In his honor, I am going to try to get this to post at 9:09 on 9/9/09. (Did it!)
At the block party Monday, I was talking to a couple who are exactly at the stage I was a dozen years ago: spending afternoons driving kids to sports, music lessons, you name it, go go go. I told them, Yeah, I used to put 200 miles a week on my car just driving kids, and the husband nodded, So you get it.
Oh yes.
But one of the things that concerned the mom was, as their first kid headed into high school, how do you stay engaged with the school environment the way you did when they were in elementary?
The short answer, of course, is, you don’t. You can volunteer here or there, you can be very active on the scene, but you can’t stay involved in everything to the same degree you did when there was just a single teacher in your child’s life.
And yet, I told her. Let me tell you a story.
My oldest had had a friend whom I often dropped off on our way home in the afternoons; no big deal to me, and an easy way to get to know my daughter’s friend a little. (There are no school buses–Proposition 13 got rid of those in the 70’s.)
One day Sam and Jo were late coming out.  Really late. There were things to get to, reasons to get uptight.
And yet, somehow that day, I just didn’t. I told the other kids, who were already in the car since the younger schools let out first, Dunno what the holdup is, but whatever, they’ll show up, they know we’re here.
When they did, I saw Jo a step ahead walking towards our car because Sam had taken a step behind her in order to privately shake her head and wave her arms frantically at me in a silent, fervent plea: Mom! Don’t be mad! (Okay, the fact that she felt she needed to should tell you right there that I was hardly a perfect parent.)
But mad? Nah. Totally relaxed. Good to see you, girls, how ya doin’, isn’t it a beautiful day out today?
They got in, I took Jo home, and then Sam could finally let it out. She told me Jo had had a particularly hard day and that Mr. Hodges, their math teacher, had taken the time after school to let the kid spill her guts and listen to her. He had made it very clear she mattered to him for those 40 minutes and that she could come talk to him anytime. And this was a proud new dad who would want to hurry home to his baby, so I knew what it had taken for him to do that.
Okay, for this next part, before you get too impressed, understand that I had wanted to do this for quite some time and had been looking for an excuse. I made half of these for us. So.
The next day I made a double batch of cinnamon rolls. Now, when I make cinnamon rolls, they’re more a pastry than a bread and they are *good*. I timed them to come out of the oven just so, popped them out of the pan, and drove to the high school and parked. When the kids showed up, I asked where Mr. Hodges’ classroom was, quick, before he goes home!
To say he was blown away does not begin to tell it. Still-hot cinnamon rolls? Homemade just for him? For talking to someone else’s kid, even?!
I told him, for my kid too: Sam knows now that if she has a problem and needs an adult to talk to, you’re absolutely someone she can turn to. That is the greatest gift a parent of a teenager could ask for, and I wanted to make clear how grateful I was for that. And for Jo’s sake too.
He couldn’t get over it. He told me that in his years teaching he had, a few times, had parents send him a fruit basket or some such, but not once–not ever–had a parent actually sought him personally out to thank him in person.
To which I would say, about time!