Letter of the Week: C

We did a couple of fun activities for "C" Week. We learned about circles, cars (a big hit with Zander), caterpillars, clouds, and colors.

Making the caterpillars was a great activity which allowed us to combine several "lessons" into one. (Circles, colors, caterpillars.) I cut the circles out the night before the activity. If you are more ambitious than I am you could let your child trace and cut them out. (Maybe it's not a question of ambition as much as it is bravery. Ahem.) Zander had a lot of fun gluing the circles together to make his caterpillar. He got to pick out the antenna color and the eyes. It came out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I love the eyes he picked out!


Doesn't he look proud?


Our second big activity for the week involved making clouds. This was a very simple project which only required three supplies: blue construction paper, glue, and cotton balls. I didn't take any pictures of the actual activity, but this was our "end of the week" pic. You can see that we also learned hair cut this week if you compare it to the pic above.

We talked about the letter "C" every time we played with cars, while we watched the movie Cars, and when we had cookies. Some other ideas that can be incorporated into "C" week: cat, carrot, Cinderella, cactus, candycan, chalk, cake, and many more!

Dear So and So

I liked last week's experience enough to repeat it! Here we go!

Dear Neighbor Kid,

Please do not stand at the gate line of our property and stare in through our windows. It is creepy and I don't like it. While we're at it, perhaps you and your friends could stop throwing things at our vehicles as we have repeatedly asked you to do? The neighbor relationship between your house and ours is already tenuous enough; let's not add to it, m'kay?

Pretty sure I'm not living in a fishbowl regardless of what you might think,

The Mean Neighborhood Mom

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Dear Hobby Lobby,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for shipping overseas to APO/FPO addresses! I wish I had known before now that you do so! We are moving soon so it doesn't help us much, but the families over here can use all the alternate shopping options they can get.

Sincerely meaning that you rock,

Amanda

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Dear children who live in my house,

I love you all. You are the stars in my night sky. But I swear that if you don't quit fighting I am going to duct tape you all to the ceiling. Seriously.

Smooches,

Momma

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Dear Spring,

Where are you?! I know last year I said that I really wish you would go away so that my dear husband's allergies would calm down but I did not mean for you to be gone for so long! I would now really like for the children to be able to play outside for hours at a time. Please come back. I will never take you for granted again. (Until sometime in May.)

Quietly calculating the amount of duct tape I need,

Amanda

Inside Izzy's Head

February 2010 009, originally uploaded by calmcrazy.

WW: Wishful Thinking

Tree in the Backyard, originally uploaded by calmcrazy.

Photo taken August 2007.

Letter of the Week: Intro

Something that we have never done in this house is a lot of "structured" learning. It has never been that we didn't believe in it; it just wasn't something that worked for us. Sam was in a structured environment (via his daycare) from 6 weeks until the end of his Kindergarten year. When we got him home at night we did a lot of playing and singing and dancing...but nothing like sitting around learning his letters or numbers. He did all that at daycare and had no interest in it once he was home. To be honest, it wasn't something I really spent a lot of time thinking about at the time.

Jake, who left the daycare environment at the age of two, rebuffed every attempt I made at organized learning. He simply had no desire to sit and color or do a craft or count manipulatives. I did the best I could to incorporate those skills into our everyday play, but he didn't enter any kind of real lesson-planned learning environment until he went to pre-school just after he turned 3. I did manage to beat myself up a little over that one. When we decided that I was going to stay home with the kids, I had these pictures in my head of what things were going to be like and I nearly couldn't handle the fact that things just didn't work out the way I thought they would.

Zander is (always has been, and probably will always be!) a completely different ball of wax. This boy is a sucker for a craft project. He loves and adores to learn his letters. He wants you to sit with him and read book after book while he points out all the letters he knows. He asks us ten times a day to count with him as he holds his hand out and raises his fingers one by one. He will tell us the color of anything and everything that he sees. I don't think any of this takes him outside the realm of normal, but it is new to us. We find it amazing.

As a parent, you try to not compare your children but sometimes it just can't be helped. I would have thought Jake to be the more likely candidate for wanting to sit and do crafts and structured learning. He has always been much more quite and still than Zander. Zander is, well, a nut. An adorably sweet nut, but a nut all the same! The boy is intense 24/7. The fact that he wants to sit down and do these things just floors me.

But he does. And so we do. Because he seemed so interested in letters, I decided to incorporate a little "structured pre-school learning" into our daily activities. The thing is, I'm not so great with schedules. So I just decided to do one letter a week for the whole year. Think about it -- 26 letters; 52 weeks. It's perfect! We get to go through the alphabet once just for the purposes of identifying them all and then the second go-round we can start to really focus on their sounds and stuff.

We're in week 8 now and have done the letters: A, B, C, E, F, G, H, and V. (We did "V" during the week leading up to Valentine's Day and we're saving "D" for when the local Dinosaur Park opens back up next month.) He's got them all down except "G"; that one he gets about 80% of the time.

I didn't do a great job of documenting "A" or "B," but I thought I would start detailing some of our activities here on the blog starting with the letter "C". Some of the ideas I have found have been really cute and I would love to share them with others. If you know of another project that would be great for a letter as we're going along, please let us know in the comments! I'll be moving back around to that letter again later in the year and I would love to hear some fresh ideas.

Do you do structured learning in your home? What method (or methods) have worked for you?

pardon the dust!

I'm in the middle of changing the layout to the blog. It's something I have wanted to do for several months but was too scared to attempt. I finally just went for it and I'm so glad I did! It seems to be going well so far but I am still ironing out a few kinks and tweaking a few things so there will continue to be some changes over the next few days. I could use your help there! If you happen to notice anything wonky here at the site, could you drop me a line or a comment and let me know? (Or, you know, if you think it's bee-u-tiful! I would love to know that too. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.) I'm looking at everything in Mozilla and Google Chrome but there may be errors in other browsers.

If you like the style of this layout and are interested in getting something like it for yourself, head over to Lauren's site and see if you can find something that works for you. She has several free Blogger templates that are wonderful! Installing them isn't too bad either; if someone like me can do it then anyone can. Seriously.

Anywho! Let me know what you think. Thanks!

dear so and so

So I ran across this idea through a series of blogs and I thought, "Oh! How neat!" I'm going to try it out and see how I like it. And lucky you, you get two posts today. You are welcome. Click on the button to check out Kat's blog and participate!

Dear Media,

I really, really do not care about Tiger Woods and his...extracurricular activities. Please stop shoving the story down my throat. Thanks!

Ready to hear about something that is for-real important,

Amanda

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Dear Air Force assignment list timeline,

You really suck. I would very much like to know before MAY where we will be moving our family of six in JULY or AUGUST. Seriously?! I'm not sure if I'll have any hair left by the time notifications start rolling in.

Desperately wanting to know our assignment fate,

Amanda

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Dear Strep Throat,

Please leave my family alone or get us all out of the way at once. Preferably the former.

Weary of quarantining children,

Sam & Jake's mom

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Dear Jason,

Having you home for the last week was so extraordinarily lovely, even if we were all feeling a little under the weather. I wish that you did not have to go back to work. We are going to miss you terribly next week. I love you.

Your very biggest fan,

Mandi

curious juxtaposition, part 2

I had a different post planned for today but something came up. Therefore you are getting a picture post instead!

Can you imagine seeing this in the states? This being an "Erotic Megastore" located directly beside a children's toy store. People would platz (in the Yiddish sense; not the German).

the village fasching parade

Yesterday was the village fasching parade. It was cold, but it was beautiful outside! We saw blue sky and that big, yellow thing -- I think it's called the sun? -- for most of the day. So nice! I can't wait until those days start to get close together.

Zander is not normally a big fan of riding on shoulders, but he was willing yesterday. He had trouble seeing at first because there were so many people in front of us. (Try to refrain from making smart comments about how it's surprising he can see past all that hair. I know it's difficult to pass up an opportunity like that, but try!)

The costumes ranged from silly...

...to stately...

...to, well, Mexican?

We eventually found a place where the crowd was a little thinner and the boys got to stand right along the side of the parade route. This woman, a Red Cross paramedic (their ambulance was standing ready nearby), took an instant liking to Zander. She spent most of the parade helping him get candy, tucking it into his hood when he ran out of pocket space.

Izzy and I stood back behind the crowd. He wasn't overly impressed with the level of noise right at the street and he was COLD. We ended up walking back home a little early, in fact. He did enjoy dancing with me, though...I'm so glad Jason didn't catch that on camera!

Vampire fever is definitely a worldwide phenomenon.

This would be Jake's favorite group. They were the smart group, in my opinion. I think they were much warmer than most of the other groups!

The older boys really did enjoy the parade, despite the cold. They got quite the haul of candy, too. Jake even got to use his umbrella to "catch" the candy thrown from the floats. That is how it is supposed to be done "traditionally." The camera started misbehaving, so Jason didn't get a picture of that.

A few of the parade participants came and handed the smaller kids things directly.

One of the last groups through were these people with their wooden masks. I missed this group but Jason said that they were playing "peek-a-boo" with Zander. I wish I could have seen that!

I am so glad we took the time to head out to the parade. We were running a little late and the kids were in a terrible mood when we left the house, but it ended up being a really pleasant afternoon.

secondary testing, check

So today was the big day. Well, not the big day, but the first mini-big day. I went in for the secondary blood work for the bone marrow donation registry.

The experience did not start out well. Getting out of our driveway and to the base was difficult. Our village's fasching parade was today and every stinkin' street out of our neighborhood was blocked off. Except, of course, for the one that takes you on such a round-a-bout route that the drive takes 45 minutes. (When there is no traffic it takes less than 10 minutes to get from our driveway to the clinic.) Good thing I left early!

But once I arrived, things went smoothly. The lab had my boxes and knew right where to get them. That was a relief since Mr. C had told me that the boxes sometimes get misplaced. There was absolutely no line to speak of, which was great since I had all four kids with me. I got to walk right back to the chair and have a seat. To top it off, I only had to get stuck twice. That is great for me; I have terribly uncooperative veins.

For those curious about the process, there's not much to report. The technician drew six vials of blood and packed them up into a box. The end. I know, right? I thought there would be some cool way of transporting them back to the states. Like, I don't know, dry ice or something. I'm a little bummed. Oh well.

I did ask the technician how many of these they do. He said that they get quite a few of the boxes in but that not many people come in to get their blood drawn. How strange is that? They give you every opportunity to say no when you are on the phone with them. I have to admit, it makes me think. I wonder what the rates are for individuals declining to participate. If there are three of us who were a match, what are the chances that all three of us will submit to the second round of testing? And of that group, who is likely to bow out at the last minute? How scary must it be to be on the other side of this situation?

I hope that I have the resolve to stick it out. Right now I can't imagine saying no if they tell me that I'm the best match. How do you really know, though?

DayTrips: Heidelberg

As we're rounding the corner on our last few months in Germany (the count is at approximately 167 days left in country...not that anyone is counting), Jason and I would very much like to get out to see some places we haven't. We also want to revisit a few of our favorite places.

One of the very first places we went after arriving in country was Heidelberg. I have read some opinions that Heidelberg is too "touristy" and therefore not worth the trip, but it is so pretty there that we've never agreed. We don't even do all that much when we visit the area; we just like to walk up and down the river and look at the city. We're easy to please, what can I say? But then, who isn't with views like this?

This was Izzy's first trip to Heidelberg, so we had to get the obligatory "all the boys" picture. As usual, we did not get every set of eyeballs on us. Oh well.


After we got our picture we let the boys do boy things on the bridge. It was pretty cold (okay, it was frigid) but they seemed to enjoy it.


We tried and tried to keep this hat on Izzy's head correctly but it kept sliding forward until he could barely see past it. It kept his ears warm, though. He absolutely loved walking up and down the bridge. I can't wait to take him back when it's warmer.

This is a little courtyard near where the trek up to the castle begins although we didn't go up there today. I think Jake might have stayed and stared at this fountain for hours if we'd let him. We're planning to head back again once the weather warms up. We came out this way in order to check out the prices on the funicular that provides rides up to the top of the hill so that we'll know for our next trip. I think the boys will get a kick out of it.

We were only there for a few hours but we had a great afternoon. Izzy insisted on walking most of the trip; Zander insisted that he needed to ride in the backpack carrier. (Side note: Zander is a huge kid for a three-year-old. Most people think he is four or five. The sight of him in that backpack carrier is pretty funny and we got a whole lot of looks. Jason even had his picture taken by some Japanese tourists over it.) It was empty enough that we were able to just let Izzy walk wherever he wanted; he spent a lot of time following the patterns of the bricks. Oh, the joys of being 15-months-old.

It's hard to believe that we are so close to the end of our time here! We are doing our absolute best to relish these last few months, even as we are looking forward to our return home. Hopefully we'll be able to fit in some great last trips between now and that long plane ride home.

iraq war veteran saves his son's life

It's nice to see our military men and women get a little good press every now and again. I love this story and its happy ending.

new service to help military families

One of the hardest things about being a military family is getting re-situated on the childcare front in your new location. Whether you need full-time care while you work, a few hours a week to attend class or get your schoolwork finished, or even if you just want the occasional night out with your spouse, it's difficult to find that special someone to look after your children.

That task may have just gotten a little easier. The DoD is now funding memberships to sittercity.com, which provides access to profiles of in-home care providers to meet the needs of its clients. Also available are parent reviews and background checks, which are always nice to have. This service normally costs $120 per year, so it's a nice little perk!

If you are a military family and want to check it out, head over and sign up here.

big decisions

Something that Jason and I have discussed for years (and years and years) is where we might eventually "settle down." As a military brat turned active duty member turned military spouse, the very idea is so foreign to me that I have to put it in quotations. For real. I try to imagine staying in one place for, well, ever and my brain just freezes right up. How do you decide where your "forever home" is? Do you pick by location? Job opportunities alone? The weather? The housing market, nearby family, or (ha ha) no nearby family? Do you ask for recommendations on Facebook? (I may or may not have done that. Ahem.) What makes an area the "right" place?

We haven't lived in as many places as a lot of military families. We first met each other in Texas during technical training school. After a few months there, we moved to the panhandle of Florida and spent a mind-boggling 7.5 years there. From Florida we moved here to Germany. This summer (at our 7 year mark) we will move on to another location. With only 5 years left, it could well be our last move. Or not. Who knows. Such is the life of the military family. Believe it or not, you get used to it. Sorta.

We've been thinking about this next move a lot, though. Like I said, Jason has only five years left until retirement. It is not outside the realm of possibility that our next duty station could be our last. For awhile we talked about how we'd like to go somewhere "new". Maybe somewhere in Texas or Arizona or New Mexico, all places that are close (-ish) to my dad and in an area of the country that neither of us has ever seen. Maybe somewhere in the Mid-West just so that I could show Jason and the boys the beauty of living in the middle of cornfields. (Yes, there is a beauty to it. You just have to look at it the right way.) Or maybe somewhere in Virginia where we could try living in a place central to the bulk of our family. We looked at it from lots of different angles. There wasn't much that we didn't consider.

One day a few weekends ago we were talking about all this (again) and looking up housing in different areas. We were looking at what we would be able to afford in all the possible areas, trying to plan for any eventuality. (Yes, it's an exercise in futility but when you have no real way to plan something as big as a trans-Atlantic move you will do just about anything to distract yourself.) Mid-conversation I started looking up homes in our old stomping grounds in Florida. After the third house with a pool that I found inside of our budget I said, "Why can't we just go home?"

It was said half-way joking, but there it was. Home. Jason, who has always wanted to return to Florida, was quick to point out my use of the word. It was interesting; prior to that moment, the only place I had ever referred to as "home" was my grandparents house. It's the only constant "home" I've ever known.

So we started to talk. The pros: We love the area. We can afford the area. The schools for the kids are awesome. Hey, look! A nearby college has the degree plan I want. We know the area backwards and forwards. The weather is fantastic. The views are gorgeous. There is sun (oh, the sun!) nearly all-year-round. Um...the beaches. The beaches some more. And did I mention the beaches?

The cons: Yeah, not so many. We still haven't come up with any real cons. None that count anyway.

Perhaps the most important thing is that this is an area we can see ourselves settling in. With Jason's retirement and Samuel's graduation five short years away, this is a good thing. It would be nice to get Samuel into a place and let him finish out his schooling there. It would be nicer still to have that place be somewhere we intended to stay, cementing the fact that it was now "home" for all of us. Maybe then he will choose to settle down there as well, and his three younger brothers after him, allowing us all to stay in one area. You know, like a normal family. The very idea boggles the mind.

So Jason has dropped his name to a few people, hoping that the right opening will come up at the right time. We'll have our fingers and toes crossed for the next three months, hoping that "home" will be our destination come this summer. If it isn't, we'll be fine. But it would be so awesome if it was.

Ever pondered the same questions? How do you intend to make this decision? Or how did you? Feel free to leave a comment!

101 update, aka "back in the saddle"

Okay! I'm picking up all my discarded reins here. (Is it bad that I just had to double-check that I didn't want to use "reigns" there? Ugh!) Here is a quick update on my Project 101 stats.

013. Ready all bedrooms for the big move. (0/4)
014. Ready living/dining room for the big move.
015. Ready kitchen for the big move.
016. Ready basement for the big move.

In the area of prepping for the move, I am still pink on everything. No red just yet. Boo! I have finished a few areas within these bullets, however. For example, I have gone through all the baby clothes in the basement and I have consolidated all my recipes into one recipe box in the kitchen. Those were both pretty big tasks, so I'm quite proud of myself! I see a lot of headway being made in this area over the next couple of months. I am hoping to have the kitchen and basement done this month.

019. Buy, fill out, address, stamp, and SEND OUT Christmas cards.

Yes, I understand how truly sad this is. I am still going to send them out, though. I never said that the cards had to be sent out before Christmas, so even if they don't go out until June I still consider it a win. Yeah, I might have left that part out on purpose. So what?

054. Read Madeleine L'Engle's "Time" quintet with the boys. (0/5)

The boys got these books for Christmas. We'll start these up soon. Not sure when just yet.

059. Finish last 3 classes to complete AA. (1/3)

This is a small source of frustration for me. I enrolled in two classes last term, with the understanding that it would leave me one class short of my AA. The plan was to then CLEP that class before we left here. Unfortunately, the school screwed up. Halfway through the term (when it was really too late to drop the class without a penalty and long after I could have transferred over to a more fitting class), I was told that my writing course did not count toward my AA degree plan. When I first enrolled I was told differently. I can use it later, so it's not a complete loss, but it certainly derailed my short term plans. Oh well. I'll just finish the AA up when we get to our next duty station.

060. Find school for BA/BS. Apply and start.

I haven't marked this one yet, but I have started looking for a school at our next possible duty stations. (More on that later.) I have been relatively successful in finding programs near each location, which both surprises and delights me.

061. Leave the house at least 3 times a week for 4 weeks. (Yard/walks with kids don’t count.) (12/12)
062. Talk to one stranger a day for a week. (7/7)

I was going to give these a post of their own, but I changed my mind. If you don't know me (well) in real life you might wonder what on earth those two are doing on a list like this. I have an anxiety disorder which I have struggled with for years. Germany has been really rough on me at times because of it. I have to make a concerted effort to leave the house...otherwise I will just stay at home. Putting it on the list was my way of trying to bring the issue up into my every day thoughts. Last summer Jason and I went to the BX one day and he brought it to my attention that I hadn't left our house/yard in over two weeks. That made me realize that I spend a lot of time making excuses in my head as to why I don't need to leave the house when the real underlying reason is my anxiety.

076. Go 30 days with no fast food. (To include pizza that is not homemade!) (12/30) 1.24.10

I am in the midst of this now. It's actually not bad, although we are missing the weekly family pizza night. Next week we are going to start trying to make homemade pizza (including the crust!) on Friday nights.

082. Complete 365 photo project. Document via separate blog.

I am getting this back up and running soon. I may make some changes to it, though. Certainly the blog will have a new official "start date."

093. Get an iPod (or equivalent). Load at least 100 songs that I like into it. (1/100)

Jason got me an iPod for my birthday, so I'm starting to load up the songs. The first one is a Black-Eyed Peas song. I don't ordinarily go for Black-Eyed Peas (I absolutely loathe the Lady Lumps song) but Zander, Izzy, and I love the "Feels Like a Good Night" song. It is so much fun to "dance" with them to it.

And there you have it. The CalmCrazy 101 January Wrap-up. In February. Oops!

a different kind of blast from the past

I am struggling with whether to put this here or not. It's a little premature, but I'm so floored by it that it's bumped our "big move" right out of the front of my head. You know it's got to be huge to do that.

No, I'm not pregnant. Geez, Danny.

When I was active duty and stationed in Florida, I went to a bone marrow donation registry event. I don't remember the details; either someone's kid or brother (maybe?) was very ill and needed a bone marrow donor. They couldn't find one in the registry and no family member was a good match so they did a drive at the base. I, along with several of my co-workers, went to add myself to the registry. I have thought about it very little over the years, although it did cross my mind a few weeks ago. I wondered if I should re-register because how on earth would they find me?

The answer: Through my mother and my brother-in-law. Apparently I listed them both as contacts in the event that I moved. I don't remember that part at all, but I can now tell you that it is an effective system. I got a phone call from both within 12 hours of each other, letting me know a man had called saying that I am a possible match for someone who is really sick.

Suddenly, that is all I can think about. I am a possible match for someone. Somewhere out in this big world there is an individual who is ill and there is a possibility that I can help make him or her well again. The very thought is surreal.

Over the course of the past 24 hours I have learned that I am not the only possible donor for this individual. It sounds like there may be three of us, although nobody has given me a number. I don't know if the other donors have been found or if they have agreed to further testing. I hope that they do. I hope that one of us is a great match and that his (generic "his" as I do not know anything about who this patient is) story can end happily. I hope it with such intensity that it is almost a prayer...and some of you know how hard prayer is for me.

I am scheduled to do the secondary testing next week. They have to send a kit over here from D.C. "Mr. C" (the donor dude) told me that the testing process takes 4-13 weeks to complete, after which time they will let me know if I am a good enough match. If I am, the procedure would take place relatively soon after that.

I've always wondered how I would react to something like this. You always hope you know but you can never be sure. I am so grateful to have just gotten this notice because now I know that my very first and purest thought was that I was so happy to be able to help someone. I will always know that and it means so much. This may yet be the year that I find my faith. Sometimes I feel like it's close. I'm just not there yet.

One final observation before I go, just to let you know the quirky, irreverent Amanda is still with you. I find this one fact absolutely hysterical: We were watching a television show when my mom called to give me the message. The show? True Blood. Now how funny is that?

what i've been up to when i wasn't here

You know how sometimes you put off doing something because it makes you really, really nervous? And then you finally bite the bullet and, hey! It's not so bad! You can't figure out why you put it off for so long to begin with? You should have been doing this all along! Your life is changed in so many wonderful ways!

Taking college classes online? Not one of those things. For me, anyway.

I really thought that I would struggle with online classes. I like to have a flesh-and-blood teacher who can answer all my questions. I like to sit in class and take notes that I never look at again. The simple act of writing what I am hearing and seeing helps me remember. The idea of not having that scared the tar out of me. How would I learn anything?

I have a couple of problems with the face-to-face classes, though. My husband works a ridiculous amount of hours and has a completely unpredictable schedule. He sometimes does not get home until 9 PM; sometimes he works nights. I can't make plans to do anything on one evening a week beforehand, let alone multiple nights over the course of two months. Paying for someone to watch the kids is pricey and just not in the budget. It's not a convenient time for night classes right now.

In addition, I am a mom to four kids: Two of them are school age, one is a new toddler, and the other is a hell-on-wheels pre-schooler. (I love him, but it's true!) A lot of people think that having kids gets easier once they go to school; after all, they are gone six to eight hours out of the day. How hard can it be? To those people I have a few words of warning: Homework. Band. Yearbook. Homework. Friends. Homework. Teacher conferences. Did I mention homework yet? And even if that were true, I do have the little ones all day anyway. So, yeah. Free time? Not so much.

Anyway. The point is that face-to-face classes just aren't an option for me right now; however, I really want to finish my degree! I think we can all agree that it is obvious that I have to figure out a different path or put my plan on hold. Enter: online classes. I was going to have to get over the fear.

The truth is, it wasn't that bad. I was most scared of the coursework; I didn't need to be. It was easy enough once I got used to the formats of the online classrooms. (Two classes; two different formats. Somehow, I did not see that coming.) I had my books, I had my online reading, and I had weekly assignments. It was relatively organized, really. The problem that I never considered was the interaction level with the other students.

When I take a class I like to really discuss things. I like to debate. I like listening to the viewpoints of the other students. It's another form of learning and I get something more than just knowledge out of it. Each student in the class has had a completely different life; it only makes sense that we would all see the world through different eyes. The neatest classroom moments for me are the ones when someone says something about their point of view and it becomes clear to me why they see it that way. Not that I change my mind, you understand; just that I can see where they are coming from when I couldn't before. I think that is one of the most important aspects of schooling; if not the most important.

It never occurred to me that there wouldn't be a good interaction level online. Had you asked me, I probably would have said that it would be better than face-to-face. Boy, would I have been wrong! The people in my classes weren't interested in learning for the sake of learning. They just wanted to check off a box on their transcripts. Most of them dialed in the effort--and it showed. People turned in their individual assignments and then everyone would post under them "Hey, great job!" in order to get their participation points. There was no debate to speak of--and there could have been great debate! It was so frustrating for me.

I can certainly respect that some people just aren't interested in certain topics. I also understand that a lot of people dial in the effort in a face-to-face class too. I just don't see a lot of discussions going on in a regular classroom where one student says, "Well, I think this" and then everyone else in the room says, "Oh yeah! Me too. I think that exact same thing." Had the same people been in a "real" classroom setting, I think things would have gone very differently.

If it is the only, best option that someone has I think that earning an online degree is not a terrible thing, but I can tell you that I won't be returning to an online setting. Luckily for me, I have the option to wait a year or two and then go back once the youngest is in pre-school. We may also be in a better place a few months from now; there's no telling what kind of job Jason might get. It's possible that he could get a steadier schedule, which would allow me the flexibility to take a class here and there. One can hope, anyway.

For now, I'm just glad it's over.