Parenthood: Week 510 - Not So Wide Open Spaces

When Buffy was a younger dog, she’d get the “zoomies.” She would randomly run at full speed across the room, often without warning and without provocation. Who knew that children did the same thing?

There are a lot of things that my children like to do together. One of their favorites is to chase other in circles around the house and laugh with great joy. Sometimes, one of them catches the other one, and they fall and wrestle around. Sometimes the laughter sounds like crying, and I ask, “is everyone okay?” And then there will be a pause, and I’ll hear a “yes.” But, unfortunately, there are times when this running around ends with someone hurting someone or running into something.

Yes, I get it. Kids have energy and a desire to be physical. Unfortunately, in the dark and cold winter, we can’t do that outside much, so this type of play gets moved inside. We are blessed with a comfortable home, but we don’t really have enough space for our children to run around and wrestle.

We try our best to keep a lid on it, but there are times when we are too tired, and they have too much energy, so we just sit, let them run around, and hope that someone doesn’t get hurt. 

Over the years, I’ve seen how some boys have a very narrow way of interacting and socializing. For example, some males only interact through playing sports, making fun of each other, or being goofy. In addition, the often limiting definitions of masculinity make some boys uncomfortable interacting in different positive ways of bonding, like talking about their emotions or playing music together.

I try to encourage my sons to read or do art projects together, and once I do find that they enjoy spending time together in these ways. But, sometimes, it just seems like they forget that these are ways to be with each other and that their default is to run around and be goofy.

One of my hopes for my children is that they see many ways they can be for themselves and each other. There is beauty in having many interests, and that masculinity should not empower boys to feel confident doing what they enjoy regardless of stereotypes and gender roles.

The only way to make progress in this way is to be deliberate. Surrounding my children with different kinds of books and activities sends a very important message. Also, be aware of culturally what my children consume throughout the day. My oldest son likes watching Ninjago, an action-adventure cartoon. I don’t give him any resistance when he watches this. And when I watch television with him, I’ll put on a Julia Child cooking video, or a performance by The Temptations, so that he sees the wonder and greatness in many different things. Hopefully, this will translate into him seeing and valuing different facets of his personality.

It will be cold, dark, and gross outside for at least another month. So we’ll have more screaming and chasing in the house. And hopefully, we will also have a great time doing other activities together that are a little quieter.

Year 13: Week 20 - Pride

Maybe the solution was that I just needed to say it out loud. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm underappreciated at my school. I put on a performance and sit there after waiting and hoping for something to validate my work. Logically I know this is silly since the focus is on the students, and without fail, someone will email me and tell me I did a good job. However, the feeling persists.

My school, like other communities, needs to work on showing appreciation for each other and not taking its members' talents, hard work, and commitment for granted. At the same time, I know that I can't wait and hope for other people's approval. I need to be doing work and making choices that make me feel proud regardless of what others think or say. And I think I've figured out a way to get there.

I've started telling people lately that I'm good at specific parts of my job. At first, I felt unsure of expressing confidence about my work to others but knowing that they backed it up with concrete examples made them think more about sharing their pride and less about being braggadocious. When I tell people I'm good at something, it sometimes gets them to lean into what I say. At other times, I find that my confidence puts people at ease and lowers anxiety.

Something else is happening as I've been vocalizing things about my work that I'm good at and bringing up examples of my success to others: I'm feeling more proud of myself.

People's words of support and their affirmations have felt insufficient because they aren't paired with my voice telling me I'm doing a good job. There's a gap between people's kind words and my feeling for them. The way to bridge this gap is to say these things out loud. Because now that I'm being more kind and supportive to myself, the affirmations of others feel more real and more valid.

In the past, I felt I needed to be humble. This may be a cultural value or my insecurities taking over, but I'm humble enough. And I'm not going to become the type of guy I don't want to be who spends time expressing their insecurities by bragging about every part of their life, revealing their shallowness more than their accomplishments.

I wonder about my students. They have so much to be proud of, and I tell them I am proud of them, but I wonder if it's sinking in. Do they feel they are proud of themselves? Are they saying to others out loud things that they are good at? I'll help them work on this.

Something is shifting.

The problems and crises I faced this week felt more like adventures than burdens because I've told myself that I can handle this. I kept my department strong and contributed directly to the success of my school during the early COVID-19 pandemic, one of the greatest challenges in education in American history. I did a great job as a leader through that crisis.

I'm good at my job, and now that I'm starting to tell other people this, I'm beginning to believe it and feel proud of that fact.

Parenthood: Week 509 - The Family Bed?

A couple of weeks ago, we rearranged the sleeping situation in our house. Diana and I moved into the guest room, Ollie and Ethan moved into our old room, and Lucas moved into Ethan and Ollie’s old room. The room that served as a nursery for Lucas became Diana’s office.

It was the right time to make this move. Lucas had figured out how to climb out of his crib for at least a month or two, and it made sense for us to better utilize the guest room and the attached bathroom as a master suite. In addition, Ollie and Ethan’s shared room wasn’t as big as our previous bedroom, and two beds fit in that space very well.

For Ollie and Ethan, it wasn’t a big switch. They had been sharing a room for a couple of years and wanted to continue to share room. Ethan was a little worried about having to walk further to come to find us if he got scared at night, but after he saw how things were laid and out that our new bedroom really wasn’t that far away, he was fine with that.

This was a big change for Lucas. He went from a crib to a twin-size bed and switched rooms. His sleep routine got off, and he fell out of his new bed several times, not realizing there were no longer crib sides to keep him in bed. What was nice about his new bed is that we could now do story time in his bed, and he came to like having a bed like his big brothers.

Now, what he is really enjoying visiting us in the middle of the night.

When Ollie first went into a “big boy bed,” he had never climbed out of his crib, so he didn’t realize that he could even get out of his new bed on his own. I had to literally teach him how to get out of his bed and that he could visit us in our bedroom. He came to visit us at night periodically for a couple of weeks, but he settled into sleeping in his own bed without many issues.

Ethan never liked sleeping in his crib, so it was a struggle to get him to sleep on his own, but over time it has improved. Now, with Lucas, the situation has become almost humorous.

On a good night, everyone will stay in their beds. On a bad night, Ethan and Lucas will not visit our bed two or three times to try to sleep with us. This is with us putting them back in their beds after each visit.

This has led to waking up in the middle of the night, hearing the light pitter-patter of Lucas and having him carefully lay between Diana and me, or the slapping of Ethan’s heavy run coming down the hallway. There’s looking over at the body next to me, confusing whether it’s Lucas and Ethan and taking that child to the wrong room as I try to put them back in their bed. There have been moments when I’ve gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night and come back to find a child has appeared in my bed like magic.

With varying degrees of consciousness and energy, I’ve tried to make do with one or two children sleeping in our bed, but no one really gets a good night's sleep, so I try to push myself up to get them back in their beds.

Then there are the nights when it’s between late at night and early in the morning, and I wake up and find Ethan and Lucas sleeping soundly, cuddling with each other. I go back to sleep, knowing that I will be tired in the morning because of how their little bodies will keep me from sleeping soundly. But I know it’s worth it for them to have this moment of warmth, comfort, and love with each other.

Year 13: Week 19 - Getting Back To Recorder

This time I tried something a little different. 

I split my fourth graders into two groups. For half the class, one group would work on a Garage Band assignment on their iPads while the other students did a recorder lesson with me. Then halfway through the class, we would switch.

I started recorder with the whole class in the past, and I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to start them up in small groups. Also, something I did in the past was a lot of teaching about the recorder and expectations around playing before we got to play the instrument. But this time, I just jumped in and got them playing, which worked well.

One of the hardest things about teaching the recorder is classroom management. When a class is doing a really good job with norms about not speaking over each other, this doesn't necessarily carry over to the recorder. Students are eager to play, unaware of how playing out of turn is disruptive, and have the potential to create loud, headache-inducing songs without a lot of effort.

Before I handed them the recorders, we would watch videos of people playing the recorder with the idea that they would take the work seriously and get a tone model in their head about how a recorder should sound like. Then I would lecture them about how to play the recorder and give them a quiz based on my lecture. They needed to answer critical questions about setting up their hands and basic techniques and troubleshooting when their instruments didn't sound right.

This did create a level of interest and investment in the instrument. Also, I would incentivize students' by choosing well-behaved students to play an iPad recorder game in front o the class at the end of a recorder lesson. However, with all of this, it was still a challenge to manage the class.

I did none of these things this time. Instead, I told them how to label their recorder bag, and once they did this, I put a recorder in their hands. We got to work quickly, and I had them play and play and play and play. If a student was out of turn, I corrected them immediately without subtlety. I gave them clear and direct positive and constructive feedback and helped them see their improvement.

It was fast-paced work with a higher level of intensity than I usually teach, but it worked. The kids seemed to feel good after we were done, and I heard a lot of positive comments as students left the class. Part of this work was that I only worked with each half-class on the recorder for about twelve minutes once we got going. Some of my students would have struggled with the work much longer than that.

While I'll spend some time later showing my students videos of recorder playing, getting to the instrument first was a good idea. Students like music classes for many reasons, but the main reason is that they want to play music. The most motivating thing to keep students engaged and interested in music class is creating good music and improving during the course.

I taught many different lessons during the early pandemic during music class. Still, most of it wasn't engaging students in the art of creating music and performing music by singing or playing an instrument. This was because we were limited because of safety mitigations, and now that we have moved past them, it's time to get back to the most fun part of music class: making music.

Parenthood: Week 508 - In His Eyes

Lucas and I were lying in bed together on our sides, looking at each other. He held two fingers on my hand and pulled my hand close to his cheek. Lucas cuddled up against my hand as if it was a security blanket.

 

In the dim light of his night-light, I could see his eyes looking into mine, calm and peaceful. Then slowly, his eyelids began to close. I could see him resist this as they opened. Then, finally, they began to close again, and Lucas let them close this time. I looked at my beautiful little one in the dark as I listened to the gentle breathing. For a moment, all there was in the world was him and me, and there was peace.

 

The first time someone fell asleep looking into my eyes, it was with Diana. A moment of trust, comfort, and love helped me understand the true meaning of intimacy. Then there was falling asleep with Buffy.

 

I had an idea in my head that Buffy wouldn’t ever sleep in our bed when we first got her. She was this magical ball of fluff, so on the first day we had her home, I put her on my lap, and she fell asleep right there. Then she fell asleep on my chest. And then she fell asleep in the corner of our bed. She ended up by our pillows at some point, cuddling up with us.

 

Buffy never regularly sleeps in our bed. She cuddles with us for a little while, like ten minutes, and then want to get off the bed and sleep in her own space. However, once in a while, she does fall asleep in my arms. Sometimes she’s the small spoon, and other times she lies on her side facing me. Seeing her eyes close, with her third eye eyelid crossing across her as her other eyelids close, reminds us of how different we are, yet sharing a space with such comfort. To know that I could bond this strongly with something beyond human is a beautiful feeling.

 

Both with Ollie and Ethan, I spent time cuddling with them at night and watching their eyes close slowly as we lay in bed looking at each other. I feel so fortunate that my eyes could bring them such comfort and peace. I didn’t think about the fact that I hadn’t had this moment with Lucas until it happened last week.

 

Lately, I’ve been putting Lucas to sleep more often. It’s super cute. Lucas is talking a lot more to express what he wants to me. Sometimes he likes the lights on, sometimes, he wants to sit in the chair with me, and of course, he has an opinion on what books he wants to read.

 

After Lucas gets in bed, he needs to set up his stuffed animals just right. He has a goose, a zebra, and a Mickey Mouse that all sit up in the corner of his bed so he can see them when he turns to the side. For some reason I can’t explain. Lucas is insistent on The Polar Express as his bedtime story. Sometimes he falls asleep before I’m done, but other times, he’s still awake by the end.

 

We turn to each other in bed, and when he looks into my eyes, I can see all that I wished for him to be before he was born, all the wonders that he is now, and grateful for all the love he brings into my life.  

Year 13: Week 18 - Back To Normal-ish

This week we came back from winter break. It felt like a return to “normal.” For my 4th and 5th graders, we were returning to lessons and curricula that weren’t as focused on preparing for a performance. 

The classes in the last couple weeks before winter break culminated in our Winter Program. These lessons had a singular focus on performance preparation. While I enjoy the focus of this work and building up to a performance, the skill-building and variety of activities we usually do get put aside.

Returning to the same class routines with my 4th and 5th graders felt nice. We had some fun doing drum circle activities and composition work for both of these classes. These activities are ones that I’ve done before, almost every year for the past thirteen years. Returning to lessons and projects I’ve done before can sometimes feel mundane, but this week was fun.

Teaching is the practice of doing something over and over, year after year. Yes, there is a percentage of what we teach every new year. However, a lot of what we do, even in the best and most progressive situations, is the same yearly.

What makes things exciting and interesting are the students. The audience, the collaborators are new. Even when teaching the same lesson to different classes on the same day, the experience varies. This is what makes teaching challenging, but it’s also what makes teaching so much fun.

Some of this has to do with your approach to the craft of teaching. It is often said that you don’t teach a subject. You teach children. Great math teachers don’t teach math. They teach the subject of math to children. I genuinely see myself as a teacher over a music teacher. My role in their lives is as a teacher first. The priorities of safety, SEL, and DEIB work are the foundation of my work, not music. Music is the path forward to teaching my students, but it is not my priority as a teacher.

The thing about teaching lessons that you have taught many times before is that the familiarity with them, which one might think would make them boring, is actually an opportunity to engage more proudly with students. When teaching a song or an activity I don’t know very well, I’m more focused on myself and my knowledge of the materials. When I’m teaching something I’ve done before and know well, I can focus more on my students, their reactions, their thoughts, and their work. I’m free from my concerns and insecurities and I can be more in the moment, with and for my students. This past week, this felt great.

Other things about this week felt difficult. There was a lot of catching up to do and taking care of tasks that were put aside because of the performance. My middle school bands have a performance in early February, so they are starting to transition into performance preparation mode. I’m concerned about helping my students make the best of this performance opportunity, as it is their first performance, but I’m optimistic and ready for that challenge.

Parenthood: Week 507 - Making Plans

In parenthood, everything goes differently than planned, and then you have to make new plans...constantly. Everything from cooking breakfast to bedtime to all the activities in between requires plans. These plans require preparation, and your children often distract you when you do this work. 

This past week, we’ve been reeling from the fact that we are not visiting my family in Seattle. We made these plans months ago and spent a lot of time preparing for this trip. So after a morning of moping around, we had to make plans. First, there were plans for what was right in front of us, like what we would eat for lunch, and then we had to make plans for the next week.  

We started a list of things we wanted to do with our children during break and errands we wanted to get down and started slotting them in the coming days. There was about one thing a day, some outing or activity we planned for our children. As the schedule came together, the week started looking good.  

I was determined to make the rest of this winter break work for our family. So on the first day, I took them to the mall. Too bad most of the mall was closed because we got there too early, and the open stores weren’t too interesting for my children. Lucas loved running around the empty mall, but the others were bored, so we went to Old Navy. I let them pick out t-shirts and buy them snacks. That didn't go as planned, but the afternoon did. We took them to see a kid’s movie. I almost changed plans after one of my children was not cooperative in leaving the house, but we stuck with that plan and made it work. 

The following day we planned to go to the aquarium. So I got up early, made breakfast, and got us all ready to go. We got the aquarium close to when they opened, got a pretty good parking spot, and made our way to the door. We wanted to avoid crowds by getting there early, and since our children get up early, it’s really up to us to get them there. So we did, and we found out we couldn’t get it. Even though we were members, we still needed to reserve a spot for a timed entry, and they were full until the afternoon.  

Time for a new plan. 

Fortunately, the Field Museum was next door, so we walked over there and spent the morning looking at dinosaurs.  

This is how the past week has gone. We make plans, put in the time and effort, and then have to change plans. Part of me is still sad that we didn’t spend the week in Seattle as planned, but we made new plans and made this week work.  

It’s hard to make plans. You have to make decisions quickly, often without all the information, but knowing it’s for my children helps push me through. After years of re-making plans, I’m pretty good at it, and it's one of the things that I do well that makes me feel proud to be parent.