Maria’s teacher again came through and agreed to partner with me on a project to collect Halloween costumes for homeless kids in Columbus. I printed handouts for the kids to send home in their book bags and took them to school during lunch. Maria wanted me to stay in her class to talk about the project but I was running late. She started to sulk and I was trying to cheer her up (“we’ll get ice cream later!” – why do I always use food?!) when her teacher came by and recommended that we make a video talking about the project for the kids to watch at school the next day.
Maria loved the idea! Gotta love Ms. Palmer – she got me out of the school tear-free. Maria and Mario came up with the above video for her school mates that night. Mario always begs to be famous and after they made this video, he asked “do you think I’ll be on the news?”
He’s always trying….
Tag: Kids
Stepping off the scale
I appreciate the New York Times article on the issue of women’s weight but dang, I wish this issue didn’t need such blatant attention. I wish we were at a point with women’s weight where the size of a woman’s pants did not enter anyone’s head when they met her.
I have to admit that I am guilty of this very thing at times. I don’t like the thought of someone assessing my body shape and judging me on my arms or belly but I find myself meeting another woman and thinking “she looks like she works out a lot; she’s got awesome arms; I’m glad I don’t have her boobs.” I stop myself eventually, thinking about how obnoxious I am being to both the woman and myself (stop judging my body against hers!). And when I look past the physical, I can be completely present in the conversation. Where I want to be.
I struggle with my weight, with what to eat during the day, and I often think about how much more I could get accomplished through the day if I didn’t focus on that crap. I love Lena Dunham’s quote in the article after she is asked about her jiggly belly: “No, I have not tried to lose weight. I decided I was going to have some other concerns in my life.” Amen.
Now that I have a daughter (and son, frankly), I am all that more aware of this type of behavior. I commend these actresses and authors for getting out there and showing society that there is more to them than their weight. Media is definitely a vehicle for changing thinking. I do not want Maria and Mario to spend any of their precious time worrying about their body shape – life is too short to ignore the “other concerns” in it. And those other concerns are so much more interesting.
SumDog
Maria’s teacher this year is awesome. I really like her a lot; she loves the outdoors, is green, and is supportive of helping out in the community. She also values the importance of technology in kids’ lives and showed us a statistic during orientation that a majority of second graders will have jobs when they get older that we haven’t even heard of today. Amazing.
Maria gets a range of websites and apps to check out that help her better learn spelling or math. Some of the kids in her class love to get on them and play them all night. Maria is not in that category; she would much rather shoot videos or read friends’ blogs (another cool thing that Maria’s teacher started up). I have to monitor her at the computer to ensure that she is spending some time on these math/spelling websites. One site is called SumDog. It is a big hit amongst the kids at her school, especially the boys. She was interested for a couple of days but she gets so frustrated when she can’t get to 1st Place that she gives up and moves onto something else.
Mario, on the other hand, has the complete opposite attitude. He jumped on SumDog a few weeks ago when Maria got off of it and started to play asking me what the answers were to the math problems. After a while, I started to give him hints for how to figure out the answers because I could not get anything done while standing next to him yelling out numbers. I told him to look for a “S” in “Smallest” or a “L” in “Largest” and then he would know whether to choose the smallest or largest number. He ran with that advice and eventually worked hard enough to get in 1st Place. He was so excited. Then he moved onto the “+1” series and began counting “5+1” and “3+1” on his fingers in order to get the right number. Each time I looked over at him, he was hitting 1st or 2nd Place.
He loves the game. Every day after school, he begs to play it. I hope he is this enthusiastic about it when he starts kindergarten. The other night I found Maria trying to log him in under her account so that she would get credit for playing – I really do have to watch that girl!
Obama Rally
Obama pins, Obama cups, Obama shirts. Protestors. Loud music. Welcome to the OSU Obama rally, Maria and Mario.
I asked our babysitter to drop the kids off at my office with the stroller so that we could walk over to the rally on the Oval. I made the last minute decision when I found out they had a few more tickets at the Obama headquarters downstairs from my office. With as much back and forth between M&M about the candidates, I thought this would be a good experience.
I knew from the beginning of our stroller ride that Mario was not gonna hang with me in all of the chaos. He has a nasty cold that has him headache-y and coughing. He perked up a bit when the Secret Service guys talked to him as we went through security and he even danced for them when he caught a bit of Black Eyed Peas on the loudspeaker. But when we moved into the crowd and the speakers were blasting and the crowd was cheering, he wailed “I want to go, mom!” I tried to distract him but there was no use. So, I made them take in all of the people and excitement and energy of the place and always remember how important it is to vote. On the count of three, we all yelled “Vote!” And then we headed back to my office.
Of course, once in my office, Mario came alive with the sight of chocolate everywhere (a lot of us have bowls of chocolate on our desks). He remembers the chocolate all too well and went directly to the rooms that had it. Maria went directly to my desk to be “the boss.” They could have played in my room all night.
But Jon rescued me and drove up like a knight in shining armor to pick us up. We ate Bob Evans (could I live on chocolate chip pancakes? Yes), and then I rode home (no room for my bike in the truck) only to find M&M in the driveway riding their bikes in the dark waiting for me.
“We beat you, mom!”
“Yea, but I’m gonna get you now” I remarked as I chased them down the driveway listening to them laugh and prod me to chase them faster.
After engaging in these chases for twenty minutes, I finally petered the kids out. They parked their bikes and went inside. Mario turned on the computer and yelled “Mom, come here!” I walked over and he said “see mom, I told you Mitt Romney is more famous because he’s on the front page of the computer!” Maria and I shook our heads and scrolled down to find a picture of Obama to show him.
Football Star
Mario morphed into a football star over the last eight weeks. The boy who once moaned and groaned about having to go to practice now hates leaving when practice is over. The boy who made all of the parents chuckle in one of the first games because he walked over to the sidelines and cried “when will this be over?” now refuses to come out of the game.
A testament to Jon and me for making him stick with it.
He played his last game Saturday morning in the bitter cold wearing his skull cap and batting gloves to keep warm. He looked bad to the bone.
He played most of the first half. When the coach told him to rest on the sidelines so another kid could play, Mario would not budge from the field. It was only after all three coaches and Jon yelled at him that he obeyed.
He loves the camraderie with the other boys – always wrestling or yakking it up or playing with them. It’s been good getting him on this team in order to learn teamwork and cooperation, and to make friends. When we take Ri to school, the boys on his team yell “hi Mario” and he loves it. Jon and I agree that he is going to be a handful once he enters kindergarten.
At the end of their last practice, all of the older kids lined up and the little kids got to run by them and tackle a dummy. They loved it, especially Mario. He cremated that dummy and made us so proud! Ha!
After he hit the dummy, he stood right behind it while the next little boy ran towards it. The dummy fell into Mario and hit his eye. My mom instinct rushed me over to him to see if he was ok. He turned to me and yelled “Mom, go away!” Yep, he’s a man now that he’s finished his first season of football and he doesn’t need his mom (that is until it’s 8 pm and he wants me to hold him up the stairs and read a book).
Autumn
Autumn
you always sneak up on us
With your cool, crisp morning air
And your ever darkening evenings
Your mums stand tall on the grocer’s shelves, waiting
for their new homes
Your pumpkins and gourds greet the neighbors
And your leaves, ahh, your leaves
Burst with color
and scatter like confetti all over
the yard.
All Italian
This girl is Italian through and through.
At age 1, she met her first love – spaghetti and meatballs. She’s only added to her Italian plate since then…italian bread and olive oil, cheeses, and now wine.
Yep, that’s our girl making wine with Jon and his cousins last weekend in Dover. She will go to any length for her Italian meal.
I should have known she’d pick Jon’s Italian ancestory over my German roots and opt to make red wine over wiener schnitzel. After all, when I told her she was half German and half Italian at age 4, her response was “I want to be all Italian!”
Hey, at least I get to indulge in good wine all winter.
Homecoming
Maria complained last night when I picked her up from school. She did not want to leave. The reason: she did not want to march in the homecoming parade.
“Mom, I don’t want to walk all that way!” (The parade is about a half mile long).
She then took it a step further.
“I hate cheer leading. Just hate it. I just do it for you and dad.”
Lovely.
Little did she know that I was not backing down on this one; she had to finish out the season and then we’d stop next year if she wanted. But i was a taken aback because she seemed to be enjoying it the last few weeks.
Jon asked what was the matter when she stormed in the house and stomped up the stairs. I told him. He walked up and got her laughing (he can get her laughing anytime). A few minutes later, he asked her if she really hated cheer leading. She said “no.”
I looked at her quizzically and asked why she kept telling me she hated it but told dad she liked it.
“Dad understands me, mom. That’s all.”
Oh, ok.
We laughed together on our walk to the middle school – she was in much better spirits explaining that sometimes it’s hard being a cheer leader because her team loses a lot and she wants to win. A little competitive spirit coming out in her….
We got to the school and she played with her friends while the band got in order. She wanted nothing to do with me as can be seen by this picture…
Classic “Maria to mom” look.
But then one of her friends udged her and told her to smile and I got this picture of the Maria I know and love…
Much better.
Meanwhile, Mario stood across from the high school cheerleaders and showed off his moves. They giggled and stared at him saying “he’s so cute!” He acted like he didn’t hear them but as soon as they stopped he danced harder and revved up his show so that they’d pay attention to him again.
It worked.
Luckily, Maria did not witness this behavior. She would have been totally embarrassed and certainly would have tried to put a stop to it.
In the end, it all worked out. Maria walked in the parade and had fun. Mario got attention from the high school cheer leaders and ate it up.
A win for everyone.
Movies in the stroller – what a life!
We made a late-night run (literally) to Jeni’s for ice cream. Mario brought the iPad and got on YouTube to watch the Pink Panther. Maria soon became intrigued. And I was left acting as chauffeur to the two munchos.
We passed an older couple along the way and they gawked in amazement at the sight of M&M watching tv in the stroller.
“You wouldn’t have seen that five years ago” they chuckled.
It got me thinking back to when Maria was born just 7 years ago. An iPad would not have been an option. She had to stare into space and take in the sights around her when I took her for a stroller ride. How cruel!
But Mario has known nothing but this way of life. Technology is always at your fingertips. You can watch that show you like anytime. You can play an app game anytime. But you can also educate yourself and look up facts anytime (like when we googled how clouds were formed last week).
I struggle as do most parents with how much computer and tv and iPhone they should have in a day. It tends to go back to what they are doing on the computer or phone, also. There are some apps that have done wonders for Mario’s and Ri’s math skills (Math Zombies) but others that are probably killing brain cells exponentially (Zombieville (yes, M&M have a strange fascination with zombies)).
As with everything in life, moderation is key, I suppose. Ri and Mario still get on their bikes and run around the neighborhood through the day. The day they sit inside all afternoon on a technological device is the day that we start enforcing hard and fast rules. But, knock on wood, we have some pretty happy, active, diverse kids who like to mix it up between outdoor play and games and education. Think it will stay that way five years from now when they both have iPhones?!
Capture
Stop!
Stop moving.
Breathe!
Breathe deeply.
Savor.
Capture!
Be grateful.
"MOM!" 