Cherishing the Small Moments

When Sabrina was four months old, she had a well-visit that could only be scheduled during my working hours. I had returned to work at the Merchant & Gould, the patent and trademark law office where I worked as a Patent Specialist. The primary purpose of said job (as opposed to being a graduate student) was to help support my husband's pursuit of a law degree. I had returned to work two weeks early, after only ten weeks, because my boss called in a panic -- desperate to have me return to take over my files. After ten weeks "off" I thought I was ready to go back to work. I missed being productive and collaborating and socializing with my friends at work. My sweet and devoted mother, who -- with the wisdom which you can only gain from experience -- knew that my heart would break leaving my daughter at a daycare and became my primary caregiver for Sabrina - with the loving help from my in-laws, who cared for her once a week as well.

Not only did she take care of my precious baby, but each morning she appeared at my doorstep at seven in the morning and collected not only my child and my dirty laundry as well. I would appear on her doorstep nearly eleven hours later to pick up my sweet girl and the neatly folded laundry as well. On the first day of returning to work, I realized within the first two hours of work that I wasn't ready to go back to work, that I didn't miss my job, and that my colleagues were fine without me.

Unfortunately, as the primary breadwinner,  I had to work, we had bills to pay, and my husband had a year and a half more years of law school left. So, I did what so many other mothers do every day, I packed up my baby and all her accouterments and went to work. Each evening when my child was home, I cherished her. My mom would let her nap right before I arrived to pick her up so that she would be awake for me. My mom would avoid feeding her so that when I came to pick her up, I could nurse her, or as she grew older, feed her dinner. My mother knew, she remembered how quickly those days would pass. She supported me in my job because she knew I had no choice, but with her wisdom, she knew that being apart from my precious girl was tremendously difficult.

Sabrina and her childhood best friend, Sarah.

Back to that four-month well visit - I didn't even take the entire day because after maternity leave I had to save precious sick hours. I took the half-day off, it was a bright, sunny April day, and in the miracle of a mother's luck, it was a beautiful day. By early afternoon we were done with our doctor's visit and headed to Lake Calhoun to enjoy every extra moment of our stolen day together. We parked the car and I threw a blanket on the still-brown grass, and we laid in the sun together. I gazed at her, marveling at her amazing perfection, we played games, I tickled her and treasured every moment because I knew even then that these days were fleeting and would not last forever. That day is engraved in my memory as one of the most precious days of my life, a day when Sabrina and I connected on a level that only a mother and a child can. I always said that having a daughter was like having an extension of your body, and that day was a day in which that was the case, we didn't need words, we didn't need anyone else, together the two of us were in our little universe.

Today,  I said goodbye to my sweet baby girl, that same sweet extension of my body, at college. As most of my friends drop their children off twenty minutes, two hours, or even ten hours away, my daughter chose a college on the opposite coast from our home. As she makes a new home for herself in California, at Scripps College, I will have to rearrange my home and my heart to accommodate the hole that her absence leaves in our home and our lives,

Sabrina left the house in June, pursuing her dreams for the summer and working at a camp. Since then, I have begun a new career, and although I missed her, I was so busy with my new job and traveling that I was able to hide the fact that she is no longer a child in my home. This week, I met her in California to help her move into the next stage of her life, her first step away from childhood and into her adulthood. I arrived on Monday, and it was almost a strange reunion --  it took a few hours to come back to the place where she felt like an extension of myself. By that evening, we had toured her campus together, eaten a picnic dinner, and settled into our hotel room together. With her typical explosion of clothing and belongings, I was reminded of the fact that once upon a time, we did everything together. You see, after two years of working full-time, I became a full-time mother. My sweet Sabrina, Willem, Theo and I, we faced the world, a new home, and a new life together. In the years since that four-month well visit, we experienced a four-month bed-rest with Willem; we faced her diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome at four; we faced Theo's [false] diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease, a four-month bed rest with two surgeries, and we faced a move to Virginia. We weathered a separation and divorce from her father; we found Randy, her stepfather, and I watched her develop a loving and trusting relationship with him.


As the years progressed, my sweet girl became more complicated. Sabrina faced the challenges that so many adolescents face. She felt excluded and bullied. Her height made her feel separated from her friends, as did her exclusion from sports. She buried herself in her art -- and as a result, she became a recognized artist in our community, and her artwork sold, won and influenced others. Finally, she discovered swimming, and soon after that, weight loss. Which eventually this became an obsession, and eventually anorexia. Those anorexic days were the hardest we faced together: anger, frustration, hunger, pain, re-feeding, depression, anxiety - for all of us. We held each other, we cried, we struggled, we triumphed. That girl, she's strong as hell. She fought for her life, and she survived. I am proud to say, in the end she is stronger, both physically, and in her faith.

New York City - Sweet Sixteen

All these experiences and challenges brought us together. We encountered problems, and we overcame them together. Sabrina has been my child, my rock, my other me, and now she is becoming her own woman, with her very own and separate set of dreams and challenges, apart from mine.

What does it mean to raise a strong woman? It means giving her the strength and confidence to leave your side, to live her own life, to follow her own dreams, and to make her own path. When Sabrina and her step-mom first told me about Scripps, I hated the idea. Can you blame me? She had just struggled through the most dangerous affliction that girls in our society face. She had overcome it, but let's be real, no eating disorder is ever actually overcome. Why would I send my child across the continent? Why wouldn't I put her in a school nice and close, where I could helicopter over her weekly, if not daily?

Raising a strong woman means letting her follow her own dreams, and making her own path. I knew I didn't want her to move away. But when I had wanted to go to Virginia, I did, when I wanted children, I had them, when I wanted to change careers, I did. Raising a strong woman means letting her go. So, Scripps it is.

During the last four days, I have come to see that my trust in Sabrina - and frankly her step-mother Valerie, was right. She is home. She has found her tribe. When I saw her walk through the campus, when she met her classmates, as I watched her purchase all her dorm room bedding and decorations, and she selected her school books and materials, I saw that she was happy, that this place empowered her. Raising a strong woman means letting go, trusting in them to make choices about their lives, and supporting them through their own challenges, failures, and successes.

Sabrina, as I hugged you, and as you walked away from me tonight, I felt closer to you than I ever have. I envy you your future, the power you have over who you will become and I will always support and love you.  I will treat our time together just as I did when I worked and our time was limited. I will cherish every moment we have together.

Cherishing Small Moments

When Sabrina was four months old, she had a well-visit that could only be scheduled during my working hours. I had returned to work at the Merchant & Gould, the patent and trademark law office where I worked as a Patent Specialist. The primary purpose of said job (as opposed to being a graduate student) was to help support my husband's pursuit of a law degree. I had returned to work two weeks early, after only ten weeks, because my boss called in a panic -- desperate to have me return to take over my files. After ten weeks "off" I thought I was ready to go back to work. I missed being productive and collaborating and socializing with my friends at work. My sweet and devoted mother, who -- with the wisdom which you can only gain from experience -- knew that my heart would break leaving my daughter at a daycare and became my primary caregiver for Sabrina - with the loving help from my in-laws, who cared for her once a week as well.

Not only did she take care of my precious baby, but each morning she appeared at my doorstep at seven in the morning and collected not only my child and my dirty laundry as well. I would appear on her doorstep nearly eleven hours later to pick up my sweet girl and the neatly folded laundry as well. On the first day of returning to work, I realized within the first two hours of work that I wasn't ready to go back to work, that I didn't miss my job, and that my colleagues were fine without me.

Unfortunately, as the primary breadwinner,  I had to work, we had bills to pay, and my husband had a year and a half more years of law school left. So, I did what so many other mothers do every day, I packed up my baby and all her accouterments and went to work. Each evening when my child was home, I cherished her. My mom would let her nap right before I arrived to pick her up so that she would be awake for me. My mom would avoid feeding her so that when I came to pick her up, I could nurse her, or as she grew older, feed her dinner. My mother knew, she remembered how quickly those days would pass. She supported me in my job because she knew I had no choice, but with her wisdom, she knew that being apart from my precious girl was tremendously difficult.

Sabrina and her childhood best friend, Sarah.

Back to that four-month well visit - I didn't even take the entire day because after maternity leave I had to save precious sick hours. I took the half-day off, it was a bright, sunny April day, and in the miracle of a mother's luck, it was a beautiful day. By early afternoon we were done with our doctor's visit and headed to Lake Calhoun to enjoy every extra moment of our stolen day together. We parked the car and I threw a blanket on the still-brown grass, and we laid in the sun together. I gazed at her, marveling at her amazing perfection, we played games, I tickled her and treasured every moment because I knew even then that these days were fleeting and would not last forever. That day is engraved in my memory as one of the most precious days of my life, a day when Sabrina and I connected on a level that only a mother and a child can. I always said that having a daughter was like having an extension of your body, and that day was a day in which that was the case, we didn't need words, we didn't need anyone else, together the two of us were in our little universe.

Today,  I said goodbye to my sweet baby girl, that same sweet extension of my body, at college. As most of my friends drop their children off twenty minutes, two hours, or even ten hours away, my daughter chose a college on the opposite coast from our home. As she makes a new home for herself in California, at Scripps College, I will have to rearrange my home and my heart to accommodate the hole that her absence leaves in our home and our lives,

Sabrina left the house in June, pursuing her dreams for the summer and working at a camp. Since then, I have begun a new career, and although I missed her, I was so busy with my new job and traveling that I was able to hide the fact that she is no longer a child in my home. This week, I met her in California to help her move into the next stage of her life, her first step away from childhood and into her adulthood. I arrived on Monday, and it was almost a strange reunion --  it took a few hours to come back to the place where she felt like an extension of myself. By that evening, we had toured her campus together, eaten a picnic dinner, and settled into our hotel room together. With her typical explosion of clothing and belongings, I was reminded of the fact that once upon a time, we did everything together. You see, after two years of working full-time, I became a full-time mother. My sweet Sabrina, Willem, Theo and I, we faced the world, a new home, and a new life together. In the years since that four-month well visit, we experienced a four-month bed-rest with Willem; we faced her diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome at four; we faced Theo's [false] diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease, a four-month bed rest with two surgeries, and we faced a move to Virginia. We weathered a separation and divorce from her father; we found Randy, her stepfather, and I watched her develop a loving and trusting relationship with him.


As the years progressed, my sweet girl became more complicated. Sabrina faced the challenges that so many adolescents face. She felt excluded and bullied. Her height made her feel separated from her friends, as did her exclusion from sports. She buried herself in her art -- and as a result, she became a recognized artist in our community, and her artwork sold, won and influenced others. Finally, she discovered swimming, and soon after that, weight loss. Which eventually this became an obsession, and eventually anorexia. Those anorexic days were the hardest we faced together: anger, frustration, hunger, pain, re-feeding, depression, anxiety - for all of us. We held each other, we cried, we struggled, we triumphed. That girl, she's strong as hell. She fought for her life, and she survived. I am proud to say, in the end she is stronger, both physically, and in her faith.

New York City - Sweet Sixteen

All these experiences and challenges brought us together. We encountered problems, and we overcame them together. Sabrina has been my child, my rock, my other me, and now she is becoming her own woman, with her very own and separate set of dreams and challenges, apart from mine.

What does it mean to raise a strong woman? It means giving her the strength and confidence to leave your side, to live her own life, to follow her own dreams, and to make her own path. When Sabrina and her step-mom first told me about Scripps, I hated the idea. Can you blame me? She had just struggled through the most dangerous affliction that girls in our society face. She had overcome it, but let's be real, no eating disorder is ever actually overcome. Why would I send my child across the continent? Why wouldn't I put her in a school nice and close, where I could helicopter over her weekly, if not daily?

Raising a strong woman means letting her follow her own dreams, and making her own path. I knew I didn't want her to move away. But when I had wanted to go to Virginia, I did, when I wanted children, I had them, when I wanted to change careers, I did. Raising a strong woman means letting her go. So, Scripps it is.

During the last four days, I have come to see that my trust in Sabrina - and frankly her step-mother Valerie, was right. She is home. She has found her tribe. When I saw her walk through the campus, when she met her classmates, as I watched her purchase all her dorm room bedding and decorations, and she selected her school books and materials, I saw that she was happy, that this place empowered her. Raising a strong woman means letting go, trusting in them to make choices about their lives, and supporting them through their own challenges, failures, and successes.

Sabrina, as I hugged you, and as you walked away from me tonight, I felt closer to you than I ever have. I envy you your future, the power you have over who you will become and I will always support and love you.  I will treat our time together just as I did when I worked and our time was limited. I will cherish every moment we have together.

Cherishing Small Moment

When Sabrina was four months old, she had a well-visit that could only be scheduled during my working hours. I had returned to work at the Merchant & Gould, the patent and trademark law office where I worked as a Patent Specialist. The primary purpose of said job (as opposed to being a graduate student) was to help support my husband's pursuit of a law degree. I had returned to work two weeks early, after only ten weeks, because my boss called in a panic -- desperate to have me return to take over my files. After ten weeks "off" I thought I was ready to go back to work. I missed being productive and collaborating and socializing with my friends at work. My sweet and devoted mother, who -- with the wisdom which you can only gain from experience -- knew that my heart would break leaving my daughter at a daycare and became my primary caregiver for Sabrina. My father-in-law and mother-in-law, Andrew and Barb also stepped in and helped watch her once a week - the best gift a grandparent can give is the gift of time and care.

Not only did my mom take care of my precious baby, but each morning she appeared at my doorstep at seven in the morning and collected not only my child and my dirty laundry as well. I would appear on her doorstep nearly eleven hours later to pick up my sweet girl and the neatly folded laundry as well. On the first day of returning to work, I realized within the first two hours of work that I wasn't ready to go back to work, that I didn't miss my job, and that my colleagues were fine without me.

Unfortunately, as the primary breadwinner,  I had to work, we had bills to pay, and my husband had a year and a half more years of law school left. So, I did what so many other mothers do every day, I packed up my baby and all her accouterments and went to work. Each evening when my child was home, I cherished her. My mom would let her nap right before I arrived to pick her up so that she would be awake for me. My mom would avoid feeding her so that when I came to pick her up, I could nurse her, or as she grew older, feed her dinner. My mother knew, she remembered how quickly those days would pass. She supported me in my job because she knew I had no choice, but with her wisdom, she knew that being apart from my precious girl was tremendously difficult.

Sabrina and her childhood best friend, Sarah.

Back to that four-month well visit - I didn't even take the entire day because after maternity leave I had to save precious sick hours. I took the half-day off, it was a bright, sunny April day, and in the miracle of a mother's luck, it was a beautiful day. By early afternoon we were done with our doctor's visit and headed to Lake Calhoun to enjoy every extra moment of our stolen day together. We parked the car and I threw a blanket on the still-brown grass, and we laid in the sun together. I gazed at her, marveling at her amazing perfection, we played games, I tickled her and treasured every moment because I knew even then that these days were fleeting and would not last forever. That day is engraved in my memory as one of the most precious days of my life, a day when Sabrina and I connected on a level that only a mother and a child can. I always said that having a daughter was like having an extension of your body, and that day was a day in which that was the case, we didn't need words, we didn't need anyone else, together the two of us were in our little universe.

Today,  I said goodbye to my sweet baby girl, that same sweet extension of my body, at college. As most of my friends drop their children off twenty minutes, two hours, or even ten hours away, my daughter chose a college on the opposite coast from our home. As she makes a new home for herself in California, at Scripps College, I will have to rearrange my home and my heart to accommodate the hole that her absence leaves in our home and our lives.

Sabrina left the house in June, pursuing her dreams for the summer and working at a camp. Since then, I have begun a new career, and although I missed her, I was so busy with my new job and traveling that I was able to hide the fact that she is no longer a child in my home. This week, I met her in California to help her move into the next stage of her life, her first step away from childhood and into her adulthood. I arrived on Monday, and it was almost a strange reunion --  it took a few hours to come back to the place where she felt like an extension of myself. By that evening, we had toured her campus together, eaten a picnic dinner, and settled into our hotel room together. With her typical explosion of clothing and belongings, I was reminded of the fact that once upon a time, we did everything together. You see, after two years of working full-time, I became a full-time mother. My sweet Sabrina, Willem, Theo and I, we faced the world, a new home, and a new life together. In the years since that four-month well visit, we experienced a four-month bed-rest with Willem; we faced her diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome at four; we faced Theo's [false] diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease, a four-month bed rest with two surgeries, and we faced a move to Virginia. We weathered a separation and divorce from her father; we found Randy, her stepfather, and I watched her develop a loving and trusting relationship with him.


As the years progressed, my sweet girl became more complicated. Sabrina faced the challenges that so many adolescents face. She felt excluded and bullied. Her height made her feel separated from her friends, as did her exclusion from sports. She buried herself in her art -- and as a result, she became a recognized artist in our community, and her artwork sold, won and influenced others. Finally, she discovered swimming, and soon after that, weight loss. Which eventually this became an obsession, and eventually anorexia. Those anorexic days were the hardest we faced together: anger, frustration, hunger, pain, re-feeding, depression, anxiety - for all of us. We held each other, we cried, we struggled, we triumphed. That girl, she's strong as hell. She fought for her life, and she survived. I am proud to say, in the end she is stronger, both physically, and in her faith.

New York City - Sweet Sixteen

All these experiences and challenges brought us together. We encountered problems, and we overcame them together. Sabrina has been my child, my rock, my other me, and now she is becoming her own woman, with her very own and separate set of dreams and challenges, apart from mine.

What does it mean to raise a strong woman? It means giving her the strength and confidence to leave your side, to live her own life, to follow her own dreams, and to make her own path. When Sabrina and her step-mom first told me about Scripps, I hated the idea. Can you blame me? She had just struggled through the most dangerous affliction that girls in our society face. She had overcome it, but let's be real, no eating disorder is ever actually overcome. Why would I send my child across the continent? Why wouldn't I put her in a school nice and close, where I could helicopter over her weekly, if not daily?

Raising a strong woman means letting her follow her own dreams, and making her own path. I knew I didn't want her to move away. But when I had wanted to go to Virginia, I did, when I wanted children, I had them, when I wanted to change careers, I did. Raising a strong woman means letting her go. So, Scripps it is.

During the last four days, I have come to see that my trust in Sabrina - and frankly her step-mother Valerie, was right. She is home. She has found her tribe. When I saw her walk through the campus, when she met her classmates, as I watched her purchase all her dorm room bedding and decorations, and she selected her school books and materials, I saw that she was happy, that this place empowered her. Raising a strong woman means letting go, trusting in them to make choices about their lives, and supporting them through their own challenges, failures, and successes.

Sabrina, as I hugged you, and as you walked away from me tonight, I felt closer to you than I ever have. I envy you your future, the power you have over who you will become and I will always support and love you.  I will treat our time together just as I did when I worked and our time was limited. I will cherish every moment we have together.

Humbled by Words

I have never been famous for my patience. Truly, you may think I must be patient to have taught two publications with 170 kids a year, and I am known for being laid-back. However, when I want something done, I want it done NOW. Ask my husband. A perfect example was my daughter's graduation party, despite the forecast of storms all weekend, I wanted an outdoor party. I didn't think my 90's outdoor furniture would suffice to make the proper impression (which was???) so I wanted new furniture. With college approaching, spending three-thousand dollars on new patio furniture was out of the question - so I found old furniture in my house and on craigslist, and for $20 plus $10 in paint, I repainted an entire outdoor set. In a weekend. Yep. A patient person would have painted each piece, waited a day, or at least several hours to let the paint dry properly. Not this girl. It has been a month, and I think the six layers of paint are FINALLY dry!

So it won't come as a surprise then that I was not patient in the writing process either. In fact, I wrote the majority of the book in the two months of summer break. It was great, I set a goal each day to write one-thousand words each day, and I kept to it strictly, there were days in which I wrote far more, and the book literally appeared before my eyes as if by someone else. It was an incredible experience.

Once it was done, I wanted it out there. I wanted to share it with the world, now. just like my deck furniture. I edited, and re-edited, I had my mother edit it, friends read it and a professional read it. I made their edits, and I was just ready to get it out there. Well, I learned a very important lesson, that when you think it is completely done, it isn't. You should give it to your OCD son, and have him read through it very slowly, and very carefully. Then he will point out all your errors - misplaced contractions, misused words, oh, and a typo on the back cover.

If you feel arrogant, you be schooled by an eighth-grader. It is so much fun. So, next time, Theo is reading my book carefully before the final print, and I am going to read it about ten times more -- once I think it is done.

The results are that the final edition (I might have had to revise it a few times) is actually pretty darn good. I look at it this way...if you were lucky enough to get one of the copies with errors, well, maybe someday it will be worth something, otherwise, maybe it will make you feel better about your own mistakes. In the meantime - lesson well learned. In the Chilling Wind will be a more polished book. Now, let me hurry and publish this so I can get my thousand words done!

A Teacher's Gift

During this last Teacher Appreciation Week, as a teacher, I began to get a little nostalgic. As it happens, it is also our last Open Mic Night @4410 in Haymarket as the Journalism Adviser for Inside 15000 and I am feeling sad to be leaving behind all that I have learned from my students. The irony is not lost on me. I have learned from more from the students I have taught in the seven years since I began teaching high school, and the two years as a pre-school teacher. In those nine years, I have been blessed by an unusually high number of incredible students. I can even say that each of those 1,120 students have been special to me in some way, and I remember them all.

A Teacher's Gift

The greatest gift is to teach

not because the lessons I create,

the standardized test that don’t reflect what I preach,

or the assignments, papers and projects that drown me,

but because of what the students have taught me.

Hunger for knowledge,

compassion for their peers.

Open eyes,

Ears,

Hearts.

They have have changed the course of my life

160 kids a year,

seven years,

one thousand, one hundred and twenty changes small and large

Ms. Peyton ~

－ my brother died,

－ my father left,

－ that hurts my feelings,

－ why can’t I learn,

why don’t I understand.

－ I’m struggling,

－ I’ve met somebody,

－ my heart is broken,

－ I GOT IN!!!

－ I PASSED!

－ I’m presidential candidate for 2036!

I’ve learned to ~

be strong,

work hard,

kids do care,

there’s always another side of the story,

the lesson taken my have nothing to do with what I’ve taught

how to say no.

To stand up for what I believe,

I’ve learned so much by being a teacher.

I’ll never forget,

One thousand, one hundred, and twenty amazing lives who’ve taught me

How to be free

Off to College

For Sabrina ~

Off to College

Her eyes are deep and dark as chocolate,

her hair is as soft as a peach’s fuzz,

her cheeks are as plump as a plum,

her scent is as sweet as honey.

Her voice the joyful resonance of chimes in the wind.

My daughter.

My joy.

My everything.

Small, plump hands,

dimpled and sticky,

pink pinafores,

Cinderella gloves,

she was my fairytale,

too good to be real.

Yet she grew,

and grew,

and grew.

Now I gaze into her eyes, wise and strong,

her hair is thick and long,

her cheeks are shadowed by strong bones.

She smells of paint and charcoal,

her voice is deep and resilient,

my daughter,

my joy,

my everything.

Long, beautiful artists’ hands,
with pastels and ink,
jeans, sweaters and heels,

no part fairytale.

Just a powerful woman,

headed into the world,

leaving me behind,

with a memories in my mind,

like a fairytale told over, and over.

My daughter.

My joy.

My everything.

Please see my interview with Coreen McBurnie!

Traveling to NYC for CSPA

Walking the streets of NYC at CSPA

Yes, I am that crazy teacher who organized a four-day-field trip with 37 students (four from our rival school, Patriot, of course), 4 parents and 5 teachers, to....the busiest city in the country. I love New York. But being in New York with 46 people, all on my schedule, my plan and my watch was a bit unnerving.

Luckily the bus successfully picked up on Wednesday evening, about a half-hour after school let out. Mind you, when I took my first group of students, teachers and parents five years ago, the bus never showed up at the 4:30 appointed time..that threw a wrinkle into our day. Back to this year, my first panic was that I had over-booked out trip. We had fluid numbers until the very last day, with students thinking about cancelling, last minute additions and two amazing yearbook reps who couldn't come (injuries suck the fun out of life). By the time everyone had loaded the bus, we had one extra seat; let me tell you I was sweating it...recounting the numbers and people, hoping I hadn't miscounted...being an English teacher and all. Although kids are used to sharing seats, we adults are not, and we were crammed into seats built for small teenagers, not large adults. Despite the close quarters, the ride was easy and we had WiFi and bathrooms for our comfort, making everything just perfect. Even if we did have to eat Wendy's and Burger King for dinner.

Thank goodness by the time we arrived to the Days Inn on Broadway and 96th on Wednesday evening, every adult on the bus was in agreement that as soon as we had our room assignments, We would do bed checks and get ready for the next day's events, which included breakfast at 6:45, a 1.2 mile walk to Columbia University from our hotel, sessions from 9 am until 4 p,m., dinner reservations at 5:30 and a Broadway show at 7:30. The biggest challenge in all this was the transportation of 37 children between the ages of 14 and 18 through the city of New York, knowing that each one of those students was someone's precious baby. Yep, no pressure at all. Oh, did I mention that I had two presentations to make as well. Yep. no pressure. at. all.

By 11:30 the first night the other teachers and I taped all the students in, after doing bed checks. That means that we knocked on the 15 doors and made sure each student was accounted for, and then placing tape on the outside of the door so that we could verify that no one left their rooms during the night time hours. While doing bed checks, we were astonished by the noise and freedom that the other students in the building were taking. Not only were they running through the halls, there was a strong smell of pot in the halls above and below our rooms. Thank goodness out students made us proud and were happily taped in, and I knew my group of kids would not risk their trip, or reputation by choosing to leave their rooms or causing disruption in the halls. (Side note: if you've ever stayed in old NYC hotels, you know that this hotel was like...long, narrow ringleader hallways that meander to dead=end one random room, room numbers making no sense at all, and all the hallways being strangely claustrophobic..,)

The next morning, we ate at the very sweet little place, the EuroPan Cafe across the street. The hotel actually arranged this for us after I learned that this Days Inn actually didn't offer a continental breakfast. These sweet little men organized breakfast for the 46 of us each morning in shifts..that being said by Saturday morning our kids were done with scrambled eggs, potatoes and toast.

The best part of the trip was just about to begin. CSPA is one of the best organized and most adventurous conferences I have taken students too. The best part of the conference is that it take place at Columbia University, in their lecture halls. 

Columbia University

For many students, it is the first exposure they have had to a true college campus, and for many the only Ivy League experience they will ever have. The campus is located right off Broadway, so we were able to walk straight to the campus. This is exciting for the kids... a real experience, where they walk around the campus in pairs or groups, unsupervised and attend lectures on writing, design, photography, marketing, business and leadership. A teacher's nightmare! How did I make sure kids were where they said they would be? Photo check-ins! So, every hour I would get a flood of photos through our GroupMe Ap, letting me know where each kid was. This isn't my first rodeo folks. My favorite was the "fake" check-in four years ago, when kids posted a photo to the group..but then posted photos of themselves on Instagram posing at the cupcake shop across the street. I share with all my students that my full time job on this trip is to stalk their social media like I am their mom. I will find them. Ironically, on this first day in NYC I presented on using social media to manage your publications! The irony was not lost on me, or anyone in my audience, as I pulled up our GroupMe account and showed everyone where all my kiddos were (bless their hearts most of them were in my session..as if they don't hear me lecture enough at school!).

The best part of Thursday was our trip to dinner and the Broadway show. We had all planned on walking the 2.4 miles there, but many of the kids and parents decided that the walk would be too long. I have complete subway phobia, for good reason (imagine transporting 22 kids on my first trip to NYC four years ago), and I wanted to avoid it any cost. We tried booking a bus for the five mile round trip. In true New York style, it would have cost us $1200...the brave adults took the subway, one adult Uber cabbed it, and I walked with 9 kids. We arrived with bloody feet, wind swept hair...and rain soaked....and smiles on our faces.

After a fabulous dinner, we saw the best Broadway show I've been too (ok, I've only been to four)...Finding Neverland. It was amazing and magical.

Students Kirsten DeZeeuw, Jessie and Lauren Kronzer and Shelby Cesario pose outside of the Finding Neverland Show.

The rest of the trip became easier and more routine, walking to Columbia, and breaking into smaller, more manageable groups to sight see. On Saturday we ended out trip with an incredible experience. We went on a tour with a retired captain of the NYC Police Department. He spoke to us about what it was like to be a first-responder that day, and what it was like to lose colleagues and neighbors. All the pressures, concerns, expectations and dreams we all feel each day were put into perspective. We were brought to tears, remembering that day. For some of the kids on the trip, who had no real memories themselves; this was their first real experience and hearing it first-hand, standing there seeing the memorial was life-changing in the sense that they realized that there were people out there who were willing to give their lives for the security of others.

The group in front of Ladder Company 10 at Ground Zero

What I have learned over the last seven years of teaching is that the most important moments of teaching are not in the classroom, and they often have little to do with curriculum, but they are the life lessons they learn from you, and from themselves as they push themselves beyond their own boundaries, stepping outside of their safety zone and into the adventures that life can and will bring them. Love my kids.

Along the Garden Path is out!

My new novel is out. This is a young adult contemporary fictional piece. I think it appeals to more than just young adults. If you've ever been a teen, parent a teen, or know a teen...you will connect!

Available at Amazon 

This is a story about Addison Erhard, an affluent young 17 year old growing up in McLean, Virginia who feels pressured to be successful. She wants to be a journalist who makes an impact on the world, and wants to attend Columbia University. Her family is split in their support, the pressure in the community and from her father is to attend an Ivy League school, to become a successful lawyer, doctor, politician or banker; her father would like her to become a banker. Her mother, an artist who does not fit in with the McLean society as well as her father, supports her desire to follow her dreams. While pursuing her dream to write, she also is striving to break the state record in track for the 800 meter run.

She meets a young man, Mason Gentry, who wants to buck high society McLean by following his family’s legacy and become a farmer. While investigating her story about kids who pursue non-traditional college and career paths, the young journalist falls in love with Mason.

In March a student at Chain Bridge High School and friend of both Mason and Addison, Jamison Randall, is struck down during a hit-and-run accident early one morning. The driver of the car has fled and Jamison is in a coma. Addison, who works for the news magazine decides to investigate the accident on her own, and what she find is more than she can handle.

http://amzn.com/B01CXKEY0G

How @4410 Changed our Journalism Program

My son, Willem Drescher performing at Open Miic Night in October

@4410 changed my news magazine program, Inside 15000. Yes, I know, it’s a music space, and what does that have to do with a news magazine? The owner of Contemporary Music Center (CMC) and @4410, Menzie Pittman visited my class in October of 2015 to speak to my students about how their skills as journalists can take them to amazing places. After his talk, he walked around the classroom and talked to the kids, saw what they were working on, and asked us how we made our money to run the magazine. My then-business manager, Lauren Ainslie, explained that we held Open Mic Nights in our cafeteria once a month, but that it wasn’t all that great because we didn’t know what we were doing with the sound system and things sounded bad, and the work it took to set everything up and take it down barely made it worth the while. We just weren’t making out numbers.

The idea of Open Mic Nights at @4410 was born. Menzie offered to host our Open Mic Nights; we would benefit from their incredible sound system, stage with light, and seating for a crowd of over 100 kids. I have never felt more relieved, I would be able to offer a cozy Open Mic environment with all the benefits of a professional setting, without having to pay for it, or set it up and take it down.

The arrangement benefited @4410 and Inside 15000: we charged $7 per ticket for attending the otherwise free Open Mic Nights. Menzie got a fee ad, but more importantly, kids were attending @4410 and word was getting out this amazing space. Our first Open Mic Night gave us a 130 student turn-out. We raised enough money to pay for our next edition, in just two hours’ time! The arrangement continues to be a win-win situation for both CMC and the community.

The best part of the entire experience is watching students, parents and teachers performing, not only for each other, but with each other. My favorite experience in this regard was watching a student of mine perform; she was a shy student in class, she wore her hair so that I couldn’t see her eyes, she was soft spoken and vey nearly never voiced her opinions in our many class discussions. She hated my class so much that she tried to transfer out. I offered extra credit for students to perform at @4410. This quiet, shy girl got up on stage and, with her family and classmates watching, belted out a song with such a rich, deep and emotional voice that it brought tears to my eyes. When she finished I embraced her, and told her how her music moved me. That changed our entire year. She began speaking up in class, she formed a group of friends to work with, and she and I developed a much stronger teacher-student relationship. It is incredible to see how music can change the way we view those around us.

MaryBeth Starkey and John Crocker belt out some old country tunes.

Not only have students come out of their shells on stage, teachers have as well. We’ve seen a teacher and student duet, with Mary Beth Starkey and John Crocker performing a country music set. Students in the crowd cheered as this unusual duo performed together. We’ve hear Mr. Dittmer sing old fashioned Frank Sinatra ballads, we’ve had Ms. Thorpe, a new Spanish teacher at the school sing, after being part of the school for just one month.

Because @4410 has such a family-friendly environment, we see family performances as well. Teacher’s children have performed, we’ve watched the Young family with father and son performing, and the youngest Young belting out in a voice that amazed the crowd. We’ve had the Thistle family perform, not only with father and son but father and sons!

After each event, we leave not only with our hearts filled, but our coffers as well. @4410 has helped us publish our $610-a-month issue for the past year-and-a-half. @4410 has also benefited from our combined events, because the students who attend our BHS Open Mic Nights love it so much, they attend it every Friday when it is a community Open Mic Night (and free).

If you haven’t visited the Open Mic Nights yet, visit the next one! Visit their website for upcoming events.

Andrew Young Rocks out