Mobile Home

I just got back from a partial week at the MEGA conference in Mobile.  The state department of education puts it on in jointly with the Mobile County Public Schools.  Evidently this has been going on for decades, but in seven years of teaching in Alabama, this is the first I've heard of it.

And I'm hooked.

I think I will have to set aside a week in July for the rest of eternity to attend this thing.

Anyway, so in 12.5 year of having ties to Mobile, this is the first time I was in Mobile all by myself.  No husband, no kids.  Just me in this city that my husband has been raving about for years.

Heretofore, I didn't really understand the draw.  There's nothing wrong with it, but there hasn't really been anything about it that really made it appealing, either (you know, except family), before this week.

I've been there often enough that I know general navigation skills, so I was able to go directly to the Civic Center from I-165 and park to take the shuttle.  And when we (the people standing and waiting) realized on Monday that the shuttle service didn't start until Tuesday a.m., I was able to lead a group of educators on foot (hey, free parking is free parking) to the Convention Center.

Tuesday I was able to take the shuttle and then for lunch I was wandering around downtown.  The place that I had staked out close to the Convention Center to eat was packed to the gills with educators, so I knew I had to take it to the streets.  And as it turns out, I had an expert on that very subject.  Summer of 2006, Eli actually worked in downtown Mobile at the wind-sail-looking government building, which was two blocks south of where I was, so I called him and asked him about where to go.

I ended up in a cute little old-fashioned soda shoppe that also serves sandwiches -- Three Georges on Dauphin Street.  I sat at the counter watching the jerk make sundaes and floats and ate my lunch combo, and then I chose my dessert, and then I paid for my meal.  Yeah, that's right.  I didn't have to pay for my meal until I could ring it up all together.  I then walked back through Bienville Square to get back to the Battlehouse Hotel, where my session was.  Yeah, I pretty much felt like a pro.  I ate way too many sweets, so I hiked it back to the Civic Center when the conference was over.

Being on foot in the city for three days made me appreciate the beauty of the architecture, of the oak trees hanging over the streets, the uniqueness of the heritage of the city.  I loved the old-world feel.  The wrought iron detailing and balconettes on buildings, the Spanish moss, the community squares where people sat and ate their lunches and fed seagulls. It might be a place to move if I could get a job at a building somewhere downtown!  Alas, that may have to wait until retirement since the state board of education is based in Montgomery.

I think what really struck me (pun intended, and you'll understand in a minute) was the storm that rolled in on Tuesday night.  As I looked across the bay, getting ready to drive to my hotel, lightning danced from one end of the sky to the other, reflecting off the choppy bay.  The wide open waterscape made the sky look SO HUGE! No trees or buildings to block the beautiful light show.

I'm amazed. A beach retirement is looking more and more likely...

Love you, Eli.

Cheers.

Patience and Perseverance

One time, I was talking about Elsie's crazy tantrums, and someone observed, "You must have prayed for patience."  Indeed.  What a wild ride.


I'm coming to a point where I have to put on my own big girl panties in dealing with the kids.  They want they want they want.  Lots of things.  They scream and cry if they don't get them.  (The older one is usually the leader, and I've taken to calling them Pete and re-Pete.)  I completely understand why there are spoiled kids out there, because the tantrums stink, and life in the short-run would be so much easier with less screaming.

But, I'm starting to weigh the long-term effects.  What are we teaching our children?  That they can have anything/everything they want, any/every time that want it?  That's hardly a life lesson.

Here are some specific thoughts on the subject I've had lately:

TV -- It's summertime, it's hot, and we're watching more TV than we do during the school year.  I'm not proud of that fact, but it is what it is right now (though as I'm typing this, the kids have the couch cushions off and are building castles and trains and boats, taking trips to the beach and the circus, and whatever else their imaginations fancy--it's actually pretty refreshing and gives me hope that I'm not ruining their minds this summer...well, except that they're humming the tune to Elmo's World as they're dragging the cushions around into new formations).  I know people who use the "on demand" function of their cable provider to show kids shows when they're wanted.  I see some use for this function, but I know that it is overused to proactively eliminate tantrums.  Elsie frequently is screaming at me that she wants to watch Dora.  Well, Dora's not on.  Deal with it.  I've had opportunity to talk with her about a television schedule, about being patient, about not getting to watch what she wants to watch.  And yes, I've had to weather the tantrums.  BUT, they are becoming fewer and farther between.

FOOD -- We visited my family in Texas a week or so ago, and one night we had my mom's taco salad for dinner.  The kids were at first resistant to eating (lettuce can be a deal breaker for them, haha), and my mother suggested that she had something else they could eat.  Yeah, that would have made feeding them easier.  But guess what?  We are not short order cooks.  So, we held the line and the kids did eventually eat what was put in front of them, even if they didn't eat a lot of it (more for me!).  For my particular brood, I'm not concerned about eating habits because they are generally bottomless pits that will eat most anything.  So, if they choose not to eat what is being served for dinner, there is not a menu change.  I'm not saying that it's never happened before and won't happen again (I'm a human being, remember), BUT I am saying that I'm more mindful of not giving in to tantrums, riding it through--isn't it our responsibility to teach our children to respond in appropriate and productive ways to the experience of disappointment?

So, in this trying time with two children at a willful age, the challenge of parenting is one that will make my hair go gray at exponential rates, will make me scream and cry myself, but when we survive--because we will survive--it will make us stronger, and I may actually have more of that elusive patience.  And will be blessed beyond belief.

Until then, cheers.

July 2012 Debt Update

Hello, July!  The heat finally caught up to us, and the thermometers are spiking, which is not such a great thing except for the air conditioning.  On the flip side, the debt thermometer is creeping up and up.  This month we made about $1500 worth of progress.  Again, this was more than I could have imagined, but I am married to a hardworking man.  I've had to finally accept not working this summer since summer school didn't pan out.  It's frustrating that I can't help to make headway, but I'm thankful for time with the little'uns...usually.  One of the greatest epiphanies I had this month is that as the kids get bigger, the grocery bill will increase quite a bit (something about them being bottomless pits and growing children and all that).  I am so thankful that we will be blessed to have our student loans paid off by the time that happens, and that it won't be such a stretch.  Because guess what?  God provides.


 Second 10K Chunk, started 5/1/12
 
Fundraising Thermometer
 
 


A third of the way there, and Eli hasn't even left to do his Army training (the weekend warrior two weeks a year, which is really like 2.5 weeks), so we will make more headway in the next two months or so since Army work is more lucrative than public defender work.

Anyway, thanks for keeping up with us, and thanks for your prayers and encouragement!

Cheers.

Professional Bucket List

I never thought about having a bucket list for my career; now I do, and it consists of just one thing I would like to do before I retire.  I'm sure other things will come up, but this one is pretty huge.

1.  Become a participant in the Fulbright Classroom Teacher Exchange Program.

I have been thinking about next summer (2013) because my best friend D and I are going to take a trip.  2008 was an adventure in NYC and Boston.  It's time for another adventure.  It's expensive.  We're not out of debt, and she's paying off loans and saving up for a doctoral program.  We need a solution.  At some point today as I was researching amazing summer teacher development opportunities that are free, I got this harebrained scheme that we should find teacher travel grants so that our travel could be paid for.  So, that's where my tangent took me.  Eventually, I arrived at the Fulbright website, and started thinking beyond 2013 to about 2022.

So, the gist of it is that I would go for one academic year overseas to teach in another country (right now, participating countries are Czech Republic, Hungary, India and United Kingdom--also Mexico and France, but you have to be fluent in the native tongue for those placements) and a teacher from that country would come to the United States and teach in my place. Amazingly, teachers are encouraged to bring their families with them when they do these exchanges, and I think that this is the most appealing part of this program. I'm not sure how this would work at the local level, but it seems that the prestige of such a program is something that school districts are supposed to be all about, so we'll see.  That's why the prospective date is 2022--plenty of time to establish myself here and feel things out at my school district.

There are other reasons why I'm thinking a decade from now will be perfect:

• We'll be out of debt.  This means that we will also have lead time to save up to travel to nearby countries while we are abroad.
• The house will most likely be paid off.  That's my goal, anyway.  Typically, teachers do a housing exchange.  So, the teacher coming this way will stay at our house and we can stay at his/hers (maybe).
• All current and future Beaver children (God willing) will be of school age, so there will be no need for daycare.  This will also be great for family travel.  And though they won't be able to spend six years of their lives overseas, as I did as a military brat, they will get to experience living in a different culture for a short time (August to July, typically).

There are, of course, some loose ends:

• What to do with Coco?  Well, ten years from now, he will *probably* be deceased, but I know that some cats live well past 20, and he'll be only 19 years old.
• What about the National Guard?  I don't know.  We may not be doing the National Guard anymore.  Just depends on promotion opportunities for Eli at the six year mark, and that's four years from now.  And if we are, then we'll have to figure that out...
• What if my school district does not want to participate in this program?  I don't know.  It's a year-long application process, so anything can happen.  I would probably talk with the Superintendent before applying, just to get an idea of their level of support.  
• Who would want to come all the way to the US and live in Opelika, Alabama?  I don't know that either, but I'm hoping there's someone.
• What if there is no funding and the program is cut?  Well, crap.  Hopefully there will be something similar.

So, it's a big dream.  And it's a bit crazy.  But count my professional bucket list as officially begun.

Toy Clutter

E & O were playing the other day and I realized that they were playing with baby toys.  Yes, that's right.  I still had infant teethers and squeaky toys in the mix of their day-to-day toys.  That (well, that and the fact that I couldn't close the toy drawer in the kitchen) was when I opened my eyes and realized that things were bad.  So, I spent a day organizing their stuff, paring down the mess bit by bit.  I did learn that it's much easier to do this when the kids aren't around, just in case you were thinking about getting rid of some toys, too.

The first thing I did was sit down with paper and pencil and think of general toy categories.  The two main categories were "inside toys" and "outside toys".  I have not yet dealt with the latter.  I started downstairs.

As for inside toys, I made some easy decisions for storage on a few things:

1.  Balls -- kitchen cabinet.  Balls of all shapes and sizes, and frisbees (I know, I know--outside toys, but they're not right now)
2.  Food/Play Kitchen Items -- kitchen toy drawer (we don't have a play kitchen, but we play like we do)
3.  Books -- bookshelf, top shelf
4.  Stuffed Animals -- bookshelf, bottom shelf, blue basket
5.  Blocks -- bookshelf, bottom shelf, recycled animal cracker container (jumbo) from Sam's Club

That was the easy/obvious part.  So, I went through and put the aforementioned toys in the aforementioned locations.  Most of them were already there, but perhaps had too many or had foreign toys that needed to be cleaned out.  I created a bag of stuffed animals to donate, and put all the baby toys in a bag labeled as such.  Everything else got sorted into general categories.  When I was done I had these categories left over:

• Miscellaneous medium-sized stuff -- stacking rocker, jack-in-the box, popper, V-tech laptop, LeapFrog drum, Animal sounds toy, chatter telephone, princess piano, Super Grover play set, dancing duck (don't ask), another block set, froggy castanets, rain stick of sorts
• Kids' meal plastic toys
• Cars/trucks
• Dress up stuff
• Baby dolls and accessories

The kids' meal toys got thrown away, except Strawberry Shortcake, because Elsie saw that pile and exclaimed, "My girl!" and pardoned her girl until a later date.  Everything else went upstairs.

Upstairs was also a wreck.  In addition to the previous categories, I was also dealing with:

• Bath toys that were no longer in the bathtub
• Miscellaneous large toys -- music table, 2 baby strollers, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse couch, pink U-chair, play vacuum cleaner, Sit-N-Spin
• Random toys that don't fit any category, the most prominent being these foam pieces that my sister brought.  They would go on one of those piece-together foam play mats, but they are the edge pieces, not the square centers.  Elsie LOVES these.  She has quite the imagination, so sometimes they are a castle, sometimes a bathtub for her baby, sometime a chair, a boat--you get the idea.  Also in this category are the kazoo and the hand-clapper toy.
• Small plastic animals/animal finger puppets

Anyway, one I had everything sorted, I decided they needed a home instead of one big toy hamper, which turned into two, which became the floor in the hallway, bathroom, all bedrooms.  When Jill moved in, I put together a Closet-Maid Cubeical from Target.  I had the fabric drawers, but I couldn't find them; thankfully, I came across those drawers recently.  The original intent for the organizer was for toys, but it was used for something else for a while, and then it was covered with baby clothes.  Only now can it fulfill its purpose.

The miscellaneous medium-sized items stayed on the middle shelf of the downstairs bookshelf, and the large miscellaneous items are in the spare room, near the Cubeical.  All other categories got a shelf or a drawer in this glorious organizer.  Except bath toys.  Those are in a mesh hanger that I got at the dollar store and they are hanging in the shower.

I think the relief here is that every toy has a play where it belongs, not just a place where we shoved it to get it off of the floor.  Like items are grouped together.  I do not feel like my house is overrun with toys.  

Yes, we'll have to do this again and again, purging as we go as the children grow.  But for now, it FEELS GRRRRRREAT!

Can I get an "Amen!"?

Cheers.