Tammy

It all started with a Casting Crowns song. 

My daughter and I were sitting in the truck the other night, waiting for my youngest daughter to get done with gymnastics.  We were talking about wanting to see Casting Crowns in concert, because we both LOVE their music.   I plugged my iPod in and we started listening to the song “Does Anybody Hear Her?”  I told my daughter that this was one of my favorite songs because the lyrics really stir something up inside of me.

We sat and listened to it and it reminded me of this post I had read earlier in the day over at Heart Cries. I told my daughter the story that had unfolded in that blog post, and she was amazed at what happened in that church. We made some small talk about it, and the conversation ended.

Fast forward to last night.

I picked my kids up last night… youngest from AWANA, and oldest from church youth group. Oldest daughter was visibly upset. When I asked her what was wrong, she kept replying “nothing. I’m fine.”

When we got home and started walking into the house, I simply told her “You can always talk to me. If you need me for anything, just let me know.”

Her response? “If you keep talking to me, you’re just going to make me cry.”

Um, WHAT? Anyone that knows me in real life, will know that I don’t let things like this go. I’m the mom that is persistent, naggy and all up in your grill when I sense something is wrong.

I went down to her room and saw her sitting on her bed, working on homework. I could tell she was crying, and so I walked over to sit next to her. Again, I asked what was wrong, and she replied “I don’t know how to tell you.”

Again… um, WHAT?

After lots of back and forth dialogue of “What’s wrong?” and her replying “Nothing” over and over, I finally got it out of her.

She told me that at youth group, they played that same Casting Crowns song we had been listening to just a couple nights before. She said it made her think of the story I had told her. She said she immediately thought of a girl at school, whom we’ll call Tammy. Tammy is in the 8th grade like my daughter. Tammy comes from a very poor family, doesn’t have a lot of friends, and she sits alone at lunch every day.

My daughter said that her and her friends decided a couple weeks ago to try and become friends with Tammy. She showed me some conversations on Facebook they have had with Tammy, asking her to sit with them at lunch.

But Tammy has refused, saying she is uncomfortable in crowds. Instead she sits at a lunch table by herself, doing her homework. My daughter said they very rarely see Tammy even eating lunch. She usually just has school books with her.

My daughter cried as she told me that she feels that she needs to do something, especially after hearing that song, and after hearing the story over at Heart Cries.

But she doesn’t know what to do.

We sat and talked about it, and finally settled on something to try. She is going to go to school this morning, and talk to her group of friends. They are going to decide on two of them to go sit with Tammy at lunch today. We decided that maybe instead of pouncing on her as a group of 8, a couple of them sitting with her wouldn’t make her feel so overwhelmed.

I’m anxious to hear how things go today with Tammy. I had a hard time keeping from crying last night as I sat there and listened to my daughter. She has such a good heart, and I admire her for reaching out to people as she feels called to do.

Today, I sit here and realize how much I want to be like my daughter. Honestly, if I was in the same situation– would I have acted as she did? Would I have made an effort to include someone that looked left out? I know I wouldn’t have done it when I was 8th grade, but even now, WOULD I?

She amazes me.

Every.

Single.

Waking.

Moment.

Is there some taxi service for kids I was not made aware of?

It never ceases to amaze me the thought (or lack thereof) that goes into planning activities for the school-aged children in our school district.

When we lived in Des Moines, and obviously were part of a huge conglomerate that was *THE* Des Moines Public Schools, we didn’t have this problem. Now, being in a small town, it seems our calendar is full of inconveniences.

What is the problem, you ask?

It seems to me that every schedule for anything my kids are involved in are being planned out by a college dropout with no job and obviously, NO CHILDREN.

Case in point. Take my oldest daughter’s basketball practice schedule. Not only are they having practice for a SCHOOL SPORT during CHRISTMAS BREAK – you know, when there IS NO SCHOOL — but the practices are during the day.

A little background information: The school district we live in is a small one– made up of 3 different towns. I would venture to say about 75-80% of the students and parents live in the largest of the three towns. The rest of us fools live in one of the other two small(er) towns. For us, the schools are in the next town, 8 miles away. Not within walking distance. Not even within biking distance, since the only way to get to the next town is a busy 2-lane state highway.

Fun times.

Imagine, if you will, my irritation when I saw the latest revised 8th grade basketball schedule, which was handed out on the last day of school before Christmas break. Every day this week there was a 2-hour basketball practice scheduled–either 8-10am or 10am-12noon. FOR KIDS THAT CANNOT DRIVE THEMSELVES ANYWHERE YET.

Thanks to this new schedule, not only was I spending Christmas weekend scrambling to organize some sort of carpool to get my daughter to and from practice, but I was also forced to locate CHILDCARE for my youngest daughter, who can’t be home for that long by herself.

Now I know it’s been a while since I was in junior high, but since when did 8th grade sports require daily training? Seriously, they can’t take a break when there is no school? Out of the 18 girls on the two 8th grade basketball teams, I know for sure there are at least EIGHT girls that are not within walking distance to the school.

I hate being the parent that always raises a fuss, because I never see anyone else complaining. They just wiggle around their work schedules, and somehow their kids magically appear at practice. But what about those of us that not only don’t live in the same town as the school, but work in an entirely different town altogether?

Yesterday, I didn’t have anyone to watch my youngest daughter, so she had to snag a ride along to practice and go sit in the gym while her sister practices. She spent two hours with a DS, some books, a drink and a snack watching her sister have basketball practice. Today we will end up having to do that again. Because unfortunately, in the small town we live in, the only kids old enough to babysit are my daughter and her basketball-playing friends.

Upon further examining the sports schedule for January, they have also scheduled a game on one of the kids’ inservice days. This means that since the kids have no school, they cannot walk out of school and get on a bus to go to their game. I have to leave work, go home and pick up my daughter, and take her to the next town to get on the bus so she can go to her game.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why SCHOOL-related activities are scheduled on days where there is NO SCHOOL. While they claim that these practices are “optional” I would venture to say the playing time in future games will be dependent on who showed up to practice– at least thats what my daughter is worried about. So we’ve moved mountains to make it work this week, and it’s been a big pain in the ass.

In my gearing up for the new year, I am trying so very hard to stay organized and improve on managing my time. So these types of snafus that get thrown into the mix still tend to throw me off.

Am I overreacting about this? Would this bother you?

“One Small Thing, One Small Purse”

If you have any small purses laying around that you’d love to find a good worthy home for, please go visit Mocha Momma and her Purse Drive.

She is an assistant principal at a high school, and well… just go read her story. If you can help, please do!

If they’d only have bought me a pair of Nikes…

(Photo Credit: The Hero Construction Company)

When I was in elementary school, there were times when I was bullied. They were also instances where, looking back, I could have been considered a bully myself.

When I was in 4th and 5th grade, I think that was the first time I realized that any kind of name-brand clothing existed. I was not one of the kids that was able to wear Nike shoes to school. My mom did not buy me Lee jeans, and I never owned a shirt with a tiny alligator on the breast. Since this was before Wal-Mart stores really gained their popularity, most of my clothing came from the K-Mart store. On top of that, I wore glasses, and my mother thought my fine blond hair could be given more oomph if I got a perm.

So, I repeat: K-Mart clothes, big glasses, and hair permed to resemble a poodle.

Needless to say, I was picked on.

In order to cover my incredibly low self-esteem, I turned to focusing the attention on others. It seemed at the time the only way for those cool kids to like me. I picked out two of the kids in my school that happened to place lower on the popularity totem pole than me– Danny and Mark.

There were a couple reasons Danny was considered an easy target for kids to pick on:

1. Danny was fat.
2. Danny’s mom worked in the school cafeteria.

At recess one day, I decided to make my move. Danny was playing all by himself, because he really had no friends. I noticed a group of kids eyeing him and cracking jokes, and I knew I had to act quickly.

I walked over to Danny, bent over to the huge pile of mud he was playing by, and scooped up a mound of it in each hand. I stood there, and I remember him looking right at me.

That’s when I threw the mud right at him, one handful on his coat. The other handful on his face. Then I took off running.

There were two things I distinctly remember hearing as I ran away.

Kids laughing.

And Danny crying.

I became a cool kid.  At least for the rest of that day.

For some reason, it didn’t stop there. A few months later, in my quest to again try and fit in, a new kid in our class became the target.

His name was Mark. Mark Grath.*

From what I can recall, he was actually a nice kid. But that didn’t stop Mark from getting picked on. A LOT. Mark came from a poor family, so he often wore dirty clothes to school. This was probably one of the reasons why he smelled so bad. Because of the smell, no one wanted to sit by him. No one wanted to be his partner in gym class, and no one wanted to be his friend.

I didn’t think what I was doing at the time would be considered bad, because everyone thought it was so funny. One day, a particularly bad day at school for me, I was tired of kids making fun of the new perm I had gotten over the weekend. I saw Mark walk into the classroom, again sporting dirty jeans and the shirt he’d just worn the day before. I heard a couple girls say “I bet he smells REALLY bad today…” and I got an idea.

I pulled out a small bottle of lotion that I had in my desk. I worked furiously at scraping the label off the bottle. Once I had enough of the label taken off both sides of the bottle, I got out a black marker.

I hid what I was doing from my classmates and from the teacher, because I wanted to build some form of suspense. I wrote in very nice neat letters on the bottle of lotion, and I giggled to myself. I just knew my classmates would think it was funny.

Once I was done, I passed the bottle back to the boy sitting in the desk behind me. He was the ringleader of the cool kids, and I knew it would take his attention off of his current task, which was throwing wads of paper at the back of my permed head.

He took the bottle, and immediately started laughing. Hysterically laughing.

The bottle eventually made its way around to some of the other kids, and when they read what the bottle said, they laughed and poured a little lotion on their hands, exaggerating rubbing it in on their hands and arms.

I thought I had finally won.

The bottle eventually made its way around the room, and of course, someone couldn’t resist making sure Mark Grath* himself got to see it.

When he took the bottle from the person sitting behind him, I think he thought he was finally being included in something.

Instead, it was a vision I don’t ever want to see again.

He read the bottle, front and back. And his face fell.

So, what did bottle say? I’m sure you’re wondering.

On the front, in big black letters, it said “GRATH GUARD.”

On the back, were the words “Put this on so you won’t smell him and get his germs.”

This really wasn’t my post was intended to be about. I started out wanting to write something about cyber-cullying, and how some of the kids at my daughter’s school have had their Facebook pages hacked into. By someone they know. I was going to give this long speech about how bullying today has gotten so much worse now that there are so many different avenues to abuse someone.

But really? Once I started writing, the whole point of my post changed. I deleted and rewrote, edited and revised.

I thought of these two boys and I realized that no matter how the bullying happens, someone always gets hurt.

(*While the first names of the boys are real, the last name has been altered a bit.)

What’s Obama Going to Say to Our Children? BE INFORMED

Here are the handouts that were given to teachers for the Obama speech to students tomorrow:

Obama Handouts

You can view the live speech by clicking on the graphic below (I will also have the live feed of the speech in my sidebar tomorrow):

The transcript of his speech can be read HERE.

You can also see President Obama being interviewed by a student here:

Sidenote: Doesn’t that little boy just look so handsome in his suit and tie? And he is so articulate!

Finally, you can also view this PSA done by various NASCAR drivers:

Update: You can view the actual speech here: