Daria Doering

Christmas 2003

Dear family and friends,

A warm hello to all of you.  We are grateful for old friends and new friends at this time of year, and hope you are all well.

For us, this year has had a “quest for survival” quality.  It’s been a year of getting old, or at least feeling old.  Though when I look back on all we’ve done this year, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at feeling the worse for wear.  My year included my graduation from USD with an M.Ed. in Character Education; doing a fellowship with my professor and running the “Laws of Life Essay Contest”; summer classes to complete my credential; going to five different two or three day educational seminars; getting two of my children into new schools, both of which involved jumping through a lot of hoops; being Chair of Governance plus starting a School Improvement Committee at Grant Elementary; teaching writing classes for grades 3-12 at Julian Charter; and that’s just the fun stuff (kidding).  I could write quite a bit about any of the above, but will spare you.  I’ll just go straight to the family news.

We finally gave in the inevitable and let Nick join a travel hockey team, the La Jolla Jaguars.  So Mike has a “second job” of driving Nick to two practices per week, plus a game every other weekend in Orange or L.A. County.  Which is not necessarily bad.  Mutual musings upon arising the other day:

Daria: I have a back-breaking day ahead of me, but at least I get to take Nina to her dance classes in the afternoon!

Mike: I have a godawful day ahead, but at least I get to take the boys to hockey tonight!

Mike often works from his basement office “cave,” and it’s great to have him around at times. Not that we socialize much during the day; we’re both desperately racing to get our jobs done around kid duties.

Nick is attending High-Tech High School, which seems to be a good academic home for him.  We like the teachers, Nick happily gets his work done (a reasonable amount) with little input from us, and even willingly goes to school on Saturdays occasionally to work on special projects.  We love the dress code, under which boys must wear button down or polo shirts, with no T-shirts, shorts or jeans allowed.  This allows for individuality but precludes the slut-gangbanger look that is so appalling at other high schools.   You go to HTH and the kids actually look like respectable citizens with a future.  We recently attended a “Toga Night” in which the boys and girls produced separate plays – Nick’s was an adaptation of The Trojan Women by Euripides – and we inspected an impressive display of Ancient Greek machines which the kids had all created.  Nick (and Mike, okay) built a “trebuchet,” or Greek style catapult.  Nick complains,  “They don’t teach enough math,” but we don’t even care about that, since Nick is motivated to study it on his own!

In the summer, Nick participated in Sierra Service Project with our church, and spent a week on an Indian reservation in Arizona, repairing houses.  He also took up the electric guitar.  He and his friend Nathan spend a lot of time jamming (actually enjoyable to listen to), and the rest of their time creating their band’s website, and making up upsetting names and logos for it.  First the band was called “Twenty-five to Life,” then “Addikt,” and finally “Lethal Independence.”  Hmmm … Scary.  They’ve also done some cool band-related art with digital camera, computer, and even real paint!

Jake is enjoying sixth grade at Grant.  It’s wonderful to have two of our children at the same school for the first time ever!  I can’t get over seeing the two of them standing together when I go to pick them up!

Jake is still playing hockey, and still delighting us with his piano playing, which doesn’t come without a price – lots of practice.  In fact my poor sons say that every time they get dressed up, it feels like they’re going to a piano recital.  On the way to a wedding, Jake said, “It feels so weird not having to do anything!”

Jake finds other unusual feats to perform too.  Most recently he seems to have memorized the entire script of “Anger Management,” which is quite amazing.  He can dramatize the whole movie with appropriate accents and voices.  I started off hating “Anger Management,” but my family has insisted I watch it with them several times, and at this point my brain is so addled by the movie and the kids’ antics that I don’t know what to think any more.

Lastly Jake is always the astute observer: The other day he said to me blithely, “You and Nick are a lot alike.  You both get up early, and you both defy everything anyone says to you …”

“We both what?!” I said?  You think that I do that?”

“Yes,” said Jake, laughing.

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“You act like people are idiots, and you can’t understand why they’d do the things they do,” he said.  Adding, “probably you just do it to Dad and us, just to your family.”  Lovely.

I think half the time my children see me as a slave driver and resent me, and the other half I hear some very appreciative things from them, such as:

Jake: “Thanks for raising us like sled dogs, Mom!” (after having read Call of the Wild)

Mom: “What do you mean?”

Jake: “Thanks for raising us tough, for not spoiling us.”

Mom: “Thanks for saying that, just when I was feeling like giving up …”

Nick: “Don’t ever give up!”

Nina: “Mom, you don’t spoil us, and you’re not really, really strict; you’re just right!”  She gestured with her hands, creating a thin column, meaning “just right.”

Or the time that Mike said something about women being jerks, and my being a jerk, and Nick said, “but not very often!”  That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me!

Other times I feel that although I try, my children just have different values than I do.  Like the time I said, “Nina, I thought we could go together to the art supply store, because I want to buy Jake a really nice set of colored pencils for his birthday.”

Nina got a look of utter disgust and rage on her face and shrieked at me, “Why don’t you buy him a real present!!!”  (Like, um, a video game or movie spin-off item.)

Nina is going to school at Grant this year.  It was a tough transition, but she is blossoming academically, making new friends, and is much more relaxed and reasonable at home.

In fact Nina has had a prolonged burst of creativity since starting at Grant, and has started to write non-stop!!  She folds and staples paper into booklets, and creates her own diaries, stories and poetry.  In her latest journal, she taped a tiny address book inside, wrote a list of everyone she has a crush on, and even wrote one reflection in red lipstick!  However she went too far when she cut off a lock of her hair and taped it in!

As far as other subjects, Nina has had many tribulations over math in the last year.  But finally the other day Nina told me that things were going better in math.  I asked her why, and she said, “Because I prayed about it!”

I said, “That’s wonderful that you prayed about it, and God answered your prayer.  But we need to still keep working on the math.”

Nina replied, “Nope, I only need to pray!”

Recently Mike said to me, “Don’t ever say to Nina, ‘I’m not your punching bag’ again!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because when we went to the skating rink, and she was throwing fits and pouting, and I was trying to get her in line, she kept yelling at me, ‘I’m not your punching bag!’” he explained.

I agreed that Nina had come up with a very inopportune time to publicly express that sentiment to a parent, given the CPS-happy environment we currently live in.

Though after more discussion we decided that “I’m not your punching bag” should be our family motto!  I’m afraid it effectively expresses the rather primitive level our family is on, i.e. “Let’s not kill each other, physically or emotionally”!  Plus it gives us a good laugh!

Lastly there was the time we were at a friend’s house, and I was visiting with two mothers from Nina’s class.  Nina suddenly came to me and demanded, “Take me to the car, fat servant!”  All of our jaws dropped, including mine.  That was a new one.  Finally one of the moms had the presence of mind to say, “Nina, that was ruder than rude!”  She elaborated on how in their house, they wash out their children’s mouths with soap if they talk in such a manner!  Don’t children come up with just the right thing to say at the right time?!

But lest I’ve given the impression that life with Nina Doering is hell, that couldn’t be further from the truth!  Nina is so incredibly sweet and giving.

Last Mother’s Day she announced, “Time for a manicure and a pedicure!  Mom, I’m going to make you look so beautiful!”  I blanched, knowing the usual effects of her beauty treatments.  Then I heard the reassuring words, “Don’t worry Mom, I’m not going to make you look like a clown, the way I did last time!”  She asked whether she should paint every toenail a different color, and I urged her to do them all the same.  We ended up with each foot a slightly different color.  Then it was time for makeup.  Nina produced a lipstick and said, “Dad found this on the ground, but it’s really pretty!”  I wondered aloud whether I’d get a fatal disease from using someone else’s lipstick.

Then the other night she asked me to play a game with her.  I had to throw a ball between two pillows, and she said, “You get prizes: a head scratch, a shoulder rub, a foot rub, a back scratch, being covered with a blanket, or a rose.”  Boy, those are my kind of prizes!  She called it the “Make Mom Happy” game!  I figured there must be some catch, but I kept getting the ball in, Nina gave out many “prizes,” and it was about the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me!

From her point of view, Nina told me that her best day of the year was when I came to St. Vincent’s midday and told them there was a family emergency, and I needed to take Nina home.  As Nina wondered whether a relative had died, I whispered to her, “We’re going to the snow!”  It was April, and there had been an unseasonal snow the night before, so I’d decided to drop everything, and take off with the kids and their friends for Mt. Laguna.  We had a great time on a beautiful, hot day, playing in the plentiful snow at 6,000 feet!

As for my life, there are many things I feel grateful for, especially my unique husband, and twenty years of togetherness that have never been dull.  Mike and I have always had a love-hate relationship, though at this point I think we’ve thoroughly exhausted the “hate” part, and now our union is very sweet.  And though Mike has often complained of how little we have in common, I think the years have shown otherwise.  We both have a lightning rod like ability to cause or step into controversy.  We both tend to be critics, follow our own drummer, and not fit in.  So as we crash through life, nursing numerous but thankfully minor hurts, we feel increasingly grateful that we have each other.

We also have such good times together, as in the following:

Kids: “Mom, you and Dad are going on a date downtown!”  I perked up.  Had my husband decided to surprise me?  “Mom, there are heart-shaped hot tubs!  You’re in a bikini, and you’re really skinny!” they continued.  Uh-oh … this must not be real.  It turned out the children had created a virtual “Doering family” with the computer program, “The Sims’ Hot Date,” and virtual Mike and Daria were going on a hot date at “Bob’s Café,” which Nick had created with “Sim City.”  I watched myself ordering a $150 meal and listening to a pianist play classical music.

Then we have our own internal “culture wars.”  Mike’s favorite new CD is called “Come Poop With Me,” and features his favorite scatological, pornographic poodles first seen on Conan O’Brien.  I wonder how I could possibly have married somebody so juvenile that he would enjoy such a thing.  Mike first says, “It’s therapy.”  Then he explains that it’s a spoof on rap music videos, and says to me, “but of course you’ve never seen a rap music video so you don’t know what that is.”  I admit that I avoid rap videos and MTV.

And here I had been reflecting with misty eyes for days about how grateful I feel for the cultural education I’m getting from our children.  After hearing a daily mini-concert of our three children practicing the piano for years, plus countless piano recitals and festivals, I’m actually enjoying classical music and jazz, both of which I never liked before.

Mike and my latest conflict came when Nina kept blathering about a “bobble-head,” and I kept saying, “What in the world are you talking about?”  Amid confusing explanations of big heads, bobbing heads, dolls and sporting events, Mike finally explained that the full name is “bobble-head dolls.”  He was astounded that I didn’t know what a bobble-head was, and thinks it is contemptible that I am so “out of touch with American culture” that I don’t know such a thing.  Do you all know what bobble-heads are?  I told him, after yelling about tacky sporting events and related culture, that there needs to be one thing in the world I’m not fascinated with, and sports is it.

I’m grateful for our kids, who are at such a sweet time in their lives, and are really my recreation these days.  We’ve started listening to books on tape in the car again – all the children’s literature I’ve been hearing about for years but haven’t had time to read – and it’s been such a joy.  Nina and I have listened to all the “Ramona” books, the “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle” books (both highly recommended!), and many more.

With Mom working a lot more due to teaching, we’ve gone from one extreme to the other: from family meetings, family prayer time, and homeschooling to having no time to do any family rituals whatsoever.  All that’s left is this holiday letter (violin strains).  But basically I think my children are overjoyed that I’m off their backs, and am driving other people’s children crazy rather than my own!

My new watchword is: sometimes you have to give up on a family in order to preserve a family.  I feel like I’ve given up on everything that was once important to me, so that the boys could play hockey, mainly.  But I’m repeatedly taught the lesson that when things don’t go my way, allowing that to happen is a virtue (at least for me!), I can cope, and it’s usually for the best anyway.

I’m grateful for technology.  However my feelings about dishwashers went from this rhapsody I wrote several months ago …

The sound of a dishwasher is my favorite sound in the world.

The busy but gentle swishing of water.

It’s like a fountain that does work,

Rather than being ornamental.

 

Such a comforting, rhythmic, melodic sound.

So reliable as it goes through its cycle.

A “quiet dishwasher” means you hear the water, not the motor.

You just hear the good part.

… to this recent entry, after the dishwasher broke:

For some strange reason, life without a dishwasher is much better than life with a dishwasher.  I now feel that dishwashers are responsible for the breakdown of the American family, not to mention sparsely cleaned dishes and pile-up’s waiting to be washed.  Dishwashing can be such a social activity.  It’s a great time to talk, sing or act silly while your hands luxuriate in the hot water.  (Prologue: we did get the dishwasher fixed, but I think our months without it were very valuable.)

I’m grateful for my job, in which I’m privileged to help homeschooling families to realize their educational dreams, in their individual, self-chosen ways.  I also get to teach whatever I’m interested in and there’s a need for, to whatever age group I want, in whatever way I think best, on a weekly basis, as long as I can get students to come!  So although it’s a lot of work, it’s very fascinating and satisfying.

Although you know you’re really an English teacher when …

Last night Jake and Nina were in bed with me and I was half-asleep.  They started fooling around loudly, and ignored me when I asked them to stop.  So I started the “countdown” to get them to desist.  Only instead of counting “1, 2, 3,” I chanted, “A, B, C … “  By the time I got to “D,” I woke up, wondering what the heck I was talking about.  By then the kids were howling with laughter over Mom “counting” by saying the alphabet!

I’m grateful that my parents are around, and that different as my family may be, we are loving and close.

I’m grateful for my education, and for becoming a teacher.  For someone like me who always had a deep-seated fear, hatred and distrust of teachers, becoming socialized to be a teacher myself has been nothing short of incredible.  It has involved a lot of inner work and adventures on my part, and dealing with all the issues raised has ultimately felt like a healing of my soul.

I’m grateful for my efforts to make changes at Grant.  Thought they seem like a complete waste of time, as far as results, it was an important experience for me on a personal level.  I took a lot of risks, and said things publicly that I felt needed to be expressed, no matter how much people might not want to hear them.  In the end, I felt that I’d “found my voice”!!!

At times I feel burned out and bitter over various things, but I’m always amazed at the encouragement God seems to put on my path at such times, such as winning something (I’ve won the door prize at two trainings I attended in the last year) or a call from an old friend.

Happy Holidays!