Professor Mom

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

archives

July 29, 2011
Dog days
We didn't sign the kids up for any camps this summer, despite the good intentions we had back in March, when we pulled catalogs and sat down and tried to pick camps. The only camps L. would even half-way consider were computer camps and since most of our time is spent wrestling L. away from his beloved computer, it seemed silly to spend $175 for the purpose of giving L. more computer time. Experience has shown us that signing L. up for a camp he has no motivation to attend ends in disastrous and damaging ways, so getting him to buy into the experience is critical. But months passed and we...
Activities for children, Arts & Crafts, Children, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Siblings, Summer
July 28, 2011
Sorting relics
I was sorting through some bins of old clothes recently, in an attempt to do some summer cleaning. I had already made a big run-through of the bins a few months ago, but there were still a good many clothes to sort through, and I wanted to pass some along to my sister, and maybe our neighbors across the street. I have mixed feelings about sorting through baby clothes and toys. When I was pregnant with T., a friend sent me boxes of baby girl's clothing. Hormonal and hugely pregnant, I sorted through them all, and sniffed back tears of nostalgia for her. When all was said and done...
Children, Memories, Metopic Craniosynostosis, Parenting, Summer
July 27, 2011
Mixed
L.'s old elementary school started up on Monday. For the first time in six years L. did not head back to school this last week of July. We drove downtown yesterday, too, for a family trip to the library. It was a desperate attempt to get everyone out of the house for an activity that didn't involve the usual yelling, protests and name-calling from L. that seem to accompany most attempts to leave the house these days. Now, in the dog-days of the summer, the suffocating heat and humidity, I'm all about keeping it easy. After what feels like months of battle, I'm too weary of the...
Children, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Middle School, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Transitions
July 26, 2011
Counting worries
I've been having trouble sleeping lately, which isn't something that normally happens to me. Usually I'm so tired that I nod off around the end of whatever 10:00-11:00 show on television we happen to be watching; or I find myself reading the same line in a student's paper over and over and over again until my eyes blur. By then I'm usually so sleepy that I'm out by the time my head hits the pillow. But it's summer now. We've been staying up later, and enjoying the extra sleep-in time in the morning. I'm just not tired the way I usually am at the end of the...
Children, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs
July 25, 2011
Indigo day
Last summer I bought an indigo tie-dye kit on a whim, invited a friend and her two boys over, and we spent a few happy hours tie-dyeing everything we could get our hands on. We had so much fun that I vowed to make it an annual tradition, and branch out the following year by holding an actual tie-dye party. After polling some close friends we picked this Saturday for the party and asked friends to bring along anything white they wanted to dye. I set up the vats ahead of time. The indigo dye process is so much more interesting, I think, then regular tie-dye, although we did have one friend...
Activities for children, Arts & Crafts, Children, Family Activities, Parenting, Parties, Recipes, Summer Fun
July 22, 2011
Savoring the simple
When Scott and I honeymooned in Santorini (fifteen years ago!) we had some memorable meals--some memorable and very inexpensive meals. This is one of the things I love and appreciate about Greece in particular--you can eat so inexpensively and almost always very memorably, too. It's not even as challenging as you might think to find good, cheap vegetarian fare. Now that vegetarianism has become so much more visible and acceptable than it was fifteen years ago, I am sure that traveling to Greece and discovering ways to eat healthy, inexpensive vegetarian meals has become easier than ever....
Food for Thought, Greece, Parenting, Recipes, Travel, Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Cooking
July 21, 2011
Endings
I feel it coming--the end of summer. Do you? It's just around the corner, crouched there, and every now and then I catch a sight of it. I pretend I don't see it, though, even though the signs are all around me these days. Sometimes I feel restless, bouncing around inside the unstructured lines of our summer days. I worked hard the first part of the summer, and spent the first eight weeks immersed in a writing project. 277 pages later it's done now. I still dip into it every other day or so, working through edits and dreaming about what it might become, what I hope will happen to...
Activities for Children. Family Activities, Children, Parenting, Snapshots
July 20, 2011
Face time
I had some bank problems recently. I have a "writing name" as T. calls it and, after months and months of depositing writing-gig-related checks under that name, my bank decided they they weren't sure who I was exactly, and they sent my checks back. In order to sort the mess out, I had to go into the bank and meet with an actual bank manager person. I get intimidated ahead of time, when I have to meet with people like that. I don't know why, but I always assume they'll be rude to me, or chew me out, or make me feel like an idiot. As it turned out, the bank manager guy was...
Character Sketches, Children, Lessons to Live By, Life in General, Parenting, Snapshots
July 18, 2011
Rules and regs
L. is a rule-follower. This is sometime difficult to believe since he spends a lot of time rebelling against the rules that are out there governing what he can and can't do. But he respects laws and rules, and whenever we go someplace new, and there are rules posted, he is probably the only person who actually stops and reads the list through. On Sunday, my mother-in-law took us out to a nearby family water park, and of course L. stopped to read through the rules and regulations posted by the entrance.  "Look!" he exclaimed. "It says that kids UNDER ten have to be...
Children, Family Activities, Parenting, Summer
July 15, 2011
The bad, the good, and the complete
In the middle of a lot of chaos yesterday I wrote up my post for today and then Photobucket froze my laptop while I was loading pictures and the post was lost. I ranted and raved a little and closed my laptop for the rest of the day. We finished with the chaos (more on that in a minute) packed up the kids for the pool and flopped there for awhile, eating our veggie burger sandwiches and commiserating with friends about all the chaos we'd waded through. The good news: L.'s loft bed is assembled! The bad news isn't so bad anymore, because we're out the other side of it all. But...
Children, Parenting, Snapshots
July 14, 2011
Pillow talk
There are some nights when I wish I could wave a wand and find the kids fast asleep in bed. I am sure that I am not alone. L. is pretty good these days. The bedtime routine used to be an extraordinarily long, drawn-out affair, with lots of rituals thrown into the mix. By the end of it I was often too worn-out and sleepy myself to salvage much of the evening. Something happened when he turned eight, though, and then nine was even better and now at eleven the only struggle we have is with enforcing the "Power Down" rule at 8:00 each night. T. has a much shorter routine than L. had at...
Children, Growing Up Is Hard to Do, Motherhood, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues
July 13, 2011
Perception
There is a five-year old boy in our neighborhood, a creative child, a deep-thinker, a sensitively-sometimes-tenuously-wired soul who reminds me a lot of L. when he was that age. It's fitting, then, that this little boy also admires and even worships  L. in the way small boys admire and might worship an older boy they look up to and want to be like. The other day on our way back from the pool I mentioned something casually to L. about whether or not he had noticed the way this small boy looked at him and admired him and L. all but stopped in his tracks. "What? Why?" He...
Children, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Social & Emotional Issues, Special Needs
July 12, 2011
One day in July
T. got some extensive dental work done yesterday, and I took the day off to devote myself exclusively to her. She is a brave, stoic soul, my T. When we told her on Saturday that we'd be taking her in on Monday she made a slight face, but was quiet. She wasn't herself, though, the rest of the weekend. On Sunday she woke up uncharacteristically crabby and weepy and sat at the kitchen table fussing over this and that and everything in between. "What's wrong T.?" I asked her. "Is something bothering you?" She shook her head, but two big fat tears popped out of the...
Children, Metopic Craniosynostosis, Motherhood, Parenting
July 11, 2011
Regifted
This was the first year that L. didn't pick an actual theme for his party-at-the-pool. In recent years we've had a Hardy Boys themed party, and a cat themed party, but this year when I asked L. he just shrugged. The only thing he knew he wanted for certain was the cake from the Portal 2 computer game. I don't quite understand the whole Portal 2 cake business at all, but I did get the basic idea that it's at heart a German chocolate cake topped with maraschino cherries. There are recipes out there for a Portal 2 cake, but I have to say I was pressed for time and a little...
Birthdays, Celebrations, Children, Parenting, Parties, Summer
July 8, 2011
Shell pendants
Can you stand one more post about what to do with those treasures from the sea? A good friend of mine shared a great way to turn the small shell fragments and rocks and sea glass into beautiful and unique pendants. I wish I had collected more of the small shells and shell pieces instead of always looking for the larger, intact shells and rocks. You can varnish the shell fragments and use jewelry glue to attach a bail to the back of the shell you want to use. I bought two small bags of bails at our local arts and crafts store. Just make sure you think about whether or not the bail you use...
Activities with Children, Arts & Crafts, Parenting, Summer
July 7, 2011
Fifteen
The day after L. was born, a kind and amazing nurse gave us a happy anniversary card. Inside it she wrote, Get used to the little guy always coming first because, of course, our wedding anniversary celebration will always pale in comparison to the other kind of anniversary celebration that comes the day before. I like the fact that L. was born the day before our wedding anniversary. I like thinking back to my wedding day and realizing how I never even imagined that I'd almost share that day with my first child. The other day I went into a store and browsed for anniversary cards, but...
Anniversaries, Love, Marriage, Milestones, Parenting
July 6, 2011
Eleven
I have the number ten bouncing around in my head these days. I've been thinking about the day, some ten years ago, when I walked into a drugstore with L. in the Baby Bjorn front carrier. "Ooooh, how old is he?" the cashier gushed as I dug some change out of my wallet. "Ten weeks old," I said proudly. Then I stopped and gasped inside a little at the size of that number: ten WEEKS old. It seemed only the day before that I had told another cashier, in another store, that my baby was only ten DAYS old. That cashier's eyes had rounded in surprise. "I can't...
Birthdays, Children, Motherhood, Mothers, Parenting
July 5, 2011
Projection
A few years ago, L. surprised us out of the blue by telling us that the happiest day of his life was when T. was born. He then went on to recount in great and startling detail the facts of T.'s birth ending with his first sight of her, as she lay between my legs. L.'s long-term memory never ceases to blow me away, time and time again. He witnessed her birth, after all--right there, up close and personal, while Clifford the Big Red Dog played on the wall-mounted hospital room television. He's never talked much about her birth before. He was, after all, only 3 1/2 years...
Children, Family, Memories, Parenting, Siblings, Special Needs
July 4, 2011
The pie
I have been trying, slowly and often not perfectly, to let go of my attachment to certain things. Not to people, mind you, but to the small (and sometimes large) expectations I set up for myself (and project onto other people) on a daily basis. When things go wrong--when my expectations aren't met, I sometimes feel cranky and disappointed, even though the reasons why are petty and often so much smaller than the actual expectation. I do think I'm a go-with-the-flow type of person but I'm also hyper-aware of how moods can be derailed by setbacks. L. struggles with this especially,...
Children, Lessons to Live By, Parenting, Recipes, Social & Emotional Issues, Summer
July 3, 2011
Sweet summer
It's hot. It's been really hot for days now. L. and I have settled into a nice routine during the week. Scott drops him off outside our school chapel at 12:15, right after my class ends. I walk out into the heat, blinded by the light from the bright sun. The warmth feels so good on my skin, though, after hours inside air-conditioned classrooms. Back in my office he sits at my colleague's computer and reads quietly while I photocopy, meet with students, and prepare for classes the next day. If I move quickly I can reward myself with time to work on my writing project....
Food for Thought, Parenting, Recipes, Summer
July 1, 2011
Re-entry
My fingers are double crossed so I don't jinx things, but Night One of the Power Down Plan worked pretty smoothly. L. made some grumbling noises about how powering down his computer each night would damage it over time, but he shut it down on his own. I fully expect it NOT to go smoothly some point down the road, since L. has trouble grasping the impact rules, etc. will have on him in advance, so we're keeping the hatches battened for the time being, and treading carefully. **************** Last summer, right around this time, I became obsessed with cherries. But up until...
Baking, Food for Thought, Friends, Neighbors, Parenting, Recipes, Summer