Follow the attached link to get to podcasts of the girls playing violin (J) and piano (S).
http://www.switchpod.com/users/tikasmom/feed.xml
The one entitled "SydsCompositionWinterSolstice" really is S's original work...she's got it written down on sheet music and entered into Music For Young Children's Composition Festival Contest. I think it's pretty nice!
J is motoring her way through the first book in her Suzuki program. She's scheduled to play her newest, Long Long Ago, at a solo & ensemble type event in March.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Early Reflections on Blogging
After getting a good, although short, sleep, I find myself thinking about the experience of starting this blog. Since one of the goals of this blog is to capture my efforts to learn new technology, I guess I'd better write down my thoughts!
The process of setting up this blog was amazingly easy. Blogger is a free Google app. I clicked on "create blog" and then followed the set up wizard that got me up and running very quickly...10 minutes or less. Unlike some other Google apps, I wasn't required to have to have a Google email (gmail) to use Blogger. Before I created my blog, I did a bit of doodling on paper to determine the name of my blog and the types of stuff I plan to document here. Blogger will easily allow my blog to evolve over time, but it was helpful to have put some thought into it before I got going...creating the title and description are part of the set-up wizard.
I've been looking at some of my friends' blogs that are also hosted by Blogger, and a couple of them don't follow the template format...they've added very cool sidebars that I'd like on my blog. I suspect that figuring out how to change the template will take longer than 10 minutes.
I've read that people can make money blogging. This is part of Web 2.0 that I don't understand! It must be from advertising, but an economy based on web advertising feels a bit bubblish to me.
Writing, is, as always, time consuming. At least for me. The "compose" screen is not too different from a regular word processor...it even has a spell check feature! But, it's also not quite as robust as a program like Word. It seems to be particularly cumbersome to get the big picture of what a post will actually look like on the blog. Anyway, regardless of the interface, writing takes time...time that I often don't have, so I suspect that this blog will be infrequently updated after the newness of it wears off.
I wonder, too, about the safety of posting information online. I've changed some settings so that it's unlikely that people I don't know will stumble upon this blog...and, I think I could make it completely private, only showing it to approved "friends". I have the same concerns about sharing information on Facebook, LibraryThing, and Ravelry. But, I'm intentionally trying to find the line between sharing too much and sharing enough to make the tool useful. It's an experiment, because someday in the not-too-distant future, my girls will want to do all of these things, and I need to understand the benefits and the dangers.
So far, I'm finding it quite exciting to be learning about Web 2.0...and a little astonished. Where have I been that I didn't realize just how far this stuff had been developed in such a short time? Oh yeah...moderating arguments between my twins!
The process of setting up this blog was amazingly easy. Blogger is a free Google app. I clicked on "create blog" and then followed the set up wizard that got me up and running very quickly...10 minutes or less. Unlike some other Google apps, I wasn't required to have to have a Google email (gmail) to use Blogger. Before I created my blog, I did a bit of doodling on paper to determine the name of my blog and the types of stuff I plan to document here. Blogger will easily allow my blog to evolve over time, but it was helpful to have put some thought into it before I got going...creating the title and description are part of the set-up wizard.
I've been looking at some of my friends' blogs that are also hosted by Blogger, and a couple of them don't follow the template format...they've added very cool sidebars that I'd like on my blog. I suspect that figuring out how to change the template will take longer than 10 minutes.
I've read that people can make money blogging. This is part of Web 2.0 that I don't understand! It must be from advertising, but an economy based on web advertising feels a bit bubblish to me.
Writing, is, as always, time consuming. At least for me. The "compose" screen is not too different from a regular word processor...it even has a spell check feature! But, it's also not quite as robust as a program like Word. It seems to be particularly cumbersome to get the big picture of what a post will actually look like on the blog. Anyway, regardless of the interface, writing takes time...time that I often don't have, so I suspect that this blog will be infrequently updated after the newness of it wears off.
I wonder, too, about the safety of posting information online. I've changed some settings so that it's unlikely that people I don't know will stumble upon this blog...and, I think I could make it completely private, only showing it to approved "friends". I have the same concerns about sharing information on Facebook, LibraryThing, and Ravelry. But, I'm intentionally trying to find the line between sharing too much and sharing enough to make the tool useful. It's an experiment, because someday in the not-too-distant future, my girls will want to do all of these things, and I need to understand the benefits and the dangers.
So far, I'm finding it quite exciting to be learning about Web 2.0...and a little astonished. Where have I been that I didn't realize just how far this stuff had been developed in such a short time? Oh yeah...moderating arguments between my twins!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
A Fun Cabin Weekend
As stated earlier, we spent the weekend at our cabin with a friend from college and two of her kids. It was a great winter weekend: we got about 6" of fresh powdery snow after we all arrived. The kids spent about 8 hours outside on Saturday sledding and exploring and using the frozen lake as a super-highway to large snowdrifts and areas around the lake that are harder to get to when the water isn't frozen. In between times outside, they played Wii together...often quite intently. Lego Indiana Jones was a favorite, and even the grown ups got into Guitar Hero.
Parenting Twins: It is Different
Ever since my daughters were born, I've had experiences that highlighted for me that parenting twins IS different than parenting singleton siblings...even if those siblings are relatively close in age. Some of these experiences I was prepared for, because I read about them in a book that someone else was kind enough to write. And, many times, I've just had to shake my head in awe and wonder (or despair) as I've been totally unprepared. At these times, I've thought to myself: "I should write a book about parenting twins." Well, THAT's never happened...but maybe with the ability to blog, I'll at least have the chance to record my observations...maybe the book will come later.
And, then, sometimes I don't even know that what I'm experiencing as a parent of twins is unique! After all, my girls are my only kids, so I have absolutely nothing to compare it with. This past weekend, I got a glimpse of one of these unique situations: My daughters argue. I know you're thinking that this is not that unusual...all siblings argue, and parenting experts Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish have written an excellent book about helping make sure those arguments don't turn into life-long hatreds: Siblings Without Rivalry. I've always figured that my daughters' arguments were no different than any other sets of siblings. But, I realized this weekend, with the help of my college friend Amy's non-twin children, that the nature of my daughters' arguments are vastly different and more complicated for one simple reason: there is not an older one to be dominant just by virtue of being older. As I observed Amy's daughter and son have disagreements over the weekend, I was struck by the observation that when an argument of theirs reached an impasse, the younger child capitulated. And he was not a meek, shrinking violet child by nature; in fact, he struck me as having a healthy dose of stubbornness and persistence. He simply deferred to his older sister when it seemed that the argument had no place to go. He just knew his place in the family hierarchy: below that of his sister. When you know where you stand on the totem pole, you learn early on to pick your battles wisely! My twins don't have that out. S's 40 minutes on J aren't enough to give her the authority to be "the big sister". They are both equally dominant in their eyes, and that makes it all the harder for them to learn to resolve differences. I think they'll be better people for it when they're older, as they will have had to learn the tough conflict management skills like compromise and consensus. In the meantime, though, I'm feeling a little bit sad for all of us: the girls experience endless difficult conflicts of their own making every day without an easy out...and all of the grown ups in their lives constantly have to be on the ball to help teach them the skills they need to use to resolve them. It's exhausting for everyone involved! If nothing else, this weekend with Amy's kids gave me a little insight into why my house often seems like a non-stop escalating battleground. I'm still undecided about whether this insight will make this aspect of parenting easier or not. Stay tuned!
And, then, sometimes I don't even know that what I'm experiencing as a parent of twins is unique! After all, my girls are my only kids, so I have absolutely nothing to compare it with. This past weekend, I got a glimpse of one of these unique situations: My daughters argue. I know you're thinking that this is not that unusual...all siblings argue, and parenting experts Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish have written an excellent book about helping make sure those arguments don't turn into life-long hatreds: Siblings Without Rivalry. I've always figured that my daughters' arguments were no different than any other sets of siblings. But, I realized this weekend, with the help of my college friend Amy's non-twin children, that the nature of my daughters' arguments are vastly different and more complicated for one simple reason: there is not an older one to be dominant just by virtue of being older. As I observed Amy's daughter and son have disagreements over the weekend, I was struck by the observation that when an argument of theirs reached an impasse, the younger child capitulated. And he was not a meek, shrinking violet child by nature; in fact, he struck me as having a healthy dose of stubbornness and persistence. He simply deferred to his older sister when it seemed that the argument had no place to go. He just knew his place in the family hierarchy: below that of his sister. When you know where you stand on the totem pole, you learn early on to pick your battles wisely! My twins don't have that out. S's 40 minutes on J aren't enough to give her the authority to be "the big sister". They are both equally dominant in their eyes, and that makes it all the harder for them to learn to resolve differences. I think they'll be better people for it when they're older, as they will have had to learn the tough conflict management skills like compromise and consensus. In the meantime, though, I'm feeling a little bit sad for all of us: the girls experience endless difficult conflicts of their own making every day without an easy out...and all of the grown ups in their lives constantly have to be on the ball to help teach them the skills they need to use to resolve them. It's exhausting for everyone involved! If nothing else, this weekend with Amy's kids gave me a little insight into why my house often seems like a non-stop escalating battleground. I'm still undecided about whether this insight will make this aspect of parenting easier or not. Stay tuned!
Karen Has a Blog? Really?
Those of you who know me well are probably astonished that I've created this blog. For someone with an engineering degree, and a general appreciater of technology from a distance, I'm a relative Luddite when it comes to adopting the stuff myself! I'm a fan of more traditional forms of recreation and communication: reading, playing outdoors, knitting, meeting people in person. Video games and even TV have never been able to catch my attention for long. And, alas, marrying someone from a different state, moving to a new state, and raising active twin daughters have pretty much determined that there will not be as much "meeting people in person" as I would prefer. All of this has happened in stages over 15 years, and I've adjusted as time went on (email is an excellent invention that I adopted without hesitation!), but still I have preferred less technologically oriented pursuits. When my daughters turned seven this past year, this all changed. Just about over night, we became owners of DS Lites, and a Wii. I got a Facebook account...and actually use it! I'm learning how to podcast for a volunteer project. And now it's time for blogs. Why? Two reasons: The first was that I had the realization that all of this stuff was here to stay and I couldn't, in good conscience, keep my kids from it. Knowing how to use this technology and participating in current popular culture will be important for their growth, development, and sense of self as they grow older. And, I'd rather have them learn how to use it appropriately from me than from their friends. Which means I'd better know how to use it myself! The second was that I have an amazingly talented friend whom I've known since about 5th grade who recently authored a book that explained the Web 2.0 technology to me...and now it's not so scary any more. In fact, the possibilities for expressing myself and keeping my multi-state family and friends in touch with my family are downright exciting. Check out Kristin Fontichairo's Podcasting at School to learn more about Web 2.o tools and get excited yourself!
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