From the Trenches

Language I hope becomes like Latin..

2011-11-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

.. words that are no longer spoken but in very unique circumstances, like Med School or history class..

"Do you know the carb count of this?"
"Have you bolused?"
"What is your basal rate?"
"Your last A1C was WHAT??"
Continuous Glucose Monitor
Personal Diabetes Manager
Glucagon
OmniPod
Humalog
Ketoacidosis

Soon... JDRF is working tirelessly to find a cure. I hold out hope that SOON, all the above will be useless vocabulary. I know that I, for one, would be happy to never speak those words again.

Happy Diaversary!!

2011-10-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Diaversary to my Marvelous Middle!!! It is hard to believe that two years have gone by. Many times, it seems like it's been forever. All those late nights, all the blood tests, all the worrying, all of the high numbers, the low numbers…

In many ways, it has become second nature to us to live with diabetes. In many other ways, this is still something new, something foreign, something we don't fully understand. It is an old acquantaince, and a new fear. We get it, and yet.. there is still so much we don't get. I was thinking it had been longer since we were diagnosed. I was convinced that we were about to recognize 3 years. I think that is just sometimes how the mind works - things unpleasant seem to take longer, don't they? So, to those newly diagnosed, folks like us who have been dealing with this for 2 years are "old hats" at it all. But that's not really how it goes at all; you get better at the carb counting, and knowing what will trigger highs or lows, but you still live in a constant state of alert... you still get up every night to check blood sugars even though you have alarms and technology.

You will still be befuddled by unexplained highs, and terrified by lows. Yes, I now know that, for the most part, a piece of white bread has 19 grams of carbs, and M's favorite pizza is 38 grams per slice. I know that a Capri Sun at 2am will bring his sugars into a good range within about 30 minutes... I know that a snack with protein will help him stay stable throughout the night. But there is still much I don't know. I don't know why some days we are in a great range, and others seem to be all over the map...why some days he over-responds to insulin, and others make us wonder if the pump has failed.. We don't know the whole story. There are so many things going on in the background that cloud the picture; so much we can't see, we can't know...

But we do know this.. he is here, he is healthy, and contrary to some "medical experts" who don't know their ear from a hole in the ground.. he can eat cake! So we will... Happy Diaversary my amazing young man... many happy, and healthy, returns of the day..

.. Until there is a cure...

2 years, and a lifetime ago...

2011-10-02T21:06:00.001-07:00

This is a repost from just about 2 years ago, exactly. Today, the 1st Sunday in October, 2009, our lives changed forever... As we get ready to recognize Middle's 2nd Diaversary, I wanted to revisit the time when our world started spinning out of control.

I've been quiet lately, not for lack of something to say, but for lack of time to get words down.

Middle and I spent 3 days at Scottsdale Healthcare hospital this week. He has been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Up until last week or so, he was asymptomatic, so we had no idea. Then, everything started to more or less fall apart for him.

It's funny, though, how you respond to what, looking back, are glaring changes in your child. Middle has always been our bright, cheerful boy who has a twinkle in his eye and won't sit still unless he is building something. For the last week or 10 days, the twinkle was gone. But we didn't really see it.

He had also been drinking water like a fish. This was more noticeable to Steve than it was to me, because Middle would hijack Steve's water in the middle of the night, after he'd gotten up to use the bathroom. I never keep water by my bedside, so I didn't notice that it was mysteriously gone by morning.

We had noticed that Middle was losing weight, but again, it didn't alarm us. He had gotten to be a little chunky last year, topping his brother on the scale by about 11 pounds. But then he started slimming down. His shoulders got broader. We thought he was growing and shifting in his shape from a little boy to a young man. Then he got on the scale. 9 pounds in 3 weeks. That scared me.

When he didn't want to go play in the park, that got our attention. Middle is always looking for an excuse to play in the park... always!! He wanted to go to Oldest's baseball game, but just sat with us, his head on either my shoulder or on Steve's. He was no longer talkative.

The thought crossed Steve's mind.. do we take him to the ER? "And tell them what... he's tired??" But clearly something was wrong. Emergency-room wrong?? No.. but maybe MinuteClinic wrong.

We went to CVS on Sunday after Oldest's baseball game. We didn't bring him home until Tuesday afternoon. His blood glucose level was 474. The nurse practitioner looked at me and said "I think you are going to go to the ER now.." and we went. He was a trooper with the IV, and the emergency room, and the poking of his finger 1000 times a day, and the shots and the knowledge that this is for life.

In fact, Middle has handled this whole transition better than I could have imagined. I expect he may have a fit sometime down the road, but for now, as we learn about carb counting and how to successfully draw insulin into a needle withOUT bending the poor needle.. Middle is almost looking at this as a science project. He enjoys seeing his glucose numbers, and figuring out how many units of insulin he gets depending on what he eats. "So, I have to make some changes, but this is so much better than some of the other things that could have been wrong with me."

Amen, my amazing child ... Amen!

Matthew's Miracles JDRF video

2011-09-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Walk with us, November 5th, 2011
Or donate to help us find a cure..

Walk for the Cure --> Team name: Matthew's Miracles

The post where I shamelessly ask for donations

2011-09-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

The Walk is less than 2 months away.. and I am VERY far from my personal fund raising goal of $1000! I decided to jump in with both feet this year (Get it.. sneakers... feet... walk??) and try to double what I earned last year.

The Walk is November 5th this year, and hopefully the weather will have realized it is FALL by then, but no matter the heat, the boys and I, along with any of the folks who support us by joining our team, will be walking. It's the least I can do to help Matt.. it may be hot, my feet may swell, but that is nothing compared to what he lives with every single day.

So I am asking... for your support. Either through a donation ( our fundraising page is HERE) or by joining our team (I promise a Nifty Difty Matthew's Miracles for any team member who joins before Halloween).

If you can't donate right now, and we get it - times are HARD for everyone, please support by sending us a text or a tweet the day of the walk!

Thank you all for your support.. I promise this will be the only Blog-Beg I do this year!

Agree to disagree?

2011-09-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has raised a baby through teething will tell you: teething will cause a fever and an icky diaper, not all the time, but it certainly happens with regularity. Most, if not all, pediatricians will say, NOPE - teething doesn't cause all those things. So, who is right? The professional with the degree, our countless mothers and fathers who share similar experiences?

I ask because I'm in a professional disagreement with our Endo. It has been HOT here, like holy hinges of hell, Dante's Inferno, sort of hot. Twice last week, Middle started throwing ketones, felt generally miserable but never had crazy high sugar numbers, nor a fever. And, amazingly enough, with a pump site change and new insulin, VOILA, he was all better in about 2 hours. (we repeated the cycle 2 times in 4 days).

Nothing else changed, his canula was properly inserted, there were no changes in ratios or anything to warrant this - and given how things improved with FRESH insulin, I chaulked it up to the heat rendering the insulin in his pump inactive.. he was getting insulin per the pump instructions, only the insulin was bad.

Dr. Endo, however, disagreed with the assumptions and thought it was more an absorption issue, or bolus amounts or basal rates.. but NOT cooked insulin.

Nonetheless, we made the executive decision to put as little insulin in the pod as we could get away with so that we were changing it nearly daily until the heat wave was over (still waiting on that, by the way). We also took Dr. Endo's advice to up his basal rates for the majority of the day, but now are battling lows at 3am. (I swear, if it is not one thing, its another...)

But those of you in the Diabetic Online Community - what do you think? Absorption or heat? While I truly trust and appreciate Dr. Endo's advice and counsel, just like I did with my peditrician on the whole teething issue, I will respectlfully agree to disagree.

Kickoff for a Cure!

2011-08-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the boys and I ventured into foreign territory - Downtown Phoenix! Oldest gets there more often as he and Steve will go to D-Back games, but the rest of us go only once or twice a year. The boys always comment on just how different it is from Scottsdale; they are so right! We ventured into such a distant land to take part in the Kickoff Rally for the Walk for a Cure, the JDRF fundraiser walk coming up in November.

Lunch was served, and I loved it that the carb count for every part of the meal was accounted for on little table toppers, so the kids could all cover approprately. No one batted an eyelash when I suggested Middle test at the table. The kids compared diagnosis stories (for those who were diagnosed at an age when they would remember) and pumps and meters. It is easy to feel more normal when surrounded by people who do what you do.

Many ideas were shared about ways to gather donations, and there was a feeling of excitement in the room (which, yes, I know, is what a kickoff is supposed to do). Personally, I walked away with 6 new ideas to try this year to help raise money. A cure is getting closer by the day; I follow some manufacturers on Twitter, and can see from their weekly or daily reports that the funding they receive is certainly bringing them closer to a human cure. Many have been able to successfully cure mice already, and just that is HUGE!

And this week has been a very typical example of why this disease needs a cure. I tell people about living with Type-1 Diabetes, and often hear "How do you do it? I could never do that"... well, first of all, yes, you could if it meant the difference between life and death for your child. Trust me, parents can walk over fire if they have to when their child is in danger. Secondly, I think, its just life with a chronic illness. We have good days, and we have bad days.

This week has been rough. We were warned that Puberty, with the Capital P, would wreak havoc on sugar levels. Our Endo alerted us to the fact that the big P is right around the corner, and to buckle our seatbelts, cuz' it's going to be a bumpy ride.. He wasn't kidding! First it was lows we could not shake, so we changed all the pump settings and cut way back in his insulin. Those lows mean alarms going off all night, waking him no fewer than 4 times in the middle of the night to check sugars (Dexie is great, but accurate she is not - more on that later!) and offer sugar when needed.

Then, like day to night, we had highs we could not control, with readings back over 400 and a general unwillingness on his body's part to come DOWN! Always terrified of over-dosing on insulin and seeing a later crash, it was more late nights of watching, waiting, bolusing, waiting some more...

Finally thinking 320 is a perfectly acceptable number to see before you allow your child to go to sleep, finally! Last night it was a little of both - low alarms going off at 3am, so we test, and to find some juice, we reduce his basal rate, and I go back to bed. Oh, and Dexie, his Continuous Glucose Monitor, said he was a 38, which is nearly 911-low, but in reality he was 66, which is still too low, but managable at home. Alarms went off at 4, all was fine; Dexie thought 58 but was 92.

Then at about 5:50, another alarm went off, this time saying he was HIGH, with Dexie thinking 310, when really, he was 205. We test each time, (Middle is really good at basically sleeping through this, which worries me too) set things back on track, and I try to get back to sleep.

This is my normal. This is why I walk..... Please, consider donating your time by joining my walk team, or by donating to our team with money. We are so close... Team name: Matthew's Miracles

A Lesson Plan - To Kill a Mockingbird

2011-07-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've never posted a lesson plan on my blog before, tho I have talked about lesson ideas and such. I read a great post by Deven Black about the one truly great lesson he had last year, and I found it inspiring! Run very much like an Independent Investigations classroom, he gave his students choices over a project, then got himself OUT OF THE WAY, and let the kids run with it.

The following lesson plan is along the same idea, with some backstory and knowledge building exercises mentioned. I simply love teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, and have been looking for something I can do as a wrap up that is NOT an essay test. The following lesson plan is something I created for an online class I am taking, and I really look forward to implementing it next spring. Comments are welcomed!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• Title of the Project To Kill a Mockingbird

• Subject/Content Area(s) Language Arts/Social Studies

• Grade Level(s) 8th Grade

• Project Time Line 6-9 weeks

In conjunction with study of the Civil Rights Movement and Black History Month, we will read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. At the conclusion of the novel, students will be given a choice of several projects they may choose for their final assessment of their understanding of the novel and the social/political implications of the story.

Options for activities: Students may choose one of the following

1. Write and produce a Podcast for “Stuff You Missed in History” on the happenings of the trial.

2. Create a 3-D map of Maycomb County using specifics from the novel (not from the movie set)

3. Use a genealogy site to develop a family tree of the Finch family, including historic significance of any real life characters mentioned.

4. Write and produce a newscast after the trial ended, including interviews with Atticus and Mr. Ewell.

5. Write and enact on video (A Vlog {Video Blog} is acceptable) a conversation about the trial using as many characters as there are members of the group. Be sure to include: Miss Maudie, Miss Stephanie, Miss Rachel and Aunt Alexandra.

6. Write a collaborative blog as Scout, Jem and Dill over the course of the summer of the trial.

Goals: For students to master a deeper understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and its place in the history of the United States. Students will be able to articulate in their own words how the outcome of the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird could have resulted due to prejudice. They will be able to compare/contrast that to how the legal system is supposed to work (there must be evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt)

Objectives:

Students will be able to work in collaborative groups to produce a single project related to one of the various choices.

• Students will be able to speak to the events of the novel and relate those events of a fictional setting to the happenings from real-life Alabama and other Southern cities in the 1950s and 1960s.

• Students will be able to use comprehension strategies to refer back to the novel for further information.

Standards Addressed: Include a list of national and state standards and benchmarks that the lesson will address. Be sure to include both content and ISTE NET*S technology standards. This project needs to address the ISTE NET*S Standard 2: Communication and Collaboration.

Language Arts Reading Standards

• Strand 1, Concept 6, PO 7. Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to interpret text.

• Strand 2, Concept 2, PO 1. Describe the historical and cultural aspects found in cross-cultural works of literature.

Language Arts Writing Standards

• Concept 4: Editing: PO 1. Identify punctuation, spelling, and grammar and usage errors in the draft.

• PO 2. Use resources (e.g., dictionary, word lists, spelling/grammar checkers) to correct conventions.

• PO 3. Apply proofreading marks to indicate errors in conventions.

• PO 4. Apply appropriate tools or strategies (e.g., peer review, checklists, rubrics) to edit the draft.

Technology Standards: National Educational Technology Standards:

o 2a: interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.

o 3b: locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.

o 5a: advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.

o 5b: exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.

o 5d: exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

o 6a: understand and use technology systems.
o 6d: transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies

Prior knowledge of:
Civil Rights Movement, the Abolitionists, Slavery, Segregation, Jim Crow Laws, Brown v Board of Ed all necessary.

 Prior knowledge will be assessed through classroom discussions and by teacher-led activities to introduce or reinforce concepts before the start of the novel. Resources include The Children’s March produced by Teaching Tolerance, copies of speeches from John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Students will study a timeline of the Civil Rights movement provided by Teaching Tolerance. American History from the Civil War era will be revisited after learning the topic the previous year.

Materials.

 Copies of To Kill a Mockingbird for every student.

 Internet access at school

 Copy of The Children’s March video produced by Teaching Tolerance

 Blogger or other blogging site such as School Fusion

 Video camera or other recording equipment.

Instructional Procedures:

Introduction: how you will introduce the goals and let students know what is expected of them.

Students will be allowed to choose their project as project ideas will be placed on signs in different areas of the classroom. Students will move to the area of the project they are interested in completing. A brief description of expectations will be at each station.

Main activities: what the project focus is and how the teacher will facilitate the learning experience.

Each activity will have a different focus (writing, speaking, drawing, presenting, and researching) and students will need to facilitate their own activities depending on which project they choose.

Differentiation: how both the content and process of the plan will accommodate the various learning styles and abilities of the students.

Natural differentiation will take place as students will naturally gravitate to an area where his/her skills are strongest. Each student should be able to participate to his/her own optimum learning style and capability. Should the students seem to choose only the “easiest” tasks, they will be allowed to choose their working groups and then the teacher will assign the project.

Conclusion: how you will provide closure and reflection for students and provide feedback.

Students will present their projects to the class upon completion. Teacher will provide written feedback regarding quality of work, but students will also grade themselves on team work and effort, and include a personal reflection on what it was like to work independently and yet inter-dependently with a group.

Assessment: Describe the assessment procedures for the project, including the creation of a rubric to evaluate students' learning. The assessment incorporates a consideration for diverse student needs. A rationale for the selection of the assessment technique based on course readings and best practices is provided.

Each specific project will have its own rubric and check list, as many of the projects address very different skills and information. (A 3D map vs. a blog.. etc).

Resignation

2011-07-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Those who have followed my blog for a while know that I do not consider Arizona 'home'. I'm not happy here, and while I am not abjectly miserable either, I would really, REALLY like to pick up and move somewhere else. Somewhere that has snow. Somewhere that does NOT have insects that are out to kill you and fauna which would love to do the same. I'd love to live in a place where the kids can climb trees, where I can tell them "Go outside and play", and not see them all day long, knowing they are safe and having fun.

We were close about two years ago. Then Steve got this promotion and the economy was tanking quickly, and sometimes it does not matter how much you want something, actually doing that something is really just a ridiculous move. We realized this. We stayed put. I was not one bit happy.

But now, for a multitude of reasons, we are moving again, and yet staying put. We're going back to our old neighborhood, as we found a house that is perfect, that is in our budget and meets all our needs. The only problem, as I see it, is that it is STILL IN ARIZONA!!! (insert silent scream here).

In all my grumbling and obsessiveness of housing prices in Massachusetts and Connecticut, I have come to realize something. While this is not •home• to me, it IS home to my boys. Arizona is all they have ever known. They don't mind the heat, because they have never known a summer where you can frolic outside barefoot in the grass. They don't know how to make snow angels, or throw a snowball or what Docksiders are. They don't miss being only 40 minutes from the ocean, because they have never, ever lived like that. I want to give them that experience, I want to be able to raise them as I was raised, with the pleasures of a simple walk along the river, but that is not what is in the cards for them, or for me.

So I resign myself. I could struggle with it as if it is some foreign body I need to expel. I could stay angry and miffed and shortchanged because we "are still here" after all this time when I have been hoping that would not be the case for nearly 7 years now.

Or, I could just accept it. I could put away my feelings of loss at what I am missing, and realize what THEY have.
Friends.
Teams they love to play for.
Teachers they know and love.
Familiarity that is the embodiment of HOME to them.

So, we are here for the long haul. Unless we have to, I do not want to move them once they get into middle school and Oldest is already there with Middle not far behind. I can retire to the beach and swing my legs over a dock when I am retired. This is their Home. I may as well make peace with it and try to find the beauty, share with them in their experiences.

But next summer, we ARE going to Boston for a visit!! They WILL eat clams and walk on a beach. Just so they can say they did...

Why Can't Things Just WORK, or Why I had to Drive 700 Miles Yesterday

2011-06-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Middle is in his happy place right now. In fact, he will come home, begrudgingly, later on today. He's been at ASTROCAMP for the last 2 weeks and has been having a marvelous time. Because of his age, he was not able to do the "full two week" camp, so instead he is doing two-1-week camps, back to back. This means that he had to leave camp last Friday morning and come back Saturday afternoon. This meant, a weekend in Idyllwild for momma and boys!!

Camp is about a 5 hour drive from home. It is sort of perfect - close enough that I can drive him for drop off but he can fly home. He loves that part; flying home! This year, with it being back to back, I agreed I would drop him off, then go back for the between-camp time. I was NOT going to make that drive three times in 2 weeks.. Oh, the best laid plans.

There has been much discussion on some of the Diabetic Community boards about letting your CWD (Child With Diabetes) go to camp. Many go to Diabetes camp, and I hope Middle will do that, too, some day. Few, if any, were allowing their CWD to go to a "regular" sleep away camp. Middle went last year, all was OK, and I do NOT want this disease to rob him of something he loves so much.

As I did last year, I packed Middle's supply kit with everything he would need to manage his diabetes, plus LOTS of extras that I hoped he would NEVER need, like his Glucagon pen. I met with the nurse and his counselors and gave them clear directions while trying to not overwhelm them with the enormity of caring for a kid with diabetes. I adjusted his PDM for his insulin delivery to be sure he was not dropping too low *he responds to insulin far differently at 5200ft than he does at sea level.

Then the call came.

Wednesday night, around 10pm, the phone rings and it is Middle. This can't be good. He was out of pumps and had no way to get insulin. WHAT??

I sent him with a back up of no fewer than 3 Pods - what happened??

Well, the last one was ripped off during some activity. I anticipated this and made sure he had a reserve of 2 additional Pods.

Both of which failed. That's right - his last TWO Pods were both duds. Alarmed before they were even put on him. So not only was he getting no insulin, we also lost 300 units of insulin (the nurse did what she was supposed to, because you are NOT supposed to go get that extra insulin, no matter that most PARENTS go get that liquid gold no matter what).

10:30 at night. A 5 hour drive ahead of us. No insulin going into my kid. A BG reading of 377. CRAP.

The Camp folks did the brilliant thing of calling the fire department so at least they had some needles (Because really, who needs to send needles when you have SO MANY extra Pods!!??) He was able to get insulin before bed, and then again when he woke up, but that would not sustain him until he came home on Friday. So, up to camp (and back again) I went at 5:45 AM yesterday morning, getting back to Chez Jensen around 6:30 pm.

Yes, it was good to see him when I wasn't expecting to.
Yes, using Audiobooks when you drive makes the time FLY by.
Yes, I would drive to the ends of the earth if it meant my son was safe.

BUT REALLY INSULET Corp?? 2 dud OmniPods in ONE group??? Seriously??? I know I will be able to get those Pods replaced but who is going to reimburse me for my gas?? 700 unnecessary miles on my car and in my tank ain't cheap, you know??!!

It finally happened..

2011-03-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

The tooth came out. My friend, Kellee, said it would probably come out on Monday morning as we were dashing around the house like crazy people without the time to stop and celebrate what just happened.

She was about 5 days off.

I was dropping the boys off today, where I do every day, in our old neighborhood so they can walk to the bus stop with their friend and take the same bus they took last year. Only, rather than stick around and watch them get on the bus, I have to make a mad dash down to my school, lest I show up too late! As Youngest was getting out of the car, I could see him fiddling with the tooth with his tongue. He got this strange expression on his face, bent over (I had a momentary panic thinking he was going to throw up) and out popped the tooth!

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to stop and celebrate with him. I squealed my delight as Middle bent down in the grass to retrieve the tooth (successfully) and I hugged my newly toothless-wonder. Everyone asked if he freaked out, and I think there was a moment of freak-age, but overall he handled it like a champ!

So now, my youngest, my 'baby' is slowly shedding what's left of his babyness. I didn't get upset when he started Kindergarten, and I didn't get upset with this loss of his first tooth, but the awareness that he is rapidly growing and soon will be joining the world of BIG BOYS is not lost on me. I would be happy to freeze time and keep him just like this; innocent, wide eyed, and toothless. Then I realize the pride I feel when I watch my other two accomplish and discover and grow, and I think... it does only get better.

I want to savor it all, remember it all. I know my old feeble brain can't hold it all, so I'm thankful for THIS.. who needs a good memory when you blog? ;)

From the mouths of babes

2011-03-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

Chris has a loose tooth. In fact, it is crazy loose, but it won't come out. This is the conversation he and I had yesterday morning:

Me: Chris, is that tooth EVER going to come out??
Chris: I'm not ready for it to come out yet, and it is following my orders.

I swear, I cannot make this stuff up!

Matthew has a new friend...

2011-03-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

Click on the photo to open the video

Cutting the nose to spite the face

2011-03-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

Like nearly all districts across our state, my district is in dire straights when it comes to the budget. We already do "more with less" and our class sizes are astronomical. We've been promised that our district will NOT increase class sizes any further, which means, in theory, that teacher's jobs will not be cut drastically next year. This leaves the district with the need to cull elsewhere.

The latest lambs that are being led to slaughter are our school nurses.

Middle and I are going to a town hall meeting tonight to protest this. I have heard the argument - why can't a school secretary put on a band-aid, as if that is the only job of nurses in schools!!

Middle, for one, is chronically ill. He may not look sick, he may not act sick, but when you think about it, having Diabetes makes him chronically sick. He needs constant supervision during the day, and during the night, to ensure his sugar levels are OK. It is a little easier now that he is on the pump, but even so - there are times the nurse needs to use her medical training and knowledge to handle a bolus situation or give an additional injection. I have no faith that a secretary would take on such a truly life or death responsibility.

Some students in California are being denied their right to a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) because they are diabetic. The school districts, in an effort to cut costs, have eliminated nurses on many campuses, or make the campuses "share" nursing services. Because there is not a nurse on campus in case of emergency, if a parent cannot be at school with the child that day, the child cannot come to school. How fair is that?? (And yes, the ACLU is all over that!!)

I get it we need to cut costs. How about we start with our Superintendent's inflated salary?? Leave the nurses alone!

Hope

2011-03-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite poems is Emily Dickinson's HOPE IS A THING WITH FEATHERS THAT PERCHES ON THE SOUL. I love the imagery in it, that hope is this little bird that comes to sit on your shoulder. You have to be ready for it, quiet and still. A bird is not going to just fly in for a landing in the midst of chaos. If you are lucky enough for it to happen, you need to be waiting for it.

I think, too, that having Hope takes courage. It's risky to keep believing something better will come around. I mean, what if you're wrong? Then what?

Eternal doubt keeps us from being quiet and waiting for Hope to show up. It's hard, this waiting.

Today was a rallying day, of sorts. Folks from across the country to are affected by Type 1 Diabetes showed their Hope for a cure by either wearing the word on their clothing, or writing it on their hands. I know medical science is making great strides, and that things for folks with T1D are much better now than they were then, but having hope for a cure - real, strong hope - takes a lot of effort. When you are concerned with boluses and blood counts, carbs, making sure your son or daughter is healthy, knowing that at any moment the bottom could drop out and your child could end up another horrifying statistic, the noise of is all is deafening. It's hard to have HOPE during those time.

So we have to STOP the Chaos for a while. We have to be active in our fear, take charge of it and put it in its place. Because Hope is real, and Hope is so tightly tied to Faith that they are nearly synonymous. And it is so HARD to have faith all the time when things are going south. You begin to ask those unanswerable questions, the ones that, when heard spoken by someone else, sound self-pitying; the ones that look like "why ME?"

If we can truly stop the chaos, if we can make the effort to calm down, allow peacefulness to wash over us, then maybe, just maybe, we can being to see Hope again. And soon, when amazing things are ready to happen, we will be ready to have them land softly on our shoulders.

The boys of summer are here!

2011-02-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

Spring training has officially begun, both for those making a gazillion dollars to chase a ball, and for my little all-stars as well. Oldest and Youngest are playing this year - Oldest is back in the Majors with the Red Sox again (this time, I think it will be a much better experience than last year) and Youngest is playing coach-pitch AA league for the Angels. We originally signed him up for T-ball, but who knew?? They eliminated T-ball last year!! He has two good friends on his team, and the coaches seem to be really great with the kids, so I expect this, too, will be a good experience.

Of course, watching the games will be a tug of war between pride and hysterical, painful laughter. They are so cute, and so bad right now!! They will get better, and it will be fun to watch the growth. Oldest has a new position, too - team mentor! He is volunteering to help coach, and has found his calling for sure!!

Middle still has absolutely zero interest in baseball, but Uncle Tony is here from Minnesota for the big Scottsdale Arabian Horse show, and Middle now has a serious interest in horses. Of course, those of you who know me know this is music to my ears, this is a child after my own heart, etc, etc... He will take a real riding lesson (Thank you Groupon) at the end of March and we will see how he likes it.

Middle's numbers continue to be a source of everything from curiosity to stress. We will see how is A1C levels look the next time we go see the endo (note to self - must make that appointment) but it is my guess we are in better control now than we were three months ago.

We all love the OmniPod pump, although there is always room for improvement and I have a small list of things they should consider when going through a design overhaul (bigger viewing window so we can see if the cannula is under the skin is one). I cannot imagine going back to doing multiple daily injections... for instance, I went to check on him when I got up this morning and he was a bit high (221) and I was able to get his PDM and give him a bolus without waking him up.

You might wonder how I knew his blood sugars without waking him to test - but remember we are also card carrying members of the Continuous Glucose Monitor set, and Dexie as we call it, has made a huge difference in our lives.

While I hope for a cure, I also hope for advances in technology that will allow kids like Middle and the others I know to have an intuitive machine to help them manage this disease. We can keep him stable, but it is an ever vigilant fight; no matter what else is going on, we are always asking the question "how are your numbers" and adjusting either our meal plans, or our daily plans, or our sleeping plans to ensure Middle is safe.

The whole world of diabetes care is not getting easier, necessarily, but it is getting more routine. My fear with that, and all things 'comfortable' is that is when bad things happen. But, puberty is right around the corner I'm afraid, and that will bring with it it's own snake-pit of issues, so may as well enjoy the little bit of quiet before the storm hits!

I'm afraid to say it...

2011-02-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

that we are out of the woods with Matthew and this dang cold. I will say, however, in an attempt to not tempt Fate, that he has had a run of better numbers for the last two days. I will take what I can get!

It seems that living with Diabetes, you are in constant "reaction" mode. It would be really wonderful if we could go "proactive" here, but then something like a flu bug, or a liver that spontaneously spurs into sugar production get in your way and smash your good plans all to heck. So, we react. Matt seemed to be an endless sponge of insulin-need while he was sick, so we tweaked his Insulin/Carb ratio (the IC ratio) and his correction factor. Now that the cold is gone, we evidently need to tweak them back. (He spent all day yesterday low because his IC was too high. Or too low.. not sure how to explain that, its like do you turn the AC up, or down, when you want it colder in the house.)

His Dexie (the glucose monitor) needed to be charged last night, and no one wanted Matt to sleep without it. It's funny how you become dependent on something you didn't have before - me with my iPad, and Matt with the Dexie. We lived for over a year as a Diabetic family just hoping and praying the nights went well. Now, Steve wondered how we would be able to sleep without the knowledge the alarm would let of know if something went awry.

So I breathe a very small sigh of relief that we more or less successfully navigated this first small bug. Amazing testament to Matt's immune system that this was the very first bug he has gotten in 15 months, true.. And keeping fingers crossed that we don't have any larger test looming out there on the horizon!!

Good number, and healthy children, please!!

A sobering reminder of what we are dealing with

2011-01-30T07:44:00.000-08:00

6 people with T1D lost their lives this week. None of them were old, decrepit, or ready to go. One was only 18 months old, and died because the health care system failed and did not properly diagnose the disease until it was too late.

Two were only 16. One passed away while taking a nap. One was only 24, and the mother of two children. I think the one that tugs at me most, however, was the 9 year old girl from France who had come to the end of her rope with diabetes, and took her own life. One of the biggest "side effects" of a life long illness is depression, and yes, even children can become clinically, desperately depressed.

This week has been cold-central in our house, starting with Youngest who brought his virulent germs home and infected the rest of us. Luckily, it was just a cold and not something more serious like the violent stomach bug that has been going around the country. I say that not only because "violent stomach bug" is something of which nightmares are made, but because that simple cold, you know the one, with the sniffles and slight cough? That one has had Middle's numbers hovering around 300 for days, despite the volume of insulin we pump into him. We have doubled the amount he normally gets, and were delighted when he finally came down under 200. (he is back at 247 this morning, so we are not out of the woods yet). It gives my germaphobe self some reassurance that I need to be over protective, and not let Middle do things like sleep over at the zoo when the stomach flu is going around. (Remember my debate with myself from last spring? Glad I chose the way I chose!)

We were warned that illness can cause havoc with blood sugars, and holy moly, were they right. The deaths this week snap me back from any complacency I may have been in, to realize that it could happen to us. I hope, and I pray, that it will not, and it is easy to say "Oh, it's just diabetes" and brush it off because we hear the word so often, and we know so many people have it.

But it is deadly. Type 1 Diabetes can strike anyone, at any age, and the results can be fatal. Parents reading this, KNOW THE SIGNS. Diabetes can be 'brushed off' as any other bug, such as the flu, when a simple blood test will give you the answers you need before it is too late. If you, or your child, experiences any of these symptoms, have a doctor do a blood-glucose reading. It takes only a moment, and can mean the difference between life and death. Matt had only 4 of the symptoms, so you do not need to have ALL of them. If you have more than one, please get checked.

Warning signs of type 1 diabetes (these may occur suddenly):
Extreme thirst Frequent urination Sudden vision changes Sugar in urine Fruity, sweet, or wine-like odor on breath	Increased appetite Sudden weight loss Drowsiness, lethargy Heavy, labored breathing Stupor, unconsciousness

Product review - The Honda Insight, 2011

2011-01-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

The beast's tail end met the front end of another car a while back, and so the beast has been 'hospitalized' for the last two weeks. In the meantime, we have had the pleasure of renting a 2011 Honda Insight. It's a stripped down model, I am sure, lacking things such as the between the seat arm rest, and such. However, to quickly sum up my experience so far, I love this car!

I would not describe it as "zippy", and without a doubt, the Insight will never win a 0-60 race, unless its with a turtle, but then, this is not the sort of car you want to drive like that. It is not a sports car, it is not luxurious, it does not hold the whole house and your Aunt Mary in the back. This is a perfectly functional, highly fuel efficient little car, perfect for toting around kids, or making the thirty or so trips to the grocery store.

How fuel efficient? I am averaging 43.2 MPG. Not too shabby, considering I am delighted when the Passat averages 23MPG on the highway. We won't even mention the gas mileage in the Beast. I filled up today, put 8.5 gallons into the tank, and paid a measly 27$! WOOHOO! Oh, and I think I have gone nearly 500 miles on that tank.

The boys fit nicely, though probably not the car I would choose for a long road trip unless I plan to leave Steve at home. I am not sure we could even fit both dogs in the back, but I have put Schooner back there and she fits fine. The broken view of the back window took a little while to get used to, but now I can just about see through it. (The Prius seems to have the same shaped back window, therefore I would assume has the same broken view as the Honda) For a small car, the blind spot over the driver's left shoulder is a bit too big, but again, it is something I would get used to rather than something that would drive me crazy.

I love the back light on the speedometer which changes from blue when you are using gas to green when the car is pulling from the battery. I love that it rates me on how "green" my trip was!

Most of all, I love that I have traveled nearly twice as far as I could in the Passat and spent about half what I would spend to fill her up!

An update on bionic boy

2011-01-23T13:23:00.000-08:00

Matthew is now officially "fully wired". He has his OmniPod (the egg shaped thing on the right side of his belly) and his DexCom Continuous Glucose Montior (The smaller thing on the left side of his belly). Each device has its own hand held gizmo that gives us all the information we need to keep his sugars in control.

Of course, even technology is not perfect, as we found out on Christmas Day, when ketones took over and Matt felt awful. But we do know, for example, when his blood sugars are spiking, or plummeting, we have a good general idea of where his sugars are at any point in time, and he now only needs to prick his fingers to verify what Dexie is telling us. (And to sync Dexie at least twice a day).

We are also getting used to new sites for each device. The one big difference I have seen is that anything which stays under the skin leaves a much bigger mark than a needle. However, we are all in agreement that we prefer to have to "prick" with a needle every 3 days (for the Pod) or 1ce a week (for Dexie) rather than many times a day.

Not pictured here is Matt's new TallyGear TummieTote, which sits nice and flat against his belly and easily holds both hand-held monitors, leaving his hands free, and rendering useless the pouch he had attached to his belt at all times. His is in Army Green Cami, and he loves it. He can even sleep with it on, and that means Dexie has an even greater chance of waking him up should his sugars spike or drop too low during the night.

All in all, not only is it "better living through pharmaceuticals" around here, its Better Living Through Electronics!

We can make a difference

2011-01-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

As an Arizonan (albeit a reluctant one, but one nonetheless), I have been very concerned with, wrapped up in, and distracted by the "terror in Tucson". I'm reading the Op Ed pieces with vigor, talking with my students about it, about the culture of hate we seem to be living in, and trying to come up with answers.

While Social Studies is not necessarily on my list of standards, I cannot help but bring into my classroom the struggles of people from our past and then make correlations. Next week, we will begin reading To Kill A Mockingbird, and I have been working to set up the scene for my students, to try to help them gain a better understanding of the culture in which the book was written, and which it portrays.

This lead to the conversation about our current culture.

I found an article today in the New York Daily News, an opinion piece, which stated that we really need to listen to the words we use, to choose them carefully because words can, and are, used like weapons. You cannot swing a club at someone without there be repercussions, and you cannot spew hate at someone without there being consequences.

Some of the quotes mentioned in the article make my skin crawl. To think that some of our elected political heroes speak in this manner is appalling. That we PAY others to do it is shameful.

But we can make it stop. Glenn Beck won't be able to have a microphone in front of him if we stop buying his books, and change the station when he is on. (I do this very thing when he comes on to our local radio talk show station.) If he is not bringing money into the station/publishing house/network, he will eventually be silenced.

If Ann Coulter's segments on TV no longer have the ratings, the advertisers will pull out and soon she, too, will find herself listening to her own voice all alone.

We can make a difference, by putting our collective feet down and saying STOP IT! ENOUGH HATE! We can elect the other guy when our politician calls his opponent a F******G raghead. We can vote out of office the guy who takes a shot-gun to legislation he does not like.

We can make a difference. We must. I fear for our children's future if we do not stop this culture of hate.

My father had a tremendous respect for John F. Kennedy, and had on the wall of his office a poster portraying JFK in a lone row boat. The inscription on the bottom read:

One man can make a difference, and every man should try.

It's time we try.

Hiccup on Christmas Day

2010-12-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

Matthew has had some high blood sugars before, and we've tested for ketones in the blood, and they have always come back negative. Until yesterday, Christmas day.

He woke up feeling sort of icky, said he felt a bit sick to his stomach, but was out playing and I didn't think much of it. He also woke up a bit higher than usual, at like 250, but that's not THAT high. So we spent a morning opening presents, with him taking a rest between gifts.

I knew something was wrong when I found him laying down amid the pieces that were to make up the White House kit he got from Gilly for Christmas. Not even able or willing to sit up and put together Legos?? Something is very wrong.

Steve finally had him test for ketones, and the stick immediately turned its darkest color. Truly, no more than 15 minutes after that, Matt tossed the little breakfast he had eaten all over our bed and floor.

So, the big question with diabetes is this: are the ketones causing the vomiting, or is the vomiting causing ketones??

I called a friend of mine from Middle School, who, by virtue of Facebook, I have reconnected with and who's second child is also a T1D, to see what she thought.

"Is the pod actually giving insulin? Because it could come dislodged but still register that it is giving insulin. Check that, then give some insulin by injection, then call the Endo. I bet the ketones are causing him to throw up, as its the only way his body has to get rid of them."

It all turned out OK, and we got his sugars back under control by the time he went to bed, and FINALLY got a "negative" reading on those ketone sticks. So, lesson learned.. when the PDM suggests to check for ketones, CHECK FOR KETONES, and do not put the OmniPod canula side down next to the waist band of jeans.

The soon--to-be bionic boy...

2010-12-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

Middle has been a T1D for over a year now. We're getting the hang of it, but then something else changes and we are back to playing catch up. If only A + B always equalled C, things would be so much easier - same stuff in, same result. As anyone with diabetes knows, though, that never happens. There is too much going on behind the scenes to allow for any predictability, except forgetting to cover will mean sugars that are too high, and forgetting to eat will mean sugars that are too low. The rest is, for lack of a better term, a crap shoot.

One of Middle's biggest problems is that he is not a 3-meals-a-day kind of kid; never has been. He likes to graze. This causes havoc when you are counting carbs, covering with insulin, doing the math to see how much insulin he may still have on board, etc. Again, crap shoot.

So, we're moving to embrace techology. This coming week we will meet with the trainer from OmniPod and DexCom so Middle can be suited up with an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor. He's excited, and from what we have heard in speaking with others who have gone down this road before us, it will change his life.

As it stands now, Middle must test his sugars between 8 and 10 times a day, and that's if all looks good. If his sugars are off, he may need to test every 15 minutes until they are back to normal and that can take an hour or more. The monitor will take a reading every 5 minutes through a sensor that will be embedded under his skin. He will still need to calibrate it every 12 hours, but that's 2 sticks, not 10!

Then there is the insulin, which he injects at least 5 times a day, again, sometimes more depending on what his sugars are doing. The pump will be automatically giving him a basal rate of insulin all day, and then will automatically bolus him for food when he tells the hand held device that controls the pump to do so. It will also tell him how much insulin is 'live' in his system so we don't give too much and have him crash from too much insulin.

I'm excited for him. We train like mad fiends on Thursday. He could be the bionic boy by Christmas day!!

6th grade strings - Mountainside Middle School. 11.23.10

2010-11-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Parker is the front bass player.

Moving out of my comfort zone in honor of Matthew..

2010-07-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've made a decision to do something very un-ME-like. I am signing up to do the Ride for the Cure in November. Its a fundraiser for the JDRF, and not only will I find a way to raise $3000, I will also ride over 50 miles to help find a cure for Matthew, and all the people like him who suffer every single day with this disease.

I don't consider myself one who goes out and pounds the pavement for causes. Sure, I've run in the Koman's Race for the Cure, but that was more about ME than it was about cancer. I wanted to see if I could do it. I was pretty sure I could, even though I knew I would not be fast. And other than my dear godmother, Georgia, I've been blessed by not really being affected by this disease, although I know that I could be one of those one-in-nine very easily.

This is different. I ride for Matthew. I ride for the boy I love more than life, in hopes that he will, in his lifetime, be free from this disease. It affects every aspect of his life, every day of his life. I have a lot of the worry, but he bears the brunt of it all. And he does it with grace, dignity and a sense of humor.

So - I decided to ride. I'm not a big cyclist - the furthest I've ever gone is 18 miles. I know I can reach the 32 mile marker, so that's not enough of a challenge. I'm going for the 54 mile route. (I'm not crazy enough to think I can ride 109 miles...) I have 4 months to get ready. I have the most marvelous cheering section imaginable. I have hope that my efforts WILL make a difference.

If you want to read about The Day Everything Changed, you can GO HERE TO READ ALL ABOUT IT

Something else to make my blood boil...

2010-07-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=128484784&m=128532093

New Evaluation Laws Split Teachers Even More

Listen to, or read this when you have a moment. Its by NPR, so take your political bent where you find it, but this chaps my hide!

There needs to come a time when politicians stop treating teachers and students as if they are widgets. Students are not machines; you can not reliably put in the same content, as you would put money into a vending machine, and be assured to get a reliably measurable product out. Tying teacher evaluations to student performance will lead to a worsening of the education system, not an improvement of it.

There are too many variables in place for this system of evaluations to work. There are way too many unknowns for teachers to be comfortable with the idea. I agree wholeheartedly: there are teachers who should not be in the classroom. I've worked with some! My own children have experienced them. (OK, 1... one kid, had one teacher who needed to retire like 10 years ago.. the other ones have been wonderful).

The inherent problem is this: teachers cannot control the lives of their students. Until we can, basing a teacher evaluation on what the students do is unfair and possibly leading to tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

Teachers arrive every fall with a clean slate, more or less. We have our curriculum. We have our bag of tricks to reach those kids at the end of the bell curve - the ones who struggle and the ones who soar far beyond the scope and sequence of our teaching. But every year, those kids are different. We have them under our 'control' for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, assuming they have parents who even remotely value education and actually make sure they get to school.

We cannot control if they learn. We cannot change the family who takes their child out of school for every sniffle. We cannot do anything about the parents who don't care if their child does homework or not. We cannot instill an appreciation of learning into a family where it is perfectly acceptable to get an "F" for a grade. We cannot control the number of special ed kids we have in a class, or the number of kids whose parents are getting divorced, leaving their children in an emotional wake that will take years to dissipate.

When teachers have their evaluations tied to student achievement, you are looking at teaching through the wrong lens. Teachers, like me, who serve special populations will never 'measure up' on these political charts - my students may make 1/3 a years' worth of progress during a school year. Does that mean I am a bad teacher? Or does that speak more to the talents and shortcomings of my students, a group of individuals over whom I have no control?

Teachers will leave. Teachers are already stretched thin, and while some teachers make upwards of $70K a year, none that I know personally do, and at the end of the day, it might just be easier to work at Starbucks than to put up with increasingly demanding legislation from those who have never been in a classroom. You cannot take the rules of the board room and expect them to work in the school yard.

Teachers, as a population, are already fed up. Pile unfair evaluation practices on top of them, and you will see many give up. The teacher short-fall will be great, and it is my guess that soon the evaluation for hiring a teacher will be .. "Can she fog a mirror?? Yeah??!! You're HIRED!" Good choices are never made in desperation, and I can see this is the path our local schools are heading down.

Thanks Washington...

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

2010-07-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

I've taken the last month "off", so to speak. A while back, I told myself that I would work hard to get a blog post up every other day, but in truth, there are days when, really - NOTHING of note happens, or, so much is happening that it will take a few days for the "stuff" to filter through my brain and give me something to write about.

We moved on June 18th. Need I tell you in which of the two scenarios I've found myself?

We're nearing the 4 week mark in the house now, and I am pleased to say that we can fit one car in the garage. Originally, I told myself I'd be satisfied with reaching this goal by Halloween, but DH kicked it into high gear, and the Passat fits nicely into his new home. Not sure the Saturn will ever fit.. long beast that it is.

We purged a ton before this move. We donated boxes and car-loads of stuff to charity, and the neighbors, and still found ourselves in need of a dumpster for the rest of it. Purging felt good, especially after 9 years of gathering 'stuff'. I firmly believe the word "someday" needs to be stricken from the vocabulary of every home owner... as in "someday we might need this" or as in "Someday, I want to repaint the doors". Dump it, or do it - Do, or do not.. there is not try! We held on to so many useless things with the notion that we would, in fact, need them someday. Except, we didn't. Or, only needed them so rarely that there was really no point to keeping them. Folding tables, extra folding chairs - all quite useful when I would host scrapbooking parties, but truly, it's been 7 years since I have done that. Bye-Bye...

I believe purging 'stuff' not only frees up highly valuable real-estate in your house, but in your head, as well. Less stuff, less stuff to worry about. Less stuff to worry about, more energy able to devote to important stuff, like getting the house settled! (Less stuff also equals less stuff to put away, thereby making our goal of getting settled infinitely easier!)

We are all getting used to the new house. I only have to look through one or two cabinets now to find what I need in the kitchen, and the boys all have places for their toys and other necessities that survived The Great Purge of 2010.

Maybe now with my house, and my head, less cluttered with stuff, I will be able to get back to writing. Blogs, books... both!!!

No promises, but I'm certainly in a better place now to at least try! (No... DO, or DO NOT - sorry Yoda, I forgot.. there is no TRY!)

Up with three, down with 2...

2010-06-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

I took Middle to camp today, and Oldest came along for the ride. Not like it was just down the street, or even an across-town, but he wanted to come anyway. The drive is long, and boring, until we hit Palm Desert. The boys did pretty well not driving me insane along the way, but there were, of course, the requisite pokes and jabs, but then, these are my boys and I would expect nothing less.

We stopped for lunch in Palm Desert, and then started up "the hill". Middle and I had done a pretty decent job scaring the pants off Oldest with the stories of climbing the hill, and I am pleased to report that the drive was not nearly as terrifying the second time as it was the first. No doubt, there are some death-defying turns at about 2000 feet up, but no one lost their lunch on the way up, and my grasp on the steering wheel did not leave imprints this time.

It is really a beautiful drive once you get past the "I'm going to drive off this cliff and meet my doom" part. Oldest was very much in awe of it all. It was also fun to watch the temperature gauge drop lower and lower.. 95* at the bottom, and 67* at the top of the hill. Camp is at about 5200ft elevation. I froze, and it was wonderful!

Middle showed Oldest all around, introduced him to the counselor - Middle has the same counselor this year as he did last year, and is totally excited by this - and gave Oldest a tour of the most important parts of camp: the hollowed out tree you can climb into, and the zip line.

Oldest and I hung out for about an hour, walking around camp, talking to folks. There is a part of Oldest, I think, that wishes he were staying with Middle at camp. I think he would be loathe to admit this to me, or to anyone, but I watched him interact with the kids and walk around camp... maybe next year we will convince him to go.

Last year, Middle wanted me to stay until the very last possible moment. He got all teary when I went to hug him for the last time, and I tried hard NOT to cry in front of him, but that was an epic fail. This year, however, we were both ready. Middle was happy to have us around, but when it came time for the campers to group together, he looked at me, those deep brown eyes with the twinkle and his broad gap-toothed grin and said "Ok, Mom.. you can go now."

No tears. No lingering "I don't want to let you go" hugs. No problem. For either of us.

Doing things for the first time is tough, be it drive Highway 74 up the mountain, or leave your child at sleep away camp. You don't know what to expect. Folks can tell you, sure, but until you go through it for yourself, and come out the other side unscathed, you just don't know. And that makes it hard. But once you know, and you have not only the sense of accomplishment but the true knowledge that you will be OK, it becomes a piece of cake.

So, Middle is in his happy place - camp. And I am thrilled for him. And Oldest and I will have adventures of our own, enjoying the change in dynamics within the family this week. Even if all we will do is pack boxes and toss trash and even if there is not a Zip line in sight.

Stuff... and a countdown or two.

2010-06-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

There is a lot happening in our house this month. Middle leaves for camp. We move. I am going to wake up soon and it will be July!

The movers arrive in 10 days. T-e-n. TEN DAYS PEOPLE! My house is beginning to look like a place where unwanted things go to die, but I know we have lightened the load and weeded out a bunch of ~~crap~~, ahem, I mean stuff, already, but I look around the mess that once was my home and wonder how, on earth, we will ever be ready.

Oh, and of those ten days, I will be out of commission for two. Because of the #1 thing happening this month - Middle goes to camp. Tomorrow. Six hours away by car and momma is driving him. Now, the rather selfish part of me loves this arrangement because it means a night, possibly alone (Oldest may want to tag along, but he has not made up his mind yet. I keep telling him that it is OK if he does not want to go.. really.. I'll be OK... no pressure....) but I am also aware of what needs to be done before June 21st when we turn over the keys.

Middle went to camp for the first time last summer. He was 8. He got a little teary when I left (as opposed to me who was ~~a blythering mess~~ stoic beyond belief) but loved every single minute of the experience and has been counting down, literally, every day since. "Mom.. only 7.5 more months until I can go to camp again." "Mom, can I start packing for camp?" <-- said in March... If he gets any sleep tonight, I will be shocked.

But I also wonder... at least for me, whenever there is something huge that I am excited about, be it a party, a visit, a vacation, when it at last gets here, and then it is over, the let down is huge. I spend so much time, so much energy looking forward to IT, and then poof! It's over. How will he be when it is Next Saturday, and he is here, back home, amid the mess and chaos of a home between houses? When all I can do is think 'this box here, that box there.." He is going to be sad, and missing camp, and in the middle of moving hell.

But again, this is Middle.. and he is without question my 'roll with it' kid. Unflappable. Constant. Maybe I need to learn from him, and figure out how to be just slightly unflappable in the middle of all this stuff.

Here we go..

2010-06-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

And just like that... we went from spring like, very pleasant weather here in the Valley of the Sun, to heat advisories for all of the southern half of the state. A heat advisory basically means temps at or above 110*. And, so it begins... the melting, firestorm heat of summer in Arizona. Oddly enough, this year I can tell you exactly when it happened. Friday. My general routine is to try to get up before anyone else (challenging with Mr. Oldest who seems to have come from Rooster DNA), grab my coffee and sit out on the patio for a little quiet time. I listen to birds singing to each other, watch the various families of quail and their little quail-letts scamper about the back yard. It's my "commune with nature" time, and about as communing as I plan to do. Up until Saturday morning, the air during this time was very pleasant. Not exactly crisp, but there was a lightness to it - nothing oppressive at all.

Saturday morning, it was gone. When I went out at 6am, it was already 85* and feeling heavy. Now, we are supposed to have a break in the heat late next week, but until then... well, it IS Arizona after all. Time to live like moles - deep underground, hiding from the sunshine, desperately trying to stay cool.

Oh, and my air conditioner has gone kaput. With 2 weeks left for us in this house... of course. Oiy... here we go!

Completing the Gestalt

2010-06-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

If you are not a student of Counseling Psychology, you might have no idea what on earth that means. Gestalt means, in rough terms, CIRCLE in German. Gestalt Therapy was developed by Fritz Perls in the 1960's and is noted for being far more confrontational than traditional therapy. "You are a phony" was one of Fritz's lines in those videos we got to see in class... let's just say he didn't make a lot of friends.

However, I happen to LOVE Gestalt therapy - I think you can really break down barriers quickly and so forth with it. I also love the symbolism that is inherent in the model... you want to complete what has been started. You don't have to be the person who starts it, but you have the power to complete it - coming full circle, so to speak.

One example I love - we had to pick a therapy style during my Master's program, and then watch a movie. We would take a character from the movie, and, using our chosen philosophy, develop a treatment plan. The movie I chose was "the war". Kevin Costner and Elija Wood. It was a beautiful little movie that failed miserably at the box office, but was SO utterly perfect for the Gestalt. Costner plays a war vet who comes home to his family after allowing his friend to die alone out in the fields of Viet Nam. It haunts him. His family lives just above poverty level, and all he wants is to give his family a good life. His son, Elija, has a nemesis... several, actually. The Gestalt is completed when Elija actually saves the life of the nemesis - saving a life when his father has been haunted by the life he allowed to slip away. See - a circle completed.

So, my Gestalt. We bought this house June 16th, 2001. Actually, we had a 45 day escrow so that was the day we closed. It had been on the market almost a year when we bought it. We have had it on the market for just about a year now... and we have sold it... and our closing date is... wait for it... June 16th, 2010. How freaky is that??

Well, in all honesty, the closing date has now been moved to June 21st, however, the original closing date was 9 years TO THE DAY that we took ownership. Full circle...

Grey skies are goin'to clear up...

2010-06-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

To update our YES situation...

We got a YES from the bank, and a YES from a landlord, so we are MOVING! This is good news. VERY good news.

The not-so-good news for me personally is that we are not moving 3000 miles away, but rather more like 5. Same town. Different zip code. Same oppressive heat for 6 months of the year. Same cruddy schools for the boys. (Ok, I know, Scottsdale Unified is the top rated district in the state. Arizona is, however, the 2nd dumbest state in the country looking at comparative test scores. So, really, what is there to brag about?) However, it is a GREAT house.. great... and I am So excited!!!

We started packing last weekend. We move around the 21st of June, so no time like the present! I have taken 2 huge car load of, ahem, crap to the Goodwill store, and a few things to consignment. There is much more to go, but we are making progress.

I think a good tactic is this... about ever 2 or 3 years, pretend you are going to move. Weed out. Toss stuff. I am amazed and a bit disgusted by all that we have accumulated in the last 9 years.

More, including pictures, soon!!

Five for Ten - What it means to say YES

2010-05-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yes/No

One seemingly cancels the other one out. You cannot say YES to what you say NO to, and vice versa. YES opens possibilities and NO often closes them. But not always.

One can be freeing while the other one is limiting, and it is up to each individual as to which is which.

Saying YES to too many obligations, the plague of the modern mother, means you have less time for yourself, your family, the things you want to do. Saying NO, something many people find a near impossible task, can be freeing.

We can over schedule ourselves by saying YES, and we can limit our opportunities by saying YES. It seems like such a simple word, and yet, it can either open doors and change our lives, or limit us leaving us bound to how things are.

Right now, we are torn as to which things need to be said YES to, and to what are we saying NO. I want to say NO to Arizona, to move away from here, to say YES to a different opportunity, a different way of life for my family. Unfortunately, I'm waiting on a YES that is very slow in coming. Too slow perhaps. Too slow for it to do any good, because while I am waiting on a YES, we got an unexpected YES on the house. Our sale was approved. This is good news, but this YES means that we must also say NO. It means we don't have the luxury of waiting on that all-too-slow-in-coming YES, the one that will take us far away from here. It means we need to say YES to staying here another year. And I'd be alright with that had we not already been saying this over and over for the last four years.

One more year.
We will just hold out one more year.
We can make it one more year.
One more summer
One more school year.

We keep waiting for that ellusive YES to come, but if and when it does, will we be able to say YES to the YES?

Five for Ten : Lust

2010-05-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

Lust

a fleeting monster with a pretty face and a tempting smile
what you first see
what you first feel
what draws you together
what makes you stop thinking

it's a place to get lost in
to fall into
to revel in
an indulgence, decadent and passionate

and then it changes
the hunger eases
the thinking returns
no longer lost
but still falling
falling deeper, but with eyes open

life brings surprises,
weddings
jobs
houses
children
distractions
time-stealers

and then it is a memory,
the hunger, the longing
just a memory
but reality is here
now
better
stronger
real
lasting

Love

This I Believe: Teaching is infinite.

2010-05-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm torturing my students, again, or so they believe. I'm making them write (Gasp!) and think (Shocking!) during this current project. Using the NPR books and series "This I Believe", I am having my students write their own belief statements.

Put that way, it sounds religious in nature, but that's not it. One student is writing about how he believes in anger, and how releasing anger, feeling anger, at the right time can be productive. Another student is writing about how he believes in music. Another sees the purpose behind telling the truth (those nasty consequences that come about from being caught in a lie...)

So, I thought I would give it a go, too. I am always saying to the kids that I won't ask them to do something that I am not willing to do myself. Money - meet mouth...

~~~~~~~~~

I believe that teaching is infinite. I label myself as a this-teacher or a that-teacher, or I say I want to be another-teacher, but that is all too confining for what I do every day. Better, actually, to say it is what I strive to do every day. Admittedly, some days I miss my mark. Other days I miss it by a whole universe. But some days, I nail it smack on the head, and leave knowing I did good. Like the perfect golf swing that results in the perfect ball, these moments do not come around very often but are so rewarding in and of themselves that it pulls us back, despite our better judgement, to try again to get that feeling, that lift, that joy. Sounds a bit like taking drugs, doesn't it?

My teaching is infinite because it ripples. I may only have 12 kids in front of me, but every one of those kids has his or her own circle. Maybe we discovered something in class today, maybe we had a discussion over something amazing, and maybe that student went home, and shared this piece of amazing information. My student left inspired. He is, in turn, trying to inspire someone else.

And who could resist inspiration in the form of an exuberant 12 year old boy whose face lights up when talking about this amazing piece of knowledge he gained today? If it works as it should, the inspiration does not stop there.

Nor does the influence stop when school is over and my students have moved on to bigger things, older grades, tougher work. My influence stays with them, in the inspiration, the perspiration and the exultation that resulted in the things we learned together. Maybe it was my unwillingness to ever really give up on them, my constant pushing to find the greatness within themselves. Maybe it was simply a root word, found in some foreign text or heard on the news or read in a paper, and the light bulb goes off..."I remember that - Mrs. Jensen drilled those damn roots into our heads..."

Maybe it is the debate, the days we push the curriculum aside to talk about things that really matter: the kid who brought drugs to school, why so-and-so has a probation officer, the girl who killed herself because she was bullied to death, and what we can do to make our lives, our community, our world, a better and a safer place not only for ourselves, but for those around us.

I am the force that shapes my classroom, for better or for worse. I am not a hand-holding-coddling teacher who allows her students to use their disabilities as a crutch. I push then, I expect them to be better when they leave my classroom than they were when they arrived, not only in academics, but in self control, self reliance, self confidence. I expect them to bring out into the world some of what they learned from me.

And I expect that effect to ripple on through the pond of community. To live and last longer than I will. To become infinite.

Like the corners of my mind...

2010-05-14T04:20:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I tried to wrap my head around the fact that, without memory, we had no way to measure reality. How would I know I experienced something, because from the moment I experienced it, it became only a memory. Kind of a trippy concept if you think about it for too long.

My friend, Angie, and I both have odd memories, or so we thought as kids. We find memories triggered by smells (Only to find out that is really not so uncommon afterall) but then also define things in terms of smells... for example, saying that something smells exactly like a new, plastic halloween mask, or like her parent's basement. I can also time travel to songs, taking me right back to high school, or the last dance of 8th grade, or even to the last song of the last dance of 8th grade, and exactly how I felt and with whom I was dancing. (Rob Moor, I believe... and Lady in Red was the song... or maybe it was Freebird..... ok, maybe my memory is not as fool proof as I want to believe.)

It's an amazing thing, memory. And mine used to be really, really good. Oh, don't let the fact that I can remember who my dance partner was for a dance that happened nearly 25 years ago lead you to believe otherwise.. my memory over the last ten years has whithered away. (My oldest is nearly 11.. see a coincidence?)

What I find, though, is this... I am a little like someone with a hoarding disorder when it comes to memory. I know there is not possibly enough space in my brain to fit all the precious memories that I want to savor, and it bothers me. I want them all, like a child sitting amidst piles of candy, in large, open-armed sweeping movement, trying to gather them all in. I want them all.. the memories of each of my children's first smiles, of the way it felt when I had them fall asleep in my arms, the smell of the top of their little infant heads, their firsts of everything, every feeling, every moment. All of it.

Of course, while those memories are really in there somewhere, they are not accessible to me seemingly ever. Every now and again, something will trigger a memory, but overall, all those nuanced moments of every ordinary day are mostly lost. It is why we take photos of the ordinary, and why I seem unable to delete many of them from the computer, because they allow me to hang on, precariously, to the memories contained within.

My dad used to say he refused to look back. No sense in it, he'd say. You learn what you need to learn from the mistakes you make and you move on toward the future. I like his philosophy in theory, but I cannot ever seem to live it consistently.

What is it about motherhood that makes it so hard to live in the present, looking toward the future?

Things that bring me happiness...

2010-05-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

When it rains, it pours, right? At first I wondered how I would find time for 5 posts in 10 days and here I am posting 2 posts per topic. If you are here from Momalom, welcome, and thanks for visiting. If you are here from a random drop in, welcome, and please go visit MOMALOM.COM to see what this is all about...

Things that bring me happiness...

Sleeping in
the sound of my boys, playing and laughing
the perfect iced latte
a good pair of well fitting jeans
sitting on the couch with husband after kids are in bed and WE get the TV for once!

When a student 'gets it' finally
when a coworker commends me on what I am doing
when a coworker likes my lesson and wants to borrow the idea
when I get my paper work all done
a clean desk

Finding money on a pocket
hearing Oldest play the bass
watching Oldest pitch
watching Middle play with leggos and build fort knox
watching youngest read out loud to the dog

The unexpected hug from a boy who looks like me
a person holding the door for me
finding no line at starbucks
a good pedicure
re-reading over chapters of my book that I've finished

Its the simple things in life that bring me joy, that make me smile. If we focus on these things, the big things will take care of themselves.

An ellusive concept

2010-05-12T02:59:00.000-07:00

My current supervisor calls me "Sunshine" because I am always bright and chipper on the phone. I remember a day in college when I was in a particularly bad mood, and nearly everyone I knew kept coming up to me asking what was wrong, acting as if my bad mood was a personal affront to them somehow. I reasoned their reaction to mean that they always saw me as happy, and why the hell was Ms. Happy NOT happy today? No one seemed to accept the fact that I was just in a rotten mood for no particular reason. (My family now realizes this occurrence as commonplace, which, I fear, means I may be turning into a grouchy old woman... who knows..)

Happiness seems a confusing emotion. When I ask my 7th grade students how they felt after something good happened, and they reply they felt "happy", I immediately tell them to choose another word. Happy is one of those "old, tired" words we English teachers want our students to avoid. It is worn out and not very descriptive when you are using it to describe an event. Elated, or joyful, excited or exhilarated are so much more colorful, don't you agree?? We see "happy" as the elementary word, and we want our growing kids to expand their vocabularies.

If you ask an adult, however, if they are Happy, well, you begin to see the weight of that question almost overtake them physically. What IS Happy? How do we define it? The same word uttered so easily by my 4 year old leaves me in a quandary. Am. I. Happy?

Is happiness the same as contentment? Maybe. Am I content? No, not really. Content means complacency, at least to me, and there is more I want: more security in my life, I want a house with a roof that doesn't leak, I want a job that pays better.. so NO, I am not content, at least not in those terms.

Is happiness the same as fulfillment? Maybe.. I have a great family whom I adore, and on good days, I can say my day job gives me a sense of fulfillment. My writing fills me up, my photography gives back to me, so I suppose if you can say happiness equals emotional fulfillment, then yes, I would say I'm happy.

It seemed like an easy subject when I first saw it: write about happiness. But I'm not Webster, and this was not an easy thing to define, let alone write about.

So.. how about you? How do you define HAPPINESS? Do you dare to answer the question... Are You Happy?

Courage - Part Deux

2010-05-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

After reading so many great posts on courage, I have been doing lots more thinking about the topic. One of the writers, who blogs at Worth Pursuing, talked about the courage it took for her to leave an otherwise unsatisfactory marriage in order to allow real love and support to come to her. As many other posts have done, this one got me thinking a LOT about me, and what I'm willing to be courageous for.

Some say courage, but others say insanity. Is it the outcome that separates the two? Certainly, for WP, many could have called her crazy for leaving a husband who was not abusive, and without question, the easy road could very well have been staying in a relationship void of support, companionship and emotional intimacy. Staying would have been easy.

That's sort of where I find myself at this point in my life, and no, I'm not considering leaving my husband, but rather, WE are thinking of leaving HERE, where we live, where we are both employed. HERE is mediocre. HERE, and our jobs, barely get us by. Between high costs for housing, cost of living and some of the lowest teacher salaries in the country, staying HERE seems like a bad idea.

Until I begin thinking of the alternative. Leaving HERE. Leaving here means going somewhere else, and WOW, while on one hand, exciting, it is also terrifying.

My kids only know HERE. While I have never felt rooted or grounded here, they do. The only home they have ever known is this one, with its drafty windows and leaky roof. What bothers me immensely about this house, they don't even notice.

Add to that the idea of getting jobs, at our age, somewhere else, and you have a recipe for frozen-in-fear. I think my husband has it... the fear that, if he were to leave the job he likes, but in all candor pays only slightly better than mine, he would have to start over. He won't look at it, the idea of getting a new job. Yet he also realizes that, if we stay, nothing changes. Nothing gets better. Same poop, different day.

Is it the easy way out to decide to stay? Or is it simply insane, especially now, to consider moving across the country into the unknown? If we fall on our faces out there, well, the answer is clear.

Do we, as a family, have the courage to imagine something better? It is like the old adage: You cannot discover new oceans until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

It does take courage to imagine a life better than the one you have. It also takes courage to make it happen. It is what our founding fathers and the hoards of immigrants who started this country all shared: Courage to believe, courage to hope, courage to act.

Courage

2010-05-10T03:50:00.000-07:00

I'm taking part in Momalom's Five-for-Ten posting challenge, and the first topic for discussion is Courage.

Parenting takes courage, there is no doubt about that. Courage, or utter and complete ignorance as to the risks involved in taking responsibility for the care and feeding of another human being for the rest of their life.

It is dealing with it all when life throws you a curve ball, and you find yourself saying "HEY!, I never signed up for this!! I never knew THIS would happen!" Sort of like the GIs who signed up for military service in a time of unprecidented peace, only to find they had to go off to war. Ya' did sign up for it when you agreed to do this... it's in the contract.. read the fine print.

We don't go around expecting bad stuff to happen. We'd never get anywhere in our lives if we did, and yet parenting takes the courage to face whatever happens and find a way to deal with it.

Middle could have died Friday night. He mistook his fast-acting insulin for his long-acting insulin and took WAY too much of it right before bed. Luckily, he caught his error and woke me up rather than just go to bed. He could have not even realized his error, gone to bed, had a hypoglycemic emergency and never woken up. That much insulin without any food to compensate for it could have been very, very bad.

As it was, we were in a bit of a panic for quite a while, as his numbers kept dropping despite pumping simple sugars into his body. But Middle never wavered. He admitted he was scared, but he kept shoving sugar-coated orange slices into his mouth one after the other to the point where I half expected to see them tossed all over the carpet. He didn't argue with me when I had to come test his blood every 30 minutes until I was sure we were past the worst of it. He took it all in stride.

Which is exactly what he has done for the last 8 months since his diagnosis. I think part of his bravery does come from a bit of ignorance - after all, how can a 9 year old wrap his head around just how serious a low-blood sugar reading can be? But he handles it all with grace and bravery. I hope I can follow his example. I hope I can show him the same amount of courage that he shows me every day.

My life expectancy has just been cut by about 10 years...

2010-05-08T16:54:00.000-07:00

There is a post coming on Monday to reveal more of this story, but Middle is really going all out in the "Let's scare the crap outta Mom" category!

We had a medical issue last night which kept us all up till about 2 am, and I will share more about that on Monday, but we can summarize it by saying the gal over at Banner Health Poison Control is a Rock Star, and my son is utterly unflappable in the face of danger. I, on the other hand, was a hyper-ventilating maniac who tried her very best to remain calm but am afraid I failed miserably.

Ok, so you can also add exhausted to that list. I was awake at my usual 6am despite my best efforts to ignore my internal clock.

I'm a follower of the Free Range movement of parenting. I try, really really hard, to make sure my kids have opportunities to exert and test their independence without me hovering over them. I am not a fan of helicopter parenting. I allow my kids to bike around the neighborhood and even home from school without me. (*They know they'd better wear helmets or I will keep them under lock and key until they are 30. And, they know our neighborhood has eyes all over and I WILL hear about it if they don't) So, when Oldest has a game, Middle and Youngest are allowed to stay at the playground at the park. They are about 500ft away from us, know where we are, and have had a great time all season playing with the kids who show up at the park. Were they to come to the game, well, let's just say the amount of boredom that would ensue would not be pretty for anyone involved. It has worked out well so far.

Until today.

The game ended, and I was going to retrieve M and Y from the playground, and then head home to make lunch. But they were not there. Not in the bathroom, not on the swings and not climbing the play structure.

Two parties were taking place across the park, so I triapsed over there to see if, maybe, they decided to invite themselves to a party with a bouncy house. Only, they hadn't.

Call to Husband - Can't find kids... need help looking.

Parked Oldest under a ramada near the bathrooms and Husband and I split up to search. And search.. and search. No luck.

We walked around for about 20 or 30 minutes, unable to locate our boys or find anyone who had seen them. Here is what went through my mind:

This is not the sort of place where someone shows up with a gun and takes two kids. Family friendly park, and way too crowded.
They would not have wandered off and gotten lost because Y was in flip flops and would have protested the long walk.
It is possible M is passed out somewhere from low blood sugar, but that is highly unlikely given the episode from last night and the Double-Bubble gum he was chewing last time I saw him.
Should something have really happened to them, what hellish sorts of things will people say about the rotten mother who left her kids on the playground?

In the end, the boys were ON the playground the whole time, only behind a big rock climber where we could not see them during any of the 4 passes we made around the park.

I'm not planning on taking back any of their independence, but see, now THIS is exactly WHY the have cell phones at their young and impressionable ages. M's was, of course, completely discharged and therefore totally worthless.

We are starting a new electronic-device routine pronto.

I just don't get it...

2010-04-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

Full disclaimer here - political bantering and ranting coming your way. If I offend, please refrain from flaming me, but I welcome intellectual discourse on this, and all, matters.

I just do not understand all the hub-ub regarding Arizona's new immigration law. It is interesting to me that most of the fury seems to be coming from the political party to which I affiliate myself, but I simply cannot find good reason to get behind all the anger.

Perhaps I am missing something. Perhaps there really IS some horrible, evil, Nazi-zionist-neo-maxim-zoom-dweebie language in there, but I sure as heck cannot find it.

The legislation is, as I understand it, this: Cops who pull you over, or detain you in some fashion, are now allowed to ask for proof of citizenship. Really? Don't they basically do that already?

If I am driving, and I get stopped, what is the first thing I am going to be asked to do? Show drivers license and proof of registration. Is my driver's license NOT proof of citizenship?

I understand people are all up in arms that it will become like Nazi Germany, and we will all be asked to show our papers to the Ghestapo, but I think the reaction is a bit too severe. We already ARE asked to proove our identity all the time. We are already under the daily assumption that we must have our driver's license or state issued ID for those who don't drive, on us at all times. Seriously, would you leave the house without your wallet? And what is nestled safely inside your wallet?? YOUR ID!!!

I guess part of the problem seems to stem that this power now goes to the police rather than ICE or border patrol or whatever. People who already have a disdain for law enforcement seem to be the ones with the biggest issue with this. My only problem is: who will pay for the training to be sure the police know what to be looking for? I have no problem whatsoever with a police officer already in persuit of someone suspected of doing something illegal (because, HELLO... the police are already CHASING YOU!) asking to show proof of citizenship. And if you are found to be here illegally, I also have no problem with someone deporting your sorry butt.

I don't understand my fellow Democrats who cry CIVIL RIGHTS violations. I'm sorry, but don't you need to be a CITIZEN in order to be afforded CIVIL rights? And don't get me started on the while 'civil rights violations' in prisons, like not having 200 cable channels and wi-fi access for prisoners. Again.. HELLO.. you BROKE THE LAW... you gave up your rights when you broke the laws of the land. Am I the only one who remembers the saying "with freedom comes great responsibility"?

Back to the immigration law... Personally, I know I am here legally. I know that I have nothing to hide.

Un-Flippin-Believable

2010-04-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

I know I will get slashed or raked over the coals for my bashing of the 2nd Amendment here, but this is too insane NOT to get uptight about.

In a nearly unprecedented move, the Arizona Governor in her infinite wisdom, and our legislature, voted to drop the requirement for permits to carry a concealed weapon.

Yes, folks - you read that right.. no permit required. "We don't need to stinkin' permits" here in Arizona to carry a deadly weapon. We won't check to see if you are a convicted felon in another state. Heck, we don't even care if you're a felon in THIS state. Go ahead, pack heat. You can hide it, too, and that's OK.

Arizona, today, became the third state in the Nation to allow this. Wanna guess the other two? Nope - not Texas... Alaska (OK, hello.. Sarah Palin.. need I say more?) and Vermont. (Love my fellow New England state, so I can't bash them for their politics. But, let's remember, Vermont is known for two things... the best damn Maple Syrup in the world, and the highest number of pacifists outside of Oregon.)

As if I needed another reason to hang my head in shame that I am raising my children here, this is it. Yes, I believe in an American's right to own a gun. I do not choose to do so. I also would like the comfort of knowing that those who DO own guns have been trained in how to use them, are free and clear of any criminal record, AND are free of any psychiatric problems which would make them a danger to society. Hence.. the PERMIT.

The topping on this festering cake? The rationale behind the change in the law? It's as if they believe, Well, most folks are already carrying weapons without a permit anyway. Really? Governor Brewer, if everyone you know decided to jump off a bridge, would you follow too? (please??)

Go read this guy...

2010-04-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

He has said, perfectly, what I've been trying to say... We're using the wrong camera. All credit for this post goes to its author, Deven Black, a Sped teacher in New York.

Is perception the same as reality?

2010-04-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

I was talking to the dad of a student of mine today, and then subsequently listening to my FAVORITE podcasters, The Manic Mommies, and both were discussing ADD/ADHD.

I was talking to the dad of a student because this student, who is usually doing his best Tigger impression all over the un-amused Rabbits of my classroom, and generally speaking, most calls to his family are about what rotten, bad thing Tigger did in school today. Well, Tigger has been taking his meds for the last few days in prep for our Big State testing, and is a different child. He can sit quietly for more than 20 seconds. He does not get involved with every conversation around him. He has not pounced on anyone in 2 days. He is focused. He completes he work. Did I mention he was quiet?

So I called Dad to tell him how great Tigger has been, and got about 25 minutes of discussion over the benefits and drawbacks of medicating a kid. Totally get it. Agree, we over medicate our population of young people. But in my professional yet admitedly NOT medical opinion, kids like Tigger NEED meds. His behavior in class does impede his ability to access the general curriculum, because on a typical not-medicated day, this child is distracted by the sound of his own breathing. Which, unfortunately for him, he does often. This is the kid who cannot finish a complete thought. Clearly, a good candidate for meds.

Not that all kids are a good candidate for meds. I look at my own son, Middle. Middle's teachers, as early as Kindergarten, (Thank you, Mrs. Drill Sergeant) suggested without saying so (because we as teacher really cannot recommend a kid get tested. We leave that to the admin) that we have Middle evaluated for ADD/ADHD and possibly medicated.

Now, I know my kid (same battle cry from ALL parents, right?) and while he IS, without a doubt, the absent minded professor, his behaviors are NOT causing an impairment in his academics. He may be causing his teacher to go home and drink heavily, I get that, but it is NOT getting in the way of his learning.

And therein lies the difference. As Dr. Rob said on the Manic Mommies podcast posted yesterday, the kicker for most doctors and psychologists, is they fail to adhere to the premise that this distractability needs to be causing an IMPAIRMENT for the child so significant as to limit his function, either socially or academically.

Tigger's social and academic life are impacted. Kids can't stand to be around him because he is so impulsive you never know what he is going to do - yell, throw something, jump on them... and he can't even remember his own name half the time.

So, clearly, most of the issues are with the teachers, not with the students. If the kid is still learning and progressing, why should we care of he needs to pace the room to do it?

Because class sizes have gotten much bigger over the last several years. What used to be a room of 18 or 22 kids is not bursting at the seams with 35 kids. We keep cutting budgets and cramming kids into classrooms, and while the kids are the same (overall), and the curriculum is the same (overall) and the teachers are the same (overall), the incidence of kids being referred for ADD/ADHD evaluations has skyrocketed.

And it is mostly boys being evaluated.

I think what has happened is this: The over crowding of our classrooms has made what used to be 'typical boy' behavior now simply intolerable. A teacher cannot keep order in the classroom with Tiggers, or even Middles, in their midst, so when all else fails, they recommend to the school psychologist that the student be evaluated. And, unspoken goal here, MEDICATED.

For parents like me of kids like Middle, medication is out of the question. As a parent of a child who is gifted, who is succeeding academically, I say if the teacher cannot handle him, that is her problem. I will not shove needless medications into my kid to make her job easier. However, I believe I would feel very differently if my child was NOT learning, was NOT progressing academically, did NOT have friends. Whole different ball game, then.

For teachers like me with students like Tigger, I can totally understand why we push the medication route. This is a different child this week. I'd love him to stick around, both because I would end up with fewer grey hairs, but also because I think in the end, Tigger would be more successful academically. I think he is missing out on a lot because he just cannot attend to the material.

But medicated or not, Tigger is a smart kid. As he ages, matures, develops, his ability to control his behavior will, God willing, improve. He will be a successful man, of that I have little doubt. And whether or not his behavior drives me insane when he is not on his meds, that's as much MY issue as it is his.

Random Thoughts on a Sunday Night...

2010-04-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

My mom and I understand each other, as do my two best friends. This is essential because the strange wad of goo that is my brain tends to jump from topic to topic without warning (No, not me.. not ADD at all... no!!) Often, if prompted, I can give the linear trajectory of my thoughts to show the person I am with that I am not completely INSANE, but am, in fact, somewhat grounded in reality, and if you just give me a minute you, too, will see how it all relates. Maybe. Perhaps it's just the ADD after all.. who the hell knows.... Here's what is rolling around in my head tonight...

1) Our taxes are finished. Federal taxes are FILED, and I will file the State ones later this week. YAAHOOO.. nothing like waiting till the 11th hour for this one! We actually owe money to the Great State of Arizona this year *(sorry, you can't hear the sarcasm dripping from my finger tips as I type that). They need the money, not necessarily more than I do, but if the rumors become fact, many folks will get IOUs rather than refunds anyway.

2) A weekend spent in pursuit of baseball is a weekend well spent, when it is not 108* outside. The weather was lovely this weekend, and that made it so nice to be at the park, saying hello to friends, and watching Oldest have a wonderful time. I even got a bit of a tan. Dont' tell my dermatologist; I'm sure she'll never be able to figure it out on her own!

3) I love my Mac. Really, truly.. I love it. I'm a Mac addict. I was part of the cult starting in college, and it was not until the PC came out with mountains more software than I could get with my Mac that I made the switch. Then, Mac came BACK - Yeah. baby! I got my iMac almost 4 years ago... its a great machine, my boys have a MiniMac. I. Love. Mac. Except... dude - can you not get the platforms level? Why can I play around MORE with my Blogger background on my School issued PC than my Mac? Why are things like spell-check not available when I use my Mac? Why is there no affordable genealogy software available for the Mac? Dude.. catch up, will ya?

4) Saturday cyclists need to have their own private planet. I was driving to meet a friend for coffee yesterday morning. It was a perfect morning, not too hot, not too cold.. and I agree, it would have been a great day to meet a bunch of my cronies for a nice long ride. But dudes.. remember the rules of the road, will ya? There is a bike lane. Stay in it. Do not think it is acceptable to ride two and three abreast in the bike lane, because you cannot fit, which means you spill out into the street, where you are going on average at least 15 miles per hour slower than I am. And I am safely inside my moving cage of steel. Neither I, nor any of my fellow car-driving cronies, every try to drive two or three abreast. It's not what you do. Its not a good idea... Bumpers, dude.. I got 'em. You don't.

5) I finished my book last night. The book I was reading, not the one I am writing, just for clarification. It was fine; decent story. Enjoyable enough. But as I read through, I wondered many MANY times, did this gal even have an editor? If she did, what was the editor thinking? Mrs. Archibald drove into our 11th grade heads just how truly self-depricating we can be if we say we 'feel badly', when what we mean is we 'feel bad' for whatever. Emotions take adjectives, not adverbs. Saying the soup tastes badly basically means the soup is ladling itself up and doing so badly. The fact that this "New York Times Bestseller" was able to become one with so many errors in her final manuscript either gives me hope, or is a sad statement on Publishing today. Do your research, man.. how hard is it to realize that it is not a Burmese mountain dog, but rather a Bernese Mountain Dog??

6) Our high-stakes testing, also known as AIMS (Or the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards), takes place this week. On the eve of our annual test-fest, I picked up the latest issue of Time. In this current issue, an economist from Harvard details the results of an experiment, or severaly, actually, to see if monitary compensation for completing specific requirements would be sufficient motivation for students to improve their grades, attendance, and test scores. Basically, he paid them for grades. Spoiler: For many, it worked. Humph... things that make you go Hmmmm.

The perfection of a Saturday morning...

2010-04-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

Ahhh... weekend bliss.

I can almost hear the pressure cooker in my head sputtering with relief and release.

I love Saturday morning, when Oldest's game is at noon, not at 8am.

I love Saturday morning when I have plans to meet someone for a leisurely cup of coffee at a reasonable hour.

I love when my little ones, Youngest, in particular, get to sleep as long as they need to and wake up happy and smiling.

I love the time by myself on those mornings, when I can grab my book, and my coffee and just sit. No where to be, no deadlines to meet.
Oh, there is tons to do today, but none of it can really begin until they are all up, so for now, I can enjoy just being... quiet... still.
I know it won't last long. Oldest and Youngest are now up... the fun will soon begin.

My skirt experiment

2010-04-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

At my last school, our administrator tried to enforce a 'dress code' for teachers. It met with a universal THUD, but the arguments FOR asking the teachers to dress more professionally sounded legitimate.

At my current school, I will say the teachers' attire leaves quite a bit to be desired. Tank tops, flip flops, and sweat pants are seen daily, and not just on the students. Most seem to dress as if it were the weekend, and with a very few exceptions, this seems to be the norm. Does the quality of teaching see a negative effect because of how the teachers dress? The teachers would say NO.

I realize that we are sort of lucky. In what other profession, save for some engineering gigs where the preferred dress is shorts and flip-flops, can a professional get away with wearing jeans or sandals every day? I also realize that, if I am to change jobs or careers, I might have to learn how to dress like a grown up, again. Painful, I know!

This week was my experiment. I understand that it is way short of scientifically or statistically significant, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway and see what happens. For an entire week, I wore a skirt to work. This is HUGE for me. Every day, I wore a nice, long, pretty skirt of one sort or another, a nice top, did my hair and tried my best to look "professional".

My expectations were low, but I was very curious: would student behavior change as a result of my wardrobe? Would my students take me more seriously if I am dressed more professionally? Would they seem more engaged in learning if I 'looked the part of a teacher'?

It was a short lived experiment, I get that. One week, toward the end of the year is admitedly probably not the best time to see if I can change student behavior, but given what I have been seeing lately in my classroom, I thought it couldn't hurt to try.

The next question would be, did it make me feel any more professional? Maybe. A little. Not much.

But I did come to realize something. Wearing a skirt and a cute pair of patent-leather sandals is nearly as comfortable as track pants and sneakers. Nearly...

The result? Nothing. No change at all. It makes me wonder, maybe if

So, what's a person to do?

2010-04-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

I was very discouraged today by my students. I've lamented more than once in this forum that I find this year to be extremely frustrating, far more so than years past, and I am seriously considering what else I can to to earn a living.

I'm hopeful that 'published author' is in the not-too-distant-future. Alas, I can't say that YET.

My day began thus: I was in my classroom, trying to get some paperwork done before the students arrived. My room was dark, the shades mostly drawn. My door opens. A head peeks in just enough to NOT be seen, but heard. This student decided his greeting to me this morning would be to belch loudly and LONG... and then run away giggling, right in front of the break in my window.

Gotcha!

I confronted him on his behavior. His response was a cursory, and flippant "sorry, don't see what the big deal is."

I confronted his cohort when I saw Knucklehead #2 later in the day. He appeared slightly more remiss, but not enough to actually convince me that he felt remorse at the act, but rather at being caught.

Fast forward to my last hour of the day. Knucklehead #1 told me "Ms. Speech-teacher told me that I need to say I'm sorry for my actions and for my stupidity". Yeah, thanks bud - heartfelt apology. Later that same class period, I overheard him talking to the ONE girl in my classroom asking her if she "liked it when he {unsure of who HE is but the thought is frightening} creamed into her bellybutton."

If you are unsure of what that means, I am NOT going to explain it, but you can imagine my general disgust. Again, the remorse was in getting caught, not for what he said. I truly believe Knucklehead #1 is not smart enough to KNOW what he said, but he knew enough to beg me to not call his mother and share with her what he said.

Not that I could call his mother. She does not speak English.

So, this is just one student of my 17. One on one, all of them are pretty decent kids. Get them all together, and they are ALL like this one from today.

I ask.. what's a person to DO with this? Ideas?

The new CPS...

2010-04-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

My colleague and I have created a new acronym, in a world in which acronyms are already mind-numbing in their number...

Crappy Parent Syndrome

Here are some clues that your student or child may suffer from CPS...

1) Their diet consists of sugar and fat and chewing gum, and they bring copious amounts of both to school, daily, and eat it all day long.
2) Your child, at 13, is a bigot, and harasses students of different religions/color/nationality on a regular basis and you don't seem to care.
3) Your child has never had a consequence and freaks beyond all reason at the concept.
4) You are unaware that your 14 year old student cannot read. At all. Not a lick... C.A.T. is hard for them.
5) Your child chooses to do nothing during the school day, at all, and yet gets computer time, football practice, and all other 'perks' at home.
6) Your child has absolutely no sense of pride in his/her self because you, parent, have made it clear that you could not give a damn about them.
7) Your student lacks any and all respect for adults.
8) Your student has yet to turn in one homework assignment from the start of the year until now.

This could, in one way or another, describe nearly all of my students, and my colleagues' students, this year.

Again, I ask.. how much does a Barista make?

Not a bad way to end a week...

2010-03-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Although, I had my doubts about it; a meeting with a parent at the end of the day on a Friday could NOT in any way turn out good.

The Social Studies teacher had called the meeting. One of my students, one who I keep pleading with "Please, try to live up to your name...", was failing her class. Not only was he failing, but he'd been caught in more than one lie. And his attitude needed some Serious adjusting. Ok, I'll come, too - should last, what, 20 minutes?? Fine.. will do!

In reality, it lasted closer to 90 minutes, but boy was it worth it! SST (Social Studies Teacher) looked at Student and said, very pointedly, "You lie, you are lazy and you cheat. I've had enough of it." He gave her this "Oh, if only I could tell you where to shove it, lady" look. She asked him, in front of his mother, "Are you on drugs?" He replied a simple "No," still glaring at her. She then leaned in for a closer connection, pointed a finger at him and said "Are you being bullied?"

His face dropped.

"Are you? You are, aren't you? Who is it?"

His eyes started welling, and we spend the next nearly hour gathering the details of who, what, how, how often and for how long. He lifted up his shirt sleeve to reveal a large bruise where the Ringleader had punched him because he refused to do something that was asked. He cried, went through tissue after tissue, and at the end of it all, was no longer glaring at any of us. His little brother, age probably around 5, came up to snuggle with him, because he was scared for his big brother. LB had probably never seen BB cry before. Mom was crying, too, because she had no idea.

Nor did I. I would have pegged this kid for the bully, not the victim. He had slowly morphed into a world-class jerk. He'd done the same at home, not coming home when asked, refusing to help around the house, getting mouthy, showing his mom the "go to hell" look he'd given his teachers, too. I had no idea, at all, he was suffering so much. It all makes sense now, as most things do in hindsight, that what we were seeing was a manifestation of a kid being abused. He didn't know how to ask for help, but at least he had one teacher, one solid, veteran, say-what-you-will-about-strict-and-old-school teacher who could see the reason behind the behavior.

She pledged, as did I, to help him. The Ringleader is notorious at our school for being downright mean to nearly everyone. I think Student is carrying a lighter load tonight because of the meeting. And this meeting reminded me, in a very in-your-face-wake-the-hell-up way, to stop rushing to judgment about kids and their behavior. There IS always a reason for it, and part of my job as their teacher is to take the time to figure out what it is. I am sure glad I took the time today; it was time very well spent.

Still torn...

2010-03-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about this article and the implications of the ideas brought forth in it. I find myself still torn over it. Fire Bad Teachers. Sure, sounds simple enough, right? Lord knows, we all know of some really horrible, shrew-like teachers who should have been asked to retire 200 years ago, but what about the ones who don't stick out quite so clearly? How will we identify those teachers?

I mean, who is looking? Adminstrators? Again, I understand the theory, but I can't quite see it working in practice. Adminstrators are supposed to be the be-all-end-all-know-all in the school. But in my experience, they are not really all that abreast of what happens in the classroom. There are the annual observations, but for a 'tenured' teacher like me, that means my Admin only is required to spend (2) 15 minute blocks of time in my room observing me. And anyone who can fog a mirror will likely be able to put on a good enough act for that amount of time.

Now, this year, my admin walks through my class fairly regularly. He sees what is going on when I am not "on" for an observation. But this is new.. last Admin darked my door exactly 2 times in 4 years. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. She had the Assistant Principal do my observations the rest of the time. She could not honestly say she had any idea of what was going on in my classroom. We could have been reading Tolstoy or having naked twister games, and she'd never have known the difference.

Then there is the question of what MAKES for a good teacher. It is not a simple formula. You can send someone to school to learn all the theory, yadda yadda yadda, and they may look great on paper, but get them in front of kids, and they are awful. Or you can have someone off the street with no 'formal' training, and they are magic in the classroom. Who gets to decide the criteria for "good enough teaching"? My fear is the decisions will be left in the hands of those who would just as soon have robots teaching as having live, breathing folks in the class. Or some teacher may be cut not so much for a lackluster teacher performance, but because they don't 'jibe' with the Principal or Superintenant.

Maybe extend the time it takes to earn tenure? Maybe make it like your Driver's Licence (ok, but Arizona is a bad state for this example because my licence is good until 2034 - again.. totally NOT joking) and you have to not only sit through the test again, but you go back to being probationary and having a whole lot MORE evaluations and observations? More drop-ins? Less "I'll see you at this time for this class".

You want to really see what happens in the classroom, drop in and watch, for more than 5 minutes. Do it often. Daily, if necessary to get an idea of that teacher's style. Then go on your gut - does this FEEL like a successful classroom? I know, folks want rubrics, give me quantifiable measurements of performace. But again, children and teachers are not widgets; they don't all fit nice and neatly into the box. Besides, as a species we have veered way too far away from our gut instincts, we've rubric-ed ourselves into non-thinking, non-feeling robots.

Sort of like what They seem to want in the classroom... hmm... grand design?

Gettin' my groove back...

2010-03-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last year, I considered myself a Runner. I was out nearly every morning, running. Not fast, not terribly far, but consistently and aggressively (for me) running. I saw my average speed go from a 13 minute mile down to about 11:13. I said I'd be happy to reach a pace of 11 min/mile.

I never got there.

Sometime in April, I pulled something deep in my right hip. Nothing seemed to help make it feel better, not stretching or massage. In June, I ran my last 3 miles, with a pace slower than my 11:13, but faster than 12:00. I have not run since.

Until this week.

I wanted to get back out there... I'm about 24 pounds lighter now than I was then, so in theory it should be easier on my body to run. I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, and I know running is part of the answer. I don't need to break any speed records, just need to get back to my consistent and aggressive (for me) running routine.

I know I have to go slow. I know I have to listen to my head, not my ego, or I will get injured again. I know I can't go out every day or I will burn out. So, here's what I've got so far...

1st day out - 2.75 miles at 16:21 (*walked the whole thing)
2nd day out - 14:13
3rd day out - 13:37 (3 miles)
4th day out (today) 12:53 (3 miles)

I'm not back to where I want to be - but I'm clearly seeing an improvement in my stamina already. An additional benefit to working back into this slowly - I am taking Cyrus with me. He makes a wonderful running partner.. and it makes for a very happy and mellow Cyrus for the rest of the day.

Sort of what it does to me, too.

Torn...

2010-03-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

Conflicted, torn - that's me. I saw this article in Newsweek, after hearing about the horrible practices in Rhode Island where Those In Charge decided to fire a group of teachers. I'm a member of our local teachers union, and I am one who is first to complain when one more thing is asked of me, as a teacher. Between my full time job and my OTHER full time job of being a parent, I am stretched pretty thin. I can get behind the argument that, while we may be 'sheltered from accountability' as Newsweek states, in no other profession are requirements tacked on year after year without any compensation. What I mean goes like this.. I am sitting in a 45 hour class right now. Why? Not because I want to take this class, but because someone in Authority believes that I must take this class in order to KEEP my job. I'm qualified to teach today, but without this class, I am all of a sudden UNqualified to teach as of April 3rd. I have to take this class, as well as others, at my own expense, just for the opportunity to keep my job. I pay, out of my own pocket, for each specific area of licensure, for each test to "prove" I am competent. On a guess, I have spent, not counting my Master's Degree, close to $5000 just to KEEP my job. Enough is enough!!
     In any other profession, additional education leads to additional compensation, in one way or another. In Public Education, they change the game on us every two or three years. And we jump through the hoops because if we don't, we will lose our jobs. Not that our jobs are all that great, anyway, in terms of monetary compensation. The average teacher in Arizona is lucky to make $45K a year. I wish I were kidding. Starting salaries in most districts around Arizona are $32K. In most of the civilized world, it is closer to $45K for STARTING, and goes up from there. When you consider student loans, the cost of getting an education, the cost of living here in this state, a teacher's salary is not a livable wage. Especially in an area like Arizona where heating bills are highest when we are NOT working, and car insurance is more expensive than any where else in the country. How do they expect to attract the best and the brightest when they pay the same as the local Starbucks?
     So I could stand behind the teachers in Rhode Island who refused to extend their day by 45 minutes, and give up their lunches twice a week, and offer free for service tutoring. If we don't stand up and say NO, how far will Adminstration and Legislature push the envelope?

Then I read the article carefully. The average salary of these teachers who refused to add anything on to their day?? Yea.. $75K. Almost TWICE what we make.

My immediate reaction at that point was "shut the hell up and do what you need to in order to help your students succeed".

     There are bad teachers out there, no one will deny that. There are folks who are looking at their calendars with their retirement date highlighted, who cannot care about being a GOOD teacher any more - that pension is looming. There are teachers who cannot complete a full sentence without some sort of grammatical error who should not be teaching our young children how to write sentences.
     The system for evaluating teachers is bad. But to do away with tenure? That puts a good teacher with a personality conflict with his/her adminstrator in peril, so we need aspects of tenure to prevent that from happening. Stricter standards for new teachers? Maybe - Connecticut makes it nearly impossible to get a teaching certificate in that state, and they do have arguably some of the best teachers in the country (But not necessarily the best education system - not sure how that works).

Clearly - something's gotta give. Maybe this idea mentioned in the article was not such a bad one - blow up the current system and start from scratch. Hmmm.. that might work as an idea for Congress, too...

It's the most... wonderful....time... of the year

2010-02-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

The boys, Steve and I are thrilled...after much deliberation, much back and forth, Grandma & Grandpa made it out to Arizona! Warren has been suffering from not-quite-ideal health lately, and has been in and out of the hospital. It looked as if they would not make it this year. We were extremely disappointed, but certainly understood. How awful it would be to feel poorly out in the middle of nowhere - the drive takes them 4 days, and much of it is through the most desolate landscapes.

Then, one day last week, we got a surprise phone call; they were in Missouri and on their way here!! The boys did the happy dance, and waited with anxious anticipation for Tuesday when we presumed we would see them...

The first thing Christopher did when he saw them was to run away into the living room. He can be a bit shy at first, and it still takes him time to warm up, but that was not why he ran away - he brought with him the picture they had sent to us for Christmas. He looked at the picture, then at them and proclaimed "IT'S YOU!!!" He then broke into a huge grin and gave them both monster-hugs.

The best part about having Grandma & Grandpa here are times like this photo. Snuggling together, talking, getting to know each other, and, of course, having someone to share popcorn with.

So much for trying...

2010-02-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

Those students I mentioned in my last post? The one where we got buy-in from the parents to seek alternative placement? The ones who are so unbelievably below grade level that it is painful to watch them try to maneuver their regular education environment without hitting landmines? The district denied our request to seek alternative placement. "Just service them in the classes they already have".

Insert something profane, and a good eye-roll here.

I've said it more than once, that if I actually enjoyed arguing and fighting, I would quit teaching and go become an advocate. It is situations just like this, where, in order to save money, someone asks a square peg to fit into a round hole. Rather than having the program meet the needs of the child, we ask the child to meet the limitations of the program. It's not fair, it is not right, and yet, unless someone is willing to stand up and bring a pack of lawyers with them, it happens. So much for INDIVIDUAL education. Even in Special Ed, its a packaged deal a lot of the time.

Of course, I, as a district employee, am not allowed to tell the parent what I really think, which is that they are getting the run-around, and that things might change to the benefit of their children if they were to hire an advocate. I'm not allowed to say that I disagree vehemently with those in decision-making power that these students can be successful where they are. I'm not allowed to say anything other than the party line.

So, I come here to vent - and hopefully bring just a little bit of justice into the world for kids who cannot advocate for themselves. And, if nothing else, help those who can't speak up because either they don't have the lingo down or whatever, find a voice amid the red tape.

a better day

2010-02-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

It's Friday - how can the day be bad? Well, wait - don't answer that. I am not one who enjoys tempting the Fates.

But today was, at the very least, NOT a bad day, and that is something. I think it helped that I took a 1/2 day off.

I had two meetings today, rather BIG ones, about some students and am pleased that they both went well. I had prepared well, had all my ducks in a row if you will, and cranked through them. Both meetings were productive; one student who desperately needs an attitude adjustment (as well as a behavior plan) got it, and we got the blessing from a parent to seek out alternative placements for her son who is smart enough to be successful but is performing at astonishingly low levels. He basically is gathering nothing at all from school, and as I put it to the mom, it is not as much that he is failing school as it is that school is failing him. We've tried it; its broke. Time to fix it. I was anticipating at the least hesitation, but she was fully on board, and I believe finding an alternative place for this student will go SO far in allowing him to reach his potential. So - good day at work.

I was able to be home early enough for the boys when they walked through the door on an early release day. I hate the thought of them being home until I get home from work, since it can be as much as a 3 hour wait for them. My house hates it too; yesterday I came home to a complete disaster, ala category 2 hurricane. They went to a neighbors not long after getting home, and this allowed me to go on a nice long bike ride. (Ok, it felt longer than it was - 30 minutes.) I went to the office supply store, purchased resume paper, hit the bookstore, and then went to get Squirt. Always the highlight of my day is walking into the school cafeteria where they have "Kids Klub" afterschool, to see him running toward me, grinning widely, arms outstretched with my greeting..."Mooommmeeeeeeeee". Melts my heart and puts all the garbage that I may have endured during the day into startling perspective.

We found out yesterday that Parker was selected to play in the Majors for Little League this year. If you are a LL mom, you get that - HUGE deal for a 10 year old, and he is both terrified and terrifically excited all wrapped up into one. His team is the Red Sox, and you KNOW that makes this momma pleased as punch.

Then there is Matthew... So here's the deal with this kiddo.. he is amazingly bright. He walks around here (and school) like the absent minded professor, but he has understanding of things and insights that no 9yr old should possess. His teacher and I laugh, because he is reading at nearly a 7th grade level, but he HATES to read and NEVER meets his reading goal for the quarter. We've had the 'talk' about how he is wasting the gifts he as been given if he is not reading and just wait, something will spark your interest.. nearly everything but standing on our head, to get him to read.

Nothing. Nada. No thanks, Not interested.

He did express interest in seeing the new Percy Jackson movie coming out, and he knows my rule - if there is a movie that was made from a book, we read the book first. The Lightening Thief is long. L.O.N.G, long. He showed a kernel of interest, then abruptly lost it again at the size of the book. But then, I had an AHA moment - AudioBook!!

After debating with Steve as to the virtues vs. the 'cheat' factor of audiobooks, we decided to try it. Matthew has the book, and is listening to is as he reads. I figure, his eyes are still reading the words, and he can read a lot faster at this stage having a professional reader read it to him, and he does not have to stop and try to pronounce words he does not know... a win-win for Matthew...

He has it all planned out - its a 10 hour audio book; he can 'read' for an hour or two each day and will have the whole thing finished in about 2 weeks.

Most newsworthy of it all... he LOVES the book!! YaaaHooo - I think we may finally have found the HOOK to get him reading!!!

Becoming Zen

2010-02-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

I had a much needed massage this weekend. It began with a headache that lasted for 5 days, and a desperate call into the massage place. "Sweedish, or therapeutic?" Duh - therapeutic.. bring on the ball-peen hammers and rolling pins, we've got some serious knots to work out!!

It is 2 days later. The headache is back, and is now joined by extremely sore shoulders, which is apparently where I hold ALL my stress. I thought a couple of times that I was going to crawl through the table, it hurt so much, but I can turn my head from side to side with ease now, something I had not realized that I was no longer able to do...

So, what has been causing all this stress, you may ask. Between the house, work, the kids, the economy, its hard to imagine what I could possibly have to be stressed about... (Insert horribly sarcastic tone here).

Then last night, it sort of hit me... there are things I cannot change (The economy), there are things I am trying to change (the house) and there are things that, while I try to change, I really am powerless over them (work). Sounds a bit like that old Serenity Prayer.. maybe its got a good message or two for us all...

Last week, one of the major sources of stress was a coworker. I could go into all her horrible sins against me and humanity in general, but that would only raise my blood pressure again, and we don't really need to go there. Let's just leave it that I was completely pissed off, and felt completely in the right in this given situation. I stewed all weekend. I plotted by carefully worded email over and over again. As the assistant Principal said to me on Friday when I went to go talk to her about it "Sam, someone is going to get pissed off - where is it written that it has to be YOU?" I am not generally one who enjoys stepping on someone's toes, but when someone steps on mine without provocation, well, that sort of sets me off...

Then last night, something switched off (or on??) in my brain. Will this matter in a year? Really? Will having my say and getting an apology change my life in any way 12 months from now, or 5 years from now?

No? So why sweat it?

If it does not really matter, in the whole cosmic scheme of things, why am I going to allow it to affect my health or steal another moment from my life. No doubt, there are things which require my attention, and my passion. Proving myself right to someone who already thinks SHE is right should not be one of them.

Someone remind me of this the next time she pisses me off?

Until then.. think, calm waters, deep breath... calm waters, deep breath... maybe this will help!

Creating a "more perfect" union - or at least classroom

2010-01-23T17:31:00.000-08:00

Today I made it through the first nine hours of a 45 hour class on SEI training. I am sitting through these classes, paying my own way through them, just in order to KEEP my job. Not advance, not get paid more, not change careers or even try for a different position within the same comapny. No, the way things are set up is that I am considered Highly Qualified to teach my students today, but as of April 3, if I do not finish this class, I will no longer be qualified to teach them and risk being pulled from the classroom.

As if this one series of classes, strewn with techniques and strategies that the instrucutor said point-blank are taken from SPECIAL EDCUATION teachings, will make me a better teacher on April 4th.

But I digress... One of the topics that came up today is the need for us to create an environment within our schools and class rooms in which students who are learning english will feel safe enough to learn. We discussed ways in which we can make that happen. We discussed the notion of celebrating our similarities as well as embracing our differences.

It all sounded warm and fuzzy and you could feel the room collectively think "YES!! We must find a way to make this happen!"

But there is a problem! (Isn't there always a problem? If there were not a problem, what on earth would I have to spew about?) As I pointed out today, in my classroom, as much as I curse it, I am really blessed to be able to do pretty much what I want to do in there with little to no interference. My students are "the forgotten ones" and people are just so pleased they are not in THEIR rooms when they are with me, that they nearly don't care what I do with them.

Perhaps I exagerate. Maybe not..

But the point I made was this - while I have time and resources to do this in MY room, the vast majority of teachers in today's schools have NO TIME to create warm and fuzzy climates in their rooms. There are standards, and performance objectives and standardized tests to worry about. There are numbers and pages of data and meetings and threats to be sure your numbers stay up or go higher. There are, in our 3rd grade math curriculum, for instance, 210 performance objectives that students are supposed to meet within a 180 day school year. That is only MATH... add Language Arts, Science Social Studies, Art, Music, PE and the 12 school days wasted on TESTING all these objectives and you can quickly understand how students are not learning about the Famous People You Should Know, or understanding the differences or embracing similarities between and among them. There is simply NO TIME.

So what is the answer? Arizona ranks 45th out of 51 states (DC counts) in terms of education. We in SUSD have adopted EveryDay Math as our Math program. I think, personally, this is indicitive of the problem - EDM takes a "paint with a broad brush" approach to teaching math concepts. Sure, my 1st grader was learning about permieter and area, and sure he was introduced to fractions and decimals, but what we should be asking is 'can he add? does he know his math facts"? The broad brush approach is fine if you want to produce "Jacks of all trades, masters of none" - but is that what we want?

Lower the performance objective count.
Reduce the number of benchmarks on which you measure failure (It should be success, but we know they are looking at failure, not success)
Ensure mastery of the POs you DO have before allowing the students to progress - in other words, make sure they know what they are doing first before you introduce something new. Do NOT assume "They will get it eventually" because many of them DON"T!
Push all students to excel at their ability.
Assess students at their ability level.. do not assume a student who entered the states in September can take a high-stakes test in English in April, or, if you are functioning at a 2nd grade reading level in 6th grade because you have a learning disability, allow that child to test where he/she is functiong. Putting a 6th grade reading test in front of them is like asking me to go back and re-read L'Etranger in French - I may recognize some words, but will miss the whole point of the novel.
And maybe, MAYBE, then you will have time to teach them how to be citizens of the world.

Insanity is heriditary; you get it from your kids.

2010-01-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

This saying always made me laugh. My mother had one of those little embroidered pillows with this saying on it that she kept in her bedroom. It was not until I had children of my own that I realized just how true those words are!

I ask myself frequently, why am I completely exhausted by the time I get to work. I go through my morning step by step; Coffee? Check.. Shower? Check. Dressed? Check. Kids up? Check. Matthew's lunch count? Check. Beds made? Check. I manage to somehow get it all done, but why am I always rushing around like a madman on speed? I get up at 6am, we don't have to leave until 7:55, so surely two hours is plenty of time, right?

Here is why I can not make it out of the house either on time, or with my sanity in tact. Two days ago, I walk down to the kitchen after getting myself ready for school/work to find the following: Christopher still eating his breakfast, Parker dressed and watching TV, Matthew in his underwear, eating. He needs to get dressed, and cover for his breakfast, and find his shoes, and locate his back pack, and gather up what ever homework has been strewed all over the family room, and Chris still needs shoes and a jacket.

We have FOUR minutes until we need to leave the house. FOUR. The boys were all up at 7am. We are inches away from YOUMUSTBEREADYTOLEAVETHEHOUSENOW time, and only 1/3 of my children has the necessary tasks complete.

This is why I am crazy. This is why I am considered a "bad witch" by the time I get to school. It is heriditary. I get it from THEM!

Concessions to "the list"

2010-01-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

After debate and dialogue, I have added six athletes to "the list", which is now 205 people long. All of you who mentioned Jackie Robinson were right, there is no way that I could, in good conscious toward civil rights as well as the integrity of baseball, leave out Jackie Robinson.

He is joined by Arthur Ashe, Billy Jean King, Lou Gehrig, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Babe Ruth.

As always, open for suggestions for this grouping. So far, my students seem to have bought into it and are anxiously looking up their people. The first "reports" will be presented on Friday. I will keep you posted!

Shocked and appalled, once again

2010-01-19T19:31:00.000-08:00

Last week I decided to change things up a bit in my classroom. I am sick and tired of hearing kids call each other Racist or Bigot, and then hurl racial slurs themselves. They have no idea what some of those terms mean to folks older, and when you get down to it, they are not even using the terms correctly in the first place, which bothers me greatly, too.

So we spent a week on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. That was when I noticed something that was shocking and truly bothersome. The students all knew who MLK was, most had heard of Rosa Parks, but none knew Malcom X, or Mother Theresa, they all know Michael Jackson and Michael Jordon, but could not say why they knew Benjamin Franklin. They had heard of Thomas Jefferson, but not Thomas Hooker, or Thomas Paine.

I thought we had a little work to do... so I devised a plan, one that I hope to use, going forward, with all my classes. If you are a teacher and you like this idea, please feel free to steal it and make it your own! What I am doing is this: I am building a list. The list is by no means comprehensive in nature, and I hope it never stops growing. Every week, each student will pick 1 person from that list, and answer 5 questions about that person: When did they live, Where are they from, What did they do, Why should we care, and What impact did their actions have on society. They each will give a 2 minute presentation on their Famous Person. My goal is two fold.. they will meet those all important Content Standards in research, historical figures, and speaking in public, and hopefully have a greater sense of the world. Perhaps my goals are lofty, too lofty for a group of middle school special ed kids, but hopefully not.

I asked some of my students for help compiling the list. It started out with about 80 names and now has over 180!! I am going to attempt to post the list here, and if you can think of folks we have left off, please let me know! (Note, please, very few entertainers, musicians made the list for a reason. Absolutely no athletes.)

Adolf Hitler       Al Gore     Albert Einstein     Alexander Graham Bell      Alexander the Great
Alfred Nobel       Amelia Earheart         Andrew Carnegie     Andy Warhol       Anne Frank
Annie Oakley       Annie Sullivan         Anwar Sadat    Aristotle    Attila the Hun    Ayatollah Khomeini    Barry Goldwater     Ben Franklin    Ben Verene    Benito Mussilini    Betsy Ross   Bill Gates
Bing Crosby    Bishop Desmond Tutu    Bob Hope     Bobby Kennedy    Booker "T" Washington    Buddah    Buffalo Soldiers    Buzz Aldrin    Carl Jung    Ceasar Chavez    Charles Darwin
Charles Manson    Christa MacAuliffe    Chuck Yeager    Cleopatra    Confucius   Dali Lama
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev     Dr. Ruth Simmons      Duke Ellington   E. B White    Easy Company"    Ed Sullivan    Edgar Cayce    Eleanor Roosevelt    Eli Whitney    Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Cady Stanton    Emmet Till    Eunice Kennedy Shriver    Fidel Castro    Florence Nightingale    Frank Sinatra    Frank Zamboni    Fredrick Douglass    Galileo    Genghis Khan
George Washington Carver      Georgia O'Keeffe    Geronimo    Ghandi   Gloria Steinem    Golda Meir   Hannibal      Harriet Beecher Stowe     Harry Belefonte    Harry Houdini    Hellen Keller
Henry Ford    Herbert Hoover    Hideki Tojo     Hiro Hito     Hmong     Idi Amin    Imelda Marcos
Indira Ghandi    J. Edgar Hoover    J. Robert Oppenheimer    Jack the Ripper   Jacqueline Kennedy
James Earl Ray    Jane Addams    Jim Crow     Joan of Arc     Johan Sebastian Bach
John D Rockefeller    John F. Kennedy   John Hancock    John Muir    John Wilkes Booth
Johnny "Appleseed"Chapman    Johnny Carson    Jonas Salk      Joseph Stalin   Julius Ceasar
Karl Marx    Laura Ingalls Wilder      Lee Harvey Olswold    Leonardo DiVinci
Lief Erickson    Louis Armstrong      Louis Farrakhan     Louissa May Alcott
Ludvig Von Beethoven     Madame Curie    Malcom X    Mao Tse Tung    Marc Antony
Marco Polo     Margaret Thatcher      Marie Antoinette      Mark Twain      Martin Luther
Martin Luther King, JR    Mary Queen of Scots     Mary Todd Lincoln    Medgar Evers
Million Man March"      Moses      Mother Theresa      Napoleon Boneparte     Neil Armstrong
Nelson Mandela      Nero Ceasar Agustus      Noah Porter      Noah Webster      Orville & Wilbur Wright
Oskar Schindler     Pablo Picasso     Pancho Villa     Patrick Henry     Patty Hearst    Paul Revere
Percy Shelley    Pierre-August Renoir    Plato    Pol Pot      Princess Diana Spencer
Queen Elizabeth I      Queen Victoria     Raymond Albert Kroc      Richard Nixon
Robert E Lee      Ruth Bader Ginsburg      Sacajewea      Saddam Huessein      Sally Hemmings
Sally Kristen Ride    Salvador Dali      Samuel Adams      Samuel de Champlain
Sandra Day O'Connor      Shirley Chisolm      Sigmund Freud      Sir Alexander Flemming
Sir Issac Newton     Sirhan Sirhan    Sojourner Truth    Sonia Sotomayor    Spartacus
Steve Jobs    Susan B. Anthony    Ted Bundy    The Brother's Grimm    The Reverend Moon
Theodore Roosevelt    Thomas Edison     Thomas Hooker    Thomas Paine    Thurgood Marshall
Toni Morrison   Tony Blair   Tuskagee Airmen   Typhoid Mary   Uylesses S. Grant
Vincent Van Goh   Vladimir Lenin    W. E. B. DuBois     Walter Cronkite
William Faulkner      Winston Churchill     Woodward & Bernstien

Is it too much to ask?

2010-01-15T16:34:00.000-08:00

Is it too much to ask that the Realtor show up when they make the appointment? (And we knock ourselves out cleaning the house?)

Is it too much to ask that they call when they can't make it? Or if their client changes their mind?

Is it too much to ask that my children do what I've asked them to do, every day, repeatedly, without me having to yell?

Is it too much to ask that my two older children brush their teeth without needing to be reminded every single day?

Is it too much to ask that there be a time frame of more than a few hours between the "zits" and "wrinkles" phase of life, or that they at least not happen simultaneously?

Is it too much to ask of my sons' feet that they at least wait a month before outgrowing their brand new shoes?

I suppose the answer to all of these questions is "yes"....

Back at it, after this brief intermission

2010-01-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

I caved in yesterday to the bug that caught me last weekend, and I stayed home today. I could have probably gone into school, I could have muddled through the day, sniffling, coughing and sneezing myself through my classes. I decided, instead, to try to get ahead of this thing by staying home rather than try to play catch-up by pushing myself into work. I am glad I cut myself some slack, because I think a day off, without children, without commitments, was exactly what I needed.

It's been a rough two nights, with my head feeling as if it might blow up from the pressure, and my throat so raw it hurt to breathe. I was happy to take it easy, lounge around in my sweats for the morning. Yeah, if you know me well, you know that last part only lasted until about 8:45 this morning!! I spent most of they day cleaning, scrubbing, vacuuming, and mopping. I also did a huge load of laundry. I wrote a bit and took a nap. Even went to pick the boys up from school and had dinner in the oven in time to eat at 5:45.

If only I could do this every day.....

Steve is away at a conference this week, and its been really hard on the boys having him gone. Who am I kidding, it is hard on me too... I have the utmost respect for single parents, because it is NOT an easy gig! While things do seem to go more smoothly when Steve is away (We stick to schedules like glue, and I become the Master Sargent of the Jensen house!) it is hard to be all things to everyone.

One thing I was able to do today that brought me joy was to write. I think I added about 2000 words to my story, and am now at a crossroad with my characters. It will be interesting to see how things end up, because even though I think I am the one in charge of the story, I find that when I start writing, my characters seem to have minds of their own, pesky little buggers that they are!

Sounds a little like raising kids, doesn't it?

Now it is back to the grindstone and work. Three more days is all I have to muster through, just three. This weekend we will complete the reclaimation project and put Christmas completely away for another 11 months. Maybe by next week I will feel as if I have found my grove again. Here's to hoping!

Sad...

2010-01-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

I am not ready to go back to work tomorrow. Not one little bit, not in the least. We have started the reclaimation project, and all that is left are the outside lights and the tree itself. (Note to self, those cardboard boxes with the dividers a 12-pack of beer come in work great to hold ornaments. Need an excuse to go crazy buying beer??) We've cut into and eaten Matthew's cake, and there are Legos strewn about all over the house. The wrapping has been recycled, the boxes broken down, the Thank You notes written.

Christmas is over.

I am sitting in my living room, looking at my rather anemic tree, listening to the boys (there are 5 of them outside, 3 of mine and two neighbors) playing their own game with a soccer ball that they are lofting at each other like a football. Even Christopher has gotten into the game. There are laughs and yells (the good kind) and cheers bouncing back and forth between the houses. It is good.

And it is over. I felt as if I was spinning my wheels to get ready for Christmas, then we spent such a truly wonderful holiday together, and then we whisked ourselves away to Disney where we spun a bit more... then home and more spinning to get things cleaned and put away. I feel as though I have not stopped spinning. Even though, for the last two days, I have physically done very little, I am exhausted and feel as if I have not rested. Have I spent enough time enjoying what is going on around me? Have I really taken it in? How on earth will I manage to get my sorry, tired tush out of bed before 6am tomorrow?

In all liklihood, this is our last Christmas in this house. I am generally OK with that, but when I really think about it, what it means is there sits out there, somewhere in the future, the unknown of change. Change can be, and will be good, but change is change, and that means not knowing. Will the boys find other boys with whom they can play and make up their own games? Most likely, but it is not guaranteed. But then, is anything?

I guess I am really more contemplative and meloncholy than sad. It has been a really nice two weeks. I just could really use just one more....

NSV!!

2010-01-02T19:01:00.000-08:00

Also known as a Non-Scale Victory!!

I have lost about 21 pounds since the start of 2009, and while I have a way to go before I get to my Happy Weight, and even though the scale has not BUDGED in nearly a month, I do have a small victory to share...

New Jeans!

Levi's (have not worn them since I was in college, and even then, they didn't fit me all that well)

Photographic Proof:

Still a bit snug around my ample thighs, but I'm pleased nonetheless!!

Another year older, but are we wiser?

2010-01-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

They say that with age comes wisdom. I am now officially "in my 40s", at the ripe old age of 41, and wonder when, if ever, that wisdom will show itself. Really... I'm waiting anxiously. I could use some of that stuff!!!

While Wisdom may be ellusive, boldness seems to be arriving right on schedule. I went out into the madding crowd yesterday with Christopher in tow to buy 3 things. I needed some new jeans, some 'unmentionables' and I wanted to get a cake for today... my birthday. We went to Kierland Commons, a local shopping area with very upper end shops, and plenty of snotty customers gracing said shops... but they have all the stores I needed in one place, and I was too exhausted to drive all over town.

Parking was more horrific than it was before Christmas, what with all the last minute "get this stuff out of here before we have to count it for Inventory!" sales going on. I circled no fewer than 4 times before I spotted someone getting into their car. I put on my blinker, and I waited. Patiently, I might add....

As the car was pulling out, an older couple began crossing the street in front of me, so I was forced to wait. While I was waiting, with my blinker on, and these old folks crossing the street in front of me, a woman in a Lexus SUV dashed around my left side, narrowly missing the older couple, and STOLE MY PARKING SPOT!

I was incensed. I called her all sorts of wicked names, including names I detest. I was bold enough to pull up along side her, and sat there, waititng like a lion. She finally realized there was another person in her world, and rolled down her window. I told her "I was waiting for that spot! I had my blinker on and everything.. I was waiting for the two old people you nearly hit to cross the street!"

Her reply?? As she was deftly applying makeup to her finely Collagen-ed lips, and checking her coiffed hair, was "Oh, welll..."

I hate North Scottsdale for a multitude of reasons. This lady, and I use the term euphomistically, embodies nearly every single reason!

I left her a note on her car. I refrained from using the word which I detest, but so clearly sums up my feelings toward this self-important piece of work... but I did call her a self absorbed b*tch and hoped that the next time she was so rude and careless about laws like PEDESTRIANS HAVING THE RIGHT OF WAY, there would be a cop there to throw her rich, entitled ass in jail!

A Christmas Letter

2009-12-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

I am very proud to announce that the very last (I hope) of the Christmas cards made it into the mailbox today. Hey - I got them out before Christmas, so I consider myself having mastered the near-impossible! I did not include a letter this year, feeling as if there was really nothing worth retelling this year. 2009 will come to a welcome close in a few days and I hope that 2010 holds better things for the Jensen family. Not that 2009 has been bad, but it could have been better on many accounts.

The economy took its toll on everyone around here. Arizona had seen a meteoric rise in all things financial a few years back and was kicked in the teeth pretty hard as a result. The good news for us is that we are both still employed, thank goodness, but it has made for some frustrating times in both our jobs. Fewer sales and larger class sizes come immediately to mind.

This spring, Parker played baseball again, and is getting really good! It warms a parent's heart to hear folks in the stands wonder when they will put Parker in to pitch, because he is good! He loves every moment of the game, and was even invited to play Fall Ball this year - a first for him, and a very fun honor. Even with a fall sport, he managed to get all As and Bs for the first 2 quarters of school!

Matthew continues to amaze us with his love of science, and space, and you can now add architecture to the list. Legos have replaced Thomas the Tank Engine as his addiction, (given his age, this is a good thing) and there are more Legos around this house than one can imagine. He builds what he is supposed to build with whatever kit he has, then he takes it apart and builds something totally unique.

Christopher left the care of Nada this fall to venture into the big world of Preschool. He goes to Laguna with his two older brothers, and loves every minute of it. His only complaint is that he is not old enough to ride the bus!! He is reading (way too well - we can no longer spell things we don't want him to know about because he can figure the words out!) and doing math and making new friends.

We had one big, rather unpleasant surprise this fall. As we were planning our trip to Disneyland over October break, Matthew seemed "off". We decided to take him, one weekend, to the MinuteClinic at CVS. We have the nurse his symptoms, and she said she wanted to test his blood sugar as his symptoms sounded like Diabetes. His glucose levels were 474. In a very calm voice, she looked at me and said, "I think you are going to be going to the emergency room now...". Matthew was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He is, so far, doing great with the whole thing... we still have the occasional "Whoops - forgot to test before I ate" but overall he has adjusted to this new way of living better than I would have, that is for sure.

We delayed our trip to Disney, and plan to visit the Land of the Mouse between Christmas and New Years.

May the blessings of the season be with you and your family this Christmas, and follow you into the New Year!!

If you give a man a mission...

2009-12-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

A Jensen Ode to "If you give a mouse a muffin..."

If you give a man a mission
of putting up the Christmas tree
First he will have to move furniture
and will see dust on the ground.
Then he will have to vaccuum,
and will see the window is not closed
Then he will have to take window out
and will see the screw stopping the window from closing.
Then he will have to get his toolkit out
and try to dislodge the screw.
Then he will have to find a way
to replace blinds without the screw that held them in place.
Then he will have to replace the window
only to find it still won't close......

Anyone want to guess whether or not we get the tree up today??

Another excerpt

2009-11-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

My book has a tentative title: An Unexpected Life.

Here is another installment. I am bout 42000 words into it. We're only about 3/4 of the way through the story, if even that far.

Please keep in mind, I am NOT EDITING ANYTHING until at least December. November is for writing. December is for fixing any messes I may have left behind.

They reached the oxen, who had been, thankfully, left where Anna and Issy parked them the day before. They had been watered and fed by the local tavern owner, for a nominal fee. Bryce looked them over, and over again. He took each one out, watched it move to check for signs of lameness, tested it to see how well it would respond to commands. He must have taken at least an hour looking over the oxen. Victoria had had enough after about ten minutes and went to the tavern to sit and wait. Anna and Issy stayed behind as if their presence would make the oxen perform better.

"Ok, I like them. I will offer you one-hundred-fifty for the pair, and the yokes."

"No deal," Issy responded, to the shock and amazement of Bryce, Anna and even herself. "No, these are young oxen, they are healthy, and as you can see for yourself, they are responsive. We paid dearly for them, and will not accept anything less than two hundred fifty for the pair. I believe you would agree that is a fair price for this pair, plus the yokes."

Anna stood, speechless, at the boldness with which her friend took on this adversary. She would have been delighted with the one-fifty, but clearly Issy had other plans.

"I am sure you are not the only person in this city to have use of a team of oxen. If that is the best you can do, sir, we will gladly take our business elsewhere."

Bryce was likewise stunned, but also exhilarated. It was the chase of the deal that excited him most, and the thought that he could help out this woman made him more likely to relent to her demands than he would have otherwise. He would negotiate with her, but knew in the end he would give her nearly all she asked for. There had to be a little 'win' on his end, he thought.

"Well, now, let's not be hasty. I'll make it one-seventy-five."

"Two twenty five."

"Two hundred even, and not a penny more."

"Deal." Issy extended her hand to shake on the deal, as she had seen Thomas to on so many occasions. Mr. Milner took her hand in his, and was shocked at what a firm grasp she had, especially for such a small and smooth hand. He held on to her hand for perhaps a moment longer than was necessary, and forced himself to look her straight in the eye, despite the fluttering he felt under his own skin as her hand rested in his.

A sample of the novel. Be kind with your critques!

2009-11-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

This feels sort of like putting out a photo without being able to retouch it first. As you read this, if you are so inclined to do so, remember I am NOT EDITING until DECEMBER! November is about WRITING, regardless of whether the writing is SOLID or not... So bear with me...

  She made her makeshift bed in the middle of the wagon. Thomas had said something about needing to keep everything balanced in the wagon while it was moving, so there were things packed in the front as well as the back, leaving a space nicely nestled in the middle where she and Thomas could sleep. As she lay there, hoping for sleep to come, she thought about her own bed back home, and how soft it was. She had never before gotten a splinter from her mattress, and she missed little things like being able to allow her foot to dangle off the edge of her bed. But then she forced herself to think forward, to begin daydreaming about her new life.
    She still had the idea and hope that she and Thomas would be able to go into some sort of business together. Without children to raise, she felt as if she had little purpose in her life and this thought bothered her tremendously. She wanted to do something, something for the betterment of society or at least for her own little corner of the world, wherever that turned out to be. Free of the societal confines of Philadelphia, Elizabeth felt as if a whole new world would open up for her. She could finally do something with the mind that God had graced her with, and not feel like she was just wasting her life away. She fell asleep with dreams of owning a very successful business, being a full partner for her husband, flowing through her head.
     At day break, Issy got a very welcomed surprise; there, laying next to her, was Thomas! He and the other scouts had come back in the dark of night, and evidently he had snuck in without waking her. Wanting to return the favor, and not wake her sleeping husband, Elizabeth gingerly kissed him on the cheek, and tiptoed as carefully as she could out of the wagon.

A drive by group of observations

2009-11-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

None of them necessarily related. Welcome to Stream Of Consciousness ala Sam.

1) I've noticed that my boys all have their own unique talent when it comes to dealing with each other. Parker can out-run, Matthew can out-smart. I was worried about how Christopher will learn to hold his own with these two, the athlete and the brainaic. But I needn't worry.... Christopher just out-screams them when he needs to be heard. Brilliant. Pass the Advil, please.

2) This week, I read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson to my class to teach them about Irony. If you have not read the story, or it has been a while and you need a refresher, here you go: It takes place in a small farming village. Every year, they hold the Lottery - "Lottery in June, Corn be heavy Soon" is the addage. However, the irony comes in when the "winner" of the lottery is stoned to death by her family and friends. It got me thinking... in their infinate wisdom, our Legislature here in Arizona has done away with the current practice of culling teachers when the need arises - for years it has been by seniority. But that method is now illegal. Guess Arizona teachers will be living our own slightly more humane (but questionable on that front) version of The Lottery. Excellent.

3) After years and years of diligently applying conditioner to my hair, one day a few weeks ago I got lazy and skipped that part. Not only did the world NOT EXPLODE by my omission, but my hair has never looked better. I finally am having consistent 'good hair days'. Who knew??

4) I have surpassed 32000 words for NaNoWriMo, and it is funny how my experiences and my character's experiences are paralleling each other. I was getting really sick and tired of writing about her on the California Trail, and behold... SHE was getting sick and tired of BEING in the trail. 32000 words is roughly 160 pages, give or take a bit, and my goal for this project is 50000 words, or a novel that will be about 200 'book' pages. Then, to EDIT!

Under way

2009-11-03T18:35:00.001-08:00

I have over 4200 words written toward my novel right now, but what I lack is a title. I have absolutely no idea what to call this project other than "the project" or "the novel". Here's hoping that something will come to me as I get further into the process.

The goal for NaNoWriMo is to complete 50K words by Nov 30th. That averages to just over 1660 words per day, which means that I am already behind the 8-ball by 800 words, and here I was, thinking I was doing so well so far!

At least I am getting started. That's more than I have gotten accomplished for nearly 15 years.

I've committed myself...

2009-10-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

And come December, that commitment may be to the local funny farm!

I am going to participate in NaNoWriMo 2009. National Novel Writing Month. Me. My novel.

It's ON, babe!

I love fall!

2009-10-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Maybe it is because of my upbringing, as one raised as a Yankee in Connecticut, that fall became part of my DNA. My bones and my cells look forward to the crisp air and my legs cry out for long pants. Even living here in this vast wasteland of a desert, when the calendar changes to October, I turn off the air conditioning (and relcutantly turn it back on when our house reaches a miserable 85* inside) and being to scan my sweaters with longing anticipation.

I love the colors of fall. Granted, I don't get many glorious colors in Arizona, but my mind's eye remembers the vivid oranges and reds and yellows of the trees and our less-natural world of decorations reflect this change in hue as well. Covers of magazines show cornucopias and wreaths made from preserved leaves, and pumpkins abound.

If I had to pick one thing, I'd have to say my favorite thing about this time of year is pumpkin! I could happily graze on all things pumpkin for the entirity of fall. (I've not yet ventured into the land of the Pumpkin Spiced Latte as Starbucks because I do fear it is a land from which I might not escape!) For those who have not yet tried this, I cannot recommend highly enough the Pumpkin Bisque from Costco. I even tried to make some myself, but Costco does such a bang up job of it, my efforts pale in comparison!

As a child, fall meant that Christmas was not far behind. It meant a new school year and new friends, and the mandatory new school wardrobe. As an adult, fall meant that soon I would be driving through treterous storms and across ice-lined streets, but as a Desert Dweller, fall now means a thankful end to the relentless and oppressive heat that has enveloped Scottsdale for the last, well, since April. The blanket of heat has been lifted, and we can finally enjoy the outdoors.

Oh, if only fall were more lasting. If only Fall really stayed put for the full 90 days that the calendar deems as AUTUMN. If only the crisp morning air and warm afternoons could last more than just a few weeks. But perhaps this is exactly WHY I love fall so much. Its sort of a "Blink and you'll miss it" time of year, and when you do have those perfect fall days, where you need that sweater and the air smells of apples and the first fires of the season, you know you have taken part in something special, and precious. Fall is our gift, our token of delight before a long, hard winter, or after a long, hard summer.

Don't blink. Its not something you will want to miss.

Why I love Taco Bell...

2009-10-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

It may not be exactly Haute Cuisine, but Taco Bell has placed itself on my list of options when I simply refuse to cook for one (Ok,2) simple reason... They have a nutritional guide available right there, and it includes EVERYTHING on the menu!

Having a diabetic in the family has changed the way we eat out. We've never been the family who eats out often, but now that I am so cautious over every carb, I find myself getting downright twerked off if the establishment of choice does NOT offer the information I need to keep my son safe.

Case-in-point..

A couple of weeks ago, Parker had a baseball game and we decided it would be easier, and quicker, to just go grab some fast food after the game. The general census was for WhatABurger, which is a local, family owned chain here in AZ. (I'm sure they have other locations, but I'd never seen them before coming here).

We were STARVING. We began to order, and I asked the guy behind the counter if there was a nutritional guide we could reference in order to count the carbs for Matthew. His reply was that we could go online to find that information. Wrong Answer!

How can I possibly wait upwards of 30 to 45 minutes to get home, search the internet and THEN figure out Matt's insulin needs? Did they have WiFi access I could use to check this information right then and there? Nope.

Our stomachs growling, Matthew and I walked OUT of that place and across the street to Taco Bell, where they graciously pointed us to their nutritional brochure that had every single item, down to the sodas and sauce packets, there to see. This information also convinced me that the Fresco menu was, without question, the way to go for me! (And its tasty... I do miss the cheese, but my waist doesn't!)

The same sort of thing happened to us when we went to Applebees with my mother. Now, luckily this time I had my handy-dandy all-things-carb book with me and we were able to find Applebees in there, but the items Matthew wanted to order were too new and had not been placed in this book. The waitress said she could get the recipe from the chef, but its not like I have the carb count for white flower memorized yet.

I know we are new at this, and as we get better and better at knowing carbs and such, life will get easier, but it really did open my eyes to just how illinformed we are about the foods we eat when we are not either cooking for ourselves, or using packages with that information readily available on the packages.

I've thought about writing to WhatABurger or Applebees to complain, but decided that slightly slamming them in a semi-public arena was more my style!

Well, I didn't see that one coming...

2009-10-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

I've been quiet lately, not for lack of something to say, but for lack of time to get words down.

Matthew and I spent 3 days at Scottsdale Healthcare hospital this week. He has been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Up until last week or so, he was asymptomatic, so we had no idea. Then, everything started to more or less fall apart for him.

It's funny, though, how you respond to what, looking back, are glaring changes in your child. Matthew has always been our bright, cheerful boy who has a twinkle in his eye and won't sit still unless he is building something. For the last week or 10 days, the twinkle was gone. But we didn't really see it.

He had also been drinking water like a fish. This was more noticeable to Steve than it was to me, because Matthew would hijack Steve's water in the middle of the night, after he'd gotten up to use the bathroom. I never keep water by my bedside, so I didn't notice that it was mysteriously gone by morning.

We had noticed that Matthew was losing weight, but again, it didn't alarm us. He had gotten to be a little chunky last year, topping his brother on the scale by about 11 pounds. But then he started slimming down. His shoulders got broader. We thought he was growing and shifting in his shape from a little boy to a young man. Then he got on the scale. 9 pounds in 3 weeks. That scared me.

When he didn't want to go play in the park, that got our attention. Matthew is always looking for an excuse to play in the park... always!! He wanted to go to Parker's baseball game, but just sat with us, his head on either my shoulder or on Steve's. He was no longer talkative.

The thought crossed Steve's mind.. do we take him to the ER? "And tell them what... he's tired??" But clearly something was wrong. Emergency-room wrong?? No.. but maybe MinuteClinic wrong.

We went to CVS on Sunday after Parker's baseball game. We didn't bring him home until Tuesday afternoon. His blood glucose level was 474. The nurse practitioner looked at me and said "I think you are going to go to the ER now.." and we went. He was a trooper with the IV, and the emergency room, and the poking of his finger 1000 times a day, and the shots and the knowledge that this is for life.

In fact, Matthew has handled this whole transition better than I could have imagined. I expect he may have a fit sometime down the road, but for now, as we learn about carb counting and how to successfully draw insulin into a needle withOUT bending the poor needle.. Matthew is almost looking at this as a science project. He enjoys seeing his glucose numbers, and figuring out how many units of insulin he gets depending on what he eats. "So, I have to make some changes, but this is so much better than some of the other things that could have been wrong with me."

Amen, Matthew... Amen!

Best Pasta Ever!!

2009-09-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

Oh, this was a good one. Even Parker liked it, and he is hard to please!! If you have an aversion to lemon, pass this one by!!

And a note must go out because this recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa from her book AT HOME.

First, you need some sort of curly pasta, Fusilli or Campenilli or something. Cook in boiling water till àl dente.

In a separate sauce pan, heat a Tbls of 'good olive oil" and 2 minced garlic cloves for 1 minute. Then add 2 cups of HEAVY CREAM. Do Not use milk!!

Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the zest and juice of 2 lemons. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for about 15 minutes.

By the way - does any BLOGGER user know what they did with the spell check feature?? Mine has vanished!

Meanwhile, you now have a sauce pan simmering and your pasta pot boiling. Cut up 1 pint of cherry tomatoes (or grape ones, if you prefer) and about 1/2 lb of arugula.

When the pasta is done, and the sauce has thickened a bit, toss the sauce into the drained pasta, then toss in the arugula & tomatoes, add to taste salt & pepper, serve warm with fresh Parmesan cheese. YUM!!!

By the way - does any BLOGGER user know where they put the spell check feature? Mine is missing!

And it begins...

2009-09-28T20:48:00.000-07:00

I have started the research process for my book. I am having a BLAST so far!! My head is swimming with dates, and ideas and names. I had an idea for a scene last night while brushing my teeth, so I sat down at the computer and cranked out over 700 words in a matter of a few minutes. Seeing as how I need to multiply that by a power of 100, well.. that makes it daunting.

I am anxious to get in touch with the few, distant relatives I have and see what they may be able to add to the factual data that will go into the 'sweeping family epic" my book may become. Its hard to know where to stop.

I could stop with me. I'm the only female in the family to NOT have a daughter. Think about that.. we're talking 8 generations of female producing mothers, and I have only boys. It would seem logical that the story would end with me, but who wants to read a novel that encompasses 8 generations?? I think two is enough to swallow. Maybe touch on the 3rd and call it a day.

Oh, how I wish my grandmother were alive. For many reasons, clearly, as she was a wonderfully persnickety woman who both infuriated me and cracked me up in her later years. In keeping with the 'tradition', ours has been a family of strong, will-full, and yet tremendously devoted women. My grandmother would both revel in the idea that I am going to put our family stories down on paper for once and for all, and be such an important player in my gathering of facts and names that her absence is felt physically even after 11 years.

At the dinner table tonight, the conversation veered toward "the project" as I am sure it will be called. Steve suggested that his mother would be a good resource for some of the questions I have (And Greta, prepare yourself for a phone call!!) and we started talking about what a great story HER family has, too. Parker has it all worked out... 2 books, maybe 3 in the series about MY family, then the next series could be about the Bredvold/Jensen group.

And really.. could I leave my children any better legacy to show them who they are and where they came from than to put their history down on paper?

Now.. anyone know how I can apply for a grant so I can quit teaching and start writing full time?

I want to write a book.

2009-09-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

There. It is out in the open. I've made it public so now I will be forced out of hiding to actually DO something about it. I've outted myself and there is no putting the genie back into the bottle.

I want to write a book. I have been telling myself for a long time (years!) that I want to try to write a book, and look how far that line of thinking has gotten me? The same story line rolling around in my head, taking up much needed space! I just am not sure where to begin...

Ok, yes.. AT THE BEGINNING... Thanks!

My grandmother used to tell the old family stories when I was a kid, and I was completely enthralled by them. They have grown larger than life at times in my own head, and I've wanted to put them down on paper since I was a little girl. Now that my grandmother is gone, as are most of the other people in this world who would have any memory of these stories, it is down to just me and my mom to find a way to keep them alive. Parts are very hazy, details shaky... but just enough 'truth' to make for a decent laying of groundwork for a historical fiction novel.

I've started listening to podcasts aimed at helping aspiring writers, and I will say I have gotten some good information from them. But looking at the idea of writing at least 80K words, (80,000!!!!!) is more than a little daunting, and from what this acclaimed author of 38 books says, you need at least that many to tell a story well. Holy cow! Then, if I do manage that Herculean feat, will anyone want to read it?

So, which part will win?? Will the ambition and drive and determination side of me take over and allow me to plow through this process, first developing characters and conflicts and story arcs, or will the monster of self-doubt or laziness keep me from seeing this 'little project' through to the end?

This narrator of the podcast I referenced above says one of the things a good writer needs to do is read a whole heck of a lot. CHECK. A good writer also needs to devote time... ok, that may be a problem with a full time job and a full time family, but I am one who writes fast, and types faster, so maybe that will help. He also suggested setting a deadline for yourself so you are not working on The Great American Novel for the next 20 years. Again, potential problem because, in the words of Douglass Adams, "Deadlines amuse me.. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

But maybe, just maybe, I can do this. Now, to get of my arse and find a place to start.

Oh, yeah... That's right.. start at the beginning...

General Whining

2009-09-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

Please take the title of this blog post to be your warning that the contents of this particular post contain the general complaints of a woman who, truth be told, has very little to complain about and yet seems to still find SOMETHING that pisses her off.

And yes, I just ended a very long winded sentence with a preposition. Balls to that.

On the upside, Parker won his game tonight (2-3 is the standing record), Christopher's tooth no longer hurts, we have a three day weekend which delights me beyond comprehension, and Matthew qualified for the gifted program at school, which delights HIM beyond comprehension.

Yet, (You KNEW there was a YET, or a HOWEVER in it's way) I need more than the well-timed day off. I need a week. The honeymoon is over!! While the environment in which I 'teach' is better, the kids are the same. More or less, anyway.

We are nearly 8 weeks into the school year and all the good behavior stuff we saw at the start of school has pretty much been left at home and the true, inner beasts of my students are coming through.

I nearly strangled 3 of my students just today. (alright - no one alert the authorities, for I would not so much as even move toward a student in a menacing manner, however, the urge to kill that which bothers us {think.. mosquito} is embedded into our DNA. And, yes, I have evolved enough to resist such urges)

I get it that they are learning disabled, or otherwise impaired in some way. I get that - been teaching them for 7 years now, I get it! But there are differences even among my LD kids. I had 4 in with me taking a science test this week. Now, I will grant you that the test was 5 pages long and holycrapola it was hard, but I modified the test so that even Christopher could muddle through. Here's what I got at the end of 2 days...

1 student who finished the whole test
1 who went home sick after page #1
1 who finally realized I would not let him get away with just scribbling nonsense on the page and attempted 1/2 the questions, leaving the rest blank.
1 who completed 12 of 15 matching questions and left the rest of the test blank.

TWO DAYS, mind you.... I practically said "This answer goes HERE" and they still didn't even TRY. Ok... 1/4 of the group tried.

I've got other kids who I swear, if they are taking their meds, perhaps a trip to the doctor is in order to adjust the dose because they are climbing the walls. All I do is redirect and redirect and "Stop talking to her, sit down, you have a test in front of you, stop bothering him, pick that up, do not throw things in my classroom, get down off the desk, stop swiveling in that chair, get out of my chair, leave my computer alone, PICK THAT UP!!!" Please remember, my students are not 5. Well, at least not chronologically!

Then, to add insult to injury, I have had 2 different teachers email me and the whole phone book of the 85250 area, and tell me how to do my job. "Don't let this one use a calculator, we can't use that book on tape, there's no other option for him and why don't you just keep him in your room all day".

Oiy. Gimme a week. And maybe a gallon of wine.

Taking time to smell the Chardonnay

2009-09-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

I am, at this moment, sitting outside. This is noteworthy due to the pervasive, oppressive heat that IS Arizona during nearly 6 months of the year. Common lore would have it that we are not yet to the 'nice' part, so the fact that all of us can be out of our climate-controlled dwelling and into the more or less fresh air is quite something.

The days are, thankfully, getting shorter. I realize that I live in one of the sunniest places on earth, but that is not necessarily a good thing, and we welcome with delighted abandon the end of long, unrelentingly sunny days.

So I sit out here, sun setting behind me, boys playing catch or floaty-tube wars, with a nice glass of Chardonnay that I got from Sprouts the other day. And, forgive me all you wine-connoisseurs out there, it is from a BOX!! A box, with a resealable screw top! And it is yummy... yummy and cheap. Can't beat that! And something about it reminds me of basil. Is it possible for wine to taste like basil? I've had wine that tastes like fruit, or even wood, but never an Italian herb.

And the joyful sounds of playtime have morphed into wails of displeasure. Oh well; I suppose my time enjoying the subtleties of my wine are over. Best chug the rest of it and ensure there is no bodily harm, or spillage of blood.

It was nice while it lasted!

Righteous Frustration

2009-09-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

I expect I will receive a few calls from parents tomorrow, or the next day. Admittedly, I sort of 'lost it' with my students today. Let me explain...

There may be a few readers who are unaware of this, but I am a special education teacher. I teach LRC kids, or Learning Resource. I also teach 2 specialty reading classes for kids who cannot decode words or cannot really understand what they read. My tirade was not aimed at them... not specifically at least.

No, I unleashed my inner "Bad Witch" on my 7th hour Resource kids. The purpose of Resource Class in middle school, at least as I see it, is to have time to get your homework done, catch up if you need to, or get extra help from the teacher. With 5 or 6 kids, it can be really more like a glorified tutoring session, but with 10 kids in the class, I get to the kids I can, and they take turns. The older ones often are willing to help out the younger ones, or they help where they are strong... It can work quite well.

Except when it doesn't. And in this case, it is not working because the majority of my students this year, or in this class specifically seem to not care a rats' tooshie about their grades. I have 5 kids who, amazingly enough, never seem to have any homework to do, except that they are FAILING their classes. F.A.I.L.I.N.G. And in this case, they do not care.

I have one kid who is, while cute enough, seemingly hell bent on doing NOTHING in my room at any and all costs. He is a master at procrastination, coming up daily with yet more excuses to be totally and completely devoid of effort or work. I have another one who gives me the same look that my dog does when I get mad at her; the total blank stare with the mouth hanging slightly ajar as if to either catch a fly or at risk of drooling.

It makes me wonder what their educators were like in their elementary schools. What DID these people do FOR these kids? Because as far as I can tell it was neither instilling a strong work ethic or teaching them coping skills for their deficits. I know one teacher spent every single afternoon and every lunch working with two students so they could pass. And while this is admirable on one hand, from a practical perspective, what she did in no way prepared them for middle school, or for high school, or for LIFE. I understand they have disabilities, but in the big, bad world, no one is going to stand over them and hold their hand while telling them what to do to be successful.

So I lost it. I told them that I did not want to hear from any of their parents (*which I know invites the calls... I know!!) when they get Fs on their report cards. It is not for lack of making accomodations or modifications to the curriculum. Having an IEP or being a special education student still earns you the right to FAIL if you do not participate in your learning.

Going around expecting other people to do everything for you is NOT the way to become a self-sufficient adult. The sooner people adopt the motto "If it is to be, it is up to me" the better off they will be.

What has gotten into me?

2009-09-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'd call it a bug if I thought it would pass rather quickly, but this cooking thing... geesh!

Wanna know how I spent my morning? That all-too-brief time between getting out of bed, and having the rest of the family get out of bed? Sometimes I get 30 minutes, sometimes I get lucky and have an hour or so on a day like today (meaning, a No School day) or sometimes its about 30 seconds, as the sound of my feet on the stairs magically awakens all other breathing members of my family, with the notable exception of my husband. These are precious, quiet moments. I pour myself some coffee and when the weather promises to not melt me within 2 minutes, I go outside to enjoy the admittedly lovely desert morning.

Today, I poured my coffee, grabbed an armload of cookbooks, a pad, and a pen and then proceeded to pour myself all over their pages. Some are just OK. My favorite today is The Barefoot Contessa's book on entertaining simply. I must have marked 15 pages, at least.

Some notable favorites were versions of sweet potato fries, something called Confetti Corn, a fantastic looking rolled-turkey breast, some mustard cream sauce slathered fish recipes... I got inspired and motivated!! *(Ok, and HUNGRY, too!)

Now I want to start cooking for Thanksgiving. Yes.. I realize Thanksgiving is nearly 8 weeks away. Which then lends to my question "What has gotten into me?" There is something extremely gratifying in the idea, and then in the execution, of making from scratch Thanksgiving dinner, and heck, just your basic every-night dinner, too. This is unlike me. I've been utterly content to just toss something edible on the table for YEARS now. Hmmm...

I quelled my desire to MAKE something from that book by cooking up a nice big batch of French Toast for the family. I even enjoyed a near-perfect batter-to-bread ratio!!

Now off to watch Parker hopefully win his baseball game, and then to cheer for the Trojans as they make dog-food out of Washington.

Foolin' Myself

2009-09-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

Chicken Divan tonight; Mom's was certainly better, but I think mine fared decently, and was unquestioningly kinder to the hips!! A few tweaks for the next go-round that may negate any of the health benefits of MY version, but oh well.

This is bringing the 2nd week of My Triumphant Return To The Kitchen to a close. I am starting to get into a routine, and one that is admittedly far more family-friendly than my prior habits. I had myself convinced that I didn't really have TIME to cook. I work all day, and need to play Mommy at night, and I'm too flipping tired to plan and shop and prepare and cooking takes WAY too long anyway....

Except, I do have time. It doesn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. It does take effort and forethought, a bit of planning and researching, but the TIME is not too bad, really. I'm getting into a routine, too.

It used to be this way: Leave work, pick up Squirt, arrive home, scream about homework to the zombies masquerading as my children, grab a snack for myself and one for Squirt, clean dishes from the feast the Zombies had when they got home, and then mercifully retreat to my room and hop on the computer for ~~an hour or two~~ a few minutes. I'd emerge somewhere close to 6pm with a mild sense of panic, knowing there were 4 hungry male mouths that needed to be fed with something that resembles healthy food.

Now, I have my menu for the week on the fridge, along with the page numbers of all that week's recipes. (I am having flashbacks to my MOPS meetings from years ago when we had a speaker come tout the benefits of meal planning a month in advance. I'm not quite yet THAT ambitious) I have already purchased everything I need for the week over the weekend, so I just need to gather ingredients, and have at it! And, if I start when I get home at around 4:30, small potential disasters akin to what happened today can be averted. (I went to gather the chicken I had in the back fridge only to smell long before I tried to OPEN the package that the contents had seen better days. Off to the store I went for fresh chicken!) I have the added benefit of spending the hours between walking through the door and sitting at the table actually IN the presence of my children. Which is sort of nice.. in its own way... when they are not trying to dismember each other.

I need another hit!!

2009-09-16T20:39:00.000-07:00

The meals for this week have been "eh" at best. I made my pasta (angel hair, my favorite) with fresh tomato & basil on Monday. Note to self: When doubling the amount of pasta, you are also required to double the sauce ingredients! The flavor, when you got some, was good, but overall I felt it was dry. That said - the leftovers were really good!! So, either more sauce on the outset or just make it the day before you want to serve it! Everyone, including my mother, seemed to enjoy it, so perhaps I am judging myself too harshly.

Last night, it was my plan to make the Lemon & Basil Chicken, but I now tutor on Tuesday nights, and I think last night proved that whatever I make on Monday better darn well be enough to feed everyone on Tuesday, too. So, I made the Lemon & Basil Chicken tonight instead. It was decent. Good even. But not great. Possibly a "keeper" recipe because it was easy, but it won't stay at the front of the list.

I put off tonight's meal until tomorrow, so we will see how that goes. I was so excited by the reviews from my biggest fans/critics over last week's meals, that I'm now a "positive reaction" junkie.

I will say, it is fun, this cooking gig. I've also realized exactly what I need in my kitchen, so if ever I need to start from scratch, I will know exactly what to get. Historically, I've been known to amass a few (thousand) kitchen gadgets that look wicked cool in the demonstrations, only to let them fester and gather dust in my cabinets or drawers. I think I have whittled down what I really need to this:

~Several good wooden spoons. Like, maybe 5. Or 6. Different sizes.
~Good kitchen shears & Spatulas
~My 8qt sauce pan. Maybe its really a frying pan?? Anyway, it's HUGE, has a nice long handle, is non-non-stick, or STICK surface (what IS the right terminology for that?) and has a lid. I can make everything from braised beef to sauces in it.
~Spaghetti pot (with internal fitting colander)
~2qt sauce pan, again non-non-stick
~Whisks of various sizes.
~My Williams-Sonoma multi-chopper thingy that has a name I am sure. Several blade styles, make everything from cored apples to french fries. It works wonders on onions!
~Good knives.

I'd love to learn how to use cast-iron and have several pieces, or at least, one nice big Le Crueset dutch oven. (Christmas list, perhaps!!??)

Steak au Poivre (big hit #3)

2009-09-13T20:25:00.000-07:00

Or, loosely translated, Pepper Steak. In a word?? YUM. And easy!! Ok, hit a few snags, like having tenderloins of different thicknesses, meaning they did not cook evenly, but on a scale from "I can boil water" to "I have a PHD in Culinary Arts", this dish certainly leaned more to the Boiling Water side!

And, another plus... there are leftovers!! Always a good thing! And.. the boys liked it! Parker did ask that the next time I make it I keep one steak aside for him that is NOT encrusted in pepper. (Note: they were not ENCRUSTED but certainly peppered!)

I, once again, donned my apron, and even timed the dishes more or less right. Had the pans all cleaned up before we sat down, making the after-party in the kitchen a much simpler affair.

It's very nice to hear compliments from the boys. Matthew's eyes light up when I make something he enjoys. Parker just doesn't make a sound because he is too busy eating! Chris nibbles regardless what is in front of him, so its hard to tell the degree to which he likes something.

My side dish was my only failure. I'd chosen a pre-bagged Roasted Potatoes & Veggis from Schwans (I can't cook EVERYTHING, you know!) but somehow either the oven was not working well or another near disaster fell upon my casserole dish, but they were ice cold still when we got to the table. Oh well.. Parker was smart; ate all his meat and then reheated the veggies.

So.. in case you want to try this at home, here's the recipe:

Tenderloins of beef, cut thin, coated with cracked pepper corn. Cook these in a skillet of hot butter until done. Anywhere from 5 to 9 minutes/side. Set on serving place and put in warming oven (or microwave, which I have found to be a good runner-up).

In the still hot skillet, add 2tbsp of Brandy, and scrape off the drippings from the meat. Add 1/3c heavy cream (Do not use milk!) and 1/3c beef broth. Stir... add 2T of dijon mustard and continue stirring over low heat until sauce is smooth and thick.

Pour over meat. ENJOY!!

Happy Birthday, Honey!

2009-09-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today is Steve's birthday. He's afraid that he is inching (rapidly) toward "being old", but I disagree... you're only as old as you feel, my dear!

Steve is a very difficult individual to celebrate for. He does not want parties in his honor, he's impossible to buy for because he wants for nothing, he's not up on the latest gadgets, so he is unimpressed by most of the things that make my eyes pop, and a dinner out, just he and I... well.... that idea works, so that's where we started with the planning.

However, what is the saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions? Yeah.. sort of like that. We started off planning to get a sitter, and go see a movie then go out to dinner.

Until we saw the choices we'd have right now for movie choices. Nothing. ZIPPO. There are 2 movies I'd like to see, but truly they are chick-flicks and not of any interest to him.

Ok, scratch the movie.. how about a nice nite out, just the two of us?? Good idea, until we realize that is the USC/Ohio State game. How about just going to watch the game? The USC group gets together at a local hotel here in Scottsdale, that is, until THIS week, when they change the venue. Still, we could use the sitter and go, just US.

Until 2 of the 3 boys seem to be fighting some low-grade bug-thing and are grouchy and grumpy and lethargic.

Maybe we will wait for another weekend to go out and celebrate.

Steve has also decided that there is no time like the present to attack the yard. He's been digging and chopping and chipping all day, in the oppressive humid heat. Silly silly man! Not exactly the pampering, self-indulgent way I'd like to spend MY birthday, but who's to say which is the RIGHT way to spend one's birthday.

On another note: We are finishing up week 1 of my Culinary Adventures. Last night's Fritatta met with limited success. It could have been due to this low-grade bug-thing, or to the fact that eggs belong on the table for breakfast, or that certain things like sausage and corn do not belong with eggs at all. At any rate, it is about the only dish so far that did not meet with approval. Tomorrow is my last recipe - Steak Au Poivre. I have worked up and shopped for next week's menu, too! More "real" cooking coming this week! Our menu looks like this:

Monday: Pasta with Tomato & Basil Sauce
Tuesday: Lemon-Mustard Chicken
Wednesday: Chicken Divan Casserole
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Spaghetti Pie
Saturday: Veal (or Chicken) Parmesan
Sunday: Someone's takin' the cook out for dinner!

Irreverence

2009-09-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

I was reading a story with one of my classes today, and we came across the word REVERED. None of the kids knew what it meant, so I pulled out Webster and we researched the exact description. I'd already told them that it is sort of "to look up to" but more so. The official definition is "To regard with awe, deference, and devotion."

This got me thinking, which, as you know, usually leads me straight to the top of my soap box. Certain things in life should be revered. Elders, for one. This particular story talks about the revered elders in the family. I agree... we should respect and even revere our elders.

But what else do we, as a country, revere? Other than money? It used to be that we revered the Office of the President. It used to be that we revered religion, or at least the institution in which one practiced religion. But we've lost all of that somehow. Over and over again, we are witness to just how debased we've become as a society.

I did not see the outburst during the Presidential address on Wednesday as I was driving the boys back from a lovely trip to the dentist (4 cavities, 1 crown, 4 sealants and a visit to the Ortho is in our future!) but I HEARD the scene when the Senator from South Carolina heckled the President. HECKLED THE PRESIDENT??? Pardon my language, but WTF?

Since when has a Presidential Address to Congress turned into an NFL game? Or worse? If we, and our Elected Political Heroes no longer have, or at least SHOW, respect for the Office of the President, what does that mean for us as a society? I know this may seem like a stretch, but can anarchy be far behind?

And when did this happen? When did it become not only OK, but expected for us to question the private lives of our leaders, or their financial history, or their choices from 30 years before? We didn't do it to Eisenhower. I doubt we did it to Kennedy while he was living... I bet even good ole Calvin Coolidge didn't have to live through a heckler within his own CONGRESS.

We wear our bra straps showing in church, or jeans with holes in them, and sneakers. We talk back to our leaders, screaming and name calling rather than engaging in honest debate and dialogue. We no longer hold doors open for those older, or heck, even the same age as us... we let it close in their faces...

Will we ever again be a society of individuals with both reverence and civility?

Product Recommendations

2009-09-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

I have encountered/brought into my possession/stumbled upon some things lately that I love and felt the urge to spew/crow about said things.

iPod Touch. I've had my Touch for about 3 months now. We've passed the learning-curve and have progressed on to a blissfully symbiotic relationship. I plug it in frequently, and fill it with podcasts, music, news and other applications, and it keeps me delightfully entertained. It also keeps my 4yr old delightfully entertained at restaurants, waiting for doctors, waiting in line, in the car or any other time I need him to be distracted. It works like a charm!!

LoseIt: Application for said iPod Touch. I have done Weight Watchers, I've counted calories, I've tracked heart rate and caloric expenditures to try to lose or maintain my weight. This application is clear, easy to use and because my iPod has become my appendage, always accessible. Which means I use it. Constantly! This is good... if it goes in my mouth, it gets logged into LoseIt. So far? Down 12 pounds. More than I care to mention, to go!

My Vera Bradley purse. I've loved Vera Bradley bags for years. It's the New England prep in me. I've also come to the realization that I am particularly difficult to please. My purses are either too big, too small, the handles don't stay on my oddly-shaped shoulders, they are too difficult to get into, have too many pockets, or too few. So, back to Vera. I've LOVED her Daisy print since it came out this spring. I'm really a big fan of Daisies. They are so happy, so peaceful and happen to be the flower of my high school, Miss Porter's School. However I could not justify the cost of buying one of these bags. Until the other week! The spring patterns went on sale (More than 50% off!), so I treated myself to the mini-tote in Daisy. I LOVE IT. It is the perfect size (I did waiver for a bit if it would be too small.. NOPE!) Its bright, colorful, preppy.... Me-Likey!

Olay ReGenerist Microdermabrasion System: I'm of the age where my skin and I are not always seeing eye-to-eye. I do not feel as old as I sometimes look, and have passed the stage where a bar of soap or a jar of Noxzema will suffice. So, for about $22 I decided to give this a try. Oh! the difference! Not so harsh that I had to wear a mask but tough enough on the ole' face that I felt it! My skin was MUCH smoother! I've used it only once. I'll let you know how I look after a couple of weeks!

I'm battin' 1000

2009-09-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

I promise that I will not report after every single home cooked meal I slave over in my kitchen, however, this one met with ENTHUSIASTIC reviews from my harshest critics so I felt I had to share!!

Tonight's entrè was Sausage & Beef Empanadas. Recipe from COME ON OVER cookbook, if you are interested. I was worried because: they didn't mention which KIND of sausage to use, I didn't use the proper amount of enchilada sauce and, well, let's face it, its ME doing the cooking... god knows what could go wrong!

Note to self, and anyone else curious... Homestyle ground sausage works great. I figured breakfast sausage was out of the running, and I can't stand the heat of Chorizo sausage, so my process of elimination worked.

The recipe also did not falter due to lack of enchilada sauce. It was supposed to take (1) 29oz can of sauce, but when I realized I got HOT sauce, I scaled it back to about 8oz. Perfect!!

Served with canned corn, and next time, will put corn IN the casserole.

The recipe said it served 20. We, meaning the 4 of us who ATE it, cleared easily 1/2 the dish. Plenty for tomorrow's dinner!

Dinner #1, a meal in review

2009-09-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

I had no idea how long I would need to cook my first COOKED dinner in ages, and I started perhaps a bit too early. However, it all worked out fine. Even have dinner for tomorrow night prepared, and waiting in the fridge to be placed in the oven for the appropriate amount of time.

Tonight's dinner met with 4 Thumbs-Up, tho not enthusiastic ones. They didn't hate it is what that boils down to, which is good.

I also goofed and picked up dried basil rather than fresh basil, and I know there is a difference in flavor. If I make it again, I will know better next time. However, I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow, which means one less meal I have to think about, and this, too, is good.

Also made a cake, in a very pretty flowery bundt pan. AND freshly whipped cream on the side.

I even wore an APRON! ;-)

Week one of my Triumphant Return to the Kitchen

2009-09-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

Getting ahead of myself? Possibly! However, an inspiration is an inspiration and I am going to go with it until we either go broke, there is a complete mutiny from my crew, or we get so fat we can no longer fit through the doors.

My menu is planned. My list for the store is complete, and I am going to spend this afternoon making dinner for the next two nights. Here's what I have planned:

Monday: Chicken in a creamy basil sauce, with rice and broccoli.
Tuesday: Sausage and beef empanadas with corn.
Wednesday: Dinner sausage with sauerkraut (Schwanns. No thinking involved!)
Thursday: Parker has baseball. Sandwiches for all...
Friday: Corn Fritatta with cheese
Saturday: Steve's Birthday... he and I are going out. Kids get Pizza
Sunday: Steak au Poivre.

Julia, while amazing and fabulous and brilliant, is a bit too rich for the likes of this family. So I am pulling my recipes from the Better Homes New Cook Book, and a little artsy one called Come On Over.

You will notice that, in reality, I am only COOKING 4 of the 7 nights. Yup... but that is still a HUGE increase over my standard percentage. My battle cry for a very long time has been "I don't cook. I fix".

Well, I am trying to "fix" that!

Long time, no blog

2009-09-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

We're about to start the 5th week of school. So much for my promise earlier this summer that I would get back into the swing of blogging once school started. The best laid plans, right?

School has turned out to be a much better situation that I had feared. Isn't that usually the case?? One of the classes I have to teach will be, I am sure, only slightly less painful than poking myself repeatedly with something sharp, but the kids are good, I've settled into my classroom enough that it is feeling like HOME, and I have some wicked cool new gadgetry to use, so its all good. (if you are not following me on Twitter or following my updates, our SmartBoards and Doc. Cams were installed this last week. OH SO FLIPPING COOL!!!)

I spent the day today with my friend Nicole. We had a 'girls day' of shopping (got some make up and a new pair of silver hoop earrings) and then we saw Julie & Julia. I have the book on my bedside table and it is my next read. Movie then book... generally I don't like to do things in that order, but oh well.

In short - LOVED the movie!! It was cute, laugh-out-loud funny at times and certainly inspired me to go dig out the Julia Child cookbook my parents gave me back in 1992. (Yes.. it was VERY very dusty!) As with most aspects of life, the movie made cooking look SO easy and effortless. Ahhh - were it only so! One little highlight for me toward the end of the movie was a shot (cameo??) of my childhood-neighbor-turned-published-author-and-famed-NYTfoodie Frank Bruni! I'd heard he was in the film, but when I didn't see his name show up in the IMDB list, I thought perhaps an article of his was shown or something.

However, the movie DID inspire me a bit tonight. The plan was for my throw-it-together Mexican Salad - bagged salad, Tyson grilled chicken slices, corn, avocado, dressing. Toss it, call it dinner. The bagged salad comes with tortilla strips but tonight, in homage to Julia, I decided to make croutons. And I had a little helper in Christopher. We had the BEST time, chopping the stale French bread I had in the fridge, melting the copious amount of butter, and stirring until the magic happened. I wish I could replay the scenes for you - it was not just the butter melting during our team-work fest!

So.. I pledge to myself, and the 3 of you who READ this blog... I will do better both in the kitchen, and on my blog. Thanks Julie.. and Julia.. now I have a bit of inspiration! (and be warned, you may hear about my culinary disasters because you KNOW there will be a few!)

A personal vendetta?

2009-08-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

The trauma and drama that began 4 days ago played out to its end last night. In my never ending attempts to get BACK to the school that I have considered my home for the last 7 years (crazy, dysfunctional and such as it is.. it is home) I offered to cut my contract in order to take a part time sped position and a part time Language Arts position, knowing that SpEd will up the staffing by the 3rd week of school and soon I would be back at a full contract. I left this message with the administrator on voice mail. My call was never returned. Nor has anyone ever replied to the numerous emails I have sent.

And my whole rant about how this was NOT on the Principal's head, that this whole issue come down to the special ed department being woefully understaffe, well, THIS part falls solely on the administration. She had it within her power to fix 2 potentially very BIG problems and chose not to. According to a source, she "will not have me back on her campus". So this has nothing at all to do with my ability to teach (which I could assume from the start since in the 4 years of her being at this school, she has been in my room 3 times) or with doing what is best for special ed kids, but what is best for HER.

There will be staffing allocated for special ed after the 2nd week of school. I got THAT much done for my former students and team members... but it will not be me filling the position. As we all know, these are not easy positions to fill, so just because the staffing allocation will be there, it could be a long time before there is a person in that position. This is her personal vendetta against me being played out and it is the kids who will suffer for it.

Do-gooder thrown under bus. Story at 11.

2009-08-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

I will preface this self-pitying rant with the acknowledgment that I do realize I should be thankful, in this economy, that I have a job.

That's about where my thankfulness ends.

I have said for years now that no good deed ever goes unpunished. I know that this is not a very Christian way of looking at the world, but I have seen it time and time again, and have been chanting this as a mantra for the last 6 years. Every time our school psychologist would qualify a kid for special ed just because it was to 'be nice' that family ended up biting us in the butt. I know that no good does from doing-good. And yet, I tried.

When our district cut staffing at my school, the least senior member of the team was the one to be reassigned. She had no say in where she would be reassigned. And I blogged before about how important it was for her to be able to stay at the school we taught at because her daughter goes there etc.

I also did not believe for a moment that, when I agreed to take her place as the person reassigned, our staffing numbers would remain dismally low. I mean... come ON??!! 9 grades (K-8) in a school that grew over the summer by 300 students?? No flipping way 2 Special Education teachers can handle THAT!!!

So - my good deed - offering to go to a different school so that my co-worker could do what is best for her family.. Yeah - now I am the one being bitten in the butt.

The school to which I have been reassigned... circa 1954. Fine. I can handle an old building. Ok, so my room smells bad. (really bad.. MOLD bad) Fine.. so there is NO WHERE for me to put my stuff.. Ok, so the new Principal didn't even know I was coming or that I was new to the campus and forgot to INTRODUCE ME TODAY during our first staff meeting. Fine.. I'm there to teach, right?

LRC right?? Learning RESOURCE Classroom. Not self-contained. Not Lifeskills, right?

Not so fast.

Yeah - it is called LRC but evidently my new caseload is just one step away from self-contained. This is not the population I either wanted to work with, or am good at. I won't be helping kids maneuver through their Social Studies text books... or helping them with their science or math.. I will be working with kids who do not know that "A" says "A". I will have kids who need paraprofessionals at age 13.

There are people in this world who are great at working with this population. There are folks with the patience to teach and reteach the same things for an entire year.

I am NOT one of those people.

Had I known... I would have let the other gal figure something out.

It is going to be a very unbearable 182 days.

A weekend of bliss...

2009-07-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

As a treat, Steve and I got away for a weekend this last weekend. The trip was a gift from my mom who is probably unbearably tired of me complaining about the heat so she said "off with you" and sent us to San Diego.

Steve and I stayed at the Marriott on Coronado. If you have never been, I recommend it. The hotel is lovely, the rooms are huge, and while it is NOT on the ocean side *you look at San Diego Harbor* the crowds are fewer and it is much quieter. There are three pools, and it is overall a lovely place to stay.

We went to the beach, and I reveled in having my feet in the sand, and ocean breezes blowing by... it was as close to heaven for this desert dweller as one can come!

The boys stayed with a sitter, for the first time EVER. And, I am thrilled to report there were no meltdowns, no tantrums, no panic attacks.. all went smoothly. Thank goodness!!

I have pictures posted on my Facebook page, or you can follow this link to see them. Coronado Photos.

It's Too Damn Hot

2009-07-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

My apologizes to Cole Porter for using his lyrics.. but it is true.. right now, today, this summer, it is just too darn hot to even think. Let alone blog. Or, really, move in any way.

I should toughen up. I've been here 8 years. I should proudly proclaim the heat index as if it were a badge of courage. I just can't.

It's too damn hot...

10 years ago, I became a mom...

2009-07-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

Parker turned 10 on Monday. Such a monumental age... TEN. Both hands, all fingers. TEN. The Big Roman Numeral X.

Having a summer birthday in Arizona sucks monkey toes, so we will do something to celebrate this monumental age after school begins.

I am still holding out hope that he will change his mind, and we will end up going to DisneyLand this fall to celebrate both BIG birthdays - his, and mine!! More likely, however, will be either a pool party or baseball game.

We did go out to dinner to celebrate. I think Macaroni Grill was a hit!!

On the spectrum

2009-06-23T16:09:00.001-07:00

No - not the SPECTRUM, as in the Autism Spectrum... that is one I am quite familiar with through my work and one that has received plenty of attention. Nope - I'm talking about the "little-s" spectrum. The "where are you between Free Range and Helicopter Parent" spectrum.

Let me explain...

I thought terms like "free range parents" and "helicopter parents" were universal at this point. I've been using these terms to describe parenting methods for the last couple of years, and I thought they had made their way across the nation (see, I am nothing if not in my own eyes, your 'average Jane').

That was, until my mother stopped me and exclaimed "I have no idea what you are talking about!!!"

So - A Free-Range parent raises their kids much like a free-range farmer.. very few boundaries, allowing them to have freedom. Riding bikes without adult supervision. Going to the bathroom alone at McDonalds. Walking to the school bus (or, dare I say it - even to SCHOOL) alone. Being able to walk out the door and not come home until dinner time - you know - how WE were raised. Too much freedom?? Maybe - depending on how entrenched in the Free-Range concept one becomes, I suppose.

A Helicopter-Parent hovers. There is little or no autonomy for the child of a Helicopter Parent. I've heard stories about HPs going on their child's college interviews.. actually IN THE ROOM... with them. These are the parents who call the school/Principal/teacher and complain about grades, because "Johnny is just NOT a B student.. he deserves his A and you will give him his A". All the while, the parent ignores the fact that Johnny has not turned in any homework in 3 months. This is the same parent who insists on going to the Pediatrician appointments with their child - even at 18.

So, that leaves me wondering, reflecting.. where am I on this spectrum? How does one find middle ground?? Because regardless of which way you lean, there will be hoards of well-intentioned parents telling you that you are doing it all wrong.

I suppose I lean more toward the Free-Range idea. I am OK with letting my boys walk to and from the bus stop. I trust them to GET ON THE BUS when it arrives, and to GET OFF THE BUS in the afternoon. These are not monumental tasks.. I am OK with my oldest saying "Mom, I am going to go ride my bike for a bit". I know he knows to wear his helmet. He knows to not cross a certain street. The likelihood of him being picked up off the street by a stranger are about as good as him being struck by lightening.

But then, I go and drop my middle child off at sleep away camp. In a different state. A five hour drive from home... and I fight the urge to call, to check up and see how he is doing. The camp even sent home a letter, aimed directly at parents like ME - that said, 'you need to trust us to take care of your child'. Yeah - I get that - in theory.

In practice, well, I feel my inner Helicopter Mom coming out! But I know that he IS ok.. that he IS having fun.. that he IS eating well, and remembering to take a shower and brush his teeth. I've done a good job with him so far. I need to trust myself that he will take what I have given him, and apply it.

And is not that exactly what we want for our kids? And if we don't ever give them a chance to try out their skills - will they ever really, truly, learn them??

See - testing boundaries can be a learning and growing experience for EVERYONE involved!