Morning Play LIst, aka Morning Rituals

Morning Play List, aka Morning Rituals

It's 7:45 AM and I'm sitting alone at the kitchen table, forcing myself to eat a little breakfast. Today is our first "trial run" of our morning routine for school. We run our morning and evening routines the two weeks of summer camp that proceed school so we have a chance to fix our timings, add in essential missing elements, etcetera.

As I'm eating, Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" comes on. It's been on the playlist since the "Bigs" were the only kids in the house. And I'm still trying to preserve those last vestiges of innocence in the "littles." It's all just mind boggling.

I had so much fun updating my morning playlist recently, mostly inspired by Apple TV's Ted Lasso and Trying. My gosh, they have the best soundtracks. I recently added The Rolling Stones, "She's a Rainbow", and Sia's "Unstoppable" among others. Someone grumbled when I started up the playlist this morning, but it does actually help us all and a couple of songs later, sure enough there was a song he'd added to the mix. 

The playlist was born when the girls were school aged. We'd just returned home from a road trip and we had some road trip rituals: We'd eat breakfast, pack up the trailer, nestle the kids in the car, hook up, take off, and plug in a certain CD the girls loved to sing along to, which happened to be, Wee Sing America. We'd hit the first couple of songs in order and then had our favorites we'd skip around to before choosing an audio book or gazing out the window. 

When we got home, it occurred to me, maybe that type of ritual would help our mornings. We were homeschooling at the time and the girls had a hard time getting started some days because their mama had a lack of structure. We now know their mama has ADHD, but that's another story! I never mentioned the morning playlist, really just kind of did it for me, but started playing it every morning in the kitchen. Before long, our mornings smoothed themselves out. 

It's not magic, but works like it. We hear it, and subliminally, we move to the starting line. We take our marks. We get ready. We move through our routines. Please note, I am part of the "we." It helps me focus. If I'm up early, I don't usually turn on the playlist until my alarm goes off. I'm working or knitting or focused on a project. I'm not yet in "ready mode." The playlist turns it all on.

15 years later, the playlist has taken on a life of its own. Once someone mentioned they'd heard a particular song too much, so I took it off. A couple years later, someone mentioned the tone was "preachy. Ok. I do take feedback. It has morphed over time and sometimes a song, like the one from Sia just mentioned, comes up that just must be added. I don't worry about the length of the list. When we leave the kitchen, I turn it off. Sometimes we hear 15 songs and sometimes we hear 3, so it doesn't matter. On weekends, I start on track 6 or 8 just for fun. No one's ever noticed. Once, when my dad was dying and I'd had a pretty bumpy day at work, I played it while I cooked supper and no one even noticed; it was weirdly settling. 

Do you have playlists that help your family through its routines? If so, I'd love to hear about them them! Just for grins, I'll share our current version below, but know, it may not even be current by the time you read this! Cheers!

"Holy as a Day is Spent" (Carrie Newcomer)

"Souls like Wheels" (Avett Brothers)

"Never Grow Up" (Taylor Swift)

"Island Song" (Adventure Time)

"She's a Rainbow" (Rolling Stones)

"Unstoppable" (Sia)

"All About That Bass (Meaghan Trainor)

"Rise Up" (Andra Day)

"This Is Me" (Keala Settle)

"Beautiful" (Christina Aguilera)

"We are the Champions" (Queen)

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Iz)

Back to School for Anyone and Everyone

Blink! Summer's over. Wow, that was fast!

It's my fault it went so quick. Did I mention at any point in my last post I was taking teacher certification courses over the summer? Well, now you know. And I got a teaching job; a great job in a Title 1 School with an amazing staff. So school has started and we all went back. Here's the proof:

Tinker Bell - 2nd Grade

The Blitz  - 1st Grade

The Captain - 2nd Grade

Pepper

Sunshine

Special Ed Faculty at Voigt Elementary Yay!

In addition to being back to school, we are back to ball. I should have some photos to post next week but here's one little cutie to warm your heart:

Happy Labor Day Weekend!!

School Days

Believe it or not, school has started here in Central Texas. The Blitz and Tinker go to Meridian World School, a charter school nearby.  They start early, take a week off in October and finish a week earlier than everyone else. It works for me!

So the Blitz is in kindergarten. He was fine, but I cried after I left him! He seems too little for school but looks very enthusiastic in these shots.

But he was happy and excited and thinks Ms. Mahoney is the bomb!

Tinker is also very happy to be back in school and practically pushed me out the door. She's a firecracker, that one.

In two weeks Pepper heads to school and then The Captain. More photos to come!

Double Trouble Back to School

It's Saturday night and Pepper is watching Prince of Egypt with the Littles.

At one point, I said to The Blitz, "Do you want me to make y'all some popcorn, honey?"
"Yes, Mom, because "Mo-sep" is boring."
"Sweetie, it's "MOSES"; he's a real person from the Bible."
"Okay, Mom, well Mo-SIS is boring too."

Oh goodness.  The last of my peeps headed off to school this week, The Blitz and The Captain. (Sunshine is still on break until next week and homeschoolers technically don't head off to school). I have put off writing this post while being daunted by the production of 6 or 7 lunches every day at 6:00 a.m. My plan worked well, though, so each week will get easier.

I only cried a little -- and surprisingly not over The Blitz. It was The Captain; he looked so sad and overwhelmed when I left him for Kindergarten - the Sequel, with his new teacher, Ms. Warner. I tried to get us off on the right foot by walking him to school, which he loves, but it didn't do it. He was quite reluctant the next day, too, when we walked to the bus stop two lots away. While we waited for the bus, he hung his head and stared at his feet and when the bus arrived, he was teary-eyed. I felt terrible. But by the end of the day, he seemed happy and has been less reluctant with each day. He has two issues: He has to make all new friends, and he figured out his friends went to first grade. He is feeling shame about it and that is sad. I do not regret holding him back as I know it is the best for him but I am sorry for his hurt feelings!

The Blitz has been pretty wary of going to school, thinking it was just a trick to take him to day care (which he really did not enjoy). He goes at 11:30 so the first day, I put him in the car and drove him over there and when we pulled up in front of the school, he said, "Hey, this is Old Town Edementry" and then laughed out loud. He has been all smiles since and his only complaint is that he has to wait "too long" each day to go.  One day I'd been in appointments all day so picked up the boys from school 20 minutes early and he cried, angry at me for not letting him finish the day. Oh, the trials of Pre-K. ( Oh and of course he wouldn't look at the camera!)

I think it will be a good year for both of them. Their teachers are very sweet and they are already both getting into the rhythm of school; I am getting into the swing of things too and I feel much less stressed about the upcoming week than I did the last.

Next week when Sunshine starts, I will try for another Fab Five pic; for now, we're still stuck with the iPod photos as my new flash drive is lost in transit.  Cheers.

Yummy Lettuce/Chicken Wraps for Back to School

Lazy summer is nearing an end.  The "bigs" have been so much help and it has made our no-schooling time so enjoyable.  Yesterday after taking her next-to-last Intro to Psych test, Pepper relaxed with her ukulele, part obsession and part constant companion.

Sunshine built the most fantastic fort ever. Let's face it, if you live in Texas, you'd better find some ways to play indoors in August.

 

With school starting in only 3 weeks, we are shifting focus around here.  I just moved the kids "wake up lights" to come on a half hour earlier; next week they will be adjusted again.  We are practicing a "school time" schedule to make an easy adjustment to the rhythm of our days.  By the time school starts, the rhythm will be set and we can focus on helping The Captain adjust to Kindergarten, itself.  I blogged about it for adoption. com but then re-thought it a bit and realized we needed to ease in and not just jump in with both feet (duh!).

Tinkerbelle will be headed to Pre-K 3 hours a day; her days will either begin or end at the same time as The Captains.  Both will attend Old Town Elementary, right across from our neighborhood.  Sunshine and Pepper will be homeschooled again; we are starting after Labor Day.  Pepper is taking dual-credit classes at the community college. In the fall, she'll be taking composition and art history.

It all adds up to me reorganizing myself in the kitchen.  We are "back to bento" for the fall.  Our bento lunches pack a lot of protein into an interesting and compact arrangement.  They are so perfect for lunch.  We are teaching The Captain how to take his lunch out and eat from the bento boxes; he is just a boy who needs to practice things!

For today's lunch, I found this interesting recipe on Iowa Girl Eats and then made a few changes so that I can make it any time with ingredients I always have on hand.  It was so wonderful, it'll go on a 2-week rotation.  We enjoyed it with edamame and cous-cous.

P.F. Chang’s Lettuce Wrap - adapted 

Serves a family, or 6  hungry adults
(approximately 185 cals., 5 grams carbs, 8 grams fat, 21 grams protein)

Ingredients:

1. 4  large cloves garlic, minced
2. 3 tsp fresh ginger, peeled & minced (I buy it frozen - MUCH easier to deal with )
3. 1-1/2  tbsp  sesame oil
4. 1/4 cup  soy sauce
5. 2  tbsp  peanut butter
6. 1  tbsp  honey
7. 2 tbsp rice vinegar
8. 2 tbsp chili garlic sauce (I use the one with the rooster)

1. 2 tsp. olive oil
2. 3 fresh carrots, washed and diced finely
3. 2 lb ground chicken breast
4. salt & pepper, a dash of each

1. 18 or more large outer lettuce leaves, rinsed and patted dry (you can buy these all prepared now, in a plastic box!)

Directions:

Place the first 8 ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl.  Microwave 30 seconds.  Stir until smooth and set aside.

Using a large non-stick fry pan, heat the olive oil briefly and add the carrots.  Saute for 2 minutes, then add the ground chicken, salt and pepper.  Stir fry until the chicken is cooked through and no longer pink -- this only takes a few minutes.  Add the sauce and cook a few minutes until desired consistency is reached.  I like to cook out a bit of the liquid.

Place the chicken mixture in a bowl.  If desired, garnish with chopped green onions and/or ground peanuts.  I used just a bit of chopped cilantro.