Fill 'er Up!

I suffer from performance anxiety. The same could be said, too, of a certain number of the athletes who have competed these past two weeks at the Winter Olympics. They are the ones who just cannot seem to muster whatever it is that is necessary to put together their finest performance at the very moment they need it most. These are the athletes who do well in the many smaller competitions that take place prior to the Olympics then fizzle out, so-to-say, when the big crowds show up, the cameras focuses in, and the most important medal they could ever win is suddenly on the line.

Certainly, it's the pressure that does it. Knowing what needs to be done but being intimidated by it. Knowing the expectations of others and of yourself. Knowing that there are people out there who will love you no matter what the outcome but who, at the same time, want to see you succeed.

Yes, I know what it is to suffer from performance anxiety. But mine is not to be found at the top of a ski run or the start of a short track race. There are no snowboards or ice skates involved. Not even a winner or a loser.

No, my performance anxiety sets in each time I have to visit the doctor and fill that little cup.

It seems everyone else I know, as well as everyone in the history of time who has ever taken a physical, can urinate on command. Given that so many people can do this I guess it's not really that extraordinary of an accomplishment. Yet, present me with a tiny plastic cup and direct toward the nearest restroom and suddenly I'm more nervous than Mike Tyson at a spelling bee. Beads of sweat begin to build on my brow as my body moves full steam ahead to produce plenty of fluid - just not the one I actually need at the moment.

I first encountered this when I went in for my ten-year-old physical. Our family physician, Dr. West, was an extremely old man who was hard of hearing and had wiry gray hairs sticking out from his head, ears, and nose. He wore thick black glasses and, despite the fact that he always had a waiting room full of people whose appointment times had come and gone more than an hour ago, never seemed in a hurry to get anywhere or do anything.

I wasn't that fond of Dr. West because, frankly, he kind of scared me. He didn't look to be in all that great of health himself. Still, he must have been remarkable because my parents were willing to drive forty-five minutes, past dozens of closer doctor offices, to sit and wait an hour-and-a-half or two hours just to be graced by four or five minutes of his time.

This particular visit was no different. We sat in the tiny office as I looked around at all the grown ups wondering what was wrong with them - other than being really old. Because he was so old and had a loyal clientele, you would be hard pressed to find many of his patients who were under sixty years old. Certainly, I must have been the only kid to ever climb up the stool and sit on the bed covered in crunchy white paper.

Bored of the people and magazines, I began to get restless. And then it hit me.

"Mom, I gotta pee," I said.

"What? Can't you hold it?" she asked. "We should be going in anytime."

"No," I contested. "I really gotta go!"

She looked at her watch then up at the door where the nurses magically appeared ever twenty minutes or so to call out the name of some lucky soul who would be escorted back to an even tinier room to wait.

"Alright," she said. "Go on out to the bathroom in the hall. Do you know where it is?"

"At the top of the stairs by the drinking fountain?"

"Yeah," she said. "But be quick because they'll be calling you back any time now."

This I doubted but I was grateful to get out of that waiting room. I ran down the hall, took a big drink from the fountain, and made my way into the bathroom. I don't know that I really did have to go all that bad but I was happy for a change of scenery and an opportunity to move.

No sooner than I walked back into the waiting room, a nurse, who by any other standards than Dr. West could have been described as really old herself, peeked her head out, looked down at the manila file in her hand and called out "Christopher."
My mom looked over at me, nodded toward the nurse, and began to get up out of her chair.

"No mom," I said. "I can go back myself."

I had never before dared to see the doctor alone but, at age ten, I knew there would be a time in that back room where he would ask me to drop my pants so that he could touch me in a way that, were it a man from any other profession, would require the attention of the proper authorities. This was an indignity I preferred to suffer alone.

"Are you sure," she asked.

"Yeah," I answered and I made my way back with Nurse Ratched.

She showed me back to my room, took my temperature and blood pressure, then held out a little clear plastic cup.

"Take this into the bathroom and fill it to the line," she said. "When you finish, you can leave it on the counter of the sink and then come back to this same room."

A sudden uneasiness began to build inside me. I had just gone no more than ten minutes ago!

I stepped into the bathroom, locked the door (a crucial step I would forget many years later), and started my very best to fill that cup. I stood. I sat. I turned on some water. I thought about any and everything involved a solid flow of water. I tried thinking about nothing at all. However, the more effort I put into it the further I seemed to get from the possibility of having any success.

Finally, I gave up and went to find the good nurse.

"I couldn't do it," I told her.

"What do you mean you couldn't do it?" she asked with a stern look of disapproval.

"I, uh...." I was confused by her question. It seemed pretty cut-and-dry to me. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't... you know...."

She studied my face and then the cup. By the look of her you would have thought this was the very first time in her looooong career that this had ever happened.

"Are you certain?" she asked.

"Uh huh," I answered.

She left me standing there in the hallway as she turned to find the doctor. Her back was to me as she talked and although I couldn't hear a word she said I got the gist of it by the look on Dr. West's face as he leaned around her to take a look at me. It must have been a look they practiced at medical and nursing school because when she turned to look at me as well they were a couple of old wrinkled peas in a pod.

Dr. West came ambling toward me with the cup in hand.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked.

"I can't go," I answered.

"Why not?"

"I just went a few minutes ago in the hall," I explained. "I just can't go anymore."

"Hmmmm," he responded. looking down at the empty cup as though it were a crystal ball containing some magical solution for what, seemingly, was the biggest problem this office had encountered all day.

He turned and made his way back down the hall.

"Come with me," he said.

I followed him to the door leading back out into the waiting room. He opened the door and every set of hopeful eyes in that room turned instantly toward him.

"HE WON'T GO," he called out across the room to my mom in a voice I never in my wildest days would have thought he could muster.

"What?" my mom asked.

"URINATE," he answered. "HE WON'T PEE IN THE CUP."

Slowly, every eye shifted from the doctor to my mother and then to me. I tried to smile but I wasn't seeing a lot of empathetic looks in the waiting room. Here were a dozen or so people dying to get back to see the doctor and obviously I was standing in their way with my refusal to pee in the cup.

I looked down at my feet and wished it would all go away.

And that was the very moment that would forever change my life. Well, maybe not my entire life but it sure plays havok on me when handed an empty cup. I now find myself saving up for hours.

"HA," I boast. "You only need one cup? Heck, I could give you four or five if you wanted."

The looks I get now are different. No longer are they full of disdain.

Just disbelief.

Saturday Surprise

We appreciate Saturday mornings as an opportunity to sleep in. There was a time, not that long ago, that this meant 6:30am. Fortunately, though, the kids have learned to sleep-in a little longer than that. And even when they don't sleep-in they know they're not allowed to come downstairs until 8:00. Learning to read a clock was a skill they learned early.

So now, on most Saturday mornings, we'll hear a knock at our door at 8:00 or 8:01. I'm convinced they must sit and stare at the clock just waiting for that minute hand to stand tall and reach the twelve. Sadly, nine times out of ten whoever is knocking comes in ready to tattle-tale on a brother or sister, or both. Some come in yelling and some come in crying.

This morning Harper was the one coming in and her approach is never to yell or cry. Instead, she uses exaggerated body language, sighs, and drawn-out speech patterns in hopes of prompting us to ask her what's wrong. Being the soft-hearted enabler that I am, I generally pretend as though I don't notice her little show and try, instead, to tickle her into laughing.

knock...knock...knock

"Come in," Tricia called. Harper drug herself in and climbed up on the bed with a heavy sigh. "Good morning, Harper!"

"Good morning, moooooom" Harper mumbled. She climbed between us and let her body drop heavily to the mattress as though every ounce of energy had been sucked from her body. "Hmphhhhhhh," she sighed again.

That was my signal to tickle.

"I think I'm going to tickle your nose!" I exclaimed as I reached over for her.

"Noooooo!," she screamed, covering her nose with cupped hands.

"Maybe your chin then!" I countered.

"Noooooo!" She moved one hand down so that both nose and chin were protected.

"Looks like I'll have to take a tummy then!" I yelled as she giggled uncontrollably.

She seemed to have forgotten about the pouting, and what I assumed would be tattling, when Ainsley and Ty came walking in the partially open door.

"Harper," Ainsley said. "We made you something upstairs."

"Come see it," said Ty. "It's on the dry-erase board."

Another loud sigh. "I'll be right up," she answered.

Happy, both turned and ran back upstairs. Harper, on the other hand, didn't budge.

"Go on Harper," Tricia said. "Go see what they made for you. You can come right back down."

She pulled herself off the end of the bed and looked back at us. "I probably won't. It's probably a trick to make me stay up there!"

And with that she was out the door - not closing it.

A little later I went upstairs to find Harper, Ainlsy, and Muluken lying on their couch together. They were each reading a book.

"We started a book club, Daddy!" Muluken called out.

"Cool," I responded as I made my way over to the dry-erase board to see what the surprise had been.

There, at the bottom of the board, was written:

We love you Harper
Ainsley and Ty

The Time Crunch

What a lazy Friday night.

The kids and I made it home from school tonight a little after 5:00. I had stayed at school a bit later than usual in hopes of bringing home as little work as possible. As soon as we made it in the door the kids unpacked their book bags, opened a Valentine's gift that had arrived from Aunt Machelle and Aunt Amy, and headed out to the backyard to play.

I watched from the kitchen window as I worked to get dinner together. Soon, it was time for Muluken and Tricia to head out to a boy scout banquet. While they were gone, Ainsley, Ty, Harper, and I played a little Wii and then watched the Winter Olympics for a couple of hours. We saw some crazy women throwing themselves down the side of a frozen mountain on skis, snowboarders on the half-pipe, and a few figure skaters spin so fast I felt nauseous just watching them. By the time I sent the kids up to bed it was 9:00 and we had been sitting in front of a screen for almost three hours. That almost accounts for what is usually an entire week's worth of screen time for the kids.

I'd generally cringe at the thought of so much time spent doing "nothing." But after the week we've had I have to admit it was fun to just sit, relax, and spend down time together. This was the first night I had spent at home since last Sunday. Monday was spent at USC, Tuesday was dance class for Ainsley, Wednesday was an hour-and-a-half baseball practice for Muluken, and Thursday found us getting Harper to Girl Scouts while also taxiing Ainsley, Muluken, and Ty to a star gazing party.

Soon Harper and Ty will begin soccer season while Muluken's baseball season will jump into full swing. I fear that the nightly routine of reading books before tucking the kids into bed at 8:00 will soon be lost. This has been our nightly routine for the past eight years. Rarely do we ever miss it. Now, though, I foresee many busy and late evenings. And I fear we're on the verge of losing one of the most important times - reading together - that we have together.

I'm certain we'll figure something out. And, in reality, this is only the next few months. Come May or June our lives will return to their normal flow and predictability. But, until then, we'll get our first glimpse at what it means to have kids who are getting older and finding more and more interests that lie outside of our house and family. I suppose this was inevitable.

As for this weekend, we'll pack up a few things and head out for a camping trip and some hiking. We'll enjoy time together. We'll play and laugh and relax. We'll try to pack in a week's worth of leisure.

Because on Monday it all starts again.

Visitors

We had a group of visiting teachers spend the day with us at school this past Tuesday. While Tuesday visitors are a regular part of our week, this group traveled all the way from Manitoba, Canada. Having groups of teachers come in to observe our school and our classrooms with the expectation of seeing things that are both new and exciting can really keep you on your toes. Especially when they’ve invested so much time and money to do so.

There was a time early in the year when I really wanted to make certain that I was doing my “best” teaching on Tuesday mornings so that the visitors wouldn’t be disappointed. Or, worse yet, so they wouldn’t compare me unfavorably to the other classrooms they had visited. I’m certain there have been times when this has happened but no one has ever mentioned anything to me. It’s true what they say, you know – ignorance is bliss.

I’ve since gotten over the need to impress. I now teach as though Tuesdays were any other day. In fact, they are. We’ve reached a point where the kids and I scarcely even notice the small groups coming in to watch, scribble in their notepads, and occasionally snap a photo or two. For the most part they’ve become part of the scenery.

Having outsiders come in does have its benefits. For one, it provides us an opportunity to look more closely at ourselves through the eyes of others. After each visit, a few of us spend some time during lunch debriefing with our guests. The first question asked is always “What did you notice as you were walking through the classrooms?” Most times the responses will have something to do with the kids’ vocabularies or the classroom discussions taking place. Other times they’ll note how engaged the kids are or call attention to the projects they see the kids sharing. But my favorite observations, by far, are the ones that speak to the feeling you get when you are in the building.

On Tuesday, when asked to share what they noticed during their visit, the first words out of our Canadian visitors’ mouths was:

“This building is just full of love.”

Wow! I doubt there’s a bigger compliment anyone could ever offer than that. Certainly, no talk of instructional strategies, architecture, or test results could possibly compare to such a powerful statement. They went on to further explain.

“Everything and everyone is just so welcoming. When I walked into the classrooms the kids looked up at me and asked ‘Do you want to read with me?’ And they didn’t even know me. The kids are so trusting- you can really tell how great the relationships are between the kids and adults.”

I think back now to the times I’ve been involved at other schools with developing a “School Improvement Plan.” Funny, but amidst the talk about new reading programs and faculty committees, I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning anything about the need for love and trust and warmth. No one thought to suggest that we reach out in sincere ways to our students and families to make our school seem like a second home to them. Or to us.
Too bad, because if they, too, could make a Tuesday morning visit they would see that it’s most important place to start.

Much Ado About Nothing

Two weeks.

It's been two weeks without a blog post. Two weeks of planning out pieces while I'm driving in the car, lying in bed, or stepping out of the shower. Two weeks of bringing those ideas to the computer only to lose my momentum or focus. Two weeks of feeling progressively more stressed at imaginary deadlines long overdue. Two weeks of avoiding other blogs because they just served to make me more anxious about this growing case of writer's block.

This happens quite often to the kids in my classroom. I'll walk by only to find them staring off into space with a wrinkled forehead.

"How's the writing coming along?" I'll ask.

Often, this question evokes a look of frustration upon their young faces. Writing workshop is the best part of the curricular day for at least half the kids in my classroom and to sit there for a long period of time without any hope of starting is worrisome.

"It looks like you don't have anything down," I'll say. "What's the problem?"

"My mind is stuffed up!"

"Stuffed up?" I ask.

"I can't think of anything to write about." they respond.

The beauty of this is that I can generally get them talking about something and within a few minutes they're busily scribbling down lines of description or dialogue or the like. We'll start with something they remember really well (perhaps a scary moment, a disappointing experience, or a happy memory)and I'll prompt them by saying "Yeah, but what if...". And soon they're imagining all kinds of new possibilities that could have happened and would make for a great story.

I can't do this. I'm the doctor that refuses to take his own advice. This is due, in part, because I don't like to write fiction pieces. I really don't even care for narrative pieces. They're not much fun to write. I much prefer essays. So I spend my week in search of the one crucial ingredient for any essay: a topic.

The topics don't need to be all that spectacular to inspire the writing. Over the past few months I've found a way to write entire pieces based on such inconsequential topics as Sky Mall magazine, silk boxers, losing an Othello game, coaching flag football, and backyard camping. Certainly not Earth-shattering material. Yet two weeks have come and gone without so much as a single publishable paragraph.

That's not to say I haven't started any pieces. There was some initial excitement over a piece I planned to title "Hell on Wheels." It was my intention to show the parallels that exist between spending an eternity in Hell and spending two hours at the Monster Truck Jam. Yet after just four or five paragraphs I had to pull the plug. Like so many Saturday Night Live skits, the concept was far more entertaining than the actual content.

There was another idea that initially sparked my interest. All alone on Kiawa Island last weekend, I wound up watching more national news programming than I've probably seen in the last year. While this really isn't saying much, a lot of what I did watch focused on the visit that Barrack Obama paid to the Republican Retreat in Maryland and the scandal surrounding John Edwards. I had this rough idea floating around in my head that I could write about the problematic nature of a two-party system - being that both sides are far more interested in seeing the other fail than working together to help the very people they have been elected to serve. Black eyes and verbal barbs seem to be more valuable than solutions. I thought I might write about the need for a third or fourth party of thought and action. But this seemed too far-reaching and burdensome. Not to mention, a genre of writing I'm not used to tackling.

With hope fading, there was one final opportunity to present itself to me.

Orange juice.

Every morning I have a glass of orange juice with my breakfast. While the brand we buy each week may differ based on price the one constant is that we always buy "no pulp." Well, "always" until last week. Last week Tricia bought a gallon of orange juice with "some pulp" because Ty said he likes it better. Likes it?

Even though I know there are plenty of them out there I find it hard to believe that people exist who prefer pulp in their orange juice. Tolerate it, maybe. But like it, I just can't see it! Who in their right mind would elect to have tiny limp shards floating around in their beverage? We have filters to prevent just this sort of thing!

Yet, this idea, again, took me nowhere. Another day wasted.

So here's hoping the coming week treats me well. Perhaps I'll watch more carefully and want to write about the girl in the bookstore who cried her poor eyes out because she just loved that little book that came with a stuffed animal so much that she had to have it despite her father's insistence that they weren't buying it. Maybe I'll listen more carefully and write about the student in my classroom who took one bite from her hamburger,looked up at me, and said "I can't believe my parents are paying for this!" Or maybe I'll think a little longer and harder and write about by latest idea to try to give away half of everything I own.

Let's hope something comes. If not, I'll have a repeat of this week.

Nothing to write about.