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, 2010
Rainbow pie
For those of you who may really not be up to speed on all things Clone Wars, tonight is the one-hour season finale. There is no way we could forget this fact at our house, because L. has been reminding us about it for weeks now. I have a love-hate sort of relationship with the show. I feel indebted to it in some ways: I had always wished that L.'s very eclectic interests could, for once, intersect just a little with those of his peers, and Star Wars and Clone Wars opened up a door to a social world he had stood on the outside of for many years. Yet we have also been struggling with limiting L...
Parenting
April 29, 2010
Blink
I'm barely keeping my head above water at work these days. I'm drowning in an avalanche of end-of-semester papers and projects and portfolios. This happens every spring semester, and every spring semester I reach a point where I think it just can't be done. But then, sure as anything, somehow it all DOES get done, and the grades are turned in, and I can take a deep, deep breath. But I'm not there yet. Not in the least. Earlier this week, though, T.'s good friend from school, who happens to live right around the corner from us, came over for a play date. At first my heart lightened a little at...
Activities for children, Arts & Crafts, Children, Parenting
April 28, 2010
Bystander effect
On Saturday, on my way to the grocery store, I spied something from the corner of my eye--something fluttery and wavy along the curb. As I slowed down to drive past I saw a mama duck, leading a little trail of baby ducklings, who were bobbing up and down in unison as they followed her. Just as I drove past I saw the mama duck turn to head across the busy road. I was past her at that point, so I pulled up further along the road to look behind. Would the other cars stop? How would they see the ducklings? Would I witness a duck and duckling massacre? What could I do? But then one of those heart...
Character Sketches, Lessons to Live By, News, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Students, Teaching, Work
April 27, 2010
Growing up is hard to do
A pet-related crisis that must have happened during the wee hours of Saturday night necessitated the unearthing of our steam cleaner from the crawl space and the removal of all the furniture out of the office and lots of fussing and snapping from two frazzled parents who couldn't get the soap canister to snap onto the cleaner just right. We were tired, Scott and I. There was dirty soapy water everywhere, and neither one of us wanted our Sunday morning to start that way. We wanted pancakes and coffee and domestic tranquility and order. We both had piles of papers to grade that day, and not...
Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Lessons to Live By, Life, Parenting
April 26, 2010
The talk
Last night I had one of those surreal conversations you have when you're a parent--the type of conversation you never imagine yourself having with anyone, but then, there you go, it happens, and you're standing in the bathroom with your six-year old, talking about the toilet. It started this way: I ushered T. into the bathroom at bedtime so we could do teeth and her bath. Someone had stopped up the sink at some point during the day and it was full to the top with soapy bubbles. "Who filled up the sink?" I asked. T. laughed at the memory. "I did! I was washing my hands!" "Oh" I said, and I...
Children, Family, Kids, Moms, Parenting, Somebody Pinch Me
April 23, 2010
The happy earth
My T. loves a good celebration. Her life revolves around holidays and special occasions. She lights up to think about Valentine's Day, or Halloween, or Mother's Day and Father's Day--even April Fool's Day made her jump with excitement. Earth Day, of course, made her skip out of bed with an extra happy spring in her step. "It's Earth Day!" she said, on Thursday morning, and she threw her hands up into the air. "Happy Earth Day! Happy Earth Day!" Then she ran to the kitchen window and looked out at the morning, pronounced it beautiful, and asked what we were doing special today to celebrate. "...
Parenting
April 22, 2010
Soapbox Thursday: Shame, and what we do with it
It's that time of the semester--the time when students are frantically trying to salvage their grades, and scrambling to play catch-up, yet birds are chirping, the sun is warm, and the last place anyone wants to be is in the classroom. It's also the time of the semester when I feel most like...a mom. "What did I tell you?" I say to student after student as they come into my office, worried they failed the last quiz. "I told you to BUY THE BOOK." "I told you you had to study!" "What did I say to you last week?" I morph into the Nagging Teacher, the I-Told-You-So Teacher, the Why-Didn't-You-...
Character Sketches, Parenting, Somebody Pinch Me, Students, Teaching
April 21, 2010
The field trip
My cell phone rang yesterday while I was battling it out with the copy machine on the second floor. I was trying to finish number 7 on a long, long work-related to-do list, and I'd been plugging away at the list all morning--with a brief 75 minute break in-between to teach a class. When I answered the phone it was Scott, checking in. "Where's T.?" he asked, first thing. We've been married long enough for me to realize that he wasn't seriously asking the question, but I had been so absorbed in my long list of things to do, and the stubborn copy machine and malfunctioning toner cartridge (my...
Children, Lessons from Little Ones, Lessons to Live By, Moms, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
April 20, 2010
The safe full of shoes
You have to view the ups and downs of any trip with kids in an out-of-body-experience way, as if it's all happening to someone else; even huge diaper blowouts on a beach chair miles from a hotel room and with no public restroom in sight, or meltdowns at restaurants, or your child locking all your shoes into the hotel room safe and forgetting the combination, are happening to some other person—someone with a sense of humor, someone who will turn it all into a humorous tale to be retold years down the road--you, but the you in some type of television sitcom. The first morning in Atlanta, Scott...
Children, Family, Family Travel, Life, Moms, Parenting, Travel with Children
April 19, 2010
The unexpected
Travelling with children is never dull, that much is for sure. You learn this VERY quickly as a parent, and you also learn—in a sink or swim kind of way—that you’d better develop a sense of humor about it all pretty quickly. It’s do or die, really. Travelling with kids is one thing, though; travelling with a kid who has very inflexible views of the world, and everything in it, is quite another. Remember that bottle of water from the Westin hotel three years ago? The one L. kept by his bedside for months following the trip? It seems, in the three years between our last stay and this one,...
Dads, Family Travel, Moms, Parenting, Special Needs, Travel with Children
April 15, 2010
Changing times
Three years ago, when T. was three, and L. was almost seven, we took a trip to Atlanta. We went there so I could go to a conference, but Scott and the kids tagged along. While I went to conference workshops Scott took the kids to the aquarium, and to see the sights of downtown Atlanta. I missed my family during the day, and I still remember that twinge of abandonment I felt when I stood outside the hotel steps that first morning, and watched Scott wheel away the stroller, with L. hopping along by his side, as they headed off to the aquarium for the day. But it was also refreshingly liberating...
balance, Dads, Family, Juggling, Moms, Motherhood, Parenting, Work
April 14, 2010
Wednesday snapshot
I was working in my office the other day and a student came by, looking for my office mate. She wasn't in, and he had a long story to tell me about why he was going to miss class the next day. "Why don't you leave her a note," I suggested, pointing to the handy pad of paper and the pen dangling by a piece of yarn, that we keep on the office door. He seemed a little thrown by the suggestion. He ripped off a sheet of paper and started to write, then balled it up. Then he ripped another sheet and started again. He paused. He crossed out some stuff. He seemed restless, impatient. This was all too...
Character Sketches, Somebody Pinch Me, Students, Teaching, Work, Writing
April 13, 2010
Flight
In bed on Sunday night, after yet another chapter of Really, Truly Ruthie, T. and I lay in bed talking about family and growing up. We went through a lenghty list of all the various family members out there, and she counted them on all her fingers, and started over again. Then she asked, "What is YOUR family, Mama?" I was confused. "My family is your family: you and L. and Papa, of course," I told her. "No," she said, "your OTHER family!" "Well of course--Grandma and Dadad and Aunt E. and Uncle R.," I said. "They're my Family, with a capital "F", but they're yours, too, and you are their...
Children, Dads, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Lessons to Live By, Moms, Parenting
April 12, 2010
Comings and goings
My parents came to visit this weekend. They nearly didn't come--for various reasons--a series of unfortunate events, involving a power outage, and non-working alarm system, and other odds and ends, and I felt really sorry for myself Friday night that they weren't here. But they got up super early Saturday morning and were in North Carolina by lunchtime. My kids who moped around a little on Saturday morning when they found out Grandma and Dadad weren't coming until hours later, lit up like firecrackers when they saw them pull into our driveway. Even though my parents live a five hour drive...
Children, Family, Greece, Memories, Parenting, Traditions
April 9, 2010
The dish with the funny name
Remember my Turnaround Easter post? I lamented my lack of Easter preparedness--no special dish in the oven, no plans for an elaborate, celebratory meal, no relatives over to crowd our dining room? Back home, my mom was making a gigantic pastisio--a sort of Greek lasagna, only much better, I think. I used to love this dish as a child--a mountain of thick noodles and sauce topped by a pouffy layer of bechamel. I used to call it "the dish with the funny name". Unfortunately, most pastisios have ground beef in the sauce and when you get the dish at many Greek restaurants it ends up too greasy and...
Cooking, Family, Food for Thought, Greece, Holidays, Parenting, Recipes
April 8, 2010
Bag of Tricks: Going meatless!
I was sitting in my office yesterday, typing away at some e-mails, when a student stopped by. She wasn't there to complain about a grade, or ask about our upcoming paper project, but to ask about becoming...a vegetarian. I was floored, but pleased. In the eight years I've taught here, I think I've only encountered two vegetarian students. I've had a few handful of curious ones--especially a couple male athletes here and there who, looking to drop a few pounds and get in shape, mistakenly think vegetarianism equals some type of wacky weight-loss program. Of course, if you're doing it right you...
Bag of Tricks, Children, Food, Food for Thought, Parenting, Students, Vegetarianism
April 7, 2010
Going back is hard to do
The crazy schedules of the last few weeks have settled, thankfully. Both kids headed back to school yesterday. For the first time in what seemed like weeks I packed lunches and snacks and filled water bottles, and the morning was filled with the usual chaos of school day preparations. Yesterday morning, while I stood at the counter fixing cereal for the kids, T. sat at the kitchen table, coloring a large Easter bunny coloring page. Then she set down her crayon and sighed, her shoulders slumping a little. "What's wrong?" I asked her. "Back to school today," she said, her voice drooping, Eeyore...
Children, Moms, Parenting, Siblings, Social & Emotional Issues
April 6, 2010
Nothing left
I ran to the video store on Saturday afternoon, on my way home from some last-minute Easter errands. As an aside, the marketing world really punishes those parents (like me) who wait until the day before Easter to buy baskets--I couldn't believe how empty the shelves at our local mega store were, and a few of us parents--the procrastinators, or the too-busy, or those of us who had kids home for Spring Break all last week and, therefore, couldn't go shopping alone at all, wandered in dismay among the empty shelves. "I can't believe there's NOTHING left," one mom said miserably, as she clutched...
Books, Children, Life in General, Parenting, Reading, Students, Teaching
April 5, 2010
Turnaround
This past weekend was not only Easter weekend for the rest of the world, but also Greek Easter. Every few years or so "Western" Easter and Greek Easter coincide, which I remember always being a big thing to me when I was younger. This weekend we dyed eggs--not just the light pastel colors of Easter bunny Easter, but a deep, shiny, blood-red color--the color of Greek Easter. My mother sent us some packets of red dye she had picked up on her last trip to Greece. I made a sweet bread dough and on Saturday the house smelled like vinegar and yeast, and by lunchtime the eggs were lined up in...
Children, Family, Family Activities, Holidays, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Tradition
April 2, 2010
Squared
A few days ago T. and I finished reading our latest American Girl book: Kailey--she was, apparently, the Girl of the Year in 2004. We found the book at the flea market a couple of weeks ago--for a mere .50 cents! How could we pass that up? T. really enjoyed the story, about a young girl and her friend Tess who mobilize to save the precious tide pools at their beach when they are threatened by developers. The girls hold a "Tide Pool Drawing Contest" as a way of encouraging visitors to the beach to think about how valuable the tide pools are, and how the marine life will be impacted by the...
Baking, Children, Cooking, Food for Thought, Parenting, Recipes
April 1, 2010
Baggage
Have you caught the new NBC series, Parenthood, yet? We watched the first two episodes, but last Tuesday night I confess we skipped it in favor of a re-cap of last season's V. And this Tuesday we passed on it again, this time for the season premiere of our long-time favorite Law & Order: CI. I liked what I'd seen of Parenthood--mostly. Since the show first aired, I've had lots of people I know ask if we watch the show, and what we think about the show's portrayal of Asperger's and of one family's journey (albeit in brief, sped-up TV form) through the diagnosis and aftermath. The little...
Children, Dads, Moms, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs