"Mrs. R, do you have yard duty this recess?” she asked as the others were heading toward their cubbies.

I grinned.  “Now why do you ask, Ashley*?”

The students’ eyes turned toward me, all of them knowing the significance of me NOT having yard duty.

It started last week.  Lunch duty.  Three of the faculty members monitoring the yard and negotiating property disputes: “I had the ball, but I put it down to go to the bathroom, and then HE took it and won’t give it back!”

For the past several weeks, my little third graders have engaged in the most spirited game of tag, but unlike any classes in the history of my career, these games of tag are marked solely with laughter and shrieks of delight.  No pouting.  No pushing too hard.  Our very own holiday miracle.  Last Monday, I startled them by standing on base (a little bridge) and making a bolt for it.  But, alas, I was on duty, so my job was not to play, but to supervise.  It was a brief but delightful two minutes.

Since then, they have been asking, “Will you play tag with us again?” as I wander around the play structure.  “I can’t; I’m on duty.” And their faces drop a smidge in response.

“Will you play when you’re NOT on duty?” The smiles return, having found a solution so easily.

“Sure.  Soon.”

As usual, once the day started, it whipped by.  There we stood as hands reached for afternoon snacks or put homework binders away.  And me?  I decided that sometimes my job as a teacher isn’t just about test scores and designing projects that integrate content standards in relevant ways.  No, sometimes my job is to show my kids that I enjoy them...as people.  That I see them as people, not just work.  Though I know I’m not their friend, it doesn’t mean that every so often, I can’t set aside my paperwork and let them set the agenda.  At recess, anyway.

After negotiating the fact that, as I am old and decrepit, I need to have a base (the bridge is often base, but they occasionally will declare, mid-game, “No base!”, which simply won’t work for me), I promised that I’d meet them on the playground in 2 minutes.  I’d learned the hard way after letting my former students try to teach me how to double-dutch (thanks, “Jump In!), that my post-baby bladder needs to be empty prior to running and jumping with any intensity.  Darn Kegels. 

You should know, that despite the fact it took me a good fifteen minutes to fully recover, the game was just what this teacher needed.  It’s a little like parenting, after all.  Sometimes our kids just want to have that time with you, off the schedule.  Off the agenda.  And sometimes, they want to hunt you down and wear you out...all the while giggling ecstatically at your flailing ways laugh with you.

I waffle all the time about whether I’m cut out for the teaching profession, oh me with the sensitive skin and workaholism.  But out there, torn between running back to home base and making that long pass around the play structure, it was fun to look “It” in the eye and make a break for it.

A yummy seasonal treat that almost qualifies as guilt-free.  Hey, I think it’s actually fairly GOOD for you!

And it requires just the right of effort: 5 minutes in the grocery store, 5 minutes mixing.  20 minutes in the oven, and you have Pumpkin Spice cupcakes.

You might not even need to copy this down:

Ingredients:

15 oz.  can of pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie mix)
box of spice cake mix
2 eggs
1 cup of water

No oil, the pumpkin is so moist, you won’t miss it.  And I would tell you if you would.  I like have a fondness for full-fat foods, like triple cream cheese and dipping my french fries in either blue cheese or ranch dressing.

Anyhow, bake according to box directions.  I suggest you pop in Love Actually and enjoy your warm cupcakes (who obligingly disguise themselves as “pumpkin muffins") with whipped cream.  Because it would be a shame if it was entirely healthy.

My husband and son were out of town last night, preparing for a wedding in the Bay Area.  Sad to think that because Maddie is ill, I’ll miss seeing my son in his first tuxedo, walking a flower girl down the aisle.  Yesterday was the 9-hole round of golf for the groomsmen, with Matt serving as caddy, and the rehearsal.

Today is the wedding, and this is a special celebration indeed.  The groom is like a member of the family, friends with Ryan ever since they were preschoolers playing action figures on the same street.  The bride is a long-term girlfriend (gosh, 7 or 8 years of dating, I think), who just finished grad school.  My son is Brandon’s godson, and so I wish we all could be there. 

In the meantime, we made it through another croup-y night. 

Home with croupy daughter instead of going to the wedding dress rehearsal and dinner…

Now, at 1:55 AM, Maddie and I are watching a purple dinosaur (so retro now, I’m trying to think of it as a cult classic...a campy flick) demo a fire truck.  Fire truck!  Just like the story I told her out on the back patio, the new concrete a great spot for telling another installment of “Princess Madeleine the Firefighter”, a heroine who only removes her tiara to don her helmet.

After telling that tale, Maddie and I sat for a few moments, bathed in the glow of moonlight so bright she wanted to know why it seemed like day. 

And then, I told the story of Christmas.  In the cold November night, a sick child nestled warmly in my arms with a cocoon of blankets around us, it seemed intimate...personal. 

Humbling, actually. 

I’m not a person who worries about literal interpretation, and while I find it interesting how the translation of the scriptures affects our understanding of Biblical stories, I don’t fret about what other people believe about the story of the Nativity.  Frankly, I think that in the big picture, even if it isn’t literal, it’s beautiful.  Even if you aren’t a Christian, it’s a fascinating, subversive story.  God made human, born in the stable muck amongst people unwilling to offer shelter, too busy with their own lives to notice those in need around them.  A man willing to risk ridicule, a young woman endangering her life for faith.  Not that I shared my take on the social values of the era, what with Maddie being THREE and all.

Even if it didn’t happen the way we learned in Sunday school, I love the idea that a religion is centered around a birth so humbling.  So much of organized religion is pomp and circumstance, traditional trappings meant to show the dignity and reign of God.  Not the story of the Nativity, however.  No, it’s a point of access for anyone who journeys in the dark, searching for someone to offer shelter.  Comfort.  Someone to make room at the inn for all us weary travelers.  For me, telling the story to Maddie, her head laying heavily against my chest, it made getting up in the middle of the night worth it. 

Recently, my college friends and I started a Yahoo! Group as a way to keep in touch.  It’s an invite-only group, so there’s some privacy.  You know, in case some parent Googles me.  It’s a fun way to harrass each other and post family pictures for everyone to see.  We try to get together every so often, so the polls will help garner ideas and dates possible.

It has been a welcome diversion, with all the smack talk and the connection, and I was delighted that my friend sent a Holiday Food Haiku challenge on today’s post.  Because as much as I like reliving some of the stories from college and shortly after, one thing I enjoy even more is my embracing my geekiness.  Despite doing the whole “college thing”, from sorority to lil’ sister to Homecoming Court (That’s my taxicab confession), I am, at heart, a 72-year-old.  Just with a slightly better rack.

Here are my brief odes:

Warm pie with whip cream
A belly ready to burst
Boar’s Head ham with glaze

Or

Damn appetizers
Too tempting by half, say I
Save room for dessert

Or

Give thanks for this meal
Unbutton the top button
Sweet couch for napping!

Or

Potatoes galore
A secret stash in the fridge
Awaits for Friday

***Never said I was TALENTED.  Just said I am a geek.

I just turned off the television, as my children were scaring me with their slack-jawed stares.

“Can I play Gameboy?” asks my son, looking for a loophole in the plan. 

“No.”

Soon, Maddie started coloring another box from Amazon.com.  Matthew rediscovered his Snap Circuits kit.  There was brief play with an umbrella.  And now, my son is creating a new Pokemon character.

My daughter, proving that necessity is the mother of invention, has now opened up the basket with all her old diaper-changing paraphernalia.  As I type, she has made the Desitin the mommy doll, and the Nystatin ointment the baby.  “Go to sleep, little girl.  Go to sleep my dear baby.”

Laura Ingalls has nothing on her.

Years ago, I majored in Art History. 

In a five-minute internet tribute to the me that used to think about art and its implications, I send you to the image by Jenny Holzer, known for her use of “truisms” in public spaces.  Also, click here for my thought for the day.

Happy Friday.  Be tender.

Lil’ Miss loves the tricycles at pre-school; the only downside is she can’t stop them…

Except by driving head-first into the wall.  Or the fence.

I should also point out that she nearly cackles as she slams into the wall.  “Maniacal glee” also works as a descriptive phrase. 

X Games, here we come!

P.S.  Daphne, her request for “two kitties AND two people babies” just goes to further my belief she is one of those risk-addicted children we hear so much about!