ESL

I really, really, really, really love my job. Twice a week I get to love on some amazing kids. Kids who don't speak English, but understand love.

After a few weeks, they start to understand some words or phrases, mainly dealing with food or potty. But then after a few months, they start talking to you and sometimes its a mix of their native language and English and then I get to learn too. It's amazing how much they can communicate without having to say a word and while all kids do this, it just seems extra spectacular to me when there is no verbal understanding to begin with. Through the bond we share with them, they feel confident that we will understand or at least do everything we can to understand.

Some of the kids get real attached to me and will seek me out in the room for comfort or just to sit with. I love it when this happens.

When a new kid arrives there is almost always hard times for the next few days or weeks. I started to notice that the new moms who bring the new kids seem to feel bad if their child isn't happily playing the first day, so I have prioritized talking with them as soon as I see them and am constantly reassuring them to keep coming back, that their child will get comfortable. It just takes time.

Today I had to bring a little boy back to his mother, it was his second day and he still cried constantly. When I walked past classrooms looking for his mother I noticed that most of the ESL students are women, probably 80%. That is remarkable. I've known this is the back of my mind for a long time, but today it stuck out in a different way. These women are going to be able to teach their children english, understand their childrens teachers when they start school, interact in society easier and generally lead a better life because they are able to receive this service from the church. I was filled with a cheesy girl power sensation, and this has given me even more motivation to interact with the moms more. To talk to them more. To comfort them more.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that generally I feel important now. :)

Karate Fever

Well, Devon has been to three karate lessons now and she is really enjoying it. Dad is also enjoying helping her practice. It is causing him to reminiscence about his Taekwondo and Jujitsu days. Today he took the kids out so I could rest and he came home with a 80 lb punching bag with a stand. So our loft has turned into a karate zone.

At first I thought it was a silly use of money but watching the kids and even Chris enjoy made it worth the money. She is starting to get pretty good. Chris also got her a pair of sparring gloves too. Matthew now likes to come up to you and show you his "fighting stance." He's going to start karate in a couple of years and already know everything. ;) Here are a few shots of the kids "practicing."

Preach Retreat

So most of you know that last fall I decided to plunge down the path of Lay Speaking. I took the first of two classes to be certified in the fall and then in May I will take the other class. But before then, I am 90% certain that I will be going to a Lay Speaking Event. I'll be gone from home for three days and the only reason I'm not 100% sure that I will go is because Chris has to get March 4 off from work. If he can't I have a few back up ideas, but hopefully he can just get the day off.

What is kinda cool is Wednesday night after I finished getting the media ready for Selah (the worship service I attend) I went and talked with one of the new pastors about me becoming a Lay Speaker. They've known I'm perusing it, but I felt like I wanted them to be apart of the process. So we had a good little chat and it just got me even more excited about wanting to preach and then I came home and saw on my Facebook page the information on this event.

I'm a little nervous about going because I'm pretty sure I will know nobody there, and that always brings up a little anxiety in me. But I'll be hanging out with lots of Methodists and will probably meet a ton of interesting people. I'm not sure if I will be required to prepare a sermon to get credit for the course. We shall see.

It will be in Kerrville, and the bonus to that is I will get to drive through Fredericksburg I haven't been there yet. I know shame on me. We've lived in Austin for almost 6 years now, probably should have ventured there by now. But hopefully in a month I will get to do that. :)

Camera Wish List

Yesterday when I was at Wolf Camera picking up my square pictures, I noticed a camera in a display case that caused me to stop in my tracks. It's called a fisheye camera.

Isn't it cute! Scroll to the bottom of the link to see what kind of photo's it takes. You'll be amazed.

Super cool huh!! So of course I later came home and googled it and found lomography.com and saw more super awesome cameras.

The other camera I would actually buy is called a Action Sampler. It has four lens's and take four pictures on the same slide of film. Just click on the link to see how cool it is, again scroll down to see sample photos.

So yeah, I spent an hour online last night looking at all the fun cameras that are apart of the world of lomography.

HOLGA Love

My greatest art inspiration ever (Suzanne) got me a HOLGA for my birthday last year. And me being the dork that I am had to first research what in the world a HOLGA was. A little google time will tell you that it is a toy camera that uses 120 film. Also, it takes square pictures. Let this fact soak in a moment and the awesomeness will arise.

Did you notice a little word in the previous paragraph that seems a bit 1999? Film. Yep film. Not digital. In general, I take lots of pictures when ever I take pictures, whether it's of the kids, with family, or trying to be artsy. I do this because I'm not a trained photography and by taking many pictures it means there could be a handful of really good ones. But with film you don't get this luxury. Unless you want to spend a lot of money on film, you have to learn to think ahead and just think in general of what you want a picture of.

So with my first roll of film I was a bit cautious, not wanting to "waste" the film, but I also kept a fun spirit. I tried to take some double exposures (which is another key feature of the HOLGA), but none of them came out. I mean the film was develop-able, but it looks like blurry blobs. So First lesson learned, only take pictures in super sunny light. Sadly enough, all the double exposures but one were taken at night. Super lame. But it won't happen again.

What I didn't expect when the pictures came back was this antique look to the pictures. They look a decade or so old. It's really cool. Here is one of Matthew in the backyard.

But my favorite picture was a bit posed. The kids were playing at the Capitol and at one point sat together on a bench. Once I saw them from behind I was like, "Awesome picture moment," but by the time I pulled the camera out Matthew was already on the move. So made him sit back down so I could take the picture. So yeah, it's a fake moment. (But still cute!)


I'm sure you noticed some odd features on the sides of the photo. Well, I wasn't paying attention when winding the film. I actually thought I had figured out just how much to wind it without lifting the flap over the space that shows the film number. Amateur move. Won't happen again. So what you see on the sides are parts of the previous and next photo. But when you think about it, it's actually pretty neat looking.

I've loaded up roll number two in the HOLGA and I've already had a photo shoot, but I'm going to wait until they are developed to tell you what dorky idea I had.

Curses Facebook

I have let another large gaping hole emerge between blogs. For this I blame Facebook. Why? Well, I check it often to see what friends and family are up to, and then I end up condensing any real thoughts into a few short sentences instead of taking the time to write them out. This could be bad news all around. Less people write. I mean really write. So, I need to put my fingers (for typing) where my mouth is and sit down and blog.
But maybe later. I have to go grab the kiddo from school, and go to the library, and go to the camera shop and go to the grocery store. But surely there will be time in there later. Right?

A Childs Confidence

For most of Devon's life she has been a bit timid, shy, and at times afraid to try something that seems risky. The last couple of weeks she has been riding her bike without training wheels. Something we have tried a few other times in the past but we ended up putting the training wheels back on because she was too scared.

This time though was quite different, because she fell often and this usually leads to a sense of "I can't do it." However, it didn't stop her this time. If anything, it made her more determined to succeed, which was also something new for us to see. The only other thing she has persisted at has been reading (remember the 90 books this summer?).

Actually, now that I think about it, this has been Devon's summer of confidence. She showed zero fear about being in the big pool, putting her head under water, and learning to swim (with arm floaties). She has conquered riding a two-wheeler. And yesterday when we were exploring the UT campus, she decided she was going to climb high into a tree. And this was an awesome tree, it had a very long branch that reached the ground. She took her shoes off and I showed her how to hug the branch with her legs. After this, she was skooting her way up the tree, until she got to a point where a couldn't reach her any more.

So far, one of my favorite things about being a parent has been showing my kids the things I love; dinosaurs, nature walks, hiking, biking, reading, classic childrens novels, showing acts of kindness to strangers (which can ONLY be taught by modeling, saying be kind to strangers doesn't do the act justice. Do you know how many women I have helped push their cars off the street into parking lots? I've lost count.) and having them soak it up like the little sponges they are.

Seeing Devon suddenly become this confident, adventure seeking kid is bringing more joy than I could have ever imagined. This seems to be just a peek at the person she will become some day, and that is pretty amazing.

Motorcycle Lesson #1

Well, I'm not sure why Chris woke up this morning wanting to teach me about the motorcylce and how to ride it, but he did. Maybe it's because I went ahead and agreed for him to buy his dream mountain bike yesterday.

So we went out to the little parking lot by our neighborhood pool and first he was just showing me how to sit on the bike and then set it down and get off.

Then two trucks came into the parking. Repair men working on the gate and security cameras. Uhg. I wasn't really wanting an audience. But I continued. Next I got to turn the bike on. Ooooooo. That was fun.

Eventually I worked up to putting the bike in first gear and walkng it around the parking lot. Then I started riding with my feet in the air and making figure eights in the parking lot. My audience was impressed and cheered me on. Finally I got the guts to ride with my feet on the steps. At this point, Chris called his parents. He was getting a bit nervous (about the safety of his bike.)

Then Chris told me I was ready for 2nd gear. Inside I was shaking my head no vigorously! But I went ahead. I soon realized the small parking lot was not ideal for learning how to change gears.

I put on my really big, big girl pants and rode out into the neighborhood. After the first circle, I rode back to Chris and was very giggly. Then I went back on the street and practiced changing gears more. This is when I made it up to 35! Woah! It was pretty intense.

Then I rode back to our house and gave Chris a heart attack by riding staight into the garage. Apparently he thought I was going to crash into a wall or the car. Silly husband.

Today was pretty awesome. I believe we will practice more tomorrow, which means hello 3rd gear.

Test

I'm testing out my mobile uploader. Hope it works!

Sent from my iPod

I Heart Photography

If you haven't noticed already with the massive amount of pictures I take of my kids, I love taking pictures. The two main things I love to photograph are my kids and the outdoors. Now I don't love it in a " I want to do this as a career way," just as a hobby.

I will admit that I prefer to take pictures of the kids outside because using sunlight makes the best pictures, in my opinion. Using a flash is definitely not easy for me. I feel like there is more opportunity for blurring pictures when I take them indoors. And thus, my amateurness comes out. I really have no idea what I'm doing. I've never taken a photography class or even read a book about it (shocking!). I've just tried lots of things and stuck with what works whether I understand why it works or not.

This Tuesday I'm going to see a friend's band play and I am definitely going to climb out of my comfort zone and experiment with my camera at the show. For whatever reason, I get shy about using my camera in front of friends because I have a digital SLR (low grade of course) and people automatically assume that someone with a "fancy camera" knows what they are doing. Silly huh?

Looking at some pictures I took at the park this past week there were a few that I impressed myself with, but understand I am easily impressed......

Looking at this picture I think, "Good job Michelle, that was a really good angle and there is not a big shadow on his face. And good timing with his expression." But then I also keep in mind that my kids are very photogenic and sometimes I feel like that is cheating.

Once again my little Matthew is too adorable and made taking this picture very easy. But I'll pat myself on the back for good timing because he isn't still for long.

This one I took using a technique I stole from someone who I consider to be the bestest photographer I will ever know. I wasn't even looking through the camera. I just angled it below her with her looking down on it and literally got lucky. I mean the odds of me aiming the camera to have Devon centered are phenomenal. This will probably never happen to me again. Bummer.

Now, speaking of the bestest photographer I will ever know, Suzanne Countryman. Let's look at the greatness she creates. Prepare to be stricken with awe.

Isn't that the shizel?

Victory Over the Evil Wasps

So I noticed about a week ago that wasps were forming a nest in the middle of my tomato bushes. No Bueno!! I have two silly fears, flying, stinging insects and arachnids (scorpions and spiders). Although, I am becoming more accepting of spiders because they eat bugs that would eat my veggie plants, but not in the house.

I've been thinking and thinking about how to get rid of the wasps without spraying poison on my tomato plants. During all this thinking I was secretly hoping Chris would "take care of them" with a stick or something, but that never happened. So today I put on my big girl pants. And a heavy jacket. And Chris's motorcycle helmet. And his motorcycle gloves. (You can stop laughing now.) I went out to the tomato plants with our tree clippers (I'm sure there's a better name for those), which extend pretty long, and I started cutting the branch the nest was on. The I trimmed the branch to where I could pull the nest quickly and without hurting the rest of the plants.

This whole process took about 10 minutes because I would snip a branch and jump back because the wasps got upset. Then I would snip again and jump back, sometimes swinging the clippers for protection. I'm grateful Chris was really into the book he was reading or else I know he would have taken pictures or recorded video on his phone. Sorry guys.

Finally, everything was trimmed and ready to be pulled out. Even with all my "gear" on I wouldn't move the nest. I was still too hesitant. So I started knocking the plants and shooed away the wasps. Then I moved the nest and destroyed it. One came back and was looking for it, but I was able to coerce it to fly away from the plants so I could spray it with wasp spray.

So this is the story of my victorious defeat of the evil wasps. Hooray!

Summer Reading

Summer is here and while we are having lots of fun in the sun, we are also keeping up our school skills. Devon likes to write in a journal everyday practicing writing, spelling and grammar. And of course we read everyday.

This summer we are taking advantage of two different reading incentive programs. The first is Half Priced Books Feed Your Brain program. All we do is keep a log of how much time Devon spends reading. If Devon reads for at least 15 minutes a day, five days a week, then she gets a $3 gift card from the store. She gets to do this every week until the middle of July.

The second program is from the Austin Library. This one is a bit different than what my library did when I was a kid. When I was a kid you read a book then you took a short quiz on the book and if you passed then you got credit for reading the book and you got different things for reading different amounts of books. The Austin program says, the kid gets to make a goal of how many books they think they can read during the summer. When they reach their goal, they bring the log back to the library and they get to pick out a new book to keep.

When I asked Devon how many books she wanted to read this summer, I suggested 30. Apparently that wasn't good enough. She said she wants to read 90! So I wrote down 90 books on her log. I know she can do it, I just think it is funny that she chose that amount. The librarian was really impressed. Now reading 90 beginning reader books is different than reading 90 novels, but we'll cross that road when we get there.

Matthew also gets to participate in the program because if I make a goal to read him a certain amount of books and meet the goal, then he gets to pick out a book too.

The First of Many

Trips to the pool that is!


Devon has been begging, and begging, and begging to go to the pool for the last couple of weeks and today we finally made a trip. I'm a big wuss and I won't take the kids to the pool without Chris. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, Devon can't swim yet. So I don't feel like I could keep Devon and Matthew from drowning at the same time. And the second reason is that people like to drive from who knows where to use our pool. I don't like that. It's a community pool. Meaning the people who live in our neighborhood pay a home owners association fee to get the key to use our pool. When strangers drive out here and hop the fence or beg people who already hopped the fence to let them in it irritates the fire out of me. I don't trust strangers around my kids. Call me over protective, I don't care.

Devon is finally tall enough to stand in the big pool at the shallow end (3ft). So today she got used to hopping in the water and then I taught her how to doggy paddle and kick. She hasn't combined the two together yet, but I bet it won't be long until she does and then maybe I would be comfortable taking them to the pool in the mornings on the days Chris works. We'll see.

I Mean It This Time

Yowzers!! Has it really been seven months since my last blog? Well, that seems like a long enough sabbatical to me.

Of course, it is the news irritating me that prompted this revival. I'm sure you heard about the new study that has come out linking levels of pesticide in children's urine with ADHD. And if you know me well, then you expected this blog.

First of all, I am by no means any kind of expert on ADHD. I don't know a lick about behavioral psychology. But I did take two statistics classes in college and there is where some of my disgruntledness (I'm sure I made that word up) is coming from.

With that said, the first thing I want to know is who funded this study. There have been instances where industries or organizations have had a special interest in research improving their status in the world. So that is always the first thing I ponder.

Also, I think it is very misleading for this connection to be made when even the news clearly states according to the study that this was not a 100% of the time situation. Knowing that in research this is rare, I still think that if these results were so grand why not give us some numbers? In my ethical bubble, I don't believe it is appropriate to point your finger at a particular variable and say "You are the reason for this!", when there are obviously more pieces to the puzzle.

In my eyes, there are various contributing factors in ADHD. Some may be genetic, which is way beyond my lingo. But mostly I believe it is not just something ingested (but obviously it can factor in, I'm not countering that), but the parental (or lack of) environment that kids are sometimes brought up in. Being raised in front of the tv screen seems like a big one to me.

My logic says, "hmmm this wasn't a big deal fifty years ago, what has changed?" Yes, our diet has changed, not just in the way our food is grown but also the way it is made available (which is the nicest way I can say processed). We are less physically active, and the way we spend our time has changed quite a bit too.

Now I am slowly on my way to being a health nut, emphasis on the slowly. So I completely agree that pesticides (AND processed foods) are a significant factor to many disorders and even diseases. All this is to say, ADHD is complex just like any other disorder. Rarely is there one factor to point your finger at. Always look at research critically. Just because they are doctors and specialists doesn't mean you don't get to think for yourself about these issues. And that is my mean beef with this.

Looks Like We Need an Update

Sheesh. I haven't posted a blog since before school started. Bad Michelle. So I'll make it up to you and add a few pics of the kids and you will forgive me.

Well, Devon is loving kindergarten. Although she asked me a few weeks into school why they were doing the same work they did in Pre-K. I had to tell her that some kids may not have gone to Pre-K and need to catch up and the teacher wants to refresh everyone's memory.

About five weeks into the school year, the school has two days where there is early dismissal and they leave the afternoons open for parent/teacher conferences. I really like that the school does that. You get a one on one with the teacher and you see how your kid is doing. Well, when I went I got to sit in a tiny kindergarten chair in the hall and wait for my turn. I was out there for about 20 minutes (the parent before went a little over her time, but no biggie) but I felt like I was waiting for the principle or something. It was a very odd sensation.

When I did get to see the teacher. She told me that she was very pleased with Devon and told me her strong points are that she is a fast learner, an eager learner and gets along very well with all her classmates. Not bad huh? But then she got to the "concerns list." There was only one thing in that column and it was that Devon is "too shy and quiet" when talking to the teacher. Apparently her teacher has to ask her to speak up often. But she said that is also common for kids who are the first born girl.

It was real strange when Devon went back to school. Matthew only noticed she wasn't there when it was nap time. He was so used to hugging her before nap he would cry, stretching his arms out for his sister who wasn't there. Poor guy. But he has gotten used to it now. And oddly enough as soon as Devon started school Matthew started talking more. It seems not having big sister there to talk for him gave him a little push to speak up.

I've gone back to working at the church nursery during the ESL classes again. It's twice a week now, so it's twice the fun. This service is available to the students of the ESL classes who have kids. It's a bit challenging when we get a new kid because about 90% of the time they don't speak or understand English, AND they have never been away from their parents before. Talk about a scary experience for the kid! But we do our best to comfort them, and after many weeks they feel comfortable. Let's put a big emphasis on MANY WEEKS.

And finally, I am taking a class at our church that will last about 7 months called Disciple. I had many of my friends tell me about it and they all said it was a bit challenging because you go through most of the bible in that whole time. I was really excited to take on this challenge. But it's not quite what I was hoping for, but I am really enjoying it and learning a lot.

So as promised, here are some new pics of the kiddos. :)

I know I post a lot of pictures with the two of them sitting in this little car, but they play in it so often and this time Devon was wearing Chris's hat. I couldn't resist.

Hear Matthew wanted me to help him put on his backpack. He had filled it with books. So I asked him if he was going to school like Devon he actually said "Yes." It was really cute. He's such a silly boy.