Weekly Menu 9/25/11

SUNDAY
B- Daddy's Choice
L -
D - Steak, leftover rice & beans

MONDAY
B- Eggs
L - Mini Pizzas on English Muffins
D - Turkey burgers, applesauce, veggies


TUESDAY
B- Muffins
L - Pasta salad
D - Pork roast & rice


WEDNESDAY

B- Cereal
L - Quesadilla
D - Italian beef n beans over pasta

THURSDAY

B- Waffles
L - Raviolli
D - Meatball sliders, leftover pasta salad

FRIDAY

B- Egg McMuffins
L - Sandwiches
D - Leftovers

SATURDAY

B- Kids Choice
L - Meatball soup
D - Pizza, salad

Being curious...

I'm stealing these questions from N, who stole them from another blog.  

1) What actor/actress gets on your last nerve? I cannot stand Tom Cruise and I have always felt this way.  I never understood why everyone used to think he was so hot.  He totally creeps me out.  Renee Zellwegger also annoys me.

2) What is one thing seemingly spectacular thing you bought as a child with your own money? I have no recollection of buying anything as a child.  We had to use our own money every year to buy our school clothes but I never remember being able to buy anything fun.  I do remember always paying for my own gas while a teenager, something my brothers never had to do.

3) Do you miss anyone right now? My Grandma (Nan-Nan) and also my Grandpa Carl who I don't remember

4) What is something you’d like to change about yourself today? My inactivity and listlessness, lack of motivation.

5) What is the last book that made you cry? I have no idea.  I remember sobbing over a book within the past 2 months, but can not recall anything about the book.  Sad

6) Do you have a scar? How did you get it?  I have lots of scars.  The biggest is when I fell off my bike in the neighbor's driveway.  I was about 9 years old and ended up with 22 stitches in my knee.  It is hideous and obvious I was not offered a plastic surgeon.

7) What was your first car? A Honda Civic hatchback.  I loved that car.  It was my Mom's and then she signed it over to me.  A year later she hit a deer with it and totaled it. :(

8) Can you play an instrument? Yes, the clarinet.

9) Are you currently keeping a secret? Yes.  And, I guess since N is on a self-imposed socializing exile and, I haven't seen her in months,  she is about to learn that I am pregnant from this blog.

10) Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?  Neither.  I don't watch any late night TV and/or any political talk shows

11) What song do you know all the words to?  Pretty much any 80s power ballad by any hair band

12) What is your favorite musical? Well since I have only ever seen one musical then I will say Rent  although if Grease counts then that would be my favorite.

13) What is something you used to think before you knew better? Everything I believe in parenting are things I used to think people were crazy for doing.  However, I now know from experience that many times co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, and attachment parenting are deliberate choices made out of research and personal family philosophies. 

Weekly Wrap-Up: 4/16/11

Sunday:  A beautiful and relaxing day at home.  J worked in the garden.  I read Harry Potter.  The kids played outside with the neighbor.  Later we watched a family movie.  Great Day

Monday:  I had a little alone time during my first therapeutic massage appointment.  It was helpful, but different than a spa experience.  I was not expecting to undress!  I finished helping Tyler pack for his trip tomorrow.  Then we all went to dinner at our favorite restaurant.  I splurged in anticipation of restarting my weight loss plan tomorrow.

Tuesday:  Today we dropped Tyler and his Grandma off at the airport for their trip to Ohio.  My Mom had to fly home to take care of her taxes so she had planned to take Maggie with her.  Soon after that Maggie started having anxiety issues and we realized it was not going to work out for her.  So Tyler got to go instead (he also went a year ago for his birthday).  Anyway Tyler is very excited to see his Grandpa, the farm, the dog and his cousins.  After we dropped them off, M and I went to the outlet malls.  I was looking for a specific pair of shorts at Lane Bryant, but the did not have any.  I felt like it was a wasted trip, especially since I could not get anyone at LB to help me.  This was a unique experience for me as usually I have several people asking if I need help.  I am wondering if they reverse discriminate against smaller sizes?  Seriously, it was weird.  I do still fit in their smaller clothes, and I would have bought something.  Oh well.

Wednesday:  M and I spent most of the day catching up on school work and house work.  We headed out early afternoon to do some errands:  Wal Mart, eye doctor, etc.  Then we had a girl scout meeting.  We hadn't been in several weeks due to cancellations, rescheduling and vacation.  Maggie did not want to go and started crying in the car.  I always stay in the room with her so I didn't understand her issue with girl scouts.  We did go and she sat with me most of the meeting.  The girls just painted today so she was able to do that sitting at the table with me.  

Thursday:  We had been planning to go somewhere with friends today, but neither of us could come up with anything to do.  It seems like all the activities around our area cost too much money and, with the price of gas, the beach was just too far.  So we decided to just pick up some Happy Meals and spend the afternoon at their house swimming and playing.  M had a great time.  She didn't want to leave.  I explained to her that she can play whenever she wants, but she has to be willing to go to their house by herself.  She wants nothing to do with that idea.  Unfortunately we can't do these constant play dates with only little girls when we have Tyler along with us.  That is no fun for anyone.  But we had a great day today and Maggie was able to relax and play without any anxiety.

Friday:  M and I had another busy day planned with friends.  We got started early and headed off to our weekly play date at the park.  It was a beautiful day.  M did pretty good and actually played after she had some time to adjust.  This is an improvement over last week when she never did leave my side.  We had all planned to have lunch at the park also and ended up staying until about 2pm.  We were grateful for the warm, but not hot day.  We ran a few errands on the way home:  library, Aldi, Wal Mart.  Then, since we give another Mom and daughter a ride to the park, we stopped at their house for a quick swim on the way home.  I guess M had a good day because as we are leaving (after being away from home for 7 hours) she asks "What can we do next?"  I was thinking "nap" but she was not in agreement.  We headed home, unloaded the car, had a quick dinner, bath and bed.

Saturday:  I have been dreading Saturday and the return of the disastrous dance class.  The last time we went to dance Maggie got very upset and would not participate at all.  Today I tried to help her by taking her early and telling her to just have fun today and not worry about the future, etc.  She was doing ok in the lobby but when another class started talking about the recital she started crying and clinging to me.  I did make her sit in dance class but she would not participate.  I am at my wits end.  I am trying to be supportive but, to be honest, my motivation for her to attend this recital is very low.  I had a lot of reservations about signing up for dance class because of the recital and now all those issues I have are resurfacing.  I really have a great aversion to putting my kid in a lot of make-up and dropping her off alone at the performance center where I feel like my kid is being held hostage until they decide to return her.  I do understand the other side of this issue, from the studio's viewpoint.  However the whole experience is just so contradictory to my views as a mother and a person.  I am trying not to let my aversion show, but it is not helping my motivation to have her perform.

Weekend To Remember

A few weekends ago,  J and I attended Family Life's Weekend to Remember conference.  This was our second conference.  About 2 1/2 years ago we attended one at Sanibel Harbour Resort.  At the time I was in a very angry place in my marriage and, although I wanted to go, I was mainly hoping the conference would show my husband all the errors of his way.  I thought maybe it would teach me how to better communicate to him the things he was doing wrong.

Well, of course, that is not what it did.  I don't remember all the details of what I learned at that event, but I do know I was inspired to do the work to create a great marriage.  After that our marriage began to improve, mostly because we each stopped trying to change each other and instead started changing our own attitudes.

Fast forward a couple years and we had the opportunity to attend another Weekend to Remember.  Jeff actually brought up the idea and kept asking me to make a decision.  I was reluctant just because I didn't want to spend the money and my mom wasn't very firm on her commitment to babysit.  Eventually we just decided to go and then at the last minute also decided to book a hotel room.  The conference really was not that far in distance, but once we added in actual travel time and the price of gas, we just decided to enjoy the weekend.  That was a great decision.  It was definitely worth the time and money we alloted.

The biggest difference between the first and second conference was that our minds were open to the lessons.  We didn't have to spend the time trying to feel less angry or more loving and could instead focus on learning the underlying lessons on communication, respect and togetherness.

Here are the lessons that impacted me most for the weekend...

• Acceptance of our spouse should NOT be based on performance.  "You do your part, and I'll do mine."  This is definitely something I have struggled with in the past.
• "Sheath your sword" by offering your offending spouse grace instead of anger
• Our children have their whole lives to pursue their dreams.  We as parents don't have to fulfill them all now.  Our time is better spent giving them a loving home and modeling a strong and healthy relationship.  (This wasn't actually something that was taught, but an epiphany of sorts I had during the weekend)
• Your spouse in NOT your enemy.

Overall it was a wonderful weekend.  We met a few other really nice couples.  We also encountered a lot of couples who were in crisis.  I hope this weekend was able to give them hope and enable them to begin the healing process in their marriages.

Weekly Wrap-Up: 4/02/11

Sunday:  After a week of visitors I really needed some alone time.  We had planned to go visit a Strawberry farm for some treats (shortcake and strawberry shake) and also to visit Dino World.  My DH was nice enough to let me stay home while he took the kids, his sister, and nephew.  They had a good time and I had some much needed recuperation.

Monday:  My Mom is staying for a few days this week so Jeff and I went together to my chiropractor appointment and then enjoyed a date afternoon with lunch and a stroll through the antique store.  It was a nice relaxing afternoon and we enjoyed the alone time together.

Tuesday:  After a week of spring break the kids were not thrilled to be back to the daily school grind.  We have lost our motivation and we need to find a way to reinvigorate our studies.  I am hoping the upcoming homeschool convention will give me a much needed attitude refresher.

Wednesday:  One of Maggie's good friends was had invited us to her birthday party today.  Tyler was lucky enough to get to stay home with Nanny and not have to spend the day with little girls.  Maggie, who is currently experiencing some anxiety/separation issues decided at the last minute she did not want to attend.  I knew she was just feeling anxiety so we headed off to the party anyway.  When we arrived the only guests were the 5 little girls Maggie goes to the park with every week.  Still, she would not play and stayed glued to my side.  Finally after over an hour she managed to venture out of my sight and have some fun.  She even got to hold the brand new baby sister of the birthday girl.

Thursday:  It is always a good day when the kids start off the morning cooperating with each and playing together nicely.  I had to interrupt their game to go to my chiropractor appointment.  After the appointment, I took the kids to lunch and then we spent way too much time trying to find a new ice cream store I had read about.  We never found the location so we just went to Dunkin' Donuts and got ice cream there.  We finally made it home and finished up some school work for the day.

Friday:  Our weekly park day has moved to mornings now that Florida is starting to heat up.  We were all glad of the change today because by the time 12:00 pm hit everyone was pretty warm.  It was a weird day at the park.  Tyler was actually having a great time and didn't want to leave.  This is a total contradiction of our normal Friday.  Maggie spent most of the time sitting beside me and generally not leaving my side.  I hope the poor girl gets over this anxiety soon.

Saturday:  The kids voluntarily started playing outside this morning so that was a plus.  We have some friends coming to visit this afternoon so it should be a good day.

Weekly Wrap-Up: 3/12/2011

Busy, busy week

Sunday:  I met my friend N for lunch and shopping.  This was a fun and much needed day out.

Monday:  The kids and I ran some errands in the morning while J had a dentist appointment.  Then we headed to the Brevard Zoo where I, once again, forgot to bring my camera.  We had a very nice time.  We were happy that Daddy finally got a chance to go before our membership expired.  J and I had wanted to go kayaking, but my back was bothering me so J took T and they had a great time.  M and I hit the snack bar while we waited.  They got to see all of the giraffes and some wild otters while kayaking.  It was a great family day.

Tuesday:  Today we had our new Homeschool Co-Op at my house.  We had 3 girls attend, plus my two kids.  We started with a cooking lesson and made individual pizzas from refrigerated biscuit dough.  I'm not sure how good they were, but all the kids ate them.  T did not want to participate but I did make him do the cooking lesson.  I had scheduled this lesson for the first hour and it took way less time than I anticipated.  So I let the girls play for a little while before we began the second half.

Our next activity was Language Arts enrichment.  I had planned to play several sight word bingo games and Bananagrams.  This was more difficult than I anticipated because the girls really just wanted to play.  M always likes games so I thought she would be happy to have someone play with her, but that was not the case.

Wednesday:  Yeah a day at home and we didn't even have to go to Girl Scouts!  It was nice to have a relaxed but productive school day.  We are finally back to talking about the Greeks in our Ancient History so Tyler is thrilled.  I have been doing alot of personal reading which has been relaxing.  

Thursday:  Another productive day of school.  I found Tyler's missing Reading Comprehension book yesterday.  It had fallen behind our bookshelf and has been missing for over a month.  Tyler actually likes that particular workbook so he was happy to have a new story to read.  We are also finishing up 2 Harry Potter books and he got another movie from Netflix to watch today so we had plenty to keep us busy.  

Friday:  Today was a lovely sunny, yet cool Florida day.  We were able to complete almost all of our school work before we left for the park today.  It was an odd day at the park.  We had 2 new Moms come, the rest of us were in a low key "blah" type of mood and Tyler didn't have any boys to play with.  When no boys come then the girls like to tease and chase him and he gets annoyed and usually ends up in trouble for lashing out at one of them.  Hopefully next week he will have someone to play with.

Saturday:  As usual I almost forgot about dance so we were rushing around washing M's hair at the last minute.  It never fails.... After dance M had to go work at a Girl Scout cookie booth so I took both kids to lunch in between.  We got to the cookie booth only to discover we went to the wrong grocery store and so had to drive back another 10 miles in the opposite direction trying to figure out where to go.  T and I just ran a few errands while M sold cookies and now we are back home.  I will be catching up on some teacher stuff while the kids are enjoying free time.  I did make them clean their rooms first, though. 

The Christmas Post

We had an amazing Christmas this year. The kids got lots and lots and lots of stuff. So much that next year I am thinking of doing the thing where you just get them 3 things: 1 thing they need, 1 thing they want and 1 thing to wear. I do set a budget every year, but I think I get as excited as the kids and tend to spend over my budget. Add to that all the gifts from grandparents, aunts and uncles and things get a little out of control.

My Mom claims she is going to stop buying so much for Christmas and just get each kid a nice gift on their birthday. I think that is a great idea, but will be shocked if it ever happens. After all she did tell me that before she went to Target and came home loaded with shopping bags.

But the kids got lots of nice stuff. Tyler's favorite was probably his Super Scribblenauts games. He has been playing with it almost non stop since Christmas. And, a bonus for mom, this version incorporates the use of adjectives so I'm calling it a LA lesson. Maggie got this:

thanks to a great deal and a nice friend who offered up her discount to help make it happen.

This year I worked really hard to write down a list of things for Jeff as he mentioned them so I would have a bunch of ideas for Christmas. It worked pretty well. I did end doing the "Do you want me to buy you that for Christmas" as he was eyeing stuff at the store. But that worked out well. I also got him an Alton Brown book that he wanted, a subscription to an organic gardening magazine and a membership to Seed Savers. Then the kids and I picked out this:

and gave it to him along with a gift certificate from Home Depot.

I, as always, got some great gifts. I will say my husband is an AWESOME gift giver at Christmas. He really pays attention and writes down stuff I want all year. But he still manages to surprise me with something great. In the past I have gotten some amazing gifts including a leather jacket and a Palm T/X (back in the day).

This year he surprised me with this:

I also got a cookbook I have been wanting, a replacement for the perfume I lost and I much needed new robe that I love!

We are so blessed to have enjoyed such a great Christmas and to be able to be together as a family. At (almost) 40 years old I have lived long enough to appreciate what I have. I hope I can instill that lesson into my kids sooner than later.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY Monday November 22, 2010

Outside my window... the sun peaking through the clouds

I am thinking... that I have A LOT to do before Christmas

I am thankful for... the wonderful, relaxing, and romantic Caribbean Cruise the hubby and I just returned from

From the learning rooms... I am hoping that there is something written down for this week in my planner because I have no motivation to come up with anything.

From the kitchen... Jeff made fajitas last night... my favorite meal.

I am wearing... my pajamas

I am creating... a Christmas gift list and budget

I am going... to a birthday party today then my Dad is taking us all out to dinner

I am reading... Nell by Nancy Thayer

I am hoping... that the 3.5 lbs I gained on the cruise will come off quickly

I am hearing... the kids playing on the porch and my Mom and Jeff typing on the other computers.

Around the house... too much technology on at this time in the morning: 3 computers, my Dad watching TV and the kids playing Wii Fit Plus

One of my favorite things... my new clothes I bought for the cruise that fit!!

A few plans for the rest of the week... birthday party, budgeting, planning for Black Friday, cooking a small Thanksgiving dinner, and possibly going to the beach.

Here is picture I am sharing...

Family Friday: My Creative Son

I am sharing this video, because I am so impressed by it. My son loves to watch You Tube videos of Legos and of game walkthroughs. Last week he asked me if he could borrow my camera to make his own. When he showed it to me I thought it was the cutest thing I had ever seen. Ok, I know that is Mom's perspective, but I still wanted to share.

The video is pretty choppy, but it is his script that I think is so well done.

Family Friday: Myrtle Beach

So after our last minute venture into North Carolina we continued onto our original destination: Myrtle Beach. My hubby's Mom moved to Myrtle about 6 or 7 years ago. Since then we have only visited her once. She has visited us a few times, but we don't get to see her as often as we would like.

I feel the need to interject a side topic here: Mother-in-Laws. Every time I hear some horror story, read a blog, or talk to a friend ;) about their MILs, I feel very blessed. I have a great MIL. I will say that I attribute this partially to my MIL and I, but I also give credit to my DH. I think a lot of In-Law issues stem from the husband (or wife) being unable or unwilling to put their spouse first. I don't think my husband has ever been a "Momma's boy" but I do know that from the beginning he showed with his actions and attitudes where his priorities are. Now my In-Laws would never treat me like the stories I have heard, but I know if there was ever an issue my husband would stand beside me. And, in just saying that, I realized that this is another reason for the no conflict.

Ok, back to the original topic. We arrived in Myrtle Beach around 5pm. After a short visit with J's Mom and her husband we headed out to dinner. They took us to this really cute little pizza place, Mellow Mushroom. The food was great. Ok, well the only thing I could eat was a grilled chicken salad, but the pizza looked and smelled DELICIOUS! I would definitely like to return some day when I am able to eat bread again.

Saturday we did a little shopping. I bought a new pair of jeans and then we hit the grocery. Jeff spent most of the day helping his Mom with some computer issues. That evening we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy a dinner alone thanks to my MIL. Jeff took me to this restaurant on a pier by the ocean. It was a nice little place, but our food was not the greatest. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and the scenery. After dinner we headed upstairs to the outdoor bar/lounge area. I had 1/2 a beer (lightweight) and we enjoyed the view of the ocean and boardwalk. We are pretty boring, so we were home and in bed by 10pm.

Sunday we had planned a trip to the beach. It turned out to be a perfectly beautiful day. We traveled about 30 minutes to Huntington Beach State Park. This is also the site of an old Spanish-style castle called Atalaya. My MIL thought the kids might enjoy touring this site, and they did. T still has the map of the house in the car and will occasionally ask "Did we see the outdoor studio?" I have answered that question 10 times so far, but he still insists on asking.

After our tour of Atalaya we walked over to the beach and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Then Jeff and the kids played in the sand while the rest of us sunbathed and enjoyed a book. It really was a lovely day. There were even several people swimming, but the water was a little cold for us.

Later that day we returned home and the kids spent some time playing with the neighborhood children. We grilled out for dinner and started gathering our items for our return home.

Monday was a very long day in the car. We left Myrtle Beach about 9am and spent way too much time on some back roads getting to the highway. Scenery is nice, but not when you just want to get home. Overall it was one of our best family vacations. We had a great visit with Jeff's Mom. Jeff and I had a lot of time to talk and dream. The kids were pretty good in the car and we made some great family memories.

Family Friday: North Carolina

Last weekend we had planned an extended weekend get-a-way to visit my MIL in Myrtle Beach. This also coincided with DH and my 10th Wedding Anniversary. At the last minute we decided to leave a day early and travel first to North Carolina. We wanted to see the state we had previously only driven through and view some fall foliage. It ended up being 5 1/2 days with a lot of car time, but also a lot of fun.

We left Wednesday night with a goal of getting to Savannah. The whining started pretty soon after that. T's DVD player only lasted about 30 minutes and he somehow managed to loose all the games for the DS. We had the player, but nothing to play. He is lucky he has a nice sister who let him plug headphones into her player and share her movie. But after about 3 hours he was done in the car. The poor kid is not good at car trips. I feel for him because I was the same way. I was never able to fall asleep in the car which makes for a long trip. T rarely ever sleeps in the car either. M loves to ride in the car and we very seldom get any complaints. And candy usually takes care of any of her ills anyway.

So, back to our trip. We had to stop early on Wednesday so we spent a little longer in the car than anticipated on Thursday. We drove to Greensboro, NC and found a hotel after a short exploration of the city. This was our anniversary night so we looked for a nice place to have dinner. We lucked out and found a restaurant right next door called Daryl's Woodfire Grill. It was a very nice place and, from the talk surrounding us, I believe it had just reopened from renovations. The food was very good and we were delighted to have a pleasant, and delicious Anniversary dinner.

The next day we got up early and the kids enjoyed a free breakfast and some cartoon time while Jeff and I packed. Then we headed off to find coffee and explore the city. Greensboro has a very nice "greenway loop." There was a nice crispness in the air and, luckily, I had remembered to check the weather and we were all appropriately dressed. We had what I like to call the "Savannah incident" a few years back where we all showed up in shorts to a cold rainy weekend in Savannah. I was much better prepared this time. After a few hours of exploration we set off for Myrtle Beach and the next leg of our journey.

To Be Continued....

Another Move

About halfway into our homeschool year, we started talking about moving from our Townhouse to an actual house. This was a hard decision mostly because it would be our 3rd move in 3 years. (I actual counted one time and I have moved 6 times in the 9 years I have been married.) We had moved from Ohio to Florida the year previously. With only 2 days to find a place to live, we jumped on the first decent available house we found. So that is how we ended up renting our Townhouse. It was a nice place, but it lacked some basic elements: a yard and friendly neighbors.

When we finally found a house (with a great backyard) and made the decision to move, we were very excited. However the realism of the actual work involved was very overwhelming. This was especially hard when trying to homeschoool and when My Love was just starting his busy season at work. We actually allowed ourselves two extra weeks to make the move, but Murphy's Law set in and some major problems at our new home left us with half our belongings there, half at the old house, and most in boxes. This wasn't very productive for our homeschool, which was still struggling. Oh, and I should add that I do NOT handle stress well. Let's just say that in the past stressful situations have lead to my having Adult Mono and a Hospitalization with a skin infection. So, unfortunately for her, my Mom got the brunt of my stress. T however was temporarily benefiting since schooling was the least of my worries.

After we got all of our issues resolved, and the move was complete, we tried to settle back into a routine. I was still ready to send T back to public school but we pushed on. We did a lot of field trips, lapbooks, puzzles, and read a lot of books during this time. I was glad T was reading so well since he still was struggling with writing and math. I again praise "Galloping the Globe" for getting us thru the year. We were able to supplement this curriculum with lots of books and movies. We spent most of our time on Antarctica (did you know this was the driest continent?) and finished off our year learning about Australia.

I had contemplated schooling thru the end of June, but by the time Memorial Day hit we were DONE. I was so burnt out on Homeschooling that I was ready to send my kids out of the country for a month. I was still stressed from our move, My Love was busy at work and barely home, and all the stress of worrying about jobs and family had left me an irritable, mean mess. Luckily our State's annual Homeschool Conference arrived just in time.

Our Homeschool Journey

Welcome to my blog. Well, I will pretty much welcome myself, as I am the only one here at the moment. :) I vowed this year to start a blog and keep it updated. Considering we started school three weeks ago, I don't think I am doing a very good job. But I am here now, so here is our story.

When my son T was born we quickly discovered we knew nothing about parenting, but we had a belief system about what we wanted our relationship with our kids to be like. This quickly led us towards an attachment parenting philosophy. This was good news for our daughter who was born 2 1/2 years later, because she was a very fussy high needs infant and benefited greatly from our decision. We had lots of friends with similar interests and began to hear about this crazy notion of Homeschooling. I had heard of very religious folks doing this, but never my friendly next door neighbors. We still thought they were crazy, but the idea had been introduced.

When T started Kindergarten I had a Mommy meltdown and started researching Homeschool. I couldn't comprehend sending my little boy away for a whole day to this world I knew nothing about. Ultimately, we did send him to public school and he experienced the good (friends, a great teacher, learned to read) and the bad (a K bully and a bullying "incident"). Things were still going well when due to some unforeseen circumstances we ended up moving to a new state toward the end of the school year. This lead to another round of "researching HS" and yet another decision to send him to public school to finish out Kindergarten.

By the next fall we were comfortably a public school family. We had no doubt about the upcoming school year and excitedly set off to our orientation night for 1st grade. We introduced ourselves to T's teacher and in return she immediately returned the introduction and added "I want you to know I don't want to be just a teacher. I am training to be an administrator. I have ambition." Yes that did not give us a good first impression. I am not sure why she chose to share that with us, but Tyler had a GREAT K teacher in our home state and I never thought there was anything wrong with being "just a teacher." I guess it's like being "just a Mom." It takes a special person to do both.

To be continued.....