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Rheem Team
I’ve been a bit in denial that we’re moving very, very soon and have been focusing on all of the things I won’t miss about the Bay Area: the horrid traffic, the hustle bustle of so many people, the cost of living, etc. But with the date of departure creeping closer and closer, it’s getting more personal and real. Today as I left the Rheem School staff end of the year party, I started thinking about the things and people I’ll miss. I suddenly realized that the party would likely be one of the last times I would see most of my fantastic colleagues, and it hit me like a truck. I could not, and cannot, stop crying.
Rheem has been the place where I have found my voice as an educator. I truly could not have asked for a better place to start out. I’ve had an amazing principal who turned into a great friend, wonderful mentors and colleagues, supportive parents and excited students. I feel like I came at exactly the right moment to help start the school garden, which has literally blossomed into an engaging outdoor classroom and an integral part of the school. I started to develop my stance on what public education should and shouldn’t be, and how I can be a part of that. I discovered that I can indeed teach kindergarten, and that I love to play the guitar. I participated in a collaborative teaching staff, one that is built on the basis of mutual respect and openness. And perhaps most importantly, I felt love from a family of educators who beyond doubt find joy in teaching.
So why leave? I have felt so confident in this move as it has stayed abstract, but today I’m feeling a little grief-stricken. I absolutely know in my heart that this is the right move for so many reasons, and I can look back on the past five years with great clarity to see all of the ways that the Bay Area is not for me (and not the place where Andrew and I want to raise our family). I am absolutely not leaving here with any bitterness; moving to Oakland has changed my life considerably, and for that I am ever grateful.
But in the end, it is not home.
And as beautiful as I think Rheem is, I know it’s not my home as a teacher either. I find myself drawn to the experiential side of education, and while the garden has been amazing, I do wish I could be in a place that had outdoor, whole child centered education at its core. I have known for quite some time this is who I am, and I’m excited to see if there is a place that really fits this dream. Also, in all honesty, I do love being a stay-at-home parent, which has its own style of teaching in itself. The path of my job as an educator is being revealed as I walk it, and I know I will arrive in a place that is right for me eventually.
So in the meantime, I know there are going to be many moments like these as we get closer and closer to the day we move, and I will let them happen as they rise and fall. Today, I feel proud to have been a Rheem Team Roadrunner, and although right now I am feeling immensely sad about leaving the people at Rheem, I also feel carried by their love and will be leaving with a full heart.
Kitchen Helper
We are really trying to keep the house in relatively good order since it’s still on the market, but it’s nearly impossible with our little helper.
Griffin the Puppy
Revolution
Today I made banana walnut muffins with Griffin, and it was truly a transformative experience. This may seem like the beginning of a silly anecdote, but I am totally serious. It really opened my eyes to the fact that my child is ready for things I didn’t know he was capable of.
The idea of involving him in making muffins (which I was going to do regardless) transpired after reading a book called Sign With Your Baby and watching the corresponding DVD. I’ve been working on signing with Griffin since returning from full time work, and already he’s picked up more, milk, and all done. I wanted a little more guidance, though, and so turned to these resources. The babies in the video were communicating on such a sophisticated level that it motivated me to first, learn more signs so I can introduce them to Griffin, and second, really involve Griffin in everyday experiences so we can have more opportunities to communicate and experience things together. Muffin making this afternoon seemed like the perfect chance to start. I thought at the very least he’d be fascinated by the mixer!
I put him in a little apron and pulled the step stool up to the counter. He watched me measure the flour, sugar, and other dry ingredients and put them into the mixer. He listened to my warnings not to put his hands near the moving parts, and was indeed taken with the sound and movement. Next, we worked on the wet ingredients, which were set aside next to another bowl. This is where the magic started happening. I was standing behind him while he was standing on the step stool: I cracked the eggs in front of his face, which elicited an excited, “ooooooooh!” I brought out the egg beater, and we spun it together, hand over hand, to beat the eggs. He giggled. He poured in the milk and yogurt without spilling! We stirred it together with a wooden spoon. I showed him how to mash the bananas with his hand and put them in the bowl, and to my amazement, he did it unaided. This was by far his favorite part. He was laughing with every squish and signed more! when he was done. I crushed the walnuts, and he dutifully put the walnuts in the batter, one by one, after I’d combined the wet and dry ingredients.
He did get banned from actually filling the muffin tins since he wanted to stick his hand in every single one, but this is only the first of many collaborative cooking efforts; I’m sure we’ll get to a point where he will be able to help every step of the way.
Better Than A Dog
Andrew and I are both dog people. Before getting married, we talked pretty seriously about getting a dog, but then we got engaged, were working full time (plus I was working another part time job), planning a wedding, driving across the country, getting married…you get the picture. It didn’t seem fair to get a dog if we couldn’t devote the time we both thought a dog deserved. “Maybe after we’re married,” we both said. Then I got pregnant.
Now that Griffin has been in our lives for over a year, we’ve been talking about how we’d love to have a dog someday. . .like when Griffin can take care of it. But we’ve also been thinking, “Who needs a dog when you have a baby?” The parallels are more than you might imagine. Griffin likes to:
- unroll and shred the toilet paper
- eat everything, especially non-food items
- get into the recycling and garbage
- go for walks
- pee on the rug
- run around in the backyard
- lap up water from puddles
And yesterday, we discovered he loves the sprinkler! Check out the video:
Of course, a dog can’t say “Mama” or “Dada,” and a dog certainly won’t sit on your lap and listen to you read stories while he turns the pages. And even though Griffin likes to pull all the books off of the bookshelves and reorganize the tupperware all over the kitchen floor, we think he’s a keeper and better than any dog we could have imagined.
Never Say Never
I’m discovering as I get older that perhaps I’m the kind of person who prefers the quiet. Those of you who know me well might be saying, “Duh, Sarah. Aren’t you the woman who has chosen to spend most of her summers in a tent in the woods? And hey, didn’t you live for an entire year in a state park?” So perhaps I’m a little slow on the uptake. I mean, really, I kind of think screaming should be reserved for when you’re being eaten by a bear. You’d think I would have figured out by now that I prefer quiet.
But seriously, sometimes these insights creep up on me and I realize, “Oooohhhhh, there are different people in the world. Those who like it noisy and those who like it quiet, and I like quiet!” So imagine my surprise when I said to myself, “I really should buy Griffin one of those fake phones that makes all kinds of noise when you push the buttons! And maybe it should be in Elmo’s voice! And be able to say Griffin’s name! That would be an awesome addition to my life!”
Yes, I’ll confess that I’ve often looked with disdain at those toys that light up, talk to you, and do all kinds of things that seem unnecessary. I believe the words, “The WORLD is stimulating enough! I will never buy something like that for my child! Kids don’t need all those bells and whistles!” have come out of my mouth on more than one occasion, definitely with an eye roll for dramatic effect. But need is the operative word here. Of course kids don’t NEED those things, but they sure do like ’em, and Griffin is definitely one of those kids who delights in things that go “whirrrrr!”
Sure, he’ll play with the beautiful stuffed animal I painstakingly made out of felt or the natural wooden blocks, but what he really, really loves is carrying our cordless phone around while pushing the buttons to hear the noise and watch it light up. We were ending up chasing him all over the house making sure he didn’t dial 911 or India, and finally I decided he needed a phone of his own.
I considered looking at the second-hand stores first, but frankly traipsing all over Oakland with Griffin in tow pursuing this one thing I may never find wasn’t too appealing. So I headed to Target as part of a greater errand run, and the choices were surprisingly limited (apparently the newest thing for kids is to have their own play laptop, so I guess I’m behind the times). It was either Elmo, Buzz Lightyear, or some obnoxious Japanese character I’ve never heard of. I had to forget my goal of purchasing things without television or Disney characters on them (I guess I’ve got a lot of issues), and let Griffin play with Elmo and Buzz in the cart to see which seemed the least disturbing. Surprisingly, Elmo won.
Admittedly, Elmo is pretty cute, and Griffin absolutely loves the phone. He carries it all around, puts it up to his ear and says, “Hay-lo!” He hasn’t touched our real phone since, and thankfully Elmo has an off switch for those times when we need just a little more quiet.
What A Face
The Incredible Birthday Gift
As you may know, my sister Alli designed and printed our wedding invitations a couple of years ago, and since then Andrew and I have been telling her that she’s going to be the next big thing. While we may be slightly biased, I do think it’s undeniable that Alli has amazing talents that produce beautiful, visually yummy designs.
It turns out she’s been working on an alphabet book for Griffin for the past eight months, and it arrived in the mail two days ago. If my socks could have been knocked off literally, they would have shot straight across the room. She got it “published” through Shutterfly, so it’s a real, hardcover book, and it could not be more beautiful. It’s so beautiful, in fact, that I’m not letting Griffin touch it. He can only look at it from a distance until his proclivity for eating books subsides. I wish I could post the whole book, but until it’s really published (and I seriously think it could be!) I’ll share a few of my favorite pages from The Incredible Edible Alphabet by Alli Stocco.
Cover
A is for Apple
B is for Bean
D is for Dill
F is for Fig
P is for Pomegranate
T is for Tomato
W is for Walnut
My Super Duper Birthday
Sarah is amazing. She organized the most incredible birthday extravaganza that anyone could hope for. And it was a complete and total surprise.
My birthday is the 21st and I had talked to Sarah months ago about not doing anything big — I couldn’t imagine organizing a big birthday party on top of everything else we’re doing this spring. At some point she suggested we could do a barbecue some time in May, after my thesis is done and the house is on the market. Sounded like a great plan, and I proceeded with life, forgetting about my birthday entirely.
Then on Monday I got an innocuous email from my brother, Anthony, who was in town for work (he comes for a week of meetings every few months):
Hey guys, I'm in town this week until Sunday. I thought it would be cool to meet up on Saturday if any of you are free. Maybe lunch and a movie? Clash of the Titans might be fun.... What do you think? -Anthony
Now that I have reread it, it is a bit suspicious (especially if you know Anthony well). But at the time, I just thought, “cool, glad Anthony’s in town for a few extra days, I’d love to go see a bad movie!”
The week was the usual maelstrom of school, thesis writing, house prepping, cover letter writing, and parenting, so it all went by in a blur. But I wasn’t suspicious at all.
Saturday morning I meet up with Anthony, Tyler and Ed, and we start walking to the farmer’s market where we were going to have lunch and then catch the flick at the Grand Lake theater across the street. As we near the farmer’s market, Anthony turns to me and says, “I’m sorry, Andrew, but we are not going to see Clash of the Titans.” He hands me a blue card:
Inside the card was a poetic introduction followed by the first clue:
The solution, of course, is Cancun in Berkeley, which not only has my favorite burrito but is also a place of Great Significance (to me, anyway). Cassidy’s sister, Margot, recommended the place to me before I moved to Oakland. When Kevin Muñoz and I arrived in 1996, we started meeting there for lunch every Wednesday, continuing the weekly lunch tradition we had had at the Oberlin computing center. Over the years, it became a rendezvous for anyone who was available at lunch time on Wednesdays… sometimes just a few of us, sometimes a dozen or more.
In short, it was the perfect first stop on my birthday hunt.
I won’t post all the clues here, but let’s just say that Sarah did her research, including many places near and dear to my heart over the fourteen years I’ve lived here. Highlights included the grimy piano bar where Sarah and I had our first date (the clue had blown off into a puddle of urine), and the spot in the Oakland Rose Garden where we became engaged (the clue was, fortunately, still tacked to the tree next to which I nervously issued my proposal).
But wait, as brilliant and surprising as this whole memory hunt was, it was only a distraction from the real surprise. Unbeknownst to me, Sarah had been planning this whole thing for months and had invited people from all aspects of my life to a surprise party in the back yard of the house. They had gathered there at 3:30, expecting my arrival around 4. Guests included friends from high school, college, my teaching program, the middle school I work at, and Griffin’s birthing group!
While we were on our hunt, they gathered and waited. And waited. And waited. In my ignorance, I was taking my sweet time working my way through the hunt. (I thought this was pretty much the best birthday ever, so I wanted to savor it!) In order to get some exercise, I even decided to walk between a number of the final clues! Sarah and my guides engaged in some frantic behind-the-scenes text messaging to remove a stop or two from the hunt, so I eventually got the final clue that led us to the back yard.
As I came around the corner, expecting to see Sarah and Griffin and maybe Dave and Nancy (probably working hard on the garden in preparation for our upcoming open house), I was greeted by a rousing “SURPRISE!” from a crowd of guests, most of whom I haven’t seen in months!
It was a fantastic way to end a fantastic day. I am in awe of Sarah… pulling this off in a year with nothing going on would have been a major feat. But this spring has been INSANE. It boggles my mind. (I am not the only one who feels this way either… the most common things I heard from the guests, besides birthday greetings, were compliments for Sarah’s masterful planning.)
The day was also a reminder of what we are leaving behind with this upcoming move. Seeing everybody at the party brought home to me the amazing community we have here. It’s a hard thing, moving somewhere new. I appreciate so much that Sarah recognizes the roots I’ve put down here, and honored that connection with this beautiful celebration. It was, truly, a super duper birthday.