We heart the Mouse

100% love and adoration for the Mouse and all things Disney at our house.  A recent facebook debate between some of my sorority sisters made me want to be able to voice my seemingly one-sided opinion on my blog.  :-)

So, here are the questions:  is teaching our daughters about princesses and fairytales the wrong thing?  Are we harming their sense of independence and teaching them that beauty is important? 

I will answer them both this way, then explain.  NO!  These ideas are ridiculous and unfounded.  First of all, our children are CHILDREN.  They should be allowed to dream and have imaginations.  It is okay to believe that life is a fairy tale at the age of 5, even at the age of 8, or even (gasp) 10.  What is wrong with keeping our children innocent?  Secondly, I think that the princesses all have a very strong sense of independence and each has their own positive traits.  Belle is innovative, Mulan is fiercely brave, Ariel is independent, Cinderella is an incredibly hard worker, Rapunzel is creative and crafty.  What is wrong with teaching our daughters about any of these things?  The fact that they are all beautiful (inside and out) is irrelavant, however, there are those who think that we are teaching our children that thin and pretty is the only way to get where  you want to be.  Which leads me to my third point. 

Yes, I think that as parents, we are solely responsible for teaching our children good self-confidence.  We need our daughters to love themselves the way they are.  But, I am not dumb enough to teach my children that the world will not judge them for the way that they look.  They need to know that appearance does mean a lot.  People judge you based on your clothes, your hairstyle and color, and even your weight.  That does NOT mean that I am teaching my children that they have to be perfect, but I am teaching them to look their best for the situation at hand.  Do you think that my patients would look at me funny if I walked into their rooms in sweatshirts and jeans, no makeup, and my hair was unkempt?  Yes.  I also cannot go into a job interview with casual clothes, tons of piercings, and rainbow colored hair and expect that interviewer not to judge me. 

Anyhow, my point is, being a good parent is more important to your child than letting them watch and pretend to be a Disney Princess.  One of the reasons we love Disney so much is that when you are at Disney, life is magical.  You can be swept away into a fairy tale.  You can be transformed into a princess or a pirate.  You can be a kid again.  What is more special than seeing the sparkle in your child's eyes when s/he meets their first character?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  We will continue to heart the Mouse for the rest of our lives and hope that we can pass on the innocence and magic to our kids.

100th Day of School

What a riot Bella and I had making her 100th Day of School poster!  We took 100 candy conversation hearts and made them into a heart, around which we wrote "I (heart) Holy Cross School.  It turned out cute.  Bella helped me lay it out and she definitely conceptualized it.  I was the workhorse.  Do you know how long it takes to glue on 100 candy hearts with tacky craft glue?  My hands and wrists are killing me today from trying to squeeze the bottle so hard.

My oh so crafty 5 year old also is a total sweetheart.  She made Daddy a card because he works so hard to make money for us.  On the inside of the card, she showed a picture of the barn with John in it.  She drew the feeders, John standing with the rattle in his hand, and a pig standing by him with an ear tag in it's ear.  All the things she saw him doing the other day.  SOOOOOO darn cute!  Love it.  I love that they appreciate the fact that he works so hard.  I hope it teaches them a good work ethic.

SNOW!!!!

There is finally snow in the forecast!  I cannot wait.  All I have heard from the kids is "can I wear my snowpants today????".  Instead of saying yes, I'm telling them they have to wear their light jackets.  Well, yipee!  Snow is coming.  I think I am probably the only person in the world excited about it, but I am over the moon.  :-)

That leads me to a question that I received about why we keep our animals in"confinement" housing vs. "free range".  Ten inches of snow is the best reason I can give.  By keeping our animals in covered shelter, we are able to control all the elements.  As I sit here, the room temperatures are as follows (Rm 1-Rm 4) 71.4, 72.4, 69.2, 70.2.  We keep the temperatures hovering between 68 and 72 degrees year round.  Our animals are much more comfortable this way, and they stay much healthier.  It's the same reason that we no longer live in poorly insulated log homes or tipis.  We enjoy being at a comfortable temperature year round, and our animals enjoy the same "creature" comforts.  :-)

Selection

Today Illini is selecting the gilts that they would like to keep for breeding stock out of room one.  Stephanie is in marking the ones she thinks meet their standards for good breeding stock right now.  If you show animals, you probably know most of the things she is looking for.  After she is done, our work begins.  We will be ear tagging in three different colors to indicate which of the three farms the animals are going to.  Then we will be giving vaccines to the gilts, also.  They will receive a total of four vaccines before they leave. 

What is amazing is that our first group is scheduled to leave by the middle of February.  We cannot believe how quickly time has gone!  We will soon be into our fifth group of pigs shortly after that.  It's amazing!

The hogs that are not selected will go to places like Tyson Foods or Farmland.  So, when you are shopping, shop brands that you know where the food comes from.  Farmers like us, family farmers, who are committed to producing the best and safest food supply in the world!!!!

Now I'm caught up

Sick.  Everybody is sick.  I may get shot for saying it, but WE NEED A GOOD SOLID TWO WEEKS OF FREEZING TEMPERATURES!!!!  Ok, we need to kill these yucky germs.  The kids are sick, employees at the hospital are sick, teachers are sick, etc. 

So, here is the deal, maybe it's because I am a bit of a germaphobe, but...WASH YOUR HANDS...here is the info from the CDC on how to wash your hands.  Why do we need to learn how to wash our hands?  Because most people don't do it correctly.  And, PURELL is great if you use it appropriately.  It's not going to save you from everything. 

Enjoy!

http://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/How_To_HandWash_Poster.pdf

No...TODAY I owe you two.

Whew...somehow in a short 48 hours, my resolution has evaporated into a memory.  I am trying.  I even set an alarm on my phone for this.  :-)

I am in total amazement when I look at the things our little ones know.  I cannot believe how far the kids come in Kindergarten!  Bella read me a book with several lines per page and at least 20 pages.  I cannot believe that!!!  I know that saying, "It's not like it was when I was in Kindergarten" seems a little overused, but it is so true.  For starters, I only went to parttime kindergarten!  Half days, in the afternoon in fact.  So, now our kids are going full time, 5 days a week, and learning so much.  We are adding and subtracting; even gym class seems like it is farther ahead of where we were.

In preschool, Mae is writing (well, she's improving her technique), she can count concrete objects to 60+, she knows all of the basic skills:  colors, shapes, numbers, etc.  The basic skills don't even seem that exciting anymore, because Nolan knows all of his colors, shapes, numbers, etc.  Thanks to the Tupperware shape sorter, he knows hexagon and pentagon. 

I hope this isn't coming across as a brag session, because it isn't.  I am just amazed at what we push our kids to do.  Let me expand on that statement.  Because of all the new standards, Bella's class will soon be taking a timed standardized test that is supposed to assess their knowledge of language arts, I assume.  All it is really assessing (in my mind) is the fact that your kid is good at timed trials or not.  So, here's the drill.  Your kids have to name letters, as many as they can in 60 sec.  Then, they have to name the sounds of the letters, as fast as they can, in 60 sec.  Then they have to read as many 3-letter nonsense words as they can in 60 sec. (e.g., nim, fec, pib, etc.).  What breaks my heart is that there is at least one child who got all of the words correct, but only would have had 8 words in 60 sec.  Does that indicate that he is a poor reader?  No, I think it just indicates that he needs more time to get his reading done.  This test is going to say that he is not at his grade level.  Grrr...anyway.  I am stepping off the soapbox now, but I am frustrated.  Why do I have to be working on this stuff with my kid when we could be snuggling up with a book instead? 

Today I owe you two...

One week exactly before I messed up my resolution...but I did qualify it by saying 365 blog posts this year, not just every day.  :-)

Anyway.  Tomorrow was a dreaded day for me.  Some of you may say I was just being dramatic, but taking down the Christmas stuff is always a difficult thing to do.  I always get a little melancholy because it is difficult to completely ignore the fact that the "magic" is gone.  Please tell me I am not the only one who feels the magic at Christmastime.  Anyhow, I did make it better by watching one of my favorite movies, An Affair to Remember.  Such an amazing movie...Cary Grant, and Deborah Kerr.  I was shocked when I looked at the info under "Cast & Crew" and discovered that everyone who worked on the movie was dead.  I didn't realize that some of them had died, but anyhow.  I enjoyed watching the movie while disassembling the tree.  It brought a little of that warm feeling back.

Now that the tree is down, I do feel a bit of a sense of relief that the chore has past and I have regained a little room in my house.  But, I cannot wait for the next 10.5 months until I get to redecorate for the holidays!