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AMTC - For Moms Who Can't Even
Mom Life

Kindergarten: Land of the Lost

This is my first year having a child in school, so I’ll probably be writing about some of the small, unexpected things that people don’t think to warn you about. I’m a planner, and I’m quickly learning that children and God laugh at plans. So, here’s my heads up to you parents about the “small things” that add to the everyday stress of parenting. In this case, it’s how you will unexpectedly go broke buying all the things that your kinderkiddo loses! See the list of things that I have had to re-purchase this year – sometimes more than once:

  • Winter hats -> he rips it off after recess and doesn’t put it in his backpack or in his coat sleeve
  • Winter coats -> he leaves it in the after-school coat closet or in the locked classroom
  • Parent folder -> he takes it out to do homework in his after-school program and doesn’t… you guessed it… put it back in his backpack
  • Show & Tell toys/books -> DITTO backpack no use
  • Lunchboxes & Thermoses -> see above -> DITTO backpack no use
  • Tupperware -> throws Rubbermaid containers away when he dumps his lunchbox
  • Silverware -> DITTO
  • MONEY (this is where I knew things had to change) -> I gave him $5 for a $3 chicken biscuit he wanted to buy from the school fundraiser. I told him that he should expect $2 back. He even knew how to do the subtraction. I then said that he needed to put the money back in his backpack. He came home and had NO explanation as to what happened to the change. UGH

And I know what you’re thinking. Put his name on it – doesn’t work! Remind him to bring it home – doesn’t work! For my son, it’s the first time that he has to truly be responsible with his things. So, I took my losses and decided to create Kindergarten lessons in responsibility. This concept was based pretty much in the tough love approach – in other words embarrassment, loss, and a little suffering. Here’s the approach I took:

Step 1: Come to terms with the fact that things will be lost, taken by mistake, and possibly even stolen.

Step 2: Have a serious high level conversation with child about how responsibility and how money works. Let them know that it is their job to keep up with their things and to bring them home. I told my son that losing or accidentally (mindlessly) throwing something away (like silverware or Tupperware containers) is just like throwing away hard earned money. And if mommy had no money, then we can’t have nice things (like his beloved Chick-fil-A).

Step 3: If they lose something, let them go without until they earn it back. e.g. when my son lost his lunchbox, he had to use grocery bags to carry lunch to school & when he lost his coat, he had to endure the low temperatures (just for the short trek from my car to the school doors, but still) and kids/teachers asking him where the heck his coat was

Step 4: If they lose something, give them agency over the situation. Teach them how to retrace their steps and to ask teachers and school staff (this also refines communication skills).

This has worked well for us. My son almost sees not losing his stuff as a personal game/challenge. He even comes home and boasts about how he has returned home with everything he left home with in tow. Every now and then, he will lose something, but NOW he’s mindful and realizes it sooner and has a much greater sense of urgency around finding it. Good luck and buy as much as you can from the Dollar Store Kindergarten year.

March 4, 2019by Aryeonne Johnson
Kid Stuff

Room Parent Tips from the VolunTOLD…You’re Welcome

As much as I’d like to tell you all that I was asked to be room parent because of my stellar parenting skills – that isn’t the case at all. A representative from my son’s school emailed me saying:

“Hi there, we met briefly at the Kindergarten picnic, and it seems like you’ve got your ish together (impressively gathered from our 5 minute chat). Also, 3 parents have backed out. Can you help a sistah out?!”

Lol…ok, so maybe I doctored that up a bit, but you get the point. I felt the pressure. I wasn’t going to leave my son’s class hangin. I’ve got this! (not really)

Fortunately, I have some amazing friends who are teachers themselves and I was able to use my interviewing skills and ask them what they wanted from a room parent. I took what they said and used my noggin to come up with tips for busy parents to help them to be the coolest room parent in their grade. Check it out:

PLANNING
Set up a meeting with the teacher your ideas (I’ll help with those in a sec), questions (see starter questions below), and boundary-setting cap on. Boundaries are for your protection. The teacher will have expectations, and you have to make sure that you come with yours too!

Questions for Teacher:

  • How would you like to communicate with me? (text, email, classroom app (e.g. ClassDojo)
  • When is your birthday? When is the Teacher’s Assistant’s birthday?
  • Are parties acceptable? When are they appropriate? What is the food policy?
  • What assistance will you need with classroom supplies?
  • What methods are acceptable for collecting money?
  • What is the policy for approving books for mystery reading?
  • What are ongoing classroom supply needs?
  • For each event, please send dates, volunteer needs, location, context, and all relevant times at least a month in advance or as soon as the event is approved by school administration (this gives you time to create the sign-up and/or email, let the teacher approve it, and then send it out to all the parents.)
Classroom Party thrown by room parent and volunteers. Gives teacher a break, and good times had by all!
  1. Ask teacher to come prepared to the meeting with a calendar that indicates all expected events.
  2. Ask teacher to come prepared to the meeting with a parent email list. (Don’t forget to chat about the appropriate way to protect parents’ personal information)
  3. Signup Genius is your friend! This is a free application that you may use for field trip, class program, and mystery reader sign-ups. It allows you to use your own custom pictures, send an email blast, and notifies you when volunteers sign up for your events. I used even used this sign-up app to ensure that all kids made the teacher a homemade birthday card. Those who didn’t sign up to make one were provided a ready-made card that they could sign so they weren’t left out. Here’s the link to Sign Up Genius BTW: https://www.signupgenius.com/
  4. In my case, the teacher wanted to have parties for a few holidays. Here is how I approached each party: Part I: Educational Fun/Exposure Activity Part II: Creative Craft Part II: Storytime or (if time permits) a fun video that relates to the party’s theme. See my Holiday Party approaches for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentines Day, here: TBA
  5. Don’t get stuck with the bill $$$. Plan ahead, and make sure that teacher gifts (birthday), events, and supplies are funded by the parents. You may have the parents bring the money into the classroom to the teacher to ensure that you’re in the clear of all money-handling foolishness. Signup Genius also has a money-collecting feature, but I’m pretty sure they take a percentage. You can usually cover a lot of ground by asking each parent for $1 each (and I had any leftover donated to the classroom supply budget)

Teachers are rockstars for dealing with our kids all day. I’d like to make sure we willingly take care of them just like they willingly take care of our youngins. Hope this post enables someone do just that!

March 4, 2019by Aryeonne Johnson
Kid Stuff

5 QUALITY SCREEN TIME SHOWS FOR YOUR LITTLES

Make the best out of screen time. Kids don’t know what they don’t know until you (and later other people) expose them to all the things. With my child, I made sure that I prioritized educational content from the beginning, and so far, that’s spurred my son’s curiosity in math, science, and has improved his vocabulary. Don’t get me wrong, he still loves the other stuff *AHEM* LEGO and Ninja dude stuffs, but now he appreciates the educational stuffs too. SO… While you have the power*, pump their little minds full of all the info you want them to learn about. Fortunately, thanks to the shows I’m about to mention, your kiddos can learn while entranced in the televised version of joyful education (Psychology Today agrees, read their take about that here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/4141/the-neuroscience-joyful-education-judy-willis-md.pdf) .

*Power – The ability to manage your child’s day-to-day activities. Read more about why this matters here from the good folks at Vandy U: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/developmentalpsychologyblog/2014/04/how-do-you-affect-your-child/

The Magic School Bus (old & relaunched versions available to view)

This show is tried and true – you’re probably familiar with the books. The teacher character in this series, Mrs. Frizzle, is the best at taking a complex science concept and literally turning into it with the students for a first-hand adventure in the way things work e.g. becoming a piece of food and traveling through the digestive system. This method makes science processes and terminologies memorable and fun! Needless to say, the vocab is great too!

Platform: Netflix, YouTube, Amazon


Sesame Street (duh)

Foundation is everything, especially when put into song. And Sesame Street is the best at that and making repetition learning creative, interactive, and engaging for youngsters. Mastering fundamentals is overrated because there’s ton of kids’ content out there and easy to introduce advance concepts to little brains prematurely. You can’t go wrong with starting your child’s screen time with incremental doses of  Sesame Street.

Platform: Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO


Blaze and the Monster Machines

I was so impressed by this show (and still am!). Created by a really, really smart group of people (who also are writers for Team UmiZoomi – it’s up next), is a cartoon that attacks introducing technology, engineering, and science through monster trucks and their human 8-year-old techie friends. My son finished episodes understanding concepts like force, adhesion, acceleration, and friction. He couldn’t get enough – because Monster Trucks, duh.

Platform: Amazon Prime, Nick Jr.


Team UmiZoomi

Math is a subject that needs to be embraced early on IMO. If not properly introduced, we humans have a tendency to find it tedious and intimidating. Team UmiZoomi gives the characters and the viewer the challenge of saving the day and incorporates math problems as a part of the ‘game’. Your child will be adding and subtracting and identifying greater than and less than scenarios correctly without even realizing it!

Platform: Amazon Prime, Nick Jr.


Minecraft Choose Your Adventure (Requires smart TV,  laptop/desktop HDMI connection, or iOS device)

This one is for kids who are a bit older. Because there are words that require convo for the youngins. But, other than that, let me tell why this interactive screen time option is good. Reading and critical thinking. This show allows kids to choose what happens next on a trackpad to click the options. That said, they have to read and decide based on the content they’ve seen what ‘makes sense’ in the next part of the show. The vocabulary is pretty good too.

Platform: Netflix

COMING SOON: 5 Quality Screen Times for Your Littles Part II

March 4, 2019by Aryeonne Johnson
Mom Life

About that Preemie Life

My Preemie Baby born 3 months early

Born at 2lbs – with a brain bleed (intraventricular brain hemorrhage stages III and IV), but he’s 5 now and thriving. My skinny, active and goofy boy is thriving. Other than being underweight – he is doing well in a rigorous Kindergarten class and is leaving Lego for me to step on like kiddos do. I can finally exhale…  I can work on regulating my sleep again. Of course, there’s always going to be a certain level of ‘mom worry’ that will forever loom no matter what, but my son is no longer seeing a team of 5 physicians and 2 clinicians to ensure that he’s on track.

He’s no longer catching every little sickness at every turn. Now, a runny nose can be just that and doesn’t turn into a 14 day cold with weight loss and sleepless nights. A runny nose is just that – a runny nose. Oddly enough, remembering the tough times is becoming harder, but I’m not sure how we did it. Preemie parents. Juggling work, grad school, and afternoons and evenings in the hospital. Seeing your tiny baby poked, prodded – eyes horrifically pried open with metal devices for thorough inspection to prevent ROP-induced blindness (Stevie Wonder was a preemie too – undetected ROP caused his blindness). Seeing them choke because they have to master swallowing and breathing simultaneously. Missing out on most events because your baby is regaining his strength from being ill for so long.

He’s healthy and the light of my life!

And the Wall Comes Tumbling Down

Relationships crumble. Self esteem dwindles. Lots of tears. Hits to career development. I let the Preemie Life define me for so long. I didn’t have a choice really. I lost myself in it all. It took me quite a while to remember what I even liked to do. It was all around caring for my son, and it became a bit of a prison. I used to enjoy being fashionable and doing my hair. That turned into wearing old marathon and alumni t-shirts with baseball caps. I didn’t recognize myself, and I was glad my son was well, but I was sad. Very sad. I hadn’t taken time to do much for me. Even the grad school studies and change in career was mainly for my son. I had forgotten what fun meant for Aryeonne. Come to think of it, I needed counseling and a support group postpartum.  Read here for support info for preemie parents: https://grahamsfoundation.org/

Journey To Find Myself Again

Transitioning back to myself took a couple of years. I was frightened, mainly because many of the people in my industry were younger and children/parenting wasn’t a part of their existences yet. When I started back working, I kept to myself. No one knew my age or that I was a parent. This is a reminder to those who have their own preemie story or any traumatic event that causes you to lose yourself, that it’s okay to ask for help. Don’t be ashamed to ask someone to take on your responsibility for a bit so you can watch your favorite show or listen to an audiobook until you fall asleep. Self care/love is underrated. If it doesn’t happen, you will undo all that you’ve worked for with deteriorating health and broken relationships.

Annnnnd I’m back!

It took me far too long to realize this, but better late than never, right? I’ve since begun to exercise, track my calories, meal plan, found a job that resonates with my beliefs, found a new tribe and reconnected with my old one, found a new love and started this blog. If I can do it, you can too. We all need to be reminded that it’s not selfish, especially those of us who still carry the guilt from that Preemie Life, here are integral steps/ways to begin your self-love journey: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-hardy/201203/seven-step-prescription-self-love

Be sure to read about my childbirth experience here: https://amotherthingcoming.com/2019/04/04/my-birth-story-hellps/

We support March of Dimes. Join our team – march and/or donate: https://www.marchforbabies.org/sollylevi

March 4, 2019by Aryeonne Johnson
Mom Life

This Ole Body Aint What It Used To Be

It all happened so fast.

Yes. Sign me up for Pilates young, spry co-worker. Sure, I’ll go with you to Barre class, person who runs marathons because you’ve prioritized it, because unlike me, you’re not delusional and you know that getting older means you’ve gotta step your game up. Sure, I’ll play with you on the floor, son, and you can hop on my back to go upstairs for bath time…and *crunch*.

Those are the events that led me here. Sore, inflamed, immobile and back to square one – oh, and just to clarify, that *crunch* was my back. Calling all 30-somethings. It’s happening. Your body ain’t what it used to be. So, how does one who used to run a mile, do back flips, run the bleachers non-stop, and lift weights every other day get used to a body that has had a huge break – like a ten year break that happened so fast that I forgot to exercise

I know it’s silly, but I’m in denial, but I think I’ve learned my lesson this time. I’ve never understood what people meant about the importance of easing back into exercise – until now. Had a baby in my mid-thirties and now, this year, I think I’m officially in my late 30s – needless to say, the recovery period is slow as molasses.

Checking out my new digs before sweating out my hair to the infamous 100 Pilates reps.

WAKE UP CALL… I’m fortunate enough to have a gig that provides exercise classes, and I immediately signed up for them and was in for a rude awakening. So, here we are after an accumulation of events that overworked my back muscles into temporary paralysis. It all began with taking on too much at once, and now injured and typing to you with an ice pack on my back. Don’t be like me… ease into exercise. Listen to your body. Hopefully, I’ll be able to start a yoga session a week next week. See below for tips for easing back into exercise:

  1. You are not superwoman. No one is. It doesn’t matter how old you are, LISTEN to your body. Don’t be like me and incorporate new exercise and then throw out your back swinging your kid around.
  2. Tell your doctor you’re exercising again (especially with all these fad routines that will have you jammin’ into your demise), and let him/her know what type of exercise so they can let you know what to be mindful of. If that’s not an option, let your exercise instructor know that you’re just starting and you may need a few sessions to complete the entire routine. Also, ask for modified versions of tough tasks. If they don’t listen to you, find another exercise instructor.
  3. Warm up AND cool down. Whatever that means to you. Stretching, jumping jacks, running in place, walk it out, stanky leg, dougie…just do it. Read why it’s important here: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercise-101-dont-skip-the-warm-up-or-cool-down
  4. If your breathing is crazy rapid, STOP! That’s your body straining to do something, and you could easily be on the brink of injuring yourself. Even more, that rapid breathing means your body is not used to the exertion you’re putting on your lungs. When you’re in shape, your body is accustomed to the exertion, and you body delivers oxygen more efficiently during your exercise routine. Read more about that here: https://www.prevention.com/health/a20504379/when-its-normal-to-be-out-of-breath/

Remember, exercise in both forms of resistance training and cardiovascular routine is imperative, BUT you only get one back, one set of knees, and all that jazz. So, take it easy sistah. Getting in shape is not a competition. Namaste.

March 3, 2019by Aryeonne Johnson

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“For when a child is born the mother also is born again." -Gilbert Parker

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