The Working Mom

Last week, Rachel was with a friend and got herself into a situation that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with, and couldn’t easily contact me to get her. She was at a sleepover, and even though the parents I had entrusted her care to thought they weren’t doing anything wrong, they did. (I don’t want to get into specifics, but because obviously this can easily be taken the wrong way, I’ll just say this has to do with a religion issue and not anything else). I was furious, and while I learned a hard lesson about the fact that, unfortunately, I’m going to have to be a lot more careful about who I allow her to have sleepovers with and who I trust, I also realized I need to give her the ability to more easily reach out to me if she needs to.

She’s been begging me for a cell phone for maybe a year or more now and it’s been one of those things that I’ve honestly laughed at. A nine year old with a cell phone?? You’ve GOT to be kidding me!!! Well… now my tune is changing. Fact is – if she had a cell phone at that sleepover, when things started getting a little over the top, she could have snuck away and called me and said “Mom? Uhm… Think I’m ready to come home now!”

Of course, being 9 years old, there’s all kinds of issues here. One problem is that I’m reasonbly sure this phone is going to get lost. Sooner rather than later, I’ll bet. The other issue is that, I can’t be 100% sure that she’ll forever get the idea that this phone is not to be used to chat it up with her friends. It’s to be used for me to contact her or her to contact me. If she wants to talk to her friends, we do actually have a landline phone she can use to her heart’s content. (Or at least until it’s time to do her homework or go to bed. LOL!)

So, after much debate, we finally got her one of those Tracfones. The particular model we got for her actually does text messaging, (so I can easily send her a text message to come home from her friends house at a specified time, if need be – and it only uses up 1/3 of a minute), it has voicemail, even a little camera. You buy minutes via a card (and actually the model phone we got doubles the minutes you buy for the life of the phone) – and if she uses up the minutes – that’s it – the phone stops working until we add more minutes. There’s no monthly or daily charge. And it’s not tied to our credit card. So no worries about a surprise $500 phone bill because she decided to sneak a few calls to some friends. And the phone itself only cost about $20. So while I really hope she doesn’t lose the phone – it’s only $20. It’s not like $200. And the phone? I mean for $20… that’s a pretty sweet deal – which is why I finally caved. I mean, I think I couldn’t get a decent walkie-talkie for only that much!

So yeah – I’m pretty sure only a few months ago I was saying “I would never buy my kid a cell phone!! Not until they’re at least 13 or something…” Yeah. Funny how circumstance will change things. That and the technology that can put out a $20 cell phone!

Why is it that just to take a week off requires several weeks prior of insanity. I’ve easily gone a week without anyone contacting me here and there, or with clients forgetting to get me stuff. But as soon as I say the words “I’m going to be taking a few days off” it’s like I’ve just told them I’ll be gone for several months and they’ll be on their own. My brother and his family are coming into town and he’s rented a townhouse up in the mountains for the week. So this was part of the push for me to learn how to ski this year, because I wanted to to be able to ski with everyone.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing. The Pre-vacation Panic. It sounds like it should be some kind of line-dance. I’ll bet it looks alot like people running around and bumping into each other and getting knocked out. At least, that’s what I’ve felt like I’ve done at the end of each day.

(Side note: I have a list of iPhone apps I’ve recently purchased and have been playing with, so stay tuned, I’ll have tons of that stuff to talk about soon – in the meantime, I leave you with another installment of my learn-to-ski saga)

So back to the slopes we went this weekend. I probably would have preferred to either take a break for at least a week after last weekend’s fiasco (and the fact that the Sundance Film Festival is going on right now up there), but I kind of had to go. I had filled out a customer comment form on the resort’s website and told them about the various problems I’d had – the first lesson, with all the equipment issues I had, then of course was last weekend where the class had been much more advanced than I had wanted. I got a call from the director of skier services and we talked a bit about how the classes are supposed to be run – obviously there was some miscommunication that landed me in the class I ended up in. He promised to have my favorite instructor be the one teaching the class I needed for the following Sunday if I came back to give it another try. So I had to go.

That instructor is a ski-goddess. I love her. I really do. If you are in the area (Park City, UT), (and especially if you are new to skiing and want to learn) and want to take a lesson with the most awesome instructor that ever was – let me know and I will give you her contact info. She has just the right balance of understanding my fears, but also getting me over them so I can progress. I never feel like she’s talking “down” to me, and even when I’m trying to deal with a kind of silly fear (like my panic attack on the chair lift) she never made me feel bad about it, but still got me totally over it.

So the class started off on the bunny slopes I was comfortable with. She gave us a few little pointers to improve what we were doing, then up to the big slope we went. The same one I was “Yard Sale-ing” on last week. (I was told by a friend that it is passe to call it “face plants” – and that the cool kids call it a yard sale. This totally baffled me why someone would call it a yard sale until I saw this video. Then I understood… Ah… they call it a yard sale because your gear goes in all directions all over the mountain like you’re having a yard sale. LOL! Got it.) Before going up, she looked at me to make sure I was ok with the idea LOL! I told her I trusted her, and I totally do. If she thought I could do it, then I believed her.

I’m sure that part of the problem last week was it was really new territory for me and I just didn’t have the same kind of confidence in that instructor that I do in this one. But also, I knew that if I started to have problems, she would be right there to help me out.

Ironically, this time, I had no trouble on the run. I didn’t fall once. I didn’t lose control once. I joked with the instructor that now she’s in for it, because I think I just need her to be my personal lifelong ski coach. LOL! I will admit that I was still quite a bit nervous and I have this little mantra going in my head. It’s totally ridiculous, but it does help. When I start to get a little nervous, I just say over and over in my head “You can ski! You can ski! You KNOW how to do this!” LOL! Like I have to convince myself I know what I’m doing. But you know what, as soon as the mantra in my head starts, I start to ski better.

The run we did was about 3-1/2 miles I think, but part of it we did twice, so it ended up being about 5 miles. Downhill. No falls. I DID IT!

So now I think I’m done with the lessons for awhile and will probably just be sking this run (a green run) and maybe a few other green runs they have at the resort. I’m skiing now at the level I wanted to be at – so now it’s just doing it over and over again until I feel really strong on it.

Meanwhile, Rachel was skiing blue runs in her class (kids learn so easily. It’s so not fair. LOL!) And Zach also was really improving. We put him in their all day program and he had a blast. The instructor was really impressed with how well he’s picking this up. He said he was listening really well (that alone is impressive!! LOL!).

Not sure if we’ll get up there next weekend. The Sundance film festival is still going on, but by getting there early we didn’t have trouble getting parking at the resort. Sam is on call with work, so he can’t be away from the computer for the whole day like that. But Rachel and I might go up just ourselves. Now that I can do that green run, I know she won’t be overly bored with skiing with me.

So no sooner do I make this post, my son turns the table on me. Who knows, maybe he can read, AND he reads my blog and figured he confuse me. Almost since the very moment I hit publish on that post, he’s been a lot better behaved. I won’t even presume to say he’s over his “phase,” I know he’s not. And it’s not like he’s given up tantrums and whining 100% – he’s just turned them down to once/twice a day and turned down the duration from several hours to just a few minutes. I can TOTALLY live with this.

The other thing – and I’m not sure what to make of this – is “manners” has become a game to him. It’s become “fun” to try and come up with as many things to thank me for as possible. This… is really weird. Don’t get me wrong – I am loving the appreciation, but I feel like there’s got to be a catch somewhere.

“Thank you Mommy for making me dinner”
“You’re welcome”
“Thank you Mommy for the spoon”
“You’re welcome”
“Thank you Mommy for the napkin”
“You’re… welcome…”
“Thank you Mommy for the water”
“uh… actually you got yourself a cup of water…”
“Oh… then thank you for the cup so I could get myself some water”
“uh… you’re… welcome..?”

He’s got to be plotting something. Trying to distract me so he can catch me off guard. This just isn’t normal.

Well, still, I guess I’ll be blissfully ignorant (and slightly paranoid) in the meantime. However, I’m sure that clicking the “publish” button on this post is a guarantee this momentary blip will come to an end. It sure was cute while it lasted!

The other morning, before dropping Zach off at daycare, he asked me “what squirrels were made of.”

The things is – he sometimes asks me questions like this when he already has an answer in his head. When I mentioned Zach’s question to my Facebook friends, my friend Jamie replied that when she asked her son the same question to see what he would say, he said “Skin and Fur” – but I know that wasn’t what was in Zach’s mind. I explained it was as if he expecting me to say that squirrels were made of chicken or something…

To which Jamie gave me this reply:

Speaking of chicken, Alex was eating a chicken nugget the other day and asked me what chicken nuggets were made of. I told him chicken of course and I guess it was the first time he ever realized he was eating an animal, his eyes got huge and said, “a bock bagock chicken?” “Yep” “The kind with feathers?” “Yep” “So there’s a chicken in my belly?”…. at which point the conversation got really weird and uncomfortable trying to explain how it’s ok to eat animals that are raised for food, but not ok to bite his brother…

ROFL!!! I’m still cracking up over that.

Later that night, I asked Zach to tell me what he thought squirrels were made of. His answer? “nuts“

I guess you are what you eat…

I saw an ad for this website in someone’s sidebar recently and clicked it to see what it was. This company lets you design your own monster and then they’ll actually make it for you. It looks pretty cool. But even if you don’t go through the full step of BUYING the monster – I thought the “design and print your own monster” wizard they had was really cool. I think Zach would probably like playing with that. (Unfortunately, he’s figured out how to print from the computer so I’m sure once he makes a monster, he’ll be printing several hundred copies of it to decorate the house with!)

*disclosure: I just signed up as an affiliate (figured I might as well since I was going to link to them anyway). So if you click the image above and make a purchase, I do get a commission.

Why do all the parenting magazines I get focus on food presentation? As, if I make the carrot look like a caterpillar, my kid will suddenly be interested in eating it.

REALLY? I mean does any kid really fall for that? Mine doesn’t. I’m so desperate to get Zach to eat vegetables, that I even bought that book Deceptively Delicious. Even if he can’t see the vegetables, even if can’t taste the vegetables, he still somehow always knows when they’re there. It’s like he has Veg-dar or something. If he sees so much as a microscopic green parsley leaf in his food he has to pick it out. (oh, and whine about it, too)

How did I end up with a kid that hates vegetables this much? I love vegetables. I’m not exaggerating – I could sit and eat a head of lettuce, just like that, with no dressing. Just pick off the leaves and munch them like they were potato chips. (Spaghetti Squash may be the only vegetable I really don’t like).

But then the parenting magazines will take things too far. They’ll make cupcakes look like little turkeys for Thanksgiving.

REALLY??? This is one thing that doesn’t need to be dressed up. We don’t have any problems getting the kids to eat cupcakes. While it may be FUN to dress up a cupcake to look like a turkey, it doesn’t need to be done, he will eat it anyway, and my time is probably better spent trying to make the turkey look like a cupcake so he’ll eat that. (He’s not big on meat either. I honestly don’t know how he survives.)

As I posted on Twitter – I told Zach if he ate asparagus, it would make his pee smell. He thought that would be really cool. It almost worked. In the end, he chickened out.

I think what we need is more Popeye’s. I remember as a kid, watching Popeye cartoons, I was encouraged to eat spinach. Of course, I don’t know why. It’s not like I really wanted to look like Popeye. Zach does like that “party in my tummy” song – it so cracks me up. (If you go to that link, and get the song stuck in your head, you can thank me later) But it’s not enough. I think the real solution is that we need more vegetarian super heroes! (and less turkey cupcakes!) Captain Cucumber saves the day!!!

Or maybe not.

There’s this great program that they do in Rachel’s school called “Art Through The Ages.” It’s completely run and taught by the PTA and the idea behind the program is to teach kids both history, and art history, while also giving them an art class. The time period is discussed along with what things were happening in the world and a particular region at that time, art during that time frame is shown and discussed, and then the kids get a chance to try their hands at creating similar art using similar methods from the time. Rachel loves the program. She comes home and tells me all about what she learned, and what she made.

This year I offered to help. Honestly, I really didn’t think they’d need me or that they’d pick me to lead the lesson. I thought maybe there were better trained people and I would just be helping them. I chose the Renaissance time period. Yesterday we had the training, and I found out that, in fact, *I* will be leading the lesson. (There was someone listed as being available to help me – but I haven’t heard from them).

So the history portion (as far as I understand it! Someone PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong!) talks about the shift from God-centered thinking and artwork, to human-centered. People sent less money to Rome to the Church. Because of the bubonic plague, there were just less people around in general, which meant less famine, less (business) competition and a “middle class” rose into being that had more expendable money. Some of this money was spent on the arts; Music, plays, artwork. Artists could make a living on their craft – and this gave rise to an explosion in creativity.

This is the point that we’re supposed to do an activity with the kids to get them to “feel like they’re in this time” – and unfortunately the activity just made no sense to me. The activity they had revolved around having a few kids pick a “job” (for example: corn farmer) and having them set a price for their product – and would the rest of the class pay that much, (if there’s just one corn farmer – do you have much choice) – and then if there are more corn farmers – how does their competition and price change.

I just don’t get the connection between that activity and the Renaissance. There’s got to be another activity (non-art-related – that comes later) that can give them a better understanding of the time period. Unfortunately, I’m on my own if I want to try something different (which we’ve been given the freedom to do) but aside from the fact that I 1) suck at public speaking even in front of kids! and 2) suck at teaching in general – WHAT?! What do I do??

The ART portion of the lesson I think I can do (or at least do better than what is planned for the HISTORY portion) – I’ll be covering the new concepts that came about during the Renaissance such as “vanishing points”, “foreshortening”  – I can show paintings during the Medieval time and compare that with paintings during the Renaissance. I can show how vanishing points work – etc. Then the kids are to try their hands at creating a “fresco” (which actually isn’t really a fresco – from what I understand – fresco means painting on WET plaster – secco is painting on dry plaster. Most FRESCO’s were a combination of fresco and secco because while the fresco had more permanence, the colors couldn’t be as vibrant – so most artists went back over their fresco and added details with the more vibrant colors – secco) The kids will be painting on DRY plaster. (Do I bother to explain the difference between fresco and secco? They didn’t even mention it in the training and just said the kids will be doing a fresco – which is wrong!)

But what about the HISTORY portion? Any ideas? Any resources? (I could use more painting samples too – any websites out there that have a lot of examples I can show the kids?) (I should probably add that this is for a 4th grade class)

Man, I am NEVER doing this again!!! There’s a VERY GOOD reason I don’t homeschool – I absolutely SUCK at this!

Halloween is done. Our routine is to usually let the kids stay up late, gorge themselves on their candy and then try to get rid of it the next day. I think one year we did a “Halloween Fairy” that exchanged a toy for the leftover Halloween candy. Surprisingly, Rachel totally forgot about it this year (so did I). I’m thinking since she figured out the tooth fairy didn’t exist, trying to pass a “Halloween Fairy” over her this year probably isn’t a good idea. I’m sure Santa’s clock is ticking in her mind as well… (But I’ll put money on her deciding not to ask about it until AFTER she gets her Hanukkah/Christmas presents… Yes, we do both in this house. Our kids are spoiled.)

The Halloween Fairy would probably work for Zach, but I’m trying to go for a simpler approach and convince him the candy goes bad very quickly and has to be thrown out. I’ll give them one more day of too much sugar – and then it goes OUT! We had very few trick-or-treaters and have lots of leftovers. (I bought little single-serving bags of pretzels. And NO that’s NOT why we didn’t see many people. LOL! We had the same thing happen last year and I had 4 different brands of chocolate bars to hand out!) I think the pretzels will be perfect for after-school snacks so I’m not upset about the leftovers. (And despite their original protests, I think neither are the kids!)

Zach dressed up as Spiderman this year, and Rachel was originally going to be a butterfly, but after checking the weather, she decided to opt for a warmer, kind of ambigous “baby” costume. (The neighbors were confused. LOL! Almost everyone had to ask her what she was. Well, sorry, they just don’t make costumes keeping in mind the fact that it is the END OF OCTOBER and usually FREEZING.)

(Here is what her costume was SUPPOSED to be)

Very cute – but not so comfortable in 40 degree weather. (And with a coat over it – it would have been just as ambiguous as the baby costume!)

I met up with a some women from my moms group last night, one of whom is a Kindergarten teacher. Some of us brought a few things to work on while we chatted, she was grading some papers from school. She was laughing at a note from one of her students and I asked her about it. Apparently, as an exercise in her class, to have the kids practice writing, they write notes back and forth to her. She said sometimes she’ll ask them a question, like “what is your favorite color” and they’ll answer and write her back and ask her a question – and the back and forth goes on like this. She said she also encourages the parents to do the same – to write what she calls “pillow notes” – little notes that ask a question and encourage the child to write something back.

I thought this was such a cute idea. And even though Rachel is now in 4th grade – her handwriting could use some work. I know she loves writing and drawing little things for Sam and me – so I had an idea on a way to expand on my friend’s pillow-note idea…

I’ve decided to get a notebook/diary – in which both Rachel and I will write to each other. That way not only does she get to practice writing, but we also get to keep a log of the “conversation.” I’ll write and ask her a question, and leave the notebook in her room – and then she can write me something in the notebook and leave it for me to find. I think this will be a great way to connect with her AND get her to practice writing!