We’re Almost To The Finish Line

I told my life partner, Sarah, today that I feel like I think like a writer. Sometimes when I’m thinking, I actually can see how I would write about and format the feelings I’m experiencing on the page. I was referencing how I’d communicate something that had happened at work, and, by the end of the day, the only thing I knew to do to diffuse some of this end-of the-school year energy is write a blog post.

Also. I feel as if full disclosure is exceptionally important at this juncture.

Full Disclosure

So, full disclosure.

1. It’s 5:30 p.m. Miss Allie, an angelic teenager from our neighborhood, is here, playing with my children in the basement while I eat oatmeal alone and type this blog on my phone. Now, this is simply because I need a buffer between being teacher and mom at least once a week.

That is correct. I am a privileged suburban Costco mom who is completely comfortable saying that I need help. (Almost completely comfortable anyway.)

2. My wardrobe is laughable and sponsored by Amazon, even though I despise supporting Jeff Bezos. My fifth grade teacher, Mary Louise Yizze, wore business suits and high heels and a beautiful gold necklace each day. Today’s getup is a tank top which reads “Good Vibes,” a pair of black leggings, and this new ponytail I’m trying out to see if ponytails are back in. If Mary Louise saw half the tomfoolery going on in today’s public schools, she’d be asking me for the link to my leggings.

3. The house that we bought in August is coming along but only has a decorated mantle because my youngest sister finally said, “Alright, this is getting ridiculous now. I’m all for you bringing down the patriarchy, but we all have to look at this eyesore.”

Please allow me to show you other displays since our big move, two weeks before I returned to teaching face to face in a pandemic in September of 2020.

The Blessed Last Day

My district will be in session until June 17th.

June 17th.

More than half of June.

People.

Goodbye.

Best wishes for a lovely summer.

Being a teacher in a pandemic was super fun.

I loved every minute of it and I’m so blessed to know you all.

Experiencing this pandemic with all of you and hand washing so much that I now have warts all over my hands from the dryness and cuts and teaching with masks on and pretending we’re social distancing has been a rockin’ time.

Enough.

Every morning since the return from Memorial Day break, I wake up like a big ninny, head to my basement to drink the Peloton Kool Aid and tell myself working out daily will help me stay calm, and then play “full time working teacher mom” for 30 minutes before I haul my crew to Ms. Suzi’s.

At 7:30 a.m., I read “My Tool Book,” to Maverick three times and remarked, “Babe! You have a hammer? You put your hammer in your toolbox? Wow, Bub! You’re a big tool guy.”

Not even an hour later, I watched a gaggle of fifth graders saw into their bagels with plastic knives, spreading cream cheese on them as if they were attending some surf and turf event only to raise their hands after I explained an assignment and remark, “Do we have to do this?”

My diligence is admirable.

Each morning, I give it another go. Just like so many of my colleagues. Colleagues who work in the same hallway as me and colleagues who work in different countries than me.

We have raised up the children of this world.

We gave them back something that was familiar to them when so much of their familiar had disappeared.

I am so damn proud of us for this year.

This is not to say teachers are the only ones who did a bang up job this year. Many people did a bang up job this year. Nurses and sanitation workers and moms and dads and child care providers and infection prevention specialists (get it, Cousin!) and bus drivers and therapists have shown up and lifted people up. So many people will be able to look back at this pandemic and say, “I helped. I made a difference.”

But today’s blog post is for my fellow teachers and I.

Because we need someone to raise us up like we raise others and say, “We see that you did something scary and difficult with roomfuls of people who can’t keep masks on, who can’t social distance, who have so much unprocessed and unresolved trauma from the past and present and you gave them somewhere to go.”

We did it.

I’m raising us up.

I’m telling us that we did wonderfully during one of the hardest years of our careers.

I’m telling us to eat that chocolate at the bottom of our desk drawers and sit back for a day while they color for fifteen minutes.

And because we’ve given of ourselves, often at the expense of so many other people and things, it’s time to hand over the torch for the summer and take a well-deserved break.

I Started This Blog Post a Month Ago And Never Finished It. Its Message Aligns With This One And It’s Almost Time To Bathe My Children. Piece Them Together and Enjoy.

There were ants on the living room windowsill today which climbed onto the sectional I’m still making payments on and have sat on a total of ten times since its January arrival.

I had to have a colonoscopy last week because I was drinking so much cold brew coffee that I essentially broke my own butt, Maeve has fourteen zillion cavities and her dentist looked at me like I’m giving her bottles of Mountain Dew at night and I sent Maverick to daycare on Monday last week in Maeve’s shoes and then on Tuesday in a pair of shoes that didn’t fit him. Also, unbeknownst to me, my car was leaking oil on Suzi’s driveway at pickup every day and she embarrassingly had to include a note in everyone’s cubbies which read “Leaky Vehicle.” Mark read the note and said, “Oh, that’s your car leaking the oil,” which, in turn, led to yet another lecture from me on taking care of tasks in an appropriate amount of time.

We have a raccoon in the attic of the home we’ve lived in for nine months and we had to write a man whose business card reads “Don The Pest Guy” a check for $250 this evening. Don is a lovely gentleman who climbed a ladder through racks of my sweaters to set a trap in the attic while I got Maeve dressed for dance.

I can’t even imagine what’s going through Suzi’s head at this point. I know my own internal dialogue would be something like, “She’s got time to write those damn blogs but her car is destroying my driveway and her kid is falling down the stairs because his feet are too wide for Natives.”

I got a new student last week with 22 days of school left, my class sat through hours and hours of standardized state testing that allegedly doesn’t even count after attending school during a pandemic and I banged on the classroom bathroom door yesterday and yelled to a student, “You need to get out here while I’m reviewing for this math test. I’m literally putting the actual test on the projector and you’re playing in the bathroom.”

While I’m dripping in sweat and simultaneously explaining story problems to ten year olds in bathrooms, my Boomer is texting me that her neighbor had cataract surgery and that she saved $171.50 at Kohl’s.

Conclusion Paragraph

I’m going to tie it all together like I teach the troops at my day job to do.

To all the teachers and moms and teacher moms out there—we did it. You did it. I did it.

We gave the children a great gift.

And the summer is ours to rest.