Pogue Mahone

Erin gobragh.Since I'm not able to run in the local St Paddy's Day Race due to Matt's study schedule, I will honor this national holiday anyway. I've decided to take Wear'n o the green to the extreme and cleanse the boys colons. Ha. We started the day with a green machine. They liked it but James saw the bottle so it no longer has a chance.

We also Shamrock Shakes made in my blender.
1 c almond milk
A few drops of mint extract
2 stevia packets
3 ice cubes
And greened up w spinach.

What they don't know won't hurt them. But it seems to me the green theme will continue w grilled chicken, spinach and feta burgers and this guy:

 

The boys love Chobani yogurt. I'll be adding a few drops of food coloring to add to the festivities today though. Most days I pop one of these in James lunch. He can squeeze it in his mouth and not deal with stirring it up and making a mess.

Larabars are my staple. Most days I don't have time for lunch so I grab one and go. I also eat one before a long run. They only have few ingredients, Like nuts and dried fruit and no added sugar. If only they'd make a wasabi flavor. They are $5.20 a box of 5 at Walmart right now, but come w a dollar off coupon.

 

Well, before they start chucking green grapes at me, I better do crowd control. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all and to all a safe night! 

 

 

UnderRated

I admit I have a hard time even admitting that I need a little down time. I've found some time for that this week. It's been wonderful.  I found a few minutes to create a list of things I need to find more time for.  Here goes.

Naps. Naps are food for the soul.  My version of a nap is the full body jerk that most get .3 seconds after falling asleep.  But it's enough. Thank you for making me think I fell off a cliff.  May I have another. Someone else in my life does not think they are that fantabulous: 

Coloring and playdough. Nothing calms me down faster than a new box of crayons and a white sheet of paper- a one dimensional house and stick tree with 3 v- shaped birds get strewn across the sheet in no time.

Hot chocolate and PB2.  It's the best creation ever.  Made me smile when I noticed it was another cold, grey morning.

Music.  I'm a sucker for anything off the beaten path: Lumineers, Alabama Shakes, Dada Life...Fill my ears and soothe the chaos of life and do it quickly. Aaaahhh! 

Duck Dynasty. I'm seriously considering filling out an application for their company.  Holy moly.Who doesn't need a show they can relate to- functional rednecks? I'll take 2.

Picture Books. Shamrock Shuffle your way into a Barnes and Nobel and make your way back tot he picture books,.  Grab a stack and put your biscuits in a comfy chair.  Sure your knees might hit your chin.  You get used to it.  Surround yourself with Llama Llama, Trixie, Mean Jean, whoever it is, there are messages between those covers that adults need to inhale.

Find some time for yourself this week- just a few hours to get a little more perspective on life.  

When Beavers Stop Being Dream Weavers and Start Being House Creepers



4:40 am- I'm bundled up to go for my morning run. Notice my Santa hat turtle neck and expression of pure joy. Decided to put it off for a little bit and make cinnamon rolls for breakfast after the Kagillionth attempt to get him back to bed.

I get up early. Every. Morning.  It's the how I get things done, including my runs.  My runs are how I keep my inner psycho from rearing her ugly head. Someone has decided that he too is an early riser.  If the weather were above 40, this would be no big deal.  I'd plop him in the running stroller and grunt my way through a few miles. BUT- it is not. 

It would also be no big deal if we woke up about the same time. BUT- we do not.  Davy Crocket straps on his coonskin hat at all hours of the night to head out and explore the wild frontier. Some nights I am ripped out of REM at 12 am to a slamming bathroom door, a noise I think I heard, possibly a dropping car to find him sitting on the couch meditating. He has become nocturnal. We took him out of his crib 2 months ago and into his first big boy bed, a transition that went way to smooth now that I think about it. The blue race car bed was met with pure glee, and now I know it was the realization that he would have nocturnal freedom.     

When he is discovered and led back to bed, he doesn't speak.  You see friends, Beaver #2 is a smart beaver. He's wise beyond his years. Wise, sneaky and cat like- not good qualities to have in a 2 year-old. He's not sleep walking, he's trying not to make the situation worse. He has also learned that the less you say, the better.

We've tried blackout curtains in his room, adjusting the temperature, no food or drinks an hour before bed, no afternoon nap.  Nothing is working. But this beaver is wise, sneaky and cat like so it's only a matter of time before he tries to expand his explorations beyond our home territory. I baby gated his bedroom door after we made cinnamon rolls this morning so at least he cannot claim new territory, like the backyard or the neighbors porch.

Beaver #2 is very different from Beaver #1. Beaver #1 would bellow from his car bed the second his eyes peeled open, "Mom, awake." He'd lay patiently in bed until I would open his door and lead his little biscuits over the side of the bed and into the freedom of the morning. Not #2. He's a whole new ballgame.  Because as I sit here typing, I see him inspecting the new contraption that I've drilled into his doorway, and I hear the gears turning. He's squatting down and checking out how he can use this new piece of equipment to his advantage. Lord help me.



I had given him his breakfast, a banana and one without icing because he said it was gross. After my shower, I found him like this- on his 5th.
 

Here are a few videos from this past week.  Last week I blogged about James' love/like/dislike relationship with reading.  The first video is of Toby with his favorite book. 

The second is when I overheard James reading to his brother, I had to tape it to remind myself to relax, take a deep breath and wait. 

Click, Clack- Gah! Moms Who Read and an 8 Year Old Who Lost That Love and Feeling

 

This is my weekend stack. The bound text I brought home with me, anyway.  This doesn't count the websites, blogs and articles I read online and with my phone.  2 bags and a crate- that's how I carried it.  I am taking a master's class for a new teaching certification, so some of these books are for reflections and case studies that are due Tuesday.  All in all it will be synthesised in a total of 12 pages.

 

I compare this stack to my husbands:

 

Not very different. He is currently in school full time getting his RN. 

 

What literacy skills will the boys need to make them lifelong, responsible members in our society?  It has me thinking.  My 8 year old is a great reader- by no means is he an avid reader.  Anymore. He has lost a passion for it.  I take him to the library weekly. He has 2 magazines that come to our house each month.  I've given him my Kindle so he can experience digital text. He uses my account on Big Universe to read his required daily minutes.

 

Whenever it's reading time he always asks, "how long?" He never used to ask that.  We would read for hours-book after book. Some books we made with pictures of our family at the zoo, on the farm, on vacation.  Some books were favorites that we read to we both had memorized. I've introduced James to favorite characters like Ralph the mouse, Stuart Little, Gregor the Overlander. But now as a second grader- every time we read, he sets his timer takes his position at the table and waits for the minutes to pass. This is a shift for our family- required reading minutes and a 6 column reading log that needs to be completed nightly.  Title, author, genre, pages read, minutes read- really?  Why should an 8 year-old document his pleasure reading time like a 40 year-old women tracking her points on Weight Watchers. (No offense 40 year-old women on WW.) Tracking his reading outside of school will not allow my son to become a better reader, in fact this practice has had an opposite effect on him. So the reading log routine has gone to the wayside and is reflected in his report card with a check instead of a plus. But that's okay.

 

 He'll come back, some day. For now his brother crawls in my lap with book after book, developing early reading skills. When James finds him holding a book upside down, or in the quiet early morning hours I overhear him saying, "no, you hold it like this." and "That's a favorite, can I read it to you?" For now, I will continue to feed his reading life and the book lover inside of him that's lost for a little while. 

 

Here are a few photos of this week in pictures:

 

James spent his birthday money on a trampoline. Why yes, there are books in the background and a Christmas tree.

Toby and I had some one on one time so we walked to the University so he could buy me fro-yo!

Our first sledding expedition. One Beaver was complaining about going down the hill, the other Beaver did not want to come back up the hill and Dad Beaver was complaining because it was too cold to be standing on top of the hill.  Lesson learned: leave the crabby Beavers at home and hit the slopes solo.

Presidents day at Deer Park- While the bread was for the deer, geese and llamas- as Beavers they took advantage and fed themselves.

Family Wellness Boot Camp- Toby the Wheel Barrow Champion. Made a fruit, cheese and ham kabob. Must have been the fuel he needed.

Holy Moly

I have a few things that have been on my mind lately.  Thoughts, ideas, wonders that I carry with me throughout my day. I bounce them around in my head on my runs. Lately, I have one little ping pong ball that has been kerchunking its way through the right and left sides of my temples.

As a parent, I am trying to do the best I can with what I know.  What I know is this. Matt and I are in survival mode. One of us walks in the door while the other hurricanes their way out the door.  Our days start at 6 am and we do not stop until baths are over at 730 pm. There have been days that have worn me down to the bone, so much that I am not present with my family.  In retrospect, I've taken energy and money from my family in order to have that energy and money for work. Not many professionals can say that in order to do work, they pay for supplies and materials, maybe the self-employed do. Lately I haven't felt like a good parent. Lately, I've felt like I've failed the boys.  Lately, I've felt like I'm driving this bus blindfolded.

I'm also having similair conversations with the staff in the building I work in. Many are feeling like they aren't doing enough...Our low is getting lower...I feel like a bad teacher...I've failed them because...But what is education to teachers today?  What is parenting to those who parent?  Why can't we shift our paradigm and change the way our model for education and parenting? 

Our staff discussed this video by Sir Ken Robinson:

I watched it a few times.  Once as and educator, once as a parent and once as a 80 year-old kermuggin.  This shift can be done.  The only way it can be done is together- together as a building, as a district, as a community, and as a nation.

The only way I can feel like a better parent is if I bring my team together for a little pep talk.  An honest talk about what being in this family means. We are great thinkers, we will no longer put our heads down and be miserable. My parents taught me that hard work pays off in life.  Hard work in here pays off "out there".  I still believe that today.  But as an educator I know my definition of work needs to change.  As a parent my definition of work needs to change.  The work that was done in classrooms 60 years ago should not and cannot be the work we give kids today.  The work that was done in families should not and cannot be the work we do as a family today.    
 
A lot of times people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
Steve Jobs

 If life is a game, aren’t we on the same team? I mean really, right? I’m on your team, be on my team.

So what now?  Come together, collaborate, inquire, question.  Let our kids learn to reason, but we must show them what that looks like.  Stop saying they can't when they can.  Stop thinking I can't when you can. But know that you aren't in this alone, that we are all in this together.

Speaking to Groups is Exhausting

By groups I mean my 2 boys and husband.  My message is always the same- clear, consistent. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"  Ok, maybe I can be a wee bit dramatic.  That's where James gets it.

I am zipping outta Q-town tomorrow to be with Mama while she has a new piece of hardware installed.  Granny's getting a new hip.  So excruciatingly painful that it's hard to talk about without feeling wheezy. 

When I leave, I will be leaving a to do list the for the first time.  I have faced the fact that it won't be read or completed in anyway shape or form, maybe I'm giving myself an out.  "Didn't you read the list?  It was on the list." I will be gone and back in a little over 24 hours and I know that my husband is having his mom pinch hit.  In a way it pisses me off a bit- ain't gonna lie.  In another way I know this will help James and Toby to have something to look forward to Sunday and Monday night.

I guess I am creating room for Matt to succeed.  I will be the first to tell you that this is a tough job. But isn't all work supposed to be hard? This is no different than working with students or a group of peers.   I trust that Matt will be successful, but I do not want to control how he reaches that point of success. Controlling relationships do not lead to success. 

So as I peel out on the street tomorrow morning, that beep beep beep you hear is not me backing up- it's all the room that Matt has to get the job done.

couldwouldshould- Consider it Done

Hello- is this thing on?  Sorry readers. AsChuck Woolerie would say- "beback in 2 and 2" turned into 2 and 2 times40. No worries, I'm addingwriting back onto my list of things to do, right after I fix this space bar.

That's better. 
There are times in life that the balls I juggle seem to be the size of watermelons. That's okay once in a while, like 3 days straight. Not 3 months straight.

At one time, I can juggle 3 balls well- even though there are 4.
1. Family
2. Myself
3. Work
4. Friends

So when I juggle all 4- one lips, slides, shifts and splits into a Weird Al Yankovic like pile all over the environment called my life.  I compare my life to marathon training. 1 time a week there is a long run. See photos of today's below-

Mile .001

Mile 8.3

Mile- DONE



I know, I know.  Major bed head, right? So at any point in my life, I am at 1 of these 3 stages.  Right now, I have come up for air.  So I am in stage 1.

Since starting a new job in July- my life has been thrown back on a roller coaster- not that I ever got off the other one, so this one goes backwards.  Also, since starting a new position I have learned 2 things. I will share these with you.
 
1. Success is about people. I have found 2 types. Type A- hidden talent. You know who they are- they fly under the radar, but everyone goes to them because everyone above the radar has figured out that the hidden gem is undiscovered. Type B- the crazies.  AKA the outliers- they challenge rules, culture and their boss. They lead you to other outliers. We need an educational system full of them.

2. I have learned to STOP and THINK. When asked a question, stop answering with a statement, start answering it with another question.  Or if in doubt, reply "That's interesting."    

Now, I need a shovel, because my house is at stage 3- DONE!