Like, No Like, Lah Dat

The kids (and I) have two weeks off from school (and childcare).

I like it because:

1. I can sleep in until 8:00am instead of waking up at 6:15am.
2. No one needs to scurry around gathering their school stuff before heading out the door.
3. RO, JO, and SO generate much less laundry. When they aren't in school I don't follow standard societal protocol which suggests new outfits must be worn daily. (CO generates plenty of laundry on her own though because she is in the midst of potty training. And she strips down every time she needs to tinkle.)
4. The kids have loads of time to learn new responsibilities. I have this program I follow that breaks down into age groups all the practical things a child needs to learn before they hit 18. They have one-on-one training sessions with me before the task lands on their growing arsenal of mastered jobs that I can then make them do whenever the mood strikes.
5. The kids got some new games for Christmas that we've been playing and playing. Perfection and Hungry Hungry Hippos are my favorites, Yahtzee is stressful, and Wheel of Fortune is nifty, but loud. See #3 below.

I don't like it because:

1. CO won't take naps. And she still needs a daily nap. Now instead of noticing that she's "sweepie," sucking her thumb, and falling asleep, she routinely screams and throws a fit at 11:00am.
2. Toys are everywhere. If it wasn't for RO and JO's love for turning on their beloved Roomba (which belongs to the kids, we'reevilgeniuses!) nobody would ever pick anything up.
3. It's loud downstairs. There's a lot of playing and running around. They do go outside to play, but I don't make anyone go outside. It's cold out there.
4. RO is always telling me he's hungry.
5. I'm feeling lots of guilt because my grant deadline is only two weeks away. I'm writing a 35K federal grant for the high school (cuz I'm nice lah dat) which will help fund a farm to school program. It'll be cool because K-12 will learn about agri-science, 9-12 will maintain a garden in the now-empty space between the high school and the middle school, and eventually, hopefully they'll all eat lots of home-grown food in their school lunches. They also have plans to both sell produce to community members (in lieu of door-to-door fundraisers) and donate excess produce to charity. Cool program, long grant-writing process. I keep telling myself it's not nearly as bad as the successful 50K grant that my friend, Eva, and I wrote in '99. Maybe it's not as bad because now I know what I'm doing. . . I hope! ;)

Babies!

I'm blogging less these days because of these guys:

I'm providing childcare for Ben's co-worker's twins. It's a sweet gig. Along with the four month-old twins, I've been enjoying the adorable new babies in our ward. And this morning I got to see a photo shoot slideshow of my brand new niece (Steve's) who is a tiny miracle. I never did a professional photo shoot of my newborns, no, Sears does NOT count ;), but this makes me wish I had: http://amylynnsmith.com/photocart/slide_show.php?viewGallery=1035 (this link also takes you to my sister in-law's cool photography website). Yay for babies!

Talk About It

When I was student teaching sixth graders, my cooperating teacher told me to be very careful not to say negative things about a student during parent-teacher conferences because she had an experience where a child came to school with bruises the day after parent-teacher conferences. She felt sorrowful knowing that her words prompted someone to harm a child.

"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" ~St. Matthew 18:6

Growing up, remember listening to my peers talk to each other about getting "lickings" from their parents. I know parenting is hard. I know children can be exasperating. I think we all spent some time being exasperating as a children. Physically and/or verbally harming children is wrong. Have you been witness to child abuse? Have you said something that caused a parent to angrily react toward their child and even hurt him or her? As a mom and as a Christian, I feel like staying silent when I know a child is being hurt is wrong. I do empathize with my cooperating teacher's experience. But what can I do or say that may help someone's child in this situation?