Nesting

June 2, 2026Family, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life Tuesday Slices on Two Writing Teachers!
Join in and write on Tuesdays!

Apparently there is a wasps’ nest in the top of my umbrella.

The kids told me on Sunday that they saw wasps and the nest starting a week or so ago.

I can see the nest on the very top of the inside of the umbrella. It’s so small, I wonder if it is for very tiny wasps. A wasp apartment maybe?

I know I need it get rid of it. I think about spraying, I think about sweeping it out in the evening when the wasps are asleep.

I do nothing.

But I leave the umbrella open, so as to not anger the wasps.

Would they be angry? I don’t know. But better safe, and all that.

On Monday, after school, I venture to the deck to see if the wasps’ nest has gotten any bigger. Instead I see the most beautiful birds’ nest, sitting perfectly in the top of the umbrella. You couldn’t pick a better place. If you were a bird, I mean. With no care in the world about where your poop goes, and if the umbrella needs to be closed ever.

I call the kids down to show them this amazing nesting umbrella, and we check inside the next with my phone. It doesn’t appear to be finished yet, and best of all: No eggs! This is good news. Now we can move it.

It’s a beautiful nest, woven with twine and twigs, and a gorgeous blue thread of some sort. The birds in nearby trees are yelling at us while we take it away. I apologize, and feel so bad about messing up their beautiful new construction. There is something so sad about the pile of materials they’ve gathered on my table.

My son grabs it up with tongs and carries it to a tree, stopping for me to get a picture only after I beg and beg him.

He’s annoyed at me. Always. Especially if I think something is cool or interesting. He is especially annoyed when I get excited that he sees a frog next to the deck on his way with the nest.

“What? I say? A frog too? Where are we? A magical woodland?”

“Mom,” he says and you can hear his eyes roll. “We live in the forest.”

I still can’t close my umbrella though, that wasps nest worries me. I keep thinking that if I close it, opening it will cause a hundred wasps to fly at me. This is irrational of course, since it is so tiny, and I’m not even sure it’s active. But, still, I imagine the tracker jacker scene in Hunger Games and I really want to avoid that.

On Tuesday, morning I look out at the deck, wondering if the twigs I see are leftovers or something new. After school, I say to my son, “I’m going to go check the umbrella – wouldn’t it be crazy if the birds tried again?”

“Oh. They did,” he tells me.

And as I move to go check it out, he says he has already removed it.

“No eggs, but it was even more complete. They had a whole mossy floor. And, I closed the umbrella. That umbrella has to stay closed for a while, mom.”

“But— the wasps’ nest!” I try to say, and he interrupts me to tell me that the wasps’ nest isn’t active, and that we really need to keep the umbrella closed.

Will wasps start secretly infiltrate my umbrella? Will more animals try to call my deck home?

I guess we’ll see!

It’s May

May 26, 2026Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Even as I pack the papers into my bag at 4:30, I know. A little voice in the back of my head says, “You aren’t going to do that at home, silly. You’ve been up for almost 12 hours already. It’s May, you’re exhausted.”

But I pack them in there anyway, fooling myself into believing that I’ll have energy later. It’s May, there’s so much to do!

I drive home, walk the dog, do the dishes, feed the animals, exercise, sit on the couch, take a deep breath, think about writing, take the dog out again, watch a show with my daughter, talk to my son… BAM! It’s 9:00.

2 hours ago I was yawning. I said out loud, “Tonight I need to go to bed earlier!” In my head I added, “and not wake up at 3:30 or 4:00!”

I’m now running out of time to go to bed “earlier.”

The papers will travel back to school tomorrow, where I will laugh with my friends about how I thought if I brought them home, I’d magically do the work.

Honestly, it’s May, I could use some magic!

Why Don’t Clementines Come In Crates Anymore?

May 19, 2026Family, Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Why don’t clementines come in crates anymore?

Thats what I thought as I looked at an old clementine crate, labeled in my ex-husband’s handwriting: “Finn Training.”

It’s morning, and even though I’ve been up mostly since 3:00 in the morning, I’m somehow running later than I want to.
The dog poop bags need refilling, which is what took me to the laundry room, where the clementine crate is trying to organize pet chaos.

Later, I’ll google it and it will seem like somewhere somehow some people are still getting their clementines in cute crates. But, my stores only have them in those orange mesh bags. I get it. I do. The orange of the bags make the clementines look orangier, enticing.

In between my clementine wonderings, I have what we in the teaching business call “a day.”

My name is said so many times, I wish I had worn my little clicker so I could know the exact number. My coffee is spilled when someone shoves a game to make themselves some room at my table. The game knocks my coffee to the floor, spilling in that drippy spread out way coffee spills.

I use it as an opportunity to model deep breathing. I literally say out loud, “I am going to take a deep breath.”

I do, we do, you do.

Kids bicker all day, about regular things like places in line and who should put a supply back. But also about so many things that you can’t imagine…things like sidewalk sections and tree bark. As math is starting, I have to separate two friends. As in step in between them with my hands stretched in stop signals.

All day I give directions and am I saying real words? It would seem I am not. II know how Charlie Brown’s teacher feels.

When I get home from school my brain goes back to that clementine crate.

I keep searching for a metaphor but I’m not sure which direction to search. Am I looking for how things used to be? The cute wooden crate of a long ago school day? Am I trying to find an orange mesh bag to put over the last weeks of school? Perhaps I’m just noticing that I hardly registered my ex-husband’s handwriting on the crate. It’s there, in the background, a blemish on the past.

But, there’s only one thing I’m regretting about my past right now. I really should have kept more of those super cute and useful clementine crates.

Yelled At

May 12, 2026Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Today, I was, as the kids say,
yelled at.
but it wasn’t a yell really – that would be loud, right?
it was a quiet aggression
dismissive
condescending
belittling

I actually couldn’t believe it

It’s unbelievable
to be spoken to like that
It feels like
yelled at
is the only way to convey the experience

I wanted
help
I got
a biting tone

I took a deep breath
I said,
“I know you might be upset,
but
the way you are talking to me
is
not
helpful.”

Now, hours later
I wonder
about the young people who are
yelled at
like this —

What can
they
say?

Taking Care of Myself

April 21, 2026poetry, Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

This morning I mentioned to my student teacher that I slept weird on my pillow, but luckily I already had a chiropractor appointment for after school. (I’m super exciting, I know.)

She said, and I am not exaggerating, “You take such good care of yourself!”

I laughed, and told her I would have to tell my therapist about this.

The truth is that last year I realized it takes a lot to regulate this life of mine: Almost 50, betrayal trauma, I’m a teacher, and of course, I’m a single mama!

It could be a song, but this is serious stuff, nothing I could try to set to We Didn’t Start the Fire or something. But, it could be done, I’m sure. Even if just about a day at school…

All day I am trying to help a classroom full of amazing small humans regulate themselves… and friends… I don’t know if you’ve heard, but —

You need to co-regulate to regulate a child.

Today I regulated through someone or another:

screaming in the hallway, crawling in the library corner, hiding behind my table to read, dropping water bottles, cleaning up water with paper towels for what must have been the first time in their life, water dripping back to the floor, crying, falling, complaining that their scratch really really hurt and yes they would like a bandaid but that bandaid is too small for their scratch, dropping a chair, sneaking reading, swinging a necklace, chewing a necklace, saying someone was stupid for chewing a necklace, book borrowing, book not-giving-back, more crying, saying someone was stupid for needing their book back, saying they were allowed to call someone stupid since they are stupid, missing an invisible pen and not enjoying my joke “I haven’t seen it, but if it’s invisible, how could I?” stealing someone’s invisible pen —-

(and then it was morning recess)

The day continued while I regulated through someone or another:

— wanting a community snack after snack time, telling me someone was crying, telling me that someone shook their fist at them, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking instead of listening, finishing their work before we started, missing directions, wandering the room, flying their painted pollinators into the paper garden over and over, saying “What answers? There’s no answers…” over and over because they thought I was talking to them about the pollinator garden when I was actually talking to the other kids who were done and were supposed to be reading the riddles on the whiteboard, fiddling through my things, pressing our doorbell multiple times, ignoring, ignoring, ignoring, talking back, crying about a consequence, not caring about a consequence, giving up, sliding down the railing, climbing up the railing, resting on the railing, saying, “I’m not climbing,” digging at an anthill instead of lining up…

And those are just the things I can
remember.
From today.

So, that’s why I have to “take care of myself…” because it takes a lot of therapy, meditation, tapping, affirmations, chiropractic care, massage, salt spas, acupuncture and walks in the sunshine to do this job that I absolutely love.

Caution: This is too long and too boring.

April 14, 2026Slice of Lifeonathought

My story is going to bore you.
Who wants to hear that someone is
STILL COUGHING?
Who wants to hear that someone has gone to the doctor’s
THREE TIMES?
Who wants to hear that someone does’t have pneumonia, but is
STILL COUGHING?

I used to have a real doctor. He wasn’t perfect
no, not by any means.
But his name was Dr. Baker,
Same as the doctor on Little House on the Prairie
and he was older than me.
He knew me, and listened to me –
and then he retired

The bastard. Just like my dentist I loved too.

I finally chose a new doctor at the office to be our designated doctor. He was wasn’t perfect –
but he listened
and then suddenly he wasn’t working there anymore, but nobody told me I needed to stop listing Dr. Miller as my primary care
Just one day they said, “Oh, yea. That report was sent to Dr. Miller, but actually, he doesn’t work here anymore. So that’s why nobody read it.”

Cool. Cool. Cool.

So now I just see whoever they can give me.
0/10
Don’t recommend.

I swear I’m trying to make this long boring story
a short boring story.

So, anyway, as I’m sure you have gathered, (or heard,) I have this
COUGH.

And I see a doctor.
He’s nice even though he’s like 12 years old.
He wants to give me the magic cough pearls.
I say “No, thank you. Those don’t work for me.”
He gives me some other medicine. Yay!
It helps!
Medicine is finished, the
COUGH comes back.
I see another doctor.
He’s nice, actually board certified this time.
So that’s good.
He wants to give me the magic cough pearls.
I say “No, thank you. Those don’t work for me.”
He gives me some more medicine. Yay!
It helps! Again!
Medicine is finished, the
COUGH comes back.
I see another doctor.
She’s nice, I guess.
She wants to give me the magic cough pearls.
I say “No, thank you. Those don’t work for me.”
She gives me another medicine
Makes me promise to take it all
Even if the x-ray comes back clear.
I promise.
She promises to message me right away with the x-ray results.
Spoiler alert: x-ray is clear, I keep my promise, she does not.

The story is almost over, I promise.

My cough gets worse, so I message the doctor.
She responds hours and hours later
with a prescription for
The magic pearls.
She notes that if my cough isn’t better in 1-2 weeks, I should make an appointment.
1-2 weeks? I’ve been coughing for over a month!

Now I’m annoyed. Does nobody listen?
I message back
“No, thank you. Those don’t work for me.”
I give her some other options, as you know, a person who has had my lungs for almost half a century.

She responds
hours and hours later
telling me I should make an appointment
with Dr. Miller
to re-evaluate my cough.

Remember Dr. Miller?
He doesn’t practice there anymore.

I tell her as much, but I’m proud to say,
I don’t tell her all the things I want to say.

Isn’t that mature of me?

You Know, Win Some, Lose Some

April 7, 2026Slice of Lifeonathought

I carried some carts into school today. They needed to be built, and there were people ready to build them. So I piled one box onto the other and walked to the door.

A kindergarten teacher yelled my name from the playground and asked me if I was going to be able to get the door.

See, earlier we had walked into school together. We had remarked, as I could remark every day, about how fast you have to go from unlocking the door over to the door before it locks again. It can be really tricky if you are holding a lot of things.

Of course, the only sane response to her inquiry from the playground was for me to lift the boxes higher, tell her I am, in fact, going to be able to get the door… and then sing, “I am woman! Hear me roar!” So, that’s what I did. Then, I leaned the boxes so one hand was free, unlocked the door and got in before it locked again. I’m a strong, capable single mom. I can do anything!

(Inside, I wanted to tell someone, “I carried the boxes.” But Patrick Swayze wasn’t around, and really. who else would I need to tell?)

Hours later, at home, I went into my powder room, looked up at the ceiling and saw one of those creepy crawly bazillion leg critters on the top of the wall.

I did not sing any songs. I did not feel strong or capable (although I did feel single!)

I left the room, closed the door, and wondered if I should vacuum it up. I didn’t want to do that for a couple of reasons. One, I think those bugs are actually good for the house. I just really don’t want to see them. (I definitely don’t want them crawling out of my laundry ever again either, just saying.) Secondly, if I vacuum it up, then it will just get stuck in the vacuum. I’ll have to put the vacuum outside, or maybe throw it away . . .

I don’t want to have to get a new vacuum.

So I decided I am just not going to use that bathroom, maybe ever again. That should be fine. The bug probably never wants to see me again either.

I can do hard things and all, but I’ve already done enough hard things this week. And, it’s only Tuesday. Plus, you know, win some, lose some.

What Would A March Be

March 31, 2026poetry, Reflections on teaching, Slice of Life, Uncategorizedonathought

This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!

What would a March be
without a mention of
purple flowers poking through
and daffodils, of course?

What would a March be
without a mention of
squirrelly kids between spring break
and April Fool’s Day?

What would a March be
without the mention of
forsythia branches
and thunderstorms on the way?

What would a March be
without a mention of
the power of outdoor recess
and how crazy it is to plan May already?

What would a March be
without a mention of
warmer, brighter days ahead
and how sun makes it all better?

I’m Somewhat of a Basketball Expert…

March 30, 2026Basketball, Family, Reflections on teaching, Slice of Life, Uncategorizedonathought

The kids were playing highly supervised basketball. Supervised because ball-playing at recess has had to be paused often due to conflicts. Basketball I guess because it’s March?

We had to keep a close eye on the kids. It’s hard to be kind the whole game I guess. At least when you are 7 or 8, and the basket is so high, and you want all the turns, or at least one.

It looked like two boys were tackling each other and I told them, “That’s not how we play basketball.”

“Yes it is,” one of them said to me.

“We don’t tackle in basketball,” I explained. He told me of course that they weren’t tackling, it’s just that he had fallen and was trying to get up.

I told him that I’d make the calls, then whispered to my partner teacher, “It’s a referee in basketball, right?” to make sure I was right before saying, “I’m the referee, for this game. And the referee is always right.”

They shrugged their agreement and went back to playing.

I noticed that the kind words weren’t exactly flowing on the court, and talked with a player who was accused of calling another player a liar.

“Well, he was lying,” he said, “and I didn’t call him a liar, I told him he was lying. He just wants us to get the ball banned again.”

I told him that I understood why he was upset, but that we needed to spread positivity during this game. I sent him off with a call to action that sounded, I think, like, “Go spread joy in that basketball game, buddy!”

This is maybe when you are shaking your head, laughing at me reffing with joy proclamations.

It’s also when I started realizing I was going to need a whole two-team second-grade huddle.

I called the kids over, and they ran in like serious ball players do.

I said, “Little known fact, but I am actually somewhat of a basketball expert.”

I did not tell them how well my March Madness bracket is doing. (It is doing very well, and even if I don’t get any closer to the top, I will be taking all bragging rights, as is my due.)

I said, “I have a professional basketball player, basically in my family.”

They all stared at me, wide-eyed.

I said, “His name is Yuuki Okubo. You may have heard of him, or even heard the song that someone made about him.”

“It goes like this, Yuuki, Yuuki, Yuuki Okubooooo.” I sang.

One of my kids nodded his head, kinda jutted out his chin and said, “Yea. I know him.”

I told them, “He plays for the Fukushima Firebonds.”

They were all listening very intently.

“And do you know what I see the Fukushima Firebonds do when I watch them?” I asked them.

That same kid said, without a pause, “Win.”

I smiled. “Well, they do win a lot,” I agreed. “But even when they don’t win, do you know what they do? What do you think they do when one of the players misses a shot?”

The kids said, “They say ‘good try!”

I told them yes (although maybe I should learn what good try is in Japanese…) and that I see professional players give high fives and encouragement for missed baskets, and scored points.

“That’s what I want to see from all of you!” I said, in my best coach from a movie giving a passionate speech voice. “Now go play some joyful ball!”

The kids ran off, and I’m not going to say it was a complete turn around or anything, but I did hear some nice “It’s okay!” And “Good try!” exclamations coming from the players.

One of them jogged over to me and asked “Are we playing 1-2 or 2-3?”

I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. What did the players decide? Ask an expert.”

When he jogged away, I looked at my partner teacher, “What does that mean 1-2, 2-3?”

She thought probably points, and I agreed.

Just then someone came over, crying that their team hadn’t passed them the ball yet. As I was counseling them in what I would like to think was the perfect blend of empathy and grit, another player was coming over with his hand on his head. He had been hit by a basketball.

As we walked to the nurse I said, “It’s okay! It happens to the best players. Did you know that the Duke Point Guard was out for the start of March Madness? You’ll be back for the next game!”

I know this because I’m somewhat of a basketball expert.

I Don’t Want to Write About Coughing

March 29, 2026Slice of Lifeonathought

I want to be one of those chill people, who just go along with all the things even when they are sick.
But I can’t do it.
My cough is annoying me.

I need it to stop.
I’m so tired of cough medicine
and cough drops
but in between those, I’m coughing so hard it
shakes
my
whole
body.

I don’t want to write about coughing. I mean, how
boring.

When I was growing up, my cough would get so bad that my mom would have to sit up with me in bed all night, propping me up.
I had to take NyQuil (mixed with 7-up!) when I was like 6 years old.
Luckily, these days, (knock on wood) I don’t get this awful cough as often. Also, I can prop myself up with pillows. And cough drops.
Did I mention I am so tired of cough drops?

But when this cough comes, it sticks around
and really stands its ground.

Today I tried. I took the dog on a walk.
I worked a little.
I read a little.
I did adulting things like paying bills.
And I wrote this.
But that’s all the chill I can can do.
I need my pajamas, some more tea, and
please, some easy breaths.
Just a few!