Different Types of Women

What type of woman are you?

Are you active?  Are you a mom?  Are you a volunteer type?  Are you all business?  Are you an educator?  Are you a swinging single for lifer?  Are you monogamous?  Are you the 'other' woman?  Are you sexy?  Are you a sports nut?  Are you girlie?  Are you a tom boy?

I think most of us are all of those and much more.  We like to say the media and society label us, but I think we do this too each other.  I really enjoy being able to wear so many hats.  I love the woman I've become and can't wait to see what my daughters become.  It's also fun to watch friends I've grown up with change and grow over the years.

It's never to late to try on a new hat or even get rid of one that doesn't truly fit who you are now.  The biggest consideration is that you don't label the women around you and just let them be all the women they want to be.  It's amazing how many hats I can wear at one time now.  Maybe that's the truest part of being a mature woman........how many hats you wear well at one time?  LOL.

I love being a woman.  (not that there's another option for me anyway.)

Parent Teacher Team Work

My son's school principal asked me to write something for their school's newletter to explain how we were able to turn a situation around. My son was failing in kindergarten and was at risk to stay back. I wrote up what we did and sent it in.

She just called me to tell me how touched and near tears she was with what I wrote. She said I'm her favorite author of the day (LOL). She feels a few parents might now be happy with this piece, but wanted me to know that she felt I understood the school dilemma in educating our children daily.

Here's the piece. (I took out staff names and the schools name for obvious reasons)

My son, Jayden, is in Miss P’s kindergarten class. He’s been doing fine all year and has come a long way since the first day of school. In March, Miss Pugh sent a note home letting us know that there was a possibility of Jayden repeating kindergarten next year, but she felt there was plenty of time to catch up. It was mainly a list of high frequency words that he needed to know. He only knew 19 of 30. She was even kind enough to send me the list.

My husband and I quickly came up with a schedule, repeated this to Miss Pugh to make sure our plan was going to help. Once we got the thumbs up from her, we sat our son down and explained it to him using the most upbeat, optimistic attitude, wording and voices we could muster. We wanted him to know why he would be working hard. We were worried. We both work, we have two other kids (one of them is Autistic), how would we fit this in and get him caught up.

Then we realized that we just needed to create a reasonable schedule and stick to it daily. We starting using our smart phones and e-readers (dad has a Blackberry and a Kindle Fire, mom has an iPhone and an iPad). There is a website called Pixel of Ink; they have two genres of books based on age, one for adults and one for kids. The one for kids gives tons of free e-books away that are easily downloaded to many devices using the application for Kindles and the actual Kindles. You can use a regular computer for these, too. Many of the books are free. All the books give the recommended ages for the books. These were great. First time readers, high frequency words, beginning sounds, etc.

We took it a step further. We typed the list that Miss Pugh sent to us in to Word document and saved it as a PDF file. We emailed them to ourselves, opened them on our phones and e-readers and saved them. Now we had his list with us everywhere we went. We went to Five Below, we bought workbooks there for kindergarten level. They are $2 with about 50 worksheets in each. I did a Google search and found tons of free worksheets online to print out. We added 4 pages of these to his homework every night.

Here’s our daily routine:
Wake up at 7am – Breakfast, hygiene, dressed
7:30 am – we read 2 books, he reads one to me and I read one to him. We reviewed his word list. (10 minutes)
5:00 pm - When I get home from work, we sit in the kitchen with no TV or anything to distract us. (NO CELLPHONE!!!). (30 minutes.) While I cook dinner, he does his homework. But we did it together and I made it as fun for him as I could.
6:30 pm - After dinner, we take him outside to play for 1 hour. That’s it.
7:30 pm - After play time, and while he’s in the bathtub, we review the word list. We play with flashcards. We read a story. (10 minutes)
8:00 pm - After bath time, he reads a book to mom with dad’s help. The he reads a book to dad with mom’s help. Then I read him a book that is sweet and relaxing to lull him to sleep. (10 minutes)

This totals about 1 hour of the day. Jayden is definitely worth an hour of my time.

In less than a month, Jayden was completely caught up. Miss P said she could see the results immediately once we began working steadily with him. We had a meeting with Mrs. Y and other staff members to go over the possibility of his repeating the grade. We had the meeting, but now it was only a review of how far he had come. Miss P had tested him that morning. Of the 30 words he needed to know, he now knew 36 words!!!!!!! He did a lot of hard work and it paid off. He’s so proud of himself, he sees what hard work can do.

If a parent thinks it’s not their problem, or they don’t have the time to do this – they are not being honest with themselves or they’re scared. The only things that changed were having Jayden in the kitchen with me while I was cooking and reading to him while he was in the tub. Doubling up with him and getting stuff done for me at the same time. It’s working great. He is also beginning to understand that there is a time to play and a time to work. It’s helping him be a better Jayden.

Miss P and the staff at KE School have a hard job in trying to educate our children. Yes, it’s their job to do that and they get paid to do it too. But these are our babies, not theirs. We owe it to our children to give up a little tv time, texting with a friend or anything else to ensure that they become educated and confident kids that know they have parents that love them enough to do anything and everything for them. Work with the teachers, work with your kids, in the end it only helps our kids be the best they can be. Isn’t that the goal?

The Healthy Life Style (Don't stick your tongue at me)

Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Bob Harper, Kelly Ripa - these are just a few of the people that say all the time to lead a healthy life style to stay fit and active. I just don't know how to do this, where to start, how to get my family on board, and where in the hell do I find the time that doesn't include missing out on time my babies need from me, my job, my husband (who completely comes in last place....he's my rock) and not to mention adult time stuff like paying bills, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. I know realistically it's a matter of juggling the time and MAKING it happen. But when I'm being pulled in so many directions but using this body that can't quite keep up like it used to, it's really hard to start and keep it going no matter how good for me I know it's supposed to be. I just wind up stopping as many times as I start. Maybe a daily diary is an option, I heard this from a trainer.....Are you fucking kidding me? I can't find the time to dedicate to working out and now you not only want me to find the time for the workout but to write too? Oh, wait a second.....I'm writing right now, huh? OK, tonight before I put head to pillow, this is going into my iphone to help me set up reminders.....and the first one is to put the iphone across the bedroom so when my alarm goes off at 5am, I'll have to get out of bed to answer. Good Night World.

I Screwed It Up - But Not On Purpose

I did not begin my workout on the morning I thought I would. I didn't reset my alarm to get up at 5 instead of 6. Then I got my monthly visit from Aunt Flow, the first since switching from an IUD to the Depo shot. It's very heavy. It surprised me because I wasn't expecting it for another couple of weeks. It's ok, I'm just readjusting to start my new habit on Sunday, hopefully giving myself time to stop cramping so much. If not, I'll just have to work thru it. Supposedly, exercise is good for this. I'd rather it chocolate and potato chips, but hey, that's probably how I got so fat in the first place. But it did give me an idea to really do some research on the way I'd like to start eating and different exercises I'd like to do. There is a new show starting in a couple of weeks - The Revolution on ABC. I'll be watching daily as it's really meant to help people who want to live a happy and healthy lifestyle. That's what I want. So the first thing I learned was to use a home gym that doesn't have to be all expensive and complicated. They used a hula hoop, dumb bells, exercise ball and jump rope. I can afford that and do that too. Now to be perfectly honest, I can't hula hoop to save a life. BBBUUUUTTTTTT, the Nintendo Wii has the balance board game with the hula hoop game on there. I'm gonna do it Saturday (tomorrow), it might help out my cramps. LOL I have dumb bells and the ball, just no jump rope which is ok. I can't picture jumping rope in the house for exercise and then telling my 5 yr old that he can't do it. I'll use my invisible rope. It'll be fine and no noisy rope hitting the floor or tangling up into my legs causing me to fall down, breaking a bone which will force me once again to give up on my workouts. (I'm going to buy one tomorrow). SWAK/ANNA