Out of the Mouths

I just spent the last week administering TCAP, our state's standardized test.  It's a measuremnet tool used to see what our students have learned throughout the year.  Are they on target?  Have they met the standards?  (Are the teachers doing their jobs?) No matter what their stanines turn out to be, I'm convinced my students will do well in life.  You see, from a very early age they develop some pretty high level life skills.  For example, they know exactly when to add the lower lip quiver to an excuse for not having their homework.  Should it be needed, puppydog eyes can be summoned quite effectively when making a request.  And stalling tactics, well that's an art children have taken to its highest level.  "What was it like when you were a kid, Mrs. Schuh?" asked just as I begin to write the homework assignment on the board, mixed with, "I think I'm having an asthma attack.  Will you write me a note so I can go to the clinic?" almost certainly mean no homework. 

I'm sure you can add more to this list.  As parents, we see it all the time. (Why, I may have used a stalling tactic or two myself.)  My next poem, "Beddy-Bye Teddy Gets Lost" was an attempt to capture some precious moments and some very clever stalling techniques. 

P.S.  I was always onto you, Jamie.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

If you're a baby boomer, the title of this blog has to bring back memories of Art Linkletter chatting up little kids, egging them on to say something funny or inappropriately revealing about their parents.  The kids never failed to deliver, and in my world, the elementary classroom, they still do.  Their antics, conversations, and anecdotes should have made me a published author by now.  My poem, "Aunt Ruth" definitely was the result of a conversation with one of my students.  I was handed a note explaining that the parents would be out of town for the week, and the child would be staying with relatives.  The look on the child's face said it all.  Take a little truth, add a little fiction, make it rhyme, and voila . . . Aunt Ruth.  Enjoy!

Aunt Ruth
In the early days of autumn
When the leaves are brushed with gold
My folks will plan a "get-away,"
And next thing I'll be told
Is that I'm staying with my Auntie Ruth
Who lives just south of town
In a slightly weathered farmhouse
No, not weathered, it's run down!
And though I think my folks deserve
A little time to get away
I still beg, and plead, and wheedle
For them not to make me stay.
I remind them that Aunt Ruthie
Although sweet, and dear, and kind
Is bordering on senility
And may have lost her mind
How she knits and purls for hours
In her favorite rocking chair
And chats with late, great, Uncle Thad
Who isn't even there.
My dad just rolls his eyeballs
Which in esssence seals my fate
Then chucks my chin and says to me,
"You sure exaggerate!"
And I realize I'm beaten
He's convinced I stretch the truth.
They'll be going for the week end,
And I'll be staying with Aunt Ruth.

Pet Peeve

I never had a pet as a child.  Okay, there was Pretty Boy, a parakeet, but I never thought he counted.  Don't get me wrong, I liked him, but you can't take a parakeet for a walk, and they won't lick your face, and they won't eat the food your mom says to eat every bite of, that you slip to them under the table.  (Parakeets aren't under the table.) 

I had a turtle once.  I'm not sure where I got him.  I was pretty excited about him (her?) at first.  Finally, when the teacher assigned the annual story "Me and My Pet" I'd have something to write about.  My turtle didn't live long.  I didn't have much of a story. 

Years later, when George and I started dating, we went to the Kentucky State Fair.  George was impressive as he threw the hoops over the coke bottles.  So impressive he won not one, but two goldfish.  (I looked longingly at the girls who carried the humongous stuffed animals down the midway.)  Still, I proudly clutched my plastic bag of precious cargo through the Tilt-O-Whirl, Bubble Bounce, and Ferris Wheel rides.  No one told us you had to treat the water before you placed your fish into their new habitat.  In a very few minutes, my fish, Bozo and Screlda, were floating belly-up in their bowl.  These were not trick fish, they were dead.

A few years later, after the fish incident, George and I were married.  (He continued to impress me in so many ways, I couldn't resist.)  One day he came home from work with a French poodle puppy in his pocket.  (How's that for alliteration?)  We named him Chico.  There's a story behind that, but I'll save it for another post.  Chico was great.  I had a pet.  He hiked his leg on my Norfolk pine.  Chico was gone.

As you can see, I was never good with pets.  I had hoped that I might overcome this weakness.  Surely, for Jamie, our only child, I could rise up and meet the challenge.  But no, though we tried gerbils (Tammy and Christina, God rest their souls), and two cats, it just wasn't meant to be.  I imagined Jamie would harbor ill feelings toward me the rest of his life (Though I bought him the $100 Nike tennis shoes he had to have in 3rd grade.  What was I thinking?!)  I was pretty sure there would be a dog somewhere in his future.  I wrote the following poem with all this in mind.

I'm Out of the Country

I've been on Spring Break this week, my favorite of all vacations.  I've been "out of the country," or so a former teacher friend of mine would say.  She never actually left home, but in essence she let us all know that she wouldn't be available.

Spring Break is a time of rejuvenation, and for me, that means no schedule.  I know lots of people love to fill their calendars with social events.  They get excited about the activities that they see before them.  I, on the other hand, love a blank calendar.  I want time to "piddle", to act on a whim, to daydream.  And so I've piddled. 

I figured out how to load pictures onto a picture frame I received as a gift.  OK, I didn't piddle, I whiled away hours.  Each picture took me somewhere.  I visited almost all of my dearest friends and relatives.  I thanked God for all the people and experiences He has placed in my life.  I thought about the children I teach, spent time with each one individually, thought about their talents, and imagined where their lives would lead them. 

And I ironed.  Yes, I'm one of those people.  I married an ironer, and we proudly passed the skill on to our son.  The thing about ironing is, it's a mindless task.  Can you see where I'm going?  You can do it and go places.  I made a return trip to Paris, strolled the streets of my childhood recalling who lived in each house,
remembered Vacation Bible School and the Strawberry Man.  I pictured the flowers I would plant once the threat of frost passes.  And, I have a closet full of clean clothes.

My "return flight" arrives back in town on Sunday evening.  My alarm will ring again on Monday morning.  I'll greet my students at the door.  We'll cover all the required lessons and move according to schedule.  I'll prepare dinner . . . OK, we'll grab a bite somewhere, I'll grade papers, we'll watch a little TV, and I'll to it all again the next day.  And it's OK, because . . . I've been out of the country.