So, today started with an interesting conversation about a movie coming out called “He’s Not That Into You.” It’s based on a book I have not read, but probably should have starting at 18. My life before marriage was a series of “He’s not that into you.”

Now, how do I find my peace with all the many men who were not that into me? I laugh at their pictures on Facebook. I add them as friends, then I point and laugh. Not that I’m as preserved as Bo Derrik, mind  you, but like me, they have aged and some of them did have the advantages blessed on Dorian Grey.

Actually, the truth is, after I’ve spent my time pointing and laughing (which is usually a while) I try to see what there life is like through pictures, wives and kids. Then I remind myself that the past is the past and everyone, hopefully ends up with the life they are meant to have. My husband is of course, the best partner for me. The buck stopped at the right stop.

Still, secretly, I wish I could have just entered a convent, bi-passed all those losers and married my husband who would find me,  fall in love with me,  and wisk me away from the nunnery. But no, I had to waste a bunch of emotions on the many, many, many wrong guys.

That’s why we women all love Bridget Jones and movies like “He’s Not That Into You,” because we all kiss our share of warty, warty toads.

I no longer have Photoshop, but I found a free program that is equally as entertaining.

http://www.picnik.com/ Has lots of tools to jazz up your standard photos.

Here are a few of my photos, the ones of just me were taking with a web cam, so the amazing features of the program are pretty extreme.

Me, 70’s photo style.

A weird gothic one

Zach as Superman in his mind.

Retro Thomas

 I posted this the first time in November 2007. Now I work at this daycare, and feel every parent should read this. It’s so true. This daycare is still a wonderful place on the other end of the spectrum as well. 

 My son is one of the few kids in his daycare class who cries when we drop him off. The teachers say it’s only for two minutes, but it stresses me out. It’s hard for me to imagine that he has a fun time at daycare when all I see when I leave is him running for the door and all I hear is his cries as I turn the corner.

Because they won’t put a web cam in the room that I can check every hour, I decided to do a little experiment to see if he really did stop crying. I left the classroom and then went to use the teacher’s lavatory. I figured if it was true, then he’d be playing nicely when I was through.

On the wall near the toilet was a story. You may have heard this before, but I have not.

A speaker asked the crowd, “How much does a glass of water weight?”
The crowd gave various responses.
“It doesn’t matter how much the glass of water weights,” she said. “What matters is how long you hold it.”
“If I hold a glass for an hour my arm will cramp. If I hold it for a day, I might end up in the hospital.”

She went on to compare a glass of water to stress. We need to put it down every once in a while or it gets harder and harder to hold. (Hopefully, the teachers put their stress down when they went to the bathroom!)

It also had some funny sayings such as “Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue.” And my favorite on the sign was “If you lend someone $20 and you never see them again, it was probably a good deal.” Ha!

It was a nice reminder to me to release the stress of the season. I haven’t exactly figured out why, but the holidays seem to heighten all your senses, included the sense of stress. So as the story said, “My friend, when you go home, put down your stress. You can pick it up again later, but remember to put it down from time to time.”

When I left the bathroom, I peeked in the classroom. There was my son, tear-free and toddling around with his buddies.

And that’s where I put that stress down…and I left.

Here’s a tune about my home state. The land where my frozen heart still lives, Minnestoa.

uff-dah-minnesota.mp3

Yesterday the girls in my pre-school class (they are all about 4) were playing “home living” which is kind of like kitchen/dress up/house in the days of yore. They insisted that I was to be their mother. My job as the imaginary mother be their mother was to answer countless phone calls from them detailing their lives as mature, 20 year-olds.

“Mother,” Amanda said on the phone to me across the room, “you need to come to my wedding. It will be very beautiful.”

“Great,” I said. “Who are you marrying? Is he a nice guy?”

“Hmmm,” she answered, “I don’t know.”
“Well, call me back when you find out.”

“Mother,” she says via another imaginary call, “I found someone to marry.”

“Oh, who is he?” I ask.

“It’s not a he. I’m marrying a girl. Her name is Masen.”

“Oh,” I stammered. “Good for you!” I said supressing laughter.

“Will you come to my wedding?” she asked.

“Of course I will!” I said.

Hopefully, this isn’t a dry run on a future event in my life. Not that there is anything wrong with that. My response would probably still be the same. Except that, eh hem, 20 is kind of young to get married.

Today a fellow teacher was telling me about her son’s troubles in school. He gets picked on because he’s white.

I know, I know, “Boo hoo.”
But honestly, the taunting kids, being kids, weren’t thinking their stereotypes through and being brutal. One child told him, that basicly, the since the school was a primarly black school, the neighborhood is primarly black and now the president is black, he didn’t belong.

The boy went back the next day after talking to his mother and said, “Obama’s mother is white.” The boys who taunted were unaware or forgot that fact. “Obama’s mother is as white as my mother,” her son interjected. “He has both black and white in him.”

She said after he told them that, the boys let up. Still, will this issue ever be solved? Many of us have many races in our blood and what color our skin is tells only a small story. Just like our faces and our our appearences only tell a small story about who we are.
It made me think about a lesson plan to teach about stereotypes. The lesson would show pictures of different people and ask the children to guess what their situation in life was. For example, maybe an old woman in a wheelchair or a man in scruffy clothing with a five o’clock shadow. Once the children shared their opinion the truth about the people could be told. Maybe the old woman is a famous writer who never married (nobody’s grandmother) or the scruffy man is a millionaire who works in construction.  Anyway, I think children need to be taught, no matter their race to look deeper to find the truth about people before judge, teasing or condemming. Just because white people have a history of such behavior, the reverse is no better. We should teach our children that we are all equal.
Pride for your race and pride in having an Black president is one thing, hurting another to feel better is something completly diffferent.

I had a really good idea for a blog yesterday, but I slept on it and now its lost on me. Being around hundreds of kids each day forces one to use lots of spur of the moment creativity so it’s drained by the end of the day.

I did find out that Zach is not colorblind. He’s just a two year old. I was sure he had no idea what color red was. Its such a vivid color, and also on about every superhero, it was shocking to me that he wasn’t getting it. Slowly, after a day or two of only pointing out red objects and finding the red on objects, he’s getting it enough to reassure me that he isn’t color blind. I even used my break yesterday to go in his classroom and force him to sit during circle time. It was effective but the teachers found it more than amusing. They’ve grown very weary of the “Lets chase down the the hyper kid game.” 

For weeks he’s stated that every color is blue, no matter what hue. It was a little bit freaky. Turns out, he really has no interest in the names of colors. Hopefully finger paints will change that.

Now, Neurotic Mother can rest, her time is done….for now.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but since I’ve been a teacher at Zach’s school, he’s started referring to me as Ms. Kari. This started mostly, when I was in his classroom. All the children would call me Zachy’s Mommy. Their teacher corrected them telling them to call me Ms. Kari. Zach joined in. Soon, he started calling me Ms. Kari, radonmly.

This moring while we were having a conversation about what he ate for breakfast while visiting his great “Auntie” it went a little bit like this:

“So what did you have for breakfast at Aunties?” I asked. “Did you have cottage cheese?”

“No.”

“Well what did you have? Cheerios?” I asked.

“No, I had cottage cheese, Kari.”

Lovely. I thought maybe we’d work first to Mom, then Ma, but not straight to a first name baisis.

Last week I observed a second year teacher and her third grade class. She was amazing. She was funny, calm, positive and the kids obviously adored her. She helped me go back to a point in time when I remember loving school and really enjoying my teachers. Back in the day when elementary was fun and learning came easy.

Luckily for me, she liked me, answered my many questions and invited me to come back and observe her adorable class. Interestingly enough, there are five english as a second language students in her class, and one boy with ADHD and she still never rose her voice. Her calm control was enough. It made me wonder if people are just born natural teachers, she assured me that it was just not true and only now, after a year and a half of teaching had she learned to push aside her constant doubts and stress and follow her own internal groove.

Thank God, most schools give you three years to find your groove.