The Monica Edwards Weblog

Giving Back to Schools

I am all for giving back in anyway we can, especially to our education system because the teachers that work tirelessly to help mold our children into responsible, educated adults should not have to worry about such things as; do they have enough pencils, calculators, books, or any other supplies in order to teach their students successfully? When did our education system get to the point that these things are constant obstacles getting in the way of a teacher doing the job they were hired for? Instead, spending time worrying about who to convince to supply new books for the school library so their kids will be reading things that are relevant to our time now instead of 50 years ago?

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Calm Before the Storm

Alijah started preschool on Monday. This will have been the third school he has attended in his short span of 3 years of being-- oh, my bad, 3 and 3/4 years. The first school he attended was a private clinic mainly for children with developmental delays, and it was a wonderful place that we still miss. The teachers and therapists there were very patient, loving, and nurturing and it is the place that helped Alijah to begin to walk at the ripe old age of 28 months when most children his age had been running circles around him for months. It was a place very focused on setting a routine for the kids and Alijah became accustomed to that and to the friends he was making for the first time. He learned how to sing songs, and use more sign language than what we were teaching him at home to communicate as he barely spoke when he started there, and when he turned 3 he graduated from that school because they only treat children under 3 years of age.

We then enrolled him into a public school curriculum, yet still a class that was centered around developmentally delayed children his age, as Alijah still has some speech and social delays. This school and his last school were like night and day to us. The teachers were all great, but it seemed as if they did not have as much time to give the kids the one on one attention we had grown accustomed to. I am sure the private funding in the school he came from made all the difference but to a 3 year old, that doesn’t add up to a whole lotta’ beans. He was used to things a certain way so it took him a while to get adjusted to the kids and new routines. Besides that fact, this was a whole new class with a whole set of new germs so Alijah was out of school more than he was in class due to catching one thing or another every other week---no exaggeration.

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Diddly-Dink is My New Favorite Word

The funniest thing I heard today came from an actor in the movie How to Eat Fried Worms. I was watching this with my two kids while Andru is at Gnomedex literally all day and night. I will be joining him, kids in tow, at the party they are throwing tonight at the Seattle Aquarium where they have giant octopi that suck your brain out quietly while you are none the wiser, or so Nate says. But till then, I had to try and get the two boys to sit still and not argue for at least an hour. It seems that I enjoyed the movie much more than they did...okay now who couldn’t with a line like this? Uttered from a preschoolers lips to his older brother--"You’re shaking my bike and it’s touching my diddly dink!”

I have never heard that expression before, I think I will start using it in random conversations as it will go down as one of my favorites. No, I’m not 12.

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Shabbat Shalom

Happy Sabbath everyone! Today was a full day for me as I put off doing any type of housework all week because I was channeling a sponge sitting atop a couch. I think we used every last plate, bowl, spoon, fork, and any other receptacle that could be used as a bowl, in this house. It took me over an hour to do all the dishes. I thought about just throwing everything away and buying all new. We had a friend who actually did that while he was a college student. Always had new dishes. I’m not saying much for my ability to maintain a clean house but I can cook. Does that make up for it?

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MP3 Goes Down the Toilet

I love my son, he cracks me up at the most unexpected times and the other day he had Andru almost rolling on the floor laughing so hard at his 12 year-old antics. He received a new Sansa Mp3 player for Christmas from his father, it wasn’t like the $10 Walkmans he was used to buying or receiving in the past, as he is getting older and becoming more responsible, his father spent a little more money on something a 12 year-old would appreciate. Tom took very good care of it, I have to give him credit, he put it away very nicely in the velvet sleeve it came in once he was through listening to it - so maybe it was worth the cost.

This is where the humor comes in, the other day, he comes upstairs, very upset, carrying his Mp3 in his hand and I ask what was so terribly wrong. He goes on to explain that he had his Mp3 in his sweatshirt pocket as he was going to the bathroom, and when he stood up to flush, it so gracefully plopped into the toilet, scaring him to death as he thought some wild animal had just jumped in. In Napoleon Dynamite fashion he utters loudly “Dang it!” as his very new Mp3 had fallen in a toilet full of poo. His words. I asked him what the heck was he doing with the Mp3 player in his pocket while sitting on the toilet, knowing that it was a recipe for disaster. He replies, “ I wanted to listen to music while I pooed.” OK I guess that was a logical answer...heck if everyone else reads while they poo, why not bop to some tunes? Before any more questions were asked I immediately said, “Get a plastic baggie, put it inside, and STOP HOLDING IT-- GROOOSS!”

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