I am going back to school....

I started back at school, I am doing a total do over! I am starting at preschool!
When my hours were cut at my job I needed something to fill just one day a week during school hours. This seemed like an impossible task! Where was I going to find such a job. In walks my "village" most of whom work at the preschool the kids went and will go to. The need an assistant in the monday class! A one day of the week gig, things just have a way of working out!
I LOVE this school, it has always had a special place in my heart. The teachers and the director were not teachers there when Tim first started school but parents of classmate, who became teachers there as other teachers moved along. They brought a new life to the school and it has been fun to watch the program grow evolve.

Going back to preschool has also given me some perspective. The philosophy at the school is to foster independence of these tiny little people. I am helping in Mrs H's class on Mondays when she has 3 and 4 year olds together. There are 14 little people. They sit in cirlce time, they do a craft project to varying degrees of success. They have snack and even pour their own drinks! (this has always been an adventure). We expect a lot of of them, to say please and thank you to acknowledge when we have hurt someone and say your sorry. We don't expect that they are all going to be best friends but we do expect them to polite and courteous to each other. We do have such high expectations of them, I was thinking about this yesterday out loud with another friend, how can we are parents, teachers (not just in the classroom sense) and role models expect our littlest kids, not just at the school but our kids at home to do this when at best as adults we have the hardest time following the rules we have set forth for them.

Be Kind

Say your sorry

Keep your hands to yourself

Take turns

Don't hurt our friends feelings

Put things away

Clean up after yourself

The golden rule and all those great cliches.... that we repeat time and time again to our kids....

Instead we seem to implore the opposite, do as I say not as I do...

Sometimes life lessons are best learned when we take a step back and start over, I think everyone could use a day at preschool now and again to remember, LIFE IS about the small stuff, not a career or new car, but about being a good citizen, saying please and thank you and playing nice in the sandbox of life.

Like her or not Hillary was right....

It takes a village...

I am very lucky to have a "village"! When you think of the word it self it is very much about a "place" like the dictionary defines it....

Village

 –noun
1.
a small community or group of houses in a rural area, larger than a hamlet and usually smaller than a town, and sometimes (as in parts of the U.S.) incorporated as a municipality.
2.the inhabitants of such a community collectively.
3.a group of animal dwellings resembling a village: a gopher village. –adjective
4.of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a village: village life.


I like this more...

村庄

This is the Chinese symbol for it.

Look the figures look like they are holding hands the they building upon on another. That is what my village does. So you might ask where is your village you live in a large city in a major metro area. My village is more of a "pie in the sky" type of thing. You know those little halo's that follow your character on a video game... that is is about how it is.

You see I have a village of friends and family that have the same goals and ideas on how to raise our kids. My village started when my oldest two went to preschool but didn't really fully form until the kids grew a little more as did our friendships and relationships. The members of my village are there for me, I have to get two kids to two different places at the same time....one of the villagers is always there to help. I need to figure out what homework is due, my village is the fastest way. Need to find out what needs to brought to girl scouts tonight they are there. A shoulder to cry on... there they are, a drink after a long week you guessed it I call on the village. There are many children in our village, the great thing is you can see that sense of community in them when they branch out in the larger groups they belong to. They stand up for each other, they know they always have someone to talk to. If a mom is running late they know who to ask "is she coming? Are you taking me home" they know the elders in the village and wouldn't hesitate to ask for help from any of them. They are great kids the kids in our village. Some are in the same grade and class others on the same teams. The oldest child in the village will be going to high school next year (gasps) the youngest is Max, don't tell him he has no clue.

Ultimately the village is about give and take, being there at just the right time, knowing in a moment you can call them and they will be there.

Do you have a village? I sure hope so it would be a lonely world without one!

15 dollars a week!

That is my new saving plan!
I just have to do that for the next 8 years!

See my dear friend Sandra and her family are planning on going home in just over a year, back to Australia, I get misty even thinking about it. But being the resourceful girls we are we hatched a plan. My friend Marin and I will both have big milestone birthdays the same year, so we are going to have the ultimate girls night out and go visit Sandra and family in Australia!
See the thing is about big plans like this is the more people you tell the more accountable you are to MAKE IT HAPPEN! Sandra figured out over lunch that if we save 15 dollars a week for the next eight years we will have over 6,000 to have a great blow out of a trip!
So I am telling you all my BLOG readers! Ask me how much I have saved!

We figured out our boys will be 18 and our girls will be 16 so we will have so catching up to do! That is if we survive the teen years with our girls!

Who wants to come with us?? 15 dollars a week that is it! I think I might have it auto deducted from my paychecks, hack I might even go for 40 a pay check! Maybe we can fly first class!