Things I say over and over to my kids with the same disappointing results:
Hope and faith are alive in parenting.
Things I hear over and over with the same disappointing results:
My daughter came home with a letter from her teacher today. Her teacher recommends she stay after school for some help with math. I’m not really shocked that a child of mine would need help understanding math. But Amy is in first grade. The highest level of math they’ve been working on is adding one to numbers up to ten. I emailed her teacher with some questions. And I’m more confused than ever about public education after reading her response.
I imagine I’ll give consent to extra help at the recommendation of her teacher, but the chasm in attitude between what I see in elementary school and what I sense in secondary schools is alarming to me. There are about 26 students in my daughter’s class. We’ll be dealing with more than 100. We’re not going to be able to worry much about the kids at 70%, are we?
Slice of Life: October 25, 2011
We had a frozen pizza for dinner one night recently. A pan pizza. “Pan” meaning “square,” of course. It was a nice-quality pizza with tangy sauce and a crispy but not-too-thin crust. My four-year-old wouldn’t eat it. He was upset because of the shape. In his experience, pizzas were round, consisting of triangular-shaped pieces. He said he would only eat triangles, not squares.
My pizza experience has taught me to appreciate pizza of all shapes. My homemade pizza is generally round on one side, with a couple of odd angles jutting out the other side. Still pizza. If my life is a pizza, sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the number of toppings on one piece. Or by the simple size of the slice. Maybe, like my son, I’m thrown off by the unusual shape it’s presented in.
The pizza cutter, however, is one of my favorite kitchen utensils. When life gives you pieces that are too large, a few techniques can help you manage. No matter the shape of the pizza, the pizza cutter makes cutting it easy.
Also, I’m really impressed with the person who combined the inventions of knife and wheel to create the first pizza cutter. Amazing.
No matter its shape or size, the pizza we call life can be satisfying and even fun. Sometimes we just need to work harder to recognize how life’s most promising adventures present themselves.
Slice of Life: October 11, 2011
I’m not a very formal person. I wear flip-flops. Lots of t-shirts and jeans. Loungey pants at home. Occasionally I’ll venture out to get the paper or chase the kids in my jammies, and I definitely dress down to mow the lawn or go running, but I try to dress a little nicer when I go places.
I like to think I act a little nicer, too. Not just being kind to people, but being…proper, I guess? I never thought of myself as too proper a person, but writing something like this may just slam me into that category. So here I am.
What bugs me that people do in public that I wish they would keep inside their own homes… or more, specifically in some instances, bathrooms:
A time and place for everything. If it comes out of, or off of your body, think twice before doing it in public.
There are some things that should not be done in front of the world.
Sometimes I too violently stir my hot chocolate. Spills everywhere. Just like my kids.
Some people think hot chocolate is a seasonal beverage, served only after frolicking in snowdrifts and stacking snowmen. I maintain that it’s desirable year-round, and savor the sweet nectar even in the heat of the summer.
Homemade hot chocolate is a lot better than instant, and does remain in my heart a cold weather-season drink. My mom and I would only make the from-scratch version on chilly fall or winter days after a day of yardwork or play. I loved coming in smelling like leaves, rain, or snow, and warming up to a warm mug of the stuff. We’d scoop it out with a large metal ladle into mismatched mugs and cups and watch smiles appear on red-cheeked faces.
Instant hot chocolate and its ever-presentness has spoiled the romance of this image a bit for me. I started seeing hot chocolate as an anytime treat somewhere between high school and college. Sometimes I just need sugar. And chocolate. And those little packets are inexpensive and ohsoconvenient.
The homemade version on winter days is still magical, but, like my kids, I can’t wait that long for it. I drink it almost every day. I just need to stir more slowly.
Speaking of slices, I just had a slice of coconut cream pie. A large slice. I’m pretty sure that negated the calories burned from running five miles this morning and mowing the lawn this afternoon.
I’ve long ago come to the conclusion that I’ll never be skinny. I like cookies too much. And ice cream. And pretty much any type of sweet or bread.
I try to keep my life in balance. That’s why I run. I’ve only ran one 5K, two 10Ks and two half marathons this year, but I keep moving enough to only let about half of the calories I ingest affect my thighs too much (I really have no idea, it's just a guess).
Here it is. I’m about to share one of my biggest fears. Please don’t judge me too harshly. I’m deathly afraid of watching the news one day and a story will come on about the obesity epidemic in America, and I will recognize MYSELF as one of the large characters walking around in the B-roll background footage as the reporter cites depressing statistics. Well, I’m pretty sure I’m not there yet. Maybe I should sign up for another race this year, though.
