Parenthood: Week 459 - Let Them Laugh

I had things well in hand. 

Lucas was in his crib, and Ollie and Ethan were in their beds. It was about 8:00 pm, and it looked like everyone was going to get to bed on time. As I read a book to Ollie and Ethan, we could all hear Lucas crying. Generally, Lucas is pretty easy to get to bed in the evening. He’s not a cuddle-to-sleep kind of kid. Since he was a baby, Lucas liked to go to sleep by himself, so I did the normal routine. We read a book together. I gave him a hug and kiss and put him in his crib. Sometimes I would hear him cry a little bit, but he would be asleep more often than not within ten minutes.

It had been about twenty minutes as he was still up and clearly not happy. “I think Lucas wants to play,” Ethan told me.

“But it was bedtime, and it was time to go sleep,” I thought to myself, determined to get my kids to sleep on time.

Our bedtime varies, but we try to get them settled in around 8:00-8:30 pm. It’s hard with three children to get them to bed at a specific time, but we manage most of the time to get them settled in by 8:30 pm. Our routine has changed and evolved. Currently, Diana reads to Ollie, and I read to Ethan. Then, I cuddle Ethan and sit in his room while he sleeps. Usually, after Ethan goes to sleep, Ollie comes into the room and settles into his bed. One of us puts Lucas to sleep before Diana reads to Ollie or after I read to Ethan.

This night was different. Diana was going out to visit some friends, so it meant that I was on my own with my children. We did the whole routine, and when Diana left close to 8:00, things were pretty much on track. Now I don’t know if Lucas knew that she was gone or he sensed that it was Friday night, but he was not going to bed.

Annoyed at the situation, I got out of bed and with Ethan following close behind to check on Lucas. I entered his dark nursery and saw him standing up in his crib. I reached out to pick him up, and he crumbled down and rolled into the corner. I think he was expected Diana to come. However, once he noticed Ethan was in his room, he stood back up and smiled. I lifted Lucas out of bed, and before I knew it, he was off running out of the room after Ethan.

My first instinct was to grab Lucas and try to get him to settle down, but he was so energized by seeing his brother, I decided to let it go. I looked at my phone and told myself I would wait five minutes and then settle them down.

About twenty minutes later…

At that moment, watching them make themselves dizzy, I decided to stop being frustrated that they weren’t in bed and let them laugh and enjoy spending time with each other.

Soon after that…

There are times to enforce boundaries, and there are times when laughter fills the air to let things go. For example, a couple of days ago, I told Ollie to turn off the television. He didn’t respond, but when I looked over and saw all three of my children laughing in pure joy at the episode of Bluey on the television, I decided to let them watch a little bit longer. A similar thing happened when I let Ollie and Ethan play Mario Kart far longer than we had planned because they were having so much fun together.

The world is dark, and things continue to be complicated. And sometimes, we just need to let our children laugh. These moments are an important reminder of all that we are fighting for.  And maybe, these memories will stay with my children and they will know that even in the worst of times, my children were there for each other.

Year 12 - Week 18: Two Things I Taught This Week

I taught my 4th graders that men and women can be friends. 

To prepare for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day assembly, I’ve been teaching my students “We Shall Overcome.” I showed this performance by Mahalia Jackson, one of my favorite performances of all time.

I unapologetically talked about how much I loved this performance, especially the ending. It’s a fantastic moment. Jackson walks away from the microphone, still singing, and then turns around and waves to the audience, singing, “everything is going to be alright.” I made my students watch the end part three or four times so that we could all revel in the power of Mahalia Jackson.

I told my students that Jackson was friends with Dr. King. I got some puzzled looks from my fourth graders. Finally, one student commented, "boys and girls can't be friends."

“Yes, they can,” I replied. 

I told them that my best friend is my wife and that I also have other friends who are women. I explained that in the same way we can be friends with people who are not the same race as us, we could and should be friends with people of a different gender than us. 

I taught my 6th graders that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II was an incredible human tragedy.

In our study of rap, we watched the music video “Intergalactic” by the Beastie Boys.

To understand this video's reference to Japanese Kaiju monster movies, I showed them a silly clip from a 1970s Godzilla film and a more serious clip from the original movie Gojira from 1954.

We talked about how people deal with tragedy and challenging emotions by creating art. For example, the original Gojira film was a way that Japanese people processed the unimaginable trauma of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

We discussed the debate around the use of the atom bomb, and I made it clear that is no debate that this was a moment in our history of incredible sadness and that the people who died were human beings. We discussed what it meant for President Obama to be the first president to visit the site of the bombing in Hiroshima. 

Parenthood: Week 458 - Pride & Joy

Ollie is one of the main reasons I have gotten through this pandemic. 

Ollie is my first son. His entire life has shaped my life. Before he was born, I was already all-in to be a dad. So when I first met him, it felt like something I didn’t know I was missing had finally come into my life. I can’t imagine the last eight years of my life without Ollie. Everything good and positive in my life, in some way, is because of him. Ollie continued to bring meaning to my life throughout the pandemic.

It started at the beginning. We told Ollie about the shut down that we would have to stay in the house more, and this is what happened:

Ollie is a homebody like me, which made the whole “staying at home thing” a lot feel more like a bonus than a burden. As my wife and I struggled to balance doing our two jobs, both of which were now remote, Ollie continued to enjoy being at home and spending time with his brothers and us. Ollie does best with routine, so helping his routines forced me to create my own, which really helped me through the days at home. 

For Ollie, the remote school thing wasn’t that bad because we didn’t ask him to do too much of it. Diana and I are both teachers, and we felt that we could handle keeping him up with his academics reasonably and that the remote school, at times, was not worth the stress and anxiety. So we didn’t do that much of it. Ollie didn’t sit in front of his iPad for hours a day. It wasn't what he needed. And I don’t regret our decision to let him prioritize playing with his brothers over remote schooling.

The fall of 2020 went well for Ollie. A couple of months before the pandemic hit, We decided to return Ollie to the school he had gone to previously. Unfortunately, the school he was at for kindergarten and first grade was not a good fit, so we decided to have him return to the school he was at for pre-k, which meant that he was now at the same school as his younger brother Ethan.

They were both in person from the first day of school. I don’t really remember being concerned about Ollie and the COVID-19 mitigations. I was more consumed in my feelings of going back and teaching in person. Like myself, Ollie had to figure out the type of mask that worked for him and got used to being in a small pod. However, because the educational situation, even with mitigations, was so better than at this previous school, Ollie really thrived in his second-grade year.

Ollie has never fought us about wearing a mask. He will forget social distance, but he will correct himself when reminded. I know he remembers a time before COVID-19, but I also know that it doesn’t take long for something to feel “normal” for an eight-year-old. In many ways, he has accepted this pandemic as a reality faster more than I have. He doesn't mourn what the pandemic has taken from all of us. This makes some things easier, but it also makes me sad.

We’ve worked hard to make it not feel like Ollie has less because of COVID-19, but he knows that we don’t see my parents as much as we used to before the pandemic. I’m sure he can sense my anxiety when we are in crowds. I wonder what these two years have done to him and how different he would be if this pandemic had never happened. I am worried about long-term effects of this pandemic on his mental health.

Ollie has had challenges throughout the pandemic, but when I think back at the past two years, they fade to the background. It's because Ollie's attitude has been really wonderful. Not everything is perfect, but he tries and when I've needed him the most, he's been exactly what I needed.

Ollie knows that there are bad things in the world. He knows that people have died of COVID-19, he knows trump is a horrible human being, and he knows he has to do more, like wearing masks, for others. However, he doesn’t fully understand how some people continue to act terribly around COVID-19 and exploit people’s fears and anxiety. It will be hard for him to process all of that when he does grasp all that has been going on, but I’ll help him through that as he has helped me get through these past two years.

Ollie likes to make people happy, and he’s really wonderful at doing just that. In the quiet moments, he will read a book to one of his brothers, and in his more energetic moments, he will act out a part of a movie with action figures with his brothers as they all erupt in laughter.   

Ollie taught me that parenting is hard work, and the rewards are always more than worth it. Sometimes it takes time for the positive to come back to you, but it always does. Every single night for this entire pandemic, I have kissed Ollie good night with love and gratitude. I have never felt bitter for all I have had to do for Ollie throughout this pandemic. He continues to bring meaning to my life efforts every day and fill our house with laughter during the worst of times

I never understood what "pride and joy" meant until Ollie came into my life. And feeling that every day when I look into Ollie's eyes gives me strength, courage, and love.  

Year 12 - Week 17: Why I'm Still Teaching

People across America have left education. There are many reasons why, and it breaks my heart to think about all the challenges and the trauma that led so many educators to leave the students they love. There have been challenging moments throughout this pandemic, and until last week, I didn’t feel like I wanted to leave teaching. However, that moment last week, while significant was fleeting, because of all the reasons why I am refusing to quit teaching. 

Here are six reasons why:

Senator Elizabeth Warren.

During the darkest day of the trump presidency, there were times that I wanted to give up on America. And every time I thought about feeling hopeless about the future of our country, I would read about Senator Warren persisting. As long as Senator Warren believed in America, so would I.

Senator Warren faces challenges in her work every day but keeps working because it is essential and meaningful. As long as she persists in her work, so will I.

Educators

I love spending time with educators. They are the best kind of people. Educators love children, and they love learning. They see the humor in children and also the wonder in their eyes. All of the people I respect the most in my life, including my parents and my wife, are educators. I want to be like them.

My Students

On Wednesday, I introduced my fourth graders to “We Shall Overcome.” After telling them the history of this song and showing them a couple of performances, I taught them how to sing the song line by line. Then, when we were done, I had them sing the song straight through.

 

They tried so hard to sing this song with respect and care. No, it was technically a great musical performance, but it was one of the most beautiful performances I have ever heard in my life. Moments like these make all of the challenges of Teaching during this pandemic feel worth it.

 

My Children

“...this job, this work, what’s I’d accomplished--it needed to be worth the time that I’d spent away from them…whatever it was that I’d missed. It better count” - President Obama

My job, my time away from my children, needs to mean something. Teaching is a way that I make the world a better place for my children. 

My wife

It’s not easy having a partner who is a teacher. Diana has done so much to support me as an educator. There have been many times throughout this pandemic when I was stressed out or exhausted, and she has had to do more with the children or around the house. She has never complained about these moments.

Diana has never suggested that I leave teaching. Instead, I see this look in her eye when I tell her about my work. It’s a look of pride and love. Diana believes that I am a great teacher and has never wavered in her support.

My Blessings

My life is full of blessings. People throughout my life have been kind to me, worked hard to make my life better, and believed in me. I don’t feel like I deserve all that has been given to me. So, the only way that I can make meaningful these blessings and show gratitude to all those who did so much for me, is to do as much as possible for others. In teaching, I give to others and show that kindness every day that was given to me.

Parenthood: Week 457 - This Little Ear

This little ear is different. 

This ear is unique due to microtia, defined as a birth defect linked to Ethan’s hearing loss. But I don’t see his ear as being defective. It’s unique, and it’s part of what makes Ethan beautiful. Yes, Ethan doesn’t hear as other people do, but he doesn’t “suffer” from hearing loss. He dances to music, sings along with songs from Encanto, and even though he doesn’t hear as other people do with typical hearing, he is not less than.

This little ear holds up a headband.

Attached to the headband is his Baha, a bone-conduction hearing device. This hearing aid helps Ethan hear, and this little ear keeps the band in place. Sometimes the band drops and bends Ethan’s ear down, and Ethan pushes it up and rubs his ear. Other times Ethan takes a “Baha-break.” Sometimes he does this so he can change into his Hulk costume. Sometimes he does this because he wants to lie down, and other times he takes off his hearing aid because his little ear needs a break from holding up his headband.

This little ear has had to hold back the straps of a mask for the past two years.

The straps don’t have a lot of space behind the ear to stay secure, and the little ear is not tall enough to easily hold a mask in place. But this little ear has managed to keep a mask secure in school, playgrounds, and stores. It’s not easy to slip this mask on. There’s only a small space where the loop goes behind this little ear where the mask strap will stay. Combined with his Baha band, this little ear is doing so much so that Ethan can fully be in the world.

Like his little ear, Ethan is doing so much to get through this pandemic. With all that is being asked of him, Ethan is growing, learning, and bringing light to all of our lives. Ethan only vaguely understands what he is missing because of this pandemic. He knows he doesn’t see my parents as much as he should, but he doesn’t know how much he is missing in his interactions because of what masks are hiding from him.

One day, when Ethan is much older, I will explain to him that a challenge he has in his life is not his fault. It is because of what the pandemic took from him. It will be difficult for me to say what it meant to ask my special little guy to bear much for the sake of others, while others did so little.

I hope this will make him more proud of himself than bitter at others. I hope that he knows what he gave during this pandemic meant something to others. I hope that he knows that we struggled every day of the pandemic, hating to make him cover his beautiful smile with a mask. 

And I hope he understands that it made my heart hurt every time I had to pull the strap of a mask behind his little ear.

Year 12 - Week 16: What. A. Week.

I wanted to quit teaching after the day that I had on Tuesday. 

But, I’m feeling better now…kind of. 

I’ve had my hard days of teaching and times when I wanted a break, but I have never felt that I wanted to completely get out of the game like I did Tuesday evening. My school is running COVID-19 testing, so all of the students, faculty, staff, and administration submitted saliva samples on Monday, and students were set to return on Tuesday. It is wonderful that my school organized testing, but the result didn’t come in until Monday night, so it wasn’t clear who would be in school until Tuesday.  

Monday didn’t feel good. Everything felt uncomfortable, and everyone was anxious. I was working with the other music teachers about whether we should cancel two scheduled concerts for next week. Finally, after discussing what to do with these concerts, it was clear that they had to be canceled. While this decision, in some ways, wasn’t a hard one, it felt awful to have to make the call and once again have to cancel a concert because of the pandemic.  

Depending on my classes on Tuesday and I had a third to half of my students absent. Some were out because they had COVID-19, some were absent because they missed the testing on Monday and needed to do a test, and some were out for other reasons. Because of medical privacy, I had no idea why students were out, and I didn’t know for sure who was out until class started.  

Students shared stories about how they had COVID-19, or someone close to them had COVID-19 during class. I tried my best to react appropriately, but I wasn’t the best way to do this. I know that my school’s COVID-19 mitigation practices have effectively prevented spread through classroom interactions, but I still felt nervous and uncomfortable being around so many students and other teachers. 

It wasn’t so much that it was a hard day of teaching. It was just a really hard day to be a teacher. You feel successful as a teacher when you can plan, when you know what to expect, and you feel like you have to skills to handle a situation. I couldn’t plan for Tuesday without knowing what January was going to be like, and I had no idea what students to expect and their state of mind. I didn't and still don't feel like I know how to handle this upcoming COVID-19 wall and what it will mean to my school community. 

The last two years have been framed but getting through hard times so that we can get to a better time that hasn’t arrived.  

• In late March of 2020, we just had to get through a couple of weeks of a shutdown.
• In the spring of 2020, we just had to get through remote teaching for the remainder of the year. 
• In the fall of 2020, we just had to get through to Thanksgiving break. 
• In November of 2020, I just had to get through switching to remote teaching after being exposed to COVID-19. 
• In the Winter of 2021, we just had to preserve it long enough to get a vaccine.   
• In the Spring of 2021, we just had to make it through a couple of weeks until summer break.
• In the fall of 2021, we just had to push through long enough to get young students vaccinated.  

....and now, we just have to get through January.  

Over and over, we got through these challenging moments.  At times, there has been a respite, but more often than not, we’ve just had to push onward to “get through” to the next thing.  This is exhausting, and this is why Tuesday was hard. We are objectively in a much better place than we were a year ago. We have vaccines, and we have better treatments for COVDI-19. But right now, the thing feels hard because it feels like I have less in my tank.  

Instead of feeling good about doing the right thing for the past two years, I feel exhausted. I'm tired of just “getting through” periods for something better that never feels like it comes. All this came to me like the house falling down around Mirabel in Encanto.  

Tuesday night, I told myself, "if this is what teaching is, I don't want to do this anymore."    

Wednesday was better.  

I decided that I would do what I needed. So I spent time in class, leading a drum circle, listening to music from Encanto, learning about Joni Mitchell and the origins of Hip-Hop. Yes, I was still dealing with absent students, and not knowing what to expect or how to plan for the next month, but I managed to find a way to have fun.  

I started my classes by playing “Dos Oruguitas.“  

​​  

We did some stretching and breathing exercises to this song. Then I told them to just listen to the last 40 seconds of the song without doing anything. I allowed myself in each of my five classes for a moment to close my eyes and let my students see me fully engage and enjoy this song. We talked afterward about what it means to listen to music and do nothing else.  

Then I told them about growing up in a household hearing my parents speak Mandarin Chinese and not fully understanding what they said. I linked this to the experience of listening to “Dos Oruguitas“ and not understanding the lyrics because they were sung in Spanish. I asked them to think about what it feels like to be in a space where you cannot understand words because they are in a different language and how that is not necessarily bad.  

Thursday, I stayed home with Lucas. He was recovering from a slight fever, and we had a good day.  

I feel that I’m ready to hang on tight for the ride that January will be. This last week and the last week before the break was both wild rollercoasters. I felt great at the start of the week before break, and that week ended with me feeling horrible. This past week was the opposite. The shift in my feeling and mood due to what is happening in school is exhausting, but I’m really glad that this week has ended with more good than bad and a feeling that I can keep doing this.    

This is going to be a hard month, but it will pass. We will get through it, and maybe if we focus on what good we accomplished during this time, then maybe I can be less discouraged by the next challenge and more proud of how we continue to move forward.

Parenthood: Week 456 - Winter Break 2021

It has been years since we’ve had a “normal” winter break. Two years ago, our special little one Lucas was born. He was born in early December, so it made sense to stay close to home and not travel. My other two sons, Ollie and Ethan, were also sick with some minor illnesses that made us concerned about doing large family gatherings.

Last year was the first holiday season of the pandemic. We didn’t do extended family gatherings on my wife’s side, and we didn’t travel to Seattle to visit my parents during New Year’s, which we had done for close to a decade until the previous year. I have good memories of Winter Break last year. Yes, there were no vaccinations, and there were concerns about COVID-19, but the choices seemed easy. Of course, we wouldn’t gather indoors with a group of around thirty people. Flying home, getting on a plane with three kids made no sense. While the result of these decisions was sad and disappointing, they weren’t hard decisions to make.

Another thing that made winter break feel different was that school was predictable. We were all remote from Thanksgiving break until Winter Break. Also, we knew that we would be remote for the first week back after Winter Break. So transitioning to remote learning felt like a smooth transition into Winter Break. Contrast that with the week before the break this year, which was one of the most challenging weeks I’ve had as a teacher during this pandemic, and it’s no wonder why this break felt so different.

This was a Winter Break filled with laughter and giggles. My three sons played together every day, and while there were minor disagreements and meltdowns, more often than not, they shared in joy and happiness. Sometimes I would get frustrated as they insisted on running around the house screaming in joy and laughing loudly as I tried to get them to wind down for bedtime. Other times, I just gave up and let them run in circles around the living room. It’s not like we had to school to get up for in the morning.

This was a Winter Break that was also filled with consequences. We took reasonable risks, saw family extended family, and were exposed to COVID-19. We kept to ourselves while waiting for the right time to test, and then we tested. I wish that this was as easy as this sounds. I spent one-morning driving around eight different stores trying to find COVID-19 rapid tests and failing. We also spent one morning with all of us in the car, driving from testing site to testing site, attempting to find testing. Unfortunately, that morning did not prove successful. Fortunately, we eventually did find tests for our family.

We were hoping to do more things outside of the house and see more people, but it ended up being far more good than bad. And it was precisely what I needed.

More than ever, I felt very aware that I needed this to be a break for me, and it was in the time I spent with my family, I felt the release of stress that I needed. It was playing Pokemon cards with Ollie, reading with Ethan, and smiling and talking to Lucas. It was standing back and watching all three of them dance to the soundtrack from Encanto, and checking in on them at night, and hearing them softly breathe as they sleep.

There were moments of this break that were tough and stressful, but I wish I had more of it right now. With all that is going on in the world, there is a sense of peace and comfort when we are all under one roof, and to feel that for an extended period brought me back to myself for a moment in time, I will not soon forget.