And Zen What

Ok. I'm steamed.

WHY would a middle school teacher reprimand an 8th grader for sneezing??????

Two sneezes loud, and kind of like brakes squealing. She doesn't do it on purpose.

Have you ever tried not to sneeze?

I mean, sheesh, you can humiliate a 13 year old without trying that hard, Mr. Writing and Lit Teacher. Surely you know that, having taught for 20-some years.

Which leads me to the next question: WHY would a person that insensitive to adolescent self-consciousness choose to teach middle schoolers?

Excuse me while I go pummel a sofa pillow.

One is upstairs IM-ing and (allegedly) reading for a class. Everybody else is in the reading/TV/video/game/computer/miscellaneous family room. I'm in the kitchen and can hear them hootin' and hollerin' about stuff that happens in the video game Four and Six are playing, occasional giggles from Three about the book she's reading (the thickest one she's ever brought home from the school library, and she's so proud of her intention to "read the whooooooole thing, Mom!"), and Two's "dang it!" when her Gameboy game takes an ugly turn. They are swapping comments on each other's activities when they are not reacting to their own.

I used to be one of those people whose children would never ever be allowed such degraded pastimes. Nope, not MY kids.

That was when "MY kids" were only a gleam in my eye (or, rather, a gleam in an adoption agency's or a USCIS officer's or an internet website's eye). Things change, and a lot, when the actual kids arrive on scene. And ideas about kids are what changed the most, in my case.

Kids are first, last, and foremost, people. Shorter than their parents (until the Towering Teen Years that is), but every bit as individual and uniquely constructed as any grownup. I have learned, over and over again, that "Kids should..." or "Kids shouldn't..." or "Kids need..." and the like are the beginnings of sentences that I just can't utter anymore.

I like the sound of the slightly rowdy socializing going on in the next room. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Sure, it'd be nice if they were all, I dunno, playing 3-dimensional chess or something. I guess.

But the sound I hear is the sound of happy. And the sound of kids who will be connected to one another and be resources for one another when they are grownups and I and my entire generation are pushin' up the proverbial daisies.

Whoops. And there goes the other regular evening sound--the sound of one child yelling. Which will soon be followed by more children yelling.

Bedtime!

Someone very dear, who we were with in China, is sick. Five made her a card. Here are a couple of pages of the 8 page card.




We're rootin' for you, dear future mother-in-law of my Five.