Ok, I just HAD to make a comment on this, because I find this the silliest thing I have ever heard about.  Now, my background is teaching.  I have wanted to be a teacher from the time I was 5 years old.  While, I hadn’t taught in 10+ years, it is still in my blood.  Because of this, anytime the education system gets discussed, my ears perk up, and I usually put my two cents worth in.

In the last few years, there has been what I consider a really (ok, I will just say it) brain-dead trend to taking recess time out of the elementary schools.  When I was attending elementary school, not all THAT long ago, we had 3 recesses a day.  A 15 minute morning recess, a half-hour or so lunch recess, and another 15 minute recess in the afternoon.  It was recognized at that time, that kids need the activity to be productive and focused in the classroom, as well as how important it was for kids to get a lot of exercise.  When I was teaching, we only had 2 recesses, a morning  one and a lunch one, but were encouraged to take the kids out on our own for 15 minutes in the afternoon.  I have heard about a lot of schools now that are now taking all recesses away from even the kindergartners and the first graders, all in the name of needing more classroom time to improve test scores and make sure that “NO CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND”.  This feels counterproductive to me, but I don’t feel like little old me can fight the government on this issue.

My son is a first grader this year, and he has 1 recess a day.  Right after lunch, they go outside for a half an hour.  Fine, I disagree with only 1 recess, but at least he does have some.  But today, we went to “Thanksgiving Lunch”, with my first grader, and he wanted us to go outside to go to recess with him.  We agreed, and followed him outside.  They first had all of the first graders line up.  Now between the sidewalk where the kids lined up, and the playground, is a drive.  It is gated on both sides, so it is safe, and I assumed that because it was a drive, they still wanted to at least watch the kids walk across it to the playground.  Boy, was I surprised when instead of crossing the street to go the the playground, they made the kids walk down the sidewalk to the end where the gate was, cross the street, they had to walk back the whole distance between the two gates on the other side, cross again, walk back down to where we were, and then could cross the street to the playground.   All of us parents were looking at each other trying to figure out what was going on when both a teacher AND the assistant principal told us that it was government mandated that the kids do this walk every day BEFORE they go out to play on the playground to make sure they they are getting enough exercise each day.  I just have to shake my head at the idiot government official or committee that condones taking recesses away from kids, but then makes them walk for 7 minutes of the one recess they do have “so that they can get enough exercise for the day.”  Does this make sense to anyone who can think logically at all?

Welcome back, Internet.  This may seem strange to many of you, to whom the world of facebook, twitter, and blogging is common and everyday.  But for the last 10+ years, I have kind of avoided REALLY getting involved in the internet.  I have IM’d a few friends, occasionally (even that has become a rarity rather then a common occurance), and I check email.  But I have avoided alot of the new frontier that is now known as Social Networking.  But, I think that I am going to put a toe in and see how the water is.

About 13 years ago, I was actually involved in a project that put me on the cutting edge of the internet at that time.   The school where I taught was a part of a project that used MOO’s (multi-player object-oriented).  We had an online presence called Pueblo, that was populated by children from inner city Phoenix, ages 6 – 12; teachers; select college students; scientists from Xerox Parc; and a variety of other professionals.   It was a fore-runner of Second Life, same type of idea, but all in text.  I started chatting online when Netscape was known as Mosaic.  (I guess I am showing my age, huh?)  And spending much time building my environment, and chatting with new online friends from all over.  I was known then by many as “quantum leaper” or “ql” for short.  And I loved it, maybe a little too much, as it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up (anything exciting happened over night), and last thing I did before going to sleep (say goodnight and set down the laptop, lights out).

But, from the time that I left Pueblo, until now, I have kind of avoided getting pulled into the new places that the internet offers.  The only reason that I even have a facebook account is that my husband (who does browsers for a living and knows this frontier quite well) needed an account to do some testing on.

But today, I am feeling the pull of being more involved with this world.  It all started with trying to figure out the best way to organized and disseminate pictures of my children.  I am tired of having 5000 pictures sit on my laptop, and everytime I actually go to use them, I start organizing them because I can’t find the one(s) I want.  I am tired of having all of those pictures, and still getting family and friends asking me, “Are you ever going to send, post, give me newer pictures of the kids?”  (Gee, just because they are 6 and almost 5, and the last ones that have seen are 2 and baby, people can’t seem to be satisfied).

So, I started doing a Flickr account.  And lo and behold, I had to start thinking of what do I want my screen name to be, and what do I want my url to be.  I started to realize that I want to be more then an occasional lurker in this new world, but to do so, I need to decide on a name for myself (as my husband said, it may be time to get a semi-permanent screen name for myself).  And you know what, that is alot harder than I thought it would be.  The name quantum leaper, ql, or que el just didn’t seem to fit me any longer (although they bring back such fond memories I was tempted to use them).  I started to feel kind of like the EMH doctor on Voyager….a name is such an important thing…you can’t just jump into it…(although I hope it doesn’t take me 30 years to come up with one, and I come up with one more original that Joe).

So, hmmmmm, who am I now, if I have moved on from ql…I will let you all know when I figure it out..:)

Cynde

We recently got a new kitten.  She is technically the kids’ kitten, as our current resident cat feels she is way to important to play with the likes of kids..:)  Her name is Blossum, and she is very precious.  She seems to be just the right amount of playfulness and cuddly.  She must love the kids and much as they love her, for she allows them to pick her up and carry her all around, and they are not always as careful as we would like when they carry her.  But they are learning, and she seems to have no trouble putting up with them.  She has actually even started to jump up to cuddle with them when they are on the couch or in their beds.  And the best thing about her is that she doesn’t bother Mike’s allergies at all…Yay!..

Zak and Michaela have been taking swim lessons the last couple of weeks.  They LOVE it!  Neither have been afraid of doing anything asked of them, and in fact, have been so excited about trying new things.  I have been so proud of them.  Here are some videos of Michaela jumping off the big diving board (into the 12 foot end), and Zak jumping into the pool playing Green Speckled Frogs.  Zak has been jumping off the diving board without any floating aids even, but I missed the video today.  I will try again tomorrow.  Also, Zak’s teacher said today that he was the only one in the class that she was recommending to move on to the next level.  She taught them the breast stroke today and he picked it up like he had been doing it all along.  She thought maybe he already knew it.:)  (Just a little Mommy bragging.)

Welcome to our home on the web. We’re hoping that by switching to blogging software, we’ll update the site more. We’ll see.