Professor Mom

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

archives

November 30, 2010
Book or Nook?
I got a Nook for my birthday this past August. I know, I, who have always been a critic of e-readers, now own one. At first I wasn't so sure about it. My husband told me I could try it out for a week or two and, if I hated it, we could return it for something else. I always love a good gadget, though, so I had only owned the Nook for about an hour before I was smitten. One day last week I was waiting in the carpool line at T.'s school. I had the windows down, and I inadvertently eavesdropped on a conversation coming from the car next to me. The woman was trying to convince her friend to buy...
Books, Children, Gadgets, Holidays, Parenting, Reading
November 29, 2010
Crossing over
It all started about three weeks ago. L. and I were getting into the car at 8:00 am on a school morning, and just as he'd slammed shut his car door and I was doing my routine three-point turn around on the cul-de-sac so we could head off to school, L. said: "Mama, I know you and Papa have been lying to me." There's nothing like being accused of lying--by your oldest child, no less, to make your heart go pitter-patter very rapidly. Even at 8:00 am. "What do you mean?" I asked. He was quiet for a moment and, when I glanced in the rearview mirror he had an I've-caught-you self-righteous look on...
Children, Christmas, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Holidays, Moms, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
November 26, 2010
Gratitude
One of the teachers at T.'s school suffered a tragic loss a few weeks ago. Her story isn't mine to tell, so I won't, but a caring calendar was sent around via e-mail so parents could sign up to bring her family a meal, or gift cards to local restaurants. I signed up to bring a meal on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and I cooked up a vegetarian shepherd's pie, along with a side of biscuits. Earlier that day I bought a slab of moist, dark gingerbread cake from Whole Foods, and T. and I tied a ribbon around the box. It seemed a good, simple, comforting sort of meal, and I hoped it...
Children, Cooking, Family, Holidays, Parenting, Thanksgiving
November 24, 2010
Torn
On Wednesday, as class was ending, one of my students approached me and leaned in, with the air of someone about to ask a critical question. "Professor M.," she asked. "Can I ask you a personal question?" Uh oh, I thought. Because you just never know what's coming with a question like that. But all my student wanted to know was what on earth, as a vegetarian family, we were going to eat for Thanksgiving. I've been asked that question many, many times since I began teaching here nine years ago. My students are always so curious about what options there are left for my family, if meat is taken...
Cooking, Family, Holidays, Parenting, Thanksgiving
November 23, 2010
Thankful wreaths
The other day I was lamenting to Scott that T. could really have used a little sister--maybe just two years apart in age; someone she could play with, someone who would fill in the gaps (or chasms, as the case may be at times) in her relationship with her brother. "That's not a reason to have another child," he pointed out which, of course, is the ethically responsible viewpoint. And I know he's right, but if I could custom-order, or conjure up a four- or five-year old little sister for T. I sometimes think I would, in an instant. I also know that T. loves her brother, despite all she puts...
Activities with Children, Arts & Crafts, Children, Holidays, Parenting, Siblings, Thanksgiving
November 22, 2010
Seitan gyros
One of the things I appreciated so much about Jonathan Safron Foer's book Eating Animals, is how much of the book he devotes to discussing the power food has over us emotionally; how we are nostalgically attached to the recipes and tastes of our childhoods; how we might work hard as parents to create "food memories" for our own children because we need to pass them on. If as adults we make food choices that prevent us from sharing these memories with our kids, we might mourn this loss, deeply and profoundly. This is why, Foer argues, we find it so easy to defend our food choices--our...
Children, Cooking, Food for Thought, Greece, Parenting, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian Recipes, Vegetarianism
November 19, 2010
Sweet Friday
Friday is always a glorious day, but some Fridays are even more glorious--more welcome than others. This Friday is one of them. It's been a long, long, hard week, with too many afternoon meetings scheduled for consecutive days, and too much juggling, and scrambling to find last-minute babysitters, tired kids, tired Mama and Papa, head colds brewing in all of us, and of course, those middle school Open House visits, straining our juggling capabilities. The Open House went well, I thought. As it turned out, we each only made it to the one school on Wednesday (I told you our juggling...
Children, Middle School, Parenting, Recipes, School Daze, Vegan, Vegetarian
November 17, 2010
Bag of Tricks: Getting the Most Out of Your Middle School Visit
It's started: the middle school Open House season. Tomorrow we're headed to two of them, and there are two more in December. We also have to schedule a visit to another middle school, our base school. I'm nervous about it all, of course--nervous because of all the what-ifs out there: what if I don't feel right about any of them? Or, what if I feel right about more than one? Or just what-if a million different things. I've already written about how we came to the decision to send L. to his current elementary school. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20 and, if we'd known then what we know now about...
Bag of Tricks, Children, Middle School, Parenting, School Daze, Special Needs
November 16, 2010
The ice skates
When I was back home this summer, visiting my parents and siblings, I found myself in the basement, looking for something or other. I glanced up on the top of one of the metal shelves and saw, bundled together, two pairs of old Dutch wooden ice skates. They look just like the picture at the bottom of this web page. I think we kids each had a pair of them once, although why there are only two left, I don't know. I took the skates down, and weighed them in my hand. The metal blades were a little rusty, the leather cracked, the laces frail-looking. It was hard to imagine that anyone could have...
Children, Family, Family Travel, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Memories, Parenting
November 15, 2010
My Final Entry . . . for Now
“I live a good, safe 12 miles from Boston,” she emailed me, “I'm tired of reading about the violence over my morning coffee and then not doing anything to make the situation better. My friends would like to help.” I sat at the table. Two white suburban women sat across from me. They introduced themselves. “I’m Sally.” “I’m Deb.” “I’m Talia,” I responded. They had read a 2008 Boston Globe article written about Villages Without Walls. Sally contacted me via the Boston Globe reporter. Sally and Deb wanted to help. They asked questions. I answered them. After an hour or so Sally mentioned her...
Gangs; Drugs; Violence; Guns; Success Story
November 15, 2010
The good, the unkind, and the inedible
The problem with whirlwind quick weekends away that involve long car trips and kids is, simply, that they are pretty exhausting. At the other end, of course, when you are back home again, is the new week beating down your door. And all those Sunday chores are still waiting: baking to get you through the school week, those Friday folders waiting to be emptied, and laundry, of course. We raced back early on Sunday so Scott and T. could go to a Y-Princess meeting and it was nice to have a large part of the day left to tackle the Sunday chores. I tossed a load of laundry into the washer, made...
Children, Cooking, Family Travel, Food for Thought, Parenting, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarianism
November 12, 2010
X marks the spot
Look what L. did this week! There might be hope for the motivational chart, yet. The remarkable thing is that I let all discussion of the chart drop after last week's failure. Then, one night at dinner, he shocked us all by poking his head up over the cereal box blockers he'd erected around his dinner bowl (it was veggie burger night) and interrupted T. to ask if she'd had a good day. She froze, her mouth hanging open in a perfect "O" of surprise. "It's my connecting question!" He said impatiently, as he bolted from the dinner table. Then on the next night I caught L. marking an "X" in one...
Books, Children, Early Learning, Motivation, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
November 11, 2010
Basic instinct
I remember this evening so distinctly: L. was only two years old, and we were having pizza dinner at our favorite pizza place. It was a warm evening, and we were sitting outside, watching the traffic pass. Across the street from the restaurant was a school--we passed it many times on our way to work. I already knew a little about it, but only in that abstract way you might if your child was still only two and school seemed impossibly far, far away-a little pinprick spot on some map of the future. While we waited for our bill, I let L. down out of the wooden high chair. He had fun picking up...
Children, Middle School, Parenting, School Daze, Social & Emotional Issyes
November 11, 2010
Basic instinct
I remember this evening so distinctly: L. was only two years old, and we were having pizza dinner at our favorite pizza place. It was a warm evening, and we were sitting outside, watching the traffic pass. Across the street from the restaurant was a school--we passed it many times on our way to work. I already knew a little about it, but only in that abstract way you might if your child was still only two and school seemed impossibly far, far away-a little pinprick spot on some map of the future. While we waited for our bill, I let L. down out of the wooden high chair. He had fun picking up...
Children, Dads, Middle School, Moms, Parenting, School Daze, Special Needs
November 10, 2010
Big dreams, big steps
I took the kids to Fossil Day at our local natural history museum on Saturday. T. was jumping up and down about this event because not long ago, she declared that she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up. She's always been interested in dinosaurs and fossils, even at a very young age. She loved all the dinosaur books L. rejected when he was her age. He was all about trains and trucks; she wanted nothing to do with those. The museum was packed, with lots of displays and exhibits featuring old bones and fossils and paleontologist people and fossil hobbyists everywhere. L. really didn'...
Children, Dads, Daughters, Family Activities, Moms, Parenting
November 9, 2010
Powerful people
This is the time of the semester when I get desperate. I pull out all the stops when it comes to begging and pleading with my students to get it all together in time for final exams, which are only three weeks away. I try and weave inspirational stories into my lesson plans; I become more of a motivational speaker/coach and I expend vast amounts of energy trying to get my students across the finish line. Some will make it, others will not. Yesterday we had what I thought was a compelling discussion in my classes about the power of appeals--written and verbal. We talked about how many of my...
Children, Education, Language, No Child Gets Ahead, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs, Students, Teaching, Writing
November 8, 2010
Fall back
I'll never forget with what dread Scott and I awaited the first ever Daylight Savings time as parents. From almost Day 1 of L.'s life, we just sensed that this was a kid who would need the safety and sanctity of a schedule. While we might have flown by the seat of our pants on some things as new parents, we really worked hard to protect L.'s routines--especially the sleep routine. This was probably in large part due to the fact that from Day 1 L. had trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. It was surreal, really, how little our newborn seemed to sleep; how he defied our rosily-tinted pre...
Baking, Children, Early Learning, Fall, Family Activities, Parenting, Vegan, Vegetarianism
November 5, 2010
Friday snapshot
On Wednesday, when T. came home from school, she told me gleefully that the teacher said it would be very cold on Thursday and Friday. "Very cold" around here, of course, means 58 degrees. The first day the thermometer dipped into the upper 50s this fall my students showed up to the morning classes in their winter parkas, rubbing their hands and exclaiming woefully over the cold. I winced, because to me, real cold weather is what we used to get in upstate New York, and what I often miss, crazy though that might sound. But it rained all day Thursday, and today it's damp and cold. We turned our...
Family, Family Activities, Food for Thought, Parenting, Recipes
November 5, 2010
Friday snapshot
On Wednesday, when T. came home from school, she told me gleefully that the teacher said it would be very cold on Thursday and Friday. "Very cold" around here, of course, means 58 degrees. The first day the thermometer dipped into the low 60s this fall my students showed up to the morning classes in their winter parkas, rubbing their hands and exclaiming over the cold. I winced, because to me, real cold weather is what we used to get in upstate New York, and what I often miss, crazy though that might sound. But it rained all day Thursday, and today it's damp and cold. We turned our heat on...
Children, Family, Food for Thought, Friends, Parenting, Recipes, Snapshots
November 4, 2010
Shelf life
My students have been working on a debate project these past two weeks--preparing and writing opening statements, and presenting these in the formal setting of an actual in-class debate. It hasn't been all smooth, I have to say. I've done this project three semesters now, and every semester I learn something new; I tweak the assignment accordingly for the next time I use it, then I learn something more and tweak again, and so on. This time around has been particularly challenging, though, as the assignment worked as expected for one class, was a little disastrous for another, and produced...
Children, Early Learning, Family, Motivation, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Teaching
November 3, 2010
The bullies and the bullied
On Friday, the one day of the week when I don’t have afternoon office hours, I left work, swung by the pizza shop, and met L. for lunch at his school. With the new changes in place for this second quarter, two days/week he has Lunch Bunch in the guidance counselor’s room (he gets to pick a friend to eat with him) and on Fridays I try and bring him pizza and eat in the cafeteria with him. Scott usually swings by on Monday afternoons—sometimes to bring him a slice, if the timing works out—other times just to check up on how he’s doing. So on any given week, L. really only has to deal with...
Bullying, Children, Parenting, School Daze, Social & Emotional Issues
November 2, 2010
The improbable date
In an episode of Parenthood recently, Christina Braverman, mother of Max, agonizes over a statistic she heard: that married couples raising a child on the spectrum suffer an 80% divorce rate. I was taken aback by the statistic as well, but a little research and article-reading proved that the alarming 80% rate as been recently debunked by the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at Kennedy Krieger Institute. The study did show that parents who are raising a child who is on the spectrum suffer a high level of stress. Well, no kidding, I said aloud to the article. The bottom line is stress...
Children, Family, Juggling, Love, Marriage, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs
November 1, 2010
Boo! Deconstructed...
Did you have a Happy Halloween? I hope you did. We had lots of fun, and the whole time I kept thinking about how wonderful it was to be healthy this year, NOT recovering from the swine flu, and having the energy to really throw myself into the festivities. We had Putrid Punch, which the kids completely loved, probably because we never ever drink Kool Aid and because ginger ale normally is reserved for sick tummy days. And who could resist balls of lime sorbet floating on top? And gummy worms? I made finger cookies, and those spider cupcakes, which were also a big hit with T. and her cousins...
Family, Family Activities, Halloween, Holidays, Parenting, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarianism