Parenthood: Week 449 – The Love In Vaccines

I had no hesitation.

Ethan was going to get his last, and final polio vaccine dose and his fifth DTaP shot (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine)

I had told him that the vaccine would be like a pinch in his leg and that it would hurt, but only for a little bit. I assured him that he is brave, just like his older brother Ollie who had gotten his COVID-19 vaccine just a couple of days ago. This all seemed to assure him about the vaccine experience, but once the nurse came in, she instructed me to lie him down, Ethan lost it.

There are moments to pump the brakes and talk things out, and there are moments to make things happen. This was later, so I forced Ethan’s leg down that was kicking at me, moved his pants, and held him down.  Ethan told me in a shaky voice that he was scared. I told him that it would be over soon. I looked straight into his eyes, and as much as I hated to do this, I thought to myself, “this is better than him getting polio and being paralyzed.”

I felt his body tense up as the first shot that went into his thigh. I told him that he was almost done, and I felt his body shudder as the second shot went in. The nurse quickly put band-aids on his legs, and I swept him up into my arms and wrapped him up in my jacket. I carried him over to the chair of the examination room and held him close. Calming down, Ethan whimpered in a soft voice, “when am I got going to get the vaccines?”

“You just got the vaccines,” I assured him.

“What?” Ethan asked, confused. I laughed to myself and hugged him tighter.

The COVID-19 vaccine has helped me come to no longer take for granted the vaccines that generations of medical researchers have developed for the human race. The amount of pain and suffering that my children have not had to experience because of vaccines is incalculable. My children have never had to endure the pain of hepatitis B, rotavirus, haemophilus influenza, pneumococcal, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, and hepatitis A because of vaccines. And if you don’t believe me about how destructive these viruses and diseases are, Google them and read about what they do to children.   It is horrifying.

What's more disturbing is the fact that without the widespread use of these vaccines, one or more of my three children most likely would be dead.

COVID-19 has also brought into our children’s minds the importance of vaccines. Ollie knows that Diana and I have gotten the COVID-19 vaccine, and Ethan has been wondering about it. It’s a very abstract idea to him, which was evident a couple of weeks ago when he asked us if the vaccine would fit in our house.

I told Ollie last weekend how proud I was of him for being brave and getting the COVID-19 vaccine shot. I explained how vaccines are more than something clinical and scientific. It’s something that we can do for ourselves and others at exactly the same time. It’s a way of saying “I love you” to yourself and others.

As I held I told him that I loved him, and I felt gratitude for who people who dedicated their lives to creating vaccines.  I can see their work in the light in my children's and the hope in their hearts. 

Year 12 – Week 10: It’s Not All Lost

Students have lost a lot during this ongoing pandemic.

My students didn’t perform on stage, some of them had less music class than I years past, and they didn’t sing in school for a year and a half. They are not in the same place musically as students I had in previous years. I don’t like thinking about my students being “behind” because that implies that they are somehow deficient, which they only are if you compare them to educational standards that cannot be applied to students right now. And I don’t like the term “learning loss” because it implies that they lost something. Our students didn’t “lose” anything. They were denied opportunities to learn because of the pandemic and the lack of prioritization on children throughout this crisis.

I don’t want to walk into my classroom feeling sorry for my students, thinking about how they are behind and what they can’t do. I wish things could have been different for them, and I am empathetic about their experience, but we are also in the space of privilege in the present. And with all that we are given, we need to do the best we can to move forward positively.

My thinking lately has been more on what they can do and will do more than what they can’t do. While growth opportunities have been lost, we can create new opportunities in the present. The potential in our students is still there.

My 6th graders did a group composition project. It required a lot of discussions, compromise, and creativity. Overall, they worked really well together. The compositions were fun, and they worked in an inclusive and supportive way. There is work to be done in thinking about what it means to collaborate. I was worried after hearing over and over how students lost the ability to work together that this project would not go well, but it did go great. The students felt this in the room as I did.

I have some wonderful singers in my 5th grade. I wanted to give them a challenge, and one of my co-workers suggested teaching them “Stand By Me.” I could teach them the bass line, melody, and some harmony lines, and they could become a apella group. I’ve don’t simple 2-part things with my 5th graders in the past, but nothing this complex required a good level of musical independence.

They learned the parts much faster than I thought they would. I was getting excited. So with only eight of them around the piano, I asked half of them to sing the bass line and the other half to do the melody, and they kept it together. I was floored. I can’t remember the last time I was that genuinely impressed with a group of my students. They were doing things that students in previous hadn’t and probably couldn’t.

Some of it is me growing as a teacher.  But most of it is the students.

Yes, our students missed out on experiences, but the most important things: their potential and spirit are still there for us to nurture if we give them the support, the space, and the light to grow.

Parenthood: Week 448 – Monkey See

I heard the insert in the potty shake in the corner of our living room as I was looking down and writing an email on my laptop.

“Ethan, good job, buddy,” I affirmed, and then I looked over and saw Lucas sitting on the potty. Lucas is turning two in December and is very early to start potty training, but he has seen Ethan use that potty and wanted to do just like Ethan even though he didn’t understand what Ethan was doing.

So much of what young children do is based on imitation. While Ollie did imitate Diana and me, after observing my two younger sons, it’s clear that children learn from imitating each other differently than they imitate their parents.

To a child, so much of what adults do are impossibilities, physically and mentally. To Lucas, Ethan is doing things at this level, and it makes sense that he sees what Ethan, as doing as more accessible.  Lucas is sitting on Ethan’s potty instead of trying to sit on the toilet as I do.

It’s not uncommon to see Ethan and Ollie on the couch watching television lying on the couch in the same way. Ollie does this thing where he tries to stand on his head against the wall which Ethan learned from him. When Ollie and Ethan are running around the backyard, Lucas often is trailing after them, not fully understanding what they are doing in their pretend play, but he knows that they are doing fun, so he copies them.

There is another side to this. Ethan sometimes growls when he says goodbye during FaceTime calls, and guess what? Now, Lucas does the same thing.  If Ollie decides to be energetic around bedtime, Ethan will copy him, and we have two children we are trying to calm down. In this way, Ollie and Ethan have a lot of power over what their younger siblings do, and it’s something they are beginning to understand.

Every child is a teacher, and it’s fascinating to see how my children have continued to teach each other different things. Most of the teaching is not deliberate but through actions. Yes, Ollie will read to his brothers, but they have learned more from watching him read, which I see every day as Lucas looks through piles of books on the floor every day.

Watching my children learn from each is an important reminder of how much they learn from me when I’m not actively teaching them.  Children see more than we realize and are learning all of the time. 

As I see them learn things from each other, I wonder what they are learning from me.

Year 12 – Week 9: Taking a Sick Day

I remember hearing early in my teaching career that the most important thing you can do to take care of your students is to take care of yourself. If you are sick, then you can’t be there for your students. I have said this other teachers throughout my teaching career, but I got to be honest. There are many times I haven’t followed this advice.

I can think of numerous occasions in my teaching career when I came to work sick or stayed at work when I was starting to get sick. I remember one instance coming in and teaching when I was so congested that I could barely talk, let alone sing, but I came in anyway.

Why?

Some teachers like to show that they are tough. This manifests in teachers showing off their “teacher voice” and refusing to use a microphone, teachers staying working late, and probably worse of all, powering through being sick and coming to school.

You often hear teachers bemoan that “it’s harder to create sub plans than coming in and teaching.” Some schools have very unforgiving sick day policies. Also, other teachers feel pressure to keep their students moving forward academically and are afraid of lost learning when they are absent.

There have always been risks of a teacher coming in when they are sick. Teachers could get sicker themselves, and one teacher who even has minor symptoms can spread a virus to their many students.

When COVID-19 hit, one of the significant changes in schools was a hard stop in many schools to teachers coming into school sick. This, combined with the higher standard of health to let students come to school meant that I have had to take more days off to be with my children at home.  I have taken far more sick days in the past year than in previous years.

Seeing this coming, I have structured units and included technology in my classes to set up tools so that if I am absent, the students can still engage in productive work. It doesn’t cause me as much stress to take a sick day as it has in the past. Part of it is that often I don’t have a choice and I need to accept sick days as part of my job.

My school won’t let me teach sick even if I tried, but I think the main thing is that the pandemic has finally helped me truly understand that the best way to take care of students is to take care of myself. Showing toughness or having a level of “self-sacrifice” is just ego, and no one is impressed.

Moving forward, if we want to do right by our students and create a healthier school atmosphere, we need to remove barriers for teachers to take sick days and take care of themselves. Talk of self-cares by school leaders is meaningless without structural change that encourages teachers to care for themselves.

There’s been a change in how I think about self-care, and there needs to be a change in how Americans help teachers take care of themselves.

Parenthood: Week 447 – Halloween Meltdowns

I think it's fair to say that I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween. I love dressing up my little children in cute costumes when they are so young that they can't have any say in what they are wearing. I love the wonder of my older children getting excited to dress up, and I love watching my children go on the adventure of trick-or-treating.

That's about it.

Halloween with young children is accompanied by confusion and meltdowns. They don't get why they can't dress up like a certain character, they don't understand why they can't eat all of their candy at once, and the whole social interaction of going to people's houses to ask for candy is odd.

Our neighborhood does trick-or-treating early in the afternoon on a Sunday around the actual date of Halloween. This year Halloween was on a Sunday, so it lined up for once. Because taking young children trick-or-treating when the sun is down is not a good time.

My 4-year-old had an epic meltdown the night of Halloween after trick-or-treating. He was upset that I didn't let him eat more candy, and he was tired from the day's activities. There was no logic that I could tell him that would get through to him about why he couldn't get what he wanted, so I held him as he screamed.  Eventually, my wife took over and managed to get him to calm down.

After the kids finally went to sleep, Diana gave me a weary high five. We had gotten our children through another holiday. It took a lot of effort, far more planning than my children could understand, and we were left cleaning up after the day literally and figuratively.

Halloween is the start of the holiday season. Next will be Thanksgiving, then the winter holidays, and New Years. In our family, this time of year includes two of our son's birthdays. It's a time when children get excited about getting stuff, and I get excited about spending time with my family. Once again we will try to balance out the joy of giving our children presents with making sure they don't feel entitled to get more presents. And try to have experiences that minimize meltdowns and help us all focus on what it means to be a family.

Holidays are hard for parents. We want to replicate good things from our own experiences as children and create magic. Even though we try, sometimes we just can't. So we give and do more as parents during these times than receive. That's why holidays make more sense to me as an adult than they did when I was a child. Holidays are times I push myself to do more for my family, and that feels right. It makes the things I hate, like the too much-candy-meltdowns, fade into memory as the image of my 1-year-old walking down the street dressed up like Frodo Baggins makes me smile.

Year 12 – Week 8: This King’s Speech – Part 8

This King’s Speech – Part 7

“You are a powerful speaker.”

For the past two months, this affirmation has been in mind. But, mostly, it’s unsettled like a leaf in the wind. At times, it brings me a feeling close to pride, and at other times, it makes me uncomfortable.

I’ve been teaching for sixteen years, and I had the perception for all of this time that I was an unclear speaker, and that my childhood speech impediment was still me with. Teaching students and talking to groups of teachers was a big part of my job that brought me anxiety and discomfort.

For years, before a class, or a meeting, I would push aside thoughts and doubts and go for it. Sometimes I would forget about any concerns I had about my speech in front of students and other faculty, and others times, I would feel that my speech was flawed.

Part of me knew that I was a good speaker.  I love reading books to students and telling them stories. Still, I’ve always doubted how effective I was in communicating verbally with other people.

The comment form the speech pathologist, “You are a powerful speaker” permitted me to be proud of my speech. Early in the school year, before teaching class, I let myself think of this affirmation. As a result, I let go of some doubt and came closer to fully enjoying speaking to my students. It’s one thing to be good at something and thinks you are bad, and it’s an entirely different thing to be good at something and accept that you are good at something. And I’m getting there.

I’m letting go more and more about concerns that my speech is not clear. I don’t feel myself avoiding words as much, and I enjoy taking the time to express things to my students. It almost feels like a dream being in the classroom now and letting myself feel and accept that I am good at speaking.

I feel like I can grow as a speaker, let my words come out more with less preparation, and participate without hesitation in conversation. I can be more of a speaker because I am more than I thought I was. I think about my students and those who don’t realize they are good at something. I hope that I can help them see themselves as being powerful and permit them to believe in themselves in a small way.

As I see myself better as a powerful speaker, I am becoming to understand better that I am a powerful teacher.

Parenthood: Week 446 – The Eve of Ethan's 4th Birthday

Do you work hard on something because you love it or do you grow to love something because you’ve work hard at it?

This question came to mind last night as I lay in bed with Ethan on his last night as a three-year-old. Diana was reading a book to Ollie so I took Ethan to the guest room to read to him. I told Ethan to get into the bed so that we could cuddle while I read to him. I watched his struggle to figure out how to climb up on the bed and carry the books he wanted to read at the same time. Eventually he threw the books onto the bed, grabbed a hold of the comforter and climbed up onto the bed.

Ethan cuddled close to me as I read to him. He had been wanting to cuddle for a good part of the evening. He’s a physical child who likes being near people. It he had his way he would be cuddling with someone most of the day. While we do cuddle him, we have our limits. Earlier, he cried and threw a tantrum when I wouldn’t carry him up the stairs and when we told him that we didn’t want to cuddle with him when watching television.

Ethan had what he wanted now. We were cuddling and I was reading a book he was really interested in. After we were done with the books, I asked him if he wanted to listen to a song as I cuddled him to bed. Ethan requested, “She Used To Be Mine,” and I played it on my phone and balanced it on the headboard above Ethan’s head.

 

As the song played and the voice of a woman coming to terms with the struggles in her life, I thought about all that I had been through with Ethan. I remembered the stress, and anxiety, around his disability. I thought about the therapy sessions that were difficult in-person that felt nigh-impossible when they were remotely. Then there were the nights. The years of Ethan waking up in the middle of the night, sleepless co-sleeping and the months of work sleep-training him to stay in his own bed.

I’ll never forget the nights sitting on the floor of his room as he stood in his crib screaming at me. I knew if I picked him up and carried him to my bed he would stop screaming, but I also knew for all of us it was best to let him scream and leave the room.

The typical tantrums of a toddler, the challenges of parenting more than one child at the same time, and the pandemic on top of the strength of Ethan personality, made being his parent very difficult at times. There have been times I’ve needed breaks from him, and there are times that I didn’t know what to do with him. However, through it all I have loved him every single day, and leaned into the work of being his parent.

It’s both. My love has made me determined to work for Ethan, and the hard work has been satisfying and help me bond closer to Ethan.

Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person
And makes you believe it's all true
And now I've got you.