We’re all three in school a lot these days, and between that and our extracurriculars we don’t see each other during the week like we used to. Troy’s busy at the University nursery school, Huck’s finishing up fourth grade, and for the past two weeks I’ve been substitute teaching at The New School. Mostly I’ve been the art teacher, but I’ve also made cameo appearances in both Spanish and P.E., which may be stretching the limits of my abilities.  I can barely remember how to say “hello” in Español and I certainly shouldn’t have shouted, “HOLD YOUR BALLS!” in an attempt to quiet down the dribbling third graders.  But because of my usual role as play director, I’ve worked with almost all of these children over the past year.  And while no one would call substitute teaching “easy” or even “fun,” it has been surprisingly both getting to know these three to 13 year olds outside of the pressure (and occasional absurdity) of rehearsals.

The other day I set up a grocery store station for the preschoolers, something that would have been my dream come true back in 1975.  Suddenly there was a strange commotion and I realized that all the little boys were robbing the grocery store, stuffing cash registers and fake food into their shirts and pants while little girls screeched, “They’re robbing us! They’re robbing us!”  Since I have some experience with drunk midgets, I had a good talk with the out-of-breath robbers and convinced them to cool the heck down.  The next day I made another childhood dream come true and set up an office station.  I spent the morning on a gigantic old fashioned cell phone enlisting four year olds to join me at our 1:00 meeting, missing a certain four year old who would have loved this game back in 2009.  Amongst the three year olds is a little girl named Stella and a boy who does a wonderful Stanley Kowalski impression.

With the fourth graders I brought in some of Huck’s origami instruction pages, and before I knew it six or seven children were hovering over me hoping I would teach them how to make complicated lilies and stars that were way beyond my paper crane abilities.  I promised them I would have a one-on-one session with Huck at home and learn all the proper folds. Due to a rather crazy schedule that included the start of Prison Stories, archery lessons and Troy’s rehearsals, this session did not happen until 6:30 the next morning. That’s the worst time for me to learn anything.  Later that day I attempted the lily only to repeatedly fail right around step four out of seventeen.  The sweet girl I was trying to help shouted, “GET ON THE PHONE AND CALL YOUR SON RIGHT NOW!  I DON’T CARE IF HE’S IN SCHOOL!”  Thankfully, she accepted Huck’s perfect lily example as a consolation.

Last Friday night Troy and I were tired from a long work week when Huck began entertaining us with old songs from his jazz choir days.  Wearing his red and black flannel pajamas, he began wistfully dancing around the living room singing to us with intense eye contact, practically daring us to laugh at his commitment.  Troy was in and out of consciousness during Huck’s routine, as is his Friday night tradition, but I couldn’t take my tired eyes away.  Possibly due to being sleepy, the sight and sound of his performance took on a dreamy quality for me and I had a feeling this would be something I would remember.  I imagined I had time traveled, as if I had been given this gift in the future to magically appear on a January evening in 2015 when Huck was but a nine year old.  We’re reading Rebecca Stead’s wonderful book together called “When You Reach Me,” and in it a character believes we wear an invisible veil over our faces to protect ourselves from all the beauty and sadness of the real world.  Sometimes the wind will blow our veil up a bit and we get a quick glimpse at what’s really around us, but most of the time the world is a little blurry and we like it that way.  That’s what it felt like while Huck sang his outrageously dramatic rendition of “Summertime,” especially in contrast to my days spent with kids I haven’t known forever.  I had time traveled and the veil was off for a few seconds and there was my origami teacher aggressively singing his guts out while my funny husband and lazy dog snored together next to me.

And for the next 48 hours we had each other all to ourselves.