A Picture

Over the past couple months, the preschoolers and toddlers have been playing on the playground at the same time. Before, they went out separately. Anyway, since last Thursday, a few of the preschoolers have started to like me. It started when Crawling Baby’s sister wanted me to help her up on the swinging bar on the swing set. We talked about Crawling Baby, preschool and other things. Then a girl who I’ll call T came over. I saw her before during one of my observations. There are a few issues going on with her. Most of which surround her bullying other kids. She also wanted a turn on the swinging bar and while she was up there, she started to be mean to Crawling Baby’s sister and ended up kicking her in the face. Later that day, she came back over to me because she wanted me to push her on the regular swings. I notice that T gets mad when I need to play with the toddlers or if I’m busy with another preschooler especially Crawling Baby’s sister. Those two always seem to argue. There is also a boy who I’ll call G who likes to talk to me when I push him on the swing. The other day he told me how he got past being in the baby room, the toddler room and how now he’s a preschooler. He tells me about his favorite books and the favorite books of his classmates. He talks about watching Sponge Bob and how he can’t pump on the swing yet, but he’s trying. I tried to listen to his stories the other day, but I kept getting interrupted by the girls arguing or one of the toddlers who needed my help.



I’ve been going in every day since last Thursday, so the preschool girls have started finding me every day on the playground. Two of them asked me why I always have to work with those toddlers and why don’t I work in their classroom? Today, I finally did for a little while, but T wasn’t there. I say that because she was the main one who kept asking me that. Since my bad experience at the previous preschool, I was hesitant to work with these preschoolers which is why I’ve mostly insisted on working with only infants and toddlers. I did miss working with them though and the conversations we used to have. It’s been fun working with the three different groups because they’re all good for different reasons. Here’s a picture that Crawling Baby’s sister drew for me today. She filled in the whole paper and there are some little designs in there. The important part is that she made it for me and worked on it for a while. While everyone else was arguing or going a little crazy, she was focused on coloring her entire paper.

Mamorial Day, 2011

I usually don’t talk about anything other than kids on the blog, but I thought this was funny. So I figured I’d post it. Yesterday, we went over to my mom’s for a small cookout. It was nice to spend most of the day outside and away from the computer. We brought Vic, the yellow lab along. He enjoyed laying in the grass and was at times amused, but for the most part, he was disinterested in my brothers six chicks. My brother brought a couple of them out into the yard to munch on the grass. Here’s how they all interacted. The cat in the picture is my mom’s. Who knew we could get a picture of a dog, cat and a chicken! The poor chick cried while she was in the yard by herself, but felt better after her sister came along. It was an enjoyable day.

What I Miss About Preschoolers

Since I started volunteering with the infants and young toddlers, I’ve realized I really miss the conversations that I had with the preschoolers. During my internship, Shy and I would usually have a conversation before her nap. Here’s some of one that I had with her before nap time.

Shy: “Is somebody sleeping in here?”
Me: No. David is usually here, but he’s sick today. So he’ll be back tomorrow.
Shy: Why?
Me: Well, he’s sick so he had to go home early.
Shy: “He need to go to doctor.”
Me: “He does. He has a doctors appointment.”
Shy: “Then he can come back here.”
Me: Yeah. He’ll come back here when he’s better. He’ll take some medicine and get better.”
Shy: “Yeah. I also go to doctor when I get all better.”
Me: “What do they do at the doctors?”
Shy: They check on my throat and my elbows and my hands and my hand.”

Here’s another conversation we had on the same day.
Shy: “I had to pee-pee on the potty.”
Me: “You’re getting to be a big girl.”
Shy: “Yeah!”
Me: Are you going to be big, big, big?” (She liked to say that things were going to grow big big big.)
Shy: Yeah! I’m going to just be more than you.”
Me: “You’re going to be more than me?”
Shy: “Yeah!! I’m gonna be bigger too when I come next time. I’ll come back in that door and I will see you.”
Me: “You’ll come back and see me when you’re big?”
Shy: “Yeah.”
Me: “I hope so.”
Shy: “You’ll stay here till you get back in your car.”
Me: “Yeah.”
Shy: My mommy’s coming after nap.”
Me: “I know.”


I enjoy working with babies and toddlers, but they can’t really talk to me and I miss hearing some of their thoughts. With the preschoolers, there was at least one conversation or something I heard as they were playing that would make me laugh every day. I also miss doing some of the activities you can do with preschoolers that you can’t do with younger kids. With infants and toddlers, you worry about a lot of safety issues. Not that you wouldn’t worry about a preschooler’s safety, but the younger the children, the more you worry. There is a bigger variety of activities they can do and toys that they can play with. However, you don’t get as much individual time with older toddlers and preschoolers because there are more of them. It’s also easier to manage a group of younger kids at least in my experience. I like that you have more time to work with the younger kids individually, the group size is smaller and they do other things that are cute and funny. Some of this balances out and makes the extra worries worth it. There is much more hands on work with toddlers and infants which I don’t mind. Of course, there are a lot of laughs with babies and young toddlers too. I feel that I’m better at working with them, but sometimes I miss the way things were with the preschoolers.

Assignments: A Child's Drawing

These drawings are from two girls who were apart of the first group of kids I worked with back in 2001.
The first drawing is called, “Stripes.” It’s by a girl named, Amanda. I worked with her for two summers and she was fun to work with. She laughed a lot. She loved to play in the home corner. One of our games was to play with the mirror and look at our reflections. We’d make silly faces in the mirror or pop up and then disappear. On the last day of my job, Amanda drew this picture. I asked her to tell me about it and she said it was just stripes. She asked me to save it for her which I did, but it ended up in the pile of drawings that other kids were drawing for me. She never got it back, but I’m still saving it.



The second drawing is by a girl named, Oona. It was also drawn on my last day. She said it was a present for me, but she didn’t tell me anything about the picture. I think it’s a creation that we can pretend it’s whatever we want it to be. One memory of her is when I first met her, she was near the garden. She had just picked strawberries and she was telling me about them. She loved strawberries, but then realized her shoe had came untied. As I tied her shoe, she was curious about me. She wanted to know where I lived, who I lived with, where my house was etc. She asked a lot of questions. One day, the group was on the carpet waiting to hear a story. One boy said how bored he was and then Oona said, “If you are bored, then that means you are a boring person.” That’s something that she heard from her parents or other adults I’m sure, but I suppose it’s true.

Thank You For My Friend

Some of you who know me already know this story, but I haven’t written it on this blog. One of my assignments for this week is to write a story about a child who touched my heart. Since I don’t want to use her full name, I’ll call her Shy. She was extremely shy when I first met her and always was around new people. I met her during my internship. It was my second day and the head teacher brought a new girl in the classroom. She had just got done crying. She was two and a half and had never been to preschool before. She brought Shy over to me and we started playing with her baby doll and making a bed for her out of blocks. She only talked a little that day and asked for her mom a few times, but over time we became friends. I’d see her every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few months. Since I became so close with her, they assigned her case to me which meant that I did the observations on her, her assessment and finally the parent teacher conference. After a while, she became less shy and interacted with the other teachers and children more, but I continued to be her favorite person. There are a lot of stories and conversations that I could talk about, but my favorite thing that she ever said was on her last day before she moved.

One day, she was getting ready to leave and all of the sudden she said, “You’re my best friend at school.” I thought that was so great! I told her she was my best friend at school too and I really meant it. She was the best thing about being there. Then on her last day, I gave her a gift. It was a huge gift bag with a few things in it. She was so excited to see the bag. She ran over smiling and laughing. It seemed like she couldn’t believe it was all for her. I knew that she loved her cat so I got her a touch and feel kitten book. She loved the furry texture on the front page. Another gift was a couple of shiny rocks from my childhood rock collection. Shy was very interested in the rocks outside. She liked to feel the textures and look at them. She loved to put the rocks in her pockets. I figured I’d add to her interest by giving her some different rocks. She thank me for the rocks. Her favorite candy was gummy bears so I put two bags of gummy bears in the gift bag. She was so excited about those. She wanted to open them right away. I included a little photo album with a picture of her on St. Patrick’s Day with a mask on and a picture of myself so she’d remember me. She liked the book and it had plenty of pages for her own photos. Finally, I have a unicorn collection and have loved them since my childhood. I have a unicorn necklace that I wear almost everyday and the children always notice it. I decided to get her a plush white and purple unicorn. She called it, “Horsie.” In my mind, I was hoping that later she’d see that unicorn and remember that I gave it to her, but she’s young and she probably won’t remember who got that for her. At least she can cuddle with it or make it apart of her princess play. Every little girl pretends she’s a princess at some point.

Her mother and I were talking and all of the sudden Shy said, “Thank you for my friend.” She meant the unicorn. Then a few minutes later, she said, “Thank you for being my friend.” Then she told me again that I was her best friend at school. It was really sweet how she thanked me for the unicorn and thanked me for being her friend. After she moved, I heard from them once. Shy is in a new school and has a new brother or sister. I don’t know which because I hadn’t heard from them after that. I’d include a picture of her with her unicorn, but I don’t want to put pictures of other people’s kids online out of respect for her and her family.
She left back in 2009, but I still miss Shy and there hasn’t been anyone like her since. She’s one of a kind and I have many great memories of her.

Special Snowman

This is a special snowman that was made by the older group of kids during my internship in 2009. I was going to post this to celebrate our first snowfall a few days ago, but that snow has already melted and we are waiting for more. I haven’t seen any other group of kids make a snowman like him since then. They had made him in the morning. It took the whole morning recess to make his huge snowballs. It was started by one kid and he did most of the work, but eventually others pitched in to help him. They realized he didn’t have a hat or mittens so they brought them out in the afternoon. They found things to use to give him a face and buttons. The kids were proud to show him off and we printed pictures to hang up and give to parents. Here he is, with all his accessories.

Memories & Cheesecake

I know I haven't really done a whole lot of talking about food lately, but to be honest, I haven't really eaten very well lately. Not saying I've been slipping up and eating any meat or anything, but I've been on the go so much that I've eaten out more than I usually do and I haven't focused on cooking with fresh veggies and all that good stuff.

As I've been packing up things to move to Florida (in only two weeks now), I've been reminiscing about memories in mine and my husband's first home together. When we moved in, neither of us had any furniture to our names, so instead of going on a honeymoon, we opted to head to Ikea and buy a whole house-full of furniture: couch, beds, dressers, tables, lamps, nightstands. We filled our new home with new furniture to start our new life together.

This is what our couch looks like. Durb actually picked it out!

And this is what our sweet king-sized bed looks like. So comfy!

I remember the night all the furniture got unloaded and set up, we piled into the huge new king-sized bed with a few of our friends (Natalie, Derek, and Laura) and we all just laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, talking and laughing. I remember the week after our wedding having the guys over for a Phillies game and everyone pigging out on a Chick-Fil-A nugget tray. I remember the first time I cooked a big dinner in my new kitchen for Durb and Derek - I made baked chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and rolls (I obviously won't ever make that whole dinner again). I remember vegging out on the couch watching movies with Durb during the crazy snowstorms that made it nearly impossible to get off our gigantic hill. I remember my friend Nikki coming down to spend the night while Durb was in Florida and my epic failure at making a brownie pizza (the brownies got a little too crunchy) and us drinking tequila and watching 'The Neverending Story' and finally somewhat understanding what was going on in the heads of the people who created that crazy movie. I remember Natalie coming down just about every other day after I got out of the hospital to go swimming with me and keeping me some really awesome company. I remember just last week celebrating my one-year anniversary with my husband by toasting with cheap champagne and eating year-old non-vegan Italian creme cake.

There are so many wonderful memories I have in this apartment (and some not-so-awesome ones of course), and I've realized it's going to be kind of bittersweet leaving it. This was the place my husband and I started our lives together, and now it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

In honor of fond family memories, I'm sharing a recipe for vegan pumpkin cheesecake. When I think back on some of my favorite memories of my family and my parents' home, most of them revolve around the holidays and the food that goes along with them. Thanksgiving is coming up pretty soon, and it's a holiday I'm unfortunately more than likely going to have to miss out on spending with my family this year. It's a very good possibility that I'm going to end up spending it alone in Florida, without even my husband there. Not to fret, though, because next Saturday my parents are having a big going-away dinner for Durb and I for our whole family, including Durb's family, too, and they're making Thanksgiving dinner for it. My mom's even going out of her way to make vegan things for me, like mashed potatoes with almond milk and vegan margarine and she's going to use vegetable broth in her stuffing instead of the usual chicken broth. For the last several years, it's been my job to make pumpkin cheesecake at Thanksgiving, which is one of my absolute FAVORITE desserts imaginable. This year, I'm just going to make one that's vegan, and I found PETA's recipe for it. So here it is, I hope you enjoy it and I hope you enjoy and appreciate getting to spend Thanksgiving with loved ones in a few weeks.


Ingredients


12 oz firm silken tofu, pureed
8 oz nondairy cream cheese (I like Tofutti brand)
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 prepared graham cracker crust
1/2 cup chopped pecans


Directions


Preheat the oven to 350. Puree all the ingredients except for the pie crust in a food processor (or you could just be a badass like me and use your Ninja). Pour filling into the graham cracker crust. Bake for 50 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack for an hour, then cover and refrigerate at least 6 hours before serving. Sprinkle the top of the cheesecake with the chopped pecans before serving. Be nice and set out some real whipped cream for people who aren't vegan because I guarantee they won't appreciate the vegan whipped cream shit you can make with agar powder and all that crap, but at the same time, don't tell them the cheesecake is vegan because I guarantee they'll never know the difference. 

Holy crap I can't wait to eat some of this next week!

My Friend's Last Day

Today was my friend’s last day. My friend with the Fire Truck.
This morning, he saw me when I walked in. He showed me the book he brought for the center and then he followed me to the office. He noticed I have a backpack and he said, “You have a backpack too? Like mine?” I said, “Yes, I have a backpack.” I told him it was cool that we both had backpacks and we went into the classroom. His mother was still there. She stayed for a few minutes to talk to us and then said goodbye because his dad was coming to pick him up instead of her in the afternoon.

They didn’t have our usual play-dough out so we sat down at a table and he looked at the book he had brought with another teacher. After that, we started lacing spools. They had pipe cleaners and shoe laces that they were threading through the holes in the spools. He did most of them fine, but there were a couple of spools that he had trouble threading so he asked for my help, but he was pretty quiet for the rest of the time. I was told to go outside and help with the other group of kids which made me miss his little snack party.

When I saw him again, he ran over and sat in my lap during story time. After that we went outside and he pretended the caterpillar tunnel was a train, played in one of the houses for a while and then I had to take him inside. He started talking about fire safety from last week. He noticed a smoke detector and made the beeping noise. He told me that when there’s a fire that you have to leave. I said the word, “Exit.” Then he said, “Yeah. You exit.” He talked about how if you can’t get out the door you have to go out the window in the classroom. I asked him where we’re supposed to go once you get outside and he pointed to the door that leads to the parking lot. I said, “You know a lot about fire safety.” He said, “I know a lot about fire safety.”
We watched a short movie and then it was lunch time. The kids nap for a while after lunch, but he’s one of the ones that wake up early so I brought him back to the classroom. We played with play-dough for a while, but we had different molds to use. Some were dolphins, starfish, and lobsters and there is this thing that the kids call, “Crazy hair.” You push it down on to the play-dough and long stringy pieces come out of it. It’s like an extruder for clay. He made a few shapes, but he was back to being quiet again. Some of the other kids thanked him for bringing his book and he decided to play in the kitchen area with a telephone. I asked who he was calling and it turned out to be his dad.

A woman came in to do Tyche with the older kids and he didn’t want to participate so he brought his stuffed hedgehog over and sat with me. I always have called it, “igelkott” ever since his mother told us what the word for hedgehog is in Swedish. When I first said that to him, he laughed probably because I said it wrong. Then I got the other kids saying it and he’d laugh even harder at that. He finally started to look out the window until his dad drove up and he ran out of the classroom. The director stopped him and told him to make sure to get his lunch box. I ran after him because I didn’t want him leaving with out an adult. He almost forgot, “igelkott” so the director ran out to give it to him. When we got to the door to the lobby, his dad was there getting the rest of his stuff. He thanked another teacher and me for taking care of his son. Then he ran out the door and almost to the parking lot. I caught him and had to bring him back to his dad, but at first he wanted to stay in the entry way. Eventually, we were able to say goodbye to him and give him a hug. He was happy to be going home with his dad and quickly went out the door. I know he probably won’t remember me later, but I’ll always remember making big pancakes and counting eggs with play-dough, arguing about more pushes on the swing and, “igelkott.”

The Fire Truck

Last week, the kids learned about fire safety. On Wednesday, two firemen brought the fire truck so the kids could see them in their uniforms and look at the fire truck. The kids were able to spray the hose on the lawn and sit in the driver’s seat of the fire truck while having their picture taken. Earlier that morning, the little boy who loves to make food out of play-dough ran over to me carrying his plastic fire hat. All he could tell me was that it was a fire hat and he put it on his head and then took it off. He sat on my lap and while another teacher was asking questions about fire safety, he’d be one of the first to answer. At the end of the day, his mother told me he loves fire trucks and that at home, he and his brother are always playing with them. I remembered him playing outside a few weeks ago. He sat up in the play house and kept saying that he needed to put out the fire. His way of putting it out was to fill a bucket with wood chips and pour it on an imaginary fire somewhere on the playground. Every time I thought he was done and that he had put out the fire, he’d say that there was a new fire and he had put that one out too.

Usually, his last day of school for the week is Thursdays. Since he will be moving back to Sweden after this week, I bought him a going away gift. I found a fire truck that makes sounds. It has four buttons for the different sounds. I also got him run run koala!
I was actually looking for a book about fire trucks or trains, but there weren’t any that I liked so I bought this one hoping he’d like it. When he opened his gifts on Tuesday, he was excited about the fire truck. He immediately found the buttons and listened to all the sounds. I wasn’t sure if his mother was in a hurry so I told him there was something else in the bag. After digging through all the tissue paper, he found the Diego book and he was even more excited about that. It turned out that he loves Diego and the, “Dora The Explorer” show. I was glad I had picked that book because he started looking through it right there and wanted it read to him. His mom explained that they could go home and play so they packed up the bag and he lifted it. He found it heavy, but he wanted to carry it anyway. The director walked by and he had to show her his new big fire truck. After he put the fire truck away again, he realized the bag had his name written on it and pointed at a couple of the letters. His mother thanked me and he gave me a hug. I was happy that he liked his gifts and that I had the chance to get to know him.