A quiet, but enjoyable Christmas

Happy Boxing Day, as they might say in the UK!

We had a simple and quiet Christmas here at Casa Poolman. I am about half way through a week-and-a-half long holiday break. Within the University System, we bunch several holidays in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day and close down the institute for a week. I added a couple of  vacation days to that run, so I will have off from the Saturday before Christmas through New Year’s Day. I love it.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Poolman is not so lucky. This was the year she was scheduled to work 12-hour shifts both Christmas Eve and Christmas. It stinks, but what can you do?

I spent the first half of Tuesday putzin’ around and taking care of last-minute Christmas preps. My CCD class provided the readers for a short Christmas Pageant during the 4 o’clock Mass. Everyone we were expecting showed up, and more-or-less on time. Yea! Last year, we had one child who missed all but one practice, but we agreed to let him participate after his mother called up and practically begged us to do so. Then “mom” failed to deliver him on time. We rearranged the readers to cover his slot, but he came running up just as we were walking into church for the start of Mass. I don’t blame the child, but the mom taught us a lesson we won’t forget.

No such drama this year. Our students all did great. After constant encouragement, they all read loud enough that the congregation could actually here them. Yea again!

Our reader team.

Mrs. P got home around 8 o’clock and we split a pizza for dinner. Very fancy.

On Christmas morning, I got up and drove about 45 minutes out in the country to my daughter’s in-laws. Brad and Annie are great. It was very nice of them to invite me out for Christmas brunch. Writer Princess is very lucky (and so are we) that she has such a great set of in-laws. They a house on several acres out in the boonies. Annie has taken to raising livestock. She has turkeys, chickens, “runner ducks,” guinea fowl and goats. The highlight of yesterday’s visit were two week-old baby goats.  Very cute!

“Well, Tom. We made it through another holiday. Whew!”

“So what did you get for me?”

Back home in the early afternoon and started preps for dinner. I planned on a boneless rib-eye roast, twice-baked potatoes, green bean bundles and creamed pearl onions (Mrs. P’s creation ahead of time.) Everything went well, even the green-bean bundles, which were a little more effort than I originally planned.

Mrs. P got home around 7:30 pm and I handed her a vodka and tonic. The rest of our dinner guests included son, girlfriend, daughter, son-in-law, and son-in-law’s brother. I planned to take a picture of the meal, but, frankly, I was so wrapped up in getting it all together when it was time to serve, I just forgot.

Some friends/neighbors walked down as we were finishing dinner. We all gathered in the family room to open presents and visit.

Gathered around

…visiting.

I wish Mrs. P had been around for more of the activities, but given the circumstances, it was a pretty nice holiday.

Hello parents! Anyone listening?

This fall I’ve learned a big lesson – don’t try to communicate with adults through their ten-year old children. It doesn’t work. The group in question, of course, is my 5^th grade CCD class. (This is religious education for the kids in our parish who do not go to Catholic schools. Protestants call it “Sunday school” except ours is on Wednesday evenings.) This is my eighth year teaching 5^th grade, and for some reason, we have had more of a need to get announcements to the parents than in past years. One big issue has been our Christmas pageant. Our class was asked to provide readers/narrators. However, this involved only half the class, which created the opportunity for confusion over schedules, etc.

Unfortunately, announcements made in class go through the filters of 10 or 11 year-olds, who may or may not remember to pass it on to their parents (and may or may not get the information correct.) Even written hand-outs don’t always make it to their intended destination. Of course an in-class announcement or handout is useless for a student who isn’t there that evening.

Then you have the students who deliver the message properly and accurately, but their parents don’t believe them.

Mother of troublesome child: “Yes, she told me that you told her she shouldn’t come to class tonight unless she was in the pageant, but I told her she must have been mistaken.”

Me: “No, she got it right. (And thank you for bringing her. It was a real pleasure to have her here with nothing to do except annoy the other children who are involved in the program.”

I maintain a second blog to update parents on what we are teaching and talking about on a weekly basis. However, judging from the number of “hits” it gets each week, I can see that most of our parents are not taking advantage of this resource to stay informed.

The inability to communicate with parents presents real problems when trying to schedule things like the pageant. One program will be during a regular CCD class time slot. That isn’t much of a problem; the kids should be there anyway. However, a second presentation will be at 6 pm Mass on Christmas Eve. The children have no control over their schedule. They can say they want to read at Christmas Eve Mass, but if their parents have another idea for the family, the little darlings have no say in the matter.

We have one boy who really wants to participate. He stopped my co-teacher in his school parking lot last week and told her how excited he was to be involved. The problem is — he was there for the first introductory run-though of the program but hasn’t been seen since. He missed the next two practices during the regular class time-slots as well as our special Saturday morning rehearsal. So do we penalize the kid because Mom can’t get remember when the rehearsals are and get him there? (FYI – If he shows up, we’ll let him read.)

In January, I’ll assemble an email list and see if that works any better.

Bottom line – I love the kids. The parents are a little exasperating.

Not feelin’ the love

As we finished up our final CCD class of the year last week, I was reminded of a quote from one of our US senators on the state of education in the US.

“The biggest problem with education in this country is a bad case of PDD – Parental Deficit Disorder.”

He wasn’t talking about our 5^th grade religion classes, but it seemed to fit our situation.

As I whined a couple of weeks ago, we are never quite sure how much of an effect we are actually having on our students. And we know the children don’t really appreciate our efforts. Heck, they would much prefer to be home watching TV or out playing with their friends. So would I at their age. (Or even at my current age!)

However, my co-teacher, Mrs. R, and I are a little disappointed in the lack of  participation and/or acknowledgment by the parents, for whom we give up 26 Wednesday nights to teach their children.

–We have 25 sets of parents who we have repeatedly invited to sit-in on an occasional class to see what we are teaching their children. So far not a single parent has taken us up on the invitation. We could be teaching their children straight from the Book of Mormon, and they would probably never pick up on it. (Not that there is anything wrong with the Book of Mormon, if you are an LDS, but we’re Catholic.)

–I maintain a second blog that I update weekly so parents can see what we are teaching and discussing. Of 25 sets of parents, my blog count averages around four to six hits a week.

–At the final pick-up last week, one, but only one, parent came up to Mrs. R and me and said, “Hey, I want to thank you for all you have done this year. You’ve been here every week teaching this group, and I want you to know my husband and I appreciate it.” One other student brought us a “thank you card.” We weren’t expecting a ticker-tape parade, but a few more “thanks for teaching my son/daughter” would have been nice.

Of course, we don’t teach the class for the parents or for recognition. We do it because we think it is an important job that someone needs to do. All the same, some acknowledgment from the parents would have been appreciated.

That’s enough of my whining. I’m on religious education vacation until September.

Talking God and religion with fifth graders

For eight months of the year, for the past seven years, I have spent nearly every Wednesday evening in the company of about two dozen 10 and 11 year-olds. I volunteered to teach the fifth grade CCD class at our church. This is a religious education program for the kids who do not go to a parochial school. In a Protestant church, it would probably be called “Sunday school,” except we have the classes on Wednesday evenings.

Mrs. Poolman is not at all certain why I continue to do this. I’m not really sure myself. I am a practicing Catholic, but I’m not a particularly devout or religious person. I do get some sense of satisfaction from filling a definite need in the parish. While I don’t think I’m a particularly good teacher, I do show up with some reliability and fill the space. Our CCD coordinator, Paula, is not overwhelmed with people knocking her doors down to teach a class.

I think I’m also providing a service to the students. It is been clear over the years, that for many of my students those Wednesday night CCD classes are the major source of their education / indoctrination in matters of God, religion, morals, ethics, values and life. My big question is: “How much of this is actually sticking with the kids?” I don’t have an answer to that. I suspect the answer is “very little.” We don’t have much time. Nor do we have the repetition to drive it home. Those 45-50 minutes a week are easily lost in the midst of busy lives of school, sports, school activities, dance, friends, and so on. I try not to dwell too long on that depressing note

Mostly, I think I like the kids and the discussions we have. The curriculum for this grade is to cover the sacraments.  It leaves us lots of time to talk about all kinds of subjects. Once they get comfortable in the class, fifth graders are not at all shy about asking questions and offering their opinions. I have a co-teacher, Sherry. Between the two of us, we try to get the kids engaged and maybe thinking about things that they haven’t thought of before.

By this point in the year, we have gotten to know the students fairly well, and they have gotten to know us. We know who is quick to raise their hand and those who we to be coaxed into participating in a discussion.

During our class this week, we covered the Sacrament of Matrimony. While this sounds innocent, it actually is fairly tricky. The Catholic Church teaches that a wedding vow is permanent, and divorce is not an option. (The issue of annulment is much too involved for this age group.) This fun part is to teach the kids that this is what they should seek to achieve in their adult lives, without appearing to criticize their divorced parents, cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles, etc.

The other interesting issue is we are never quite sure how much our students of this age have learned about sex from their parents, school, friends, TV and so on. If we were dealing with 13 year olds, we could be fairly certain they have at least been exposed to “Birds and Bees 101.” But for ten and eleven year-olds, we aren’t as certain. It makes it difficult to answer a question about a pregnant bride, which is one query we received last night. To make life very interesting, it just takes one student to ask, “What do you mean that they had sex before they were married? What does that mean?” Then we have opened a can of worms, and they are crawling all over the place.

We are fairly certain one girl was trying to “work us” last night with this exchange.

Her: I see all the pictures of the brides here are wearing white dresses. Why do brides always seem to wear white?  

Me: It’s a tradition, but you can wear whatever color you like.

Her: Even black?

Me: Yes, even black.

Her: But why do they usually wear white?

Me: It symbolizes purity or innocence.

Her: Innocent of what?

Sherry (jumping in to help out): It symbolizes that she is a virgin.

Her: A virgin? What’s a virgin?

Sherry: You know the answer to that.

Her: No, really (laughing). I don’t know. What is a virgin?

Sherry: Ask your parents.

We have just a few more weeks of class remaining for this year. This has been a good group. I’ll miss them when we break for the summer. Then I’ll take my chances with a fresh class in the fall.

Wedding bells for Bert and Ernie?

When I first heard about this idea, I thought it was a joke, and actually, when you step back and take a good look, it probably is. None the less, there is a group out there circulating a petition to have Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street declared gay and have them get married.I look forward to ideas like this because it gives me the opportunity to laugh and make fun of people. (Hey people, they are PUPPETS!) Fortunately, I think the chance of this actually happening is pretty close to zero.

On the more serious side, here is one good reason this is a really bad idea. Sesame Street is a television program aimed at pre-school children. When I was that age, all I knew about the differences between boys and girls was that boys had short hair and wore pants, while girls had long hair and wore dresses. When my sisters were born, I discovered anatomical differences. However, aside from going to the bathroom, I had no idea of their uses. Maybe I had a stunted childhood but I suspect my view of the world as a three- or four-year old wasn’t unique.

So why would you want to inject sexuality into a program aimed at very young children? I’ve already expressed my disgust over the amount of sexual content in mainstream television that airs in the early evening. What parent wants to discuss the concepts of homosexuality or gay marriage with a four year old?

This is a bad idea, but hey, LGBTQ folks, you keep on trying. Laughter is good for the soul.

A truly uncomfortable experience

My blog friend, Terri, posted a story today describing an awkward conversation with her 18-year old son about his new girlfriend. This reminded me of an incident when I was about his age that was a seriously painful experience.

The summer after my junior year in college in Florida, I returned home to Pittsburgh for my last summer at home. My only serious girlfriend in several years, “Melanie,” was left behind in Gainesville where she was taking summer classes.

About a week after getting home, I walked in the house after work. My parents were sitting in the kitchen and greeted me with:

“We’re glad you’re home. Sit down. We have something we need to discuss.”

Conversations that start that way go only downhill, and this was no exception.

“Karen, your friend from Florida, called a little while ago looking for you. She said that your girlfriend, Melanie, has a COMMUNICABLE DISEASE, and she thinks you ought to get a blood test.”

My mind wasn’t running in the gutter, so I was thinking of diseases like small pox, diphtheria, or some weird tropical thing that no one has ever heard of.

“Really? I wonder what that is all about?”

My mother had the answer. “Obviously she has the CLAP! Have you been SLEEPING with that girl?”

A brilliant 20-year old and a master of snappy comebacks, I responded:

“Ah…ah…ah…ah…ah…”

For the next several minutes, I made a concerted effort to assert my rights under the 5^th amendment to avoid incriminating myself. I’m not sure I was entirely successful. I was 100% positive that whatever “communicable disease” had Melanie in its grips, it was not venereal in nature.  However, I had no objective evidence to put before my parents. (“I don’t know any Karen or Melanie, so they must have the wrong number.”) Finally, I said I needed to call someone in Florida and get to the bottom of the story.

This was at least 10 years before the first cell phones were developed and 25 years before they became as common as wristwatches. I left messages all over Gainesville, without being able to track down Karen, Melanie or anyone else who knew what was going on.

When I returned to my parents, my mother began to tell me how much she and my father had wished they had been able to sleep together before they were married. I think she wanted to put me at ease. It didn’t work. I tried prayer.

“Dear Lord, just take me now. Put an end to my misery.”

Apparently, God was taking the night off, because I remained fully alive and conscious throughout the conversation.

Eventually, with no additional information on my end and far too much information from my parents, the encounter ran out of steam.

It was several hours later when I finally received a return call from Karen.

“I’m so glad you called me back. You really need to checked out because  Melanie has….MONO!”

I was both relieved and so angry I wanted to reach through the phone and grab Karen by the throat a thousand miles away.

Melanie recovered from the mononucleosis just fine. We stayed in touch over the summer and resumed dating in the fall. We had a good laugh over it. We dated for another year and then split up. We both ended up marrying our next serious relationship and both marriages are intact today. If she reads this, I hope she gets a laugh.

I don’t know what ever happened to Karen. Let’s hope she didn’t go into the communications business.

One more hat to wear

In my job, I am a bit of a “jack of all trades.” My official title is External Affairs Manager, but that doesn’t really tell you anything. I wear a bunch of different hats. Depending on the day and needs, I may be a:

• Writer
• Editor
• Photographer
• Publicist
• Spokesperson
• Designer
• Lobbyist
• Public Speaker
• News media contact
• Fundraiser
• Foundation director
• Customer service coordinator
• Tour guide

And on and on.

It’s probably for the best. I’m really not that good at any of those jobs, but I am “OK” at all of them.

Yesterday, I had a new role laid into my lap – baby sitter.

On the first day back from our holiday break, I was approached by one of our scientists. She was hosting a married-couple pair of visiting scientists, both of whom were going to present one-hour seminars to our science team that day. One was in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The problem was that they also had an 11-month old baby who needed a “sitter” while the parents were occupied. She had approached our administrative assistant, who has no children and is not very comfortable with them. Lila told her to go find me.

That’s how I met Clara.

As you can tell from her expression, Clara was not overjoyed at spending an hour or so in a strange place with a guy she never met before, but she got over it. She was a little cranky during the morning session, but it never got out of hand. When her mom brought her back for the afternoon session, she was sound asleep. She stayed that way until her parents came back to get her – thus proving once again Poolman’s First Law of Childrearing.

“Sleeping babies are always cute.”

The downside is that I’ve had people in and out of my office all day today asking about my hourly rates for baby sitting.

Very funny. No thanks. I have enough to do.

A sigh of relief

We got away easy on the pool problem I wrote about earlier. I was seriously concerned we would be looking at guys with shovels, lots of digging and lots of $$$. Fortunately that was not the case. It turns out it was a crack in the PVC pipe near the pool pump that didn’t allow the pump to “prime.” We got away cheap. Yea!

Our last “real” CCD class is tomorrow night. This one should be interesting. It mixes in the concept of Christian love, as in 1 Corinthians 13 (“Love is kind…”, etc.), with a lesson on respecting your own and others bodies. Even the word “sexuality” is mentioned in the text.

I’m going to have to be careful with this session. I can’t free-lance as easily as I usually do. The issue here is simply this – I’m dealing with ten and eleven year-olds. I never know how much knowledge they come into class already knowing. I wouldn’t mind teaching a sex-ed class, but that’s not my mission or authorization. I think I’ll mostly stick to the text and stay fairly general. If I get questions, I’ll field them as best I can. If I get complaints from parents, I’ll deal with it. Hey, it’s the end of the year. Next week we’re just going to have a party and then it’s “Adios, amigos!” until next fall.

Need a few more helicopter parents

I went to a “stewardship meeting” at our church earlier this week, and a subject came up that hit home. Essentially, the question was, “How good a job are we doing developing the next generation of Catholics?” If my anecdotal experience is any example, the answer would be “not very good.” However, the problem, as I see it, is not so much at the parish level as it is in the family.

I have heard stories of “helicopter parents” who hover over everything their child does. I wish the parents of my 5^th grade CCD students were a little more rotary-winged.  Instead, they are more like remote controls.

It can be frustrating. We have the kids for only about 45-50 effective minutes per week. That is not constitute sufficient volume or repetition to have any kind of meaningful or lasting impact, if there isn’t some spiritual support and development also taking place at home. In too many cases, it is very obvious there is little or none.

This is not a blanket indictment. There are exceptions. However, in general I can see the signs of this vacuum in several ways.

1. I see a few of my kids at mass on weekends with some frequency, but if you toss out that relatively small handful, it is a extremely rare treat to see any of my current or former students there. Regular Sunday mass attendance is not a common practice among my students’ families.

2. In the 5^th grade we spend a lot of time talking about the sacraments. In the Catholic Church, most of the kids received the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) in the first or second grade. Their parents SHOULD have been taking them to confession at least a couple times a year since then. When we talk about the sacrament in class, many of my students barely remember the first and last time they received Reconcilation.

In an effort to try to engage parents this year, I created a blog for my class. Each week, I write a few paragraphs describing what we talked about. I told the parents about this in our first introductory meeting and also sent the information home in a “welcome letter” after the first class session. I suggested that it would be a good idea to check it on at least a weekly basis, if for no other reasons, to make sure they are informed of any class schedule changes.

This week we had a class cancellation. Last week ago the county public schools were out on our CCD day for a furlough or planning day of some sort. That night we had only six of our 16 students show up. The following Wednesday (this week) would be Veteran’s Day, another school holiday. So the CCD leaders decided to go ahead and cancel CCD class on that day. We announced it in class, but there were only six students there to hear it. I also posted it prominently on the class blog. In past years, I have personally phoned the parents of each of the students to inform them of the cancellation. This time, I figured that the blog and the Sunday bulletin would cover any who had been missed. How silly of me.

Last night, I ran into one of my friends, who is the father of one of my students, and he chastised me about the class cancellation. Apparently, he packed up his kids and drove them to class, only to find the “class cancelled” sign on the door.

“Poolman, it was on the calendar!”

I bit my tongue to hold back my “snappy retort.”

You don’t send your child to class the week before, so she missed the announcement.

You don’t take your child to Mass on Sunday, so you miss the bulletin.

You don’t check the blog to keep in touch with what we are teaching your child, and so you missed the announcement there.

But it’s my fault you didn’t know of the cancellation.

I guess it is. Sigh.

Another summer weekend

What started as a quiet Sunday afternoon picked up a bit. Mrs. Poolman and I were planning on just hanging around our pool, catching up on reading, blogging, etc. Then a handful of the neighborhood kids rang the doorbell and asked if they could swim. They have been asking all summer and my answer has been the same each time. “You need to have a parent here with you. Go ask your Mom or Dad.” In the past couple of summers, we let the kids swim on occasion. An attorney friend told us that we were absolutely crazy to do that without at least one parent from each family there to assume responsibility. Well today, for the first time all summer, one of the Moms called to confirm the invitation and to say she would be down with her kids and a couple of the others that she was looking after this afternoon.

What's going on here?

So we spent a couple of hours watching a group of 9-12 year olds trying to drown each other. Loads of fun.

Yesterday, we did our neighborly good-deed and had a small dinner party for a couple of friends and two couples who have just moved to the area. The wife-half of one of the couples is our new business officer. The other couple I met through work, and then discovered they had moved ito a house about 100 feet from our front door. Small world.

We did a “low country boil.” It’s also known as Frogmore Stew, after a town on St. Helena Island, SC, in the heart of Gullah country.  For those of you now familiar with the term, this is a popular regional “party meal,” similar conceptually to a clam bake in  Maine, a full-steer barbecue in Texas, etc. It usually involves a social gathering.

You start with a set-up like this.

The 'rig"

Into the pot of water you add some “crab boil” seasoning,  red potatoes, short-ears of corn (I don’ t know why you use short ears, you just do.) and a sausage,  like kielbasa.

Everything except the shrimp

Cook that until it is good and done. I usually remove the sausage and vegetables before adding the final, most important ingredient – shrimp. (If you are feeling elaborate, you can also add some crab legs. That gets away from the traditional “low country” part of the recipe, however. The only Kind Crabs or Snow Crabe you will find in this part of the country are in the frozen food section of Publix. We stuck with the traditional recipe this time.)  It is amazing how quickly the shrimp cooks. It usually turns pink and plump in about a minute or so.

You take the whole mess and dump it onto a newspaper-covered table or large platter. This arrangement is much neater than a typical presentation, courtesy of Mrs. Poolman.

The end product

Throw in some garlic bread and maybe some cole slaw and you have an excellent party-meal.

Back to work tomorrow. Later this week, we will be the overnight hosts for several homeless families who will be staying at our church this week. We’ve never done anything like that before, so it should be interesting.