Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

I came across this article online at the American Physical Society that I found thoroughly fascinating and it seemed to reflect an experience I'd had early on in my (Information Technology) career - but I'll get back to that. If you have school-age children, the full article is worth a read. A Math Paradox: The Widening Gap Between High School and College Math written by Joseph Ganem.  In it, he describes a finding where despite getting more challenging work in high school and being tested more, kids are getting to college with gaps in their Mathematics understanding. In his opinion, Mr. Ganem saw three problems (and here I am paraphrasing my perspective on the explanations): "Confusing difficulty with rigor" .   Harder problems do not necessarily help with understanding - you have to use concepts children understand to help them develop their own reasoning abilities but the problems must not be so difficult that they always have to ask for help . "Mistakin

When I originally thought of doing this post, my thought was that I would have 3 neat little columns with..well, 3 different things.  Then I started writing and everything has 3 sides to it, at least! Considering this from Liam's perspective: I have a brother who shows me so many things (how to brush my teeth, high-block, kicks, climbing and jumping) I am doing many things earlier than my big brother (playing with Legos, watching TV, wanting to be naked, eating junk) I am more independent (feeding myself, putting on my clothes while Mama and Lucas are waiting to get to school, taking off my diaper because I feel like) I am a daredevil, trying to do what my big brother does (lots of climbing, even on the outside of the steps. I am the one Mama will find hanging on the chandileer. My brother teaches me so many words! I can tell Mama "No way Jose!"  ...nice You get the idea. I was trying to think if there was one thing that was only good or only bad..but I ha

Hopefully, you won't have to do this for a long, long time.  We just completely restrict access to news, but that is just us. Recently Lucas' school had a Veteran's Day ceremony, where they honoured veterans in the community.  It was beautiful and moving and the ceremony included the eventual placement of 5,248 flags for fallen veterans representing those who have died in Iraq & Afghanistan as well as those who died recently at Ft. Hood (including the unborn baby). Lucas has had a fascination with "being an army" for a long time - as evidenced by the number of times he's been an army soldier for Halloween, and the number of green army men I keep finding everywhere in the house and car.  As usual, I tried to gauge what he understood about being "an army". Me: So Lucas, how did you find the (veterans') service this morning? Lucas: Good Me: Do you remember anything about it? Not really, but they called out the names of some veterans

Why did I entitle this post, "So dock it from my pay"?  Well I went to get some servicing done on my car and the standard operating procedure is for me to call my husband before the dealership does anything extra.  He can decide if the work is reasonably priced (he usually says not).  It went something like this: I call G, no answer. "Go ahead and do the work, I can't reach my husband." 1 1/2 hours later my husband called back,  "How much??!!" when I told him the price-tag, and the first thing that went through my mind was, "So, dock it from my pay".  Yes, that non-existent pay, but it got  me thinking about one of the minefields for the stay-at-home parent - how to manage the money.  Should the parent get an allowance free and clear? Do you feel comfortable spending? Would you even consult your partner about spending on something if you were the one earning it?  So many questions. I've been very fortunate in our financial relatio

If you don't, well I feel really, really incompetent right about now, because I do, but I do try really, really hard not to scream at the children.  This NY Times article, For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking, rang true for me. We don't spank, although I still use tools like 1-2-3 that " don't work to change behavior " in the words of one expert quoted in the article...Oh. In general, I have 2 triggers that put me over the edge: When Liam is not in good shape (either getting sick, sick or missed sleep) and Lucas insists it's a good time to "play" with Liam (that is, provoke him). My second trigger is described in the case of one mom interviewed for the article.  For this mom, like me, it is  " when adult peace is within her grasp ", that is, when the kids don't want to sleep.  I am so ready for time away from children...but then Liam delays brushing his teeth, or wants to try and use the potty (really?? now??) or doesn

I made the mistake of leaving my laptop open.  Liam was attracted by the pretty picture on it (wallpaper), and wanted to type, so I opened up a Wordpad document for him to type in and in the 2 seconds it took me to turn around and put away a dishcloth I had in my hand, this is what he did to my laptop.  He is 2. Well!  I had never actually seen that before, I didn't know it could be done.  So instead of rotating those pesky photos, I could have rotated my whole screen? Who knew?  I got a crick in my neck searching for help sideways. And I do mean search: display, settings, orientation, layout, rotate -  no dice.  I gave up.  I won't admit to how long I spent on this fruitless endeavour before I sought a second opinion. (Restrain yourselves from laughing at me - I feel foolish enough as it is.) Me to my husband: "Hi.   Ummm do you know how to change your laptop layout from sideways?" G: "What do you mean sideways?" "I mean like you have to turn y