NOW Endorsement

For the first time since 1984 NOW (National Organization of Women) has endorsed a presidential candidate in the general election. Very important news for women everywhere.

Spoke to me

Anyone that knows me knows I am an Obama suporter. Now that that disclaimer is out of the way .... this video really spoke to me. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs

Science Debate 2008

There are lots of issues to debate during this political season. Also many liberal and conservative sources for information. As a scientist that is married to a scientist Joe and I both believe strongly in scientific integrity and research based learning. There is a HUGE missing element to the current political debates and that is the discussion of the current state and future of scientific research in our country.

I would suggest the Science Debate 2008 website as a good jumping off point for finding out the views of our future political leaders on many relevant scientific issues.

Number 7

Jaida is playing big kid league soccer this year. She has been doing great during practice. She even has been playing goalie during many practices and she proudly will tell anyone that will listen that she even picks up the ball when it is yucky and when it looks like someone might kick her. ;)

When given the choice of what jersey number she wanted to be she looked at the list and picked number seven. I need to find out what went into this decision of hers. She always has a reason ... I need to find out waht made number seven so attractive to her.

Kindergarten!

My baby is in kindergarten! I had nightmares for the entire week before she started. Jaida, on the other hand, was practically vibrating out of her own skin with excitement at the prospects of being at the BIG school with the BIG kids. She loves her teacher, her classroom, her locker, her pink mailbox, walking in all.by.herself.every.single.day, the playground, taking her lunch to school, the science center, checking out books from the library and have I mentioned her teacher .... who happens to be quite young, bubbly, and energetic. It doesn't hurt matters that Jaida thinks she looks like her teacher (dark hair and eyes) and that her teacher has proclaimed PINK! as her all-time favorite color. It is all good!

Some pictures from Jaida's first day of school ...

Jaida enjoying her first day of school breakfast


Modeling her new big girl back pack


Standing outside her new big kid school


In the words of Jaida ... "I am mostly excited with a tiny bit of nervous"

The Beach

We had a great stay on Hatteras Island. Mostly we just relaxed. We hung out on the beach, ate ice cream, did a bit of sight seeing and visited Ocracoke Island. It was a very relaxing and fun trip. Some much needed down-time before the fall frenzy sets in.

A few pictures of Jaida ....

Sun, Sand and Margaritas

(Although the kids will not be enjoying the Margaritas)



We will be on a road trip .... More to come shortly

Reading and Piano

Jaida is doing amazingly well on both these fronts. With time being the limiting factor in us being able to practice these things with Jaida it seemed she was getting easily frustrated. And so were we. We were trying to practice two or three days a week for 20-30 minutes each time and that was simply too big a chunk of time in our already packed summer schedule. So we implemented our new practice everyday for just 5-10 minutes policy and it is so much easier on all of us. Jaida is thriving and is no longer frustrated and we feel that she is getting all the practice time in she needs at her age.

When we first get home from daycare I sit down with both kids with books. Jax has a book that talks to him when he pushes the buttons so he can *read* it by himself while I work with Jaida. Jaida can handle about three or four short stories at a time before she starts getting squirmy and losing her ability to concentrate. Because I want Jaida to do the reading I have started to steer away from the Dr. Seuss books and other longer beginning reader books. They are too long and we have a hard time making it all the way through. For this reason Jaida has been really flying through these books lately. They are perfect for her to read by herself with just the occasional assistance from me. The books are around 5-6 pages long. The words are short and rhyme. Also each set focuses on a set of letters or sounds so the concept is really reinforced. The thing I most love about them is all the words can be sounded out so it has really reinforced to Jaida that if she doesn't recognize a word immediately all she needs to do is sound it out. My only complaint is the stories are a bit boring (compared to Dr. Seuss or similar) and the drawings are pretty simple which is both good and bad. The good is it keeps Jaida focused on the words rather than the pictures but the bad is they don't really hold her attention for very long. The books that have really been great for many reasons are these ones. The books have a nice progression from simple short-vowel sounds simple consonant sounds, and beginning sight words and mostly three letter words to long-vowel sounds, blended consonant sounds, reinforce sight words and four and five letter words. Best of all the stories are funny and the pictures are colorful and very interesting. Many times while Jaida is reading she will look at the picture and say "I wonder what that is" and then she will say "let me keep reading and find out". I think the pictures are a great motivation tool. Another great motivation tool is the fact that the set comes with 10 short stories, a parents guide that talks about the sight words and suggestions on how to reinforce the concepts and a sheet of stickers that correspond to each of the ten books in the set (40 stickers). So each time Jaida completes a book on her own she gets to put the appropriate sticker inside the cover of the book. She totally loves this aspect of the books and I love that it means she will read each of these books 4 times on her own so that she can put all the stickers on the cover.
Jaida also loves the Dick and Jane books. For some reason this makes me so happy. I learned to read with Dick and Jane books. The stories are simple, pictures are cute and the repetition is great. This compilation of stories is really great because the first stories are very short - "See Spot Run" sort of sentences. As you make your way through the stories the sentences become longer, more complex words are added, punctuation is added and we start seeing things in quotes which has allowed me to talk to Jaida about following the story and telling me who is doing the speaking. After Jaida finishes a story I usually have her sit there and tell me what happened in the story in her own words just to reinforce that she not only needs to figure out the words while she is reading she needs to pay attention to what is actually happening in the story. Jaida is doing so well on the reading front.

After reading time which really only lasts about 15 minutes or so Jaida gets to play for a bit and then when Joe gets home she practices piano for 10 minutes or so. This has also worked out really well. Joe has really been working with Jaida on keeping good posture, hand placement and being able to hear the rhythm or beat. They also just really focus on mastering one page of her music book. She learns it and then plays it over and over again until she has it down. Then they start refining it with making sure she has the rhythm down and can do it from memory. I think it is helped Jaida to have a sense of accomplishment to be able to walk away knowing she just learned something from beginning to end and can do it well. She also is really really good at reading the music and following along in her music book. I am most amazed that while she is playing she has learned to look ahead to see what is coming next without losing her place. She is really doing well! She has a five week break from formal lessons due to vacations for everyone. I think Miss Denise is going to be pleasantly surprised when she sees how much progress Jaida has made. :)

Reflections

We don't talk about our own spirituality much. Let me clarify that … we talk about it with our children and between ourselves but for the most part avoid the subject altogether when talking with friends and extended family. I suppose there are several reasons for this. First, for us, religion/spirituality is a private matter. We have never felt the need to convert other people to our belief system. Also, most (if not all) of our friends and most definitely all of our extended family are much more socially/politically conservative than us. Joe and I are VERY liberal. Add to that the fact that we are both atheists it is just easier at times not to talk about any of it. Because of all of these reasons finding a spiritual path to follow has been difficult.

Joe and I were both raised in Christianity. I was raised as a Southern Baptist (although we only went to church a handful of times during my entire childhood). I would say it was more fear-based than anything … fear of going to hell, fear of not getting what I wanted because I was a sinner, etc. Very early on I realized I was not a believer and was not like everyone else around me. Joe was raised in a pretty vanilla non-denominational church. It wasn’t until after we had the kids that we talked about how we would raise them. Joe took a pretty anti-organized-religion stance while for me it was more important that our kids not be baptized into any one belief system. I wanted to give them all the knowledge and tools early on to allow them to choose their own faith when they got older. Or not. At first I thought it would be good enough to raise good, upstanding people. To teach them how to be helpful, empathetic, caring and to treat others as they would hope to be treated. Then I realized that I was searching for something more ... something was missing. We were missing that sense of community. We wanted to find a group of people that were like-minded. I wanted for my kids to never feel like outcasts due to what they believed. I never thought I would find that in any sort of organized religion. I use the word religion very lightly here.

After speaking to a couple of friends and doing some internet searches I discovered Unitarian Universalism.

It is not my desire to try and convert anyone. I just feel a need to talk about this and since it is my blog I guess I am entitled. After much reading about the UU faith, searches to find a local fellowship and attempts at convincing Joe to come with me just one time to try it out we have found our spiritual home. We feel so at home and quite honestly for the first time feel like we have surrounded ourselves with like-minded people rather than always feeling like the odd-duck or outsider because of our beliefs. We fondly refer to our church as the "hippie church". Although Joe has *issues* with the word "church" because it has such a loaded connotation, so we call it a fellowship. Either way it is a beautiful old building nestled in a thick grove of trees just outside of Washington DC. The building blends in with surrounding environment rather than standing out as something different from it. During the winter we are greeted by a roaring fire in the fireplace. During the spring and summer the light filters through the forest canopy and through the domed sky lights in the sanctuary in the most beautiful of ways. In the fall we have a gorgeous view out the sanctuary windows of the turning foliage. The building is spare, with a lovely sanctuary which contains absolutely no religious iconography. The decorations are minimal and usually consist of paintings by local artists and a beautiful hand painted tree of life which hangs on the back wall. Thanks to one lady there is always a lovely arrangement of items brought in from nature … anything from a vase of twigs artfully arranged to beautiful flower arrangements using flowers grown on the property or along the roadside sitting next to the alter. It always brightens my day.

We became members in 2006, slightly before Jax was born, after attending for nearly a year. Both of our kids had their dedication ceremony last year. The dedication had less to do with bringing the kids into the religion and more to do with the people of the congregation agreeing to watch over and guide the children on their path of learning to the best of their abilities. I've become involved in teaching the religious education classes (exploring all religions and beliefs of the world) for Jaida’s age group. We are part of a larger spiritual community now, but our children will be encouraged to work out their own belief system (believing in god or not) in a supportive, welcoming environment.

It was with great sadness and horror that I read about the shooting in at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church in Knoxville, TN. A gunman entered the crowded sanctuary and killed two people, injuring more, while children were performing "Annie." He was eventually subdued as he stopped to reload his 12-gauge shot gun. It appears that his reasons for killing were that he was upset at not being able to find a job and he hated the liberal movement. As someone on the internet pointed out, "...if you have people like, say, Malkin and Coulter out there spreading the idea that liberals should be shot, it kind of follows that someone's going to be crazy enough to take that seriously." Is it their fault? No. Did it happen that way? We don't know. But it does make me wonder.

Shot? For being liberal?

I think many UU’s are feeling a bit rattled. Our church just recently became an official Welcoming Congregation and proudly sports a sign declaring this on the front door. We also have signs out by the road which state that we are a free-thinking, tolerant, empathetic group of people and that all are welcome. Our church supports many liberal causes and there is no doubt about what the people who enter our church believe. It is a bit worrisome though seeing as we are not located in the most liberally progressive area.

The fact that the shooter chose a community of peace-loving, open-minded and loving-hearted people to "touch" with his evil act (a word the Reverend of the church used to describe the situation), is ironic in the saddest sense of the word. One quote (from the Reverend of the UU congregation in Woodstock, TN) that caught my eye yesterday is “We don’t want to leap to conclusions and need to wait for the investigation to unfold,” Larsen said. “But if this is another example of the fruit of bigotry, it will only encourage us to pursue more vigorously our Unitarian Universalist belief in ‘the inherit worth and dignity of every person’ and to pursue ‘justice, equity and compassion in human relations.’”

All innocent victims of senseless violence have a right to be acknowledged, but my heart is with that community today. My thoughts are with all those affected. I wish you peace.

Summer Fun

We find ourselves in the middle of summer. We have been spending lots of time at the pool. Jaida is now officially a swimmer! She can dog-paddle and tread-water efficiently at this point and is now learning to swim under water with her little goggles on. She leaps (flying-squirrel style) off the side of the pool in the deep end and then swims to either Joe or myself.

Jaida is also really enjoying being able to read and spends lots of time trying to figure/sound out words on her own. The Scholastic BOB books have been a great learning tool. She is now moving onto Dick and Jane stories and some Dr Seuss books.

Jaida is also really flourishing in her piano lessons and is now playing with both hands and reading music. She really has a good ear and recognizes when she has done well with something she is playing. The curriculum her music teacher is using is Music for Little Mozarts. It is really well written and progresses at a good pace. Most of all it is interesting and fun for Jaida. She loves the workbook that comes with the music lesson book. She also loves the little animal companions that come with the music lesson book. It really makes learning fun and seem less like learning which is great. Jaida loves her Mozart Mouse, Beethoven Bear and Clara Schuman Cat.

This is the summer where we are really seeing Jaida come into her own. So far this has been a great summer with Jaida. She is so easy and we have tons of fun as a family.

5 Year Well Child Check-Up

Jaida had her five year old check up yesterday. She is as healthy as can be ... but then again we already knew that. She is 41.25 inches tall and if she continues on her current growth curve she will be about 5'3" or 5'4" as an adult. That sounds just about right. She is also 38 pounds. So about 50% for weight and 30% for height.

Dr. Smith was asking Jaida all sorts of questions just to get a feel for her linguistic abilities and ability to comprehend more complex questions. Jaida sat there and had a very nice conversation with the doctor. She then showed him how she can read a book. He was very impressed and said I am going to really need to advocate for Jaida this year and get her working at a accelerated pace in school to keep her from getting bored.

Anyhow, a very good appointment overall.

A Bouncing Good Time

Jaida and Jaxon had their joint birthday bash on Saturday. This year we decided to have the party hosted outside of our house. We chose a play arena called Bounce About. It is a large warehouse that has several very large inflatable play areas ... a moon bounce, two obstacle courses, a large slide and smaller slide and then a contained moon bounce slide structure for the under three set. The kids ran and bounced for a solid hour. After that we had pizza and fruit and then strawberry short cake and ice cream. I think all the kids had a great time and were totally exhausted afterwards. Jaida invited several of her friends from dance, some friends from school, and then her best friends Jordyn and Peyton. Jax's little friend Faith also came. They all had a really good time.

Companionship

There are times having two kids feels like a tremendous amount of work. For instance getting them ready to go in the morning, getting them to share toys, getting them to agree on what they want to eat, etc. But these times are so overshadowed by the friendship we see blooming in our kids. While they still bicker on occasion and each seems to derive great pleasure from pestering the other they absolutely adore each other. It is so nice to see them getting to the age where they actively seek each other out for companionship. It is also really nice to see that they are both very protective of each other against those they perceive as outsiders. I know they will have times where they drift apart and then become close again but I hope this love they share as little ones stays with them forever.

Some pictures of our two little monkeys.

Hanging out at the Awakening statue at National Harbor


Climbing up the hill at the zoo


Sharing a sandwich, curb and some giggles at the zoo


Feeding the geese at the park


Showing us the daisies they picked while at the dog park


Playing a computer game


Enjoying a late afternoon popsicle. Look at how they squeezed themselves together.


I am going to post this on both kids blog to serve as a future reminder that once upon a time they really did like each other. :)

Exuberance

The one thing that never ceases to amaze me about Jaida is how much of herself she throws into everything she does. She never half way does anything. Once she decides this is something she indeed wants to do she goes at it full throttle. I think this following picture really is a great example of her enthusiasm. It was taken during her PeeWee World Cup soccer tournament. She really had a blast and played her little heart out.

She even made a few goals, chased the ball down and *stole* it a few times and ended up with a pretty good skinned knee in the process. She played hard.

Dance Recital

Jaida's dance recital was last Saturday evening. She did absolutely great ... all the girls really did wonderfully. They knew their routine and got right up on the stage did what they were supposed to do. Most importantly they had a blast .... they were all giggles and smiles which was nice to see.

Here are a few pictures ...

This is Jaida with the other girls (minus one) from her class


This is Jaida up on stage as her routine began


The girls are boogie woogying their little hearts out in this one - their song was Rockin' Robin


This was during the final bow for all the dancers. Look how happy and excited Jaida is ... her expression says it all!

The day all about Jaida

is what we have fondly taken to calling yesterday at our house. Since it was her birthday Jaida got to pick how every aspect of the day went. She decided that she and Jax should have cinnamon rolls (hot out of the oven) and strawberry ice cream for breakfast. Let me say that now Jax thinks he should have strawberry ice cream for breakfast every day. I gave her the choice of us staying home from work and celebrating or her going to Nancy's house. She opted for making cupcakes to take to Nancy's to share with her friends and politely requested that I stay at work late so she could get lots of celebrating in with her friends. :) They spent the day swimming, playing video games, spa and she was completely worn out by the time I arrived (late, of course) to pick her up and head for home. Once home she opened all her pressies ... which she totally loved. She then requested creamy mac & cheese and all the candy she can eat for dinner. The funny thing is the thought of eating unlimited quantities of candy for dinner must be intoxicating because she doesn't even like candy. Anyhow, she ate a copious amount of mac & cheese and then we sang Happy Birthday to her while she blew out five candles stuck in a cupcake. A bit more playing and by the time she hit the bed she was asleep in 30 seconds flat.

Saturday, we are having a combination party for Jaida and Jax at a local bounce arena. Jaida is SO excited as many of her school friends that she has been desperately missing are going to be there. Should be lots of fun!

Five Years Old

I am not exactly sure when I blinked and my little chubby baby became a very slender 5 year old girl. It scares me a bit though. I have really made an effort to live in the moment with my kids. I don't wish time to fly by to get out of rough patches or phases of undesirable behavior. Instead I try to live in the now knowing that with the little bit of bad will come an abundance of good. So in some ways I feel like we have had a very full five years together but in another way I feel like the five years just went by much too fast.

During the dark hours of the early morning my first baby, my only girl baby, turned five years old. This seems huge. She has left the baby in her behind forever. She has had her feet firmly planted in the domain of the little kid for a while now as evidenced by dance recitals, playing piano, learning to swim, tying her own shoes, playing soccer, etc. One thing changed during the early morning hours today ... she is now officially five years old. For the last year I have spent a fair amount of time in denial still calling her a toddler because she was after all only four years old. A four year old is not of school age and therefore not a little kid is what I told myself (over and over again). I am feeling a little weepy today as I think about Jaida as a baby and how quickly these last five years have sped by. Even though I am a little weepy I am mostly happy when I think about all Jaida has become in the last five years and all the potential she holds for the future.

Happy birthday my sweet girl!

Preschool Graduation

This last Friday Jaida had her preschool graduation ceremony. She put on her little white cap and marched into the sanctuary with the rest of her graduating class. They performed several songs and other things they had memorized for the occasion. It was really very sweet. All of the kids seem so tiny .... much too small to be heading off to full-day kindergarten in just a couple of months. I think Jaida is ready to head off to her new big school to learn all that she can in kindergarten. Her mama on the other hand is not so ready for this change.

"What is war?"

This is a hard question to answer ... especially when a 4.5 year old is asking it. We are pretty open when talking to Jaida about most things. We have been very open with Jaida about reproductive biology and she understands what we have told her (for the most part). We have also been fairly open about our (our being Joe and I) lack of religious beliefs. We are fairly cautious in these conversations for two reasons ... first we do not want to brainwash Jaida into believing as we do. Religion is a very personal decision .... I just want her to be fully informed when she eventually decides what she wants to believe or not believe if that is the case. Secondly, she attends a Baptist preschool ... where I think her parents views might make more than a few waves.

Anyhow, back to the subject of war. A couple of weeks ago Joe and I were discussing the mess the US has gotten itself into and the best ways to get ourselves out of it. The next day Jaida asks Joe what is war. The question caught us both off-guard. I suppose because it is such a complicated question and is even more complicated by the fact that Jaida really has no concept of deadly violence. She never watches tv shows or even cartoons that have violence in them. She doesn't even know that a gun is called a gun. She refers to guns as shooters and really has no idea what they are used for other than the fact that kids can accidentally get hurt by them. She just knows that if she is ever around another kid that has a shooter she is to get far away and find an adult and tell them ... she is absolutely never to touch it. Part of our difficulty in explaining war to Jaida is her absolute naivity on the subject of violence. Explaining the current war is made even more difficult due to the fact that all the ways I/Joe would use to describe a war/reason for war such as ... war only happens after all the other peaceful ways of resolving conflict have been exhausted, we (our military) are protecting ourselves from aggressors, we are protecting our freedom and way of life, and wars are short lived disagreements that eventually get worked out and make life better for all involved ... are simply not true at all. Add to that the inevitable questioning of what we would do if war was to happen where we live and I can honestly say I have no idea how to answer these questions.

For now, we found a very general way of explaining war to Jaida. When we were done talking about war the puzzled look remained on her face but she got side tracked with something else. We are bracing ourselves for the tough to answer questions that are sure to come soon as she mulls over all teh information we gave her.

Feeling like a crappy mom

Not sure what the reason is but Jaida and I are really butting heads lately. This really has me feeling quite down because I really just want to do right by her but right now we seem to be stuck in a cycle that I can't figure out how to get us out of.

I am not sure if this is caused by my recent return to the work force full-time and therefore feeling scattered and unorganized or if it is an age/developmental thing with Jaida or some combination of all of it. It seems that lately I am constantly on Jaida's case about something. Not moving fast enough or making me repeat myself a dozen times before she does what I ask, doing the VERY thing I just asked her not to do, etc. I feel like all I do is repeat myself and get ignored which really makes me feel like a nag ... which I hate. It doesn't help that I keep getting negative reports (for much the same reasons) from her daycare provider. I know these little things don't really bother Nancy and instead she is just venting to me but they just seem to add fuel to the fire. I am already on edge by the time I take Jaida home in the afternoon. I feel like I have such a limited amount of time in the evening and instead of us all having fun I spend my time nagging Jaida and she spends her time frustrated, annoyed and therefore whining.

This is really bothering me because I just so desperately want to have a good relationship with Jaida. My relationship with my own mom is extremely strained and knowing the angst it has caused me (for the better part of my life at this point) it is the last thing I ever want for Jaida. I am not sure how to remedy the situation. I try to be attentive and a good listener. I am going to try harder to just let go of the little things and just ask her to do X once and leave it at that. If she hasn't put her shoes on by the time I am ready to go she will just have to lock up the house and meet me in the car I suppose. sigh ....