Little Girl Who Makes Life Sized Paper Dresses With Her Mom

This is so cool! 

Four Year Old Making Paper Dresses

Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude

Tuesday, February 25th: I love the spunk of Maya. In one year, she has moved from a timid girl to a confident and assertive student, friend, and soccer player. I am so very proud of her!

Wednesday, February 26th:  So very grateful for the love and gratitude shown to me by others. It is a gift to be able to teach children. It is also a gift to hear about the impact you have made on their lives.

And So It Is....

I Am So Inspired By These Young Girls!

Girl Power

It is amazing what can be changed when you simply commit to the cause with your whole heart.

Yikes---Getting Behind!

Life is on the move lately! Here are my posts for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday:

Thursday, February 20th: My little nephew Spencer Eric Andreone was born today! So happy to have a new little one in our family!

Friday, February 21st: Today I am so grateful to my husband who brought home a special dinner for me. He brings such lightness to our family!

Saturday, February 22nd: Today I hosted a gathering of women. I love how many beautiful, strong, and supportive women I have been blessed to know. What a gift to my daughters as well....to be surrounded by amazing role models!

Companionship and a New Nephew!

Wednesday, February 19th: My most precious furry friend

Thursday, February 20th:  I have a new little nephew---Spencer Eric Andreone! He is adorable, of course, and he and his mom are doing great. So excited to have another precious soul joining our family.

Valentine's Day Celebration

Today we celebrated Valentine's Day at school. Here is me wearing an adorable Valentine made by one of my students. So creative!

Reiki Master

Sunday, February 16th: Today I completed my Kundalini Reiki Master training! I feel so proud of myself for taking the action to make this happen and I am looking forward to expanding and honing my skills as time goes on. I love that this healing modality exists!

Monday, February 17th: Today I am grateful for the sun that is shining brightly outside of my window. It reminds me that the life of spring always comes after the winter of unknowing.

I Did It!

Last week, I joined a writing group that meets every other week to share ideas and feedback. At my first meeting last week, I volunteered to share my writing at our next meeting. I just sent off to the group the outline for my book as well as one of the vignettes that will be included. I am so excited to have taken the next step of making my book a reality!!

Thursday, February 13th: I love the beauty of the trees after our huge snow.

Friday, February 14th:  Happy Valentine's Day!

Tuesday: I love being a soccer mom.  I am also so thankful for the wonderful teams that both Brooke and Maya belong to.

Wednesday: There have been a lot of transitions going on in my work life. In all of this, I am grateful for dear friends, treasured co-workers, precious students, and the knowledge that our higher power always provides for our highest good.

Sunday and Monday

Sunday: I went to my first Book Writing Group! I am so excited to be moving forward on the book I am writing about parenting. There were five other writers at the meeting, all of whom are planning on writing a memoir-type book.  I present my first piece of work in two weeks!

Monday: I loved the opportunity to make Valentine's cards with my girls!

What an Amazing Sister!

I LOVE the creativity and thoughtfulness of this precious girl!

9-year-old Mighty Girl Makenzie Lawrey of Cape Coral, Florida has an ambitious goal -- she's just published a book about her younger brother in hopes of raising a million dollars to help find a cure for his rare condition, mitochondrial disease. In her book, "The Mighty Mito Superhero," Makenzie transforms her 6-year-old brother, Gavin, into a superhero, Mito Action G, who defeats the evil villain, Mito. And, this incredible big sister is already well on her way toward her goal, having sold more than 500 books and raised $20,000 in less than a week.

Along with raising funds for research, Makenzie also hopes to raise awareness about the disease -- many children with the incurable condition do not reach their teen years. She spoke with Gavin's doctors about the disease, along with conducting her own research, in order to write about it in a way that everyone could understand. As Makenzie writes in her book, "Gavin is my superhero... I wanted to write this book so there was a better way for people to understand what Mito is. It makes me feel really good because I know that even if he doesn't feel good I can still help in a way."

All funds raised from the sale of Makenzie's book are being donated to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. To support this Mighty Girl's campaign, you can order a copy of "Mighty Mito Superhero" on Amazon at http://amzn.to/MB6P8y

To send a note of support to Makenzie, Gavin, and their parents, visit their Facebook page at Gavin Lawrey The Mighty Mito Superhero.

To see an amazing photo series that we previously shared about a 5-year-old Mighty Girl battling this same disease, check out our post at http://on.fb.me/1bdiwxN

For Mighty Girl stories that teach children about the value of giving to others, visit our blog post on "Making an Impact: Mighty Girl Books About Charity and Community Service” athttp://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=5863

For stories of Mighty Girls living with medical conditions or grappling with the challenge of having loved ones suffering from such conditions, visit our "Illness / Disease" section in Life Challenges at http://www.amightygirl.com/books/personal-development/life-challenges?cat=243

For books about the special relationship between Mighty Girls and their brothers, visithttp://www.amightygirl.com/books/personal-development/relationships?cat=260

And, for Mighty Girl stories that emphasize the importance of hope, visit our "Hope & Optimism" section athttp://www.amightygirl.com/books/personal-development/values?cat=332

Wed, Thurs, Fri posts

So life has been very busy and interesting lately.....

Wednesday: This morning we lost power in the ice storm. Today I am grateful for a generator that works and the offers of help from friends and family.

Thursday: This is one of those days that test this practice of finding love. Lots of emotions and crazy snafus. At the end of the day, we had a meeting with prospective elementary parents. In the discussion at the meeting, I fell in love again with the Montessori Method and remembered again why we chose to send our children to this wonderful school.

Friday: Tonight I am loving watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The landscape of Russia is gorgeous. Looking forward to watching the games!

Conversation in My House Tonight

Child One: I think I am really getting the hang of this.

Child Two: I know. Fractions are the BEST!!

I love that my daughters love to learn and are not afraid of math or science. These girls were doing addition of fractions with unlike denominators!

Playground Thoughts

One of my friends posted this article on Facebook. It spoke to the importance of letting go of some of these rules that we have created in order to "be safe". So grateful that there is now a revolution encouraging us to go back to choices we made before the threat of lawsuits and hysteria concerning our children. 

School Ditches Rules

Date Night

Tonight Tony and I are going out on a date to catch up on some much needed quality time. My goal this month is to focus on the "preciousness" of life and the people in my life. Tony is one of the most precious parts of my life. His strength, creativity, and sense of fun is what supports me in our journey together. We are coming up on 19 years of being together and I look forward to many, many more.

Motherhood

Motherhood

            All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves.Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

            Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with “Goodnight Moon” and “Where the Wild Things Are,” they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations –what they taught me was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all.

            Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

            I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

            Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the “Remember-When-Mom-Did” Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language – mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

            But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

            Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

            That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

–Anna Quindlen is a Pulizer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author.