Clare's Blog

Worm Farm, Compost Pile, Organic Recycling… whatever you call it, you can do it on your countertop!  Plus it’s a great opportunity to teach young children about the cycle of life.

A commercial countertop compost bin comes equipted with a spout for draning “worm juice” and tray for alternating your compost.  Layer the bin with shredded moist newspaper (which of course the kids can prepare), add egg shells, coffee grounds, banana peels (no meat, no citrus, no oils) and WORMS! 

Red worms eat the fastest.

Add your table scraps.

Rotate the trays as the newspaper and food turns to compost.  Add compost to a vegitable garden.  Eat the vegitables and add the scraps back to the bin!

Also consider getting a piece of plexiglass, put the worm on top and a light underneath.  It’s like a homemade x-ray machine (and a more humane way to “dissect” a worm).

In AK you might need to bring your bin inside during the winter.

Something about St.Patrick’s Day makes me want to tell everyone how much I love them.  Whether it is an old friend from high school, a young friend from the Montessori school, or a member of my family, I just want to wrap everyone up in an all-consuming hug and breathe a sigh of relief.  I want to laugh, cry, share and acknowledge that life is short, and precious and full of hope.  I want to appreciate the woes of those around me and let them know how deeply I appreciate what they’re going through.   Every person, no matter how old or how young, is so very important, not just to me but to the world.  I love you.  I really do.

God bless you, Karma, inspiration to the world.

October 6, 2000- March17,2008

This week the Montessori School sent me to a conference for early childhood development.  I am hoping to make as much of this conference as possible since I have 2 young children, volunteer at  Fiction’s preschool, supervise preschool gym time 3 times a week, help teach a Sunday school class for 3-6yr olds and obviously I work at the Montessori school.  Plus I write this blog and I’m sure you’re all dying to know what I learned!

AEYC put on the conference, they are the Association for the education of young children South East Alaska.  They put out a great newsletter every month letting those of us in SE Alaska know what’s going on in our communities for young children.  I’m going to skip all the names and titles for now -even though they deserve the recognition, and get to the crux of the conference.

Treating Kids for Nature Deficit Disorder

Nature puts you in your place.  In the classroom setting some students struggle.  Outdoors every child has a role (leader, navigator, gatherer) this gives children focus and self-confidence.

“It is our biological destiny to be hopeful”  Martin LeBlanc

Connecting children with nature is not a political issue, not an environmental issue, not a community or an educational issue.  It is a human issue.

Kids today spend an average of 42.5 hours a week on electronic media according to the Kaiser Foundation.  Fewer than 1 in 5 children walk or ride their bikes to school (I’ve seen parents waiting in their cars at the front of Greystone to pick up their kids from the bus stop.)  Obesity has risen from 4% in 1960 to 20% today. (Sidenote: I just watched “Fat Head” a documentary that disputes numbers like these saying that the “overweight and obesity scale is unrealistic” and that the ethnic make-up of our country is changing, rather than the weight of the average child.  Check it out.  I really enjoyed the documentary.)  Back to the Kaiser Foundation study- There is even a decline in activities like walking the family dog!

Challenges we face in connecting children to nature

Fear of abductions- child abductions in the US are down 1.5% since 1970 (but media coverage of abductions is way up.)

Structured lives- Children have school, after school activities, sports, homework and dinner.  There’s no free time for outdoor exploration.

Planned communities- tree houses are not allowed in many deed restricted communities

The indoor Classroom- documentaries and webcam visits to national parks are up (that’s sounds pretty cool to me!)

Electronic media

(and may I add in SE Alaska -the weather)

Children are happier, healthier, and smarter when they connect with nature

increases self-esteem, psychological health, reduces stress, increases self-discipline and cooperation

nature play reduces obesity, mitigates health risk factors and improves physical conditioning

Children ;earn about their heritage

Students showed a 27% improvement in science and math scores after 1 week in an outdoor classroom study (this study is available at www.Children&Nature.org you can download it and many other helpful resources for free.)

One person can make a difference

At Chrenshaw High school in LA (you might remember hearing about it in movies like Boys from the Hood) one man started an eco club in 1997.  He started with 3 students (and one admitted he was in the wrong classroom.)  By 2011 the ecoclub had 490 students.  Over 200 full-ride science scholarships have been awarded to members of the ecoclub.  The students set up to trailblaze in local parks and took the parks back from gang members,  a feat police could not do.  The ecoclub started a community garden and makes salsa from the garden that they sell as “Food from the Hood” teaching students economics as well as agriculture.

GO OUTSIDE!

I thought the committee meeting was merely a formality.  I thought the adoption agency would look at our application and our perspective daughter’s file and agree that we were meant to be together.  After all her file has been on hold for close to 2 months while we and our doctors (and my friend in nursing school) reviewed her medical files.

Apparently an independent social worker  reviews her file and describes the perfect family for her.  Then the committee compares us to the perfect family and decides if the differences can be overlooked.

They said she had too many medical unknowns.  She does have a few different abnormalities in her brain.  They said she was too close in age to our two other children.  If she were our youngest child or if she did not have so many unknowns they might have made a match.

I am sad.  It was hard to tell Fiction without crying right in front of her.  We have been waiting to put photos of Summer-Jun up in the house until we knew we were a match.  Apparently that was a good idea.

I feel so sad.  I have lost all control.  I mean, I cannot control what kind of medical care she gets, what kind of love and attention she receives, what kind of life she will have.

I am tempted to go searching for another child and make a match.  Another part of me says I should wait until our dossier is complete so that the wait for the child is not as long and so that we can choose from new referrals as well as the children  already available for adoption.  The other part of me says we should find a child before we complete our dossier so that we have the opportunity to adopt from any country and then tailor our dossier to that country.

arg.

God bless you, Summer-Jun.  May you find a family that wraps you in joy and warmth and all that you (and every child) deserves.  I suppose Fury and I can stop debating the hyphen in your name now.

Lent begins this Wednesday so we’re talking about sin and penance, original sin and redemption.  Here are my notes from RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults -I’m a sponsor) this morning…

The Greek word for image is icon.  We are made in the image of God, we are each living icons of God.  The church has opinions on abortion war, torture, and poverty not because we are political but because every man is created in the likeness of God.  We are all equal.  We honor God when we honor other human beings.

Our creation story is one filled with metphors.  the name Adam is not a proper name but is the Hebrew word for human being.  It is derived from the word for Earth, since humans are of the Earth.  The word Eve means “the mother of all”.

Some studies show that people cannot choose right from wrong (mob mentality, Stanford Prison Experiment, genetic predisposition…) but our church believes that humans can choose between right and wrong.  We can exercise free will and self-control.  We believe that the snake did not trick us but that we rebelled against God, believing the snake that we could be like God if ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and wanting to be like God.

True sin is loving one’s self above any other.

True love is putting someone else’s interests above our own for their own sake.

True humility is not self-hatred and feeling worthless.  It is believing that we are a son or daughter of Adam, equal to all made in God’s image and full of worthiness as a living icon of God.

Soon the discussion of sin turned to redemption.  Judas was paid the price of a redeemed slave to betray Jesus.  We are each slaves to sin.  Paul describes his noose of sin in Rom 7:15, 19, “What Ido, I do not understand.  For I do not do what Iwant, but I do what I hate… For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”

In times of ancient slavery there were a few ways to become free.  Someone could ransome you with money (it had to be someone else as slaves had no money of their own) or they could take your place.  Jesus became a slave to sin, corruption (aging) and death in order to free us.  Christ is not paying a price to an angry father.  He is overcoming our sin to reconnect us with the Father.

The Pelagian heresy says that we can redeem ourselves.  St.Augustine disagreed saying we can only be saved through Christ but we must cooperate in our salvation. 

then Deacon Charles gave us an analogy of our salvation.  Imagine you’re on a boat in the midst of a great storm.  Green water is sloshing over the sides of the boat.  You radio the coast guard.  In the first scenario they radio back and say, “We hear you.  You should don your life vests and use any other survival equipment you have.  Good luck.”  But this is not our God.  Our God is not a distant God who says, “Follow those ten commandments I gave you.  Good luck.”

In the second scenario you radio the coast guard and they circle in a plane dropping rafts and whistles and floatation devices into the water near you.  But this is not our God.

In the third scenario you radio for help and the coast guard sends a rescue swimming, someone who drops from a helicopter and raises you up to safety.  This is our God, of course to be more accurate the rescue swimmer would die to save us. 

So Jesus gave us baptism to free us from original sin.  Does that mean that only Christians go to heaven?  No.  We are bound by the laws of the sacraments but God is not.  God also knows if someone has the baptism of desire, the baptism of fire or the baptism of water.

Lent is a time for us to make a sacrifice but not just for the sake of sacrifice.  We sacrifice to meditate on the sacrifices made for us and by others.  We can use money that we do not spend on desserts and other indulgences to donate to those in need.  We can use lent as a time for great prayer.  Hopefully these 40 days are the begining of a greater understanding and closer relationship with God.  Hopefully we do not indulge on the 41st day and forget everything we set out to learn.

Do you have any plans for lent?  Any resolutions?  Any plans for Fat Tuesday that I should know about?

We completed our online classes for the adoption.  We took 5 classes.  Attachment, Common Medical Issues, Adopting an Older Child, Conspicuous Families, and Helping the Adopted Child Deal with Grief and Loss.  Highlights?

To encourage attachment stay at home alone with your child for several months.  Tell Mom, “thanks but, no thanks, don’t come visit right now.”  Play games like peekaboo, facepaint, and rub lotion on each other hands.  These encourage eye contact and physical touching.

Make picture flashcards to aid in communication.  Learn as much Mandarin as possible.  Contact an interpretor.

Before you travel explore of your resources; therapists, therapy the school system may offer for free, counselors, pediatricians, language pathologists, neuropsychologists, health insurance, and support groups.

Be prepared to answer questions about adopting internationally.  People will automatically know that you have and will sometimes ask offensive questions.  Take the spotlight off of your child and put it on the family, “We’re an adoptive family.”  You can use humor, answer with a question, or answer.  I think most people who ask question do so because they are curious, not because they want to be offensive.  Obviously I want to talk about adoption as a wonderful way to build a family.  I just hope I am not oblivious if the question is hurtful to my child.

To deal with the grief and loss that every adopted child experiences (to some degree) we can make a lifebook (like a baby book that includes photos and information from before the adoption and photos and information about her country of origin.)  We can let her know that we are open to talking about her birth parents and former caregivers.  It will not hurt our feelings to let her talk about them (even if secretly it might hurt our feelings.)  I read about one adopted child who grew up and sought out her birth mother.  She said she felt “at home” with her.  I just think I will only feel “at home” when all of my children are with me and knowing one of those children might not share that sentiment does hurt my feelings.  Of course what’s important is not my feelings and of course I want her to feel comfortable talking to me about feelings like those.  I would rather know what she is thinking than pretend she’s not thinking it.

Anyway, we also had our phone interview with the adoption agency.  Hopefully we will get “matched” next Thursday.  That’s when the committee meets.  They have an independent social worker look at Summer-Jun’s file and describe the ideal family. Then they compare us to the ideal family and decide if the differences are too grave to overlook.  The woman from the adoption agency is going to call us Thursday to let us know if we’re a match.

The woman we spoke with met our daughter in July.  She said that she was happier and more smiley with other children than she was on the video we saw of her sitting with adults.  It was amazing speaking to someone who has met her.  I cannot wait to meet her myself.  Fury is a little nervous about the committee.  I’m trying not to be.  I’m sure it will be great!  AH!

Today was a little crazy.  I needed my carpool friend to take Fiction to and from school so I could work some extra hours on Wednesday.  I offered to take the girls to and from school on Friday to make up for it.  She said not to worry.  Her husband could bring the girls home on Friday as usual since he was driving that way.

Great.

My coworker has company in town I asked her if she’d like to give up her Friday shift to spend more time with them.  Sure.

Great.

I picked up the other girl for the carpool this morning.  I was going to tell the other mom to ask her husband to drop my daughter off at the gym rather than my house since I picked up this shift.  Before I could explain she said her husband would not be picking up the girls.

Oh.  Not great.

I took the girls to school with one plan.  I would beg my husband (my handsome, kind, responcible, loving, generous husband) to take time out of his day to pick the girls up from school.  I would also bribe him with a free breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s.  He works from home on Fridays.

I crossed my fingers and dropped off the girls.

Fury said okay.  Phew. 

Of course that would mean he would need the car.  The car.  We only have one car.  Preschool is 10 miles away.  I only work a mile and a half away.

I put Idaho John in his snowpants, boots, new Elmo sweatshirt, coat, mittens and dinosaur hat.  I put on my leg warmers, boots, coat, gloves, scarf and hat.  I carried Idaho John to the bus stop.

It is a beautiful day.  There is no more crazy 100mph winds.  the sun is shining.  We did not miss the bus (missing the bus always makes the day ugly, no matter how birghtly the sun is shining.)

I actually really enjoyed riding the bus.  The sidewalks were a little icy and I almost fell at one point.  While on the bus I started wondering if I would save money on gas and wear and tear on my car if I rode the bus.  It would cost $3 a day (to get 3 miles round trip) or $30 a month.  The way gas prices are going, I might have to consider it.

Fiction informs me that there are girl colors and boy colors.  Okay, I can follow this.  Then she tells me that every color is either a girl color or a boy color.

Her favorite color is green, so of course that’s a girl color, as well as my favorite, blue, and naturally pink and purple are girl colors.  Boy colors include black, red, orange, brown and yellow.

I cannot break the news about blue to her.

It is so windy that our trash can disappeared within minutes of the trash being picked up.  I went searching for it.  I thought maybe it rolled downhill, behind our neighbor’s house.  The snow as up past my knees!  And that was the walkway up to their front door!I did not see the can.  I was actually pretty glad that I didn’t see our can down the stream next to our house.

What would I have done if I saw it down there?

I did notice these strange snow mounds in our yard the next day.  Could one of them be our trash can lid?  I think I would have noticed them there before they were covered with snow.

Fiction’s hands are all red.  She said her preschool class didn’t go outside so how is it possible that she was outside without her gloves?  Could the dry air be doing this to her skin?  I put some lotion on them but she just wanted bandaids.

Oh!  And here’s a gratuitous photo of her looking like a marshmallow peep.  She’s wearing a tutu and a skirt under her snowpants.  She loves her new snowpants so much that she even wears them inside.

Yesterday she came home, took off her snowpants, put on a skirt and then put her snowpants back on.  I asked her why she bothered to put the skirt on, “Silly Mommie, because I want to twirl.”

We are required to complete 10 hours of online classes about adoption. We’re using adoptionlearningpartners.org.  I think it is a good idea to be prepared, I would want to take the classes regardless of if they were required.  But I admit, some of the material upsets me.

They say, “don’t adopt to save your marriage” and “don’t expect the child to be grateful or to behave lovingly towards you” and I have to remind myself that the authors are talking to everyone, not directly towards me. 

There are lots of helpful hints but I think I may have to retake the course after we adopt, when I know what specific issues we are facing.

Like, if your child regresses, indulge her!  Feed her with a bottle, rock her, hold her, bathe her.  I don’t think I ever would have have gotten a bottle for my 5 year old.

If your child is having food issues (hoarding, gorging, being very picky), again feed her, let her feed you, have a picnic in the living room.  Allow the child to shop for and help preapre the meal.  Eat finger foods.  Prepare familiar food.  Make meal time fun, not a power struggle.

Feeding each other is great for bonding (Idaho John and I practiced today!)  for bonding you should take as many opportunities to touch each other.  Rub lotion on each other’s hands,  touch her back as she falls asleep, and play games like twister.

I was surprised to find that we would need to put off preschool for a little while.  Our child will need time to bond with us before meeting other people.  I plan on going to preschool with her so I wonder how long we’ll wait before starting classes. 

We will need to clean out her bedroom.  Clutter and lots of toys can be overwhelming.  Right now her bunk is covered entirely with stuffed animals.  Even heavily decorated walls can be too much.

The course recommends asking well-meaning friends to keep their distance at first.  Lots of visitors and gifts can be distracting and overwhelming.  But it also says to throw a “claiming party” to help the parents bond.

As I said, every child is different with his or her own issues and needs personalized solutions. 

I’ll keep reading and studying and keeping you up to date.