Addict

I confess - I'm addicted to blogging. I spend my day reminding myself to blog about this or that, outlining in my head, relating stories. It's really horrible! Even worse is that there's too much to blog about. I think your eyes would cramp from reading everything if I remembered everything I wanted to put in it. As well as writing I love reading blogs. I'm hooked on my friend Tracy's , Wendi's, and Post Secret. I must have voyeuristic traits to be this interested in other people’s lives. Anyway, on Monday I was listening to Jeff Ward and he was talking about blogs. He said that there was evidence to suggest that people spend an average of 3.5 hours a day blogging from work. Now I know in my job I never had time to read or post blogs much less at work. What this tells me is there are an awful lot of you out there doing it all day long - that's just sick! If I ever get that enmeshed please some one take away the computer! Jeff Ward's point was that these people who blog should really be calling into his show. Here's my problem with that Jeff - When I call I can't get through and on the rare occasion that I do it's been so long since I initially called that you're on a different topic and someone else has made my point. Of course they didn't make it as well as I could have, but no one wants to be redundant - that's not good radio. Now if I was that upset with your "little show" I wouldn't listen as often as I can for as long as I can. I'm trying to find excuses to be in my car from 3-6 for your show and then 6-10 for Clark Howard. I just can't justify driving around Austin for 7 hours. It doesn't work to listen at home because there's just too much to get done and the kids want to talk over the radio. There are also times that the topic is just not age appropriate and I would hate for Z to repeat at school some of the things said on the radio. When he's able to filter he can listen.

Back on topic - Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon with a friend of mine, Sonia. It was great! We talked about our children and all their craziness, as well as some spiritual things. Sometimes Sonia is great at calming the waves for me. After being there for about 4 hours we started talking about women, specifically women of faith. We also talked about the seminar series Women of Faith that I find as a source of constant inspiration. We talked about the need in our church for a group specifically devoted to spiritual growth of women. There would be other aspects, but the primary goal of increasing spirituality of women. So to say the least we're in prayer about that both together and separately to see where God leads us. I know that as I've begun to focus on my spiritual growth as a woman, a mom, and a wife instead of a human things have gone much better. I feel a sense of rebirth. Butterflies have taken on a new meaning for me with this awakening. People always told me to pray specifics and I guess I wasn't praying specifically enough. I need to identify myself by more than what I do. Here's a challenge. Make a list of 20 things you are and don't list anything that's job related. See where it leads you. Many of us stay in miserable jobs because we identify ourselves by what we do instead of who we are. We feel that if we were to quit our jobs we would loose our identity. I was grateful that when I quit my job I didn't loose a sense of who I was, I just lost a job who's work I loved.

Yesterday evening I went to my teaching classes and learned about Gifted and Talented children. It was painfully obvious that my child, Zander, falls into that group. I learned what the state laws were on TAG kids and how to advocate for him when he hits public school. The reality of it is that no one funds TAG programs so the school districts don't offer them. After talking to the instructor it was more obvious that it will take a law suite to get the legislature to demand schools reinstitute TAG programs. Here's my other issue. I was taking Special Education courses to help me teach inclusion in my classroom. For it to be real inclusion I will also need to take TAG classes. I think it's important that if you're going to do inclusion that you have some TAG kids in there and if you're not approved for TAG then they can't be in there. If there are no TAG kids you only have half the bell curve - and that's not inclusion. So where are all the TAG kids? My guess is at this point they're just not identifying TAG kids so they don't have to provide the services. This is a great disservice to our communities and to the children. I don't want to hear any comments about creating a hierarchical society based on intelligence. The reality of things is that it happens no matter what and we should challenge children to learn at or above their potential - not hold them back because we're afraid they'll get a big head. So parents - get your kid identified so that they get the services they need. The other suggestion I got was to send my child to a special school in Austin that costs $10,000 a year out of pocket so that he's in an educational setting to meet his needs. Schools are willing to spend that on low functioning and it's my expectation that they spend that on high functioning if it's needed to meet their educational needs. Enough soap box for a day.

This morning I got Zander dressing in his cowboy outfit for his Halloween party. He looked so cute! We had to make adjustments to the chaps, but otherwise he looked like a cowboy. I met him this afternoon for the party and lunch and he was ready to take off the outfit. None of his peers dressed up even though it was encouraged by the teachers. One child had made fun of him so he was done pretending for the day. I was fine with that. His chaps were covered in leaves and grass and his holster was getting droopy. I tried to take a few pictures this morning, but he wasn't cooperating. He was in silly mode. At the party he told a little friend "if you cover your face she can't take a picture" - hahaha mom's know how to take surprise pictures and those are the ones that end up in scrapbooks with cute stories. I think Zander loved being a cowboy today despite all the social issues.