Teachers With Children Vs. Those Without

Now that the new school year is well underway, I want to pose a question:

Do you notice a difference between teachers who are parents and those who aren't?  I've talked to other moms about this and in general, I've observed that teachers with children, especially those who are grown, seem to be more understanding, patient and flexible than those that don't or whose children are too young to be in school yet.  For example, teachers with children tend to be more patient when children are acting up in class and they tend to resolve the issues more often themselves without getting the parents or principal involved.  They also seem to understand the struggles parents face regarding homework issues, sleep issues and discipline issues more keenly.

I'm not saying you have to be a parent to be a good teacher - there are many caring, motivated teachers out there without their own children.  But in general, it seems that a teacher who has years of parenting experience just has a more well-rounded view.

What's your opinion? Have you found this to be true?

We Have A Puppy ...

and this is what happens when one of us forgets to close the bathroom door. Our puppy LOVES going through the trash basket, and the laundry hamper for that matter. I have tried to teach the hubby and the boys to close all bathroom and closet doors. When someone forgets, this is what happens. But this is not all. He then proceeds to take whatever he has in his mouth and go under one of the beds or sofas. So I periodically have to look under all beds and sofas and clean up whatever gunk he's taken under there. Ah, the pleasures of owning a pet!

Kitchen Counter Organized (finally)

Before

After

OK - the kitchen counter is finally organized!! Woo Hoo!! The "before" shot doesn't actually look as bad as it was. There was a pile of paperwork and mail that had to be sorted under the present. Also, the spice rack was overflowing with items so I needed to go through and throw out some spices that were too old or I just was never going to use.

Organizing the counter took a lot longer than I expected. There were a few things that were going on that held me up. First, good friends of ours moved out of the country, back home to the Netherlands (boo hoo). They brought over 3 boxes full of pantry and fridge items in case I could use them. So in the middle of my organizing project, I get handed more stuff! I appreciated that they were thinking of us but it did take awhile to sort through everything and then figure out where to put items we were keeping. You should have seen the kitchen counter during that process :}

Once I sorted through all their food, I decided to give any we weren't keeping to a local food bank. I decided this would be a good time to go through my pantry and add some items. So I was able to do some organizing of our pantry, although not completely.

Then, I needed to finalize some upcoming vacation plans so we would have a place to stay. I get really into planning for vacations and love reading travel books about the area and looking on the web so this took a lot of time. I got it done, though, and I've got to say, we got some great deals! I learned that it pays to not only look on the web for deals but to call the actual properties, too.

Finally, we had conferences with both my sons' teachers last week. My sons go to year-round school so it was conference time. That always takes up a chunk of time. So there were a few things that slowed me down during this part of my organizing project.

But I love the way the kitchen counter looks now, and so does my husband. I learned a few things during this process. First, I need an "office" area in my kitchen because I need these items on a daily basis. So I set it up in the right-hand corner. The trick is to keep it organized so it doesn't overflow to the rest of the counter. Second, I need an area where I can stash mail and paperwork that I need to work on during the week. I want it out of sight or it looks too messy, but there was nowhere to put it. So I cleared out one of our drawers so I can stash these items there. The biggest challenge of that will be to make sure it's not "out of sight, out of mind" - I need to regularly look through that drawer. Finally, the mail and the boys' schoolwork really piles up quickly and I need to tackle that on a daily basis to not get overwhelmed, which is sometimes hard to do when things get crazy.

Now I'm going to work on our living room. A lot of items (books, toys, etc.) get piled up on side tables and a chest. I want these to look streamlined and get everything to its proper place. On to the next project...

Trying To Teach My Kids To Be Less Materialistic and More Grateful

This is a topic I've been struggling with for awhile and have talked to a lot of other moms about. My sons, like many other children, always want more stuff. They always want new lego sets, new DS games, new whatever they see on TV or hear about through their friends. It gets so bad that sometimes they want to go to the store to buy a new toy a week after they have received one. My husband and I have talked extensively about this and feel that they don't value enough what they do have. They are developing a sense of entitlement that is becomming troubling. We don't want them to grow up feeling entitled to get anything they want when they want it. We want them to be grateful for what they do have and not take it for granted. We also want to teach them that their comfortable lives are not what everyone experiences.

Like many parents, we always wanted to give our children many opportunities. We focused mainly on giving them experiences that would enrich them and also to introduce them to different activities so they could decide what their interests were. They have tried all kinds of sports and activities like soccer, tennis, swimming, softball, basketball, tae kwon do, guitar lessons, cello lessons, violin lessons, acting lessons, etc. We've also tried to broaden their horizons with different trips like taking them skiing, river rafting, going to Yosemite, Hawaii, the desert, etc. In addition to all of this, they have a number of aunts, uncles and grandparents who have always been very generous with them for holidays and birthdays.

My husband and I have talked to the boys about how fortunate they are and the fact that not everyone is so fortunate. I feel,though, that it goes in one ear and out the other - it just doesn't sink in. So I've been thinking about what I could do to try to SHOW the boys what we are trying to teach them. I remember visiting orphanages near Tiujana, Mexico when I was 13. That trip changed my view of the world and left a deep impression on me. However, I'm not willing to take my sons down to Mexico to show them extreme poverty because of the current dangers. Trying to show them images of poverty, like on TV or the internet, doesn't get through because they can't really relate to it. I realized that there are examples of people struggling to get by in our own community and if I could show this to my sons, hopefully they can relate to it better. So I decided that we would donate food to a local food bank in our city that serves about 500 families per month.

I collected a box of food, then brought the boys with me to the food bank. I explained to them that some families don't have enough money to eat three meals a day, even in our community, which is in an affluent area. I talked to the boys about how they would feel if they couldn't eat three meals a day, let alone having snacks. Then when we dropped the food off, I asked if we could look through the warehouse so they could really get a feel for how they were collecting and distributing food to needy families. One of the most impressionable sights we saw were shopping carts that the families come to get. They can come once per month and the cart has a box and a couple of bags of food and one bread item. As we went home, we talked about how that was not a lot of food for a family for a month.

I think actually seeing everything helped make these ideas sink in. Only time will tell. It was definitely very different than just bringing in canned goods to school during food drives. That's a very useful thing to do, mind you, but there isn't much of an emotional tie to it. To see what these families are actually getting and to see that some of the shelves of the food bank are getting low on food really brings home the point that there is a real need right in our backyard.

Have any of you done anything to try to teach your children to be grateful for what they have? What have you tried and was it successful? It would be nice to get some other ideas.

Week 3

I did OK with my goals for Week 3, but not wonderful. I tried to get an electrician to our house that was referred by a neighbor, but the phone number is no longer in use. So that didn't work. Then I looked in the yellow pages but I really hate that because it just seems like you're picking someone blindly. So I hemmed and hawed and ended up not getting anyone over. However, maybe it will work out OK because some new neighbors just moved in today and they seem nice and he's a contractor. So maybe we'll get to know them better and I can see if he knows of an electrician. At least we can go for awhile without a light in our bedroom closet. It's a nuisance, but manageable.

Another goal I had was to clear the clutter on my kitchen counter. I did some of it and went through most of the immediate clutter. However, I was surprised at how I resisted completing this. I kept having other tasks to do but if I'm honest with myself, I didn't want to keep going to the point of finishing this project because I'm not sure what to do with everything. I'm afraid it's going to become more of a mess before it gets better as I try to spread everything out to figure out where it should really go. I'm also afraid this will really take a large chunk of time. So I have more to do on this and I need to push myself through my mental block - I get tired just thinking of it.

The last goal I had was to exercise 5 days. Well I made it for 4, so that was pretty good. It was a hot week last week and I lose motivation to work out, even in the morning, when I'm starting to feel too hot. Last week it seems I was feeling hot most of the time.

I also ended up planning a vacation our family is going to take in a couple of months. I looked on the internet but wanted more information so I ended up at Barnes and Noble looking through travel books. I really enjoy doing this and get really into it when I'm planning a vacation. However, before I know it, I've been there for a couple of hours because I get so caught up. I did end up securing a reservation at a hotel that usually gets booked up to 13 months in advance, so I felt I really accomplished something there.

For this week, good friends of our family are moving back to Holland (boo hoo) so I feel a little sidetracked. We're trying to see them as much as possible before they leave and we keep having their son over so he can play with our sons a lot. I'll still try to get some organizing done, but my focus isn't as sharp this week.

So the good and bad for last week -

Good -
Went through most of the clutter on the kitchen sink
Exercised 4 days
Secured a difficult hotel reservation for an upcoming vacation

Bad -
Didn't get electrician out, but I'm going to table this for a bit
Didn't finish the clutter-busting kitchen counter project

Goals for Week 4 -
Spend as much time as possible with our Dutch friends
Finish kitchen counter project
Keep planning the rest of our vacation (will need to figure out where we're staying at another city)
Exercise 5 days
Pay bills

Week 2

My focus for Week 2 was to get the following repair people out to our house: plumber, air conditioning repair person and an electrician. I got two out of three: the plumber and the air conditioning person. The plumber came 1st and he took apart the faucet in our master bathroom to see what needed to be done to fix the leak. He told me the repairs would cost $225. That sounded really expensive to me for a faucet leak. When I asked him if there was a warranty, he replied that there was for 90 days. So I'm going to pay $225 for a repair with a 90-day warranty?! I think not!! If the faucet starts leaking in 91 days, I'm out of luck. So I'm going to look around and get other estimates. I asked my husband to ask people at work if anyone has a plumber they like. Funny thing is, ever since he came and took the faucet apart then put it back together, the leak has been much better. In fact, some days, it doesn't even leak at all. So I guess I'll hold off for now on the plumber.

The air conditioning repairman came later that day. He was referred to me by my neighbor. He was an odd guy. He said the unit needed freon and that our filters were fine. He said he couldn't guarantee that the motor wouldn't just die at some point and we would need to replace it and maybe the compressor. He said if that happens, we should replace the parts of the old unit because installing new units now are extremely cost-prohibitive because there are a bunch of new regulations that went into effect as of January 1st. Now you have to replace the whole heating/air conditioning system and pay for various inspections to make sure it's done right. Anyway, I've got the air conditioner on right now and it's working so-so. Air is coming out but it's not as cold as I would expect.

I didn't get the electrician out so I'm going to work on that this week. I'm also going to work on clearing out the clutter on our kitchen counter. One of the problems is that I don't have a place to put some of the paperwork that I have stored there. So I'm just going to find a temporary home for it until I get into this project enough to clean an area in the office to store paperwork like it.

I did unexpectedly clear out some of the clutter near my bed so that was good. I just started working on it one day and decided I better finish so I feel I accomplished one "clutter-busting" activity. So I'm proud about that. One thing that got sidelined last week was my exercise. I only exercised three days instead of five, so that wasn't good. Each day I at least walked our puppy. However, walking the puppy entails a lot of stopping, so it can hardly be considered cardio. At least I'm moving a bit.

So here's the good and bad for week 2:

Good -
Bathroom leak is at least temporarily doing better
Air conditioning is working somewhat
Cleared out clutter near my bed
Saved $65 (about 35% of the total) when I did my main grocery shopping trip

Bad -
Didn't get electrician out last week
Don't know if bathroom leak and air conditioning will stay OK or if these are just temporary fixes that I'll have to deal with later
Only exercised 3 out of 5 days

Week 3 Goals -
Get electrician out
Tackle clutter on kitchen counter
Exercise 5 days