Cheese is Christ

As many of you know, I was raised by a fairly religious mom (understatement).

While raised in the Catholic Church, not only was I made to do all the Holy Sacraments that occurred while living under my parents' roof, but I was also dragged to Aglow meetings where large groups of white middle class women spoke in tongues and I was sent to Awana Bible Meetings where Leslie Trotter and I competed to see who could memorize Bible verses more quickly. All that said, I left all religion when I left my parents' roof at age 18 and have never looked back. I figured I had had enough crammed into me by 18 that I could live to 90 and still have gone to church more than most and would still know more Bible verses than most, so I could take the next 3/4 of my life off and then reassess.

By the way, did you know I had to answer the phone "Praise the Lord, Lori speaking" until I was about 14? Yep.

Anyhoo, I have been working diligently to clean up my potty mouth. There is something that happens when your work environment = students saying "f*ck" "p*ssy" etc etc all day long. The words do really lose their shock value. Next thing you know, you can curse like a 14 year old from the worst projects in Brooklyn and YOU DO. Pretty funny when you're single and out drinking beer on a Friday night; not so funny when you have a parrot for a child.

While I have extracted many a bad word from my mouth, I still tend to take the Lord's name in vain (my poor mom...). "Jesus Christ!" is obviously still in my repetoire b/c this happened last night:

Alexandra was on the couch, and out of nowhere said, "Cheese is Christ!" I was bathing Nico and heard this and asked her to repeat it. Again, she said, "Cheese is Christ!" Adam and I were trying not to laugh, but it was hard. She has no idea who Jesus or Christ is, or that he's a person/prophet/messiah, or anything. Obviously, she thinks he's a type of cheese. And while we are big cheese people in this house, cheese has not yet reached messiah status (bacon is definitely above cheese in the running).

I stare at Adam in horror (as my mom is about to visit in one month) and say to Alexandra, "You mean, cheese and rice?" Oh no, she is not to be fooled. For the rest of the night she ran around screaming "Cheese is Christ!" over and over and over.

Guess I have some more work to do on that mouth of mine. Sigh.

A First

I wrote my last blog post in my classroom on Friday. Adam picked up the kids so I could work late--I was drowning under a pile of grading and it was the last day of the marking period. I only worked until about 5, as Adam wasn't feeling well and I felt guilty for staying late. I went to move my time card out, checked my mailbox, and found this:

Memorandum

To: Ms. U (me), Mr. D, Ms. R, Mr. P, and Mr. L

From: Ms. J, Guidance Counselor

Re: Female student name

Last week Tuesday, April 27th, female student name's brother was murdered. Please assist her with the classwork and homework assignments. Thank you.



That was a first.

Mother's Day

I had a hard week at work. Hard. Totally lost my sh*t and cried in my classroom, my Assistant Principal's office, and at home over these kids. Sometimes I think becoming a parent has been the worst thing for my teaching career. Before I was a parent, I'd have students with dead parents and I'd sympathize, listen to them, and tell them that they just needed to push through and make themselves into the remarkable people that their parents believed them to be. I mean, I had a sick dad my whole life, and while he didn't die until I was 22, there was always that threat. I thought I knew (kinda) what they were going through. But now, as a parent, I realize I don't know jack.

I have a ridiculous amount of students with dead parents. Both parents. And then there are the kids with one dead and one absent/incarcerated parent. These children are being cared for by older siblings, some who are only 21 years old and open gang members, who fight like rabid dogs over the orphaned children for the social security check that accompanies them. Rarely is the welfare of the child taken into consideration.

My complete emotional breakdown this week happened when I had to call home for a student whom I knew was living with his grandmother. I hadn't called since March b/c his grandmother was raising 8 grandkids and was losing her mind; she told me that she was about to sign my student and his twin off to foster care. We all know the foster care system is--at best--mediocre and at worst a nightmare. Although this kid has skipped my class, come to class high, inappropriately touches another girl in here (who lets him), and does no work and disturbs my class, I haven't called. Well, this week I had to. And his grandmother told me that she was going to family court today and giving him and his brother up. I got off the phone and cried. Wept.

I don't understand why I have so many kids with dead parents. I don't understand how they all died, when most of them were my age or younger. But I am beginning to understand the gigantic hole it leaves in these young people's lives. ENORMOUS. A mohterless child has to be the saddest thing ever. I just look at them and ache. I want to hug them, bake them cookies, etc, but it's not the same.

A student of mine lost him mom unexpectedly this fall while I was on maternity leave. He wrote a poem for our poetry unit that pretty much sums it up:

Ode

Ode to my mom for years of joy and fun.
I see many kids with their moms and I say to myself
"Wow, those kids are lucky."
So many people in my family try to take care of me
But none of them do it the correct way...
The Mommy way.

Mothers out there--love your kids like crazy. And all of us who still have our moms, be thankful....so so thankful.

Haus Frau

Years ago I bought a linen dress from Old Navy. It was olive green (my favorite color for clothes) and fit me at the time, then I lost a bunch of weight and it was too big and tent like to wear in public so I made it my house dress. Much like the little old ladies who wear house dresses, I wore my linen dress around the house when it was too hot to wear clothes that touched me. I wore it bra-less, panty-less, and just sweat in it until it stank and then I would toss it in the wash, hang it back on my closet like a robe, and wear it again until it became rancid.

Fast forward about five years. The house dress (which became lovingly referred to as my haus frau dress) is tucked into my bin of SKINNY clothes. It's stored in a bin in the basement of my neighbor's apartment b/c they are kind and generous folks with a finished basement space not dank and dusty and buggy like our unfinished storage. But it hit 90 degrees this weekend in NYC (WTHades?) and clothes were too much. I had to christen a new haus frau dress.

It's a nursing dress by the company Boob (great stuff). It was adorable when I was pregnant, but now I look like a lumpy sausage in it. But shoot, it can be a haus frau dress. It has the ability for my boobs to come out to nurse, it's long enough not to flash too much leg or girl parts to my family, and it is a dark enough color to wear sans underclothes.

Ahhhh, sweet relief. Those little old ladies got something going on with their haus frau dresses. Try it--you'll like it.