Was I a Helicopter Mom?

I wonder if I was a helicopter mom. I certainly went to enough parent/teacher meetings to know the teachers and administrators on a first name basis. That was until I didn't want to know them anymore at all and I became the teacher and I slept with the administrator.

Then my students went off to college and I may have given them some advice but I never called a professor or administrator of a college.

But it was made very clear to me last week that I was not an overly protective mom. Last week, I heard sirens coming down my street around 8:00 pm. They turned on the side street next to my house and out of curiosity I walked over. There was an ambulance, a fire truck, and a police car. There was also a neighbor girl sitting on the sidewalk. Other neighbors came out also and I heard the story...they had been rollerskating and this little girl fell and broke her arm. I watched as they loaded her onto the gurney and prepared to rush her to the hospital.

About 10 or 11 years ago, I had just begun homeschooling and my son and I decided to go for a bike ride. (PE class I guess). Well he rode into a parked car and hurt himself. We rode back and he told me that his wrist hurt. I gave him some advil and told him to take a bath -- I was going to Dallas to meet some friends for lunch. I came home a couple hours later and he told he that it still hurt. I probably gave him some more advil. A couple hours later, when he was still complaining about it, I took him to the emergency room where after an x-ray, they told me that he had a broken wrist!

He didn't get any sirens, he didn't get to ride in an ambulance. He got to sit at home while his mom went to lunch and then he finally got to ride in my Honda Accord to the hospital.

Helicopter mom -- definitely not! Neglectful -- not always!

It's a New Year

It's a new year and a new decade. I've heard many of the arguments of how to say this year -- Twenty Ten, Two Thousand Ten, or O-Ten. My preferred way is to say twenty ten and to write MMX.

This year, Mark and I will probably be finding a new church home. It is somewhat difficult to leave a church you have been involved in for over 25 years, but it is time to move on. We may have already found a place, but we will wait until some things at our older church have changed. It is scary and exciting at the same time. Mark and I are very ELCA Lutheran in our thinking, believing, and worshiping. Our current church is not.

I'm going to try to read at least 26 books this year. I really need to make more time to read. I also want to finish Kev's Texas Tech scrapbook as well as start and finish the 2008 and 2009 books. They will probably be a hybrid -- some old fashioned scrapbook pages as well as some digital pages. Of course, I need to start my walking dvd's again.

I'll check back in a few months and see how I'm doing!

The Audacity of Individuality

In the past few weeks, while my kids were in town and I talked to other parents of similarly aged kids, I realized again that my kids are "different".

When talking about all the social aspects of college, I realize that Kathryn just isn't a "normal" college freshman. She didn't want to go greek, she likes going to class, she loves learning new things, she doesn't always wear the standard college attire, she usually gets about 8 hours of sleep each night, and most of her social life is at the Canterbury Center and at church. I suppose she was never the "normal" high school student either, but since she didn't go to high school, it wasn't as noticeable. Everyone who knows Kevin, knows that he is a proud nonconformist.

Today, I was reading an article in the Dallas Morning News about Chris Howard, who is now the first black president of Hampden-Sydney College, a predominantly while all-male school in Virginia. The article is well written and I'm sure he is a great man. But one of his quotes made me go 'aha' -- that's the definition of my kids. I'm quoting the DMN (article by Jessica Meyers) which is quoting him -- (no plagiarism for me) .

"He's started telling his cadre of male students to stub their toes, be humbled by the complexity and subtlety of experiences, and to embrace ambiguity. 'I call it the audacity of individuality,' he said. 'So many people tell you what you should be. Follow your passions first and acquire sets of skills that empower.'"

So that's my Kevin and my Kathryn -- they each have the audacity of individuality!

Woohoo -- I'm so proud of them!