Catching Up

School ended just a few short days ago.  It's Sunday now, and I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm NOT going in to school tomorrow.  The last two weeks have been incredibly full, and I'm grateful for the chance to take a breath, sleep a little more, and begin to attack the we-can-do-that-this-summer list.  Now I also have time to catch up on this blog.  

On June 7th, Christine and I went to the award ceremony to receive the Marci Resnick Teacher Fund grant.  The previous year's recipients presented the work they had done using their grants.  It was so inspiring that, before they were even done, Christine and I were busy scribbling notes back and forth about our own plans.  The award was presented by the son and husband of Marci Resnick, a teacher who passed away a few years ago and the woman this grant honors.  Their words about Marci Resnick were very moving, and their thoughtful comments about our grant proposal validated what we hope to accomplish.

Christine, myself, and Terri (another grant recipient from our school).

Back to catching up, let me throw in a little Oscar news.  He continues to astound us with new words, interests, and talents.  He says "daddy", "bird", and "cookie" pretty clearly.  He repeats words he hears much of the time.  He can scale the couch (and get in to the "no-touch" zone on the shelf behind it) in less than two seconds.  He reads books to himself endlessly, though he won't sit and be read to for more than half of a book (the teacher in me is so hoping this will change soon).  Ironically, there is one exception, a goofy "Toy Story 2" book I brought home from school because I don't allow my third graders to read books based on movies (it just isn't quality literature and it's below their reading levels).  Now, this sub-par book turns out to be the only book Oscar will sit still for--I read it to him four times IN A ROW last night without a single wiggle.  He is also really into playing in a new homemade "water table" (basically, a plastic tub filled with rocks, plastic animals, and water).  I am endlessly fascinated with how toddlers make connections and try stuff out.  It is really fun to watch.

My last day of school was Thursday, though my last day with students was Wednesday.  It has been a pretty good year, overall.  While I won't post many pics of my class on this blog, I can't help posting these:

A friendly game of tug-o-war amongst the third grade classes (and we won!).

And this picture pretty much expresses the spirit of my class this year -- I had a really sweet bunch and I will miss them!

We are looking forward to a fun-filled summer.  Though I work so much during the school year, I am thankful to have the summer off.  We'll do our best to post more of our adventures (big and small) as they happen.

Picky Eater? Not This Kid.

An almost sixteen month-old and a plateful of food makes for a fun combination these days.  The best part of it is, O.K. enjoys eating all kinds of foods.  He tries new foods with much curiosity and makes his favorites known (bananas, cheese, and most recently, blueberries).  I've heard from other moms about their chicken-nuggets-only toddlers, and I try not to brag--who knows what may happen in a few months--but I can't help feeling relieved to have such a happy eater.

Sucking on a mango pit.

 

Chowing on grilled asparagus.

At the same meal, eating [homemade free-range organic] turkey meatloaf with a Real Fork (by O.K.'s request).  


(Video to be posted soon -- having Blogger technical difficulties, I guess.)

Family -- The Best Surprise

John received a call late Tuesday night that Aunt Jane and her long-time friend, Drizella, would be making their way to Philadelphia from Florida.  They had just returned from a cruise and were driving back to Connecticut.  We felt privileged that they were willing to take a detour to come see us.

More-than-thoughtful Aunt Jane brought along toys, books, and t-shirts for Oscar, as well as tequila for John, and a beautiful necklace and earrings for me.  Of course, my favorite souvenir was this:

 an Oscar-sized sombrero, all shiny and blue.

After catching up for a bit, we headed down Baltimore to Dock Street for some pizza and more catching up.  

Oscar had fun entertaining Aunt Jane and Drizella.  He clearly thought they were pretty entertaining as well.  John and I also enjoyed this surprise-visit--and we welcome more of them (a friendly hint to all you family out there)!

Small Things

Yesterday morning, Oscar came toddling over, a lone rain boot in hand, plopped down on my lap, handed me the boot, and stuck his foot out.  You can guess, as I did, what he wanted.  

 He seemed pretty pleased with the result.

Marci Resnick Teacher Fund

I've been a little hush-hush about a recent endeavor of mine and my friend/colleague, Christine, mostly because I wanted to wait until--well, until now.  We applied for a small grant ($500) through the Marci Resnick Teacher Fund (if you click the link, scroll down) to start up an after-school science club with an emphasis on writing.  I can tell you more about that later, but the now part of all this is that we received an award letter today indicating that we will be awarded the grant!  We will receive one of only four awards given out this year.  We will receive the grant at an award ceremony on June 7th.  And, well, I'm pretty excited about it.

 The picture is completely unrelated, but a post without a picture seems so blah, and this is the most recent picture I have of myself (from Mother's Day at Robert and Patrick's art opening), the now "award-winning" teacher.

It's Not That Hard Actually, Being Green

Philadelphia is trash-challenged, for sure.  Since we've moved here, I've gone from thinking I should call 911 when I see someone dumping bags of fast food garbage out of their car while stopped at a light to annoyed eye-rolling.  Similarly, we've shifted from making a weekly trek to three different grocery stores (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Giant) to one trip to a regular grocery store.  We've learned to suck it up and buy conventional, out of convenience more than anything else.  Another example: back in Portland I always assumed I'd use cloth diapers, but here I was convinced by my germ-fearing South Philly teacher friends that this was NOT the way to go.  I relented, citing lots of reasons (laziness being one of them).

Recently the "green" in me (and therefore, in "us") has been reawakened.  We have grown increasingly unhappy with some of our choices--recycling and bringing our own grocery bags are simply not enough.  What caused this?  Being reminded of what is really important--via like-minded friends and family, the documentary "Food, Inc.", collaborating to create a recycling program at my school, and the reality that John and I are someone's PARENTS and that we are responsible for showing our son how to treat this world we live in.

So, what to do?  We can't change everything all at once, but we can do better.  These are our first moves, we think in the right direction.  Step one: let our dollar be our vote and only buy things we believe in.  The challenge here is that this can get expensive.  Our solution to that is to simply buy less.  Step two: revisit small choices, like light bulbs and usage, recycling more, buying used instead of new, etc.  Step three: switch to cloth diapers.

And this is the fun part, because we have seen first hand the amount of garbage diapers create.  We are happy to be joining the ranks of cloth diaper users around the world.  We are hoping to at least drastically cut down on our disposable usage.  It took a little set up--much less than my pre-baby-excuse-making self had imagined.  We had to...

Order new diapers.  We chose "econo-bum" because of the "econo" part. (Though I foresee a transition to the compatible "Flip" system).

 Make space for the new diapers. 

 Attach a special sprayer to the toilet.

And get used to Oscar's new bigger cloth diaper butt.

We are taking a "transitioning" approach: using only three disposables in the last two days.  Which means, we've managed to save eight disposable diapers from the landfill.  Yes, tootin' our own greening horns.

  

 And the bigger butt is still pretty cute.  Now, off to find us a rain barrel...

It's Only Stuff

We experienced another hit-and-run this morning at around eight o'clock.  As this is now the THIRD one in less than a year, I'm beginning to think I'm supposed to be learning a lesson here.  I can't be sure, but I'm thinking that the sooner I can NOT let the fact that another person just rammed into our car without even pausing ruin my whole day, the less likely it is to happen again.  I think I'm supposed to be learning to take these time- and money-consuming mishaps in stride (they happen, no one was physically hurt--move on).  I'm hoping that once I have fully learned how to do this, it just won't happen anymore.  Because the truth is, it sucks whether I cry about it or not.  We had other better plans for our day, so let's get to them.  So after much less crying and glum-feelings than usual, we moved ahead with said plans.  And I am so glad we did.  But first, no tears, just the facts:

John was hit as he slowly (I was standing in the doorway) pulled away from the curb by a large white speeding pick-up who didn't slow down at all--not before he got to John's car and certainly not after.  While a couple of neighbors told us they'd seen what happened, no one was able to get a license plate.

And now to the rest of our day:

A bike ride.  John rides his bike all the time, true, but I have not ridden since our bike trek in Guatemala--well before Oscar was born.  It just didn't seem smart while pregnant and then the opportunity hasn't presented itself much with a non-riding baby almost always in tow.  We've been researching toddler seats for bikes, anticipating the day when Oscar would be old enough.  Yesterday, on our way home from the farmer's market we stopped by Firehouse Bikes on a whim.  Didn't you know they had the very seat we were considering?  We scooped it up, along with a helmet, and started getting ready for our first "family ride".

Oscar "helped" John get my lonely bike ready.

After mounting the seat and doing our best to adjust O.K.'s helmet, John and Oscar headed out for a test drive on our street.

We loaded up our bikes and drove out to beautiful Forbidden Drive near Chestnut Hill.



When the bike wasn't moving Oscar wanted that helmet off,

but he LOVED riding with John.

 All in all, a pretty good day.