About a month ago, an email landed in my inbox from a very familiar, friendly voice.  It was from Andrea Sheehan, an old friend and former colleague.  She had found me on Linked In and was wondering what I was up to.

The timing could not have been better.  I was on the cusp of leaving my position and was looking for a new opportunity.  Andrea went on to tell me about a new company she was forming and the excitement in her voice was as transparent and honest as I’d ever heard.

Andrea is a mom of 4  (I don’t know how she does it).  She’s also a former teacher and publishing executive.  We worked together just around 10 years ago in my last fulltime working job (man, those 10 years flew by!).  Our kids are not that far apart – her oldest is 7, mine is 9.  Like me, she’s constantly watching her kids and thinking of them as the graduates of 2020.  The future isn’t far, it’s near. She realizes that as a tween, the pressures are building up on all kids like my daughter.  Standardized testing is moving in fast and furious and learning isn’t quite as fun as it used to be with these big, looming deadlines.

The next few years are important years for these kids.  Their performance and grades are critical indicators or how they will do in high school and college.

Andrea realized that kids lose interest in learning right around this time. They get bored by instructional methods and start to get lazy.  As a former teacher, she is able to analyze what’s missing to deliver outcomes and motivate students.  She has no intention of working against teachers, but she wants to work WITH teachers to improve what’s going on in the classroom and create innovative mobile apps and eReaders that inspire kids to do and be more than they ever imagined.

Is my daughter in the class of 2020?  That is WILD.  We can’t wait to inspire kids like her – it must be done now.

This is what Andrea says about giving her own daughter what she needs to flourish:

I can help her prepare for the challenges that lie ahead, both in school and in life.

I can give her the confidence in her ability to make sense of the world, even when I’m not around.

I can equip her with the tools she needs to make informed decisions.

Her mission: To kick-start a generation of confident, capable kids who are going to change the world.

Sounds like a mission I’d join!

So, I did.

Please join us on Facebook and Twitter and see where the road takes us.

The new Ruckus Reader aims to stand apart by helping to evaluate how a child is doing while reading and then emails parents a progress report. It’s kind of like a report card: once a week it highlights highlights where the child is doing well and where they need some help.  The titles range from things like My Little Pony to SeaWorld. Ruckus Reader is a free app for iOS devices. Individual books range in price from free to $5.99 or you can get a six month subscription for $24.99 for full access to the library, with 15-20 new titles being added every month.

I like that I don’t need a separate device for my kids to read (like LeapPad): I can just use my ipad.

Reviews so far have been solid:

“Watch Out LeapPad.” — Daily Candy
“A wealth of content for every learner…” — Parents.com
“Awesome reading App…” — Five Minutes for Mom

If you are interested in finding out more about it works, head over to J&R at 1 Ann Street, Jr. in NYC on May 19th anytime between 1-5pm.  They’ll have demos, giveaways, snacks and more.  Everyone is welcome and stop in anytime.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post as no compensation or product was received.  It was originally posted on AChildGrows.com.

But still, the Jewish life in Britain is very unique for me.  First of all, my Jewish UK experience starts as soon as I board the plane tomorrow night.  There will be a lot of black hats and Yiddish speakers, many of whom “daven” or pray on the plane.  When we arrive in Manchester, we will head to parts of town where our family and friends live that are predominantly Jewish.  Then we head to London, to Edgeware, Finchley, Highgate and Golder’s Green, very Jewish areas where we will drive by very religious people walking the streets, Kosher restaurants and shuls one right after the other.  One would be lead to believe from my experience that everyone in England was Jewish!  But of course, that is not the case.  There are 300K Jews in the whole of England, and it is an extremely tight community.  When I lived in London at age 23, I certainly did not experience the Jewish side of London and I personally remember a very difficult search for matzo (where I live in NY, the Passover aisle in my local grocery is a mile long).  In London, Kosher food for Passover was impossible to find.

I’m going to launch in a quick over-view of the Jewish population in Manchester and London.

My husband grew up in a close-knit Jewish community in Manchester. Last year, on our annual visit, I took the kids to the city’s Jewish Museum and we learned  that the Jewish community of Manchester dates from roughly 1780, but by 1865 there were less than 5,000 Jews in Manchester.  The population increased as a consequence of of the intensified persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe, and the Jews who came over took great care to maintain their traditions and rituals.  The synagogues are mainly Orthodox, and there are many Kosher butchers and bakeries to cater to families who keep Kosher.  My husband grew up with a very positive view of religion and of the State of Israel.  Many of his friends moved to Israel as young adults and all of the ones who stayed in Manchester have solid connections to Judaism.  The Orthodox movement does have a stronghold in the synagogues, but they do have a few “liberal” or reform shuls, which are slightly more religious than the ones in the U.S. but not as strict.  They have a number of Jewish State schools that kids attend, where they get a 50/50 Jewish/English education which instills a deeper sense of who they are, living as a minority.

Over in London, which represents 2/3 of the total UK Jewish population, Jews are segregated into certain neighborhoods, just as other religions and ethnicities are.  Most of my husband’s friends moved to London after University, and they are extremely educated and are thriving in this metropolis.  They have remained close to each other and seem to look out for one another.  Most of the synagogues are Orthodox, with men and women separated on two sides of the shul, but I am sure there are more options for non-religious folks like us.

Let’s leave the British Jewry discussion for now.

Anyway, we’ll be in London at my sister-in-law’s house for Seder and she’s very strict.  She is serious about when we start the seder, when we finish, the food will be strictly Kosher and the entire Hagaddah will be read.  The Seder will be beautiful and it will be wonderful for all of us to be with family.  It will be long, and I’m not sure how we will deal with my young children and their even younger children, but we we’ll manage.

But even more than that, I’m wondering how I’ll be able to keep Passover while staying in a hotel part of that week. It’s not an ideal situation when you’re trying to teach your kids that by a certain age, it’s time for the whole family to keep the holiday.  I have always caved in on the 2nd or 3rd day when I realize that their eating pickings are slim, particularly my son who is on the thin side.  However, I think it’s time for them to participate in all the customs that we, ourselves, partake in.  They go to Sunday School; they’re learning about their heritage and history.  It’s time to turn them into Passover keepers!

So, the question is how will get my two fusspot kids to keep Passover this year, particularly when we’re in a London hotel?  My mother-in-law makes the yummiest matzo pizza in the world.  My kids love this recipe and it’s fun to make, and I’m sure that we’ll make it at my SIL’s house and bring some with us to the hotel.  And I’m posting it here:

Ingredients: 

MATZO: Thin, crisp matzo makes an idea layer in this pizza-lasagna mash up. It softens when baked but holds all the wonderful toppings together. There’s no dough to stretch or noodles to boil..it’s just two favorite meals combined to make one killer casserole.

1 medium onion chopped

4 oz. cheese

5 pieces of matzo

1/4 lb. mushrooms

sugar, salt, pepper, oil

2 eggs

jar or tomato sauce

lemon juice (optional)

How to make it:
-Soak matzo in cold water for a few seconds and drain in between paper towels.
-Fry onion until golden.
-Add chopped tomatoes, tomato sauce, lemon juice, seasoning and cook gently until mixture thick – take from heat and add 1/2 the grated cheese.
-Grease lasagna dish and put layer dampened matzo, cover with pizza sauce, then another layer matzo, then more sauce, mushrooms sprinkled on top and the rest of cheese.
-Pour over heater eggs and let it soak in.
-Cook at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

Heidi Klum and Seal? Over? Splitsville? Really?

I have to admit, I was somewhat shocked and saddened when I heard this piece of salacious celebrity gossip.  I always looked at Heidi Klum as the woman who worked hard to have it all:  the career, the kids, the body, the happy marriage…the $20 million dollars a year…

“How does she do it?” I wondered…

While I can’t provide accurate commentary as to why she chose to go her own way, her startling decision made me think.

My conclusion? She’s successful, she’s driven and she’s busy. And according to friends, radio announcers, the aesthetician who does my nails and just about anybody who was speculating over the twittershpere, the real answer was that she was simply too successful.

I don’t think any woman starts a career thinking it’s going to skyrocket to stratospheric proportions like Ms Klum.  Most of us are content to contribute to something that keeps us interested and interesting. However, when you enter the world of ‘busy’ working woman, whether you’re senior management or contemplating corporate world domination, in order to keep all those balls in the air you need support, both emotionally and practically.

Someone who is proud of you and buys into your success.

As working women, we find that support in many ways: with parents, siblings, children or spouses; people who can support or validate our effort.  One of our basic human desires is to be needed and appreciated.  I don’t care how hard-core, independent any woman is; success can be a lonely island if nobody cares about it but you.

So maybe that was it. Maybe Seal came to the conclusion Heidi didn’t really need him.  Maybe Heidi decided “what the heck, I’m doing it all anyways, I’ll just continue doing it all…myself.” Or maybe there was infidelity involved – but I’m not exploring that point.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be successful – or even super-successful. But it is a two-way street.  Women need to be appreciated for what they contribute, however they contribute.  Whether you’re Heidi Klum or not.

This is the second entry in “I Don’t Know How She Does It,”  a series of guest posts about the working mom/stay-at-home dilemma.  It’s written by Bonnie Rothman Morris, the owner of Company B, a branding, public relations and social media expert known for her creative approaches to marketing.  Her clients have included Kaplan, Achilles International, Gevalia, Kaplan, Inc. and Shaw Henderson Interior Design .  She has counseled and developed campaigns for some of the world’s leading marketers, including Kraft Foods, eBay, American Express, LeapFrog and Target, and has also helped small companies tell their stories on a big scale.  You can read the rest of her bio here.

Source: Companyb-ny.com

I am growing weary of the working mom/stay at home mom dilemma. It’s been a part of my reality since graduating from college when I entered the workforce on a pathway opened up to me by the first generation of feminists who insisted that women have an equal seat at the conference room table. We had to act like men, wear suits like them (only with soft, floppy bow-ties), pay for our own dinners on dates, open our own doors and, when it came time to get married and have children, keep on going, find adequate childcare and act like nothing has happened to us in our personal lives.

We were completely deluded of course, but not in the way you might think. The implication was that the conflict we were facing was about personal fulfillment. But I realize now that working in an office vs. staying at home to parent is not really about that. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Working can be about many things from earning a living to changing the world through innovation.  But parenting is about raising good kids. It’s about creating an environment at home to enable our children to be great citizens, leaders, ballet-twirlers, goal-kickers and self-protectors.

A new study on the American family’s “passion points” was just released and the implications for working moms and stay at home moms are exactly the same: no matter what path we’ve chosen, we need to figure out how to make sure we’re raising our kids to be the people that we hope them to be.

The study, conducted by The Family Room, a marketing consultancy in Connecticut, found that the top priorities for families are:

1. Schools and education (45% of families)
2. Independence and making good choices (39%)
3. Time with family (36%)

There were other priorities, such as creativity, preparing a child for success and laughing and having fun.

So the question is, if these are the priorities, and they’re pretty good ones, no? How can this be accomplished?

Staying at home with the kids is certainly one way to make sure that the kids are doing their homework, not falling in with the wrong crowd and spending time with mom because, hey, she’s there. It’s even a pretty good way to bone up on those knock-knock jokes to add a little laughter to the day.  But working moms aren’t denied these, ahem, pleasures just because they’re at the office. A little bit of advance planning – say time to review homework before dinner, scheduling a parent-kid activity on the weekend, and making sure to meet your kids’ friends by friending them on Facebook to monitor some of their activities, are all good strategies. So is an ongoing game of Words With Friends.  Yes, it’s hard to be truly present when you’re across the country in an all-day status meeting with your most important client. (I have so been there). Yes, if you work you will be denied the unique pleasure of seeing your child open your front door after walking home from the bus stop the first time on his own. (Missed that one, too).

If our role as parents is to enable our children to be independent and make good choices, how we demonstrate to our children how we are personally fulfilled is the goal.  We need to explain to them why we work – or don’t. We need to help them understand who makes a good friend, show them how they can always be learning by doing that ourselves and, make family time a priority, even if it’s gotten in snippets. Being present when we are able to is how we’re going to be great role models for our kids.

And whether we work at an office or stay home with the kids or everything in between, helping to make great people is one of the greatest accomplishments of our lives.

Source: AnnImig.com

In some overwhelmed moments, I still wish I could just be content with the privilege of affording to stay home raising my kids.  I wish that the business of mothering could fulfill me completely, because my five and seven-year-old boys’ baby days are bygone, and their childhoods feel fleeting. I already have to bribe my boys for hugs. Kisses are completely off-limits. Suddenly this year “Seven” will barely make eye contact with me in his classroom when I volunteer. I asked him if he’d prefer I stop coming, and he replied that while he still wanted me to volunteer at his school, he’d rather I’m not in his classroom. Gulp.

The truth of matter is, however, the isolation of being a full-time SAHM, combined with the neglect of my huge creative ambition from pre-motherhood, drove me to start my blog in 2008–subsequently launching a new career path. My husband travels for work, and I desperately needed an outlet for my 18 hour days parenting a preschooler and an infant, during five months of the longest, snowiest, coldest winter Wisconsin had seen in decades. I started writing furiously. I found an audience. I became obsessed. For the first two weeks after I started blogging I barely slept. Each comment brought an endorphin surge further fueling my elation over the array of other creative adults available online to collaborate and commiserate with at any hour.

Unbalanced might describe those first months—maybe my whole first year online. I’d sneak away at every available moment to write, read or comment on blogs, or even talk to blog friends on the phone. My writing ambitions felt all-consuming, on top of the all-consuming role of motherhood. When I wasn’t blogging, I submitted my writing everywhere I could find. I dreamed of writing a book. While some rejections were hard, seeing my work published and getting paid a few dollars made up for it. As opposed to my theater days when I had to audition in order to act, I found it thrilling that as a writer I could work whenever I chose and from my own home. One of the huge assets of blogging for me became the fact that I had this supportive audience to share my work with on my blog, regardless of my pieces getting accepted or rejected elsewhere.

When I started LTYM I didn’t know I was starting a new career. The requests to do the show came pouring in from other cities and bloggers, and I found Deb Rox–my mentor/business strategist who gave me the confidence and know-how to undertake a national effort. As I began to understand the scope of the project, I soon realized I had to make some decisions regarding my work/life balance. In a conversation with a career counselor I’d worked with for years, I determined that something had to go. You can do a lot of things sufficiently, but you can only do one or two things really well. If I planned on starting my own business, I had to do it really well.

For reasons financial and due to my overwhelming preference, fulltime daycare for my then four-year-old wasn’t an option. I wanted to spend his last year at home with him, and also wanted to remain available to help out at my older son’s school. So, in order to pursue LTYM in a meaningful way that would give it the best chance to succeed, I had to let my free-lance and book author dreams go for a while. Throughout this process came a letting go of my blog aspirations as well, in a sense. I knew I needed to keep the blog for LTYM and my for platform, but I gave up any notion of becoming a “big blogger.” I allowed myself to publish posts only once a week, and gave up much of my reading and commenting on other blogs.

As soon as I made my decision to take a hiatus from my professional writing pursuits, offers came in. I had to say no to opportunities I would’ve swooned over previously. I had to quit and scale-back wherever I could. I knew my commitment to LTYM was being tested—in fact, I expected it. But, after a couple years of giving myself to other people’s projects, it also felt great to put my project first.

All that said, I still struggle with balance. Currently I have more work than ever combined with less childcare than last year. When I encounter LTYM’s slower periods, my writer dreams come raging back and I struggle to find patience. I question my priorities constantly. I still spend wayyyyy too many hours in front of my laptop, and feel like a total hypocrite as I control my sons’ screen time to the minute. I do make sure to spend quality time playing board games or reading with my kids every day. I cook (ahem–prepare) three meals a day. My husband and I make at least a few minutes for each other every day that he’s home. But if you measured who I spend more time with, my laptop or my family? The laptop would win. Next year, with both boys in school full-time, it will be easier to distinguish working time from family time (from exercise time, from marital time from ME-time-DAMMIT).

My online life, LTYM, and writing has brought me so much happiness, satisfaction, and sense of possibility. As I strive for that elusive “balance” I know that even while someone or something gets short-shrift for a time, overall it’s unequivocally worth it. A friend of mine says a good mom is a happy mom. Because of my work that I love –that also allows me flexibility to be with my family–I’m now, for the most part and on most days, a very happy mom. Even if I’m a little unbalanced.

Kids love Captain Jack Sparrow, Barbossa and Blackbeard from the new film that released last month, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tide , and now Lego has made a set of models based around them.

Their new Pirates set includes 3 minifigures: Jack Sparrow, Blackbeard and Barbossa with wooden leg.  It features the Fountain of Youth with skeleton figure, waterfall and translucent elements.  There are 125 pieces and the set comes with a free poster.

MTV debuted their own Lego recreation of the trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and it’s really fun. Watch it and tell me what you think.  Like it or not?

Disclosure: I was provided with a set of Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides legos to facilitate this review.

This event is free with Museum admission.  Adults are asked to accompany their children.  For further information, the public may call 212.423.3337 or visit the Museum’s website.  The museum is located at 1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street.

The Maira + Matisse Family Day is made possible by New York City Council Member Daniel R. Garodnick.

MAIRA + MATISEE FAMILY DAY SCHEDULE

12:30 pm and 2 pm

CONCERTS: BASH THE TRASH

Maira Kalman’s love of music and the beauty and potential of everyday objects will be celebrated in these performances. Found objects will be used to create music in the spirit of performances by Kalman and composer Nico Muhly that used such items as egg beaters and teacups.

Bash the Trash Environmental Arts combines music and environmental awareness through performances, educational programs and social initiatives.  Whether performing with musical instruments built from trash, building artworks from found objects or consulting on environmental arts education, BTT always focuses on how the arts and science work together.  Bash the Trash currently reaches about 50,000 students, teachers and adults per year through performances, workshops, festivals, professional development sessions and other events.

12:00 noon to 4:00 pm

DROP-IN ART WORKSHOP: COLLECTED WONDER BOXES

Families can design and personalize colorful collage boxes inspired by the works of Maira Kalman and Henri Matisse.

1:00 to 3:00 pm

DROP-IN ART MAKING STATION: PAINTED WORLDS

Families can paint colorful miniature scenes with watercolor soluble crayons, using vivid color to depict a favorite room or place.

All day

SELF-GUIDED FAMILY TOURS

A specialized gallery hunt will highlight the way Henri Matisse inspired and is featured in Maira Kalman’s work.  Gallery guides will also be available for exploring Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) as a whole.

This past Monday, armed with a bundle of colorful pipe cleaners (or “fuzzy sticks,” as they are referred to in most classrooms), I set out for PS 111 in midtown to lead a pre-show, in-classroom workshop for the upcoming perMformance of Mischief at The New Victory Theater. As a New Vic Education staff member and teaching artist, I travel to schools across New York City and lead pre- and post-show workshops in Pre-K to 12 classrooms. The workshops allow the students to actively explore the art form (in this case, dance) of the show they are about to see on the New Vic stage.

My co-teaching artist, Javier, and I arrive at the school. The tables are pushed aside and the students stand in a circle, waiting to see what these eccentric strangers will do. Without saying a word, I pull out a colorful fuzzy stick and bend it into a “C” shape. Javier immediately shapes his body to physically match the shape of the fuzzy stick. A few students giggle, wondering what will happen next. Without saying a word, Javier gestures to suggest that the students create the shape as well. All of a sudden, I change the shape of the fuzzy stick to a “V.” The students now know the rules of the game and they immediately pose in a way that matches the shape. However, each shape is slightly different in translation; they have just made their first choreographic decisions.

Throughout the workshop, we encourage the students to make specific physical choices and explore the relationship between the object and their bodies. The result is remarkable – the act of translating the object’s shape to their own bodies unlocks a new freedom and creativity in movement. Soon, the students each get their own fuzzy stick and are asked to make literal shapes (“Turn your fuzzy stick into a square”) and abstract shapes (“Create a shape that represents the emotion of Excitement with your fuzzy stick”). They explore the movement of these shapes, and attempt to mimic this movement in their bodies. In pairs, they create a small human puppet using two fuzzy sticks and a movement phrase for their puppet to perform. Finally, they recreate this movement phrase in their own bodies. In the course of a forty five minute workshop, the students have taken on the role of choreographer, puppeteer and performer.

As a teaching artist, it is amazing for me to watch as the students, who are just becoming aware of their own bodies and the way they move, rehearse and perform dance pieces that they have created. They navigate working as an ensemble, physically executing their own idea, and feeling artistic ownership over their work. Student-centered exploration, or empowering students to work within a structure to artistically create on their own, is one of the guiding principles upon which every New Vic workshop is created.

The experience takes on new meaning when my students come to The New Victory to see a performance (in this case, Mischief) and excitedly exclaim, “We did that!” when they watch the performers on stage. Mischief utilizes colorful foam noodles (a larger version of our fuzzy sticks) that the dancers manipulate, mimic and play with to create a remarkable and fun approach to contemporary dance. A collaboration between a theater company (UK’s Theatre-Rites) and a choreographer (Arthur Pita), it is the first dance piece for family audiences commissioned by the world-renowned dance institution Sadler’s Wells. The combination of puppetry and dance provides the perfect introduction to dance for the youngest audience member. My students bounce out of the theater, ready to create their own dance pieces. Thanks to the performance, and of course the fuzzy sticks, a new generation of artists dance back on to the subway to school.

Jonathan Shmidt is the Assistant Director of Education at the New Victory Theater. He manages the New Victory Education Partnership Program, which provides 30,000 students with access to school-time performances and in-classroom workshops. Jonathan is on the adjunct faculty for the Program in Educational Theatre at New York University. He has collaborated on Theater for Young Audiences initiatives with the Boston Lyric Opera, Theater Offensive and Immediate Medium. Jonathan is the co-founder of YEA: Young Educators in the Arts, a networking group for emerging professionals in Arts Education. He holds a Masters Degree in Educational Theatre from New York University.

About a year ago, I took my daughter to see “Pinkalicious” downtown at the Bleeker Theater.  If you have a daughter age 12 and under, particularly one who loves the color as much as mine does, I am sure you have heard of the story.  The play is based on a book by Elizabeth Victoria Kahn.  It’s about a little girl who can’t stop eating pink cupcakes, despite warnings from her parents.  She then develops an ailment called Pinkititis, an affliction that turns her pink from head to toe.  At first she is thrilled, but when reality sets in, she has to figure out a way to return to normalcy.

The authors turned the story in to a musical.  It’s fun, witty and even teaches a few lessons about family and how one should treat people and expect to be treated. My daughter laughed and cried during the show. She especially loved the audience participation. After each show, the children are invited to meet the cast (the playbills have a section for autographs) and buy pink cupcakes of their own.  They are absolutely divine and a perfect ending to a perfect day.

This is a Vital Theatre Company production.  This October, they will be presenting “Angelina Ballerina: The Musical,” another one of my daughter’s favorite stories. You can order tickets in advance here.

Disclosure: These tickets are being provided to this blog free of charge for the giveaway, with no requirement or agreement of review requested in turn.

Here’s what the winner had to say about the show and here’s her picture:

“My daughter LOVED it. it was a perfect day bc she had to skip two birthday parties this weekend because of her broken arm, so it was a nice way to make up for the sadness!”