A Day in the Life

I've seen several other bloggers do a "Day in the Life" posts and I'm a little behind in the game, but since this "season" of life will soon be changing, I decided to do my own.  I know I'm going to want to look back and remember how Leah and I spent our days together.

6:45ish- My alarm goes off and if I'm lucky I get up to shower. Ideally I like to have had my shower before Leah gets up, but if that doesn't happen then she'll watch a show in our bed while I shower.

7:00ish- Leah I get Leah out of bed.  I'm not sure what time she actually wakes up, because some days I hear her whispering in her bed.  She's always happy to see me and I love going in in the mornings to see what she's doing with her stuffed animals and Pursley.

7:30-Breakfast: Our breakfast usually consists of oatmeal, milk, and fruit.  It's the same thing every morning and it has been for a long time, maybe we should switch it up one of these days.  After breakfast, Leah usually asks to watch a show, to which I oblige, but only after she's brushed her teeth.  :) While she watches a show, (usually Olivia or The Letter Factory) I make myself a cup of coffee, clean up the kitchen, and complete a variety of other tasks that are much easier to perform without two little hands (laundry, phone calls, emails. etc).  I also use this time to finish getting ready for the day. The 30 minutes of showtime is never usually enough to get everything I want to finished.

This day I also packed our picnic lunch for our play date at the park later. 

Occasionally Leah likes to do this while she watches her show.  I'm not sure what possess her to line all her dvds up, weird kid. 

9:00- Usually we try to be out of the house by 10am, it seems most of our play dates or appointments start at 10.  Today was different, we had to take Tim's car to the dealership for an oil change.  Luckily, they have a pretty nice play area and they were fast.

 After the oil change we had a few minutes to spare before we were supposed to meet our friends at the park, so we headed to get some flowers to plan later in the afternoon.  We also made a quick Sonic run before heading to the park.

11:00- Lunch at the park with some friends.  This is our second time doing a picnic lunch at the park with some friends and I think it might have to become a regular occurrence   Not only does it get us out of the house and provide social interaction for both Leah and I, I don't have to clean up the kitchen after lunch, score!

 1:00ish- We're home from the park and Leah goes down for her nap.  It's a toss-up whether or not she'll fall right asleep, some days she's asleep by 1:30, others 2:30, and some days she doesn't ever fall asleep.  Today she fell asleep around 2:30, thank goodness, because I needed the quiet time. Today during naptime I steam cleaned the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathrooms, blogged a little, and caught up on some blog reading.

 4:30ish- Leah wakes up from her nap.  She usually wants to watch another show and have a snack after she wakes up.  Occasionally I can convince her to play outside before she watches her show.  If we play outside, it's usually sidewalk chalk and bubbles.  I usually try to use this time to start dinner.  Tonight's dinner was homemade chicken nuggets, pasta, and apples.

 6:30ish: Tim's usually home from work by now so we eat dinner as a family.  After dinner we headed outside to plant my flowers that we bought and I hadn't had a chance to plant yet.

 7:30ish- Bedtime for Leah.  PJs on, brush her teeth, say goodnight and read some books.
8:00- I usually don't do anything productive after Leah goes to bed.  Some nights it folding laundry, applying for jobs, or just relaxing and watching TV.  Tonight I indulged in a little ice cream and House Hunters. I usually try to be in bed by 10, but it usually ends up being 10:30 or 11 before I actually make it.  Maybe when I start working again I'll go to bed earlier, probably not.

There you have it, a day in the life of Jody and Leah, the stay-at-home mom edition.  It will be fun to do another one of these in a few months and see how life has changed. 

Reasons I Love Teaching and Some News

I'm a little behind on Teacher Appreciation week (it was last week), but Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!
Onto the News portion: I've been offered and accepted a teaching position (although I haven't signed a contract yet, so it's still not 100% official), but I've had huge mixed emotions about accepting the position. Ideally, I know it's what's best for me. I work best when I'm busy and productive and while I enjoy staying at home, folding the laundry and unloading the dishwasher doesn't exactly fulfill my need for productivity.  The position is teaching 5th grade at a Catholic School in St. Louis, and while I've never worried about the money while teaching (what teacher does?) I do wish the salary was just a little bit more.  It's a job and more than I've made the last two years, so that's all that counts.
To look on the bright side of this job and to remind myself just how much I enjoy teaching, I've been listing the things I love about teaching.  Here you go:

1. I love planning- Sounds silly, but I love planning.  I love making my daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly plans.  There is something about knowing exactly what's coming up and I get a huge feeling of accomplishment from planning things out.
2. I love being creative- I love knowing the concept and then thinking about how I can teach it to the kids and apply it to their real life.
3. I love interacting with the kids- Where else will you find a room full of 25 unique individuals?  I love that everyone has their own ideas and brings something unique to the classroom. (Most of the time this is a positive. :))
3. I love interacting with the staff- I think teachers share a special feeling of camaraderie.  I enjoy sharing new ideas with other teachers and gaining their new ideas in turn.
4. No day is ever the same- While the daily schedule might be the same, I get to teaching the kids something new and exciting everyday.
5. I get to learn myself- Not only do I enjoy learning from the students, I love to learn about teaching and new instructional strategies.
6. The First Day of School- I love all the excitement that comes with the first day of school. Plus is there anything better than new school supplies?
7. The Last Day of School- Not many other jobs provide you with a scheduled ending day.  For me there is no comparison for the feeling on the last day of school, the excitement, the joy, the relief!
8. The Hours- While I haven't ever been a teacher that leaves school at 3:00, I love the flexibility that it will allow me to pick Leah up earlier and spend more time in the evening with her.  I'm sure that will make me do more grading and planning after she goes to bed, but I'm okay with that.
9. The Breaks- I'm so thankful for the breaks during the school year that allow me to spend more time with my family and be a mom.
10. I make a difference- Or at least I hope I do!  I hope one day my former students will look back and have fond memories of having me as their teacher.

For now I'm trying to enjoy the summer with Leah before the busyness of the school year hits.

By favorite and best student for the past two years. 

GOTR Spring 5k

On Saturday Leah and I attended the Girls on the Run 5k to participate in the Gamma Phi's cheer station.  I can't say enough good things about Girls on the Run and how much fun it is to participate in something like this.  While I haven't been involved with GOTR personally (other than participating in the cheer station) it is an organization that I love!  The concept of it is to help girls in 3rd-8th grade develop skills and confidence to help them in their everyday life.  The girls meet once a week for twelve weeks and build up to running a 5k race.  For more info about Girls on the Run go here.

Gamma Phi Beta's International Philanthropy is "Building Strong Girls" and one of our partners is Girls on the Run.  One of the things the St. Louis women (both the collegians and the alumnae) do to support GOTR is to host a cheer station for the girls along the 5k race.  It is so neat and inspirational to see all the girls run by with their support systems (coaches, moms, dads, siblings, etc), the softie in me teared up several times during the race.  I could go on and on about Girls on the Run and how it fits with so many of my passions: teaching, running, building confidence in young girls, Gamma Phi, but I won't, I'll just tell you, if you ever have a chance to attend a Girls on the Run 5k event do it, I promise you won't regret it!

 If you couldn't tell, the theme of our cheer station was Pink!

A Couple of Nice Days

It seems like we've been waiting forever for the weather to warm-up and for it to be nice enough to play outside.  Finally last week we had a couple of days of nice weather.  Leah and I definitely took advantage of the nice weather.
On Wednesday we headed to the zoo.

 We finally even broke out the short sleeves, shorts, and sunglasses for the trip. 

 Leah's favorite thing about the zoo is the carousel, except for this time she hopped right on the giraffe and then decided she didn't want to ride it anymore and wanted off.   

I wasn't going to let my $6 carousel ticket go to waste, so I finally convinced her to ride with me on the bench.  

 We followed up the zoo with a picnic lunch in Forest Park.  We had a great fun, free morning!

Hopefully we'll make it to the zoo many more time this summer, anyone wanna join us?

 Thursday was another nice morning, so we headed to the park in the morning and then had a picnic lunch on the deck.  I sure am glad we took advantage of these nice days because then it proceeded to rain for the next 3 straight days, yuck!

All this playing outside led me to think Leah had really bad seasonal allergies, only to realize later her red eyes and rash were due to a different type of soy milk I had been giving her.  Ugh!  Guess I'll add this to the do not buy list!

Letters to Leah {2.5 years}

Dear Leah,
Here are a few of your happenings at 30 months:
- You weigh 30 pounds and are 3 ft tall
- You wear size 3T clothes and size 6 shoe (although you have some size 7s that you wear, but they don't quite fit)
- You can recognize all of your letters, you get the E and the F mixed up sometimes though. You know most of the sounds the letters make, thanks in part to the "Letter Factory".
- Your favorite song to sing is "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and thanks to our Stan the Man harmonica, you also like to try to play it on the harmonica.
- I'm not sure of your favorite book at the moment, you have several.  You also really like the "search & find" books, we've checked out several from the library.
- You know your full name, your birthday, and how old you are, you can even show it with your fingers.
- Your favorite shows are Olivia, Curious George, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
- You love to draw, paint and color.  You particularly love the paint with water pages, (I personally love them too!).
- You love to be outside blowing bubbles or playing with chalk, particularly if the neighbor kids are outside. Your new favorite thing to do is lay down and have me trace around your body, we have several body outlines on our driveway.
- You often ask for me to write and draw pictures of different names and people.  You know how to spell your name and you know what letter Trent, Brynn, and Natalie start with (we're working on Emily).
- You know your mom is Jody and your dad is Tim.
We love this age, all the funny things you say and do, and we can't wait to see you grow and learn more!

 The tree in our front yard is blooming once again, so I took advantage of the flowers and took some pictures.  I wish I would have put Leah is a different outfit or at least different shoes, oh well  these were kind of spur of the moment pictures.

Updated

Leah's Favorites (according to Leah)

Food: Oatmeal

Movie: Cinderella

TV Show: Olivia

Book: Winnie the Pooh's Easter

Color: Purple

Stuffed Animal: George 

Bouncin'

On Wednesday, Leah and I and some playgroup friends headed to Monkey Joe's for some bouncing and playing fun.  Leah hasn't ever really been to Monkey Joe's and I knew I wanted to go when it was less crowded, so we decided it might be a good idea to go when school is still in session and all the "big" kids aren't there.  At one point we even had the entire place to ourselves, it was so nice! 

 Luckily I remembered to take my good camera along, I tried taking pictures with my iPhone and they all ended up with Leah as a blur. 

Leah and her friend Kaylee

We followed up Monkey Joe's with lunch at Steak-and-Shake.  What a fun morning!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

A couple of weekends ago Tim and I decided we needed a new hobby, so we planted a garden! Planting a garden is one of the things on my "To-Do" and since we now have the space for a garden in our backyard, why not?  My ultimate goal is to be able to make salsa from only ingredients in our garden, I've heard cilantro can be tricky to grow, so we'll see. This year we planted corn, green beans, zucchini  yellow squash, two types of peppers, cilantro, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, and tomatoes (that still need to be planted). I'm not really holding my breath that all of it is going to successfully grow, but a few homegrown things would be nice.

 I loosely wanted to follow the "Gardening By The Square Foot" method, but it's a little trick to follow when you don't have the book.  We did make our own soil mix out of vermiculite, peat moss, and compost.  

 This was as far as we got the first weekend.  Then we waited, and waited, and waited for some dry, warmer weather to plant the seeds. 

 Here is the final garden with the seeds planted (minus the tomatoes) and rows labeled, at least I think they're labeled correctly with little hands around you can never be quite sure.

 While we were out buying seeds, Leah also got some of her own flower seeds to plant.

Here's to a bountiful harvest!