One Look Was All It Took

As we enter the month of Thanksgiving, I have been reflecting on events that have changed the course of my life. I was recently listening to the song “This by Darius Rucker. He sings about “every stoplight I didn't make, every chance I did or I didn't take,” all those things that could have happened but didn’t led him to where he is today. And he wouldn’t change a thing. That’s how I’ve been feeling.

Kids? Not me. Not ever. That was the theme by which I lived all through undergraduate school. I was going to be an attorney. If I chose marriage, it might slow me down, and I could really put career advancement in jeopardy if kids were to become a part of the picture. At least that was my thinking as a young college woman, and even as a young married woman.

However, when I was lying in the hospital after my daughter was born, law school never crossed my mind. For years I had set my goal as a career in corporate law. But looking into my daughter’s eyes as I held her in that hospital bed, I knew that I could not let anyone else take care of her. She wasn’t planned, but I was so grateful that she had shown up. And so, as I lay there in the hospital, I began to prepare for my new career as a stay-at-home mom.

My college advisor had told me after graduation to go out into the world and to be the best that I could be at whatever I chose. Now here I was choosing my daughter. I would spend my days playing with her and nurturing her.

When she was eighteen months old, we attended a local community theater production of “The Wizard of Oz.” We took classes together. We read together. And as she grew up, we were involved in theatrical productions together. Singing and dancing were also something we shared. I loved it when friends referred to us as the Jarman sisters. We shopped together, laughed together and spent lots of time together. Even though there were those times during puberty when I feared which demon would possess her when she woke, she was mine. And I loved being her mother.

I spent thirteen years as a stay-at-home mom raising my daughter and son (yes, he came along three and a half years after she arrived). I can’t even begin to imagine myself in a courtroom. The gaze into that baby’s eyes changed my life forever, and I couldn’t be more thankful.

My granddaughter will be ten months old this month. The time has flown by! But as she gets a little older, and as fall approaches, I am getting very excited about re-living some of my favorite fall traditions with a little one.

Fall means pumpkins and jack-o-laterns. I remember our annual outings to the pumpkin patch. We’d put on boots and sweatshirts and head down the road on a mission to pick out the best pumpkin ever! Of course, we had two children who each had their own ideas about what the perfect pumpkin should look like, so we typically came home with a few.

We’d drive down the long drive to the pumpkin farm and jump out of the car. The kids would head right to the field hoping to pick up the first pumpkin they saw. As the got older, they became more particular about finding the perfect pumpkin. They’d examine each side trying to determine which side would be best for the face or if the vine left a good enough handle for the lid. Some pumpkins were rejected because they were too small, others sometimes had a flat side.

Once our purchases were made, we’d load all of our pumpkins into the back of the car and head home. The kitchen table became the center of activity as the carving began. We never did anything excessively creative. Our jack-o-laterns mostly had the triangle nose and eyes with the smile exposing a few teeth. There were years, however, when mistakes were made with the carving knife and teeth were accidentally cut off. Those jacks just had great big grins.

The lanterns, after having been carefully carved, were placed out on the front porch with their candles in place. Sometimes the lids burned because the candle was too big or the lid was improperly placed on top. The smell of burning pumpkin would fill the front of the house.

The extra pumpkins, the ones that appeared perfect at the patch, but were rejected after further examination at home, were baked and used for pumpkin breads or pies. Pumpkins are so much a part of fall and fall is such a beautiful time of the year. I cannot wait to share it with my granddaughter!

The Leaves of Fall

My granddaughter will be ten months old this month. The time has flown by! But as she gets a little older, and as fall approaches, I am getting very about re-living some of my favorite fall traditions with a little one.
One of the reasons that I love fall so much is the beautiful array of colors that appear on the trees. I love the yellows, oranges, and reds of the fall leaves. Driving along the roads of Frederick in the fall, I am continually in awe of the splendor of the colors.

When Tim was in the Navy, we lived in Texas, California, and Florida. Those states are not typically known for their fall foliage. Few people travel to those places to see the magnificence of fall leaves. For five years, I went without a real fall. Sure we had trick-or-treating and Halloween. There were also pumpkin patches and apple cider, but never could I look out my window and see the color of fall.

The first year that we were back in Maryland, I would often pack the kids up in the car and just drive around the back roads and stop to gaze at the leaves. Many times as I was driving the car, I would wipe the tears from my eyes. I had missed my leaves so much, but they were there just like they were every fall. I had missed them so.
I also love the leaves on the ground. There’s nothing like the sound of crunching leaves as you hike down the mountain trails along the Appalachian Trail. When my children were younger, we would take them on hikes in the fall and we would all crunch, crunch, crunch down the trail path.

Leaves are also great in piles. I loved the times when we would rake them all nice and neatly into a great mound on the lawn and then the dogs would come running and plow right through the pile. Leaves would fly everywhere and we would all laugh. I think the dogs enjoyed it as much as we did.

I can’t wait to make leaf piles with Chloë, to hike along the trails and giggle at the crunching sounds. Fall is such a beautiful time of the year. I am so looking forward to sharing it with my granddaughter!

This blogpost ran as my column, "The Empty Nest," in the Frederick News Post on Sunday October 7, 2012.

Fall Apples

My granddaughter will be ten months old in October. The time has flown by! But as she gets a little older, and as fall approaches, I am getting very excited about re-living some of my favorite fall traditions with my little one.

I love the apples of fall! I remember when I was growing up one of the fundraisers for our church was baking and selling apple dumplings at the fall festival. Members of the congregation would get together on Friday of the festival weekend. The church kitchen and social hall would be a-buzz with activity. Some folks were mixing and rolling dough and others were peeling and coring apples.

One year, I brought my boyfriend to help with the preparation. I figured if he could endure the whole apple dumpling event he could endure most anything! He laughed and joked with the ladies of the church as we rolled out the dough for so many apple dumplings! We took some home and baked them. There’s nothing like a warm apple dumpling with some ice cream on the side.

Apples are also great for cider. We usually head out to McCutcheon’s or Baugher’s in Westminster to pick up our stock. I love mulling cider in the fall. Sitting in the kitchen and looking out at the beautifully colored leaves while I sip my cider is always a well spent fall afternoon.

And what would fall be without apple pie! I cannot wait to bake my first apple pie with my granddaughter. I hope she enjoys being in my kitchen as much as I enjoyed spending time with my grandmother in hers. A grandmother’s kitchen always smells like heaven.

Now, I’m not much of a cook, but I do hope that my little girl and I spend some wonderful times in the kitchen together. And that boyfriend with all of the dumpling experience, well,he learned enough about peeling apples and rolling dough that I decided to keep him! I’m sure he’d be more than willing to help us girls with our apple adventures in the kitchen.

Fall is such a beautiful time of the year. I cannot wait to share it with my granddaughter!

Teachers and Education

School is back in session and everyone is excited about the upcoming academic year. I have always believed that success in school takes teamwork, in particular, a team of three: student, parents, and teacher.

I have been teaching for more than a dozen years. Those years have been filled with stress, lots of work, some tears, many smiles, and joy. At times, I have been frustrated with the system, parents, students, and myself. And yet I have also been elated at times with the system, parents, students, and myself. Teaching is a challenging, stressful, time-consuming career that I absolutely adore.

I have had the opportunity to watch students grow, to experience things they never dreamed of, and to meet challenges they never thought possible. I have shared joys and sorrows with my colleagues, many of whom have become dear friends.

Each school year starts with excitement; new faces, new clothes, new hair. Hopes are high and everyone begins with a clean slate. By winter break, we’re all tired, beginning to wear out, and in deep need of a vacation. The New Year begins everything anew, but the snows of winter and the cold mornings heading out before the sun gets up make everyone wonder if the school year will ever come to an end.

But summer does always manage to show its face and a long respite from school begins. These things happen over and over again, and yet each year it feels so new!

I won’t sleep the night before school, not much anyway. I’ll toss and turn wondering if I have enough handouts for the first day, what my students will look like, how they’ll behave. I lie awake thinking about what types of projects we can come up with, how I can convince my principal to let me try something wild and crazy! I worry that I might not be able to help all of my students. What if they don’t understand and I can’t figure out how to teach them? I try to solve all of the problems of the world that night before school!

I’ll wake up the first day of school with butterflies and I won’t be able to eat a thing for breakfast. As a teacher, I think that I’ll be just as excited as my students. Full of energy and ready to go! Here’s to a great school year!

This blog post appeared in my column, "The Empty Nest," in the Frederick News Post on Sunday, September 2, 2012.

Students and Education

School is back in session and everyone is excited about the upcoming academic year. I have always believed that success in school takes teamwork, in particular, a team of three: student, parents, and teacher.

I recently read Tony Wagner’s book Creating Innovators. In the book, he talks about how education needs to involve play, passion, and purpose in order to be effective in creating innovators. The author interviewed several successful innovators who shared their experiences of playing at school and about teachers who encouraged them and tailored activities to things the students were passionate about.

The key to those activities was the communication that occurred between teacher, student, and parents. When students shared their interests and their passions, teachers used their resources and parental support to create lesson plans that were student focused. Students then became engaged and excited about school. But communication, especially for young people, can sometimes be difficult.

Often the teacher is the last person a student feels comfortable approaching. The stern looks in the classroom that first week (because all teachers know that if you smile before Christmas you lose complete control of your classroom) can be a bit intimidating for certain students. But students should learn not to be afraid of stating their thoughts. If you’re a parent, grandparent, friend, or neighbor of a student, encourage him or her to communicate thoughts to the teacher.

Now, right in the middle of class might not be the perfect time to communicate these thoughts, so you might encourage students to find time right before or right after school. Students can certainly send thoughts to teachers in notes. I’ve received some beautiful notes before from my students that were quite eye-opening in terms of their opinions and beliefs.

If you attend parent conferences, and if you don’t I strongly encourage you to do so, bring your student along! I learn so much about my students when I can sit and chat with them and their parents. It’s a great opportunity to share whether your child has an A or an F in the class. Communication is a tool for improving education.

Students need to recognize that their education is theirs and that their thoughts are valid, and in many instances, very helpful. Communication is a skill that they will need to be successful in their adult lives.

Communication takes effort, but every little bit helps! Here’s to a successful school year!

Parents and Education

School is back in session and everyone is excited about the upcoming academic year. I have always believed that success in school takes teamwork, in particular, a team of three: student, parents, and teacher.

In a recent article in USA Weekend, actor Tony Danza wrote about his experience spending a year teaching in an urban high school. One of the things that struck him the most was the absence of parents in schooling. Mr. Danza encouraged parents to be actively involved in the schooling of their children.

So, how does one become involved in schooling? To begin with, it requires the commitment of time. It takes time at the end of the day to ask your child probing questions, not the typical “how was your day?” But things like “what did you do in Math class today?”, “who did you sit with at lunch?”, “what did you talk about in English class?” Don’t ever let your child get away with a simple yes or no response. Keep asking until they tell you what really happened. With my son, it sometimes took ten to fifteen questions before I got more than a “yes” or a grunt.

Ask a teacher how you can help out. Running a copy machine is a great gift to offer any teacher. There are always handouts that need to be copied and your spending fifteen minutes at that machine is fifteen minutes more that your child’s teacher has to spend on teaching.

Volunteer to chaperone a field trip or a school event. When my children were in elementary school, my husband was the preferred parent chaperone. My kids enjoyed having Dad tag along on museum trips or science center adventures. My husband was able to meet their friends, have lunch with them, and spend quality time observing the interactions of his son and daughter.

Offer to purchase supplies or materials for the classroom. So many teachers spend their own money to make sure the needs of all of the students in the class are met. This sometimes means buying extra notebooks or scissors or paper. Just making a telephone call to offer this assistance will give you the opportunity to speak to your child’s teacher, and the offer will be greatly appreciated.

Attend Back-to-School night, walk into your child’s classroom, take a look at where he or she sits. Teachers are very willing to share their goals for the school year and talk about what the students will be learning.

Parent involvement in the schools just takes time, and every little bit helps! Here’s to a great school year!