Lazarus Saturday 2009

Yesterday was Lazarus Saturday in the Orthodox Christian Church. It is the day before Palm Sunday and marks the beginning of Holy Week. The day celebrates the miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, showing His divine power and foreshadowing His own resurrection at Pascha (Easter). In the Greek Orthodox tradition, it is customary to make Lazarakia (Lazarus Bread). These are small sweet breads made in the shape of Lazarus in his burial shroud. This year, DH and I made them for the first time and shared them at church today. I would like to give a special thanks to Sylvia at Adventures of an Orthodox Mom for the recipe, as well as for answering my email and giving me moral support! Here are a few pictures:

The dough ready to form into shapes. Little Lazarus men ready to go into the oven.

The finished bread cooling. Ready to take to church to share.

At church, ready for the blessing of the breads.

An Organizing Victory

For many weeks now, I have been saying that I need to tidy and re-organize, especially the kids' things, in readiness for homeschooling. This week, I finally made a start and I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far. Here are a few pictures. It always motivates me to do more when I see Before and After pictures and I want to say a special thank you to I'm an Organizing Junkie for spurring me on to make a start!

Before After

Before After

Before After


Unfortunately I didn't do a Before picture of this toy storage area but the top half of it was over-run with papers and general messiness and all the tubs were overflowing with no lids.

Result of the Magic Pyjamas

This was the view outside our front dooor this morning...so I'd say, they worked! :)

Passing it on

It is currently 1.30 am, which means, that technically, I have missed a day of NaBloPoMo, but I am going to count it anyway because I haven't gone to bed yet!

In fact, I am waiting to see if the superstition that I just passed down to my girls actually works. Humour me. Tonight, at bedtime, we did something a little different. Something they had NEVER ever done before. They had their bath, brushed their teeth...and it was time to put their pyjamas on. BUT....I stole them! Then , I turned them inside out. Then I put them on them....backwards! Yes, I am a crazy mum....

You see, growing up as a kid In Baltimore, we had SNOW in the winter....and...if you wanted to wake up to bunches of snow, preferably resulting in a day off from school...you went to bed with your pyjamas on backwards and inside out! THEN...when it was really early in the morning, you squinted your little eyes open and peeked out the window to see the winter wonderland you and your pyjamas had created.

So tonight...I hope my little angels are learning all about the magic of backwards pyjamas and snow and that they wake up tomorrow with that same sense of wonder that we did when they see that beautiful blanket of white!

I'll keep you posted (of course)

Facebook friends

As most of you know, I've got sucked into the vortex known as Facebook. It started out as a way to keep in touch with my friends and family back in the States...

It has lived up to that and so much more. I have recently got back in touch with my best friend from 1st/2nd grade, several elementary school friends, and most recently, my best friend's mom, two of my favourite teachers from elementary school and several friends who I was used to spend summers and vacations with at my grandparents' house.

This post is about those two teachers. It is amazing to be in touch with them all these years later. It turns out they have an absolutely wicked sense of humor. Today they superimposed their heads onto bodies of young, beautiful exotic dancer type bodies. All of us former students had a blast sending them comments about them and they had a laugh with us. One of these teachers, sadly has lung cancer, and so I ask you to please send your prayers and thoughts of good health her way. She is a fantastic lady and was a wonderful teacher. She ruled with an iron fist, but was fair, and in our adulthood, it turns out, she was most of our favourites.

So, to facebook, I say, thank you....thank you for bringing these wonderful people back into my life who otherwise would have been lost to me, maybe forever.

NaBloPoMo

What that means is....National Blog Posting Month.

This means that I will post on my blog every day this month, including weekends. Seeing my sporadic posting most recently, this will be a bit of a challenge, but fingers crossed, I'll make it!

So...onward ho...good writing...and all that stuff...

What I Make...

I came across an interesting site today at mom.salary.com

Incidentally, according to this calculator, if I lived in my dad's neighborhood back in the States, I would be making......

$153,957


What is Your Mom Worth?
Families Can Customize Mom's Job Description and Create a "Mom Paycheck"

Are you wondering what mom should be paid for her work as mom? Salary.com has valuated the "mom job" of both the Working and Stay-at-Home Moms! Based on a survey of more than 18,000 mothers, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing 10 typical job functions would equate to an annual salary of $116,805 for a stay-at-home mom. Working moms ‘at-home’ salary is $68,405 in 2008; this is in addition to the salary they earn in the workplace.

The job titles that best matched a mom's definition of her work are (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, laundry machine operator, computer operator, psychologist, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and janitor.

Now moms and their families can use the Mom Salary Wizard to create their own "mom paycheck". The tool allows moms and their families to price the "mom job", based on location and mom's personal hours worked in each of the 10 roles. Users can create a hypothetical mom paycheck and mom pay stub, which can be printed and emailed to family and friends for Mother's Day.

Plato- The Allegory of the Cave

Many of you may have studied Plato's Allegory of the Cave. For those who haven't- here is a short summary (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Imagine prisoners who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave: not only are their arms and legs immovable because of chains; their heads are chained in one direction as well so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which puppets of various animals, plants, and other things are moved. The puppets cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. Behind this cave there is a well-used road, and upon this road people are walking and talking and generally making noise, which echoes off of the wall. The prisoners, then, believe that these noises are coming directly from the shadows they are watching pass by on the cave wall.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of objects. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner's chains break, and he is able to get up and walk about (a process which takes some time, as he has never done it before). Eventually he will be compelled to explore; he walks up and out of the cave, whereby he is instantly blinded by the sun. He turns then to the shadows on the floor, in the lakes, slowly working his way out of his deluded mind, and he is eventually able to glimpse the sun. In time, he would learn to see it as the object that provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

(This part of the allegory, incidentally, closely relates to Plato's metaphor of the sun which occurs near the end of The Republic, Book VI.)

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free his fellow prisoners, but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. He might stumble, Plato asserts, and the prisoners would conclude that his experience had ruined him. He would not be able to identify the shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight. (The Republic bk. VII, 516b-c; trans. Paul Shorey).


Would you say this applies to our current way of looking at education? Any other thoughts on what it applies to in our current society?

I look forward to a good discussion about this. Thanks Plato!

Here is another link to the allegory itself:
Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave"

To school or not to school?

DH and I have seriously been considering Homeschooling (or Home Educating, as it is called in the UK) and in my research and travels, I came across this. It is an essay written by a high school homeschooler in the US and his experience of school vs. homeschool. Any thoughts from all of you out there?

And for my teacher friends out there...PLEASE don't blast me as being 'anti-public schools'...I'm not...I just favour ANY means which lead to the best education (in the whole sense of the word) for a child, namely, MY child(ren).

Unschool vs. School

Birthday

Saturday was my birthday and here are just a few pictures of the celebration...dinner made by the girls (and Daddy).

Workin' at the Carwash...

It was a sunny Sunday and we took advantage of it with a little fun at the Carwash...

Isn't she lovely?

A few pictures of Emi on a sunny September day.

Sisters

Would you say these three are related to each other? They were all taken around the same age, give or take a couple weeks. (Miri, Dina & Emi)

Fickle or Just Four?

Well...let me start by saying that last school year, Miri came home on several occasions asking why she didn't go to ballet lessons. We explained that the classes had already started and she'd have to wait until this year. Nothing more was said about it, although there was the occasional "I wish I could do ballet" over the summer.

So, last Friday, I realized that the local Dance Academy began their classes on that Saturday. I hurriedly called the Principal and asked if it was too late to get Miri in. She was lovely and said to just bring her along on Saturday.

Saturday morning I gently woke Miri up with the thought "Would you like to go to ballet class?" Her little eyes popped open and she all but jumped out of bed. This was supposed to be time for just the two of us...some Mummy and me time...so the two of us got ready, got breakfast and headed off.

When we got there, it turned out that all the other girls already had their leotards and shoes, so I wasn't surprised that she didn't want to join in. She sat on the side of the class with me, lamenting that one of her friends from school wasn't there. I tried to explain that she would make new friends. She didn't seem convinced. The class ended and I talked to the teacher who said she was more than happy to have Miri come back next week to see how she did. She even gave her a free pair of ballet slippers to try out!

I came home to talk to Chris about it and we asked her over and over whether she wanted to go to the class if she had the outifit. She said yes, (and of course, wouldn't take those ballet slippers off all day). It just so happened that during the week there was a Nearly New sale at her school and we found a leotard and dancing skirt in the same colour as the Academy uses. So, we bought them and headed off to the Dancing shop to buy the special wrap-around dancing cardigan. So, now she ahd the full outfit.

All week long we kept asking her if she wanted to go to the class and whether she would participate. She said, as long as I stayed in the room, she would. I agreed and off we went on Saturday morning with her in her full outfit. (It was so cute!...I wish I had got a picture.)

We got there and she things started out well. She sat next to the teacher in the circle while she took role. Then they did a little warm-up exercise in a circle which she did (slightly reluctantly). All ok....then they started skipping around the room, which she also did (holding the teacher's hand). The breaking point came at the next exercise....the girls had to get in a line and pretend to be a train. Each girl held onto the skirt of the one in front and they hopped around on tippy toes. Well, Miri was in the middle of the line and the girls in front of her decided they would start running. She came to a complete standstill and wouldn't move. The girls behind her tried to get her to go....she wouldn't. The teacher re-grouped the line and told them to start again. It was at that point that she came running to me, sat down on a chair and folded her arms. No amount of cajoling would get her to go back to the class. In the end, I gave her the option to rejoin the class or leave. We left.

Now, what I want to know is...why can my adult brain not get past her 'throwing the gift back in my face'? Clearly, she just wasn't ready for this class, or for whatever reason, just didn't like it. Why does it feel like I went out of my way to do something for her and she didn't care? She's only FOUR, right? And me....well.....I'm not...

Sigh...

Parenting....the hardest job you'll ever do...

And you can't even get fired no matter how hard you try!

First Day pictures

As promised, here are a few pictures of Miri's first day of kindergarten. Isn't she just the cutest??? (The story of how things went to follow in another post, but we all made it with no tears!)


A few pictures of the new and grown up uniform. I just love the hat!



She didn't look too sure when I took these pictures but luckily those two girls are her best friends from last year, so by the time we left, she was smiling :)

Bye Bye Summer!

Wow! I just realized that I didn't post on here the whole summer!
Sorry about that!
In a nutshell, there was sickness, playtime, a visit to the seaside, a week and a half at Grammie's, shopping, a picnic, trips to the park, swimming, first tooth, first step...and a partridge in a pear tree.

Today, is the day before Miri starts KINDERGARTEN! I've done my rite of passage doing battle with needle, thread, and name tapes (yes, people, I've sewed name tapes on every article of clothing, although I draw the line at socks) ....I've washed the various uniform components...personalized her lunch bag with a hand-painted design, looked and re-looked at the school supplies list...tried to commit the uniform rules to memory (white or grey undies only, no frills on ankle socks, hat must be worn whenever wearing blazer...) so...I'm ready.

NO I'M NOT!!

I am NOT ready for my darling little firstborn (yes, she's still little...she's only 4!) to go to 'big school'. Full days, five days per week...full uniform, not just the relaxed nursery school version.
I'm not ready to say Goodbye and watch her go off in the sea of 'big kids'. No, no, no!

So...of course, when she cried this morning and said 'I'm crying about that I won't see you again when I'm in school." I told her how great school is and how much she loved it and that I'll be right here waiting for her and I'll be there to pick her up at the end of the day. I smiled and forced that 'of course I'm happy' tone...

Who knew being a mum would require a Master's degree in acting?

Sigh....

See you tomorrow with pictures.

Blogs and Polymers

He's finally done it. Chris has his own blog. And quite an interesting one I might add. It's all about his triumphs, trials and tribulations being a polymer scientist/microscopist, family man and friend. If it sounds boring...it's not.
Check it out!
The Adventures of Polymer-Parmenter

Growing Pains

Today was my beautiful little Miri's last day of nursery school.
The week has been tough. She was sick on Monday and missed a day of school and the rest of the week, she was very moody. I wasn't sure if it was because it was the last week of school or if she still didn't feel well. My question was answered today.

I approached the doors of the nursery and could see her through the glass. She caught sight of me and I could see her little face drop. She looked close to tears. I tried to ignore it and fight back my own. She reluctantly came up to me and stuck out her hand. She was clutching a handful of her work and some parent handouts and I bent down to give her a cuddle. She pulled away quickly and I didn't push it. I had brought my camera with me and I asked her if she wanted me to take some pictures of her with Mrs. S. She smiled and nodded and ran over to her teacher. I took a few shots, had a word to Mrs. S. and we took one last picture of Miri next to her coat hook. Mrs. S handed her her name tag from the coat hook and we said our last goodbyes. She slowly, reluctantly made it to the door and we left.

When we got home, she ran upstairs to change out of her uniform as usual. Chris and I were getting lunch together and after about 10 minutes, we realised she still hadn't come down. We yelled up to her to come down. She came down with her uniform still on. Pleading to change into playclothes ensued. She refused. She didn't want to take off her uniform. We didn't push it. At first she said that she didn't want to eat lunch, but when we offered to let her wear her school apron, she agreed. We talked about the work she had brought home and the card that Mrs. S had made for her saying thank you for her gifts. Miri perked up and said "That means that Mrs. S is going to miss me too!" She was so pleased about that.

After lunch, the usual playing with her sisters....nothing new. A few tussles over toys and stern words from me or Daddy. During one of these tussles, she ran over to the sofa with Mrs. S's card. She burst into tears and kept opening and closing the card. Every time she opened it again, she cried even harder. I gave her a hug and asked, "What's wrong sweetheart?" The answer came between sobs- "I'm sad about that I won't see Mrs. S anymore!" My poor little girl. My heart broke for her. I explained that we could stop in and see her when she went to kindergarten in September and all the exciting things that we would do over the summer in the mean time. She finally stopped crying and put the card down. More cuddles.

During naptime, I got together all the photos that the school had printed out during the year of Miri doing activities. I put them in an album for her and when she woke up, gave it to her. Unfortunately I couldn't print out the pictures of her and Mrs. S from today because we are having technical probs with our computer, but I explained that as soon as we get it fixed, I'll put them in the album and she can look at it whenever she's feeling sad. She carried that book around with her for the rest of the evening.

So here's to my darling little sensitive girl, who started nursery as a 3 yr old baby and is now a 'big girl' at 4. She will go to kindergarten in the 'big school' in September. I can hardly believe it. Milestones reached! (but not without a few tears)

Well done Miri!