A reflection on the past year (or really the last three)

I've had this countdown in our kitchen since there were 25 days of school left, but it is mostly there because I am so excited about sleeping and not working 55+ hours per week.  There are days when I can't wait to erase the "1" on the board and change it to a big zero.  As the time has ticked away, though, a huge part of me has dreaded "the end" and saying goodbye.

I say "the end" because this is the end of my public school teaching career for awhile.  I am taking a leave of absence and instead of being a full-time special education teacher for our local district next year, I'll be teaching half-day Pre-K at a private school.  I'm looking forward to my new job, but I have felt a calling toward public schools, special education, and "being a teacher" (AKA pouring every moment of my time and every ounce of energy into my work) for so long that I feel somewhat lost in knowing how to define myself now.

The decision about next year's job was an incredibly difficult one, but in light of having a new baby on the way, I had to make the best choice for our little family.  I'm such a planner.  I literally had sat down and made a list of pros and cons for every job option, weighing each of them heavily and slowly eliminating the ones that didn't seem practical.  In the midst of my list-making and realism, my husband stopped me one night and asked, "But what do you want to do?"

I didn't know.

What I really wanted was this: To be a full-time teacher and a full-time momma and be the best there is at both of those and love both of them and never get tired of either.  (I'm tired just wrapping my head around all of that as I write!)  God bless you moms of babies and toddlers who continue teaching well and somehow manage to raise wonderful children; I don't know how you do it.

People often look at teachers and think that we have the easiest job.  Summers off?  Leaving work at 3:00 every day?  Reading the newspaper behind a desk?  To all of that, here's what I have to say: Classrooms and lesson plans don't magically appear, ready to go, on the first day of school.  I can count on two hands the number of times I have left work at 3:00.  And sitting behind a desk reading for pleasure?  Please.  I barely have time to go to the bathroom.  

During my first year of teaching, my hair fell out, I threw up on Sunday nights at the thought of returning to work on Monday, and I was skinnier than I've ever been.  Rock bottom was when my husband came up to visit me at lunch one day and found me eating in a dark, tiny closet next to my room because it was the only place and the only time during the day when, for just ten minutes, I could hear myself think.  When Spring Break came, my aide and I went dancing down the halls, thrilled for a short break.  But when May 25th, this date that we had been anticipating since December, finally appeared, I hugged my last student tightly as he got on the bus...and then I put my head down on a table in my classroom and bawled.

Part of that was just an emotional release that I had held inside all year.  I think that most of it, though, was realizing that what I did day in and day out mattered, and that, amid the paperwork and temper tantrums, I was immensely blessed to be a teacher.  I loved those kids, and, as much as we had gone head to head about computer time or spelling words, I would miss them and would do all of it again in a heartbeat.

There are little victories that I see when no one else does, and there are a few words that can change everything.  These are the moments when I've stopped and thanked God for sending the small blessings which keep every teacher going.

Twice this year, I hugged my students a little tighter and truly understood the significance of my job.  Once was following the Sandy Hook shooting; the other was this past week as the tornado just down the road obliterated two elementary schools.  On the news, teachers have been called "heroes" in these circumstances, and they should certainly be recognized for saving their students' lives.  But really, we are all just doing our job.  And there's no other way we would have it.  

I've had so many other "lasts" this week, but the final one is here- the last day of school.  We'll play games, have a picnic, sign yearbooks, and give big hugs.  I'll wish them all a happy summer, and they'll run out the doors with huge grins on their faces.  I'll have a huge grin on my face, too, but I'll also have tears in my eyes- tears because I have come to love my students beyond what I ever thought I could, and because I feel so very thankful for this beautiful life that I've been given the past three years.

"This is still the place that we all call home."

I'm supposed to be writing for the other blog on which I am a guest blogger, but all I can think about is Moore, Oklahoma.

***

We had all of our students in the designated "safe rooms" as the sirens started going off outside.  No matter how many times we conduct tornado drills at school, no one is ever prepared for the real thing.  Students were in tears, heads buried in their teachers' stomachs.  Parents frantically tried to check out their children and beat the storm home.  In the safe rooms, teachers read books aloud to ears that were only moderately listening.

After an hour or so, the teachers ran out of tricks, and the storm ran out of strength.  It had just missed us by about three miles.  I work on the north end of Norman, and the tornado was, at one point, forecasted to run straight down our road.  As parents walked their children out the doors and to the safety of their homes, I noticed everyone holding their loved ones a little closer.  Meanwhile, I worried about our own little one, who lives inside of Birth Mom's belly somewhere in the OKC area.  In the words of my friend, Katherine, "I'm sure this is just the start of a lifetime of worrying about your little ones."  (Baby and Birth Mom are fine, by the way.)

I came home to a house without power, Internet, and cable, so I didn't fully understand the devastation that had occurred just north of us until I saw pictures hours later...and slowly started receiving those sickening text messages from friends:

"We are fine.  House is gone."

***

Then, suddenly, it didn't matter that the laundry wasn't folded, that I had missed my workout, and that there were dishes piled in the sink.  It didn't even matter that my husband's car had gotten slammed with golf-ball-sized hail in the storm while he was at work.  In that moment, I was simultaneously thankful beyond measure and infinitely heartbroken.  Tragedies truly have a way of putting "the urgent" in perspective.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have every conceivable blessing in one moment and have it all taken away in the next.  I felt guilty for going on with my normal life today when, just a couple of miles away, so many couldn't.  Tornadoes are part of ordinary life in Oklahoma during the springtime, but no one ever expects this.  The news reporters said over and over, "This is the worst case scenario."  

In viewing the rubble and utter destruction over the past day, I have been reduced to tears at times.  Even so, I have never been prouder to be an Oklahoman.

I was born in Texas but came here seven years ago to begin college at the University of Oklahoma.  This place is my home now, and I can honestly say that in all my life, I have never met kinder Americans than the ones who live here.

Every state has its faults, but Oklahoma is still defined by people who say "Yes ma'am," who understand hospitality, who recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school and who, most importantly, help each other in times of need.

I remember going to New Orleans about two years after Hurricane Katrina hit.  The lower ninth ward still looked, in places, as though it hadn't been touched.  Everyone had taken care of themselves and left.  The cleanup here will take months, I am sure, but not for lack of effort by local people stepping up to contribute.  Target was picked clean of diapers and bottled water today because so many people had already bought those supplies to donate.  The Red Cross had to turn away volunteers from three different sessions.  Our gym's weight room was filled with truckloads of items to be taken to the local shelter.

Everyone is doing something.  That's just how Oklahomans are.  When tragedy strikes, people step in.

I'll close with this story that I heard from a friend:

A woman and her husband huddled in a closet with their three babies as the tornado drew closer and closer to their house.  They cried, panicked, and prayed to Jesus as loud as they could to save them.  When the storm had passed, all five family members walked out of the only room still standing in the house, without a scratch.  Beams had pierced through the walls of the closet and all.  The only thing left on a wall?  A cross that says, "Faith."  

At the end of the day, after all of the volunteers have left and the donations have dwindled, that is all we have to hold us together.

Choosing Happiness

It's Mother's Day, and if we're being honest, I was sure that I'd be celebrating my first one as a mother this year.

I can't help but think back to this time last year, before we had begun the adoption process, when I was more angry at our situation, at God, and at everyone else (deserving or not) than I dare to admit.  I was thankful for my own mother that day, but in general, I just couldn't wait for the day to be over so I could stop seeing pictures on Facebook of everyone with their little ones.  In a post from 2012, I wrote about how our church helped to ease my hurt on Mother's Day by showing sensitivity and valuing all women for their unique gifts instead of singling out the mothers and making everyone else feel inferior.  I still have never seen that done anywhere else, and I am incredibly grateful to go to a church where stories like that one are typical.  But the day as a whole was still incredibly sad and unfair for this girl with such a bitter heart.   

A year later, we have finished all of our paperwork to adopt, but we're still waiting.  Still no baby, still no word on when we will get one.  Not much has changed about our situation, but everything has changed about my outlook.  

I realized that I can choose to be annoyed and hateful about what I don't have, or I can be appreciative of my own mother, my mother-in-law, and my two sweet grandmothers.  I can actually listen to and believe people's words when they say, "You'll be a mom someday" instead of inwardly seething because "that's easy for them to say."  I can cherish the "mom-to-be" cards that I have received this week instead of resenting the  fact that they don't say, "To a Wonderful Mother."  (To my sister-in-law, niece, and nephews: If you're reading this, I will keep that sweet card until the day I die.)

At my uncle's funeral, the preacher talked about "living the dash," meaning the dash between the year you were born and the year when you die.  It seems cliche, but I have held onto those words to remind myself that, "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years."  In my years thus far, I have gotten to learn so much of what I know about love, friendship, kindness, good cooking, and Southern hospitality from the wonderful women in my life, particularly my mom.  How quickly I tend to forget those things as I only look ahead to what comes next!  On Mother's Day this year, I have decided to "live in the dash" and to be thankful.   

Being angry and bitter is easy.  Choosing happiness is less natural, but so worth it.  Even in the waiting, I am truly blessed.

Waiting.

Whenever people find out that my occupation is a special education teacher, their initial response is almost always, "Oh, you must be so patient!"  Friends, let me be the first to tell you that I am NOT patient.  Not even a little bit.  In waiting for Little Fenrick to join our family, I have discovered, even more, just how impatient I actually am.

Every morning when I wake up now, my first thought is, "Maybe today will be the day that we get the phone call!"  And every night when I go to bed, I'm always slightly disappointed that it didn't happen.  Every time I see an unknown number pop up on my phone, my heart stops for a few seconds, and every time the office pages me at work to tell me that I have a phone call, I fly out of my classroom and down the hall.

We only started this process four months ago.  Now I know you're definitely thinking, "Gosh, MR, you really are impatient.  Most people have to wait nine months for a baby!"  I get it.  I just can't help but think that it's a little easier to wait when you have some sort of general sense about when the baby is coming.  Perhaps that's only true for super-type-A planners like me.  

When we went to our adoption seminar in February, 16 babies had already been born and matched through our agency in 2013 alone!  Our case worker seemed to think that we would be matched in a few weeks.  Since the seminar, though, only one baby has been born.  The agency is currently working with 14 birth moms, but none of those babies are due until summer.  (Of those moms, some may, through the agency's counseling, decide to parent and not make an adoption plan.)  I have heard people say that the number of babies born in a hospital at any given time ebbs and flows, and that certainly seems to be true.  

Most of the time, I can push the following thoughts out of my mind, but every once in awhile, they creep up and make me doubt.  "Something must be wrong with us because we haven't been picked yet."  "Our agency isn't doing their job because they made it seem like this would go much more quickly than it has."  "We definitely deserve to get picked before those people on the website."  (Sorry, y'all- just being real.)  "Maybe people think we're too young and won't have a clue what we're doing."  (Okay, so it's probably true that we won't have a clue what we're doing.)  "Our case worker doesn't like us."  "Our friends and family probably think we are idiots because we told them we thought we would have a baby by now."    

I know that whenever we finally do get the call, the timing will be perfect.  I can already look back and be thankful that it didn't happen before the marathon, before we got to have our last little weekend getaway as a couple, and before I had to go on maternity leave.  (I feel sick just thinking about having to make six weeks' worth of sub plans and leave my students in someone else's hands.  God knew I didn't need to worry about that.)  In the moment, though, the home stretch feels like an eternity.

Come home, Baby Fen.  Your crib is waiting for you.  And so are your parents.

A Dream/Nightmare

Several of you have already heard this story, but it's just too funny not to share.  And since my husband refuses to be a "guest blogger" on this blog that I originally created for both of us, you'll just have to imagine that he is the one writing (because this is actually his dream).

We are getting so impatient for a baby that we are often consumed by thoughts of when we will get to bring him or her home.  Every day when we wake up, we both think, "Maybe today is the day that we will get the phone call!"  Clearly, our subconscious is consumed by these thoughts, too.

The Dream:

We adopted a grown man.  

Not only was he a grown man, but he was nearly twice as old as us; he was in his forties.

When Andrew met our "child," Andrew looked at him, perplexed, and said, "Uhh, I thought we were supposed to get a newborn..."

To which the man replied, "Oh, but I am a newborn!"

Maybe that isn't very funny to anyone else, but it's hilarious to me.  I'm still chuckling just typing about it.