Mandarin on my mind

Summer is nearly over and in just a few days my 5 year old will be going to kindergarden. Making education choices for you kids at such a young age can be extreme these days. We have always believed that there will be no other time in her life when she will be so free to play as she is now...so we are always more apt to choose play and experience over strict education. Still, we were faced with some tough choices. One of them was the decision to enroll her in a 50/50 Mandarin immersion program (half the day in nothing but Mandarin and the other half in English).

Our local public school just happens to have a Mandarin language immersion program but we would have gone their either way....so it was a very tough decision for us. We know other families whose children are in Spanish immersion programs and are gaining amazing experience in both dual language learning as well as learning another culture. Both wonderful. A special bonus for us is our girls are one quarter Chinese, so a connection to some of their own roots is also appealing (thought we do not speak the language).

I want my daughter to have confidence and be brave, to take risks and to believe she can do things beyond her limits. I want her to know that there is more to life than what even her parents know... More to experience than just the American way. This is a extremely unique opportunity to try to incorporate more than just reading, writing and math into her learning. But will it be too much? Will we all have culture shock? Will we be able to hang tough when it gets hard, or doesn't make since (both the language and the culture)? This will be a true lesson for us all in judgement and patience.

I'm hoping to share more of our experiences here as we get started. I know there will be ups and downs in this experience and I know that I will always struggle with the balance between our dreams and hers... But this is what living more is all about right? We are showing her how to embrace risks and new things. As long as we allow her to remain a child during the experience I think we will all have a bit of fun. I hope you will look back here as I hope to write from time to time about how it is going.

Below is a terrific article that I really liked about some reasons to learn in a bilingual setting and I also encourage anyone interested to follow my friends blog United By Language. She has been journaling about her sons first year and has a lot of advise and facts about programs that really have inspired me to take this journey. If you have any questions for me let me know and I'll try to answer them.

United By Language

Why It’s Smart to Be Bilingual

So full of wonder and amazement.... What an amazing journey this will be.

Thankful Thursday

I've missed thankful Thursday actually... I have obviously been thankful for summer since we have been out enjoying it and not blogging here. But this week I'm going recount a conversation I recently had with my older daughter which seems to fit well with the thankful Thursday theme - it went something like this:

"Mom, bees sting and I don't like bees!t"

"Hmm.... its true that bees sting but they only sting when they feel there are in danger. If you don't hurt them I don't suspect they will try to hurt you."

"So, are bees important?"

"That is a great question - lets think about what bees do?"

"Bees make honey. Oh, I like honey"

"How do they make honey?"

"By collecting nectar from flowers.... "

"A huh, let's think about the food that we eat. Lots of the fruits and vegetables we eat start as a flower right?.... When bees are making honey - they are also helping those flowers turn into yummy things to eat. Cool huh?...."

...and after a long conversation about bees, honey, flowers, and food....

"Wow, bees are the most important animal mom!"

"Yep, I'd say they are pretty important - to us at least"

So this week, thanks to my daughter, I'm thankful for bees. We of course went on to have similar conversations about why the trees are important and the moon is important.... and I'm sure she will have more "important" thoughts for me on the car ride home today. I'm so thankful that she is reminding me of what is important and how much there is to be thankful for.

 Image credit: www.public-domain-image.com

Meatless Monday - Half Homemade Burritos

Ok yep... I've been away for a while. Ok, longer than a while. I'm hoping to get back here and blog a bit more so I'm starting simple with Meatless Monday. Only this thing isn't so simple anymore. The campaign over at www.meatlessmonday.org is now growing rapidly (as is their kids cook Monday campaign which we also try to participate in). So if you have been wondering about the campaign, why we participate, or just want more ideas I encourage you to hop over and give the site a once over. If you do, and you are excited to participate be sure to let me know.

So this week we actually did a half homemade meal for dinner. What's half homemade? Well, We had plans to do some sort of bean burritos, but didn't have rice. My genius chef husband thought just far enough in advance to stoop at our corner Mexican food restaurant and grab two sides of rice to go. Brilliant. It is the one item that takes a while to cook (assuming your beans are already cooked) and so it saved us a ton of time. When you have a 5 and 22 month old who are hungry these kinds of little tricks seriously make your day.

There you have it... take one tortilla, add in some black beans, rice, and some sautéed mushrooms and yellow squash from a co-workers garden (again grateful for someone else's over abundance) and you have a yummy burrito. Wished I had an avocado or some sour cream.... But all in all everyone was happy and had a full tummy in plenty of time for frozen yogurt and baths.

I'll be headed over to Meatless Monday to check out more recipes and I'm hoping to blog here more about our upcoming challenge to go meatless for two weeks to raise some money for the Northwest Earth Institute (we did a challenge last year as well). I'm trying around here a bit more than just that. But one step at a time.

Thankful Thursday - thankful for a dirty table

I know I'm a day late but as you can see by the number of posts around here I'm not keep up well as it is. If anyone follows at all, you are already used to my ups and downs.

I had planned to write about something else entirely but this morning I was cleaning off our dinning room table because it was covered in crumbs and spills and I just couldn't help but smile. Why am I thankful for this dirty table. Because every night (well nearly every night) we sit as a whole family and eat at it.

This particular table is actually also my husbands table from his childhood home and I don't have to think hard at all to remember my own childhood counter where we had so many family meals. Let's face it, my kids are one and five so the meals don't last long and they aren't always happy... But we eat good food, we talk, we plan, we laugh, we have meals with friends and family, and we play right here. So yes, a dirty table makes me smile!

I am a lowly stonecutter

My husband recently brought back a book from his childhood very similar to this video (this is the author but it was made before the book was published. The book is just slightly different and has even better images, I think). It is such a treasure to find this tale of what happens when you want more all the time.

My older daughter loves to read it as her last book of the night. Even with a sort of sad ending and an amazingly deep message she still enjoys hearing the story over and over. I think the simple messages of power, greed, desire, and dreams is enough to help us start terrific conversations about why we always seem to think we want more, but in the end it often doesn't get us any closer to happiness.

I highly recommend the Stonecutter if you need to talk as a family about these types of issues. Maybe a small reminder that our own desires to improve our lives often have us wishing for more, but having more is not in fact always the answer to our prayers. Are there other children's book out there that touch you too? This one certainly does make me reflect every time we read it together. I hope you enjoy it.

Wetbags are for more than cloth diapers

For anyone who has never cloth diapered before you probably aren't familiar with the term wet bag. Basically it is a bag that is designed to hold your dirty diapers, then you throw diapers, bag and all, into the washer on laundry day. I got some terrific ones from a company called Knickernappies that snap right around a door knob. Great for hanging in the bathroom or at the edge of a changing table.

But enough about diapers! About the same time we started with cloth diapers, we also started using cloth rags, napkins, wipes, bibs, and such too. Wet and dirty napkins and rags were hanging out all over the place just waiting to get washed. I actually think it was my husbands brilliant idea to hang one of the bags on the door going from the kitchen to the basement were our laundry is. Now, just as you would buss a dish our throw away a tissue, you just toss your cloth in the bag and then toss the whole thing on the laundry when it is full.

I find now we rarely ever use paper towels and we are working on reducing other things like tissues more now too. Cloth napkins are the norm, and I'm hoping bibs are on their way out. So even if you don't cloth diaper here's an idea inspired from that world.

Thankful Thursday

I've been traveling for a few days now and I'm finally on my way home. Between planes and events I no idea what time it is or when exactly I get home so I might as well blog. I certainly have a lot to be thankful for right now. First and foremost to my husband for taking care of our girls while I'm away (no small task).

Second being a thankfulness that there are still people out there who can simple laugh and not take life to seriously. In several days of flight delays, insane boarding procedures, and long flights it's so good to know some people can just laugh it off with me.

Finally I'm thankful for the relaxing and healing powers of mother earth. The sun, the sky and the ocean shores I visited this week truly touched me. It was especially interesting to be on a gulf side beach and reflect on last years oil spill impacts. These are the days I know I must do more to live on and with less.