To all in the neighborhood - keep your yards free of the fricking dandilions!!!
The kids and I took a bike ride on Sunday to the big hill park (not the one by the house) and on the way home we had to stop at every other house to pick dandilions. I guess it's better than picking daffodils or tulips like in our yard..... still, I find squished dandilions in every conceiveable place - from pockets to bike bags to hair and shoes.
I suppose I should learn to stop and smell the (kid-friendly) roses.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Home with Allison
Allison is home sick today. She's been congested (I thought allergies) but then it's moved to chest congestion and this morning a 101 fever. Fortunately, I've already canceled today's class for an all day meeting I wasn't too keen on attending anyway. So, what do you do with a kid who is too sick for school, but not sick enough to really want to veg on the couch? I most certainly want to veg on the couch.
Allison is actually up playing webkinz right now. She had a webkinz last year and wasn't too interested in it. She got another one for Easter and is enjoying it much more. She will load it up and login, but then forgets the password. I think it's because it just shows up as *** on the screen rather than the letters.
I would love to spend the day playing with my new recipes, but that would require a trip to the store and a girl who would want to help. That wouldn't be a great mechanism for spreading germs..... Instead, perhaps we will clean out old toys from the kids bedrooms. I think we can probably jettison the rattles and alphabet blocks now.
BTW - I was FLOORED on my last exam to have multiple students ask me the definitions of both "abundant" (many) and "inundated" (flooded). I might excuse the latter if it weren't in a sentence that said "The airport is in a floodplain that gets inundated during a 50-yr flood."
In order to avoid saying "The airport sits in a floodplain that gets flooded during a 50-yr flood" - what other choices did I have - "submerged"? They probably don't know what they means either. One poor kid (who is very nice) prefaced his questions with "I feel a little silly - being an English honors student and all - but what does this mean?"
Having never characterized myself as an "English" (the subject) person, I guess I assume that if I know a word than everyone else does too.
Allison is actually up playing webkinz right now. She had a webkinz last year and wasn't too interested in it. She got another one for Easter and is enjoying it much more. She will load it up and login, but then forgets the password. I think it's because it just shows up as *** on the screen rather than the letters.
I would love to spend the day playing with my new recipes, but that would require a trip to the store and a girl who would want to help. That wouldn't be a great mechanism for spreading germs..... Instead, perhaps we will clean out old toys from the kids bedrooms. I think we can probably jettison the rattles and alphabet blocks now.
BTW - I was FLOORED on my last exam to have multiple students ask me the definitions of both "abundant" (many) and "inundated" (flooded). I might excuse the latter if it weren't in a sentence that said "The airport is in a floodplain that gets inundated during a 50-yr flood."
In order to avoid saying "The airport sits in a floodplain that gets flooded during a 50-yr flood" - what other choices did I have - "submerged"? They probably don't know what they means either. One poor kid (who is very nice) prefaced his questions with "I feel a little silly - being an English honors student and all - but what does this mean?"
Having never characterized myself as an "English" (the subject) person, I guess I assume that if I know a word than everyone else does too.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
ER
Jacob had his first (and hopefully only ever) trip to the ER on Monday night. Sunday he was running a fever but it was gone Monday morning. Monday night he was coughing (croup cough) and went to bed - only to wake up around 10:30 to go to the bathroom with a really high fever and wheezing enough to make Brian and I nervous. We tried the steam room plan, but when we went out of the bathroom, it only seemed to get worse. Since breathing difficulties really weird me out - Jacob and I were off to the ER. A dose of steroids and a few hours later - we were on our way back home. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get back into the house because the garage door was broken. Ah - fun night.
Friday, March 20, 2009
1st day of spring?
I have this drilled into my head (thanks Mom) that the weather is always nice by my birthday at the end of March. To back up the theory, there are photo-documented outdoor birthday parties beginning at age 5. I still can't seem to shake the disappointment of living where spring doesn't really show up until late April at best. This and I LOVE winter. But now I'm ready for a new season.
Today started off exciting with a potential gas leak in the garage (turned out to be nothing, but something sure was stinky) that Brian stayed home in the morning to deal with. Then there was the 2nd half of Allison's IEP meeting - which went from 12:30pm to 3:15pm. That's probably a whole post in and of itself.
It's officially spring break and I'm looking forward to getting caught up (if not necessarily getting a whole week off). Tomorrow morning we are going out to the CSA farm because we bought a hog from them, which is going to be processed on Monday, and we wanted to see the operation before that. I think Brian might want to pick out a hog - but I don't know if it works that way. Anyway, it'll be fun and I think the kids will like to see the animals. We probably won't tell them that the pig will be dinners for the next year. Also, given the omnivorous diets of hogs - I don't know exactly what the advantages of "organicly grown and fed" pigs are. Hopefully it means they eat more than corn. It seems a more apparent distinction in cattle that are grass-fed.
Today started off exciting with a potential gas leak in the garage (turned out to be nothing, but something sure was stinky) that Brian stayed home in the morning to deal with. Then there was the 2nd half of Allison's IEP meeting - which went from 12:30pm to 3:15pm. That's probably a whole post in and of itself.
It's officially spring break and I'm looking forward to getting caught up (if not necessarily getting a whole week off). Tomorrow morning we are going out to the CSA farm because we bought a hog from them, which is going to be processed on Monday, and we wanted to see the operation before that. I think Brian might want to pick out a hog - but I don't know if it works that way. Anyway, it'll be fun and I think the kids will like to see the animals. We probably won't tell them that the pig will be dinners for the next year. Also, given the omnivorous diets of hogs - I don't know exactly what the advantages of "organicly grown and fed" pigs are. Hopefully it means they eat more than corn. It seems a more apparent distinction in cattle that are grass-fed.
Friday, March 13, 2009
In like a lion...
Hard to believe it's March. A few notes from up north (and no, the snow hasn't melted yet):
My accelerated hybrid class started last Tuesday. So that adds 20 more students and we cover 3 weeks of material in one 3 hour class period. One bonus - we're already 2/5 of the way done! But seriously, the students do seem to actually read the book, look at the notes, and do the assignments. I'm just getting way behind on grading my other classes stuff.
Allison was admitted to Appleton's public Montessori school (lottery process - "admission" is probably not the right word). We need to make a decision by next Friday, and we're probably collecting people's thoughts and opinions. We have a massive IEP meeting next Monday and I'm not sure how it will go. We're not sure they'll give her the same support in the Montessori classroom, but then perhaps she won't need as much support either. Today I went and observed her class - but I thought she was doing great (paying attention, on task for a full 1/2 hour). Slower than most of the other students, but she didn't quit even when she couldn't get the fastener through her papers correctly. But, I suppose, the problems are not her "on" days but her "off" days.
Jacob has another play date tomorrow that he's super excited about. He has these two friends at school - Kaden and Dominic - and he knows what days each one will be there. Wednesdays are apparently the best because both are there. And they all LOVE 'Cars.' There is even a picture of them (Jacob and Dominic) on the Children's Center website now (but it's hard to see them). The other funny thing I've realized is that while Jacob has a good sense of future timing (as in, Saturday, we get to do ____, or the honest first thing out of his half-awake self this morning was "it's Friday.") But past events are all "Last night." So anything began with last night doesn't actually mean last night, but means sometime prior to today. And occasionally it'll get qualified by "last night and 2 days" = two days ago.
Brian is not too likely to advertise - so I'll share for him (cause he should be happy about it). He was promoted to a managerial role a few weeks ago. He still works on Heinz projects but also other stuff on frozen and condiments and he now has people reporting directly to him. So that's pretty cool.
And that's news from up here. I'm off to go swimming and work on my defunct triathlon training (meaning I've done very little training so far).
My accelerated hybrid class started last Tuesday. So that adds 20 more students and we cover 3 weeks of material in one 3 hour class period. One bonus - we're already 2/5 of the way done! But seriously, the students do seem to actually read the book, look at the notes, and do the assignments. I'm just getting way behind on grading my other classes stuff.
Allison was admitted to Appleton's public Montessori school (lottery process - "admission" is probably not the right word). We need to make a decision by next Friday, and we're probably collecting people's thoughts and opinions. We have a massive IEP meeting next Monday and I'm not sure how it will go. We're not sure they'll give her the same support in the Montessori classroom, but then perhaps she won't need as much support either. Today I went and observed her class - but I thought she was doing great (paying attention, on task for a full 1/2 hour). Slower than most of the other students, but she didn't quit even when she couldn't get the fastener through her papers correctly. But, I suppose, the problems are not her "on" days but her "off" days.
Jacob has another play date tomorrow that he's super excited about. He has these two friends at school - Kaden and Dominic - and he knows what days each one will be there. Wednesdays are apparently the best because both are there. And they all LOVE 'Cars.' There is even a picture of them (Jacob and Dominic) on the Children's Center website now (but it's hard to see them). The other funny thing I've realized is that while Jacob has a good sense of future timing (as in, Saturday, we get to do ____, or the honest first thing out of his half-awake self this morning was "it's Friday.") But past events are all "Last night." So anything began with last night doesn't actually mean last night, but means sometime prior to today. And occasionally it'll get qualified by "last night and 2 days" = two days ago.
Brian is not too likely to advertise - so I'll share for him (cause he should be happy about it). He was promoted to a managerial role a few weeks ago. He still works on Heinz projects but also other stuff on frozen and condiments and he now has people reporting directly to him. So that's pretty cool.
And that's news from up here. I'm off to go swimming and work on my defunct triathlon training (meaning I've done very little training so far).
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