Geography Lessons

Today, I visited the No Child Left Behind store for teachers and parents on Springfield Avenue in Champaign (right next to Swann School). The owner is a very lovely woman who used to teach pre-k and kindergarten. I went in looking for some supplies for my summer with X-man.

I'm very excited. In approximately one month, X-man will say goodbye to Next Gen and will spend the summer with me. Since he and I haven't had three months together without some sort of childcare intervention since he was an infant, I thought I should prepare. I know he appreciates a schedule. I know I appreciate a schedule. But at the same time you don't want to take the impromptu fun that is summer break out of the weeks off before kindergarten starts.

He and I sat down and he told me some of the things he'd like to do this summer. Learning to swim was at the top of his list. He also said he needed to learn his phone number so he can call me in an emergency. He also asked to do two science experiments a week, preferably things he could eat OR things that would blow up.

So, I went to the store today and picked up some items supporting his choices as well as some items that I wanted to continue working on with him over the summer, so he doesn't forget his letter sounds or how to count to 100. I found a Melissa and Doug 51-piece puzzle of the United States. I brought it home and watched him put it together. Each of the states has a picture of something popular in that state. As he put them down, he'd ask me what state they were and who he might know in the state. We also talked about our travels and where we'd been.

And just so the people out there know, X-man has a list of places he plans on going:

1. To the Apple State to see Colby Jack.
2. To the Buffalo State to see DinoJonah.
3. To the Peanut State to see the Supers.
4. To the Space Shuttle State "Because space is cool."
5. To the Cactus State "Because I've never been to a desert."

It was a lot of fun to be on the floor and watch him use his brain and ask questions. And even cooler when he immediately took the finished puzzle apart and then put it back together and REMEMBERED each of the stories I told him about the states. So even if he forgets the name of the state, he remembers the picture on the puzzle piece, the story about it and where it goes on the map.

I know most of the synopses are supposed to be pruned by age 3. But I always love the spongie-ness of child-centered learning. If they're interested in what you're saying, they soak it up like crazy. If it's boring, their eyes glaze over and it's blah, blah, blah.

My guess is this is probably going to be how it is all the way through his school years. If he likes it, he'll become obsessed and focused on it to the grand scale, and if he rolls his eyes and tunes out -- we'll have lost him.

Challenging, who would have guessed? :-)

Hey, I know you!

I returned to class on Monday at Parkland and have been doing double takes at people all week long. As it turns out, three of my classmates are Moms I know. One is a parent of a fellow All Star 2 student in X-man's room at Next Generation. One was a toddler teacher at NG until she had a baby 3 months ago and I taught a fellow student's son at Mother's Morning Out last spring.

It's funny how running into people in unusual places makes you all say, "Hey wait, I know you from somewhere!" One figured me out at drop off this morning. The other I had to go home and think about. And the NG teacher knows X-man since her room shared a bathroom with the Turtles. :-)

It's funny how tiny this town is when you have kids or dogs...

School Daze

I start classes on Monday at Parkland. I'm taking three this semester. An Intro to Early Childhood Education class I kind of skipped by starting on a spring semester, Teaching Math and Science to children ages 2-6 and a class on building relationships with Family and Community. This will likely be my last three classes at Parkland in Early Childhood. When I'm done, I'll have earned enough credits in early education to get a job doing most anything in a pre-school... but I'm not.

Instead, I've called and e-mailed (but haven't gotten a reply back) from Eastern Illinois University asking for permission to send them all of my transcripts and seek guidance on getting into a program there. I've decided to try and work toward becoming a registered dietician that works with with early childhood intervention. So many aspects of children with special needs require help with nutrition. And, most everyone in our country needs a little help with obesity... so I thought maybe I'd combine my interest in early childhood with the personal passion that has developed for wellness in the last year.

I'm going to have some pre-requisites to take, and it's likely that after I'm done with the general RD  program I'll probably want to see about getting a pediatric dietician certification through somewhere, but I'm really excited about it. And I was having nightmares of becoming a certified teacher only to  be an unemployed kindergarten teacher as more and more school districts lay off staff... (see where adaption is key here?) Plus, my early childhood classes are invaluable in terms of how to work with small children AND their families.

Anyway, that's what's new in my world today... And you know how I can't seem to live without a general 3-5 year plan in my head. I like to create direction. So, as long as MacTroll doesn't get any earth shattering job news I have some follow up phone calls to make.

Recovery

36 hours after I started taking the z pack, I feel almost downright human again -- just in time for the weekend!

I knew I was feeling better when I went to an appointment today and was eavesdropping on a woman trying to convey the top 4 reasons why she should change from a hospitality degree at Parkland to becoming a registered dietician. It was fascinating, until she repeated her argument a third time and the man she was with still just looked at her like she hadn't said anything at all.

My favorite was where she talked about how a lot of the courses for hospitality crossed over with the dietician ones. (She listed gen ed requirements like a math and an English 101.) Then she said she thought she'd be able to handle the math in the sciences now as an adult so much better than she could in high school.

That statement hit on a fantasy of mine. I hated math in high school. A long time ago, I thought it might actually be fun to start in a basic algebra class (like the one I took in 8th grade and got a B and then retook in 9th grade after 8 weeks of getting a D in College algebra -- got an A in regular Algebra -- and two years later still got a D in College Algebra).

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to start over again and just work my way through Algebra, Geometry, College Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, etc. Just to see that I can do it. Kind of like losing the weight, it would be proof that I could do something that I thought I'd never be able to do.

And if I could do it -- giant confidence boost.

Of course, I'm not sure where she got her info that it would only take 4 more courses from her hospitality degree to become a registered dietician and that she'd make $90k... I'm sure my health educator at Carle would be completely stoked if she could make $90k as a nutritionist in this area -- and she has a master's degree.

An Opinion: Patricia Polacco Books

In my children's literature class we have an author study due on Thursday. I pulled Patricia Polacco out of the hat four weeks ago. I dutifully ran off to the library and got a selection of her books and brought them home. Then X-man and I tried to read them. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze.

So, I began my research. She was born in Michigan -- great midwestern connection, right? Her mother's parents were Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, so I tried to channel my fave SIL's mother, who also immigrated from Russia to increase my interest. No luck. She overcame a learning disability to go on and get a PhD in art history. Her parents were divorced, like mine... alas, blah, blah, blah.

It's not that her themes or stories are terrible, they're just not -- compelling to me. I can completely get behind the idea of forming community, of appreciating and creating bonds with grandparents, of celebrating heritage and the wonderment of children from various cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. But, snooze.

I read all the books and chose the ones I liked the best for my annotated bibliography. I wrote my author's biography for my poster board and took the appropriate pictures for my poster board, which I'll put together tomorrow after work. And Thursday, I'll hand it all in, with my Polacco-themed book bag starring Reschenka the goose and her magically decorated eggs.

But I really wish I would have gotten an author I loved -- or even one I hadn't heard of before that was a new discovery. Instead, I got Patricia Polacco. She's written well over 20 children's books. She's won numerous awards. She seems like a tender soul, and yet, I couldn't get into her.

Clearly, working in a children's library department for six years made me particularly over critical.

First Day of School

This is where I completely kiss up to one of my favorite teachers. This semester I'm taking a Language and Literature Class for Small Children at Parkland. Nancy Gaumer is my teacher. I had her last semester for an Infant/Toddler class and I loved her. 

Nancy has a lot of energy in the classroom. She clearly loves teaching potential teachers and is completely in love with little kids. So often I've dealt with teachers who are completely burned out. They make negative off-handed comments or generalizations about their students in front of them. They phone in their classes and really don't inspire much of anything in the classroom. 

Today was our first day in class. Nancy had vases with flowers on the table with bright pieces of material underneath each vase. She began by taking our photos (she's a very visual learner) and then she read us Mrs. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten.  Afterwards, she talked about the goals for the class, her love of literature and reading with/to kids and talked about why, educationally, putting some emphasis and performance and personality into it is of dire importance in the classroom, particularly for little kids. She also stressed that lap reading was a much more effective teaching tool than group time because it formulates a bond or trust between the small child and the educarer (that's right -- it's jargon). 

Anyway, besides her positive attitude and open door communication with her students, Nancy gets the big picture, so, as a student, I feel like she gets me. I guess there is more bonding to group reading than she thinks. ;-)

"Librarians are my heroes," she gushed to the classroom, and she gave me a great program idea for CARE. 

All in all, it was a great hour and 15 minutes, and I'm so looking forward to going back on Thursday.

Musical comforts

So today I walked into the Tiger room during Music class. X-man adores music. He loves his music teacher Ms. Mary and singing with his Spanish teacher Ms. Nora.

Today, Mary was teaching the tigers forte and piano. It won't be a surprise to any of you who have heard me sing that I had no idea what these terms were -- until I sat down with X-man and listened. When the Tigers finished as a group going through the flash cards, X-man decided it was time to go and pick out new sippy cups, since ours our shot.

On the way out, I stopped to talked to his teachers, and suddenly there was music behind me. It was quiet. The kids were crawling toward Ms. Mary from their group spots very quietly. Then the horns cranked on and the kids all danced.

And what made me feel awe and comfort. She was using a song sung by Bjork.

How freaking cool is that? I remember music in pre-school as being the 10 Little Indians (yes, wholly inappropriate now). But "It's, Oh, So Quiet" is the perfect example of forte and piano.

Go easy or suck it up?

This semester I was a full-time student in early childhood. Outside of the regular reading, you do a lot of activity and program planning. You also have to do classroom observations and find a focal child to visit every week to complete the appropriate lab work. It's a lot of organizing time and schedules: my schedules, other families' schedules, school schedules, etc. 

I decided I was only going to do school part-time in the fall. But I'm conflicted. Mostly because one of my "required" classes is available online. So I feel like going on campus T/Th for an hour and 15 minutes isn't a lot of time, even though the class may require more scheduling. Right now I'm registered for "Child Psychology" online and "Literature and Language in Early Education." I'm thinking about taking a small 2-credit course, "Math and Science." Because, let's face it, the sooner I get the credits out of the way, the sooner I'll get to my practicum (student teaching) and the more skilled I'll feel about applying for jobs.

On the other hand, I feel pretty pushed to the limit this semester. And I plan on being full-time again in the spring. If I do that -- maybe taking it slow in the fall would be a better idea. 

Either way, I'm filling up this summer with fun family times, and I'm really excited about having some freedom. 

Sigh

I picked up X-man from school today to find out that he bit a friend within the first 10 minutes he was in the room this morning. Thus ending a 6-month, non-biting period for him.

When I talked to him about it in the car, he said the other child hit him in the nose. He told his friend not to hit. The friend did it again. So he bit back. I have no idea if what he's telling me is true, but to my knowledge he's never openly lied to me. 

Is it wrong that I miss the mechanics of a 2-year-old room? I miss the Turtles where kids didn't call my son an ogre and tell him he was bad or that he ruins everything. He's trying so hard to fit in with a bunch of kids he doesn't know. 

Anyway, I told him that if someone hits him, he should shout, "FRIENDS DON'T HIT!" as loud as he can. I'm hoping it'll draw attention to the situation from all sides and embarrass the bullies. The teacher did say that they have some near 4 year olds who are starting to push around the smaller children. 

I know teachers have their hands full. I just wish things didn't have to be that way for them. But now I know that in 10 months, my kid is probably going to be shitty to other kids too. 

And that makes me sad. 

Too freaking much for one freaking day

X-man is starting to visit the Tiger room at school. He didn't like talking about it. He's a man of action. He apparently got to go visit them from 9:30 until 2 p.m. today. 

Ms. Holly and Ms. Krissi said he did fabulous. He apparently was all snuggles with Ms. Sonya (who he had in the toddler room for five months before he moved up), until naptime, when he decided he was not going to sleep in a strange place. Instead, he tried to test the Tiger teachers' patience by jumping up and down on his cot. (Anyone remember when my son got three stitches under his chin from jumping on a cot last December? How about when he fell off of one at 18 months and got a black eye? He clearly has no adaptive response.)

When the Tiger teachers didn't let him get away with it, he insisted on using the potty... every five minutes for all of nap time. 

I guess I should be happy he wanted to use the potty, right? He's in the Tiger classroom full time starting March 23. But they said he had a good time.

In other news, I took Maya, our big, fuzzy cat, into the vet today. Her urinary tract infection came back. She still has blood in her urine, but her white blood cells are good and she no longer has pain in her bladder (so at least the antibiotics she was on for two weeks did her some good). But she's still peeing in our basement and our shower. So now she gets quarantined into our bathroom as we try to dilute her urine because she has cystitis.

But the most important thing I learned about Maya today? I knew when we adopted her in 2003 that she was an abuse case. What I didn't know was that she HAS A BULLET JUST BELOW HER RIB CAGE. It's not causing her any pain, nor is it in a bad place. But seeing those x-rays was just crazy.

Education Crisis

When I first had X-man I thought the weirdo dichotomy between breastfeeders and non-breastfeeders was frightening. I'm not a militant person by nature nor am I an absolutist. I think each family does its best, so the fact that I was berated for giving my child formula by a stranger in the baby food aisle at Target was about the same as being blindsided by a giant truck full of manure two weeks postpartum while on drugs to keep some post birth complications under control. Whatever my personal situation was didn't matter. And the words I've seen on the Internet condemning one practice over another is disheartening.

Now as elementary school approaches, I'm seeing the same disorganization, confusion, self-doubt and bewilderment as I did when I met other first-time moms who realized that they'd been sold a bill of goods about the "beauty" of motherhood and learned very quickly that the "beauty" is not in the destination of birth and arrival of a baby, but in the hard, every day work and intense love it takes to parent.

Like most other parents, I worry about my child's education. I want him to want to learn. I want him to be open minded and tolerant regarding people and theories. Period. I want the natural curiosity that comes with that learning. He might be what the school district calls gifted based on scores. He might show an aptitude for the arts or physical fitness. He might just be X-man, my cool kid who tries exceptionally hard but doesn't have critical thinking come naturally to him. Whomever he is, I just want him to have options. 

Over the last 2 years, X-man has been attending Next Generation Early Childhood Center. He started when he was 15 months old while I was teaching at Millikin. I liked that it's a small building. I liked that the kids are taught social/emotional, physical, language and cognitive development. They have structured activity time and a lot of indoor and outdoor playtime. And when I think about kindergarten, I wonder if we'll end up following our love of their Early Education Center and enrolling him in their Primary School. 

But MacTroll and I went to public schools, and, well, we can buy a whole lot of college and fun family vacations with the money we'd spend there for private school. But when MacTroll and I talk about school and our experiences, it's obvious that we came from two very different public school systems. 

MacTroll grew up in an upper-middle class suburb of Peoria called Dunlap. It was a small school district where there was no racial diversity in the student body or the teaching staff. The high school kids drove nicer cars than their teachers. I visited every once in a while when I was in high school. Besides getting used to everyone being the same color, I was kind of taken aback by the newness of things they had in their school: supplies, technology, chairs, etc. Plus, there were parents, mostly rich moms around volunteering during the workday with weird 1990s nylon track suits on with expensive running shoes and big diamond rings (Okay, there were two in the gym that day, but holy cow did they obviously make a "money" impression). They had Xerox machines while we still primarily existed off of dittoing. Plus, if you've read the Sun Times lately, you know that DHS was ranked 17th best high school in the state last year.

I went through the Rockford Public School District where a group called "People Who Care" sued the school district in the late 1980's, when I was in middle school and on my way to high school.

People Who Care were a group of citizens in Rockford who were upset over the school district's plans to move away from neighborhood schools and, instead, replace them with larger schools. It doesn't sound like a big deal, except that "this plan placed the greatest burden of school closings and transportation on minority, low income and high-risk students who lived on the west side of the Rock River, Rockford's natural dividing line." 

Ouch. So ouchy, when the school district got nailed for it and other acts of segregation in court by a Federal judge, NBC National News came to my high school. 

My sister went to neighborhood schools through eighth grade. Then my parents had her tested for the high school gifted program, where she was bused across town to Auburn, the only public high school left on the west side of town. Two years later, my parents had me test for the gifted middle school program, and I began busing to Wilson and then West Middle School, when Kennedy and Wilson were combined. 

My middle school had three times as many students as MacTroll's high school. When moving to West, I saw students doing coke in the unwatched stairwells, I saw a 13-year-old girl who was at odds with someone in her gang bring a gun and put in in her gym locker, and I swear to god, the police paddy wagon made a stop so frequently outside our middle school that if it wasn't a scheduled pick up/delivery place it should have been. This was not a building that facilitated learning, but being in that building was incredibly important for me in my social development, because I got to see humanity at its best and worst in the middle of that prison hopped up on hormones. 

So, given that introduction, it should be no shock to anyone that when I got to high school I got sexually harassed and groped at my very first pep rally, kids had Jack Daniels in their lockers and/or got baked during lunch hour, someone got shot in the parking lot, the student assistant in my art class committed suicide, after some argument in an overwhelmingly overfilled gym class someone apparently got pissed off at some other kid and threw him through a plate glass window near our courtyard, and I got pleasant experience of being questioned by police officers when my father's house was robbed once my stepmother told them which high school I attended. (By the way, the kid who was shot was hit by two east side middle school kids, should you think that only kids on the poor side of town have weapons and a desire to hurt people).

The whole time I was in high school, my mother taught at a private school. A private school with chapel time and dress codes and restricted book lists. It was small and quiet and structured. And I would have felt like hanging myself if she had made me go there, although at the time, I told her that I'd rather go there than get sent to our neighborhood high school... and I still agree that probably would have been a better choice for me.

Seeing how MacTroll and I have very different ideas of what school looks like (he was often bored and annoyed at his, while I was overprotective and slightly proud of my broken down, forgotten school even though I couldn't wait to get out of there), we're approaching the idea of kindergarten for X-man with different values and priorities.

And as my school experience taught me, a little investigation, observation and tenacity will eventually lead us to make the right choice for our child, knowing that the same choice won't be the right for everyone else's kids. 

I bring all this up because there are very few times a year when schools open up for open houses and tours. And I'm on a mission to find a school that I love as much as I love X-man's early childhood experience, but for a cheaper, already paid-for-in-my-taxes kind of price tag. 

So today I am visiting two local elementary schools for their tours. Unfortunately, I can't attend the Champaign Unit 4 open house time tonight due to a conflicting meeting, but I have 2 years to figure out this conundrum, so from time to time, you're going to see me update my reviews/information on the schools. Maybe they'll help you or maybe you'll have more information to offer me because I'm a newbie, and I know some of my readers are old pros when it comes to navigating the school district. 

And for the record... not once after I started school did I think my parents made a bad decision about where to send me.

Oh, and, um, did I mention I used to be a newspaper reporter in college? 

More thoughts from class

I'm loving my Infant and Toddler class at Parkland. I take away lots of new things every class to use not only with my focal child (our lab is to spend time with a child under 24 months each week and record specific observations) but with my own child. 

It teaches me to take a step back and not be so emotionally involved or strung out every day. A few months ago, a number of local bloggers, who are mothers, talked about how they feel as their kids move into the toddler realm that they're yelling becomes the primary source of communication. "Don't touch that! Don't hit your brother! Don't pull the dog's tail! Don't eat food off the floor! Don't pick your nose and eat it!" I have the same issue. 

These kinds of things get repeated over and over and over again. Along with "Good girl! Bad Boy!" It's frustrating to realize we're only speaking in the negative or that we're issuing time outs every 20 minutes, or we're giving unclear compliments, where if you're hearing good than at some times you must be "bad." Instead we should be telling our kids what we like about their behavior or what we don't like.

For example, yesterday morning, X-man was stalling when getting into the car. I asked him if I could help him. He refused. Two minutes later he's still dawdling in front of the car. I had given him a warning that if he wasn't in his car seat by the time I counted to 20, I was putting him in it. He tested that. I picked him up and placed him in the seat. He screamed, hauled off and smacked my glasses off. Mommy's red alarm went off. Steam came out of my ears. Before Infant and Toddler I would have issued a time out or I may have even shouted at him that he was a "Bad boy" before I shouted about how hitting hurts. 

Instead, I tried to follow what I'd learned in class and be specific. "Hands are NOT for hitting!" I said it loudly, but not screaming. "You hurt Mommy! I do not like being hit!" 

X-man immediately started crying and reached for my face, kissed my cheek, handed me my glasses and tried to help me put them on all while saying, "Sorry Mommy!" When he calmed down, I took a minute to talk to him about how we use our words when we're frustrated, and how Mommy is trying to keep him safe and on schedule. She's not trying to be mean by making him get to school on time.

Do I think this will prevent hits in the future? I have no idea. But I did see a big difference between this and both of us sitting in the garage crying after we both had a dose of regretful behavior. So, um, I'm calling it a good choice for X-man.

In addition, the time we spend with our kids where we do have quality time with them is often directed by adults. "Is that a blue block? What shape is it? Is it a square?" As adults we get in kids' faces and ask them all these questions. Then we tell them what to do in loud, demanding, critical voices. We hope to teach them right from wrong. We hope to teach them colors, shapes, numbers and letters. We hope to teach them to share with their friends, to be cautious, to be independent, to be kind. 

It's a huge, huge job. And one that no one I've ever talked to feels like they've done a good enough job no matter how much effort, blood, sweat and tears goes into it.

In class, I'm starting to learn to do things differently. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But the ways that Nancy's teaching me to interact with children makes  lot of sense. A lot of it, I've always done naturally. But I'm working on changing from a parent who commands all of the interaction to a parent who just sits on the floor and lets their child lead. Make it all about the child and his/her choices rather than make it about me and what I think the child should be doing. 

And that's the stickler between generations. It's a complete cultural change from the way people used to think about child rearing. It used to be that kids were supposed to follow their parents commands. It was a sign of respect. But behind that "respect" was a healthy dose of fear of getting in trouble. And "trouble" could mean a wide variety of things depending on what discipline was like in your family. So not only was there actually no respectful behavior going on toward the parent when a child followed directions out of fear, but the lack of respect was reciprocal. Parents who think they should be able to drag their kids wherever the adults want to go when they want to go is disrespectful to a child. There are excursions that are NOT developmentally appropriate for children. 

For example visiting someone's home can be a large problem for both a parent and a child. If a home is not childproofed and has a lot of nicknacks or fragile pieces near the floor, a parent spends the whole visit following a toddler around moving things or saying "No." It takes a lot of work on behalf of the parent and is discouraging for a child. He or she simply won't want to go back there if the place is like a museum. Infants and toddlers like to explore and try new things. They get messy. They're amazed by how things work. They need environments that support that, which may require others to travel to them rather than expecting a family to always be on the move.

A long time ago, before X-man was born, MacTroll and I agreed that we were going to put X-man's safety and our own sanity first. This means we've had to think about things in a different way. People who haven't had hands-on experience with toddlers in a while might not understand why we do things. They may think critically of us and think we're spoiling our child. But apparently, our gut instinct when X-man was in utero reflects a lot of the theories behind modern infant/toddler educational theory. Not that we ever feel guilty about the choices we make, but it does help to know that we've got research on our side when we worry about people taking offense to the fact that we decide not to attend things or go places because it's not in the best interest of our child at that particular day or time or age.

Parenting is a hard job, and my readings all support that every adult that works with small children 8 (or if you're a stay-at-home parent -- 24) hours a day need substantial breaks to step away and regroup so they can continue positive interactions with their kids. And most of the stay-at-home parents with small kids that I know don't get one -- ever.

So it's not surprising that we all go bat shit from time to time.

This is Your Brain on Patty Cake

I had my Infant/Toddler class today, and I find my professor to be quite entertaining. She knows her stuff, which I love. There's that sense of confidence mixed with a sense of humor that has always appealed to me in teachers.

Teachers that just show up and quiz you from the book drive me mad. I can read... give me something else. Make connections. And really, with early childhood, teaching is about play and development. So, she gets it. 

But more importantly, she's not afraid to embarrass the hell out of her students to make that connection. And I love it. 

Today she was talking about infants and toddlers making connections. They do it through watching teachers and parents model behaviors. And they don't learn quickly. Those behaviors have to be repeated over and over and over again. You can't just show a child how to do a gentle touch once and expect him to remember the next day. 

We were also talking about how much is going on developmentally within an infant's brain. As she talked about the various synapses she went over explaining the structure of how messages gets sent through axons and dendrites in neurons. I found this a great review because we just finished a chapter on the brain in my psych 101 class, which is purely an online class where we spew back book crap.

So, it was entertaining to see how she took the information and molded it into something to consider as a caregiver or, as she likes to call them, educarers.

We also watched a spooky, terrible movie on how most daycare centers do a terrible job of infant care in the United States. My first inclination was, "Great make me feel guilty that I went to work when X-man was 8 months, and he went to daycare at 12 months." But then they showed the video of over crowded classrooms with overwhelmed teachers who couldn't be responsive to all of the babies' needs.

It made me happy and pissed off at the same time. It made me happy because every day after school X-man and I sit on a bench outside the infant room at his school. He likes to count the babies and watch what they're up to. He thinks it's cool when they're doing sensory activities. And never in my time with X-man are the infant rooms in the state of upheaval they were in that film. In fact, they're pretty subdued.

What pissed me off was that not every baby gets to have that kind of calm, comforting room. The head teachers in the NG baby room have been there since I toured in June 2006. They're always holding babies and talking to babies and snuggling babies. 

But I toured a couple of places where babies were just kept in their cribs for a lot of the day. As a parent, I knew I wanted more for my child, even as a sleep-deprived, postpartum depression suffering, mostly single mother. 

Now it makes me realize how, as a potential employee, I'd want to make sure I worked at a school where the environment was suitable for the children in my care. That the school put the development and health and safety of the children first. I'm going to have to be picky because I don't believe anyone deserves substandard care. But as I gain experience, I'd like to change that about the system. 

Because kids don't ask to be here when they're born. We bring them here. And in doing so we should provide them the best environment that we can, particularly when they're so little. 

MMM, Knowledge is Power, go figure.

I've been in my early childhood education classes for one week. And in that one week I can tell you that I should have taken them rather than any of the baby classes at Carle. They are way more interesting and way more useful. 

They show an organization to all the things I've learned trial by fire, and for freaks like myself who like clear direction within a creative, open and safe environment, they really do fill in some gaps. 

Sigh, so if you're a new parent or you're going to be. You might want to check out your local community college and sign up for their infant and toddler class now. Do the pre-school one further down the line. Seriously. It's amazing what you learn -- so you know the right questions to ask, so you understand you're not insane and so you realize that you're not alone in  your endeavor down the crazy line of work that is parenting. 

Seriously, worth it. 

Don't call me a co-ed

I started at school today. This time as a student. I'm taking three classes this semester. Two on campus at Parkland and one online. And I'm really excited about my first class. It's Programming for Young Children (ages 2-6). Pretty much it's a lot like the work I already do with my family group, but I get to focus on the actual educational theory behind the practical application rather than just lighting a fire on the seat of my pants and hoping it goes well.

Then after a great morning at my first class, I logged into my psych class online. I have a chapter to read and digest and some homework to do for it before Sunday. To celebrate me doing something I want to do for myself,  MacTroll took me out to lunch at Thara Thai, which was awesome. I got my favorite soup and some hot tea. 

This morning when I dropped X-man off at school, he was confused because he thought he was going to Mommy's school, too. :-) But he was happy to go inside and see his friends.