Zoëlicious

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

My baby girl who is 2 and a half–when the f* did that happen? How did my little bundle of sweet babyness turn into a 2 and a half-year-old bundle of independence and pure girlieness?  Anyway.  Zoë is all girl and anyone who has ever met her can attest to that.  She is dying.  I mean DYING to go to school in the fall.  She needs to be potty-trained to do that.  Also, she needs to be potty-trained because I am so over changing diapers and really is there anything cuter that a little girl’s butt in cutesy little panties?  I think not.

She has been wearing pull-ups and for the third day that girl has been dry all day with no accidents at the babysitters.  THREE DAYS.  How many days has she been dry at our house–wanna guess?  ZERO.  ZERO for those of you who didn’t get that the first time.  THREE DAYS at the sitters and ZERO at ours.  She has used the potty and will tell us when she remembers but she hasn’t gone all day at our house.  The secret you ask to the babysitters success and my failure?  Aside from the fact that she probably reminds  Zoë frequently (I do not–I know BAD MOMMY)–bribery (see below Image).

I have already stated that Zoë is a girlie girl and she fell in with Pinkalicious and Purplicious and wants them so very very badly.  If she keeps staying dry at the babysitters, she gets Pinkalicious.  My promise of marshmallows pales in comparison.  Zoë now goes by the name Zoëlicious.  I am in trouble aren’t I?

The Benefits Of Too Much Caffeine

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I don’t know when I’ll learn not to drink anything with caffeine after about 6pm if I want to sleep that night.  Oh, how I miss the days that I could drink regular coffee at the end of a nice meal and sleep like a baby–someone’s baby (not mine).  Not so much and I’m usually pretty good about remembering.  But last night, I bought a soda before my class started.  Doom.

I was able to fall asleep but then one kid crawled into our bed about 1230 and then I was awake for a while.  I managed to doze off and the second kid crawled into bed.  I was wide awake.  It was close to 4 am.  What is one to do at 4am when they can’t sleep.  I did briefly contemplate going to the gym–briefly.  But then I decided to pull out the computer and pre-order my iPhone 4.  It seems I am one of the lucky few who happened to catch the servers at the right time and was able to complete my order without much headache–once I decided to try AT&T’s website and abandon Apple’s online store (it was not going well over there).  So, if all goes well it will be delivered to my front door on June 24th–which is awesome because my current first gen iPhone is cracked and has chunks missing from the display–I’ve been waiting for this.  So, I guess thank goodness, I can’t drink caffeine at night.

The Quiet Game

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Until recently, I never realized that this game was created by parents to keep them sane.  I know there are some of you out there who are not blessed with a child as amazing as my little girl.  She has this special talent.  She talks non-stop.  I mean non-stop.  Really.  The longest she is quiet aside from when she is a sleep (she talks in her sleep sometimes too) is maybe 30 seconds.  I am not kidding.  She talks from the time she wakes up until she breathes her last waking breath.  It is enough to drive you INSANE.  Alas, she is too ornery, young to play the quiet game.  Oh, how I have tried.  But she talks and talks and talks–

“Mommy, me no talking…MOMMY, me not talking.  MOMMY, ME NOT TALKING”  Negating the whole point of the game. While Noah sits quietly in his chair–I’m sure laughing on the inside wondering when I’ll get it.  Zoë is a girl.  A girl who doesn’t know how not to talk.

She is cute and she is talking awesome for her age.  She certainly takes the mantra “Practice makes perfect” to a whole new level.  I didn’t think it as possible for someone to talk that much.  I know that we are a family of talkers–there is rarely a silent moment at our house, but Zoë brings that to a whole new level.  She is the World, Universe Champion of Talking.  Trust me on this.  Your child cannot compete with my little fireball.  I’d be happy to let you have her for an hour just to see.  Really–an hour is probably more than you’d need.  My best friend was over yesterday morning to pick me up for our Sunday bike ride and 10 minutes was all she needed to notice that Zoë. Never. Stops. Talking.

And don’t interrupt her.  By golly don’t interrupt her.  “No, ME TALKING FIRST.  NO YOU TALKING MOMMY.  ME TALKING FIRST”  She often talks in all caps.  All. The. Time.  It is the worst in the car.  Because we are in an enclosed space and she seems to notice my head twitching as she talks loud..”MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMYYYYY.”  Noah will quietly say, “Mama, Zoë is talking to you.”

I know Noah.  Zoë is always talking.

Why Don’t They Get It

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I know this has turned into more of an education blog than anything–but it is my life’s passion and work.  It is what I am passionate about.  I wish I was able to post more lively, humorous posts about the mundane things in live–but that is just not me.  I am thoughtful, cerebral, and an academic.  I look for the meaning in nearly everything–except for the occasional bottom of a wine glass (Or maybe even then).

I have long written and pontificated about the dangers of standardized testing on the quality of education that kids receive in public schools.  I will also make it very clear that my kids are in private school and that I am myself a public educator.  I believe in the idea of public education, I no longer believe in the type of public education that we now have in this country on the whole.  While there are pockets of schools and districts that provide quality education–those pockets are becoming fewer and farther between.

Ever since there has been standardized testing that was used to penalize teachers and schools there have been teachers and schools who see no other way than to cheat–adults are no different than students.  If we see no other way (regardless of our age) to do what we need to do–we cheat.  At my university you’d be surprised that each semester we have several students who are removed/dismissed from graduate programs for plagiarizing their comprehensive exams, theses or dissertations.  The pressure can sometimes be too much and when expectations are too high or unforgiving often we see no way out.   With NCLB the focus on testing became paramount to a schools success and now states are feeling the pressure and teachers’ jobs are now being intertwined and tied to test scores.  Did we not think this through?  In Colorado, teacher tenure is now tied directly to test scores.  Really?  This is insane.  I speak as a teacher–former high school teacher and current community college teacher.  While I am a proponent of abolishing tenure, I don’t think having it tied to test scores is a good idea.  It leads to cheating –by teachers and administrators.   Student achievement is important and teacher effectiveness is the number one influence on student performance in schools.  But we don’t focus on helping teachers become more effective.  We don’t offer curriculum that engages teachers and students.  We have been treating teachers as interchangeable parts.  It has to change if we are going to improve our educational system.

Teachers matter and good teachers matter.  We have to stop letting in anyone who wants to be a teacher in our Colleges of Education.  We need to counsel out of our teacher prep programs those who are not effective educators.  We need to help develop those who have the potential and train administrators how to evaluate teachers effectively.  I know my evals as a high school teacher were an absolute joke–they are the same way at the community college.  We need to stop turning a blind eye and allowing our education system to be driven by tests and we need to start driving it with intelligence and thoughtfulness.

The First Taste Of Summer

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

Summer is certainly in full-swing here, even though it doesn’t officially start until June 21 (?).  I’m working and for the first time and really missing being a teacher.  I loved having the option of having my summer off.  But now that I am working a full-time gig and Noah’s in summer camp and Zoë will start school next year, I am already starting to be sad that I won’t be off in the summer to hang with them.  It’s crazy I know.  But, I want it all.  I want to hang with the kids and I want to work.  It’s depressing to realize that you can’t have it all no matter how bad you want it.  It’s all part of growing up, yada, yada, yada…

Noah is loving summer and camp.  He has his first swimming lesson through camp yesterday and he thought it was awesome.  He put his head in the water and blew bubbles, floated on his back and did a few other things.  He thought it was really cool and was proud that he wasn’t even scared.  He is certainly one of those kids who does better with new things when mom and dad aren’t there.  He also got to go on his first field trip and was so excited about getting to ride on one of his schools’ 3 buses and wants to do it everyday. I certainly love that I can pick him up from Camp and spend some time with him in the afternoon end evening–I really do want to be able to have it all. He has started tennis lessons as well and thinks that is great.  He and Zoë both have swimming lessons starting in a couple weeks together.  That’ll be fun.

Zoë is starting to potty-train.  She is ready and wants to wear underwear really bad.  She is quite different than Noah was.  When he was ready–he was ready and that was it.  He put on underwear and went forth.  Zoë is requiring quite a bit more work than Noah did–or is that just my mom memory where you forget how hard a stage is until you go through it again?  She goes 1000 times once we are home from the babysitter and it is hilarious because one drop of pee comes out and she is all “me peed on potty.” I just smile, hug her and tell her yes she did.  She can’t wait to be a big girl.  She is great at the sitters with peeing on the potty (she knows she can’t start school next year unless she is potty-trained).  She won’t be going to Noah’s school next fall–I just don’t think she will be ready yet.  But she is going to start going to the university’s child development center–which is located on the campus I work at.  It’s top notch and uber-convenient (unless, I am traveling for work and Bill has to bring her–than not so much).  We certainly love her current baby-sitter but I am a huge proponent/believer in early-childhood education and do believe it is the absolute most important indicator of future student success.  So, we’ll see if they have room for her in the fall.

I’m teaching my last class at the community college for a while–I’m just too busy and it’s not fair to the students to get a teacher who only has time to give half of what needs to be be given.  I love my class this semester–they are all older and many of them older women.  But they are all so eager and serious and really want to learn to write better.  They don’t believe that they are going to get better no matter how much I promise them.  They talk and debate and have opinions.  It is refreshing and awesome.  It’s going to be a great 7 more weeks with them.

How is your summer shaping up so far?