Professor Mom

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

archives

January 29, 2010
A feast for Mozart
I turned on the local news one night a few days ago, while I was folding laundry in our bedroom, and there was a feature about a local mom who has meal-planned for an ENTIRE year. One whole year. She had an Excel-type spreadsheet/calendar thing and on it she had the menu for every meal, for every day. I was impressed, and a little skeptical. Sometimes when we see someone who is so amazingly together in ways we can't fathom, we tend to be skeptical, to look for the flaws. And while I'm still impressed that she found the time to meal plan for an entire year, when the camera moved to a shot of...
Cooking, Family, Family Cook Night, Food for Thought, Holidays, Parenting, Recipes, Tradition
January 28, 2010
Average
I gave a quiz in my 10:00 class yesterday. One of my students, who so far has always been ready in class with the right answers, and excited about the course material, and in every way just the kind of student I love to have in class, fell apart when he got the quiz. His hands shook, sweat beads popped out on his forehead. He second-guessed every answer he put down, raising his hand constantly throughout the quiz for clarification, reassurance, validation, his voice wobbling nervously every time he asked a question. My heart went out to him, over and over again. After class, when he handed...
College Preparation. Teenagers, Parenting, School Daze, Special Needs, Students, Teaching
January 27, 2010
Bag of Tricks: Operation Clean-Up
Have you seen the show Hoarders? Scott watched it for the first time last Monday, while I lay in bed with the stomach flu. He tried to get me to watch the show on the bedroom TV, but I can tell you that the last thing I wanted to see at that moment was a show about hoarding--especially this episode. We did watch an episode together several days later, and it was sad and enlightening at the same, seeing the fallout of personal tragedies so tangibly represented in the disorder. I'm not a hoarder. I don't think I've ever been a hoarder. I do like to save sentimental scraps of things, tokens of...
Bag of Tricks, Children, Family, Organization, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
January 26, 2010
Letters
I had an uneasy dream last night. In it I was with a relative, who was attempting, via a Ouija board, to contact my grandmother. As I watched, the Ouija board began to spell out something, but I was too scared to watch, and ran away before I could see the words the letters made. When I woke up I remembered the dream right away. Why hadn't I stayed to watch? I wondered. What would the letters have spelled? Perhaps some important message, some meaning, that would forever be lost to me. Or maybe nothing--nonsense words, strung together in a frightening jumble. Maybe I'd run away in my dream...
Family, Greece, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Teaching, Writing
January 25, 2010
Playground mom
On Sunday morning we met our neighbors and their kids at a local playground. It was a blustery, cold morning, but the kids collectively seemed overjoyed to be outside, climbing and running around busily, like little motorized creatures set loose in a maze of metal and plastic and wood chips. There were one or two other families there, but no one with kids as old as L. Because the playground was relatively deserted, L. was enjoying himself immensely, which was so wonderful to see. At one point he came over to me and said, in a surprised sort of tone, "I'm having a fun time." This always tugs...
Lessons from Little Ones, Lessons to Live By, Moms, Parenting, Playground, The Games Kids Play
January 22, 2010
Muffin day
It was a muffin day yesterday. You know the kind of day--cold and rainy and sleepy. Ordinarily, I'm not a huge muffin fan. I don't often crave muffins, and I'm not a big morning muffin eater. I also don't like overly sweet or cakey muffins, and I'm not a big fan of the gigantic, crumbly muffins some places sell (who can eat all that, especially when it falls all over your lap?). When I do crave a muffin I want it to be dense and grainy--dark and moist, maybe only sweetened by blueberries, or chewy dates, or raisins, even. Yesterday I craved muffins. In fact, I started thinking about muffins...
Baking, Cooking, Food for Thought, Juggling, Life, Parenting, Recipes
January 21, 2010
Words
Last night, right before bed, T,. decided she wanted to count all the money she had in the new piggy bank my sister gave her for her birthday. I lay on my side in her bed, under her pink comforter, in the semi-stupor I've been in for some days now following this stomach bug, and waited for her to finish. She chatted on cheerfully to herself, counting out her wealth. "Why don't you put it all back again?" I suggested to her sleepily. "Okay!" She turned the bank over and began dropping the coins back in, one by one. They made a loud metallic sound when they hit the bottom. "Just like little Sal...
Books, Lessons from Little Ones, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Reading
January 20, 2010
Rough patch
One day last week I was waiting in line at Starbucks when a tall woman approached me. "Excuse me," she said. "Didn't I come to a party at your house maybe two years ago?" I knew right away that she had. Although I wouldn't have picked her out from all the other people in the coffee line, when she made the connection, I saw it, too. Two years ago we'd hosted a playdate/party for our local Asperger's Parenting group and she'd been there with her young son. We chatted while we waited for our drinks. "How is L. doing?" she asked. I hesitated, thinking about how to best sum up our lives at that...
Children, Family, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs
January 19, 2010
Buggy
No sooner had I settled into bed on Sunday night ready to enjoy the luxury of that next day off, when I woke up a few hours later with that ominous feeling you get inside only when in the grips of a stomach bug. You know the feeling, I'm sure. I spent most of Monday asleep--either on the couch downstairs, or upstairs in my room. T. visited me from time to time, with a handful of saltines for me to eat, or with her new Twillerbees dolls for us to play with and I lay there, semi-comatose, and in a fog, while she played around me. So forgive this re-posting for today. I looked back on some of...
Children, Health, Parenting, Sick Day, Social & Emotional Issues
January 18, 2010
Snowy success
Three day weekends are, without a doubt, the best thing in the whole world. There's nothing like that satisfied, contented feeling, on a Sunday afternoon, that you have one more day to go before the madness of the week resumes. Of course, by the time you read this, tomorrow will be the new Monday, and that content, satisfied, I-get-to-stay home feeling will be slowly but surely washing away. *********** I know you've been hanging on the edge of your seats all weekend about how T.'s party turned out. Did the snow globes work? Did I make that sugar cube igloo? Yes, and yes. Although, word to...
Activities for children, Arts & Crafts, Birthdays, Parenting, Parties
January 15, 2010
Great expectations
Several months ago, when T. was already laying down plans for her sixth birthday party, she announced that she wanted the theme to be "snow animals". I didn't put much stock into that at the time because surely, I thought, she would change her mind between then and January. After all, last year she flip-flopped between fairies and mermaids for several months before settling on a dragon/princess theme. But the snow animals persisted, all through November, and December, and now much of January. I like planning parties and my kids, perhaps sensing this, like to throw a challenge my way. Last...
Activities for children, Arts & Crafts, Birthdays, Children, Parenting
January 14, 2010
Snapshots
Yesterday was not only T.'s birthday, but the first day of classes at my college. Most semesters I start this milestone day eager and well-prepared; this semester I spent so much time running around trying to get organized that I didn't have time to savor that first-day-of-classes feeling until I was right there, in the classroom, looking around at the faces of familiar and brand-new students. Only then did I feel a burst of excitement--that filled-with-promise feeling I get at the start of each semester, and the one that keeps the spark and love I have for my job aglow, in even the most...
Birthdays, Character Sketches, Children, Family, Juggling, Parenting, School Daze, Snapshots, Teaching, Work
January 13, 2010
Six
I have a running letter in my head I've been writing for years now, a letter to T. Almost every day I add a little to it—all the things I want to say to her and don’t, or can’t; or will, when the time comes. Some of these things are apologies, for how difficult home life can be sometimes, in those dark, rocky, spiraling spaces of time, when things are bad with L., and how sorry we are that try as we can, there are many days we just can’t strike a balance. Don't give up on us, I write to her in my head. Or for that moment of lost patience, generated out of frustration for things that were...
Babies, Birthdays, Family, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Metopic Craniosynostosis, Milestones, Parenting, T.
January 12, 2010
Two thumbs up
This past weekend I took T. to her first movie birthday party, to see "The Princess and the Frog". Since it was her first experience at the movies in the context of a party, I wanted to go, too. Yes, I was nervous about T. being at the movies without us, but I also wanted to see the film myself. I missed out on many early movie viewing experiences because of L.’s phobias about seeing movies in the cinema, and when I do get a chance to go, I jump at it. I was also curious about the film itself. I hadn’t read much about it, or heard many responses to the film, beyond T.’s initial description: “...
Children. Activities for Children, Family, Movie Reviews, Parenting
January 11, 2010
Cloak of visibility
Do you ever have those days when you feel so well put together? Your hair comes out just right in the morning, you're wearing your favorite outfit--the one that makes you feel interesting, and attractive, and capable? You feel confident, and happy, and shining? I had a day like that last week. I walked into my downtown Starbucks after dropping L. off at school and stood in line with all the other well-dressed, confident, busy, interesting people who mob that particular location every weekday morning. I waited for my coffee. I thought my thoughts. When people looked at me while I waited in...
Children, Moms, Motherhood, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
January 8, 2010
Black cloud day
Most people who know me will say (hopefully) that I'm a pretty easygoing person. It takes a fair amount to ruffle my feathers, and send me over the edge. The benefit of this, is that when I AM sent over the edge, people take notice. This isn't always good, of course, but it does get people to stop and take pause. I felt pretty ruffled this week. Not because any one thing had happened to set me off, but I've spent every day this week, from 8:30 until about 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon in meetings, glued to a hard plastic chair, in a drafty room, staring at what by Thursday looked to be the...
Cooking, Food for Thought, Juggling, Parenting, Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes, Work
January 7, 2010
The good, the so-so, and the pretty awful
I don't know about your family, but we watched a lot of children's movies over winter break. There was a time when we hardly watched any movies as a family. For years L. wouldn't watch movies period--something about the loud sound, the unpredictability of the plot, the confusing merging of reality and fantasy, just upset him too much. But this past spring and summer he began to let the magic of movies into his life, little by little. He still doesn't like to watch films at the movie theater, unless he's already previewed the story at home first and liked the film, but we've been able to watch...
Activities with Children, Children, Family Activities, Movies, Parenting
January 6, 2010
Rules and regulations
When we finally got the kids (relatively) settled into their beds last night I collapsed on the couch and heaved a sigh of relief. We'd made it through Tuesday, Day Two of back-to-school/work week. Is it Friday, yet? Transitioning back into life after the holidays hasn't been easy. L. who for the first eight years of his life was up like a jack in the box at the crack of dawn (during the second year of his life he woke up at 5:00 a.m. sharp for seven straight months) has decided that beds are cozy, desirable places to be, especially on a cold, cold January morning. When we did get out of the...
Anxiety, Children, Lessons from Little Ones, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs
January 5, 2010
Primal
I remember one of the first times we left L. with a grandparent when he was a baby. He seemed chipper enough when we left, gazing after us with big eyes, but when we returned he took one look at us coming through the door and burst into tears. Wise Dr. Sears, who I always turned to in times of parental confusion and early child-rearing angst (and oh, were there many moments), assured us that a strongly attached infant/child will cry when the parent returns because it's only then, only at that moment when he sees and smells and touches his mother or father again that the attached infant/child...
Babies, Children, Lessons from Little Ones, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
January 4, 2010
Empty bag
I was going to sit down and try and write a Bag of Tricks post with advice about how to get off-schedule, going-to-bed-late, hyped-up-on-cookies and sweets children back to a routine come Monday, the day when most kids will be heading back to school, and parents back to work. Then I realized that I didn't have much advice to offer--my bag is decidedly empty. We woke up at 9:30 on Saturday (don't hate us--remember, L. didn't start sleeping through the night until he was EIGHT) and one of my first thoughts was how on earth were we going to get up at 6:30 on Monday morning. How were we going to...
Children, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Holidays, Lessons from Little Ones, Lessons to Live By, Life in General, Parenting