dianegclark

Sam and I went to Wichita for the weekend to get away and write. We had so much fun! I left Friday afternoon for ElDorado, toured Sam’s new house that her Grandma left her and then we went to the store and loaded up on snacks. I mean loaded up! Fritos, corn dip, jalapeño Cheetos, peanuts, protein packs, cheese and crackers (two kinds), hummus, cheese dip, peanut butter pretzels, pop, and popcorn.

We got settled at our hotel, the Hyatt Regency on the riverwalk, then went out and sat on a bench by the river and wrote. I interview Sam and try to write as fast as I can. Then we went up to the room and put on dresses and went out to eat at PF Chang’s. Sam ordered honey chicken and I got the Mongolian beef. Of course we had the crab wontons for appetizers.

We went back to the hotel and realized we should have eaten at the food truck fair that happened right down by the hotel.

Then it was hot tub time!

We went back and forth from the hot tub to the pool, chatting the whole time. We had the place to ourselves.

More writing and then bed early for these sleepy girls.

We woke up at exactly the same time and got dressed and went down for breakfast at the hotel. We took a quick walk by the river as it was gonna rain and did lots more writing. Sam read while I wrote and we did more interviewing. We pretty much completed the interviews but I know there is lots more we could include.

We spent the afternoon snacking, napping, and writing while it stormed outside. When it cleared off, we did what any two women would do: we went shopping! We got. Sam some new shoes then went to TJ Max and Ross and got some earrings and shirts. Then we put on our snazzy new shirts and went to Old Town, looked through a boutique and then ate at Old Chicago. We split some deep fried bacon cheddar cheese bites (oh my, they are addicting!) and a meatball hoagie which neither of us could finish then went back to the hotel. We watched a movie and wrote some more then fell asleep.

I got up early and left Sam sleeping and wrote her a note and took off for Newton to watch the boys for Leah all day Sunday. It was a fun, muddy, good time with the boys.

The book is almost done, people! We will change all the names and places then I plan to sit down with each of the girls that are in the book and get releases and then its off to try to get published!

Our little Emmet is 3 years old! We went to Newton for the party themed Elton John’s Rocket man. Leah is so creative. There were planets and globes and astronaut items. And then most of his gifts were either farm or music related! Our little smart man.

Scott and I stayed overnight as the original plan included our seeing son Joel, however, Joel’s flight from Dallas to Wichita was cancelled so he stayed in LA.

Favorite memories of the weekend include Emmet peeing on a tree and then pointing out how the pee was going to go down into the roots, up into the tree and out into the leaves. Our little smart man.

And then unprompted telling me, “Grandma, I love you SO MUCH.”

My Mom is the most amazing woman I have ever known. Ever.

I first met my Mom… Just kidding.

My Mom grew up in Kansas City, Kansas and went to Wyandotte high school, before it was the ghetto. Her Dad died when she was 20. She had a brother who was 7 years older and the sweetest, homebody mom who died when I was in elementary school.

Mom went to Baker University and majored in Spanish. She became a secretary for a little while then mostly stayed home with us except for running a preschool in our home for awhile. She married my Dad, a good looking fraternity boy, right out of school.

We lived just outside of Leavenworth in a split level home on a huge acre of land by the woods. We went on long camping trips all across the United States every summer.

My parent’s marraige was not a good one, full of strain and tension. My Dad was not a happy person and it escalated into horrible put downs and emotional abuse in front of us and toward us. They divorced when I was in 7th grade.

My Mom was so strong. She quit smoking after 20 years cold turkey. She endured the divorce with strength and grace. She got a degree in teaching and became a much loved middle school Spanish, English, and Reading teacher.

My Mom also got equivalent degrees in theater, art, costume design, set design, music. My Mom acted in, directed, and musically directed community theater for years and years. She led worship and choirs at church for years. My Mom encouraged Melissa Etheridge, then “Missy”, in her music career.

My Mom dated then married Lee, a retired army Lieutenant Colonel, just after I left for college. He was an amazing person, the love of her life.

My Mom and I have gone on a Spring Break trip every year for about 15 years now, to Mexico, Jamaica, Key West, San Antonio. We were exchange students in Mexico City for 6 weeks when I was 21.

My Mom is now 88 years young. She plays the keyboards at TRU, and goes to the Senior Center every week to “play for the old people.” We moved her here to Manhattan 3 years ago. She lives on her own and Ubers all over town. She is still beautiful and has the most lovely smile.

Everyone loves my Mom. Everyone. Everywhere. They always have. And they always will. I love you, Mama. Happy Mother’s Day 2019.

My amazing son.

When Leah was 6 months old, I asked Scott if he thought God made her easy because we were supposed to have another baby. Scott said yes. We did the math to figure out when we’d need to try in order to have a baby at the beginning of the summer. Apparently that was the night.

The doctor wanted to induce labor on June 2, our anniversary and my birthday. We waited until June 3. It only took 4 hours labor. We didn’t know he was a boy until he came out. I’m not gonna lie, I kept taking off his diaper to make sure.

Joel was an easy baby. He rode around in a walker with a smile on his face and watched all the action going on in the house with his sisters. When he was little, the girls dressed him up and played with him like he was a doll. I think they made him marry a guinea pig once.

He loved puzzles. He was so smart right from the start.

When Joel was 18 months and then up to age 2, he didn’t say any words. We got his hearing checked and he was almost completely deaf. Turns out he was super allergic to soy, eggs, milk, and all legumes. Which meant he could only eat meat, fruit, and vegetables. As soon as we changed his diet, he started hearing and talking.

One of my all time favorite memories was the night I let Joel continue coloring quietly in his room before he went to sleep. When I went to check on him, there were hyrogleific alphabet letters covering the entire wall. With a permanent marker. Turns out, he had also striped every single inch of his little body including his penis. Hilarious. It took weeks to wear off.

Once in preschool, Joel scratched his sister’s name in the paint on the side of the van. And made about 500 icons on the screen in his classroom. And peed down the heat vent upstairs.

Joel didn’t talk at school his entire kindergarten year. But he invited his kindergarten teacher to his birthday party and sat on her lap. He could already read at the 3rd grade level. By the end of 1st grade, he was reading at the 8th grade level and could spell anything. Once in his multi-age classroom when he was in 2nd grade, I went in and he was teaching a math lesson for the class at the board. We had his IQ tested and it was in the 99th percentile across the board.

Joel won the school spelling bee every year from 2nd grade on. And won the math Olympiad at k state every year.

Joel was the pickiest eater ever. He outgrew his food allergies but only ate about 5 things. He had some doozy tantrums about being hungry at night.

Joel wore orange every day in 5th and 6th grades. I had to special order orange high top chucks for him. And he liked to river dance.

In middle school, Joel wore shorts to school every day the entire year. And he didn’t wash his PE clothes or organize his notebook for an entire year. He was voted student council president. When he left with me after school, the custodian always said to him, “Goodnight Mr. President.”

I went to every single soccer game Joel ever played in except one. He was the smallest kid on the team and played left defense. The only game I missed, they moved him to forward and he scored 4 goals. We had so much fun staying in hotels for tournaments. Joel always slept either in the closet or in the window sill in the hotel rooms.

Joel had the best friends. Katie in early elementary, then Zeb, Andy, and Ryan. He loved to play pretend having grown up with sisters so to make it not weird, they just started making videos. Same thing as pretend only cooler.

In high school, I think Joel was late every day. I once found a list with a lottery system on it to decide who got to come home for lunch with him and eat pizza rolls. Joel played Mario brothers with his friends even in high school. His friends said they were making nerdy cool again. He played intramural sports in a bunny costume. And dressed up like the 80’s and went down to the Douglass Center to play in an adult dodge ball league. In college, he played on the USC Quidditch team.

Joel was one score away from acing the ACT.

Joel was one of 14 kids from around the world accepted into USC into the Interactive Entertainment program his freshman year. It was so incredibly hard to put him on that plane with all his stuff and send him away. The morning he left, his friends stayed up until 3 and then walked us out to the car. It was the most poignant moment. I almost threw up crying on the way home.

Joel lost his keys, locked them in his car, lost his cell phone and his wallet numerous, numerous times.

Joel was homeless for 4 months after he graduated from college so he could finish a video game and release it. He lived in his car and took showers at the gym.

Then he landed a job with a cool company making VR video games. Then worked for 2 years making a game at Disney. Now he works for an independent company making a huge video game that will be launched on Apple this fall.

I love visiting Joel in LA. He loves to show me around. When he lived in an apartment in college and I came to visit, he prepared me a mattress in a place of honor, the closet.

Joel has dated some lovely young ladies in high school and college but is now dating one we think is a keeper, Molly. She is a beautiful and special person who is an actress.

When Joel was home over Christmas break, our worship band needed a bass player. Joel filled in easily without even ever having heard the music. We even played a Midwest Meets Manhattan song and he got to play along. It meant a lot.

I miss Joel living all the way across the US. But I am so very proud of him I could split.

This, this moment, is the exact reason I semi retired. A whole day with virtually nothing planned.

This allows me to say yes to hosting parties, sharing the blessing of our beautiful house. We had a graduation party for Homestead here yesterday. Then I took a two hour nap.

This allows me to sleep late. I’ve been sleeping great lately. No alarm half the days. I slept til I woke up this morning at 8 then looked up and the sun was streaming across my sleeping pup. Then I got up slow. Love it.

This allows me to sit and write, spend time with God, just sit and be in the moment.

This lets me just sit and listen to the birds singing loudly, the dogs sitting quietly, praise music softly in the background, the air light, the sun shining. I have three things on the calendar for later, an appointment to get Rex groomed with sweet Jamie, one of my favorite classes at the gym, turbo kick, and face timing Sam to write on the novel. A perfect day!

Homestead, Erica, Ashley, Angie volunteer, Deb, Alicia the graduate, Terronica, Kimberly, Sam, and Jenn and Dacia, house managers.

This is Jason, our personal trainer at the gym.

Today i worked out in my own for about half an hour then Jason worked with me. He had me do some boxing first at his mitts then at the bag. Then he decided i needed to do some crazy stuff to get my heart rate up. He had me push and pull a sled. The floor is the wrong type for it so it was hard!

Then goblet squats with 35 pounds, walking lunges with 25 pounds, push ups and the ropes. Good times!

I burned a few calories today!

I always thought the first book I would write would be about all my experiences as school social worker. I have 29 years of memories, most great, some really, really hard. We used to have a joke, “you can’t make this shit up.” But it is true. Being a school social worker was so incredibly hard, sometimes terrifying, to be honest, but also exciting and so rewarding. It has taken me a long time to process it and get to a place where I can write about it. I think I have blocked a lot of it out. But the memories are starting to come back.

So hard to know where to start so I’ll just put random memories as they pop in.

I can remember a psychotic kiddo who would lose his shit but calm down the second I came in the room. He would say, “make them stop looking at me” and I ordered everyone to turn around. Then I could talk him down.

I remember a super strong woman who had 6 boys all elementary age. I first met her at Big Brothers Big Sisters. Then they were at one of my schools. She was such a great mom. But she had been hurt badly by the boy’s father in front of them in a far away state. Once, after the boys had been absent from school for a week, she called me and said she needed help. The boy’s father had convinced her to let him see the boys and came and got them. As soon as she found out it wasn’t going well, she went from crisis center to crisis center begging for bus tickets down there, across the United States, went into the house at night, busted her kids out in their pajamas, and went from crisis center to crisis center back here. It was unbelievable. I’d like to tell you that her boys all made it, but the strikes against African American males with a trauma history was too much to overcome, even with great parenting. They are all in jail.

I remember doing thousands of suicide protocols and helping tons of kids past that. But the ones who attempted and a couple who succeeded will never leave me.

I remember, unfortunately, being bitched out by a father about his daughter just before I left school at noon to get a cancer treatment. I wanted so badly to shut his mouth by telling him, but I doubt it would have made a difference.

I worked with 4 generations of one family. No kidding. When I was at Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, I knew the grandma, mom and little girl. The little girl then grew up and had a daughter who went to the elementary school I worked at and then showed back up in the middle school later. And then she had a baby shortly after she left.

I remember being so afraid of an escalated kid that I didn’t feel like I could touch my radio. I emailed and no one came to help me. He later ended up being one of my all time favorite kids.

I remember at one of the wealthier schools, a little girl and her mom who had escaped being held in the back woods of Kentucky by a crazy, abusive man who terrified them, and held them without electrity or running water. The little girl would talk and dictate stories and her teacher did not know how to handle it. So I’d have her go to my office and we wrote and wrote. When the mom got afraid the man was coming to get them, we took the little girls’ stories down to the county attorney and the mom was given full custody and a protective order. I remember they gave me a ceramic angel that I still have.

I remember before any bullying training, at a higher SES school, all the girls getting up and leaving when a girl sat down at the lunch table. The Principal gave all the girls consequences then almost caved into the pressure she got from parents to let them out of it. I told her I would quit if she caved.

I remember sitting on the front step of a home on the south side with a pregnant mom and I was pregnant for the first time and felt my baby kick and she told me what I was I was feeling.

I remember a kid that the teachers had me see three times a week, mostly to get him out of the classroom. I really liked that kid. He went to prison in middle school for robbing a convenience store with a sawed off shotgun. He later showed up at Eisenhower having turned his life around and thanked me for all I had done. He said that what I’d told him finally sunk in!

I remember getting called to the police station and put in an interrogation room. They told me to stop calling crime stoppers and call them directly and to stop going to a particular neighborhood on home visits because I’d interrupted several planned drug busts. Oops.

I remember a little bitty girl disclosing sexual abuse to me that we reported to DCF with pictures and everything so we had a really great case and the next day she didn’t show up. Her family came in to unenroll her the day when I wasn’t there. A teacher told me she pulled the girl aside and told her to keep telling when she got to her new school. All we could do is report to the police where they’d enrolled her when we got the records request. I still hope that little girl got help.

I remember some really tough kids that trusted me and we had such great break throughs in my office. And kids I had absolutely no idea how to help.

I can remember once in a group clinical supervision setting, we got talking about difficult child abuse situations and one by one we each busted out in tears and sobbed together for about an hour.

I can remember some horrible graphic sexual stuff that kids were into that we had to report, “kiddy porn” as the cops call it, and adult porn they watched. Kids are truly resilient and amazing with the crap they have to deal with. That stuff sticks with me even now. Images I have to block out that resurface from time to time.

I had a lot of frustrating staff members to deal with who truly didn’t get it. And so many amazing teachers that did so much for kids over the years. I loved the team approach, the way teachers give and love and give some more. I’ll never forget the support I personally received when I went through cancer. I have never felt so loved.

I worked with so many great Principals over the years. And my sweet Nancy and Angela, counselors. And school secretaries! Mary and Diane stick out and will forever be deep in my heart. They took care of all of us. Every day for years and years.

I remember the little girl whose mom had died who lived with us for awhile when her daddy was sick. And then she later played soccer for Scott. I run into her from time to time and she has become an amazing adult.

And the little girl whose mother died giving birth to her baby brother. They were from a culture where the dads weren’t involved in child care at all and here he was trying to raise a little girl and a newborn. The best thing I taught her was how to make ramen noodles.

And the little girl who only spoke spanish whose house had been robbed by gun point while she hid. There were zero Spanish therapists to refer her to so she drew pictures and we did the best we could to write the story down and then she read it over and over to her parents until she got better. That was way before we had any trauma training.

And the transgender Asian student who didn’t speak English who had no way to tell us what they needed and who they were. I was able to piece it together and communicate it to the psychiatrist. That was way way before we even knew transgender was a thing.

I remember doing year after year of divorce support groups. And child of alcoholics groups. One year I had to have a group for kids in one school whose parents had been murdered!

I remember having such great conversations with a bi sexual student who was being bullied by the Christian kids and trying to help bridge the gap between the two worlds, to build acceptance and understanding. And advocating and educating administrators about LGBTQ issues without really understanding the whole thing myself, frankly. And educating administrators on the rape culture of dress codes. Don’t get me started.

I remember two of my favorite people, school psychologists. Not that school psychologists are my favorite people, ha ha ha, but two in particular whom I loved. One I was super close to and loved, and one with whom our heated debates drew us close and made us appreciate one another. My, we had some heated arguments. I’d tell him to put his F***ing manual away and do what was right for kids.

As a school social worker, I was always the one in the meeting who was willing to “go there”. If there was something that needed to be said and everyone knew it, I was the one that would go ahead and say it. Someone once told me I had the gift of saying it in just the right way. But I just remember pissing a lot of people off. On a regular basis.

I remember early on, a kid in first grade cussing me out using the F word and throwing a phone at me. His mom was into Wiccan orgies. I told him he was making clear choices because if he’d wanted to hit me with the phone, he would have aimed better.

I remember a middle school girl who was so terrified she couldn’t talk because she had a sudden onset of schizophrenia and the voices were so loud they would knock her over in the hallway.

I remember reading a first grade primer book to a big tough middle school boy on his front porch after he’d been kicked out of school.

And the kid we had to get the police to follow us every time we had him ride with us to take him home. And the day he kicked me in the throat and called me the most horrendous things. I had to press charges against him. Thankfully, when I was on the stand, I couldn’t recall exactly what he’d call me. I visited him at the detention center and took him a cheeseburger. He asked me to ask his mom to please put some sheets on his bed before he came home. I was too scared of her to ask her anything. She tore up the Principal’s office once. The kid’s sister was at my house after school one day, braiding my daughter’s hair. When we were waiting to go into the courtroom to testify, a teacher on one side of me said she felt I had violated the kid’s rights. The cop on the other side of me told me I should walk my kids to and from school for awhile.

I remember the time a father told me he was going to kill a guy. I was too terrified to report it (thankfully he didn’t give me a name). I asked my Principal what to do and he said he’d think about it. The next day, he brought me into the office and told the Dad in front of me “I hear you are scaring my social worker.” The guy apologized and said he hadn’t meant it.

I remember the scary drug addict who was beating his wife that came up to the school and asked me why his daughter was afraid to come to school. I said because she was afraid to leave him alone with her mom. Later, I asked his probation officer to please send him to rehab before jail. He called me from rehab to thank me. I ran into the assistant DA at a party a few weeks later and he told me I had balls.

I wonder how many DCF reports I made over the years. How much tobacco and pot I took off kids (and called the police). And how many faculty, inservice, and IEP meetings I attended. I wonder how many school lunches I ate over the years. How many interns I had…How many clubs I sponsored and how many service projects did we do…how many bully protocols….how many office referrals I wrote…how many fire drills we had…how many lunch bunches I did.

I loved being a school social worker. I couldn’t have done it one more day, though. God Bless school social workers.

I love my new car.

I know it was so hard for Mom to give up her car. It means giving up so much independence even though she was only driving it very short distances. And the car was special to her, purchased brand new shortly after Lee died with money he left her. As she signed it over to me, I promised to love it too.

Its a 2009 Lexus 350 ES, four door sedan. It drives like a dinner knife through butter. It has cruise control and cherry wood and leather interior. I like riding with the sun roof open. Everything is automatic and keyless. It’s so luxurious.

It was time for me to graduate from my cute little Mazda zoom zoom college girl car to something a bit more worthy of the new me. I did love my little manual transmission zip around car. It was fun to drive but felt like a golf cart to passengers. It went terribly in the snow and rain. I almost blew off the road driving it to Denver once. It didn’t have cruise control and the only thing automatic were the windows.

I feel so honored to ride in such style and luxury.

We looked at looked at outdoor patio furniture for our deck in the fall and just couldn’t find what we wanted. We were looking at some expensive options online and took a trip to Menard’s and found exactly what we wanted! It is basically the same style we had before so we got the couch, three chairs, a coffee table, end tables and then a table with an umbrella and chairs. We will put the old furniture minus the futon on the lower driveway then eventually build a fire pit in the yard.

Yesterday, Scott and our two friends tore down the old shed and last week Scott built the new one. I helped for about two hours. It was fun!

Hannah and Kent will have their wedding party here in June when it is all finished.

I missed my boys so I took a quick trip to Newton today and it was a good one.

I made a huge effort to go the speed limit on the way there, even while singing.

When I arrived, Emmet was in his rocket man outfit playing with his farm. He asked me to sit next to him, Leah said he’d been planning that all morning waiting for me to get there. That didn’t last long, so we rolled the ball back and forth and it was pretty apparent he was wound up so we got our jackets and shoes on and went outside to play. We put some outdoor chairs facing each other, I held Henry and we threw the ball for Moose over and over about 50 times. Each time Emmet screamed “Watch this!” and we together tried to get Henry to say, “Oh Wow” when Moose caught the ball in his mouth mid air. Henry said it once. Emmet taught me the command “drop it” to get Moose to put the ball down.

When that was done, I tried to teach Emmet to ride his trike. It was a little too hard for him yet. So I put the boys in the wagon and pulled it around and around in circles. Henry loved that. I was surprised Emmet stayed in as long as he did. He has a tremendously long attention span for a kid (longer than mine:).

Leah made us the nicest lunch, chicken enchiladas with green onions, avocado, and black beans for the top along with tortilla chips. Emmet actually tried the green onion! I had thanked Leah for making us a special lunch and Emmet kept patting the green onions and calling them special.

After lunch we loaded up the boys and went out to water their community garden plot. Emmet was super excited to show me the garden and to water it. So cute.

I got some Henry snuggles in. I told him I loved him and he put his little head down on my chest with a sweet little grin.

When we got back, Emmet and I played in the back yard awhile, more wagon pulling while Leah put Henry down for his nap. I read Emmet his two books in the chair and he snuggled me. While I was reading he said in the sweetest voice, “Grandma, I love you.” Completely unprompted. My heart melted.

I took a short nap on the couch snuggled up with Moose while Leah painted a pic. Leah said I can get a couple of her green tea towels at a discount.

I stopped by Prairie Harvest and tried on Easter dresses. Found one and a purse, but decided I didn’t really need either so passed. I got a few items from Prairie Harvest including a yummy snack to eat while driving home with the windows open and the sun streaming in. While singing at the top of my lungs, of course.

So this short visit was a win all the way around.