Lake Wobegon

I've been thinking lately - about how the internet lets us all live in Lake Wobegon. We can share the highlights, the funny things, and everything is pre-filtered or reworded to make it "just so." If we're all above average - if everything is going *super* - doesn't that then make the average also go up. Are we then trying to be more super and even better than before. Where does it stop?

We all cannot be the funniest, smartest, most photogenic, clever people ever. The internet is a great filter for allowing us to create people who are better than the real people who we are. I think one reason why I haven't written much on the blog this year, is that I feel like I don't have anything interesting to share. And that's not the real reason I started keeping this blog. It was started to give far away friends and family a glimpse into our lives and things we might share that we don't get to because we're far away. I also wanted to have a record of all those goofy things that happen that we so easily forget in our ever-more-hectic schedules. Anyone remember Allison and the flying poo??

I have also found that when we share those imperfect things about ourselves - we find that other people feel the same way, have had similar experiences, or can sympathize. For example, I was sitting at the lunch table a few weeks ago and learned that 2 of the 3 people there had kids with IEPs. By talking with one of my students with an autistic son, we learned that we actually shared a number of parenting strategies and were both relieved to hear that what we were doing wasn't that crazy. And by sharing somethings about my challenging students - I've collected a lot of good tips from other teachers.

So here it is - I'll say it - this blog is no longer in Lake Wobegon. Perhaps it'll become a bit more boring - hopefully posts will become a bit more frequent.

Wanna know what we did yesterday? After school we walked to the park with a trash bag because the kids have been "super save-the-Earth" kids following Earth Day and we picked up trash. (I have a strong suspicion that I'm going to be taking a trash bag on all our walks because the kids had a blast trash spotting). Then we played for a little while until Allison had to pee and came home.

Next week is the last week of class and I'm really looking forward to it. Perhaps not as much as my students, but maybe.

Cars and buttons

Finally, it's spring! Though I did get hit with several "is it winter again?" questions when it snowed earlier this week.

Allison has been enjoying riding her bike to school when possible. I've decided there is no energy advantage to pulling Jacob on the tag-a-long versus the actual bike trailer. I think he sits on the tag-a-long and peddles backward.....



The kids have also enjoyed being outside. Jacob loves to play Cars on the porch. He's getting quite a collection of them. Jacob would also like the world to know that he hates buttons. I suppose Allison went through her "only dresses" phase and Jacob is now boycotting all pants with buttons. He has about 7 pairs of pants without buttons, so we really have to stay on top of the laundry if we don't want an all out battle getting dressed in the morning.

Our other fun lately was going to Chicago and eating out at Charlie Trotters for our 10th anniversary. It was a really neat experience, and we had a good time. Thanks to grandma and grandpa for babysitting.