About me and mine

I graduated from high school in 1975. I was the first in my immediate family to go to college and the first to graduate, even though the matriculation was spread out over 20 or more years. Life, especially having my family, intervened. Also, my major (biology) was fairly poorly chosen. I hated dissections and the smell of formaldehyde. I'm not a great memorizer of scientific names. Chemistry is not a subject for which I have an affinity, and it's required for biology majors. After 3 1/2 years of screwing around, aiming for a "Gentleman's C" in all courses (how liberated I was!), I happily left for marriage and kids. But when I allowed myself to think about it, I felt like a failure.

So, with three children happily in school, I re-enrolled and changed my major to elementary ed. A good fit and the shortest track I could find to graduation. I did glance at psychology as I took 2 core classes there--I think I would have excelled there, but the financial strain I was putting on my family made me take the more immediate track to a pay check. In what would have been my final year, I became pregnant with my fourth child--quite a surprise, but he's been a blessing, so I'll not argue with God over that decision. So, finally--graduation, student teaching (a horrible experience--saving for another day), and employment. I was 40 when I began teaching fifth grade at my school. I had already lived a lifetime of experiences.

My own kids had prepared me poorly for teaching. They're all very bright and gave me an inflated sense of how good I was at teaching. I worked with my older daughter for a week on her addition facts--bingo! She was good to go. That's really the only thing I had to help her with, and the other kids seemed to learn by osmosis--they learned every concept the first time around. I did keep tons of books in the house and made frequent trips to the library with them. They're all readers and all, by any measure, successful. The oldest three are out in the world and I so miss them! Here's what they've chosen to do with their lives:

• Older daughter (and oldest of all) is BSN/RN, working as a charge nurse in a regional cancer center. She's witty and wonderful and beautiful. I think she'd be a perfect nurse to have because of her cheerful attitude and deftness. I love watching her put away groceries or load a dishwasher--poetry in motion! The Cheaper by the Dozen parents would have studied her! She and her new husband make quite a pair.
• Younger daughter is my DETERMINED child. She was a National Merit Scholar, valedictorian, and actually made money going to college because she had quite a bit of excess scholarship money. She's a Latin teacher, living with her husband in the same city as her older sister. She completed a half-marathon yesterday in less than 2 hours. She, too, is witty and wonderful and beautiful but she's also the opposite of her older sister. She's fair; the other is dark. She's short; her sister is tall. She's shy; the other is outgoing. Just these 2, born 19 months apart, taught me that all kids are different and that comparisons were impossible.
  
• My older son, my former baby, is a graduate student at a very nice university in another state. He, too, was a valedictorian. He's a very talented mathematician but he loves literature. He's studying English Lit, emphasis on Medieval Literature, and he hopes to be a university professor. And, considering the 5-year program he's in is paying him to go to school, he should be able to achieve his dream. The most amazing thing about all of this is that he had a serious language delay disorder when he was small because of repeated ear infections. He literally didn't talk much at all until he was 5 (and had had 3 years of speech therapy.) I've dealt with language-impaired children in my classroom, and I have to say they are the most difficult children to teach. Language is everything in a classroom. A child who is not processing language can't learn. My aspiring professor was able to overcome his language delay and excel.
  
• That brings up the baby--now 14 and in high school. He's the brightest of a very bright bunch--he taught himself how to read before the age of two. Literally. I was changing a diaper when he was 17 months old and he asked if "stop" is spelled s-t-o-p. He would read newspaper headlines as we walked by. He used to amaze the check-out girls at Wal-Mart by reading their name tags to them. He's always been very gregarious and would walk up to just anybody at the store and start a conversation. After begin chastised repeatedly for talking to strangers, he then began conversations with them by saying, "Hi, my name is _________ and this is my friend, Mom. What's your name?" His reasoning--if he knew the stranger's name, then the stranger was no longer a stranger. He, like his brother and father, excels at mathematics. He's not so good at turning in schoolwork and that is maddening and tiring for his father and me. Dang-it, his brother and sisters turned their work in. Sometimes I feel too old for the "did you do your homework" crap, but it must be done.

Well, that's my kids. I didn't raise them alone; my husband has been here with me, a true parenting partner. He's the one my kids get the intellect and math ability from. I often wonder what I gave my kids--I think I'll be content for making them readers and lovers of words and learning.