First off, can I just say how wonderful it is to finally have a kid who addresses me as "Mama"? Brady has known the syllables for awhile and babbled "Mama" and "Dada" plenty, but just over the past few days he has started actively connecting them to Paul and me. His new favorite game is running between us, yelling our names. He'll come at me saying "Mamamamama!", give me a hug, and then run back at Paul yelling "Dadadadadadada!" Trust me-- it's adorable.
Anyway, back to the vacation recap.
When we last checked in with the Traveling Crazy Show, we were wrapping up a wonderful Sunday afternoon in Long Beach. Monday morning found us back at my dad's house in Pasadena, where Brady set about his week-long task of emptying all the cabinets.
Monday afternoon was spent with Paul's parents. Since their new house is undergoing some pretty major renovation, we had to get out so that Brady wouldn't impale himself on anything. After extensive negotiation (ahem) between Paul and his mother in the car about the location of the nearest park, we found a fun place to play.
A good time was had by all.
After the park we hit the pool, then put Brady down for a long nap in the bedroom that isn't under construction. That gave us a solid 2 hours to sit on the patio with Paul's parents and drink wine, which was a nice way to wrap up the day.
By Tuesday, my looming graduation speech had my stomach doing flip-flops (why, oh why do I put so much pressure on myself??) and I needed a distraction. A trip to Kidspace with my friend Erin and her kids was just the ticket. We played with Jack and Paige, and Brady once again got soaking wet. (We also had lunch right next to a very pregnant Rachel Griffiths from Brothers and Sisters. LA is cool.)
By the time Tuesday evening rolled around, I was actually feeling a lot better about my prospects of getting through the graduation speech without throwing up, passing out, and ending up on YouTube.
I don't think I had anticipated just how many of my old teachers would be there, and it turned out being a lot of fun hanging out and chatting. No matter how many times they tell me to though, I still just can't bring myself to use their first names. How old do I have to get before they're just Marc, Eric, Patrick, and Marilyn? Will they ever be?
Here's Brady, giving my high school drama teacher the stink eye.
By the time I gave the actual speech, I had finally realized how silly I was being about the whole thing. In the end, it was not about me giving the speech-- it was about what I could offer the students. I fully realize that 98 percent of them probably weren't listening and were just silently hating me for making it take longer to get the the whole walking-across-the-stage thing (in my own defense, I did keep my speech to about 7 minutes, which I think is pretty good), but I really focused on the one or two students who I might be able to reach. Hopefully they were listening.
After my speech, it suddenly hit me that I had to wait there on stage for the entire graduation. 380-some kids, called one by one, walking across the stage to the cheers of their families and friends. It took about an hour and 20 minutes, so I used the time (when I wasn't texting my friend Kim who had come to watch the speech and was hanging out in the grandstand with our middle school science teacher) to really watch the graduates. It's kind of amazing to think about all the different directions their lives will take them. Some will succeed, others will fail. Some will have kids, others won't. Some will figure out quickly what they want to do with their lives, others will spend years searching, and some will never know. Any given student in that group might cure cancer, write the great American novel, or wind up in jail. So many possibilities.
There was one student, though, who I couldn't get out of my head. He was a heavyset boy who clearly had mental disabilities, and he walked across the stage with a girl who made sure he was headed in the right direction. What got me, though, was that he was so excited. As soon as his name was called, he started pumping his fists in the air and grinning from ear to ear. I thought about his mother, who probably never thought she'd get to see her son succeed and graduate. That got me a little teary, so I shifted my attention back to the annoying air horn guy (there always has to be one, right?) so that I wouldn't cry on stage.
I can't tell you how glad I am that I faced that particular fear and gave that speech. Later that night, Paul, Kim, our middle school science teacher (no joke!), and I went and had martinis to celebrate. A great day.
I'm not sure you will ever feel comfortable calling your teachers by their first names. I just celebrated my 25th class reunion, and my teachers are still Mr. and Mrs. to me!
Posted by: Robin | June 24, 2009 at 09:02 PM