Eye to Wonder

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Peace with the Senses

We've essentially spent the last quarter of the year moving. From packing up our old life in Colorado and consolidating all of our stuff into two compact cars to our summer sublet was one big transition. Then we moved to our new house and spent all the time unpacking and making small repairs. It's been exciting; it's been an adventure; it's been a lot. Throw in a very disoriented toddler with early wake-ups and two tired parents, and some days have felt long. This fall I enrolled in an online Montessori course called Child of the Redwoods to help me learn more about practicing Montessori at home (plus the nerdy educator in me has always been curious). Recently, we studied sensorial learning, which is basically creating opportunities for the child to isolate each sense and articulate and notice differences in sensations. For example, with a sense of sight you can determine shortest to tallest, or lightest to darkest. You can close your eyes and talk wit

Currently August

Currently... *Enjoying settling in to our new home! After moving across the country and knowing for about a year that a move was likely, it's a relief to be able to settle in and have things feel less up in the air. I love how light and bright the space is and lots of cool features and quirks of living in a 100-year-old house. *Embracing novelty and discovering new things in San Diego. It's a significantly bigger city than where we were in Colorado, so it's been great exploring new restaurants, museums, parks, beaches etc. *Struggling to get into a good routine, particularly around bedtimes and nap time for Avi. Moving twice in two months has been a lot for all of us, and I'm trying to remember that it will take time to feel settled again. The lack of predictable routine (and time to myself) has made some of the days feel particularly long recently. *Feeling ambivalent about working vs. staying home. For the first time in nearly a decade, I am not returning to the c

Toddler Travel--Road Trip Edition

So happy to be writing from Southern California after our road trip out from Colorado. It has been so nice to see family and enjoy cooler weather and time at the beach. This was far and away the longest Avi has ever been in the car, and it was definitely less relaxing to drive long distances with a toddler, but it actually went better than I thought it would. I love road trips, so I'm happy that this is something we can look forward to lots more of as a family. In case anyone else is planning to travel with their little one(s), I thought I would share a few things we did that helped, and a few things I wished we did differently. Tips: *Bring various activities that can be easily done from a car seat. I brought some of Avi's favorite toys including: a toy she could buckle and unbuckle, a chunky beads and thread kit, and a paint with water set from Melissa and Doug's . I also brought bubbles which were a big hit although we left them in the hotel, so we didn'

June Goals

I love summertime, and it's been awesome to have time with Avi at home. I love my job and working with students, but especially after this school year with so many changes, it's nice to slow down and focus on my own little one. My coworker had really good advice of picking sort of a theme for each day and while I haven't quite gotten that specific, I definitely have taken the idea of having one particular activity or outing (library, splash pad, lake, errands, friend's house, etc.) planned for each day and a loose structure of meals, time playing at the park and downtime at home. That said, the lovely part of summer break is that the plans are flexible. If Avi is playing independently or absorbed in finger painting, we can stay home. It just helps me mentally to have a sense of what the day will bring instead of just having a twelve hour block of winging it. Big Events this Month: *Joel's first trip away since Avi was born. He gets back to

May in Review

One of my favorite features of my planner is that it has a month in review section for each month. I like having the prompt to take a look back on the month and remember some of the highlights and big events as well as favorites (anything ranging from books, tv shows, games, music, and food). May was a very full month. It was Joel's birthday, we had family visiting for a bit, and it was the end of the school year. I definitely felt spread thin for parts of the month, but overall, I'm really proud of how I ended the year at work. There were lots of fun end-of-year projects like Wonder Week, a memory book, and our beach day! Hopefully these projects felt like a good way for students to look back on the year and celebrate how far they've come. I feel lucky to have had such a wonderful group of students in such a strange school year that ranged from virtual to fully in-person and everything in between. Other highlights of May included Joel's birthday!

Summer Rhythms

There's only one week of school until summer break, and I'm starting to think ahead to a summer routine for me and Avi. I'm so excited to have lots of time with her, and I've been inspired by a few podcast episodes to design your summer. I tend to do well with routine and structure, and so I want to make sure that I have a bit of a predictable rhythm with Avi to give shape to the days. The biggest event this summer is that we are driving to California for about a month. This will be longest I've spent in my home state since I graduated from college about ten years ago, but with Covid in the past year, we've seen family less than usual this year. Joel is also able to work from home for part of the summer, so it seemed like a good opportunity to spend lots of time with family and enjoy some beach time. Both while we are away and the weeks we are at home, I'm trying to get a sense of ways I can have a shape to the days while still embracing the