Stay Away from Bootleg Liquor and Peroxide Blonds

My class has been reading Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and since it was written in the 1930's we have been listening to some period music while they work and read. The lovely title of this post is a lyric from one of those songs and it just tickled me. It seems sage advice to me :) Who wouldn't come take a gander at a post with a title like that. In reality the line has little to do with the focus of my post except maybe the lesson of "think about the consequences of your choices".

The story I would like to tell is that of one of my students, we will call her Marie. Marie is 17 and a sophomore in high school. Marie lives with her mother and two older sisters, father is MIA. Marie lives with her mother and two older sisters in a two bedroom apartment and oh, I didn't mention, Marie's sister both have two children. So Marie lives in a two bedroom apartment with her mother, two older sisters, four nieces and nephews and wait let's add, Marie just had her own baby boy a month ago. So, have you kept track? I might have to double check my math but I believe the final count is 9!

What to say, what to say? Marie is bright and capable, not a honors student , but bright. With determination she could have reached for a dream and even the dream simply to escape her current existence could have been possible. She could have escaped it and made a life for herself, but the escape she chose was to have a baby and apparently it is not turning out as she expected. Go figure.

Teenage pregnancy, for me it is an issue that takes me into so many different directions, many see it as a failure on the part of the girl but I see mainly as a failure on the part of our culture. I would imagine before the wide availability of birth control devices many teen pregnancies were very much accidents. I am not sure that is the case anymore. Teenagers are smart cookies and are well aware what is available to them. They know what condoms are and what they are for, places like Planned Parenthood and their resources are also not unfamiliar. Now don't get me wrong, there is still quite a bit of misinformation about pregnancy among teenagers and many listen to myths as truth, but I feel this is the minority and could be remedied with more comprehensive sex education. Yet despite knowledge (if not vague knowledge) of the biology of pregnancy many girl's still end up pregnant and here is Texas it is many, many girls as we have now have the highest rate in the country.

In my ten years of teaching I have averaged about one girl a year who is pregnant and about girl a year who already has a child. That number may seem small but remember I am only a sample of the population. I am one teacher among a staff of 200. I teach at a suburban school. that serves a diverse population with about 30/30/30 mix of various minorities and about a 20-30% population considered low-economic. Of those 10-20 girls, not one came from what most people would consider stable homes. The majority of them had no fathers at home and most of their families struggled economically.

Recently curiousity led me to record The Pregnancy Pact which recently aired on Lifetime television. Usually the Lifetime films I watch remain my guilty secret known only between me and my husband who is sworn to secrecy, but I was so impressed with Lifetime's accurate portrayal of the motives of teenage girls who find themselves pregnant. I was so impressed that I sought out other teachers and asked them if they had seen it. They had been equally impressed commenting, " It really showed the deluded reasons these girls get pregnant." That movie matched my and their experience with teenage pregnancy. These girls want someone to love them,whether is the baby or the boyfriend. They have a fantasy that a baby will somehow magically provide them stability and a home or provide them an excuse to avoid tough decisions. Why is graduation important when I have a baby to take care of? As long as I am a good mother does it matter if I finish school or pursue my goals?

This was Marie. She thought she was going to be able to move in with her boyfriend and he would take care of her, but apparently her boyfriend's mother doesn't want her and the baby to move in. The mother is not only taking care of her son and his siblings but also some of her grandchildren. So now Marie is in a tight spot. She lives in hell with a newborn. She discovering it is tough to get up early and get the baby ready and to daycare and herself to school. She isn't sleeping at night (really, who could) and she is depressed and wants to drop out.

So why do I see as a failure on the part of culture because despite "progress" in breaking down barriers we still have so many girls (and boys) who can't overcome the loneliness of their exsistence due to the lack of stable families. They bring more children into this world who now have a higher risk of suffering the same fate. My students bring their babies up to school (and they are adorable !!) and I cannot help but smile but a part of me inside cries because these babies now have a higher chance of becoming teen parents themselves and a higher chance of not graduating high school and I feel so helpless because I don't know the answer to their plight.

Oh so Random...

1. First, I want to thank everyone who has stopped by my blog. I feel so honored.



2. I am embarrased to admit that I didn't know JD Salinger died until four days later. I don't read or watch the news because I find it depresssing.



3. The cult of celebrity is the modern equivalent to the Greek gods. They act like idiots with little consequences and we are in awe of them and bewildered by them at the same time.



4. Listening to 9th graders read "Romeo and Juliet" out loud takes away a lot of the magic Shakespeare's poetry--I thinking more Oedipus and gouging out my eyes.

Two Funnies from my Mom

Teacher Humor

English Teacher Humor :)

State of Mind

I would like to start out this post by saying.. I have nothing to say. I feel so unmotivated, uninspired, so very blah. I can seem to locate the source of these emotions but I have a feeling there is simply too much on my plate and my mind reels. There is nothing like stillness to inspire me and I would hope there are others out there like this but sometime what motivates me the most is nothing. To sit quietly and feel the thoughts in your mind organize themselves. The peace begins becomes life-giving and ideas begin to flow. I need to take the time to find that moment where stillness is central and my "to do list" and "to pay list" and "to call list" dissapears and instead what appears is the cloudy-clearness of creativity.

I... Must... Finish... This... Movie.

Everybody has them. For me it is more than one. They are movies that if you start watching you must finish. Even if you have seen it twenty times. Even if you have missed the first hour, if you see it is on you must watch. It doesn't matter if it is going to end at one o'clock in the morning and you have to be up at five. It must be finished. I have several that fit in this category. You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan, A League of Their Own, cutesy films really, but by far the most grand is Gone With the Wind. It dazzles. It mesmerizes. I must simply get to the end with that grand staircase and hear Rhett say "Frankly, Scarlett...".

This, unfortunately, is not always beneficial. I always seem to come upon it on a Thursday night at 10:30 with three hours left to go and I have to work the next day, but it is no matter. There is something special about "happening" upon Gone With the Wind. A feeling of unexpected surprise. "Oooh, I love that movie" It is not just the senses filled experiences of the movie but a sense of fate, of destiny.

Thanks to my father I know have four disc commemortive DVD set, but I am not sure it will cure of me of the compelling desire to watch it when I see it listed alluringly in the TV listings. Oh well, " I can't think about that right now. I will think about that tomorrow." ; )

Dreaming (no it really happened) of a white Christmas

A white Christmas. Yes, it really happened here in Texas. I have lived here for 17 years and my husband his whole life and neither of us have ever seen a white Christmas. We have had a white Thanksgiving and a white Valentines day, but never Christmas. It was really beautiful and welcome. I am sure it ruined many a plans as it ruined ours. We did not want to risk the drive to Dallas to celebrate Christmas Eve but there was something magical about our little family being warm and snug in our home. The kids tucked into bed with their jammies and the husband and I sitting by our fireplace watching the snow fall outside. We also got on our coats and hats and went outside slipping in sliding on our neighbors icy driveway and making tracks through fresh snow. Owen earlier in the afternoon was taught the art of the snowball and catching snow flakes on his tongue. It just really felt like the Christmas of my childhood ( I grew up in Indiana) for one magical evening. Most of it melted the next day and chances are it will be back to 70 degrees in a week but it was a memory that will last and be fondly remembered.

Our yard looking so peaceful and serene with the snow.

The tradition with my husband's family is we get together on Christmas Eve and have an "appetizer"meal . Everyone brings various appetizers and we just snack and spend time together and give the kids their gifts. Since my husband and I could not join everyone due to the icy roads we had our own little appetizer dinner and spent time together with our boys. My veggie Christmas tree came out quite cute.

Christmas Around the corner!!

I really can't believe Christmas is almost here and even though my husband and have most of the shopping for the kids out of the way I still so much to do. I need to make the gifts for my son's teachers and preschool classmates . I completely forgot to bring gifts for Owen's Sunday school teachers this morning and it was the last class until after the new year. I felt like such a slacker mom!).

And to add more spice to the bowl of punch that is the holiday season, it is the last week of school before the break and high-schoolers smelling a breeze of freedom are a little restless, as am I. The week is even more exciting because my students are turning in their research projects that they have spent the last four weeks on and are worth a gazillion points towards their grade. I having a student teacher this year is handing their entire lot of 1oo+ projects over to him with a very cheery "Merry Christmas". So that will be one less cookie on my plate (actually more a piece of mince meat or fruitcake both which have never received rave reviews from my pallete.) Although I have no doubt their will be a few pleasant surprises among those essays as some of my students picked some very interesting research topics but they will be much more enjoyable to read without having to worry about that critical red pen.

To me one of the most enjoyable parts of Christmas is decorating the house. Sitting watching the fire by the glow of the tree with all the whimsical decorations really lifts the spirit.


Here is our card display. Usually it is packed with Christmas cards but friends and family are probably just like me, procrastinating! I haven't gotten mine out yet either. I love the vintage reading card I got a few weeks ago.
My other vintage flash card tucked in my vintage toast rack along with the adorable photo of my mother and aunt.
My dining buffet. I love, love, love, grapevine decorations. I must add a new one each year. The sleigh was the new one this year. You can't tell in the picture but the sides are woven grapevine. Love my new banner as well. Tarnished and Tattered, the seller on etsy, has some others for sale as well!
A close up of my favorite vintage Christmas post card. I think the post mark is 1922!
My vintage Christmas cards on display!!

We are the loud one's behind the glass..

Went to church tonight. Got our God on... Then I remembered why we don't make it every week. We are Catholic and since having children I have started to envy other churches with their blessed nursery. For the most part, Catholic churches do not have a nursery at every service instead they have the cry room. You would assume from the title that it is the room where parents taking their crying children. In reality it is the room where parents take their screaming children and parents go to cry . It is a glass fronted room where you can see the service and supposedly hear through a speaker, but really you hear nothing but just follow the cue of others, sitting, standing, sitting again, kneeling, "oh, are we getting up for communion?"; but are about as engaged as one can be while trying to keep your four-year old from standing on the seats, and and occupying a baby with puffs because if you don't keep his mouth full he feels he needs to show everyone how talented he is by screaming na-na-na-na at the top of his baby lungs. I am pretty sure we won't be there next week.

Now if you ask "why don't they have a nursery program" and any reasonable person would ask is because the church feels that children are part of the family and should experience the church with the family. True in theory but not in reality! You have room full of families you are simply trying to maintain and in our case maintaining ineffectively. The four year old makes is 20 minutes then he is done. So for the next forty minutes is a series of threats and the eventual time out where I or my husband drag him screaming from the "cry" room.

He is simply not ready to sit through a 60 minute service quietly despite my best efforts to come fully armed with books and coloring books and small cars. I leave feeling like a horrible and ineffective parent. In my opinion it is a real issue with the Catholic church and an issue that keeps young families from feeling fully included in the community.