And I Quote, “BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.”

Today, we celebrated Vader’s seventh birthday.  It was our first all boy party and it was all boy.

All boy.

Turtle’s tough face (with Splash in the background).

Eight of Vader’s cub scout and school buddies joined us for a Karate Party at the Karate America up the road from our house.

The instructor and his business partner are the reason this party was awesome. (And they are consistent.  This was the 3rd party we have attended and every time, it is amazing.)  Master Ekholm has these boys following directions, listening, learning and laughing all at the same time.  He talks about self-control, discipline, respect and honor.  Ms. Bonavota manages all of the other details.  I just smile and take pictures.

Using the party favor head sash as a prop.

They run the boys, break boards, play dodge ball and make jokes.

King of the Karate Place.

After pizza, cake and karate, the boys all sit down and actually pay attention to the gift opening.  Each giver is applauded for his generosity and the receiver is actually aware of who gave what.

It was Vader’s favorite party and all I had to do was assemble the goody bags.  The boys and I did that last night after I got home from DC so even that was a fun activity.

I was planning on baking a cake, but I ended up buying one.  Even though I had an idea about what I wanted to make, I had nightmares about the green penis cake from the Star Wars Party of 2010. (It was supposed to be a light saber.)

The store bought cake was chocolate with chocolate icing from Costco and we stuck a ninja action figure in it.  He loved it.

And now, we are back home, enjoying the quiet as the boys punch their punch balls and Vader revels in his new toys.

So I agree.

Best.

Party.

Ever.

Envelopes

Do you remember applying to college?

Do you remember how you felt, packing up your application with the essay and mailing it off to your dream school with your wishes and hopes and dreams tucked neatly inside along with the paperwork. Or how about the “safe” school, the one that you felt sure you’d get into…and at least (hopefully) someone would take you.  

And then, one day you pull out a stack of catalogs and bills from the mailbox and buried in the pile of mail is an envelope.  Or perhaps a couple of envelopes. 

And you know by the size and shape of each one if it is good news or bad news.   It does not matter whether the envelopes are from dream schools, local or state schools, remote schools or safe schools, you never wanted to see a thin one in the stack.

That is how I felt today when I got the mail.   On top was a thin, Size 10 business envelope with my name on it. 

And it was bad news…

When it is thin, it is pretty much always bad news.

To clear up any confusion, this is not about me going back to college.  But, it is about that same awful feeling. 

My dream school was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  It was the long shot of long shots for someone like me to get in.  And I rembember getting the rejection letter like it was yesterday.  I cried.  I mourned the loss.  And eventually, I moved on to a great school and had a great experience.  But the day the mail came, it still stunk.

Today, I felt that same knotted-up-kicked-in-the-stomach feeling for a different reason.

A few months ago, a friend encouraged me to apply for an open position a local foundation board.  I was so buoyed by her enthusiasm, I applied.  I spent hours working on the letter, poring over each word, wondering if I sounded too eager, too sappy, too Pollyanna, too formal.  I imagined the work I would do and the lives I would impact and I was so excited I virutally forgot that they could say no.

“Thank you for the opportunity to review your application.  We have chosen not to pursue your candidacy at this time.”

There were other niceties, but that is the gist.

And no matter how much I knew it was a long shot, and no matter that 3 months ago, I did not even have this opportunity on my radar, it still stinks.

There is a life lesson here. 

But for now, I am going to throw out the letter and pout a little.

And have HH get the mail tomorrow.

 -Jennifer

 

A Pinterest Project: DIY chalk sidewalk paint

I found this kid-friendly project on Pinterest a while back and waited for a lazy day when the rain would likely come soon thereafter to give it a go.   (The original source was this blog.)

With Tropical Storm Beryl headed our way, we decided to try it out.

Turtle and I whipped a batch of homemade chalk paint.

The ingredients:

• Cornstarch
• Water
• Food coloring

I did not follow the Pinterest recipe.  It was way to soupy.  I kept adding cornstarch well past the suggested amount until each cup holder was thick.

Then we added food coloring.

Then, Turtle and I painted the front sidewalk.  As the paint dried,  it lightened up into a rainbow of pastels.

Cheap.

Easy.

No clean up thanks to Beryl.

Pinterest perfection.

Thanks for reading.

-Jennifer

Crash Into Me by Liz Seccuro

Crash Into Me: A Survivor’s Search for Justice by Liz Seccuro

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Eh.
This woman’s true story about being raped at UVA is well written. Her story is an awful one and I would not wish what happened to her to happen to anyone. That said, I kept reading only because I wanted to know if justice was served, not because I was enjoying the book. I think this book is perfect for those who want reassurance that you can come out of the tragedy of rape as a whole person. If you have had this experience or know someone who has, pick it up. Otherwise, I am optimistic that there are more compelling books on my shelf for my next read.

View all my reviews

A gift

Last night, HH surprised the boys with a gift.  He took them up to his dad’s place to have a sleep-over and take them on their very first fishing trip on Grandpa’s boat. They were all so excited.

Turtle wanted to pack his entire bed: blankets, pillows and stuffed animal friends.

Splash needed none of those things because, well…he is Splash.  The thoughts of open water beckoned to him and he just needed to go…now.

Vader wanted to take the camera that his Papa gave him at Thanksgiving.  He wanted to make sure he had photos of this momentous occasion.

HH had all of the stuff ready to go: fishing poles, sunscreen, packets of oatmeal for breakfast and peanut butter ‘n crackers for snacks.

And then they all loaded up and backed out of the drive in the mini-van.

Do you know what that meant?

I got a gift too. For the first time in nearly 7 years, I had the whole house to myself.

For eighteen hours.

Holy cow.

I am taking a few precious minutes of this respite to blog because I do not want to forget the silence.  The wonderful silence.  I could not imagine it being this way all of the time, but it is so very nice now.  It is cliché, but I can hear the birds chirping and the refridgerator quietly humming and the occasional kid playing down the street and more importantly, I can hear myself think.

I may not have used this time the way others would.

I did laundry.

I put in a load of dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

I cleaned out my dresser drawers.

I cleaned out the boy’s drawers.

I went through 3 stacks of paper and recycled, shredded and uploaded things to Evernote and Pinterest.

I read four chapters of a book.

I slept in.

I took a shower.  A long shower.

I made tea and a grilled cheese sandwich.  Just one sandwich.

I am about to run errands. This afternoon, I plan on working on my business for 5 or 6 hours.

And by then, the boys will be home.

Life will go back to normal. Normal and good.

But gosh, this was a nice gift.

Thanks, HH.

Love,

Jennifer

 

A Mother’s Day stroll with Splash

Splash and I took a walk today, just the two of us.  This is rare for a few reasons, not the least of which is that HH and I have kids who hate to be left out of any activity with either of us.  For some reason, Vader and Turtle did not put up too much fuss today.

In addition, it was not my idea.  Splash asked me if we could go.   And since my entrepreneurial team took the night off, I was home on a Sunday and I was able to join him.

We walked down to the end of our street, turned right and leisurely strolled a few blocks.  And along the way, I had the chance to get to know my littlest baby (younger by only 1 minute behind Turtle) a little bit better.

I asked Splash about what he wanted to be when he grew up.  He noticed some litter along the side of the road and decided he would be a trash collector.  (Not that we live in a trashy neighborhood, but we saw a few cigarette butts and bottle caps on our tour. He vacillated between chastising the litterbugs and getting really excited to show me what stuff was on the ground.) The alternative career path for Splash was Spiderman, which he added just as we passed a wicked awesome spider web with all kinds of cool stuff in it.

I learned that Splash wants to have 10 kids – 5 boys and 5 girls.

I learned that the boys will be named AJ and Christopher (which are names of kiddos in our extended family) and he will have a Splash Jr.  In fact, he thought for a second about all of them being Splash Jrs. (Great…my kid would have the family where everyone says, “You know, he names his kids like George Foreman did!”)  All of the girls will be named Christina.  (This one is puzzling.  I don’t know that we know another kid named Christina.)

I learned that Splash wants a big house, but he will only have 5 beds for his 10 kids.  (He thought it would be fun to have all of the kids share a bed with a sibling, but when I asked him if he would share a bed with one of his brothers, he said, “No way.”)

The best discovery was on the way back.   When I asked Splash how he was going to earn a living to support his large family or if he was going to be a stay-at-home dad, he said he was going to do both.  ”In fact, I will just be a mom.”

Atta boy.

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer

PS – For the record, HH does in fact do both.  AND he knocked the ball out of the park on Mother’s Day.  I slept in until 9:00 am, took a nap at 4:00 pm AND got new goodies for the yard.  There is homemade salsa in my future!  Thanks, honey!

Girl power is good.

Yesterday, I got to play at The Player’s Championship.  I did not “play” in the way that Phil Mickelson plays, and thank goodness for that.  I have not swung a golf club in a decade.  I would hurt someone.  Myself.

Instead, I spent the better part of my Monday hearing from a few amazing women, and visiting with and meeting several more. I attended the Executive Women’s Day at The Players.  It was the second year of the event and it has become a prototype for Executive Women’s Day events that are popping up all over the country at other major golf tournaments.  My lovely and talented friend Elizabeth from Junior Achievement in North Florida graciously extended the offer of a ticket for me to join her. (Many thanks, Elizabeth!)

The speakers were terrific.  The marvelous Jacksonville entrepreneur Jennifer Marko, owner and CEO of Bottle Snugglers, rocked it on the panel along side three other dynamos including hometown girl Carla Harris, author of Expect to Win (and we got a copy of the book as a favor to boot!)

The highlight for me was the luncheon keynote speaker Michelle Peluso, former CEO of Travelocity, whose own path took her from the White House to internet start-up stardom.  She is now successfully balancing a family and a life with her newest role at Citi.

I smiled and wept with the rest of the audience as she read a letter she wrote to her daughter, who is now 3 1/2 years old, right after her daughter’s birth.  It focused on grace; grace and strength, grace and integrity, grace and success and failure.  It may have been written for a child, but it resonated with me.  In the last few months, more than once, I have felt awkward and clumsy in my role as mother to three boys (when I grew up with sisters), a newly ordained entrepreneur, an executive board member alongside amazingly successful professionals and so on.  Try as I may to prepare for each of these roles, I still occasionally feel like someone is going to find me out.  And while I know I am in each of these roles for a reason and I am capable and blah, blah blah…grace is not something I feel radiating from my out-spoken and forward-propelled body.  Today, Michelle made me realize that a little grace can go along way in balancing those occasional icky feelings of insecurity and fear.  Like that expression says, “Be like a duck…calm and serene on the surface of the water and paddling like hell underneath.”

I was equally impressed with her approach and steadfast commitment to work/life balance.  She said she works until 5 pm each day…and not one minute later.  She goes home, spends time with her kids and hubby, and then, after everyone is in bed, starts her second shift from 8 to 11 pm.  That is basically what I have been doing since January, and knowing that it works for her, and that I should not feel bad about not sitting at my desk in my office each night until 5:30 or 6:00 pm brought a smidge of relief to me.

So, I left today feeling pretty good about things.  Things may not be perfect…there are broken windows that need repairing…friends I miss seeing for coffee, dinner or drinks more than once every other month…a Pinterest to-do list a mile long…and 3, err…5… 7 new lbs. that have finally caught up with me (as if I can eat Combos for dinner and get away with it.)

But, all in all, things are good.  And good is good.

Manneqin Pis or when feel better about yourself b/c someone else’s kids are worse than yours.

IMAG0094, a photo by DaBossLadyBlog on Flickr.

The Jacksonville beaches “opened” yesterday.  I took the boys to enjoy some fun in the sun.

For a few hours, my kids were frolicking on the sand, making friends with everyone and keeping me on the my toes.  Just before lunch, I noticed a blur of white skin zipping behind me out of the corner of my eye toward the water.  This blur was wearing a dark blue suit and a cap, was about 4 years old and had shaggy brown hair.

And he stopped short about 20 ft. from the water’s edge right on a brightly colored collection of beach towels.

But for once….he was not one of mine.

His mother was shrieking as she darted down the beach, weaving in and out of the people blocking her way, her childless friends shrieking with laughter under the pop up tent as she tried to reach him/stop him/yank his shorts back up.

And I sat, quietly sympathetic, but truthfully enjoying the moment, realizing all too quickly that any satisfaction I took in this woman’s predicament would likely be erased before the day was done.

And it was…

This is how HH demonstrated the wrong way to kill a bug.

Oh well.  It was nice while it lasted.

Have a great week.

Jennifer

My education on digital education (Warning – long post.)

Two weeks ago, I was asked by Florida’s Commissioner of Education to join the Florida 2.0 Digital Learning Group.  This 30-person task force met for the last two days in St. Petersburg, FL.  We were charged with assisting the Florida’s Department of Education to plan changes to our public education system that will make all schools digital by the 2014-15 school year. As of the 2012 Florida Legislative Session, these changes are now required.

I have dabbled in education reform and advocacy for a few years.  I seriously considered running for school board. (I have chosen not to do so for a handful of personal and professional reasons that I won’t go into now.)  I am a member of the board for our county’s Early Learning Coalition, a group tasked with improving and managing the local quality rating system for childcare and our county’s volunteer pre-Kindergarten enrollment.  I sit on a task force for the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, another non-profit group that is doing a visioning process for Jacksonville schools.  And, as Vader, Splash and Turtle’s mom, I have a front row seat to observe how the system works (or doesn’t work)…at least as it relates to my kids, their needs and our family.

So.

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I went into this workshop.  In truth, I arrived with a few assumptions.  Of the three biggest ones I had, one was validated…two were debunked…or at least, tweaked.

1.) I assumed that technology could help my kids…all kids meet their individual needs and achieve their highest potential.

This is true.  I saw schools who embraced technology, who have teachers who are trained to use it, and have staff who can support it and resources to distribute it, who were able to better customize instruction to each kid in their charge.

BUT, in order for us to do that, we might have to let go of our notion of what is “normal” or “correct” in public education.

Let me give you an example…

I freaked out last year when Vader, who has been diagnosed with ADHD, was placed in a classroom with 31 other kids.  There were two teachers (in compliance with the Class Size Amendment), but there was not enough room in the school to give each teacher their own classroom, so 32 kids, two teachers…

Vader simply could not contain himself and focus on learning with that many kids around him.  The day went well for him when he was engaged in “centers,” but things deteriorated when he had to sit on the carpet for 45 minutes and listen to a lecture.  If he could have gotten the same “carpet time” lesson from an interactive digital tool, he would have been happier and probably would have learned more. I guarantee his teacher would have been happier too.  It would not have required any additional teachers and in fact, would have perhaps allowed the teachers to reach MORE kids like my son.

And that brings me to my second assumption.

2.) I assumed that I would never vote to repeal or even weaken the class-size amendment.  I voted for it when we chose to make it a constitutional amendment.   After what Vader and I went through in Kindergarten, I firmly and wholeheartedly believed that the only way to teach our kids was in small, manageable groups AND the smaller, the better.

Now, I am not so sure.  I have seen first hand, how teachers can use technology to provide relevant, customized and interesting instruction to a large group of kids.  AND moreover, they can do it at a pace that is specific to each kid.  And isn’t that what every parent wants?

You want your kid to be able to go at his or her own pace, to not get bogged down by the slower kids in the class or to feel lost because the majority has moved forward without him?  IF, and this is a big if, we can supplant small classes that all move forward as a unit (which implies that everyone is going to go at the same pace) with digital solutions that allow each student to learn at his or her own pace, then we should.

My last assumption…

3.) I assumed that we already had statewide digital learning.

Again…wrong.  I was thinking about virtual learning, more specifically, the Florida Virtual School.  Virtual and digital are not the same thing.  Moreover, while virtual learning is great for a small percentage of students all of the time, and also great for another percentage of students who need remediation, grade recovery or rapid advancement outside of the traditional classroom, it is NOT digital learning.    Instead, successful digital learning is blending technology into the traditional classroom.  AND I do not mean simply using smart boards instead of chalkboards or giving every kid a laptop.

Digital learning means using the web, current hardware and interactive software to enhance learning.  It means being able to assess each child’s learning style in a cost-effective way and delivering instruction based on the learning style.  It means expanding the menu of tools that teachers use to reach each child and capitalizing on the physiological, sociological and other differences in our kids.

I learned a ton and I am glad I am part of this group. I am not saying the digital education is a panacea for all of our ills, but I do think, if we are creative and engaged, we might be able to make things better for our kids sooner than later with digital help.

If you are in Florida, you might want to poke around in this area, especially if you have kids in public school.

If want to bend my ear on the topic, e-mail me at Dabossladyblog (at) gmail (dot) com or comment below.

As always, thanks for reading.

Jennifer

It’s unreliable and filled with chaos, but I want more.

Time.

For most of us, except the most organized and zen, there is never enough of it.

Pretty standard these days for us to want more time.

I want time to invest in the most important people in my life like my husband and my children and my family at large…but also because…

I want to learn to cook well and learn to grow a garden where I have veggies and fruits and herbs and then compost the clippings and other yard waste to use in the garden and nearby, I want to raise a few chickens and gather up their eggs for breakfast each morning and I want to build the chickens a coop and then after I build their coop, I want to perhaps make furniture like my friend here and take beautiful photos of what I build and more photos of my kids and my city and well.. photos of everything and everyone and then time to edit those photos and share them with friends and loved ones and then I want to improve upon my learn to speak Spanish and perhaps a few words of Bosnian so that I can talk to the custodial ladies in my building who are always so nice to me and then perhaps learn a computer coding language so that I get my company off the ground quicker and be a huge start-up success and then a write a book about it and then have more time to invest in the organizations I love like here and here and here and here  and time to be a better sustaining member here and have time to try the skin care products from my friend’s new business and to see and support other friends and their new ventures and then I want to finish the kitchen remodel we started last March by learning how to lay down the floors myself and install the backsplash and when that is done, more time to start renovating the boy’s room with cool new bunk beds and to finally use the items I have been collecting for the space theme which will go great with the chalkboard wall I want time to paint and after that, time to rip out the busted up concrete driveway and put down brick pavers in a herringbone pattern and install the new doors on the back of the house and then put another paver patio down behind the doors where I can sit and read this book and then make myself a tasty adult beverage while I listen to the new Nora Jones album that I want to download to my iPod which is still sitting new in the box because I do not know how to use it and afterward, time to take a walk and reflect on it all.

But all of that takes time.  And I just used the last time I had today writing.

Oh well.  As far as I know, there will be more time tomorrow.

This was time well spent.

Thanks for reading. And spending a little time with me.

Jennifer