Not just a weather report...

My Greatest Fear

2012-02-01T20:53:00.002-06:00

or, as an alternate title, it's a good thing they're alive so now I can kill them.

Disclaimer: No Hickmans were injured during the course of this story.

My greatest fear is that something will happen to my children. I recognize the futility of attempting to wrap them in bubble wrap and confine them to their rooms, and I do my best to keep the crazy paranoia at bay, but it doesn't always work.

We live on a street with lots of families, and I'm grateful that the boys have kids in the neighborhood they can play with. They cavort from yard to yard playing football and what-have-you. I'm happy about this, yet I remind them about six hundred thousand times a day to "stay away from the street!" and "watch for cars because they can't see you!" and I do frequent checks to see if I can catch them being less careful than I think they should be so we can have a quick mini-lesson on how to watch for cars and stay away from the street. I know they are as safe as boys can be playing outside, and I know that boys should play outside with their friends, but still, I always fear they will be careless and something horrible will happen. I figure probably every parent feels this way.

In the scene I'm about to create, it's important to note that I've been feeling a little run down this week. I've been dragging myself out of bed every morning and doing my best to act like I feel great, but I feel exhausted. I think the problem is that I've gotten back into my gym routine, so at night I'm really tired. So tired, in fact, that I'm sleeping really hard. As a result, I've had these wild and crazy dreams every night for like two weeks. I'm doing hard work in these dreams - running from killers and escaping fires and warning people of disaster and such, and I think all that work is making me wake up tired. This is my hypothesis regarding my lethargy.

(It occurs to me here that it may seem to the outsider like I'm in need of a psychiatric evaluation. I won't agree or disagree.)

Tonight we got home from school around 5:15, and the boys immediately went outside to play basketball. I considered straightening the house a little or finding something for dinner, but ultimately I felt the need to crash on the couch for the twenty minutes I had before Keaton's basketball game.

So I dozed into a state of conscious oblivion and briefly wondered if anyone would notice if I just slept until tomorrow. I thought about turning off the living room light, but that would have required me to get up from the couch, so the idea quickly passed.

Then it happened.

The scream.

A blood curdling scream of panic echoed through the garage. I knew immediately it was Keaton screaming, and I could hear the terror in his voice. The scream was continuous and strong, so in that split second I knew that Keaton was okay but he had seen something terrible.

I leaped over the dog gate, threw my phone on the floor, and as I entered the garage I saw the neighbor's truck stopped at the end of his driveway. The back lights flared, so I knew it was running. Keaton was now screaming words, but all I heard was "Molly's dad!" and I could see Molly's dad running around to the back of his truck.

I did not see Tucker.

In the two and one half seconds that followed, my worst fears were realized. I knew in my heart that there was a person under the tires of that truck, and that our lives would never be the same. I was moving in slow motion in the beginning of a Lifetime movie, and I blamed myself for allowing my children to play outside and not sitting with them every minute and trying to take a quick nap and just all around being the worst mother ever. I saw a funeral and weeping and I knew that I would never, ever recover. It was my greatest fear realized.

And then I saw Tucker.

And then Molly's dad picked up a misshapen object from under his truck tire, raised it up, and said, "I popped their basketball."

And then Tucker began to scream. It was a blood curdling scream of panic. A scream delivered not because of serious bodily injury to a loved one, but because he just discovered that his basketball had been popped.

Seriously?

I mumbled, "Dear God, I thought it was a person," and I clutched my screaming-but-perfectly-fine children and retreated quickly into the house and began to sob. I'm sure Molly's dad probably considered the emotional stability of my household for a moment or two before he got back into the truck.

I cried, and when I calmed down, Keaton calmed down.

Tucker continued to wail. Wail terrible cries of lament and pain as he lay crumpled on our living room floor.

"Tucker," I said calmly, "It's just a basketball. We can get a new one."

"But I loved that basketball. It was my favorite one. And now I can't play basketball anymore," he choked out between sobs.

I guess I just thought I had calmed down because crazy mommy surfaced so quickly.

I was crying and yelling at him. "I thought it was you! I thought you were under that truck and it was horrible! You guys just scared me to death! I can't stop shaking! I thought you were run over, but it was just a stupid basketball!"

"IT WAS NOT STUPID! IT WAS MY FAVORITE ONE!!!!!!" he screamed.

And so the event ended as they often do at our house: "You are being ridiculous. You've been screaming for five minutes and I'm not listening to it anymore. Go to your room until you can get some control of yourself."

I guess tomorrow we'll buy a new basketball.

More Projects...

2012-01-06T17:05:00.001-06:00

It's no secret that I've begun this weird crafty streak (see my previous blog post). One of my good friends, Tiffany, laughs every time I start talking about a new project because for years she's had to create anything that needed to be created in my life. I have a little fear that I'm turning into that person who gives home made gifts to everyone that I think are awesome but everyone else thinks are really ugly, yet I continue to craft. If I give you something ugly, just look excited and then put it in your closet at home. I'll probably never know, and I'll certainly continue to enjoy the oblivion.

This is something I made for my mom for Christmas. It has all of our names on it (with one empty space for Wendy's July baby). I wish I had a better picture that included the frame.

This is wreath I made for the newlywedded Barretts. My sweet new niece seemed excited when she saw it, and whether it's in the closet or not is really of no concern to me because I had a good time making it.

Then, I found some shutters at the Habitat for Humanity Restore that I really wanted to make something with. The only problem was that I had no idea what to use them for, and I'm just cheap enough to NOT buy something unless I know its exact purpose. I visited the store several times, admired the shutters, and left without them.

One day as the boys came in from outside I heard the familiar crash of the ugly baby gate we keep leaning against the doorway so that the dog doesn't get out. I hate that gate, but not as much as I hate chasing the dog down the street because she slipped through while the boys are coming in the garage door. I've done this many times - in my pajamas, in bare feet, in the car - all the while yelling at the boys that "THEY KNEW THEY HAD TO SET THE GATE JUST RIGHT OR THE DOG WOULD GET OUT!"

I had been blessed with a shutter plan, and when I arrived at the Habitat Store to make my purchase I was excited to learn that the sets were only six bucks each - twelve dollars for the whole haul.

I went back and forth about how to make this fantastic dog gate that existed only in my head. I thought about using a hinge to attach it to the door frame and a hook and eye for the opposite side, but I do my best to keep holes out of the wall because we will someday sell this house. So I decided to make it free-standing. A trip Lowes found these - they are actually caps for fancy fences, but they would work perfectly for the feet of my dog gate (awesome shadow in the background, huh?).

I went to work attaching the feet, and I learned that Keaton is a master measurer and hole-marker. I did the first one, and he marked the other three perfectly. Once I had the feet on, I realized I would have to re-do the hinges to make it fold the way I wanted, so Keaton and I removed and re-installed the existing hinges to the way we wanted.

Then I spray painted. Let me tell you, spray painting shutters is a pain. You have to spray them open and spray them closed and spray them partially open and touch up and blah blah blah. It took two cans of paint and a long time, but finally they were green. (FYI - I don't think it would have been faster or less meticulous if I had painted with a brush.)

To make them a little more interesting, I added some birds and some curly-thingys (that's a technical term). I must say that I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. Our living room went from this:

To this...

The only potential problem I see with this arrangement is that Roxie could easily jump over the gate if she took a mind. I'm certain, however, that she doesn't know this. As long as I keep the secret, we'll be fine.

I have one more project that I've already bought the stuff for, and then I think it will be time to break out the ol' sewing machine. Once I figure out how to work it, that is.

Why I Love Pinterest

2011-11-13T16:31:00.002-06:00

I have often remarked that I am not crafty. I have friends who are uber-crafty, and they intimidate with their creativity. I've often wanted to be crafty, but I just haven't had it in me.

I also just flat out haven't had the time. I know this is a bit of a broken record, but I would guess that during the school year teachers put in more hours every week than any other profession on earth. As a high school English teacher, it was not unusual for me to work from 7:30 until 5:30, pick up my kids and take care of evening activities, and then work for another hour or two after they went to bed. This happened at least three days a week and probably more, and it does not include the three or four hours I put in on a light weekend. These are serious underestimates for the times when major papers were turned in for Pre-AP. If you know a teacher, thank him or her. It is the most rewarding yet life-consuming job on the planet.

That is not to say that in my new role as Assistant Principal I'm not busy. I love my new job. It's exactly where God wants me to be right now, and it's a blessing for more reasons than I can list. However, (this totally IS NOT complaining) it's kind of exhausting. If it's any indication, I went to sleep Friday night at 7:00.

But I don't grade papers anymore.

It's been a culture shock for me. I found myself physically incapable of sitting on my couch without a stack of papers in my hands. I felt like I was forgetting something every time I left the house because I didn't have papers to take. My brain was exhausted from my new job, but I couldn't turn it off...ever. I fidgeted, couldn't sleep all night, made up stuff to do, and I think I started to get a little depressed. My brain kept saying DO MORE DO MORE DO MORE DO MORE. My house was messy and my kitchen wasn't painted and my yard looked like a jungle and I wandered around feeling like a failure because people without papers should not have messy houses and weeds in their yards. It was difficult for me to adjust to a normal life - where it is possible to stay afloat with less than an eighty hour work week.

I considered learning how to crochet or knit so that I could have something in my hands to work on all the time. I watched some You Tube videos and practiced the same starting stitch about a hundred times, but then I could never get the next stitch. I think I'd still like to learn and have had several people offer to give me lessons, but I'm not exactly a natural.

Then I found Pinterest.

This weekend I have completed several Pinterest-found projects, and it's been fantastic! I may have cured myself of the "I don't know what to do with myself blues."

Here's what I've done:

S'Mores Bars: My cousin Dona recommended a different s'mores recipe, but I made this one because it didn't have eggs (the boys are both allergic). It was super easy, and they were good, but I was little underwhelmed. Next time I'll try the ones she suggested and just let the boys eat marshmallows or something. ;)

Bacon, cream cheese, and jalepeno crescent rolls: You guessed it - crescent rolls filled with bacon, cream cheese, and jalapenos, then folded up and baked. Delicious and also super-easy. How can you go wrong with bacon and jalapenos?

Since we painted the kitchen last weekend, we've hung accessories on the walls that I forgot I had. They have literally been in boxes since we moved into this house seven years ago. Remember the grading - I blame it for my lack of unpacking. This cross is one of those items. Then, last night the boys were trying to remember their memory verse for Sunday school this morning, and Trey and I talked about how we should have a place to post the memory verse each week so they can see it all the time. I remembered a Pinterest tip that you can use dry erase markers on glass, we rummaged through some boxes of old pictures, and Presto! Memory verse in the kitchen (and easily interchangable when it's time for a new verse)!

Finally, my major project of the weekend is this wreath. I love the way it turned out! I have poinsettias already made and some ribbon left, so I may make another one to give away. Since it was half price ribbon week at Hobby Lobby, I estimate the cost of this project to be about ten bucks. Awesome!

So look out world, The Storm is a-craftin'. Follow me on Pinterest so I can follow you back. I have lots and lots of ideas for projects. It's just a matter of which one to do next. If you know of places in the B/CS area where I can find old windows, shutters, or wooden pallets (besides the Habitat store), hook me up. Keep in mind that I am ridiculously cheap.

See you on Pinterest!

Just another visit to the doctor

2011-10-26T21:08:00.000-05:00

Tucker has bad skin.

Since he was born, Tucker has been plagued with what we've called eczema. All by itself, it sounds minor. But it's not minor.

He has spent his entire life covered in sores. His arms and legs, specifically, have been completely healed only once in his life, and that was for about two weeks last spring when he took a powerful anti-rejection medication that is usually given to organ transplant patients. We knew at the time it was a one time deal -- he could never take it again. Other than those two weeks, he itches and scabs and bleeds and scratches. His sores are innumerable, and he has truly never known relief from them. This is kind of a blessing, actually. He doesn't know what it's like to not itch and hurt, and so he lives. He plays baseball and swims in the summer and goes to school and bleeds and scratches and it's his life.

We've seen dermatologists and allergists and the like, and we've "controlled" it sometimes and it's been infected and then it's better but just gross and painful and we continue on.

In the past three months, however, I've decided that I am a horrible mother. I think I realized this because he's started a new school, and I get to be there with him every day. It occurred to me that these new friends and new people at this new school know Tucker first as the kid with the sores. I knew they asked him about it. They asked me, too, "why does Tucker have sores all over him?" and it broke my heart. I began to see him going into intermediate school and middle school and high school and having to first overcome his skin before he could make his mark in his new place. The thought still gives me this horrible feeling deep in my gut.

So I took him to the doctor, like we always do when the skin gets increasingly worse instead of staying just plain awful. He took an antibiotic for staph (as we often do because he has open wounds all over his body), and we hoped for the best. Two weeks later I took him again because he still seemed to be getting worse. Our awesome pediatrician, who always looks for new ways to help Tucker, put him on a different antibiotic and mentioned that there is a pediatric dermatologist in Round Rock that he'd be glad to send us to if we were up for trying something new yet again.

I made an appointment for early November, the soonest they could see him, but his skin continued to worsen. Finally I called the doctor, desperate for an earlier appointment, and they agreed to fit me in the next day provided that I changed to a different doctor in the practice. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was something, so I took the appointment.

Tucker and I made the hour and forty five minute drive and decided to have lunch before the appointment. Tucker chose a place called "Z Pizza," and it turned out to be the most hilarious place to have lunch. This was because Tucker spoke with an Italian accent the whole time, exchanged all the's for zee's. "Z Pizza at Zhis place is Zee best pizza I've ever had!" He was cracking himself up.

Off we went to the doctor, and when we arrived we learned that Dr. Tee, the pediatric dermatologist we wanted to see, found out we were coming and rearranged his entire schedule so he could see us. The nurse ushered us to a room and made Tucker don his very first doctor's office gown, booty hanging out in the back and all. Doctors don't usually make kids strip down and put on a gown, so it was pretty funny to see my eight year old's face when the nurse said those classic words: Take everything off and put on this gown, open in the back.

Dr. Tee was amazing. He studied Tucker, asked tons of questions, and really paid attention to us. After a few minutes he offered some theories and began explaining the tests he wanted to run.

There are moments in life that stop your heart. When the world around you keeps moving and panic rises in your throat and, just for that second, you can't breathe. You want to scream for time to stop and back up and I can't do this and no thank you and you must be wrong and this isn't really happening.

I learned this week that the word "biopsy" has that kind of power.

As the moment passed, all I could think was that I could feel my face. I felt it change into the face of one hiding what was really happening, one who appeared brave and strong and positive and altogether unaffected when what I really wanted was to cry. I knew Tucker was watching me, and I couldn't hear what the doctor was saying because I was so focused on what to do with my damn face.

I knew he wasn't doing a biopsy because he thought Tucker had cancer, but it didn't matter. It was like this thing, this giant monster of Tucker's skin that loomed over every day of his life was coming out of hiding and facing us. I realized that for so long I'd feared that what causes Tucker's skin to break out is something devastating, terrible. Something that would take him from me. The biopsy was going to show me how big the monster really was, and I don't think I was ready at that moment to know the answer. We had worked so hard to keep the monster stuffed in a little box, and I knew that we would never be able to put it back in. It was terrifying.

Long story short - okay, long story less long - the doctor did two 3 millimeter punch biopsies in Tucker's right arm, and then we went to the lab where they drew four vials of blood (he almost passed out). I smiled, I joked, I made a bet with Tucker about how many homers Pujols would hit in the World Series, and Tucker never once cried. He tolerated all of this a million times better than I ever expected. We have since joked that Trey and Keaton should never again send the babies to the doctor alone, but the babies did okay.

I must say here that I realize people all over the world and here in our own back yard have real problems. There are incurable diseases and debilitating conditions that make Tucker's skin problems look minor. I am well aware that in the big scheme of things, this is not the worst. But we just can't keep watching him suffer if we can help it.

Today the incredible Dr. Tee called with results. Tucker does not have celiac disease (that was a theory), and we now have documented evidence that he is one incredibly healthy eight year old who happens to bleed all over the place. His liver and kidneys and electrolytes and everything else they can test with your blood are all normal.

He does, however, have both eczema and psoriasis, an overlay that occurs very rarely. It seems people are supposed to get one or the other, and my little over achiever has managed to have severe cases of both.

But Dr. Tee thinks he can help. He wants to start Tucker on a new oral medication. It has lots of scary side effects, as do all medicines, but Dr. Tee's professional opinion is that the benefits will far outweigh the risks. For the first time in his life, Tucker could have complete relief. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it, but I'm also a little afraid to be too hopeful. Either way, the monster is a great deal smaller.

Tonight I asked Tucker what he thought it would be like to not itch all the time. He laughed a little and said, "I guess it would be like being a normal kid."

"Oh, honey," I told him, "You are way too special to ever be a normal kid."

I'm pretty sure he made a face at me.

Then I told him when his skin got better, I was going to buy him new sheets. I think he was genuinely excited when he said, "And they won't get bloodstains on them!"

I know of no better way to end this post than to let Trey end it for me. As he told my mom in our latest facebook message conversation: "It seems like there are some risks with taking the medicine, but they think the benefits outweigh the risks. I would rather take a calculated risk for myself then to decide to take a calculated risk for my kid. I'll try not to worry....God always takes care of us and there is no reason to think he won't continue."

Keaton's First T-Ball Game

2011-10-04T21:14:00.001-05:00

I haven't blogged in over a month. I've formulated several posts in my head, but none of them have actually made it out onto the keyboard. Perhaps they'll come soon.

Part of my trepidation is that the post rattling around in my head is regarding the differences and similarities between high school and elementary school. I'm very concerned that my people on both ends of the spectrum will interpret something I have to say as an implication that one is easier than the other, and that is most certainly not the case. Someone I respect more than just about anyone in my professional life told me from the beginning (I'm paraphrasing here) that people think elementary is easy, but it's not easy, just different. She, too, worked in both elementary and secondary schools, and now that I'm six weeks in I know exactly what she meant.

So that post will someday be posted, but for now I'll share about one of my favorite subjects in the world. Keaton.

It's good to be Keaton. It's fun and exciting and an all around good time just to BE Keaton Hickman. After six years of his life, I've realized that the rest of us in the world just don't enjoy ourselves enough.

Tonight he had his first t-ball game, and he couldn't have been more excited. He was serious business as a player -- he made sure he wore his batting gloves and showed off his swagger. You could just see the fun seeping off of him while he was on the field.

Now, in t-ball, the kid hits the ball off of the tee. The opposing team attempts to field said ball, and the player runs to first base. As the next batter hits the ball, all of the runners advance one base, and this continues throughout the entire batting order. Every great once in a while the defense gets an out, and the out player takes a seat on the bench, hopefully without crying. Finally, when the last batter hits the ball, all of the runners run through to home to finish out the inning.

Keaton was the last batter.

Here's how he told the story of his game to several people after it was over.

"I hit two home runs! One time, I was running, and the player got in my way, but I was running so fast that he got scared and moved and then I scored a home run. I scared him because I was so fast! The other time, the score was four to four and the pitcher was at home plate, and he had the ball, and I ran so fast to him, and when I got to home plate I just jumped right over him. The coach said I was safe. I JUMPED over him and scored another home run. It was awesome."

In reality, I'm pretty sure the score was like 30 to 30 because virtually every kid rounded the bases, and Keaton did run all the way through THREE times because there were three innings and he was the last batter. (I'm not sure why he didn't include the third one in his home run count.) But also, in reality, on the last play of the game the pitcher was waiting for Keaton on home plate with the ball, and Keaton did his level best to leap over the player's head so that he could be safe. Both boys ended up on the ground, and Keaton earned his final imaginary home run of the night.

It's fun to be Keaton Hickman.

First week of school

2011-08-26T18:01:00.000-05:00

I really want to blog, but I'm tired.

A few things that should be documented...

Today is the first Friday of the school year with the boys and me at our new school. Conversation on the way home included:

Keaton: Mom, did Robert Earl Keen used to be the president?

Tucker (a question that I'm certain was inspired by his renewed rubics cube obsession): Mom, when do you think I'll get to learn algorithms? Like sixth grade?

Keaton: Hey, you know what I get to do now? Study.
Me: What are you studying?
Keaton: I don't know yet. But I get to study this year. You know how in kindergarten I didn't get to study? Well, in first grade, we STUDY. Awesome, huh?

Keaton: I need to learn how to play the banjo. You're supposed to learn how to play the banjo before you play the guitar.

Tucker: At 2:15 p.m. it was 100 degreess outside, but we were checking it with a rotary thermometer, so that could be approximate.

Lots of life changes, but the Hickman boys are still the Hickman boys.

Historic Moments

2011-07-13T22:10:00.002-05:00

I just had an Irish coffee at an Irish pub, and it was good. Good like a cigarette.

I dated the same person from the time I was 17 until I was 21. We went off to college together, and it was just assumed that we would some day get married and have kids and live "back home." But that wasn't what was right for either of us. It's a long story that I'd be glad to tell you someday, but one night I was driving through Kosse, Texas, and God spoke to me in an audible voice and told me that it was time to move on.

You can think I'm crazy. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

And so, we broke up. It was ugly and heartbreaking and full of the angst that fills those young people who think they have their lives planned out and then learn that they were dead wrong.

I decided at that point to start smoking. (I'd like to pretend that this is news to my parents because I have no doubt that they knew - or at least suspected - but we never spoke of it. I now appreciate their ability to let me work out my vices on my own.) My former boyfriend hated cigarettes and smoking and people who smoked, and we still had classes together in college and still spent time together ("let's be friends"is the stupidest phrase ever spoken), so I, naturally, chose to smoke incessantly around him to piss him off.

God did not tell me to do this.

Slowly but surely we went our separate ways, but I continued to enjoy the rebellious solitude of the morning smoke...and midday smoke...and evening smoke...and I think you get the picture. You lifetime non-smokers won't understand this, but there's something both calming and exhilarating about slowly, quietly enjoying a cigarette.

The night before I married Trey, the most amazing person I've ever met, I smoked my last.

Fast forward through the best ten and a half years of my life, two amazing boys, and eight years of what amounted to both ruining and lifting up what I estimate to be close to one thousand high school students. This and that happens, and I find myself elated to become part of a new elementary school family. My exit from the high school was filled with undeserved fanfare, including the most thoughtful gifts. A journal in which those I worked most closely with wrote me letters of encouragement and support, a few books and a list of books that I should read, a bucket of margaritas, a monogrammed pair of ceramic balls in a tray with a note that said "every administrator needs a pair." Only my friend Grace could get away with that, and it makes me smile every single time I think about it.

One of the books I received when I left the high school is a memoir by Frank McCourt called Teacher Man. McCourt is an Irish immigrant who won a Pulitzer for his book, Angela's Ashes, but perhaps more impressively he spent thirty years teaching English in New York City high schools. I began the book a few weeks ago. The first chapters relate McCourt's first few days of teaching and also MY first days of teaching. It's incredible the way he captures the fear and uncertainty of those days. I laughed at McCourt and at myself as I read, and I called teacher friends and told them they have to read this book when I'm done.

Currently, I find myself at the Conscious Discipline Summer Institute, learning about brains. Limbic systems and brain stems and pre-frontal lobes and safe places and well wishes. I am in awe of the science.We saw a demonstration today that proved the actual electrical fields around people sending positive thoughts versus sending negative ones. I am more in awe of the practicality. Children must be taught to regulate themselves and not rely on others for their self-worth or positive emotions. That's big stuff, folks, and most adults haven't figured it out yet. I wonder if I've even figured it out.

As we spend hours each day discussing self-regulation, I find it appropriate that I am all by myself. This six day conference is the longest I've ever been away from Trey or my boys, and it's hard. Really hard. But I am reminded every day here that I have a choice to make the most of this and enjoy myself or sit alone and crying in my hotel room for a week. I know I would rather Trey and the boys enjoy themselves than sit in a stupor, and I've made a valiant effort to enjoy this trip. Skype has really helped.

Tonight I walked from my hotel to Bongos, a Cuban food restaurant in Downtown Disney, and I requested a table for one. I ordered an appetizer and a mojito, said a private prayer of thanksgiving for Hemingway (Cuba always makes me think of Hemingway and my awe of him), and opened my book.

McCourt describes a silly little lesson that happened out of nowhere in which his students recite recipes like poetry. To an English teacher (which I will possibly always be at heart), the lesson is brilliant. Sitting alone at a table in a busy restaurant, his message to his students struck me:

"If you're an observant writer, you'll recognize the significance of this event. For the first time in history a Chinese recipe is to be read with background music. You have to be alert to historic moments. The writer is always saying, What's going on here? Always. You can bet your last dime that nowhere in history, Chinese or otherwise, will you find a moment like this" (212).

I closed the book and observed my moment. Never in history, and likely never again, would I sit alone in a loud Cuban restaurant enjoying fried plantains and ceviche. I didn't care that I was alone. I loved the food and atmosphere and the volume and the people. It wasn't Chinese recipes set to music, but the message was the same. Every moment is historic. We just have to realize it.

On the recommendation of a friend, I stopped on the way back to the hotel at an Irish pub for some bread pudding. I intended to take the pudding back to my hotel, but was informed at the front that they don't do to go orders. The hostess encouraged me to sit at the bar to order and then ask for a to go box after my food came. It was a lame rule, but I really wanted that bread pudding.

I wound my way through the tables to the bar, found an empty chair against the wall, and ordered my dessert. It arrived quickly and was so beautiful on the plate that I decided to just eat it there in the restaurant.

I took my first bite and reopened my book. I felt as if my friend, Frank the Irishman, had written it about our collective careers. As if on cue, an Irish band began to play their nightly gig, and the patrons sang along and stomped their feet to the rhythm. It occurred to me that I would finish this book, this Irishman's testament to every scary, exciting, depressing, amazing moment spent in high school English classrooms for ages, here in this Irish pub with Irish background music. This, friends, was an historic moment.

The entire book is phenomenal, but the last part (detailing the end of McCourt's teaching career) was profound. If you've ever felt that a book touched your soul, then you know what I'm talking about. I felt kinship with known and unknown teachers everywhere, and I felt like this book and this pub and this band and this bread pudding were, together, a gift.

And so I settled in, ordered an Irish coffee, and drank a private toast to Frank McCourt, to every student I ever taught, to every paper I ever graded.

And the coffee was good. Good like a cigarette.

Scatterbrained

2011-06-28T22:59:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking that I needed to blog, but I didn't really have anything specific to write about. It's summer, and the boys are playing inside as much as possible. Tucker's been playing baseball and he ran summer track, so that was fun (and hot). As of last Saturday night, all of those activities are over. I've been working as much as I can. My in-laws are awesome and have helped with the boys a lot so I could go into the office. There's laundry, dishes, picking up the living room three or four times a day. Overall, things are just wildly normal. I have nothing clever to say about any of it.

Today, however, I found myself something to write about.

It was a wonderful, regular day, and after Vacation Bible School the boys had friends over to play for the afternoon. The boys, brothers, were so kind and polite that it was almost shocking. I really worried about my boys going over to their house and one of them chewing with his mouth open or putting a hand down his pants to give his butt a good scratch. The boys, Jacob and Andrew, and my boys were so good that they played all afternoon with no arguments or fights or messes. In fact, I sat at the bar in the kitchen and got a great deal of work done while they played. It was a great afternoon for all of us.

We left about 4:05 to take the boys home because I had a 4:30 appointment with a personal trainer. See, I recently joined a new gym, and it comes with four free personal training sessions. We dropped the boys at their house, and as I drove to the gym I contemplated exactly what I could tell the trainer without sounding too lame. Honestly, he shouldn't even ask me any questions. He should take one look at me and see that I am yet another 34 year old woman who, at some point, was in pretty great shape, but now I just like ice cream and could stand to drop a few or fifteen pounds. I hate the "What are your goals?" questions at the gym -- um...to be 22, thanks.

As I imagined my conversation with the trainer, I checked the calendar on my phone to remind myself of his name, and that's when I realized that my appointment with the trainer is tomorrow. Fail.

So I decided to go on the gym anyway, and I apparently had all of these thoughts out loud because as soon as I had this particular thought Tucker began wailing about how he just wanted to go home. PLEASE!!! My next thought was about being in Trey's car and, thus, without my headphones, and since the thought of running (okay, I'll just walk, but running sounds so much better so please pretend I run) on the treadmill without watching Swamp People or 19 Kids and Counting seemed kind of awful. So I decided we would just go home.

I was fully aware of the fact that this was an epic parenting moment. I taught my kids a) you don't have to exercise if you don't want to and b) wailing is a great way to get what you want.

I hope you can tell by now that my brain was all over the place. In order to make myself feel better about ditching the gym and being a terrible mother, I started making a mental list of the work-related tasks I could accomplish during the time I would have been working out.

Did I mention to you guys that on Keaton's Mother's Day card to me he did all of these fill in the blank things? "My mom's favorite color is (blank)"and "My mom is (blank) tall." On the question that asked "My mom is good at (blank)," he wrote "work." Seriously. Of all of the things I could be good at (mothering, for one), he wrote work.

So I thought of that, too, as I drove home, and I was feeling really good about myself.

I opened the garage door, parked the car, and was the first to get to the door that leads into the house. It was locked.

Locked.

This door is never locked, but clearly as we left earlier one of us locked the door. I'm not pointing any fingers, but Keaton was the last one out.

No big deal, I thought, and then I realized that I don't have a house key. I went around the fence to the back door, hoping that perhaps I had left it unlocked as I often accidentally do, and it was, of course, locked. I had one random house key on me, and I knew in my heart it was to Trey's parent's house, but I tried it in the bolt of the front door anyway. No luck.

But it was no big deal. Trey would be home soon, and we needed milk. "Boys, let's just run to HEB and get milk and by the time we get back your dad will be home with a key." It was a good plan.

Then Tucker began wailing again. "I just want to stay here. Please!!! I'm tired!"

And so, from the driveway, I went full-on lecture mom.

"Tucker Hickman, I cart you all over the whole free world all the time to whatever you want to do. I take you to practices and games and your friends' houses and I pick up your friends and bring them here and all I'm trying to do it get some milk so you can have breakfast in the morning and you are whining and I can't stand it anymore. You can't even get in the house anyway. Get in the car!"

My tirade ended, and I realized that everyone within three houses both ways probably just heard that. Then I thought, "Aw, hell."

Then, my mind took off again. I decided that I shouldn't think things like "aw, hell" because I'm working in an elementary school now and if you think things then sometimes they come out your mouth and I would be mortified if I said that in front of some first graders. I plotted on how to clean up my internal language, and this was followed by a scenario in which two sweet kindergarten girls in pink dresses come into my office asking for hugs, and I spill my diet coke all over their dresses as I hug them and then I say "aw, hell" out loud. They, of course, make that "aahhhmmmm...I'm going to tell" sound that only kids can make and then I start trying to explain to them that hell isn't always a bad word because it's an actual place only some people don't believe in it. Then I felt like a twisted, black-hearted person for trying to get away with something terrible like cursing in front of kindergarterners. Then I remembered the whole thing was only happening in my head and I felt a little better.

Tucker, Keaton, and their mentally deranged mother got in the car, and I called Trey.

I explained the key and the locked doors and the milk, and all was well with the world for a tiny moment until he said, "I don't have a key to the house either. I gave mine to Josh."

Aw, hell.

So I started driving to who-knows-where making phone calls. My sister-in-law does not have a key to my house. My mother-in-law has a key, but it's in her purse that happened to be with her on her trip to Dallas. The Hickman house was impenetrable. Fort Knox, if you will.

My only option was to drive the 25 minutes to the Bombers ballpark where Josh, the player we're hosting, was probably already warming up for the game. I went through the mental picture of me traipsing onto the field to summon him from the team in order to get his key, but I'll save you the details of that little trip through my brain.

I called Trey again to tell him my plan and not to hurry home from work because he couldn't get in anyway, and he asked if I tried to get in the front door. His thinking was that Josh left through the front door and since it was the middle of the day and we were all home he probably didn't lock it.

Hmmm...I didn't try to open the front door. I only unsuccessfully tried to use my mother-in-law's house key to turn the deadbolt. (I guess when I put it like that it just seems silly.)

So I turned around, finally made it home, walked to the front door, and -- you're not going to believe this -- it was wide open.

You know, like Fort Knox would be if someone left without locking the door.

As always, there is a lesson to be learned here. I sometimes give my very smart oldest child a hard time about his lack of focus on everyday life. Case in point: he lost his shoes -- his actual tennis shoes that he wears every day -- at some point this year. I very kindly and lovingly have referred to him scatterbrained. Today I was reminded who he gets that from.

A True Test

2011-06-11T10:47:00.001-05:00

Grad school is finished. I have an awesome new job as an Academic Coordinator A.K.A. Assistant Principal. Professionally, things have been going my way.

The only hurdle left to tackle was my Texas Principal Certification Exam. I intentionally waited to take this test until summer. I wanted to finish grading and packing and get off the emotional roller coaster that was my departure from the high school and initiation into a brand new campus. I wanted to focus.

In preparation for the test, I took three practice tests over the course of the year prior. The passing standard is approximately 78%, and I scored well above that on all practice exams. I never made a 100, however, which a little part of me felt was failure, but then I remembered I am a humongous nerd and no one really cares about my actual score on this test - just whether I passed or failed.

Honestly, I was never really nervous about the test. If I began thinking too much about specific questions that could come up, I could have made myself nervous, but I chose not to do that. Each time I thought about it, I reminded myself that I had passed this test three times in practice. That I am a basically intelligent person who made a 4.0 in the grad school program preparing me for this test. That I am good enough, I am smart enough, and -- dog gone it -- people like me.

My mother-in-law graciously offered to drive me to the test because parking is often a problem at A&M, and she dropped me off at the General Services complex around 8:05. I told her I'd probably call for my ride home around 11:30 because I anticipated that the test would take me 2 to 2 1/2 hours. My report time was 8:30, and the test was to start at 9:00. I was not stressed out by being late. Things were going well.

Around 8:25, the testing proctor checked in all of the testers, and the other testers and I locked our belongings in a provided locker, including our watches. One by one he took us into the testing computer lab and hit the start button on our various tests. He informed me specifically that I had five hours to take my test, and that I could take as many breaks as I wanted but that the time would continue to count down while I was out of the room. I'm pretty sure I was the only one taking the principal test, as all other testers looked very college-aged. I assumed there was quite of lot of GRE-taking going on in that room.

As I began clicking through the on-screen instructions ("don't cheat," "don't tell the questions to your friends," "if you cheat you will be drawn and quartered") I realized the computer was moving very slowly. In my effort to remain calm, I took a deep breath and decided that maybe the directions were just slow.

But it wasn't just the instructions. Once the questions began, I quickly realized that it was taking forever for one question on the screen the change to the next. Okay, I thought, I have to figure out if this is costing me time on my five hours. If this is costing me time, it could create a real problem.

So I answered the next question, checked the timer on screen, and then clicked the magical "next" button. The timer stopped while the computer loaded the next question, and I felt so relieved! The speed of the computer would not impact the amount of time I had for the test, so I was good to go.

I answered question after question, clicking the answer and then waiting waiting waiting waiting for the next question to pop up. It seemed to take almost a minute to change questions, but I decided that it was just my anxiousness to keep going that made it feel like so long.

Sidebar: I have always been a good test taker. I'm one of those people who often looks smarter than I really am because I'm good at taking tests. I am also a fast test taker who doesn't second guess myself. I answer a question and move on, and I almost never go back to review my answers on a test. It's my personal strategy, and it has worked pretty well for the first 34 years of my life.

But this test-- this stinking test that held my entire future career in its hands -- took that away from me. I answered a question, clicked "next," and then stared at the question and answer choices for what seemed like a full minute before the next question came up. I found myself rationalizing answers that I didn't choose, figuring out why they could be right even though I deemed them wrong. Each time, just as I over-analyzed enough to really question my answer choice, the next question would finally pop up. I frantically marked the last question number on my scratch paper so I could go back and look it over again at the end. I did this over and over.

This left my brain in a muddle. Was the last question right? Was it worth the five minutes it would take to try to go back and read over it again? Am I over-analyzing? Am I failing? Am I unprepared? Was my 4.0 dumb luck? Am I going to be that person who gets fired because she can't pass her principal test? Will I be forever blacklisted from all jobs that require tests?

Needless to say, I began to feel anxious. So I took a break.

As I signed out of the testing room, I casually asked the proctor, "Does this test always run so slow?'

"Yeah," he replied, "ETS is having a problem lately that is making their tests run really slow. Sorry."

Okay, well, I guessed this would be my testing reality. I took a brisk walk to get my blood flowing again, drank some water to rehydrate my brain and did some cross-overs with my arms to get the two sides of my brain cooperating. I thought through the facts.

1) In practice, I have passed the test three times.

2) I am good at tests.

3) I never read over and over my answers after I choose them.

4) The slowness of the test is taking away my best strategy and replacing it with stress.

5) Getting frustrated will not do my any good.

I took a deep breath, signed back into the testing room, and proceeded with a new plan. I needed to answer the question, click next, and then not look at the screen again until the question changed. First, I counted. 1 mississippi, 2 mississippi, 3 mississippi. I determined that it was taking approximately one to two minutes between questions.

Then I made up variations of songs in my head. One of the most popular sing-in-my-head songs was Stutts's "I'm gonna pass this test. I'm gonna pass this test." I also thought about words that rhymed with "test" so I could sing more than one line of the song I really didn't know. I came up with with "best," "lest," and "hest" (which I'm really not sure is an actual word).

I wrote names on my scratch paper. If I know you, I probably wrote your entire name in my best handwriting at least twice. Then I went for initials. I pretended to be a calligrapher writing invitations for a fancy event.

Then I made traingles. I estimated how many triangles I could fit into a half sheet of scratch paper, and then I began dissecting triangle after traiangle to increase my number. When that got old, I shaded in every other triangle to make a pattern.

I am particularly proud of the brick structure I made around my name. It had bricks going in various directions, but they were all exactly the same size and shaded in various colors. It was a masterpiece.

All the while, every two minutes, I answered a question that could change my entire future. No pressure.

Finally, I answered the last question. Then I went back to each question I had marked from the early part of the test (before my strategy change), and I did not change even one answer. Going with my instinct was the right thing to do. My total test-taking time: 2 hours, 19 minutes.

Then, at long last, I was done. I was so proud that I found a way to work with this ridiculous situation, and it felt good. That's when I discovered that I had to answer 13 survey questions, one at a time.

THIS was frustrating, but I answered each question until I finally reached the "Report my scores" screen. I clicked it with victory, and then waited the two minutes for the confirmation screen to come up. The next screen read (did I mention it was two minutes later) "Your testing session in complete." Of course, it also came with a "next" button.

I clicked next, and left the testing room. I explained to the proctor (a new shift of proctors -- now a young lady) that I thought I was finished but I wanted to be absolutely sure. She offered to go in and check the computer for me.

She returned several minutes later and asked, "Wow! Was your computer that slow the whole time?"

I checked the clock, and then informed her that while I had actually tested for two hours and nineteen minutes, I had been sitting in front of the computer for five hours and five minutes.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I wish you had said something because we would have moved you to a different computer. Next time be sure and let us know."

Seriously? Next time? I hope there is never, ever, in my life a "next time."

I suppose all's well that end's well. I am "officially" qualified for my new job. I passed the test with an equivalent of about 91. However, the true test, I suppose, was of my patience. In the midst of the insane slowness of the test I did not throw the computer across the room or begin pulling out my eyelashes one by one. I calmly made a plan and made it work.

Perhaps I am prepared for this new job after all.

My Sweet Baby Boy

2011-06-04T22:09:00.000-05:00

On Monday, Keaton will be six years old. I can't believe it. What did we do in the 2 1/2 years we only had one child? What did we do our whole lives before that without Keaton?

A few reasons why Keaton is awesome.

1) He takes great care of himself, even at almost six years old. If Keaton needs a drink of water, he gets some water. If he's hungry, he grabs a snack (usually a peach or some green bell pepper slices or a honey bun). When it's time to clean up, he makes a game out of it and gets it done (most of the time).

2) For his birthday cupcakes, we went to the store, and he chose the cake mix, the frosting, and some gold decorative frosting to write on the cupcakes. Tonight, we made the cupcakes together (he did most of the work), and then he carefully instructed me on how red to make the frosting so that it would be perfect. Then, he gave me specific instructions on how to frost the cupcakes -- the flower-looking ones are for the girls. As a final touch, he wrote the first letter of each person's name on a cupcake so that all of the partygoers can have special cupcakes just for them. You can't read some of the letters, but who cares?

Keaton is thoughtful even on his special day -- he wants everyone to be happy and feel special. The cupcakes kind of look like they were made by a six year old, but they WERE made by a six year old and he and I both think they are beautiful. When he finished his work, he gave me a gigantic hug and said, "Thank you, Mommy, for making my cupcakes." What an awesome kid!

3) He randomly assembles things and makes up new games almost constantly. Tonight he was jumping from the "diving board" of a pillow in my room into a pile of blankets. Yesterday he took an old backpack and filled with first aid supplies so that it would be an "emergency backpack" he could use to help people who are hurt. Tonight when Tucker complained of a tummy ache (because he didn't want to brush his teeth), Keaton came running with the emergency backpack and told me I needed to take Tucker's temperature.

Yesterday he made this contraption, which he said was good "for moving stuff." After I took this picture, he connected the end he is holding to his Tonka truck, and then the whole thing was on wheels and could move "really heavy stuff."

4) He has a vivid imagination, even in his dreams. Every once in a while he'll crawl in bed with us, and usually he's talking so much that I have to wake up and listen carefully to whatever crazy thing he's talking about. I'm also convinced he sleepwalks because many times he comes into our room shouting about something that has apparently just happened. At 2:30 this morning he appeared at the foot of our bed screaming, "I am getting so tired of this!" Hmmm...if we only knew what it was he was tired of.

5) I could go on forever, but I will finally add that for Keaton anything is possible. Even changing his name. He told Trey tonight, "You can start calling me James if you want. It is my name, you know." Then he talked about how at Greens Prairie Elementary he might just tell everyone to call him James. It is his name, you know.

My sweet Keaton is going to be six, and it's hard to be too sad about him growing up because I am so excited about all of the things he's going to do in the near and far future.

Happy birthday, baby boy!

Keaton Randomness

2011-05-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

I was reading, but the television was on the Food Network and there was a show about smoking meats. A man on the show remarked about the ribs he was about to cook, and Keaton calmly, without an ounce of disgust or even shock, asked, "Mom, are those real person's ribs he's cooking?"

Obsession

2011-05-29T21:46:00.000-05:00

Some day I will tell my grandchildren about countless weekends like this and they will wonder if it really happened just this way or if my memory has been altered by the clouds of age and exaggeration.

Future grandchildren -- you grandma (whom you'll probably refer to as "The Storm") did not make this up. Your dad really spent countless weekends just like this.

Saturday morning, Tucker had a baseball game at 10:00 a.m. The BV Astros won, we went to McDonalds for a quick lunch, and then we went back to the ball field for a second game at 1:00. This game we lost.

We came home all hot and sweaty and tired, and just as Trey and I settled in to relax, we realized that Tucker and Keaton weren't in the house. They were in the front yard playing baseball.

Trey made them come inside for "just a little while to cool off."

After a only a little arguing, they came inside, and Tucker immediately turned the tv to an Aggie baseball game. Trey and I had no idea the Aggies were playing, but, as usual, Tucker knows more about those sorts of things than we do so we were just happy to get to see the game.

Then Tucker began telling us how the game would end, and who would strike out in what inning, and when we should watch for the awesome plays. A quick glance to the top right corner of our television screen confirmed that this was actually a repeat of a game Tucker had already seen. Apparently it was worth watching twice.

Finally, the boys deemed themselves cooled off enough (and we stopped trying to keep them inside long enough) to go outside and -- you guessed it -- play a little baseball. Darkness eventually fell and the baseballs eventually had to be put away. So, of course, the game moved indoors to the living room.

Sunday morning, Tucker had a baseball game at 9:00. The BV Astros lost, but they played okay overall, and we all had a good time. We met family for lunch, then came home, at which time Tucker turned on what he hoped would be the pre-game for the Aggie baseball game at 1:00. Sometime during the seventh inning, his friend called and then came over to play, but unfortunately he got here before the Aggie game was over. Tucker's friend and Keaton played, and Tucker finished watching his game.

It was eerie when Tucker said, "Brodie Green hit a walk-off home run to win the Big 12 championship last year" about three seconds before the commentator.

The game was over, and Tucker, Keaton, and the friend went outside to play a little baseball.

Later, Trey and Tucker took the friend home, and as soon as they returned Tucker found a softball game to watch for a few minutes. Keaton left to go play with his Uncle Mike, and Tucker (in the absence of his usual catcher) convinced Trey to sit on a stool in the yard catching baseballs. After all, he hadn't practiced pitching all weekend.

An hour and a half later, we made Tucker come in to take a bath, and when he was finished, he went straight for the computer to find Andrew Callazo's walk-off home run on youtube so he could watch it over and over, all the while calling us over one at a time -- "Watch this! You have to see it one more time!" Of course, he did this while simultaneously watching the Reds/Braves game on tv.

Finally, we made him go to bed. I wonder what he's dreaming about?

As Yet Untitled

2011-05-24T22:01:00.002-05:00

Our dog died.

But this post doesn't begin there.

I foresee it being more like keyboard vomit about all of the things rolling around in my head over the last month or so.

I was honored after spring break to be named the Academic Coordinator at Greens Prairie Elementary beginning this fall. It's a brand new campus -- not even finished yet -- and I get to be there to get it going. I've worked so hard in grad school, and to be awarded with a job so soon has left me overjoyed. And the more I learn about my new school and the fantastic staff, the more excited I get.

I have only worked at one school. Eight years. One of my kids was practically born there. I know all the nooks and crannies, people to bug to get anything and everything accomplished, and the ins and outs of the English department -- the good and the bad and the details. I know what I'm doing.

For my new job, I make lists. Mostly lists of words or programs or authors or books that elementary people use in casual conversation, but I have no idea what they are talking about. Google is my new best friend.

My real best friends are at my school. Not just my best friends, but the best friends I've ever had in my life. Never have I been around such a large number of people at once who "get" me. I like books a little too much to be normal, I randomly cry about absolutely nothing, and I'm addicted to my work email. Besides my husband and maybe my parents (I have to deduct points for them because I'm sure I scared the hell out of them when I was an angsty teenager), these people get me more than anyone, ever. They think it's funny to refill my wine glass when I'm not looking and they recognize when I need someone to just agree with me even when I'm dead wrong.

I've now met most of the teachers at my new school, and they are incredibly nice and great fun, and tonight they even promised to read books and talk about them with me. It's an all star cast at Greens Prairie, and being a part of that is more than I could ever ask for.

So I live here on the threshold between what is and what will be, and I happily and sadly walk forward, growing more excited with every step.

All the while grading, grading, grading, and doing homework, homework, homework.

On Friday, my second period crazies threw me a surprise party. They had been talking about it in front of me all week, and I almost took up the sign up sheet for snacks one day until I realized that's what it was. Second period is a group of very different kids -- some who have everything and some who have nothing -- and they have been a challenge this year. On Friday they all came together to wish me well and literally tell me they loved me. It was a beautiful moment.

At the beginning of seventh period that day, I learned that some colleagues, one a principal and one a teacher, lost their son. She went into labor at 24 weeks, and their precious baby lived for 55 minutes before he returned right back to heaven. I cannot imagine a deeper heartbreak than that.

On Saturday, Tucker hit his very first home run. It was epic. There is nothing more fantastic than an eight year old home run.

Today, my last day of regular classes, my sixth period paid tribute to my years of teaching. Five minutes before the bell they all ascended to the tops of their desks and recited "O Captain, My Captain!" -- just like Dead Poet's Society. It was both cheese-tastic and moving. They are a brilliant group who often cause me great frustration with their constant questioning and lack of confidence, and I admit I was surprised that they care I'm leaving the school.

Seventh period came into class grumbling, no doubt in tones they believed to be unhearable by teacher ears. Sixth period had stolen their schtick, and they had to come up with something bigger and better on the fly. About ten minutes before the end of class, one girl approached my desk and said, "Mrs. Hickman. Do you think you could...um...like...go to the bathroom for like...five minutes?"

"Funny you mention that," I replied. "I was just thinking about how I have to go to the bathroom, and it will likely take me about five minutes."

I returned exactly five minutes later to find them standing on desks, announcing "O Captain, My Captain!" Only they had made a half circle with the desks and each held one letter of the poem title, and they had written their own original poem for me that a representative read. Interestingly enough, there was exactly one letter of the poem title for each of my 17 kids. I've said all year that I couldn't have picked a better class to have as my last class for this portion of my career, and they certainly did not disappoint. The number thing just cemented it.

After school I went to a meeting, then to Half Price Books to pick up a book for our book exchange tomorrow, then to Schlotsky's to get a pizza for dinner. I came home to find Trey and his dad standing in our kitchen. Isabelle the Chihuahua and reigning Queen of the Hickman Hacienda, was found lying peacefully on our back porch when Trey came home. When we first married, I miscarried. Then we got Isabelle. When the boys were babies, she would sit in the doorway to the nursery as if she were standing guard. She was a good dog.

And so it goes. Good and bad. Grief and wonder. Past and future.

I am certainly blessed beyond measure, a recipient of unmerited favor.

I may also need a stiff drink.

And now, a quick Keaton story

2011-04-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it is a Trey story.

Tuesday night I had a late meeting, so Trey picked up the boys from Kids Klub and together they went to meet a family from Tucker's baseball team to try on baseball pants. They were a little short on time, so they were in a hurry. I wasn't in the car, but I've heard the story and I imagine it went something like this:

TREY AND TUCKER AND KEATON ARE ALL TALKING AT THE SAME TIME ABOUT SCHOOL AND HOW THEIR DAYS WENT AND LEMONADE DAY AND KIDS KLUB AND HOMEWORK AND SUCH AND HURRY UP!

At some point, Keaton says matter-of-factly, "Dad, my whole class got red today!"

Trey responds, "Awesome!"

Later that evening, we sat around the dinner table to eat and visit. It's during this time that we usually go through Tucker's homework with him and make a plan for when he needs to do it, and we go through Keaton's daily folder and ask him questions about his favorite part of the day.

Unfortunately, I opened Keaton's daily folder to see a red sad face, and a note from the teacher that the whole class had a bad day and continued to scream and run around when they were told to stop.

"Keaton!" I questioned, "What on earth happened in your class today? Your folder says you were all being very disrespectful to your teacher. What do you have to say about this?"

Keaton popped a bite of food in his mouth and shrugged nonchalantly, "I already told Dad. He said it was awesome."

Awesome.

A Quick Tucker Story

2011-04-28T21:15:00.000-05:00

If you've been around us at all you know that Tucker is weirdly smart. Case in point - one of his second grade spelling words this week is "condescending." I had to think really hard to spell it right.

However, Trey and I decided a long time ago that it's important for us to not talk about Tucker's intelligence, but rather comment on his hard work. Even though all things academic come pretty easy for him now, some day he will face challenging course work, and we want him to know that hard work is the answer instead of questioning his natural intellect. We want him to look for challenges and not be discouraged when something doesn't come naturally for him.

We swore not to have him tested for his giftedness until at least first or second grade so that we could avoid being "those parents" who think our kid is the smartest and needs special treatment, but his kindergarten teacher suggested the testing and we went with it. Since then, he has been in his school's gifted and talented program, GT for short.

In our quest to raise a well-rounded kid who isn't too full of himself, we never refer to his GT class as GT. Instead, we ask about what he's been doing with Mrs. Chenault (who just happens to be the GT teacher). I honestly don't know if Trey or I have ever used the acronym "GT" with Tucker.

This became painfully obvious last week because of a program called Lemonade Day. It's a day where kids all over the country become entrepreneurs by opening their own lemonade stands. Mrs. Chenault has taken the program on as a project for second grade GT, having a banker speak to them about loans (they did NOT like the idea of paying interest), a marketing consultant work with them to plan and film a commercial, a taste test in which they chose the best product - basically they created an entire business model for their lemonade day. While tomorrow at recess is the official day, they've done a booming business in pre-sales and plan to donate all of their proceeds to charities they think are important, including the animal shelter and Japan earthquake relief. Pretty cool.

All of the posters, videos, emails, and other correspondence about lemonade day reference "Mrs. Chenault's 2nd Grade GT Class." Trey was talking about the project with Tucker and randomly asked him if he knew what GT stood for.

Tucker thought for a moment, "Hmmm...I think it's something like geographic technology."

My GT kid didn't know what GT meant, but had sense enough to choose the longest G-word he knows and the longest T-word he knows and put them together to come up with an answer.

And GT will forever, at my house at least, be Tucker's geographic technology class.

Here's the commercial in case you're interested (I have permission from all of the parents to post online).

English Teacher Math

2011-03-31T22:15:00.000-05:00

My students are smarter than me.

Or is it "than I"? I think I've made my point.

This is not a self-deprecating post, as I believe I am a reasonably intelligent person. Smart, even. It just so happens that I spend a pretty significant portion of my life with students who are, quite literally, geniuses. Case in point: one of my students from last year is one of only 588 people out of 1.6 million who scored a perfect 36 on the ACT. That's not about me. I didn't teach him that. He's just incredibly, amazingly smart. He's a great kid, too, so that makes it even better. I'm so in awe that I think I've bragged on him to everyone I know.

Nope. This isn't a "poor me" post. It's simply another time that I made a fool of myself in front of a room full of people.

As I introduced the research paper to one of my classes, I reviewed the rubric with them carefully. I attempted to point out that at least half of the points on this particular paper come from following directions, and that I've taught the research process upwards of 30 times, and if they stick with me and follow my plan they'll have a great grade and be really good at research papers. In fact, I told them, the research paper grades are usually the best essay grades all year. I was selling this project like no other.

Then came to the part about the way the points add up.

I explained it this way: The rubric adds up to 200 points, and the paper is for two major grades. But the computer likes grades on a scale of 100, so to get your score I will add up the points on the rubric, divide by half (to get to the 100 point scale), and then enter the grade twice. It made perfect sense to me.

Unfortunately, my explanation was met with confused stares, and then a few brave souls raised their hands.

"That doesn't make sense," one girl said, "If you divide by half the math doesn't work. Is that what you meant?"

The confused faces turned to me, waiting for my response to the question that was obviously on all of their minds. But I could only respond by returning their confusion.

I explained the whole thing again, but I guess I talked slower or something in an attempt to have it make more sense. Finally, when the heads continued to shake and the confusion became too much for me to bear, I just said, "Trust me. It all works out mathematically."

Confusion turned to suspicion, until someone eventually said (slightly under his breath), "Maybe that's why the research paper grades are always the highest."

The room erupted in laughter, including mine, and we moved on. Only I didn't get the joke. I didn't know why they were so confused. I didn't even really know what was going on. I had a feeling, however, that it was my fault.

Five minutes after the bell, I walked to the water fountain and it hit me. After I add the 200 possible points, I need to multiply by half or divide in half, not "divide by half" as I said over and over and over again. I knew what I meant, but it was quite obviously not what I said.

And the Crazy English Teachers Can't Do Math stereotype lives on.

Getting Rid of Gargamel

2011-03-18T20:15:00.000-05:00

Trey and Tucker are at baseball practice, so Keaton and I played a few games of Uno and then we watched an awesome episode of The Cosby Show (where he laughed in all the right places). Then, as we flipped channels to find something else to watch, I noticed that The Smurfs were coming on Boomerang. We just saw a preview for the new Smurfs movie, so I thought it would be fun to watch the old-school cartoon. I explained to Keaton how his Aunt Wendy used to love the smurfs and she watched them all the time. As the show started I told him all about Gargamel and how he's the bad guy, and then I pointed out some of the other characters -- Smurfette, Pappa Smurf, etc.

Grouchy Smurf immediately began his signature "I hate swimming!" and "I hate summer!" and "I hate ___!" I thought to myself how much cartoons have changed and how much life has changed because I don't let my kids say "hate" and the cartoons they watch are so politically correct and I waited for Keaton to remark on the ugly word that Grouchy kept saying.

After we watched for about five minutes in silence, he finally piped up:

"You know if those Smurfs would just get a gun and shoot that bad guy then he would be dead."

I guess the ugly words are the least of my concerns.

Taking Care of Mom

2011-03-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week the boys and I took a little trip with my family. Trey couldn't go because he had to work Monday and Tuesday, but he encouraged us to enjoy our spring break and have a good time. I certainly didn't love the idea of going without Trey (face it - everything is better when he's around), but I decided I'm a real-live grown up who can drive the kids to Lake Conroe to hang out for a few days all by myself. It's too bad my boys didn't have so much confidence in me.

I meant to get gas at HEB before we left town, but the air conditioner in my car works only sporadically and I was so intent on figuring out how to trick the air conditioner into working that I forgot to stop. As we drove down highway 6 the ensuing car talk went something like this:

Me: Aw, man, I forgot to get gas as HEB.

Tucker: Should we turn around?

Me: No, we can get gas later.

Keaton: I think we should turn around, Mom.

Me: It's fine. We'll just get gas in Navasota.

Tucker: Do we have enough gas to get to Navasota?

Me: Yes.

Keaton: How many miles is it to Navasota?

Me: Like 16, I think.

Keaton: We should turn around and go to HEB for gas.

Tucker: Maybe not. We should calculate it. How many gallons of gas do you have left, Mom?

Me: enough to get to Navasota.

Tucker: Are you sure?

Me: Yes. I am certain. My light hasn't even come on yet. I can go like 50 more miles. I've been driving for almost 20 years. I know I can make it Navasota to get gas!

This brought a few moments of silence while they no doubt pondered my driving expertise and whether or not I am a good judge of how much gas is in my car. Then it started again.

Tucker: Which gas station will you stop at in Navasota?

Me: The Hi-Ho. At least it used to be Hi-Ho. It might be something else now.

Keaton: Are you sure it's still there?

Me: Yes. I'm absolutely certain! It's a Shell station on 105. Look, we're exiting now.

Tucker: Mom. I only see a Texaco and you're about to pass it.

Me: The Shell is on the other side of the highway. I know what I'm doing!

Finally, the Hi-Ho Shell station came into sight and I pulled in to get gas. I answered several questions about how much gas I chose to get and how far we could drive on that and whether or not we would need to get more gas on our 45 mile trip. I got back into the car and headed down 105.

Keaton (alarmed): Mom! You're on the wrong road! We were going on that road over there!

Me: We turned. We have to go on THIS road to get to Lake Conroe.

Tucker: Are you sure?

Keaton: Should we call Dad?

And, in defeat, I just ignored them.

I realized a several things that day.

One, the kids have us figured out. Trey always knows what he's doing and often I just choose to wing it, and our kids are well aware of these differences. I think they may prefer less of my "winging it" and more of his "knowing what on earth is going on."

Second, my boys think I need to be taken care of. I certainly understand that on some level it's a little insulting, and I have laughed a lot about an eight year old and a five year old giving me driving advice like they've been doing it for years. But they seemed so grown up just trying to make sure Mom had it together. I hope they are always so willing to take care of their crazy old mom.

Third, trips without Trey, even if they include fishing and games and family and a great book, just aren't as fun.

Where have I been????

2011-03-12T18:05:00.001-06:00

I did not post anything for the entire month of February. That makes me a little sad because I KNOW stuff happened, but now I can't remember it because I didn't write it down. Bummer. Here's my solution:

#1: Keaton's class has a student teacher who has started a blog for other kindergarten teachers. I realize it wasn't made for the parents, but I am so happy that she gave us the link to it. It makes me happy, and you should all look it over. The link is http://rockcollectionsandcupcakes.blogspot.com/.

#2: While I haven't logged into blogger, I have updated my facebook with random kid stories. It includes this little note about Tucker that most of you have probably seen. I think it's Tucker-like enough that I have to add it here:

I was going through his Monday folder and discovered a worksheet on which he had to estimate how long it takes to say the pledge of allegiance. His choices were one second, one minute, and one hour. He chose one second and got it counted wrong, so I was giving him a very hard time about how it is impossible to say the pledge in one second. He told me I was wrong and he was right, so we bantered back and forth until finally we decided to time it. I made the boys say it slowly like in school. It took 14.5 seconds, and Tucker said, "See, it's closest to one second, so that's the best estimation."

And the literal child wins again.

#3: Trey is working a lot. I'm very thankful that he has a great job and stuff, but I realize how spoiled I've been for the first ten years of our marriage because he's been so available. On a side note, I usually do the laundry on weekends but he's decided that I'm no longer allowed to fold the socks and put them away because I can't ever tell which socks belong to which kid, and I think it annoys him. Trey is now the official sock-folder.

Other than that, I should note that the ELA TAKS test is over, I have finished my Instructional Leadership Development training required for my principal certification and passed my practice TEXES, I am two weeks away from finishing my last "official" grad school class, and it is spring break. The boys and I are going with my parents to spend a couple of days at a house on Lake Conroe (Trey has to work), and when I get back on Tuesday I'm going to begin tackling this grading that I need to finish by the end of spring break (don't feel sorry for me - just don't ever complain that teachers get a week off in the spring for no reason):

And so, I am resolved to blog more often, recording the crazy things my kids do and my no doubt hilarious mom-fails that probably won't completely screw them up.

I think I'm back, people. Happy Spring Break!

Things that drive me nuts right now that I'll miss later

2011-01-30T21:16:00.000-06:00

I have this reputation among my friends of being the one who is not a hugger. Often, Erin or Tiffany will feel the need to hug me (probably because I need it), but they always warn me first. One of them will say, "I know you don't like it, but I'm going to hug you now." They are not entirely correct. It's not that I don't like hugging, it's just that it doesn't come naturally to me.

In my family, we are what I like to call "side huggers." Mom will come in after I haven't seen her for a month or so and we'll each put one arm around the other's shoulder and say, "hey." Sometimes we'll go all out and I'll say, "hey, Mom," and she'll say, "hey, Stormy G." We're super-emotional like that.

Trey's family is quite the opposite. They hug hello and hug goodbye and sometimes hug because it's a commercial and there's nothing else to do. They are huggers.

I love my husband's side of our family very much. I am blessed with fantastic in-laws, and I often wonder what we'd do without them. In the eleven years that Trey and I have been together, I have become a little better at remembering appropriate hugging times, but I'm still not too great at it, and they forgive me.

Clearly, this is an argument for nature versus nurture, in favor of nature. Hugging just isn't my nature, even though I spend a great deal of time with friends and family who hug like there's no tomorrow.

The only exception is with my kids. I feel like I'm constantly hugging, tugging, loving on them. Deep down I know that some day they won't like for me to hug on them all of the time, so I'm getting in all that I can. Unfortunately, I think I may have trained them too well.

You see, the boys don't know how to sit next to me. If they are in the same room with me and sitting down, they must be sitting on top of me. I think it's completely unintentional on their parts, but it is, nonetheless, a fact of my life. Being a non-hugger, this extreme closeness is often difficult for me.

I sit on the couch, one of them piles on top of one leg, the other follows right along and curls up on the other side, and -- wouldn't you know it -- here comes the blasted dog. It's very, very sweet. For about five minutes.

Then my legs go to sleep and my arm feels like it's going to fall off and one of them is yelling at the other in my ear and I accidentally get smacked in the face and the dog starts growling and a kid's nose is running and it's the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life, childbirth included.

Trey always notices the uncomfortable grunts coming from the couch and laughs at us. I'm sure it looks hysterical. Every once in a while, I'll remark (with absolutely no sarcasm, I'm sure) how incredible it is that three people and a dog can fit on one couch cushion. The boys think that really is amazing, and they start jumping up and down shouting about how awesome it is. Of course, this makes me much more comfortable.

As I joyously enjoy these lovely little moments, I wonder what it will be like when they're teenagers and they don't want to sit by me at all. Will Tucker think that couch cushions are made for multiple people and feel the need to sit carefully on one cushion with his girlfriend? This will be a definite problem, and it might cause me to have a nervous breakdown or, worse, start hanging out in the living room with no make-up and no bra muttering to myself in order to scare away the skanky little girls that want to share couch cushions with my boys.

There's really only one solution. Chair-only seating in my house. It seems I have some couches to post on craigslist.

My life is like a sitcom, only better.

2011-01-19T18:22:00.003-06:00

My random thought for today is that my life is like a sitcom, only without the lazy husband.

You know what I mean. Most sitcoms feature a slovenly, idiotic man who idles around while the family functions in spite of him. My life is like a sitcom, only with the opposite of that guy.

I picked up the boys from choir at church and dropped them off at the school because they rode their bikes this morning and needed to ride them back home. As soon as they left the car the race was on because they always want to beat me home. They took off down the sidewalk one way and I took off down the road the other way, but in my rearview mirror I could see Keaton running beside his bike to get it going fast enough, and then hopping on and pedaling like mad, like he was fighting to win his very own NASCAR race. I pulled around the corner to our house just in time to see him jab both fists in the air and scream "YEAH!!" because he hit the driveway before me.

I pulled into the garage and got out of the car, and Tucker said, "I know, I know. Get my backpack out of the car." Yes, I was going to say that, and yes, he did it. Immediately after, he put on his new shoulder pads and one of his dad's Aggie jerseys, the only one that will fit over the enormous pads.

The neighbor kids saw that our car was home and biked over, so Keaton never actually made it in the house. They rode bikes in circles and cheered about random things. I came into a delicious-smelling house because of a roast in the crock pot, fed the dogs, opened the mail, and tidied up a little.

I went into my room to change, and then I started hearing these loud thumping noises from the living room. I gave it a few minutes, wondering if I really even wanted to know what was happening, and then finally relented. I found Tucker in the living room carefully placing the ottoman on its end and then running from across the room to tackle it, over and over again.

"You can't do that anymore," I told him.

"Awwwww, mommmmmmmm. I need something to tackle with my new should pads. Can I tackle you?"

"No."

"You're right. It's probably a bad idea because I might break your rib or something."

Hmmmmm...that's not exactly what I was thinking, but pretty close.

I stuck my head out the door to check on Keaton and found him working on his basketball skills while the neighbor girls cheered. He was using a volleyball, but whatever.

Tucker told me he was hungry, and I went ahead and gave him some roast so he didn't ruin dinner by snacking too much. He sat comfortably eating his dinner, properly padded up in case a natural disaster or NFL linebacker should happen to come through the living room. He's also eight years old now, so he has to look cool in pictures instead of smiling.

Keaton came in to get a drink of water, and asked, "What's that smell?"

"Roast," I replied.

"Oh, YUMMY! Thanks for making roast, mom!"

Trey called to say he's on his way home from work, and he came in the door singing whatever song was on the radio in the car. In a few minutes it will be too dark for the kids to play outside any longer, so we'll make them come in, but only after some arguments and begging for a few more minutes. Until then Trey and I will have probably the only full conversation of the night.

We'll have dinner, Trey will clean the kitchen, the boys will take baths. We'll practice spelling words, read a few books, maybe watch a little television. Keaton will do or say something hysterical, and Tucker will throw footballs, baseballs, and other sporting equipment about a million times. Around 8:30 we'll say prayers together and put them to bed, and then Trey and I will watch our grown up shows, uninterrupted.

Life is just good.

A Korean Spa Adventure, part two

2011-01-01T17:38:00.000-06:00

I quickly learned that my therapist spoke very little English. We rounded the partition that separated the massage tables from the rest of the spa area and she instructed me to "face up." So I lay on the massage table (it was not covered in a sheet or anything), and she went to work on my body scrub.

And boy did she scrub. She wore these little exfoliating mitts, and I am not exaggerating when I say that she scrubbed every single exterior part of my body (but, no, she didn't scrub there). She scrubbed and scrubbed, and then stopped to pour bucket after bucket of warm water over me to rinse. I turned to one side, and she scrubbed and doused me with water, I turned to the other side and finally my back, and she scrubbed violently.

I can only describe it as a medical experience. She worked with great tenacity and resolve. Was it weird? Sure. But after a minute or two it was just a spa treatment. Since I left there I am still marveling at how incredibly smooth my skin is. Even those pesky, itchy winter rough patches have vanished. Having the buckets of water poured over me was heavenly. In all of its awkwardness, that body scrub left me with amazing results.

When I was fully scrubbed, she cupped my hand and gave me some Olay face wash, and then instructed me to shower with soap. I complied.

When I returned to the table, I started out face up once again, and she began my massage. She worked my arms, legs, hips, etc. However, the massage also included some acupressure on my hands, head, and feet, and she manipulated my arms and legs to stretch my muscles as well as massage them. When I turned onto my stomach she covered my entire body with steaming hot towels and continued to work in the same fashion. She found each knot in my back and neck and worked until it was completely gone.

The only truly odd part about the massage was when I realized that the therapist was on the table. I was in that nirvana of the middle of a great massage where you're not asleep but you're too relaxed to care even if the building explodes, so I don't think I noticed at first. Is she on the table? Why would she be on the table? What is about to happen? And just as I asked myself the last question she began working my lower back and glutes with her knees. She was a tiny, tiny person, and I'm not going to lie, it felt so good.

I thought the treatment was over, but there was still much more. She asked if I was allergic to cucumber, and then grated one in front of me and covered my entire face with it. Then, she wrapped my hair in a warm towel and my whole face in what seemed like cheesecloth. I thought for a moment that I couldn't handle having my face covered tightly in this way, but once I confirmed that I could see everything and breathe easily through both my mouth and nose, I relaxed again. While my face cucumbered, she pretty much repeated my entire massage with less intensity. It was like a mini-massage now that all of my knots were worked out and muscles were stretched.

She removed the mask, and I was about to thank her when I received one more set of instructions. She needed me to move my head all the way to the end of the table so she could wash my hair. No kidding. If you've known me long you've probably heard me say that if I were independently wealthy I would probably pay someone to come to my house every day just to wash my hair because it is the most relaxing thing I can think of, so this was a fantastic and unexpected treat.

I'm sure you're wondering how much this grand treatment set us back, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer. It was a whopping $85 including tip. I've paid more (twice that perhaps? I'll never tell because that would just be embarrassing) for mediocre massages in fancy hotels.

I showered again, quickly this time, and put on my pink shirt and shorts uniform and went out into the common area to meet Trey, hoping that his massage was as awesome as mine. Of the two of us, Trey is the more modest, so I was a little concerned about how he viewed the experience.

He looked a little drunk in his gray shirt and shorts uniform, like he'd been sleeping for hours, and he confirmed that his massage, body scrub, and spa were almost identical in their strangeness and amazingness.

The room just outside the mens' and women's spa areas is enormous. The center of the room is lined with plush, cushiony chairs and couches, and people sat here and there reading books, enjoying hot tea, and visiting with one another. Directly to the right is the Korean restaurant located in the spa, and there people ate (there was a dining area with tables and chairs), and placed their orders from the expansive menu written in Korean but with detailed English descriptions of each dish.

Past the restaurant and sitting areas, there is row after row of recliners and ottomans, probably 75 of them. They all face a projection television screen that played one of the bowl games going on that day. Here people watched tv, slept, read, and visited with one another. I assume that this is where you would sleep should you choose to take advantage of the spa's 24-hour services.

There were many unique rooms whose doorways lined the walls. I'm going to answer the question I know you all want to ask - all of these rooms were co-ed and everyone was fully clothed in their uniforms. In each of these rooms you could choose a bamboo mat and sit or lie down for as long as you liked. Here's a list of the rooms (I cheated and used the web site so that I didn't leave anything out):

The Fire Sudatorium: made from "living" rocks and kept at such a high temperature that a staff member monitors the entry and exit so that no one stays in there too long. Trey made it about a minute, but I could stand it a little longer.
The Pyramid Room: shaped like a pyramid on the inside and coated in gold in order to purify and send healing energy.
The Salt Room: made from 350 million year old salt rocks
The Ice Room: kept quite cold and meant to lower body temperature and increase circulation
The Bul Ga Ma: made with elvan stones that release infrared rays and positive and negative ions. Blocks in the room are heated to 800 degrees.
The Charcoal Room: made with yellow soil and natural charcoal and heated
The Yellow Soil Crystal Room: made with pure yellow soil and crystal and heated using a yellow soil furnace
The Oxygen Room: made from a special wood that releases phytoncide (I think?) so that you can "breathe in the forest"
The Aromatherapy Room: with aromatherapy that calms and focuses the mind
The Amethyst Room: made with walls of amethyst
The Base Rock Room: made with slabs of Siraka rock imported from Japan to enhances metabolism

In addition, the spa has a playroom for children (think play area at McDonalds), a karaoke room, and movie theater that continually shows movies in case you just want to kick back and watch a flick. I was shocked at everything they managed to include in just one facility.

After we met up, Trey and I shared a delicious meal from the restaurant - teryaki chicken, steamed rice, dumplings, miso soup, and tempura vegetables. Then we explored every single room in the place, and then we agreed to spend a little more time in the spa pools area before leaving for home. All in all, I think we spent around six hours there, and if we hadn't had to drive back to College Station I think we could have spent many more.

Several things surprised me about the place. There were clearly families spending the day together there - Asian and non-Asian. Parents and their teenagers, grandparents and their small grandchildren, and people of all races, ages and sizes. As the day progressed, groups of girlfriends came in to relax and hang out, too. Also, the place was immaculate. There were employees constantly cleaning, and I never saw anything less than perfectly tidy.

I know it sounds crazy, and some of you are still wondering what on earth we were thinking and how could we ever be comfortable in a place like this. Some of you, just from my description, probably still think that there's something creepy going on there. But there's not. It's a nice, family, relaxing place. Further, I could have been convinced that I was in another country.

The hippie in me came out a time or two. I wondered what American girls' perceptions of their bodies would be like if places like this were normal. Would we all be so hyper-critical of every sag and wrinkle if we were used to the fact that everyone looks different but ultimately it doesn't matter? I also really loved that everyone had the same comfy uniform. There were no rolexes or $900 shoes -- everyone was on the same level in their uniforms, and I swear it made people friendlier and more comfortable.

Don't worry. I'm not packing up to move to a commune anytime soon. I did, however, really enjoy my relaxing anniversary adventure, and all for around $210 (two body scrubs, two massages, two admission fees, and lunch). Trey enjoyed himself, too.

I guess you can already tell that I highly recommend the King Spa, but I also highly recommend being married for 10 years to your best friend who will gladly take random adventures with you. Happy anniversary, Trey!

King Spa and Sauna

A Korean Spa Adventure, part one

2010-12-31T12:39:00.001-06:00

Background info - some of you will think we're crazy.

Trey said, "You're going to talk about this with your friends, and they're going to think we're nuts!"

"No way, man," I replied, "I'm blogging about it!"

On to the story:

Many, many years ago (okay, just ten years ago) we decided that for our anniversary we would not give one another gifts. Instead, we decided to always do something fun together. We've mostly taken random road trips -- to Houston, Fort Worth, the Gaylord Texan for the ICE exhibit, etc.

Another random fact applicable to this post is that we really, really love spas. A couple of years ago we decided to never go to a spa until the last day of a trip because we are too tempted to go over and over again while on a vacation. We may have done this in Mexico a time or two, but I'll never confirm it for sure.

And so, as our tenth anniversary approached, we began looking for affordable, yet enjoyable, road trips. Spas are not generally affordable, so I started researching other fun things to do. Trey, however, did not give up the spa idea and managed to find King Spa and Sauna in Dallas. Then the real research began.

We read reviews on yelp and tripadvisor and visited the web site about a million times, and I was still skeptical. Finally when Trey read that it is a family place - that kids are welcome and accommodated for -- I decided that it was probably not creepy. I was in, and we committed to The King Spa Adventure.

Here's what we knew: there are only two facilities of its kind in the US (Dallas and Chicago); you are only allowed to wear the uniform they give you upon arrival so that you don't disturb the balance of the place; no shoes are allowed beyond the entrance; it's open 24 hours so that families can vacation there (they are perfectly happy for you to stay the night); the spa is not for people who are modest about nudity, but men and women are never together unless it's in a uniformed area.

Are you wondering yet what on earth we were thinking? Sounds pretty weird, huh?

While Trey and I love our routine and our calm life, we also really love crazy adventures. Reference the dune buggy exploits in Mexico a few years back. We were excited about this spa, even if a little freaked out. We felt comfortable that it wasn't a place of ne'er-do-wells, so off we went.

Thursday morning we woke up early at our hotel, had an impressive continental breakfast, and headed for the King Spa. We arrived at about 9:15 and scheduled massages and body scrubs for 10:30. Interestingly, you can get a body scrub only, but you can't get a massage without first getting a body scrub. We took off our shoes, picked up our short and shirt uniforms, found the "male" and "female" entrances, agreed to meet back after our massages, and jumped right into a place like no other I have ever seen.

I entered the female-only section of the spa and went straight for my locker. I opened it and realized it was about twelve inches wide and six inches high. It wouldn't hold anything other than my shoes. I looked at my purse and the comfy sweats I'd put on for my spa day, and I plotted how I was going to stuff them all into this tiny space. After I stared blankly for a full minute, I decided that the purse would never fit and that I would have to go put it back in the car. An employee of the spa (I knew this because she wore a red-shirted uniform instead of the spa-goer's pink one) noticed my bewilderment. She informed me that the locker I was staring blankly into was only for my shoes, and that I had another locker for my clothes so that they didn't have to be together.

Of course! I put my shoes in the locker and decided explore the place a little to see what other etiquette I could figure out so that I didn't make a fool of myself.

To my almost surprise (I expected it, but can you ever really expect this?), there were naked women everywhere. Every age, size, shape, color (although 99.9% of them were Asian). They were brushing their teeth or drying off from the pools area or getting dressed or walking across the room, and all of them were in some stage of nakedness -- most of them in the completely naked stage.

Okay, so we're all naked here. Got it.

Then I surveyed the facility. The room I was standing in was huge. It had rows of lockers, many sinks with toiletries neatly packaged for guest use, places to sit and get dressed, a large water cooler, a desk where an employee sat working on a computer (she appeared to be scheduling massages and the like). Off to the side there was a smaller room with restroom stalls. Right in the middle of the immaculately clean large vanities there was a set of double shower doors covered in steam. I figured that had to be the spa area.

Well, the spa is what I came for, so here I go.

Sidebar: As I mentioned earlier, I have been to many spas, some of them quite expensive (at least in my book). The spas at Caesar's Palace in Vegas and Moon Palace in Cancun come to mind. In all of these places, there are spas shared by women who are naked. However, getting into these spas is incredibly awkward. Women enter the room covered in gargantuan towels or robes, position themselves right next to the water, turn away from any people in the room, and miraculously remove the robes or towels while simultaneously entering the water in order to cover their entire bodies up to their necks. I, myself, have taken part in this great ritual, and it is, in fact, the only spa experience I've known.

From the looks of things, the Korean spa has a much different take.

I was here for relaxation, so I...well...suited down and ran as fast as I could through the shower doors, trying to look confident and undisturbed.

I must have really looked crazy when I entered the spa area because what I saw left me in awe. I think I stood at the door with my mouth agape for a few seconds before I could compose myself.

The room was enormous. One entire side was covered in shower stalls, each stocked with soap, shampoo, and conditioner. There were standing showers and sit-down showers with hand-held shower heads, and signs everywhere indicated that you must shower WITH SOAP before entering any of the pools. One prominently displayed sign read "Please let employee know immediately if you uncomfortable because see someone enter pool without shower WITH SOAP."

A half wall partitioned off the room opposite the showers, and I could see massage tables lined up behind it.

In the center, there were three enormous spas, each with a temperature gauge reading from 104 degrees to 109 degrees. The back of the room held a smaller spa with jets that directed at your back if you sat on the ledge beneath the water, a cold pool with a temperature gauge reading 70 degrees, and a large steam room containing smooth rocks for you to sit on while inside.

It was everything you could want from a spa all in one room (or so I thought -- the place had more amazing facilities that we found later). There were probably twenty or so women there, from the very old to a few little girls who had to be around four or five. It was quiet and respectful and perfectly clean. Families were there together. A grandmother scrubbed her little granddaughter in one of the showers, women chatted and relaxed in the heated pools, and everything was, well, normal.

I spent the next hour and a half moving from one pool to the other with a sort of spa ADD. I stayed in the steam room until I couldn't stand it, and then I sat on the edge of the cold pool because I couldn't bare to do more than dip my toes in. Once I cooled off, I rested in the 109 degree spa. I realized about fifteen minutes in that I had forgotten we were all naked. It was so relaxing that I didn't even care.

I could live here, I thought. This is the greatest place on earth, and I could live here. I wondered if I would ever be brave enough to bring a group of friends and sit in the spas to relax and chat away the day. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better (or weirder), a nice young Korean lady came to get me for my massage and body scrub.

2010 - Holidays in Review

2010-12-28T21:44:00.000-06:00

I'm in a serious blog drought. My excuse is that I have a couple of projects, both work-school and grad school, that require a great deal of writing, so when I feel like writing something it should be about teaching and learning or intern experiences, neither of which are exactly funny or entertaining. My life is no less hysterical. I'm just not writing for fun much these days. So what follows is my own personal entry of what I want to make sure I remember about this holiday season.

We lit the advent candle at the Christmas Eve service. The boys were very excited, and Tucker practiced his part until it was perfect. Keaton loved being the candle-lighter. Here's video evidence (that probably only my mom and dad are interested in seeing, let's be honest :)

Keaton and Tucker both sang with their church choirs on Christmas Eve. I managed to get video of Keaton, but ran out of battery before Tucker's performance. I had plugged the USB on the camera into the computer for something like eight hours prior to church to make sure I had enough battery, so I was furious to find that the camera was dead. Soon after I realized that it runs on two double A batteries. Fail.

Here's Keaton's performance (sorry, Tuck):

Christmas gifts of note: Santa brought Tucker a cell phone. While we might be insane for allowing this to happen, it has already come in very handy a few times when we could text him to say "Come home now!' while he played with friends down the street. Warning: DO NOT give him your phone number unless you want to receive random sports-related texts from an almost eight year old.

Keaton FINALLY got a guitar. I've always said he was my musical child, and he's spent hours just plucking away on the thing. Throw in a kid-sized microphone, and you've got entertainment for hours (for both kids). Here's an example:

Trey and I will celebrate our tenth anniversary on Thursday with a little trip to Fort Worth and a visit to our favorite restaurant and a relaxing spa. It seems like yesterday that we got married, but it also seems like we've always been quite the pair. As is our custom, we have already watched the video and marveled on how much older we look and who is and isn't in our lives anymore and who has passed away. We laughed at how even during our own wedding we cut up with our own private jokes, and it's all captured on video. I think I'll upload it to youtube for safekeeping.

Finally, on a sadder note, my grandfather is dying during this holiday season. My mom and dad and my mom's siblings, along with a few cousins, have been taking turns caring for him around the clock, doing everything they can to make him comfortable and keep him from having to go to a nursing home. This is, of course, heartbreaking as I think of losing the only grandfather I've really known (my dad's father died when I was very young), and my mom and aunts and uncles losing their only living parent. However, faith takes us to a different place.

My mom's facebook status last week said, "A couple from daddy's church came by. Prayed and thanked God for all the places he had seen and all the people he had met. That's a good prayer."

I am reminded that this man has lived an amazing life - retired from the Air Force, leading people to Christ for many years as a pastor, married to the love of his life for over 50 years and then managing somehow to find joy and comfort in the five years he's lived without her. He's lived a good life, and he is finishing his days surrounded by people who love him dearly.

And so for the new year, I wish you all the peace that accompanies a life well-lived.

The Smell of Desperation

2010-12-09T22:04:00.000-06:00

We knew this day would come. We just thought it would be in another five or six years at least.

Our home has an odor problem.

At first we were perplexed by the faint smell of funk wafting from random rooms of the house. One day the problem would be in the bathroom, the next in the kitchen. We took out the garbage and checked under the couch for chocolate milk cups gone awry (not that that could happen in our house), but we found nothing.

One time, after a rainstorm, I smelled the smell in my car. I thought perhaps my carpets had gotten wet and would need to be cleaned, but the next day the smell was gone. It became one of life's great mysteries.

And then we found it.

The nasty, funky, nauseating smell is coming from Keaton's feet.

I cannot express to you how bad his shoes/socks/feet smell. At the end of the day, it rapidly permeates the air in every room Keaton enters. This problem doesn't just occur when he takes his shoes off like a normal person. No, you can smell his feet through his shoes. It's quite magnificent when you think about it.

When we realized the smell was feet, my first thoughts centered around my poor smelly kid at school. Is my kid the smelly kid? Have people noticed that the disgusting smell only shows up when Keaton's around? Does the teacher think we don't bathe him? Do kids refuse to sit by him because of the rank nastiness of his feet? Is my child's life ruined? What have I done?

I started looking for solutions. Immediately we began making him take his shoes straight to the garage to keep the smell out of the house, but then there are his socks. We can not put these deadly toxic items in the laundry hamper because of the pollution. We're still working on a plan for that.

Upon Uncle Mike's suggestion, I bought baby powder and began filling his shoes with it every night. He really likes this idea as after the powder application he takes a big whiff of the shoes and says "They smell so fresh!" It makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

Another friend suggested that perhaps the shoes got wet and have mildewed under the padding, causing the smell. I thought (and I guess I still think) this is possible, but tonight I found evidence that the day-to-day sweat is the major root cause.

I took off his nasty shoes and socks and told him to get in the bath. As he walked away, I discovered that his feet looked like white, wrinkly prunes. Yes, friends, his feet sweat so much that at the end of the day he's pruny. I was shocked! Surely this must be a serious medical condition.

So...moms, dads, aunts, uncles, random people with feet - help us! Should we seek medical advice? What kind of shoes can we buy this child? He has wide feet (sort of like flippers), so shoes are already hard to find. Are there potions or ointments or something that can cure the sweat and the subsequent smell? I don't think we can live this way until college, and it's probably going to get worse.

Desperation has set in, and it smells like feet.

Living Generously

2010-11-14T21:22:00.001-06:00

I don't really know how to start out this post, so I guess I'll use jump right in.

Trey and I would really like to be able to give substantially to people and organizations that need financial help, but we're not there yet. We have a four year plan to get to a very positive financial place, and we're about a year and a half in. In the meantime, we often discuss how we can give in other ways, mainly by serving others in our everyday lives. With Trey's true heart of a servant, he's very good at this. He's one of the most giving people I know, and I find it amazing the ways that he helps people every single day.

I have plenty of other role models, too. As long as I can remember, my parents have given freely of their time and other resources. My mom served on the city council and PTO for many years, and Dad served on the school board. They showed up at church early to make sure the heater had been turned on, picked up elderly people and took them to church or on other errands, and just took care of others around them. I have vivid memories of things like hitchhikers or homeless people showing up at the doors of the church and my dad and his friend driving them to the closest hotel and paying for the room for a night or two. While I'm not there to personally witness their continued service, I'm sure it still happens. Church, PTO, and Meals on Wheels are just a few areas where I know they give their time.

And so at the beginning of this school year I reflected on the wonderful servant examples I have in my life and decided to do my very best to live generously. Now, I perceive this to be the busiest year of my life so far. I'm finishing grad school, teaching one more class than I did last year, teaching two new preps, and taking on various other projects that are somewhat long term. Time is more precious to me this year than ever before, and living generously is sometimes a great challenge.

Instead, I find myself occasionally becoming a little self-righteous. I know I've said more than once, "If I have time to get it done, then everyone has time to get it done." This is not entirely true, however, because even though I'm busy, I have an awesome husband and great friends and family who support me, so I have the capacity to be busier than other people.

But sometimes I pull off the whole "living generously" thing, like on Friday when I was actually leaving the building at the end of the school day and a student stopped me in the hallway and asked me to review his timed writing with him. I reminded myself of my commitment and turned back down the hallway and unlocked my classroom to meet with him, smiling and chatting and trying to make sure he knew I didn't mind. It was a productive meeting, and it only cost me about ten minutes.

Today, however, I came face to face with an opportunity.

It's fifty-something degrees here in Texas, so, of course, I'm freezing. It was cold in church and colder in the restaurant where we went to eat. On the way home from the restaurant, Trey suggested we stop for coffee to warm us up on this cold, dreary day. We pulled into Hastings, and while we ordered our coffee the boys shopped for books. They each had one dollar, and they needed to spend it. Too bad you can't get anything for one dollar.

Keaton found a book for $3.99, and I told him he could have it, but then Tucker needed to find a book for $3.99, and it became a huge ordeal. For forty five minutes Trey and I followed the boys around Hastings.

Finally we made our way to the children's section at the very back of the store. Quite suddenly I saw an older woman wrapped in a ragged coat rush in and take a seat at the table located in the middle of the children's books. She muttered to herself as she pulled a small grocery sack from her tattered purse. I was trying not to look at her, but I couldn't help noticing her unkempt hair and layered clothing. Her eyes darted all around as if keeping watch, and then she pulled a lunchbox-sized bag of chips from the grocery bag and began to eat them, muttering and keeping watch all the while.

Immediately I remembered how cold I had been all day. Cold in my warm church and my heated restaurant eating warm food. I remembered that the whole reason we had stopped at Hastings was to get some coffee and warm up. And at that moment the woman looked colder than I had ever felt in my life.

Now, I believe that God speaks to us, and if we listen, then he'll tell us what to do. You may not believe that and I'm not asking you to, but I believe that's what happened today.

For five full minutes I had been holding my cup of coffee, and I hadn't taken a sip. In fact, I hadn't even taken out the little stopper to start drinking it. I realized I was holding that lady's cup of coffee.

Nerves overtook me. How was I supposed to tell this muttering woman that I had her coffee? What if she went crazy and started yelling at me? What if she wasn't really in bad shape but only having a bad day and I insulted her? I argued with myself, deciding that most people don't run to the back of a bookstore to eat a bag of chips on a cold day. Then I was nervous again.

"You know," I rattled, "I think they made me the wrong kind of coffee. Would you like this one? I don't think I want this kind, and I'd hate for it to go to waste."

She looked at me from the corner of her eye, thought for just a second, and stammered, "No thanks. I don't like coffee."

I think I should have been bummed, but I wasn't.

It felt good to have heard the Holy Spirit tell me what to do and to take the leap and do it. It felt really good. And it reminded me of all the people in my life who live generously all the time without even having to think of it.

Courtney, who makes the pre-AP copies magically appear in my box before I even realize I need them.

Trey, who makes the coffee and sets the timer so it will be ready when I get up in the mornings.

Tiffany, who lets me steal candy from her magical closet of goodness, listens to me whine on occasion, and agrees with me when she knows I just need someone to agree with me.

Erin, who let me borrow her truck and didn't think twice about it.

Freda, who is always there joyously offering to help and never makes me feel like I'm barking out orders when I give her things to do.

Kelly, who did not make me feel like a troll over the incident with her bike (perhaps another blog to come).

The list could go on and on. These are just the things I can think of from the last 48 hours. I am surrounded by people who give without ever stopping to think of what's in it for them.

Today has left me feeling blessed beyond measure and motivated to find a way to live generously each day. I was so excited, in fact, that I had to share.

The mediocre mommy has returned.

2010-10-27T18:48:00.000-05:00

It's Red Ribbon Week at schools across the nation, and with it comes different dress up instructions for each day of the week. At my sons' school, Monday was wear your shirt backwards day ("Turn Your Back on Drugs"), Tuesday was wear red ("Take a Stand for a Drug Free Land"), and Wednesday, today, is dress as your favorite book character day ("It Takes Character to Take a Stand Against Drugs").
Seriously? Dress as your favorite book character?

This sounded complicated when I glanced over the Red Ribbon Week flyer in the abyss of both boys' Monday folders last week, but it turned out not to be so complicated because I promptly forgot all about it. I suppose I subconsciously thought it sounded like too much work and totally blocked it out.

Too bad Tucker Hickman is my kid. Tucker likes to do what he's told (unless his parents tell him to do something, but that's a different blog), and that includes when he's told to dress a certain way. While I had forgotten all about the dress up day, Tucker had been plotting his costume.

Tucker came home Tuesday and filled me in on his plan, "Mom, I'm going to be Ronde and Jackson is going to be Tiki. I need a Bucs jersey for tomorrow."

Seriously? How on earth was I to find a Ronde Barber Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey in College Station, Texas, in one night? I didn't know what to do, so I gave him the standard Mediocre Mommy reply, "Let's talk about it after baths," secretly hoping he would forget all about it.

But he's Tucker, and I know better.

He hatched an elaborate plan to paint a white tee shirt into a jersey, and he even knew about fabric paint we had that I had forgotten all about. "All we need is brown," he instructed, and Trey and I immediately got sucked into his scheme.

As we talked this jersey-creation through, Keaton came proudly into the living room holding an old Batman costume and a Batman book. He was ready for dress like a book character day without me even lifting a finger. I love that kid.

But his display of independence was not up to Tucker's standards. Here's the conversation that ensued:

Tucker: Keaton, you cannot be Batman. He is not a book character.

Me: He's holding a Batman book in his hands right now.

Tucker: It doesn't matter. Batman is a movie. You are not allowed to dress as a character from a movie. There can be a movie about the book, but the book had to come first.

Me: Who says?

Tucker: Mrs. C. (his super-awesome GT teacher). We talked about how it's not really a book character unless the first place the character appeared is in a book. He can't be Batman. It's not dress like a movie character day. We talked about it in class. He can't do it.

Me (beginning to get frustrated with Mr. Literal): Well, maybe when you're in kindergarten you can dress like Batman. And Batman was a comic book first, anyway (I'm not sure if that's true, but I said it convincingly). And you worry about your own costume, not Keaton's. He can make his own decisions about things, you know.

But the battle was lost. Tucker said Keaton couldn't be Batman, so Keaton wouldn't, under any circumstances, be Batman. I wish I had that kind of pull, but hey, I'm just the mom.

Keaton and I flopped ourselves down in front of the bookshelf and began pouring through books. "I know!" he said, "I'll be a panda from Panda Bear, Panda Bear." Then "I know! I'll be Buzz Lightyear!" Clearly he was unaware that Buzz didn't fit Tucker's stringent criteria for costumes, but it didn't matter because we don't happen to have a Buzz costume laying around the house.

Finally, at 8:00 p.m., just 30 minutes before bed time, I gave up. I told Trey I was going to Walmart to get brown paint and that while I was gone he needed to convince Keaton to be Max from Where the Wild Things Are. I planned to get a headband and attach some wolf ears, put him in pants and sweatshirt, and we'd be good to go.

At Walmart, I marched straight back to the craft section and began glaring, wide-eyed, at all of the possible craft products. Wolf ears. What could I make wolf ears out of? I left there with brown felt, pipe cleaners, and a headband.

I ran back into the house around 8:20, and I threw the brown paint at Trey and asked where Keaton was.

"In his room crying," he said. "I gave up."

Determined, I went to his room and scooped him up into my arms. He wasn't just crying, he was sobbing quiet little puffs of tears as if his whole world had been ruined by this one dress up day. I felt like my poor planning had caused this great despair and I knew I had to fix it. I managed to calm him down, and back to the bookshelf we went.

I came up with three choices: Max from Where the Wild Things Are, a cowboy from Lasso the Moon, or a builder from I Love Trucks. The builder was a stretch because the book is just about big construction trucks, but, whatever, I was desperate.

He was happy for a moment, and then he once again dissolved into broken-hearted sobs. I realized then that this was a futile effort. He was too tired to care about a costume and until he got some sleep it would never be right. I put him in his bed, covered him up, and stretched out beside him hoping he would cry himself to sleep.

As his eyes began to slowly close and open, close and open, he asked, "What about my costume?"

"Baby, I will make all three costumes and lay them out in the living room floor and you can choose any one that you want when you get up in the morning," I cooed into his ear.

Wait. What? What did I just say I would do? I looked around the room to see if anyone else was there. Was that me talking? Did I just say I would put together three costumes between now and tomorrow? Someone must have slipped me something because I was clearly out of my mind.

To make matters worse, this possibility perked Keaton right up. "I want to help you put them together. Let's do it now!" he exclaimed, and realizing that this situation was getting worse by the minute, I agreed.

I assigned him the task of finding tools for the builder costume, and I joined Trey at the table where he was furiously fabric-painting Barber's Bucs jersey. Quickly, I broke out the pipe cleaners for the wolf ears. It was then that I remembered something very important.

I am not crafty.

I stared blankly at the felt and the pipe cleaners, and it occurred to me that they should sell hard liquor next to the craft supplies at Walmart. After a moment of hesitation, I dove in, cutting pipe cleaners into ear-shaped thingys and twisting them around the headband. It looked pretty good, if I do say so myself, but then I had another problem.

How in the hell was I going to get felt onto pipe cleaners?

I folded and cut and wrapped and unfolded and unwrapped, but the task seemed impossible. There was no way this was going to work, and I really wanted to just drop it all on the table and crawl into bed and pretend that "dress like a book character day" had never even been mentioned in our house.

But Keaton saved me. He got so excited looking for tools that after we finished putting together the builder costume he forgot about the other two. Trey finished blow-drying the back of the Barber jersey, successfully painted the jersey front, and the boys went to bed only 30 minutes past bedtime.

Miracle of miracles, this morning Keaton woke up, put his builder costume and "tool belt" on (I affixed tools to a regular belt with pipe cleaners -- I guess they were good for something after all), and proudly went off to school carrying a copy of I Love Trucks.

And dress like a book character day was a success. A painful one, but a success nonetheless.

Mutton-Chopped Vampires

2010-10-19T21:16:00.001-05:00

So I have this thyroid problem. It's not really a problem, I guess, it just doesn't seem to work. It quit right after Tucker was born and caused me some temporary, yet very real, insanity. Since then I just have to take a tiny pill every day so I can pretend my thyroid works like it should.

I'm supposed to take my medicine ate least two hours after eating and at least one hour before eating. This means that the window lies somewhere between second and third periods. Each morning when I get to school I put my little pill on my desk so I won't forget to take it during optimal-thyroid-replacement-hormone-time. But that's not why I'm blogging. It's just background information.

Every year or so I have to get my blood drawn and see the doctor to make sure my medication level is correct. Usually I can extend that year by a month or so by calling and begging for a refill of my prescription and promising to get in for blood work right away. Finally, I get to a point where I'm sure the doctor's office won't take my calls, and I reluctantly make my way to the lab at Scott and White.

Now, I do not mind blood, especially blood that belongs to other people. I am ridiculously calm during a crisis, and I've yet to completely panic about even the most severe injuries I've witnessed in my life. For example, I rode the bus exactly one day throughout my high school career (because I'm very resourceful and I dated boys with trucks, of course), but on that day one kid stopped on his way off the bus to break the nose of another kid seated on the bus. I opened the first aid kit for bandages, nursed the broken-nosed boy ("lean forward so you don't choke or swallow too much blood"), and directed the freaked out bus driver to stop at the nearest gas station so we could go inside and call 911. I spoke to the paramedics and even had to be washed down with that magic bleach stuff they have because I was covered in the kid's blood. The bus looked like a massacre had taken place. It was gross, but it didn't phase me.

My own blood bothers me only slightly more unless it's being intentionally withdrawn into a little glass tube. I find this process to be unnatural. The fact that someone is drawing out my blood and measuring it into a tiny container is akin to something from a science fiction movie. My mind races during the procedure, wondering, "What are they going to do with the blood when they're done? How much blood do they have stored in this lab? Does anyone ever spill it? Who has to clean that up?"

You can see why it is unfortunate that I am forced to attend regularly scheduled blood drawings once every year or so.

Alas, today I went to have my blood drawn, which is the real point of this post. I approached the window to find a young, mutton-chopped man in a lab coat sitting casually in an office chair.

Mutton-chop guy: Here for a blood draw?
Me: Yep.
Mutton-chop guy: I'm sorry. BWAAHAHAHAHAHA!

This was strange, but I decided the guy was probably a fill in for the receptionist and let it go. Ten minutes later he appeared in the doorway and called, "Stormy Hickman?"

I followed him back to a small cubicle, and he pulled the curtain closed. That's when I realized that mutton-chop, laughing, "I'm sorry" guy was about to stab me to death with a needle. I became a little nervous.

Mutton-chop guy: Right arm or left?
Me (offering up both arms): Whichever you think is best.

He then proceeded to spend a full minute staring at the insides of my elbows, making little grunting noises like "hmph" and "mmmmm." Finally, he responded, "I think the left one is best."

I realized at that moment that I had a choice to make. I could flee, run for my life to ensure my children don't have to live through a motherless future. I could maintain my composure and ask to see his credentials to calm my nerves. I had to save myself!

But I only started breathing hard and smiling bigger, hoping to ease this mutton-chopped blood-taker's nerves so that he didn't screw up.

He prepared his instruments of my torture and applied the tourniquet to my upper arm. Then he had another decision to make. Which vein?

For yet another full minute he poked and prodded the veins on the inside of my left elbow, "humphing" and "mmmming" all the while. All I could think was "He will not stick me twice. I will leave. I do not need my thyroid medicine that much. Maybe if I stop taking it my thyroid will realize that I really do need it and it will jump in and start doing its job again. What if I pass out? Will they know who to call to come get me? How come I never programmed that ICE number in my cell phone like Brian Nock told me to?"

He must have sensed my anxiety, perhaps because I was sweating profusely, and he laughed, "I didn't mean to scare you. Both veins are just so great!"

It was at that moment that I decided he must have been a vampire. Not a real vampire (I know those don't exist), but the kind of vampires that they do Dateline specials about. You know the kind I'm talking about, misunderstood, oft-mutton-chopped people who think they gain strength from drinking the fresh blood of thirty-something high school teachers. He was one of those, I decided.

But the procedure proceeded, and as the blood flowed freely from my arm into the tiny glass container that no doubt would later be fitted with a straw, I truly, honestly believed I would pass out. I wondered if the needle would remain in my arm on the way down or if it would be yanked out as I fell to the floor. I planned for which way I should fall to sustain the least injury.

And then it was over.

"Have a good day!" mutton-chop guy said cheerily.

"Thanks! You, too!" I replied.

And that was that. It may have been the longest five minutes of my life. But if I see the doctor on Thursday and he doesn't have my test results, a little part of me will wonder if my super-happy, very competent phlebotomist didn't take my sample home with him.

Pioneer Woman

2010-10-10T17:34:00.000-05:00

Several of my friends enjoy reading the Pioneer Woman's blog. I must say that while I don't usually search it out, I love reading the posts they forward to me. This evening as I cooked dinner, it occurred to me that I could, perhaps, be a pioneer woman.

If you were here, you would hear the drip, drip of milk on my keyboard. Milk that I've been stopping every few minutes and soaking my fingers in to try to counteract the intense burning sensation left after I seeded jalapenos from my garden. See? I'm just like a pioneer! I accidentally grew my own dangerously hot jalapenos and also drove to HEB to buy milk to soak my fingers in. They were accidental because I planted them last August, forgot about them, and just uncovered the plants to find lost of peppers ripe and ready. But that's neither here or there.

While at HEB I also bought a $6 bottle of wine which I opened all by myself. That's right, friends, I can open my own wine. It wasn't even screw top.

I had bacon wrapped, cream cheese stuffed jalapenos, corn on the cob, and seasoned steaks ready to go on the grill. I was feeling, dare I say it, domestic? Look out, Pioneer Woman, because the Mediocre Mommy is hot on your heels!

I went outside to light the grill, and just when I reached in to move the grates and strike up the heat, a mouse scurried out from under them.

And I screamed like a girl.

And I made Trey go outside to scare away the nasty mouse and light the grill.

Alas, now I must continue in my journey toward perfect Sunday night wifedom. My grill awaits, and I've waited sufficiently long enough for Trey to take over my cooking endeavors while I sit at the bar with my wine and good conversation (that's what usually happens, but not tonight, I guess).

That and there are now blisters forming on two of my fingers, and I can't type anymore.

Dear Pioneer Woman,
The title is all yours.
Love always,
Stormy

Crazy Love

2010-10-03T21:05:00.001-05:00

I spent a large part of my life believing that if you weren't suffering, then you were doing it wrong.

I'm talking about Christianity, of course.

Our Sunday school class is doing a study of the book Crazy Love by Frances Chan. Chapter four of the book is about lukewarm Christianity, and it left me a little perplexed.

The chapter is meant to be very convicting, and many people in our group undoubtedly felt that conviction. I, however, just got a little perturbed. I remarked that "I'm just over-analytical of books in general," but I admit that I may feel a little twinge of jealousy for those who got more out of the chapter than I. In fact, I found the author arrogant and manipulative, which is probably what closed my mind to the message he was trying to get across.

Statements like these fueled my fire:

"According to the account in Luke chapter eight, when a crowd started following Him, Jesus started speaking in parables -- 'so that' those who weren't genuinely listening wouldn't hear it. The fact is, He just wasn't interested in those who fake it" (66).
My thought: So Jesus only wanted to talk to those who wanted to hear? How does this resolve itself with the Great Commission? This statement implies that Jesus was being tricky to weed out the "unchosen." I read the scripture, and I'm having a hard time reconciling it to the Jesus who reaches out to those who need him most desperately. This feels like a predestination conversation, and I'm not up for that right now. I should definitely study this further.

"I think most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns" (67).
My thought: This is a gross overgeneralization. I don't know this man, and I'm reasonably certain that he's never been to College Station, Texas, Rice, Texas, or any other number of places in America. It's simply not possible for him to have the realm of experience to decide that "most American churchgoers" are anything. To determine that the people of the church are the hindrance that keeps others from growing in Christ is ludicrous. At least that's what I think.

"Lukewarm people are thankful for their luxuries and comforts, and rarely consider trying to give as much as possible to the poor. They are quick to point out, 'Jesus never said money is the root of all evil, only that the love of money is.' Untold numbers of lukewarm people feel 'called' to minister to the rich; very few feel 'called' to minister to the poor" (75).
My thought: Are we just not supposed to notice the "love of" part? Is it okay to notice it as long as we don't point it out? What exactly are these rich people ministries he speaks of? Are rich people immune to the need for ministry simply because they have wealth?

As you can see, I was so wrapped up in my vehement disagreement with these statements and others that I found it impossible to search for the positives. I've read the chapter again, and I did find redeeming qualities -- the fact that I don't always (I'll go so far as to say "often") put Christ first and the idea that I don't save up love for those who have wronged me (or my family) again and again. There is one person in particular whom I have deliberately shut out from my life because I find him to be "not worth it." It's sad, but it's true, and I freely admit it. I suppose there is an element of conviction there.

But what is conviction? This author gives me the impression that it's finding reasons to feel really terrible about yourself, and I have a hard time with that. It goes back to what I spent a big part of my life believing -- that if I wasn't suffering, then I wasn't being a good Christian.

Scriptures like "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (from Nehemiah 8) and "delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (from Psalm 37) teach me that going around in a funk all the time is no way to be. Radical Christianity is not necessarily living in poverty, weeping constantly at the terrible ills of the world.

I believe my best witness is to be positive and glorify God in all things, giving Him credit out loud for all of my blessings. I know I'm not worthy of any of the gifts I've received in my life, large or small, and the fact that I serve a God of grace is reason to rejoice rather than a reason to lament. Does that mean I am successful 100% of the time? Absolutely not! But I find little value in rolling around in my imperfections and great value in finding new ways to glorify God in my life.

All of this feels a little like "blah blah blah...I thought the book was stupid." That's not the case at all. I'm glad that the book has made a positive impact on many people, even many of the people I know. I'm looking forward to the next chapter that is titled "Serving Leftovers to a Holy God." I won't be in class for the discussion because I'll be at a baseball tournament. Should I feel more guilty about that than I do?

After this reading, discussion, and lengthy post, I've come to realize one thing. That I am enough for God. I don't have to clean myself up and do a better job at Christianity to earn his love and grace. He gives that to me freely, whether this book offers me a great conviction or not. Do I want to do a better job serving my Father God every day? Definitely. Do I feel humbled and unworthy in the presence of my Savior? Every day. Do I think the author of this text went a little overboard in his arrogant attempt to humble believers? Yes, I do.

But I'll finish the book and maybe my opinion will change.

This post isn't funny or witty, but it's an exercise in what I tell students - sometimes writing about a subject is the best way to figure out how you feel about it. Don't misconstrue my musings as me considering myself a Biblical scholar who has it all figured out because there's probably nothing farther from the truth.

Please don't decide to hate the book because of my one-sided, out of context excerpts because that's just not fair to Mr. Chan. You can visit his web site at http://www.crazylovebook.com/. If you read or have read the book, let me know what you think. If nothing else, it's been very thought-provoking for me.

A Massage in the Mall

2010-09-10T18:20:00.001-05:00

Today I reached a new level of bravery and uninhibitedness. I got a massage in the mall.

For the last three days, I've had this weird crick in my neck. (Hmmm...writing the word "crick" seems odd, but I don't know what else to call it.) It's traveled up and down my back right along my spine, and then it finally settled itself in right underneath my right shoulder blade. Suffering all weekend seemed like a terrible idea, and my brain recalled the little square in the mall with those massage chairs that just ooze relaxation. I wavered, wondering if I could actually relax in the middle of the mall, but the crick beat out my modesty, and off to the mall I went.

I quickly walked up to a stern looking Chinese lady, wondering who was watching me sign up for the mall massage. She pointed to the nearest chair, which I straddled and mounted under her direction. "There's nothing strange about doing this in the middle of the mall," I tried to convince myself.

Massage lady: You need thirty minutes, yes?

Me: Um...uh...I think I just need twenty minutes.

Massage Lady: Okay. Twenty minutes. We start now.

And boy did she start! She was the strongest massage lady I've ever been privileged to meet in my life, and I knew immediately that I had made a great decision in choosing this mall massage on this Friday afternoon.

After a few minutes, she tapped me on the shoulder. "

Massage Lady: Lady?

Me (as I looked up with my foggy, relaxed eyes): Yes

Massage Lady (holding up an ominous dark bottle with a green liquid inside and Chinese letters on the outside): You have very tight muscles. You need traditional Chinese medicine, okay?

Me: Okay.

Massage Lady: Two dollars more.

Me: Yes, of course

Now, it never occurred to me to ask what she would do with this traditional Chinese medicine. After I nestled my head back into the face pillow she could have poured it over my head and I wouldn't have cared. I felt that by identifying my tight muscles she had seen into my soul.

I had just a moment when I thought I should lean back, pull up an actual chair, and unload the last week of my life upon her. "It's been a long week," I would say, and then I would proceed to tell her all about how sometimes I'm overemotional and take things to seriously and let others get the best of me and fail to see another person's perspective and how I just want what's best for everyone in this great green earth and why can we all get along and we are the world, we are the children, and imagine all the people. I thought for a moment that perhaps I should tell her these things, and then she would give me a wise smile and some ancient Chinese words of wisdom and the tension in my muscles would melt away as if my magic and I would walk away a better person.

But, instead, she rubbed the green liquid on my upper back under my shirt, and I became keenly aware of the fact that this woman was giving me a rub down in the middle of the mall.

My acknowledgment of my surroundings was short-lived, however, as I soon became lost once again in the idea that massages are, in fact, the greatest thing in all the world and that this traditional Chinese medicine (which seemed a lot like traditional Chinese icy hot) had been passed down for thousands of years in order to my make day better.

Then she starting punching my butt.

Yes, friends, she starting punching my butt. And I remembered once again that I was in the mall.

I thought of the people walking by asking themselves who in their right mind would allow a stranger to punch her butt in the middle of the mall, right outside the food court.

The butt-punching soon ended, and then she began to punch my thighs and poke my calves, and I wavered back and forth between being mortified and so incredibly contented that I wanted to hug the Massage Lady and buy her a drink at Sonic.

Twenty minutes later, my experience was over. As I walked away from that little square in the mall, my neck and back felt better, and I felt I had grown as a person. I held my head high, knowing that the scorn of mall-watchers would never again keep me from these magical healing powers.

I suppose I was healed.

First Week of School

2010-08-29T21:50:00.000-05:00

I kept waiting this week for some phenomenally hilarious thing to happen during the first week of school so that I could blog about it, but it was a pretty boring week as first weeks of school go. My students were great, my kids liked their teachers and friends, and life shifted from summer laziness and fun to school year homework and grading like someone flipped a switch. We at the Hickman house love routine, so everyone seems to be calmer and happier this week even though we're all pretty tired.

It was on Thursday that the school nurse called me right at the beginning of my conference period. Keaton was having an asthma attack, and he didn't have an inhaler at school yet. Just the day before I'd sent the medical permission form with Keaton and his mimi to the allergist so that we could send the inhaler to school legally. After several conversations and a phone call to Trey, we relented to the fact that our allergist only signs forms on Fridays, and no little thing like my son's health was going to change that.

Here I was, less than 24 hours later, rushing home to get an inhaler to Keaton's school on my conference period because he couldn't breathe. The nurse called two more times while I was on my way (a ten minute drive) because he was clearly in distress. By the time I got there he was struggling for breath, and it was pretty scary. With his medicine he recovered quickly, and I took him to his mimi's for the rest of the afternoon.

I was furious. I cussed the allergist over and over again (alone, to myself in the car) for putting my son's health at risk and vowed to switch doctors immediately. I also reflected on the fact that I'd just taught my son on the fourth day of school that if you go to the nurse and look pitiful then someone will come to take you to Mimi's. He's a smart kid, so I knew he would use that to his best advantage.

Friday morning came, and Keaton refused to go to school. He said he was sick and needed to stay home. To us, he seemed to have a little cold, but overall he looked more like a kid who just wanted to hang out all day.

He kicked, he screamed, he flatly refused, he cried -- and still we sent him off to school.

Around eleven, Trey left work to give Keaton another dose of cold medicine, and when he arrived at the school he found Keaton already in the nurse's office. The nurse insisted that Keaton needed to see a doctor soon and that he couldn't stay at school. So off to Mimi's he went again, and Trey made a doctor's appointment for the afternoon.

As Keaton and I waited to see the doctor, we played a little battleship on my phone. When they called his name around 4:20, he quickly became short of breath. Before I could give him his inhaler, the nurses checked his oxygen levels, and that's when it got crazy.

Did you know that if your oxygen level is too low, then the little oxygen checker machine flashes red and makes loud beeping sounds? Well, it does, and it did on Friday afternoon.

The pediatrician rushed in, they dosed Keaton with steroids and started a nebulizer treatment immediately. All I could think was "And we kept sending him to school. We are the worst parents ever." Trey left work and joined us at the doctor. Minutes before he was breathing hard, but he was also playing battleship and shouting "YESSSS!!" every time he hit an enemy ship. Now this seemed like it could be serious.

One and a half hours, lots of prescriptions, two neb treatments, one dose of steroids, and a signed medical form for an inhaler at school later, we left the doctor's office.

After all that, Keaton is doing much better. He's taking oral steroids and inhaled steroids for five days, so I hope his teacher is prepared for Keaton on crack.

Remember my posts about Tucker on steroids? How he gets really mean and violent? Well, that doesn't happen to Keaton at all. In fact, the only way that Keaton on Steroids is like Tucker on Steroids is that his personality is exacerbated.

Keaton is happy, giggly, joyful, excited, ridiculous, and everything else he normally is, but times one hundred. He's been talking non-stop for three days, only it goes like this:

"Mom I need some drums for Christmas can Santa fit drums down the chimney? I found a place for them next to the piano but not on the side by the bathroom on the other side who will play the piano while I play my drums can you play the piano? maybe dad can play the piano because when I play my drums it will be awesome like dumdumdumdum and maybe I can play bust it because I like that song do you think tucker wants some drums? can I have some lemonade? Yum lemonade ice cold lemonade do we have any ice? i need ice cold lemonade with ice see it's ice cold because it has ice in it it's awesome."

Yesterday Trey actually asked him to go jump on his bed, and he happily obliged -- jumping and jumping and jumping and singing Don't Stop Believing at the top of his lungs and playing air guitar and calling things like lemonade and drums and Big Time Rush "awesome" over and over again.

In summary, we are the meanest parents in all the world, sending our very sick son to school twice, Keaton's allergist sucks big time and will be receiving a scathing letter as soon as I can get things set up at the new allergist, and Keaton is currently a hilarious crackhead.

All of this is to say that surely the second week of school will bring me something phenomenally hysterical. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted.

Dear Ms. F,

2010-08-21T19:18:00.000-05:00

Thank you for serving as Keaton's kindergarten teacher. I know he will have wonderful educational experiences in your classroom, and I admire you for entering the noble profession of teaching our community's children.

When my oldest child went to kindergarten, my only real worry was that he would drive his teacher insane with his incessant questioning of everything. I suggested that she direct him to the classroom computer and google whenever necessary, and we had an uneventful year.

Keaton, however, is a different sort of kid. He's my baby, mostly because I baby him. It's not entirely my fault, however, as I'm sure you witnessed during Meet the Teacher when his brother answered every single question for him. Keaton likes to be the baby, and we, unfortunately, have encouraged that in him.

I don't want to be that parent, but there are some things you should know.

1) Sometimes, not very often but sometimes, Keaton chooses to just pee where ever he is. Please don't misunderstand, he is most certainly potty trained and has been since he was two. He just prefers to not stop whatever he's doing for the inconvenience of visiting the nearest bathroom. This may mean that he finds a tree or shrub on which to relieve himself, but it may also mean he'll just pee in his pants right where he is.

2) I know at Meet the Teacher is was cute when you asked him if he knew how to write his name and he said, "I know how. It's just boring." I want to assure you that we don't encourage him to call schoolwork or other requests from adults "boring," he simply has his own opinions about what seems worth his effort. He does, in fact, know how to write his name.

3) Regarding schoolwork, we have had many conversations about always doing what the teacher asks even if it is boring. Unfortunately, I'm not certain he is listening during these conversations because he is often playing air guitar and pretending to be a rock star during our serious moments. I find I can get his partial attention while he jumps on his bed and sings "Bust a Move," but I'm afraid that's the only time I can think of when he listens to me. Are there beds in kindergarten for him to jump on?

4) This lunch number thing might be a problem. It seems I left his lovely red parent information folder in my other son's classroom when we put away school supplies there, so I don't have it to drill into him this weekend. I have considered writing it on his hand each morning, but I'm not convinced it will remain there until lunch. Don't worry about him going hungry, though, as I'm certain he will charm the other students into giving up their apples and pudding and chocolate milk. Speaking of hunger, no matter how pitiful he sounds when he says, "I'm STARVING!! I haven't eaten in SO LONG" we did feed him a hearty breakfast.

5) Please know that we do not encourage impromptu concerts, dance-offs, storytelling marathons, or climbing during instructional time. No matter what he tells you, we did not say it was okay for him to do that in class.

Dearest teacher, thank you for your commitment to our son, and may God richly bless you for what you're about to undertake. Our prayers are with you.

Love,
The Hickmans

A Leper on Steroids, The Sequel

2010-08-01T19:46:00.000-05:00

First, steroids make Tucker's face swell. Not in a weird elephant-man way, but more like a chipmunk storing acorns for the winter (Do chipmunks eat acorns? Let's say yes for the sake of the simile). Since he's a pretty scrawny little boy, the chipmunk face is pretty noticeable and quite adorable.

But that's where the cuteness ends.

Steroids take some of Tucker's personality traits and exacerbate them a great deal. For example, Tucker is a very smart little boy, a fact that he gladly shares on a regular basis by correcting other people and explaining random facts for no apparent reason. Today while we sat in the car wash he named 29 of the 44 U.S. presidents in seven minutes by playing Sporcle on my iphone. Perhaps it was the steroids that helped him remember people like Garfield and Taft.

In addition, he feels the need to make sure I know that he knows how to do virtually everything. Last night I was putting a DVD on for him and Keaton, and after I pushed "play" the next screen came up asking whether we wanted widescreen or normal screen (or whatever the second choice is called). Before I could even consider my screen choices, Tucker shouted at me, "You have to push play again! You have to pick a screen size! You're not done!"

It's a good thing he was there to yell instructions because I've never started a DVD before in all my 33 years of life. Arrrrggghhhhh!!!

As I said, these are some of his normal personality traits that just seem more pronounced since he started the drugs. But perhaps the most distinctive side effect of the steroids is the uninhibited rage displayed by my seven year old.

On day two of the 'roids, Keaton was asking Tucker a question about something, and Tucker was, of course, completely ignoring him as is his custom. Suddenly Tucker turned into the Incredible Hulk, veins bulging from his neck and forehead, fire shooting from his eyes, and from his mouth came this terrible demon voice screaming "MAKE HIM STOP TALKING I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE I'M ABOUT TO PUNCH HIM IF HE DOESN'T STOP RIGHT NOW!"

And I beleived he really would do it. I quickly snatched Keaton from Angry Tucker's reach and fled the room to concoct a plan to handle this monster that was now living in my house. Over the next hours and days we walked on egg shells around Tuck, trying not to rile the demon lying just below the surface. Keaton was brave, as little brothers are, and often taunted or picked at Tucker, at which time he became a tackling dummy that Tucker literally lifted off the ground and slammed into the carpet like a t.v. wrestler. It was ugly.

So I did the thing every mother does when her kids are out of control. I sent them both to my mom's for a few days.

Alas, they had to come home eventually, and there were about four days of the medicine left. Keaton taunted Tucker, Tucker body-slammed him into the ground, and on and on and on. Tucker even got so angry that his Incredible Hulk came out and, shaking uncontrollably, he shouted "I HATE KEATON HICKMAN!" This is the first time we've heard this statement and a grand admonishment followed, steroids or not.

Finally, during one of Tucker's lighter moments when he realized he may have actually hurt Keaton, I decided to reason with the monster.

"Tucker, your medicine is fighting with your brain. Your brain knows what good choices are and what bad choices are, but your medicine only likes the bad choices. It's going straight to your brain and trying to convince it to make the bad choices. You have to have a strong brain! Your brain has to beat the medicine, so you're going to have to think really hard about what you're doing until you're done taking it."

This seemed to hit home for Tuck, as he loves a brain challenge, and the next few minutes were uneventful. Small victories, right?

About fourteen minutes later the fighting and screaming started again, and we all decided to just count the days until the steroids were over and be happy that Tucker's skin was better and that he wasn't at school beating the hell out of random kids. At least he was beating up family, right?

It's been about five days since his last dose, and I can tell that the medicine is slowly leaving his system as his face deflates. I can also tell it's not completely gone because as Keaton got out of the bath tonight and walked past Tucker, Tucker turned and punched him in the face.

Good times.

A Leper on Steroids

2010-07-31T23:25:00.002-05:00

If you or someone you know has suffered with eczema, then you understand that it's horrible and terrible.

Ours is worse.

Okay, I don't really know that ours is worse, but if yours is worse than ours, then you are have some seriously terrible skin and we should form a support group together.

We constantly battle the boys' bad skin. It looks good, then it flares, then it looks awful, then it's good, and such is our life. We valiantly fight staph a few times a year, but that's the only really exciting part. Our pediatrician has always done a good job helping us manage, and two years ago we went to the allergist who discovered both boys have egg allergies and Keaton also has a peanut allergy. In addition, Keaton is allergic to pretty much everything they tested him for (except cockroaches...weird), and he's been taking allergy shots since he was three. He is the best allergy-shot-taker in the world, and he has never cried. The allergy discovery pretty much cleared up Keaton's major skin problems, but Tucker is a different story.

As I said, we have always managed it. But last year, in first grade, I think he started to notice that everyone else didn't look like a leper, too. Then, in summer baseball, we noticed the other kids asking Tucker about his skin, and we decided that we'd exhausted the resources of the pediatrician and allergist and it was time to see the dermatologist.

We did not, however, see the dermatologist in the way that we planned.

In early July, Tucker a little bit of nasty staph on his skin. We can tell because we think we're doctors. Keaton had staph about two weeks before, which confirmed our diagnosis. Tucker took an antibiotic that didn't do the trick, so I hauled him in to the pediatrician again. They put him on bactroban and we went on our merry way.

Seven days later, we woke up to this all over his body (including his face):

Sidebar #1: Yes, I am the mother in the doctor's office taking a picture of her son's condition with her iphone. At some point it occurred to me that we'll all wonder some day if it was really as bad as we remembered, and I wanted future verification.

He looked ridiculous. I called the pediatrician's office and took the first possible appointment. It wasn't our regular doctor, but I didn't care. The first pediatrician called in another pediatrician and a student doctor, and they together decided that he looked bad, and he needed to see a dermatologist quickly.

They prescribed him something for itching and made us another appointment. That afternoon we saw the dermatologist, who called in another dermatologist and a student, and together they worked through possible causes and treatments.

I think they think he had a reaction to the bactroban (which he had taken many times before) because it is a sulfa drug. Please consult your doctor before believing anything medical that I say, but I think our bodies have a sort of sulfa threshold, and when the body reaches its maximum capacity it reacts. In Tucker's case, it reacts badly.

Sidebar #2: When you see six doctors in one day, you're doing something special. When we left the dermatologist's office he just shook his head and said, "One thing is for sure. I am certain that this is the worst case I'll see today."

In the days that followed, Tucker took a double dose of steroids, a large amount of anti-itch medicine, and participated in nightly "wet wraps" where we dipped his clothes in warm water, covered him with a steroid ointment, and them made him wear the wet clothes for 30 minutes, covering him in blankets straight from the dryer when the clothes started to make him cold. Good times.

Have you ever been around a seven year old with "roid rage"? What about a double dose of it? Let me tell you friends, it ain't pretty.

In fact, it's ugly enough to warrant its own post tomorrow.

Why I Briefly Hated Baseball, game three

2010-07-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

not really. Game three was a fun, exciting game and we lost by about two points, I think. It was just like summer baseball should be.

This post, rather, serves as the culmination of the previous two regarding acceptable baseball behavior. The following are the rules for heckling in baseball.

1) Never, ever heckle your own kid. When the ball rolled right between his legs, he knew he should have stopped it. Screaming those directions to him at the top of your lungs in front of his teammates and their parents will not "drive the message home" but will instead serve to humiliate him. Acceptable responses to a son who misses a ball include, "Good try," "You'll get it next time," or even the helpful "Don't forget to get your glove on the ground." I find that the last one works best if you follow it with some term of endearment. For example, "That's okay, babe, get your glove on the ground next time and you'll have it!"

2) Don't heckle your own team. I know there are certain major league franchises who deem this acceptable, but I do not. The other night at the Bombers game our pitcher was having some trouble, and a group of teenage boys behind me starting yelling about how awful his pitches were. In my head, I told them to take their prissy little butts to the visitor side if they didn't like our pitching, but I did not say this aloud (you're welcome, Trey). Teams encourage one another. They do not insult and degrade one another. Take this as a life lesson, if you will.

3) Clapping when someone on the other team strikes out is acceptable only in high school games or above. I have no rationale for this, except that I'm making these rules and I like this one.

4) Heckling of the opposite team is acceptable only in post-high school and above and only if it's funny. For example, at the Bombers games, when the opposing team does something stupid (like miss an easy ball), the announcer plays a sound bite of Homer Simpson, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you your moron." I know it sounds mean, but it's pretty darn funny so it's okay in my book.

In addition, the folks that sit in front of us are very good at heckling the other team. One night our opponent's short stop had something like four errors in a row, so the Bombers fans below us kindly suggested that perhaps their coach would like for that young man to play pitcher as well. And first base. And catcher. I don't think this was mean, as they were clearly trying to get the athlete more playing time and a more diverse baseball experience.

5) Before heckling an outfielder who has missed a fly ball, first confirm that there are no injuries. Cheering and congratulating the player for earning your team another run just seems crass if he's obtained a broken leg in the process. I'm sure a simple thank you note later will suffice.

Ah, baseball. I never knew how much I enjoyed it until I was an adult with children of my own. The steamy summer nights, the intense competition, and the $2 margaritas on Wednesdays really bring me much joy. If only all fans would adopt these heckling rules, all of my baseball experiences will be perfect.

That and $2 margaritas on Friday nights, too.

Why I Briefly Hated Baseball, game two

2010-06-27T16:13:00.001-05:00

Game two.

All afternoon when Tucker brought up the game I reminded him how important it is to always play hard and never give up. We talked about character.

And somewhere in the bottom of my black heart I hoped for rain, hurricanes, tornadoes, and any other natural disaster that would destroy the baseball fields and cause the tournament season to be permanently suspended so we never had to play another game. Alas, the sun shone and we showed up at the field right on time.

As the members of the other team began to trickle in, I was shocked to see they were not the amazon children of the previous night. No, they were somewhat normal in size and did not even bring entourages. My hopes soared - we might be able to get a few outs and score a few points in this game.

I texted Trey (who was still at work), "We should be able to hang with this team!" Win or lose, it wouldn't be the discouraging beat-down of the previous night. I loved baseball again.

The whole thing was a nail-biter. They scored four runs in the top of the inning; we scored three runs in the bottom. They went three and out on offense in the top; we never got a kid on base in the bottom. It was thrilling, this little league battle of skill and focus. We shouted to our kids - "good play!" and "you'll get it next time!" It actually occurred to me that this was what baseball should be like -- friendly competition and excitement.

Until somewhere around the fifth inning. One of the other team's parents was running the scoreboard, and he neglected to give us one of the points we'd earned. I've run the scoreboard before, and I spent the entire game in fear of getting screamed at for errors, so the missing point disturbed me but not to the point of concern.

Until we run-ruled the inning with five points. Our boys should have been in the dug-out getting their gloves, and instead we were sending another kid to the plate. I think one of the coaches must have noticed and told the umpire because he ended the inning. This drew whisperings and then shouts of confusion from the stands. We only had four recorded points according to the scoreboard, and people were confused as to why the inning was over. Parents in the stands began telling the scorekeeper that the board should read thirteen instead of twelve, but he wouldn't listen. In fact, he was adamant that we only had twelve points and refused to change it. Finally the umpire had to come over and make him add the point. In one instant, the game went from intense, friendly competition to some parallel universe where people's lives depend on the outcome of little league games.

And I got a little riled up. It was whisper-y crazy, in my defense, but crazy nonetheless. I was fired up about that point. Why would you think the parent's on your opponent's team would lie to you about a point? The inning was over according to the official, so the evidence clearly supported that those parents were right and you had made a mistake. Why be so rude about it?

As I whispered these thoughts to Trey, he just stared at me with that "you're turning into the crazy mom" look, and I made a mental note to work on my self-control.

In the bottom of the sixth, we were down by two points. We quickly scored twice to tie up the game, and I'm not kidding when I tell you that the tension on that field and in the stands was rivaled only by a world cup game complete with horns. It was edge-of-your-seat, intense baseball -- played by seven year olds.

The next batter approached the plate and hit a beautiful grounder that the opposing team fielded, but an overthrow allowed our runner on third to run into home. The stands erupted with cheers from one team and gasps from the other as this battle of the titans came to an end, but our opponent's bench erupted with something else.

The coaches were screaming and taunting the umpire about how we had done something illegal. The umpire said a few words we couldn't hear from the stands, and then he simply exited the field. As we began collecting our water bottles and Keaton's toys, we saw the coach from the other team storm off the field, on a mission. Word passed through the stands that he was going to get the league official.

If I was fired up before, then now I was going to explode. I'm afraid my mouth began moving faster than my brain at that moment (in a normal voice this time, no more whispers), "My son is out there and these people are teaching him that when you lose you should get angry and yell and throw a fit, and this is unacceptable! I am appalled! We won, life will go on, I promise. Let it go!" And I hated baseball and swore to never let Tucker play summer ball again for the rest of his life.

The league official did come to the field, and after some on-field conversation our runners went back to third and first and the opposing team grabbed their gloves and went back onto the field. I found out later that the concern was over the league rules regarding overthrows, and I still don't know if our run was legal or not. Apparently in the on-field conversation our coach said something to the effect of, "We won. But if you need us to play one more run we'll do it."

Our next batter jacked a fly ball to the outfield on the first pitch and our third base runner scored within a matter of seconds. Even with the preceding scene, the outcome of the game was not changed except for that last batter who now gets to tell stories of his spectacular hit.

And this team, this young, underdog team that had had the life pounded out of them the night before, got a win. A real-live big win, earned twice, and with a real-life example of good sportsmanship thrown in as a bonus.

And I loved baseball again.

Why I Briefly Hated Baseball, game one

2010-06-25T22:34:00.002-05:00

or, as an alternate title, Heckling Etiquette for Baseball Fans.

This year, my son was eligible to try out for "All Stars" with our local Little League, only they didn't call it All Stars, just "Summer League," and rumor had it that all of the kids would make teams. Given Tucker's obsession with baseball and his natural athleticism (at least the seven year old version of athleticism), we were happy to let him try out.

The night of try outs arrived and we reached the ball field ready to watch our kid show his stuff. We soon realized that this wasn't just an itty-bitty "show what you can do" kind of evening. Around 60 kids were quickly being shuffled from one drill to the next - stop three grounders, catch three fly balls, figure out where the play is in a game situation, go, go, go. At each station there were men, I assume coaches, taking down every awesome save and every grievous mistake on little clipboards. This was serious business.

Tucker was not the best kid out there, and he's kind of small for his age, so I left the tryouts happy that all the kids would make it because Tucker wasn't one of the top players, and I just flat out don't believe he's old enough to be told he isn't good enough for anything. He's seven, and he has lots of rejection to live through - it's part of life - but at seven he should think he is physically capable of absolutely anything. I disliked the experience as a whole, and I suddenly hated baseball.

That Saturday we were supposed to get a call about what team he would be on, but no call came. Sunday, no call. Monday, no call.

Finally, I got an email from a dad we knew pretty well. His son and Tucker had played on the same soccer team when they were five, and we loved that team. All of the parents were nice and the kids were good - it was probably the best sports season Trey and I have had, and I feel like we've had quite a few. The dad, Brandon, said that Tucker would be on his team, and he gave some instructions about when they would practice, etc. The boys would practice Monday through Friday for the first two weeks of June. This sounded a little miserable to us, but Tucker was in absolute heaven.

When the roster of all the kids came, I realized that they were ALL seven. The age group was seven and eight year olds as of April 15th, so I knew there were nine year olds playing on the other teams. I knew immediately that our team was made up of the youngest players from tryouts - some of them barely seven.

But they were scrappy little seven year olds. They worked so hard in practice, and we saw them improve so much. There were several really good coaches, and the practices were almost as serious as the tryouts, meant to make the boys better skill-wise. I was happy that Tucker had made this team, even if it looked like they might go two-and-out in the tournament. I loved baseball again.

The night of the first game finally arrived, and Tucker proudly wore his black jersey - the first uniform he's had with "Hickman" on the back. From the time he got up that morning, he was focused and pumped and excited. He was so excited, in fact, that we made it to the ball field around fifteen minutes before the designated arrival time because I couldn't listen to him beg to leave the house for the game anymore.

Just after I took my seat in the bleachers and opened the book I was reading as my pre-game warm-up, the other team - and their parents - swarmed the field. I was aghast! This couldn't be the team we were playing. The kids looked twelve. I double-checked to make sure we were at the right field, and I started hating baseball again.

The parents from the somewhat local team (a small town nearby) moved in on the field like troops going to battle, rolling up their coolers and unloading their lawn chairs right in front of the bleachers. In a matter of minutes, the entire fence behind home plate was lined with parents in their blue team shirts, creating a sea of intimidation for our young, hard working team.

Now, I must say that I've never understood the phenomenon of putting lawn chairs against the fence in front of the bleachers. Clearly, the bleachers are there so people can sit in them and watch the game, so the chairs in front of them eliminate the view from the entire first row. This makes no sense to me. And it wasn't the only thing that didn't make sense.

These parents were loud. Annoying loud. I can deal with shouts of encouragement, but I can only describe what they were doing as heckling their own children. It began in pregame warm-ups and continued throughout the game. If a kid missed the ball, his dad would shout "What are you doing? You should have had that!" On and on it went, and it made me a nervous wreck. I whispered to Trey that I had the most self-control of anyone in the whole world because I wanted, so badly wanted, to scold them.

Here's how it played out in my head:

Crazy Parent (jumps out his chair, screams at his own kid): Get your glove on the ground! It went right by you!

Me: Sit down, ya loony! None of us want to see the sweat crease running down the crack of your shorts!

Crazy Parent (disgusted): Aw...why did you swing at that?

Me: Maybe if you wouldn't spend all your money on chaw and Lone Star, you could buy your poor kid some glasses.

And on and on it went in my head. They yelled, and I came up with hilarious, witty insults to throw back at them. And I chose to keep my mouth shut. My husband was very proud.

I think it goes without saying that the other team "drilled us" in Tucker's words. I don't remember the score, but they had somewhere around twenty, and the game was called for run-rule in the fourth inning. It was probably their parents never-ending heckling that made them so good. Our formerly excited, baseball-loving kids were dejected and, I think, a little embarrassed.

And because the tournament was double-elimination, we had to play again the next night.

And I hated baseball.

Slobs

2010-06-08T14:38:00.001-05:00

I'm raising slobs.

That's right. My kids would never consider actually picking up after themselves unless I threaten to remove all pleasure from their daily lives. I'm raising slobs, and it's all my fault.

See, I like things to be picked up. Don't check the backside of my ceiling fans or anything because cleaning is not exactly my strong point, but I can't stand it when there is crap everywhere (or the plural "craps" as my friend C would say). How do I make my life better? I pick up the craps and put them away.

Every mom in the great green world knows that no matter what it is (cleaning included), it's easier just to do it yourself than to beg, plead, threaten, and beg again for the kids to do it. In addition, if I pick up the craps they will be put where they belong rather than under the bed, in the closet, in the dog's kennel or any other place where they can't be seen anymore.

Sidenote: Contrary to popular belief, just because something is out of sight does not mean it is "put away."

Alas, my kids are slobs because the husband and I pick up after them all of the time. But the times they are a'changin.

It's summer, and my goal this summer is to teach my kids to voluntarily pick up their own craps. I know what you're thinking, sounds crazy, right? Only in a perfect family utopia would kids actually get toys out, play with them, and then put them away, right? Well, friends, we're on our way to that utopia right here in the Hickman house.

We haven't actually left the station yet, but I've started to believe it can be done, and that's probably half the battle, right?

I've decided I have to attack each child's sloppiness in a unique way. First, let's talk about Tucker because he's the easiest to intimidate. He knows rules and he follows them, much like his dad, so he's my first target.

Tucker's life activities involve only baseball. He's either at baseball practice, tossing a ball in the air, watching baseball games, or analyzing the MLB draft (sometimes all at once). You would think that playing baseball wouldn't be messy, needing only a glove and ball, but you'd be wrong. I don't think Tucker can so much as touch a ball without getting out his glove, his dad's glove, two bats, home plate, catcher's gear, a jersey for the team he wants to pretend to be on that day, and ten or twelve million wiffle balls.

My plan for Tucker is a Gale Greeson special. I'm going to tell him once to pick up his stuff, and then I'm going to start loading it in a trash bag. This genius plan operates under the assumption that if he leaves it out, it must be trash because of course he would put away things that are important to him, right? If I'm firm and stick with the plan, I think I can have him on the utopia train in about a week.

Then if I can just convince him to pick up the "crust" of his pop tarts when he's done with them, we'll be in great shape. You may be thinking "aren't pop tarts all crust?" Yes, they are, however, Tucker only eats the part that has filling in the middle and leaves the outside edges all over the place for someone else to come pick up. I wish I was kidding.

Keaton, on the other hand, is going to be a little more difficult. If I were to load up his stuff in a trash bag, he would cross his arms, set a scowl on his face, and announce "I don't care. I don't like that stuff anyway." I know this from experience.

I have to find a way to bribe him. Money? Candy? Grapefruit? (he loves grapefruit) If you have any ideas, please post a comment and enlighten me.

I can see the picked-up home utopia on the horizon, and I am determined to make it there before the fall. I am determined!

The Posterboard

2010-06-01T12:53:00.006-05:00

Well, crap.

I was faced with my worst nightmare: a blank white posterboard that I was supposed to "decorate to reflect Keaton's time at Longmire." The major problem was that it was blank and I had to decorate it. I hate to decorate things. It's why I can't be an elementary school teacher -- I am automatically disqualified by my inability to make clever and cute bulletin boards.

For the first few days, I let the posterboard sit on the dining room table, staring up at me with its incredible blankness, mocking my lack of craftiness. Keaton wanted to start coloring it with random crayons right away, but I convinced him we needed a plan. Tucker, the King of Plans, immediately got some paper and began to sketch possible configurations of the poster's design.

I knew that if I decorated that poster, it would look like I had turned a herd of two year olds loose on the thing. It actually occurred to me, somewhere in the evil parts of my soul, to let the dog pee on it, then splatter on some grape jelly, and glue on a couple of pictures of my little man and call it "art." I envisioned myself explaining to everyone at graduation how it was "an exact replica of a very expensive piece I saw when I took the boys to Paris last summer because they were just begging to visit all the great galleries." I figured my "art" would probably smell, so I quickly ditched the plan.

Finally, it hit me. I don't have to be crafty. I just have to know crafty people. I quickly dialed my friend Tiffany to beg a favor. We agreed that Friday after school we'd make a trip to the local craft store together (I couldn't be trusted to go alone), and then she would come over with her amazing box of crafting gear and make the poster.

At the craft store, Keaton picked out some construction stickers and then we began looking for paper. The stickers had yellow on them, so I suggested some orange paper I found. Gently, Tiffany admonished me, "The orange won't provide any contrast, though. We need some blue, maybe."

Yep. I can't even pick out paper.

After the craft store, we went to the local liquor...er...I mean, specialty...store to pick up a nice bottle of red wine and some cheesy appetizers. I had to contribute something to this effort, after all.

And for the next two hours Tiffany cut, trimmed, stickered, corner thingy-ed, and otherwise created the world's most awesome pre-school graduation poster. I sat calmly nearby, enjoying my wine and providing what I'm certain was the world's most intriguing conversation.

On Monday, when I proudly took the poster to school, everyone was amazed at my artistic abilities. People all over the building ooohh'ed and aahhh'ed and I'm sure were terribly jealous of Keaton's poster.

I, of course, responded with, "This ol' thing? It was nothing. It took me no time at all!"

The Adventures of a Mediocre Mommy

2010-05-31T16:57:00.006-05:00

It all started with a blank white posterboard and a note:

"Dear Parents, Please decorate this posterboard with the theme 'What I learned at Longmire.' Feel free to include samples of art work and handwriting and also pictures of your child. We will be displaying these posters at our pre-school graduation on May 20th."

Then another note:

"Dear Parents, Good news! Our parent graduation committee has reserved _____ Hotel in Bryan for our pre-school graduation. This hotel is newly built and a beautiful facility in which to host this important event. We are so grateful to the committee for securing this wonderful location for us!"

Then another:

"Dear Parents, Please send $16.95 for your child's graduation cap and gown."

Then another:

"Dear Parents, Please complete the attached RSVP for our pre-school graduation so that our parent graduation committee can adequately plan for the event and the reception to follow. We will have cake and punch along with a special program, and our parent graduation committee has put together an exciting video presentation to reflect on your child's time at Longmire. If you'd like to help decorate the facility for graduation, please let me know."

Then came the handmade invitation complete with multi-colored paper and ribbon and personalized with my child's picture and artwork at the bottom.

Call me crazy, but people have been born, married, and buried with less fanfare. This was a pre-school graduation, for goodness sakes! I know this may sound like sacrilege to some, but, honestly, it's not that big of an accomplishment. I'm pretty sure that even if he didn't know his colors and couldn't tell me what sound an "S" makes he would still be "graduating."

My first thought, if I'm being honest, was "Who the hell has the kind of time to care this much about pre-school?"

My second thought, only moments later,was more of an epiphany. It was a defining moment of my life, if you will. It was spiritual.

I am a mediocre mommy.

That's right. By today's suburban standards, sometimes I suck. I let my kids put stickers on the wall and play catch in the living room. They take off on their bikes and I may not see them for 20 or 30 minutes. Just yesterday, they played for six straight hours wearing only their underwear. When Tucker got pegged in the shin with a baseball last week, I yelled through the fence, "Get up! You're fine!" I think pre-school gradations should involve paper hats and pizza for lunch.

I'm not crafty. I can't decorate things. I forget to regularly wash their sheets. I have road rage in front of them. I inadvertently use the words "jackass" and "crap." And sometimes, every so often, I just want them to leave me alone.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids more than my own life. Next to my husband, they are the single greatest source of joy in my life. I want them to grow up to be well-adjusted and happy and kind.

But I can't cook a five course dinner in heels and a prom dress while they sit silently at the table in our pristine home making artwork for nursing home patients. This is not my world, even if everyone else around me wants me to believe it's theirs.

I am not, and I never will be, a Super Mommy. I have no desire to try. As the pre-school graduation from hell materialized, I resolved to never again care that I can't meet the present-day standard.

I stand before you (or my computer, actually) proud to be a Mediocre Mommy.

I Win

2010-05-10T20:48:00.003-05:00

When Keaton doesn't get his way, he screams.

His mother, however, has figured him out. When he screams, I just speak to him in a calm voice and then ignore him. It works every time. Eventually.

Tonight he screamed in the parking lot of Tucker's baseball game because he left his bag of tricks at home. To each game he carries a backpack full of little trucks, tractors, gum, suckers, mints, and whatever else he thinks he might need while enjoying another one of Tucker's baseball games, but tonight he left it at home.

He screamed. I calmly explained that it was okay, and we would find a solution. Then I ignored him and continued to walk toward the ball field. In a second or two, he stopped screaming and followed me. I win.

Then, once we were seated he realized he left his gatorade in the car. So we hiked back to the car only to find that he had left the gatorade at home. So he screamed.

As a sidenote, I put two gatorades on the counter before we left and told the boys to each carry their own. They both immediately picked up the bottles and headed straight for the truck. I saw them, so I know it happened just that way. Somehow, neither gatorade made it to the game. I don't even know how it's possible, but it happened. There must be a black hole in the garage.

Anyway, Keaton was screaming again. I calmly told him that when Daddy got to the game with some money we could buy a new gatorade, and then I ignored him. He stopped screaming. I win again.

On the way home, he decided he wanted McDonalds for dinner. I told him we would eat at home tonight and maybe stop another night to eat out.

He screamed. I ignored him.

But he kept screaming.

This time he added what I'm sure he thought were great arguments.

"I AM TELLING THE TRUTH! I WANT MCDONALDS!"

"I AM NOT EATING ANYTHING TONIGHT UNLESS IT'S MCDONALDS!'

"YOU GO TO MCDONALDS RIGHT NOW!"

Undaunted, I cranked up the radio as loud as it would go (some REO Speedwagon was playing, so that was fun), and I continued to ignore him. When we got home, Trey got him out of the truck and recognized the problem, and Keaton continued to scream off an on for the next few minutes.

As he sat at the bar in the kitchen while we all started throwing together dinner, he stopped screaming to announce authoritatively, "I am not eating anything that doesn't come from McDonalds."

"That's your choice," I said, "Good luck getting there." And I walked away.

What happened? He ate a hot dog. I win again.

Something else didn't go his way just a few minutes later -- I think I stopped paying attention to his percieved misery around 7:30 -- and the words came out of my mouth before I remembered he was four.

"Stop. Instead of crying or screaming can you please just speak to me like a grown up?"

Clearly he's a long way from being a grown up, but I was making a point, for goodness sakes. He stopped, composed himself, and spoke to me in as grown up a voice as he could muster.

I win again.

When it Rains, Part 5

2010-05-08T20:48:00.004-05:00

Hogan and I followed the Garmin's directions to the nearest ER somewhere close to midnight. When we arrived, the parking lot was packed. I remarked something about hoping there were no gunshot wounds ahead of us, and we decided not to commit - to first check out the number of people waiting.

Hogan now describes the scene as something out of the movie John Q, and he anticipated that at any time someone wielding a gun would demand to cut in line and we would surely let him. Since I've not seen that movie, I regarded it as a Thanksgiving episode of the television series ER -- people everywhere coughing and hacking and crying and talking and probably bleeding all over the place. I'm not sure though, because we didn't stay long enough to look for bleeders. In fact, we didn't even sit down.

Our conversation back in the car went something like this:

Me: I'm sorry. I guess I'm spoiled and stuck up. I can't stay in there. It doesn't hurt that bad.

Hogan: Good. Because at some point they were going to have to take you back to check out your wrist, and I would be alone in there. Not good.

He drove in circles while I tried to decide what to do. Did I really need an emergency room? Was I being a wimp? The clincher in my decision was that I was supposed to drive kids back to College Station the next day, and I didn't need to do that if I wasn't first checked out by a medical professional.

Okay, it also hurt like hell, so that was a factor, too.

Finally I decided that we were only an hour from my parents and my sister. I didn't want Hogan to think I doubted his ability to care for me, so I explained that eventually I was going to have to pee, and I didn't think I was capable of unbuttoning my own pants. He's a good friend, but not that good. He wholeheartedly agreed.

I texted my sister to see if she was awake, and she was, so I called her. Here's how that conversation went:

Me: Hey. I've hurt my wrist, and I need to go to the emergency room. Can you meet me at the one in Waxahachie?

Wendy: What?

Me: I hurt my wrist. I'm in Arlington with school kids. Can you meet me?

Wendy: How did you hurt your wrist?

This began many, many explanations of how my injury came about in the first place.

Me: Well, we were at Six Flags, and we decided to have piggy back races, and, well, I fell and hurt my wrist.

I'm pretty sure my ear needed medical attention after the screeching volume of her laughter. Thanks, Wendy, for laughing at me in my hour of need.

Anyway, Hogan took me to the Waxahachie emergency room which looked only slightly less like a third world country than the Arlington emergency room, so Wendy and I wished Hogan a safe trip back to the hotel and decided to hit up the Ennis ER. It was closer to her house, anyway.

Long story short (okay, just less long because this is part 5), we saw the world's oldest doctor in the world at the Ennis ER and left sometime around 3:30 a.m. with a splint on my arm but no indication it was broken. This was, of course, after I explained to every overnight employee in that hospital that, yes, I am 32 years old, and yes, I was riding piggy back on a friend in a race, and no, we didn't win.

Wendy took me back to her house to get some sleep, and when we woke the next morning I called my dad to fill him in on the situation and ask him to take me back to Arlington.

And I explained the story again.

Unshowered and unkempt, I rejoined the best StuCo in the world around 10:00 a.m. to watch the last program. We emoted about the end of a long journey to serve as a state secretary school. I was just a passenger, but I was no less affected by the significance of this journey's end. We took lots of pictures (like the ones below) and then headed back to good ol' College Station.

We got back to school, returned rental cars, and went our separate ways to our own homes. Lucky for me, the best family in the world was waiting for me, and I was so exhausted and in pain that I just wanted to crawl into bed.

Trey ran me a hot bath and helped me undress and get cleaned up. By this time I couldn't take a deep breath without wanting to cry in pain, and I decided that wrist sprains must be far worse than childbirth.

Around 6:00 p.m., Trey and the boys went to run an errand (probably get dinner), and I crawled into bed hoping to sleep for a week. For no reason at all, I glanced over at the phone and noticed there was a voicemail. The message there made me feel strangely vindicated for what I had thought was just wimpy-ness.

"This message is for Stormy Hickman. My name is ____, and I'm calling from the emergency room in Ennis. It seems that your wrist is broken and you'll need to see an orthopedist as soon as possible. Call us back if you have any questions."

And then, for the first time since my injury, I cried. The hospital said my wrist was broken, so now I had an actual reason to be in pain, and I cried like a baby all by myself.

As I relate the story over and over to people who ask about my cast (most of them think I have carpal tunnel syndrome, by the way), many people remark about how there is a lesson to learn here and that maybe I'm too old for such shenanigans. I'm always reminded of my dad saying "you're only as young as you feel," and I don't think my age is the message at all.

Remember how I didn't ride the roller coasters because I didn't want to plummet to my death or impalement on an amusement park ride? Guess who is the only person who got hurt that night?

The clear lesson?

Safety doesn't pay.

When it Rains, Part Four

2010-05-03T18:48:00.003-05:00

I heard laughter and shouting. I immediately saw Hogan coming to my aid. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't stop laughing long enough to tell him I thought I was fine. I rolled over onto my tailbone, and it was instantly clear to me that the padding I have back there just isn't enough to be falling from the piggy back of a six foot four man and landing on my rear end. Visions of myself carrying a one of those inflatable donut seat cushions with me all around the school building to comfort my aching booty instantly plagued me, and I couldn't stop laughing.

One of the kids reached for my hand to help me up, and I realized then that my hand was hurting, too. Teachers and students gathered round, inquiring about my welfare, and together we laughed about the craziness of it all.

But there was a problem. I was really hurt. I could feel my forearm and hand swelling, and clearly it wasn't okay. I reassured the kids that everything was fine, but then I handed my van keys to Tiffany. I didn't want to drive with kids in the car if there was any chance that I wasn't at my best, so she took over.

Once in the van, I giggle-whispered to her "I think my wrist is really hurt. I mean, if I could stop laughing I would totally cry right now." Being the good friend that she is, she took me to the QT and let me stay in the car while she got ice for my injury.

While the kids purchased their midnight snacks, Caleb climbed into the back seat. I turned to him and said (still laughing), "Caleb, I think I broke my arm."

Caleb shook his head, "I think I broke my pride."

And at that moment the grown-up piggy back racers realized that we were all injured just a little. But they don't make x-rays and casts for pride.

We retired to the hotel, and I decided to call the 24 hour nurse to see if I needed medical attention. You see, when I was younger I had a bit of a reputation as a drama queen, and there was absolutely no way I was going to the emergency room to have them tell me I was fine. There were no protruding bones, so I figured my chances of being badly injured were slim. But if I got there and they said I was just a wimp, I probably would have slammed my arm in the automatic door to avoid the humiliation of being hypochondriacal.

The trusty phone nurse told me to go to the doctor, and the worsening pain told me she was right. Tiffany and I called the boys, and Hogan won the prize to get to take me to the emergency room.

Tiffany: Did you call Trey?
Me: No. He's probably asleep, and he can't do anything anyway. I'll just call him in the morning.
Tiffany: Really?
Me: Really. He's three hours away, and it will just keep him up all night.

But my friend is wise, and she finally asked, "Am I going to be in trouble if you don't call him?" So I sent him a facebook message to see if he was still awake, and then when he texted me that he was, I called him. I'm such a good wife.

I met Hogan at the car, we programmed "hospitals" into the trusty Garmin, chose the closest one and headed off to find a Dallas area emergency room on midnight of a Friday night. That's when the next adventure began.

When it Rains, Part Three

2010-04-21T18:50:00.005-05:00

Friday night. A private TASC party at Six Flags Over Texas. Good times were a'comin'.

We entered the park, full of glee, and headed to the food area. A catered dinner was part of the package deal, and our designated meal time was quickly nearing its end. We feasted on mass produced barbecue and cole slaw, and many attempts were made to give away the packaged hard-as-a-rock oatmeal raisin cookies that served as dessert. Not me, though. As soon as I realized the "raisins" were actually raisin-like flakes with no gelatinous consistency whatsoever, I ate every last bite.

Finally. Finally it was time for the main event -- roller coasters! I must start this part of the story by saying that I have nothing against roller coasters. I've even spent many days of my life being exhilarated by the ups and downs and arounds of the roller coasters at that very park.

It's the heights I dislike. More specifically, it's being hurled toward the ground from sixteen stories up at a high rate of speed that I dislike. Something about that is clearly unnatural and, dare I say, dangerous.

In addition, I dislike being spun in a circle at a high rate of speed. More specifically, I dislike feeling like I'm going to puke.

As I'm sure you can already tell, I was a barrel of fun at Six Flags.

Our group neared the first death coaster, and I kindly volunteered to hold everyone's stuff while muttering something about pawning all of their cell phones for cash if they plummeted to the afterlife on the crazy thing. I'm sure I threw in a "don't say I didn't warn you" somewhere in there, too.

Thus I became the "hold our bags" person. I was quite glad to take on this role because it removed some of the stigma of being a coward (although I like to think of it as being a rational human being). As the kids and other sponsors coasted up and down and around and up again, I manned fourteen or so backpacks, some cell phones, and a camera or two, all while convincing myself that I could totally win every arcade game in the park.

I studied the games. I marvelled at the giant prizes awarded for such simple feats as knocking milk bottles down with a baseball. I watched contestants and critiqued their performances in my head, silently cringing as they attempted an underhand throw when clearly an overhand throw was the only solution.

Yes, I held stuff and pondered my own imaginary arcade abilities for several hours.

As we began to exit the park, Tiffany reminisced about the year that her feet were so tired that the StuCo president gave her a piggy back ride all the way to the car. Of course, the natural progression of that thought was an announcement that we should have a piggy back race.

"Hogan and Caleb will carry us, and it will be SO FUN!" she announced. (Hogan and Caleb are our esteemed colleagues, often referred to as "the boys," and we love them.)

Then she asked Caleb which one of us he wanted.

I'm still pretending not to be offended that he picked her. Interestingly, people get Tiffany and me confused at school all the time, and at some point in the fall when we were getting healthy together we discovered that we not only have the exact same measurements, but we also weigh exactly the same -- somewhere around 105 if I remember correctly.

So Hogan got stuck with me. Since I am older than Tiffany, I decided that I likely had a greater gravitational pull because of my longer time on the earth, and this provided us with a handicap. However, Hogan is tall and has really long legs. I estimated that this made up for any issues presented by gravity. If we were going to race, then Hogan and I were going to RACE. In case you don't know, I like to win stuff.

Based on the footage you're about to see, a few more people joined in, too. I lost count because I didn't care. They were all going to be behind us anyway.

Luckily, one of the StuCo kids was prepared to witness our greatness, and now all of posterity is graced with this video. Hogan and I are the team on your right at the beginning of the race as you look at your computer. I don't want to sound bitter, but I think you can tell we got the bad lane.

That's right. Our dedication to winning caused us to falter, and I became a woman down. I thought instantly that I had broken my tailbone, but I couldn't stop laughing long enough to figure it out.

Boy was I wrong.

When it Rains, Part Two

2010-04-19T18:11:00.005-05:00

Thursday night. A quick dinner at the Steak and Shake (why don't we have one of those in College Station?), and then we were back at the convention center for the opening rally. This is interesting to me because each school running for office presents its platform in a one-minute speech. I think the highlight was the tiny little girl in her sky-high heels and business suit. Her school's slogan - "LEAD OUT LOUD!" - and every time she said a syllable of the slogan she cast her arms into the air just like a little dictator. She entertained me.

Next came the keynote speaker of the evening, Keith Hawkins. He conveyed his message beautifully as he encouraged students to not see others for who they are but for who they can become, to practice kindness even when it isn't earned. He described looking at life as a rent versus own situation, and encouraged us all to own our own lives, no matter how great or how horrible. He grew up in a difficult situation in which his biological father left and his mother married a drug addict. He lived his high school years not knowing where his next meal was coming from, and he described the way he began to "own" his situation and ultimately own his future.

Of course, I cried thinking of all of my students who SO need to hear this message. I fantasized about bringing him in as a guest speaker and my students choosing to step up and own their own futures, and the wonderful, life-changing day that would be. Then I realized it probably costs a fortune to have him speak and came back to reality.

After the rally, we were back to the hotel and the kiddos were all tucked safely into their beds (or at least room-checked) by midnight. This was my third consecutive night to stay up past midnight (I didn't mention the Farr and Tiffany keeping me up well after one a.m. the night before just talking), and I was starting to feel it.

Friday morning we left the hotel by 7:15 and stopped at the Quick Trip for breakfast yet again. The QT is quite the phenomenon, and I need someone to open a QT here in College Station. The plethora of flavored coffees, breakfast sandwiches, donuts and pastries, and general good cheer would make a killing here. Entrepreneurs, you can thank me later.

We watched campaign skits all morning. All I'll say is this: These were, for the most part, mediocre compared to the professional presentation our kids put on last year. (I'm not biased or anything.)

Because our school was responsible for balloting immediately after lunch, we didn't really have time to eat our own lunch. Not discouraged, we each took our rented vans to different local establishments and had our kids order to go. All but one van ended up at Sonic (Farr's van stopped at a gas station taco place - apparently they were the brave group), and we made it back in record time.

Tiffany passed out assignments to our fabulous, super-responsible, ballot-taking kids, and we sponsors stood around looking useful (me pretending to grade again) until we were dismissed for a few hours while the kids attended table talks. I really needed to get those timed writings done, and I was so motivated that I spent the afternoon doing this:

Thanks, Tiffany, for getting a pic of my slumber. It was heavenly.

Friday night, Six Flags, and the injury of the year (with video) is to come. Check back for part three!

When it rains...Part One

2010-04-17T14:27:00.003-05:00

Last week I had the pleasure of accompanying the Consol student council to the Texas Association of Student Councils State Convention in Arlington, Texas. Consol is serving as the state secretary school this year (you can read more about the road to state office here), so there were some additional responsibilities besides just being convention-goers. I was glad for the chance to travel with some great kids and great friends to see our school do great things.

The trip began with a Ranger game at the Ballpark. It was freezing, but it was a fabulous time. I think the best part was that the girls who were sitting behind me had not been to a baseball game before. They bought foam fingers and cheered their little heads off. We had to help them out with a couple of the basics (sorry, girls, you're not supposed to root for the other team's batter unless you want us to get beat up by the drunk guys ten rows up), but they were instant baseball fans.

The next day was a bit slower for everyone except our StuCo sponsor and President, as they were up and going at the crack of dawn. We met them for lunch at Razzoo's (one of my all-time favorite restaurants) and I was happy to see that the kids appreciated the ridiculous menus and super-spicy Cajun deliciousness of the place.

Thursday afternoon found the kids browsing the campaign booths at the convention center while I sat in the hospitality room pretending to grade timed writings. I say pretending because by this time I was tired. I had been up past midnight for about three nights in a row preparing to be out of town and gone from school, and I'm kind of a baby about my sleep. By 10:30, I like to be under the covers, pretty much without exception. I've always been this way, and I think it must have kept me out of some trouble when I was younger. I just didn't want to stay up late enough to do anything too crazy.

Anyway, as I re-read the same timed writing for the third time, Scott (another StuCo chaperone/fan extraordinaire, like me) came running into the hospitality suite. "Tiffany says we have to come into the big meeting room right now!" We're not crazy -- when it comes to StuCo we do what Tiffany says, when she says to do it, so off we ran.

About three minutes later I found myself standing this close to Jason Castro. He was there to promote awareness for an organization that fights malaria across the world. I'm sure he couldn't have admitted it to the group, but I know in my heart he was singing directly to me. I am quite in love with my husband, but I must say that my new friend J.C. (that's what I like to call him now) is a beautiful, beautiful man. He sang. We swooned. It was awesome.

But this impromptu interaction with a star was only a glimpse of the crazy ride the weekend would turn into.

Shakespeare and Doc Brown?

2010-03-23T14:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was wearing my English department tee shirt which depicts William Shakespeare and a quote from Julius Caesar. Tucker has seen this shirt many times before, but for some reason he was studying it in great detail yesterday.

Tucker: Who is that on your shirt again?
Me: William Shakespeare. He's a brilliant author.
Tucker: And what does it say again? (the font is really scripty)
Me: "He think too much, such men are dangerous." Do you know what that means?
Tucker: Yes! Wait. I mean, no.
Me: It means that the way you become powerful and strong and can do whatever you want in life is to think! To use your brain! Isn't that great?
Tucker (ponders my words for a moment): You mean like the doctor in Back to the Future?

Um. I didn't see this coming. Back to the Future? Really? It took me a second to realize that Doc did make a car that was able to time travel. I suppose he had to use his brain a great deal to make that happen.

Me: Yes, Tuck, just like the doctor in Back to the Future.
Tucker: Sweet.

My KeKe

2010-03-20T21:24:00.003-05:00

This is the most adorable four year old on the planet (holding his first crawfish at his first crawfish boil at Aunt Carol and Uncle Mike's).

When he's mad, he's satan's little spawn, but when he's happy, he radiates joy to everyone lucky enough to be around him.

Spring break has made him pretty happy. He got to spend the first three days with his Grandma and Pop, and I think he's still giddy about it. When I talked to him on the phone Monday night, I asked what he had been doing all day. "Well, I just been farmin' and fishin' and bike ridin'." That's pretty much Keaton's perfect day.

There are two new calves at my parent's house, one male and one female. According to him, all the cows have names, but I'm pretty sure he's the only one who knows which cow is which. He thinks it's hysterical that he named the new baby cow "Bull Calf" instead of naming the bull calf "Bull Calf." It's especially funny when he confuses himself while trying to explain this hilarity to others.

The older boys all have bb guns, but poor little Keaton was gun-less. Nonetheless, there is a story that we keep hearing from Tucker and Keaton about Keaton borrowing Tucker's bb gun to shoot at a chicken. As Keaton tells it: "I didn't hurt that chicken, I just shot his feathers off." I'm not entirely certain that this actually happened, so it may be the fish tale of the trip. I do know he coaxed his Pop into letting him shoot the .22 pistol (with help and close supervision, of course).

Friday morning I took my little story teller to get his allergy shot, and there were three nurses doting over him (as usual). Out of the blue he announced "I got hurt!" Of course the nurses were concerned and asked what happened. Here's what they learned:

"Well, I was goin' into the woods to see that dead cow, and I got hurt on the wires of the fence. That bob wire just got me right on the back when I was crawlin' under it!"

I shook my head and told them I wished he was making this one up, but there really is a dead cow off in the woods, and the boys really did make several trips to check it out. Of course they took their bb guns in case they saw a bobcat.

(Tucker asked before they left, "Mom, do bb guns kill bobcats or just people?")

One of the nurses really got into Keaton's story, so she asked if there were bugs on the dead cow.

Keaton loves the opportunity to expand a story, so he told her all about it: "Well, there was ants all over that cow's skin. And we could see the meat the ants were eatin'. We couldn't see any bones yet, though. Nope, it didn't have any bones." All of this coincided with his elaborate hand motions, pantomiming looking at the cow and the ants crawling all over the dead carcass. It cracks me up the way his eyes light up when talking about a dead cow. Maybe I should be more concerned.

Besides storytelling, Keaton has many other skills. For one, he plays the guitar and the piano. One day as he banged away on the piano I asked if he'd like to take lessons. He rolled his eyes at me and responded, "I don't need lessons! I can already play. Didn't you just hear me?"

He also plays great tricks on others. As I washed my face tonight, he turned off the light, starting giggling, and shouted, "You can't see anymore! The Lucktricity is out!"

This kid is a wild mess, but he entertains me more than anyone in the whole world.

The Contest

2010-03-16T19:18:00.004-05:00

It seems that I'm really falling off the blogging wagon. This is sad because I love to write, and I know that writing more makes me better (see there, students), but I just haven't had the time/inspiration. I have made many excuses in my head, some of which are:

1) Sometimes my job can be really stressful. I have this problem of taking on more than I should. I don't mean "biting off more than I can chew" because I am pretty good at not taking on more assignments than I can do. What I mean is that I mentally take on more than I should. Somehow I find myself feeling personally responsible for every student at my school passing the ELA TAKS. Recently, I've also been overwhelmed by the apathy some of my students feel toward education, and I feel personally responsible for showing them that education is the only way to the future they dream of. This has consumed me a little in recent weeks.

2) Grad school is a lot of work, and I like to make 100s. Don't get me wrong, it should be a lot of work, but I should let go of the idea that 100s on everything are essential. I made a 98 in my last class, and it didn't kill me.

Eh. These are just excuses. I shall make it my goal to post at least once each week, both for the therapeutic element and for the fun of it.

Today I would like to post about burps. That's right. Burps.

Keaton strongly believes that burps are the funniest thing on the planet. He burps as often as possible, and after each burp he laughs his "I just did something hysterical" laugh. If no one else responds, he announces, "Did you hear that? I just went 'BBUUUUURRRPPPP' and it was really loud." He repeats this until he gets some sort of response from whomever is nearby.

One child burping all the time is bad enough, but then Keaton did the only thing he could do to get Tucker involved in the shenanigans. He made it a contest.

One random day about two weeks ago:
Keaton: Tucker, I burped seventeen times today. How many times did you burp?

Tucker (concerned that he was losing this impromptu contest): Um. Uh. Um. BBUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRPPPPPPP. I can burp louder than you.

Keaton: BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRPPPPP. Now I burped eighteen times.

And so the contest began. It continued on and on with entries like these.

Tucker: Keaton, today I burped twenty times at lunch. That's a lot of burps!

Keaton: When we were outside I could burp so loud you could hear it in the back yard!

Of course there were also the entries we got to witness first person -- random, repetitive belching in all sorts of voices and all volume levels, always followed by raucous laughter. It was getting out of control.

Finally, Saturday morning, Trey put his foot down.

Trey: It is very rude to just burp all the time. I certainly hope you boys don't burp like that at school or when you're with other people. I've had enough.

Tucker: But it's a contest!

Keaton: And it's funny!

Trey: The contest is over. The next person who burps gets a spanking!

A somber mood passed over the boys as they realized their beloved two-week old contest was over. At least it was over until that afternoon.

They had cokes with lunch.

Before his first big burp, Keaton announced, "If I burp, it's not my fault. It's the coke's fault."

And so the belching began again, always followed by an announcement about it being the coke's fault, or the cereal's fault, or the chicken nugget's fault. Always followed by laughter.

Honestly, I don't want them out in the world burping all the time, but I'm kind of glad to see the contest come back. They're just boys, after all, and they were having so much fun.

And when Trey wasn't looking, I was winning. :)

Apathy

2010-03-01T19:17:00.004-06:00

I was reminded today that apathy is contagious. I say reminded because I know that I've known this before, but I guess I forgot.

Students and teachers are huge carriers of the apathy bug. Classic symptoms include:

1) making something out to be harder than it is
2) uncontrollable whining
3) completing intermediate steps at an incredibly slow pace with the hopes that you won't have to actually complete the entire task if it takes you forever to do just one part
4) pretending not to be smart to avoid work
5) uncontrollable whining

You see, today we began the research process in my English class, and you would think I had asked students to tie down a rabid monkey and pull its teeth one by one using only their bare hands and floss. It's just research, for goodness sakes, and you know that you can do some research when you can't quite figure out the second word in the fourth line of the newest Lil' Wayne song, but when it's assigned, when it's for school, then it's rabid-monkey-tooth-pulling.

Each year I go into the research paper knowing full well that all you have to do is say the words "research paper" and students all over the world roll their eyes and let out a whimpering sigh, but this year I decided to do something about it. I totally reinvented the research project to make it something students can enjoy and invest in. This year we're finding information about careers - education needed, salary schedules, entry-level positions and what you can be promoted to -- all really good stuff for seventeen year olds to think about.

I worked all day last Sunday putting it together. I pictured one of my students ten years from now opening her own child care center or being promoted to senior partner and remembering that if it weren't for the research done in Mrs. Hickman's English III class she never would have thought to become an accountant/lawyer/policeman in the first place. I was excited.

The kids, however, were not excited. They were mostly just plain apathetic. Probably the most passionate comment I heard all day was when student #1 said, "This is stupid," and student #2 responded, "Don't call Mrs. Hickman's assignment stupid." I"m not convinced that student #2 thought the assignment was the most fun she'd had in years, but I still wanted to run across the room and hug her. Bonus points for student #2.

By third period (I don't have a first, so this only after one class), I had caught the disease of apathy. When I was giving directions at the beginning of class, I actually heard myself saying "Bueller. Bueller. Bueller." in my head. Then, when a group of students just sat there instead of working, I walked up to their table and told them that I was in a bad mood, and that I had no patience for their sitting around. Then I told them they had two minutes to get busy or they were all getting zeros for the day, and I actually looked at my watch for effect. Seriously.

Now folks, I don't know what kind of experiences you have with school, but that's just not good teaching. In fact, it's borderline horrible teaching and I should be punished with 50 lashes or something like that except we don't allow corporal punishment in school. I spent most of the day being mad at my whining/lazy/grumpy students when I should have been mad at their whining/lazy/grumpy teacher.

I should have been more excited to introduce the project to them. Excitement is contagious, too.
I should have worn more sensible shoes to spend the day running around the library while keeping a smile on my face.
I should have encouraged those students who were slow to get started with a pat on the back and a smile -- I know they respond better to that.
I should have said "good job" and "you're doing great" many, many more times, even for small things.

But I didn't. I scowled and complained and finally just sat down, too tired to continue begging students to do work they obviously didn't want to do.

Tonight I wonder how they ever could have figured out that I actually wanted them to do it.

I suppose tomorrow is another day. I just need to make sure it's a day with the right shoes and the right attitude.

The Case of the Women Ski Jumpers

2010-02-17T17:18:00.005-06:00

Today I heard a news story about womens ski jumping. I learned that the International Olympic Committee allows mens ski jumping but not womens. Apparently there are quite a few female ski jumpers out there, and they want a chance to win a gold medal, too.

The link to the story is here, but I'll summarize it for you. The IOC's official position is that there aren't enough quality female ski jumpers to merit adding the sport to the Olympics (even though there are more of them in the world than lugers or bobsledders ), but the side conversations about the issue indicate that the decision may have come "from a medical point of view."

So either the women aren't as good at ski jumping as the men or the sport is just too dangerous for little ol' girls.

Suck it, IOC.

In a world that continues to move forward in equality for all people, the Olympics are keeping women from doing something that they're happy to let men do. This leads to a bigger question about women's sports. What professional womens sports are there, anyway? Basketball? Mention that to a crowd and invariably one person will say "Does the WNBA still exists?" while another will make a snide comment about those being "some manly girls."

Are there any other professional women's sports out there? If so, someone please enlighten me because I can't think of any.

Our "equal" society still has the perception of women athletes as being unfeminine, unattractive, and somehow less than their male counterparts. What causes this prejudice? Could part of the problem be that the media portrays "beautiful" women to be waifish, helpless little creatures? This poster of the Aggie Women's basketball team shows the georgeous women athletes, but it drew criticism for being "too sexy." Isn't it possible for women to be bad asses and sexy, too. Yes, friends, it is.

Maybe the IOC is worried about poor little women getting injured (hence the "medical point of view"). Well, welcome to 2010, Olympic committee. Women are firefighters, police officers, military personnel, even high school teachers, for goodness sakes. Don't you worry your pretty little heads about our safety. We'll be just fine.

Don't get me wrong here. I am in no way in favor of emasculating the men of the world. Most of the supportive, empowering people in my life have been men, my husband and father included. But it's time we stop assuming that women athletes must be either poor little girls trying to do something they clearly can't do as well as men or manly, butch women who are trying to be men.

Whatever their reasoning, the International Olympic Committee made a grievous error in the case of the women ski jumpers. At the very least, they should have let the women compete alongside the men in a unisex ski jump competition. Maybe the men would have blown the women away, but at least the women would have been afforded an opportunity for the Olympic experience.

Or maybe in the 2010 Olympics, a guy would get beaten by a girl. I'd be okay with that, too.

Valentines with Keaton

2010-02-09T20:17:00.002-06:00

What follows is a simulation. It is a simulation because while I did not memorize all of Keaton's Valentine cards, I still wanted you all to get the feel for how this went down.

Trey: Keaton, which one do you want for Branson?
Keaton: What does that one say?
Trey: It says, "Hang on, Valentine."
Keaton: OH! I need to give that one to Andre because sometimes when he's ahead of me I tell him "hang on!" and he doesn't hang on, so he needs to get that Valentine so he'll hang on.
Trey: Who do you want to give this one to? It says "Be cool, Valentine."
Keaton: OH! That one is for Ella. She is so cool. She evern has cool sunglasses. (Yes, Keaton pronounces "even" with an "r" -- I'm not sure why.)
Trey: Which one do you want to give to Brittany* (*name changed to protect the innocent preschooler)
Keaton: Well, which one says "bad"? She's bad, so she needs the bad one.
Trey: That's not nice, Keaton. We don't talk that way about others.
Keaton: Well, she is bad.
Trey: Let's give her this one.
Keaton (exasperated): OOOOKAAAAYYY.
Trey: This one says "Have a seat, Valentine." Who gets it?
Keaton: OH! That needs to be Grady's. Sometimes when it's time to go to the teaching table, Grady doesn't sit down. Then Ms. Monica has to say "Have a seat, Grady," and then he sits down. So he needs this one so that he will sit down at the teaching table.

And on and on it went. Keaton managed to address behavior-appropriate Valentines for all 16 kids in his class.

As a side note, Tucker got his Valentines done all by himself in a matter of seconds, and I even made him put two extras in his bag for his secret girlfriend he won't tell me about. Of course that made him giggle and deny her existence, but nonetheless his Valentines were signed and sealed and that item was checked off his "to do" list.

Toes

2010-02-03T17:26:00.004-06:00

Let's chat about toes. Okay, we won't really chat because I'm the only one talking. And I'm not even talking anyway. So, why don't you read about toes and then comment if you feel the need to chat.

First, this has nothing to do with the Zac Brown Band song called "Toes." Although I will mention that while the radio version seems to find the singer with his "toes in the water, toes in the sand," the version on the CD Tucker got for Christmas has the singer's "toes in the water" and his (according to Tucker) "a-s-s word in the sand." Why on earth you'd want you a-s-s word in the sand is really beyond me (seems, well, gritty), and it makes the song quite inappropriate for seven year old fans.

No, friends,this post is about toes. Big toes to be exact. But in order to discuss toes we must first talk about feet in general.

Feet are gross.

I've always been one to go barefoot whenever possible. I never liked wearing shoes, and I vividly remember when I was kid my dad would tell people that he "had to put dirt in my shoes to get me to wear them."

While I don't remember dirt in my shoes, I do remember always being barefoot, stickers and gravel be damned. (That's two cuss words in one post, so I'll try to calm it down, Mom.) Even now, my students are used to me teaching without shoes on. Sometimes, when I need to run to the printer, I have to stop to find my shoes first.

Yes, I know that high schools aren't the most hygienic places on the planet, but they're my feet. I'm not collecting germs through them. They're gross by nature of being feet, so their nakedness in the bacteria filled floors of my high school just doesn't bother me. If I had to be honest, those floors are cleaned far more often and probably far better than the ones in my home. Barefootedness is one of my eccentricities, I suppose, and I readily accept it about myself.

Out of respect for others around me, I attempt to have the tops of my feet as attractive as possible. I keep the nails polished, and I regularly exfoliate. You're welcome, people of the high school.

But this post isn't about feet, it's about toes. Big toes.

About three days ago, my big toe started to hurt. It wasn't bad at first, but by Monday afternoon I was in terrible, gut-wrenching pain. I investigated further and diagnosed myself with an ingrown toenail.

Now, if feet are gross, then big toes are even grosser. This makes big toe toenails in the category of the most disgusting things on the planet. I'd put them right up there with slugs and cow boogers.

The situation was awful. Not only was I in pain, but I was in pain due to a disgusting big toe toe nail. I couldn't put on closed toe shoes without wanting to cry. I couldn't wear heeled open toe shoes because it added pressure to my injury. And I couldn't even go around whining about it because, well, because it's my disgusting big toe toe nail.

It was then I realized that this must be a silent epidemic! People all over the world are probably suffering in silence, ashamed of their toenail issues. Think of it! If you broke your leg, and you were on crutches, and someone asked what was wrong, you could shrug and say "broken leg," without one bit of shame. But with a toenail injury, a big toe toe nail injury, you're forced to walk the halls of your life pretending that everything is a-okay and trying not to limp because if someone asks you what's wrong you'll be forced to cower and say "ingrown toenail." Oh, the horror!

My situation is, of course, worse than all those other toe-sufferers because my school does not allow teachers to wear flip flops. Since my injury prevents me from wearing heels and/or closed toed shoes, what's left? What is there for a girl to wear to ease her suffering without flipping and flopping? Nothing. My feet had nothing left to live for.

So I made the bold decision to buck the system. Yesterday I wore legal, although painful, shoes, but stashed some flip flops under my desk. For tasks in my room, I wore the flops, but I made sure to wear the dressier shoes in the hallway and downstairs to the office. I felt like such a rebel.

At some point I poked my head out of my classroom door, scanned for authority figures, and then ran to the bathroom while flipping and flopping. In my haste, I left my keys sitting on my desk and locked myself out of my classroom, so I had to flop down the hall until I found another teacher who had a key to my room. The crisis was averted, and I was able to get back into my room and my legal shoes without having to go to the office to get busted for my renegade feet.

As I'm sure you can tell, my rule-breaking led to a very stressful day.

But today I wore flip flops again, with a little less anxiety this time because I decided not to be held captive by my big toe toe nail problem anymore. I am brave and strong, and I follow the rules, but I cannot, no, I WILL NOT, force myself into painful working conditions just to satisfy "the man." Further, I'm certain that anyone who hears my sad story and sees me in flip flops will have pity on me instead of scolding me about my footwear choices. Who knows? That person may just have a toenail problem himself, and my courage may be just the thing to free him from his prison of disgrace.

My name is Stormy Hickman, and I have an ingrown toenail, and I am not ashamed!

(tomorrow morning I do, however, have a department head meeting, so I'll be wearing legal shoes)

More about boys...

2010-01-15T16:29:00.002-06:00

#1: On Wednesday I received a phone call from Keaton's preschool teacher. He had been vomiting, and I needed to come get him right away. So I rushed to his school, and carried a peaked looking little boy to the car, mentally preparing for a stomach virus to ravage our home. A very short while later, when he seemed to be feeling much better, I asked him why he threw up. This is his response:

"Well, momma, we went to the libary, then we ate lunch, and then we went outside. I played on the merry-go-round, like, the WHOLE TIME. And we were going SO FAST around and around and around you know! Then we came inside to wash our hands, and I threw up."

Stomach virus averted. We had a conversation the next morning about how if you're on the merry-go-round and your tummy feels funny, you should get off.

#2: The classic country radio station Trey and I often listen has created even more fun with the kids. It makes me happy to hear Keaton croon "I Love a Rainy Night" and sing along to Ronnie Milsap tunes. This particular station loves Linda Ronstadt, and I mean they LOVE her. On the way home today Keaton shouted "turn it up!" when "It's So Easy to Fall in Love Came On." Apparently he likes her, too.

It took about one and one-half choruses for the song to turn into "It's So Easy to Fart" followed by roaring laughter. Thanks, Tucker.

#3: Overheard from my place on the couch while the boys played in my room.
Tucker: Are we going to get in trouble?
Keaton: Hey. Whose birthday is tomorrow? Yours. So who's in charge? YOU ARE!

I did a little correction on that, as well.

Why you shouldn't watch "Half Ton Dad"

2010-01-02T10:49:00.003-06:00

I was relaxing on the couch on New Year's Day, thinking I should go to the gym, watching "Half Ton Teen" on The Learning Channel. I love watching other people and their problems, including "Half Ton Dad," "Hoarders," and "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," my personal favorite and great fodder for E's "The Soup" (perhaps the funniest show on tv).

Anyway, I was watching the half ton teen whine because he wanted some chocolate milk or something while his mom cried because all she wanted to do was give him chocolate milk, not kill him with chocolate milk, and Tucker came in from outside. He asked what I was watching, and I explained the premise of the show. He sat down with me and watched the last five minutes, and was still sitting there when "Half Ton Dad" began. In the teaser for the show, there was a surgery where they literally cut off seventy pounds of a guy's stomach. This was both riveting and disgusting, and I watched until Trey came in and said "I don't think I can watch this."

Honestly, I don't enjoy watching surgeries either, but some secret part of me believes that if one of the boys wants to be a doctor he needs to not have a weak stomach, so I try to act like hacking off a person's stomach, etc., is not a big deal.

If either of them is a surgeon, however, it will definitely be Keaton. Tucker gets all squirmy with shots, and I see Keaton as much more likely to say, "Sure! I'd love to cut you open and move some things around to see if it makes you feel better! Hop up on the table, dude, and let's get started!"

I digress.

After the stomach-hacking-off, Tucker crinkled his face all up at the gross-ness, and then said, "Mom, have you ever had your stomach cut open?"

Me: No way!
Tucker: Never? You've never had your stomach cut open?
Me: Nope, and I hope I never have to.
Tucker: The doctor didn't cut it open to get me and Keaton out?
Me (seeing where this is going): Um...no?
Tucker: Then how did we get out?

Now I've had this conversation with Tucker in my head before, and I've always known I would just be very clinical in my explanations. I wondered why I hadn't yet ordered a book to keep for this moment, knowing I could just give him the book and answer any questions he comes up with, praying that he doesn't google anything.

But I wasn't daunted by my lack of book. He likes facts, and I knew I could give him the facts in a mature way and be done with this uncomfortable conversation. I channeled a friend or two who actually uses the scientific terms to identify body parts, and got ready for a conversation that would be simple for him but well, sweaty for me.

And then I looked at Trey, who wasn't listening. A little desperate, I said, "Trey, Tucker just asked if they had to cut my stomach open to get him and Keaton out."

I'm pretty sure his response was a grunt and a head turn in the other direction. I could hear him saying in his head, "He asked you, so good luck!"

I worked myself up to look all nonchalant and I went over scientific names for body parts in my head, and then I jumped in.

Me: Do you really want to know because it's kind of gross.
Tucker:Yeah, tell me.
Me: Okay, you know how girls and boys have different body parts down there?
Tucker: Yeah.
Me: Well, babies come out of the girl parts.
Tucker: Really?
Me: Yep
Tucker: Are they all bloody and stuff?
Me: Yep
Tucker: Yeah, that is gross.

And there you have it. The highlights of my anatomically correct, mature conversation about childbirth was highlighted with the words "gross," "girl parts," and "down there." I hope I haven't traumatized him forever.

I hope I've traumatized him enough to ask his dad next time.

A New Years Meditation

2010-01-01T11:12:00.002-06:00

First, I must admit that I pilfered this from an email my parents' pastor sent out a couple of days ago to the members of First Baptist Church of Rice. He borrowed this (and properly attributed it to) an article titled "Everything Can Change this New Year" by Travis Plumb. It's a good reminder for all of us to begin each day in the right place. I'll just quip "I couldn't have said it better myself" and then let you know this is an abridged version (I can't turn off my internal editor even on someone else's work). ;)

"Did you know that anything and everything can change for you this new year? It doesn’t matter if things have been going bad for you lately, Scripture tells us God is able to do anything and all things. (Phil. 4:13) Nothing is too hard for Him. (Jer. 32:17) Seeking God’s help can cause all kinds of changes for the better in your life. You just have to believe — not in a fantasy like a Santa, but in a reality like the God of the universe; not trusting your future to dumb luck like in a lottery, but trusting your future to an Almighty God who holds the future in His hands.
God has a very specific plan for every human on earth; and it is for good, not for evil. It is to give you hope and a future. (Jer. 29:11) God loves you. He cares totally about your well-being, so get in on His plan for your life! You can conquer
anything with God.

Once you are a Christian, you don’t just cope with your stress and manage your anger. In all of these things, you are more than a conqueror through Him who loved you. (Rom. 8:37) But this is not a magic kingdom; that is in Florida. This is the Kingdom of Christ, and in this kingdom He desires for you to “do” (Phil. 4:9).

Don’t wait around for a miracle to be dumped into your lap while you watch your favorite reality show. Get up, start serving, praying, praising and watch your very own show come to reality. God will do miracles in your life. Believe it!

Last night ended at midnight and today is a whole new day. You have to wake up every morning and see the potential of a living God who can do all things through you and for you. Yesterday or last week might have been painful, disappointing, hurtful or just plain yucky. But the worst thing we can do is to sit around contemplating what a miserable, hard time we are having. It will never change unless you change your mental attitude.

Everybody in this life is going to have troubles. That is the reality of living in a sinful, broken world. Since we are all going to have troubles anyway, we might as well choose to go through them with Jesus. It sure beats trying to go through struggles on your own. He can give you hope for tomorrow and peace that passes your understanding. (Phil. 4:7) He can give you strength to go on. (Phil. 4:13)

It doesn’t matter what you did or who you are; it matters who you become. Every choice you make this year will determine who you are. The choices we make, make us. You are actually becoming the person your choices reflect. You can choose to be bitter, negative, depressed and totally self-absorbed about your troubles — if you do, that will determine the type of person you are this year. But you have a choice. You can be determined, strengthened, find courage and hope and grow through your troubles to be a better person in the long run. Those choices also will determine what kind of person you become.

Are you catching on? You can sit around feeling sorry for yourself over your sad circumstances or you can rise above them. You can let other people label you and look down on you, or you can look up and realize God will never discourage you. If you are a Christian, you are not dumb, depressed, divorced, etc. You are wonderfully made (Psa. 139:14) crowned with glory and honor (Psa. 8:5) and a prince or princess of a kingdom that will never end. (II Cor. 6:18) This new year can bring about new changes — any day, any moment. God is waiting on you to join Him in a glorious journey of faith. So what are you waiting for?

Get up! Praise Him! Thank Him! Seek Him! Lift your head up! Smile! Be confident in who you are because of Who is in you! (Phil. 1:6)"

Happy New Year!

Boys.

2009-12-31T10:03:00.004-06:00

Up until Wednesday, Christmas break was calm and relaxing. The weather was cold but beautiful, and the boys have been riding bikes from the crack of dawn until I make them come in late in the day. In fact, on the first day of Christmas vacation, Tucker called me out into the driveway to show me he had learned how to ride his bike, something we spent all of last summer trying to do. I guess just leaving him alone to do it on his own was the solution to that one.

The calm atmosphere melted away yesterday with the yucky, rainy weather, and as the day went on things became frantic and crazy. I had started taking down the Christmas decorations the day before, so I was determined to get my house totally put back together yesterday. The boys had other ideas.

First, there are the foam swords. Someone who doesn't have kids (Nathan Barrett) got the boys these huge foam swords for Christmas. You're never going to believe what they do with them.

They beat the hell out of each other. (Aren't you surprised?) Then they take turns crying because the other one has beaten the hell out of them with a giant foam sword. It's great fun. One of my other favorite sword-related activities is when Tucker slams the sword flat onto the surface of my IKEA leather couch, creating what I'm certain is a sonic boom. Then he looks up at me like, "What? I didn't smack Keaton on the head with it this time. Lighten up, you old hag."

So yesterday morning I offered some harsh words and confiscated the swords. Over and over again. I hid them. I threatened. I sent kids to their rooms. Still the swords surfaced all morning.

Keaton was in a particularly grouchy mood, so anytime I said anything to him he responded like an angst-ridden teenager. For example:

Me: Keaton, you cannot ride your bike in the house.
Keaton: YES I CAN RIDE MY BIKE IN THE HOUSE! IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU CAN GO TO YOUR ROOM. STOP BEING SO MEAN!

Me: Keaton, you cannot play outside in the rain.
Keaton: IT'S NOT EVEN RAINING! YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW. IT'S LIKE EIGHTY HUNDRED DEGREES OUTSIDE, AND I'M GOING OUT!
Me: The temperature is 47, and it's raining!
Keaton: NO IT ISN'T! YOU DON'T KNOW!

And so on and so forth. As a result, Keaton spent much of the day in his room where he "WAS JUST GOING TO PLAY AND HAVE FUN ANYWAY SO I DON'T CARE IF YOU SEND ME TO MY ROOM."

God help us when that kid is sixteen.

Finally, the Lord smiled on me and the sun came out. I "suggested" that the boys go outside, and they jumped on the idea. This was, of course, followed by several hundred admonitions to "CLOSE THE DOOR" and "PUT ON YOUR JACKET," which were, of course, ignored. It's like I had totally lost my voice, but I didn't know it. I thought I heard words coming out of my mouth, but clearly there was nothing because the words had no impact.

As the boys played outside and I put away decorations, I checked every five or ten minutes to make sure they were within sight and everything was okay. Things began to settle down. On several checks they were actually wearing jackets and playing nicely with one another. That must be when I let my guard down.

Because the next time I opened the door I found the boys washing my car. Now, I know what you're thinking -- how sweet that they wanted to do something nice for their mother after such a crazy day! Well, you're wrong. Very, very wrong.

See, they were washing my car with water from the mud puddle in the driveway, and they had taken off their jackets, shoes, and socks to do so. And their clothes were soaking wet, and my previously relatively clean car was covered in mud. Doesn't sound too sweet now, does it?

In the house they came, stripped from their muddy, wet clothes and sent straight to their room. I think they understood at that point that they had gone too far because things were a little bit calm around here for an hour or so.

That's when they started sweetly begging for hot chocolate. Of course, I said no, but they begged and begged until in my exceeding motherly kindness I relented. It was Christmas break, after all, and they had already made so many messes that I'd already cleaned up they had to know that I was at my limit. I felt the the hot chocolate was as safe as anything.

So I made it, told them to keep it in the kitchen and make no messes, and then retired to my room to sit in the massage chair and pick up my book. The house was clean and successfully un-Christmas-decorated, the boys had calmed down, and the day was finally starting to look up.

It was at this point that Keaton came running in to tell me, "MAAAHHHHMMMM. WE HAVE A BIG PROBLEM!"

"Just clean it up," I replied. "You better make sure it's cleaned up before I get in there or you're both going to be in so much trouble." Then I went back to my book. How bad could it be?

Pretty bad, apparently. When I finally made it into the kitchen there was chocolate-tinted water all over the bar, the counter, and the floor, and no boys to be found. They were kind enough, however, to take the "wet floor" sign from the garage (that I'm pretty sure Trey stole from somewhere when he was in college) and place it at the entrance to the kitchen. I guess they didn't want me to slip. How kind.

So here we are the next morning, me blogging about the ridiculous day before and the boys, parked in their room, calling my cell phone from the house phone. I keep clicking "ignore" on the phone, but I'm afraid I might have several anonymous voice mails explaining that I'm a "poo poo head." I'm up to twelve missed calls so far.

When does school start again?

It's my blog, and I'll rant if I want to

2009-12-27T19:56:00.005-06:00

On Sunday nights I enjoy listening to Focus on the Family Weekend Magazine. It plays on our Christian radio station, and I either find the week's topic enlightening or offensive, and both make great food for thought. I've greatly enjoyed the recent discussions of adoption and how it parallels our relationship with Christ, we being fully adopted into his family. On the other hand, of particular offense to me are the weeks when a woman gets on the radio and talks about submission to one's husband as taking care of all the laundry and cooking so that when he gets home from what was no doubt a difficult day at the office he can sit quietly and not be bothered with household chores, and she then frets over us poor souls who are forced to work outside the home. I do my best not to scream at the radio, but I'm not promising I don't.

One of the evening's topics tonight was teens and movies.

A listener had written in for advice. The scenario: she thought her teenage daughters should be able to see movies with a little profanity and maybe even some sexually suggestive stuff, but she always researched movies before taking them (she used the Plugged in Movie Review, which I love). Her husband, however, did not allow them to see anything with even one word of profanity, and if he heard it in a movie he would get up and leave every time. What were they to do?

My thoughts are plentiful on the issue, including 1) the woman is rude to her husband for taking the girls to movies he is vehemently against (which she admitted to in the letter), and she had to know of his extreme views before she married him, so she kind of signed up to live with those extreme views, and 2) I hope those kids are home-schooled because if I stormed out of a room every time I heard profanity I would have to flee from my school building about forty-seven-thousand times a day. That doesn't mean I like it, but it does mean that I live in reality, 3) Who actually writes letters to strangers for random advice on movie watching? Did she call her friends tonight to gleefully explain that they had actually read her letter on the air? Lame.

The oh-so-wise Focus on the Family advice guy (whose name I do not know) had a very different take on the situation. His response to the woman was something to the effect of "Your marriage is in trouble! If you and your husband can't compromise on this movie issue then there must be much bigger issues lurking there, waiting to jump out and cause you to disagree. God forbid!"

Yes, I'm paraphrasing. But it gets better.

"You should run out right now and purchase This Random Marriage Book from Focus on the Family to save your marriage! Hurry! There's no time to waste!"

I wanted to scream.

Thanks, Weekend Magazine for taking a little issue of life and calling it a marriage in trouble. Thanks for explaining to what is likely millions of listeners that if you disagree with your spouse, something must be terribly wrong. Thanks for trying to sell your book instead of actually answering a question.

It frustrates me to no end when Christian organizations put forth this super-human expectation of perfection when life is so far from perfect that it's not even funny.

End of rant.

Where are your hands right now?

2009-12-23T22:11:00.002-06:00

I'm just going to guess, okay I'm going to hope, that your hands aren't in your pants. And I'm going to assume that the reason your hands aren't in your pants is that your mom diligently reminded you (and nagged, and yelled, and scolded) that polite little boys and girls don't walk around with their hands in their pants. And it worked for you, didn't it? Please tell me it worked.

You see, my oldest child has developed the habit of going through life with his hands down his pants. Now don't get ahead of me here because there's nothing vulgar about this. It's just a bad habit that I WILL BREAK.

I'm no stranger to bad habits. I think I started chewing my nails in the womb, and on any given day I will have one beautiful, well-manicured nail just to prove I can grow nails. My small victory. And for a short period of my life I had those fabulous solar nails that looked perfect and couldn't be chewed, but it's just not economically feasible for me to buy nails when God gave me the ability to grow them. So I chew them. All the time.

I also have the fabulous bad habit of munching (on food, not nails) when I need to do a mundane task. Jelly Belly jelly beans are my favorite, and I can go through an average sized bag of them every time I give a TAKS test. While I "actively monitor" students, I eat jelly beans one at a time, and sometimes I count to a certain number in between beans. Or I park the beans at one area of the room and allow myself to have one on every third pass. I usually end up with a little stomach ache, but I keep my sanity during four hours of watching people take tests.

I also need to munch when I'm trying to focus really hard something tedious. I tried to buy lots of almonds last year when I was working on the English department master schedule because I knew I would need to munch. Peanut M&M's work well, too, but I have to eat them in three steps each. You know, take a bite, eat it, eat the peanut from the middle, then eat the other chocolate candy half. Everyone does that right? Somehow it makes me focus - like my chewing jaws are a little motor for my brain. Now that I think about it, munching might give me genius superpowers.

But I never put my hands down my pants. That's just weird.

Tuck's a pretty smart kid, and I think he's decided that pants without pockets can have make-shift pockets if you stick your hands down the waistband. It's been colder lately, so perhaps he's trying to keep his hands warm while wearing pocket-less pants.

Either way, I find myself constantly saying, "Get your hands out of your pants." I thought the problem was confined to home, but yesterday we were Christmas shopping and I caught him with his hands warming just under his waistband. I called him over, grabbed his little face, and whispered, "You do not want me to scream at you across the store to get your hands out of your pants. You will be very embarrassed. It's just not polite." That seemed to fix the problem for the rest of the shopping trip.

But it didn't stop the problem. And it didn't stop me from thinking about him being the weird kid at school who the girls describe with a disapproving scowl: "Tucker always has his hands in his pants. It's sooooo gross." Just ask Wesley Green, the kid in my third grade class who picked his nose. He could tell you. I'm sure he ended up as a social outcast who had to get a job at the North Pole because everyone knew he picked his boogers in the third grade and he couldn't stand the humiliation.

So I persevere. "Get your hands out of your pants," I say, and I mean it. Then five minutes later I say it again. And again. And again.

So this holiday season, thank your mom that you're not reading this post with your hands in your pants. Trust me, it was no easy job to get you here.

It's me again!

2009-12-21T19:55:00.003-06:00

Whew. It's been a long time without a blog post. I've been busy, but I'm well aware that my busy isn't any more than anyone else's busy this time of year. I just got a little bit behind in my life, and it didn't seem like catching up was possible. (As a side note, the Hickman family Christmas card hasn't been done, so it's just turned into the Hickman family New Year's card, and you can expect it in January.)

Now that things have calmed down, I would like to extend a special bit of gratitude to those of you who kept me sane when I edged myself closer to the brink in the last week and a half or so. You know who you are because you ran scantrons, wrote me a nice note, stayed married to me, attended interviews with me well after you were supposed to be gone home for the holidays, checked email on your day off so I could turn my homework in, and/or listened to me whine (gasp! not me! whine? I'm so ashamed, but it happened, and I think it happened a lot. Foxy could tell you for sure.)

Anyway, I work with the gosh-darned awesomest people on the planet and my husband is a saint, and I thanked God for you all lots and lots of times last week when things got crazy.

Now on to the blogging part. These are unrelated items that need to be documented here for posterity.

1) Keaton is certain that all angels have names, and he is downright offended when we don't call them by their names. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing? There are angels in that nativity scene? "Which ones?" he wants to know, and he isn't satisfied until we throw out names that seem fitting for angels. In addition, we always have to mention Gabriel. If we don't, he'll add, "And Gabriel. I think it was Gabriel, too."

2) Tucker's random fact-ness is getting a little out of control. As usual, he entertains us during breakfast each morning with sports facts from the night before. Unfortunately, all sports in the world don't end when he goes to bed, so he has to read all the updates on ESPN.com and YELL THEM AT US while we get ready for school/work/church. It usually goes something like this:

"MOM! DAD! [RANDOM FOOTBALL PLAYER] HAD TWO INTERCEPTIONS IN THE GAME LAST NIGHT! THE [RANDOM FOOTBALL TEAM] WAS OUTSCORED IN THE LAST TWENTY SECONDS TO LOSE THE GAME BY TWO! BY TWO! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? DO YOU THINK [RANDOM FOOTBALL TEAM] WENT FOR TWO AT THE VERY END? HERE, YOU GOTTA WATCH THIS CLIP! IT'S AWESOME!"

Trey and I pretend to care for a few minutes (because that's what good parents do, right?) and then when I reach my breaking point I have to tell him to use his inside voice and STOP YELLING SCORES AT ME BEFORE BREAKFAST! After all, his inside voice is much easier to tune out before 8:00 a.m. (and that's what great parents do, right?).

On the way to church yesterday morning, we sat quietly in the car listening to softly playing Christmas music when Tucker screamed, "LAWRENCE TAYLOR WAS BORN IN 1959! HOW OLD IS HE NOW? FIFTY! LAWRENCE TAYLOR IS FIFTY!"

Is there a version of Turrets for sports fan? I think Tucker has it.

3) Keaton was nicely dressed for church yesterday morning in jeans, boots, and a blue long-sleeved collared shirt. It wasn't until we got into the car that I realized he had added a giant sun hat and a green plastic lei to the ensemble. When I asked him about it, he told me he wasn't going to wear the hat into church.

Great. So he was planning to wear the lei? I let it go until we were getting out of the car at church, and then I gently took it off of him and explained that he couldn't wear that inside either. He huffed at me a little, "Ooookaaaaay."

That didn't, however, stop him from trying to wear both accessories into the restaurant after church. God help us when this kid is allowed to dress himself.

Creeper Santa

2009-12-02T20:21:00.003-06:00

We were having one of those mornings.

Okay, we were all fine, but Keaton was having one of those mornings.

He woke up early and announced, "I am not eating at home this morning. You will stop and get me breakfast." You know I LOVED that.

Then he started with "I'm not feeling well. Mommy! I'm not feeeeeeliiiing welllllll. I'm siiiiiiick. I want to stay home." I told him he was welcome to stay home all by himself, but there was no one to stay with him because we all had things to do.

Things progressed as expected with significant crying, screaming, demanding, etc. As I picked him to take him in our room to get him dressed, he began squirming and kicking. So I held him out away from me, my hands under his armpits, his skinny little body flopping around in a full-on temper tantrum.

I've learned that Keaton reacts if I react, so I pretended it wasn't happening until the time came that I couldn't get his pants on his squirming little legs. In desperation and frustration, I blurted out, "SANTA IS WATCHING YOU!"

And there was silence. Immediate silence. Surprised, he finally asked, "What did you say?"

Me: I said Santa is watching to see if you're a good boy or a bad boy.

Keaton: He's watching me right now?

Me: Yes. He's always watching you.

Now this is where Bad Santa comes in. I had this evil moment-slash-moment of genius when I realized the Wild Thing was paying attention. I realized it and I used it. I used it good.

Me: You know what happens to bad little boys?

Keaton (not sure he wants to know): What?

Me (in my super-scary voice): They get rocks in their stockings. (This was followed by Vincent Price-style evil laughter in my head, and I am only a little ashamed.)

Keaton: Rocks?

Me: Yes, rocks. Only the good boys and girls get toys, and Santa is always watching so he can put you on his good list or his bad list to see if you get toys or ROCKS.

We finished getting him dressed in total, compliant silence, and I felt I had entered a new world. I realized this is it. This is THE YEAR that I can use this. It's never worked before, and it will never work again, but THIS YEAR I will use it until bedtime Christmas Eve. I wondered if it would be possible for Santa to mail a behavior report card to Keaton just to let him know that the Big Guy is keeping tabs. I pictured myself slipping a ten to the mall Santa and whispering in his ear whatever boyish trouble Keaton had gotten in that day so he could have a little heart to heart with the kid. This is big, I thought, and I'm a freaking genius for figuring it out.

After a reasonably quiet breakfast at home (turkey bacon and juice, the breakfast of champions), Keaton was climbing the ladder that's still in the living room along with the half-displayed Christmas decorations and their boxes. "Mommy?" he asked in a sweet voice, "is Santa outside the window right now?"

Sensing his timidity, I responded kindly, "No, baby. He's not outside."

Keaton shrugged his disbelief and turned his freaked out little face to the window.

And that's how I made Santa a creeper. Will that get me Mother of the Year?

One time there was this goat, The Finale

2009-11-29T22:41:00.004-06:00

Before you read this, you should check out part one and part two.

As I stood in my friend's classroom in my pleated black slacks, fitted blouse, and fabulous Steve Madden pumps with my new goat under my arm, the plan began to formulate. One of the ag teachers offered for the vet tech kids to help take care of the goat during the day, and I must have looked like she offered me a million bucks because I agreed so quickly!

It was Wednesday, which meant that the boys had to be picked up from choir at five. As soon as I could get away from school (about 4:15), I sped to the feed store in Wellborn, waited impatiently behind a man buying some sort of livestock feed, and then asked the cashier for a bottle to feed a baby goat. Up until then we'd been using a nipple on a water bottle, and it leaked terribly.

The nice young man got me a bottle, and I flew home to change out of my dress clothes and into my goat-handling gear. I tossed the dog's kennel (now a makeshift goat kennel) in the back of the Prius and headed to church.

I was only about five minutes late picking up the boys, and on the way out of the church I whispered to them that we had to hurry because we had to go get the goat. I thought Keaton's head was going to pop off because he was so excited! He must have said the word "goat" one hundred times on the ten minute drive to my school.

Because this story is getting a little too long, let's just say we loaded up Goat in the kennel and headed home.

I had already decided that she could live on the tile floor in the entry until I could get her to mom, so I asked the boys to make a wall to keep her in. Here's what they did:

Yes, friends, those are football helmets. It only took Goat about two seconds to escape from that impregnable fortress.

There were two "best things" about having the goat.

The first is that even Trey (clearly not a natural goat-lover) got into the fun. He called my niece Jodi to say, "Hey. Are you going to come see my goat?" Not long after that phone call there were pictures on facebook of Goat posing with Jodi and Goat posing with Tiffany.

Also, when Goat got restless, Trey picked her up and held her really close, and she was instantly quiet and still. It reminded me of when the boys were babies. For some reason when I held them they would just get wiggly-er, but he has such a calming effect on people (and goats). It was sweet.

Best thing number two was Farmer Keaton. In case you didn't know, Keaton tells people that he is a farmer and has a farm. He has named most of my dad's cows, has deemed his black boots his "farmer boots," and often talks about his tractors (some real, some not-so-real).

He was so darn happy to have that goat. He decided to train her to stay in the entry, and he was so patient in dealing with her. I was completely shocked because, let's be honest, I would never use the word "patient" to describe him and if you've met him you wouldn't either.

When she would get out of the entry, he would gently pick her up and put her back. Then he would stroke her back and quietly tell her, "Marion, this is your room. See the brown walls? The brown walls are your room, and you have to stay in here, okay?"

Of course, she'd get right back out, and he'd repeat the lesson all over again. It was amazing to watch.

(Sidebar: Mom named her goat Marion despite the fact that she will forever be Ethel to the English department of A&M Consolidated High School. Why Ethel? Why Marion? I have no idea what the answer is to either question.)

One time Marion peed on the carpet (because Tucker let her out when I said not to), and before I could get to the mess, Keaton had cleaned it up. For real! I think this little farmer is ready for his own pet.

Each morning I would get up, feed the goat, get dressed, and load her in the car to take her to school. During my conference period I'd feed her, and at the end of the day the goat and I would head back home. It must have been quite the picture to see me bringing my goat to school every morning.

On Friday after school, something came up and I needed to meet a friend in Bryan. Believe it or not, Trey suggested I just drop off the goat at the bank rather than trying to get her home and being late to my engagement. So not only did this goat go to school every day, she also went to the bank one afternoon.

Saturday afternoon Trey and I met my parents in Jewett to pass off the goat. We also decided to loan them Keaton until Thanksgiving, so he could "do some farmin'" and help out with the goat. I don't know how much help he was, but he had a great time.

And so the saga of the goat begins. She now lives on the farm with Grandma (who insists the goat can be house trained but Daddy won't let her even think about trying). I think Marion may have even gotten a goat friend or two today so she won't be too lonely.

I love that my kids will always remember the day their mom brought home a goat. I want them to know that sometimes I did (and let them do) something crazy just for the adventure of it. I want them to find exciting things everywhere they look and jump at opportunities to do the unexpected.

If they look really hard, they just might find a goat.

One time there was this goat, part 2

2009-11-24T10:30:00.003-06:00

When I learned that the goat had survived the night and made it to school, I sent an email to my friends: "So I have this goat..." Of course, wit and hilarity ensued via email, and we made all of the applicable jokes:

"Stormy has a new kid!"

"Who is going to get your goat?"

"Did it follow you to school one day?"(okay, that one was about a lamb, but remember this was hilarity, so it didn't matter)

During lunch we all decided to go see the goat, so my friends and I traipsed down to the ag department kennels and found this:

I know what you're thinking. That goat is pretty darn cute, right? Well, she was cute, and "oohs" and "aawwws" commenced as soon as my friends and I saw her. Someone asked her name, and I was very clear that this was grandma's goat so grandma would be naming her. I decided that for the time being she could just be called "Goat."

So then word was out about Goat, and I had to show her off so as not to leave anyone out. I decided to first take her to the yearbook lab because it's very close to the ag rooms, and I knew my yearbook peeps would love to see her.

I scooped the sweet, quiet little thing up into my arms, and she immediately began screaming like her tail was on fire. I don't know how else to describe the sound except to say screamed. Perhaps bleating is appropriate goat-lingo, but that doesn't capture the sound made by a two-day old goat in a high school being carried around like a baby. In hindsight, I'm just glad Goat didn't pee all over me.

We "oohed" and "awwed" over her in the yearbook lab for a moment, and then I returned her to the safety of her kennel and got back to work. Right away I learned that some of the life skills students had come to see her, so I grabbed her up to take her to them for a quick visit.

But I couldn't handle the screaming the second time around. She screamed so much and so loud that in a moment of panic I just deposited her on the floor, at which point she immediately quieted. In fact, I'm pretty sure she smiled a sweet little goat smile. Trust me, I was there.

Not sure what to do next, I called to her, "Goat. Come here Goat. Some kids want to meet you," and she followed me through a classroom and across the hall, skipping and jumping all the while. The life skills kids petted her and spoke to her, and then Goat followed me back across the hall and classroom to her kennel where she calmly stayed the rest of the day. Her willingness to blindly follow me over the river and through the woods, so to speak, led to my new title of Stormy the Goat Whisperer.

However, at some point in the afternoon it occurred to me that I needed to get her home, but I also realized that the Prius isn't really made for hauling goats. In addition, the fact that she needed to be fed every 2-3 hours the next day became problematic because I have this job that they liked me to show up for, and I'm pretty sure there's no button in our absence system that says, "out for goat care."

Clearly, I had not thought this completely through. I needed a plan, and I needed it to look like a simple, flawless plan so that Trey wouldn't have me committed for bringing home a baby goat.

It's a good thing I'm really good at making plans...

One time there was this goat, part one

2009-11-22T21:02:00.003-06:00

It all began on a Tuesday during lunch. Morgan, a friend and fellow teacher, came into our lunch-eating area and asked, "Does anyone know of somebody who would want a baby goat? We've got one that lost her momma, and she needs to be bottle fed." I offered that my mom had been talking about getting goats, and that I would ask her if she was interested.

On way home, I made my daily phone call to Mom (on the bluetooth in my car which I'm pretty sure irritates her but that I have to use because I'm in a school zone when I call) and when I asked her about the goat, she said, "Sure. Yeah. I'd like to take the goat." I did a little cheer inside as I became excited about the possibilities that were beginning to unfold.

I called Morgan and made arrangements for her to bring the goat to school with her the next day. Then I called my favorite ag teacher and asked if there was a place to keep the goat for the day until I could take it home. I made all of the appropriate arrangements. Except one.

Later that evening Trey and I stood next to each other at the kitchen counter making dinner. Here's how the conversation went down.

Me: Anything exciting happen today?
Trey: Not really, just ___________

(See, here I was trying to think of how I was going to tell him that we were getting a goat. I'm sure I was listening carefully to what he was saying, but I don't actually remember it.)

Me: Well...so...there's a possibility that I'll be bringing a goat home from school tomorrow.

Trey (without looking up from what he's doing): What are you going to do with a goat?

Me: Well...bottle feed it.

Trey (now he looks up because he realizes that I'm seriously talking about a real goat): Why?

Me: It's only a couple of days old, and its mom died, and Morgan can't care for it because it has to be bottle fed every couple of hours. (Clearly he wasn't asking why the goat would need to be bottle fed, but why I would be bringing home a goat. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one yet, so I skimmed past it.)

Trey: What are you going to do with the goat?

Me: Mom wants it (good thing he loves my mom), and we'll just have to keep it until we see her. But it's an orphan and may not even make it through tonight, so we'll just see, okay.

Trey (with "that" look): okay

And so I began wondering what in the green earth I was going to do with a goat in my house. I wondered if the goat would live. Okay, I secretly prayed that the goat would live because I would be the coolest mom in the world if I brought a goat home to Keaton. I thought of the memories my kids would have, and I thought of how much my mom would enjoy watching a goat act ridiculous (WAY more fun than chickens, if you ask me).

At school the next morning, I waited anxiously for Morgan to arrive so I could determine if I would actually get to take the goat home. But it was meeting day for me, so I left a note asking her to take the goat to the ag shop if she had brought it and went on about my morning.

When I returned to my classroom, I learned that I did, in fact, have a goat.

Success

2009-11-11T19:51:00.005-06:00

Today was a success. Not the perfect, nothing-ever-goes-wrong kind of success, but a more guttural kind. The kind of success you find when you take a risk and step WAY out of your comfort zone and don't get hit by a truck.

A few weeks ago, I masterminded a guest speaker for all of the on-level junior English students. A retired CIA operative and current teacher at the Bush School agreed to come and talk to our students about what it was like to live undercover as a spy in the modern world.

I say masterminded because this isn't something I've ever done before - scheduled a guest speaker to talk to 350 teenagers in a formal setting. First, I had to ask permission and explain how this lecture would fit into our TEKS (the standards that the State of Texas says we must follow). We were reading Fahrenheit 451 at the time, and I knew the technology of the CIA would be fun to compare to the technology in the novel that is implied to be almost innately evil. Our administrators are supportive people who look forward to providing opportunities for our kids, so they gave me the green light.

Then I scheduled with the speaker, unfortunately for a time well after the completion of our novel study. I was so far into the process that I determined the timing didn't matter that much, and I pressed on.

But then I went all crazy the way I do. I started seeing opportunity upon opportunity brought on by this one event. I knew that this was our chance to work with kids on how to behave during a formal occasion. Honestly, many of the students who would attend had never had an experience being part of an audience, and I was beside myself excited about giving them the education and opportunity to be able to do so.

Every time someone asked, "So are just the AP kids going or the honors, too?" I responded with defiant joy that only the on-level kids were going, and I loved the confused looks I got which were usually followed by a timid "Oh. Good for them."

I envisioned one of my students in ten years, invited to attend a formal banquet fundraiser on behalf of his employer. I saw him walk into the room properly dressed, shaking hands and introducing himself, feeling confident that he knew exactly what to do and expect. And in this little dream of mine, somewhere in the back of that kid's head he remembered his first experience listening to a formal speaker, and he remembered something -- anything -- I told him to do, and he did it. And he felt good about himself and people noticed.

In preparation for the speaker, I talked to my students about how to behave, when to applaud, what to listen for, and all the other odds and ends about being an audience. I asked one student to read the speaker's introduction and another to present him with a thank you gift after his presentation. I doled out my best "responsibility" speech, complete with "I worked hard to make this happen for you, and I want this man to leave here and tell everyone he sees how wonderful this school is, and only you can make that happen."

When the big day came today, I dressed in my most professional outfit, re-applied my lip gloss (that never happens), and set out to be the model of perfect formality to these kids. While 75% of students listened attentively and behaved perfectly, I couldn't let go of the 25% who weren't.

I threw out every teacher and mom strategy known to man. I gave disapproving looks. I mouthed "stop it" in my sternest, most silent whisper. I held my eyes in such a way that said, "If you don't cut it out I will make you rue the day you behaved this way. RUE IT!" I marched around in my fabulous heels as discreetly as possible to pull the proximity card on ne'er-do-wells. I prayed. I prayed as hard and fast as I have prayed in many years that the kids would be perfect and that the whole thing would end soon so I could breathe. I thought, "I will never do this again. Never!" All the while knowing that I will do it again and making mental notes about how I'll do it better.

At the conclusion of our assembly, we thanked our speaker, and I dismissed the students from the auditorium. As I turned to exit the stage, a crowd of students ascended the stairs. They shook the speaker's hand, told him how grateful they were for his taking the time to speak to us, and they asked wonderful, intriguing questions that he seemed excited to answer.

And I remembered that young man in my fantasy at his first formal event as a professional, and I remembered that today that young man was seventeen and so were all of his friends.

It wasn't perfection, but it was success.

Two final notes: One. Today's guest speaker and the conversations leading up to and after fulfilled one of the state's requirements for the year, TEKS 14 and 16 regarding listening and responding appropriately. Yes, I'm that nerdy.

Two. After the presentation, one of the students asked the speaker if the government is really making light sabers. I laughed out loud until he very seriously said, "I know what you're talking about, and we have the technology." light sabers? wow.

The Expletive

2009-10-26T18:45:00.003-05:00

We knew this day would come. Before Tucker was even born, we knew the day would come that he would discover that his name rhymes with THE bad word, the worst word a person could say. We made it all the way to first grade.

Tonight as Trey was helping Tucker get his pajamas on, they were talking about what went on today at school. Trey always asks the boys, "What was the best part of your day?" and that was the exact conversation they were having tonight.

Tucker explained that his friends had a new way of making nicknames for each other. Last year, he said, they would replace the first letter of each person's with an "s," making Donovan into Sonovan, Luke into Suke, and Tucker into Sucker. We knew about this last year, and Tucker thought it was pretty funny, so it was no big deal.

This year, however, the boys have decided to replace the first letter of their names with "f." Yep. You do the math...er...spelling. Tucker announced, "So they're calling me *ucker. Isn't that funny!"

My jaw dropped. Trey's jaw dropped.

I'm not going to lie, I wanted to explode with laughter, but I knew that was an inappropriate and un-parent-like response. I knew that if we over-reacted then he would decide this word should be used often around the boys at school, so I composed myself and quickly formulated my response.

Me: Tucker, that is a very bad word. Of all the bad words you could say, that's the worst one.

Tucker: *ucker? Why is that a bad word? What kind of bad word is it?

Me: Just a regular bad word, but a really bad one.

Tucker: But, what kind of bad word. Like why do people say *ucker?

Me: Um...do you want me to use it in a sentence or something?

At this point I was trying to hide my giggles while being very grown up and rational. It didn't help that Trey's eyes were laughing hysterically, and I don't think he could look at Tucker. For some reason, this conversation required Tucker to say this very bad word in every sentence.

Trey made an attempt at explanation: Tucker, you know how sometimes people say bad words? That's one of them. (thanks, Trey, because I apparently wasn't getting that across)

Tucker: But WHY do they say it?

Trey: You know how sometimes you say "dang it"?

Tucker: Oh, yeah, I say that all the time.

Trey: Well that word isn't too bad, but if you put an "f" in front of your name it's very bad.

Me (trying to help): It's so bad they won't let you say it on TV!

Tucker: Hmmm... well, what does *ucker mean?

Okay, at this point I just wanted to run from the room. It's bad enough that my six year old is dropping the "f" bomb in every other sentence, but it's SO much worse that he wants to know what it means. Seriously. This could make me change his name.

Me: Tucker, don't worry about what it means. You just need to know that it's a horrible word, and if a teacher hears you or your friends saying it, then you will probably go straight to the office and be in big trouble.

On that note, Trey left the room (probably because his eyes were going to pop out if he didn't laugh out loud soon). Sensing my distress, and an opening now that his dad left the room, Tucker got that evil little "I'm about to pick on my mom grin" on his face and proudly said, "*ucker *ucker *ucker *ucker *ucker."

I just left the room. I got up and walked away. There was nothing left to say at that point, and I couldn't stand it anymore.

Trey insists that the boys Tucker hangs out with know exactly what they are doing, and I don't disagree. I also think about my own name, and all the times that people have asked me if I was made fun of as a child. My answer is always, "If they did, I didn't know it!"

I guess I've passed that along to my oldest son.

I Never

2009-10-25T18:29:00.003-05:00

My kids have horrible lives. They never get to do anything. Just spend a day or two with them and you'll feel so bad for them that you'll probably want to take them in and care for them because they are so mistreated here. Just a few pieces of evidence heard around the Hickman house today:

I never get to sit in the red chair!
I never get to sleep on the couch!
I never get the star blanket!
I never get to wear long pants!
I never get to pour in the milk!
I never get to watch Little Bill!
I never get to play Wii!

Sometimes I think I'd rather have them rattling off four letter words on their way home from punching kids at school than say "I never."

I think the parent version of the "I never" list is more like "I always" (or "we always" around here).

I always pick up your shoes.
I always put away all of your laundry.
I always make sure you have plenty to eat, and it's usually stuff you like.
I always pick you up from school.
I always take care of you when you're sick.
I always make sure you have lunch money.

Don't you feel bad for my kids? They may as well live on the street and fend for themselves with the care they get around here. Trey and I are just going to have to do better.

Attention!

2009-10-19T18:43:00.004-05:00

Trey and I were having a great conversation about life, and things we're looking forward to, and what went on in our days at work. Keaton apparently wasn't getting enough attention because he spontaneously shouted, "I KNOW LOTS OF BAD WORDS! SHUT UP, STUPID, OH MY GOD. THOSE ARE BAD WORDS AND I DON'T SAY THEM!"

He certainly got our attention.

The Candy Corn Caper

2009-10-19T18:16:00.002-05:00

I don't buy candy corn because I would eat it all in one sitting.

That's a lie. I should have said that I buy candy corn and eat it all in one sitting, so I try to buy small bags.

But that would be a lie, too, because we all know the more candy corn the better, so I buy great big bags of it. I love the candy corn pumpkins, too, and bats, and witch heads, and, well, pretty much anything candy corn-like. I have no control over myself when it comes to candy corn, and I eat it until my stomach hurts and begin to drool sugar. I just can't stop myself.

On Saturday, Keaton went with me to the grocery store. We were having a fine time shopping, and I carefully monitored the extra things he requested to keep us within our budget for the trip. He got to pick which kind of yogurt and which bunch of bananas he wanted, and he got fruit gushers and a large bunch of grapes, and he was very happy because nothing makes him happier than getting his way.

Then he spotted the candy corn. "Mom, can we have some candy corn for Halloween?!" he squealed.

"We'll see," I told him, mentally calculating how many non-list items we'd already gotten and remembering my candy corn addiction. I honestly thought he would just forget about it, but the folks at HEB made sure that didn't happen because there was candy corn at every turn. Finally I gave in, and we bought one small bag of store-brand candy corn. It didn't break my budget, and I figured it probably wouldn't be as good as the name brand crack. I mean candy corn.

I lasted about two hours before I opened the package. I thought I'd just have one handful and that would do it -- fix me up for a little while. But I couldn't help myself. I kept going back for more and more. I found myself getting just enough to hide in my fist so that Keaton wouldn't see that I was eating it and want some, too. After all, we bought a small bag.

I'm not proud. Addiction is a difficult thing.

Just before bedtime, I was sitting at the computer working on an eHow article with a fist-sized pile of candy corn in front of me on the desk where I could eat them in thirds while I worked. (Everyone knows the best way to eat candy corn is one color at a time.) In walked Keaton just as I popped the yellow end of one of the corns into my mouth.

"What are you eating?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Mom! What is it?" he insisted. Then he noticed the three remaining corns on the table. "Mom! These are for Halloween! When did you open them?"

"Earlier," I said, beginning to feel ashamed.

Keaton took the three remaining candy corns, popped them in his mouth, and scolded me through the sugar, "No more until Halloween. Do you understand?"

I just nodded in defeat.

But I couldn't help myself. On Sunday after church I went for my usual fist-sized hit, and the little rat busted me again! This time he didn't yell, however. This time he just shook his head, put his hands on his hips, and said, "Do you know what 'no more' means?"

It looks like I'm going to have to finish off this bag and get him a new one before Halloween. There are only about six left anyway.

Clearly I do not know what "no more" means. Yes, addiction is a difficult thing.

A Lesson in Church...

2009-10-12T13:35:00.002-05:00

Every week at church we get sermon notes to fill in as we listen. Tucker's been practicing filling his in, but this week it was Keaton's turn. He looked at me and mumbled what were apparently questions, and then he began writing on the notes page. The result is adorable, yet perhaps sacriligious. (HINT: The first blank says "Keaton" and the second says "Tucker."

Expectations

2009-10-08T16:57:00.003-05:00

Part of being a good mom is fulfilling your children's expectations. Sometimes those expectations are simple, like "Mom, can you get me some more chocolate milk?" Other times, they are ridiculous, like "Mom, can we buy a box at the new Cowboys stadium? We get to keep it forever." Sometimes, however, we are faced with expectations that we're certain we, ourselves, forced our children to adopt.

For example, Keaton had a field trip yesterday with his preschool class. They planned to go to the library and the park to have a picnic lunch. Keaton was SO excited! He went on and on and on about it for days leading up to the trip.

On the way to school on the big day, we had this conversation:

Keaton: Mom, do you have anything to tell me?

Me: Ummm...no? Am I supposed to tell you something?

Keaton (thinks for a minute): Well, I'm not going to eat the sand at the park. They have sand at parks, you know.

That's when I realized what I was supposed to tell him. He needed his "Special Day Lecture." So I gave it to him:

Me: Okay, remember to listen to Ms. Monica and be a very good boy -- on your best behavior. Don't forget to remember everything so that you can tell me all about it.

Keaton (exasperated, with his "duh" voice): I will...

I can't believe I had forgotten our obligatory mom lecture and son frustration. I didn't realize Keaton and I were there yet with him being only four years old. He made it very clear, however, that these conversations are expected. I'll have to remember that.

Thieves

2009-10-05T19:24:00.005-05:00

Today at school, my ipod was stolen. With all of my classes, plus two other teachers and their students who float in and out of my room at various times of the day, there is truly no telling from whence the culprit came.

Yes, I know the ipod should have been hidden away somewhere safe. However, its resting place next to my computer and behind my printer doesn't exactly invite people to touch it, so I left it there today just like most other days. My faith in humanity told me that no one would steal my old, beat up ipod from behind my desk. That faith, however, proved to be unfounded today when an individual decided he needed my ipod more than I.

The other teachers who come into my room feel somehow responsible for this theft, but 'tis not their responsibility. This twisted thief is solely at fault; therefore, I wish upon him a terrible hex which causes his under-active conscience to eat away at his cold, black heart well into each night, causing him many anguished hours of lost sleep whilst he tosses and turns in bedsheets lined with his own misdeeds.

I shall complete this rant with a quote from Khaled Hosseini's brilliant debut novel, The Kite Runner:

"Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft...When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness...There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir."

During first period tomorrow when I cannot listen to Ben Folds lift up his voice about how carefully Annie Waits, I will think of you, thief, with sadness. Sad that in your youth you have chosen to be a person who makes negative choices that impact others around you. Sad that you feel entitled to items you have not worked for. Sad that you have likely stolen before and likely will steal again.

My faith in humanity, however, you can never steal.

They're Playing My Song

2009-10-01T20:20:00.002-05:00

On the way home from soccer practice, I was listening to a wonderful classic country radio station (country legends 97.1 out of Houston- you can listen online), and the song "Daddy's Hands" by Holly Dunn came on the radio. This song holds good memories for me because I remember singing it at church on Father's Day many years and barely being able to get through it without crying. (I wonder where Tucker gets his over-emotional-ness from?) Anyway, I'm certain that Keaton has never heard this song before, but that didn't stop him from singing along. He said, "Oh I love this song. I used to sing it all the time when I was a little boy. Like when I was two." Hmmmm....

Thursdays are special because the boys get McDonalds. This is because we have football games, soccer games, and Grey's Anatomy after the boys go to bed. Life is better on Thursday nights when we're all happy.

Tonight Keaton announced that he wanted to go to Burger King because he could get a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs toy. I was only slightly appalled by the impact on my child of too much tv and too many commericals, and off to BK we went.

When we got home, I intentionally turned on music instead of the tv (small steps, right?). When Keaton recognized James Taylor's voice, he immediately yelled for me to turn it to "Sweet Baby James" - his song.

As he sang along and I worked on this morning's dishes, this is the conversation we had:

Keaton:Why does he only call me James?
Me: Who?
Keaton: The person singing. Why does he only call me James instead of Keaton James?
Me: I guess that's just how the song goes.

I realized at this point that he really thinks the song was written and performed exclusively for and about him. I'll admit I chuckled. He sang along some more, then, this:

Keaton: Mom?
Me: Yes?
Keaton: Is that God singing my song to me?
Me: No, baby, it's James Taylor.
Keaton: Oh! Like Taylor Swift. Only her name is Taylor Swift and his name is James Taylor!
Me: Yes. Exactly like that.

Oh to live in Keaton's little brain...

A New Realm

2009-09-27T22:02:00.007-05:00

It's been two weeks since my last update. We've entered a new realm of parenthood in the last two weeks - we have both boys playing sports. Tucker has started flag football season with games on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 6:00 and practices on Saturdays. This coming Tuesday is his first game, but he's been practicing on his regular schedule for two weeks. I've found I can get lots of Saturday afternoon grading done at football practice!

Keaton has finally delved into the world of childhood soccer, and it's wonderful! He's been waiting for half of his life (about two years) to put that soccer uniform on, and I think it's everything he ever dreamed of.

You see, when Keaton plays soccer, people yell and clap and cheer for him and the rest of his team. He adores the glory of it all, and he can't help but to turn to the crowd of his adoring fans and share a smile, even during the middle of the game. He runs and runs, and waves and waves, but he doesn't actually kick the ball. It doesn't matter, though, as long as the people will cheer.

As an added bonus, he was amazed and excited to learn that at half time he gets to eat oranges. And sometimes there's Gatorade. What more could a kid ask for?

While Tucker has always been very serious and competitive in everything, Keaton continues to find ways to make every single undertaking a world a fun, and it makes me happy to watch! Somehow it seems calmer around here even though we're busy. We're spending lots of time together without watching tv or being on the computer, and it's good to be together.

Cutting down on the tv is probably a good idea, too, because tonight as we were watching The Amazing Race the teams had to eat super-spicy wasabi bombs. After one girl finished her challenge, Trey said to me, completely under his breath, "She's going to be crapping fire."

To which Keaton replied emphatically, "Oh yeah! She's going to be crapping fire! Whew! Fire! That's right. Crapping fire!"

Yeah, I think we might need to cut down on the tv.

One of each

2009-09-13T21:01:00.002-05:00

Yep, I have a story from each boy this weekend.

First, Keaton. Yesterday, Keaton cut his hair. Not just a little trim, either, but a serious hair cut. He lost inches off the top, and the front of his hair was barely half an inch long. This, my baby with his handsome flowing locks, now all gone. Well, gone in chunks, anyway, because he's not particularly good at cutting hair.

I wasn't home when this happened. The story goes that Keaton was a little too quiet, so Trey went to check on him in our bathroom and found him weilding the scissors. The damage had already been done, however. Trey explained to him that he looked ridiculous and needed to go to his room.

Keaton fell apart in dispair. He sobbed, wailed in physical pain, and almost hyperventilated. He refused to look in the mirror at his hair. This went on for at least half an hour, and that's when I called. Trey explained the situation and his facisnation with how upset Keaton was about his beutiful hair being chopped to pieces.

Trey put Keaton on the phone, and what he said to me was incomprehensible. He was so broken about his hair. I've never seen or heard him so upset.

Yes, it was quite funny.

I came home, took him to Classic Cuts, and got the mess cleaned up a little. It doesn't look ridiculous, but it doesn't look like Keaton's flowing locks either. Maybe in a few weeks.

Now Tucker.

Tucker's fantasy football team is doing very well this week so far. He scored 19 points in the Thursday night with Sanantonio Holmes, and today things just got better. Most of his players had noon games, so he was going crazy. He had the stat tracker up on the computer and the Texans on the tv. He was yelling at the tv and the computer and shouting updated scores at us every thirty seconds or so. It was football season as it's best.

At some point he said to me, "Mom, I can smack talk my opponent on yahoo!"

I had seen the instant message-type link that allowed you to communicate with your opponent, but I hoped Tucker wouldn't find it (yeah, right). I explained that he really didn't need to be smack talking people he didn't know on the internet and let it go.

A little later I took a seventeen minute nap. After seventeen minutes Tucker yelled for me to wake up and Keaton climbed on top of me and kicked me in the face, so I gave up and woke up. As I walked past the computer I saw this in the "smack talk" box: "I"AM WINNING 94-36"

My first thought was that some internet stranger is about to start cussing out my six year old. I couldn't figure out how to delete the smack talk, so I took the only action a mother could take. I smack talked as well. It said this:

"FYI -- the superjacks team belongs to a six year old. I had no idea he would 'smack talk' while I was taking a nap. Yes, he's a freak about football. This is his mother."

And there you have it. Tucker saw that I posted, and I think he was a little annoyed by me, but thankfully he's too young to be humiliated.

But there's a lesson to be learned here, and I hope he learned it. If it's for his own good, I will humiliate him. It's my job as his mother, and while I may not like it, I'm not afraid to do it. So hoiw's that for smack talk?

I wonder how the guy feels that now knows he's getting killed by a six year old whose mother won't let him smack talk?

Labor Day

2009-09-07T16:50:00.005-05:00

Today is Labor Day, and while I didn't mind too much that I had to work, it turned out to be one of those days that I just wanted to throw my hands up in the air and start over.

I guess it started yesterday when every time I opened my mouth I ended up thinking "should I have said that?" It continued into today, where I just kept almost doing things right. You know as well as I do that almost just ain't gonna cut it. I'd rather totally screw up than get things almost right.

With a sigh of relief, I left school around 3:05 to attend my annual exam at the gynecologist. Turns out it's been about 18 months since I've been, and when I started getting threatening notes from the pharmacist about how he's not going to refill any more pills until I visit the doc, I decided to make an appointment. Today was the big day.

As I sat in the waiting room reading my book, an extended family came in, including two men, two women (one very pregnant), and two kids. One of the kids immediately began scraping a toy against the wall of the waiting room making the most awful sound. It was all I could do not to walk over and yank the toy from the kid's hands.

His parents (I guess they were his parents) didn't notice because they were having this conversation as loud as possible:

Man (to wife, I assume): You're an a*******.
Woman #1: You're a jerk.

Then everyone roared with laughter.

Woman #1: Are we all going to go in there?
Man: I'm not. I don't want to see her hoohah.
Woman #2: Whatever. They all look the same.
Man: The difference is that it's your hoohah and I only look at her hoohah. I don't want to see yours.

Roaring laughter again accompanied various profanities and the annoying SSCCCCRRRAAAPPPEE of the toy against the wall.

Here's what I was thinking: "PLEASE let me get back there to the doctor. PLEASE! I don't know how long I can take this without throwing things at them. I might kill them. No. I can't kill anybody. But I could hurt them. And I could make a scene, and then the nurses would come out, and they would think I was crazy and go ahead and call me out of the waiting room because they don't want the crazy lady to scare people. I could hurt them with my book. Yeah. Books are always the answer!"

I don't think I've ever looked so forward to seeing the gynecologist in my life.

Finally, just before I "accidentally" hurled Lord of the Flies across the room, they called my name. We did the usual weight and blood pressure thing (mine was higher than usual. wonder why?), and then off to the room we went. On the way, the nurse informed me that Dr. Davis had a student with him today.

I've had two kids which involved lots of people in the room. After a few hours of labor, modesty just seems a bit overrated. So bring on the students. I really don't think I'm interesting enough to be the one thing they remember from their day shadowing Dr. Davis. Mainly because I've seen the waiting room.

So I psych myself up for the impending exam, get naked, put on the gown open in the front, cover myself with the sheet, and sit.

And sit.

I was so grateful to be sitting semi-naked in a cold room all alone that I didn't even mind waiting. I could have sat there all day. It actually occurred to me to get my book back out and lay down on the bed until the doctor came in. Escape from the day a little, you know.

But then he did come in. He stuck his head in the door to say, "Hey Stormy! I've got to go deliver a baby. I'm sorry."

Humph. Of course. I should have known this would happen. I quickly reminded myself that he likely ditched some appointments throughout my two childbirth sessions, and smiled and told him no big deal. He asked when I was available again, and I mentally listed the several meetings I have scheduled this week. Finally I offered to go to the front desk and schedule something that I could later cancel after I checked my planner. Poor Dr. Davis was very apologetic, and I'm afraid I didn't look "carefree" enough about listening to Bret Michaels and family and then getting naked and mentally prepared to be medically violated all for nothing.

I really did (and do) understand. It was just the icing on my cake of day.

And now, after Fish Daddy's for dinner (to go and paid for with a gift certificate) and a rather large glass of wine, I am officially calling this day over.

Tomorrow is another day.

Pic-a-Nicks

2009-09-03T19:48:00.003-05:00

As Trey was helping me plan my outfit for 80s day at school tomorrow, Keaton made suggestions about what I should wear and how I should wear it. Then he took a piece of fabric we were thinking of using as a belt, and had me tie it around him to be his belt. It looked more like a sarong.

Next, he got a hot dog lunchable out of the refrigerator, tossed it at me, and barked, "Heat that up for me." After I recovered from my shock, I tossed it right back to him and said, "No."

So he picked it up, handed it to me politely and said, "May you please heat up my lunchable, Mommy?"

"I'd be happy to," I replied.

Then he began joyously shouting something about a "pic-a-nick" and making dozens of trips from the pantry to my room carrying things like poptarts, oreos, and gummies.

Trey asked me, "What's he doing?"

"Something we'll have to clean up later, I'm sure," I replied.

And so goes another quiet evening at the Hickman house.

First Grade

2009-08-26T18:56:00.004-05:00

Can you believe I have a first grader?

Since the first day of school (we're three days in), I have asked Tucker all about first grade. I ask him what books he's read, who his new friends are, if his teacher is nice, if they do any work yet, if the work is math or science or reading, and on and on and on.

Here's what I've learned:

1. They still have recess.

2. Lunch is earlier than in kindergarten. This is a good thing.

3. Tucker has drawn his face.

That's it. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that I had to take his responses to my incessant questioning and add words to make them complete sentences. I began to think he got a strange pleasure from torturing me with no details. Today I'm convinced this is true.

We were sitting down having dinner, and I was telling him how much I've missed him this week after spending the whole summer with him. I was trying to be cool, asking casual questions about his day, secretly hoping he would give me some nugget of what life in first grade is like for him. Finally, I said, "Do you like Mrs. Patton?"

Tucker: Yeah. She's nice. If you're tired, she lets you go into the office and lay down so you can sleep.

Me: Really? (I think I must have looked surprised because he kept going.)

Tucker: Yep! Anytime you're tired.

Me: Have you been to the office to lay down?

Tucker: Yeah! Today I went to the office and took a long nap. Actually, I slept like all day.

Me: You did not! Did you really go to the office and sleep because you were tired?

Tucker: Yep! I slept all day long.

My jaw dropped. I looked at Trey, and my eyes said "I can't believe he went to the office to sleep all day because he was tired! He is taking advantage! He will go to bed at 6:30 tonight if he doesn't have enough rest. This is unacceptable!"

Trey then responded to my look with, "I think he got you. He's pulling your leg."

I looked up to see Tucker who was now in the living room peeking at me from behind a chair, trying not to roll on the floor with laughter.

Rotten kid. Taking advantage of a poor, loving mother who just wants to know about first grade!

Toothpaste

2009-08-22T10:07:00.002-05:00

Apparently my kids are toothpaste challenged.

For their entire lives, we've spoiled them in various ways. One of those ways is that when they're tired, we'll go get their toothbrush, put some toothpaste on it, and bring it to them for their brushing needs. Kind of like a mobile tooth-brushing unit. We realized the error of our ways when we started finding toothbrushes all over the house and the boys felt that they were physically incapable of getting their own pasted-up toothbrushes. At least that's what I gathered from the screaming when we asked them to go to the bathroom and brush their teeth all alone.

So, this summer when I devised the chore chart and paired it up with potential allowance, one of the chores the boys took on is brushing their teeth and putting their toothbrushes away. Yes, all by themselves, with no deliveries involved. This is revolutionary! (You can make your own customized chore chart here.)

I have to say we've made progress. Generally they enjoy checking things off the list on the chore chart, and that's often the encouragement they need to get up and do something themselves. Well, that along with my threat of "I'm about to start taking dollars!" from their allowance.

However, their new found independence has come with a price. It appears that their are either unskilled with toothpaste tubes, OR their goal is to make the entire bathroom minty fresh. I just scrubbed toothpaste from the top of the mirror (how did it get there?), the side of the bathtub, underneath the soap dispenser, and various spots on both bathroom rugs. This doesn't include the countertop itself and one lone spot on the hallway carpet. Seriously? I now have this mental picture of me saying "Go brush," and them catching the other's eye with a knowing look that means "Let the toothpaste wars begin!"

I was really thinking that the next big mom pet peeve we'd work on is the spit trail in the sink. It grosses me out that they just spit on the side of the sink wall and leave it there to harden. I mean people have to wash their hands in that sink, and they don't want to look at your calcified spit trail while they do it. But now I see I have a different priority.

We've mastered potty training years ago, but is there such a thing as toothpaste training?