My children bring home "work" from time to time that they made during the school day. Usually it's nothing to celebrate about from an artistic standpoint. So far we've gotten lots of pages with scribbles on them, some little cards with a stitch or two of thread sewn through them, pieces of paper or foam glued randomly onto something or little pieces of cut paper. In short, not things you'd want to keep in the scrapbook because it doesn't show much artistic skill.
My daughter's painting yesterday was somewhat of an anomaly and it got me thinking about what developmental goals my children are working towards in their Montessori classroom and how those goals are somewhat different than what I've seen elsewhere.
Montessori isn't about finished product, it's about process and the steps within that process. My neighbor's daughter has a wall on which they have the most adorable little artwork and craft things she's done at her school. It's the classic handprint turkey you've seen I'm sure, but all sorts of neat variations on projects a three-year-old can do and be successful doing.
Montessori doesn't do anything like that. The focus is on a specific skill like pinscher grasping and sewing. I've prepared the "sewing cards" for the classes in the past. You cut up little four-inch squares and then poke five or six holes into the paper in a straight line or curve. The child then takes a special needle threader, threads the needle and then sews the needle back and forth across the holes. My two-year-old would come home with little pieces of paper with cross-stitch string sewn into them. She threaded that needle herself (I found out how when I saw the threader they were using and immediately ordered one for myself.)
What's the end product? Not much to celebrate, but the process she's learned and the fine motor skills she's learned and the patience it took for her to carefully thread the needle is the point. We don't have a lot of cool arts and crafts to display around the house that our children have brought home from school, but after seeing what's being done from a learning perspective, I don't mind.
The Big Boy Update: My son was having issues this morning. Before school there were large brown streaks in his pants and when he came home from school he told me he'd pooped in his pants a little, saying, "it was squishy for a while but now it's dry." I think he was a bit backed up because at the end of lunch he tried and tried to go but couldn't. We got home and changed him (washing his lower-half in the tub to get the now crusty matter off him). About twenty minutes later I found him in the bathroom again, saying he'd gone a little in his pants. This time, he was trying to take off the partially-soiled underpants and was unhappy he'd gotten some on his hands...so he wiped them on the wall. I yelled. He cried. I apologized and explained why it wasn't a good idea to wipe poop on the wall. He had another lower-half bath in the tub and then asked me what I'd done to clean the wall so I explained how an adult had to do the cleaning and disinfecting steps and next time, could he just wash his hands in the sink please? About an hour later I came upstairs, wondering where he'd gone to, hear him calling out that he needed a wipe. I think he'd been sitting on the potty for quite some time waiting for me. The good news is, if there was blockage it's gone now. Trust me on this one.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My son has never cared about writing his name, but my daughter seems to want to know how her name is written and spelled. She will frequently get a piece of paper, draw on it, maybe fold it and then come to you and ask you to spell her name. She watches very carefully as you spell her name and then carries the paper around, showing anyone else that her name is on the page.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
The Baby
My children have been talking about, "the baby" for a day or two now. I wasn't sure what they meant until this afternoon when I figured it out. Now I'm taking part in the game with them.
My children play well together some of the time. Some of the time they seem to want to inflict harm on each other and a portion of the time they just do their own thing, ignoring each other. Over the past few days they've been saying things like, "I'm a baby" and making funny noises. Sometimes they've told me I was the baby and there have been times when they've referred to the baby as though it's in another part of the house.
They have several dolls, but I didn't remember if any of the baby versions were out in their room right now (their toys aren't all out at once). When I went upstairs to get their clothes this morning—amongst baby-related comments at breakfast—I saw a naked baby doll on one of their beds and realized this was what they must have been talking about.
This afternoon during snack, I noticed my children were suddenly missing. I also noticed they didn't put their snack bowls on the counter after leaving the table. That's not good because the dog will jump up on the table and eat food that's not put away—and my children know this. But when I looked at the table, not only were their bowls not there, their cups were gone too.
I yelled out to them that they had to come back downstairs because we eat our food at the table, not other areas of the house (this being true for the smaller members of our household who are also the most messy).
They immediately came back downstairs, popcorn bowl and juice cup in hand. My son said, "but we wanted to go feed the baby." It struck me that they've never tried to take their snack away from the table before, and that this was a real gesture of sharing so I told them to sit back down at the table and I'd be right back.
I got the baby from the bed, brought it downstairs and sat it on one of the chairs at the table with them. They were both very happy to see the baby there with them. Then they finished their snacks and went outside, telling the baby goodbye.
I wonder where I'm going to find the baby next and what mischief its going to have gotten into?
The Big Boy Update: My son was excited when Ryan and Kiera came over this afternoon and rang the doorbell. They ran out into the back yard ready to play together. About ten minutes later my son was back at the door, looking dejected. I asked him what happened and he told me he told Ryan and Kiera to go home (they did). From what I gathered, he wasn't getting his way so he told them to leave. He told me, "I'm going to be the ruler when I grow up until I'm five!"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Pink and blue painting. My daughter must have gotten a lesson in painting in school this week. I've substituted before and I know this isn't just slapping paint on a piece of paper. There is an entire series of steps the child must learn to do the "painting work" at school. They have to put on the smock, put the paper on the easel, paint the paper, remove the paper and lay it to dry on a rack, wash the easel, clean the brush and return the smock so that the next child can have a turn. knowing all of that, I was impressed to see her come home with a painting today, knowing she'd been given a lesson in painting. My husband and I liked her painting—we thought it had good composition:
My children play well together some of the time. Some of the time they seem to want to inflict harm on each other and a portion of the time they just do their own thing, ignoring each other. Over the past few days they've been saying things like, "I'm a baby" and making funny noises. Sometimes they've told me I was the baby and there have been times when they've referred to the baby as though it's in another part of the house.
They have several dolls, but I didn't remember if any of the baby versions were out in their room right now (their toys aren't all out at once). When I went upstairs to get their clothes this morning—amongst baby-related comments at breakfast—I saw a naked baby doll on one of their beds and realized this was what they must have been talking about.
This afternoon during snack, I noticed my children were suddenly missing. I also noticed they didn't put their snack bowls on the counter after leaving the table. That's not good because the dog will jump up on the table and eat food that's not put away—and my children know this. But when I looked at the table, not only were their bowls not there, their cups were gone too.
I yelled out to them that they had to come back downstairs because we eat our food at the table, not other areas of the house (this being true for the smaller members of our household who are also the most messy).
They immediately came back downstairs, popcorn bowl and juice cup in hand. My son said, "but we wanted to go feed the baby." It struck me that they've never tried to take their snack away from the table before, and that this was a real gesture of sharing so I told them to sit back down at the table and I'd be right back.
I got the baby from the bed, brought it downstairs and sat it on one of the chairs at the table with them. They were both very happy to see the baby there with them. Then they finished their snacks and went outside, telling the baby goodbye.
I wonder where I'm going to find the baby next and what mischief its going to have gotten into?
The Big Boy Update: My son was excited when Ryan and Kiera came over this afternoon and rang the doorbell. They ran out into the back yard ready to play together. About ten minutes later my son was back at the door, looking dejected. I asked him what happened and he told me he told Ryan and Kiera to go home (they did). From what I gathered, he wasn't getting his way so he told them to leave. He told me, "I'm going to be the ruler when I grow up until I'm five!"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Pink and blue painting. My daughter must have gotten a lesson in painting in school this week. I've substituted before and I know this isn't just slapping paint on a piece of paper. There is an entire series of steps the child must learn to do the "painting work" at school. They have to put on the smock, put the paper on the easel, paint the paper, remove the paper and lay it to dry on a rack, wash the easel, clean the brush and return the smock so that the next child can have a turn. knowing all of that, I was impressed to see her come home with a painting today, knowing she'd been given a lesson in painting. My husband and I liked her painting—we thought it had good composition:
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Downs Syndrome Buddy Walk
One of our neighbors has a young sister with Downs Syndrome. Her husband is on the board of the local group and has helped to coordinate the buddy walk for the past two years. We were invited to join them last year for the walk but had another commitment. This year we made sure to make it.
The weather wasn't great, drizzling a portion of the time, but there was a lot to do there and we spent the time with many of our other neighbors who cane together to help walk with the now six-year-old Cassie. Cassie came from out of state to participate and spend some days with her older sister, our neighbor, who is also a local news caster, doubling as the announcer for the event.
There were hot dogs and ice cream and juice boxes and bounce houses and a clown doing magic and balloons and it was all free. Everyone was so friendly and happy. I'd been to these types of "races" before, where the cost of registration goes in part to the t-shirt you get as well as covering running the event. The remainder goes to the fundraising group.
But when we got there I realized I hadn't been to something like this before. This wasn't a race and it wasn't a run—it was a walk around a big field at the park, and it was the last part of the entire day. The "walk" component was secondary and not the main focus of the event. There were no runners, there were no timing chips and no one wore numbers on their chests to make their traversal of the hals-mile loop seem more official.
I found out also that a significant portion of the costs of the event were donated so that more of the money could go to the charity—including the tips the clown was getting.
It was a fun, albeit cold, afternoon. I didn't get a chance to meet Cassie last year but when I met her this year she gave me a big hug and a huge grin just because that's the kind of girl she is.
The Big Boy Update: Carving knife. Of late, my son has been using unkind words with quite some strong emotions behind them when he gets upset. This is something we've been working on for a few months. The word, 'kill' is used less-often when he gets angry or frustrated now, but he's replacing it with other things. Recently, he's been saying he'll cut you up with a carving knife or some other unpleasant variant of how he thinks a carving knife should be used. I realized today where he got it from: the song, Three Blind Mice.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is obsessed with the birthday song they sing at school. She's been repeating it a lot lately. When they celebrate a birthday in her class, they put a candle in the center of the group circle to represent the sun. The birthday child carries a small globe of the Earth around the group while the class sings, "The Earth goes 'round the sun, the Earth goes 'round the sun, it takes twelve months to go around and then <child's name> was one." They repeat the song until they reach the child's age. The children love this. My daughter is looking forward to her birthday in a month.
Fitness Update: I didn't realize my iPhone 6 had been tracking every step and flight of stairs I'd been taking since I got it on launch day. My neighbor's daughter told me I could add it to my Health dashboard and I was surprised to see I'd already racked up eight-thousand steps by mid-afternoon. At this rate I'll be over twelve-thousand by bedtime. Maybe I get to eat a bonus donut or something for that many steps?
The weather wasn't great, drizzling a portion of the time, but there was a lot to do there and we spent the time with many of our other neighbors who cane together to help walk with the now six-year-old Cassie. Cassie came from out of state to participate and spend some days with her older sister, our neighbor, who is also a local news caster, doubling as the announcer for the event.
There were hot dogs and ice cream and juice boxes and bounce houses and a clown doing magic and balloons and it was all free. Everyone was so friendly and happy. I'd been to these types of "races" before, where the cost of registration goes in part to the t-shirt you get as well as covering running the event. The remainder goes to the fundraising group.
But when we got there I realized I hadn't been to something like this before. This wasn't a race and it wasn't a run—it was a walk around a big field at the park, and it was the last part of the entire day. The "walk" component was secondary and not the main focus of the event. There were no runners, there were no timing chips and no one wore numbers on their chests to make their traversal of the hals-mile loop seem more official.
I found out also that a significant portion of the costs of the event were donated so that more of the money could go to the charity—including the tips the clown was getting.
It was a fun, albeit cold, afternoon. I didn't get a chance to meet Cassie last year but when I met her this year she gave me a big hug and a huge grin just because that's the kind of girl she is.
The Big Boy Update: Carving knife. Of late, my son has been using unkind words with quite some strong emotions behind them when he gets upset. This is something we've been working on for a few months. The word, 'kill' is used less-often when he gets angry or frustrated now, but he's replacing it with other things. Recently, he's been saying he'll cut you up with a carving knife or some other unpleasant variant of how he thinks a carving knife should be used. I realized today where he got it from: the song, Three Blind Mice.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is obsessed with the birthday song they sing at school. She's been repeating it a lot lately. When they celebrate a birthday in her class, they put a candle in the center of the group circle to represent the sun. The birthday child carries a small globe of the Earth around the group while the class sings, "The Earth goes 'round the sun, the Earth goes 'round the sun, it takes twelve months to go around and then <child's name> was one." They repeat the song until they reach the child's age. The children love this. My daughter is looking forward to her birthday in a month.
Fitness Update: I didn't realize my iPhone 6 had been tracking every step and flight of stairs I'd been taking since I got it on launch day. My neighbor's daughter told me I could add it to my Health dashboard and I was surprised to see I'd already racked up eight-thousand steps by mid-afternoon. At this rate I'll be over twelve-thousand by bedtime. Maybe I get to eat a bonus donut or something for that many steps?
Saturday, October 11, 2014
The Roller Skating Rink
We had a birthday party to go to this morning. It was for the son of one of my good friends at the school. Her son and my son are in the same class this year and my son talks about George a lot. The party was in a skate rink.
My husband got them dressed in shorts and t-shirts for the warm day and exercise they'd likely get skating and on the way to the location—we'd never been before—he casually says to me, "this is a roller skating place, right?" Oh no, is it? I panicked, thinking we'd be dressed for trouble if this was an ice-skating rink. But no, it was roller skating.
We all tried to skate and most of the family (aside from my husband) did a lot of not-skating. We shuffled, fell, looked silly and then decided to take the skates off. There was a bounce house and some game machines that handed out tickets that kept my children busy for a good while. How they got tickets out of the machines with no coins is still a question; but they had fun.
I did do a bit of skating. I was quite good in the days of my youth, but apparently roller skating is not a skill you retain. My husband, not surprisingly, was a wonder out on the rink. Several of us were chatting when he whizzed by one time and we all cheered and clapped at him.
We didn't do the roller skating version of the Hokey Pokey. Gosh, I remember that. Those were the days...
The Big Boy Update: We had an all-school event today at a park. Rain was predicted part-way through the event, but as it was going to be sunny and warm at the start, we took the chance. The first hour was glorious and then the thunderstorm clouds came in quickly. When it started to pour, most children and adults gathered under the large shelter where the food was. A few children, my son included, had a blast playing on the playground and splashing in the quickly-forming puddles. He was excited when he finally came up to the shelter and saw me, exclaiming, "I'm wet!"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was fine with her head wound yesterday, but today she does not want you or anything else to get near it. She went to a birthday party and an all-school event with dirty, un-brushed hair. Tonight we gave her a bath (we were advised not to yesterday) and she is looking much cleaner and less like a ragamuffin now.
Fitness Update: Seven miles today. My SI joint was out of alignment, or not moving well or whatever technical term my chiropractor would use to describe the situation where I can't get up or down from a chair/bed without being in a lot of pain. I decided to run to see if it would help work it out. The first two miles my right SI joint and inside of my left knee hurt. The knee was dealing with undue pressure from compensating for the SI joint's lack of full motion. At about two miles it let up and the rest of the run was fairly normal. It's a bit sore now, but I can get up and down from chairs without bracing myself again, so overall I call that a win.
My husband got them dressed in shorts and t-shirts for the warm day and exercise they'd likely get skating and on the way to the location—we'd never been before—he casually says to me, "this is a roller skating place, right?" Oh no, is it? I panicked, thinking we'd be dressed for trouble if this was an ice-skating rink. But no, it was roller skating.
We all tried to skate and most of the family (aside from my husband) did a lot of not-skating. We shuffled, fell, looked silly and then decided to take the skates off. There was a bounce house and some game machines that handed out tickets that kept my children busy for a good while. How they got tickets out of the machines with no coins is still a question; but they had fun.
I did do a bit of skating. I was quite good in the days of my youth, but apparently roller skating is not a skill you retain. My husband, not surprisingly, was a wonder out on the rink. Several of us were chatting when he whizzed by one time and we all cheered and clapped at him.
We didn't do the roller skating version of the Hokey Pokey. Gosh, I remember that. Those were the days...
The Big Boy Update: We had an all-school event today at a park. Rain was predicted part-way through the event, but as it was going to be sunny and warm at the start, we took the chance. The first hour was glorious and then the thunderstorm clouds came in quickly. When it started to pour, most children and adults gathered under the large shelter where the food was. A few children, my son included, had a blast playing on the playground and splashing in the quickly-forming puddles. He was excited when he finally came up to the shelter and saw me, exclaiming, "I'm wet!"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was fine with her head wound yesterday, but today she does not want you or anything else to get near it. She went to a birthday party and an all-school event with dirty, un-brushed hair. Tonight we gave her a bath (we were advised not to yesterday) and she is looking much cleaner and less like a ragamuffin now.
Fitness Update: Seven miles today. My SI joint was out of alignment, or not moving well or whatever technical term my chiropractor would use to describe the situation where I can't get up or down from a chair/bed without being in a lot of pain. I decided to run to see if it would help work it out. The first two miles my right SI joint and inside of my left knee hurt. The knee was dealing with undue pressure from compensating for the SI joint's lack of full motion. At about two miles it let up and the rest of the run was fairly normal. It's a bit sore now, but I can get up and down from chairs without bracing myself again, so overall I call that a win.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Staples
My husband went to get the children today while I was at the house with the carpet cleaning gentlemen. When they got home, we all went outside and started to eat on the porch (as all the tables and chairs were up or pushed out of the way of the carpeted areas.
I looked at my daughter's head and said, "I think she painted with red today." I picked up her hair and realized it wasn't paint, it was blood and she had an inch-long gash in her head. I picked up the phone and called the school, because any time there is any injury to the head (not matter how small) they have to write up an incident report.
The administrator went to ask the class lead teacher, who didn't know anything about it—and she was the one who put my daughter in the car. The wound was on the side of her head that her teacher was looking at when she fastened the car seat, so it must not have been bleeding much at when she put her in. It was bleeding, but it was doing so very slowly, so that made sense to my husband and me.
I told the administrator to give me a call if they thought of anything and thanked them. We took a picture of the cut and I texted it to my friend who is a doctor. She called me immediately and told me she'd sent it on to her husband who was in the ER with a pediatrician (he's a doctor too) and the pediatrician said to take my daughter in to get some staples, because he thought the cut was deep enough to merit them.
I told my neighbor thanks for the advice and I would do so. I called our pediatrician's office and the nurse told me they didn't do it so I should take her to the emergency room. Another quick talk with my neighbor and she suggested Urgent Care as an alternative. I didn't think a slow-bleeding one-inch wound really merited an emergency room visit, so I put my happy daughter into the car and she and I and her pink tutu went off to Urgent Care.
Just as we arrived, the assistant teacher in my daughter's class called and was quite worried. She told me a story of something that happened just before my daughter got into the car at pickup that she thought must have been when she cut her head: she had been sitting on the bench for after-school children because she wanted to be beside Malcom and there had been something that happened where they bumped into each other and she fell down. She cried for a short time and Susan (the teacher) talked to her and Malcom about how bumps happen when we're not careful. And that was it. She stopped crying and sat on the other bench and shortly was put into the car.
Her teacher was very apologetic and concerned. I told her to please not worry about it because she wasn't upset when she got home and had there not been blood, we wouldn't have noticed it. I hung up and we went into the Urgent Care to check my daughter in.
Forty minutes later we left the office with two staples in my daughter's head. She was happy throughout the entire procedure, singing the school birthday song and chatting with me about the number of staples she was going to get among other things. She cried for about twenty seconds after the staples went in, but other than that, it was a non-event in her mind.
She is, just as Papa said, his "Rough and Tumble Girl".
The Big Boy Update: My neighbor's twenty-month-old is running now and has had lots of tumbles and face scrapes. My son, in trying to help, kept stopping Whitaker yesterday from pushing the toy shopping cart at full speed down the street. He was trying to help, but his way of stopping Whitaker was to try and grab him and make him stop. When we realized what he was doing we told him it was very nice for him to try and protect Whitaker.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Two staples and hardly any tears (see above). We're still not sure how it happened. I hope no one turned us in as negligent parents.
I looked at my daughter's head and said, "I think she painted with red today." I picked up her hair and realized it wasn't paint, it was blood and she had an inch-long gash in her head. I picked up the phone and called the school, because any time there is any injury to the head (not matter how small) they have to write up an incident report.
The administrator went to ask the class lead teacher, who didn't know anything about it—and she was the one who put my daughter in the car. The wound was on the side of her head that her teacher was looking at when she fastened the car seat, so it must not have been bleeding much at when she put her in. It was bleeding, but it was doing so very slowly, so that made sense to my husband and me.
I told the administrator to give me a call if they thought of anything and thanked them. We took a picture of the cut and I texted it to my friend who is a doctor. She called me immediately and told me she'd sent it on to her husband who was in the ER with a pediatrician (he's a doctor too) and the pediatrician said to take my daughter in to get some staples, because he thought the cut was deep enough to merit them.
I told my neighbor thanks for the advice and I would do so. I called our pediatrician's office and the nurse told me they didn't do it so I should take her to the emergency room. Another quick talk with my neighbor and she suggested Urgent Care as an alternative. I didn't think a slow-bleeding one-inch wound really merited an emergency room visit, so I put my happy daughter into the car and she and I and her pink tutu went off to Urgent Care.
Just as we arrived, the assistant teacher in my daughter's class called and was quite worried. She told me a story of something that happened just before my daughter got into the car at pickup that she thought must have been when she cut her head: she had been sitting on the bench for after-school children because she wanted to be beside Malcom and there had been something that happened where they bumped into each other and she fell down. She cried for a short time and Susan (the teacher) talked to her and Malcom about how bumps happen when we're not careful. And that was it. She stopped crying and sat on the other bench and shortly was put into the car.
Her teacher was very apologetic and concerned. I told her to please not worry about it because she wasn't upset when she got home and had there not been blood, we wouldn't have noticed it. I hung up and we went into the Urgent Care to check my daughter in.
Forty minutes later we left the office with two staples in my daughter's head. She was happy throughout the entire procedure, singing the school birthday song and chatting with me about the number of staples she was going to get among other things. She cried for about twenty seconds after the staples went in, but other than that, it was a non-event in her mind.
She is, just as Papa said, his "Rough and Tumble Girl".
The Big Boy Update: My neighbor's twenty-month-old is running now and has had lots of tumbles and face scrapes. My son, in trying to help, kept stopping Whitaker yesterday from pushing the toy shopping cart at full speed down the street. He was trying to help, but his way of stopping Whitaker was to try and grab him and make him stop. When we realized what he was doing we told him it was very nice for him to try and protect Whitaker.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Two staples and hardly any tears (see above). We're still not sure how it happened. I hope no one turned us in as negligent parents.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Yoga, Round Two
I took a yoga class about a year ago with my next-door neighbor. It was my first yoga class ever and for almost a year it was my only yoga class.
I have a thing going on in my right elbow. I think it happened when I was in my early days of running and fell on it. I think I snapped or messed up something. It does this weird thunk thing if I do just the right (or wrong) motions. It doesn't fare well if I have to lift straight up something heavier than twenty-five pounds and it seems weaker than the other elbow.
I had an MRI on it and the evaluation was that nothing looked wrong. But I notice something and it doesn't seem stable and after that one hour of yoga, it was a complete mess for about a month. The thing that surprised me was that I was doing things I did normally at the gym, but I was doing them to a more extreme level and for longer. I mean hell, some days at the gym I'm sure I do over a hundred pushups with no problems, but holding myself in the pushup position and lifting a leg up and staying there through three yoga positions and I'm in elbow-trouble.
The person teaching the yoga class today is a neighbor who's offering yoga in our clubhouse. I missed the first week so I go there early today and talked to her about alternate positions I could get into if I thought the elbow was going to be strained. She said it sounded like the other class I'd gone to was a different type of yoga (she said some yoga-knowledgeable things at this point, but I don't remember the details.)
As of this evening, my elbow seems totally fine. It was a tough class, but it was interesting and fun. My neighbor is both a great teacher as well as a fun neighbor. I hope I'll be able to make more of the classes.
The Big Boy Update: Daddy told me my son had decided what he wanted for his birthday on the ride to school this morning. He told me what it was and I started to laugh, because I thought he was joking. Then he asked my son (who was in the back seat) to tell me what he wanted and I'll be darned if he didn't know—in detail—the exact thing he had in mind. He said he wanted a, "Lego transformer rescue helicopter with a hook that goes on the bottom that's an orange hook that's very long to hook the shark." He then followed up with, "and then the people say, 'hip hip hooray.'" We're not sure this item truly exists, but we're going to get him the closest thing we can find for his birthday.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter's ideas on birthday presents are much more simple as well as non-specific. We asked her several times and each time she told us the same thing, "I want a panda bear."
Fitness Update: Yoga and then a surprise, quick three mile run this afternoon. Yoga was fun and I don't think I hurt my elbow, which is a great relief.
I have a thing going on in my right elbow. I think it happened when I was in my early days of running and fell on it. I think I snapped or messed up something. It does this weird thunk thing if I do just the right (or wrong) motions. It doesn't fare well if I have to lift straight up something heavier than twenty-five pounds and it seems weaker than the other elbow.
I had an MRI on it and the evaluation was that nothing looked wrong. But I notice something and it doesn't seem stable and after that one hour of yoga, it was a complete mess for about a month. The thing that surprised me was that I was doing things I did normally at the gym, but I was doing them to a more extreme level and for longer. I mean hell, some days at the gym I'm sure I do over a hundred pushups with no problems, but holding myself in the pushup position and lifting a leg up and staying there through three yoga positions and I'm in elbow-trouble.
The person teaching the yoga class today is a neighbor who's offering yoga in our clubhouse. I missed the first week so I go there early today and talked to her about alternate positions I could get into if I thought the elbow was going to be strained. She said it sounded like the other class I'd gone to was a different type of yoga (she said some yoga-knowledgeable things at this point, but I don't remember the details.)
As of this evening, my elbow seems totally fine. It was a tough class, but it was interesting and fun. My neighbor is both a great teacher as well as a fun neighbor. I hope I'll be able to make more of the classes.
The Big Boy Update: Daddy told me my son had decided what he wanted for his birthday on the ride to school this morning. He told me what it was and I started to laugh, because I thought he was joking. Then he asked my son (who was in the back seat) to tell me what he wanted and I'll be darned if he didn't know—in detail—the exact thing he had in mind. He said he wanted a, "Lego transformer rescue helicopter with a hook that goes on the bottom that's an orange hook that's very long to hook the shark." He then followed up with, "and then the people say, 'hip hip hooray.'" We're not sure this item truly exists, but we're going to get him the closest thing we can find for his birthday.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter's ideas on birthday presents are much more simple as well as non-specific. We asked her several times and each time she told us the same thing, "I want a panda bear."
Fitness Update: Yoga and then a surprise, quick three mile run this afternoon. Yoga was fun and I don't think I hurt my elbow, which is a great relief.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Cinnamon Dental Floss
When I was a child you could't have candy, food or gum with you at school. I'm guessing the rules are largely the same now, but as I haven't been in school for quite a long number of years, I don't really know. Maybe when my children are older they'll let me know what terribly unfair rules about food they have at their school and I'll try and be sympathetic, remembering my youth.
Gum was an outright no and if you were found with it, there were varying punishments the teachers would choose to employ. I liked gum well enough, but I didn't break that rule from what I can remember. It was candy that was my thing. I loved candy. I don't think I ever got enough candy and because candy made me "hyperactive" as they called it then, I rarely got any. When other children had candy it was usually a precious commodity and they mostly didn't want to share it with me.
Then one day my good friend down the road pulled out some dental floss during lunch. I got a whiff of cinnamon and asked who had gum? He said it was his cinnamon dental floss and did I want some? I did. I definitely wanted some. I remember having that piece of dental floss in my mouth for I think the next two periods, nursing the last bit of flavor out of it. I vowed to beg my parents mercilessly until they got me some.
I don't remember when or how I got some, but eventually I did. It was the best thing in school. You had the cinnamon flavor, but you couldn't get in trouble for taking care of your teeth. I think I wanted to be caught, but I never was.
I'm fairly certain I used up the roll of floss too quickly and my parents caught on and didn't buy me any more after that.
The Big Boy Update: We were talking about Mimi and Gramps on the way to school and I told them they were in the mountains but that they would come to see us soon. My son cried out from the back seat, "they're not in the mountains, they're in the forest!"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I was typing my blog post yesterday when my daughter climbed up onto the desk and exclaimed to me, "there's an O!" I looked at where she was pointing (at the bottom of the screen) and realized she was pointing to the Microsoft Outlook icon, which is a large 'O'. I didn't even know she knew that letter. Go school!
Fitness Update: We went to the gym today but I was distracted. There was a lunar eclipse during the time we were there. The moon was mostly covered by the earth when we arrived and I ran out after one of the sets to see a thin crescent, just before the full eclipse. I wasn't able to see the full eclipse due to the trees when it happened though. It was still occurring when we were on the way home, even though we were in civil twilight and a much-lightened sky from the east. I tried from several spots but I didn't get to see the red moon before it set.
Gum was an outright no and if you were found with it, there were varying punishments the teachers would choose to employ. I liked gum well enough, but I didn't break that rule from what I can remember. It was candy that was my thing. I loved candy. I don't think I ever got enough candy and because candy made me "hyperactive" as they called it then, I rarely got any. When other children had candy it was usually a precious commodity and they mostly didn't want to share it with me.
Then one day my good friend down the road pulled out some dental floss during lunch. I got a whiff of cinnamon and asked who had gum? He said it was his cinnamon dental floss and did I want some? I did. I definitely wanted some. I remember having that piece of dental floss in my mouth for I think the next two periods, nursing the last bit of flavor out of it. I vowed to beg my parents mercilessly until they got me some.
I don't remember when or how I got some, but eventually I did. It was the best thing in school. You had the cinnamon flavor, but you couldn't get in trouble for taking care of your teeth. I think I wanted to be caught, but I never was.
I'm fairly certain I used up the roll of floss too quickly and my parents caught on and didn't buy me any more after that.
The Big Boy Update: We were talking about Mimi and Gramps on the way to school and I told them they were in the mountains but that they would come to see us soon. My son cried out from the back seat, "they're not in the mountains, they're in the forest!"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I was typing my blog post yesterday when my daughter climbed up onto the desk and exclaimed to me, "there's an O!" I looked at where she was pointing (at the bottom of the screen) and realized she was pointing to the Microsoft Outlook icon, which is a large 'O'. I didn't even know she knew that letter. Go school!
Fitness Update: We went to the gym today but I was distracted. There was a lunar eclipse during the time we were there. The moon was mostly covered by the earth when we arrived and I ran out after one of the sets to see a thin crescent, just before the full eclipse. I wasn't able to see the full eclipse due to the trees when it happened though. It was still occurring when we were on the way home, even though we were in civil twilight and a much-lightened sky from the east. I tried from several spots but I didn't get to see the red moon before it set.
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