The Evans-Miller-McDermott Family’s Homemade Christmas

“That is very nice. It doesn’t even look homemade”, My 92-year-old grandma proclaimed looking at the necklace my sister had welded for my step-mom. I particularly enjoy our family tradition of making gifts. I have always thought a homemade gift is much more meaningful than something bought from the store. This year like years past my family members hurried and stressed over getting these gifts finished before my step-brother left with his dad for Christmas. We all again decided that the stress was well worth it. Each of my family members approaches spirituality in a different way. Some do not consider themselves particularly religious but still spiritual. On this day we can all find common ground in the fact that we have an excuse/reason to get together, enjoy each others company, creativity and humor.

The products (soon to be followed by pictures when I get my film developed):

Elena- Made Kim a lovely welded necklace

Kim- Made Lani the santa sweater and magnets with the family members faces on them

Mara- Made Connor a lovely leather bracelet

Connor- Made Mara an Earring holder

Thom- Made me a lunch box for school complete with pictures of me in third grade.

I made Dad a series of painted black and white photographs.

Home is where -> I can find people who think like me.

“Home is where the heart is”, that is a saying that I see a lot on cute little painted signs. When I first called my dorm room home my parents argued with me and looked a little hurt. They had spent a lot of time and effort making our blended families house into a home. I explained to them that I consider home to be the place where I sleep. That being said I can only find people who think like me in this “home” that my dad and kim have created.

Here is a glimpse of my favorite people in the world, my family.  Actually I’m going to call this story… Conversations from home-

Monday:

(we pick names for christmas to make gifts. These names are supposed to be secret and not disclosed until christmas eve)

Kim- “I have Elena’s name for Christmas. So I googled ‘homemade gifts for hippies”

Elena- ” oh thats where you found the idea”

Kim- ” yes I knew that you liked to dress up as a pirate right?”

Elena- “right.”

Kim- ” go get the gift to show Jenna.”

Elena returns with a red hooded sweater that has white trimming sewed around it to make it look like a santa outfit. She later took that outfit and the dog out to the front lawn to try to have the dog pull her on skies. The choke collar was on.

Tuesday– Mara returns home late. We are sitting around the fire drinking wine when the topic of Connor smoking comes up.

Dad- ” Well you know at first we’d find the cigarettes and i’d just leave little notes like. ‘oh connor my (relative’s name) used to smoke and she could run for atleast a 1.5 mins on a treadmill… you could talk to her about it. oh wait she’s dead’. But we stopped doing that”

Kim- “Yeah I just put them on his counter now.”

at this point someone comes up with the idea to go into Connor’s room, where he is sleeping and each smoke a cigarette. This seems logical.

We each light a cigarette and enter connors room.

Connor- “ew that stinks what are you guys doing”

we were proving a point. Connor’s room now smelled like what smokers do.

*Disclaimer: half of the family memebers regret participating in this activty. I am not one of them.

Sleepless in St. Louis

“We got big problems, Ms. Evans. Can I please speak to you privately in the back of the room.”  Tommy announced with a serious look on his face.

This however, is not how my day started off. My day started off quietly with kids sitting down and working on their Do-Nows. No pre-school brawls and only one child kicked off the bus. Although my management has improved I blame today’s success on the fact that I only had 23  children present (opposed to the normal 29). It was now 11:00 when Tommy made his announcement. By this time Seth had refused to take his test, cussed me out and we had spoken to his mother who suggested I write him up. Da’jah had rolled her eyes, talked back and written me two apologies. I had taken a switch blade knife away from a child and contacted his surprisingly unsurprised mother. To his credit the knife only measured 2″ inches not the 2.5″ that the state considers a worse offense. I used the rulers that my church in Wisconsin had donated me in the back to figure this out. I wondered to myself if the person who donated the ruler ever imagined it would be used to measure a switch blade. “We got big problems, Ms. Evans.” I knew we had some problems but was curious  what this particular child classified as big. Tommy has very polar emotions and behaviors.  He is the same child who worries about my stress level yet continues to flick children off and interrupt class. He can be a highly compassionate, considerate individual, or a disruptive, provocative peer; what was Tommy seeing that I had not. My curiosity lead me to drop what I was doing and head to the back of the room.

“What’s the problem dear?”

“It’s not that simple. Can you take a seat?” I gave him a look. ” Ok so here’s the deal. My mom works two jobs and people are always asking her to do things. She’s really busy you know? Like when I act up and she has to come up here that is really frustrating to her. so….” I stopped him there. I couldn’t tell where this was going and the class was beginning to take on a life of their own.  I collected the class and Tommy and I agreed to regroup at lunch.

Sitting face to face with a nine-year old I realized he was truly concerned about his mother. “What can I do?” I asked him. Tommy wanted to be confident that I could solve his problem. He asked me a series of questions before he decided to hand over the meat of the situation. There WAS a  big problem and the problem was that his mother needed a man. Could I help ?  He needed a father to lay down the law, he quoted. He thought it was important that we find this man rather quickly. Possibly before Christmas. I smiled imagining Tommy in the more offbeat sequel of  Sleepless in Seattle.

At age 24 I realized I now knew 29 (little) people who believed I could solve any problem if they caught me in the right mood and asked politely. While I, myself am being forced to believe that I’m an adult.

Blue Worm Disease and Finding Empathy

Today started off  like any other Monday. In preparation for not being ready to wake up I set my alarm an extra half hour early. I do this so I can get the gratification of being able to press snooze. In all reality I end up sleeping in eight minute increments for a half hour.

I arrived at school early and begun to cover all the things on my classroom walls in preparation for a fake state test.  I walked out into the rain with my pants rolled up and welcomed the children. Their singing was quieted by teachers too tired for this young energy. “I’m just trying to have a little fun on a rainy Monday,” one Junior Academy student yelled back at a teacher. We’re all just trying to a have a little fun, sanity is fun.

There is a good time and bad time to get sick in the eyes of a child. A good time is when someone is able to come and pick you up from school. A bad time is when that same someone with a car is at work. For most kids 7 am seems to be a good time. As I pick them up from the breakfast room I notice kids inspecting themselves looking for some kind of rash that would allow them a trip to the nurses office possibly resulting in a call home.  Today James found a sure way out. He quickly raised his hand while the girls were in the bathroom and explained to me that he had some kind of blue worm growth going down his wrist. I smiled and explained to him that it was just a vein bringing blood to his hands and then back to his heart. The whole line was mystified. Everyone began to inspect their hands. Most people could not see their veins and were becoming more and more grossed out by those who could. I was losing control of this line. People were searching through different body organs through their skin and I became the perfect specimen to stare and look to see for bones and muscles. The chatter continued about different teachers that had big veins in their hands. This new “vein” idea was a sigh of relief because they had figured that the teachers with large veins in their hands had a disease that James had some how caught. At least now that is what “they thought they probably would have started to think” I recollected my line with several five second count downs and rhythmic claps. We returned to prepare for this “test”.

Finding Empathy Again…

I am very seldom effected by a crying child these days. I see at least four to five children cry a day in my classrooms. Some days I will ask them to stop while I am speaking. They do.  This sounds heartless, and I will not try to justify how cold I have become in the last four months. Today was different. We were half way done with the reading portion of the test and DaWayne stopped at question four and put his head down. The proctor (every fake test needs a fake proctor) encouraged me to go over and request that he keep working. I walked over to DaWayne and asked him what the problem was. ” I have no brain in this little head of mine. I can’t read,” he said his little angry eyes tearing up. This I knew was not true DaWayne could read, but not at a third, second, or even first grade level.  I helped him sound out the question. This mattered very little seeing that he had not been able to read the passage that went a long with the section. The procter threatened to call administration if this child continued to refuse to work. He was absolutely not refusing, he just didn’t know where to go next.  I knelt down next to him joining him in his frustration. All the threats in the world would not help this child read. He was frustrated, really frustrated. So was I, how had this gone unnoticed for so many years. How many people passed this very child decided he did not matter, that he was unteachable. I asked him to circle all the words he knew. The proctor gently reminded me that he could not write on this fake test. DaWayne didn’t need a fake test, he needed a hug, some more sight words, some confidence and a little bit of support. The same empathy and anger that had thrust me into this educational  movement was restored when I saw the dignity slip out of Dwaynes face as he realized he had only read the test in the time it took others to finish all the questions.

Lining up for lunch DaWayne punched a boy in the chest saying he wanted to get kicked out of school.

My new “Er”.

The first thing Alvin asked me to spell was “er”. I smiled at his strong St. Louis accent and asked him again what he was looking to spell. ” ‘er’, Ms. Evans! Like ‘er-body likes recess'”. Ahhh he was wanting me to spell out every. This ‘er’ sound can replace the sound for “ar”, “air”, “every” and many other things that I must decode daily.  So when Alvin later told me  “that he could ‘er’ Ty’quan making fun of his ‘er’ because he has big ‘ers’.” I knew exactly what we were talking about.

On Friday a girl in the hallway complimented me on my new er. I knew exactly what she was saying but was slightly surprised when another student asked when I got a new weave. Before I could answer someone quickly informed that student that I was not black. If you know me you know that by december I will be transparent (unless I can find a tanning bed in this town) and my beautiful blue veins will shine through my transparent skin. It is November and I’m well on my way to this yearly stage in my life. Anyway these children unknowingly have developed a very open concept of the word black. They have now gone three years to a school with all African-American children, BUT one child is also albino. So they have an open understanding that you can have white skin and still be “black”.

Not Lost Just Wondering

The other day I received a letter from my dad (whom I consider my biggest supporter in life). The front of the card read, “You’re not lost” and inside ” You’re just wandering”. I pondered what the card meant and why he decided to send this to me. This was the first time that I had realized how lost I was, and at this moment how comfortable I have become with being lost. I’ve been wandering around for many years with the support of my family.
So this leaves me where I have wandered today. The south side of St. Louis living in an apartment that frequently has cold water, a broken garbage disposal and a roof that leaks into my bedroom. My landlord Steve and I have become quite good acquaintances. I love characters and he fits into that category. Look forward to a blog entry titled “Steve”. What am I doing in St. Louis? Being naturally impulsive and refusing to look into things more than required. I signed up for Teach For America and picked St. Louis as my number 1 city. I thought perfect after TFA I can go to Wash U for social work and get an instate tuition. I can not tell you how much my heart dropped when my dear friend Kevin pointed out to me that Wash U is a private school. So I am here, teaching 30 third graders on the north side of town.
I wake up every day at 5 am and drive to school with a co-worker of mine. I get in my classroom and set everything up. My favorite part of the day is going to the buses and greeting all the students. The amount of excitement that each child comes with for school everyday amazes me. My favorite is when my Galisa’s face when my family came to visit. You would have thought that she was meeting the president. It took me a good month to figure out why people teach for so many years, but I get it oh too well now!

You can find me in st. louuu-a

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