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Say cheese!

March 31, 2011 | Family

“It just popped out when I was eating breakfast.”

Guess who’s coming to our house again tonight?

Posted by Becky @ 9:13 am | 1 Comment

Spring?

Family,Iowa,Spring,Weather

Sure signs … putting up the swings and checking out the birdhouses. Spring has to be right around the corner. Right?

Posted by Becky @ 9:10 am | 1 Comment

Sweet fortune

March 21, 2011 | Family,Food,Stuff

We went to a Chinese restaurant with friends we visited over spring break. The kids loved the food, and they really looked forward to getting fortune cookies. They had lots of questions about where the fortunes come from, who writes them, how do they think of them and how do they know who will get them. We conjured up a table with a bunch of wise, old folks sitting around it and writing fortunes for others they’ll never meet. (Yeah, we’re a bunch of romantics.)

They wondered if the fortunes in cookies were true and meaningful. I said, well, they can be, and I told them about the fortune I’ve carried for almost 10 years.

I’d just had lunch with my youngest brother. I was up visiting from Florida, just a couple of months after moving back to the States from Norway, hoping his second daughter would be born before I returned home. He looked at my fortune and said, of course, we know what that’s about, right? His baby. I said, aw, hell no. We know that one’s coming. This one’s about my baby.

A year later, almost to the day, my son was born. My dear, sweet boy … the child I wanted for so long.

I tend to crank up the superstition when things seem hopeless. So, yeah. That last one up there about hard work paying off? I’m hoping that has significant meaning soon. I think I’ll hold on to that one. We’ll see what happens.

Posted by Becky @ 1:19 pm | 5 Comments

Listening with my heart

March 8, 2011 | Family,School

I hated school — from the first day to the last.

I started first grade in the middle of the year, just after my fifth birthday. There was no Kindergarten. I was terrifed. I got sick a lot. One day, I went to the nurse’s office. I lay in the dark on a cot, listening to another student get paddled next door in the principal’s office. I thought I was next. After that, I didn’t tell anyone when I was sick.

I peed my pants once because I was afraid to tell anyone I had to go to the bathroom.

I broke my pencil one day, and I didn’t tell anyone, not even my parents. I was convinced someone would take me to a doctor, who would look in my ear with a machine that could read my mind. Just so nobody would know, I practiced thinking, “I.B.M.P” over and over again so nobody would see me thinking, “I broke my pencil.” What awful thing did I think would happen if anyone found out I broke my pencil? Who knows. I was 5.

That was just the first year. I was mortified for being made an example to the whole second-grade class. (It doesn’t matter that it was a good example. I was still mortified.) I was bullied by everyone and protected by no one in a two-room country parochial school when I was 10. And then 11. Yep. Every day. All day. Until I was finally done. I spent freshman year cowering from a principal who threw boys against the wall. As a sophomore, I tried to avoid a senior girl who threatened to kick my ass if she and her friends ever found me alone.

I graduated at 17 with a shudder of relief.

With that kind of history, is it any wonder that I had tons of anxiety when my children started school?

I have big dreams for my children. I want them to love school, to learn, to be who they are, to be fearless … you know, all the things I didn’t and wasn’t and couldn’t be.

My second-grader daydreams a lot. Mostly, he likes his own imagination, but I also think daydreams sometimes help him deal with being overwhelmed. He gets that from me. His teacher understands that he’s smart and that he gets distracted and doesn’t hear things when he’s in his daydreams. She works with that.

Imagine what a punch in the gut it was when he told me one day recently that he fell behind with his work and got in trouble (his words). The reason? The questions were difficult, and he was afraid to ask for help.

*deep breath*

I helped him with the work. Then we had a talk. I told him his teacher cares about him very much and wants him to be comfortable enough to learn in her classroom. That’s the most important thing she does. Teach you, I said, and you have to help her with that. I told him I needed to tell his teacher. He didn’t want me to, but he relented. His teacher, bless her heart, understood. She decided to give him prompts to ask for help, and he had a very good day that next day.

*sigh*

Where was she when I was in second grade? Where was I when I needed someone like me?

Oh well. Water under the bridge.

The important thing is, my son will still be afraid of things. What I hope he understands now, though, is that he doesn’t have to be afraid alone.

Posted by Becky @ 11:26 pm | 17 Comments

Jan Brett contest

March 5, 2011 | Authors,Blogland games,Books,Family,Iowa,Jan Brett,School

We love Jan Brett. She’s not Norwegian, but she writes about trolls and has the most amazing illustrations. She’s a best-selling children’s author, and she’s won tons of awards for her work. The best award is how much children love her books. So do their parents. So do their teachers.

Our school loves Jan Brett, too. My daughters’ Kindergarten classroom reads Jan Brett books, and they do several activities related to her books. My son’s second-grade classroom has several Jan Brett books on the shelf. I’d bet most, if not all, classrooms in our school have Jan Brett books, not to mention our library.

When I saw that she’s holding a contest for the winning school to win a visit from her, I thought, how cool would that be? So I’ve entered the contest, and I’m passing along the information to get as many people as possible to enter. I want our school to win!

Here’s the info: Please help Forest City Elementary School win a visit from Jan Brett! Go to http://janbrett.com/. Click on “click here” to get to her Facebook page. Click “like,” then click on the “Contest” tab.

The school with the most supporters will win a free visit from Jan Brett in the 2011-2012 school year. You must be 18 or older. You don’t need an affiliation with the school, so pass this along. We still have time to win! Deadline is April 2, 2011.

Posted by Becky @ 2:29 pm | 2 Comments