Lifetime Learning: Building with Blocks to Building a Business

While talking about Life with one of the children I work with today, we shared our current interests and how they make us feel.  The children with whom I spend time inspire me on many levels, particularly this one child I saw today.  Whenever I am around her, I am infused with ideas, inflated with energy, and optimistic about life... I am grateful.  This is what I wrote down as we sat at her child-size table, me perched on a handmade stool, drawing and talking: "I like to take photographs because it lets me look at the world through a different eye. This is also why I love to work with children, because in order to be present with them, one needs to be willing to look at the world through a fresh lens called Childhood." Life is good :)

Happy Tuesday!  It's about a month and a half since I departed from my new sunny home of Yuma, AZ.  I have been waiting, waiting for the right time to finally digest all that I learned over the last year, but it is only now that it all seems to be falling into place. Even during the school year, I continually had to push my brain away from processing in order to stay focused.  I thought it would happen immediately after I handed in my keys on that last day of school.  I closed the preschool door for the last time, said my final "see you laters," headed to the car with the last few classroom plants, and walked to the driver's side door to drive home.  I planned to stop at my sister's to see the kids and celebrate the beginning of summer, hop in the shower, and head to the airport- my sweetie was coming!!!!!!  But alas, the best laid plans... I locked the keys in the trunk.  Apparently I was not meant to leave that parking lot so fast!  With the...

It's a new day and so far it's a great one! My Saturday has been filled with learning through play and by following the lead of Life.  We spent the morning at the amazing play space, Smith Memorial Playground in Fairmount Park.  Most everything about this place speaks to play- letting children explore at their own pace. The human-made play structures are set in nature- tall trees, green grass, logs for balancing, hills for rolling.   The staff are passionate, enthusiasts of play- being silly with one another and the families visiting for the day.    The woman who was seated at the top the infamous wooden slide, told me and the kiddos about a baby bird preparing to leave the nest just above our heads.   She also pointed out a tree with a blue robin's egg within view.   On our next trip down the slide, we mentioned that we thought the egg was gone since we couldn’t find it. She followed us down to check- indeed the blue egg was right where she expe...

Do you ever have so many ideas, you don’t know where to start?  And then you don’t?  It's frustrating isn’t it?  And a shame, because hidden within all those ideas, there are probably one or two that could change your life or the lives of someone you know….  I struggle with this daily.  I am excited about life and passionate about the development of young children and their families.  I get excited, I come up with ideas, and then I sit on them.  I have many supportive family members, friends and employers (who often feel like family members and friends :-) who encourage me on a daily basis, and yet I sit.  I’ve often come to a point in which I know I am letting others down.  Why does this happen?  Why do some humans (for I know I am not alone on this) get excited and then just let the excitement go?   I am not sure about the answer (and part of me wants to delve in and start researching human nature and psychology and total...