He is timeless. He requires no batteries. He does not flash or make noise. He is a potato head, that’s Mr. Potato Head to the world. I don’t think the version they have now has changed much since the original one. Here is the link to the history, but if you don’t feel like going there, I’ll say a few things. The year was 1952 and the plastic body parts were originally going to be prizes in a cereal box and mommy would provide the potato for hours of fun. I can see my kids sitting there with a potato punching pieces into it while I bake a cake from scratch. However, WWII was over, and people didn’t like the idea of wasting potatoes, but I bet the “people” were either childless or dads like Don Draper who were in an office all day and didn’t have to worry about how to entertain a child. Plus if we are going to try and save food, we shouldn’t put a toy at a bottom of a cereal box, but that is just me.
The actual plastic potato and all his body parts came together soon after, and everyone has loved him ever since. He has branched out a little with a Mrs. Potato Head and the spuds. You can go to the Mr. Potato Head website for cool ideas if you can’t figure out yourself he can teach body parts. My brother and I had a lot of fun screwing him up, putting his teeth where his shoes should be, stuff kids all over America have done forever. I would like to add that our potato head had a pipe! Who else had one with a pipe? They didn’t take Frosty’s pipe away, but that is another debate for later.
Mr. Potato Head has made his way into cinema. He had a leading role in Toy story. He introduced children to Picasso, which I appreciated much more than Jackson Pollack’s splattering which resulted in applesauce all over the kitchen. Men all over the world can take a lesson from him as he sat in the Barbie convertible, “I’m a married spud, I’m a married spud.”
My favorite Mr. Potato Head scene is from the 1983 movie War Games. Here we have the very young Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy talking to two computer hackers about how to break into a system. The big line: “Mr. Potato Head! Mr. Potato Head! Back doors are not secrets!” Does this mean that a backdoor is so simple someone that can play with the toy can break into a system using the secret password only the system designer knows? If I could follow the conversation it can’t be that difficult. What looks better with age: Matthew, Ally, the computers, or the potato head? I love that scene, but don’t stop watching. In the next part of the clip Matthew answers the question, “What did we do before Google?”
Teachers are all over Mr. Potato Head. When I started teaching Spanish, one of the first things I got as a gift from a fellow Spanish teacher was a Mr. Potato Head. I have taught Spanish from Pre-K to high school and all of my students get psyched when you pull out that potato head. All the hands go up in the air. Everyone wants a turn to push a body part into a potato and say “La nariz.” I love it.
When Frances started speech therapy four years ago, the first thing that skinny-minnie young pathologist did was pull out a potato head. The first thing my daughter did was scream and run away. For the first month Sally* would try to get her to point to body parts or ask for a body part and for a month my daughter would thrash and scream. Now, I don’t want to start a health care debate, but fifty dollars for thirty minutes of my own money was a lot for her to scream at a potato. I was also very pregnant with baby number two, and one day during a session I couldn’t wait any longer so I left the room to go to the bathroom and as I came back I looked through the window. There was my daughter pointing and signing and sitting nicely. She was working that potato head while mommy was out of the room! After that day, I started taking a People magazine and waiting in the lobby. Sorry. She also went through a phase where she only wanted potato heads. Her attention span was very flighty, so in a way it was good that he had so many parts. She could put them all on, take them all off, and start over again.
I guess I should thank Mr. Potato Head for all of his years of service: in education, in Speech therapy, and in pop culture. My baby is discovering his goodness and began playing with that potato head I was given (gasp!) thirteen years ago. Mr. Potato Head, you are my favorite carbohydrate: baked, scalloped, French fried, Spanish tortilla, oh have mercy……
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Finger Painting
Just the name ought to tell you to keep going and not throw it in your cart, but we buy it anyway. Finger painting is a rite of passage. It’s an “Our infant is now a toddler” kind of thing. I loved it when Frances was tiny. I remember her first birthday party when I just had one child. Afterwards, she slathered paint all over pieces of paper and I would let them dry. Then I would use all of the cool jagged scissors I had and scrap booking paper and blank cards from Michaels to make “Frances original” thank you notes. Nowadays, you can just be thankful you got a thank you note, OK?
Kids love to acceptably stick their hands in something funky feeling and smear it. Typically developing kids adore it, but autistic kids and other kids with sensory issues relish it. Frannie would get a grin so big on her face and dip her hands and arms in the paint and a sense of contentment would wash over her. She had to have it all over her hands and arms and in between her fingertips and squish it. I am only beginning to realize now that she was sensory seeking.
A year later we have her in a private preschool in Pittsburgh and she is studying artists (yes, I know, don’t take me there). All of a sudden, she is flicking applesauce around the kitchen and smearing it on the table. I begged her to stop, but she looked up at me and said, “Look Mommy, I Jackson Pollack.” I sent the director an email about the events that transpired in my kitchen and a request to have dear Jackson stricken from the curriculum. Then I thought I better send that woman a second note explaining I was kidding before my husband got a call in his office. Good choice on my part. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to say “joke,” then I would have gotten a six page letter about her aesthetic perception and how small children need the right to explore their artistic abilities and exposure to the fine arts and the big names. Um, my kitchen was covered in applesauce. That could have happened if I let her watch the WWE SmackDown.
So, you might ask, why do I keep buying this paint if it is so messy? Aside from her loving it, in some ways it is very low maintenance. How can you screw up finger paint? You can’t really. And anybody anywhere can find something positive to say about it. “She put a lot of energy into that one,” or “He sure was in a good mood when he made that gloppy mess.” You can let your own creative juices soar just describing it.
While I can go to the local Walmart for the paint, where I live they don’t carry the paper. Bummer. At first I was letting them finger paint on computer paper. The problem with that was that the paper would disintegrate under the paint and make a bigger mess on the table. I had to go the Purple Bear, the specialty toy store in town on the green. I was very proud of both of the kids on the way over. I specifically told them that we were going for finger paint paper and this was one trip before the grocery store. We were not looking or buying anything else. A parent could go bankrupt in there. The boys were in the stroller and Frances was next to them grinning from ear to ear. They were so good. I asked for shiny paper for finger painting because I decided it would go quicker if I just asked a sales attendant instead of torturing the kids by staying in there longer necessary. She looked at me like I was from Mars and then she said, “You mean glossy?” I took my own advice and semi-walked away from retaliating that shiny and glossy gave me the same connotation. Of course she was right about the glossy, so I am glad I just nodded and thanked her for bringing it to the front for me. That couldn’t be enough for a trip to the toy store with my crew. As she is putting the “glossy” finger paint paper in the bag, my big mouth three year old has to say “Mommy! Are we going to buy ketchup now?” The woman stared at the paper and then at me and said they carried the paint and I didn’t need to buy the ketchup. Good grief if I was going to just buy ketchup to paint with I wouldn’t stop there. I would buy mustard, mayonnaise, and pickle relish and then drag a shower curtain out to the back yard and totally have the neighbors fall in love with me as we smear condiments on the vinyl in the name of aesthetic pleasure.
I have had many a “Super mommy” moment with finger paint. There have been nasty rainy or snowy days in New England when I have mixed up a chocolate pudding box and had all three of them finger painting away into chocolate happiness. I have even been an extra super mommy and attempted to have them spell in it, or at least draw shapes and guess letters. The baby gets covered in it and cackles in delight to be part of the older two’s world. Nice.
You can spice finger painting up a bit by adding glitter and tools to paint with instead of your fingers. My kids love to use Q-tips, old tooth brushes, and sponges to smear their paint around. They have tried to use traditional paint brushes, but they really prefer the other things I mentioned. I am going to be brave and make my own paint some day. What else am I going to make with flour and cornstarch? I even have food coloring left over from my volcano attempt.
I have written before about our use of foam at bath time. They also love to use bath tub finger paint. Again, it is easily removed from the nice bathtub. They paint all over the tub and the walls, and I have been known in a “Super mommy moment” to challenge them and say, “Who can draw a circle first? Who can draw the letter T?” There is something in a little competition. I think they get it from the brother/sister bunny rabbit pair Max and Ruby, but they seem to love painting all over each other and laughing. It is paint/soap after all and at least on those nights they will all be squeaky clean. Another “mommy” (translatable gag) moment is to mix the paints as it says to on the bottles. Yellow and blue make green, red and blue make purple, red and yellow make, hey wait a minute, you know this, sorry.
I am not sure what purpose traditional finger painting serves other than to work on the fine motor skills and sensory delays. Maybe someday one of my children will find themselves in a remote jungle in Costa Rica being chased by an alien who likes to hunt for fun, but only has thermal vision, so they will need to quickly get that mud all over their bodies to hide their heat before he gets them. All of these Crayola kits that end up on the counter tops as I desperately try to get it up before my husband gets home are really going to come in handy then. Can’t wait…..
Kids love to acceptably stick their hands in something funky feeling and smear it. Typically developing kids adore it, but autistic kids and other kids with sensory issues relish it. Frannie would get a grin so big on her face and dip her hands and arms in the paint and a sense of contentment would wash over her. She had to have it all over her hands and arms and in between her fingertips and squish it. I am only beginning to realize now that she was sensory seeking.
A year later we have her in a private preschool in Pittsburgh and she is studying artists (yes, I know, don’t take me there). All of a sudden, she is flicking applesauce around the kitchen and smearing it on the table. I begged her to stop, but she looked up at me and said, “Look Mommy, I Jackson Pollack.” I sent the director an email about the events that transpired in my kitchen and a request to have dear Jackson stricken from the curriculum. Then I thought I better send that woman a second note explaining I was kidding before my husband got a call in his office. Good choice on my part. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to say “joke,” then I would have gotten a six page letter about her aesthetic perception and how small children need the right to explore their artistic abilities and exposure to the fine arts and the big names. Um, my kitchen was covered in applesauce. That could have happened if I let her watch the WWE SmackDown.
So, you might ask, why do I keep buying this paint if it is so messy? Aside from her loving it, in some ways it is very low maintenance. How can you screw up finger paint? You can’t really. And anybody anywhere can find something positive to say about it. “She put a lot of energy into that one,” or “He sure was in a good mood when he made that gloppy mess.” You can let your own creative juices soar just describing it.
While I can go to the local Walmart for the paint, where I live they don’t carry the paper. Bummer. At first I was letting them finger paint on computer paper. The problem with that was that the paper would disintegrate under the paint and make a bigger mess on the table. I had to go the Purple Bear, the specialty toy store in town on the green. I was very proud of both of the kids on the way over. I specifically told them that we were going for finger paint paper and this was one trip before the grocery store. We were not looking or buying anything else. A parent could go bankrupt in there. The boys were in the stroller and Frances was next to them grinning from ear to ear. They were so good. I asked for shiny paper for finger painting because I decided it would go quicker if I just asked a sales attendant instead of torturing the kids by staying in there longer necessary. She looked at me like I was from Mars and then she said, “You mean glossy?” I took my own advice and semi-walked away from retaliating that shiny and glossy gave me the same connotation. Of course she was right about the glossy, so I am glad I just nodded and thanked her for bringing it to the front for me. That couldn’t be enough for a trip to the toy store with my crew. As she is putting the “glossy” finger paint paper in the bag, my big mouth three year old has to say “Mommy! Are we going to buy ketchup now?” The woman stared at the paper and then at me and said they carried the paint and I didn’t need to buy the ketchup. Good grief if I was going to just buy ketchup to paint with I wouldn’t stop there. I would buy mustard, mayonnaise, and pickle relish and then drag a shower curtain out to the back yard and totally have the neighbors fall in love with me as we smear condiments on the vinyl in the name of aesthetic pleasure.
I have had many a “Super mommy” moment with finger paint. There have been nasty rainy or snowy days in New England when I have mixed up a chocolate pudding box and had all three of them finger painting away into chocolate happiness. I have even been an extra super mommy and attempted to have them spell in it, or at least draw shapes and guess letters. The baby gets covered in it and cackles in delight to be part of the older two’s world. Nice.
You can spice finger painting up a bit by adding glitter and tools to paint with instead of your fingers. My kids love to use Q-tips, old tooth brushes, and sponges to smear their paint around. They have tried to use traditional paint brushes, but they really prefer the other things I mentioned. I am going to be brave and make my own paint some day. What else am I going to make with flour and cornstarch? I even have food coloring left over from my volcano attempt.
I have written before about our use of foam at bath time. They also love to use bath tub finger paint. Again, it is easily removed from the nice bathtub. They paint all over the tub and the walls, and I have been known in a “Super mommy moment” to challenge them and say, “Who can draw a circle first? Who can draw the letter T?” There is something in a little competition. I think they get it from the brother/sister bunny rabbit pair Max and Ruby, but they seem to love painting all over each other and laughing. It is paint/soap after all and at least on those nights they will all be squeaky clean. Another “mommy” (translatable gag) moment is to mix the paints as it says to on the bottles. Yellow and blue make green, red and blue make purple, red and yellow make, hey wait a minute, you know this, sorry.
I am not sure what purpose traditional finger painting serves other than to work on the fine motor skills and sensory delays. Maybe someday one of my children will find themselves in a remote jungle in Costa Rica being chased by an alien who likes to hunt for fun, but only has thermal vision, so they will need to quickly get that mud all over their bodies to hide their heat before he gets them. All of these Crayola kits that end up on the counter tops as I desperately try to get it up before my husband gets home are really going to come in handy then. Can’t wait…..
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
My Daughter's Playlist
Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is a symbol for all of us stay at home moms. We actually have something going on in our heads and other women want to read it. One of my favorite things about her is that she writes to “playlists.” Like always, I need to back up. I got into trouble with some colleagues about four years ago because I allowed students to listen to iPods during a test. The principal sent out a nasty letter saying that they couldn’t be allowed to do this. I don’t know if this was coincidence or if I was tattled on, bygones anyway. After the note, I told my students, no more music. I agreed with them that it helped them focus, but the powers that be say no, so I say no. Those kids never had an iPod in class again, I’ll give them that. No harm, no foul. Enter this woman three years later reinforcing what I said back then. The music helps you concentrate. Duh…..
Everything she writes has a playlist, and I am beginning to think she is becoming the Oprah Winfrey book club for bands. It is a good thing to be on a Stephenie Meyer play list. I can’t imagine some idiot band saying, “No thank you Steph. Please remove us from your website and we could care less if we inspired the third paragraph on page 321.” Yeah right.
I am not a big music person; I don’t know what is good and what isn’t. My high school sweet heart ended up being a music producer in New York, so you would think this would have rubbed off a little, but all that came of it is that I can tell you that the three members of Rush are Alex Lifeson, Neal Peart, and Geddy Lee. And incidentally, Neal is and always will be the best drummer in the world. See? I listened somewhat. That was the 90s. I think in my car right now I have the Imagination Movers, a Kindermusik CD, and the soundtrack from the musical Chicago for the off chance that I am alone in a car. But this playlist thing is kind of a cool concept. If my daughter and I were to have a play list, this is how our journey would look so far.
P.S.-some of these songs flat out suck. I am not trying to be corny or a copycat, I swear. No one can copy the great Meyer nor should they try. I am just trying to put this in terms so that others can relate. Don’t read my list if you don’t want to.
P.S.S.-Most of these songs seem to be focused on 90s music, so I will call this my daughter's life according to the 90s playlist. Like I said, I haven’t really been able to pick my own music since October of 2003. Please forgive the theme…..
My Girl-I loved her from the day she was born
Good Riddance Green Day-When I changed jobs to have more time with her
Can’t get it right today Joe Purdy-When she wasn’t walking or talking. You are the mom. It's going to be your fault some how, forever. Sorry....don't give up.
Fields of Gold Eva Cassidy’s version- Kenneth is born, it is obvious that he is very different, can’t ignore it
Cornflake Girl-Tori Amos All the little girls were coloring, she would dance. This isn’t always a bad thing.
You-Candle Box – Taking her to appointments and therapies, it took a lot out of me.
Bullet with Butterfly Wings-Smashing Pumpkins-Nothing seemed to be working, no one would give me answers, I felt a LOT of rage.
Long December- Counting Crows- In Pittsburgh, we finally got an autism diagnosis. I had reason to believe that maybe this year would be better than the last.
Closer to Fine-The Indigo Girls- We are getting there
Mysterious Ways-U2- It’s all right, and she really does move in mysterious ways.
Wonder-Natalie Merchant She will make her way, she already is.
Sorry if some of those songs made you music people gag and cringe. Every now and then I have to do something stupidly mother-like or I will lose my license.
Do you have a playlist? For your autism journey? Your Down Syndrome journey? Any journey really? I don't care what kind of music you like either. It can be country music: Sugarland (They have a Yo Gabba Gabba! Dancey Dance, by the way), Toby Keith, and Kenny Chesney for all I care. You can make a classical list. It's your play list. I don't think millions of little girls are going to go out and buy the CDs because you told them to, but still, it's your journey and your music.
Everything she writes has a playlist, and I am beginning to think she is becoming the Oprah Winfrey book club for bands. It is a good thing to be on a Stephenie Meyer play list. I can’t imagine some idiot band saying, “No thank you Steph. Please remove us from your website and we could care less if we inspired the third paragraph on page 321.” Yeah right.
I am not a big music person; I don’t know what is good and what isn’t. My high school sweet heart ended up being a music producer in New York, so you would think this would have rubbed off a little, but all that came of it is that I can tell you that the three members of Rush are Alex Lifeson, Neal Peart, and Geddy Lee. And incidentally, Neal is and always will be the best drummer in the world. See? I listened somewhat. That was the 90s. I think in my car right now I have the Imagination Movers, a Kindermusik CD, and the soundtrack from the musical Chicago for the off chance that I am alone in a car. But this playlist thing is kind of a cool concept. If my daughter and I were to have a play list, this is how our journey would look so far.
P.S.-some of these songs flat out suck. I am not trying to be corny or a copycat, I swear. No one can copy the great Meyer nor should they try. I am just trying to put this in terms so that others can relate. Don’t read my list if you don’t want to.
P.S.S.-Most of these songs seem to be focused on 90s music, so I will call this my daughter's life according to the 90s playlist. Like I said, I haven’t really been able to pick my own music since October of 2003. Please forgive the theme…..
My Girl-I loved her from the day she was born
Good Riddance Green Day-When I changed jobs to have more time with her
Can’t get it right today Joe Purdy-When she wasn’t walking or talking. You are the mom. It's going to be your fault some how, forever. Sorry....don't give up.
Fields of Gold Eva Cassidy’s version- Kenneth is born, it is obvious that he is very different, can’t ignore it
Cornflake Girl-Tori Amos All the little girls were coloring, she would dance. This isn’t always a bad thing.
You-Candle Box – Taking her to appointments and therapies, it took a lot out of me.
Bullet with Butterfly Wings-Smashing Pumpkins-Nothing seemed to be working, no one would give me answers, I felt a LOT of rage.
Long December- Counting Crows- In Pittsburgh, we finally got an autism diagnosis. I had reason to believe that maybe this year would be better than the last.
Closer to Fine-The Indigo Girls- We are getting there
Mysterious Ways-U2- It’s all right, and she really does move in mysterious ways.
Wonder-Natalie Merchant She will make her way, she already is.
Sorry if some of those songs made you music people gag and cringe. Every now and then I have to do something stupidly mother-like or I will lose my license.
Do you have a playlist? For your autism journey? Your Down Syndrome journey? Any journey really? I don't care what kind of music you like either. It can be country music: Sugarland (They have a Yo Gabba Gabba! Dancey Dance, by the way), Toby Keith, and Kenny Chesney for all I care. You can make a classical list. It's your play list. I don't think millions of little girls are going to go out and buy the CDs because you told them to, but still, it's your journey and your music.
The Grocery Store Diaries 1
Every week I think nothing new could possibly happen when I take three kids to this store. Everyone has to go to the grocery store. It doesn’t matter if the economy sucks, you have to eat, and you need tooth paste and toilet paper, right? I have yet to go in there and something crazy does not happen. I am not in Barneys or Bloomingdales; I am in a grocery store. Nor am I dressed up in a hot little outfit with sexy matching underwear. If I am lucky I am wearing clean sweat pants. How could there possibly be so much drama in this place it could fill a blog post? But it does. So I decided that since this continues to happen, it probably happens to other moms, because I sure as hell am not creative. Every time I go to the grocery store, I am going to write a diary entry about what happened. Even if I go alone I end up trying to by beer on a Sunday or I’m in some hard up single guy’s line, well never mind….
Today: Kenneth screams for anything with Spiderman on it. Now we have gone through this with dinosaurs and then with Lightening McQueen, but you don’t realize how many items have an icon on them until your son obsesses over it. While that is going on you realize your baby has turned himself all the way around and is chewing on a plastic bag of carrots before you can take it away, when he starts screaming bloody murder because you took it. Ugh.
He settles on a cup of yogurt. He can’t hurt yogurt and yogurt can’t hurt him, right? So the rest of the store trip is so good that you have your debit card, your little key chain bargain card out ready to be scanned, and all the value coins ready to give the cashier. Everything is being unloaded when you realize that the baby is being incredibly quiet. You look over and not only has he gotten the yogurt cup open, but he is covered in it. And he has a grin on his face wider than one you have ever seen your husband wear if you know what I mean. He has both hands in the yogurt and all over his face. This totally explains why he has been a little angel, and you are not going to take it away from him. You would rather take a kitten away from a Pit-bull. The cashier is a teenage kid who can’t stop laughing. I actually got out my phone to try to take a picture but it wouldn’t work, no memory or file room or whatever.
So, like my buddy Maximum Ride says, note to self: the baby can open a yogurt cup, but it does keep him quiet and you have wet ones in the Pilot. So whatever…..
Today: Kenneth screams for anything with Spiderman on it. Now we have gone through this with dinosaurs and then with Lightening McQueen, but you don’t realize how many items have an icon on them until your son obsesses over it. While that is going on you realize your baby has turned himself all the way around and is chewing on a plastic bag of carrots before you can take it away, when he starts screaming bloody murder because you took it. Ugh.
He settles on a cup of yogurt. He can’t hurt yogurt and yogurt can’t hurt him, right? So the rest of the store trip is so good that you have your debit card, your little key chain bargain card out ready to be scanned, and all the value coins ready to give the cashier. Everything is being unloaded when you realize that the baby is being incredibly quiet. You look over and not only has he gotten the yogurt cup open, but he is covered in it. And he has a grin on his face wider than one you have ever seen your husband wear if you know what I mean. He has both hands in the yogurt and all over his face. This totally explains why he has been a little angel, and you are not going to take it away from him. You would rather take a kitten away from a Pit-bull. The cashier is a teenage kid who can’t stop laughing. I actually got out my phone to try to take a picture but it wouldn’t work, no memory or file room or whatever.
So, like my buddy Maximum Ride says, note to self: the baby can open a yogurt cup, but it does keep him quiet and you have wet ones in the Pilot. So whatever…..
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Fill Out the Form, Please.....
This is not, nor ever will it be, a typical blog about how my baby is going to Kindergarten and OMG I am crying and getting old and taking 200 pictures until my memory stick is full and my facebook friends and email lists are going to be sick of the albums. I don’t think so. I think my digital camara is in a box in the basement with my college textbooks. I have already screwed this up. It started with the stupid blue health form last week. I just am not a good "document er" when it comes to my children. She lost her first tooth today and I think she swallowed it, so she won't be finding it in my dresser drawer in a few months or years and realize there is no tooth fairy. She has already said no fairy is getting near her pillow anyway.
Back to Kindergarten, I have been dreading this day since my first evaluation when she was 20 months old and they told me she stopped completing tasks at nine months. My only goal since then was to have her ready for Kindergarten. Public school is vicious for a normal little girl, plus, I'm a psycho. Am I really going to "Walk away" when I should? I hope so. I am going to focus on what I am going to try to do as the mom of a brand new, special needs Kindergartener. This post is going to be about "Forms."
Nobody likes to fill out forms. We fill them out all the freaking time. For the library card, for the doctor, for the grocery store discount card. You have to fill out a form to take the baby home from the hospital, you have to fill it out to get married. The cool thing is that now it is a little easier if you want to fill one out online, but still, everything must have a paper trail, especially a special education student.
Now, Kindergarten is usually the first place a child goes to venture into the big, bad, public education system. Mommy and Daddy fill out a ton of forms just to get them in the front door. If it is the first child going, you live for that little packet to arrive in the mailbox. That is when it gets personal. You get the teacher forms!
The teacher sends you a hello letter with a little form to fill out about your child. Each teacher has their own form. I have created these forms myself, and I remember being psyched to make my own. I also remember some of the answers I got back. Some parents were short, sweet, and to the point. Other moms wrote novels about their kids. Guess which kids ended up being the cool ones I would consider friends today?
This is how I approach filling out the forms for my child:
1) Fill them out. Answer the questions correctly, but nobody needs a personal narrative. Save that for your blog. :0)
2) Do NOT correct a teacher's grammar. She or he will catch it themselves and be highly embarrassed later anyway. This will only make you look like a jerk from day one.
3) Return them as soon as you finish filling them out, or they are going to sit on your pile of things at home and be forgotten about, which will irritate the teacher, who may have to send you another, and so it begins.
4) Read all of the questions and any other newsletters that come home. I speak from experience. Teachers spend a lot of time writing these form letters and coming up with these questions. Plus an administrator looks over it to make sure it is done and sent home. For you to throw it away is pretty lame. Toss stuff that doesn't say please return, sure, but read it first. I personally would save it all until the end of the year. Nothing is worse than a parent ranting and raving that they didn't know something when a teacher wrote it down in a newsletter, initialed by the principal. So please, read it out and be nice.
5)This kind of goes along with number four, but if a teacher says something like, we will read everyday for fifteen minutes, and then one day they don't because they run out of time during a science experiment, don't jump down her/his throat that it didn't get done once. Again, it is all about how you look to this person.
Now, having just said all of that, here is how my first ever public school "parent form" looked as I filled it out for my first child. I am summarizing the questions and the response that came from me.
1. Health related information-this within itself could take two or three pages, but I kept it short, sweet, and to the point. Glasses. Eyepatch.
2. How does she feel about coming to school-she can't wait to get away from me and her brothers!
3. interests-stuffed animals and, unbeknown to me, The Jonas Brothers
4. concerns frightens/worries your child?- a change in her schedule
5. what do I hope my child will learn-this one is really loaded, be careful with this answer. Teachers don't work miracles.
6. do you or your spouse possess a special talent, skill, or hobby-LOL
7. Anything else.-again, open ended for someone to go on forever. Pop some popcorn and get a diet coke if you want to enjoy reading these.
That is it for forms. I need to go fill some out for soccer and gymnastics before labor day, so I better get off the computer anyway....
Back to Kindergarten, I have been dreading this day since my first evaluation when she was 20 months old and they told me she stopped completing tasks at nine months. My only goal since then was to have her ready for Kindergarten. Public school is vicious for a normal little girl, plus, I'm a psycho. Am I really going to "Walk away" when I should? I hope so. I am going to focus on what I am going to try to do as the mom of a brand new, special needs Kindergartener. This post is going to be about "Forms."
Nobody likes to fill out forms. We fill them out all the freaking time. For the library card, for the doctor, for the grocery store discount card. You have to fill out a form to take the baby home from the hospital, you have to fill it out to get married. The cool thing is that now it is a little easier if you want to fill one out online, but still, everything must have a paper trail, especially a special education student.
Now, Kindergarten is usually the first place a child goes to venture into the big, bad, public education system. Mommy and Daddy fill out a ton of forms just to get them in the front door. If it is the first child going, you live for that little packet to arrive in the mailbox. That is when it gets personal. You get the teacher forms!
The teacher sends you a hello letter with a little form to fill out about your child. Each teacher has their own form. I have created these forms myself, and I remember being psyched to make my own. I also remember some of the answers I got back. Some parents were short, sweet, and to the point. Other moms wrote novels about their kids. Guess which kids ended up being the cool ones I would consider friends today?
This is how I approach filling out the forms for my child:
1) Fill them out. Answer the questions correctly, but nobody needs a personal narrative. Save that for your blog. :0)
2) Do NOT correct a teacher's grammar. She or he will catch it themselves and be highly embarrassed later anyway. This will only make you look like a jerk from day one.
3) Return them as soon as you finish filling them out, or they are going to sit on your pile of things at home and be forgotten about, which will irritate the teacher, who may have to send you another, and so it begins.
4) Read all of the questions and any other newsletters that come home. I speak from experience. Teachers spend a lot of time writing these form letters and coming up with these questions. Plus an administrator looks over it to make sure it is done and sent home. For you to throw it away is pretty lame. Toss stuff that doesn't say please return, sure, but read it first. I personally would save it all until the end of the year. Nothing is worse than a parent ranting and raving that they didn't know something when a teacher wrote it down in a newsletter, initialed by the principal. So please, read it out and be nice.
5)This kind of goes along with number four, but if a teacher says something like, we will read everyday for fifteen minutes, and then one day they don't because they run out of time during a science experiment, don't jump down her/his throat that it didn't get done once. Again, it is all about how you look to this person.
Now, having just said all of that, here is how my first ever public school "parent form" looked as I filled it out for my first child. I am summarizing the questions and the response that came from me.
1. Health related information-this within itself could take two or three pages, but I kept it short, sweet, and to the point. Glasses. Eyepatch.
2. How does she feel about coming to school-she can't wait to get away from me and her brothers!
3. interests-stuffed animals and, unbeknown to me, The Jonas Brothers
4. concerns frightens/worries your child?- a change in her schedule
5. what do I hope my child will learn-this one is really loaded, be careful with this answer. Teachers don't work miracles.
6. do you or your spouse possess a special talent, skill, or hobby-LOL
7. Anything else.-again, open ended for someone to go on forever. Pop some popcorn and get a diet coke if you want to enjoy reading these.
That is it for forms. I need to go fill some out for soccer and gymnastics before labor day, so I better get off the computer anyway....
Monday, August 24, 2009
Walking away
I used to love to watch Judge Judy yell at the defendants and plaintiffs in her courtroom. It made perfect sense to me. They were usually idiots. Well, that isn't nice. They were people who had been caught up in the heat of the moment and weren't thinking clearly. Once two women went at it over a parking space and one started hitting the other one's car with the orange cone. Another time two teenage boys had some road rage because the one in front wouldn't go immediately at the light, and the other one honked, so he flipped him off, so then he tapped his car, etc. etc. Judy fined both boys and said, "The next time someone picks a fight with you, you drive away." That is excellent advice. Walk away, drive away, get away. Now, imagine you are the mom and your child is involved somehow.
Mommy circles can be just as vicious as who sits at whose table in the middle school cafeteria. Which pre-school, which church, which mommy and me class, and who you have your Monday morning playgroup with, all of these things have the potential of making you really enjoy or really suffer through those early years of parenthood. Now, what happens while all the moms are talking about which organic juice box is the best? The kids are playing. When kids are playing, unless you raised a robot, there will be a conflict. Some moms have common sense about this. They are kids and there are only so many glitter pink hula hoops to go around. Some mothers think that their snow princess ballerina was put on this earth for that hoop and your wild child better back off. How do you handle conflict? I mean when the other mother is unreasonable? You walk away. You keep your mouth shut and you walk away.
I am writing about this because it goes against my nature and my personality. I am always paranoid people are going to see me on the six o'clock news because I blew up at the wrong person. But if I can walk away, anyone can walk away. Don't bother with the counting and the deep breaths, just get away.
For example, sometimes at gymnastics, other mommies have it in their heads they are raising Nadia Comaneci and make their kid practice while the rest of the kiddos are running in circles. Then they scream at your children to move off the bars. You try to apologize but the woman stares at you. You want to escalate and say something nasty, and you know that the gym gets more tuition checks from you than her, but you walk away.
You are in the beloved grocery store and your son is throwing a tantrum for leftover, marked down fourth of July cookies that are filled with so much red and blue dye that even you won't let him eat them. A woman pushes her three children sitting still in the toddler cart and she has the nerve to look at them and say, "My children know how to act in public" and giggles. You want to a)let your kids out of the cart and chase her down like a pack of guard dogs, b) tell her her husband is probably screwing his secretary, or c) Just start a stereotypical cat fight in front of the frozen ice cream. But-you push your cart away.
There are many other times, at least twice in my son's preschool coat room, when I have had to walk away. Once I did accidentally say something I shouldn't have before I got out of the room. She hasn't spoken to me again ever. Oops.
This advice came down from Judge Judy and it happens to me a lot around other moms. Do not lose it and make a fool out of yourself over another woman's even more foolish behavior. WALK AWAY.
And you know what the coolest part about walking away is? If you leave out all names, you can write about it later....
Mommy circles can be just as vicious as who sits at whose table in the middle school cafeteria. Which pre-school, which church, which mommy and me class, and who you have your Monday morning playgroup with, all of these things have the potential of making you really enjoy or really suffer through those early years of parenthood. Now, what happens while all the moms are talking about which organic juice box is the best? The kids are playing. When kids are playing, unless you raised a robot, there will be a conflict. Some moms have common sense about this. They are kids and there are only so many glitter pink hula hoops to go around. Some mothers think that their snow princess ballerina was put on this earth for that hoop and your wild child better back off. How do you handle conflict? I mean when the other mother is unreasonable? You walk away. You keep your mouth shut and you walk away.
I am writing about this because it goes against my nature and my personality. I am always paranoid people are going to see me on the six o'clock news because I blew up at the wrong person. But if I can walk away, anyone can walk away. Don't bother with the counting and the deep breaths, just get away.
For example, sometimes at gymnastics, other mommies have it in their heads they are raising Nadia Comaneci and make their kid practice while the rest of the kiddos are running in circles. Then they scream at your children to move off the bars. You try to apologize but the woman stares at you. You want to escalate and say something nasty, and you know that the gym gets more tuition checks from you than her, but you walk away.
You are in the beloved grocery store and your son is throwing a tantrum for leftover, marked down fourth of July cookies that are filled with so much red and blue dye that even you won't let him eat them. A woman pushes her three children sitting still in the toddler cart and she has the nerve to look at them and say, "My children know how to act in public" and giggles. You want to a)let your kids out of the cart and chase her down like a pack of guard dogs, b) tell her her husband is probably screwing his secretary, or c) Just start a stereotypical cat fight in front of the frozen ice cream. But-you push your cart away.
There are many other times, at least twice in my son's preschool coat room, when I have had to walk away. Once I did accidentally say something I shouldn't have before I got out of the room. She hasn't spoken to me again ever. Oops.
This advice came down from Judge Judy and it happens to me a lot around other moms. Do not lose it and make a fool out of yourself over another woman's even more foolish behavior. WALK AWAY.
And you know what the coolest part about walking away is? If you leave out all names, you can write about it later....
Friday, August 21, 2009
Working Mom
It has been too long since I posted, and the main reason for that is I had to go out of town for work. I work from home and I rarely have to go in, but this week I did for basically four days. Now, I love my job and I have the best of both worlds in a lot of ways. However,when mommy goes out of town for work, no matter how hard you try and no matter how hard you plan, something is going to give. Here are some simple little examples of things that happened that would not have happened had I been at home on my laptop.
I check into the hotel two hours before my conference starts. Cool-I can take a nap. Ring Ring "Hello, Mrs. P. we would like to schedule a new meeting for Frances..." and forty-five minutes later the paperwork is done. Like I need to get away from the kids so I can schedule their lives quietly. No time to rest, go to work.
Phone rings the next morning at breakfast, "Hey honey, look, I know that they have dentist appointments, but they are coughing up lungs..." (They weren't when I left but I can hear them in the background). So I say, "OK fine, call and cancel." "Can't you do it?" I am in the middle of a hotel in Philadelphia with no access to my laptop, as it is being upgraded by the tech team. "No, Google it." He doesn't want to, but he does anyway. During my break I get a call from the dentist's office, "Hello Mrs. P., I'm sorry they are sick, we have a three month waiting list..." Ugh
Phone rings yet AGAIN! "Mrs. P., this is the school nurse at your daughter's elementary school, she can't start Kindergarten without the health form and this one isn't current." The pediatrician needs ten days to fill one out and I am not getting home until Thursday night. I have no idea where the health form is in my office at home. Call the nanny and beg her to load all three children up, get another form from the elementary school and drop it off at the drs. office, who tells her they "hope I will at least be home to pick it up."
Crawl into bed while all the young cool teachers go out on the town in Philly. I sleep until my best friend calls to see how it is going. It is never a dull moment ever.
But the baby slept through the night for his Daddy......
I check into the hotel two hours before my conference starts. Cool-I can take a nap. Ring Ring "Hello, Mrs. P. we would like to schedule a new meeting for Frances..." and forty-five minutes later the paperwork is done. Like I need to get away from the kids so I can schedule their lives quietly. No time to rest, go to work.
Phone rings the next morning at breakfast, "Hey honey, look, I know that they have dentist appointments, but they are coughing up lungs..." (They weren't when I left but I can hear them in the background). So I say, "OK fine, call and cancel." "Can't you do it?" I am in the middle of a hotel in Philadelphia with no access to my laptop, as it is being upgraded by the tech team. "No, Google it." He doesn't want to, but he does anyway. During my break I get a call from the dentist's office, "Hello Mrs. P., I'm sorry they are sick, we have a three month waiting list..." Ugh
Phone rings yet AGAIN! "Mrs. P., this is the school nurse at your daughter's elementary school, she can't start Kindergarten without the health form and this one isn't current." The pediatrician needs ten days to fill one out and I am not getting home until Thursday night. I have no idea where the health form is in my office at home. Call the nanny and beg her to load all three children up, get another form from the elementary school and drop it off at the drs. office, who tells her they "hope I will at least be home to pick it up."
Crawl into bed while all the young cool teachers go out on the town in Philly. I sleep until my best friend calls to see how it is going. It is never a dull moment ever.
But the baby slept through the night for his Daddy......
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