Parenthood: Week 323 - 6 Years A Parent

“Well my time went so quickly
I went lickety-splickly out to my old '55
As I drove away slowly, feeling so holy
God knows, I was feeling alive.”
- Tom Waits

Ollie turned 6 years old a couple weeks ago. That means I’ve officially been a parent for six years. Other parents warned me that “it” all goes by so quickly, and it really does.

I’ve understood for most of my life even though time is a constant, even pulse that never changes, our perceptions of time is constantly changing. This came from my experience with music. A boring song could make five minutes last forever, and a great performance that I participated in could feel like it’s over in seconds. I’m aware of time during most of my day and I’m constantly reflection on how certain passages of time feel. Time is just one of those things that is on my mind.

The passage of time with children is marked by incredible outwards physical changes that reflects even more astounding mental and emotional development. Looking back at pictures of Ollie as a baby, and looking at him now, intellectually I know it’s the same kids, but the changes are really hard for me to fully comprehend.

Objectively, looking at the science of biology, Ollie changed far more than I did in the last six years, but I also changed during this period of time. The change inside of myself over the past six years was only made meaningful and more significant because Ollie was in my life.

When I think about how I’ve changed and what Ollie’s presence in my life has meant to me, I can’t help but think how much my life would not have changed if I never became a parent. Would things be the same? Would I be living in the same condo, with the same lifestyle? I don’t know. I think something would have happened in my life be, or maybe I would have become complacent or frustrated with life. It’s hard to know.

Life isn’t about one thing. Different events intersect with each other to create situations for us to change as humans. However, it’s undeniable that parenthood for the past 6 years has intersected with every single part of my life.

I know that parenthood has made me more empathetic to other parents and children. I know that parenthood has made me put my career in perspective, and it’s important, it’s just a job. I know that parenthood has forced me to reflect on all of the facets of my own identity which has led to growth, and I know that my life feels more full than at any other point in my life. I like that I’ve changed in these past 6 years and grown along with Ollie, and I’m excited that the challenges and joys of parenthood will continue to help me better understand the world and myself.

In the past 6 years, Ollie has already given me more than I could ever give him. I hope that he is grateful to me for all that I’ve done for me, but more than that I hope he knows how grateful I am for the better person he has continues to help me become.

The Islander – Part 1: Introduction

In the past eleven years, this blog has left few subjects in my life in the shadows. I started this blog writing about my love of music, I wanted to let my thoughts and wonders about the art of music out into the open. Slowly the blog evolved to reflect the changes in my life. While music will always be my hobby and part of my professional life, my thought and experiences in my life pulled focus away from music, and the blog reflected this change.

First it was posts about this little puppy name Buffy, then running, politics, college, parenthood, and then teaching. These subjects are more the norm in this blog because more than music these subjects are what is at the certain of my life, my energy and where I find the most meaning in my life.

This blog also has been a way that I could process and better understand challenges in my life. There was an early post about my having shingles, and then I went deeper. I wrote about having Crohn’s disease, challenging times with Buffy. Other difficult moments, including struggles with parenthood.  I wrote about openly, facets of my identity, and deaths in my family. There are a couple things that I haven’t written about in my life on this blog. One these topics I haven’t discussed (except for this one post) was my time in high school.

My time in college was meaningful but it has a simpler narrative. It’s was the final chapter of a trilogy. As I wrote about in these post, I had my mentors, my tribulation, and my tribe. I left college knowing myself and with an amazing partner, Diana, ready for the next adventure in life.

High was school was that darker second film in the trilogy for me. It was a time of feeling lost, not knowing my place, with an ending that felt incomplete. The road ahead after high school not well understood as high school.  My teenage years didn’t give me the space and permission to fully be myself. When I graduated from high school I was both relieved to be done with high school but I also wanted to stay.  This was despite the knowledge that even though I knew that even though my time at this place benefited me, it was a place that didn’t truly see me.

I feel less confident writing about my time at high school than my experiences with racism. I don’t know why, but I think that’s why I need to write about this time in my life. It has been more than twenty years since I started high school and in a year, it will be twenty years since graduating. Memories from high school, like ghosts, visit me, and instead of facing them, I have chosen to ignore them, and in that process push aside experience I need to better understand to better know myself.

So let’s do this. [inhale, 1…2…3…4…5 exhale]

I’ll tell you about the island that I grew up on and fantasies left unfulfilled. I’ll describe those tore me down and how in my responses to them, I only aided them in their pursuits. There are teachers I will write about who inspired me, and peers who made me feel less than. There are those individuals I will honor, the most unlikely of friends who showed me love and showed me a path to learn to fully be myself be and love myself.

Welcome to Mercer Island High School, home of the Islanders.

Parenthood: Week 322 – I Wonder As He Wanders

Ethan sometimes walked on the path. Other times he didn’t. He stopped often to pick up something from the ground. Sometimes it was a rock, a blade of grass, or a leaf. After a while it was as if Ethan forgot what was in his hand as he would be surprised at what was dropping from his grasp as he leaned over to pick something else up off the ground.

It was one of those evenings when the weather invited you to stay outside. The heat comforted without taxing you and the cool breeze refreshed without pulling away your energy. This is June in the Chicagoland area.

Ethan and I found ourselves wandering the grounds of the Chicago Botanical Gardens. We had come as a whole family for a family event, but were sad to realize that portions of this evening, Ethan could not participate (this is a whole different story…ugh), so I took Ethan to explore the grounds while Ollie staying with Diana to experience the family night programing.

So often in our little ones don’t get to move through life at their own desired pace. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Children shouldn’t stay up as long as they want playing, and they shouldn’t be allowed to sleep in all of the time. Little ones need to stop activities for snack time before they get hangry and babies often fight taking naps (something I will never understand). We need to teach our children to create structure in their own lives by creating structure for them.

It is wonderful and important that children have time to go at their own pace, as Ethan did yesterday almost five minutes sitting on the ground looking at a leaf. Watching Ethan exploring nature was cute for a minute and then got boring. And I had to fight the urge to move him along to something else, because that was for me, not for Ethan. Sometimes children need to be in charge of their own schedule, so I let him sit there. As I watched him and let go of my desire to do what I wanted to do, I stopped feeling bored and I felt a sense of peace.

There is something magical about watching young children in nature  They don’t need technology, or other stimulus they can just walk through a forest, sit on a beach, or wander a path through a gardens as Ethan did yesterday and be satisfied. This is part of the innate scientific minds in children. They want to discover and explore the world around them. Toys, books, and music are great ways to facilitate this exploration but bringing children to nature allows our children to grow and explore in a way that is unique, powerful and inspiring to witness.

As we explored the ground Ethan started trying to climb a hill. He kept slipping, but he kept trying. There were some signs of frustration, but he didn’t give up. I placed my hand under one of his feet to provide a foothold and this allowed him to push himself up the hill. If Ethan noticed that I helped him, he didn’t acknowledge this as he sat on the top of the hill looking out into the clouds, as the sky  changed colors as a prelude to the sun's descent.

There is so much that we have to do for our children, and there is so much we have to teach our children. Sometimes the best thing we can do for our children is to not do, and let them be. It’s okay for us to be spectators, to learn from our little ones, do as they do, and share in the wonder of earth.

Year 9: Week 37 - It Was A Year...

I find myself at the end of year 9, feeling less like an ending, but more like a pause. The to do list isn’t done, work to do this summer is already requiring my attention, and I’m not feeling any sense of closure. Part of it is that even though students are done with school, I’m not done with them as I still have grades to  complete that are due next week. Maybe, another part of it is that as much as I want to do be done, part of me doesn’t want to let go.

It was a great year overall, but like any experience, or any meaningful endeavor, this year was complicated. I was able to do right and do so well for some of my student, and many of the teachers in my department. I also know that there were those students who I didn’t do enough for and some teachers that I worked with that I didn’t support as much as I wanted. However, I’m not filled with regret because I know I did the best with the time that I was given. I think we can wish we could have done more, while acknowledging that in reality, we really couldn’t have.

It was a year when I thought about power. I talked explicitly and openly with my students my power as a teacher being less significant and weaker than the power they held as students to support, inspire and work for and with each others. It was a message that at first felt uncomfortable to say but resonated with my 3rd graders as much as my 8th graders.

It was a year with a challenging 8th grade class that I never gave up on, and learned to accept them and embrace their flaws. We never got to creating that classroom atmosphere which I usually reach with my 8th graders but it ended up being okay. Rallying around the music, with only one song out of eight written by a cis-gender straight white men, we looked at the lack of diversity in the concert-band world and did something about it, in a small but meaningful way.

It was a year in which I adding physical work in every single of my classes to help them settle their brains and their bodies and teach my students to self-regulate. Stretching, tense-release exercises, and breathing gave my students the tools to actively help myself settle and be present in class as it did for my students. Together we took the time to come to a place, ready to work and be with and for each other, which I often found I needed as much as my students did.

It was the year that I came back to the 5th grade Lorado Taft retreat after missing this trip last year because of the birth of my second child. The time away from the trip made my cherish the time even more with my students. I valued the moments, the challenges, and the opportunity to make new teachers feel included in this wonderful tradition.

And it was a year where my greatest success as a leader was helping others succeed. I stepped back more than I stepped forward creating opportunities for others who more often succeeded than failed because of the faith I had in them and the freedom I allowed them to enjoy. If leadership is more about what we can do for others than for ourselves, than my time I spent at school brought me to a new level of leadership that allowed me step back with pride and watch those I serve as a leader succeed.

It was a school year when the work challenged me, but also enriched me as a human being. There’s more work to be done, but that’s one reason I love it so much. It’s the end of a chapter, not the end of the book, and I’m excited to face the upcoming blank page with optimism and faith.

Parenthood: Week 321 – Shoes

Ethan happily picked up his shoe and sat down to try to put it on himself. Even with a 50% chance of picking the right shoe, Ethan always managed to pick the wrong shoe to try to put on. This isn’t that big of a deal with toddlers. There feet are more of a rectangle than the shape of a foot and they really don’t seem to mind if they have wrong shoe on. The only reason they probably end up with the right shoe on is so that parents don’t feel embarrassed that their child isn’t dressed properly.

I sat down on the floor, and pulled Ethan into my lap to help him put on his shoe. Ethan loves to try to put on his shoes and his boots, but he’s not quite there yet and I wanted to get out of the house. As I got the shoe on I asked my other son, “Ollie, can you find your shoes?”

Ollie didn’t respond. I looked over and saw him walking in a small circle. “Ollie, where are you shoes?” Again, Ollie didn’t respond. I went to the back door to see if he had left them there, but they weren’t there. “Ollie, help me look for your shoes.” At this point Ollie started helping me, first looking in cabinet for his shoes as I looked in the closet.

I couldn’t find them. I figured since it had rained recently, he could where his rain boots. “Okay, Ollie let’s just do your rain boots.” The only problem is, we couldn’t find his rain boots. All I could find was snow boots. Spring had indeed come, and it seemed ridiculous that Ollie would wear his snow boots but it was better than nothing I figured.

“I left them outside,” Ollie whispered. “What?” I had a sudden flash of a memory of Ollie helping Diana with the garden without any shoes on. “Ollie did you leave your shoes outside?” I asked him, “yes, by the bush.”

Okay, we can do this. I told Ollie to get his boots on so we could find his shoes, and as I look over to Ethan, I realized that the one shoe that I had put on him had disappeared. I spent the next five minutes trying to find Ethan’s shoe, and eventually found it crammed into his little snack cup which had the remains of some Cheerios that were his morning snack.

I carried Ethan on my hip, with him wearing one shoe, followed by Ollie wearing his snow boots into our backyard. I asked Ollie to give me some sense of where he left his shoe and eventually he directed me to look behind a bush. After ten minutes of looking I gave up. Snow boots would have to do for this trip to Target, but he needed shoes for school the next day.

As I headed toward the car, I realized that Ethan still only had one shoe on. So, we went back inside and I eventually found the other shoe in the pantry.

Fifteen minutes later I was in the shoe aisle of Target. Ethan was happily pulling boxes off of racks and I tried to convince Ollie to buy the cheapest shoes they had: light-up Marvel Superhero shoes.

I don’t even know how long it took to get out of the house, but I do know it was an ordeal..for want of shoes.

That was two weeks ago. Yesterday as I was organizing the shoes in the closet, I found the shoes Ollie said he left outside.

They were inside the closet all this time.

Year 9: Week 36 – The Roses

This morning, I started my day with about half an hour of prep time followed by a post-observation evaluation meeting. Then I went straight into a parent meeting. I got a 15-minute break and called into a conference call about an artist-in-residence program. Then I prepped one of my classrooms for a guest musician presentation. Right before that started, I found out a piano was supposed to be moved for a talent show, so I ran off to help with that.
There were two presentations in a row. The ideas was to let the students see these musicians in smaller groups so they could interact with them more and both of these experiences went really well. After the second presentation I run upstairs to a wonderful affinity group celebration. All of the MS affinity groups had a celebratory lunch together, which was all kinds of awesome.

I got a little time to breathe before I had to set-up the stage for a 6th grade parent presentation. I got my 6th grade band kids ready for it, ran the presentation, and then I was done.

First off to clarify, the presentations happened during my class time, and my 8th graders were away on a trip. That’s why it didn’t seem like I actually taught much today.

What made the day so tricky wasn’t the amount of stuff that I had going on, it was the fact that I had to switch roles, and deal with so many different projects and situations. In some ways it would be easier to simply teach 3rd grade classes all day long.

As I left the house today, I told Diana, my wife what was going on today and she told me to do something for myself. So, on the way to school I stopped by Starbucks and used up some gifts card I got. The drink and breakfast sandwich was nice, but in some ways it wasn’t quite enough.

I looked and I found some ways to stop and smell the roses. During one of my short breaks, I played a piano duet with one of the other music teachers. I hung out after the affinity group lunch to chat with a teacher about our work in a really meaningful way. I made a point to see the face of my 3rd graders when they watched in wonder as our guest musicians perform for them. When my 6th graders performed, I stopped conducting, allowed them to play on their own and enjoyed them as a teacher, and an audience member.

Life as a teacher can be really hectic. There’s always stuff going on, and the job is never done. However, we are so lucky, because there are “roses” everywhere to smell. It’s stopping to chat with a student, saying good morning to a colleague, or something as simple as pausing at a bulletin board of student work and taking time to read their words and/or experience their art.

There’s a lot to do, and not a lot of time, but please take a moment to enjoy being a teacher before the year is done. You won’t regret it.

Parenthood: Week 320 – The Moment of Absurdity

I was surprised to hear Diana laughing out loud in the dark theater.

We were watching this short film in the 4D theater at the LEGOLAND Discovery Center in a Chicago suburb. The film was a mini-sequel to The Lego Movie. It was funny, but it wasn’t that funny. While Diana respected Ollie’s enjoying of these films, she didn’t really find them that entertaning. While I chuckled at some of the jokes, I wasn’t laughing out loud. Looking over to Diana laughing along with Ollie, I smiled thinking, “hey Diana is actually getting into this whole Lego thing.”

As we left the theater, I told Diana about how I thought that it was interesting that she found that film so funny when she wasn’t into the other Lego movies. She replied, “I wasn’t laughing at the movie, I was laughing at my life.” In that moment I knew exactly what she was talking about. Diana loves all of us, and she is more than happy to do things for Ollie including things she doesn’t necessarily enjoy doing. However, sitting in that 4D theater, which basically was..okay, hang on a second, I got to digress here...

A 4D theater experience is basically a 3D movie another “dimension.” This means that during the movie air will be sprayed at you from a tube near your chair or from an overhead fan.  Also there are sprays of water. All of these effects are coordinated with the film so for example, if at some point in a film a submarine goes underwater you feel water sprayed in your face. The air unfortunately is the dead air of a movie theater, and the water never feels sanitary. Overall it’s unpleasant and kind of uncomfortable “dimension” to add to watching a film. I find myself on edge the entire time wondering when I will feel a gust of warm dead air, or water spraying in my face as I try to follow what is inevitable a mediocre short film.

So sitting in a theater anticipating being sprayed in the face with, in this Lego film was lemonade can feel absurd, and ridiculous.

We all have these moments as parents when you  wonder how your life got to this point of ridiculousness. I’ve had many of these moments. There was that time I was installing a car-seat when the wind-chill temperature was below zero. Searching through ebay for the exact Thomas The Tank Engine toy that Ollie was obsessed with that no longer was in production (I was trying to find a spare after he freaked out after misplacing it one afternoon).

Any time I’ve watched Super Wings with Ollie (that show is AWFUL). Listening to “Hotel California” for an hour straight in the car with the vain hope that it would stop Ollie from screaming during a long drive (he it worked some of the time). Shopping at three different hardware stores for hardware for a kitchen play-set that I trash picked from a house five doors down and spent a week cleaning and repairing. Oh, and there was the time, that the morning after a rain storm, I was sifting through mud by a storm drain for an arm that fell off one of Ollie’s Transformer toy’s that he lost the night before running in from the rain, which I somehow found.

You laugh at these moments, but the laughter doesn't stop you from stopping the activity, or giving up. You just keep on, because even though you know it’s ridiculous, you are doing it for the little one in your life, and even though it’s absurd, you know it’s worth it.