Tribute to a Mother

I'd like to take a moment and tell you about a mother. The mother of the mother of my husband. A deeply devout mother who dedicated her life to her daughters. Especially her middle child, my mother-in-law. You see, my mother-in-law had meningitis in her thirties and once she awoke from a three week coma she had to relearn everything. Enter my grandmother-in-law. She packed her bags, moved in and never left. Once again she taught her daughter how to walk. She taught her daughter once again how to eat, talk, go potty and write.  Once again my grandmother-in-law (I call her Didu), patiently taught her daughter how to button a blouse and tie a knot. And although my mother-in-law (who passed away last year) learned all those things she never regained full function. And so Didu stayed. My mother-in-law had lost most of her hearing due to the disease and her balance. My grandmother-in-law was her ears and steadied her when needed, isn't that what we mothers do?

Didu had been bedridden for a while now and lived mostly in her dreamlike world of memories, occasionally vocalized with urgencies such as 'your husband is coming home from work, let us quickly make a snack for him'.  About 4 days ago she entered a permanent dream state or coma. The decision was made to let this 90 something lady go to sleep and today she once again rejoined two of her daughters and her husband.

Didu, rest in peace. I'm here to take care of your grandson.

Your grand-daughter.

Fried, Frazzled, Frustrated or Flummoxed?

I just have one recommendation. Click on the link below, make sure your kids don't read over your shoulder and be prepared to laugh yourself to a stomach ache.

http://boardinginbedlam.blogspot.com/2010/12/arbys-wild-weekend-adventure-with-mary.html

Our almost eleven year old desperately wanted to read this story after watching even her father burst our laughing, but this is R rated. Or would this be PG 13? I am confused. At any rate, she wasn't allowed to read.

Arby, my dh asked if you had aspirations as a writer.  All I can say, if you ever write your memoirs, can I have a personalized, autographed copy?

Wow, an Award! Thank you.

Thank you to the gracious and inspirational blogger of a homeschoolstory for honoring me with the Stylish Blogger Award.  I was told to write seven things about me so here goes:

1. I have lived on three continents.
2. Certain music can move me to tears. I always thought I was weird until an article on MSNBC.com showed me I am not alone. Phew, that's a many decades old load off my shoulders....Not thaaat many decades, but still...
3. I've experienced the pain of infertility and the joy of feeling life grow within me.
4. I like spicy foods and cook a lot of ethnic dishes, primarily Indian.
5. I learned English when I was 15 and it's been my primary language since then.
6. I never thought I'd have a blog, it just kinda grew ( I'd bet this happens to a lot of people)
7. I used to play the flute.

Now, I would love to honor some other bloggers that continue to inspire me.
http://boardinginbedlam.blogspot.com/  This homeschooling Dad hits the nail on the head and makes me laugh.
http://raisingfutureleaders.blogspot.com/ Lisa, is a lady who has done a fine job raising her kids. Her blog is full of cool resources and inspiration.
http://oursplendidadventure.blogspot.com/  This budding blog is something to keep an eye on!
http://thechurchcook.blogspot.com/ Kay Heritage, I find myself coming back to her astounding recipes over and over.
and last but not least http://dreamaboutfood.blogspot.com/ designer of awesome recipes! Really, don't go there if you don't want to be addicted.  If you decide to visit her site anyway... I did warn you and I will not be held responsible.....

Thank you all, though who visit my blog and leave a note now and then, you ALL are apprecitated.

Early Childhood Math Concept

I've been meaning to share our approach to teaching Bear math for a long time. The system developed when he had just turned 3 years old. Along with a concept in numbers I also re-enforced numbers, patterns and fine motor skills. The cost of this was minimal.



We used pipe cleaners and inexpensive wooden beads from a craft store
along with colored card board. Each cardboard have a number on one side and the
corresponding number of dots on the other side.

 

Once he started to understand the concept of numbers we enjoyed additional activities such as bringing the right amount of toy cars in a particular color.



Colored beads and pipe cleaners are a wonderful way to teach young children about patterns.The reasonably rigid structure of the pipe cleaner makes beading easier.

 Of course at the end of the day the best tools and activities for a child are interaction with parents.  Count the apples in a bowl, the eggs in the basket. Play games like ' if you and sissie have breakfast and both of you want one egg each, how many eggs should I cook?' Count Frootloop style cereals and let them make patterns for a necklace. Use Frootloop style cereal  for learning to make bar graphs and tally charts.

Bear is now five years old and does 2nd grade math. While I am thrilled about his interest in math, I know he is no prodigy (thank goodness). Nor is the fact that he does 2nd grade math so remarkable since the standard seems abysmally low. The wonderful thing about homeschooling is the fact that he can learn at his pace, whatever that may be. I am convinced however, that starting early is the key. As long as it's a game and there is no pressure a child's natural curiosity will lead them to discover and investigate.

Arrggh! Perfectionism meets Teenage Hormones!

This morning is not shaping up too well. My ten year old daughter is upstairs in her room sobbing her eyes out because she didn't get a glowing critique on a piece of creative writing.  She has a tendency to mix the tense mid paragraph going from present perfect to past perfect. Additionally she failed to meet the assignement's real purpose, to create a character and tell us about her. 

My almost eleven year old is sobbing in her room and I am really to bang my head against the wall. I told her that I am not her personal cheering squad and will push her harder as she gets older. Mediocrity will not do. Mediocrity will not get her anywhere in this world. Look where mediocrity has led this country. Hard work and sacrifice by our forfathers built this amazing country. And mediocrity is tearing it down.

(A few minutes later) I just realized that she has no goals. Nothing she is working towards. She is just floating along without any plan on where she wants to go. Her best friend is working towards being an olympic swimmer. Boy, that kid works hard. Ever seen a ten year old girl with sixpack abs? I have. Even more amazing that she does all this on a diet not containing any dairy, eggs, or nuts since she is allergic (anaphylacts).  She is currently in the top 2% in her age group in the country! My daughter on the other hand seems to, at some point, have given up.  Her allergies have taken away so much we all grew soft on her. Being highly intelligent and not having to work very hard in many regards added to the problem. Things just kinda come to her. In many ways I really admire my daughter. Of course I love both my kids but my daughter is someone truly amazing.  Now we need to find a way to channel this and I have to find a way to guide her.

Her current assignement, not meant for anyone's eyes but her own, is to write in her private journal what her goals and dreams are for herself.  It's time to be still, to be contemplative and look within.

For both of us.

Great Gift Idea for Any Parent Interested in Education

Fun in education has come a long way since I grew up. Take the above pictured set for example.  I wish they had stuff like that when I grew up!  So what is this you ask?
Combine richly illustrated 'Britannica' produced books with  a SD-X Interactive Reader Pen and let the magic happen. It did in my house. So much so, that the kids had fights over who got to use it when and how long.  We purchased the the above pictured set at Sam's Club for about $25 and it's worth every penny and more.  The set contains 3 books and a 'Reader' Pen which when placed at various points on each page provides hours of additional information and audioclips. We bought the set which has 'EARTH', 'HUMANS' and 'SPACE'. There are, however, other combinations available.  The set is published by PIL Books and here, for your convenience, is a link to their interactive store. In addition to the hours and hours of interesting soundbites your child can also challenge herself with quizzes.  Now, because this set became the ball everyone wanted to play with in our home I appreciated the added bonus in the headset port available on the pen's top. This was helpful for us as one kid was able to listen to his heart's content to the lessons while perusing a richly illustrated book without distracting his sister who was working on something else at the same time. We simply used the headphones from his I-Pod Shuffle.  I contacted the boss-man of PIL Books in the hopes of getting a 'give-away' arranged but unfortunately my e-mail was ignored lost.  But don't let this stop you from checking out these cool book sets. This investment is a treasured part of our growing home library.

Contemplative Days

I am in a contemplative mood, to say the least. But before I go deeper into my ruminations, let me tell you what brought me here.

Thanksgiving was marvelous. Exhausting but wonderful. My friend went on ad nauseam about her 'new kitchen' but other than that we had a good time. She and her husband come every year.  Since our families live too far away they are our ersatz relatives and the children adore them. The fact that they bring really cool toys doesn't hurt either (*smile*). On Friday we did nothing. No, actually it was NOTHING in capital letters. We bummed around all day recovering from the previous exhausting days. I haven't bummed around like this for years and it was marvelous. On Saturday we went shopping at an outlet mall which is a little more than an hour away. We returned home rather late and the kids went straight off to bed. To decompress I stayed up and played on the PS3. It's my addiction. That and a glass of wine make my day. What can I say, I am a teenager in an old broad's body. I was a mere minute or two from turning off the PS3 to retire to bed when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and it was the name of one my my employees. At 12:40 AM that could only be some bad news. My young employee sobbed into the phone when I answered 'My Mom's dead, we found her, she's dead.'

....

....

I asked what any good boss would ask : 'Where are you? Are you at home?' When she said she was I told her I'd be right there.  Since she lives less than 5 minutes drive from my house I was there within 10 minutes.  And there, my employee of 5 years and her sister collapsed in my arms and cried and cried and cried.  They had found their mother, you see. She had some substance abuse issues and her not answering the phone or calling back only several days later was normal. So when calls on Thursday and Friday went unanswered, the girls went to check on her on Saturday evening. According to the fire department people and the police she had died sometime on Thursday. Autopsy results are pending.  The sad thing here is that the kids are blaming themselves. Without going into details here, I can tell you this with certainty. It was not their fault.  Was this unexpected? No. But in a twinkling these young women lost their mother.

Previous weeks saw me loosing a dear friend. He died suddenly and unexpectedly at the young age of 63.  And then, a beloved family family friend went in from some routine colon cancer surgery and is now, almost 7 weeks later still fighting for his life because of complications and largely due to incompetent doctors. And that's in Germany.  Then my employee's mother fell on the carpet and stayed there. I am also worried sick about my Dad. He is alive and propped up with a stick and the marvels of modern medicine. My mother too has health issues (cancer survivor) But Dad? A bad heart, bad kidneys, a bad liver and claws for hands because the rheumatic arthritis ate his bones and dissolved them. It breaks my heart.

After Peter died (the friend I told you about ) I made sure I sent a heartfelt card to the seriously sick friend in Germany. And thankfully he got it while he could still read. Peter? Well, I always meant to write to him. I always meant to take the time and send him an e-mail but just always found myself too busy.  And now he's gone. And my employee's mom? Gone too.  I learned one thing from this, don't put off letting the people in your life know how you feel about them. There is no 'replay memory' option in our lives, no 'undo' button. As for me? I plan to make good use of the pile of  cards purchased over the years and really send them to the intended recipients.

One more thing about the friends in Germany. Every year since the birth of my daughter they've sent Advents Calendar cards.  And today, even though Rolf is still in the hospital and his faithful wife at least 4-6 hours a day by his side, they sent the children their yearly special cards and me a card to thank me for the one I sent them a few days ago. Even in some of  their darkest hours they still thought about other people. Hours later I still tear up over this.  Stick a fork in me, I am done!

As for me, I am taking a lesson from all of this. Acknowledge all of those who are in your lives. I've always made sure I read the badges of store clerks and use their names when I talk to them. I've always written down the names of customer service I talk to over the phone and use those when talking to them. Now it's time to acknowledge those I've been taking for granted.