Month: August 2017

*This piece was written in August 2016 during back to school week. I find it relevant now as I head back to work for the 2017-2018 school year tomorrow*

 

In my pocket: a list of landmarks in Harlem

We scavenged, we hunted, and we found what we were looking for.

This week was PD week at school. For those non teachers, PD means professional development. It is when we get together as a staff without students in the building. We participate in ice breakers, give hugs to all our old friends, get to know new teachers. We sit through sessions on technology, the personnel handbook, and receive our daily schedule. I sometimes lead sessions and this year is was a dissection of a guided reading lesson. Teachers prepare their rooms for a new group of kids who will enter into the building this coming week.

The whole week was about preparing and learning. I also help run a committee at our school that is all about promoting school community, staff unity and morale, and school culture. We planned and hosted a scavenger hunt of our Harlem neighborhood this year.

It was a very rainy Thursday. The school had gotten us all matching shirts and we told everyone to wear comfortable shoes. As I slipped into my t-shirt and flip flops that morning, I checked the weather app and it said sporadic showers throughout the day. I crossed my fingers that it would be clear out by 2 o’clock and went about my day. I spent a few hours with my committee perfecting the teams, checking our list over and over, copying and counting everything to make sure we were ready. It was 1:55 and our committee shakily walked into the library where the staff was waiting, not knowing what the reactions would be.

As my mouth opened to talk, so did the sky. Huge rain drops began pelting the window air conditioner units and as other people’s faces dropped, we tried to widen our smiles. We explained the task of joining your team and heading out into Harlem to reach different locations where you would then take a selfie and text it to us (the judges). We talked about bonus points and bringing back brochures and business cards. Sometimes it was hard to continue because a large portion of the group looked at us like we were crazy to be sending them out into the streets in the rain. At times it sounded as if the tropical storm expected next week had blown in a few days too early. I didn’t exactly know what to say when people asked, “What if it is still pouring at 2:30 when we begin?” I pointed to someone’s umbrella as I thought to myself, How can I make people go out into the rain to search for locations if I wouldn’t want to go out in this weather either? I thought about all the bulletin board paper that needed to get hung up, the offices that still needed organizing, copies to be made, rugs to be vacuumed, pencils to be sharpened, trips to Staples that still had to be taken. I thought about my own boxes of materials still shoved into a closet that hadn’t seen the light of day since June.

I held the list in front of me with 32 locations on it. Maya Angelou’s brownstone, the Jazz Museum, the National Black Theater, The West Harlem Piers, the Harlem YMCA. All these places that we wanted people to find. These places that would help our staff have a better understanding of the neighborhood we call home for 7, 8, sometimes 11 hours a day. I asked myself, If it is pouring out and there is work to be done, why dothey need to spend hours outside finding these places?

But as I began to lose hope, a staff member, Ted, shouted out, “I’ll buy a drink at happy hour for my team if we win!” Note: the event was ending with a staff happy hour. He said this with a genuine smile and I looked at him with thankful eyes. Two other staff members got up and shouted the same thing. And as one teacher, Raquel, heard that she was on Ted’s team, she ran up screaming and hugging him as if she had gotten called to the stage on The Price is Right. Everyone laughed and clapped. From then on, as teams were announced, clapping and cheering ensued. Some people slipped out the door and who could blame them? But for the most part, people became eager to find their team. Ted and Raquel didn’t realize it, and maybe I didn’t either at the time, but they had just found the first thing on the scavenger hunt list. It was in invisible ink between the Apollo and the State Building typed out on our list.

They had just found enthusiasm.

Our committee of six pulled out pens and pencils and scribbled and switched and moved people around to form teams of whoever was left to participate. One staff member who didn’t think she could come came running down the hall five minutes after we began and said she wanted to join in. We very happily added her to a team. A team of two and a team of three went off and somehow created a team of five. Another team of three lost two members halfway through because they had to go pick up their kids and came back as a team of just one. Low and behold, we had already checked off the second thing on our list. It was nestled between Lasker Rink and the Duck Pond at Morningside Park.

We had found flexibility.

It was something our committee didn’t even realize we were hunting for until we needed to switch things up last minute and go with the flow when people made their own teams and dropped off of teams before and during the event.

At 2:30, our phones began to ping as teams took selfies to signal that they began the event. We rushed to the restaurant so we could sit and start tallying up the scores. As we raced through the rain, we kept checking our phones and laughing and shouting to each other about the photos we were receiving. We got to the restaurant and, all too loudly, took over a large booth and frantically scribbled to keep score. We hooted and hollered and we shared photos that the teams were sending us. As they texted us photos, we would write back with messages like keep up the great work and what a creative photo, you get extra points! And as those messages were received by the teams, the photos began to change. They got more creative, they got funnier. The teams seemed to be getting to places faster and faster. We had found the next thing on our hunt list.

Hidden somewhere within the lines, we checked off encouragement.

We laughed louder and louder and after a few hours when teams clambered into the restaurant we would cheer for them and clap and wonder if/when the restaurant would kick us out for being too raucous. Team members came in soaking wet and with huge smiles on their faces. They headed downstairs to the happy hour and we continued to tally up scores and discuss winners.

It was clear that our staff had found the most important bonus items concealed within our list: playfulness, fun, and optimism.

They had run out into the rain and decided to give it their all. And as they gave it their all, we gave it our all and the cycle continued. By the time the event was over, people were asking us about the next culture event and giving suggestions on a new scavenger hunt. They were sharing information about locations they discovered and talking about places they wanted to return to, maybe with students, but definitely with new friends. Turns out that by the third time a team went into the Harlem YMCA to collect a brochure, the front desk members were asking about us. They wanted to know about our school and why we were running around in matching shirts asking for brochures.

We found something that even we didn’t realize we were looking for, community spirit.

We spoke to members of all teams to expose the nitty gritty of how they went about things. We found out which teams had clear leaders, which teams made a plan before going and who went with the flow. Turns out that one team spent half an hour strategizing before they left the building and then took an Uber around from place to place. Another team collected as many brochures as they possibly could to ensure to most number of points (they got bonus points for brochures and business cards). And still another team added in videos to try to gain creativity points.

And, yet again, something was checked off of our list, something we didn’t know would rear it’s head during this event, individuality.

Our Scavenger Hunt was designed to have staff members get to know each other and get to know Harlem. The locations and point values were carefully considered. The teams were deliberate. But as our staff scurried around the neighborhood and our smiles grew and spirits opened up, we checked off the REAL things we were hunting for. Knowing where the Harriet Tubman statue is will be helpful this year but bringing enthusiasm, flexibility, encouragement, playfulness, fun, optimism, community spirit and individuality into your classroom, into your job, and into your life will carry you much further.

As a staff, we scavenged, we hunted, and, I believe, we found what we were looking for.

*This is a piece I wrote August 2016.  I find it highly appropriate as one of my first posts on my revamped blog at the end of my second summer as a mom. This post represents me exactly one year ago*

In my pocket: Memories of yesterday

 

Remember that time when you ate half a package of chewy Chips Ahoy for lunch because the baby finally settled down and you couldn’t move a muscle and the cookies were sitting near you on the coffee table, taunting you? How you decided that cookies and ice cream were as good as any post pregnancy diet?

Remember that time you ran out of bibs and the laundry room in the building was closed for renovation and your baby eats like a little drunk man, half of the milk breaking free from the corner of his mouth, his latest outfit soaking it up like the last rays of the summer sun? Hence, the need for bibs? Remember how you saw that little stack of leftover newborn sized diapers? The itty bitty diapers you once thought he would never grow out of and now look to you like they were made for a baby mouse, they’re just so minuscule? And the light bulb went off and you realized there’s nothing more absorbent than a contraption designed for catching pee? And so you grabbed a diaper, flipped it inside out, slapped it under the baby’s chin, fastened it around his neck and popped that bottle into his mouth, telling him, “Spill away little one, you can’t ruin any outfits today because your mama is a genius!!”

 

Remember that time you needed to get out of the house and didn’t want to face the Target cashiers because you had been there three times already that week so you went downstairs from Target to the Home Depot instead? Remember how it was so hot out and the air conditioning felt so nice that you made a pact with yourself to walk every aisle before going back out into the heat? How you spent an implausible amount of time in the refrigerator section? And then found out that there are way too many varieties of nails and screws in existence? And then you found things with names like Paddle Switch Angle Grinder, and Wax Toilet Bowl Gasket and realized you don’t know as much as you thought you did about life? And then, as you were heading toward the door, the song Nobody Knows It But Me by Babyface came on and brought twinklings of tears to your eyes so you veered the stroller back around and pretended to be interested in the artificial plants instead of distracted by your eighth grade nostalgia?

Remember that time when the baby was all calm and quiet so you took the opportunity to pump? And of course, like the little stinker he is, he decides to throw a fit about ten minutes into your pumping session? Remember how you reached over to put in his plug (his, best invention since sliced bread, pacifier) and spilled breast milk out of the pumping bottle, into your lap, through your pants, and into many layers of couch cushions?

How you, quite literally, cried over spilt milk.

Remember that time you rushed out the door to try to make it to story and sing along hour at a local library? And you got on the train just in time to realize you didn’t know exactly where the library was, just that you had to get off on 116^th street? And that something was wrong with your phone so you couldn’t Google the location? And then cursed yourself for not having gone to Verizon yet to fix your phone problem? Remember how you texted both of your parents to ask for the address of the library, placing bets on which one would get back to you first? And then you won the bet against yourself as your dad called you within a minute with the exact location? And as you ran down the street you thought to yourself, what are parents for if not for last second directions to library story hour?

Remember what happened at story sing along hour? How you were so flustered from running down the block when you got there that you continued to sweat through the whole half hour ordeal? Sweating while frantically bouncing little K and singing Happy and You Know It, Mr. Sun, and Itsy Bitsy Spider? Sweating and singing and ignoring the other parents’ quizzical stares as you continued to wipe your forehead and neck with paper towels? Remember how, when the singing ended, you sat in the corner, pretending to read board books to the baby, trying desperately to cool off before it was time to leave?

(Total faker. I was dripping sweat and miserable.)

Remember how you made the mistake of taking off the Moby wrap because it was adding ten degrees to an already hot situation? How you didn’t invest any advanced thinking on how in the world you’d get it back on? Remember how you wondered if it would raise too many eyebrows to ask the children’s librarian, whom you just met, to hold your baby while you wrap that darn wrap back on yourself? How you wanted to call the inventors of this great product and ask them, “How the heck do you expect me to get this on if I am not home and don’t have someone to hold my baby?!?” But the baby needed a new diaper anyway. So you went to the bathroom, changed him, and then looked at the changing table with a new appreciation. Remember how you thought, screw the athletes in Rio, I am a real champion, because you managed to pee AND then get the Moby wrap on while still holding one hand on the baby, balancing on the not quite sanitary changing table? Remember how you crossed your fingers that no one was waiting in line outside the door because you had, indeed, been in the bathroom for a good fifteen minutes?

Remember how you got that really cute hamper for baby K? You thought it was so perfect and stylish and you complimented yourself on it not being too “babyish” for a baby? Remember how you discovered that your tiny shrimp of a dog was tall enough to reach to the top of the hamper when full and pull Kingston’s clothes and bibs out? How Laila became so enamored by the smell of his milky attire that part of you has been tempted to pour some breast milk into her bowl for a sweet treat? Remember how every time you blink, half of his clothes are scattered around the floor? If only Laila could learn to put them IN the hamper, this could work out for both of us.

Remember that time that you really wanted to take Kingston swimming? So you traveled on the Metro North to a friend named Carla’s house to go swimming with her and her two toddlers? Remember how you two pushed strollers through streets, with and without sidewalks, for 30 minutes in 90 degrees to get to the pool? Remember how you got stuck on a grassy hill with a busy street on one side and a car dealership on the other? And how you zoomed down the hill with the strollers, getting stuck behind the parked cars and laughing the whole time? And how a man from the car dealership came out to see what the ruckus was all about? How he had to lift your single stroller with a teeny tiny guy and Carla’s double stroller with two good sized toddlers OVER the cars because you couldn’t fit in between? How the toddlers cheered and clapped as they flew up in the air and Kingston just slept right through it? Remember how it was worth the 1.5 hour commute each way, long walk in the sun, getting stuck on a hill and saved by a car salesman, just to give Kingston his first swimming experience and get sticky sweet from popsicles after?

Remember that time when the baby was grumpy all day? But you gave him a pass because you know that life is rough at 12 weeks old? Remember how he wouldn’t nap so you tossed him into his stroller to go for a nice long sleepy walk? Remember how when you got outside a stranger said to you, “You better be careful with that baby in the rain.” And how you made a mental note to never listen to strangers’ unsolicited advice because they offer it up waaaaay too often and it wasn’t even raining! And then when you got across the street and one block away, the first drops of water began to fall. And within five minutes you were running back toward the apartment, hating that the stranger was right, and mad at yourself for never having followed up on the stroller rain canopy that was out of stock when you went to buy it, the baby still screaming and now wet.

Remember how you learned to shave your legs, load the dishwasher, carry packages from downstairs, and send emails, all one handed, with another human being attached to you? Remember that time you couldn’t find someone to paint your bathroom? And you remembered that you were brought up as a strong and independent woman so you took it into your own hands? Remember how you wallpapered the bathroom all by yourself while the baby slept?

I remember this. I remember this all because it has happened within the past ten days. Since the baby’s release from the hospital, life has been chock full of adventures and funny stories and moments where I think I might be on Candid Camera. Whether I’ll remember each individual moment or not, I will always remember my first summer as a mom.

*Me and Kingston walking out of our second summer like true bosses compared to the chaos that was last year*

Welcome back to My Kindergarten Pocket!!

In May 2015, while I was still teaching kindergarten, I started publishing things I had written and new pieces I was writing on a regular basis. My writing consisted of often comical, and sometimes serious, stories stemming from the literal and figurative things I found in my pocket at the end of each teaching day, the things I found in My Kindergarten Pocket. Then May of 2016, my world shifted when I had a baby, two months premature, and was thrown head first into being a mom. I began writing about parenting as well. This past May (2017), due to technical issues and, ya know, life, my blog was shut down. When I finally got around to trying to figure out what happened this summer, I called and spoke to some great people at Blue Host.

I learned that, although we are always told that anything on the Internet will be there forever, apparently this is more about scandalous photos of yourself or embarrassing tweets, but not endearing stories about an art project or your new baby.

My posts have gone the way of the dinosaurs and I am starting from scratch. I am ready to begin posting again and luckily, have most of my old posts saved on my computer.

I will begin sharing my writing again, about momming, living, and teaching. Some writing I share will be new and some will be pieces from my vanished blog. I may actually even add in some writing I did way in the past that I recently came upon. Please subscribe and enjoy reading!