Finding My Way...

Dreaming of India...

For much of today I thought it was really Friday the 13th and someone just hadn't told me. I had to cancel our vet appointment because the cats would shred me before they would let me crate them. I had invited friends to attend a workshop with me at nearby Colonial Williamsburg, but they were out of tickets by 9:15am.

At any rate, after a few more minor setbacks in my day, my mind started to think about going on vacation. We have a timeshare week banked, so I was perusing RCI.com to look for an exchange vacation or a last minute steal. After 45 minutes of looking for someplace to take Emily in December to see snow (no luck unless I want to fly to Colorado), or a place for she and I to road trip to over Spring Break (very boring options), my mind went to fantasyland. I started a new search and clicked Asia instead of USA. On the Google Map there was one lone red marker on the Indian Subcontinent. It was in a GORGEOUS beach town on the southwestern coast of India, called Goa. One look at the photos in the PDF brochure, and I was ready to pack!

Goa was where we took our first family vacation with Emily. She was just 9 months old and we still had only temporary custody of her. Therefore we could not leave the country to travel to Bangkok as planned, but needed to remain in India. We got permission to fly a couple of hours south to Goa. A former Portuguese colony, there is a strong Catholic presence there in an otherwise overwhelming Hindu society. I wish I could say we explored the area while we were there, but Barry and I were diagnosed with mononucleosis just before we left, and we slept through most of the trip. The beach was beautiful, and we napped in cork hammocks out in a courtyard that overlooked the Arabian Sea. Emily dipped her baby toes in that sea, and had her first swim in the pool at the Taj resort where we stayed.

So it was nice to fantasize about Spring Break in India...until I went to Northwest and checked out airfares. Oof. That's about all I can say. Oof. And Spring Break isn't even a good time to go to India. At least in Delhi it was a notoriously HOT time of year! So back to reality and back to Tuesday the 8th, hopefully no longer a Friday the 13th in disguise...

Mythbusters as Science Instruction?

Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters were interviewed this morning on NPR's Morning Edition. You can read the article and listen to the story HERE. The story talks about how their show demonstrates science principles, and models well the scientific process without being a "boring educational show." B and I have loved this show for years, and it really channels B's inner 12 year old. He loves it when they blow stuff up.

We have just recently started letting Emily watch it at age 10. Mostly because just about each episode has some language bleeped out. There are certain episodes she doesn't need to watch, like the one where they are deliberately getting intoxicated to test out sobering techniques. And the commercials aren't always appropriate, so we TiVo to be able to skip certain ads.

Lately Em's been watching this episode:

They tried this experiment at school, and she reported with delight that Mr. S "should have worn a raincoat" as he did not get clear of the soda fountain before it shot up. She has been fascinated with the analysis of why this reaction happens, and I love that she is seeing and hearing their thought process as they test with a control and remove and add variables to hone in on the actual cause of the reaction.

Emily loves science programs, but as the NPR article outlines, there aren't many science programs for kids out there now. They mention some new ones for the preschool set, but other than reruns and videos of Magic School Bus and Bill Nye (both of which my daughter loves), there isn't much for the tween group.

Are there any science gems out there that I am missing? What sorts of things do your science lovers get jazzed about?

Getting Creative in 2010

I have wanted to post to the blog for the past two weeks. I have clicked the link to the Typepad dashboard several times, but I have come up empty on ideas for blog posts.

I thought maybe if I surfed some of my favorite blogs, that might give me some inspiration. So I read this weeks secrets on PostSecret. I chuckled at the latest entries on Awful LIbrary Books. I indulged my wordy side with a perusal of Lexicide. All good reading, but nothing was fueling my creative side. So I headed over to a favorite creative blog: Artsyville. 

I *dream* of doodling like Aimee does. I am a big fan of her etsy shop, and this has reminded me to send a link to my Mom, who is grilling me for ideas for a Christmas present. Bewitched by Books is my current favorite, but really, I want 4 or 5 of her 5x7 doodleprints to frame and hang in a grouping near my creative space.

As I was perusing Aimee's latest doodles and photos, on December 4th she encouraged her readers to join her in Leah's 2010 Creative Every Day Challenge. My eyes lit up at this gem. I really feel that since my scrapbooking has slowed, and my writing has all but stopped, I am missing a creative outlet in my life. One is only so creative finding the right clip art for flier and newsletters for the women's club. So there, to the right there. In the right column there is a widget to her site, if you want more info.

I'm hoping to be creative in a variety of ways in 2010. I hope to start scrapping more again. I want to try doodling like Aimee inspires me to do, and perhaps integrate it into my scrapbook albums. I hope to start writing again. This morning I was getting ready and had a great idea for the start of a bit if teen fiction. I have absolutely no idea for a middle or an end, but I have a great idea for a start. I'd like to make some handmade gifts for Emily's teachers.

I will not flood this blog with a daily entry. As we discovered in 2009 with the failed attempt at Project 365 (I petered out by February-March), the perfectionist in me abandons daily reporting entirely once I miss a few times and it's no longer complete. I aim to report on the week's creativity once a week. Who's in?

Pre-teen Accountability

As an addendum to my earlier post, I sat down today to work out a system of accountability for my daughter and her responsibilities at home.

I have realized that negative discipline is WAY less effective with her. She doesn't see her role in the loss of privileges, and just sees punishments and lectures as us being unnecessarily mean to her. As an only child she has also been a little indulged, and she is showing a streak of entitlement, which doesn't fly with me. That's not how we roll.

So, rather than weekend TV being the norm and me taking it away for unacceptable behavior or not fulfilling her responsibilities, doing her stuff each week will earn her the TV time.  She'll start on Monday morning with no minutes of TV time, and as the week passes, keeping up her room and schoolwork will earn her that time of relaxation on the weekend.

She is a visual learner. Things sink in better when she has a visual there to remind her. So I made a slightly more mature version of a sticker chart. Completion of each task earns her five minutes of TV time. If all is completed in a week, that's 2.5 hours of TV. Because she seems to respond better to positive reinforcement, I will also seek to "catch her being good" and supplement that time with some bonus time. Three to four hours of TV on the weekend is a good amount for her.  It allows for her Saturday morning cartoon habit, with time left for a movie on Saturday or Sunday evening.

I'm hoping this will be a happy medium between me swooping in to take over and just letting her continue in this grade free fall.

The plagues of homework and an evil mommy...

I am currently taking a break from cleaning out a corner of the office. In a few minutes, when I am finished, I plan to bring a desk sized folding table in from the garage, wipe it down and create a study desk for my daughter. She will hate it. She will glare at me. She will whine. She will stall. I will want to shoot myself. It's gotta happen.

I am preschool teacher by trade, but I've largely been a stay-at-home-mom since Emily came home to us at age 5 months. She loved school and learning through kindergarten and I loved teaching her and helping in her classes. Then first grade came, and real work began.  We were both out of our comfort zone and it all fell apart.

I will summarize the last four years by telling you that a child who loved kindergarten and spent August begging to start first grade was crying and having stomach aches by October. We got a diagnosis of mild dysgraphia, and motor integration issues. We've learned to work with that. It has improved a little over the years, but every time things get better, school gets harder and we struggle to catch up again.

Now add pre-pubescence...a creative child who can live in disorganized squalor...a child who "forgets" things all the time...a child who never thinks things are her fault. That's where we are now. Her interim came back a week ago and it did not reflect the work of my daughter who made AB honor roll all of last year. I come to find she has told me every day for a week her homework is done, yet she did not complete her math log one single day last week. It was a hard week, a crazy week. She is in the school play and it was tech week. But you can't just skip homework and hope it will go away and you won't have to do it.

So the study desk downstairs, in the office, on the main floor of the house, in a high traffic area. I have e-mailed with her teacher, and we are meeting to strategize ways to help Emily be more successful. I will will be devising ways to force her to be more accountable. And while I have reminded her numerous times in the last 24-48 hours that I love her no matter what her grades are, I will also be telling her that my job is to teach her how to manage school and homework in order to be successful. 

It's going to be a tense week around here...

Oh! My virgin ears!

I know I have sheltered my daughter. At age 10 she's seen only a handful of PG movies, never mind a PG-13 or R. I screen her music, and upload playlists to her iPod. She entered 5th grade this year, and it seems like someone has opened Pandora's Box of Profanity!

When Em was in first grade we were having dinner with my Mom one night and Emily announced that someone in her class had "said the 's' word" at school that day. My Mom's eyes got wide and I chuckled, knowing full well that to Em, the "s word" was shut up or stupid. I can't say the same any more.

At the end of last year, Emily learned the word b!tch from a girl in her class told a boy he was one. Should you be allowed to use the bad words if you don't even know how to do it properly? This same charm school dropout was caught by me this summer calling someone a "butt-muncher" in a group of kids that ranged in age from 4 to 10. Emily was called a b!tch a few weeks ago by a boy in her class that was mad that she won a game in math class.

The other day in carpool, the girls were trying to share earbuds to listen to one girl's iPod. I offered to use my cassette adapter to play it through the car radio for all to hear. That was fine through the sweet Taylor Swift song, but a few moments later "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas came on, and I was mortified to hear: