Tree

UPDATED BELOW
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It is so often the little things, the things that are normal stuff for everyone else that get to me.

Once again this year it is the preschool family tree.  I tried not sending it in today and they told Lauren to make sure to bring it on Wed.  Last year they had one in the welcome packet that I just ignored.  Yes, I know, I am not being a good mom.  Well, that's reality sometimes.

I will, however, suck it up and fill this one out for Wednesday since they said something to her.  I heard through the grapevine they should attach a family photo but I have not heard that officially and so that may not happen.  See, I just have to list brother and sisters - that is easy enough to do.  If I attach a picture I either attach one with all three kids when Lauren is only a year old or I attach one of her at four years old missing a sibling.  I considered attaching a recent family photo and also one of her and Nathan together.  Either way - I just HATE doing this seemingly simple happy little preschool project.  It is one of those that happens year after year in school though.  I think about other kids whose families are not the ideal either.  Does it cause them pain or embarrasment?  Do kids with divorced parents send in two family photos?

I'm not saying they shouldn't do it but I bet it hasn't occurred to a lot of these teachers the potential minefields.  Lauren's includes "Interesting Story" as a category.  I have many sarcastic thoughts on that one that I will keep to myself and I will be curious what her interesting story is.  Nathan is probably very much like a mystical being to her, so I think to her all that I am having angst about means nothing.

That makes me relieved and sad at the same time.

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So - we did it I gave her options of pictures and she came up with her own idea of our recent family picture from Thanksgiving and also a picture of her, Julia and Nathan.  I brought in the paper and gave it to one of the teachers.  I asked her if the kids would be discussing their papers.  She said yes so I felt like I should warn her so I said that we had two pictures and that Lauren's brother died and so not to be surprised when she mentions that.  She mumbled something about overhearing Lauren saying something like that before but it was clear to me that she didn't think it was actually true.  She kind of gave me a lost look and I mumbled something about how much I hate doing these projects and gave a nervous laugh and high-tailed it out of there.  sigh.

Family

minus one

Happy Thanksgiving!

Navbar hint

I thought I'd share this because I only found out by subscribing to the blogger blog.  They have updated the navbar (bar at the top of blogger blogs) choices.  You can now have transparent navbars (see what I mean by looking at mine).  Just go into settings and layout and click edit on the navbar.  Makes blogs much prettier. As I was browsing around today I saw a fair number of blogs that could benefit from this...

p.s. I posted earlier today today too so scroll down..

Four

Lauren turned four yesterday. How can that be?

  

 

 

October 2009 Pictures

Do Re Mi

Luke and I help out in the Kindergarten choir at church.  We mostly enjoy it (there always seems to be that ONE kid you almost have to sit on - this semester it is a child whose name is unusual but I remember it quite easily because it rhymes with "heathen") and it is a good way to give back to the church and have fun with kids that aren't ours.

The director, who is in the sanctuary choir with me, has had me playing the glockenspiel with them the last few weeks on some of their songs.  I am just alternating back and forth between two notes on the beat.  I think it is supposed to be helpful to the kids.  It is very simple.

The kids are singing in a church service on Sunday and to my horror I find I am to kneel in front of them with the glockenspiel playing my two notes while they sing.  I tried to decline but I could not get out of it.  My fellow choir members will get a nice view of me doing this and I am really hoping the cameras for the live stream on the internet will keep its lens trained on the kids and not me.

One small mercy though...when we were rehearsing in the sanctuary tonight and the director was busy with the kids the A/V guy came up to me and asked if I would need the glockenspiel to be mic'ed.  I said something to the extent of "please, no!".  Phew!

Bible Study

I know I have readers who are involved with church and bible study and I have a question for you. 

How do you evaluate whether a bible study is a productive/positive experience? 

I am really struggling with enjoying or even at times tolerating bible study currently.  The topic is fine.  It is a manuscript style study of Mark.  It relies heavily on small group discussion, however.  I feel like I am not in the right place right now or something to be able to take it in and participate.  I have had very little bible study experience and I don't feel like I have very much to contribute.  Also, I find that I have been having a harder time with grief lately, which just makes me tend to clam up in general.  It doesn't help that some of the group knows about Nathan and some does not and I feel like it is this big thing that effects how I feel about things but it is not something I can throw out there.  We do very little personal sharing and so somehow it seems hard to study the bible without applying it to your personal life but that seems to be what we do.  We dissect the text but it doesn't seem like we apply it much to our lives.

I am really considering dropping it.  In fact the only reasons I am reluctant are that 1) there is someone in my group I really want to get to know better and 2) Lauren gets to spend time with one of her best friends while I am there.

This all seems to be about ME and that is not the point of bible study, I know.  If I stop this one I will look for something else, somewhere else.  Someone please tell me if I am being selfish and childish?

Halloween 2009

The first one was taken before school on Friday - thus all the snow!