The school year started and my two oldest are both gone all day. I wasn’t happy to see them go. I felt sort of mad, like the school was kidnapping them or something. And then suddenly we had the house to ourselves, me and Wanda.

I had a church meeting. I put Wanda down for an early meltdown-induced nap. I made corn bread and thawed meat for our chili tonight. I baked bread and picked a few pounds of blueberries at a farm a few miles down the road and then I took Wanda for a walk. I played the songs I wanted on the stereo and nobody used the toilet and forgot to flush.

If the school’s going to kidnap my kids and educate them, at least I was able to distract myself with a surge of domestical energy. It was one of those days you just want to repeat over and over again.

My favorite part of the day was picking berries. Wanda and I wandered up and down the rows of fruit, each with our own bucket. She’d venture off and circle around to find me again, plopping berries into her mouth from the trees, the ground and my bucket. Unlike Little Sal, she never accidentally started following a mama bear around the field and she was not wearing overalls.

I shot down every aspect of the plan, only to find her shooting back an answer for how my objection could be overcome.  In the end I had to refer to city code and tell her I didn’t think a foundry was legal in a residential area, like the one in which we live. [Read more at Parenting.com]

They’ll train us!!!??? This awesome sign appeared yesterday at a major intersection just outside of town. I saw the guy placing it there. I’d say mid-twenties, shortish, dark hair, possibly hispanic. I wasn’t paying too much attention to him. Then today when we drove by and actually read the sign, I wished I had.

Why do they want mixed martial arts fighters? What kind of training do they provide? How big of a piece of their action would I get if I signed up? I am over 21 and I do have a yellow belt in Kenpo Karate. I think I will call and see what their deal is, in honor of POTUS Day tomorrow.

I’ve been home with my kids from the time Laylee was born eight years ago. For the most part I’ve loved it. As with any occupation, it has its rough moments, but overall I couldn’t have asked for a better gig.

The thing about mothering is, it’s more of a calling than a job so being free to pursue it full time is kind of a joyful thing, even at the worst of times. Loving and nurturing another person is a pretty sweet way to spend your days, even if the person is sticky and periodically obnoxious. I’m sticky and obnoxious sometimes too.

But the Thompsons are slowing down (or stopping) in our child production and the kids are getting older. I’ve been taking on more writing work, most notably my new job writing the Mom Congress education blog over at Parenting.com. My novel’s actually still coming along too. I can’t wait for you to read it.

Today I was typing a post about technology in the classroom while sitting on my front porch while Wanda napped and Magoo rode his bike up and down our long driveway. I would periodically pause to chat with him about form or speed or his need for goggles or a light for when he’s riding on the street at night, which is SOOOOOO likely to happen in this lifetime. Then I’d go back to writing.

Sometimes I write with Wanda on my lap, inserting creative punctuation and closing windows while I’m reading them. I stop to drive a carpool, change laundry loads, pick up from the bus or snuggle on the couch and read a board book over and over and over again.

Right now I have so much to learn about education that I’m spending hours every day just reading articles. Hopefully when I’m a little more experienced, I’ll be able to cut that down.

Probably the hardest part about working from home is knowing when to cut myself off and just be at home. Since home and work are the same place, the line is blurry. There are times when I’m working on the novel and Dan goes to bed without me or I’m reading a particularly dense article and I snap when the kids need my help with something.

I’ll figure it out. Even with things as they are, I’m feeling pretty blessed. I’m doing what I love while being with the people I love and I’m getting paid to do some of it. This is a good situation.

Are any of you working from home? Tell me about it.

I don’t watch Dr. Phil anymore. There was a time when I was a new mom with one baby when I would watch me a little of the doctor and the Oprah, of a weekday afternoon. But those days are no more. I’m too busy. I feel like I’ve seen it all before and if I haven’t seen it, it’s probably not something I need to be seeing.

I just don’t watch TV during the days.

But I’m glad someone does because a friend of mine was watching Dr. Phil and he highlighted a new diet program. Yes. I know. And I was talking to this friend about being at the absolute end, END of my rope with my body and the weighing what I did when I was full term with Wanda even though there’s no baby inside, and MOM ARE YOU SURE THERE’S NOT A BABY INSIDE, yes I’m sure. I could stand to lose over fifty pounds.

It’s called the 17-Day-Diet and I hate diets and it sounds cheesy and the book looks cheesy and the doctor who designed it wears a lot of product in his hair but the concepts make sense. It’s about learning to eat less and eat the right foods by eliminating a lot of things from your diet and then adding them back in slowly in 17-day cycles.

Photo credit: xenia from morguefile.com

So for phase one I’m eating lean meats and lots of vegetables and fruits, probiotic dairy and a small amount of healthy fat. That’s it. I’ve done this for 2 days and that means 15 more to go before I decide if I want to move on to phase 2 or stop. I can commit to anything for 17 days.

I’ll let you know how it goes. So far I feel really good. I haven’t been hungry, although I’ve had some cravings. My energy is good and weight is tumbling off. It’s designed to be a fast, healthy weight loss so I’ll let you know how much I lose after the first cycle.

Today I didn’t make it to the gym or out walking and then Laylee came home barfing from school so I was stuck inside on a gorgeous sunny day. I decided to get my exercise from the DVD that came with the book.

The exercise instructor was chattering away about how great I was doing and what to move next and just how I should shake it. Noticing her perky, patronizing tone, Laylee said, “Mom? It’s weird. It sounds like she’s talking to kids.”

And it really did, which is sad because why do we talk to kids like that? Nobody really likes to be talked to in that voice, especially when they’re sweating like a ham.

I posted my thoughts on SeattleMomBlogs.com earlier this year after watching the new documentary Waiting for Superman at the Seattle International Film Festival. When Washington Virtual Academies (WAVA) offered me passes to see it this month during its theatrical release, I decided to pass them on to a friend of mine currently working on her Masters in Education so I could hear her perspective. Her name is Regina Millard. The following is her review:

In my past life I was a mental health counselor. Most moms’ have a past life. It was the life before scraping cheerios out of the cracks of your car, before spit up was an accessory with every outfit, before the books on your nightstand were limited to Curious George and Brown Bear. Over the years the books my children read have progressed from those board books they chewed on as babies to Magic Tree House books to the classics such as Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and Where the Red Fern Grows. With this progression I was left with time on my hands and the notion that it was time to go back to work. Nothing in me could go back to working with chronically mentally ill adults. With great internal debate I made the choice to go into teaching.

So, I have given up every Saturday from 8-5 and a lot of time researching and studying and every day I worry. Did I make the right choice? Then it happened. Sitting in the theater I saw a preview for a movie that I thought answered my question: Waiting for Superman. I was certain it would assure me I had made the wrong choice. I was certain it would tell me how horrible teachers were and how the majority of them were failing their students. Even Obama made this inference in his inaugural speech when saying, “our schools fail too many.” A friend of mine a few weeks later asked if I would like to attend a showing of the new movie directed by Davis Guggenheim and stay for a question and answer session with the director. I was pleasantly surprised. I did not feel the documentary to be anti-teacher, but anti-union. It was anti- tenure for teachers. It seemed to equally mock republican and democratic politicians in their attempts to fix a “broken” system. It talked about charter schools and portrayed them in a highly positive light one second but then stated that 4 out of 5 charter schools are unsuccessful. It showed children and parents pinning all their hopes for their educational career on a lottery in which the big payout is entrance into a school better than the traditional public school option with odds of winning equally as low as winning the real lottery. I cried as the inner city children were not chosen.

The movie offered insight. It provoked debate. It provided information. What it didn’t provide was a solution. So, as the movie ended what did we do? We asked questions and looked to a movie director to answer the tough questions no one else has been able to answer. I was left with more questions than when I went in. What portion of student failure is placed on the teacher, what piece of blame does the system get and what piece does the student need to claim. I left the theater glad I had seen the movie and honestly confident, after seeing some really bad teachers (who in New Jersey are paid to not teach) that I am a good teacher. I know there are bad teachers out there. I am not blind to that idea. As I join the club of the under paid and over represented I do not feel the need to arbitrarily defend them. There should be accountability. There needs to be a balance of old teachers with experience and new teachers with enthusiasm (not that either one could not possess both qualities).

In the end I agree that as a parent I am taking the leap of faith that the movie talks about. As I leave my own children with adults (in public school) who will spend more waking hours with them than I do, I trust that they will understand that I am leaving with them the things I love the most, that mean more to me than anything else. They deserve the best, so give them that. As a future teacher, investing an insane amount of money that will take years to pay back, I have faith that I will have the skills and compassion to teach and not fail. I can’t fix the entire system. I personally can’t weed out who and what is failing our children. I can offer hope to my students that they can learn and achieve, and succeed. The system may be broken but they are not.

Since WAVA made this review possible, here’s a little blurb about what they do. There appear to be more options for school now than I was aware of:

WAVA details:
• The award-winning K12 curriculum
• Support from highly qualified, state-certified teachers
• An active, supportive school community
• Weekly opportunities to meet with other families
• Books, materials, and loaner computer system
• The chance for students to participate in their school district’s athletics and extracurricular activities

**Information provided by WAVA, not written by DaringYoungMom.com

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

There is no shortness of cute at our house lately. There is no shortness of soccer, rain, dirty dishes, cheerios on the floor, or late nights full of homework and milk.

There is a shortness of time. Time is flying by too quickly. The Fatness just turned one and I thought I’d share some pictures I took today. Here she is paying oh-so-close attention during Sunday School.

Mothers who function and manage to look good, keep a clean house and care for your kids – I salute you. Sometimes I’m just barely keeping my nose above water here. But I am keeping it above water.

There’s sort of a magic to motherhood. Things always work out.

Just when you think all is lost because your son stashed his favorite blanket in a crevice outside an unnamed shop at the mall, you find that the sales clerk at Ben Bridge Jewelers has found it and put it aside for you.

When your 7-year-old is exploding with rage and attitude and you wonder if the teenage years are already upon you, you touch her back and feel her melt and turn to you for love.

When you’ve given up all hope of ever figuring out what’s wrong with your moody baby, a tiny white tooth pokes its way through her gums.

When you realize your umbrella’s really for real lost and that you must buy another one or sit drenched at soccer games, Nintendo sends you a back-to-school package with a new one inside. (They must know I live in Seattle or something.)

When the kids are cranky, the house mess is out of control and you can’t think of another nice thing to say, you find that it’s bedtime and you all hit reset for a few hours. Things usually look better in the morning. Well maybe the house doesn’t look any better but you all like each other a ton more after a nice rest.

I want to ask you to take a bold swimsuit challenge with me.

It’s summer and it’s swimsuit season and I am sick of hearing myself talk smack about my own beautiful body every time I slip on that little black swimming suit. Sick of it. I’m sick of other people complaining about their bodies. I’m sick of hearing everyone enumerate all their many flaws.

I’m raising daughters and I want them to love their bodies. I get angry at the way media portrays physical “perfection” and insinuates that anything less than a photo-shopped super babe is unacceptable.

For almost 30 years, I’ve been complaining about my body’s flaws and it needs to stop if I want my girls to have a fighting chance at loving their own bodies. I frequently look back at old pictures of myself 2, 5, 10 years ago and think how great I looked and then remember that at the time I thought I was a tub of lard.

Yesterday Laylee was in a bathing suit and she said, “I like my body. I like being skinny.”

I looked her in the eyes and said, “I’m so glad. I love my body too. All the little wrinkles and parts show the journey I’ve been on in my life. I think my body is beautiful.” She seemed surprised because I’ve so often talked about the weight I want to lose and the improvements I want to make.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah. Really. I’m grateful for this body.”

She told me she loved my body too and I decided that if I really want her and Wanda to grow up loving who they are, then I’ve got to stop putting myself down and start trying to really feel the love for myself and be confident.

Please commit with me this summer to not flinch, cringe, make faces or put down your body verbally when wearing a swimsuit. Wear it with pride. Have fun in the water with your kids. Remember that the people who you have fun with are not the ones constantly ripping on themselves. The obviously fat people are the ones constantly tugging and covering up and talking about how fat they are. Don’t be that person. Get your confidence on.

Leave a comment if you’re ready to join me in the swimsuit revolution.

Something happens to me after a baby is born. If you’re a mother, it’s probably happened to you too. I suddenly feel like the world around me is breakable, myself, my family made of shatter-resistant glass that’s fully capable of shattering if given the right opportunity. Like Corelle on a tile floor, we look sturdy but at any moment, SMASH! We could all fall to pieces.

With Laylee, it was a happy fragility, sort of a dreamy bubble where I smiled, clutched her fiercely and dressed her up like a doll, loving her and yet somewhat unable to believe that I had created something so wonderful. I was having the time of my life playing mommy and wondered if at any minute someone was going to wake me up from my reverie.

As I’ve documented here and elsewhere, the dish hit the tile when Magoo was born and then I spent 2 years seeking out every last shard of broken glass and painstakingly gluing them back together. There are so many happy memories from his babyhood but in between enjoying the kids, I spent much of my time searching for shards, painfully aware of just how breakable I was.

And now I’m on round three. I feel like I’ve got things together… a bit. Most of the time. There are sublime moments like last week when Laylee and Magoo cleaned the entire main floor of our playdate-trashed house as a surprise for me while I was feeding Wanda. Then there are moments like today when I found the big kids sitting with their arms crossed on the trampoline, facing each other and screaming until their brains were gone about who had won whatever game they were playing. In the end, Laylee tried to reconcile by saying, “I’ll teach you a new game then where there are no winners and no losers. It’s called Butt-Punch.” Magoo declined the game. I rolled my eyes and walked back into the house. Dan says that in a game called Butt-Punch, he’s pretty sure everyone is a loser.

Through the highs and the lows, I find myself managing but holding on to that glued-together plate just a little too tightly. Am I depressed? Tired? Afraid of descending into the pit I discovered Postpartum II? I’m kind of afraid to ask myself. It scares me a little that I have to try so hard.

My pendulum swings precariously. One day my house is a mess and I can’t force myself to deal with it. The next I’m cleaning and scrubbing like mad. Many days I feel like a hermit, not wanting to be bothered to answer my door or phone and the next I’m sad because people have stopped calling. I’m not doing the best in my church work or my role in the PTA. I’m letting things slip.

I tell myself that this is to be expected. The baby’s only a month old, two months old, five months old. Why shouldn’t I want to spend all day holding her and squishing her, playing cards with Laylee and Magoo and reading books at home? I should like my home, my little hermitty cave. Why would I want to go anywhere else?

I’m just holding on too tightly. There is a slightly strained sensation to the sweetness of this time. I’m cherishing the time with my kids because realizing that Wanda is our last has also made me realize that Laylee and Magoo are growing up too quickly and I don’t have a freeze ray. Heck, I don’t even have a time machine. I have photos and videos and the ability to make more. Dan just bought about a terabyte of storage space for our computers because I am on a memory-capturing rampage.

How can I make the most of every minute with my kids without squeezing the life out of those moments? How can I allow myself to just be the mother I am without questioning myself into a spiral of self-doubt? If I could just live in the moment, just be here and love it, love myself as much as I love these stinking wonderful Butt-Punch-playing, breast-sucking kids. If I could be as forgiving and gentle to their mother. If. I think I’d find that I could relax my grip and the fear in my throat and there’s a good possibility that nothing would break but my stifling itch for perfection.

I just don’t want her to grow up feeling like she flipped the wrong page in her Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book when she was six and could never quite get to where she wanted to be. [Keep reading at Parenting.com]