Winter Holiday Work for the Little Guy

I've applied my two point philosophy for my children's Dharma Class to Atticus' preschool work:  

1. Keep it simple.
2. Use what you have.

So pulling out the Christmas and Solstice boxes from the basement provided some easy, new projects to keep him busy while I'm homeschooling his older brother.

Here's a few of the activities that held his attention for a while:

Christmas Tree Bulbs
Sorted by Size

Christmas Tag Matching
I've had these vintage tags for years.

Snowflake Counting
These stickers came in the mail with an advertisement.

Sorting Holiday Bows by Color
(He used the wrong mat for this work,
but he was so engaged, I just let him roll with it.)

Felt Solstice Tree Decorating
It's just felt scraps on sandpaper.  

My First Swim, or I Love Lucy At the Lap Pool

Me in a swimsuit = more jiggles than Bill Cosby's favorite dessert.   "See that wobble, see that jiggle..."  I don't care.  Swimming laps is really good for your heart, without the impact on the joints that running makes.  So with birthday money from the in-laws, I bought passes to the local county pool.  

I know how to swim.  I just don't really know how to swim laps.  I watched some instructional videos on YouTube.  Breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle seemed doable.  

And goggles!  Everyone wears goggles.  I threw down 13 bucks for goggles, squeezed into last year's swimsuit/swim-dress and hit the deck.  

Gasp, there are 8 lanes open on one side and 4 more lanes opened on the deep water side.  Where do I go?  I asked the life-guard which lanes I could use.  Cause, you know, I didn't already look enough like an out-of town tourist.  I had to stop and ask for directions.  "Excuse me, which lanes can I use?"  He looks at me like I have two heads.  Hopefully he will be of more help if I'm drowning...

I go for the shallow lanes.  There appears to be some senior citizens at the far end.  That's my speed.  I notice that all the fit swimmers who look like they know what they're doing get out of the water and walk the deck with their goggles on top of their head.  Heck yeah.  I can do that.  Now I look like I belong here.  Holla!  I sway across the deck, goggles resting on my hairline like all the cool kids.

Now, there are 8 lanes but only two ladders into the pool - one on each end.  How do I get to the open lane in the middle?  hmmm..  It specifically says no diving.  Guess I have to swim under the ropes til I get to my lane.  I climb down the ladder.  I'm so worried about getting under the ropes before I collide with swimmers in the lane that I forget to put my goggles over my eyes.  I come up from under the first rope with soaking, wet goggles.  Shit!  Now I have to wait for them to dry out before I can use them.  I dip under the second rope, the third rope.  Wait. The damned goggles have come off my head.  I can't find them.  I'm searching the water.  I can't see without my glasses.  The dude swimming in this lane stops.  

"Did you lose some money?"  wink.  

"No.  I lost my goggles.  I'm sorry."

"I'll get them for you."

He dives under water and scoops up my goggles which are about 18" from my feet. 

"Thanks.  Sorry.  I can't see without my (he's already swimming away) glasses..."

I leave the goggles to dry on the deck in front of my lane.  Breaststroke.  I don't need goggles for the breaststroke.  I kick off.  Hey, this isn't so bad.  I feel normal.  I look normal.  Jesus, this lane is long.  After two laps back and forth I check my goggles.   They're dry.  I strap them on.  Now I can practice those under water drills I learned from YouTube.  I dip down and kick off.  About 20 feet later the goggles fill with water and fall off my head.  ARGH.  Now I have to walk them back to the ledge.  

I decide to freestyle until the goggles dry.  Holy shite.  Does this lane ever end?  I get 3/4 of the way there and I'm dying.  This is harder than it looks, BUT being  a woman of a little determination and enormous pride and ego, I refuse to stop.  "Must keep going.  You can do it.  Do not look like a pathetic, out of shape mom who can't make one lap across the pool."  I made it.  I took three panting breaths and pushed off to freestyle back.  I found a better pace.  I did two more complete laps before I thought I might pass out or vomit if I tried another.  

Then I switched to backstroke to catch my breath.  Never mind that the 70+ year old woman beside me was lapping me.  I did it! Without floating into another lane or whacking another swimmer, without bumping my head at the end, I did it.  Before I knew it I had been in the water for forty minutes.  

As I was getting out, I noticed a swimmer sit at the edge of her lane and carefully drop in.  Ohhhhh.  Why didn't I think of that?

So it's been done.  I got over the biggest hurdle which is STARTING.  I'm going back tomorrow.  

Getting over myself: the best gift I can give me.  

Exorcising the Diet Demons For Good

A few years ago while pregnant with my second son I gained 80 pounds.  Eighty.
I was depressed and stressed by the pregnancy and I drowned my sorrows in cupcakes and about 10 more hours of sleep than I needed each day.

After the pregnancy something ugly happened to me. I stopped liking my body.  I wanted my old figure back. I refused to embrace the extra love handles I had in anyway.  I wasted time looking at pictures of myself in cute roller derby gear and nights out with the hubs and I longed to look like that again.  Less and less frequently did I slip into something "more comfortable" (shall we say?) for my husband. I'd actually cry while getting ready to go out to any event where I was expected to look nice.

Then the articles started to lure me in:  Eight Ways to Dress Thinner, Choose the Most Slimming Style Swimsuit, Look 10lbs Smaller In This Tunic...  “Of course!” I thought.  “I can embrace my size by wearing clothes that make me look thinner.”  I’d stand in front of the mirror, trying on this top with those skinny jeans. And here’s the silly part.  The whole time I was thinking that I had found an emotionally  healthy way to deal with my weight gain, never realizing that I had bought the lie that I NEEDED to look thinner to feel good about myself.

After a few months of obsessing over whether I was “looking thinner,” I decided to join Weight Watchers.  Weight Watchers promotes a healthy weight loss routine by encouraging you to eat healthier foods and watch your portions.  You’re allowed a certain number of Points worth of food each day.  Each food has a point.  Most veggies and fruits have no points.  “Great!” I thought, “Now I’m REALLY being healthy about my weight problem because I’m eating healthier foods and portions.”  “It’s a lifestyle change,”  I’d tell my friends and family.  And I actually lost weight.  About 15 pounds.  So now, in addition to dressing to look thinner I was eating to look thinner.          

Next came the exercise.   I strapped on a pedometer and took to the sidewalks, walking up to four miles a day.  I lost five more pounds!  I felt better.  I had more energy.  People started noticing my weight loss and commenting, “Wow!  You look great!”  Super.  I started running. Now I was dressing, eating, and exercising to look thinner.

Finally the inevitable plateau hit.  It seemed like no matter how closely I tracked my food points or how much I exercised, the scale wouldn’t budge.  After a few weeks of no movement on the scales, I exercised less and stopped counting points.  You see, the fact that I was eating healthier foods and exercising more didn’t matter because I wasn’t trying to be healthy. I was dying to be thin. Eventually I stopped going to Weight Watchers.  And the weight came back.  And I hated myself. I stopped trying to “look cute.”  I stopped looking in the mirror because I knew I wasn’t going to like what I saw.  Why bother?  I stopped trying to dress like I weighed ten pounds less.  What’s clean?  What’s comfortable?  That’s what I’m wearing.  I’ve got kids to nurture and classes to teach.  

Somewhere in that season of giving up, something really good happened to me.  I stopped caring about whether or not I looked thinner.  Did I enjoy carrying around an extra 30 pounds? No.  But I was no longer spending my day obsessing over whether I was doing everything I could to look and be thinner.   Oh,  I had days where I would fall into a funk about it, but it was no longer my reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

In late December I decided I needed a little post holiday detox.  I wanted to start eating healthier foods. First step was to give up meat for a year. Second step, to replace the meat with healthier, whole foods.  Here’s the crucial difference.  I made the commitment because I wanted to be healthier, not thinner.  

Without checking the scales every week or counting points, I have for the past two months been eating healthier foods, lots of leafy greens, beans, and whole grains.  I don’t crave processed foods and sweets as much.  I am never hungry.  I don’t limit how much I eat based on how many calories or Weight Watcher’s points something has.  I don’t attend meetings that refresh my obsession with whether or not I’m thin enough yet.  I don’t read articles about how many fewer calories one snack has over another.  When looking for new recipes I check the iron levels, the vitamins, the calcium, the protein...  That’s all.

It wasn’t until I joined Pinterest that I realized how much my obsession with weight loss had changed.  So many beautiful, strong women were pinning motivational quotes on their boards with images of very thin, fit women.  Why did their pins bother me so much?  It struck me one night that I was once using images with quotes like these to motivate myself to stick to my diet.  What I was actually doing was posting unrealistic images for myself to strive towards. With every glance at these women that I would never look like, I was moving further away from a healthy acceptance of myself.  Now that I wasn’t obsessed with weight loss I could see how dangerous and unfair many of those pictures are.  I wanted to comment under every pin, “YOUR WORTH IS ABOUT SO MUCH MORE THAN THIS!  QUIT BEATING YOURSELF UP!”     

I made a promise to myself to never let what other people look like, influence how I feel about me.  I won’t FLOG myself with quotes that say ”You can do it!” in a tone that actually implies, “You’re not good enough until you do!”

Sitting here, 30lbs heavier than I’d like to be, I refuse to fall back into the ugly cycle of dieting and self-hatred.    
I promise to never again restrict my portions to be thinner.
I promise to never read another article about how to look thinner.
I promise to never pin up a motivational quote with someone else’s body on it to inspire me to be thinner.
I promise to not become so attached to who I was and who I looked like before I had kids that I can’t enjoy who I am now.
I promise to value who I am because of how I live my life, not how much I weigh.
I promise to go swimming, running, skating, dancing regardless of how big or small the people around me are.  
I promise not to let images in the Victoria Secrets catalog steal my confidence in my husband’s attraction to me.    
I promise to flip the bird to every Nike, Reebok, Jenny Craig and Diet Coke ad that tries to use a woman’s poor body image to sell their product. 

I can use my thoughts and time much more productively by focusing on what I believe makes a person beautiful:

Meditation

Compassion for others

Determination

Nurturing and serving others

Teaching

Learning

Wit

Tolerance

Being able to make a really good cup of coffee... Everyone's got a list. I'm just taking how much someone weighs off of mine.

Now, if you’re waiting for me to tell you how many pounds I’ve lost since I’ve adopted this new perspective you’ve completely missed the point.  I feel a new freedom, like little Kevin felt in Home Alone when he tells the furnace to shut up and yells, “I’m not afraid anymore!”   

DO YOU HEAR ME?  I’M NOT TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT ANYMORE!   

Toddler Valentine's

These are poor quality pictures.  I had to use the web cam.  Atticus dumped the digital camera in our tea kettle filled with water.  


When he's not tossing expensive electronics in the tea pot or toilet, Atticus has been spending a lot of time painting and coloring with oil pastels.  It keeps him busy for nice, long stretches of time, but I'm running out of places to hang his art.  The grandparents only need so many mailed to them on a weekly basis...


Solution:  VALENTINE'S

I've gathered up a bunch of his most recent paintings and scribbles.

Then I cut them into hearts.

Next time he asked to play with glue, I set him up with red and
pink paper, pre-cut to fit our dollar store envelopes. 

He went to town, pasting hearts all over the place. 

And the final product!

I'm gonna do the same thing for Easter, only I'll cut the scribbles into egg shapes and let him paste them to a brown paper basket.

PS: Orange font does not work for Valentine's Postings, but this pink looks ugly on my blog.  I'm leaving it this way because, frankly, I'm too freaking lazy to mess with it anymore. 

The Great Trip Back In Time

The timing was perfect!  Colonial Farms in Acokeek, MD opened their 18th Century farm to homeschoolers today.  We just finished learning about colonial times at home.  

We got there a little late which worked out to our benefit.  My boy's special needs include sensory overload when he's in large groups.  If we had gotten there with the rest of the homeschoolers, there would have been a crowd of 20+ kids at each station of the tour.  That would have made him withdrawal fast.

Making candles

Being late, we met at each station with volunteer teachers in authentic period clothes with two or three other kids at most.  

Pounding "biscuits" out of flour, lard and salt.  Better hard and tasteless than moldy was the notion.

He was inquisitive and eager to try out all the hands on lessons in colonial farm-life.  All of his curiosity and excitement for learning goes MIA when there's too many people around.  I've never been so thankful for Beltway traffic getting us to our POD 30 minutes tardy.

Grinding corn into flour

Peeling garlic for planting

Planting the garlic.  He was surprised to learn that they used the garlic mostly for medicine.

The young woman on the farm was so kind to him.  Noticing how much he enjoyed working in her garden, she invited him to stay after the other children left to peel and plant the rest of the garlic and cover it with hay.  He was stoked!

Tabacco was the cash crop here.  I have no idea why he thought this was a good pose.  LOL

Playing Colonial-Style

See?  Even the Colonial child's lawn darts were safer than those for a child of the Seventies.

I don't know how he swung it, but he got a personal lesson in spinning when all the other kids left too.

Did you know that linen was more common than cotton back then?  

I'm pretty sure I had to say, "DON'T MESS WITH THE GUN!" at least 12 times.

This is what happens to little boys who don't listen to their mothers.

So, it may be the early bird that catches the worm, but it's the late, special needs homeschooler who gets the best lesson.

One More Chalk Mark On the Homeschooling Success Board!

After his summer reading challenge, my son definitely took more pleasure in independent reading. 

Still, he shied away from reading out loud to anyone but me.  He didn't even want to read to me in front of other people for that matter.  So it was thrilling to walk in on this scene last week.  He's now reading to his little brother! 

Mary's Scary Little Lamb: Bedtime Stories to Keep Your Little One's Up Late

The vintage kiddy-stuff nerd within me is pleased by this finding.  

This freaky book was published in 1968. 

It reminds me of those old toy animation holiday specials.

Some of these doll's give me the creeps.  It's gonna be a hoot to watch my husband have to read this to our toddler.

Evil Kitties want to play.

Wicked Lambs and Rebel Cow plan to overthrow the established farm order.  Why did he leave his pitchfork out in the open before he fell asleep??
OH NO!  LITTLE BOY BLEW IT!

Green-eyed, zombie-boy is coming!
Run, doggie!  Run!

20 More Minutes of Toddler Engagement

Screw Fisher Price.
You need:

1 Tupperware Container
 1 Half-Inch of Water
1 Water Absorbing Placemat
1 Shiny Sponge

Even if he spills the whole thing it's a one minute cleanup.
The kid was engaged for half an hour.