High School Car Line...Let's Go

     Let me begin by saying it has been many years since I found myself in a school car line.  Now  unexpectedly, here I am on round two with my granddaughter.  That's right.  I'm back, but I'm coming with experience.

     I was naive the first time, but I'm a fast learner.  This car line business is no joke.  There are unspoken rules and such, but before we talk about that I have to mention a few dress code changes that have occurred  since the last time I was here..

     Dress code changes you ask?  Yes.  There seems to be only one rule these days as far as dress code goes and it's simply do not attend school in your birthday suit or anything close to it.  My observations on the new standard of dress these days are as follows:

1) Don't feel like brushing your hair?  No problem.  Messy bun looking like you slept in it?  Great
     choice.
2)  Not really wanting to get dressed today?  Again, no problem. Go ahead and just rock those pajama pants you slept in last night.  Yes Lord you are so cute!

3)  By all means, wear your flip flops or the most comfortable shoes you can find.

4)  Hungry this morning?  Come on in with your sunglasses on your head and your Bojangles biscuit sack.  I mean a person has to eat.

5)  There are two accessories that are a must.  Your iPhone, and your Starbucks cup of coffee.

Now I have to say that not all of the student population adheres to this new dress code.  There are those girls, like my granddaughter, that actually choose to get dressed in daytime apparel, curl their hair,  and apply a little makeup each day, as well as some boys that wear jeans and t-shirts, but  the Starbucks, iPhone rule of accessories still applies to these overachievers.

Okay, moving on...

There are several types of parents in the car line.  Usually women but a few men.  Lets address the men first, because they come in one type. Getting it done.  That's it.  Their biggest hurdle is learning the ropes on the way the line moves. When they've got that down pat, it's pull up, child gets out without any other confusion including conversation.  The door just opens, child gets out, Dad pulls away.

Now the moms.  Moms come in several types:
1)  The no nonsense mom:  She is much like a Dad, pulls up, child gets out, off she goes. This is the same mom who doesn't care how far back in the car line she is when the release bell rings.  A few of these moms even have their child climbing up a hill that is as steep as Mt. Everest without a rope at the end of the day, so that they can avoid driving down into the parking lot and getting in all of that mayhem.  Underachievers.

2)  The yoga pants mom:  She has on full make-up with the exercise gear.  She is always smiling, perky, and has a Starbucks cup of her own.  I was an actual eyewitness to one of these moms getting out of her SUV and washing the windows around the entire vehicle while waiting in the afternoon car line.  Now I am here to tell you, she is either a constant multi-tasker, the look at me type, she has major OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), or she needs to steer clear of the Red Bull cooler.  

3)  The Helicopter mom:  Her babies are her life.  She is the one who pulls right up to the front door    of the school to prevent her baby from having to walk two or three extra feet. She hovers over him/her while they are trying to get out of the car.  The seat belt unfastening takes so long others  begin to wonder if it's a car seat or a booster seat situation by chance.  She then has to ask him/her if they have lunch money?  a snack?  Do they need money for anything else that day?  She clings to her baby like a rain soaked cotton dress. When she finally allows her child to exit the vehicle you check your watch to see if it's 3:15.  No need to go home if you are going to have to turn around and come right back.  This woman is the one who will be first in line this afternoon. Bank on it.

4)  The Mimi (me): Was the helicopter mom in days gone by, but now is a bit more relaxed. Allows her granddaughter to pick the departure time, which is something like 7:54 or some odd time. Leaves wearing pajama pants and a sweatshirt, holding a coffee mug with her face being a make up free zone.  Big sunglasses, messy bun, and some lip balm and she's ready to roll  out.  She understands that if you pull up right in front of the door for your baby to get out, he/she would be socially ruined and have to move and change their name.  The only question she has before the drop off is what my granddaughter refers to as "The question of the morning", Do you have lunch money?  Her last statement is always "Have a great day and I love you.".

I am still guilty of leaving my house an hour before the afternoon release bell rings so that I can be at the head of the line.  I can't let go of all my helicopter mom traits and I know my baby is tired..  I have to ask about the lunch money or I'd go nuts worrying about it all day and I will say I love you as she gets out every time without fail.  There is one more thing that I do that she knows nothing about.  I pray a hedge of protection around her and that school each and every morning, because the world we live in now is the real difference.

Just a side note for all of you car liners out there...it's a blessing to have that little bit of one on one time with your babies...enjoy it..talk to them about their day....time flies.  I promise you it does.
   

My Scars, My Pain, My God...

When we were about sixteen months old, my twin sister and I had really bad colds.  My Daddy sat a hot water vaporizer on a chair by the bed we were taking a nap on.  I was restless I suppose, and I rolled of the bed and hit the cord on the vaporizer spilling the hot water on myself.  I suffered 3rd degree burns on a great deal of my body.  My gown was actually going into my skin the burns were so deep and the water was so hot. I also suffered burns on my face.

  I was taken to Georgia baptist hospital, where I had some surgeries and my parents were told that they weren't sure I would survive.  I remained there for 3 months.  I had skin grafts done to repair some of the damage to the right side of my chest.  The skin was taken from the inside of my thighs and used to help with healing.   I used a wheelchair for getting around, when I was finally allowed out of  my hospital  room.

The road was long, but I had wonderful Christian parents to take care of me and many prayer warriors in my family, and  so it was God's will that I survived.

What remained were scars on the top of my left arm and forearm and the entire underside of my right arm. There were also scars on the right side of my chest as well as the ones from my skin grafts on my inner thighs.  There were scars on my face, but God was great to me again and the scaring there was very faint.

As time passed, and I healed completely I didn't think of my scars very often.  I played outside with family and no one at church or in our family ever mentioned them to me. That all changed one day when they were brought to my attention in a cruel way.

  I was four years old and it was my first day of Kindergarten.  My twin sister and I had just gotten to school, and in no time a little boy saw my arms and began making fun of me.  I was beyond devastated.  I had never experienced anything like that, nor had I even entertained the thought of it  happening.

I didn't tell the teacher or anyone.  I just slipped off quietly, cried, and hid behind a big wooden easel that was in the area where we were to paint.  I stayed hidden there all day long.  My sister came and talked to me a few times when she could, but otherwise I was alone.  I felt so ashamed.  That little boy had changed my view of myself in that moment and there was nothing that could undo the damage he had done to my four year old self.  He had also stolen my joy, and the carefree feeling that comes with being so little.  I didn't understand at that time that I was a child of God,and that the scars didn't matter.  I just thought that I had scars and they made me ugly and different.

The bullying continued... for example in second grade I was standing in line, in the lunchroom, and a little boy in my class (I can still remember his name) began to call me "bacon arms".  I wanted the floor to swallow me up.  When he became tired of it, he finished it up with "No one is ever going to marry you."  I went home and cried and cried because in my heart I felt that he was right.

Third grade came and with it, no difference.  A boy in my class that year began rubbing his ink pen back and forth on his desk top very fast to heat it up, and then sticking the pen to the scar on my left arm until it began to bleed.  I said nothing.  My sister noticed what he had done, punched him in the nose, and then he was the one bleeding.  We all wound up in the office. Out of all of that, all I felt was humiliation and guilt.  Guilt that it was all my fault for having the scars in the first place.  I felt so bad that my sister was in trouble (Not at home), and the fact that everyone knew what he'd been doing to me was the humiliating factor.  In my mind it just brought way to much attention to my scars.

High school came and I was dating age.   I had a crush on what I considered the cutest guy ever to walk the face of the Earth.  This was perfectly normal for my age, and all of my friends were talking to me about their crushes, but I never said a word.  I knew no one would ever want to go out with me least of all the guy I had the crush on, so I just listened to them and kept my secret.

God was good to me and that very boy asked me out and we dated for quite awhile.  I was in Heaven and couldn't believe he wanted to be with me of all people.  I knew so many other girls that wanted to go out with him.  He eventually broke up with me and I was heart broken, but thankful that God had given me that one season of happiness.

Against that second grade boys prediction, three years after my first boyfriend and I broke up  I married a very handsome man and had 2 beautiful children.

All through the years I wore long sleeves as often as I could to avoid as many questions and comments about my arms as possible.  I began a job as a substitute teacher when my son (my baby) was of school age, so as not to miss time with him.  I broke out the cardigan sweaters to cover my arms and I began subbing at the elementary school he attended.  It worked perfectly as far as being home when my children were home.

 A permanent position came open after I had been working there for about 2 years.  I applied and did not get the job.  I was heart broken because the administration had been so good to me.  They even let me choose, each day, which classroom I wanted out of the ones that were available for that day.

I left there really upset and drove right to the High school and gave them my card and my employee number.  They called me the next morning and so it began. I was placed in a special education classroom and I loved it!  The students were all so wonderful and so positive.  They were a blessing in my life.  A permanent position came open there in the Special Education Department and two of the administrators came to the classroom where I was working and offered me the job.

I accepted their offer.  A few years went by, and one day one of my students came up to me while we were in the gym and he was crying.  He said that he was being made fun of, and that he knew he was different and never going to have a girlfriend or anything like that.  It broke my heart.  I asked another teacher to watch my students and I went back to our classroom with him.  I talked to him about how wrong he was and how wonderful he was.

The fact that he was saying the same thing about himself that my classmate in 2nd grade had said about me really resonated with me.  The rest of the class came back from the gym and as they were being seated it dawned on me.  God had brought me here to this room to these children because he was turning my storm into something good.  I knew in that moment what I had to do.

I asked them all to listen to me, and I said that I had to talk to them about something very important.  At that point I said "I'm going to share something with all of you that I have tried my best to hide for at least 30 years.  I removed my cardigan sweater standing right in front of the class and I showed them my scars.  I said I was burned really badly as a small child and I am telling you all this so that when you come to me and tell me that you are not feeling good about yourself for one reason or another and I tell you that I totally understand you will know that I mean what I say.

I told them about my being bullied and picked on and made fun of during my school years and about people coming up to me and saying things like "Oh my God what happened to your arms?".  I told them that they were all beautifully and wonderfully made, and that they were blessings to me and to so many others because we were able to watch them shine and embrace life.  I also told them that people who pick on other people are hurting and in return hurt others.  Most of all I tried to express that they should love themselves as they are, and not waste years, like I had done, living in the shadow of myself.

They were listening so intently.  I apologized for trying to hide my scars, and I told them that unless it was actually so cold in the room that I couldn't stand it, I wouldn't be covering up my arms anymore.  I felt so free.  It was wonderful.  For the first time in my life I didn't care what anyone said.

You see, I knew in that very moment, that God had turned my storm into something good.  The reason I didn't get the job at the elementary school had nothing at all to do with man.  It was simply not the plan that God had for my life.  God knew that I belonged at that high school with those special need students.  He knew that I would not only love and care for them like they were my own, but I would understand their pain, protect them, and show them that they are going to be okay because they are perfect in their own right.

I thank you God for the blessing of working with these children for so many years.   I praise you for knowing where I belonged, and for the healing that placing me there gave me.  Those students enriched my life in so many ways.  Far to many to list.  I just pray that having me in their lives touched them in a way they will always remember.

God is amazing.....Trust me, I know...

Romans 8:28 King James Version (KJV)

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Burglary/Birthday Suit Debacle

     Let me begin by saying that as a teenager I loved to lay out in the sun during Spring and Summer. By in the sun I mean, full sun, partial sun, whatever was was overhead that day, count me and my lounge chair in.  The result at the beginning of the season each year would be a slight sunburn.

 One night, having such a burn, I decided the most comfortable sleepwear would be my birthday suit.  My twin sister and little sister, being much more modest than I was, thought I had lost my mind. Since they didn't share my bed, I didn't let their opinions stop me.  I took it right on down to my birthday suit and I was asleep in no time.   

When I woke up the next morning I declared to my twin sister how great I had slept and proceeded to try and convince her to join me.  Like I said she was very modest but after much insistence from me, and a small meltdown, she decided she'd give it a try.  The next morning when we woke up, I looked over at her in her bed and I said "Well?"  She said she had also found it very comfortable.  I said, "You're welcome.", and so began our summer of what I just knew was going to be blissful sleep....

Fast forward a few weeks to the night when I realized that my ideas at the age of 16 weren't always the brightest ones...One of Satan's foot soldiers had come to steal my bliss.

I was asleep,  in nothing but the birthday suit, when I suddenly heard my twin sister say "Arlene." She was low talking.  It was almost a whisper.  She said it again, followed by some very alarming words.

"Arlene, Do not scream and do not turn on the light. Someone is breaking in the window.  I can see his shadow."  I looked at the window and Dear God she wasn't lying.  My heart began to hammer and all I could think was I have got to get to my Daddy.   I grabbed my sheet while simultaneously rolling of the bed and wrapping myself  in said sheet as I went.   I arrived on the floor wearing a pink toga.   The next step was to hit my elbows and knees and start crawling...

I made it across the hall to Mom and Dad's bedroom looking like a foot  soldier under attack.  So there I was in my sheet, my curly hair going crazy trying to get my Daddy's attention without scaring off the man in the window. "Daddy, Daddy."  I repeated.....he jumped up and looked around, but he couldn't find me.

I said a bit louder..."Daddy I'm down here and someone is coming in our window!"  He jumped up off the bed and came around to his closet to get his gun and that's when he saw me.  He gave me an I'll revisit this bunch of crazy after I handle whatever's going on outside look.  He got the gun and went outside while my Mom called the police.

When the police had come and gone, and the man had gotten away, my Daddy came back inside.  I was standing in the kitchen, still wearing my toga and making a cup of coffee.  I braced myself for a lecture that never came.

My Daddy just looked at me, wearing his serious face, and he said "Sugar, that's why you need to sleep with some clothes on.  Daddy loves you.  Go and get some sleep."  

I had never loved him more.  He had saved me and been sweet about my crazy even though he didn't understand it.  I ditched the coffee Idea and headed back to my room.  I put a gown on and got in bed, and with my Daddy's protection the sleep I got was much better than a birthday suit could ever provide.

I love you Daddy....Always my Hero