Tastes

We talked about the five senses again on Monday and actually did a taste test with the kids. We do this about every year, and the funny thing is, every child is delighted to taste the most egregious stuff to do the test, and at the table, they are as shy as sheep.

We put salt, sugar, cocoa, lemon juice and baking powder into 2 ounce cups and had the children poke their finger into the substance and tell us if the taste was salty, sweet, bitter or sour or nothing like the baking powder. Most of the children knew the vocabulary words. A few had trouble with the word bitter, but we explained it.

Our theory is that children who eat anything don't have a regard for the precise taste, and those children who eat nothing know the sense very well. This theory evolved with my grandchildren who are the pickiest creatures in the universe - I'm sure because they don't even eat much candy. They eat perhaps three kinds of candy. Let me tell you - they are a joy to feed. Both Bill and Jack were eager to take the test, and both of them knew each taste without hesitation. I was really surprised, and began to look at our other kids and realized that the pickiest eaters were the ones most knowledgeable about tastes. Interesting. Here are some of the other results:

Our vegetarian who eats no fruit, no vegetables, no noodles, no meat except chicken nuggets at fast food restaurants, no eggs, no bread, and no dairy could only recognize the sugar. Tells you something about his general diet.

My grandson, Bill, got them all on the first try, so did Alyssa.

Our youngest food champion, Zoey, could only identify salty.

Brady, who's a good eater too could only identify salty as well.

Kamden, who eats anything, could only identify sour.

Austin, Luke, Kanin, Alex, Isaac, Javeon who all struggle with new things and whose diets are single minded -- old and trusted why experiment, each knew tastes.

Most of the kids could identify about half the tastes and that's what we expected. The children who bucked the theory were Bryce, who's an eating machine and Skylar and Alexis who are especially good eaters. All children knew all the tastes. Dax,who is a poor eater knew them all too. Mara, on the other hand is picky and didn't know a single taste. Zoe, knew all the tastes and eats nothing.

Now, regarding tastes - yesterday I made myself an omelet with goat cheese. I sat down with the kids and they all asked, "Miss Judy, what are you eating?" I said "I'm eating an omelet - that's an egg and milk with goat cheese." Half the kids tried the omelet (should have made 2) and they all liked it even the picky eaters! It must have to do with the adult plate.

Now today, we are having cradles with ground sausage, eggs and cheese, and although they love this, they would not like to eat goat cheese in theirs if I made them that way - for them - but they loved the taste yesterday.

Yesterday, our vegetarian wanted more applesauce. I told him he could have the applesauce if he ate his corn. He balked. He finally ate the corn and loved it. He had never eaten corn on the cob before. I keep telling these kids to try things, and sometimes it works. Kids are funny.

The Garden School Tattler

Good Morning!

It's been a while since I posted - lots to do these days.

Today calendars for May go home. We were supposed to be sending home summer information as well, but we are still trying to figure out what to do in the event that gas goes over $4.00 per gallon. We talked about this at the faculty meeting on Sunday, and kind of decided that in the event that gas goes too high, we would cut two of the really long trips and go swimming. That would even things out a bit financially.

We have three super long trips scheduled this summer and two of them include gate fees. We want our kids to have the very best summer possible, and we are trying to find some alternatives. One possibility is a canoe trip for children 4 and up, but that's a bit of a long shot.

Anyway, information should be out in about a week. Sorry about the delay.

We are starting a new reward system. Please look at the clothespin chart. We have changed the clothespins from "what have I eaten today" to a recognition of good behavior. Every clothespin a child receives means he's been the best in the group for any activity. When he gets 10 clothespins, there is a special reward.

The books are finally out of Kelly's classroom, and we can go back to class. It's going to be another cool one today, so we'll be indoors most of the morning.

We sold $1000.00 worth of books this year, and that means we will receive $400.00 worth of books for the school. Thanks so much for your support. It means a lot to us.

This month should fly by. Please look at the calendar and mark May 23 as Awards Day. This is a special event for families. Children receive academic and character awards as well as achievement awards that day. A picnic follows. Information is on the calendar going home today.

We will most likely take one more field trip to the park this month. The kids are really enjoying it. It's a good way to get ready for summer!

I will be absent from school on Thursday and May 1,2 and 5. I'm going to Florida for my son's graduate school graduation. On top of everything else he does, he managed to pick up an MA in business administration.

Edith will also be away starting May 5. She will be going to New York to see her latest granddaughter who was born a week or so ago.

So it's been, and will continue to be a busy busy time.

The Garden School Tattler

It's been a really crazy week. It's Spring Sing week and that means one of our classrooms is tied up with books, books, books. We've been getting the kids outside a lot because now is the time to tone up the skin. You can't take kids out in the sun all day after keeping them inside all spring. The gradual skin toning is an absolute must with the kind of summer program we do.

Please consider sun screening your child before he leaves the house. We've been using it on the playground, but a good screening at home can't be beat.

Spring Sing is the introduction to our big book sale. This is an important part of our spring program. Books for the summer for parents to read to kids, for kids to read, to have something to bring a child down from a play high so that they can really sleep is a first class must have for parents. Please look at the selection. There are Mommy and me books; Daddy and me books; solo books; discovery books and keepsake books. The prices are all pretty nominal and the quality is Scholastic which you will be involved with for the entirety of your child's school career.

Please think about rewarding your child for having his medal at the end of the day. This is a big deal considering what he has to remember and actually do during the day to keep that medal. It's a prize every day that he keeps it.

Today we will be practicing music and doing a lot of group activities including water play.

This Sunday is teacher staff meeting. If there is something you'd like us to consider for May, now is the time to voice an opinion. Summer is getting close and this summer should be one of our best.

Small Classes - From USA Today

Comment: This is what we have always believed at the Garden School.

Size alone makes small classes better for kids

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY NEW YORK

Breaking up large classes into several smaller ones helps students, but the improvements in many cases come in spite of what teachers do, new research suggests.

New findings from four nations, including the USA, tell a curious story. Small classes work for children, but that's less because of how teachers teach than because of what students feel they can do: Get more face time with their teacher, for instance, or work in small groups with classmates.

Small classes are more engaging places for students because they're able to have a more personal connection with teachers, simply by virtue of the fact that there are fewer kids in the classroom competing for that teacher's attention," says Adam Gamoran of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who analyzed the findings.

The data, from the USA, England, Hong Kong and Switzerland, were presented Monday at the first day of the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting, the world's largest gathering of education researchers.

The findings are consistent with what researchers already know, Gamoran says. "There is not good evidence that teachers modify their instruction in response to changes in class size. Some teachers are taking advantage of small classes and others are not. There's a lot of variability.

Though two of the four studies were inconclusive, some point to promising trends. In one study, researchers closely watched students' behaviors in 10-second intervals throughout class periods and found that in smaller classes in both elementary and high school, students stayed more focused and misbehaved less. They also had more direct interactions with teachers and worked more in small groups rather than by themselves.

But overall, Gamoran says, teachers didn't necessarily take advantage of the smaller classes, often teaching as if in front of a larger group. In one study, researchers found that few teachers took the opportunity to incorporate motivational activities or demonstrate to students what they wanted them to do as they introduced a lesson.

It's not like you reduce classes so teachers do something different and achievement is higher," he says. "That neat little package doesn't exist.

One of the teams, led by Ronald Ehrenberg of Cornell University, notes that the potential benefits of class-size reduction "may be greater than what we observe" if only a few teachers change their teaching to accommodate the smaller group.

For more than two decades, class-size reduction has been a key improvement strategy in several states, most notably in California, which since 1996 has spent billions of dollars to ensure that students get small classes in primary grades. Smaller classes also have been endorsed by teachers unions, but recent findings have cast doubts on the idea, in California and elsewhere.

This month, researchers at Northwestern University released data from a long-term class-size reduction effort in Tennessee showing that smaller classes improve achievement overall, but they seem to benefit high-achieving students more than low achievers. Because low-income students are more likely to be low achievers, researchers say, the effort is doing little to reduce the stubborn "achievement gap" that it intended to eradicate.


Average class size for primary grades in seven countries in 2004:

Russian Federation: 16

Italy: 18

Germany: 22

France: 231

United States: 23

United Kingdom: 24

Japan: 29

1 -- Reference year is 2003 rather than 2004 (Data include public and private institutions to ensure comparability among nations. Special needs programs have been excluded.)

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Teeth - from Early Childhood News Link

Comment: A good insight into when and why to start preventative tooth care.

Early Childhood Tooth Decay

By: Diana Palotas

Sam Hogan is two years old and has 20 teeth.

He went to the dentist when he was one just to get his teeth counted,” his mom Rebecca said.

At Sam’s next dental visit, they found six cavities. Sam likes juice, but that could be a problem in causing his cavities.

Kids that run around with sippy cups and every 15 minutes pick it up and put it down are at higher risk,” said Jeffrey Karp, a pediatric dentist.

While oral health is improving for most Americans, tooth decay is on the rise among preschoolers.

A disease called early childhood caries, or baby bottle tooth decay, can destroy the baby teeth before age three. It’s now being recommended that children have their first dental visit by their first birthday.

Sam was very cooperative and got a new toothbrush at his dental visit. He’ll also have something new in his sippy cup -- water.

Spring - weeds and vinegars from Susun Weed

This is an article I found on Wise Woman, a site I go to to understand more about the properties of nutrition through herbs, spices and weeds. For someone like me who cannot take medication, it has been a really good investment in my time. Herbals are not like medications. They don't strike like a sledge hammer; they are gentle and the time to take them is not when you have gotten sick, but all the time so that you don't get sick. It's a whole new way of looking at the world - a fun way, and something kids should learn about as well.

This spring, Mr. Tom is taking the children out to the garden one at a time to teach them about the art of gardening. We will also teach them about the properties of weeds! It's a must do!

The article by Susun Weed:

HERBAL VINEGARS
AROMATIC DELIGHTS FROM YOUR GARDEN

Spring is in the air. Buds are swelling, sap is running, the night is alive with sounds after winter's long silence. It's too soon to plant anything in the garden; there's still deep frost in the ground. But the snow is gone and the weeds are green and my supply of herbal vinegars is low, so I'll spend the morning harvesting.

A pantry full of herbal vinegars is a constant delight. Preserving fresh herbs and roots in vinegar is an easy way to capture their nourishing goodness. It's easy, too. You don't even have to have an herb garden.

Basic Herbal Vinegar
Takes 5 minutes plus 6 weeks to prepare

You will need:
glass or plastic jar of any size up to one quart/liter
plastic lid for jar or
waxed paper and a rubber band
fresh herbs, roots, weeds
one quart/liter apple cider vinegar

Fill any size jar with fresh-cut aromatic herbs. (See accompanying list for suggestions of herbs that extract particularly well in vinegar.) For best results and highest mineral content, be sure the jar is well filled with your chosen herb, not just a few springs, and be sure to cut the herbs or roots up into small pieces.
Pour room-temperature apple cider vinegar into the jar until it is full. Cover jar with a plastic screw-on lid, several layers of plastic or wax paper held on with a rubber band, or a cork. Vinegar disintegrates metal lids.

Label the jar with the name of the herb and the date. Put it some place away from direct sunlight, though it doesn't have to be in the dark, and someplace that isn't too hot, but not too cold either. A kitchen cupboard is fine, but choose one that you open a lot so you remember to use your vinegar, which will be ready in six weeks.

Apple cider vinegar has been used as a health-giving agent for centuries. Hippocrates, father of medicine, is said to have used only two remedies: honey and vinegar. A small book on Vermont folk remedies--primary among them being apple cider vinegar--has sold over 5 million copies since its publication in the fifties. A current ad in a national health magazine states that vinegar can give me a longer, healthier, happier life. Among the many powers of vinegar: it lowers cholesterol, improves skin tone, moderates high blood pressure, prevents/counters osteoporosis, and improves metabolic functioning. Herbal vinegars are an unstoppable combination: the healing and nutritional properties of vinegar married to the aromatic and health-protective effects of green herbs (and a few wild roots).

Herbal vinegars don't taste like medicine. In fact, they taste so good I use them frequently. I pour a spoonful or more on beans and grains at dinner; I use them in salad dressings; I season stir-fry and soups with them. This regular use boosts the nutrient- level of my diet with very little effort and virtually no expense. Sometimes I drink my herbal vinegar in a glass of water in the morning, remembering the many older women who've told me that apple cider vinegar prevents and eases their arthritic pains. I aim to ingest a tablespoon or more of mineral-rich herbal vinegar daily. Not just because herbal vinegars taste great (they do!), but because they offer an easy way to keep my calcium levels high (and that's a real concern for a menopausal woman of fifty). Herbal vinegars are so rich in nutrients that I never need to take vitamin or mineral pills.

Why vinegar? Water does a poor job of extracting calcium from plants, but calcium and all minerals dissolve into vinegar very easily. You can see this for yourself. Submerge a bone in vinegar for six weeks. What happens? The bone becomes pliable and rubbery. Why? The vinegar extracted the minerals from the bone. (And now the vinegar is loaded with calcium and other bone-building minerals!)

After observing this trick its not unusual to fear that if you consume vinegar your bones will dissolve. But you'd have to take off your skin and sit in vinegar for weeks in order for that to happen! Adding vinegar to your food actually helps build bones because it frees up minerals from the vegetables you eat. Adding a splash of vinegar to cooked greens is a classic trick of old ladies who want to be spry and flexible when they're ancient old ladies. (Maybe your granny already taught you this?) In fact, a spoonful of vinegar on your broccoli or kale or dandelion greens increases the calcium you get by one-third.

All by itself, vinegar helps build bones; and when it's combined with mineral-rich herbs, vinegar is better than calcium pills. Some people worry that eating vinegar will contribute to an overgrowth of candida yeast in the intestines. My experience has led me to believe that herbal vinegars do just the opposite; perhaps because they're so mineral rich. Herbal vinegars are especially useful for anyone who can't (or doesn't want to) drink milk. A tablespoon of infused herbal vinegar has the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk.

So out the door I go, taking a basket and a pair of scissors, my warm vest and my gloves, to see what I can harvest for my bone-building vinegars. The first greens to greet me are the slender spires of garlic grass, or wild chives, common in any soil that hasn't been disturbed too frequently, such as the lawn, the part of the garden where the tiller doesn't go, the rhubarb patch, the asparagus bed, the coven of comfrey plants. This morning they're all offering me patches of oniony greens. Snip, snip, snip. The vinegar I'll make from these tender tops will contain not only minerals, but also allyls, special cancer-preventative compounds found in raw onions, garlic, and the like.

Here where tulips will push up soon, in a sunny corner, is a patch of catnip intermingled with motherwort, two plants especially beloved by women. I use catnip to ease menstrual cramps, relieve colic, and bring on sleep. Motherwort is my favorite remedy for moderating hot flashes and emotional swings. They are both members of the mint family, and like all mints, are exceptionally good sources of calcium and make great-tasting vinegars. Individual mint flavors are magically captured by the vinegar. From now until snow cover next fall, I'll gather the mints of each season--peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm, oregano, shiso, wild bergamot, thyme, hyssop, sage, rosemary, lavender--and activate their unique tastes and their tonic, nourishing properties by steeping them in vinegar. What a tasty way to build strong bones, a healthy heart, emotional stability, and energetic vitality..

Down here, under the wild rose hedge, is a plant familiar to anyone who has walked the woods and roadsides of the east: garlic mustard. I'll enjoy the leaves in my salad tonight, as I do all winter and spring, but I'll have to wait a bit longer before I can harvest the roots, which produce a vibrant, horseradishy vinegar that's just the thing to brighten a winter salad and keep the sinuses clear at the same time.
And what's this? A patch of chickweed! It's a good addition to my vinegars and my salads, boosting their calcium content, though adding scant flavor. In protected spots, she offers year-round greens.

Look down. The mugwort is sprouting, all fuzzy and grey. I call it cronewort to honor the wisdom of grey-haired women. The culinary value of this very wild herb is oft o'erlooked. I was thrilled to find it for sale in Germany right next to the dried caraway and rosemary, in a little jar, in the supermarket. Cronewort vinegar is one of the tastiest and most beneficial of all the vinegars I make. It is renowned as a general nourishing tonic to circulatory, nervous, urinary, and mental functioning, as well as being a specific aid to those wanting sound sleep and strong bones.

Cronewort vinegar is free for the making in most cities if you know where this invasive weed grows. To mellow cronewort's slightly bitter taste and accent her fragrant, flavorful aspects, I pick her small (under three inches) and add a few of her roots to the jar along with the leaves. I cut the tall flowering stalks of this aromatic plant in the late summer or early autumn, when they're in full bloom, and dry them. The leaves, stripped carefully from the stalks, provided stuffing (and magic) for our winter dream pillows; they are said to carry one into vivid dreams and visions.

The sun is bright and strong and warm. I turn my face toward it and close my eyes, breathing in. I feel the vibrating life-force here. Everything is aquiver. I smile, knowing that that energy will be available to me when I consume the vinegars I'll make from these herbs and weeds. As I relax against the big oak, I breathe out and envision the garden growing and blooming, fruiting and dying, as the seasons slip through my mind's eye....

The air grows chiller at night. The leaves fall more quickly with each breeze. The first mild frosts take the basil, the tomatoes and the squash, freeing me to pay attention once again to the perennial herbs and weeds, and urging me to make haste before even the hardy herbs drop their leaves and retreat to winter dormancy.

The day dawns sunny. Yes, now's the time to harvest the last of the garden's bounty, the rewards of my work, the gifts of the earth. I dress warmly (remembering to wear red; hunting season's open), stash my red-handled clippers in my back pocket, and take a baskets in one hand and a plastic tub in the other.
Then I'm out the door, into autumn's slanting sunshine and my quiet garden. My black cat bounds over to help me harvest and, after a while, the white cat emerges from under the house to purr and signal her satisfaction with my presence in her domain this morning.

My gardening friends say the harvest is over for the year, but I know my weeds will keep my at work harvesting until well into the winter. In no time at all my deep basket is full and I'm wishing I'd brought another. Violet leaves push against stalks of lamb's quarter. Hollyhock, wild malva, and plantain leaves jostle for their own spaces against the last of the comfrey and dandelion leaves. (I think dandelion leaves are much better eating in the fall than in the spring, much less bitter to my taste after they've been frosted a few nights.) The last of the red clover blossoms snuggle in the middle. Though not aromatic or intensely-flavored, a vinegar of these greens will be my super-rich calcium supplement for the dark months of winter.

My baskets are overflowing and I haven't gotten to the nettles and the raspberry leaves yet. They're superb sources of calcium, too. Ah! the gracious abundance of weeds, or should I say "volunteer herbs?" I actually respect them more than the cultivated herbs; respect their strident life force, and their powerful nutritional punch, and their added medicinal values that help me stay healthy and filled with energy.

The main work of this frosty fall morning is to harvest roots: dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, and chicory roots. I've been waiting for the frost to bite deep before harvesting the nourishing, medicinal roots of these weeds. With my spading fork (not a shovel, please) I carefully unearth their tender roots, leaving a few to mature and shed seeds so I have a constant supply of young roots. I love the feel of the root sliding free of the soil and into my hands, offering me such gifts of health.

Burdock I admire especially, for its strength of character and its healing qualities. I settle down to do some serious digging to unearth their long roots. For peak benefit, I harvest at the end of the first year of growth, when the roots are most tenacious and least willing to leave the ground. Patience is rewarded when I dig burdock. Eaten cooked or turned into a vinegar (and the pickled pieces of the root consumed with the vinegar), burdock root attracts heavy metals and radioactive isotopes and removes them quickly from the body. For several hundred years at least, and in numerous cases that I have witnessed, burdock root is known to reverse pre-cancerous changes in cells.

Dandelion and chicory are my allies for long life. They support and nourish my liver and improve the production of hydrochloric acid in my stomach, thus insuring that I will be better nourished by any food I eat. I make separate vinegars of each plant, but like to put both their roots and their leaves together in my vinegar. A spoonful of either of these in a glass of water in the morning or before meals can be used to replace coffee. Note that roasted roots used in coffee substitutes do not have the medicinal value of fresh roots eaten cooked or preserved in vinegar.

Yellow dock is the herbalist's classic remedy for building iron in the blood. Like calcium, iron is absorbed better when eaten with an acid, such as vinegar, making yellow dock vinegar an especially good way to utilize the iron-enhancing properties of this weed. (It nourishes the iron in the soil, too, and is said to improve the yield of apple trees it grows under.)

And at that thought, I awaken from my reverie and return to spring's sunshine with a smile. The white cat twines my legs and offers to help me carry the basket back inside to the warmth of the fire. The circle has come around again, like the moon in her courses. Autumn memories yield spring richness. The weeds of fall offer tender green magic in the spring. What I harvested last November has been eaten with joy and I return to be gifted yet again by the wild that lives here with me in my garden.

Earthquake!

As many of you, I woke up this morning to my room quaking. It brought back a lot of memories as a kid. We used to feel the quakes in the San Francisco area on the way to and from school, while playing, or just climbing the island on our way home. Most people who experience a quake don't know what it is right away, and then by the time it's over, they realize (probably because someone told them) that they have been in a quake.

The old safety rule is go outside. Not a lot is going to fall on you if you are outside, and if it's a bad quake, the gas lines won't get you out side, but for most quakes, there is not enough time before the thing is over. And, no, in the history of the world, no one has ever been swallowed up by a ground fissure.

Many people are frightened by small earthquakes because the earth, which is normally stable, seems unstable and that's a big concern to those whose normal life does not include quakes. The truth is, a small earthquake is just that - a big one is a whole lot different - duh.

We have to remember that here in Southwest Indiana we are on the largest fault line in the country. We can out snob the San Francisco area fault line like a high school senior snubs a freshman. If this place ever does go, it will look a little like waves on the ocean and everything will go - fall down, be rubble in a matter of minutes and it will take a long time for that shaking to stop.

So, collect your wits and think positively. It probably won't happen again for years.

Today we are going out to the park on a field trip. The weather should be nice. We're going to try a new lunch idea, so that should be worth reporting next time.

The Garden School Tattler

Yesterday was a lot easier than we expected. We had two teachers out for professional development. That's a big expression for, they went to a big workshop in Indianapolis to learn the latest teaching techniques. Every teacher needs this gas tank occasionally, and this is the first time in a while that we have been able to send a teacher.

Locally, we have two workshops a year - one in the spring and one in the fall. Miss Judy has presented at these for a long time. This spring I gave a choosing the right calories workshop, and this coming fall I'm doing one on the importance of eating together.

Getting teachers and early childhood professionals together to discuss the problems and the new trends in childcare and teaching is important for the whole teacher. New ideas, exchanging ideas, being reassured that you are on the right track, and that what you are doing is working is a big plus in the job.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it's also nice to know that you are covered. Mr. Tom and Miss Lindsay came in early and stayed all day to cover. They did a fine job - even on Monday.

Monday's are sometimes really hard because children come to school with a lot of negatives from home. On Mondays we see the child "fresh from the house." Often it's on Monday that we can see what is going on at home that's creating a problem. Children often come to school speaking too loud with an infant slant on their speech. This means to a teacher, "He's not getting enough attention at home."

Most children come to school on Monday not eating ANYTHING. That's why we start Monday with cold cereal - it breaks that mold right away. Monday's food is mostly throwaway. That means there are no food expectations going on at home. Usually on Mondays we serve something everyone likes. We see right away which families eat together and which ones don't. One way of reading the home life is how children sit at the table during a meal. Many children can't because they don't at home. When meals are in front of TV, children don't eat. TV dining has too many obstacles to encourage the good habit of eating well.

Good behavior is also a thing which is expected or not, and on Monday we can see who is expected to behave at home and who is expected to not behave at home, because on Monday every bad habit comes out to play.

Mondays are real eye openers for teachers.

Today we are back to regular shop. One thing I noticed is how much these kids want to learn and how much they enjoy school. I was really touched yesterday by their desire to be in the classroom and yet do something academic during play time. We looked at shells yesterday, and they really enjoyed that. There were a million questions as kids poured over the science table shells. "But what kind of shell is this?" asked nearly every child. "It's a muscle; it's a cockle; it's a scallop; It's a conch; It's a snail; I don't know; I don't know; I don't know," were most of the answers.

Today perhaps we will get out the pine cones...

Please Help

Mastectomy Petition

This is not a story, it's a request to make some changes in the laws regarding health insurance companies.

From a nurse:

I'll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies. Needing to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened looks spoke louder than the quiet, "Thank You," they muttered.

A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards.

Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.

It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it really quick! Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go to vote on this issue and send it on to others. You know who will do the same.

There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy," where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their Web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on.

Sign the petition by clicking on the Web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

Site

This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family...and on behalf of all women, THANKS!!

The Waldorf School

Here's an article from a blog called Crunchy Parent. It's about the Waldorf School experience. Every school is different. Here's what a parent said about her Waldorf school:

Waldorf vs. Public School: The Kindergarten Decision Looms

So I realized when we decided to have children that we would be taking on a fair amount of responsibility; there’s the whole part about needing to provide supervision and care for them around the clock for a couple of decades, the requirement that you buy them the right color tights for ballet class, and a whole buncha stuff in between. The part that I didn’t fully grasp was the overwhelming sense of responsibility that comes from needing to do all of those things the “right” way, or more importantly, fear of doing things wrong and having your kid call you out on the Maury Povich show in twenty years because you unwittingly bought them the lead-infused Dora the Explorer lunch box which sent them down a dark and winding path to wondering about the identity of their baby’s Daddy and inexplicably ripping off their shirt to signal “game on” in an argument.

My current inner struggle is prompted by the need to enroll Emma in kindergarten in the fall. Now, I should say that both Crunchy Daddy and myself attended public school for the majority of our lives. Actually, I’m 100% public school educated, right up through the PhD., and look how well I turned out. We both always assumed that we would send our children to public school as well. We sort of fell into Emma’s Waldorf school back when she was a toddler and I returned home to mommy full-time. I was looking for some classes in which to participate because I felt oddly negligent not properly honing Emma’s social skills through Kindermusik, Tumble Bears, or something of the sort. We took a few classes through the park district, but I was not terribly impressed with the age-appropriateness of the activities or the socialization opportunities among the children or adults in the class. Around the same time, a friend of mine out in California (where all of the hippest crunchy stuff abounds) told me that she noticed on the AWSNA website that there was a Waldorf school close to my home, and she suggested that I check them out as an early childhood class option. She knew that we were kinda crunchy-oriented in our parenting and thought that Waldorf education was very attachment-parenting friendly, so in might be a good fit. I went to the school website and noticed that they had an upcoming winter craft fair, which I thought would be the prefect opportunity for me to discretely check out the school.

The school was beautiful with its soft lazured walls and simple décor. There were no posters, splashy bulletin boards, or a barrage of overwhelming stimuli. There were simple displays of the beautiful student artwork in the hall, but that was it. The craft fair was heaven for me; hand turned or carved wooden toys, handmade pottery, soaps, Waldorf dolls, fibers, beadwork, the list went on and on. I made a few purchases and resolved to look into the school further.

As a next step, I called the school and arranged for a visit to their early childhood classroom, which served children ages eighteen months through three years accompanied by an adult. The whole morning was so different that any other class that I had experienced with Emma before. The day began with every adult and child (and any younger siblings, who were also welcome to come to the class) seated at a long table in the back of the room. We were each given a small ball of dough to knead and shape however we desired as we waited to greet the other classroom participants. Once everyone had arrived and all of the little dough balls had been set on a baking tray to rise, the children were dismissed from the table to play with the simple classroom toys; toys like a wood play kitchen, baskets of tree branches cut into blocks, a wooden doll carriage, several simple Waldorf dolls, dress up clothes, play silks, and a few wood rocking horses. While the children played, the parents remained at the table at the back, working on a handcraft project (I think that everybody was making a wool crown for their child) and keeping an eye out on the little ones; interacting with them as needed to provide comfort, connection, social guidance, or to nurse.

After the free play time, the adults helped lead the children through cleaning up and we all gathered for a circle time, in which we sang or spoke a number of seasonal verses and engaged in movement activities, ending with every child snuggled up with their parent on the rug (I think that we were sleeping birdies, warm in our nest). Each parent/child dyad was awakened in turn as the teacher brushed over us with a play silk, signaling us that we could go wash up for snack, which was being prepared by a parent in the back of the classroom (I later learned that all parents took turns providing the snack). The children helped set the table with cloth napkins and placemats and ceramic plates and small glasses. Food was set out family style, and we all sat together to say a little verse, complete with arm movements, before enjoying our snack “Earth who gives to us this food, sun who makes it ripe and good, Dear Earth, dear sun, thanks we give to you each one. And we say, blessings on our snack.” Watching even the littlest ones raise their voices to sing and move their arms along was so sweet. I was a bit anxious about the idea of toddlers eating with “real” plates and glasses (No plastic ware? No sippy cups?), but they did fine save the occasional spill. The snack was outstanding. Homemade hummus with fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, cheeses, homemade whole grain quick breads, and water to drink. The children happily ate the nutritious food as it was passed around the table and placed on their little plates, and I welcomed the opportunity to be nourished by the delicious and healthy snack, a rarity for a busy parent. Snack closed with another verse “Thankful, thankful, we are very thankful. Thankful, thankful, we hold our hands together (all hold hands now) And we say, thank you for our snack.” After the verse, children and adults helped to clean up the snack, scraping leftovers into a compost bin, dropping soiled table linens in a bag to be washed, and placing dishes to be washed in a basin. The children were all handed small sponges and rags to wash and dry the table, and then we all gathered together on the rug in the center of the classroom for a story.

Story time did not involve a book, rather a puppet show of sorts was being acted out by the teacher using wooden figure toys and play silks set out on a small table in front of the group. The story props were initially veiled under a play silk while the teacher sang a story-telling verse, and then she lifted the silk to reveal several play silks, a small wooden bridge, and three goats. The children sat in wonder as they listened to the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, watching as the goats trip trapped across the bridge to brave the troll. The fable ended with the pieces being draped once again under the silk, as a closing story verse was sung. Children were then bundled up and the whole group moved outside to play until the close of the day. When the time came for the day to end, the group was called back together to sing the closing verse, and the warm, freshly-baked rolls that we had created at the start of the day were placed into each set of tiny eager hands, to satiate little tummies on the ride home.

I came home from the visit delighted and enthusiastic, singing the effusive praise of an early childhood program that seemed to perfectly preserve and meet the needs for wonder, simplicity, and comfort that are so present in young children. As I described the events of the day to Crunchy Daddy punctuating the simple toys, the wholesome food, the company of other moms who were nursing their soft shoe-wearing toddlers, and slinging their babies I recall his reply, “You found the mother ship,” and indeed, I think that I had. Emma and I enrolled in the class for the next session, and she continued at the school for their transitional preschool program (in which parents attend with the children for the first few months, and then transition away so that the children can begin their experience of being at school on their own,) and this year she has moved to the three-day (morning only) preschool class.

Our participation at the school has been wonderful for our family. It was through the school that we have met many other naturally-oriented families in the area who have served as a wonderful resource for us as we move down our path toward greater crunchy awareness. Emma loves her school and loves her friends. Her only sadness is that she does not get to ride a school bus, and I think that she will forgive us for that in time.

So now we are faced with a decision….Emma will be starting kindergarten in the fall and we need to decide if we will continue to keep her at her private Waldorf school or if we will enroll her in public school. There are compelling reasons to keep her where she is. She loves her school and we are well integrated into the school, which consists of a relatively small number of families. The close interpersonal relationships allow us all to meet the needs of the children more effectively and serve as a network for one another. There is a sense of shared investment and responsibility for making the school better. In addition, the teachers have a strong connection to the students and to their families, and the educational model of Waldorf schools is vibrant and compelling. I honestly believe that my children will receive a better overall education there than they would receive in a public school, which I really feel is increasingly pushing too much too soon on young children; depriving them of the spirit of childhood. Moreover, the like-minded crunchy community at the Waldorf school helps to support some of the values that we are trying to instill in the girls, making it less of an uphill battle than if we were swimming against a mainstream current in a public school.

All that said, I realize that children are resilient and that the girls would likely turn out to be bright, educated, upstanding citizens regardless of the educational environment. They might become more aware and steadfast in their own beliefs in the face of divergent thinking that they would likely encounter with greater frequency in a public school. In addition, Waldorf schools approach reading, writing, and math curricula at a different pace than public schools, which might make it difficult to integrate the girls into a public school in the event of a move or other change in life circumstances that would make a Waldorf education an unavailable option in the future. Oh, and then there’s the financial piece. Apparently private schools cost money and since that school voucher thing never found adequate support, we would be making a significant investment in the girls’ education over the course of their academic careers, the kind of investment that would otherwise change our family’s lifestyle. Money that might have been available for things like family vacations, “nice” cars, a “nice” home, more ample college or retirement savings, etc. would be slated to pay for elementary school and we just hadn’t planned on that.

So that’s the dilemma. Which is the right decision to make for Emma now? It seems overwhelming to me to make a decision about where all of my children will be educated forever, so I’m trying to just focus on where I think Emma should be next year, and we’ll make future decisions one year at a time. If you all have any thoughts or ideas about the matter, I’m all ears.

Keeping Fit

Comment: Here's an article that really makes sense about keeping fit. The question we all ask is, where am I going to find the time to do this with 2,3,4 kids and a demanding job, transportation to and from children's activities, and housework. But at the same time we know that exercise will keep us fit and make us feel better. So the big push this week is trying to find time to do the short ten minute fitness "events."

At home, children can work out too because they love to. Squats involving races in the house would tire mom out and make kids laugh. Stairs make the perfect playground. How many can i take in a single stretch?

At work, take a few minutes to chair stretch or use the wall in an office to press off some steam. Stairs too can be used as an effective aid in office exercise.

Here's the article; it's from the Spark People:

Small Bits of Fitness Add Up

Exercise Comes in All Shapes and Sizes
-- By Liz Noelcke, Staff Writer

"Where did the day go?"

Is this a common question in your life? Many of us jam-pack so much stuff into our daily routines, seemingly there’s no time to relax for just one minute, let alone exercise. Lack of time is one of the most common excuses for not having a decent fitness regimen. But do you realize that in the time it might take you to go through your e-mail, you could fit in a good workout? We’re not talking about giving up 60 minutes either; all you need is 10.

Just 10?
Forget the "all or nothing" mentality when it comes to exercise. Fitness does not live or die by 60-minute workouts; there is middle ground. Short spurts of exercise, when they accumulate, have been shown to share similar benefits of longer workouts.

Your body will reap numerous benefits just by becoming more active. This approach is perfect for times when you don’t have time for a regular workout, or when you want to start off slowly and build up a routine.

Easier Than You Think
Treat these 10 minutes like you would a regular workout. Take 1-2 minutes to warm up and get the muscles ready, including stretching. Follow with at least 7 minutes of exercise at a medium or high intensity. Then make sure to include a 60-second cool down.

Since it’s brief, it’s important to work at a fairly high intensity to obtain all of the benefits. Work at raising your heart and respiration rates. Just like regular workouts, try to include cardio, strength training and flexibility work in your shortened routine. Either knock out all three during the 10 minutes, or plan a 10-minute segment for each area.

Example: Push out 10 cardio minutes on the stationary bike. For strength, do push-ups, wall sits, or lift dumbbells. For flexibility, it’s helpful to just stretch every day. Work different muscle groups and keep it simple. After 10 minutes, you will feel healthier and be on your way to developing solid fitness habits.

But I Still Don’t Have Time
It only takes 30 minutes a day, broken up into manageable chunks of 10. Start with a quick exercise when you wake up. The second session? A lunch break is possibly the perfect time to re-energize and get the blood flowing again. The last 10-minute blitz could come in the evening, even while you are watching TV. It’s an ideal way to involve the family as well. Go for a power walk after dinner with your spouse or ride bikes with the kids.

It is all about convenience; if you try, you can fit exercise into your schedule no matter where you are. Do it at home or at work, outside or in the living room. Start building exercise spurts into your daily routine and you’ll start feeling better.

Don't You Wish...

Comment: Don't you wish you could give your children this advice and have them take it?

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their
conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.

FIVE. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't
have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way
to live life completely.

TEN.. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN! .. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile
and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and
Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to
correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your
voice.

TWENTY- ONE. Spend some time alone.

More Early Childhood Education

Every week I read a dozen articles about Early Childhood Education. I pass by hundreds that say the same thing over and over that we need more classrooms, more teachers, more time learning and taxes should pay for this and it should be mandatory and every politician supports this. But what exactly are they supporting? Do they even know?

What is Early Childhood Education? What is the more they are expecting or looking for, and where?

For as long as I have fought the status quo on Early Childhood, there have been two ideas that dominate the world of the young child: day care and kindergarten.

By its very nature the very idea of day care is to provide a safe, secure and rather dull ten hours of primary care for a child who can't be home. Day care providers are not paid to teach, and they are not equipped to teach. Tell a minimum wage employee that you expect her to teach, and she will run away and hide. Twenty-five years ago, when I first started in Early Childhood, my idea was to be a "whole" place, a place where kids could come and play and learn and eat well and have a good time. I was blackballed by every other "day care" in town and hated. But I persisted and I have beaten this drum and been ignored until last week when someone at the top of the Early Childhood mountain wrote to me and said, "I'm glad you can't find the box - never find the box."

Following day care, a child enters kindergarten. Day care kids can more easily adapt to kindergarten because they've never had the one on one, but they don't know as much because nobody has taught them. Most day care kids we get at the GS can't wash their own hands, sit for a story or do they know what a letter or a crayon are.

In kindergarten it's easy to teach kids their letters and numbers and reading comes quickly to the bright kids who really want to know. Then they go on to first and second grade.

So what's my beef?

Pulling kids into a learning environment is a good thing with all the talk about Early Childhood Education, but who is going to do this? Is it the same people who have done the work so far? What's the plan everyone is pushing? Has anyone ever thought about a curriculum for Early Childhood?

Over the years, our faculty has found that the learning preferences and differences in very young children can't be standardized. In my preschool class, I have 3,4,5 year old children. They are all basically at the same ability level. In Miss Amy's class, she has just turned 4 and 5 year old children who are all at the same ability level. In Miss Kelly's class she has 5 and 6 year olds who are reading or nearly reading. If we standardized the GS into age grouping, we would never be able to teach anything, because some of our five year olds are still not capable of learning their letters, and some of our threes are ready to learn to read. It's that complicated.

But reading and math and hand writing are not the only things that need to be taught during the Early Childhood years. Play is learned and play is mastered and through play young children learn to live in the world. Social skills, eating skills, listening skills, follow through skills, and independence are all part of the project of the Early Childhood scheme, and that rarely happens in day care and it only happens in big school when the big school has a low ratio.

Before Early Childhood is standardized and paid for by tax dollars and shoved into the public arena as the savior of the child, I think it's necessary to examine the status quo and see if public schools and private schools are actually accomplishing what they set out to do with the students they have. Saying "If they had gone to preschool, they wouldn't have dropped out of high school" is ridiculous. Saying, "He had a good start in every conceivable way. He had a good home, and parent who saw after his education, and that's why he's a success," makes a lot more sense.

I'd like to see the public arena look at successful Early Childhood places and ask what they can do to slowly and gradually incorporate a younger program for some children in time. I'd like to see day care be upgraded to be teaching places.

The Garden School Tattler

Today is supposed to be a beautiful sunny day. It's also supposed to be warm. These are great days for the kids to play outside. And children should play outside as much as possible. Without the restraints of classroom walls, without the artificial light, children can enjoy a kind of freedom that builds self confidence and creativity.

Mrs. St. Louis always says, "The more time kids spend at their desks, the worse the test scores are." This is based on the idea that we need time to secure what we have learned. We need a time to relax and think about things, and learning one thing on top of another is like too many toppings on ice cream - it just becomes muck.

That's one reason we have year round school. There is always something to learn, and making that fun among the summer adventures is the task to be achieved. It might be the concept of mazes; it might be a study of the composition of the Earth; it might be paper mache; it might be a new math concept, but learning should always continue and so should recreation.

Today is report card day at school. Then we complete the last in school report card period. We have finished our winter program and considering the weather, we are eagerly anticipating putting in the garden and cleaning up the pond, and fixing the playground moving outside a little at a time. Academically, we will be pushing the limits.

Spring sing is at the end of the month with a giant book sale from Scholastic. We are the smallest school in the country doing this book sale. We receive the same books that a regular sized public school receives, and we do an excellent job.

We are still pulling together our summer program and details will be sent out soon. One of our problems is that gas has skyrocketed. Miss Sandy pays nearly $4.00 per nine miles. So that means our costs go up. The engineering of summer takes a lot of effort. But we believe that children in summer should go, go, go, and many children will not have this chance if it is not done at school. It is our pleasure to provide this opportunity.

More later!

Sugar

Comment: I'm on a new kick - slowing the sugar intake. Let's see where this goes. Here's an article that I got from Thyme for Nutrition. I think it's from Tahiti.

How Much Sugar Do You Eat in a Day?

March 11th, 2008

As you mentally scroll through the day all the sweet foods come to mind: cookies, candy, desserts and soft drinks. But the answer lies much deeper. Sugar is in almost every manufactured food product. If you were to look in your cupboard or fridge right now you would be surprised by the places sugar in one form or another would show up. Here are just a few examples: mayo, relish, soy sauce and even canned vegetable soup! It is found in nearly all we eat.

It is believed that the average North American eats/drinks an average of 5 pounds of sugar a month which works out to 60 lbs of sugar a year!

The recommended amount of sugar we consume should be limited to 6 to 12 tsp a day. This limited amount of sugar seems impossible to adhere to given the amount of sugar in all the foods available to us. Here are several examples of food and beverages which show just how fast the sugar adds up in a day.

Fruit flavoured yogurt ¾ cup has 5 teaspoons of sugar.
Popular children’s cereals: 1 cup contains 2 to 5 teaspoons of sugar.
Two sandwich cookies (2 biscuits with a filling) are 3 to 5 teaspoons. The low fat version of the same cookies has the same amount of sugar.
Soft drinks such as colas have 10 teaspoons of sugar – basically your whole day’s allotment of sugar! Fruit flavored sweetened carbonated beverages that look so healthy contain anywhere from 7 to 11 tsp. of sugar depending how large they are.

To fully realize the effect of the amount of sugar you eat in a day try this experiment. You will need a colored plate or napkin, a teaspoon and sugar. Let’s say that for lunch you had a deli sandwich: 2 whole grain pieces of bread, 2 pieces of deli meat, mayonnaise and mustard, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce. Also included in your lunch bag is a ¾ cup container of strawberry yogurt and to top it off there are 2 sandwich style cookies (like Oreo’s, Maple Creams etc). To drink you have a glass of Mango Madness Juice Drink. It sounds pretty healthy especially compared to grabbing fast food fare. Let’s tally up the sugar amount. We know that one teaspoon equals 4 grams of sugar. A piece of whole grain bread is 4 grams of sugar so two pieces is 8 grams of sugar. Spoon 2 teaspoons onto your plate (or napkin). If we had decided to put relish and ketchup on your sandwich it would have been an extra 1 ½ teaspoons but we chose veggies instead. The yogurt has 5 teaspoons of sugar so go ahead and spoon out 5 teaspoons of sugar onto your plate. The 2 cookies are 3 to 5 teaspoons of sugar so spoon out 4 teaspoons of sugar onto your plate. The Mango Madness Juice drink has 27 grams of sugar for 8 oz. which is 6 ¾ teaspoons of sugar. Some of it will be natural sugars from the fruit so to compensate just add 4 teaspoons of sugar to your pile. Just look at the pile of sugar you consumed in just one lunch! Can you imagine sitting down to that plate of sugar and eating it? Can you imagine how much this pile increases on special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas?

Sugar comes in many forms on package food labels. Here are just a few of the more common names you will come across: white sugar (often known as table sugar or sucrose), cane sugar, brown sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey and maple syrup. The least processed sugars are the best for you. Honey and Maple Syrup are the most natural. But since they are still sugar, it is important to limit them in your daily diet.

Sugar can have quite an effect on your body. It causes rapid spikes in blood sugar levels which in turn causes higher energy and subsequent valleys or crashes when the sugar is absorbed leaving us tired. Our bodies then want to bring the energy level back up so it starts to crave sugar again and so goes the cycle. This can affect our immune system. Being aware of the amount of sugar in your food is the first step in improving your health. Another step is by choosing less processed foods. This gives you control of what you eat. In the earlier lunch example, the amount of sugar could have been cut down significantly by having plain yogurt and adding fruit. If you need a little sweetener a bit of liquid honey could be added. Real juice rather than juice drinks would have again brought the sugar level down. Single biscuits without the icing filling reduce the sugar even more. Cookies like gingersnaps or oatmeal with raisins have some nutritional value as well as taste good.

Preparing more food at home always has its benefits. Look for recipes and ideas in magazines and cookbooks. In most recipes the amount of sugar can be reduced by about one-third. To begin with, try reducing the sugar by one-quarter. The next time reduce it by one-third. By reducing it by increments you can determine when it has really made a change in the recipe. Often flavors that were overpowered by the sugar will begin to arise. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Money that would have normally been spent on desserts and other sugary items can now be put towards the natural sweetness more extravagant fruits that would have been passed by that offer better nutrition.

As you make sugar reduction part of your lifestyle, you will see positive changes.

Stress

Comment: Here's an article from Baby Fit that seems to fit a lot of people these days. It's well worth reading. Stress in our lives is a producer of poor health both to a parent and a child. This is an excellent reminder for me. During crazypause, I probably could have said I suffer from all ten of these. Now that I'm older and wiser, I'm probably getting over many of these and settling down. I'm once again eying my back yard.

10 High-Stress Personality Characteristics

Recognize Chronic Stress...Then Do Something About It!
-- By Mike Kramer, Staff Writer

10 High-Stress Personality Characteristics

Recognize Chronic Stress...Then Do Something About It!
-- By Mike Kramer, Staff Writer

Stress has been so ingrained in our days and in our culture, that we probably don’t even recognize it any more. We may believe that the general underlying sense of uneasiness we feel is normal and acceptable. Or we might blame the tension and stress we experience—in traffic, at work or at home—more on what’s happening “to” us than what’s happening “within” us.

The problem with this attitude is that it brings on a sense of helplessness, that there’s nothing we can do about stress other than cope. This thought alone is a source of stress, isn’t it?

When you realize that the stress you experience may have something to do with you, it helps you take control and start to solve the problem. Here are 10 personality traits that are symptoms of being highly stressed. Some are characteristics that, by their nature, add even more stress to your life. This list will help you recognize if you are highly stressed and give you ideas for doing something about it.

How many of these qualities do you exhibit?

1. Over-planning each day. Do you feel the need to stick to a strict schedule? Do you live in fear of falling behind or overlooking a task?
   
2. Doing several things at once. With too much to do and not enough time, it’s easy to think that “efficient” means doing everything at once. He who chases two rabbits catches neither.
   
3. Extreme need to win. Do you feel like a failure if you don’t come out on top—even when the only competition is your own expectations?
   
4. Excessive desire for advancement. Highly stressed people need confirmation from outside sources that they’re doing okay and performing well.
   
5. Inability to relax without feeling guilty. Do your weekends become opportunities for “accomplishment” and “getting something done.”
   
6. Impatience with delays. When you’re under pressure, everything in life takes on urgency and the additional burdens to get everything done as fast as possible.
   
7. Overcommittment. Are your chronically late or forgetful of commitments? Does your schedule cause problems in personal or professional relationships?
   
8. Chronic urgency. See #6. Now!
   
9. Highly competitive drive. Have you forgotten what it’s like to have fun for fun’s sake? Have you “grown up” so much that playtime actually causes you anxiety?
   
10. Compulsion to overwork. Is your office more familiar to you than your backyard? Do you find yourself missing out on what you might otherwise deem “meaningful”?

Family Fun in April

Just got this from Larry Caplan and I thought it would be fun for our families:

On Saturday and Sunday (19 and 20) the Vanderburgh 4H Center will be holding their Outdoor Living Expo (formerly the 4H Spring Roundup). There will be hundreds of outdoor products. There will be carnival rides for the kids ($10 bracelets let kids ride all day), workshops, horse rides, games, concessions, live entertainment, chain saw carving, a chili cook off, antique and tractor pulls and more. Entrance fee is only $2 per carload!

The Garden School Tattler

It's been a very calm week. Several of the children whose behavior has been rough have suddenly disappeared from school. They have either left or they have been asked to leave. As a school we've never done that before. We've always taken the hard cases, and we've always done our best by them.

Taking the hard cases is hard on everyone. It teaches everyone patience, and it teaches compassion, but it ultimately gets in the way of teaching. The enormity of the teaching work load is enough to handle without having to do this in an unfriendly environment. When children refuse to learn as a habit, as a regular mode of conduct, they need more than a teaching environment. They need to be re-established in the home. Something obviously didn't work, and they need to go back into the home and begin again. But often the home is not suitable for teaching or for learning.

Learning is not something that should take coaxing. Learning should be a delight. When you see a child suspicious of learning, it's heartbreaking. When a child of four has emotional walls thick as Kenilworth Castle a teacher will struggle impart even the simplest concepts. And then, it's all undone at home. A child who learns love and affection at home is not going to come to school with a set of emotional castle walls, but a child who learns to struggle for his very emotional life at home is going to come to school with his crenels and merlins in fighting mode. No matter what, he will refuse to accept what the adult in charge has to say.

So where does the tough case go? Unfortunately, there are few places that will struggle through a difficult child simply because there is no parental support, and parental support is the most important tool teachers have.

In the years the Garden School has taken difficult children, our success rate is always based on the cooperation of the parent. When the parent refuses to support our teachers, there is no success at all.

One of the things we try to do is to meet every parent every day. This is an important part of school family interaction. That way we can keep up with problems kids might be having at home. Knowing that a child's dog died, or that grandma is visiting from another state, or that a child is moving or parents are splitting up will take a real toll on a child. It's so helpful when we know that a household has been upset by something, because it explains why a child might be having difficulty. This way, school and teachers can help a child through a hard time, and behavior for a time can be overlooked.

The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize that families and schools need to bond for the sake of the children. This is why parties and programs are so important. Recreational time is a time when people can get to know one another.

Blessings on everyone today.

Traveling Children

Comment: Here's a new product for those parents who will be traveling or whose children will be traveling. It's worth looking at.

Launched in February 2008, Forms4Parents.com addresses the need to provide security for children and peace of mind for parents and guardians alike when traveling.
Created by mother and attorney Linda Kagan, Forms4Parents.com allows parents to customize consent forms to their unique family situation and specify custodial authority, medical authorizations, and emergency and insurance information.
Forms are separated individually by category or as packages such as Traveling Parents; Babysitter or Relatives Caring for Baby, Toddler or Children; Traveling Children & Teenagers (Domestic & International Travel); and Americans Living Abroad. Individual forms start at $16.95 and packages start at $34.95.

Tee Shirts!

Comment: I got this nice note from Melissa from a place called FoodTee. It's right up my alley and I thought readers might find it fun as well. The tee shirt says - Look before you eat! That's a dough nut.


Hey Judy, not sure if you cover this, or which stories you're working on in the next few months, but I thought you would find these new healthy living products cute, creative, and stylish—they're FoodTees. And new to Market are tank tops, yoga bags, and more than 15 new designs. FoodTee products are designed to let people express their unique healthy living values with food images and entertaining sayings that are available on shirts for adults, children and toddlers, as well as on baby organic onesies, totes, aprons and yoga bags. Some of our most popular images are Here.

Omega 3s

Comment:

Susan sent this and it's really quite interesting. Every day we work on giving the children the best diet we can. I often wonder if parents realize how involved this is. When children eat a major portion of what they eat at school, I think it's important to feed them well.

Watch this video. It's really interesting: