While I will never claim to be super mom (I am FAR from it), I do have some things I would like to share about my motherhood experience so far.
1. Read to your child. I've read to McKenzie since she was born and I'm thinking its paying off. She is very articulate and in my opinion very smart. The 1st book McKenzie wanted to "read" was Brown Bear, Brown Bear. She now gets this book and "reads" (she has it memorized) to Woodie, Mickey Mouse etc. We only have to read a book a few times to her and then she can help us "read" it.
2. Potty Training - I didn't really potty train McKenzie. My sitter did most of it. It only took her a few days to get the basics down so she's been "trained" since April. However, she still wears a pull up to bed and it took forever for us to have no accidents. To get to to go accident free I bribed her. Yeah, I'm that mom. I told her if she went a week with no accidents then she got Princess Panties - it took 3 weeks before she did it, but since then there haven't been accidents. Well, not really. Now she wants to go by herself and has had a few accidents from not pulling down her panties all the way.
3. Food - be sneaky! I have the Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious cookbooks and I love them. You just puree veggie and hide them in things. I'm getting pretty good at it. Today I made my own recipe for Green Spaghetti (sorry, I don't measure)-
Angel Hair Pasta (or whatever you want) - boil, you know the drill
2 handfuls of baby spinach
A handful of roasted unsalted peanuts
A handful or two of shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend because its what we had)
Splash of lemon juice
Put spinach, etc. in a food processor and pulse. Add olive oil while pulsing until the mixture is creamy.
Mix with hot noodles and serve!
Here are some pics of my little reader!
Summer is over and so is the 1st week of school. I know, its only August 10th but we've been back for a week. Summer flew by with all of my trips and I'm too lazy to go back and recap them for you. I'm going to start off with school.
This year I'm teaching 8th grade ESEP (special ed) math and social studies. In Georgia ESEP is special ed and the way I'm doing it is co-teaching. This means I don't have my own classroom and I'm supposed to co-teach with the general ed math and social studies teacher. When I did this in the 07-08 school year what it meant is I stood in the room and assisted. I HATED it. I am a teacher. It is my passion. I'm a Social Studies teacher. It is my passion. However I was placed in this co-teaching thing again. I have fought it all summer. I wanted out, I wanted to catch them in a loop-hole. But 2 Sunday's ago our pastor was giving a message about character. He said we are like the vine and sometimes the vine needs to be cut back and sometimes it is re positioned so it can be re rooted. I think God was speaking directly to me. So I am trying to take each day and let God use me.
That being said, this year has been stressful so far. I'm not really happy where I am both with what I'm doing and with my administration. My administrator that is directly over me is AWESOME but me principal and other AP are not my favorites. I'm crazy busy with running from class to class, learning the math, all of the ESEP paperwork AND I'm social studies department head. I'm hoping everything gets into a rhythm soon and I can feel somewhat normal and happy. I'm thinking it might be my last year at Austin. Its 17 miles one way and they are opening a new middle school closer. I'd love to go there (8miles) or Moses (1mile) but we'll see where God leads me. I've learned one thing and that is to follow and see the awesome results he produces!
