Friends

Tonight I had dinner with the fabulous Becky, (in town for a week from Chicago, via San Francisco) Cathe, Steff, and Cass at the world's yummiest sushi place, Yoko's. There are a lot of great things about living in a city, and having a fabulous sushi place right down the street (as well as 4 bars, 3 Starbucks, a Safeway, and a dry cleaner's within walking distance) is just one of them. In the summer we walk to Yoko's, wait upwards of an hour for a table, and then eat sushi until we pop. We are usually glad for the walk home, even though it is uphill most of the way.

Our dinner tonight was full of conversation and laughter, the easy give and take of friends who know each other well, like each other lots, and always have something funny to say. Our common thread is the Sellwood CC - we are diverse in age, education, lifestyles, and food choices, but we all seem to click. After we finished dinner we decided to go to Papa Hayden's in Sellwood, a place known for it's yummy oversized desserts. We all ordered something different and shared bites, sampling a little bit of everything. Somehow, Becky broke the pepper grinder and spilled peppercorns all over the table, sending us all into hysterical laughter. Her attempts to put the grinder back together were unsuccessful, and we decided on a discreet exit.

There is something comforting about having friends that you have known years. I value it even more since we moved every 2-3 years when my dad was in the Navy. We knew people all over the country, but it was always my secret wish to live in the same town forever. I was jealous of my high school pals who had known each other since kindergarten, and I had shown up as the new kid in 9th grade. I am grateful to have these friends in my life, and for the balance and laughter they provide.

Super White Christmas

I am not a cold weather person. I grew up mostly in warm climates (Honolulu, Key West), and would rather brace for an impending hurricane than live through a snowstorm. I do not like to be cold, I do not like to be wet, I really do not like to be cold and wet. We are on our 12th day of snow on the ground - an event that has not been seen in Portland, Oregon in 40 years.

My dislike for the snow does not extend to my family. The kids, like all kids, think snow is magical. I think snow is pretty, for a day or so. Twelve days is a bit much. This snow event was like that movie "Groundhog's Day" where the guy wakes up and the day is just like the day before. I do like the forced slow down that the snow creates. During the recent snowstorm I sewed 4 pairs of pj's for the twins, made chicken noodle soup, baked cookies, and watched the wall to wall news coverage of ARCTIC BLAST 2008! The planes can't go! The MAX can't run! The schools are closed! Timmy still made it to work, so everyone sitting in the snow storm craving a teriyaki chicken burger could get one at Red Robin! (if they had chains on their car) I slept better knowing our burger needs were covered.

Ruby was funny in the snow - she barked at it, ate it, and even got high centered in snow bank. I laughed a lot and took a picture. Tim took the kids on an adult supervised night sledding trip to the park - no teeth were lost! His comment when he came back - "I'm getting too old for this."

We were lucky to have Caitlin's company for Christmas - her parents are buried in 3 feet of snow at their house on the high, high, hill. I know she missed being with her family, but we loved having her here. She was able to stay in touch with the help of the amazing Blackberry phone which contained an email from her dad with a list of groceries she could bring up with her when the weather cleared, and pictures of giant icicles on the side of the house. Ah, technology!

Our good friend Carl called last night with a panicked message - the roof of his covered patio had buckled under the weight of the snow and collapsed onto the patio below. His unfortuante experience compelled Tim (and Parker) to get on our patio roof and clear off 2 feet of snow and ice. After they finished they called us outside. Up on top of the house roof they'd build a snowman, complete with OSU scarf and hat, arms outstretched to the world...welcome Christmas!

All I Want For Christmas...

Sometimes, I get to be right. Not always, (as my children would have you believe) but sometimes. Usually when I am right, I do the dance of joy, in your face, I was RIGHT and you were WRONG. Not this time. This time, being right sucks.

We are in the middle of a winter event the likes I have not seen in Portland. Not in almost 20 years of living here do I remember weather this awful. The east wind is howling, snow fell and iced over, and the thermometer says 20 something all day long. We are about to get hit with another 2 or 4 or 6 inches of the white stuff...and the dread continues. Of course, Portlanders can't drive for s**t in the snow, so they cancel school. Yesterday was the stuff of kids' dreams, a SNOW DAY. Carter's friend Chris called and invited him over "to play". I said okay and took a bundled up Carter (and Callie, who had made plans with her girls in the same general area) to Chris's house for a couple of hours.

Carter of course wanted to go sledding, but I explained to him that there was no snow, just ice, and that ice is dangerous-dangerous-dangerous. Most of you can probably finish the blog in your head now. Yes, Carter and his friends went sledding. In a place that he should not have been, doing something he was told not to do. I got a panicked phone call..."mom, I knocked my tooth out." Most of the blood in my head went to my feet. Which tooth? A front one, of course. Did he have it? No, it was lost in the snow. By now my freak-out was full force. All right, call reinforcements. Leave work, pick him up. Assess damage. Freak out.

I found him walking back from the park with his pals, the dredded sled dragging along behind them. My first look at this tooth was as awful as you can imagine. My baby boy, lip cut open and bloody, missing one of his beautiful front teeth. "I'm sorry mom," he sobs.

He feels horrible, and his mouth hurts, too. I gather myself together. He is mostly whole, it could have been so much worse. I try to be grateful. I try to be calm.

The neighbor is a doctor and he thinks Carter will be okay after a trip to the dentist. We are at the dentist at 6:30am the next morning. The nerve is okay, the part of the tooth that is still intact can maybe be capped, but not until the trauma to the mouth heals - in a couple of weeks. I calculate the cost in my head, root canal, crown, implant...but for the next 3 weeks Carter has a hole in his mouth you can drive a truck through.

There is a lesson here, but it's not the lesson I thought it would be. Carter said he knew he shouldn't have gone down the hill on the sled. He'd watched Danny do it, and even though the 'little voice" inside him told him not to, he went ahead. We had a long talk...about peer pressure and when to say no. The tooth is gone forever, a lesson is learned, and it could have been so much worse. Last night I was freaked out. Tonight I feel lucky.

Luck on Letter H Day

If there is a slow line at the grocery store, I manage to get in it. I don't buy lottery tickets because the most I have ever won is $10 bucks. I've never managed to win big in Vegas, or hit a sweepstakes jackpot, or even a cakewalk at school. Despite this, I've never thought of myself as unlucky. I figured that luck runs around and maybe it just hadn't shown up at my door yet.

Friday, luck knocked. My friend Steff was at Starbucks in the neighborhood, having coffee when she saw a little boy on a bike get hit by a delivery truck. She was upset by what she saw..a mom with a dog, a little brown haired boy (wearing a helmet!) on his bike in the crosswalk, and a truck turning right into the little boy, knocking him off the bike. EMS and Police were called, and the boy was taken to the local hospital. Steff came over to the CC to tell me the story, and I immediately started quizzing her...what did the boy/mom look like? Average. Brown hair. They had a dog. What did the dog look like? Yellow and white, I think his name is Kaos.

My throat closes. I know this boy, and his mom. It is one of my Pre-K students. He is not in class today, he has been hit by a truck. I am sick, near tears. I grab the phone and call his mom's cell. It's Teacher Tracy, are you okay? Yes, we're fine. Mom is a mess, crying, grateful. Lucky. She wants to know if he can come to school? He wants to be with his friends. He is okay, the helmet saved him.

Later we are on the playground. As parents come to pick up children they are told the story...most cry, understanding the gravity of it all. The children run and play all around us. Today we are lucky.

Heart

It was a beautiful day for football. Carter's 7th/8th football team played Franklin today and won 31-6.

Those of you who know me probably know that I love football. My dad coached youth football when my brother played as a kid, and continued on for 15 years after that, so I spent many Saturdays at the football field. When Parker started playing in the 5th grade (giving up soccer because "there are no cheerleaders or band at the soccer games, mom") I began my career as a "football mom". Lots of Saturdays sitting on the bleachers, rain or shine, cheering the team on. Most of the time the games were totally lopsided. We were usually on the receiving end of some big losses, but the boys soldiered on. Parker played through High School, as Quarterback, the one the big ones on the other team always wanted to kill. He ate a lot of field, but he always got back up.

Carter is the smallest player on his team. He weighs 70 lbs soaking wet. He has no body fat. He is not yet 5 feet tall. The puberty fairy has hit some of the boys on the team hard...some are almost 6 feet tall. There are kids that weigh more than a lot of adults I know. And then there's Carter. Carter knows that he can't compete with the bigger, stronger players in size, so he competes with heart. He tackles hard, hangs on, forces fumbles (today!), gets run over and gets back up again. He is unflappable. He makes the most of his limited opportunities. He has fun.
He loves to play, and it shows when he gets in the game.

I think about all the obstacles that he faces, his limited size, the CP, the way his body moves, and then I watch him tear it up. He plays from the heart, he plays with heart. He wants to win, and he works to make it happen. There are better players, more physical players, bigger players, but no one beats Carter on sprirt or attitude. His coaches agree - Carter is the heart of the team, an inspiration to all his teammates. I am the proudest football mom on the planet.

The Krevanko Credo

We are:
Beavers not Ducks. Pepper not salt. Red Sox not Yankees. Crest not Colgate. Pepsi not Coke. Late nights not early mornings. Football not soccer (except now, we cheer for Callie!) Obama not McCain. Labs not purse puppies. Half full not half empty. Idaho not California. Christmas eve not Christmas morning.
We like:
Tie dye. Home made strawberry/raspberry jam. Fleece blankets.
Sunglasses. Lemonade. Orange t-shirts. Roller coasters. White towels. Baseball. Watermelon. Sunflower seeds. Bleach. Volunteering. Shave ice. "Midnight Train to Georgia." Our veranda. Slippers. Craigslist. Fireplaces. Trader Joe's. Text messaging. Chuck-It. Keens. Waffle window!
We do not:
Leave the house in a dirty shirt. Call people past 9 pm. Vote Republican. Watch WWE Raw or Hogan Knows Best. Wear shorts in November. Like being late, but sometimes we still are. Eat at taco trucks.

Meatballs???

We are using glue to stick fluffy cotton balls to a sheep shape.

S: "Teacher Tracy, why are we putting meatballs on the sheep?"

We are reading a book about weather. I point to the umbrella and ask "what is this?"

M: "A rain kite!"

The 3 year olds always make me smile!

Happy Birthday, Big Boy

24 years ago today I became a mother. A younger, thinner, less worldly version of myself, living in Miami with my husband of 18 months. It was a hot day, and I had been pregnant too long. The baby was 18 days overdue, my mother had flown in 2 weeks prior, and did I mention it was Miami???!

There are lots of stories I remember about the birth of my first child, who was supposed to be a girl. There was NO boy name...why bother??? My mom had even arrived with pink clothes and a doll! Things did not go as expected, and a BIG boy finally made his way into the world. After he was born, his dad came into my room, still a little awestruck, shocked, and giddy. He thought Derrick was a good name. I looked him straight in eye, smiled, and said "no, his name is Parker." My husband shook his head in agreement - he knew there was no arguing with a woman who had just pushed for 2 hours straight. Later on I told him that the name was suggested by my mom, who had seen it on a Cabbage Patch doll. :)

Parker has been a joy in my life since that first moment I saw him. He is the son every mother wants - kind, loving, generous, goofy. He can throw a football, hit a baseball, and scuba dive. He knows the words to all the oldies songs, but can also rap like a white guy. He never quits, even when he's beat. He loves shoes and hates doing laundry. He sucks at math, but is fascinated by government. He has a huge heart and sets a great example for his twin brother and sister to follow. I am so lucky I get to be his mom.

Happy Birthday, big boy!

Loss

The game was going well, not spectacular on either side, and the score was close. They were ahead, and it seemed that we could maybe catch them if we got a couple of good breaks. This is what every sports fan believes, prays silently for, mutters quietly under their breath. If I only believed hard enough I could will this to happen.

We score again, and are up 20-16 with just 24 seconds left. It looks promising, but 24 seconds in football can be a long time. Long enough for the other guys to punch one in if you lose your focus for a second or two.

The kick-off is good, their field position is not great and we look like we might pull this one out. There is one incomplete pass, a few seconds tick off the clock. Another incomplete pass, more seconds gone. The offense is in disarray, they spike the ball to stop the clock. Three seconds left, 4th down, and the QB throws one deep, a true "Hail Mary" as silent prayers go up all over the stadium. "Don't let him catch it." "Don't let him catch it." Skill and speed win out over prayer...he catches it in the end zone. The clock runs out. Disbelief. They win 22-20. The crown is stunned, quiet. Heads shake. How did this happen?

Loss breaks your heart, makes you cry angry tears. But then it mellows, giving way to hope.

Hope for next week, the next game, the next season...for the possibilities yet to come. Hope makes you put your uniform back on and get back in the game. Hope believes that next time things will be different.

Back To School, for all of us...

Post-its and a hole punch... must haves for organizing school stuff
Originally uploaded by aamilner

The twins started 7th grade last week. Seems unreal, since I still remember, in vivid detail, their first day of school. I dropped them off, went to the minivan and sat there, realizing I had NOTHING to do, no place in particular I needed to be, and I was without kids. So the goal became to fill that time, (and not with laundry or daytime TV) and that is how I began to have 3 first days of school every year.

My preschool classes started this week. Since I teach 3 classes, I have 3 first days. They are usually a mix of anxiety, excitement, fun, and fear. I have held parent's hands while they sobbed in the hallway - assuring them that their child would be fine if they would just leave and get on with it. I had one parent my first year who had an anxiety disorder so severe she could not leave the building after dropping her child off. I have parents who breeze in with their well adjusted children, kiss them on the cheek, and head off to the Ugly Mug for a cup of coffee. Eventually we all come together and the fear leaves and gives way to fun. That comes in early October.

I love the structure and routine that the school year brings. I hate making lunches, but I am told that school lunch "sucks". Bedtime is still wonky, but it will shake out. The routine is still a little rough at this stage, but we will be better. By October.

Games girls play...

It's the end of summer sleepover at our house tonight. Three girls, three cell phones, one Ouija board, a rented movie, 3 bags of orange chicken, and a Nintendo Wii.

Back in the OLD days (the 70's) we would have had 1 thing from that list...the Ouija board. I think about how childhood has changed with the technology so readily available to our kids. The girls have had cell phones for about a year now. Brooklyn was first, then Callie (but she has to share with Carter), and this summer Olivia finally convinced her folks that a phone was a necessity of life. There is constant text messaging. Group texts going out telling kids to meet at the movie theatre in town, texting the boy your friend likes to see if he likes her too, and the text that most annoys me, the one that just says "Sup". (And to think in the pre-caller ID days we just dialed the princess phone, waited for the boy we liked to answer, and then hung up, dissolving into fits of giggles.)

I fondly recall playing with the Ouija board at sleepovers. Today I laugh at the notion that a piece of press board can answer life's questions. But Callie and her friends believe...and I cannot question their faith in each other. They have been friends since kindergarten, almost half of their young life. They will go through tough times together as they grow older, but for now they put their hopes in the answers the Ouija board gives.

So tonight I will sit with them in a dark room, no TV or video games or phones to distract us, and I will ask the Ouija board a question.

TT

The final resting place...

Callie with Bandit at the Cabin in 2006

My dad called today to chat a bit and to let us know that his beloved dog, Bandit, died on August 8.

Bandit was almost 16 years old - a doggie senior citizen by any standard. He had not been in the best of health, and when we were there in July we all kind of knew that Bandit wouldn't be around next summer when we came to visit. My dad is a dog person. We call him the "dog wisperer" - he has always had a way with canines, and he has always had one in his life. During my childhood we had Fubar the basset hound, Red the irish setter, Mia and Fritz the dachshounds, Snoopy the beagle. All have moved on to the great dog beyond, and now Bandit has joined them. I think about this as I listen to our "evil" chocolate lab, Ruby, bark in her crate (where she was sent for stealing Carter's burrito.)

Knowing that Bandit was getting on in years, my dad dug a hole in the side yard, covered it up with a board, and waited. This was supposed to be Bandit's final resting place, prepared in case of a winter death when the ground was frozen hard. Instead, Bandit made one last trip up the hills to the little cabin in the woods with Dad and Sue. He died peacefully in his sleep in a place that he had spent many happy times. Dad told me he debated loading Bandit into the truck and bringing him back down to town to "his hole", but it didn't feel right. So he dug a spot behind the cabin and Bandit can rest there for eternity. It's a perfect place.

Of course, Dad has a new dog. He and Sue went down last week and got a border collie from the animal shelter. They named him "Stuckey".

TT

You know you're in SE Portland when....

Kids say some funny things.

As a parent, I always wondered what my children told other people when I was not around to hear. When I became a teacher I learned A LOT about the parents of my students through random comments made during our days together. Today a little girl who has never been very verbal told me "Mommy lives in town now." She managed to say so much with 5 words, and her dad was caught off guard when I shared the comments with him. It was a sad moment for both of us, but he now knows that his 4 year old is processing this hard time in her life the best way she can.

Sometimes the comments are made in the course of play, like the time last week when one of my campers offered me a "Flubber Martini" while playing at the flubber table. Or yesterday when one of the boys was making a playdough pizza and offered me a slice. Of course I said "yes" and he asked me if I wanted regular cheese or goat cheese on it...only in SE Portland!

One of my favorite comments came in the form of art from a 3 year old. He drew me a picture of an alligator and wrote in his 3 year old scribble "TEACHER TRACY ALLIGATORS ARE NOT GOOD FOR YOU." Words to live by.

I'll leave you with the best advice ever shared by a 4 year old - "don't lick the slide"
I think it explains itself.

TT