And on the Eigth day....Worry

So .....My son says to me last night, "I'm not sure whether you should worry about my math grade or not." I picked up right away on this as "something to listen to". And then he followed with, "I probably am worried enough for the both of us."

Yeah.
I have three confirmed worriers in my 1st grade this year. I know this absolutely because one chose the word "serious" to describe the face he is painting on his pumpkin. That's a little different. The other two opted for, "Careful and afraid." But not after asking if they could say, "Depressed." But the kicker was my little student who at six years old shared a long story about "insurance." What it is, how he does not have it anymore and its ramifications on car drivers, doctor appointments and in a good job. Thank you very much, I said as he finished his sharing time. I do not actually believe any other student has ever chosen at "share" to give a detailed story of what happens if one does not do well in school from that perspective. Mostly changing their "card" seems to preoccupy them. Well he says,insurance, now you know.

So good, along with worrying about the student in my room that was hit by a car and my little one that gets penguin feet when we are being watched for teaching to the "standard" without allowing the bird walk I am so known for...now I can add to this list of teacher worries....the child that worries about the pending issues of a life without proper insurance.

Times are different.

So stories are different. Today at the library my children were determined to check out every Kevin Henkes book there which they did 27 in all. In part because he is one of my "focus" authors. I read him a lot. They spotted Wemberly Worried and insisted I read it right there. Right now. So I did. In the loveliest setting ever in our new South Oxnard Branch Library with a seat Alan the head librarian pulled over on cozy cute chairs for my kids that library is a dream come true. But you could not pick a better book because Wemberly, the cute little she-mouse is learning about worry.Her worry.
And she sure has lots of it. Boat loads. So much she wears the fur right off her little toy rabbit ears.Rub for luck you know. Worries always have good luck schemas. She has all kinds of worries from the unbelievable (will the crack in the wall lead to the house splitting in two), to worries that are so normal...like.....worrying about school starting. Will I be able to deal if I cry at school? She asks. Along with so much more.

Warning this is going to give away a little bit of the end so...turn back now oh needers of surprise who are oddly reading a review rather than just reading the book.

Wemberly finds at school that there are OTHER Wemberly like beings in the world. And we all know how good it feels to find that we are "not alone." Enough said, a tremendous Henkes conclusion very satisfying. Every kid today, I am not kidding, held hands up, each others, and said, "Yes! Friends!" The guy, (librarian) looked at me in a new way. (of course it might have been a ...."this reminds me of a Barney episode" way)
But I did appreciate this book. A time to talk to worry. I asked, "Who worries?" And you know what. Those hands flew up like you would not believe. Ah, I see.Here we go. Kids worry. They worry in my hood about (they said after directions not to tell "personal things") they worry about buying food, moving, fights, lost toys, making friends, the road, getting lost, the hospital, mom running away(okay I know personal), they worry. All I'm saying is...if they have this it is good to use story to help and validate...and we sang this:
"Ain't it nice to know that you've got a friend when people can be so cold...' and we really sang out on a loved ..and loved, "You've Got A Friend In Me" (cliche perhaps). But they really do have a friend right here.

In me.

This teacher says....go for this book. It's terrific. Don't Worry, Be Happy.



Worry Quotes:

If I had my life to live over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. ~Don Herold


Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. ~Mark Twain


Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. ~Author Unknown


Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which will never happen. ~James Russel Lowell


If things go wrong, don't go with them. ~Roger Babson


Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. ~Leo Buscaglia


Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. ~Benjamin Franklin


If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep. ~Dale Carnegie


I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time. ~Charlie Brown (Charles Schulz)


Troubles are a lot like people - they grow bigger if you nurse them. ~Author Unknown


If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. ~E. Joseph Cossman


Nerves and butterflies are fine - they're a physical sign that you're mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that's the trick. ~Steve Bull


I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then, whenever doubt, anxiety or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal - and soon they'll forget my number. ~Edith Armstrong


Nerves provide me with energy. They work for me. It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that I get worried. ~Mike Nichols


I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ~Wendell Berry, "The Peace of Wild Things"


People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross. ~Author Unknown


You can't wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time. ~Pat Schroeder


The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927


Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. ~Glenn Turner


People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them. ~George Bernard Shaw, "Family Affection," Parents and Children, 1914


Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination. ~Christian Nevell Bovee


Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. ~Nelson DeMille


For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. ~Author Unknown


We experience moments absolutely free from worry. These brief respites are called panic. ~Cullen Hightower


If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times. ~Dean Smith


It only seems as if you are doing something when you're worrying. ~Lucy Maud Montgomery


A hundredload of worry will not pay an ounce of debt. ~George Herbert


As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey. ~Thomas A. Edison


Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. ~Swedish Proverb


Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. ~Edward Everett Hale


We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. ~John Newton


Worry bankrupts the spirit. ~Berri Clove


Worry ducks when purpose flies overhead. ~C. Astrid Weber


It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge a elephant, but we can't dodge a fly. ~Josh Billings


Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die. ~Attributed to Douglas MacArthur


You can never worry your way to enlightenment. ~Ed Northstrum


When you suffer an attack of nerves you're being attacked by the nervous system. What chance has a man got against a system? ~Russell Hoban


I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating." ~E.B. White


There are two days in the week about which and upon which I never worry... Yesterday and Tomorrow. ~Robert Jones Burdette


A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work. ~John Lubbock


As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see. ~Julius Caesar


If worrying were an Olympic sport, you'd get the gold for sure. ~Stephenie Geist


Don't chain your worries to your body. The burden soon becomes heavy and your health will give too much of itself to pick up the extra load. ~Astrid Alauda, Dyspeptic Enlightenment


Worry is rust upon the blade. ~Henry Ward Hughes


Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed so is the body. ~Martin Luther


I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. ~Dorothy Day


Worry is a complete cycle of inefficient thought revolving about a pivot of fear. ~Author Unknown


Loneliness, insomnia, and change: the fear of these is even worse than the reality. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down. ~George MacDonald


Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are! ~Charles Dickens


Some of your hurts you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of grief you endured
From the evil which never arrived.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson


I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~Mark Twain


My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. ~Michel de Montaigne


If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you. ~Calvin Coolidge


How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. ~Thomas Jefferson


Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. ~Arthur Somers Roche


There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them. ~Josh Billings


Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be. ~John Dryden


Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. ~William Ralph Inge


There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than injure us, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality. ~Seneca


We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us. ~John Lancaster Spalding


We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives. ~Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979


Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen. ~Pliny the Younger


Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night. ~Author Unknown



Real difficulties can be overcome, it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. ~Theodore N. Vail


No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. ~George MacDonald


Rule number one is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it's all small stuff. ~Robert Eliot


They need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace unless they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end. ~Jack Kerouac


He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~Montaigne, Essays, 1588