I Sliced My Thumb (the Long-Awaited Details (for a Set Definition of "Long Awaited"))

Finally, the long-awaited tale of how I sliced my thumb last week!
(Yes, only a couple of people have asked how it happened, but I think that sentence will help make people think I'm about to say something interesting and relevant to them. Suckers!)

So last Sunday Cody woke me up to see if I'd watch Hads and let Marissa get some more sleep. I'm all about watching Hads, so I was all about letting Marissa get some more sleep. They two of them had been doing a lot of work helping Cody's mom out the night before, so we can pretend I was being more benevolent that selfish we like.

I was going to need to feed Hads at 11:00 or so, so somewhere around 9:15 or 9:30, I decided to make sure there were plenty of clean bottles.

I got to the sink and realized the knives I'd re-washed with the intention of drying before spots could form on them had fallen into the "Oops, guess what I forgot to do" black hole. I picked up one of the knives and ran my thumb along the side hoping I could just rub away the spots.

Swipe one, completely safe and away from the sharp edge.

Swipe two, just as safe and away.

Just before swipe three, I distracted myself by realizing I was probably going to have to wash the knives again, and therefore didn't pay as much attention to where my thumb was.

The result: Marissa didn't get to sleep in. She watched Hads, I drove myself to the emergency room, and now I have five stitches in my thumb.

I refuse to post the picture I sent to Say for her opinion, but if you're friends with me on Facebook, she posted it there and tagged me--I'm sure you've already seen it and almost lost your lunch if you are in the aforementioned category. But here's the "after" picture. Hope it doesn't gross you out! Enjoy!

Well, 2011, I Think You Should Go. Now.

It wasn't that bad of a year. The past 6 months have been a bit of a joy, and there are lots of things I wish I had done differently... but what year isn't like that, eh?

I'll just be glad to see this one go. I was already not thrilled to death with it, but now it's just... I don't know. I'm just over everything, the bulk of the everything being me and what passes for a mind in my head.

There were a couple of paragraphs here. I deleted them. Suffice it to say today turned into a bad day, but I've decided not to go on about it here just yet. The short version is: I'm a f***ing idiot.

Anyway, Happy New Year, everybody. It'll be better next year. Maybe not tomorrow, but... at some point next year, it will be better.

Right?

Except for the "Legal or Biological Relation" Part

I'm getting ready to send a kid off to college.

Eighteen-plus years ago, on the night he was born (big ol' ice storm here in Kansas City that night, and I remember it well), I'm pretty sure I was hanging out with Jhoneric Campbell... But maybe not. He might be able to remember better than I if he ventured out on that night. It seems like I did.

Not to go to the hospital. Not that this kid was born at the hospital. The ambulance couldn't get to where his mother was, and nobody with sense was going to drive in that mess.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did, but only to go rent a video or something.

Anyway, I keep going through the whole "explaining who this kid is to me" thing, and I've decided I'm just going to post a blog entry about it and refer everyone here. Anything short seems to be either seemingly inaccurate to the point of being dishonest or just insufficient.

The lady at the DMV probably summed it up best last year when she said, "Well, you're his father today."

If you follow me here, or follow my photoblogs, or if you're a friend on Facebook, you already know Cody is around a lot. He lives a few blocks from me. He was in my 7th grade class back in 2005-2006.

Thanksgiving of 2004 was probably memorable to me--I'd just have to figure out which one it was. I'm sure I could if I worked backwards. Maybe it was the year I did nothing for Thanksgiving, but told everybody I had plans. I don't know.

That particular Thanksgiving his father passed away. He didn't live with him, and I'm not sure how often he saw him, but I know it couldn't have been the easiest situation in the world, no matter what.

I also know that his 6th grade year wasn't the best for math. He went into it feeling he did pretty okay with math--maybe even pretty good. He left it thinking he couldn't do math at all.

So when he got in my class, where I was bound and determined to make sure he (and his classmates) could do the math, and he realized he wasn't bad at math after all, I think it was a big deal.

As for me, I'd nearly died the summer of 2005. You can read all about it back in the archives for that time. Fun stuff. Then, early on in the school year (early September), my mom passed away.

It wasn't too long after her funeral that he approached me and told me how he'd thought of himself where math was concerned. It wasn't too long after him staying after class to share that with me that he stayed after class to tell me he wished I was his uncle or older brother or something.

So, there I was having faced my death and dealt with the death of my mother. There he was feeling better about math and wishing I was his uncle or older brother or something.

I think of it as, "I adopted him in my heart." It was that moment, after school, in my room, just after the final bell. There were lots of thoughts in my head about death and leaving this world with nothing to show for it, and my mom leaving this world without me having any way of showing her I was passing on all of the stuff she passed on to me, and it was just... I just decided to adopt him in my heart.

We connected. I noticed he wasn't making it to school often enough, and we talked about it (I think with the whole team).

There are connections that happen every year. If you have a student you can't reach, you can see if there's anyone who has connected with them, and see if they can help, or if they have suggestions. So I became the go-to teacher for Cody.

I helped him with math a little bit during his 8th grade year, but actually worked more with a friend of his most mornings before school. Sometimes Cody would stop by and get help, too. However, he asked me at the first of the year if I'd go to all of his football games. So I did.

After 8th grade, he started mowing my lawn. I'd have to give him a lift over, as I didn't live in the Northland at the time. And the "looking after him" I started in 2005 just continued...

I tutored him through Algebra I, mostly at Perkins or some similar. I tutored him through Geometry, again in Perkins and so forth until I finally moved up north.

Oh, and there were more football games. And wrestling matches (at least one, anyway). And track meets.

I tutored him most of the way through Algebra II... maybe all the way through it, but eventually he either got confident enough that he didn't need me, or decided it wasn't as important as he thought. Either one is valid, really.

The whole reason I found the house I live in is because I was tutoring him so much. It was down the street (well, and around a corner) from his house, and I wanted it as soon as I saw it. Of course, I knew there was no way I was ever going to own a home, so I just tucked it away in the "whatever" column and moved on.

It was some time later when I got approved for a home loan (after applying on a whim, really). I drove by to see if that house was still for sale, and sure enough it was--had been on the market for... I don't know, about a year or so at least.

Now he's out of high school and getting ready to go off to culinary school.

He's the closest thing I'm going to have in this life to my own kid, I'm pretty sure of it. My family and friends have almost all been told that if I die, he is to be treated as if he were my kid--that means looked after, whatever, right?

I don't think Jesus ever said, "Life is rough. You need a helmet. Be a helmet for others." But he should have.

Say

I was just thinking today that I may have never shared the story of my sister's nickname, Say (she actually has more than one nickname, but this one I'm responsible for).

When I was but a toddler, my sister took me everywhere with her. I was around her a lot, especially when Mom was in the hospital giving birth to Dane with I was almost 18 months old.

I think it was when Mom returned from the hospital and I was given to her that I looked around and said, "Where say go?"

Mom was baffled. Everyone else in the room was baffled, I assume... assuming others were in the room, and it seems like Mom mentioned there were others, but I have no idea who they might have been. Nobody knew what I was talking about, even though I asked at least one other time, "Where say go?"

It wasn't until my sister walked in and I exclaimed, "There say is!" they realized I was referring to my sister Lynne (called Rusty at the time) as "Say".

And it stuck. The end.

Well, that and the fact I can't ask where my sister has gone off to without thinking of that story... mainly because I always word it as, "Where Say go?"

And yes, upon her return, I say, "There Say is!"

"Mom, You Ignorant Slut" (A Belated Mother's Day Memory of My Mother)

This is not a story about my mother as much as it is a story about the complete and total ignorance of youth.

It was the late 70s. I was in either late elementary school or about to enter Junior High. Saturday Night Live was mostly the original cast, and I tried to watch it when I could--just because it was so "adult".

For some reason, Mom and I were standing pretty close, face-to-face. She might even have just gotten a hug from me. I have no idea. I just remember we were face-to-face. Wanting to say something funny to her, I flashed on this little tidbit from the Weekend Update part of SNL:

"Yes," thought my young and ignorant mind, "That's funny."

I looked her in the eyes and said, "Mom, you ignorant slut."

I remember she was smiling at the time. You know how things go to slow motion in your mind in a life-or-death kind of situation?

Oh yeah, totally there.

Her face started to cloud over (in slow motion--or that's how I remembered it later, of course), and I could see something was very wrong.

I blurted out as fast as I could and in a very panicked voice, "I don't know what it means! I don't know what it means!"

Yes, my quick thinking saved my life that day. I was instructed that if I don't know what a word means, perhaps I shouldn't use it. (Never mind that I had a good idea of what "ignorant" meant, but still used it.) I was, however, allowed to live.

That's one of my favorite stories to tell about my own ignorance--not just because it shows how ignorant I have been in the past (and thus may be in the future), but it's apparently crazy funny--at least Brenda seems to enjoy the story... and I enjoy that she enjoys it.

I Know You Aren't Keeping Score, But...

I'm trying really hard to average a post a day on here. I'm behind by one at the moment, and it's making me crazy.

Okay, crazier. Or more crazy. Whatever. I teach math.

Anyway, I keep meaning to post things in the morning and then again in the evening, so I can get caught up... but then the time comes in the morning and I'm either running behind or have even less to say than I usually do (because I thought about typing "or I have nothing to say," and realized that's the norm on here anyway) in the morning... or if I get something posted in the morning, I don't get around to it in the evening.

Again, not that anyone is keeping score. It's just a goofy rule I've made up in my head.

Like the one I had as a kid about turning on the bathroom light before I stepped into the bathroom--otherwise something "bad" would happen. I'm not sure what... monsters attacking, maybe?

I had another rule about the sleeping bag I used to sleep in. If my foot went out the hole in the bottom, it would be chopped off.

Now my rules have no dire consequences. They're just goofy rules I try to non-blog by. I suppose my brain likes a challenge, but it terrible at rising to one.

Anyway, here's a non-blog post for today... just me, rambling about how I never get around to writing like I want to.

Next up: me rambling about how I never learned to play the piano. Or something.

Goodness Sakes! Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally!

This is old news to my friends on Facebook, but yesterday morning my status was asking non-math folks what was confusing about the order of operations.

(Warning: Math review)

For those who don't remember, that's:
1. Operations inside grouping symbols
2. Exponents
3. Multiplication and division
4. Addition and subtraction

(That's the super-simplified version, which is as complicated as we get in 7th grade.)

I have kids who seem to be struggling with it (confirmed by the quiz results yesterday, by the way), and this is one place where I'm at a loss as to how it is confusing or difficult.

Fractions, I get. I remember what confused me about fractions. That memory serves as a nice jumping-off point for finding other ways working with fractions might be confusing or difficult. Decimals, long division, even multiple-digit whole number multiplication. Yes, I get it.

Heck, I can even related to that panic one might feel when asked "What's 6 times 7?"

But the Order of Operations? C'mon! What's difficult about it?

There had to be an answer, of course, as I have so many kids who struggled on a quiz where the only steps needed were the last two (multiplication/division and addition/subtraction). I tried to take math fact fear out of the equation by making the first four problems along the lines of 3 + 2 x 5... I mean, who doesn't know 2 x 5 (or even 5 x 5, should you not remember to do the multiplication first)? Who doesn't know 3 + 10 (or 3 + 2, should you think the addition goes first)?

So the cool thing is this: lots of help from the Facebook friends.

The first was a reminder that some students are going to be freaking out about the arithmetic involved, no matter how simple it might be.

The next was the confusion as to why the Order of Operations exists--when you're working with one operation, you just go from left to right, and you don't even have to worry about that when working with addition and multiplication.

Exponents in the presence of parenthesis can be confusing--which is something I can keep in mind as we delve deeper into the whole Order of Operations thing.

A couple of people gave ideas as to how to make it "easier to remember" or "easier to understand" beyond the whole mnemonic device I used as the title of this post (although usually it's "Please Excused My Dear Aunt Sally," but as students get older some people change "Parenthesis" to "Grouping Symbols").

And one math-phobe expressed she found the Order of Operations easy to understand (comforting, even), because it was a simple list.

Oh, and lots of funny comments from my non-math friends, too.

So I think I have found a new way to irritate my Facebook friends and also get some insight into what's confusing or difficult for my kids--I mean, I have an imagination, and I do use that to figure out where the kids might get confused. However, extra brains on the task can't be a bad thing, right?