first day of school

I love the first day of school.

It's a new year, fraught with potential. New teachers are like new crushes. Shiny and perfect. Maybe this year the kids will discover a passion for a new subject or rejeuvenate interest in an old one, try a new sport, read a book that completely captures their imagination, realize their potential, gain confidence, grow taller, find a direction for their life. The possibilities for new experiences are endless, shimmering in the air like sparkly dewdrops.



Even for me the possibilites are spread out like a banquet. With all this extra time I'll be able to clean out the garage, write an an additional book, paint the laundry room, lunch with friends, cruise into the city to go shopping, do some hands-on research, whip my garden into shape, finally get the house clean, write more blog posts, cook healthier more nutritious meals....

But the first day is the sweetest. The house is silent. I can do anything I want to for a few whole hours and no one will interrupt me. No one will need a ride, or money, or lunch, or to show me the funniest video EVER on YouTube. I have the whole house to myself. So I'm going to enjoy the solitude while it exists and then savor the chaos when the kids get home...ready to tell me about *their* first day of school.

Lisa

unexpected blessings and thanks to Maya Angelou

So Thursday night my son, who is seventeen, says, "oh yeah, i forgot. we have to make spanish rice tonight."

At 6 pm. I've been getting up at 5 am to take other son to water polo practice so by 6 o'clock at NIGHT, I am done. Wiped out, finished, barely coherent. Seriously. I'm so not a morning person that when I'm forced to get up every day like that, by the end of the day I'm in a borderline vegetative state. And by the end of the week, forget it.

Thirty bite sized servings for, no not Spanish class, but English class. Why? Because Maya Angelou apparently is partial to Spanish rice. And for the poetry presentation, his group is spotlighting Maya Angelou.

So he accesses http://www.allrecipes.com/ and searches for Spanish rice. We head to the store for the two ingredients we don't have in our pantry, one of them being, yes, you guessed, the rice.

I don't consider cooking to be helping with homework. I won't write my kid's papers, I won't type my kid's papers, I won't do their math or their French homework, or color their graphs or science lab covers, but I absolutely will help them cook.

Fortunately my sons are in culinary class so he starts the boring stuff (chopping--but don't tell him that) while I get the bacon simmering. We chatted about his day, his classes, cooking, and Maya Angelou while the spicy aromas began to fill our kitchen and what could have been a completely frustrating and annoying evening turned into a lovely interaction with my son. And the rice was absolutely fantastic. We're planning on making the recipe again, it was sooo good.

So thank you, Maya Angelou!

Lisa

ps. I've included the link for the rice recipe. We used smoked applewood bacon and our chile powder is a wonderful smoked powder from New Mexico chiles.
www.allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spanish-Rice-Original/Detail.aspx

the journey's the thing

i'm fresh from back to school night at the high school, sitting through quick ten minute presents from the teachers about the class and i was struck by a very sad fact. most of the teachers made sure to tell everyone how they grade and the weight of tests vs. homework and meeting the benchmarks and yada, yada, yada.

example: honors chemistry. i was a chem major in college (for a year and a half anyway) and i LOVE chemistry. i would have liked to have known what kind of experiments they are going to do, what cool stuff they might learn. sure i'd like my kids to get good grades but i'd rather they have enthusiasm and a joy for a subject than an A.

parents here (and maybe it's everywhere but definitely the case in my little slice of california) are so focused on the end, on putting that A or B or weighted grade on junior's report card so they can get into Harvard (yeah, probably not, and definitely not in our house :) ) that very few teachers discuss what they are going to teach. and to me that makes for a sad day.

to me, learning should be the absorption of new concepts and ideas and the steps along the way, the journey's the thing.

milestones

today my son passed his driver's test. on the surface this is an exciting (if you're him) and terrifying (if you're me--just kidding sort of, he's a pretty good driver :) ) milestone.

on a deeper level, it signifies a shift in the dynamic of the parent/child relationship. the first step in becoming an adult. the beginning of the journey of separation from the family unit to an autonomous being. in ancient cultures tribes had specific ceremonies for boys and girls to transition from child to adult, usually involving some sort of painful and permanent mutiliation of their body. thank goodness we have moved on from such procedures and now only strap them into thousand pound hunks of metal and let them loose on the world....



so while i am happy for him, it's a bittersweet day at my house because my baby is almost not a baby anymore.

Lisa

ps. another milestone, Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away today. She was an inspiration to many and will be missed