Disneyland sucks!

ok, well not really. However, going there last night reminded me why (for now) Legoland is soooo much better.
reason #1; if you have an annual pass, you have to park twelve million miles away and take a tram into the park. At least nowadays I'm not dragging a stroller along, but it's still a pain.
reason #2: It's really crowded. yeah, I know-DUH! Usually we go in the mornings where it's just us and the other crazy people that get there at 7:30. When you go at night, however, there are twelve million people. These people include teenagers who dart in front of your children, laughing hysterically and not watching where they are going, holdout grown-ups dragging passed out children around in their triple-wide strollers and gigantic white people from the midwest blocking the walkways.
reason #3: as I mentioned last night, idiot adults get on the kid stuff (like the ropes adventure) and trample the little kids. Nobody tramples my kids at the Legoland ropes course. Why? Because it is specifically designed for kids and even if you DID try and trample my kid, a horde of angry parents would shame you into growing the F*** up! Seriously, last night this grown man and his wife were grabbing the sides of a bridge, bouncing up and down and screaming at the top of their lungs. and yes, it was still daylight. and yes, they saw that my kid and other kids behind them were freaking out at the apparently insane behavior of grown ups. and they didn't care. and it was still daylight. people are stupid.
reason #4:as Stephanie mentioned earlier this week, even the usually chipper staff was a bit surly last night. Last year when Chiara went for her birthday, EVERYONE wished her a happy birthday and did so with a genuine (or at least genuinely faked) smile. This year, it was more forced, some people forgot and some people just apparently didn't care. What happened to the Disney "magic"? If I am going to pay a ton of money for an annual pass, in the middle of the Great Recession, people had better be nice to me!! Or at least be nice to my little girl. I know she LOOKS like she's a jaded 9 year old, but she's still barely 7 and these things matter to her.

Of course there are still things that disneyland does spectacularly well. That Aladdin show is amazing. The fireworks show and how they choreograph it with the music and story is so creative. The "Soaring Over California" ride was incredibly realistic. However, these good things do not outweigh the many annoyances of Disneyland. We'll probably be back when the kids are older, but for now? Good riddance Disneyland! Hello Legoland!

little girls magazines?

I saw a cool magazine this week at school that was all about girls/women and sports. There were women of all shapes and sizes, with mercifully few ads for beauty products. I thought to myself, "wow! I wonder if there is a magazine like this for little girls?" It would be better if this magazine didn't accept advertising, even if it was more expensive per issue.
So far, I can't find anything.
I am trying, as much as possible, to limit the insidious influence of advertising (beauty products etc) on her life. I don't want her to grow up and become part of the hyper=sexualized media campaign of Miley Cyrus and the like. I want her to enjoy being a little girl, be comfortable with her body and see some positive role models.
Is there anything out there? and if there isn't, will I have to create it??

Mother's Day

You know you are married to a chef when the very THOUGHT of Mother's Day fills you with dread. Even if you ARE a mother yourself.
Of course you wouldn't dare expect Chef to cook for you and your mom because he will be HIDEOUSLY busy and stressed out. You also won't go to any other restaurant because you know THEIR chefs and wait staff will also be busy and stressed out. So you will probably stay home and make pizza for the kids.

Dear Arizona.....

I'm angry and I'm hurt. I haven't felt like this since California's Prop. 187. But that's not really my point.

Let me tell you a not-so-well kept secret about being Mexican-American in the United States. What is the FIRST thing we look at when a baby is born? Why, the color of the skin, of course. People say things like, "oh, she's so pretty and light," or "he's handsome, but a bit dark, no?" Why do we care about these things? One could cite the history of colonialism, racism by the Spanish, mestizaje etc. but really it all boils down to this: the color of your skin determines how the world will interact with you. If you are dark, people will make certain assumptions about you and treat you a certain way. If you are light, you will look more Anglo and people will perceive and treat you differently.

Often within one famly, as with my mother's, you get a range of skin tones from very fair (and freckled in my mom's case), to very dark. Simply by a genetic code, I (and my children) ended up on the light side of the spectrum. As my mother noted the other day, my Tio Vildo would be flagged by immigration (and has been), but my red-haired, freckled mother never has, and likely never will be. Simply because of the shade of her skin. Yet they are both children of Humberto and Rafa Rios and both Mexican. Unfair, don't you think? I'll get to why I think this is significant, Arizona, in just a minute.

I understand some of the sources of your frustration, Arizona. The rancher that was killed on his ranch recently was very likely killed by drug smugglers. Tighter enforcement of the borders in California has led illegal border crossers to undertake the more treacherous and deadly route across the desert into Arizona. The booming economy in the Phoenix area drew a huge population of tile-layers, drywallers and other day laborers. Now the economy is no longer booming, but many of the problems of rapid growth in the immigrant population (schools, roads, housing) remain. I can see that you are frustrated, Arizona, that the federal government appears unable to confront the very real issue of how to deal with illegal immigration.

Passing this new law, however, Arizona is not the solution. Police officers absolutely should be able to question the immigration status of someone who has committed a crime. If they have committed a robbery, assault, smuggled drugs, driven a car while drunk, then absolutely their immigration status should be ascertained. If it is determined that they are here illegally, then absolutely they should be deported and forced to serve their jail time in Mexico. I don't want criminals from other countries sitting in our jails at taxpayer expense when they could be shipped off to their home countries.

However, you have to realize, Arizona, how dangerous your new law could be in the hands of a less than ethical police officer. If the color of one's skin can be a reason for questioning someone's immigration status, then the corroborating reason could be something as simple as a dark-skinned person driving a car that looks too nice late at night. So my Tio Vildo, or many of my other relatives, all legal citizens, could be stopped for driving while brown, while at the same time, my mother and I would not. Does this mean that my darker-skinned cousins would need to carry identification papers all the time? I certainly wouldn't need to. What about people who come from families that have been in this country for generations, yet still have dark skin and look very "Mexican"? Is it fair that these people, as "American" as apple pie, yet very brown to the eye would have their citizenship questioned? Can you see, Arizona, how I would find this whole idea of having SKIN COLOR be a reason for questioning someone's immigration status, so patently unfair and unjust? Is it a crime to be brown in Arizona?

I never thought I would be THAT mom, but....

I hid some vegetables in my kid's food.

A few years ago, this book by Jessica Seinfeld came out to much hoopla (appearances on Oprah, Today show etc.). In it, Ms. Seinfeld explained how she made purees of vegetables, hid them in her kids' food and they were none the wiser! At the time, I rushed out and bought it, tried a few recipes and they were TERRIBLE! Then, as fate would have it, my child LOVED broccoli, cauliflower etc. so I was convinced of my moral superiority. Hiding vegetables was a horrible thing to do! You must be honest with your children and teach them to eat as you eat! My kid LOVES vegetables! What's wrong with yours??

and then Mario came along. He brought my hubris to a screeching halt.

He doesn't eat. I made spaghetti carbonara the other day, and he picked out the pancetta, drained the sauce and ate exactly four noodles. He eats fruit, I'll grant him that, but really his repetoire of foods shrinks by the month. I kept my vow that I would NOT make a separate meal for him (pizza, french fries and strawberries would be HIS request) and I dutifully put a plate of food in front of him every night. He picks at it, then runs to the fridge to get a wedge of laughing cow cheese, some crackers and some fruit. Apparently this is called his "french" phrase, only we're not french. It's so frustrating!

So I returned to the Seinfeld book. I felt really, really guilty about it. Last night on the way home from work, I bought a bag of baby spinach and some fancy looking carrots at Trader Joe's. I made the recipe for brownies (with the aforementioned vegetables "hidden" in them), and as it turns out....the kids LOVE the brownies. So far no one has asked if there is spinach in them. Right now I am steaming a batch of cauliflower that I am going to try and add to some scrambled eggs and then maybe a baked potato later on.

I feel HUGELY guilty about this. Like somehow I have failed as a mom. To top it off, they are CHEF'S kids! They should be eating kalamata olives, prepping artichoke hearts and eating vegetables from our garden.

Except they are not.

This summer I'm going to try and plant more veggies. I'm going to continue to present dinner and if Mario doesn't eat it, he has to fetch his own. I'm going to continue to hide vegetables. and I suppose I'm going to continue to feel guilty about it. Somehow I don't think my mom stressed about this so much.

it's the end of the quarter

The end of the third quarter signals a few things to your average high school teacher.

1. We're in the home stretch to the end of the school year. This is thrilling (we get to sleep in! no more grading!), but also a bit sad. We've spent the whole year getting to know our students and in just a few short months, it will all be over. Each class has its own personality. Some are smart-alecks, some are lethargic (particularly after lunch), some are over-achievers (why aren't you in honors?) and others should receive a group-rate discount on Ritalin or Adderal. Students who got on my very last nerve in September are suddenly far less irritating. Some kids have gotten their acts together (ah, maturity!) and still others have backslid into what will likely be a one-way trip to continuation school. While I do long for the relaxation and full time SAHM status for 10 weeks, I will also mourn the loss of community with entire classes and with individual students. Right now I know which students can be teased and which are very sensitive. Come August/September, I will have to tread carefully as I get to know each student and class and assess their temperment. It's exciting of course (I can try out this lesson and see how it works this year!), but it's also daunting.

2. Fourth quarter also signals, unfortunately, the arrival of CSTs and high stakes testing. We get one week of regular instruction when we get back from spring break to cram in the last of the materials on the pacing (racing?) chart and then it's two weeks of nearly daily testing. Though the kids get tired of what appear to be endless testing, we are instructed by administration to cajole our students to at least TRY to do well on their exams (which have absolutely no bearing on their final grade) and pray that they bring enough distractions to keep them from disturbing others for the entire testing period. For this brief period, in my classes at least, they are urged (begged?), to bring a book, newspaper, iPod, WHATEVER to keep them occupied. For several days, we have two hours with a particular group of testing, then ANOTHER two hours with the same students for regular instruction. Yes, that's four hours with the same group of students. It's these days that I most fully appreciate our elementary school compatriots, since after those four hours, even the most likable group of students becomes too much.

3. Lastly, 4th quarter for history teachers means that we get to teach, more or less, what we want. Since we have to teach four quarters worth of standards in 3 quarters (to get the kids ready for those all important exams), it's in the 4th quarter that we get to do projects, activities and other lessons that we just don't have time for in the rest of the school year. It's liberating, but also somewhat confusing. Much like a prisoner who has become so accustomed to the regular routine of the incarcerated life that he is unable to function in unfettered freedom of the outside world, the history teacher who gets to teach without district mandated exams and common assessments is often confused and hesitant. You mean I get to teach about the rest of the world in world history now? Not just Europe? I can teach about Africa? Really? Even Latin America and Asia? Cooooool! But wait! There aren't any common assesments???? What will we do in our PLC meetings???

really, who has the time?

yeah, so I'm one of those moms that looks down on lunchables. Bad for the environment! filled with food that is not necesarily the healthiest!
I think this is the year, however, where I really could comprehend why moms use them.

This is also the year that I needed to pack three lunches rather than two, and I think that was the tipping point. I don't even work full-time and I still struggle to find the energy at the end of the day to clean out the million little plastic/glass containers and fill them up again with all the appropriate foods. By 8:00pm, I am tired! I want to waste time on the internet or maybe watch something random on TV. I certainly don't WANT to pack lunches or clean up the kitchen.

Of course if I had a husband who worked normal hours, maybe this lunch packing task wouldn't feel so onerous. Perhaps he would take charge of some of the lunch packing. well, on second thought, he totally wouldn't. If you dealt with food all day, would you want to come home and pack lunches? Probably not.

So this is my solution to feeding myself and the kids all week: cook and bake up a storm on the weekend. Prep as much as possible so meals can be thrown together at the last minute. I've made 3 dozen muffins this weekend. I'm going to use the crock pot this week too.

I want to make healthy meals for my kids and model good eating habits. I also want to make sure they see their mommy being active and going to the gym. My house and kitchen also need to be kept reasonably clean. I would like to see my husband occasionally. There are not enough hours in the day and I don't have enough money to outsource more of the reproductive tasks of the household (housekeeper, personal chef!).

I'm trying not to sound too whiny. After all, I have a great husband, a great job, benefits, two beautiful kids and reasonably good health.

I just need maybe four more hours in my day to get everything done.