Stay in School!

Ever since the boys were little they have admired construction sites. Big ones with large equipment. Two guys working on fancy brickwork for a sidewalk. Anything with tools and concrete and they stop to stare. More so as preschoolers but even today they will ogle at the men (and aren't they usually men?) in hard hats and work boots.

Back when they were three years old we walked by two men laying brickwork for a sidewalk. I was commending their craftsmanship when one of them held up his hand, pointed at my boys and said sternly to them "stay in school!" while the other gentleman nodded with great seriousness. As if three year olds understood what they were saying.

Fast forward six years later and this fall the boys and I, along with their 5 year old sister, looked up as we saw several men restore a smoke stack at an old brewery. The cherry picker was lifting a man up to on it. We stopped to admire both the work and the thrill of the rising equipment. Once again, the lift rider yelled down to my kids (we were the only people watching) "stay in school!" while several colleagues shouted in agreement.

Is there some pact that all construction workers sign to yell "stay in school!" at young children? Is there something embarrassing about working in construction?

Why does this keep happening?

Pirouette with that kick

The last game for the season was played by a team of kindergarten girls this past weekend. Coached by three high school students (with some backup by a player's dad) they were a force to be reckoned with.



Well most of them. One particular 5-year-old, the one related to me, would often end a kick of the ball with a perfectly pointed toe which would have made her ballet teacher proud. She never seemed terribly focused on the ball, often twirling or looking out to the sidelines for a wave. During the last game she ran off the field for a hug. She ran off the field while the ball was in play.



When given the choice of playing in a soccer game to going to ballet class, there was never any doubt she would be in a leotard and tights instead of shin guards and cleats.



But the morning of her last game, my daughter announced she "loves soccer!!" and plans on playing it forever.



I think she was just psyched to get a movable arms trophy.

One down for the count

Like everyone else with school age children, I have been worrying about flu shots. The boys got seasonal flu vaccines during their annual physical last month but not the H1N1. Little lady hasn't gotten either.

But it may not matter. Yesterday evening, one little man developed a wicked cough and fever. At 4:00 this morning he graciously added vomitting to his list of ailments.

Last night, he wrote out the following schedule for his sick day.

1. have breckfist
2. get mom's cofe (coffee) and my skoan (scone)
3. eat the skoan
4. charg DS
5. play DS
6. tack a nap
7.

We'll see what #7 is.

First Train Home

I have a new singer I've fallen in love with. A legitimately new singer, one who wasn't recording in the 1980's. In fact she was in grade school in the 1980's.

Imogen Heap has me transfixed.

She has one song that has my daughter transfixed. She is happy when the song starts in the car stereo and has even taken to narrating the beginning.

[As the music starts my daughter says from the back]

"She's running down the street for the train...."
"She's in the station....."

Got to get on it sings Imogen.

"She MADE it! She's on the train" my daughter yelps triumphantly.

Got any new songs or singers you can't hear enough of?

Please join in Music Monday. Just remember if you play to use little Mr. Linky below, write a post about music and link back to me. Music always makes Monday a bit more fun.

"people of ill will use time"

This morning, I finally got to sit through an entire service at church. This fall has been spent teaching the middle school class. Today was my first "day off" since September and I relished the chance to sit in quiet, sing some hymns and reconnect with dear friends.

The two readings included one by Tony Kushner, the Angels in America playwright, and a excerpt from Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham. I took some liberties:

I had also hoped that the white straight moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white straight brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored gay people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial all injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

So to those of you who are silent as these ballot initiatives strip human rights - who chose not to speak out against the hatred towards gays, lesbians, transgender and bisexual persons, who attend houses of worship that ferment hate yet say nothing - you too are people of ill will.

"Education is not the filling of a vessel, it is the lighting of a...

flame.

William B. Yeats

For more Singular Saturdays go visit its new home at Finding My Way (aka MoJenn).

No Hobos II

My walk from the office to the train station takes me past a square that is a hangout for homeless adults. In the summer I wear large hats to protect myself from the sun. One man, with his paper cup outstretched, would often comment on my hats.

He hasn't been out on the streets for long. I started seeing him in the spring in a nice sweater and khaki pants. He stood straight with his clean teeth and would hold out his cup. He looked like a nice grandfather with his full head of white hair and sweet smile. But as the months wore on he is now in sweatpants and his hair is a bit more matted. One afternoon earlier this fall he had a black eye. When I asked what happened he told me he had fallen down.

After their day at the back-up child care center my kids and I were walking towards the station. The gentleman who compliments my hats was smoking a cigarette (a new habit I think) and talking in earnest with another man. He noticed me, promptly hid the cigarette and smiled.

"Where is a hat?" he asked.

"Nope. No hat today" I smiled sheepishly. "I have my kids though."

He said hi and asked them how the children were. I introduced them.

"Hi kids. My name is Patrick" he said.

We told him to have a good evening and walked on. One boy grabbed my hand and urgently said "Mommy?!"

"What?"

He pulled me down so he could whisper in my ear. We were at least a city block away from Patrick.

"How do homeless people go to the bathroom?"