We’ve been away 3 weeks. I’ve never been more anxious to sleep in my own bed. But first, a recap:
Michigan:
Chicago and BlogHer ’09:
West Virginia:
Help A Charter School Out?
July 6, 2009 by 9 Comments
As many of you know, we have enrolled our son in our area’s very 1st charter school. As many of you also know, California is broke.
Any and all help is appreciated.
School Needs
A key part of SCVi‘s mission is to impart our students with 21st century skills. In order to do that, we need state-of-the-art equipment. With the current economy crisis and state budget, we need donations now more than ever.
Donations to SCVi are always tax deductible. We operate as a 501c3 nonprofit organization and will gladly provide a letter for the IRS with our Tax ID number.
Technology Needs
Alarm/security system
90 laptops and/or desktop computers–PC & Mac
35-55 Kindles
Core Networking Hardware
Data-switching hardware. Supports Layer 3, VLAN & Q.S. P.E. would be very nice but not necessary.
96+ Ports North Side
72+ Ports South Side
Six 802.11 abg wireless access points
Router with dual ethernet capable of 5+ Mbps IP connection and VPN (Cisco 2811 or better)
Firewall capable of 5 mbps connection
Web filter
Power over ethernet injector for phones, security, and 802.11 wireless
Phone System (VoIP preferred but not required)
Supports 8+ external telephone lines
24+ handsets
Voice mail, 4 ports
Overhead page system
Amplifier
30+ speakers
66 blocks
Rack & Cable
2 computer racks, 1 for each side of the building (½ rack or bigger)
Patch panel
Cat 5 or better (match Keystone jacks)
96 Port for north side
72 Port for south side
200+ Keystone type Cat5 jacks (match patch panel)
24+ Keystone type Cat3 jacks
Estimated 300 wall plates (need to count actual existing wall boxes)
LOTS of Cat 5 or better cable: 25,000+ feet, depending on wired drops
Ethernet cable tester (borrow)
Tone generator & probe (borrow)
Punch down tools
Cable pulling tools (push/pull rods, fish tapes, and so on)
Labor Needs
Framers
HVAC experts
Electricians
Running cable
Drywall experts
Painters
Movers
Technical engineer to configure network hardware, likely Cisco CCNA, CCNP or CCIE.
School & Office Furniture Needs
Trapezoid tables
Library shelves
Teacher desks
Medium-sized student chairs
Small-group tables
Bulletin boards
Whiteboards
ELMOS
Projectors
Carts for overhead projectors and/or LCD projectors
Student cubbies
Medium-sized copier
Laminator
Book binder
Office desks
File cabinets
Counter-height science lab desks
Stools
P.E. Equipment Needs
Basketball hoops
Volleyball net and equipment
Tether ball stands
Jump ropes
Tricycles
Curriculum Needs
SCVi is building its Home Study curriculum library. To anyone who has curriculum not being used and would like to see it put to use, we welcome it.
Additionally, we are building our science lab. Any and all science-related donations are welcomed.
Music & Art Needs
SCVi is building its music and art programs. All instruments and art supplies are welcomed.
Main Phone (661) 705-4820
eFax/Voicemail (661) 362-8066
www.scvcharterschool.org
office@scvcharterschool.org
Sounding It Out
June 17, 2009 by 15 Comments
I love to read.*
When I am able, I will devour a book whole in a night or two, ignoring everything around me and losing myself inside the pages.
My son is now reading, and I want him to love every word. I want him to realize how amazing it can be to escape into a book and enjoy a story so much you read it again and again and again.
I worry though, because at this point, reading seems to be a chore for him. It’s starting to become enjoyable as his comprehension grows and the struggle of ‘sounding it out’ doesn’t cloud the magic of the words.
He’s mostly clouded now. The mechanics of reading pain him more than the words entertain him.
I realize he will grow in the process, and maybe I am just overly-anxious because I understand what is just around the bend.
But there is no guarantee he will love to read. He might, he might not. His sister might, she might not. My visions of sharing with them my first copy of Catcher in the Rye or Little Women may fall on deaf ears.
Or maybe, if we continue to practice, he’ll get over that hump and find that section somewhere in the library or bookstore where he begs me to bring home everything on the shelf.
A Mom can hope.
*this post was inspired after reading 13-year old RJ’s blog this morning. I hope my kids read and write with the passion shown by this young woman.
Edit
June 9, 2009 by 9 Comments
Sometimes I think I just pound away at the keyboard for lack of knowing what else to do. Rarely does it turn into a solid solution, but it does lead me to one, or helps get me there, eventually.
It’s been that way for me for as long as I can remember. Diaries when I was young. I think one even had a rainbow and a unicorn on the front cover.
Journals as I grew older and more snobbish about where I put my words.
Then Word docs. And the assorted, random, reporter’s notepad.
Now blog posts.
I made a conscience decision that the world could see these blog posts, never realizing how many people lived in that world. That was never the case with my diaries, my journals, my scribbles on a notepad.
A best friend may have gotten a peek. The boy I liked. Eventually the men I loved.
So today, as I sit to write, tempted to pound on these keys like so many times before I find myself at a loss.
YOU are reading. And I am suddenly aware.
Of course I have always been aware, but now…
I write for myself. I write for you. Mostly I just write and rarely do I think. That’s the beauty of how this space helps me.
Occasionally I’ve left a few stories out. I can think of two times I purposefully stopped myself from blogging a particular event or issue.
But today…right now, is the first time I have every want and need to slam my words onto the page and I am keenly aware I can’t.
I can’t.
It’s not because of work or because of ramifications or because of what you might think or what I might say. After all it’s just a story about my day and my life and my loves.
It’s because QueenofSpain has a life of her own and it’s been tangled and twisted and it’s no longer mine alone.
Of course all this means is…I will tell you tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Because you are my support system to a degree and my community of friends. However RIGHT NOW I feel like your eyes are on me and they are burning a hole in the back of my head. My ears are burning. Red hot.
And as much as I love to share my life with you, and as much as I love to hear about yours…some things you just don’t get to know.
So tonight I’m pounding away at they keyboard in my head. And eventually it will reach my fingertips and onto this page.
My son shall grow up to be a wussy Mama’s boy and it’s all my fault
June 1, 2009 by 23 Comments
My son can be sensitive.
He loves his mom. Anything that involves blood or death upsets him, and you better not touch his lego creations (that include 6 armed robots who are his best friend AND evil ships with aliens) or he will crumble into a million pieces and weep for their dismantling.
So I wasn’t surprised when he quizzed me about what is next in his life, mainly, Kindergarten ending.
Well honey we talked about this. After Kindergarten comes 1st grade.
…and then what Mom.
Then comes 2nd grade. And then 3rd grade.
And then 4th grade and 5th grade mom?
Yes honey. You got it.
So what happens when the grades are done?
Well then you get to go away to college sweetie. You get to live there, and be with your friends, it’s SO MUCH FUN.
Dead Silence.
Uncomfortable sighs.
Heaves.
SOBS.
Full-on hysterical crying.
Yes, my son was losing it over something 12 grades from now, and with good reason.
…but, but…Mom…I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE YOU EVER.
awww honey, you don’t ever have to go, it’s ok. Really sweetie calm down it’s ok. But trust me you’ll want to go. I know you don’t feel that way now, but when you’re older and as big as Drew (our good friend’s son who’s 17) you might want to be with your friends more than your Mom.
NO I WON’T! DON’T TELL ME THOSE THINGS! I WANT YOU MOMMY!
Oh honey. It’s ok. It’s ok. (hysterical sobs continue, tears EVERYWHERE) you can stay home. You can stay home as long as you like. Really. You know where we go to the Farmer’s Market? That’s a college! You can go right there to college and live here and never leave!
And then I realized what I had just said. And caught myself.
But promise me you’ll think about living away. Because you need to try things in life. Remember how you thought you hated salmon? And you tried salmon and now you love it? That might be what college is like!
No Mom. Not unless you come.
Ok honey. I can come to college.
Yes, in one tiny, bedtime exchange I promised my son that not only could he stay home from college but if he decided he wanted to go…I would go with him.
#fail.
Of Dining Halls And Grandmothers
May 20, 2009 by 9 Comments
I lost both of my grandmothers when I was fairly young. I remember bits and pieces of them, sometimes in a flash of clarity and sometimes in a foggy haze.
I can tell you my maternal grandmother has to be where I got my drive. I remember sitting in her office in a muggy Florida strip mall, begging for $2 to walk down to the gift shop and buy some horrendous shell man or orange bobble head. She would make me file a paper or empty her trash before I had ‘earned’ enough for my souvenirs. She owned that business and ran it. An entire sanitation company. Women owned business were rare then. Still are.
She loved the dog track, and Jai alai, and her lotto numbers.
I also can remember the mass of pill bottles on her dresser. And how we weren’t allowed in her room, ever, unsupervised.
My paternal grandmother was very different. She would allow my cousin and I to sleep in her bed when visiting. We’d giggle as she undressed in front of us (I clearly got my boobs from this grandma) and then she would crawl in between us, as I do now with my children, and sing. She would sing to us songs I can still hear in my head when laying in bed at night.
She would make us necklaces out of bubble gum wrappers and later, after a stroke, smile as big as the sun when we’d enter her nursing home bedroom. I remembered how my grandfather did, and still does, adore her and how he’s never been the same since her death. He just wants to join her.
Yesterday, as I went to vote in California’s special election, I saw many grandmothers and felt an ache.
My polling place was a senior center and I arrived at lunchtime. The dining hall was packed with what seemed to be, mostly, women. I felt myself staring. Wondering what my grandmothers would be like now. What sort of relationship we would have. If they would be proud of me.
I also wondered why there seemed to be so few visitors. Maybe I was imagining things. For several seconds I pondered just wandering into the dining hall and striking up a conversation. And then was afraid they would find me patronizing. Or worse, over-enthusiastic.
So I walked by. Slowly. My mind consumed with my own family, my grandfather in Michigan now in a nursing home. I thought about what it will be like when I am that age…where will I be?
But really, more than anything, I couldn’t stop thinking about my own grandmothers. And the grandmothers in the dining hall. And how I hope their granddaughter’s visit them.
Even if they are too busy. Even if they have a million other things to be doing. I hope there is a granddaughter sitting, right now, across from her grandmother in some dining hall somewhere….just spending time.
It Won’t Last Forever
May 10, 2009 by 29 Comments
When she lays sideways against me, she usually swings her legs over my knees. They dangle. They dangle because she is tiny and even the simple act of laying across me is monumental to her. Her limbs looking so very small in relation to mine.
To me it’s heaven. Her body nestled across mine, while her brother rests his head on my shoulder. Everyone breathing in unison and calm together.
This is how we sleep from time-to-time. Not so often anymore, but often enough for me to realize it’s nearly gone.
Sometimes, when I lay on my side, she can still curl to spoon me. But her spoon involves her tiny feet against my thighs and her head in my neck. She still fits there. But barely. Just barely.
He is another story. He can’t fit there ever again. Now he wraps his arms around me like a little man, and uses one hand to pet my back, or pet my arm. He dotes in a way where before, he wanted the doting on himself.
Now when he rolls over, he’s careful to not touch my breast, instead choosing to lay a hand on my belly. This one is harder for me. More emotional of a change. Before his head would lay nowhere but my breast. Not anymore. He is embarrassed. He is aware.
It breaks my heart.
It doesn’t happen so often anymore, but when they are both at my side, sleeping with limbs strewn across mine and breathing on my arm it’s almost as if time doesn’t move, and I am at peace.
I can hear their breath.
They aren’t darting off to play, or at school, or in the yard.
It’s the one time of day I have no fear for them, or for myself. They are with me. They are safe. We are together.
This morning as I awoke with feet in my face and a sweaty head on my shoulder, I realized it was just a moment away from being gone. We are but days or months from being done with wanting to lay near Mom. Needing to lay near Mom. Able to lay near Mom.
They both barely fit any longer…not just in size.
It’s nearly gone. Time is so very short. Those tiny feet now push away instead of pushing on my thighs. That once small head now changes his mind and goes back to his own bed, full of independence and assured and able to comfort himself.
I laugh now at myself. Wanting not so long ago for them to learn to sleep in their own beds. Willing it. I needed the break, or the space, or the freedom at night. Forgetting one of the mantra’s I would tell others when they looked-down on our co-sleeping habits, “it won’t last forever.”
And here we are. Forever. And I’d like it to last just a bit longer.
Please.
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