You like dance?

Keiki Hula Class

6 to 11 years old

Mondays/Thursdays

3-3:45 p.m.

$40/month

Kaika Mahine Hula Class

12 years and up

Mondays/Thursdays
4-4:45 p.m.
$40/month

Basic Tahitian Dance Class

Saturdays

12-12:45 p.m.

$5/class

Please email alanaia.polynesian.ent@gmail.com for more information.

(It's my sister, some of you know her.)

Organized is A State of Mind

This is very cool! I wouldn't mind something like this. It would force me to keep things organized. And it wouldn't take too much effort because, really, how big is 300 square feet anyway?

Despite what my husband and mother may say, I am not an unorganized person. Okay fine. I can be a bit unorganized at times. Okay fine! If I don't make an effort to stay organized, I am usually unorganized.

Although I am not a normal hater, in the spirit of normal hating, "organization" is relative. You may see piles of paper and envelopes, I see a filing system. You may wonder why the kids' shot records are not in the folder with their birth certificates like they used to be. I say, no worries, I know exactly where they are - in the plastic bin on the top shelf of the bookcase in our bedroom. Why? Because that's where I put them after we came home from their last set of shots. Why move them, I know where they are. You may see a bunch of crap under the couch. I see a place to store annoying McDonald's Happy Meal toys.

See? Organized. It just may not be what you call "normal" organization methods.

~~~

Whip It - Loved it!

The Open Road - It was nice. It wasn't amazing, but it was a nice feel good movie. I enjoyed the acting and as simple and as "normal" as the scenes were, they were really nice.

Management - Crap. We couldn't even get halfway through it. While the actors are not terrible actors unto themselves, they were not good together in this movie. (After reading some reviews, I'm willing to give it another shot. But I'm not willing to re-watch the crappy beginning. If it redeems itself in any way, I'll let you know.)

Love Happens - Not terrible. Slow. I kept waiting for something. I'm not sure what exactly, but it never happened anyway. It would have made more sense to call this movie Good Grief.

Surrogates - I don't know. I mean, I thought it was okay while we were watching it, but after? There are a lot of holes. I think this could make a great movie and book - but it would need to be reworked.

Again with the excuses...

Our computer with all my pictures on it is on the fritz. I'm sorry, but the WWII will continue next week.

Improvise

My kids asked for blueberry pancakes one Saturday morning. We didn't have blueberries. We didn't have any berries. But we did have blueberry muffin mix!



The first pancake I attempted was made from just the muffin mix. It wasn't very good. So I added some pancake mix to it. And they turned out edible! I eyeballed it, but I added about the same amount of pancake mix as there was blueberry mix.



Definitely not the same as adding real blueberries to your pancakes. But they made a decent enough substitute for us that morning.

Wednesday What Is It?

What is it?

Here's how to play.

Wednesday What Is It? Results

The results of last week's Wednesday What Is It?

A Folding Chair!

A non-adult, family friendly folding chair.
Nothing dirty about it. Well, maybe a few germs, since it is in the kid's waiting room at our doctor's office.
Hahahaha!

Righty tighty, lefty loosey.

A friend taught me that in college. Yep, I had to turn 18 years old before I came to the conscious understanding that all twisty/screwy things have a universal system for screwing and unscrewing. "Righty tighty, lefty loosey", I said to myself as I attempted to remove the plate on my sewing machine. It was disgusting under there.



Righty tighty, lefty loosey. Screw the plate back in.

You know what else is lefty loosey? Katelyn's tooth! Her left front tooth is loose. Yes, four years old is a little early to start losing teeth. But she had some help to knock it loose.

Early last December, James and I came home from work to a completely chaotic household. Above all the din we heard coming from the house, Katelyn's cry was the loudest. The poor girl had been hit in the mouth with this terrible, awful, dangerous, huge, heavy plastic ball. Her gum was bleeding and she wouldn't calm down. It took a little over two hours and several ice cubes to stop the bleeding. Her tooth had been jarred loose. It wasn't on the verge of falling out, but it was now crooked. Since the bleeding did stop eventually we decided not to take her to the ER, but I did take her to the dentist first thing in the morning. Just in case.

It was Katelyn's first trip to the dentist ever. We had talked to her about going in for her first check up in the past, but we never made the appointment. I was surprised and very pleased at how well she did. Dr. Crystal was out so we had to see her husband, Dr. Pierson. Dr. Pierson is great. But he's a man. And Katelyn wanted "the girl dentist". Oh boy.



But you know what? It went really well. His assistant, who was a woman, started us off by taking x-rays, and Dr. Pierson came in later to read the x-rays and check Katelyn's mouth. I was checking out her x-rays too - they looked odd. I couldn't figure them out. Which may have something to do with the fact that I'm not a dentist, or maybe it's because seeing two sets of teeth is a bit odd. But hey, who's counting?

Dr. Pierson said the roots of her front teeth were almost gone and her adult teeth were poised to come in. While getting hit in the mouth with that terrible ball did accelerate the loosening of this tooth, it was gearing up to fall out anyway and it should continue to loosen and fall out within the next six months.


(After her visit with Dr. Pierson, she happily went to school to show her friends the cool pinwheel he gave her.)

Wow! My baby girl is on the way to getting her adult teeth already. What a milestone. One that I rarely think about; I just assume it will happen so much farther down the road.

She has been really ginger when biting with her front teeth in hopes to keep that tooth in place. But now it's loose. Last night as my eight year old niece wiggled her loose tooth, my four year old daughter did too. I'm not sure if I'm ready for this.

What I need!

At least for today, this is what I need. Not want, need. What I need!

1. I need a house. My (and James's) own house. A house that I can paint and decorate anyway I (and James) want to. A house that will not turn into an oven in the hot afternoon Saipan sun. A house with a big kitchen and a second small kitchen, a huge deck, a sewing room, a big living room, long overhangs, and an at least partially flat yard.

2. I need it to be six degrees cooler.

3. I need to work from home. All the time. Not like now where I have a day job and then I also do Ayorátá work from home in my spare time. I need to do Ayorátá work from home in my regular time, not just spare time.

4. I need to be at least 25 pounds lighter. For my health, not for my looks. Although it wouldn't hurt my looks to weigh less.

That's why SHE's the teacher!

Katelyn is in Primary class, that would be pre-school for all you traditionalists, but my almost-five-year-old might as well be in junior high. Early on in the school year I began the whole, "how was school today?" routine. And even without the cognitive understanding of the typical mother-daughter relationship, her reply was simply, "fine".

"How was school today, Katelyn?"

"Fine."

"What did you do?"

"Mmmm, I don't remember."

So I started asking....

"How was school today?"

"Fine."

"What activities did you do?"

"Mmmm, I don't remember."

"Did you do beading?"

"Yeah! I did beading."

I was so proud of myself. Yessss! (complete with the fist pump) I finally figured out how to get information about my daughter's day. But Katelyn, being the smart little girl that she is, quickly learned that all she needed to do to satisfy my after school badgering was tell me that she did beading. Day after day. Beading. Just beading.

"What activities did you do today?"

"Beading."

"What other activities did you do?"

"Mmmm, just beading."

Now, I know that a Montessori education is a bit different than what most of us are used to and to many it seems the children have no structure. You mean the kids pick their own activities? They make their own decisions about what to learn each day? At five years old?! Yes. And they do so under the guidance of excellent educators.

During our first parent-teacher conference, I asked Katelyn's teacher about what Katelyn does all day because all the kid would tell me is that she does beading. All day. Every day. Just beading. We talked about what she really does, how she behaves, and how she learns. It was great. Her teacher knows exactly where Katelyn is developmentally and guides her through activities and lessons at the right pace. So what does Katelyn do all day? Not just beading.

She does math lessons; reading/writing; daily classroom duties like organizing items, tidying the classroom, serving snacks, and washing or drying dishes. From what I have put together, the students do activities in the garden, they have daily conversation points, they read, they have a quiet/thinking/meditation area, they paint, they sing, they learn Mandarin, they engage in all sorts of experiential learning activities. So why doesn't Katelyn care to tell me about these exciting activities?

Her teacher explained that by the time Katelyn comes home she's tired. She used her brain and her body all day to engage in those activities and the last thing she wants to do is recount all her lessons to me when she just finished doing them. Instead, she wants to unwind. And if by telling me that her day went fine and that all she did was beading is enough to get me to stop bugging her with all the questions, then by golly, Katelyn found her answer.

So we asked her teacher how do we find out what Katelyn did in school on a given day? It's simple: relate to her. Give her the break she needs and ask her about her day later on, after she's had time to unwind - over dinner or during prep for bed time.

"I did a lot of writing today, Katelyn. I had to write about Administrative Unit Outcomes. Did you do any writing today?"

"Yes! I wrote letters and you know? I'm learning to write cursive."

Or....

"I had a conversation with my boss. We talked about passing the budget. Did you have any conversations today?"

"Today I had a conversation with my classmate about butterflies."

Or even....

"Gosh, I was so busy at work today. I had to do so much math! Did you do any math today?"

"Yeah, we pulled out the rug and Mylan and I did addition."

Try it, it works.

And that's why SHE's the teacher.

Wednesday What Is It?

What is it?

Here's how to play.

Wednesday What Is It? Results

The results of last week's Wednesday What Is It?

Scissors!

5 points to Plumeria Girl!
2 points each to Bon and DAtalig

Am I lame?

My co-workers organized an office weight loss challenge and the first day was Wednesday. I decided not to join in the fun. You know, the fun that comes from starving yourself, from turning down your favorite most satisfying foods, the fun that comes with torturing yourself to work out even when you just plain feel like crud. My dear co-workers did not impose any kind of guilt trip on me, but I couldn't help but feel like the spoil sport, lowering the purse and shorting the fun by one office mate.

Before they decided on this fun little activity, which runs through June, by the way, I had already made up my mind to do something about my health. My health is not failing, but it's not on the honor roll either. I'm also too young to be feeling as many aches and pains as I feel, and I know they are directly related to my over abundance of excess poundage.

Am I lame for not joining the challenge? It is supposed to be a motivating activity. There is friendship and encouragement involved and of course money - the 1st and 2nd place winners, well losers really, will take home a percentage of the purse. Did I tell you when this ends? It ends in June. June is five months from now, in case you didn't know. I'm worried I won't make it to June if there is pressure attached to it. Especially since I decided I don't care and I'm not going to try and take my man-child off the boob until he turns three. Don't make that face at me. It will too happen. I'm already prepping the boy - he tells me, "I'm two so I susu, but when I turn three - bye bye susu".

I'm not going to do an official thing. And I'm not going to let you follow as closely as I did when I started my failed journey to Skinnyville. Forget Skinnyville. Forget pressure. The only pressure here is the pressure on the buttons of my pants from my fat belly.

By the way, NMC, who was it that read my blog and stole my idea?

Wednesday What Is It?

What is it?

Here's how to play.

Wednesday What Is It? Results

The results of last week's Wednesday What Is It?

A shower poof! (pouf?)

Also acceptable: loofa, scrubbie, shower scrub

5 points to Courtney!
2 points each to Bon and Shar.

In My Head

Q: Have you ever wondered what thoughts fill my head all day? (If your answer is not affirmative in nature, please keep it to yourself.)

A: Mainly odd television and movie references that I bet most people don't remember. This week it has been songs from TV comedies which happen to either be or be related to SNL. If you can fill in the blanks from memory, then you are my soul sistah. And if you're a dude? Well, then we cool.


From the mastermind of Jimmy Fallon:

I can go down hill, on the icy snow.
Dressed ______________, where else ___________?
I'm only a man, on two ______________.
Instead of _____ I'm wearing ________.
I can't even tell if I'm winning the race,
Because ____ is ____ on my face.
It's not easy to ________________.

From the nonsense that only Tracy Morgan can pull off:

Rocket! I'm taking a rocket.
I'm __________________.
Hey, look out _______!

Yeah a rocket! Into outer space.
Goodbye __________.
I'll be there _____.

Blast off for fun and adventure.
Yes, I said adventure.
Collecting ______.

Oh it's my way!
On the ___________________.
That's why they all say,
There goes Astronaut Jones!

Even if those last two stumped you, I do hope you can name the singers of this little gem:

Talking it up! On the Barry Gibb talk show.
Talking 'bout chest hair.
Talking 'bout crazy cool medallions.

Did anyone else watch a pregnant Amy Adams sing Bust A Move with Jimmy Fallon? Good stuff.

And from the funniest show on earth (name the show): I'm a star! I'm on top! Somebody bring me some haaaaam!

(I'll try to find videos and post them later on.)