Compelling Interest

They Really Do Say the Darndest Things

I spent almost 15 years in preschool. It was the potty training that held me back. No, actually I was an assistant teacher those 15 years. I worked primarily with 2- and 3-year-olds. What a great age! They came into my room hardly speaking and pooping in their pants, and when they left they were these chatty little people who could use the toilet.

I am often asked how I was able to change all those poopy diapers, especially being that these children were not mine. Well, I psyched myself out. Basically, what would be the ultimate result of not changing a kid’s poopy diaper? Left unattended, their butt would become infected and they would die, right? I mean, that is literally what would (or could) happen. So, as I am wiping a stinky bottom, I am reminding myself that I am saving a life. And as I put the child down to have them wash their cute little hands, I am saying to them in my mind: I just saved your life. Looking at it that way, it was a very rewarding experience. I am a hero. Excuse me while I scrape something from under my fingernail.

A few years before I left this profession, it occurred to me that I ought to be writing down some of the funny things I hear coming from the mouths of my little cherubs. Below are some of the things I managed to record:

Matthew (5), after messing up his hair: “Is my haircut still on?”

Cameron (3), feeling bad about breaking a toy: “I only broke it for a minute.”

Alexandra (2), to George (our visiting singer/guitarist): “I wanna sing ‘Rudolph the Nose!’”

Trip (3), trying chip dip: “I don’t like the taste. I just like the color.”

This one really touched me, because Matthew was such a bright, sincere little guy - Matthew (4), dictating to me the message for a get-well card for his great grandmother: “Great Grandmother, Get well. I’m sorry you died.”

Max (3): Can you fix this [broken farm fence]?
Me: You fix it.
Max: I can’t. I’m too strong. I have jeans on…big boys wear jeans.

One day, Max had a bad fall on the playground and I took him in to get some ice –
Me: Max, we have to get some ice for your bump.
Max: Why?
Me: The ice will make the bump go down.
Max: Down to my tummy?
Me: No.
Max: [pointing to his hand] Down to here?
Me: It will make the bump go away.

Megan (3), sitting on the toilet: “I went poopies. I squeezed and that makes me go poop.”

Chris (5), to teacher, concerned after Jenna (7) fell out of her chair: “Teacher, Jenna fell out of her chair.”
Jenna: “It’s okay. It was just a little disaster.”

Anna (2½), after receiving a few stitches on her cheek from a dog bite: “The doggy didn’t know any better.”
A few weeks later, the stitches are gone. I make the comment that her face is getting all better and then remark that she has a few scrapes on her knee.
“Yeah, but I’m healthy,” she says.

In the heat of a stand-off, Anna B. (4) asserts her dominance over Zachary (2) by telling him that she is bigger.
“I’m bigger, too!” countered Zak.
“I have more bones than you!” Anna yelled.
That settled it.

Two years earlier, Anna B. was observed standing in the dark next to her cot repeating to herself over and over: “It’s just gas…it’s just gas…it’s just gas…”

Ross (3): “If I had my mouth on my neck, I could eat my head. But then I’d die!”

Lindsay (2), after a fall, stands up rubbing her knee and says: “Ouch, I hurt my pants!”

I am in the play kitchen area with Chris (3), who is playing with pots, pans, etc. –
Me: That’s a serving utensil.
Chris: I’m not a pencil!
Me: No, no. Things like spoons and forks and knives are called ‘utensils.’”
Chris: You’re a pencil!

Trip (3): “I don’t have to go potty. I went five weeks ago.”

Katie (3): “I know what poop is made of. It’s made of salt and pepper.”

Greg (3): “I have to go home and shave my legs because there’s some more hair.”

One rainy afternoon, the kids took a walk around the building after naptime. They stopped by a room up on the second floor, and one of the kids reported to me: “There is a room upstairs you would really like. It has a piano and a couch.”

He said...I heard...

A couple of months ago, my boys and I were piling into the car to go somewhere. Before we started for the car, the boys had been playing some "shoot 'em up" game with each other, and they continued their game on the way to the car.

As I buckled myself in, my oldest boy hurried into the backseat, looking for a way to escape the onslaught of his little brother who was fast approaching the car. He quickly declared to his brother as he brought his seatbelt across himself:

"I'm invincible with my strap on!"

I paused. Funny to think about the two very different concepts my boy and I had in our heads.

A Hundred Years From Then

About a year ago, my nine-year-old boy took me aside for a private conversation. He seemed most earnest.

"Dad, will anyone remember me after I die?"

"Sure, there'll be some people."

"But what about a hundred years after?"

"Well, it's hard to say. Probably no one will remember me a hundred years after I'm dead."

"Duh!" he said without trying to be smart, which made it ten times funnier. I restrained from laughing my head off out of respect for his earnestness on this grand subject.

"But that's okay," I said. "Who knows? Maybe you'll be a famous movie star, and people will be watching your movies for hundreds of years to come. They'll see you and say, 'Hey, look! That's my favorite actor!'"

"Yeah, but what if I'm not famous?"

"I think the important thing is that the people who were around you when you were alive knew that you loved and cared for them."

My boy looked down. "Oh." He looked back up with a smile. "Yeah!"

Preparing Our Children for Their Children

You know what it was like to work with a room full of 2- and 3-year-olds, five days a week, year after year? I'll tell you what it was like. It was awesome! And I don't mean "awesome" like, "Wow, this is an awesome pizza, dude!" I mean like, I was filled with awe being around those tiny people all day long.

awe n. 1. respectful or reverential fear, inspired by what is grand or sublime.

I would leave work everyday mentally drained, and usually physically wiped out as well. But I would wake up in the morning ready to go! I always looked forward to going to work.

Children live on love - they eat, sleep, and breathe it. And I was there everyday to give it to them, and to humbly receive it from them. It was an amazing place to work.

I'll never forget when my favorite co-worker of all time, Madeline, gave me a book to read. The book was entitled The Magic Years, by Selma Fraiberg. I can see it right now on my bookshelf. This book had a huge impact on my ability to relate to children. It gave me a great understanding into children's minds and how they develop. And the better you understand something, the less you fear it.

By fear, I do not mean terror. Anyone who has been around children, especially a room full of them, knows that certain unsettling feeling you get inside when you're around them. It's a feeling that comes from unpredictability. Children are unpredictable by and large, that is, until you really begin to understand them. The more you understand the way they work, the more you can predict what they will do in a given situation. The more you can predict, the less unsettled you will feel.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on kids by the time I had met Madeline. I came from a family of seven, I had nieces from the time I was five, I loved being a kid and always remember loving kids as I grew older, and I had worked in two different preschools already by the time I started at Madeline's center. Yet, I could tell the book was having an impact on me as I realized that I was becoming more and more relaxed in the classroom as I got further and further into the book. Relaxed. Relaxed.

One of the most crucial components of being able to work with children is the ability to be relaxed in any situation. Is everything going great in the room? Super. Relax - everything's going great. Now the kids are bouncing off the walls, chaos has overtaken the little cuties; screaming, crying, toys are flying. How are you? Are you relaxed, or are you bouncing off the walls, too? Do you understand how the chaos began? Did you see it coming, or did it take you by surprise? Do you understand what it will take to bring the room back to order, or are you still bouncing off the walls because of the chaos? It's all about understanding.

Why do people abuse their children? Why do they shake their babies to death when they won't stop crying? Lack of understanding. Poor child shaker, do you understand that babies cry sometimes even when their tummy is full and their diaper is clean? Perhaps your baby is just blowing off steam before it goes to sleep. Poor child shaker, do you understand that it isn't your job to make the child stop crying, that sometimes your job is just to let the child cry until he's done? Your job is always to make sure the child is fed, clean, and safe from harm, but sometimes the baby is going to cry no matter what you do, and you are not a bad parent if your neighbors hear the baby crying. But you don't understand this, so you shake and shake and shake until they're dead. And so we read in the papers how you shook the baby to death because you thought you had to make the baby stop crying. No you didn't. But you didn't understand this.

I believe that child development courses should be mandatory in high school, and that students who do not pass these classes with at least a B average should not be allowed to graduate. A certain percentage of students will go on to college; a certain percentage will graduate high school and go straight into the work force. A certain percentage will do this, a certain percentage that. But likely 99% of those kids will eventually become parents or get involved with someone who is already a parent, and what will they know about kids? What kind of understanding will they have? Will they know what to do with a crying baby? Will they feel unsettled around children, or relaxed? Will children be predictable to them, or unpredictable?

To understand the mind of a baby or a toddler or a preschooler is power. It is the power to know what to expect so you can relax and not constantly have to wonder, "What's next? Why is she behaving like that? What should I do? What? What? What?" It is the power to anticipate behavior in given situations and to be able to avoid unnecessary stress for the child and yourself. Here's a simple one:

Three-year-old Tommy doesn't want to put his snow boots on. You want him to, and you're the boss. You know that ordering him to do it like a drill sergeant will only make him mad, and he'll probably throw one of the boots at you. But you don't know what else to do, so you bark your bossy orders, hoping he'll just obey. Chaos, stress, tears, yelling. Or,

"Look, Tommy, I have your boots! Which one would you like to put on first, this one? Or this one?"

Tommy smiles and points to one, saying, "This one!" Five seconds later his boots are on. If you understand how a three-year-old's mind works, you have the power. You give Tommy some control over the situation, and suddenly Tommy is doing what you want him to do. You're not tricking him and you're not making him the boss. You're just relating to him at his level. But if you don't understand, how will you know what to do?

Almost every single high schooler will go on to oversee children in some capacity. Almost none of them will go on to use algebra. Shouldn't we be preparing them for those children?

Conversations With the Little People

October, 2003. I put a sweatshirt on my youngest that says "Grandma's Joy." He was trying to read it and wanted me to help. He was three at the time.

"Grandma's Joy," I read.

"Grandma's Joy?" he queried.

"Yes," I said. "That means you make grandma happy!"

"Oh," he replied.

"Actually, you make everybody happy," I said.

"Yeah," he said, thinking. "I'm everybody's grandma."

September, 2004, in a conversation with my oldest, who was six.

"You have good math skills, son! People who are accountants are good at math."

"I am an accountant!" he replied.

"You are?"

"I’m a small accountant."

"Really?"

"Yeah. When I’m a teenager I’ll be a medium accountant."

We Might "Send It to the Smithsonian"

Each year, the Cub Scouts have a pumpkin carving contest, and the scouts vote on their favorite when they all bring them to a designated meeting. So, last week the boys and I are in my kitchen looking at this big pumpkin on the kitchen counter and trying to decide what to make it into. Ideas are flying - and crashing and burning all around us - and the meeting is the next night, so there is little time. Finally, we reach a decision and make preparations.

I couldn't attend the meeting the next night (they went with their mom), but the boys proudly took their pumpkin and displayed it with all the rest. Next day, the boys reported that their pumpkin didn't win, but it did get a respectable number of votes. Many of their friends said that if there had been a category for "Funniest Pumpkin," theirs would have won.

The pumpkin was uncarved, and had a simple, orange sign glued to its side:

THIS WAS CINDERELLA'S CARRIAGE.

In the Name of Science

My 8-year-old boy became curious yesterday about the potential velocity of his father's flatulence. He promptly set about gathering materials which might be able to measure this velocity.

The boy took a small pirate figurine he had been playing with and some clear packing tape. He taped the figurine to my pajama-clad behind - "His face is right in your butt crack," the boy noted.

Of course, now that my normally prolific behind was expected to perform...nothing. For about the next hour, as I did the dishes and some laundry (and thereby avoided the need to sit), we waited. The boy played with other toys and probably forgot all about his experiment.

Suddenly, as I stood in the kitchen, the experiment sputtered to life - and ended just as quickly. I announced the news to my boy, who came running. He turned me around in eager anticipation. And there was his pirate, still stuck to my butt crack. "Hmm, I guess not," he said.

We want to foster such curiosity, exploration, and experimentation in our children. Who knows whether this very experiment of my son's may one day lead to his discovering something that will benefit the entire human race?

There he'll be, accepting his honors and awards for his tireless efforts on behalf of his fellow man, when suddenly I will be ushered to the podium for a surprise speech to be given in honor of my genius son. About midway through my intentionally mediocre and rambling presentation, I will suddenly lean a little forward and hold my breath; my face will turn red. The back of my tux pants will be violently blown out and something will be seen ricocheting off the back wall. The audience, who will have been made familiar with my son's earliest experiments by way of the program notes, will know what has just taken place and will burst into cheers and applause.

My son will look at me, his eyes filling with tears (as will all eyes within a 15-foot radius of the podium). I will bend down and pick up the still smoldering pirate figurine from the floor and raise it up before the cheering audience.

"You were right, son!" I will yell into the microphone. "By God, you were right!"

Goodbye, Julian King

Julian, I don’t know how one human being takes the life of another; I don’t know what kind of rage and anger and thoughtlessness that takes. I am so sorry that you had to face anger of that kind in your brief life, and that you lost your life to it.

We never met, but by your age I am guessing that you were a second-grader. I suppose that you were busy this year with new spelling lists and simple math that wasn’t as simple as last year. I suppose you had your favorite video games and that going to GameStop was like visiting a candy store. Doubtless you were learning how to get along with your friends and family, how to conduct yourself at school and in the home; when to be silly and when not to; how to deal with your own anger in a constructive, positive way; “please” and “thank you;” how to share – all that good stuff. And I’m sure you were learning your lessons well and that you were a fine, young boy – full of life, psyched that Halloween was so close, and already looking forward to Christmas!

I used to teach pre-school, and I have a couple of boys barely older than you. I get along with kids fine. I bet if we had met, I could have made you laugh, and I’ll bet you could have cracked me up, too. I’ll bet we would have been buds; we could’ve had some real fun times if we had ever met, Julian. You and my boys could have shared your vast knowledge of this or that video game and talked excitedly of the games you have only dreamed of playing.

At your age, life was supposed to just be about having fun and growing and learning. You weren’t supposed to know how fierce and violent this world can be. You weren’t supposed to know about “domestic disturbances.” You weren’t supposed to look into the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. You were never supposed to feel that fear, and especially at your age and with no one at your side to protect you.

That cold-blooded killer set a bad example, didn’t he? You knew he wasn’t supposed to act out his anger; he was supposed to use his words. That’s what you’d been taught, right? You knew it, and you were just a kid. What was the killer’s excuse? At seven-years-old, Julian, you could have handled your anger better than a grown man. I am so sorry that you had to find out the terrible truth of this world in such a blunt, brutal fashion – that you would have to look upon a man who had lost all self-control and his conscience; that you would have to look at a man who could stare at your small, helpless frame...and pull the trigger.

You weren’t made for destruction, Julian. You were on this earth to thrive, to live, to love, and to be loved. That’s why you were here. Had it been in my power, Julian, I’d have flown to your side and made the bad guy go away. I’d have held you in my arms and made you feel safe and secure. I’d have dried your tears and found ways to make you smile again. And you’d have gone back to your spelling lists and your math and your friends at school, and we’d go to GameStop at the first opportunity, and there wouldn’t be a “$15 limit” like my boys usually get.

Sad to say that the world keeps spinning, Julian, even though you’ve gotten off. Your little world, and your short experience of it, came to an abrupt and tragic end. Your name will flash through the papers for a while, and come to rest on a gravestone – the one place it shouldn’t be right now. But already, you have to compete with all else that is going on in the world. There are stories about the Middle East, of course, and our economy takes up quite a bit of space on the page. Oh, and some people needed to stop what they were doing today and look into this critical headline: “Desperate Housewives Recap: Now We Know.” You see, Julian? There are so many other things going on besides your death. And far fewer of us would even have heard of yours if we didn’t know your aunt’s name. There are so many like you, Julian – so many children whose lives have ended in the same senseless way. I don’t know their names; so few of us do.

You probably hadn’t heard of that “six degrees of separation” thing at your age. It’s the idea that none of us are that far from knowing a famous person. I have to believe also that none of us are that far from knowing a murderer. Why it is that no one ever stormed into my house at seven-years-old and shot me to death I’ll never know. It could have happened to me just as easily as it did to you. I guess I was just one of the lucky ones. I wish you’d had my luck.

I’d have flown to your side, Julian. I’d have made the bad guy go away. I’d have taken away your fear and reminded you of how loved you are. And today you’d have started on a new spelling list, and you’d have shown me your costume for this Friday. I am so sorry.

Halloween Highlights

When I was in kindergarten I was sent to school on Halloween without a costume. The class was getting ready for the costume parade, and that’s when my teacher, Mrs. Mortinson, noticed.

No problem! Look, here’s a paper plate. We can make a mask. You decorate it, Kurt. And look here! A colorful poncho and a little sombrero: you’re a little Mexican person! I didn’t mind the sombrero and poncho – at least they were real. But that mask was so retarded.

Same story in third grade. This time, a ghost costume was improvised for me. Remember those huge rolls of paper you’d see at school? Well, if you just rip off a big piece of white paper, you can put that over your head, cut out two holes for the eyes, and tie some sort of belt around your waist to help keep it in place. You are now guaranteed to be a very conspicuous member of your class parade, because you look like a hammerhead ghost.

As my class wound its way through the different classrooms, I couldn’t have felt more embarrassed. At least no one could see my face. A couple fifth-graders singled me out just before I passed by their table; I overheard their plan to trip me. I was on to them, but they got me anyway. Down I went in a loud crumple. I quickly stood up amidst their laughter and jeering. There was a big rip in the front of my costume now. I marched the rest of the way in tears, completely humiliated, but at least no one could see my face.

Bless my teachers’ hearts, I know they just wanted me to feel included. But I think I’d have been better off just taking my place among the spectators.

Thanksgiving Came A Day Early

[Written the evening before Thanksgiving, 2008]

Spent the day with my boys. They were here overnight, and we slept in this morning - perfect start to the day. They went with me to install a new string in a customer's piano, and from there it was lunch at Bob Evans. We always sit up at the counter. I don't normally do this, but I broke down and let each of us pick out a cute Christmas tree ornament from the selection up by the cash register. Live a little, right?

So we get home, and the soundtrack to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" goes into the CD player, and up goes the tree! After we put our three brand new ornaments up together, the boys did the rest of the decorating - nothing on the side facing the street; everything on the living room side. I told myself I would spread them out evenly (all around) later, but then I contented myself to leave it just the way it is; it has a certain charm.

Then it was time to take the boys over to their mom's (my eight-year-old gave the tree a hug before we left). Turns out we were about an hour early because mom had to work late. We went across the street into a field to play tag and hang out. In the middle of the field was a marshy area with tall, swaying pussywillows. We became enthralled with sending thousands upon thousands of pussywillow seeds into the air with just one handful. It was like an exploding pillow in our hands. We decided we needed to make the biggest, fluffiest pile of seeds ever - and we did, and in the process became covered in them from head to toe. Live a little!

We found that running around helped get the seeds off our clothes, and then found that rolling down a grassy hill took them off like one of those "lint remover" rolls. Meanwhile, the sun was sinking and the sky was turning beautiful shades of dark and light blue, pink, and orange.

Their mom got home, and I took them back across the street (completely and miraculously seedless) so they could get ready to drive to their grandparents' house for the holiday weekend with all the traditional sights, sounds, tastes and smells; complete with various aunts, uncles, and younger cousins.

And so, the boys are on their way over the river and through the woods, I am looking at the tree and thinking of their cute, meticulous hands placing each ornament just so, and somewhere out in the dark, next to quietly rustling reeds, an enormous pile of pussywillow seeds slowly and silently takes to the air, layer by soft layer.

And I am grateful.