Soap Research

While James is just washing it and going…..I am still using good old VO5 shampoo at the moment.  I have to admit I was skeptical about putting baking soda on my hair, but think I’ll be willing to try it once I see how it works out on his head.

However the whole baking soda switch got me to thinking about some things, soap in particular.  A couple of days ago I started looking at the labels on the back of the bottles.  Lots of chemicals that I can’t say and have no idea what they are.  So for homework I gave each kid a different chemical to research.  I have 63 students and out of 4 products I was able to give each kid a different chemical to research.

But here’s the other thing…lye.  I tried feveriously to look for an alternative to soap.  Almost all of the soaps in the world use lye.  In fact we have been using lye in soap since 2800 BC.  Lye is very very caustic and I’m thinking it can’t possibly be good for you.  An alternative is glycerin but even glcyerin somwhere along the way touches lye somehow, and some glycerin  is animal fat which isn’t good either.

So back to the drawing board and more research…..

Take a look at this caterpillar

I will be heading out to the field soon, and take a look at this caterpillar. I think its pretty cool.

Got To Get Ready

I got one big thing off my plate for school and now I really need to concentrate on the time I will be away. I am looking forward to it. I know I will miss Max and James. It will be nice to be away from school for a little bit and do something in science. I hope it all works out on the school side of things. I want the kids to get something out of it.

I also need to buy boots and pants.  I was looking at some of the pictures from the group that is out there now and there are really really huge spiders( the largest I have ever seen) and alligators on our trek to collect the caterpillars. Should be a fun experience and I hope to have many adventures to tell my students and James when I get home.

Tactile And Noise

This weekend we went to the energy festival in Kempton. It was unique in any festival because there were lectures there that you attended all day in addition to the exhibitors.  James got to go to a ton of lectures. There were a few that I attended. I was looking forward most to the one on population challenges but the person never showed that was speaking. Right next to the lectures was this huge playground where all the kids congregated and they had a ton of activities going on like puppet shows, playing with clay, face painting, spin art, chalk drawings etc.

I was in between lectures and watching Max at the playground. i was watching him play with the other kids and also play with clay. In a world of tactile and noise, Max fit right in.  There was no one to go around telling him sshh…. and he didn’t have to sit still for eight hours a day.

These past few weeks at school I know have been trying for him and his teacher and we met with her last year and are trying a few things to keep him settled for school. One thing that doesn’t help with the end of his day is that he basically has his special class which is all tactile and sensory and then is expected to come back for the regular classroom for an hour at the end of the day and do work. This is the hour he is having the most difficulty sitting for and also the most difficulty distracting the other kids.

But over the weekend he played at the playground for six hours straight and to look at him you would think he was a normal kid. He is socially gifted and was able to focus on what he was doing. He was also really happy.  Sometimes I think we expect too much from the kids these days.

We expect them to be quiet for too long…..

Busy Busy

I can feel the chill of fall in the air and i’m not liking it. I hate fall because winter is coming. I’m not wowed anymore about the change of color in the leaves because it means that soon they will look like dead sticks. There is so much going on but I guess having no down time is who I am. Someone asked me a couple of days ago if I ever thought I had adult ADD, I don’t think so, just think I have a lot of drive and determination. Plus keeping busy has been a livelihood for me. Trust me I have moments, days where I do just retreat to the bedroom to take a nap or just to veg out. Its rare but it happens.

School has been so busy, frustrating too. A lot of middle man stuff with me and the administration. I hope that all ends soon because its starting to get annoying. The teaching side of things( when I actually get to be in the classroom) has been great, lately though I have been pulled out for all kinds of reasons and my kids have had to have substitutes.

Max has been having a hard time adjusting to first grade and we are trying to get his behavior under control. We already met with the teacher who I think now knows how to handle him. It has been worrisome because we want him to succeed and if we have to just accept what he can do. Hopefully it gets better. The bugger has been trying to outsmart us and last night he’s up a point. He’s been staying up all night and we haven’t noticed. This has been an ongoing roadrunner wylie coyote moment….and I thought we had it solved. Now I’m looking into a motion sensor for his room.

I had to come home yesterday in the middle of the day to arrange some things for Max in school that somehow could only be done in a very narrow time frame. I was running around on a time crunch and realized I was locked out of the house. James instructed me how to break in ( which I’m not sure is all that comforting) and I did only to practically do a front flip onto the couch. It was a very seinfield moment. I picked Max up at school yesterday and he had a great day. In my mind I already knew how to reward this. Six flags was open last night according to my coupon book for season passholders only.

So we didn’t tell him and headed out for the 45 minute drive. We get there and the woman at the parking booth looks at us really weird and then hands us a flyer that says ” Come out and Play” flier. It had the intitals LGBT ( which I now realize that it stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual). I am trying to read the flier and I’m starting to make the connection when I suddenly see all these people in the parking lot that do not look straight. They switched the dates and if we were Lesbian, Gay , Bisexual, or Transexual we had to pay and couldn’t use our season pass. To be honest thankfully max didn’t question because I would have liked to try and explain that one, we just told him it was a private event and we weren’t allowed in. Geesh of all nights to go.. and it could happen only to us.

Sometimes I think heterosexual people should have a night.  I guess I just wish that who you are as a person isn’t defined by your race, nationality, gender, religion , or sexual orientation. Its weird that people cannot discriminate against you in an employer setting for any of those reasons,but people discriminate themselves for those reasons.  What I am saying is that people will automatically cling to their race or sexual orientation.  I really just care about the person and not any of those things and anyone drawing attention to themselves for one of those reasons makes me question their motives.

This weekend we are off to Kempton for an energy festival. Looks to have a lot of interesting lectures and classes so I think it should be fun, and I am glad to be away from the farm for a week.

Absence

Life is bound to get busy here very soon. Its not that I won’t have much to say, its just that I’ll be busy. School starts on wednesday but I have my new students on tuesday.

I’m also doing a lot of private journaling right now.  Our family is going through some rough spots and I need the space and need to handle it on my own, so most of blog entries won’t be available to read.

I’ll be back though because we have so much more to say! James and I met with the EAC last week and we are working on the community garden, the farm hands program starts next week, philly green fest, energy festival. All that good stuff.

Max’s Visit To First Grade

Max visited his first grade classroom and teacher the other day.  He seemed super anxious and nervous about the process and I know it will be a big adjustment for him. His first day is Wednesday, we actually thought it was Tuesday but he gets one more day.   I expect to see a lot of changes in him this year and hope that he is able to sit and behave.  But I am know he will learn a lot too and next year second grade will probably seem like a breeze. Its hard to believe he is going into first grade. At the same time these have been a long six and a half years and we’ve gone through a lot of changes and places. I plan on taking his first grade pictures this weekend and I’ll be sure to post them on smug mug.

Here’s my other Blog

I have a blog for school. It is required by Earthwatch for my fellowship. Its not nearly as interesting though, but this is where I will do most of the postings when I am out on expedition.  I am required to post every day.

I am going to be dead tired from picking up caterpillars and running from alligators ( it actually says this in my expedition booklet). In fact I had to get my doctor to sign off that I could withstand such conditions. I told him I can’t nearly run as fast as an alligator, but that I would try. Lucky for me alligators only really need to eat once a week and other times they are the slowest creatures on the planet.  They don’t exert any more effort than they need to.

http://www.earthwatch2.org/LFF/lewis/

Pennsylvania A Few Steps Back

Max and I went to DC today on the train. Its a great day trip, we went to the zoo this time and left enough to go back. What struck me walking from the subway is how far behind PA really is as a state. I wonder if this has to do with an attitude that I saw growing up and unfortunately still. The attitude that I see is a resistance to change. Change is a bad thing, change is not good. Why would you want to do that? Why can’t we keep doing it the same way we always do this, why do I have to be inconvenienced. I also see a secondary attitude of cost, people want to know how much this affects their wallet here and riding the bus is probably only a good thing because it saves you on parking downtown.

So with this attitude attached to Pennsylvania like a ball and chain how can I expect it to get any better? I walk down the street of DC and I can even find organic dry cleaning ( to be honest I’m not sure what this is even all about or if it is just a green gimmick). But people are resistant to even just changing how they celebrate holidays around here

To me this is a worrisome attitude and also makes me feel quite alone yet again over here. My life is constantly changing and as James says its the only one constant thing we got going over here, life will always change.

Over the next few weeks we have some things to attend to and are nervous about, but they are things that we are keeping to ourselves right now, so if you ask we won’t tell you. Just keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Catching Up

What a busy weekend but I think productive. We’ve been struggling with Max’s attitude.  Just the nonstop whining, the need to be in control all the time, and the attitude that he deserves the world whenever he asks for it. This is a dangerous attitude.  James and I really value hardwork and we want him to have to work for what he gets, and also appreciate what he has and who he has in his life.   He’s six and I understand these are lessons that he will eventually grow to understand, but it doesn’t hurt to plant the seed now.

He learned how to do laundry this weekend and he seems to like it. Mostly because he keeps the money he finds in the pocket.  I like knowing that my six year old knows how to do laundry, I like the idea of making him self sufficient.

On one of his not so great moments I was really thinking about how important it would be for him to learn the value of good hard physical work.  The only way for him to get this was perhaps on a farm.  So I started looking into programs and we found a farm hands program that we enrolled Max in for eight weeks. Its for 3 hours every saturday and it is an 18th century farm so  it is not modern day farming, but instead good old fashioned farming.  The program actually lasts all year but we’ll try the first eight weeks first.  We go with him and he is sent off to do chores while we help out with other chores.  The first session in the weekend after labor day and we’ll all be out picking potatoes. Rain or shine , snow or no snow.

It will definitely be an experience worth blogging about.

James and I got some much needed time this weekend and went roller coaster riding on Friday and Kingda Ka ( the world’s fastest and highest) is still the best!

Summer is winding down. One more week to go.  I feel like I just left for summer break but also know that we did a whole lot this summer to. I’m always sad to see it go.