Are You Really There?

Okay, I've just got to say it....

It's bugging me.

I come here everyday.  Everyday, before I write my post, I look to see where people are reading from.  It's really fun and exciting, but I'm wondering if it's lying to me.

What do you read when you come here?  What that I write interests you?  What kind of stuff should I be including?

One of the top five posts has no comments on it.  How can it possibly be in the top five?  If no one comments, I almost wonder if really no one is really reading it.

So....Feedback, please?  If no one comments here, I'm going to know it's lying to me, and blogger is just putting random stuff on here.

Of course, you know I'm just kidding, but it does make one wonder.

Free Range Child

This is a new phrase I heard yesterday.  It makes me laugh, but I guess there's some amount of sadness to it.  This phrase was not used in regard to my children, but as I listened to the definition, I realized that one of my children could be defined this way.

As I have mentioned before, I love summer.  I LOVE having my kids home, but everyday at about 2:30pm, I have one child that needs a nap desperately but WILL NOT take one.  I know I can't force that child to sleep.  It's just not humanly possible, so as of yesterday, I started giving him choices.  He can go upstairs for a nap, or he can go outside and play.

#7's asleep during this time, but this child is just too loud inside the house.  Everyone else seems to have some ability to control him/herself and has some quiet time to him/herself each day at this time.  In the past, I've expected that the kids'd get up in the morning and just be part of the group.  We'd go run and do things together and spend the entire day together, but I realized, before summer vacation even started, that we all need to have some down time each day--some time to ourselves.  Thus, everybody gets some time alone everyday.

I kind of liken the situation with this child--my free range child--to having a spotless house.  I could have a perfectly clean house and break my back daily to keep things in order, but if my children enter the house and mess things up (we all know that never happens, right?), I'd become a raving maniac, but I choose peace over a perfectly orderly home.  My house is tidy and liveable (most of the time), but I value my relationship with my children more than being able to eat off the floors.  Similarly, I could control this child and use all the manipulative tactics I know, he's little, he'd fall for them, but I would, again, become a raving maniac and destroy any respect and love this child has for me.  I value his ability to choose for himself, so free range it is.

So, for this summer, starting around 2:30 everyday, my son will be free-range because I know for a fact he's never going to choose the nap option.  **sigh**  So glad to be in a place in life where we have a yard.  There have been other children in our family who didn't have this option at the same age.

Oh, and a friend gave me a great idea....Give him a bucket full of water and a paintbrush and let him "paint the fence" with the water.  Love it!  Going to have a very clean fence today.

Wordless Wednesday - Where My Parents Met

The Loose-Wiles Bakery, Spokane, Washington

Seeing the End

I only have to proof read my last regular paper for adolescent lit, and I can send it in.  I still have my term paper ahead, but at least this one's done.  I wrote it while sitting in the car

today waiting for the kids while they watched a movie at the theatre.  I can't believe I finished it.  Phew!

I stewed and fretted about this one from the time I started the class.  The assignment was to come up with a newer book and an older book that dealt with the same theme and share how you would deal with it in a classroom setting.  I thought I would do something with A Wrinkle in Time, but it just wasn't sitting well with me.

When I sat down to write today, there it was just like I had been planning on it all along.  I ended up with not two books but three.  I decided that I would prepare a classroom unit on survival dealing with The Life of Pi, Kensuke's Kingdom and The Cay.  I love how it turned out.  So excited to be done.

So, once that's done, it's onto the term paper.  The plan is to write about current young adult best sellers and how my community compares in what books interest them.  I've contacted the school librarians and the city library young adult librarians to see what books are checked out the most.

After this is over, I have a final and then I'm signing up for my LAST CLASS.  Yes.  You read that right, my LAST!  Still have to get through personal finance--I'm half way done, the careers class and then write a final paper to sum up the entire experience.

ish me luck.

Too Young

Just got to looking over the packet I was sent for Mother of the Year.  As you recall, I'm not eligible to be Young Mother of the Year because my oldest child will turn 18 before the required date, which then makes me eligible for Mother of the Year. 

I just got to looking through the information they sent me--thinking I'd better start filling some forms out (they're due in January), but it ends up you have to be over 45.  So, I'm out for this year.  It's still a great organization, and I'm definitely in on participating.

If you'd like to join in on some great service opportunities to enrich your life, go here.