What the toddlers taught me

Yesterday was my last day as a toddler teacher for the foreseeable future. I've had my own classroom for almost two years (my anniversary was next month) and for almost the entire extent of that time, had a core group of kids that I stayed with. Some kids added, some dropped, and a small number of them transitioned up, but there were a couple kids (D, A, I, B, N, etc) who were with me almost the entire time I was at my center. (I would include W, but he moved to another state this past June and it about broke my heart.)

The job has been exhausting, and challenging, and incredibly, painfully, difficult. It has also been incredibly rewarding, forcing me to be inventive, creative, and flexible. I've had to adapt myself to situations, work with teachers and assistants and directors whose views are in direct opposition to my own, and become frighteningly comfortable with the human body. (Thanks for your legendary poops, B. I mean that.) The connections I have made with the families have enriched my life in ways I never expected and I look forward to maintaining the relationships I've created these past two years.

As a toddler teacher, I've been asked many times, "But, like, what do you actually teach them?!" And I always give the same answer: how to be human. They know how to walk when they come to my classroom, but they have no idea how far they can go. They are starting to speak, but they've yet to learn the power of words to build or destroy. As they develop a sense of independence, learn the bounds of their autonomy, and figure out social skills like sharing and apologizing, I'm the person responsible for helping them. For modeling these skills. I'm certainly not perfect.

Some weeks, the toddlers teach me more than I teach them. Here are some of the lessons I've learned while I've been with these incredible, bright, important children.

1. People are like oobleck.

Surely, you've mixed cornstarch and water together. If not, you should do it right now. Oobleck has bizarre properties, existing in both a liquid and a solid state simultaneously. That means that when you squeeze the oobleck in your closed fist, it gets hard and crumbly. When you relax your hand, it turns into a viscous liquid that will drizzle out between your fingers.

How does this relate to people? I've seen it in my personal relationships and I've seen it in my interactions with the children compared with my coworkers'. If you try to hold a person, sure, they might not get away, but it's unlikely it'll be a pleasant experience for anyone. They will turn hard and begin to fall apart. When you let them go, when you open your palms and leave them to do as they will, sure, they might run away, slip right through your fingers, and make a mess -- but maybe they'll stay. Either way, isn't it better to not cramp your hand trying to hold onto them, and take your chances?

2. Bubbles solve everything.

No, seriously. If you have nine children fighting over one toy,  children who want binkies, children transitioning into a center environment after two years alone with Mommy, or even a staff who hates each other -- there's a simple answer that never fails. Bubbles. Lots of damn bubbles.

I'm pretty sure it's universal. You put the leaders of all the world's nations into a room, starting blowing bubbles, and see how long it takes for everyone to develop a more... democratic spirit. And start getting along. There are always enough bubbles for everyone.

3. Some people build; some people destroy.

Don't let these people build lego towers together. Seriously.

4. Everyone has unique needs.

You can try as hard as you want to create a fair and equal classroom, but you're going to learn, fair and equal are not the same things. Some kids get potty trained at 2 and some wait until they're almost 4. Some kids need to be held when they're sad or when they fall down or when someone new comes into the classroom and some kids, well, they'd like their space, thank you very much. Techniques that distract or deter one child will not work for another, and sometimes, it won't work on the same kids twice. In order to meet nine unique sets of needs every day, you need to be creative, adaptive, flexible, and for god's sake, patient!

5. Everyone needs the exact same thing. 

We all just want to have our feelings and experiences recognized as valid. You might think it's not a big deal that Suzie just took the purple shovel and I should stop crying, but how difficult can it be when you think, "I am master of my universe," only to learn that Suzie is master of the one thing you want RIGHT. NOW. THIS. VERY. SECOND. MORE. THAN. AIR. Kids -- human beings -- respond much better to hearing, "I know what you're going through must be difficult; how can I help you to feel better about it?" than they do to, "Stop crying; it's just a shovel. Here, take the red one." "Stop crying, he's just a boy" does not go over nearly so well as, "Ashley, I know you love him and I know this impossible situation has left you frustrated, drained, and hurt. And I know you recognize how impossible this is. Do you want to go get ice cream and talk about Frank Turner?"

Likewise, people need to have their efforts recognized, especially when they are not doing well. I had one child who would not stop a particular behavior pattern that was destructive to social relationships and the classroom in general. It wasn't an intentional thing that happened, and you could see the upset and the hurt every time this child failed. My co-teacher's method of behavior management was to keep the child at her feet, to force this child to sit out and miss the rest of the day, all the while lecturing the child about why this behavior was undesirable. My approach, when I took control of these situations, was much more "bleeding heart." I tended to praise the child's hard work, "I can see how difficult it is for you to control yourself, and I know how hard you're working to do better. I'm really proud of you for that, but next time, I want you to get me when you need help." Then I would either sit with the child or give the child space until the child calmed their body down and felt ready to rejoin the group. When the damage was particularly bad, my co-teacher had a tendency to rub the child's nose in it, to say, "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE. YOU'VE DONE THIS TERRIBLE THING." My reaction was like this:

Me: Do you see this? How did that happen?
Child: [explanation of how damage occurred]
Me: How can we fix this?
Child: [offers solution and apology]

We would then carry out any needed maintenance to "solve" the problem and "reverse the damage."

Over time, the child refused to be alone with my former co-teacher, screaming any time diaper changes rolled around and refusing to even greet my co-teacher. The tension between them was so immense that the child is now going to a new center. I'm not trying to say that I am perfect, and I certainly have reacted to children with frustration, sometimes in a less than forgiving mood. Sometimes I'm tired or I'm distracted or I'm upset about something else. But I think what I learned to do very well was to acknowledge the validity of everyone's individual experiences, and their hard work. It's all any of us really want, and even though it looks like a nice life to us, we must all remember the words of the great French singer, Jordie...

"Dur dur d'etre bebe." (It's tough to be a baby!)
 

Traveling Alone

I like my life the way it is, mostly. I like impulse buying piles of hand-painted vintage tulle with the express intent of upstaging my cousin at her wedding. I like buying glitter, or taking my friends out to dinner. As Sempleton put it the other day, "I've got friends who are rolling money, and then there's you. You're just like, 'Fuck it. I live a fabulous life.'"

And that might sound bad.

But I love my friends. I love the place I live. (Ok, not the whole apartment, but my bedroom. And the location.) I like my crazy stories and my adventures. I like being alone. I like that when I want company, it's not hard to find.

I'm not good at complimenting people. I'm not good at asking people about themselves. Not adults, anyway. I am terrible with names. I forget birthdays and to buy Christmas gifts for people. I often find myself distracted from the things you say because I'm thinking about the no doubt fascinating things I'm going to say after you've finished. I really like to be the center of attention, but only on my own terms. I'm not good at sitting back and letting other people be the stars.

When John Irving read my question at a forum, I thought, "Of course he chose this to be the only real question he answered, because I'm much more interesting than everyone else here."

I sound awful.

This morning, I was in a really awful mood. A really terrible rare mood. Just foul. But here is the thing about my job: you can't sit there and wallow in your own filth. I might impose my values on these kids by teaching them that Jackson Browne says "Doctor, my eyes!" and to complete, "I want..." with "to dance!" (A Frank Turner song, of course.) But they actually need me. And not selfish me, not self-absorbed me. I spend all day taking care of them. Interacting with them. Meeting them at their levels, trying to provide solid scaffolding so they can keep growing, even while I feel my own soul stagnating. What I'm trying to say is, this is painful for me.

I come home from work and I don't have the energy to take care of someone else who has all these emotional needs. I can't kiss one more booboo or let one more person climb all over me just because it's fun for them. When my shift ends, I can't put aside my own moods anymore. I don't remember the last time I had a good cry, or the last time I thought about anything real. (Wrong. Last solid cry was Thanksgiving day.) I have enough to feel sad about, and not from a selfish point of view. I've lost a lot that really mattered to me in the last twelve months. More than I thought I could, more than I thought I would. I've gained a lot, too, but letting go hurts and pretending for more than half my waking hours that I exist purely to meet some tiny child's needs is exhausting. You're not even my kid and I spend all this emotional energy on you. Is this unconditional love?

So I fill myself up with these things. The tulle and glitter and fluffy music and nights spent just having a really good time. Doing stupid things like pulling my friend to the bar for her birthday dinner, on a sled, down a typically busy street. Insisting on outlasting all those other fair-weather drinkers who might be out in the middle of a blizzard. And then I want to talk about that when I have (very limited!) free time. Not war. Or human rights. Or religion.

And I'm sorry. It doesn't mean I don't love you, just because I'm not very good at reciprocal conversations right now. It just means that I spend the bulk of my day asking, "What color is this pillow? Where is the bunny in this picture? Do you need my help putting your shoes on? Why did you hit your friend?" It just means that I am tired and I'm not sure I can give you the attention you deserve. It just means I need a break, and boy do I. I might sound indulgent, a little selfish, maybe. But I spend all day being selfless for people who won't remember me in a year and a half. Forgive me if it just feels a little futile.

Or as Marie Antoinette might say, "Pardon me, sir... I did not mean to do it."

Oh, hai, bloggy....

So the url of this blog is "Lord Byron's Luggage." This used to be the blog title, as well, and back then, it was ever so appropriate for my purposes. I was chronicling my adventures in a fairytale city that tasted like meringue and melted on my tongue with that same sticky sweetness, the lightness, the airy, can't-get-enough-ness of Edinburgh.

Anyway, the title/URL combo came from a Warren Zevon song, called "Lord Byron's Luggage." I liked the opening line:

Lord Byron had a lot of luggage; he took it when he traveled far and wide.

  I don't have a lot of physical luggage. I travel light enough that, when I arrived at the airport in Edinburgh at about 6 AM, having just undergone the undocumented flight from hell, the woman sent to greet the exchange students was shocked. A backpack and what Homeless Dan calls my "tiny suitcase." It did not occur to me that, for six months of living in a new country, I might need more than six shirts. (It didn't occur to me because, after all, I did not. Seriously. Look at the photos. I am constantly wearing the same six shirts layered in different ways. In every single photo.)

But just the same, I had some luggage. I was traveling to a new country, escaping some really awful failed friendships, one romantic misstep that seemed, at the time, particularly brutal, and a grandfather who was about to die. Let's not sugarcoat that, because it happened. He died three or four days after I got to the city.

So I spent six months living in a fairy tale. Falling in love with strangers who would get to stay as perfect as James Dean, wandering around giant gardens, drinking for the first time in my life, hanging out with Robert and Susannah and Mhairi and Jason and Cara and Kevin, and Amandine, and ohgod, that Benedict. I miss Will almost all the time, and Beth, too. I wrote more while I was in Scotland than I have at any other point in my life. I also played more Snood and had more insomniac meanders through the really sketchy parts of town than I ever hope to again. As I told Ben one night, when I ran into him with his roommate at 3 AM on Prince's Street, "My legs, they just won't settle."

(For those of you who wonder where my confusion with Ben lay, I met his roommate and her response was, "OH! ASHLEY! It's so fantastic to finally meet you!")

But as I came home from Scotland, my blog became more about appreciating that, then I stopped writing. Then I started writing again. But it was a mishmash of things. Quotes from Alice Hoffman, pictures of dresses and Scottish islands. Esoteric bull about scattering my grandfather's ashes. Then I moved to DC and didn't write for the four months I was there. And why would I? That was an awful experience, and I had no time to sleep, let alone write about the grind of being Alicia's little wife. Then I met Homeless Dan, and I moved home, and I wrote about movies for awhile. Then I did not write for a long time, during which my life has been utter turmoil and upsets and plot twists and "When did that happen? And how old am I again?" This was the "Typing Gibberish" period.

And now, here I sit, at yet another crossroads, and I'm thinking about all that luggage. All that nostalgia and the things I keep just for me, those things that don't fit in my tiny suitcase, and that don't even really fit in my life anywhere, anymore, and I keep thinking, how am I holding onto these things and why can I not let go for the life of me? My jaw hurts from holding so tight. (I mean that literally. I often cannot unclench my jaw.) My knuckles can turn white and my knees can collapse, and my entire world can shrink so that nothing will fit, but I keep carrying these things, finding space for them, making space for them.

I love the things that are just mine, but I'm not sure how to keep them without missing out on forward momentum.

A note of justice

Just double-checked. 127 is nominated for Best Original Score. AND IT SHOULD WIN SO HARD THEY FEEL IT IN 2012!

Also, once again... DIDO?

127-- OMIGOD THAT ROCK JUST FELL ON HIM -- erm, spoilers ahead

Blogging 127 Hours. Because Danny Boyle is good for nothing if not for a sense of surreal immediacy. (Crawling babies, anyone? Also, anyone feeling a craving some Shallow Grave...ing? Terrible, I know.)


Ten minutes: Someone just give this movie the best picture Oscar already? Also, there's a reason Danny Boyle is one of my two favorite directors. Since when does Amber Tamblyn still exist?

Twenty minutes: Dear Danny Boyle:  I knew it was going to happen, but it terrified me when it did

 One minute later: I HAVE SYMPATHY PAINS FOR ARON RALSTON

Thirty-seven minutes: Now I'm crying on the bus. WELL DONE DANNY!

Forty-one minutes: Thirsty. GIVE ME WATER. WANT GATORADE. CanIhaveit? Also, congratulations on finding an unflattering angle to shoot Mr. Franco from.

Forty-three minutes: No. Chilled urine is nothing like sauvignon blanc

Forty-five minutes: Idea strikes him. Stomach turns... Even more than at the thought of drinking pee.

Forty-eight minutes: I think the thing with the contacts bothers me more than it should, only because I know how helpless I feel when I don't have mine.

Forty-nine minutes: He's dating Fleur? I guess she got over Chuck Bass awful fast. Also, didn't she just marry Bill Weasley?
Fifty-three minutes: James Cameron is in the house

Fifty-five minutes: Wait, was it even raining? At least he's keeping his spirits up somehow.

Fifty-seven minutes: Lesson number 127? TELL PEOPLE WHERE YOU WILL BE. Ferrealz, yo.

ONE HOUR: We have punctured skin. 

Sixty-one minutes: I'm having a Dumb and Dumber moment.... "This tastes like piss"

Sixty-three minutes: "If you keep singing Phish, you're never going to get a girlfriend." Somebody please tell GuitarHero to see this movie.

Seventy minutes: I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Even if you hate this rock.

Seventy-three minutes: Wait, since when does Dido still exist?

Seventy-four minutes: We have broken bone.

Seventy-six minutes: Is this nominated for best score? It really deserves to be. OMIGOD I MIGHT PEE MYSELF

Seventy-seven minutes: Release. Though it hardly feels like freedom. Mere survival is all.

Eighty-four minutes: Yup, tears again. Can you imagine being the family that found him? Can you imagine being him, upon being found?

Eighty-eight minutes: Oh, hey, @RealAronRalston. I'm glad you tell people where you will be now. And stopped singing Phish

That's why it's called acting

Because Jennifer Lawrence (of Winter's Bones) is the cheerleader sort. But my god, watch the girl gut a squirrel or take on an entire family of criminals who killed her father.

That movie was heartrending. In one scene, I thought a character was whimpering as something terrible happened, but as it got louder (and I thought, "This is real, this person is really, truly upset") I realized -- nope, that noise is coming from my own throat. I can't exactly tell you how gorgeously acted this movie was and as discussed with ma mere in the aftermath, it's a hard movie to recommend. Not because it isn't excellent.

It is excellent. Beyond excellent.

It's just heavy. Dark. Deadly. It's not a movie that you can say you enjoyed. (And if you did, uh, you should probably get help.) I told Mom I thought that she (Jennifer Lawrence) was going to have a long career and Mom agreed before remembering that she is, in fact, the Angel of Death.

(Jeff Buckley, Heath Ledger, Earthfest, and multiple fish--all blood on my mother's hands.)

So knock on wood for that, yeah?

Though it is interesting to me if you look at Winter's Bones and True Grit. Both about determined young women who set out to find someone (either their father or their father's killers). Sure, True Grit is about avenging her father's death and Winter's Bone is about finding proof that her father is dead, but they both feature women clinging to survival and purpose in a world run by men. One of the women in Winter's Bone asks Ree, "Don't you have any men that can do this for you?" and Ree very matter-of-factly responds, "No." In the end, it is women who step up, the men posturing endlessly and purposelessly at each other in hopes that one will back down or the other will act. It is a man's world, yes, and it is harder to make your way in the world of Winter's Bone if you are a woman, but if you can, if you don't collapse into insanity, well, it's because you've got true grit. Sorry, wrong movie.

In True Grit, we are told that it is Rooster Cogburn who is a man of true grit, but in the end, the only character who proves she has what it takes is Mattie Ross. Granted, in the end, the men save the day, but that is because Mattie Ross is a fourteen year old girl. There's only so much that grit can do against brute strength and let's be clear that a fourteen year old girl firing a gun on a grown man takes grit. A grown man taking a fourteen year old girl hostage takes... well, not that much, as a matter of fact.

I loved these movies and I loved their female leads. I'm nothing like either of them and cannot relate at all to their specific experiences of the world, but I totally appreciated seeing strong females -- and to see them be so young, and to persevere through so much was magnificent. Both of them teenaged girls, abandoned in one way or another by their fathers, seeking to rectify an unjust situation, despite the men around them proclaiming it too dangerous for a woman (let alone a young girl!) and too futile for a man -- really their own cowardice overwhelming them.

And then there was Natalie Portman, who, don't get me wrong, worked her ass off in Black Swan. But I'll get to that later.

You got a friend in me (all of you)

Last year, the frontrunner was Up. It was okay, but let's be clear: The Secret of Kells was infinitely more beautiful and unusual.

This year is a bit of a toss-up, between Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist. I've seen two of the three, but I've not seen The Illusionist. I'm dying to. And there's a really good reason that my old followers might know.

Most of the movie is set in the 'Burgh. I saw a still from it and I knew those spires, those cobblestones, it felt like home. And it looks sweet. That seems to be the theme this year with the animated films. All three are really, really sweet. Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist are also all about loss of something, childhood or an era.

Meanwhile, How To Train Your Dragon is funny, smart, and impeccable. I haven't seen the last one yet, but it's set in my second home, my British home. Toy Story is funny, smart, and plays on your nostalgia. It's the best job Tom Hanks has done in ages, and it's not afraid to be devastatingly tragic. (Happy ending, though!) It wasn't made for kids; it was made for my generation. "Ok, guys, you're graduating college now. Be GROWNUPS!"

I'm just so sad about having to choose a favorite eventually.