WHALE PUNS HERE

My husband's side of the family has a big family reunion every other summer. Paul and I have taken up an important role in this get-together -- not the location or budget, the t-shirts. I'm a big fan of really cheesy family reunion shirts, so I suggested we do it in secret last time. The surprise was a big hit and we all wore them proudly. Last time, we id an outdoors kind of trip in Vermont, so the shirt had a squirrel and the front read "Nuts about our family". The back had a pile of acorns, with each family member's name in an acorn.

This year, we will be in San Juan Island, WA, where orca sightings are common and a big draw for nature-loving tourists. So, after learning a bit more about the differences among whales, dolphins, and porpoises, we let the puns fly. We've narrowed it down to four: Whale, hello there!, Have a whale of a time, The Orca-stra, and Wingardium leviorca. Given the nature of the SOLSC participants, I think I can guess which one you all will like, but I'm going to ask anyway. What's your vote?

Springtime for my hair

Even if the weather isn't doing spring yet, my hair will be. I freshened up my blonde and had my annual haircut. Yep, you read that right. I honestly get my hair cut about once a year. I always think I want long hair a few months after cutting it, then once it actually grows long I am reminded that my hair looks terrible long and I cut it again. It's been the same cycle for maybe a decade. Do other people go through the same hair cycles over and over? What does this say about us?

Three haiku for a never-ending winter

Three haiku for a never-ending winter:

powdery snow cakes
fluff and tumble from doorsteps
tracking in and out

ice grows farther down
points stretching ever closer
to a small hand's reach

weather.com says
"wintry mix." sleet, freezing rain
snow, fog, ice buffet

Celebrating Parenting Success

Most of the time, parents of small children feel like failures... at least a lot of the ones I know and can talk with candidly. I know I feel like I'm coming up just a little short most of the time. Whether it's because we're eating chicken nuggets for dinner or I lost my temper and yelled or Mac is once again without socks because he hates them, there are just so many moments that make it feel like I don't measure up to what a parent is supposed to be pulling off.

I think some of this comes from the way we curate our existence on social media; the way every other person looks like they have the perfect life according to the photos and inspirational quotes they post. Some of it comes from being the type of personality that wants straight As every time no matter what so help me God and is still working on being ok with being imperfect. I also think parenting is just much harder than anyone realizes it will be when they're a few months pregnant and gazing at Pintrest nurseries.

Before this gets too dark and I spiral into a snow-induced depressive state, I'm actually writing today's post to take a moment to celebrate. This past weekend, my husband was out of town and I was on kid duty from Friday through Monday. No school on Friday, so that's three full days plus one up-and-out day. And I kicked ass. I know loads of parents do this all the time (and I do too) but not usually as gracefully, calmly, and cheerfully as I did this time. My kids are beginning to turn a corner (they're 2 and 4) and while tantrums happened, Cheerios were thrown, and injuries were sustained, they can bounce back and are actually fun to be around. They worked together nicely on puzzles this weekend, we delighted each other with weird games, and Beatrice even volunteered to make up stories in the car to entertain her brother. There were tense moments, but I'm most proud that I used all my teaching and parenting tools and never got frustrated. We are all growing and gaining skills, and despite our tendency to focus on shortcomings and what skills need work, celebrating success is just as important to stay sane and happy.

Fanning the Flames

The subtitle in this article in this month's issue of Educational Leadership reads: "Small groups of committed teachers can drive change." This came just at the right time for me this year. A central part of my coaching/mentoring work is a focus on mentoring early-career teachers around teaching practices that promote equitable classrooms, so this year, I'm also leading a book study with Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond. I am, by no means, the equity guru, and I'm on my own journey to understand how privilege, power, structural racialization, implicit bias, etc. manifest in education and shape our students' experiences. But over the past six and a half years, I have noticed small shifts in my little corner of the education system.

Eastern Washington state is rural, Republican, and geographically isolated. But, the demographics are also changing dramatically with an influx of latinx people and other people of color and higher poverty rates across the board.

Five years ago, I worked for a different district in this region and suggested that it might be a good idea to bring in a speaker to explore issues of bias or dip our toes into thinking about culturally responsive practices, or maybe to host a small group of teachers to open the dialogue. I was told by leadership there that this isn't an issue where we live. I knew that wasn't the case, and began seeking out professional learning and professional books myself. Books like Waking Up White, Courageous Conversations, Teaching with Poverty in Mind, and more began filling my bookshelf.

Since then, new leaders have brought this region forward. They did, a year later, host a series of wonderful speakers to help teachers take a hard look at classroom practice and inside ourselves. I joined the state's Mentor Faculty and get to read, learn, and explore alongside some of most inspiring educators around. I got to help facilitate courageous conversations with Robin D'Angelo last year. And, along the way, I discovered I wasn't the only one reading and working with these ideas on my own.

Fast forward to this school year. Teachers kept wanting to have conversations around equity, and it seemed like I was their only outlet. They didn't want another title; they wanted a space. A space to talk with colleagues openly and build a shared language. At the same moment, an English Learning Specialist in my district read one of my program newsletters (which I was convinced no one looked at) and ended up contacting me. We immediately hit it off and hatched a plan to realize our idea for the book study, which would function as the space for dialogue.

As exciting as it has been to begin to see little changes here and there, it's human nature to get impatient, to get frustrated and disillusioned at the pace of change. But seeing this article this afternoon reminded me that our small group of 23 teachers is a spark, and it's not the only one. Soon enough they'll catch.

The Beast-ro

A favorite game at our house is acting out books. My kids recently picked up a book from a yard sale called Saturday Night at the Beast-ro. It's about monsters who go out to have haute cuisine made with disgusting ingredients. In addition to loving the gross-out factor, my kids have also enjoyed learning some new culinary vocabulary.

Here was my menu during our pretend play on this lazy Sunday:

Mouse tail soup
Grilled owl feet with sprinkles
Sauteed bat wing with jus de skunk
Octopus ink drink
Boiled slugs topped with other animals' poop
Pizza with garbage toppings
Broccoli
Spaghetti dragon scale bolonaise
Chocolate truffle with lion's eyeball inside
Spider chameleon coffee

Cry Baby

Last night I watched the movie A Star is Born. The one with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. I had no idea is was going to be SO SAD. Gut wrenching, gulping, snotty-faced SAD. I hadn't cried that much about a fictional story since I read The Time Traveler's Wife (the book, not the movie). But I have noticed that I cry more easily in the past several years, since becoming a mother. I'm not sure whether some deep emotional part of me has been cracked open or if I'm just sleep deprived, but these days, I start tearing up at the slightest thing. Here's a list of things that have made me cry recently:

A Star is Born
that image on Facebook of the three 2017 Women's March posters with a photo of three matching 2019 Congresswomen
Nike's "Dream Crazier" ad with all the female athletes
Pretty much every article/post I see on social media about supporting students academically, socially, culturally, etc.
Telling my kids how proud I was of them for not behaving like wild hyenas at my gym so I could actually do the workout
A poem
Another poem
I fell into a poetry hole and just kept crying
The sound of geese and thinking about my husband at his grandmother's funeral today
Looking at a picture of my son when he was itty bitty
Explaining how enriching hosting an exchange student is

It's all good crying, but now I get what's going on with my mother. As a stoic teen, I always made fun of her for crying at greeting cards and such. I should probably call and apologize, which will of course make us both cry.