A Word Between Friends

Ok, Janie B from Life Not Wasted or Lost offered a chance at a little word play a few days ago where she would provide the words and I could write my feelings pertaining to these words. Take a look...

1. October : This is one of the months (next to Christmas and birthdays that is) that my kids look forward to the most, and truthfully, I have always enjoyed it too. When I was younger, the thought of "being someone or something else," even just for one night, was pretty exciting, and when I was first married, I often dragged my husband to Halloween dances and costume contests. The last time I did this, I was four months pregnant with my daughter, and I was a corpse in a casket with my husband as a gravedigger. We won first place in one contest and third in another, and this is something I want to get back to when my kids are older and don't want to spend time with old mom and dad.

2. computers: I have a love/hate relationship with technology. On the one hand, as a computer science teacher, I love what technology can do and I often find myself comparing new technology "toys" with my students. But when something doesn't work, it just about drives me crazy, and when it comes to computer problems here at home, I am the one who has to keep things running. (My kids got a virus in their computer and I was up until around 1:00 trying to keep from having to reformat the hard drive. Well, long story short, I fixed their computer, but I felt I never left work.)
I also know that too much of even a good thing can be detrimental, and I know some of my students stay up until the wee hours of the morning playing all these tech games. Lack of sleep = poor performance = poor health = poor personal relationships. (Unfortunately, I do this as well, like when I was working on my new blog logo and site appearance-and I am still not satisfied with it...)

3. parenting : I would like to say that I have this parent thing mastered, but everyone would know I was lying. I checked out a video that Heather at Theta Mom had on her site about some mothers being alpha or beta, but I don't like labels especially when it comes to what kind of mother you are, just like I feel that not everything in the world is black or white. There are many in-betweens, and I think I am one of those mothers. I feel strongly about some things when it comes to my kids, but there are other times that I take more of a laid back approach with situations that I don't think are dire. Just take one thing at a time, right?

4. holidays:  Holidays with a family, especially a family with small children, are wonderful, and my husband and I go all out to make things magical. Since my daughter is beginning to out-grow some of the childhood fantasies such as the Easter Bunny and unfortunately the tooth fairy too (I had to fess up recently after she saw her tooth sitting in a glass on my night stand-ok, I know it's gross, but I didn't want to save a bloody tooth, and I forgot about it. I think Sarah at Mommy Lite jinxed me because I haven't messed up a tooth pickup in a while... Check out her site for some cute tooth fairy stories!)

Santa Clause is now in danger so last year we really freaked my daughter out. I got some bells, and my husband grabbed my exercise ball (finally it was good for something other than sitting in a corner), and come midnight my husband jingled the bells outside the kids windows while at the same time tossing the ball on the roof. He did pretty good until he threw the ball with a little too much gusto and it bounced pretty rapidly along the length of the roof and off the other side where it continued to roll to the street. He took off as fast as he could because it was heading in the direction of a passing motorist! The ball was saved, my daughter described how she heard Santa's sleight skidding on the rooftop, and my son heard nothing-he slept through the whole thing. (Oh well, there's always next year!)

5. popcorn:  Well, what's not to like about popcorn? I buy this in bulk because it's the favorite snack for our movie nights. I only wish that our microwave wasn't so unpredictable. I can't just plunk the bag down and wait for the timer. Too many batches of scorched popcorn (yes, it took more than one scorching-I'm not a quick learner) taught me this fact, and because of all the starving people in India (at least this is what my mother told me when I was younger) I can't just chuck the bag and get out another. I try to pick through the burnt kernels and salvage what I can. (Notice I said I not we-I pop everyone else another bag. I can be weird sometimes...)

Now Janie, how did I do with my first homework assignment? I really enjoyed this exercise, and I hope everyone else did too.