Silent Sunday 7/14/13

Pretzel Boy

What a tired boy!  This is what happens after a busy day of swimming in the pool, swinging on the swing and chasing down the ice cream truck!  He came in to watch the History Channel this is how I found him.

O is for orange christ

Right before Spring Break, a friend of mine asked for help.  She needed to take one of her cars to a body shop, a body shop that was 45 minutes away.  We talked through several ideas, and it ended up that I followed her in her other car.  We stopped to get gas and Michael said 'I want a drink!'  My friend said she would run in and get us all drinks so she asked Michael what he wanted.  It's a good thing we are both Kindergarten teachers, because neither one of us batted an eye when he said 'I want some Christ'.  She looked at him and said 'they sell Jesus in a can?'  That's when I started to giggle. We finally figured out that he wanted Orange Crush!

N is for nana

Nana is a teacher that I taught beside for a couple of years.  She was close to retirement.  She had never married or had children.  I was half way through grad school when I found out I was pregnant.  Shortly after having my son, I became a single parent.  Nana and I had become good friends before Michael was born, however, she turned into EXACTLY what we needed in our lives. One of the downfalls of moving 4 1/2 hurs away from everyone you know, is that your support group dwindles.  In stepped Nana!  She kept Michael for me so much while I was finishing grad school.  She loved him.  And he loved her.  The older he became, the more thankful I was to have her in our lives.  She filled the role of 'grandmother' that we needed in our lives.

M is for Michael and mommy

Michael and Mommy (and cousin Alexis) when mommy got her Master's Degree!

L is for L.L. Cool J

Can I just get one bug collective YUM for that delicious man?  I mean, wow!

I have been a fan of the lovely James Smith for as long as I can remember.  Lets take a minute to look at him through the years.


 
 And did you see this? He's not only nice to look at but useful to have around the house!

And being the great man that he is, he's made some educational songs, which means I get to watch him at work!

We can end with this... Go wipe the drool off you computer screen now...

I is for independent

I have always been an independent person.  I have great family, friends and support, but I also know my own mind and make my own decisions.  Independence is a trait I want my son to have, but I'm not sure how to teach that?  I know that I model it.  When appropriate, I 'think out loud' about things so he can hear my thought process.  I give him choices and respect those choices.  Again, when it's appropriate.  If I let him choose if he wanted to brush his teeth, he would be toothless.  I do let him choose, for example, if he wants to brush his teeth before he gets dressed or after he gets dressed.  

What else can I do?  How do you encourage independence in your children?

H is for Host

As in... The Host, by Stephanie Meyer (of Twilight fame).

I recently devoured this 600+ page book. In a week.  I did nothing but read when I was home.  I got the majority of it done one weekend.  I laid on the couch and read read read read.  Reading is my first choice activity.  I read every night.  It's one of the reasons I am so passionate about teaching my students to read and why I am/was thrilled beyond belief when my son started reading at age 3.  I'm glad I got it done before the movie came out!

G is for girls and growing up

I have, without a doubt, one of the best TA's in the world.  However, I've been really blessed and lucky with my TA's.  She has two boys and I love to talk to her about them.  As a single mom however, I am really not looking forward to the the whole growing up/puberty/girls thing. I'm going to be beating the girls back with a stick when he grows up!

F is for faith, friends

People often ask me how I do it as a single parent.  I have two main answers... faith and friends.  It was my faith that led me to NC 10 years ago on my own.  Now, it is again my faith in God that keeps me here.

I also have the BEST group of friends.  Even luckier, I get to work side by side with some of them as teachers :)

E is for Ellie

Ellie is Michael's stuffed elephant.  Actually, it belongs to his Nana, but he commandeered it one time when we spent the night with her and it has lived with us every since.  The Curious George was mine when I was a little girl.  I loved that little monkey so much, I'm just tickled pink that he loves it too!

D is for dirt

DIRT

There's still a shoe in that mud 'pit'.  

In the fall of 2012, I heard Michael yelling 'Mama... Help!'  I went outside to find him stuck in the mud but happy as could be.

C is for Caboz

Caboz is one of my favorite of Michael's mispronunciations.  He has said 'caboz' since he started talking instead of the word 'because'.  It is pronounced /kuh/ /boz/. The 'o' is pronounced as a short o (i dont know how to create that marking) I love it so much, I let it go on way longer than I should.  The thing is, he has such an advanced vocabulary,  that hearing the word becoz helped me remember how old he truly is/was.  Very recently, he said the word and I felt a little pinch of guilt, so I opened my mouth to tell him the word was really 'because' and he looked at me (I'm pretty sure he would have rolled his eyes if he were a little older).  His exact words were, "I know the word is really because its just caboz I have said caboz for so long that it comes out of my mouth instead of because."

He makes my heart so happy!  As happy as a boy at a bakery who can pick out anything he wants!

B is for Birthing a Boy

 His name is Michael, and he is my world.  I remember the day he came into my world.  He was a few weeks early.  I had been in and it of the hospital and on bed rest when the doctor said they weren't going to be able to continue stopping my labor.  My local hospital didn't have a NICU.  That's when the panic set in.  Scary option #1 was to deliver my sweet boy where we were and airlift him to the hospital with a NICU.  Scary option #2 was transfer me and hope I didn't give birth in the ambulance. Fortunately, we made it to the hospital in time for a pretty smooth delivery and he was in the NICU for just a few days.

This is one of my favorite pictures of him.  It was taken at his first birthday party!

A is for awesome

A is for awesome... because my kid is awesome!

And blogging is awesome!  I'm super excited to be joining this A-Z challenge.

Here is my kid...

with one of the teachers from my school on Multicultural Night.

Here is a movie he made with lego's.

And here is a link to my OTHER blog... this one is about school and teaching.

The KinderGarden

Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny appeared last night and left some things for the boy, despite me calling the EB to telling him about the boys attitude yesterday.  He is a pretty good boy usually, so the EB must have forgave him.  :)

Yesterday, we drove from NC to WV for Spring Break.  It is usually about a 4 1/2 hour drive.  Yesterday was about an 8 hour drive.  Right after we crossed the Virginia state line, all movement stopped.  We sat on the interstate for over an hour.  People were out of their cars walking around.  There was a pick-up football game.  I haven't seen it on the news yet, but I heard it was a 22 car accident.

Once we finally got moving, we ended up stopping to eat and play at McDonalds because we had been in the car WAY to long!

Sing it Sister!

One of the blogs I follow is notSupermom and you can find her here.

Her post today was 6 things you should never say to a single parent, and I felt the need to chime in.

Run over and read it.  Go ahead, I'll wait...

...

...

Done? No?  Keep reading.

...

...

Ok, great!  Two of them bother me more than the others.

#4  Help from the Government??? Excuse me?  This one makes me want to cuss.  B!#(H please!  I get squat.    I have a Master's Degree.  Granted, my chosen career field is a low paying one and is really struggling.  I'm a professional. I work hard.  I kick butt at my job.  I teach Kindergarten.  I have a BA in Elementary Education and a MA in Reading Education. Do I struggle?  Absolutely!  Don't assume every single parent is receiving help from the government.  

#6 I know just how you feel because my husband/wife works... BLAH BLAH BLAH.  It is not the same.  You don't know how I feel.  I can't even tell you how other single parents feel.  Sometimes, I can't even tell you how I feel about being a single parent.  Single parenting is not an emotion, it is a fact of life.  

I do not regret the decisions I made that led me to being a single parent.  I knew it would be difficult but you never know just how difficult things will be.  I did everything I could to prepare for it.  I'm fortunate that I have a wonderful support group.  My son and I have many people in our lives who love us, care for us and help us.  Without those people, our family and friends, we would struggle more than we do.  I would like to add another one.

Unless you are one of my nearest and dearest (which actually, my nearest and dearest are free to say anything to me, but they are different)...

#7 Are you going to get married/have another baby?  Don't ask because I don't know.  I would LOVE to have another baby.  However, I will not bring another one, purposefully, into this world as a single parent.  I don't know if I'll ever get married again.  Part of me hopes so.  The other half isn't so sure.    The bottom line is, I don't know all the details about my future.  That isn't singular to being a single parent.  I don't go around asking married friends when they are going to get divorced.  Things happened and I made my choices.  

A-Z Blogging Challenge

In order to be a better blogger (writer, reader, etc) it's important to spend time blogging.  However, all the good ideas, appear randomly during the day and by the time I sit down to write, it sounds like a robot droning on and on (and on and on and on).  Not exactly exciting stuff.

(Enter stage left) And here comes the A to Z Blogging Challenge!  In April, the blog leader will list a letter each day of the week and everyone doing the blog challenge will write a blog post based on that letter!

Want to join me?  Go here- http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/A To Z Challenge

A man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself - like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks. Jean Kerr

Those who know me well, know that my housekeeping philosophy is not so much of the 'a place for everything and everything in it's place' but more along the lines of 'I live in a museum, everything is displayed!'  Recently, I have been trying to do a better job of keeping things picked up.  I read somewhere that having a less cluttered house could improve your weight and your finances.  I'm assuming it's an organizational thing, because those 2 perks are still lost on me.  Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up rich and skinny, but I'm not holding my breath.  Noticed perks have included more time for my gorgeous boy, improved quality of life because I'm not constantly losing things and less stress.  Things still feel overwhelming at times, but I'm no longer trying to trick myself into cleaning, which is a win for me!  One of the tips I read when I was reading about 'plans' for keeping your house clean payed off big tonight.  I was trying to decide on tackling the laundry or the dishes, neither of them looking to be like much fun.  I remember a bit of advice that said 'tackle the thing that will instantly improve your day to day life.'  For me, that meant tackling the sock basket.  Ya' know, that basket of a billion socks that aren't matched?  Yeah... mine was about to explode.  In the mornings I would fish through there and find socks that appeared in the same color family.  The 5 year old LOVES wearing his socks 'wacky-tacky' style but I hate doing the mad dash for socks in the morning.  So for 30 minutes (at least I got to sit and watch NCIS) I matched socks.  Not just socks- but 46 pairs of socks.  That's a lot of socks.  However, I'm already feeling better about the morning... as long as the boys pants dry I'll be doing great!