Maya
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Wordless Wednesday
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(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday
For Ms. Mamma.
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Cadettes!
Maya has been a girl scout for several years now. She was first a Brownie, for one year I think, and then ‘bridged’ into a Jr. Girl Scout a few years ago. Never having been a girl scout myself, I was indifferent to her participation at first. Especially at the Brownie level, it seemed like a lot of crafts and kind of make-worky, and while I didn’t dislike it, I didn’t really see the benefit. Jr. Girl Scouts has been a whole ‘nother ball of wax, as they say. To watch these girls take charge of their meetings, their projects, and their awards, has been wonderful. They have worked really…
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Spring Photos
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Now we are…TWELVE?
Really? How did that happen? How did my tiny little baby turn, seemingly overnight, into a lovely young woman? For some reason, this birthday seems more real than those in our past, like Maya is passing some cusp between childhood and adulthood. I do realize that she’s more than 1/2 way there, but it’s not really that. I guess this whole year has felt this way…what with middle school and so on. I see some of the girls, looking like women already. I see kids with phones and makeup, boyfriends and giggles, and all of the other trappings of teenager hood, and all I can think is, really? Already? And…
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Kindness
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profundity. Kindness in giving creates love.” Lao-Tsu Maya recently graduated from a 15-week class that she’s been taking at ARF, the Animal Rescue Foundation, which is a local organization that takes the most adoptable animals in the county shelters, and brings them to a no-kill environment, and works to socialize them and treat them, so that they will be adoptable. They work to find the animals good homes. They spend a lot of time with the animals, getting to know them, socializing them, giving them exercise, so that the crushing reality of a county shelter doesn’t take an adoptable animal and…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Merry Christmas!
This is Maya at about 9 months old. Laluna had Santa come to see Chee and Big Sis, and Maya was there as well, and got a peek. She had a lot of stranger anxiety, so I’m surprised she let this even happen. We’re off to Portland now, back on the 27th, so no bloggy-blog from me for a few days. 🙂 I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and that it is filled with laughter, family, and yummy food.
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This Too Shall Pass
When Maya was an infant, the baby books said that if you want your child to go to sleep easily every night, put them in their crib full, clean, dry, burped, and slightly awake. Be careful what bedtime routines you start, because the child will associate them with bedtime, and while you may enjoy rocking your child to sleep at bedtime every night, you may not wish to do it every time the baby wakes up during the night, often every 2 or 3 hours. What they don’t tell you is that they will soon grow out of the phase of wanting to be rocked to sleep, and you will…
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Clarification, s’il vous plait
On Monday, we received a progress report for Maya’s Core Class, and there was a comment in the appropriate field that said, “Missing Work”. Her grade thus far in the class is an A-, so I wasn’t too worried. (I don’t worry too much about grades anyway, but at this school, Core is English and Social Studies, which are Maya’s two favorite classes, so if she’s not doing the work, that would surprise me. Actually, she always does her work, so it would surprise me even if it were a class that weren’t her favorite.) So I thought about it a bit, and sent the teacher an email: Dear Ms.…
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Wordless Wednesday
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New School…
Melissa wrote a few days ago about her kids’ first day of school…and about how glad she is that they have great teachers, and that she’s looking forward to volunteering again this year in the classroom. Her post made me nostalgic for Maya’s old school, Eagle Peak Montessori.Ă‚Â Maya started Montessori school when she was 2, at Springfield Montessori, where she went through Kindergarten.Ă‚Â We are big fans of the Montessori method of teaching, and were thrilled to find out that she could continue her Montessori education, because one of our local school districts was opening a public charter school.Ă‚Â Public = Free. (as free as any public school is…
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Wordless Wednesday – Middle School Edition
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Random Act of Kindness
Maya was thrilled last year when we relented, and decided that it might be OK, after all, if we were to let her pierce her ears before age 16. It was a difficult decision for me, because I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced until I was 16. In the Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture in which I was raised, girls with pierced ears were ready to date. And yet…times change. When I was growing up, most of my friends, at least half, did not have pierced ears until they were 13 or 14. Now, all, ALL of Maya’s girlfriends have pierced ears. Partially due to times changing, I suppose, but…
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Crapicola
That’s what I’m thinking. Crapicola. Sounds like a weird deli meat, but it’s one of our ways of swearing around here. Why would I be swearing, you might well ask? Because at Maya’s orthodontist appointment the other day, we discovered that she’s going to need a second round of braces. Can we all say it together this time? “CRAPICOLA!!” 1st, $4,000 is a lot of money. I mean, we paid it the first time, and now to have to pay it AGAIN blows. 2nd, I had braces, and it hurt like hell (personally, I think it’s worse than childbirth, because with childbirth, you don’t have to go back every few…