Monday, October 30, 2006

The Weekend Highlights

The Child that has a Homecooked Meal ...
Brent said something interesting the other night. He was describing how he was eating his lunch during 5th hour since so many students had come in during the lunch period asking for help with their Algebra again. A couple of the girls remarked how he always had such interesting lunches. Brent explained that his lunches were usually just leftovers from dinner. They asked "Does your wife, like, cook dinner every night?"
Brent said well, yes, most nights.
"Wow!! I can't remember the last time my mom made dinner!" they exclaimed.
That sparked a widespread though brief (nice try for a diversion from test taking) class discussion of whose moms made dinner every night and whose rarely did. Apparently, the majority did not have dinner-making moms. Isn't that terrible? Brent said it was interesting that those kids whose moms did make dinner were far more likely to be the ones that had good grades and had their acts together academically.
This makes me feel good about being a stay-home mom. Being a homemaker, sometimes I feel isolated and like a mouse stuck in one of those running cages. As soon as I get something cleaned, it gets messed or dirtied up right away and it's the kind of job where you feel like you can never get ahead.
But for us, me staying home with Katya is absolutely the right decision. "What's the point of having kids if someone else is raising them" has always been my philosophy. It would be torture for me to take Katya to daycare every day, and I would be so sad to miss all her little moments. Even though it's a financial challenge and a tough job sometimes, I feel good because I feel I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing right now. And I know Katya will reap benefits.
The Fiasco Fairy from Surface Drops by for a Visit
In other news, the word "no" was reinforced to Katya this weekend. While I was making dinner she reached into the cupboard where I keep my glass baking pans. She was trying to get a wire rack out that has always fascinated her. Brent told her "no," to stay out of the cupboard, but a few seconds later there was a tremendous CRASH; great was the destruction of one of the pans. Actually, there was so much broken glass that it took me a minute to determine that it was only one pan that broke and by process of elimination from the remaining pans I saw that it was the 11x7 that was no more. It took forever to get the glass chunks, shards and layer of glass dust cleaned up: we swept, Swiffered, damp paper toweled and vacuumed. Now when we tell Katya "no," she walks around shaking her head saying "nyo, nyo, nyo..."
She was not hurt at all, by the way.
Pumpkin Introduction
And finally, here is a picture of our pumpkin carving session. We had four pumpkins grow in our garden this year. We don't know where they came from--we didn't plant them. Katya loved the pumpkins. She patted them and said "ba!" (her word for ball). She loved having a spoon to help play in the goop.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your" hamster on a wheel" take om being a stay at home mom. so true. I always feel this way. I .too, feel like what's the point in having kids, if someone else raises them? I see kids as accessories way too often for my liking!
No, is always used at a 19 month old and they rarely listen! Camille broke so much at that age.. why d'ya think I switched to silicone baking stuff?:)
Cute pics of the punkins'

Javacurls said...

Eating as a family is so very important to me as well. My mother always cooked delicious home-made meals and I have wonderful memories of the dinners we shared as a family. It's a tradition that I'm trying to keep alive in my own family.