Bed Sharing, etc.

I will be straight-up from the start of this post: I am a breastfeeding mother who shares a bed with my baby and my husband, who has relegated himself to a small slice of the bed.  If you are not interested in reading about the issues that arise from the first sentence of today’s post, then do not continue reading.

I’m not sure what inspired me to share our bed with Oren, soon-t0-be nine month old baby/toddler.  Maybe it was that I learned how to breastfeed while lying down, which is totally comfortable.  (Why I didn’t figure it out with Juniper is beyond me: it would have saved a lot of heartache and time.)  Maybe it was that, while lying down and feeding him, I could fall asleep.  Maybe it was that, while lying down and feeding him and sleeping, I was too lazy to throw him back into the pack’n’play next to the bed.

When Oren was still waking up 4+ times a night, it took a lot of energy to 1) wake myself up enough to turn on the light, 2) haul myself out of bed, 3) shuffle across the floor, avoiding burp cloths and diapers, 4) wrestle and pick up a wriggling, wailing baby, 5) trudge back to bed, avoiding the same dangers as in #3, 6) correctly position myself and feed Oren, 7) try not to fall asleep, 8) haul myself (and Oren) back out of bed, trying not to wake him back up while I placed him gingerly back in the pack’n’play, and 9) turn off the light and try to fall back asleep.  I will remark that this was the easy process.  Complications invariably arose: spitting up, pooping (him, not me), Oren waking up as I put him back in the pack’n’play, etc.  You get the idea.

It is so, So, SO much easier to do this when Oren wakes up: 1) roll over, 2) feed Oren, and 3) fall asleep (both of us).

HOWEVER.  Oren is close to nine months old.  Oren is bigger than he used to be.  Oren is much more mobile and stronger than he was even a few weeks ago.  My husband (who has been gracious enough to bed-share even though it means less cuddle time with me and more elbow-jabbing from Oren) is starting to suggest, with more regularity and insistence, that it may be time to move Oren into the vacant crib in Juniper’s room.

I’m also not entirely sure how often a nine-month-old is supposed to be eating during the night.  I’ve heard the various arguments about  night feedings, and my stance is that Oren can still eat at night if he wants to.  I work during the day, and this gives him a chance to catch up on missed daytime nursings/cuddles.

I am extremely apprehensive about moving Oren from our bed to the crib.  Oren is our last (planned) baby.  We only wanted two, and we have them.  Somehow, by moving him to the crib, I admit that he is not my little bitty baby anymore.  I lose his babyhood sooner than I want.  I’m not fully ready to let go.

Of course he will still rely on me.  After all, he IS a baby.  I understand that my apprehensiveness does not spring from logic, but I can’t help the way I feel.  I am going to keep him in the bed for as long as Adam will let me, or until it becomes too uncomfortable for us.

On a slightly different but still related note, I am SO over pumping every day.  I have 11 more pumping days, and then the summer frees me of the pump.  By the time fall comes around, Oren will be  a year old and able to go most of a day without nursing, so that means no more pumping during EVERY free minute I have at work.

Thanks for reading, friends.  I don’t ask for your criticism about bed sharing; I understand that most baby books advise against it.  However, as a parent, you discover what works best for you and your family.  This is what works for us, and I love, love, love it.  I wish I had had the confidence to move Juniper into our bed when she was a baby.  Don’t knock it until you try it, and always do it safely.  I sleep with a toddler bed rail on our queen size bed, since we don’t want to put our mattress on the floor.  Adam serves as the bed rail on the other side.  (Another reason I love him.)

I can almost taste the summer

The last few weeks of school are always treacherous for high school seniors, those infected with the rapidly-spreading senioritis and those who remain, for the moment, zealous about grades.

I contend that the last few weeks of school are equally treacherous for the oft-scorned educator.  (Scorn is definitely a symptom of senioritis.)

But this post is not about students-who-are-haters; rather, it is a prose ode to the fact that, unbeknownst to my students, I welcome the coming summer break with as much as (and probably more) enthusiasm than they do.

Whether my students see me as The Prom Grinch (a title I embraced last week before the prom fog finally lifted) or as The Oppressor Who Will Not Let Me Pass Just Because I Missed Fourteen Days Of Class, I am still a kid who looks forward to snow days, spring breaks, and summers off.  My heart skipped more than a few beats when snow days were declared after the Remarkable Blizzard of 2011 in early February.  I literally could not feel my toes; I was so happy.

But I digress: back to the treachery.

My students are enchanted by the warm weather, claiming that it is far too nice outside to come to school.  They are extremely disenchanted with the windowless classrooms of our school building and insist on wearing their short shorts and white tank tops and shirts that would make me self-conscious even if I was wearing one with my husband and we were alone.  (I guess they can also call me The Too Much Skin Grinch.)

Consequently, when one teaches students who have already been shown to be chronically truant, one becomes more than concerned about the status of said students when there are only eight beautiful, sunny days left of class.

But who is concerned for me?

I, too, crave the sunshine and the warm June air.  I, too, want to wear clothing that covers less (but more than what they wear–yeesh!) and allows more of that sun and air to penetrate my pallid skin.  I, too, wish for even a tiny window to let the light into my cave, er, classroom.

But I have a fate worse than that of my students.  At least they have the option to hastily complete essays and PowerPoint presentations and escape to the outside; I will have to tether myself to my desk, where I will be forced to wade through their grammatically incorrect and improperly organized writings.  (I should mention that, during this time, my children will be wailing at me because they want to go outside, too.)

Perhaps I exaggerate; however, the point I am attempting to make is that I crave summer just as much as my students do.

A Teachable Moment

One of my students wrote an essay about a personal struggle in which he used the phrase, “It was like a retard convention.” 

I wrote a note in the margin of his paper: “I find this statement to be offensive.”

Today, he looked over his essay and asked me what was offensive about that statement.  His reasoning was this: There are no retards in this class, so who would be offended?

I replied, “Well, whether or not there is a developmentally disabled person in class, it is still offensive.  If you use the term in a derogatory way, it’s offensive.  You can’t call someone ‘gay’ in a derogatory way because it is offensive to gay people.”

He still wasn’t getting it, because there are no openly gay students in our class, either.

So I thought about it, and I put it like this:

“Let’s say there’s a room full of white people, and one of them uses the n-word.  Is it still wrong?”

He said yes.

I said, “Well, it’s like that.  There may not be any ‘retards’ or gay people in the room, but that doesn’t mean you can use those words.  It’s still offensive.”

I don’t think he fully agrees with me, but he did revise his paper.  Now it says, “…as if I was [sic] at a break down convention.”

Whatever that is.

What do you do?

Five years of working in what my family and friends would refer to as the “ghetto” of Chicago.  Five years of working with truants, dropouts, gang members, drug dealers.  Five years of hard work and hard situations.

Never a death until today.

Today, one of our students died.  He was shot accidentally by one of his friends, also one of our students.  His friends watched him bleed, talk through it, head off in the ambulance, and did not know of his death until they came to school today.  The shooter, who I have had a student and like, is in custody; we don’t know what will happen to him.  He owned a gun and was playing with it while his friends were at his house.  It went off.

One life is gone.  I didn’t get a chance to know him.  Another life will be incarcerated, for who knows how long?  The dead student’s girlfriend, who I have known personally, is beside herself.

What do you do?

And when will it stop?

a fit of jealousy

Yesterday, my sister called me with some amazing news.  After more than a year of searching and what seems like 50 interviews, she has been offered a job in her field!

I’m losing a babysitter on Thursdays, but I’m happy for her.

At least I was until she told me how much she would earn in her salary.

After she told me, I made some lame excuse and got off the phone.  I did some quick math. Her salary is way higherthan mine.  It made me feel horrible, and I burst into tears, angry tears.  I was jealous.

And then I was ashamed.

I was, however, still very upset, so I called my dad.  He’s often the person I call, especially about money-related problems.  He always offers sound advice.

I tearfully confessed that I was jealous of Rachel.  I said, “I know that I shouldn’t be, but I AM!”

He got quiet–the kind of quiet when you know something wise is going to follow.

I’m going to paraphrase what he told me, after he said that I deserved a smack in the head:

I am incredibly lucky and blessed.  I may not make as much money as my little sister, but I have an adorable husband and two amazing children.  I also get to spend time with them thanks to my flexible work schedule and summers off.  My dad told me that the summers he spent with me and my sisters were memories that he would never exchange for any sum of money.  That is something I can look forward to.  I have already treasured two summers with Juniper, and this coming summer with Oren will be even more amazing.

I’m lucky that I don’t have t to choose between work and parenting, which would ultimately result in a lot of guilt.  I can work during the school year and look forward to the summer with my children.

Now, I’m definitely still ashamed that I had such a jealous fit.  I’m over it (mostly).  I wish that I had more disposable income, but I would have to sacrifice time with my family to get it, and I’m not willing to give up time with my children.

But now that things have been put into perspective, I can feel genuinely ecstatic for my sister.  And I do.  I am so proud of her for sticking it out and not giving up when it would have been so easy to do so.

And I’ve been humbled.  I am not immune to jealousy, and I hope that it never takes hold of me again.  That was a really stressful 20 minutes.  I guess I can be thankful that it was only 20 minutes!

Thanks, Dad.

And CONGRATULATIONS, RACHEL!

I don’t know much about politics, but I do know this.

Dear friends,

I’m not going to pretend to know a lot about politics.  I don’t.  A large part of that reason is that I generally try to avoid confrontation, and a good many confrontations start because of politics.

I’m also not going to pretend to know a lot about budgeting.  I can barely manage my own budget (although I am getting much better at it!), so I’m not going to pretend that managing the budget of an entity as large as a state is an easy task.  It’s not, and I don’t envy the people who have to do it.

I fully acknowledge that balancing a state budget when there is not enough money for everything is going to create anger, frustration, and enemies.

 

Since so far you know that I don’t know a lot, here is what I do know:

 

I am a teacher at an alternative school in which the teachers do not truly belong to a union.  Our pension plans are managed by some sort of union, but I have to admit that I know less about that than I really should.  As a small group of teachers, though, we do not collectively bargain for salaries and health care benefits.

I know that if I worked at a Chicago public school instead of an alternative school, I would be paid a lot more (we’re talking almost $10,000 more).  I would also belong to a union, and my health care would be better than I have now.  The union would take care of my concerns relating to my pension plan and health care, and I would be grateful for that.

I work where I work for a variety of reasons, which I will not discuss right now.  What I do want to discuss is the possibility of a state making sweeping cuts that affect people like me.  Thankfully Illinois has not had to deal with this particular issue (yet).

In Wisconsin, there are many more Republicans in the state legislature than Democrats.  The governor, Scott Walker, wants to balance his state’s budget, and in order to do that, cuts must be made.  Several of the proposed cuts will directly affect not only teachers but all state workers.  Pensions will be cut, health care will be cut, and the right to collectively bargain will be cut.

My very basic understanding of the situation is this: if the proposed cuts are passed, state workers will still have to work.  Teachers will still have to teach.  Social workers will still have to meet the needs of their clientele.  Sanitation workers will still have to cart away the trash.  The biggest change will be in the ways they are compensated.

My dad is a pretty staunch republican.  For years, I have listened to him talk about teachers and how much they make in their salaries PLUS their stellar health care and pension plans.  I have understood and even agreed that teachers can get some pretty sweet deals.

Then I started teaching, albeit in the state of Illinois.  And I disagree with my dad.  On the surface, we get some pretty sweet deals.  Summers off?  Yes, please!  Work on the clock: 6.5-7 hours?  Yes, please!

But the sacrifices we have to make are much greater than many people realize.  Many of us have had to take out large student loans in order to become certified to teach other peoples’ children.  Many of us live paycheck to paycheck.  Many of us purchase our students’ school supplies and classroom supplies because no one else will pay for them.  Many of us stay up past our bedtimes to finish assessing our students’ progress and planning meaningful activities for our students.  Many of us have to creatively balance our own budgets in order to pay for childcare OR rearrange our schedules to work around caring for our own children because we do not qualify for state-sponsored childcare programs.  Many of us have to unfairly balance time between work and family time (hence staying up past bedtime to finish grading, etc.).  Many of us wake in the freakishly wee hours of the morning in order to finish our work and prepare for the day ahead.  Many of us are physically and emotionally exhausted by the end of the day.  And then we have to get up and do it again.

Some of us who work with students who have failed out of “regular” schools also deal with the following: being emotionally abused and shattered (have you ever listened to a teenager tell you how she has to prostitute herself to feed her children?), being verbally assaulted, crying with and for our students, feeding our students with food paid for out of our own pockets, and much, much more.

I’m not going to make the money argument, because I’m bad at math.  I get paid what I get paid, and between my husband and myself, we make it work.  What I can say is that my salary was frozen this year and will likely be frozen again next year.  I will be lucky if it isn’t cut.  I will be lucky if my health care stays the same.  And I work for a non-unionized school.

My friends in Wisconsin who do work where unions are present should have it better than me.  Instead, they have taken pay cuts, furlough days, health care cuts, and pension cuts.  They are being asked to give even more–no, they are being mandated to give more.  If this bill that Governor Walker sponsors is passed, my friends will be forced to give up more AND not be able to collectively bargain for themselves in the future.

I don’t know how to fix the budget problems, but this doesn’t seem like the best way to do it.

A complicated issue requires a complicated solution, doesn’t it?  And the commercials demonizing state union workers just makes everyone angry: the people it targets and the people it preaches to.

At the very least, I ask you to educate yourself about the situation in Wisconsin, because whether you live there or not, if this bill is passed, it will likely affect you sooner or later.  Illinois is in even worse financial condition than Wisconsin, so this will likely be knocking on our doors next.

Again, the disclaimer: I did the best I could.  I’m really sorry if I misconstrued the facts; I will be happy to discuss them with you.  And while I think it is crass to proclaim that “Madison is the next Cairo,” I do think that we should seriously think about the implications of taking rights away in this democratic society.

And I should care about this old white guy who wrote 400 years ago because…?

Greetings, friends.

In an effort to keep myself accountable to my students and myself, I am going to share with you my response to several questions asked of me after an observation of one of my classes.  I’m not going to give you a play-by-play of the class period; rather, all you need to know is this: I love Shakespeare, and I want to teach it better.  It’s hard stuff, trying to be creative and engaging all the time in front of people who wish they could just turn me down.  Anyway, take a read-through, even if you don’t get it all.

Thanks, friends.

1.  How do you think that the end of class went?  What went well and what would you change for next time?

2.  What is rationale or larger context of the Shakespeare information?  Do the students use the information again?  Does it help them better understand the plays?

I believe that the end of class went as well as it could have.  I was lucky and unlucky in a couple of ways.  Unluckily, my class was behind on the research, which meant that presentations would be ready in the middle of class.  Also unluckily, I felt the pressure of having to decide whether to push on to the next thing in my plans or to whip up something else which wouldn’t have made it onto the lesson plan.  Luckily, most of my students were present (!) and amazingly ready and willing to work.

Obviously I wanted you to see some actual teaching rather than end-of-the-period wrap-up stuff.  When it came to the sonnet characteristics, I obviously designed that worksheet and activity for a longer slice of time.  I think that I need to reorganize some things on the sheet itself, because I changed the order of things on the spot, realizing that it would make more sense to count syllables and talk about rhythm before discussing meter.  (It’s also an old worksheet that I’ve been needing to update.)  I do believe that having students come to realizations about the patterns (having them count out the syllables, later on having them discover rhyme scheme by matching and categorizing words) is much, much better than just giving them a lecture and notes.

I guess I feel similarly about the research and presentations.  Previously, the WebQuest was the same for everyone, and it was a stand-alone activity that we never revisited and completed only because I, as the teacher of a Shakespeare class, thought it was the proper thing to do.  I have been trying to make things more interesting, applicable, connected, and real-life in all of my classes, which is why I revisited the WebQuest in the first place.  Yes, I think they need to know about Shakespeare.  No, I don’t want to give them a lecture.  No, I don’t think this is the best way for them to learn about Shakespeare, but it is a step in the right direction from where I started several years ago.

I also wanted my students to take some ownership of the information, which spawned the idea of them presenting to each other about some select information.  This was my first time with this approach (for Shakespeare).  Changes I would make: I would obviously PLAN for them to have more time to complete the research.  I would also consider having them put together a whole-class PowerPoint presentation with images and information IN THEIR WORDS that we could view, print out, and keep as a reference when things do come up in the plays.

I will admit that I have not focused on the larger context of the plays when I have taught Shakespeare in the past.  I have focused on the content as literature and tried to make them as appealing and engaging to students as I can while still trying to jump the hurdles of helping them understand the language.  Like I said before, the WebQuest information was not revisited.  But I would like for it to be.  I would like to be able to discuss what it would have been like to view a particular scene on the Globe stage as opposed to a private stage as opposed to a stage today.  I would like to discuss how and why Shakespeare was able to write about SO MANY different themes and refer to so many other stories, myths, and texts.

But I forget about these things during the daily grind.  It’s hard to remember how passionate I am when I juggle so much.  It’s hard to remember the bigger picture when I’m trying to figure out how to get my students to all be on the same page, comprehension-wise and behavior-wise.

Teaching is hard, demanding work.  I have friends who reply to my occupation with comments like, “Well, once you’ve taught a class, you don’t have to worry about it any more, because you’ve already done it.”  But that’s not the way I work.  I do reflect and make things better, or at least I try to.

I am glad that I am going to school again.  It keeps my brain sharp.  I waffled for a long time before I chose to pursue a master’s degree in English instead of Education.  What tipped the scale for English was that I wanted to be more of an expert in WHAT I teach.  Already I feel better-versed in the history behind the literature that I teach (well, at least the English renaissance for now).  It has helped me make connections between pieces of literature and between authors and events.  It is also helping me to ask more questions.  Yes, Shakespeare was a great writer, and everyone and their moms thinks so.  But how did he get to be so well known?  How did he create such powerful female characters when women during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were so repressed?  Why should people of color care about what a white guy write four hundred years ago?

Someday, I want a former student to come to me and say, “You helped make Hamlet come alive.  I may be an engineer now, but I still think about Hamlet sometimes.”

I don’t think I’ve gotten there yet, but I think I’m headed in the right direction.  I just need an extra 5-6 hours in a day.

a not-so-modest proposal

Yes, I know that the Great Chicago Blizzard of 2011 is pretty much old news by now, but it presented an opportunity that public school teachers in Chicago have not had since 1999: a chance to stay at home and do nothing in the middle of the week.  TWICE.

I have joked with many people that I needed an extra day in my weekend or my vacation.  But I am (mostly) serious when I say that the United States should consider adjusting the work week from five days in a row to two days on, one day off, two days on.  In other words: Wednesdays off.

I know that, as an American, I am supposed to be a workaholic with a crazy schedule; however, I have to look at my own performance as someone in the workforce.  I work better when I am well-rested.  I work better when I have had adequate time to prepare for the days ahead AND spend time with my family.  I work better when I am given space from what can be a very absorbing and high-stress job.

And an unscheduled, unbelievable snow day got me thinking: Shouldn’t this be the way it is?  Shouldn’t we slow down without nature telling us to?  We are always planning, always running from one appointment to the next, always filling our pile of precariously balanced plates with more.  (Let’s face it: In today’s world, we fill our time up so much that we need more than one analogical plate.)

Just because we can be ridiculously efficient, does that mean we should be?

I realize that, as the mother of two young children, I am in a position where I will take whatever time is given to me and run home with it.  Seriously: I go home when I am given time for free.  I somehow managed to convince my boss and my immediate supervisor to let me leave work early two days out of the week.  I can’t even begin to relate how much an extra three hours at home per week means to me.  I work with some of the most flexible supervisors that there are, and I am grateful.  But I will still run with it.

Case in point?  This Friday is Lincoln’s birthday, which doesn’t mean anything for any students/teachers in any other state, but in Illinois, we get the day off.  Through some vague markings on the official calendar, everyone at my school thought there was going to be school on Friday.  We just got the official word from the upper crust that there is, indeed, NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY.  But!  One or more of my coworkers will be going in to school to work on various projects, and I am welcome to come in… which I will so NOT be doing.  I will take that time and run home.  Or maybe to the Shedd Aquarium, but the kids are still coming with me.

But I digress.  Back to the No-Work Wednesday proposal.

I think that it would be valuable for government-run and private corporations to give more vacation time to their employees.  Happy employees will work better.  Perhaps one way that this can happen is changing the work week.  Can you imagine what the United States would be like if Wednesday felt like Saturday, or at least Sunday?  It would be divine.

(I understand that I already get more time off than most people.  As a teacher, I milk my summers for all that they are worth.  And my winter breaks.  Oh, and my spring breaks.  But I just want you to know that I work HARD at my job, and it eats up so much of my time at home… so if I kept track of all the actual hours I spent on my job, it might not be much different than a year-round, 9-5 gig.)

And maybe No-Work Wednesdays would partially make up for the laughable amount of time mothers are given for maternity leave.  That, however, is a topic for another time.  And you can bet that I will have much to say about that.

The F-bomb

Cee-Lo says, “Fuck You.”   Enrique Inglesias says, “Tonight I’m fucking you.”  And Pink says, “You’re Fucking Perfect.”

I say, “WTF?”

I know that the F-bomb has existed in the English language for a long time.  The Oxford English Dictionary dates “Fuck” (definition: an act of sexual intercourse) to 1663; at least that’s the first time it was recorded in print.  Actually, the first few recorded uses are fairly humorous:

1663    R. Head Hic et Ubique i. vi. 18,   I did creep in‥and there I did see putting [sic] the great fuck upon my weef.  (weef = wife)

1680    Earl of Rochester et al. Poems 37   Thus was I Rook’d of Twelve substantial Fucks.

But for as long as I’ve been alive, the word has been a cultural taboo, just like it was for Ralphie in A Christmas Story.  I don’t think I even heard the word until well into my pubescent years, and even then I didn’t know what it meant.  My children’s dictionary wasn’t very enlightening.

Lately, though, it’s been everywhere, even in FCC-heavily-regulated popular music.  Of course, Cee-lo’s song was changed to “Forget You,” and Enrique changed his lyrics to “Tonight I’m loving you,” but even that didn’t last.  On the Chicago KISS station, the offending words (and their cheesy replacements) are simply missing.  Is it effective?  Well, we can’t hear the word, but we all know what’s supposed to be there.

So what changed?  What made people feel comfortable enough to not only use the word “Fuck” in their lyrics but also made recording companies think, “No, the FCC won’t mind this”?  I don’t have an answer, but I think it’s something worth thinking and talking about.

As the mother of two very young and impressionable children, I find myself monitoring the dropping of the F-bomb in my household.  Adam’s pretty good about it unless he’s around certain people (ALEX), and luckily Juniper hasn’t latched on to that one (YET).

It’s not that the F-bomb doesn’t have its place in modern society.  It certainly does.  There’s something so satisfying about yelling it after being cut off by a yellow SUV.  Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be a better word for expressing frustration.

Personally, though?  I think it’s a cop-out.  There are more than 100,000 words in the English language, and certainly I am smart enough to come up with a string of words that more eloquently expresses my pent-up feelings.  That’s why, when my students ask if they can swear in their writing, I tell them no.  I tell them to try and think of a different way of expressing what that word signifies.  If and only if they come to me one-on-one, stuck on that word, do I allow them to use it–only if there is no other suitable word that could be used in its stead.

I’m not against the F-bomb.  I just marvel at the way its use has changed, especially recently.  I’d love to hear some comments.

On the heels of a Bears loss

I don’t really care that much about sports.  Those people who know me, know this.  When my sisters and I were young, one of my great aunts owned season tickets to the Badgers, and I never complained when my dad opted to take Rachel instead of me.  On the few occasions that I did go (enough tickets for everyone—otherwise I would have stayed home), I spent more time watching the cheerleaders than the game.  Oh, and Bucky Badger, because he was funny.  But the main point is this: I don’t find sports to be very interesting.

Maybe I should correct myself.  I don’t find popular American sports to be interesting.  If rugby suddenly became popular in the United States, I would totally watch the All-Blacks play the Wallabies on NBC.  However, I have played rugby and understand the rules and excitement from a first-hand perspective.  One would think, then, that if I had played football when I was younger that perhaps I would be more interested in it.  I can refute this theory with a short anecdote.

When my sisters and I were young, Rachel and I were signed up for summer softball.  I say we were signed up because I certainly did nothing of the sort for myself.  I must have been eight years old (or so—Rachel would remember better), and we were part of The Wave.  (What kind of a name is that for a kids’ softball team?  Even then I thought it was weird.)  We lost every game we played.  There was only one game we didn’t straight-up lose, but the other team forfeited, so it barely counts as a win.  And I even kind of liked playing, even though we were total losers in bright blue shirts.  But do I like watching baseball or softball now?  No.

I was the kind of nerd in high school who, when asked what sport I played, would reply, “Public speaking.”  Well, I *did* letter, and I *did* place third in the state (!) in my category in my senior year.  My sport was competitive, and I loved my poems and stories as dearly as any teenage boy ever loved his cleats and shoulder pads.  But do I really enjoy watching other people give speeches?  Not really, unless they are abnormally enigmatic speakers or the content is really catchy.

But I digress.

Today, the Bears lost to the Packers in what was touted as some sort of epic playoff showdown.  I am from Wisconsin, and I live in Chicago.  I know other people in my situation who were genuinely torn about who to cheer for, but most picked sides without thinking about it too hard.  So who did I cheer for?  My family.  Adam, Juniper, and Oren wore their Bears gear, and I wore my comfortable black shirt.  Adam watched the beginning of the game before going to work, and I watched it (background-style—still counts!) until Juniper woke up from her nap and insisted on watching the Lion King.  Then, I had Adam send me updates (they became progressively more depressed, then happy!, and then depressed again) while I sang along to Disney tunes and graded essays.

As soon as the game ended, my mother called me, probably to gloat.  I didn’t really care that the Bears lost or that the Packers won, though, so it was a short conversation.

I am a bit sad that the Bears lost.  I promised Adam a super bowl party if they won, so no party.  I even promised to buy a Crave Case of White Castles for the party, so maybe my bit of sadness stems from the fact that I, too, will miss out on tiny square-shaped burgers that are so not good for you but that are so good!

Or maybe I’m starting to care about football…

Or maybe it’s just the sliders.