I have decided that the biggest problem we have in politics today is self delusion.
There are many self delusions that could be spoken of here- basically we are willing believers in most propaganda techniques. That person drinks the same beer/ coffee/ soda/ whatever as me? He/she must have great political ideas, too. That person drives a different car/ reads a different newspaper/ grew up in different circumstances than me? His/her political ideas must be horrible. Someone who is a celebrity has labeled that person as a "hot button" word- whether good or bad- and I ALWAYS believe what celebrities say. They're famous- they must be smart- why else would they be on or have their own talk shows? And so on, and so on.
The particular delusion that I'm currently thinking about runs like this...
"I am a sensible, rational person. Therefore, other sensible, rational people would come to the same conclusions as I do in regards to a particular issue. Therefore, my stance (along with those who agree with me) must be the sensible, rational one, and thus the one that counts as 'mainstream' or moderate or centrist. So, those who disagree with me must be on the fringes of thought on this issue, and are likely to also be irrational or misinformed."
Even when we label ourselves as "conservative" or "liberal"-which you think might clue us in- we somehow still think that our point of view is the middle/ centrist/ moderate one.
I hear this from all corners of political debates. People on the right accuse those who disagree with them of being socialist/ communist/ Nazis/ Stalin. People on the left accuse those who disagree with them of being ultra-right wing/fascist reactionaries/ Nazis/ Hitler.
**This is a good time to bring up a rule- whoever calls their opponent a "Nazi" or Hitler first- loses the argument. I would also like to amend the rule slightly- if you use the words: Nazi/ Hitler/ Stalin/ Communist to describe your opponent or their ideas, you lose. Unless they actually ARE Hitler or Stalin, of course, in which case you should totally be on a talk show!**
**The historian in me also wants to point out that someone being both a communist and a Nazi at the same time is pretty farfetched.**
So, back to my point. Somewhere, there is possibly a person whose political ideas put them in the exact middle of political thought in our country. (Or, if we go with the 1 in a million theory, then there are about 311.6 people who could possibly be in that spot.)
So, the grand majority of us are NOT in the middle. We fall somewhere else on the spectrum, whether to right or left. And that is fine- but we need to realize that.
Democracy as our founding fathers and mothers conceived it to be involved having people of differing viewpoints argue it out until a compromise was reached somewhere in the middle. **Compromise generally means BOTH sides miss getting exactly what they want. If one side gets everything they want? Not a compromise.**
Just because the solution actually reached is either a little to the "right" or "left" of where our own political viewpoint lies does not mean that the country is either becoming fascist or communist. It's probably still muddling it's way down the middle of the road/spectrum. We veer a little right sometimes, and a little left sometimes, but we tend to not go too far in either direction.
**Interesting historical trivia- one of the reasons George Washington was chosen as our first president was that he was one of the moderates for his time. The other main moderate of that group? Benjamin Franklin. Imagine what he would have been like as president. It makes me giggle- but he's always been my favorite of that group.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
I think they drugged my baby!
Ok, this is not a post about daycare abusing my innocent child- but instead a post marvelling at what they were able to do with him.
For Mother's Day, the daycare sent home a wonderful present "from" Ben. They do this kind of thing a lot, where the child "creates" a lovely work of art for the parent. This particular piece was a a little canvas with a perfect handprint from my angel. Wonderful, lovely, so special and perfect. However, here is where things began to go downhill. Seeing that lovely handprint (and being seduced by craft ideas on Pinterest- which will get its own post sometime in the future), I decided to try to make a Father's Day present for D.
My idea was to get D's hand and foot prints and layer the boys' ones on top.
(Those of you who can figure out where this is going to end can point and laugh now.)
Things worked out pretty well with getting D's. He surely knew something was up, but he's a good sport, so he gave them to me without too much teasing. J was pretty cooperative, too. He got to pick his paint color and liked having the paint spread on his hand and foot. The prints weren't perfect, but pretty darn good.
Then came B's turn. The foot print was ok- if a little awkward to get. Babies tend to clench their toes a lot, so the footprint came out a little odd looking. Then, there was the hand. Remember the perfect handprint above? Yep, so this should be easy, right?
Along with clenching their toes, babies tend to make their hand into fists whenever you touch their palms. So, imagine, if you will, me spreading green paint onto my baby's palm- which immediately turns into a fist. Then, once there is paint on his hand, arm, face (in addition to making fists, babies like to put those fists in their mouths), his other hand and other arm, my hands and arms, the floor, the sink, etc., comes the time for me to press his little hand onto the paper and make the perfect handprint. I'm sure you can guess how well this turned out.
How did they do it? I lean toward the drug theory or the possibility that they have a hand "stand-in" whose only job is to come in and make perfect little handprints on canvasses so they can lull ambitious crafting parents into thinking they can achieve the same results. My mom, of course, provided the voice of reason and said that they could have just waited until he was asleep. I'm not convinced, however. When I get another crafty urge (I have an idea for Christmas cards!), I will test it and see how it works out.
Luckily for the sake of my crafting sensibilities and present idea, my husband remained a good sport when I came back to him and asked for another hand and foot print. Then, J was just as happy to play with paint the second time around, too. And third, I finally remembered that the hospital had given us a hand/footprint kit that did not require anything to be spread on the baby. Instead, you just lay it on paper and press their hand or foot onto the film and you get a black hand or foot print on the paper- no mess, no fuss. It seems that someone besides me had perhaps found the difficulty in getting baby cooperation.
So, here is the final result. I liked it. :)
For Mother's Day, the daycare sent home a wonderful present "from" Ben. They do this kind of thing a lot, where the child "creates" a lovely work of art for the parent. This particular piece was a a little canvas with a perfect handprint from my angel. Wonderful, lovely, so special and perfect. However, here is where things began to go downhill. Seeing that lovely handprint (and being seduced by craft ideas on Pinterest- which will get its own post sometime in the future), I decided to try to make a Father's Day present for D.
My idea was to get D's hand and foot prints and layer the boys' ones on top.
(Those of you who can figure out where this is going to end can point and laugh now.)
Things worked out pretty well with getting D's. He surely knew something was up, but he's a good sport, so he gave them to me without too much teasing. J was pretty cooperative, too. He got to pick his paint color and liked having the paint spread on his hand and foot. The prints weren't perfect, but pretty darn good.
Then came B's turn. The foot print was ok- if a little awkward to get. Babies tend to clench their toes a lot, so the footprint came out a little odd looking. Then, there was the hand. Remember the perfect handprint above? Yep, so this should be easy, right?
Along with clenching their toes, babies tend to make their hand into fists whenever you touch their palms. So, imagine, if you will, me spreading green paint onto my baby's palm- which immediately turns into a fist. Then, once there is paint on his hand, arm, face (in addition to making fists, babies like to put those fists in their mouths), his other hand and other arm, my hands and arms, the floor, the sink, etc., comes the time for me to press his little hand onto the paper and make the perfect handprint. I'm sure you can guess how well this turned out.
How did they do it? I lean toward the drug theory or the possibility that they have a hand "stand-in" whose only job is to come in and make perfect little handprints on canvasses so they can lull ambitious crafting parents into thinking they can achieve the same results. My mom, of course, provided the voice of reason and said that they could have just waited until he was asleep. I'm not convinced, however. When I get another crafty urge (I have an idea for Christmas cards!), I will test it and see how it works out.
Luckily for the sake of my crafting sensibilities and present idea, my husband remained a good sport when I came back to him and asked for another hand and foot print. Then, J was just as happy to play with paint the second time around, too. And third, I finally remembered that the hospital had given us a hand/footprint kit that did not require anything to be spread on the baby. Instead, you just lay it on paper and press their hand or foot onto the film and you get a black hand or foot print on the paper- no mess, no fuss. It seems that someone besides me had perhaps found the difficulty in getting baby cooperation.
So, here is the final result. I liked it. :)
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Quiet Book Pages
What's a quiet book you might ask?
A quiet book is a book- usually of fabric, but also possibly
of other materials, in which each page or double page spread is an activity
that a kid can do. The idea is
that this is a book to help kids keep quiet in places where they need to- the
doctor’s office, an airplane, a restaurant, church, etc.
My busy bag group had a bunch of people interested in
swapping these pages with one another, and then we split off and created a
separate group- with probably about 25-30 people total. We split into groups and end up making
6 or 7 pages of the same thing. We
keep one and mail the others out.
I have found that etsy is the key to my quiet booking. I am only so crafty- but I am very
willing to find things other people have made to incorporate onto my
pages. I figure that as long as I
make the page and most of the stuff, I can still keep my “crafty credentials”
and my group members will get much better pages- and on time, too!
For my regular group- meaning group with no theme- I have
made 2 pages so far- an abacus page and a weather page. The abacus page was very simple- beads
on cotton yarn that I strung across the page (plain white cotton).
I used foam stickers on the sides and the top.
The weather page was much more complex. For the background, I used blue flannel (felt sticks to
flannel pretty well) for the sky, and then added green flannel for grass and a
little felt house. The hill is
actually a pocket to hold all of the weather icons.
So, I first thought about what I wanted to have,
weather-wise. I decided on sunny,
puffy white clouds, partly sunny, gray clouds, rain, lightning and snow. I REALLY wanted to have an icon for
‘windy’ but couldn’t come up with any way of showing that easily. I ordered the light gray and puffy
white clouds and some of the snowflakes from a shop, http://shop.katscrappiness.com and
was very happy with them (the other snowflakes came from this shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/bbdsupplies.) The rest I made (including the
blue-gray rain clouds- which I made using the other clouds as a template- the shop didn’t offer them in a darker
gray- just the light gray.) For
the sun, I just used 2 different sizes of mason jars for the circles- using
chalk to mark on the felt. For the
rain, I used light blue yarn and sewed it onto the clouds.
Here is a picture of all of the symbols, spread out over 4
pages.
One of my groups is an ABC swap. My letters are B, H, M and R. For B, I made a beach page with a “build your own
sandcastle” activity. I got the
idea from a blog, here: http://www.imagineourlife.com/2012/03/24/sandcastle-quiet-book-page/. This woman is much more crafty than I
will ever be. I did not make mine
exactly like hers- mine are single layers instead of double- and not as
decorative either. I found some
felt seashells online and ordered them, as well as ordering the ‘B’ and ‘b’
from an Etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/funandsimplefelt. I started with the templates from the
Imagine Our Life page, drawing them onto a cereal box to cut and use as my
templates. I also added a “bucket”
shape, because that’s part of sandcastles to me.
My ideas for my other letters are as follows:
H- house- a big house with slits in it where little popsicle
stick people can be inserted to be at the windows or behind the door
M- build your own monster page (I thought I knew how I wanted to do this, but now am trying
to avoid having 20 billion little pieces stored on the page, so am unsure.)
R- Race car/ race track.
My final group for April (yep, I got a little carried away
that month) was a Seasons group.
Each of us chose a season to make a page of. 2 other members did “all seasons” pages as we had a group of
6 and no one wanted to double up.
I chose to do a counting page with leaves- as fall is my
favorite season and I LOVE the leaves turning colors and falling from the
trees. So, back to etsy for my
leaf shapes (http://www.etsy.com/shop/bbdsupplies). I got a large variety, because I wanted
to mix the leaf colors on each page, instead of just having 1. The page has a tree shape on one side,
green patterned flannel at the bottom for “grass,” and numbers on the blue
“sky” background. The felt leaves
can be stored in 2 pockets in the green flannel. I used liquid gems to put dots on the leaves to match the
numbers. The numbers are just drawn
on with permanent marker, since I am completely uncoordinated with fabric
paint.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Sneaky Chef
Book Review: The Sneaky Chef
My mom gave my sister-in-law and I this for Christmas. Well, one of my sisters-in-law. The one sister-in-law I had at the
time, as one of my other brothers married since that time and now I have TWO
awesome sisters-in-law which for someone who grew up with only brothers is
pretty fantastic. Anyhow, back to
the book review.
The concept of the book is hiding nutritious things in
food. My mom did this to us- we
have family jokes about the things that she added wheat germ and chicken broth
into that normally wouldn’t have had those things. She really tried to convince us that wheat germ was a great
ice cream topping, but we rebelled against that. I was a little skeptical about the book going in,
though. I want my children to eat
their vegetables KNOWING that they are eating veggies. We had joked with one of our other
friends as her husband won’t eat veggies that maybe this was a way to help him.
J, however, is a picky eater. Not picky in the sense that there are certain foods he likes
and certain ones he doesn’t. Picky
in the sense that he will like something one day and refuse to eat it the next
time we serve it or that he sometimes refuses to eat altogether. Dinner has been a very frustrating
experience numerous times and it felt like we were getting to the point that it
was always a battle just to get him to eat anything. So, we started trying out some of the recipes from here- on
the belief that if I could only get him to eat 3 bites at dinner, I wanted
those to be the 3 most nutritious bites possible.
I have been pleasantly surprised by how well the additions
have gone over. Hands down
favorite? The Orange puree. The book’s recipe calls for carrots and
sweet potatoes to be steamed and pureed together. We usually add butternut squash as well. We also don’t worry too much about the
stated amounts in the recipe, instead we just get a bunch of all 3 veggies and
have at it. Then we freeze it in
various portion sizes (this last time I did portions of about 1 cup) to use in
recipes as needed. The puree works
really well in anything tomato based and thickens sauces very nicely. J likes the puree so much that he will eat it by itself.
We’ve also tried the “white” puree- cauliflower and peeled
zucchini. This one comes out a
very light green instead of white, but does mix in well with light colored
sauces. It doesn’t add much flavor
to the sauce, so I use this in cream based sauces and soups and it works very
well for that. J will eat it
plain, but isn’t nearly as keen on it as the orange.
The Green puree- spinach, broccoli and peas. We haven’t used this one as much- as it
is REALLY green and has a strong flavor.
So, I have to use it in things where the flavor will work, and that I
don’t mind being obviously green.
I’ve put it in tuna casserole- which gave it a funny color, but the tuna
flavor was strong enough to work with the veggies- and J liked it. I’ve also put small amounts in spaghetti
sauce and that sort of thing. I’m
going to try it in a ham quiche- probably tonight and will let you know how
that works out. Maybe I can make
an omelet for “green eggs” and ham.
I tried the white bean puree and that didn’t go over as
well. It gave a very “beany”
flavor to things and J wasn’t thrilled by that.
The purple puree. This is a mix of blueberries and spinach. My brother
and sister-in-law tried this in the author’s recipe for chocolate cookies and
raved about the results. I tried
it as “quick fix” for brownie mix (along with the recommended wheat germ- my
mother would be so proud!) The
results were pretty ok. Flavor was
fine- no spinach taste at all- maybe a slight hint of fruitiness from the
blueberries- although I may have been looking for it since I knew it was
there. The texture wasn’t as
unnoticeable, however. There was a
slight graininess, whether from the blueberry seeds or the wheat germ is
unclear. Very edible, and I don’t
think J will really notice or care since he is not yet a brownie connoisseur.
Altogether? I
would give the book 4 out of 5 stars.
Some great stuff and some ok stuff. I think I will also try her other book which focuses on quick fixes for things.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Meanderings
I don't have a one topic post today. So here are some snippets.
Lately we have welcomed another sweet baby into our group of friends. Lebean has a Little Bean. She is adorable and has the cutest cheeks in the world. (I keep telling B that I am going to see his future girlfriend whenever I go to see her. Of course, her could be like his brother, J, and like older women, but I have matchmaking hopes, I do!!) Unfortunately, I have no pictures of her to share, but you can see some at her momma's blog, here. I'm sure you will agree about her cheeks.
This leads to another random thought. Our friends group has and is changing. A number of us have brought children into the world, some have married, we are all getting older. When I was younger, I "knew" things about my future life. (I always saw myself with children, but didn't always see a husband there. Luckily for me, I got both!) I knew that when I had kids, my life would revolve around them and their activities as well as my own and I knew they would change my life. I never really pictured how things would change groups of people though. It's kind of a weird dynamic. I don't want to force my kids on my friends- but my friends seem to enjoy seeing them almost as much as they enjoy seeing me (or more?) It's a really cool thing.
School is a bit rough. I still haven't really regained the passion for it that I used to have. I am still planning to go back in the fall, but large parts of me just don't really want to. (I have a significant case of the "I don't wanna's".) I don't have a particular big reason- B and J both seem to be doing fine with the schedule. I just would rather be with them than at school.
I am still working on craft projects and will, some day, exercise again. Really, I will. I have the urge to go running- or rather, I have the urge to run the way I used to be able to when I was in better shape. I will not enjoy the process of getting there again. But, at least I have the urge!
Lately we have welcomed another sweet baby into our group of friends. Lebean has a Little Bean. She is adorable and has the cutest cheeks in the world. (I keep telling B that I am going to see his future girlfriend whenever I go to see her. Of course, her could be like his brother, J, and like older women, but I have matchmaking hopes, I do!!) Unfortunately, I have no pictures of her to share, but you can see some at her momma's blog, here. I'm sure you will agree about her cheeks.
This leads to another random thought. Our friends group has and is changing. A number of us have brought children into the world, some have married, we are all getting older. When I was younger, I "knew" things about my future life. (I always saw myself with children, but didn't always see a husband there. Luckily for me, I got both!) I knew that when I had kids, my life would revolve around them and their activities as well as my own and I knew they would change my life. I never really pictured how things would change groups of people though. It's kind of a weird dynamic. I don't want to force my kids on my friends- but my friends seem to enjoy seeing them almost as much as they enjoy seeing me (or more?) It's a really cool thing.
School is a bit rough. I still haven't really regained the passion for it that I used to have. I am still planning to go back in the fall, but large parts of me just don't really want to. (I have a significant case of the "I don't wanna's".) I don't have a particular big reason- B and J both seem to be doing fine with the schedule. I just would rather be with them than at school.
I am still working on craft projects and will, some day, exercise again. Really, I will. I have the urge to go running- or rather, I have the urge to run the way I used to be able to when I was in better shape. I will not enjoy the process of getting there again. But, at least I have the urge!
Monday, April 16, 2012
2 years ago, my life changed irrevocably. My
husband and I welcomed J into the world. He has become an amazing
little boy- stubborn and infuriating, tender and giving, hilarious and
mischievous, loving and generous, intrepid and brave-
in short, incredible and awesome.
The story:
My caesarean was scheduled for 9 am. (As I had had
fibroid surgery previously, my Dr. recommended against labor.) My
parents were in town and some friends waited with us at the hospital. We
all got up early and headed to the hospital.
Getting prepped for the surgery was kind of surreal. Epidurals are
odd, to say the least. D (my husband) washed up and put on his scrubs
in order to be in the OR with me. They did my pre-surgery blood work
and we headed in to have a baby.
Everything went fine for the surgery- although
hearing the Drs. talking was funny. They were chatting, and at one
point said, “did you see those twins?” That made us a little nervous!
Soon, D got his first sight of J. D says that when
they held J up for me to see, he watched me fall in love. And, I did.
We had a few complications post surgery- my bloodwork showed I had the
HELLP syndrome, but J was great. D and our friends got to watch him at
the nursery and take pics- like the one below
from our friend, P.
J started life out as a skinny, energetic baby, and
hasn’t changed a great deal in the last 2 years. He’s still pretty
skinny- and still has incredible amounts of energy. You can see how his
personality has blossomed and grown in these
pictures.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Infant sensory/ texture cards:
So, here is the latest project I made for my busy bag group. This one is for an infant (0-18 mos.) group. There are 6 of us in the group, meaning I made a set of these for myself and 5 more to send to the others in the group. They will then send me the projects they created, which will give me 6 different activities/ toys for B.
The leaders of the group have challenged us to write/ create tutorials for the projects we make so that we can all learn from each other. Since this was my first completed project for this go round, here is my tutorial.
All that being said, I feel a little silly writing a tutorial for something that could be summed up with this sentence:
Yep, that's really about it. For the long version, however, you can keep reading.
I found the idea at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers. She made a wider variety than I did- I kept it to 8 cards to send out, although I may make an "expansion pack" later.
First, I gathered all the stuff I wanted to use. I decided on eyelash yarn, taffeta, fleece, sandpaper, bubble stickers, miniature pompoms, glass "bubbles" and netting. I'd originally thought I would use some velvet and some cotton balls, as well, but those textures seemed to already be met by other materials so I dropped them. (When/ if I make the expansion pack, I want to include sponges and buttons.)
I decided to use foam cards for the backing- my hope is that they will stand up a little better that cardstock or paper- at least my 2 year old may be less likely to rip them up quite as quickly. Here are the cards as I planned them out (nothing is glued down here).
I glued most of the materials down completely- with the exception of the fleece and taffeta. Those I just glued at the top so that the material can be felt between the fingers.
Another tip: For the eyelash yarn, I made the prototype by zigzagging the yarn onto lines of glue- I thought that it would be neater than cutting it into strips. It was neater, but cutting the yarn into strips made applying the yarn to the card MUCH easier. I found that out around card 4.
Here are the final versions:
Back to the short version- find some interesting feeling stuff and glue it to something vaguely card shaped.
In terms of using these with your kids- for little ones, let them touch the materials and talk to them about the kind of textures they feel. For older children, you could put a card in a paper bag and let them feel it without seeing it. They could then tell you what they feel or try to guess what the material is, etc.
Have fun!
So, here is the latest project I made for my busy bag group. This one is for an infant (0-18 mos.) group. There are 6 of us in the group, meaning I made a set of these for myself and 5 more to send to the others in the group. They will then send me the projects they created, which will give me 6 different activities/ toys for B.
The leaders of the group have challenged us to write/ create tutorials for the projects we make so that we can all learn from each other. Since this was my first completed project for this go round, here is my tutorial.
All that being said, I feel a little silly writing a tutorial for something that could be summed up with this sentence:
"Find interesting feeling stuff and glue it to a card shaped material."
Yep, that's really about it. For the long version, however, you can keep reading.
I found the idea at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers. She made a wider variety than I did- I kept it to 8 cards to send out, although I may make an "expansion pack" later.
I decided to use foam cards for the backing- my hope is that they will stand up a little better that cardstock or paper- at least my 2 year old may be less likely to rip them up quite as quickly. Here are the cards as I planned them out (nothing is glued down here).
Another tip: For the eyelash yarn, I made the prototype by zigzagging the yarn onto lines of glue- I thought that it would be neater than cutting it into strips. It was neater, but cutting the yarn into strips made applying the yarn to the card MUCH easier. I found that out around card 4.
Here are the final versions:
Back to the short version- find some interesting feeling stuff and glue it to something vaguely card shaped.
In terms of using these with your kids- for little ones, let them touch the materials and talk to them about the kind of textures they feel. For older children, you could put a card in a paper bag and let them feel it without seeing it. They could then tell you what they feel or try to guess what the material is, etc.
Have fun!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Easter-
We had a good weekend. My parents came into town on Saturday and J- as always- really enjoyed the time with his Papa. My husband is currently working on the weekends, so having some help with J and B was wonderful for me.
Sunday morning started early. I've been looking for another church for us- and think that I may have found it. So, we headed off to an 8 am service. Then, back home for an Easter Egg hunt for J. My dad acted the part of Easter bunny and hid the eggs I'd prepared outside while I nursed B. Then, he helped J find them all.
Once all the eggs had been found, J got to enjoy all of his loot. And then, it was off to faire for us to see Daddy.
Rain was threatening as we left, but the skies had cleared- temporarily- by the time we got to site. We had some nice visiting time with people and were able to watch part of a show before the skies opened on us again.
B was not necessarily impressed by his first visit- we'll have to see if he likes it better next time.
We had a good weekend. My parents came into town on Saturday and J- as always- really enjoyed the time with his Papa. My husband is currently working on the weekends, so having some help with J and B was wonderful for me.
Once all the eggs had been found, J got to enjoy all of his loot. And then, it was off to faire for us to see Daddy.
Rain was threatening as we left, but the skies had cleared- temporarily- by the time we got to site. We had some nice visiting time with people and were able to watch part of a show before the skies opened on us again.
B was not necessarily impressed by his first visit- we'll have to see if he likes it better next time.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
So, 2 weeks into being back at school so far. I set myself some goals for the transition. :)
Week #1- go to work each day. Yep, that was it, as long as I showed up at work at some point each day, I was doing good. Assessment? Totally achieved this goal.
Week #2- get to work on time each day. Hmmm, now I'm creating some higher expectations. Assessment? Did well except for 1 day. Yay, me!
Week #3- (starts on Monday)- do my job well.
The transition back to school has been a little rough at times. For the first week, I didn't feel mentally present at all. The second week was a little better- by Thursday I had stopped simply staring blankly at students who asked me questions. I even had answers for some of them. My subs were great while I was gone, but finding the rhythm of teaching again may still take me a little while.
Another struggle has been finding time to pump. I teach 3 classes in a row- and I can't quite see me pulling out my breastpump in front of high school students to pump during the morning. I think the guys might spontaneously combust. So, that leaves me with pumping at lunchtime. As long as there are no meetings or students needing tutorials. Luckily I can lock my door, although other teachers sometimes just unlock it and come in. The VP who did was embarrassed enough, though, that I don't think he'll do that again.
Outside of school, I am becoming slightly obsessed by busy bags and quiet books. Busy bags are activities that fit into a gallon ziploc bag so that they are fairly portable. The idea is that you can use them at home, but you can also toss 1 or 2 into your bag to keep the kids occupied at a restaurant or the Dr.'s office or something like that. Quiet books are groups of activities pulled together into a book. The pages can be fabric or paper, and each page has its own activity. I am involved in making 2 fabric ones currently- one that will be a variety of things and one based on an ABC theme. I've joined some groups in which each person makes the activity for their own children, and then makes 5 or 6 more exactly the same (depending on the size of group) and mails those to the other members of the group. So you end up with a large variety of activities- and you only had to be creative enough to come up with one of them. :)
One of the group leaders has challenged us to make tutorials of the activities and pages we create, so I will be doing that. Here are my plans for this exchange cycle:
Busy bag for toddlers- making shapes from popsicle sticks or pool noodle lacing.
Busy bag for infants- texture/ sensory cards
Themed busy bag related to Boynton books- a dress up game based on Blue Hat, Green Hat
Quiet book page ABCs- I have the letter B, so a beach page with sandcastle pieces (out of felt) for building
Quiet book page seasons- not really sure yet, but I have ordered a lot of felt leaves.
Quiet book page regular- something to do with the weather.
I'm not sure which I will tackle first, but should have a post up about 1 of these by the end of next week.
That's the news.
Week #1- go to work each day. Yep, that was it, as long as I showed up at work at some point each day, I was doing good. Assessment? Totally achieved this goal.
Week #2- get to work on time each day. Hmmm, now I'm creating some higher expectations. Assessment? Did well except for 1 day. Yay, me!
Week #3- (starts on Monday)- do my job well.
The transition back to school has been a little rough at times. For the first week, I didn't feel mentally present at all. The second week was a little better- by Thursday I had stopped simply staring blankly at students who asked me questions. I even had answers for some of them. My subs were great while I was gone, but finding the rhythm of teaching again may still take me a little while.
Another struggle has been finding time to pump. I teach 3 classes in a row- and I can't quite see me pulling out my breastpump in front of high school students to pump during the morning. I think the guys might spontaneously combust. So, that leaves me with pumping at lunchtime. As long as there are no meetings or students needing tutorials. Luckily I can lock my door, although other teachers sometimes just unlock it and come in. The VP who did was embarrassed enough, though, that I don't think he'll do that again.
Outside of school, I am becoming slightly obsessed by busy bags and quiet books. Busy bags are activities that fit into a gallon ziploc bag so that they are fairly portable. The idea is that you can use them at home, but you can also toss 1 or 2 into your bag to keep the kids occupied at a restaurant or the Dr.'s office or something like that. Quiet books are groups of activities pulled together into a book. The pages can be fabric or paper, and each page has its own activity. I am involved in making 2 fabric ones currently- one that will be a variety of things and one based on an ABC theme. I've joined some groups in which each person makes the activity for their own children, and then makes 5 or 6 more exactly the same (depending on the size of group) and mails those to the other members of the group. So you end up with a large variety of activities- and you only had to be creative enough to come up with one of them. :)
One of the group leaders has challenged us to make tutorials of the activities and pages we create, so I will be doing that. Here are my plans for this exchange cycle:
Busy bag for toddlers- making shapes from popsicle sticks or pool noodle lacing.
Busy bag for infants- texture/ sensory cards
Themed busy bag related to Boynton books- a dress up game based on Blue Hat, Green Hat
Quiet book page ABCs- I have the letter B, so a beach page with sandcastle pieces (out of felt) for building
Quiet book page seasons- not really sure yet, but I have ordered a lot of felt leaves.
Quiet book page regular- something to do with the weather.
I'm not sure which I will tackle first, but should have a post up about 1 of these by the end of next week.
That's the news.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Courage doesn't always roar.
This is one of my favorite quotes:
Courage doesn't always roar; sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, "I will try again tomorrow." To me, it is a great message of hope. I'm hoping this will be that "quiet voice" for me, so that when I feel like I'm done or that I have failed, I can say that I will try again tomorrow.
Right now, my challenges are motherhood, wife-hood, teaching, not losing myself in those first 3 things, trying to hold on to my faith and hopefully being an ok human being. I have good days and bad in all of those things.
My maternity leave ends on Monday- and I am worried about going back to school. I took a full year off after J was born- and have only been teaching part time this year. I still feel like I'm losing out on the motherhood side of things in order to go back to teaching. I know that working doesn't make me less of a mom, but right now, it doesn't feel like it will improve things either.
More later- J is calling my name and B has the hiccups, so I should head off and see about them.
Courage doesn't always roar; sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, "I will try again tomorrow." To me, it is a great message of hope. I'm hoping this will be that "quiet voice" for me, so that when I feel like I'm done or that I have failed, I can say that I will try again tomorrow.
Right now, my challenges are motherhood, wife-hood, teaching, not losing myself in those first 3 things, trying to hold on to my faith and hopefully being an ok human being. I have good days and bad in all of those things.
My maternity leave ends on Monday- and I am worried about going back to school. I took a full year off after J was born- and have only been teaching part time this year. I still feel like I'm losing out on the motherhood side of things in order to go back to teaching. I know that working doesn't make me less of a mom, but right now, it doesn't feel like it will improve things either.
More later- J is calling my name and B has the hiccups, so I should head off and see about them.
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