Professor Mom

Aliki
Chronicles the life of a mom, teacher, and writer trying to stay sane amid the chaos of daily life.

archives

April 30, 2008
Even dogs need to shop
Yesterday T. and I took the dog shopping. Because, of course, even dogs need shopping therapy. T. was thrilled about the idea of taking Willa into an actual store, especially a pet store, one of her favorite places to go. She loves to watch the birds flutter up and down on their perches, and she dreams of one day owning her very own fuzzy dwarf hamster and one of those extensive plastic habitrail things that turn an ordinary hamster cage into a multi-level theme park. So we loaded up the dog and my excited girl and headed out to PetSmart, the doggy equivalent of a Super Target. We were...
Activities for children, Lessons from Little Ones, Loss, Parenting, Pets, Shopping, Social & Emotional Issues
April 29, 2008
The family that cooks together...
Because we're always willing to try things at least once as parents (I could write a small book on motivational charts, behavior charts, chore charts, reward systems, etc.), we've recently instituted a Family Cook Night. This night takes place every Sunday and involves a lot of mess, a crowded kitchen, and small hands helping out with food prep and mixing. The reasons for our newly-instituted Family Cook Night are varied. First of all, I like to cook, and I always have. Before the kids came along, I would actually spend time reading cookbooks the way one would read a new novel or a newspaper...
Activities for children, Cooking, Family Activities, Family Entertainment, Food for Thought
April 28, 2008
Growing up is good to do
On Saturday afternoon, T. and I had a mother-daughter outing together, along with T.'s BFF (best friend forever) J., and J.'s mom (do you have all those initials straight?). We had tickets to see a matinee performance of Peter Pan, one of my own personal childhood favorites. Peter Pan has it all, of course: fairies, pirates, magic, flying, and a crocodile bent on revenge. I have always had a special place in my heart for the story. When I was nine or ten years old I memorized the entire theatrical version of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. I had been taken to see the musical and remained so...
Activities for children, Family Activities, L. and T., Parenting, Play, Special Needs
April 25, 2008
Why T. still sleeps with us
We are trying, gently and carefully, to help T. learn to stay in her own bed all night long. She always wakes up every night, sometimes at 11:00, or 1:00, or 4:00--the times vary--but the results are the same. I rouse myself from my sleep to find her standing next to our bed, a small, breathless, frightened figure. I get up, take her to the potty, then bring her to bed with us, where she snuggles against my back with a deep sigh, arms closed tightly around my neck. My husband is happy with all this, of course--he's not the one who has to stumble around in the bathroom with her in the...
Children, Dads, Fears and Worries, Moms, Parenting, Sleep, Social and Emotional Issues
April 24, 2008
If dreams are the windows to our souls...
Last night I had a long and involved and very detailed dream about being pregnant again. In my dream I was not only pregnant, but pregnant with twin boys. My dream took me through the positive pregnancy test and the discovery, via ultrasound, of the fact that I was carrying twins. It was all so realistic--right down to the numb shock, mixed with creeping delight, at the thought of a new pregnancy. I think, though, that the numb shock won out in the end. In my dream Scott and I wrestled very realistically with the thought of what this would do to us--my job, the kids, the fact that...
Babies, Dads, Done, Dreams, Family, L. and T., Moms, Parenting
April 23, 2008
The magic of two
After talking with a pregnant colleague the other day about the ups and downs of parenting two children AND juggling our chaotic lives (she's a month away from her due date and feeling nervous about #2), I got to thinking a little about how one of the trying and also rewarding things about having more than one child is that you end up never really parenting the same way twice--and you shouldn't. I do know some parents out there who seem to parent the exact same way for each child (brother slept through the night at three months; therefore, by god, sibling shall, too), but most...
Babies and Toddlers, Lessons to Live By, Moms, Parenting, Parenting Advice
April 22, 2008
Spinning wheels
Every Monday through Thursday, my cell phone alarm rings promptly at 4:30. This is L.'s "homework alarm" and, although I usually end up having to push the snooze button once or twice, the alarm system has helped make an unpleasant business at least more organized (although still not exactly pleasant). At 4:30 yesterday the alarm went off, and only five minutes later L. disappeared into the office to type out his spelling words. I used the time to engage in what a friend terms "horizontal parenting." This term describes the type of parenting you can do while lying prone on a couch or floor....
Homework Help, Parenting, School Daze, School resources, Skill Building, Social, Special Needs
April 21, 2008
Friends in virtual spaces
I've written before about the mixed feelings I have over Facebook, and over how it seems to have taken over the lives of my students to such a degree that they have, on occasion, trouble interacting with the real live world around them (in which I, as their professor, play a fairly important role). But I appreciate the allure of Facebook, and lately I've found myself enthralled by it. There's something about that little beckoning search window, the possibilities it presents. You type in a name and hit the return key, and wait. When the little thumbnail faces pop up, you scrutinize each one,...
College Preparation, Facebook, Friends, Parenting, Social and Emotional Issues, Students
April 18, 2008
Going it alone (for a few days)
Those little pangs of nostalgia and twinges of longing I sometimes get for my children's babyhood are always squashed completely at times like this, when my husband is out of town and I'm left to hold down the fort alone. I marvel at how much easier life has become now, with a four-year old and a seven-year old, even if parenting has grown extremely trying in other respects. But the daily routines are easier, bedtimes are predictable, and the guarantee of a fairly seamless night's sleep is pretty certain.  I remember vividly the first time I had to solo parent. Scott was on the...
Children, Family, L. and T., Marriage, Moms, Parenting, Siblings
April 17, 2008
Sisterhood
I was supposed to have a meeting today. A meeting I would have had to tear out of early at noon sharp, so I could race across town in time to pick up my daughter at 12:30. Then I was going to rush home to type up a post for today (subject matter still undetermined at that  point), since the Internet has been down almost all week at work. After that, I was going to race back downtown again to pick up L. at 2:30, then head over to my office to leave the two kids there with their babysitter while I sat in a meeting from 4:00 to 5:00. At 10:38, though, I discovered that my 11:00 meeting had...
Character Sketches, Friends, Loss, Parenting, Pets, Shopping
April 16, 2008
The day after
On Monday we had to make the difficult and painful decision to have our cat put to sleep. We had been wrestling with the very idea of having to make a decision like this for two weeks, yet when the time came it was clear to us that we weren't making an actual decision; instead, we were simply doing what had to be done. In the end, all the agonizing about how and when and what to tell the kids led to a very brief and almost anticlimactic moment in the kitchen. Both kids simply said "oh" and fled immediately to the family room--L. to take apart a flashlight, and T. to attempt to unscrew the...
Children, L. and T., Lessons from Little Ones, Loss, Pets, Social and Emotional Issues
April 15, 2008
Location, location
We moved into our current home and neighborhood just over a year ago. We truly love it here, and nothing brings this fact home to me more than when I walk the dog around the now familiar streets and down through the woods and back up again, past the houses lit up at dusk, cozy and warm and inviting. Now that spring is here and the daylight goes on for much longer than it used to, I've been able to go back to longer, post-dinner walks with our dog. I stopped walking her at night all through the winter, because I just don't like walking around in the dark. It's not that I'm worried about...
Children, Dads, Family, Friends, Moms, Neighbors, Parenting
April 14, 2008
Being big
Saturday morning I walked into the kitchen just in time to see T. lugging an enormous and very full carton of Trader Joe's vanilla soy milk out of the refrigerator. She was staggering under the weight and I caught the carton just as it was about to tilt precariously out of her hands. Next to the cabinets above the dishwasher stood a kitchen chair. On the kitchen table was her plastic Shrek bowl. The utensil drawer was wide open, as was the pantry door, and next to the plastic bowl was a box of Vanilla Almond Clusters cereal. Judging from all this accumulated evidence, it was clear that she...
Early Learning, Preschoolers, Skill Building, Social and Emotional Issues, T.
April 11, 2008
Chances
This is the time of the semester when one of two things usually happens: my students either kick their study habits and attitudes into high gear and become Super Students, or they disappear into what I like to call The Black Hole--you know, the one where on the other side is green grass, warm breezes, blissful lack of responsibility and about a dozen other things (many bad, some good) that grab hold of the students, pulling them down different roads, none of which leads into the classroom. Some students traveled through this black hole earlier in the semester and they've emerged now...
Children, College Preparation, Early Learning, Parenting, Social and Emotional Issues
April 10, 2008
Book therapy
Ever since we found out last week that our cat has mouth cancer, I've been waking up in the morning with a vague, sad feeling in my chest. I get up and think, for a few moments, why am I sad? Then I remember, and I shower, feed the other animals, coax our kitty to eat, and start the round and around of thinking about how we're going to address this situation with our kids. A couple of years ago, L. and I were reading a particular book at bedtime and the last chapter brought up the discussion of mortality. I had been steeling myself for that discussion for some time because it had...
Books, Family, Loss, Parenting, Pets, Social and Emotional Issues
April 9, 2008
The unbearable lightness of siblinghood
A few years back, an acquaintance of mine was pregnant with her first child, a son. She told me that she was relieved that her first child was going to be a boy. This way, she told me, she wouldn't have to worry about whether her second child would be a girl or a boy. She didn't want two girls--girls, she told me, fight too much and usually just don't get along (as it turned out she had three sisters, and they fought tooth and nail for years). I wondered at the time about this observation of hers. I too had a son back then, and hoped my future second child would be a girl--but not...
Children, L. and T., Parenting, Siblings, Social and Emotional Issues, Unbearable Lightness
April 8, 2008
The sweet parts
This past weekend was the second weekend in a row that the weather was damp and cool and rainy. People who know me in real life (and in the writing world, I suppose) will have little sympathy, because for weeks now I've been talking about daffodils and blooming azaleas, and the kids have been playing outside in short sleeves and crocs. Weekends like this past one really bring home to me how lucky we are to live in a state where the weather is often mild and sunny, almost year-round. I really can't imagine what we'd do with two housebound children--one with way too much frantic and wound-up...
Family Activities, Lessons to Live By, Moms, Parenting, Social and Emotional Issues
April 7, 2008
Why grandparents get to nap
My dad came into town on Wednesday to help us out with what was to be an utterly unmanageable end-of-the-week. Usually we can juggle our crazy tag-team parenting lives with just some sporadic help from babysitters, but the end of this week we knew would be impossible: days of late meetings for both of us, and on Friday a campus event I had been organizing for a good two months. We rushed around all week from deadline to deadline and when Wednesday night arrived, we breathed a collective sigh of relief: Help had arrived. I am always so envious of parents who have extended family nearby. Not...
Family, Family Activities, Grandparents, L. and T., Moms, Parenting
April 3, 2008
I'm no uber-mom
No sooner had we walked in the door yesterday from picking L. up from school, than he and his sister disappeared into the downstairs bathroom. I didn't notice at first. I was tired and hungry, and I came home to find that the plumber, who had arrived in the morning while Scott was home with T., had left dirty boot prints all over the kitchen floor, the entryway, and the upstairs bathroom. I am so grateful that there are people like plumbers, really, who can come out and fix leaking pipes, but I've never understood why every single repair person we've ever had come into our house must tromp...
Activities for children, Children, L. and T., Parenting, Social and Emotional Issues
April 2, 2008
Dreams and taxes
This past Saturday, my husband holed himself up in our home office to tackle the big April monster: the taxes. In the past we've usually succumbed to 11th hour pressure and taken the taxes to be done by someone else. But this year, with the kids getting bigger, and money tighter than usual, Scott decided he would do them himself. I was impressed when he emerged from the office, some hours later, with his hair sticking up every which way, his shirt damp as if he'd been doing yard work instead of punching in numbers, and announced that not only were the taxes done, but that we'd be getting a...
Early Learning, Family Finance, Money Matters
April 1, 2008
Loving and letting go
I've always considered myself a dog person--all my life. Growing up, we had the most amazing, human-like dog in the world, and she lived to the ripe old age of 16. Our current dog is sweet and wonderful in so many ways, but she's a very doggie dog and can't come close to matching the intelligence and human-like character of our old family dog. But that's okay, really, because with how crazy and chaotic daily life is around here, it's somewhat refreshing to come home to just a regular old smelly, doggie-sort-of-dog. My husband, though, is a cat person. He likes dogs, and grew up with them, but...
Early Learning, Family, Loss, Pets, Social & Emotional Issues