Top 10 Songs to Send Your Child off to School By

This weekend we went out and completed all our school shopping, I can't believe my little man is going to be in the 1st grade. Where does the time go? Well it got me thinking about how I'm just as emotional facing 1st grade as I was facing Kindergarten. So as a tribute to my own son AND daughter who starts Pre-K this year as well, I am posting this piece I wrote last year at this time. For all of you moms out there who are watching there child move from one stage of life into another...

Top 10 Songs to Send Your Child off to School By

I have recently found myself facing one of the biggest milestones a parent can reach while raising children, my young son will be entering Kindergarten. As any of you who have been through this, or will soon be facing it know, it is something that fills you with a myriad of emotions.

On one hand, I find myself brimming with excitement. PTA meetings, school plays, homework, watching my son grow from a boy into a young man. What’s not to look forward to? Other times I look at him, and all I see is that sweet blue-eyed boy that we brought home from the hospital five short years ago. How can I send my baby out into the world? Will one of those little girls running around be the first to break his heart? Will he stand up to his first bully, or have his spirit broke by him? Will he enjoy school, or will he rebel against it?

It’s so difficult to not know these answers, but know that I have to let him go anyway. There are parents out there reading this who are feeling this too. Maybe its not Kindergarten, maybe you’re sending yours off to college, or for some of you, you’re baby is getting married. Whichever one you’re facing, it’s still the same.

It just like when they were toddlers learning to walk. You wanted them to walk, but you feared for them, because you knew that they were going to have to fall before they could walk. As with any other big moment in life, I have a running soundtrack playing in my head right now. These are the songs that I hear playing in my head as I fill my son’s first backpack with school supplies. As I fill out his emergency cards, and shop for his new shoes. As I watch him begin his life.

So for every parent whose little one is starting Kindergarten, college, or simply starting their own life, here is a list of tunes to sneak onto their Ipod before they go.

1. Everything But The Girl-Apron Strings

Being a mom, the term “Apron String:” has a number of meanings, but the strings that are sung about in this EBTG tune are the ones that every mom wishes they could forever keep their baby safely wrapped in for the rest of their lives.




2. Kate Bush-This Woman’s Work

When its time for your child to begin making journeys on their own, without you, it leaves you plagued with fear. Have you done a good job? Have you given them all the tools they need to be strong and to succeed? Those are some of the questions that flood my mind when I hear this Kate Bush classic.





3. Cyndi Lauper-Time After Time

OK, so maybe this is slightly on the melodramatic side, but it truly captures the essence of what every parent desperately hopes for when letting go of their little one. That wherever your child goes they know that we will always be there. That when they need us to go slow, we will always fall behind, when they are lost we will always be there to help them find their way, and when they fall we will always catch them. Time after time after time.

(Honorable mention goes to True Colors)




4. Rod Stewart- Forever Young

One of the classic songs about what a parent feels for a child. So much so, that I’ve heard this song played at weddings, funerals, graduation parties, and baby showers. Its universal message of parental love comes through no matter what path of life you are on. I even used this song in a video I made for my parents 25thwedding anniversary. Now, as I look at my son who is so quickly turning from a boy to a young man, all I see is that young baby we brought home from the hospital about to go to school.



5. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young- Teach Your Children

This tune is pretty much a given. I, like most parents I’m sure, hope that all of my crazy insecurities and quirks haven’t damaged my son too much. And I know in the years to follow he will have so much more to teach us than we could ever begin to teach him.




6. The Cast of Rent-Seasons of Love

It’s so surreal to look back on the years spent watching your child grow. This song always makes me flash on the idea of how many diapers have I changed? How many tears have I wiped away, scraped knees have I kissed? How many tickle fits, time outs, bowels of Mac & Cheese, swings, campfires, nightmares, sing alongs, legos, stories have I read, and kisses goodnight have there been? I couldn’t begin to count, but I could tell you that there have been miles and miles of love, and so many more miles to cover.





7. Kenny Loggins-Return to House at Pooh Corner

I was already past my due date with my son when I became obsessed with hearing this song. I hadn’t heard it in ages and with my son soon to be making his debut, I couldn’t get this song out of my head. So I dragged my very pregnant self to Target and bought Kenny Loggins greatest hits CD and sat in the parking lot and listened to it. I went home and sat in the nursery, decked out in all Winnie The Pooh décor, and listened to it again. Now as I listen to it almost six years later, with that same little guy about to embark on his own adventures, I’m still as excited as I was the day he was born.


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8. Cat Stevens –Wild World

When most people hear this tune they automatically think “break up” song, but when I heard it on the radio recently, it kind of struck me how it’s about all the scary things that are out there. Bullies, mean teachers, broken hearts, friends who turn out to not be friends; all the things that a parent can’t ever protect a child from. It truly is a wild world out there.


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9. Beautiful Boy- John Lennon

Though I feel so much that my son is growing up, this song makes me realize the reality is, he’s still my boy. And we do have such a long way to go. And each day life with him gets better and better, and I can’t wait to what the next part of his life will bring.



10. Three Little Birds-Bob Marley

If there was one message I could forever embed into my child’s mind to take with him everywhere he goes for the rest of his life, it would be this. Everything little thing is going to be all right.



For everybody who is entering into a new phase of parenthood, whether it is becoming a parent, sending a child off to Kindergarten or college, or sending them into marriage, I wish you the best, and if music captures you like it does me, listen to these with a hanky nearby.

Separation Anxiety, Exhaustion, and I go to college (in my best Napoleon Dynamite voice).

So it's been a million years since I've blogged, not that I haven't been writing.... Most of my free time has been, well not free.

School! That's right I'm about a month into my first semester back at school, and my feelings are mixed. I am enjoying it, my teachers are very cool, and lucky for me I;m actually younger than some of the people I have class with. Which has gone a long way in easing my fear of being lost in a sea of eighteen year olds. I look forward to going, and have started hitting the starbucks drive-through to help me get through the late night (Thursday, when Im there until 10PM). Where it gets slightly overwhelming is the workload for semester. With working full-time, writing during all my free-time, and being a mom, and taking care of this nice two story home, well let's just say the math doesn't add up. There are simply not enough hours in the day.

Which is why it's so funny that on top of all that I'm chairing the Publicity comittee for the local PTA. It's not taking up too much time, and I love being a part of something like that. The community at Patricks's school, and well our neighborhood, is just awesome. I feel a little lame for enjoying it so much, but I do. In fact I wish I was able to do more. But with the daycare still going, I still lack a lit of freedom in volunteering and stuff.

That could soon come to pass though. I didn't get the gig at About.com. I was bummed at first, but am hoping for something else to come along. WIth the couple gigs I currently have going on, I figure I am one, maybe two more, regular gigs away from being able to make the switch to freelancing full-time. I'm not sure when, but hopefully not to long. Needless to say, that's why I;m investing so much time into it. It'll be worth it in the end.

Cheyanne has now started pre-school and is having a hard time adjusting. I never really went through a separation anxiety thing with Patrick, at least not like this . She screams and cries, and asks me to stay. I am a professional child care provider. I am going to school for child development. In fact I'm studying these actual behavior issues RIGHT NOW. But it doesn't matter how well you understand the issue of separation anxiety, or how well you deal with when it's someone else's child. When it's your baby crying, it just flat sucks. But I'm smart enough to know that she's going to be just fine, in fact she's already doing better.

That's pretty much the jist of it all. For now anyway. School, writing, and work. Exhaustion. The holiday break cannot come soon enough.......
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And so the Chaos begins...

I've been neglecting my blog for weeks now! It's not on purpose, I've just been keeping up with other writing gigs that are actually paying gigs (woo hoo) and they've been sucking up all my free time. I did not get the position at About.com but the editor moved me right into training for another position (that I would MUCH prefer to have), so I'm smack dab in the middle of prep, again. I am so hoping that it works out. If I get it, I may be able to stop doing daycare and freelance full time. It would be a dream come true. Writing for a living would be spectacular. On top of it being what I want to do, it would give me so much more freedom with the kids.

Speaking of kids, tomorrow Patrick starts kindergarten. I am just in shock. I can't believe that he's going to be going to school. Not pre-school, but real school. It's crazy!!! I am wrenching with emotion and have butterflies in my stomach. On to of that Cheyanne starts pre-school next week. What happened to my babies?

Speaking of school, Allen and I both started school last week. So far so good. It's going to be fun, a lot of work, but fun. I'm a little overwhelmed because when I signed up back in June for the fall semester, I wasn't doing the writing like I am now. I'm a little anxious at trying to work full-time, write almost full-time, and go to school twice a week and fit in homework. Oh yea, and run my household and help my kids adjust to starting school themselves. The biggest relief would be if I could get a couple more writing gigs, and stop the daycare....

In other news, we went to a wedding yesterday. The daughter of a family that we're pretty close with. It was a lovely ceremony, and we had a wonderful time. Food, music, and atmosphere were all awesome. I had one thing that I perturbed me, just a bit. The vows. It was a very Christian ceremony, which is great, but the vows actually included asking the groom if he will make an income that can support her, and retain the position as leader of the family. Her vows were about supporting the husband and keeping a good home. I had to check my cell phone and make sure I was in the right year. It's strange because the family is full of strong women, and it just didn't jive with how I see the bride at all.
It was actually the groom I felt more upset for. I'm not unrealistic in the fact that gender roles exist in today world, and that's ok to a degree. Men are men, women are women. There will always be differences. But, I also think in a marriage, or lifetime commitment, a man and woman should be equal partners. In this day and age it's unfair to place the burden of supporting a household on one person. Unless of course it's what works for that particular couple, but I think just assuming that a woman should have a choice whether she wants to work or not, and a man does not, seems uncool. It reminded me of that scene form the Kevin Bacon movie, She's Having a Baby.


Maybe it's just me...

Thank God It's Friday!!!!

Yippee it's Friday, FINALLY! For a short week, it sure was a long week, if you know what I mean! We are finally just about over the colds we had plaguing us the first half of the week, so that's good. We're all a little tired still, but nothing a nice long lazy morning sleeping in won't cure! My voice is still in and out, my sore throats ALWAYS end in laryngitis it seems. I think if you ask anyone I've ever known in my entire life they would say I talk to much. I can't ever have laryngitis without someone cracking a "she talks too much" joke. I'm not saying it ain't true but still...

So Patrick has figured out how to get to the DVD extras on his movies. So before he watches a superhero movie he likes to watch the extras so he can "see how they make it". The other day (keep in mind he's only five) he explained to me how Stan Lee came up with the idea for The Hulk. That's right, my five year old told me how much Stan Lee loved Frankenstein, because he was a monster but a good guy. Just misunderstood. Stan Lee's otter favorite was Jekyll & Hyde. He put the two together and that's where he came up with the idea for the Hulk. My son (again, he's FIVE) then went on to tell me The Hulk was supposed to be gray, but there was something wrong with the printer, and Hulk came out green. Since there were no other green superheroes, Stan Lee kept it that way. My son told me all this. So does this mean that he's destined to be the next Spielberg, or the next Stan Lee? I'm amazed at his fascination with the superheroes. It's beyond them being cool, he truly loves seeing how they come to life. It's his calling I think, already, he's got a calling...

Speaking of kids saying the darndest things. So Cheyanne and the other little girl I have here in daycare were playing cars the other day. They're being all cute and girly. "Wanna go to the beach?" The daycare girl's car asks Cheyanne's car. Cheyanne's car agrees and they start puttering around the couch. Suddenly the daycare girl goes "Let's roll bitches, c'mon bitches let's go to the beach". She just turned three and she, "Let's roll bitches". I gave her a talking to and informed her mom. Meanwhile, I've been busting a gut laughing while I tell everyone who'll listen about it. I know she didn't get it from my house, so I can revel in the comedic aspect of hearing a three year old speak gangster. I know bitches is not an OK word for three year old to be saying, but the way she was using it, really isn't any different than my kid, who already use the word awesome and dude ALL THE TIME. Kids. Go figure...

Sex & The City opens this weekend. Think the hype is too much? There's been backlash in all the promotional bruha over the flick. I am OK with it. I'd actually forgotten what a great show it truly was, and am happy to see it on the big screen. Candace Bushnell and the incredible staff of writers HBO had for the show are AMAZING. Me and my little blog and internet ramblings could never be the hilarious, poignant, and sharp writing that was Sex & The City. I only hope the movie retains that sharpness, but I have a pretty good feeling it does. Not that I'll actually make it to the movies to see it, I'm sure.

On Wednesday I actually went to Las Positas and met with a guidance counselor and put my student education plan together, He pointed out that my assessment scores were better than I had understood them to be, and that getting my AA really wouldn't take that much effort than what I'll already be doing. Food for thought I guess. The ladies in the Early Childhood Education Dept. were really cool, and pointed out that though EVERYONE looks like teenagers at first when you go back to school, once I'm actually going to class I'll see how many people are actually my age. I hope so. Not to judge, but I'm not sure I can keep up with the Lohan/Spears generation...I'm much more of the Tiffany/Gibson genre myself... So classes start at the end of August. It's scary, but feels awesome.

Allen has been inspired, and now is talking about going back too. He wants to get a certificate in music, and start teaching guitar. How awesome is that? He would be sooo good at it, and I think would be ale to build quite a clientele fast. I hope he really does it. Keep your fingers crossed.

OK, this ones for the soap fans. One Life To Live to be specific. Now that Tuc Watkins (known to some as the Desperate Househusband, Bob Hunter over at Desperate Housewives) is back over at One Life To Live for the summer, I couldn't be happier.He is probably the funniest actor on any soap, and has great chemistry with anybody. I mean ANYBODY! He's hot, fabulous, hilarious, and breathing some much needed life back into daytime! Thanks ABC for bringing him back to Lanview!


Here's my latest post over at JamsBio, April Fools

Also be sure and check out my new poetry blog. New blog, OLD poetry.
Poetry: How I Survived Adolescence

One more time, Happy Friday!!!!


Happy weekend to all!

And So It Goes

Hip Hip Hooray! Our debt has been discharged! That's right The Harvey Family Bankruptcy is finally OVER!!! We went to court on Wednesday, for what turned out to be the most anticlimactic 7 minutes of my life. We were so nervous, and our lawyer (God love the guy) had us expecting this very lengthy and detailed procedure. Nope, he asked us a few generic questions, and gave us his sympathies for both being self employed right now (during these trying economic times). After that he simply said "You're excused". It was so fast that we just kind of sat there for a second. We couldn't believe that was it. I called our lawyer the next day and he sais "What are you callin me for, You're done!". Then he confirmed that our case had been approved and our debt had been discharged. YAY! I'm just happy to say, it's over. Chapter over.

So I wrote my first blog post for JamsBio's blog, check it and leave me some comments!

Iron Man: Feast For The Eyes AND The Ears
http://biolog.jamsbio.com/archives/iron-man-feast-...

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I heard something HORRIBLE in MSNBC. A story about this woman in Atlanta who passed away after a car accident. She had been rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and after she passed away, SOMEONE stole her rings!!! They weren't any rings of course, they were diamond and platinum and of course she had custom designed them herself to be a symbol of the love her and her husband shared while he was away as  a Navy Pilot. No he's alone with their 4 and 1 year old sons, and someone has taken the one thing she had to leave her boys. I put myself in her shoes, and I would want my kids to have them, I mean it would be VERY important to me. There is a reward being offered of $25,000. I certainly hope that they get returned. How awful is that?

Here's The News Story

Was anyone watching Rock the Cradle? Yea, I know me neither, but I really wanted to be! I did catch episodes here and there, and was very pleased to see Chloe (Olivia Newton-John's daughter) and Blaze (Dee Schneider's son) were the finalists. Oh yea, and that Crosby kid (Kenny Loggin's son) who I thought was nice, but no stage presence. I mean AT ALL. Zero, zilch, nada. Yet somehow, he won? Really ? First C. Thomas Howell has resorted to doing card tricks and now a non presence on the stage wins over two very unique and electric performers? Really? 

By the by, for those of who interested in the cosmic happenings over at JamsBio, might be interested to know that my brother's old girlfriend is moving back to CA and they're going to be together! You can read all about the very magical, yet true story here,

JamsBio: Working Fate's Magic

I registered for school this week, and am taking my assessment tests tomorrow. My immediate plan is just to get my associate teacher certificate, so i can teach pre-school. But I'm going to take advantage of the First-5 program (pays people who work with kids ages 0-5 to go to school) which tries to steer you towards getting your AA. I'm nervous about the assessment, it's been soooo long since I've taken any kind of test. EEEK. Wish me luck...

A Pretty Good Day..

Well today was just that, a pretty good day. We finally got a call form our lawyer that (insert drum roll please) WE HAVE A COURT DATE!! Yay! May 7th at 10:30 AM the next (and hopefully final) chapter of the Harvey Family Bankruptcy 2008 will begin! Boy, you know you're burned out when you're so desperate for a break that you look forward to a day in bankruptcy court....

I just got back from dinner with an old dear dear dear friend at Chevy's. There is nothing that rejuvenates you better than dinner with an old gal pal! It was great to just chill and gossip and catch up, with no kids running around and just being me. Very nice. Next time she's here in Cali we're going to do it again. 

This kind of brings me to my new thing I'm doing on Sundays. I'm making it a point to call an old friend every Sunday. This may seem strange, but I never get a chance to chat with my girls, so I'm making a point to get a good girl chat in once a week (no my mom & sister do not count, I talk to them everyday). It's good for the soul, ya know?

Have you been to JamsBio yet? GO NOW! NOW NOW NOW! Please register and leave me some feedback, and then write a few of your own... Not to mention reading the myriad of great stories on there! If you're looking for more cool JamsBio's to read check my favorites list on my home page. 

I have decided that I'm going back to school in the fall to get my ECE units to teach pre-school. I think I'll be more than ready to stop doing daycare once Cheyanne starts kindergarten, so I'm trying to make a plan now. I love being home with my own kids, but I think 2 more years of these 11 hour days with other people's kids is about all I have left in me... I love em all, but man I'm exhausted these days.