Teaching in Quarantine: Three Times the Work and Not Much of the Fun

If you remember Jolt Cola, you are most assuredly dating yourself.

It was a short-lived soft drink, hitting its very brief and barely noticeable zenith in the mid-nineties. I remember it chiefly because of a student who was fond of it. We were heading home from Steubenville or Notre Dame following a massive youth conference. One of the teenagers -- we'll call him anonymous -- jumped into one of the fourteen passenger vans ready for the fifteen hour ride home and proceeded to down six Jolt Colas and a box or Oreo Cookies. It was a fun ride home.

Jolt had a pithy and memorable motto: All the Sugar and Twice the Caffeine. It's a testimony to the ad executive's wordsmithing that I remember that line all these years later.

If I were an ad executive trying to capture the world of teaching, or should I say Distance Learning, circa April 2020, here would be my slogan: Three Times the Work and None of the Fun!

I hate this.

I truly hate this.

I think we're four weeks into this, maybe five. It all gets hazy amidst no work, no normal church services, no soccer practices, in short few road markers that might help us distinguish between This Day and That Other Day.

And I'm suddenly reminded of elderly people who lose track of days. They're retired, so they can totally relate to the Dowager Countess who once famously quipped, "What is a weekend?"

(Aside: An odd feature of quarantine is that we get unduly excited about breaks in the monotony.  Trash Day? Woo Hoo! I used to hate grocery shopping. Now it's a combination of Field Trip! Woo Hoo! and a night at the roulette table because, truly, you never know what you're going to get. Mail Delivery is a now a Spectator Sport. We love the mailman and the UPS guy. Seriously. I am ashamed to say I had never, prior to quarantine, spoken to the mailman. Now I speak to him regularly and am so very grateful for his service to us.)

But I digress.

Distance Teaching: Three Times the Work and None of the Fun.

Today I held one of the many, many Zoom classes. My precious Juniors wouldn't go on camera. I want you to know that my class usually meets first period, 8:55-9:50. Mindful that most teenagers are not known for being morning people -- thoughtful teacher that I am --  I hold my virtual class at 1:00. Only one person was on camera.

I want to see their faces. I miss their faces. I miss their humor. I miss their antics and their ideas and their energy.

Next week I plan to sweeten the deal and offer extra credit if they turn their cameras on.

As an English teacher, I routinely face an avalanche of papers. The piles can be daunting, but they are nothing -- nothing!! -- compared  to endless electronic assignments that come via email or text or student information system with attachments and comments and questions and photos of greatly varying quality all mixed in with the phone bill, my latest order from The Children's Place, a reminder that I have a dermatology appointment the week after next, a thoughtful note from Delta Airlines reminding me that "We're all in this together," and a notification from Zoom about my next class.

Needle in a vast, vast electronic haystack. Give me back my stacks!

Field Trip!

I love Zoom. I am getting better at Zoom. Six times yesterday I attempted to edit my American Lit class so that it reflected the fact that I live and teach in the Eastern Time Zone, not the Pacific Time Zone. Six times.

Edit. Save. Edit. Save. Edit. Save. Edit. Save. Edit. Save. Edit Save.

No exaggeration.

When I zoomed into Zoom, it appears that my class is still scheduled for 1:00 Pacific Standard Time.

I cried uncle. Zoom 1, Kelly 0.

O take me back to the piles of papers! Real papers. Actual papers. Papers that can't be deleted and that, mostly, can be read and that aren't mixed up with the light bill and the notification that the vet remains closed.

O take me back to classes that start and end in Eastern Standard Time!

Take me back to students with actual faces  I can see!

(And I know, I know, I know, I know that this too shall pass. In the big scheme of things, these are minor irritations. They are nothing. But to me they are something).

Rant over.

Covidiots and Quarantinis and Keeping Your Eyes on Your Own Quarantine

The dog ate the homework!

Here's a helpful PSA we probably all learned by the end of first grade: Keep your eyes on your own work.You may not quarantine precisely as your neighbor chooses to quarantine, and that's (mostly) okay.

"Comparison is the thief of joy," my wise friend Rachel says, quoting, I think, her wise mother.

In our current circumstances, the thief works in two ways.

You could while away the quarantine looking at social media and coming away with a long, long list of Everything That Is Wrong With You.

Her husband is more helpful. Her children are more cooperative. She doesn't have to worry about money! Her kids are writing computer programs; mine are terrorizing the dog and their little sister. They have a lake. A lake!

Keep your eyes on your own quarantine.You are teaching Your kids in Your house under Your unique circumstances.

A second, darker temptation is to look with contempt at those who respond differently than we do. Before I launch into that, let me point out that the quarantine has spawned some useful new words. I will highlight just two of them:

Covidiot: 

1. Someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety. 

2. A person who hoards goods, denying them from their neighbors.

Quarantini: A soothing alcoholic drink that makes dealing with Covidiots so much easier!


Yes, there are covidiots out there. They hoard toilet paper, and record themselves kissing toilet seats and throw huge parties in blatant disregard of the common good. 

But don't slap that label on everyone who does things differently than you do.

We are not carbon copies. We don't have the same underlying risk factors. We don't interact with the same at risk people. We don't have the same fears. We don't have the same level of fortitude.

That doesn't make us covidiots; it makes us human.

Let's not devour one another.

Love Is Kind

When my sister was delivering my oldest niece, she was attended by the grumpiest L and D nurse on planet Earth. Quickly dubbed Nurse Ratchet, her favorite expression, as I recall, was "um, no."

I'd like my sister to be in the delivery room with me. Um, no.

I'd like something to drink. Um, no.

I'm feeling a little uncomfortable. Um, no.

Ice chips? Um, no.

Thankfully, change of shift rolled around, Nurse Ratchet skedaddled to be replaced by a kinder, gentler soul.

A few weeks ago our adult faith formation class watched a clip of Bishop Fulton Sheen talking about the unique call placed on nurses and doctors. Help care providers, he stated, have a special duty to be kind.

Unconditional Love brought to you by Indy.

My son John appreciates kindness. How did you like football? It was great. Uncle Nelson is nice. How's swimming going? Great. Coach Kathleen is nice. How was school? Awesome. Aunt Carolyn subbed, and she's nice.

From about age three on, my best friend was Susan Bennett who lived just up the street. Her mother was Marian Bennett. What I remember best about Mrs. Bennett was her piano playing and her kindness. She was just an upbeat person, not fake, but cheerful and kind. And I remember that fifty years later.

My Aunt Margaret is another nice person. She always welcomed me into her home. She smiled. She brought me a Popsicle when I was covered in the most hideous case of Poison Ivy ever. And I remember that forty-five years later.

We're all familiar with 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 

As we move into Quarantine, Week III, it is so very tempting -- so very human -- to be easily angered, to keep a record of wrongs, because at this point -- let's face it -- there's a whole lot that is wrong.

We're all a bunch of accidental homeschoolers very much like the Facebook Dad with veins popping out his temples hissing, "I said, 'Mary has five apples,  FIVE! APPLES!"

This isn't easy, folks. No, it's not. But let's try to be kind. And when we fail or when those around us fail, let's forgive.

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Exoskeletons and Endoskeletons and Hard Stops

Sometimes life issues us a Hard Stop.

You're pregnant and experiencing problems and your doctor says, "Go home. Get on the couch. Don't move." 

And you do it. 

For the love of your baby, all those pressing issues, the endless To Do List, all that pent up nesting instinct, all that is urgent and oh! so very necessary gets set aside instantly. 

Hard Stop.

You have a sick child. The plans get scrapped. The calendar clears. Or the calendar gets ignored.

Another walk?

Hard Stop.

We are now facing the mother of all Hard Stops.

Three weeks ago, I was facing the busiest week of a busy, busy year. We were en route to a college south of Atlanta for a literary competition. Our school began ramping up for this event last September. Auditions and rehearsals and permission slips and more rehearsals and a regional competition and a few last minute rehearsals and now it was time for the grand finale. For three of our students this was the final finale -- graduation was just around the corner. This would be their last trip to state.

We loaded up two vans with students, coaches, parents, and younger siblings. From the back of the van, we heard a plea for a bathroom break, and as I tried to text the second van, I spied an email from the competition director. 

Campus closed. Competition to be rescheduled.

Hard Stop.

That was the first in a long line of cancellations and postponements that has left the six Dolins -- and families the world over -- working and learning from home.

Hard Stop.

In my good moments, I view this as a unique opportunity to be a family. In the past fourteen days, we have sat down at the table together more often; we have prayed together more often; we have played more board games; Ainsley has baked up a storm. In short, there has been lots of good. (In the interest of full disclosure, I also spent most of one morning boo hooing).

My friend Chuck Hornsby often speaks of Exoskeletons and Endoskeletons. All of us have Exoskeletons that support us in various ways. Our churches, our larger faith communities, our jobs, our kids' schools -- we both build these structures and rely upon the strength, routine, familiarity, and love that comes from these sources outside of us, outside of our nuclear families. 

The Endoskeleton, by contrast, is an internal support system -- our nuclear families, our marriages,  our prayer lives, our thoughts, our habits, our methods of functioning and relating when the regular scaffolds of life fall away, if only temporarily.

Years and years ago, Elizabeth Foss was on bed rest while awaiting the delivery of her ninth child. She said that bed rest is like a family camping trip with an

uncanny knack for exposing the fissures within family life. I think the same can be said for quarantine.

So let's work on our Endoskeletons. Mine could use a bit of shoring up.

I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good

Indy's new motto: Toddler by Day, Newborn By Night.

Let me start by saying that this puppy is adorable and affectionate and playful and everything we wanted in a puppy, and I solemnly swear he is almost always up to no good.

Perusing just a few Internet resources -- "Surviving a Puppy"; "Puppies: The First Thirty Days" -- it is clear to me that nothing out of the ordinary is happening around here. We've had some interrupted sleep (and I'm reminded of why it is highly unusual for fifty-something women to have newborns). We've cleaned up some messes (and did I really think my house was dirty before Indy's arrival? Ha!). We've found suspicious teeth marks on shoes and sheets and furniture (and does anyone listen when I say Put it Away! Close the doors!)

But the good outweighs the troublesome, and puppyhood doesn't last forever (or so the websites assure me). Indy no longer views his crate as total abandonment. When we say "Crate, Indy," he doesn't welcome confinement, but we aren't dealing with the incessant barking (bad) or the whimpering (much worse). Nap time made newborns and toddlers a little more manageable, so we're glad he gives us breaks. 

He now sits and shakes, and the kids think we've adopted the smartest puppy on the planet. (Mom would gladly forego sit and shake for two other verbs that both begin with the letter "P.")

Meet Indy

If you had peered at our calendar this week, you would have spied this notation:

Two weeks ago we had a meet and greet with a local breeder and eight of the cutest puppies you've ever seen. We selected one of the males and made arrangements to bring him home at eight weeks.

So this was the scene yesterday:

As veteran dog owners have warned me, a puppy is a cross between a newborn and a toddler. Indy is definitely more newborn than toddler at this stage, complete with the plaintive cries that will rend your heart, the sleepless nights, the sweet softness, the mystery that asks who this is, exactly, I've brought into my home? 

Indy reminds me of Ainsley in that he really, really likes being near his people. Yes, it hasn't been quite 24 hours, but already we're his people. If we're nearby, he curls up and sleeps like a baby. Apparently, I'm allowed to complete minor, fairly unimportant tasks so long as I don't get a wild hair and try something c-r-a-z-y like, say, walking into an adjacent room to transfer a load of laundry. This is not allowed. Productivity has screeched to a halt.

But I am so happy he's ours. 

John insisted on sleeping next to Indy on Night # 1. There was some whimpering and a bathroom break at 4:00 a.m. (handled by John). Night # 2 was a whole lot of crazy for reasons wholly unrelated to the pooch. Spring Dance was Saturday night. I gradually learned that the Parents of Juniors play a pivotal and pricey role in bringing all the fun to pass. Mostly this involved handing over some cash and staying up way, way past my bedtime. I popped over to Instagram to see my friend Rachel drinking coffee at 10 p.m. -- unusual even for me, the ardent coffee drinker, noteworthy for Rachel who doesn't really drink coffee. Yes, we stalwart Parents of Juniors cleaned up the dance starting at 11:00 and cleaned up the after party beginning at 1:00. Bedtime was close to 3:00.

We attempted to farm out the little people to make this crazy evening a little more manageable. John expressed deep concerns about Indy.

"Sleep on the floor next to him, Mom," my sweet, besotted John implored. "Don't make him sleep in the crate or at least put the crate next to your bed."

Were I to sleep on the floor, I'm fairly certain I would A) not sleep at all or B) be wholly unable to get off the floor come morning. So the crate was bedside as I sacked out at 3:00. It wasn't gruesome. As dawn broke, I let Indy out of the crate. He found a comfy spot under the bed and there he slept until 10:30.

Not too bad for a newborn!

All in all, it's been a great weekend. Tim, it seems, has found a replacement for the car an errant driver totaled a few weeks back. I helped our next door neighbors move. The Spring Dance was magical. My sweet ninth graders -- the class that brought me back into the world of teaching -- are now seniors and so handsome and beautiful I cried as they were introduced. The decorations, headed up by another student, were perfect and amazing and different. So proud of Clare. Kolbe was his usual steady and hardworking and handsome self. Tired though I was, I loved working with our assistant superintendent, our junior class, and the other parents, who are my dear friends and neighbors. Day of rest though it should be, I spent quite a lot of time Sunday attending to dust and dander and puppy puddles.

Welcome to our life, sweet Indy!

Indy's Easter basket.

It's full, gloriously full, and you will add so much to it!

Soaking Prayer

It has been a roller coaster of a week, and I doubt this ride will end any time soon.

First off, thank you -- thank you! -- to everyone who prayed for my dad last week. His surgery went smoothly, and the initial reports were favorable. Sadly, that all changed on Thursday when we heard that the pathology reports showed showed cancer -- an aggressive cancer, a cancer that had metastasized. On Friday we heard that the cancer was probably not typically an aggressive cancer, but that it had indeed metastasized.

We are experiencing emotional whiplash.

I have no medical expertise, so I can't explain the differences between small cell cancers and large cell cancers. I don't know precisely what "deep tissue" means. I don't understand how a non-aggressive cancer metastasizes.

But I know Dad is sick.

As my mom declined, I certainly struggled with the big hurdles she faced -- the broken bones and the surgeries -- but some of her little sufferings were the hardest to face.

I remember sitting with her as technician after technician tried -- unsuccessfully -- to get a vein in her emaciated frame.

I remember glancing at a New York Times crossword puzzle -- the puzzle that Mom did every week, in about an hour, in pen, in perfect Cathodic school girl penmanship -- and finding the puzzle a quarter of the way done in a nearly illegible script.

I remember playing Scrabble and in her post-broken clavicle, post-surgical, post-nursing home that damn near killed her haze, my brilliant mother couldn't spell the word C-A-T and, worse still, she knew she couldn't spell C-A-T, knew she was supposed to be able to spell C-A-T, and looked up at me with tears coursing down her sunken cheeks. 

She was slipping, slipping fast. There was no denying it, and it broke my heart.

But this I know: We can pray.

And this I know, too: None of this is wasted. God has numbered our days and counted are tears and continues to work in the midst of our pain and suffering and loss.

Alleluia Community has a gift of intercessory prayer. We have seen a few true miracles -- defied the odds, baffled the experts, made the newspaper kinds of miracles. More often we see less dramatic but in some ways equally as astonishing miracles  --  the young woman diagnosed with terminal cancer who lived an additional nineteen years despite her diagnosis; the husband and father, also diagnosed with terminal cancer, who is going strong twenty-five years later; truly sick people who were not suddenly and completely healed but who went on to live and to love and to serve because of the consistent, soaking prayer offered up again and again and again.

And that's what I ask for my dad -- soaking prayer.

He is the heart of our family, we love him, and we want him to live to be a doddering old man. 

Food Just Like Your Mother Makes

Tim is moving up in the world of food and beverage.

He was promoted from Dining Room Assistant (a.k.a Bus Boy) to Server (a.k.a Waiter) just in time to rake in some impressive tips.

Tim studied the Masters menu with all the diligence of a pre-med major cramming organic chemistry.

And what a menu! Their premiere Masters entree? Fennel dusted elk. Yes. Tim painstakingly wrote out flashcards detailing the dishes, the sides, the appetizers, and a lengthy list of wines in all their varieties.  Black Angus tenderloin with shiitake Madeira emulsion, raspberry infused duck breast with chambord glaze, and, of course, the fennel dusted elk.

"You should feel right at home," I told Tim. Oddly, meatloaf and macaroni and cheese are not on the menu at the Augusta Country Club.

I think Tim cleared over $200 in tips last night. I wondered if they're still hiring.

Up the street at the Augusta National, Kolbe is making some serious bank as a veteran member of Litter Patrol. The hardest part would be the hours. Kolbe clocks in at 6:00 a.m. and clocks out between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. If you're attending the tournament, be sure to drop some trash in the vicinity of the second hole. Kolbe's got you covered.

Meanwhile I am part-time Uber driver and
full-time director of laundry. Completely unpaid, largely unheralded, but mostly appreciated by the gainfully employed who really are thankful for clean polo shirts and aprons.

Tim is in the market for  a reliable used car. Call, text, or message him or me with any leads. I will happily wave goodbye to half my Uber duties.

National Siblings Day

Totally captures my three sons.

A Masterful Week

There's a little golf tournament that comes to Augusta every April. You may have heard of it.

Many Augustans open their homes to Masters guests. This year we took a baby step in that direction by renting out two rooms to college students who have internships at the National. These are students from the University of South Carolina enrolled in a course called "Golf Events," (a course which sounds much more fun than Macroeconomics, Money and Banking, Government Regulation of Industry, and most of the other classes I took back in the day). One of their course requirements is to spend spring break working the tournament. We have four very nice young men staying with us.

Hospitality for me means two things.

First, I clean with a vengeance. I sort and scrub and declutter with enthusiasm and vigor. Conveniently, the senior class yard sale coincided with my cleaning spree. A full truckload of Dolin castoffs-- a soccer goal and  a few board games, a pedestal sink and some old furniture --
went out the door in support of a good cause.

Hard deadlines are my friends. Oh, yes they are! I return items that have been sitting on top of the washing machine for six months. Hand me downs headed to the neighbors actually go to the neighbors. I wash windows I've been meaning to get to. In short, good has been done here. The kids' rooms look amazing.

But Hospitality seems to invited a second, less welcome guest: broken stuff.  I suspect that houses being houses things just break, but these things are much more noticeable when you have guests. Paying guests take it up a notch. On Saturday the AC began pumping out hot air. On Sunday the refrigerator started leaking. On Monday the toads started, well, um, making an awful lot of noise. (We have a small, ornamental pond that attracts the occasional toad except for about 48 hours per year when it attracts dozens of toads who are extremely loud because they're, well, happy. Note to the toads: You're not welcome Masters week!)

We called the HVAC guy. We put a towel under the fridge. I sent Ainsley out into the yard to catch the toads.

It's all good.

Prayers Appreciated

My dear Dad goes into surgery momentarily. I covet all your prayers for the best of all outcomes.

Here's my favorite piece written about one of my favorite people:

Two years ago I wrote the following post about Dad. I don't think I could say it today any better than I said it then. He still rocks!

My father's birthday came and went, and the post I had written in my mind never made it to the screen. My message is brief, and I lift it from the Gymboree t-shirt John wore last Father's Day:

My Dad Rocks!

My Dad rocks in a thousand ways -- some significant, some trivial.

Years ago, when my sister was considering an important decision, Dad offered some blunt advice.

"When you have kids," he shared, "your dreams die."

On the face of it, you would think those words stemmed from a life of disappointment and bitterness, from a person disillusioned and disenchanted. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When my parents first married, Dad owned his own business. It was a T.V. and radio shop. Dad is a mechanical wizard and has a passion for all things electronic. I'm sure he loved setting his own hours and being his own boss.

When children began arriving in regular succession, Dad closed his business and ultimately invested decades in a career with the Bell System. He was not his own boss and did not set his own hours. It was no dream job, I'm sure, but he was able to support us nicely, to pay tuition at Catholic schools,  to provide health insurance.

In short, he let a dream die.

In truth, though, Dad is a man of many, many dreams. The T.V. shop closed, but he went on to pursue a hundred other joys -- fishing and ham radios, model airplanes and chess. He loved the water and always dreamed of living on a lake.

He had a passion for boats. We always had boats. Yes, that's plural. Dad's record was owning four boats at one time. Dad would typically buy a clunker held together by a thin veneer of varnish and spend years refurbishing it. When I was a baby, he ordered a sailboat kit and built an entire boat in our basement. He then ripped out half the kitchen to get it out of the house. True story. The entire neighborhood and the local media turned out for the occasion. 

We often joked that my father had nine lives. He was forever slicing this or breaking that while sailing or carving or chiseling.

Around the office Dad was known as "Rapid Regan";  in our family he was "Gotta Go." He attended school years before anyone had heard of ADHD. Had he been born fifty years later, no doubt he would have had a lengthy string of letters after his name. I am sure he was a challenge in the classroom and at home. My boys love to hear the story of their Great Grandmother sending Grandpa to his room and then finding him inexplicably flying a kite out his bedroom window. No doubt there is a bevy of nuns who bypassed Purgatory entirely for having attempted to divert one Keith Regan from his chess manuals and radio magazines and in the direction of grammar and algebra.

Dad is something of a character. One of his most endearing qualities is his ability to laugh at his own foibles. We laugh right along with him. Last week I sat engrossed in a game of Scrabble and listened to my sister attempt to teach Dad how to check his email. Her tone alternated between patient and patronizing as he interjected "What the hell's that for?' and "Ah, forget it! Just forget it!"

After about sixty seconds of this,  my shoulders were shaking and tears coursed down my face I was laughing so hard.

Why? Because I've hear this identical exchange every! time! I! visit! I mean, every time. Don't you know these software engineers have formed a vast conspiracy to frustrate Keith Regan and Keith Regan alone?

Dad is still best friends with Lerew, a childhood pal. I will never forget the weekend they spent driving around trying to scam free Wi-Fi access. They finally succeeded by creeping in great stealth up the driveway of an exclusive club. They came home thrilled with their success and chuckling over their antics, two men in their seventies with multiple open heart surgeries between them. I wondered if they had thrown TP through the trees and scammed a beer or two.

I remember having coffee with my sister on my parents' deck as Dad fished offshore. We looked up to see Dad gesturing wildly, arms flailing madly. Kate and I immediately burst out laughing. No need to hear the dialogue. Make no mistake about it -- someone had just lost a Walleye.

Walleye fishing is a part of everyday life because Dad is living out his dream of living on the water. My parents live on an island in Lake Erie.

To me, that is a key part of their story. There is a time to do the right thing, to let a dream die. But, in Dad's case, he was really embracing another dream. He took hold of that new dream and didn't get mired in self-pity. He didn't count the cost over and over again. He found a life of purpose, of commitment, of excitement, of unexpected joy. In the end many of his dreams did come to pass.

That's a lesson I hope I have learned from my father.

Now in their 52nd year of marriage,  my parents are now, without question, walking through the "for worse " part of their wedding vows. My mother lives with chronic pain and rapidly diminishing mobility. Obviously, my dad lives with this as well. Pressing medical needs make life on an island in Lake Erie a tad problematic.

On a recent visit, Dad casually mentioned, "We need to think about selling the house."

The house. The house he built. The house on the lake.

Dad shared this with all the gravity of discussing new tires or having a tree removed. We need to think about selling the house.

Why? Because he is a courageous man, a man willing to let one dream die so that a more important one might live, a man who knows he will not succumb to bitterness and self-pity if things -- even really important things -- don't go his way.

I pray that he doesn't have to sell the house, but the fact that he can utter those words, can face that possibility, simply reinforces my longstanding view:

My Dad Rocks!

The Saints -- They Move Mountains

I love the Catholic Church.

Tim and Saint John Paul II.

I love the smells and bells. I love the liturgical seasons, the cycle of major and minor feasts.

I love the sacraments. How could I not love the sacraments?

I love the wideness of the Church. I love the orders. I love that within a single Church there exists myriad devotions and spiritual bents -- the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Franciscans, to name just a few.

I especially love the Missionaries of Charity with whom I worked for more summers than I can easily count.

The Missionaries of Charity love the saints, and they helped me to love them, too.

We recently recognized the Feast of Saint Joseph. A busy guy, Saint Joseph is patron saint of quite a lot -- husbands and fathers, workers and vocations, marriages and grace-filled deaths. My friend Rachel encouraged mothers of young men to ask for Saint Joseph's intercession as they find their way in the world. (Rachel just returned from a tour of Israel. I had asked her to remember all our boys during her visit to the Wailing Wall).

On New Years Day, I gathered the kids around my laptop and headed to Jen Fulweiler's Saints' Name Generator to find a saint of the year for each of us. John was first up. He said a brief prayer and pressed the button. "Saint Sigismund of Burgundy," the screen read, "Patron: Against fevers."

I did a double take, as would anyone who has known John for long. About ten years ago, at around 12-18 months, John began running sky-high, cyclical fevers. His highest was 104.6 (in the middle of the night, on an island in Lake Erie). A good time was had by all! His fever episodes peaked around 2nd grade when they came relentlessly every twenty-one days and lasted 48-72 hours. Fever, vomiting, sore throat, a mouthful of canker sores -- John suffered.

He hasn't run a fever since New Years Day.

Heaven is for real. The Saints -- the canonized ones with the big "S" along with the unheralded, unnoticed ones who simply persevered in faith, hope, and love -- are there with Almighty God ready, much like our friends here on earth, to intercede for all our needs -- for lost keys (thanks, Saint Anthony!, for lost souls (Saint Jude!), for a feverish little boy suffering on the couch (Saint Sigismund!).

The Night Before

Do you have Awful Mornings? You know, late start, lunch items in short supply, everyone crabby, uniforms elusive.

John can find just one pair of pants, and they look like he wore them in a Tug of War. His team lost. Ainsley is sporting an appalling case of bed head and thinks any variety of comb or brush came straight from the dungeons of a medieval castle. I spray detangler just as she turns her head. Doink! The bulk of it shoots straight into Ainsley's left eye.

We back out of the  driveway at 8:18 instead of 8:10. Kolbe then remembers it's Blazer Day. We pull back in. He forgets the house is locked. We pass him the keys.He locates the blazer. We pull back out and in the midst of refereeing a minor squabble that has erupted, I fail to angle the car, and the van bottoms out as we swerve into the street.

My friend and spiritual adviser suggested I begin a simple practice during morning prayers: ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind three things I should do each day. As I sat for a few minutes of prayer after a particularly trying morning, I felt a nudge to focus less on the morning and more on the night before.

Note: This would be no revelation to most people.

Here's the glaringly obvious truth: What constitutes a crisis at 8:18 a.m. is really perfectly manageable at 8:18 the night before. We all know the devil is in the details. And three school-aged kids bring with them a pile of details -- the PE clothes, the permission slip, lunch money, shin guards, costumes for the play, et al.

I love, love, love uniforms, oh yes I do. I'd pen a sonnet, Ode to a Khaki Skort, if 3rd quarter didn't end tomorrow and if I weren't staring down a daunting pile of ungraded papers.

Ode to the Khaki Skort will have to wait, but know, O Beloved Uniforms, that my devotion remains unswerving.

I  admit that at or about 8:18 in the morning, when the belt goes missing or the tie is AWOL or one shoe is on hiatus, the value of uniforms becomes somewhat murky and as elusive as, well, the khaki skort that Ainsley swore she hung up in her closet exactly as instructed.

Last night I reminded the kids to stage their uniforms. "Stage" is a term left over from from my Procter and Gamble days when I'd call a plant to find out if a truckload of shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant had been staged.

Lay it all out there, ready to go.

I recently reminded a nameless teenage age son to locate a red polo, a.k.a the travel uniform, as he was due to head to a game the following afternoon. Always quick to comply, he duly located a red polo. But come morning, once again at or about 8:18, the red polo turned out to be the one belonging to a brother six grades below him.

Yeah.

Clearly, we need to require something more than eye-balling. In fact, I think a full on dress rehearsal may be in our future.

It all begins the night before.

Pollen

Ainsley and I are dealing with goopy eyes and itchy noses and the fallout of a neighborhood that is bursting with color, but hard, so very hard, on those who struggle with seasonal allergies.

I'm not sure when I became one of those few -- those unhappy few -- that band of strugglers (Jamie will get the allusion. My ninth graders finished Act IV today). Were I to undergo allergy testing, I am certain I would come up positive for cats, chalk dust, and the pollen that is currently coating every vehicle, every bush, the outdoor furniture, my front teeth, you name it, it's covered with yellow powder.

I now take Allegra regularly, and during weeks like this, I reach for antihistamine eye drops as well. But to no avail. We need rain.

Back in the Saddle Again

John: How do you make an omelette?

Me: Step 1 -- Borrow eggs from the neighbors.

John recovering from croup but also John's reaction to cooking instructions.

As Summer Winds Down But Temperatures Continue to Soar . . .

True Devotion.

Ainsley and her three BFFs named themselves The Fantastic Four.

John and his buddy very thoughtfully renamed them The Fartastic Four.

Predictably, Ainsley cried.

Unpredictably, Ainsley's mother laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed some more.

In fact she laughed until she was crying right along with Ainsley.

Because we are just half-way through August.

And it's blistering hot.

And the pool hours have been cut back because the rest of humanity is back in school.

But we're not.

And I'm mostly glad.

But it's still blistering hot.

So we gotta laugh.

My Girl Turned Seven!

Best. Surprise. Ever.

As John Turns Nine

In light of John's ninth birthday, I pull this from the archives:


As John Turns Seven . . .

The day before his birthday, John rolled over in bed and posed an important question, "Is today tomorrow?"

"No," I sadly informed him, "Tomorrow is tomorrow."

Ainsley could sympathize. "There's so many tomorrows, so many tomorrows," she lamented.

Kids and time. Such interesting perspectives.

When Tim was still Timmy, Tomorrow was The Next Day To This Day and Yesterday was The Last Day To This Day. Kind of makes sense. Ainsley will ask when we're going to the zoo. I'll say, "next Thursday," and she'll then wake up everyday asking, "Is today next Thursday?"


Love that.

Well, eventually today became tomorrow and even John realized that the big day had at long last dawned. So instead of asking if today were tomorrow, he leaned over and said, "Presents?"

Love my John.

Love, love, love my seven-year-old, adventure-loving boy.

I love his laugh, his enjoyment of sea glass and stars, of bike riding and dead snakes.

Pelee Island is full of snakes. How these things can remain on the endangered species list defies evidence I viewed with my own two eyes and nearly stepped on at least twice. Every bike ride to the bakery garnered a few specimen dead in the road. I passed one freshly smushed snake and looked behind me to see if John would respond in predictable fashion. The boy does not disappoint. No, true to form, he screeched to halt, checked out the carcass . . . and ran it over a few more times with his bike.

{Insert head bang.}

I found one long dead reptile flattened and stiff. John carried it around for days until I found it hanging from my parents' door knob. He came out of the house sporting a blank, innocent expression and with a tone intentionally casual asked, "Has anyone seen anything near the door knob?"

You know, I should have screamed. Really, I should have produced the complete and proper scene John was looking for.

I was filling out a form for John's annual physical. "What are your interests," I asked him.


"Guns," he replied.

"Books," wrote his mother.

"What else," I asked.

"Computer games," he replied.

"Swimming," wrote his mother.

But really John reminds me of his grandfather in that he is a boy of many passions -- Legos and astronomy, spy gear and Batman, and, as he was quick to add, "money, presents, Auntie Kate, and all my cousins."

We walked down the shore of Lake Erie late one night, and John was astonished at the number and clarity of the stars. He slipped his hand in mine out of companionship, not fright, and pointed them all out to me.

I love all my kids. (Of course I do). But I look at each one through the unique lens surrounding their birth. Tim, our first, was born of youth and optimism. We wanted a baby; we had Tim. Kolbe came to us after four years of waiting and six rounds of fertility drugs. It's altogether fitting that he is persevering in nature. The month before John came to be, I endured my sixth miscarriage in as many years. For reasons emotional and physical, I had begun voicing thoughts about not pursuing that course of action any longer.

And then John.

I will always remember those first weeks of nausea and appetite swings that were followed closely by a week of feeling absolutely normal. Internally I mourned even as externally I continued to pray, continued to exercise the virtue of hope until there was no reason to hope.

And my boy held on.

I will always remember the night I spent in the hospital dealing with pre-term labor. Hooked up to monitor, breathene coursing through my veins, I took in the sights and sounds of the delivery room and was most struck by the pink and blue blankets stacked neatly by the bassinet.

I'm having a baby. I'm really having a baby this time.

He's the baby born of hope and healing.

Love my John, the boy who was just overheard saying, "Ainsley, do you want to see me put Pooh Bear on the fan?"

That's my boy.

Motherhood can bring its share of regrets, no doubt about it. I wish I had worried less and relaxed more, overlooked this issue and focused a little more on that one. But I realize that I'll look back on John age 5, John age 6 and know that I enjoyed nearly every minute of it, that I fully drank in and appreciated his liveliness, his humor, his energy. Even the challenges -- recurrent fevers, reading, math -- have led me to invest lots of one on one time with this boy of mine, so I can't regret those either.

One day John will no longer reach for my hand as we walk down the beach. One day his interest in bugs will give way to an interest in girls or cars or computers. One day Mama will morph into Mom.

But that day is not today.

And I'm glad.