Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Viva Las Vegas

Today shouldn't be bad... we're off to the gym so that C can take the kiddie ballet class and I can be alone for a bit to shower in peace. (maybe i'll even exercise a bit!) Then, thank you god, my mom flies in. She'll arrive at our place in time for me to take C to piano while she stays home with little J. After C's 2pm piano class is my 4:30 dentist appt. Then C's 7:15 swimming class.

Why cram all of this in? Because tomorrow we drive back to St. Louis and will be in a car all day. (oh yeah, i suppose i should pack all three of us at some point today too, huh?) Then the day after, C & I fly to Vegas to visit some friends.

If I get a few moments, I'll pop in for a post and to surf the others that I've been discovering. Otherwise, fun details to come as soon as we get back!

BTW, I must brag for a moment about the amazing parallel parking job I pulled off yesterday. There was a spot right in front of our place, and I was determined to squirm in there. Made it, with only a few inches to spare on each end! I may even take a picture -- might motivate me to learn how to post them here.... Anyway, now I have to figure out how to get back out of it.

Happy Weekend, if a bit early!

Monday, January 28, 2008

I Love You Too

4-year-old C is into maps lately, big into maps. World maps, maps of the U.S., puzzles of South America, Europe, Africa, etc. Loves to sing the United States song listing the states in alpha order. Lovely!

Here's a few days ago at breakfast:

Mom, I love you as big as the United States.

Aww, honey, that's so sweet. I love you too.

Mom, I love Daddy as big as the world.

(pause)

Mom, the world is bigger than the United States.

(smile) Yes dear, yes it is. (sigh)

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Step Aside, Mozart!

A little backstory here... and I'm sure that there will be more as this blog develops and grows.

So far, my only "student" is my four-year-old daughter (her 13mos old sister is fast on her heels -- she's a genius too -- just ask me). So I suppose you could say that her grade is K4. When people who I don't know well ask me if she's in preschool, I just list our activities and say, "I figure that's preschool!" (these include: spanish, soccer, swimming, piano, art and whatever classes she finds intriguing at our gym's amazing child care place) As I get to know someone better, I'll let her (cause it's usually a her) in on our plans, as well as chat (aka: brag?) about how well she's reading and writing and her math curriculum.

So piano. She seems to love it so far. We started out with a little kiddie piano class on little kiddie pianos. Now she's in the Big Kid Piano Class. We were using a cute little $20 toy keyboard to practice, but it fast became apparent that we needed all 88 keys for the Big Kid Piano Class. We were having to talk about, "what would you do if you had more keys on this end?" But do you really want to go out and rent or buy one for a potentially fickle four-year-old?

The solution: her ever-loving' godparents. At some point, one of their boys was taking piano. At least, for a while. They went out and got a wonderfully fancy-schmancy keyboard. Then the kid lost interest and was on to other things. So we are borrowing the wonderfully fancy-schmancy keyboard for the remainder of this piano class session. Decisions about what to do after that will come ... well, after that.

Confession time: I took piano as a little girl. And I fought it tooth and nail. Of course, now I regret it terribly. As my K4 genius-baby takes the class, I'm quietly learning along with her for as long as possible. But like any parent, I hope that she outshines me. And brilliantly too. If she wants to, I mean........................

Oh, and about the biz cards from yesterday. I offered to get them made for my husband. I was going to put his title as "Finance Committee." He declined. I think he prefers the "silent partner" role.......

Off to Family Swim at our gym. It's a shiny new place, so the novelty should intrigue all of us.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Here We Go...

60 million people have blogs. Yep, 60 million people yelling from their windows to anyone who might pass by. And now there's one more!

So what in the world could lil ole me offer? Here's hoping *something* interesting. I'm a stay-at-home mom here in the fantastic (ok, right now fantastically COLD) city of Chicago. My husband is a Chicago Public School teacher. Which school? For right now, let's call it Great Big Urban High School. And pre-kids, I did a stint there too. Which was enough to make us decide to homeschool our munchkins.

So there's the urban homeschool mom angle. The homeschool mom floating around the urban mommy circuit. Honestly, I've been happily accepted by most other moms on the Urban Kid Circuit -- the moms at the gym, the art class, the Spanish class, etc., mostly ladies searching for or settling in to private schools around town. In Illinois, you're considered your very own private school if you homeschool. Some people name them. Coming from St. Louis (Go Cards!), the Hoitiest of the Toitiest schools were places named "SomethingSomething Country Day Academy." So we "named" ours "B...... Country Day Academy." We figure that ours is really a VERY private school -- max occ: 2! I even got cards made. I'm the Director of Curriculum & Implementation. And the Director of Admissions. (pre-pre-kids, I was in the corporate world of commercial production for Great Big Ad Agency. i missed having a biz card........)

OK, let's see what this thing can do.