Double agent

Somehow, I am leading two lives. At school I am obliged to teach to the test, well, to the standards…worded in the same format as the test…”the test”

At home, I seek creative ways to engage my son as an inquirer, bringing him to the brink of learning opportunities, allowing him to explore and find his passion…develop his talents.

Sigh.

What has happened to the institution of education…or has it always been this way and as an oblivious, creative soul…I didn’t realize it??!?

In any case, Mom’s gotta pay the mortgage and keep health insurance for the ‘fam. Plus, in whatever ways possible, I feel compelled to try keeping some creativity amidst the bubble in quizzes and progress monitoring….but it is hard.

Aviary on 34th

Aviary on 34th a video by merrymaryallegra on Flickr.

It is lovely….the beautiful birds singing…but they are relentless in their pursuit of the perfect trill and warble!

Coexist

Today 112 students from my school and I (and 11 other adults) sent a message to the universe (and others around the world) that is so layered:

COEXIST

Just let that ruminate for a bit. Sit with it.

Rain is good luck!

Lana’s new job is wonderful, awesome, and great…just what our family needed. Though, there are a lot of weekends to work,’even holiday ones like Memorial Day. (and Labor Day and 4th of July…) so, today’s rain on this holiday weekend is actually welcomed. With the rain brought a cancellation. This means, we get to spend the day as a family! Yay! B and I were going to head over to a friend’s party…now all 3 of us can go. Woot woot! Hope this doesn’t happen for other holiday weekends, but right now…we welcome the unexpected time together. hope you are out enjoying this weekend…and rain, too.

Looking back…

DSCN9745, a photo by merrymaryallegra on Flickr.

In Sunny Southern California, with our son, our upside down mortgage, and work…life is not nearly as clean and simple as it was in Alaska. sigh. Though, we have blessings today we’d only dreamed of back then, we are also tired, without the personal time on hand we might like, and other such drags on our situation….but, at least we have wonderful, peaceful memories to look back upon. They really do help sustain us through the more trying times when it seems like bills, laundry, and dirty diapers might eat us alive.

Letting go…

of the things that don’t really matter.  Yup.  Really, there is so very little that matters, yet there is SO MUCH that SEEMS TO MATTER A LOT.  It doesn’t.

Since becoming a mother, I have said more than once that I’ve never been dumber.  Literally, I have difficulty with basic recall of information, let alone square roots or finding the area of a circle.  That said, I’ve also never been happier.  I think the mother stupor that I find myself in could quite possibly be the best blessing ever…okay, Bennett is the best blessing ever, but…what a great side effect losing one’s mental acuity has been!

I find less desire to stress over the small stuff.  In most cases, I’m not holding the lame grudges and worrying about the lame stuff I have in the past.  My priorities are clearer.  What’s important has been elucidated.

1. Family…my little, 3 person, 1 dog family.

2. Friends…the extension of my family that give us the fun we need at just the right time.

3. Forests…well, really ecological health, but…that doesn’t start with an F, so the alliteration of my list would have been shot.

The rest of things: work, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, bank accounts,…they will work themselves out, more or less.  No need for me to lose any sleep over them…I have Bennett for that!    Haha!  OK, time for bed, time to let go of wordsmithing this thing to perfection.  In motherhood, the only thing that needs to be perfect is the amount of time you get to spend with your baby.  So, off to bed for me now…our wonderful, cozy, co-sleeping bed!

Go forth and multiply…

As new mothers, my wife and I are not really that young. Our combined ages when our son was born was 70. We could be one grandmother, but…we are two moms.

The reason, in great part, that we came a bit later to this parenting party is because we really, really thought about it. There are so many people on this planet already. So many!

My sister has two boys, Lana’s sister is about to have her third…I am a teacher and it is common to see families with 5+ children. My sister and her husband have each, in essence, replaced themselves. When they die, they made humans to take their places. Lana’s sister and those with large families have more than replaced themselves.

In a time when Mother Earth struggles to keep pace with humanity, the thought of adding another being gave us pause. That is, until we thought about the lessons that might not be getting passed along in larger families. In larger families, is the message that walking lightly on the Earth given enough air time? Is the concept of less is more, of conservation of resources highlighted?

We feared that if we did not have a child, our beliefs and values would end with us. We feared the values of mass consumption would clog the airwaves and fog reality.

So, we had a son. One son. All our eggs are literally in that one basket. All our hopes are pinned on him. On the flip side, though, he is our only focus. He will get our best. He is our top priority. Only the oldest in a multiple-kid family can say that…until the next
one comes along.

R – E – S – P – E – C – T

So, yeah. What does it mean to me? I am a teacher. I teach in the National School District in the County of San Diego. I talk about respect with my students all the time. I thought I knew what it was all about, but now that belief is being challenged.

See, we are about to go on strike. We have been without a contract for awhile. The District called impasse after only a few negotiation sessions…three, I think. We had mediation. The mediator proposed a compromise after looking at all sides and the finances. Well, the board rejected the compromise and imposed their language and working conditions on the teachers.

Was that respectful?

We tried to keep negotiating. Things weren’t going well. The union’s general membership, that I used to be co-president of, took a strike vote. The result was A LOT of yes votes. I voted yes, but I wrote on my ballot that I was not happy with this state of affairs.

The District had asked the union to wait for Gov. Brown’s budget. We did. The two teams and the mediator met…and they tried for 12 hours, but could not get to a resolution.

I know, this is a lot of backstory. The reason, though, is that a news sound byte often misses the mark. To many, this fight seems petty. We should be thankful to have jobs in this economy. This is what the District has told us. I , but is that meant to make us give up hope for working in a place that values the employee?

I became a teacher to make a difference. I bet everyone in my district did, from the superintendent to the custodian. Then why can we not reach a resolution. When and if we go on strike, we will be making a huge difference. A huge one and not one for the better. What will this teach the children about respect? Accepting unfair treatment to keep the peace, though, is just as bad, if not worse. I want my students, my son, to fight for fair treatment. Never settle for less than respect, respectfully.

Resurrection Post

With this post, I declare thy blog resurrected! Begun during that Alaskan hibernation of 2007, I have at least twice revamped myself since then and I feel one more evolution coming on. Though, this one might be a doozy, more of a revolution.
The changes that are upon me now include Motherhood. Also, there is a restlessness with my career….I have gone so far as to apply for graduate school in another field: Speech and Language Pathology. I am not sure what this itch is, not sure if becoming a speech pathologist would be the answer for me. I just feel that, after ten great years as an elementary school teacher…something is not clicking.

I just received my GRE scores today. I knew my verbal and analytic scores at the culmination of the exam. I did ok: 630 verbal and 640 analytical. It was learning my writing score today that floored me. I earned a 6 out of 6! The top 4% get a 6! Wow! I feel pretty bad ass right now.

Aside from that, though, I really enjoy writing. Now I am thinking about whether I should pursue a career shift that moves me towards a world of writing? I have always wanted to write a screenplay, or at least a novel that is later turned into a movie. Children’s books?! Magazine articles? Ay!

What to do? What to do?

Seeing as my son is finally conked out by my side and I am thumbing this post on my iPhone in the middle of the night, I probably best just sleep on it, huh?

Welcome and goodnight!

We’re a Windy City, too…

DSC_0478

Originally uploaded by merrymaryallegra

Dang, down by the bay (where the watermelon grow…) it gets super windy! Lana and I went down on Sunday to the Chula Vista Nature Center…such a great spot. The view of downtown is unique, at least for me. I rarely see it looking North towards the city…I’m always driving down 5th Avenue towards it.