The Need to be Untied

I am tied. Tied to technology. It’s a wonderful connection to the world. A peek inside the universe of others, a snippet here, a snippet there. Strangely intimate and yet somehow disconnected. I thrive on the information superhighway and what new ideas it will bring me each day. My students revel in the new and exciting ways to discover and display their learning. It has brought them so far.

But sometimes I just want to sever the connection. If but for a while. I wake up each morning and the first thing I reach for is my cell phone- my life- my right hand man. Email, check. Facebook, check. Twitter, check. Weather, check. Check, Check, Check. It is a comfortable friend and I feel incomplete if I miss that moment.

My friend recently told me that she has a no tv and no phone policy on weekdays when she gets home from work with her kids. The technology gets untied and they do everything but. She is thrilled with what she sees in her kids and in herself when they are freed from the constant flow of information.

I think of the opportunity cost of my technology addiction… what do I miss with my daughter when I have to respond to an email? What do I miss in a conversation with my husband when we’re both playing on our phones as we chat?

I’d like to untie. So I am going to try. After I finish this post and respond to that last email. Maybe the best I should hope for is to loosen it instead.

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Good Luck Kisses

Everyone loves a good luck kiss. Right?
Before a big match, performance, event, or trip down the slide for the first time.  Heck, I give Brian one each morning before work to wish him a good luck kind of day. Everyone needs a little bit of luck.

Everyone. Including the dogs of the world apparently. Maddie loves loves LOVES dogs. On an epic level. She will hug them, pet them, play with them and kiss them. We have long since “trained” her to kiss the tops of their heads after a few unfortunate french kissing incidents at an early age.

Now enter Bella. Bella is a stocky footstool on legs that belongs to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Tony.  55 pounds of footstool on spindly legs to be more exact. As I am so wisely informed by my daughter, Bella is of course too low to the ground for my amazon of a child to bend over and kiss on the top of the head. It would seem also, that kissing a hand and then patting the top of Bella’s head is also improbable. I suppose the love just doesn’t quite transfer that way.

So naturally the next best thing to kiss and give to Bella for good luck would be what Bella loves the most. What Bella plays with incessantly, chasing to and fro and slobbering her footstool doggie germs all over.  That would be Bella’s ball. Bella’s slimy, shredded, soggy, squishy ball. To which I recently discovered my daughter who doesn’t like dirt so much, smashing her lips on, in order to give Bella some luck before she threw said ball.

Apparently dirt is worse than slimy, slobbery dog germs. Who knew?

The Plastic Monster

I spent some time yesterday straightening up the house. When I say some time, I may in actuality be talking about hours on top of hours. Now, the normal person would think that as a result I have a spic and span house, shiny and sparkly from top to bottom. Unless you have ever dealt with small children. If you have dealt with small children you are now thinking to yourself, Oh, it must be the plastic monster that kept her so occupied.

Yes, the plastic monster has invaded my house, threw up everything he ate (which naturally, is plastic) and then spit it out in my living room, my kitchen, my bedroom, my office, my basement, my unmentionables drawer. Yes. My underwear drawer. He’s a pervasive bugger that guy.

It doesn’t help that this monster is invited, WELCOMED really, into my house by my three almost to be four year old daughter. Oh, she loves him so. We’ve battled him since she was born and will continue to do so.

My confrontation yesterday culminated in one Target sized bag that I managed to sneak out of the house like a smuggler sneaking vegetables into Candy Land.

Until we meet again my adversary, I will continue to pluck princesses out of my underwear drawer. Which of course are there because it’s where they can “sit in the boats.”

Sigh.

 

A Tale of Two Summers

My day
Maddie’s day

In my office
At grandmas

Buried under piles of paperwork
Blowing bubbles

Moving mountains of books
Planting strawberries

Reading page after page of notes
Splashing in the pool

Stacking binders to bring home
Chasing after grandpa with a water gun

Making lists of exciting to-dos
Stirring lemonade

Getting office supply giddy
Cruising the street on a pink scooter

Anticipating the possibilities
Relishing each moment

My summer
Maddie’s summer

We hope to meet in the middle soon