Filed under: Children, Motherhood, Parenting, lucky, weekend getaways | Tags: gold country, Parenting
My daughter left today to go on a trip to the Gold Country. She was nervous. I hovered. Big step for both of us. My little one took another step out of the nest. The house is quiet even with my boisterous son playing on his beloved ripstick. Just a moment I want to capture.
Went to a great class on writing at the library yesterday. Helped me clarify why I write. To capture personal memories and to engage with my creative self. Pretty heady stuff, this writing. Now, if I was good then life would be cool. On my way to pursuing my craft–no book but a great journal is my goal.
My daughter and I had a long discussion about the tiger attack at the San Francisco zoo last night. She has been very curious about the tiger killing incident.
We talked about it a bit and after a brief moment of silence she said, “Well, I guess you should never taunt a tiger.”
I told her that was a good motto for life.
The thought relates to the Oprah show based on the book, The Gift of Fear. The theme of the book is about trusting your instincts. For example, if an animal senses danger, it doesn’t feel bad about it or question it. It runs for its life or prepares to fight to the death. The author pointed out that only humans will get into an elevator with someone they sense is unsafe in order to “be nice.” Your basic jungle animal wouldn’t even think about. They’d be running. I am taking this to heart and I am going to discuss it with my children.
I want my son and daughter to lead a life where they neither live in fear, nor seek danger, but are savvy enough and mentally strong enough to stay away from predators of all sorts. May they never be in a situation where they taunt a tiger of any kind.
Filed under: Children, Motherhood, School, Uncategorized | Tags: Children, fun, Motherhood, School
January, 2008
My seven year old son and I are driving to school a few days after the holiday break ended. He casually mentions, “I can’t wait for school to end.”
Why, I asked?
“Cuz I am going to party, party, party.”
I sat in mute silence. Am I in trouble or what when he is a teen?
My little dog barks incessantly when my son’s remote control car is on the move. The car is black and blue and makes a loud high pitched whirring sound when it is underway. My dog is certain she is going to be attacked by it at any moment. In fear and aggression, she barks, jumps away, it moves, she barks, it moves, she jumps. Our little white dust mop of a dog doesn’t stand a chance against the Darth Vader like car. Knowing this, maybe, I will just let it run until its batteriessss runnnnnnnnnnnn out of powwerrr…But then I hear my kids quietly trying to soothe her, “its o.k. Ping, it’s ok. whirrr, bark, jump, whirr, it’s o.k. I usually head to the garage for some quiet at this point and to do the laundry. When I come back up, she has decided to strike fear into the heart of the vacuum. A festival of noise, that’s my home when noisy machinery is on the prowl. Protect us Ping from the evils of cleaning and motorized fun. And those barking dogs on the telly. I will miss the cacophony when they are old and gone. But in the moment, I long for blissful, peaceful silence. Anyway, I think I do.
Martial arts is a hard technique. This is the order of the belts.
White, yellow, yellow-white, orange, orange-white, blue, then blue-white, green, green-white, purple, purple-white, brown, brown-white, black, black and then 5 stripes. Then a black belt with a gold stripe.
Punches
One punch is called the jab. The other is a hook punch. There is a cross punch too. I forget what the kicks are called.
And I think it is sort of fun, but not the best. Because they are a little hard on you sometimes. Like they make you do at least white belt with four pieces of tape or higher.
It is on Mondays, Wednesday and Friday. I am a white belt with one tape, my friend Danny has two tapes, my friend Andreas is a blue belt with a white stripe and two pieces of tape.
(Written by CNJ, typed by his mom)
At the office, I asked Dr. Gast, who works on my braces when I was getting them off. He asked to look at my treatment card. I crossed my fingers (they did not see me.) Then he asked me what color I wanted, I uncrossed my fingers. I guess I am not getting my braces off, I thought. But then he came and said, “you are going to get your braces off today!” I was so excited. They popped my braces off, not quite popped, more twisted, it hurts. I didn’t care how much it hurt. It is just that I was too excited to notice, but I gotta say I did notice. And then they took the brackets off my bottom teeth and replaced with spacers, ugly bands that wrap around my teeth, they are evil. Then my dad came in, apparently they told him what was happening. Then they took an imprint of my teeth for a retainer. They gave me a choice of what flavor I wanted. I chose cherry. After they did that on the top and bottom teeth, they handed me a book with a peacock on the cover. It was the designs for my retainer.I looked at every single design. Finally, I chose hummingbirds. They are one of my favorite animals. I knew what design I would get next if they didn’t have it, you would see the underside of a jet with sparkly smoke coming out of the end. I was happy I got my braces off even though my gums and teeth felt like big, slimy things. I was really excited about my retainer. I told almost everybody on my street and all my friends.
Filed under: Children
Today, I thought that hot chocolate should just be hot, chocolate. It would taste like chocolate and be melted and warm. No milk. Just chocolate.
Filed under: Children
I am so nervous I have butterflies in my stomach and coming out of my mouth.
My dog experienced thunder for the first time at 2:00 a.m. last night. She decided to bark at it incessantly. Miracle of miracles, it did stop every time for a bit and then back it came. It was literally like Pavlov’s dog, barking = bad noise goes away. The thunder reinforced her behavior. If only she could stop the thunder. A long, loud night of rolling thunder, incessant barking. She weighs 10 pounds. She didn’t stop the thunder, just killed any chance of sleep for me for the remainder of the night. Yes, I brought her into my room, up on the bed for the remainder of the night. But what happens if I am not home? How do I calm her? Did I mention how tired I am? Really really tired.
I found a site that predicts storms. Next time, I will be prepared.
