who is happy and successful and she practice free-range parenting (good luck in the teen years with that strategy—unless you have a naturally straight arrow kid (which does happen)). She ends the post with a shocker. When her son was in 1st grade he and a friend were riding a bike and scooter when the friend rode down a hill, into traffic and was killed.

I believe we are supposed to take away that it was an acceptable price for the practice of free-range parenting.

I don’t think that was an instance of free-range parenting. I think that it was irresponsible parenting. I’ve had four kids riding bikes at very young ages (Social Butterfly was 3) and for a while BMX style racing, replete with ramps in the cul-de-sac  and trips to the track was the rage. Later it was mountain biking (which they still do).

So I know kids and bikes. There is no way I would have let my 1st grader be unsupervised on a street that was a high hill. They don’t have the judgment and their physical skills are developed far beyond their intellectual abilities. That’s why they need parents.

I want my children happy, but I am going to shoot for alive and happy versus settling for dead and happy.

I have never bubble-wrapped them, but I do look out for and guide them (I sort of thought that was part of my job description as “mom”). I just don’t get the extremes on either side.

What do you think? What’s your parenting style?

Perhaps this is the problem, dear . . .

Victor and I have a routine. He rides in with me each morning and attends English classes at the adult ed center adjacent to the school where I teach, then takes the bus to the beach, then rides the bus back to the school and when the school day is over he comes to my classroom and hangs out until I’m done and then we drive home.

Thursday afternoon he and I were leaving my classroom and one of my students spotted us.

VERY cute and slightly ditzy girl who needs to focus on her studies more: Hi, Mrs. Juggling! (eyes get big as she looks at the boy next to me and her intonation changes from perky to sultry) Hey, youuu . . . what are you doing here?

Mrs. Juggling (a bit startled): Sienna, this is Victor. He lives at my house. How do you two know each other?

VCASDGWNFOHSM: Oh . . . we met (voice begins to trail off) earlier.

Mrs. Juggling (very curious): Earlier, when?

VCASDGWNFOHSM: He was at the bus stop and I was, umm, by the bus stop and we were, ummm, talking.

So what you mean to say is that you were truant during 5th period yesterday and were trying to make time with an 18-year old boy instead of sitting in Geometry? Busted.

On the drive home Victor and I had a conversation about how some 14-year old girls look MUCH older than 14.

On Friday Sienna had a conversation about the likelihood of getting a high school diploma if you spend class time hanging out at bus stops.