Let's try this again...

So today is day 7,958 of our COVID-19 quarantine...Ok, it's really only been 34 days, but I swear they're the longest days in the history of human life.  I was "laid-off" from my beloved job a little over a month ago and the girls haven't been to school in about a month and a half.  Our schedule during the week is really going well, it helps keep us all sane, but then on the weekends, when we try to go "schedule-free", all bets are off. The girls are cranky, and they argue and they yell (which makes me cranky, too).  And I just try to get through the day without ending up on the news.

Today, though, I decided we needed an adventure.  I love going out and not having a destination in mind.  Josh does not find that enjoyable, so it's perfect for today, when he's at work.  I thought maybe we'd go hiking, but I didn't know where.  To be honest, in the almost 6 years we've lived her we haven't really explored much.  So, I knew I didn't want to go to the same place(s) we also go, but I didn't know where.  SO we got in the car, got me coffee, the necessary fuel for any open-ended adventure, and started on our way.

I knew there was a park out in Hockinson we'd been to once or twice that I thought might have trails, so we headed that way.  I had a general idea of how to get there, but it snuck up on me and we drove right past it.  So, we just kept going.  We took the next "major" looking road and that brought us into Brush Prairie.  So, from there I thought we could go to Lewisville Park or Battleground Lake.  The turn to Battleground Lake came first, so we followed it.  At the end of the road, the park was closed.  It was at a T in the road, and if we turned right we would be on the Clark County North Scenic Drive, so we turned right.

I had never even heard of this drive and had no idea where it would lead us, but we had a full tank of gas, full bellies from our McDonald's stop and all the time in the world.  So, why not?

We drove for a while and got to Moulton Falls.  I thought that would be a great place to stop and wander for a bit, but there was no parking, even in the "overflow" (way to quarantine, Clark County)! So we kept going.  A short while later, Zoey said she needed to pee and was ready to go home.  We had just gone through Yacolt and Amboy, which both had spots we could have stopped, but of course she waited until we were back in the middle of nowhere.  So, when we came to Cedar Creek Grist Mill we pulled in and miraculously found a place to park.

The mill is on the west side of an adorable covered bridge and has a cool old building and a couple little trails.  We didn't explore much though, since the primary objective at his point was to find a toilet for Zoey (and this place was not secluded enough for a forest pit stop).  I did take the only pictures of our journey however before we continued on.

Eventually, we made it into LaCenter.  We were at this strange intersection/traffic circle with casinos on every side when I saw a couple gas stations.  So we stopped and got snacks and took a potty break.

Back on the road, only to discover that LaCenter and Ridgefield are not very far apart! We had made it to what we thought was the end (Lily looked up the route we were on to see where we were going), so we got on the freeway and headed for home.

It was only after we got home that I pulled up the map of route and realized we missed a whole section that would've completed the circle and brought us back to Battleground, where our adventure had begun.  So, this adventure will have to be completed on another day...maybe tomorrow..maybe next weekend.  All I know is that this was the first time in at least 34 days that my children have been together for more than 20 minutes without someone screaming or whining or crying and I loved every minute of it!

Trauma Informed Care or Re-victimization?

As I was driving to work this morning, I had a thought; in the last year and a half most of the Professional Development training we have been to has focused around "Trauma Informed Care" and "Adverse Childhood Experiences" or ACE's.  Now, while it is important to understand how trauma effects young children and the lifelong effects this trauma can have, I feel like we are beginning to take it too far.

I am the director of a state-funded preschool program for low-income high-risk families.  Most, if not all of the families in our program have some degree of trauma in their young lives.  When we think about the behaviors we see are we viewing them as typical preschool behaviors, effected by their life experiences or do we just see these children as victims of circumstance.  When I enter a new classroom and am immediately told all the challenging aspects of a child's behavior and none of the amazing things they can do, what should I do with that information. 

While I agree that we should consider the backgrounds our kids come from, we also need to consider what that information means.  Does it mean we treat them differently, or their parents?  Does it mean that if you tell me this child comes from a home with abuse, homelessness or an incarcerated parent that I know that doing steps A, B, and C will fix the issues this child is having class? 

No, there is not one fix for any behavior, typical or not.  Every child is affected by their ACE's differently based on their own personal resiliency and temperament.  What works for one child doesn't work for another, ACE's or not.  So, I wonder, if we are trying to come from a "Strengths-based" approach to learning and teaching, how then does focusing on what is wrong in the child's life help them?

What would happen if we made posters of each child with all the amazing things about them and hung them around the room for everyone to see and remember, even when things get tough.  Is it easier to "handle" a tough situation when you remember that this child is talented, smart, caring and just might need a little extra love?  I think it is.  I think that by connecting to these children on a human level, and putting their past and their circumstances aside it is easier to be compassionate and really get to the heart of the situation.

Just because they're having a bad day doesn't necessarily connect to their past traumas.  Everyone is entitled to have a bad day.  It is our job as Early Childhood Educators to help them thrive, even when thy're just not feeling it that day, that moment.  If I am truly a compassionate human being, like I strive to be, then it shouldn't matter where you came from, what your family is like or what even what just occurred.  Compassion should be unconditional and given equally and fully.  I think taht is the best way to combat the ill effects of ACE's.

Park 2 - Wy'East Park

Up next in our adventuring was Wy'East Park.  Also not far from home, this park shares it's fields with Wy'East Middle School.  First off, the parking sucks.  You have to park on the street (which is a main road, lots of traffic) and then it's a short walk around the corner to the play area.  There is a sign reminding you to clean up after your pets, but no doggie bags, like most parks have available.

This is also an older, small playground consisting of 3 playstructures.

This is actually 2 structures, not connected... for the bigger kids.

And this is the structure for the little ones.  The posts are missing the balance beam that would be across them, normally.

Zoey didn't really enjoy either of the smaller structures, being my cautious child.  She would only play if Lily was with her and only went down the slide once.  She had much more fun picking dandelions in the grass.

We probably won't go to this park again, but at least we know why!

Park 1 - Bella Vista Park

We decided to start our challenge close to home.  Bella Vista Park is located just around the corner from our apartments.  We walked there once or twice last summer, but Zoey was really too young to play yet.

But not this year!  Sadly, my picture of the small play structure disappeared, but she loved it.

Lily enjoyed playing on the bigger structure as well...

But she moves to fast to be in pictures, usually.

This is a small park, with just the two play structures and a huge field of grass.  It's great because it's close to home, but could do with some updating as the wood is weathered and the girls were done playing quickly.

The Great Park Challenge - Vancouver Style

Inspired by my good friend, Reanna, in her quest to explore all the parks in Bend this spring/summer with her family, I decided we would do the same and visit all the parks in Vancouver by the time school starts again in September. Not only will this keep us on our toes, but we'll never get bored with going to the same old park.  Plus, what a great way to get to see parts of Vancouver we still haven't seen in the almost 10 months since we moved here!

So, here's the list we'll be following, in no particular order:

http://www.cityofvancouver.us/parksites?keys=&neighborhood=All&amenities=96

66 Parks in  22 weeks.  Wish us luck!

20 Costco Meals for $150

I decided to write this more as a journal entry than a flowing "article", so sorry if it feels choppy. I'm copying my "in the moment" thoughts from Facebook, so they might be familiar to some people...  


1/12/14
Ok, we did it. We bought the stuff for the 20 Costco meals for $150. Had to get a few things at Grocery Outlet, and next time will probably go there first to save a little more, but I meal planned it out and that will give us dinners through February 1. Probably longer cause some days we do other stuff for dinner...

In prepping to make it all, I'm finding it's not as organized or clear as I'd like. But once I go through it all once I'll figure it all out. I'm thinking I'm going to make a spreadsheet with my actual costs as a lot of the Costco prices she has differ from ours (she's in TX). The biggest was mangoes. She has them for like $6 for a box and they were like $11 at our Costco. I ended up getting 5 at Safeway for $1 each (the list says you need 8-9, but I figure we will just use a little less since some of them are as sides).

One meal is quinoa with corn and beans, and Josh doesn't like quinoa or beans, so I'm doing rice and hominy instead. But, without the quinoa it doesn't have protein, so I will have to add something...  

1/13/14
PHEW! Just over an hour and I have prepped 9 meals, including dinner for tonight in the crockpot. There are 6 of the meals (grilled chicken & mango salsa, Potato & egg breakfast tacos, & Quinoa with corn & black beans) that you can't really do much prep for. But I'm going to try to at least pre-chop stuff for them this evening...

It's really about finding the flow and a system within the sort of chaos of her blog. They're all super basic recipes, too. And that's nice for the less adventurous in my family... So here's what I did today:

I started with Italian Chicken.  
I froze one and we had one for dinner.

I used my trifle bowl to hold 

the baggies as I filled them.

Next I did the Beef Stew. 
It was very similar to the Italian Chicken...

 I don't like touching raw meat, so 

I used a sandwich baggie as a glove.

I did the beef stirfry next since I was using the stew meat.  I cut the cubes into slices (which isn't mentioned in the recipe).

Her recipe calls for frozen broccoli, julienned baby carrots and sliced onions.  We couldn't find the broccoli, so we bought this.  It has the carrots and onions (and other veggies in it) and cost the same.  I have 1/2 a bag left, too.

I had about 1lb of stew meat left after making the 2 Beef Stews and 2 Beef Stirfry, so I split it up and will use it with the "quinoa" meal I mentioned earlier.

Then, I moved on to the ground beef.  I made a double batch of the spaghetti sauce and froze them both (in bags).  I didn't take a picture, cause it's spaghetti sauce.  I made 2 batches of meatballs and froze them as well.  The meatballs stick to the pans a bit when you flash freeze them, so next time I'll use parchment.

There was a little more than a lb of ground beef left, so I made 5 patties.  We'll use those for hamburger and gravy with mashed potatoes I'm going to make and freeze tomorrow.

I prepped the Chicken Parmesan next.  She says to freeze it with the sauce, but that seems like it would get soggy, so I'm not doing that.

We couldn't find the chicken she was talking about, plus we wanted organic, so we only got 1/2 of the chicken the list calls for.  I had 1lb of frozen chicken left (from before), so that's defrosting to make this for dinner tomorrow.  I'll get the other 2lbs of chicken later this week for the grilled chicken.

 

The last thing I did was bag up the dinner rolls and labeled them by meal.  It calls for 36 rolls, but we actually ended up 4 short based on which meals she said they go with, but I figure we'll just buy a fresh loaf of bread or do something else as a side to make it up when the time comes.

Anyway, it was a lot easier to prep everything by meat type.  As I finished one package of meat I moved on to the next.  It really didn't take that long.  I had to buy Italian Seasoning (you use a lot) and breadcrumbs and I was missing garlic for a couple recipes.  I marked on the bag how much garlic to add when I cook it.  I figure that's easy enough to add in at the last minute.

I'll add reviews of the recipes as we eat them (tonight's will be up tomorrow)....

When Life Takes Over

It's two weeks until Christmas, and my how our lives have changed since my last post. I finished my degree a year and a half ago and opened my own preschool. Two goals in 2 short months. BAM! Then, shortly after graduating, I decided it was time for another baby. I got the hubby on board and 2 months later we were pregnant. BAM! The next 10 months were a blur. I worked 25 hours a week at the preschool, Lily was in full time kindergarten and I was pregnant. I felt sick a lot, I had heartburn, Braxton-Hicks, dizzy spells, you name it. I was due July 3, and my doctor was concerned that our second little girl would be bigger than Lily was (9lbs). So, the decision was made to induce me a week early. Tuesday, June 26 was chosen because I would be exactly 39 weeks and it was her on-call day. I agreed, and scheduled the appointment with her nurse for the 26th at noon. I was instructed to call the Family Birthing Center the night before and check-in. When I called on Monday, they bumped my time up to 9am. 6am on Tuesday, we woke up and started our day. Finished packing our bags, and went out to breakfast. We got to the hospital right at 9 and started the admit process. 40 minutes later we were all checked in. Then we got word that Dr. Ahmed had to do an emergency c-section, so we just waited…and waited…and waited… At 12:47, Dr. Ahmed arrived to break my water. 1 quick poke and a LARGE gush and we were on our way! I sat for about an hour with monitors on, and was then allowed to walk for 15 minutes, be monitored, walk for 15, etc. About 5pm Dr. Ahmed returned to check my cervix. I had dilated to about 3.5, so she said she’d give me 2 more hours and then if there was little progress we would start Pitocin. 7pm, she came in and did my check, I was about 3.5-4, so she said we’d start the Pitocin but first she wanted to do a quick ultrasound to check Zoey’s position. Low and behold in the two hours that had elapsed, Zoey had turned sideways and was now transverse. I would need a c-section. The efficiency and speed the OR team worked at was nothing short of precise. By 7:38 we were in the OR and I was being prepped for surgery. I was given a spinal block and morphine. My blood pressure dropped, so the anesthesiologist lowered my head and gave me something to perk it back up. I felt better within minutes. My mom and Josh were lead in and they started. I was numbed from about the chest down, which was a very weird sensation to say the least. I was laying on a gurney with my arms outstretched on each side, loosely strapped down to remind me not to “try to help”. I felt nothing but pressure and tugging. At some points it felt like I was being pushed through the gurney. Finally, at 7:55, Zoey was pulled out. Josh stood up, and took about a half dozen pictures of her coming out. I was given a sedative and passed out. A short while later I jolted awake, still in the OR and realized I had been asleep. I was then wheeled back into the birthing room where my mom, Josh, Lily and Josh’s grandma were waiting with Zoey. She was measured while I was being stitched up, and weighed in at a nice 8lbs 4oz (about 1/2lb less than Lily) and 21.5” long (the same as Lily). Almost 6 months later, I feel like I'm finally out of the fog of the last year. It's amazing the difference 6 years makes when it comes to being pregnant. I felt like all of my creativity and energy had been drained out of me and it's finally coming back. I have ideas flooding back in my head and I have big plans for my preschool and the energy to follow through! Another plan is to pick this back up. It's nice to have a creative outlet.