Reflections on the Cold Lunch Club

So-we are two weeks into our cold lunch club at school and I thought I would share how it was going. If you didn't read my previous post about how it all works-check it out HERE. I am very excited that my kids have had a healthy, cold lunch every day for the past two weeks-and I've only packed lunches TWICE myself. They have tried some new foods that I never thought they would like (whole grain burrito with rice..Katie never eats rice...but she ate this!!) and also tried some that they know they still don't like (tuna...but they did try it again!) They have had a HUGE variety of foods every week (I'll share the line-up below), and I know that the other parents involved are also enjoying the process.

I thought I would share a list of the lunches they enjoyed the last few weeks, in case you might want to try some of these things at home.( I have kids at two schools so they do get different lunches each day.)

Tues, Sept 4th-Frogs in a Bog (turkey sausage in cornbread muffin), carrots, and fruit salad
                        or Triple decker apple sandwich, cheese cubes, corn and peas

Wed, Sept 5th-Vegetable bow tie pasta, homemade applesauce, and nut thins or

Thurs, Sept 6th-Whole wheat pita with almond butter, honey, and bananas, fruit salad, baby carrots with dip

 Fri, Sept 7th-Cubed chicken and cheese, cubed apples and pears, whole grain crackers
                    or turkey and cheese wrap, grapes, sugar snap peas with dip

 Mon, Sept 10th-Roast beef roll-ups with lettuce, yogurt parfait, broccoli with dip
                  or Tuna salad sandwich on raisin bread, kiwi, organic cheese crackers, sugar snap peas

       

Tues, Sept 11th-Pizza rolls, ants on a log, ginger cookies

            Or Ham and cheese roll ups, baby carrots, grapes

Wed, Sept 12th-Whole grain tortilla with rice and cheese, chips and salsa, homemade apple ginger cookie

Thurs, Sept 13th-Whole wheat berry muffins, grape caterpillars, string cheese, mini chocolate cupcake

  

Fri, Sept 14th-Whole wheat mini bagel pizza, veggie stix, fruit leather, matchstick carrots with dip

              or Butterfly shaped ham and cheese sandwich, oranges and blueberries, carrot sticks with dip

Pretty impressive line-up I'd say...and the best part....I didn't have to shop for all that...I didn't have to put it all together...I only had to organize two days of lunch!!!

I also wanted to share a picture from the day I went to school for Birthday Lunch with Katie...

On the left is the hot lunch that day (some kind of fish?? canned green beans, canned fruit). On the right  is the lunch Katie got that day...I think the pictures speak for themselves!!

Lunchbox Roundup!!

As some of you may know, my newest project is starting a Healthy Cold Lunch Club at my kids school. Right now we have 15 kids signed up for this project and this is how it works:

Each family takes one day of the week and makes lunch for their child, and 4 other children. Then, the rest of the week, someone else is making lunch for their child. Since I have three kids in the club, I am in charge of making 15 lunches for Thursdays. While this might sound like a lot when you say it for the first time, I have just had to change my way of thinking. I normally make 15 lunches each week anyways, now I make them all at once. Another plus from this is that I can buy food in bulk, knowing that I will use it all up before is spoils (and my kids don't have to eat the SAME fruit salad 5 days in a row). I am looking forward to seeing what kinds of things the other families send for lunch (and seeing if my kids like them). I think they will get a wider variety of items, and hopefully, they will find new foods that they like.

So, as I was planning out what I was going to make for my turn, I found some great websites that I thought I would share with everyone else.

I love this website  because they show pictures of all kinds of delicious lunches. Just browsing through the photos gave me some great ideas and when you click on a picture, it tells you exactly what the lunch items are.

This is another one of my favorite blogs  
This mom has a challenge (along with menus) to get you to feed your family "Real Food" for 100 days. This website was a great resource when I was working on getting my family into a healthier way of eating. The school lunch roundup (see link above) has some great ideas!!

This site has some more great ideas (and some really cute Bento-style lunch boxes). They also divide the lunch ideas up by season-which is nice if you are trying to use fruits and vegetables right for a certain time of year.




So-to go along with these great lunch ideas-I wanted to find some cute, printable lunchbox notes that I could throw in my lunches. Here are some great sites:

 Great for the boys

Super Cute Hand Written Notes 

8 sheets of printables 5 Sheets of printables

 Jokes  

A Few Organization Tips for School

So one of my first posts was about how we save time (and avoid arguments in the morning)...my kids sleep in their clothes during their school year. I'm not going to go into all that...but if you struggle with getting your kids ready in the morning (and they don't sweat profusely at night), try it once and see what you think.

Here are a few other things that we do at our house to save time and sanity:

1. Every Sunday, I fill a sweater holder with school clothes for the week. This sweater holder is kept in the front closet on the main floor of our house. It has 5 pockets (one for each day of the week), and I place a pile of outfits in each slot (one outfit for each kid...including tights, underwear, matching hair clips, etc). This saves a lot of rushing around in our house at night. Instead of digging through their dressers or baskets of clean clothes, I just go to the closet and grab the pile of clothes for the next day. They actually make an organizer just for this purpose...but I just stick with the cheap version.

2. We have a white board with the days of the week on it to organize our schedule. This is mostly for my husband (even though I put our schedule on our phones through Google Calendar...he doesn't look at it). Now that my kids are older, they sometimes look at it too. Once again, on Sunday night, I sit down and write down all the activities for the week on this board. I include the days I work and the days I'm off, Joe's hours, any special days at school (dress down day, Katie's day to take snack), and after-school and evening activities. This is much easier then trying to read each school calendar every day. With once quick glance, I can see just what I need to do to get ready for the next day. 

3. I have a whiteboard by the front door for any important messages for that day. Since Joe and I work most mornings, my mom or Joe's mom end up taking the kids to school many days a week. This is the perfect place to write down any special messages for them because they see it as they walk about the door (ie: don't forget Katie's snack in the fridge, please make sure the boys are wearing their scout shirts, etc). We have also taken to writing little inspiration quotes on it (our favorite bible verse...or I love you Mom-from one of my kids).

4. Each child has their own hook by the front door for their backpack, coat, hat, etc. When they get home from school, it is their job to hang their stuff up by the front door so they can find it in the morning. Once again, this makes it much easier for my mom or mother-in-law to get them out the door in the morning. I like these hangers from Target because they have several hooks for each kid.

5. We have a drawer of school supplies ready for after school homework time. In this drawer are markers, glue sticks, crayons, colored pencils, sharpened pencils, pens, loose leaf paper, etc. Anything the kids might need as they sit at the dining room table while doing homework. I also keep a checkbook in this drawer so I can write out checks for field trips, school milk, etc... and put these things directly in their backpacks as we are going through their folders. The longer I wait to do these things, the less likely I will remember to do them!!

6. All important schedules and papers are hung on the refrigerator using our paint stick/clothespin holders. Each school has it's own paint stick and this makes it really easy to find the papers I am looking for. These are very easy to make. We just painted a free paint stick we got from Home Depot. Then we super-glued clothespins to the front and several strong magnets to the back. 

7. Each child has their own Rubbermaid tote in the basement for keepsakes. As we are sorting out the items in their backpack at the end of the day, I make a pile of the artwork or papers I want to keep for them. Then I set them by the basement steps. The next time I go into the basement, I throw these papers into their bin. Once a year I go through their bin to throw away anything they don't really need to keep (Katie often has a wide variety of "artwork" that she wants  to keep...including random paperclips or scraps of paper). When they eventually move out-they will take this bin with them and can do with it as they want. 

8. I put each of my kids spelling lists into my phone at the beginning of the week. There are many moments throughout the week when we are sitting around waiting for things (waiting for swim lessons, waiting for the gate at school to open). Instead of carrying around three spelling lists in paper form, I take a picture with my phone of each list when it comes home and then I have it with me at all times. I can pull them out anytime (sometimes I have them quiz each other in the car on the way to or from school), and we get more practice this way then if we simply practice at home during homework time. 

Only 16 More Days Until School Starts (or...will I go completely insane before August 29th??!!)

I LOVE my children! Anyone who knows me will know that this is true. Yet any mother will also tell you that August is the LONGEST month of the year. The kids have been out of school for 2 months. We have made the rounds in town, repeatedly visiting the library, pool, beach, chuck e cheese, Kids Coulee, the bowling alley, the movie theater, etc, etc.... We have played baseball, golf, Frisbee golf, gone fishing, practiced archery, etc, etc... I am so tired...tired of making lunch for them every day, tired of telling them "No...you can't play Wii all day", tired of listening to whining (sometimes I just go outside and sit on my front steps so my ears can have a rest).

My husband doesn't understand this because he gets to leave the house for 12 hours EVERY DAY!! Even on the days that I work (6-10am), I often get home and my kids are still asleep. That means I have to make sure they get dressed, eat breakfast, pick up,  eat lunch, play nicely together, don't fry their brains out on screens of every kind, and make dinner (all before he gets home). I recently read a hilarious story that goes along with this picture

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.  

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?' She again smiled and answered, 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?' 'Yes,' was his incredulous reply. She answered, 'Well, today I didn't do it.'

I would totally love to do this someday...except that I have tried that approach...and it DOESN'T work. My husband doesn't care if the house is dirty. He will eat off a dirty plate if there are no clean ones in the dishwasher. I'm pretty sure he would wear the same black pants to work every day for two weeks if I didn't wash them (don't get me wrong...he helps a lot around the house...but we have a different idea of what a "clean" house looks like). Sometimes I leave little "tests" around the house for him (just to entertain myself...I know that he will fail them...after 11 years of marriage I know that I can't change him). I once left a cup of chocolate milk (half full from one of the kids) on the landing to our steps for 8 days. EIGHT DAYS!! He had to walk by that cup EVERY DAY at least FOUR times. Did it ever occur to him to pick it up and take it downstairs??!! Of course not. It reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. I'm sure you have all had similar stand-offs in your house.

So, as this summer winds down, I am trying to enjoy the time I have with my kids. I am organizing their clothes, buying school supplies and school shoes, and sometimes...I am sitting on my front step with a nice, cold beer at 3:00 in the afternoon!!

Real Mothers

Real  Mothers

As we reach the middle of summer and I find myself yelling a little more at my kids instead of enjoying their company ALL DAY...I begin to wonder if I am a good mother. All mothers have those moment,s when they realize they have just sunk to the level of their 7 year old child (yelling back "Oh yeah, well I'm going to throw all your toys away", as I run downstairs to get a giant garbage bag and my daughter bursts into tears surrounded by her beloved littlest pet shop and playmobil toys). Or the time I criticize my 9 year old son for not swinging the bat during a baseball game (really?? He's not playing for the world series...he is NINE YEARS OLD.  My heart sank when I told him I was just trying to encourage him to play a little harder and he said "Mom, that doesn't feel very encouraging!".) It is moments like these where I wish I had a rewind button (and a giant dose of PATIENCE). As I was taking a break from the chaos, listening to the book House Rules, by Jodi Picoult, I came across this little gem and I knew I had to share it with all the other mother's out there...the last line is my favorite!!

“When did they stop putting toys in cereal boxes? When I was little, I remember wandering the cereal aisle (which surely is as American a phenomenon as fireworks on the Fourth of July) and picking my breakfast food based on what the reward was: a Frisbee with the Trix rabbit's face emblazoned on the front. Holographic stickers with the Lucky Charms leprechaun. A mystery decoder wheel. I could suffer through raisin bran for a month if it meant I got a magic ring at the end.

I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.

Here's a secret: those mothers don't exist. Most of us-even if we'd never confess-are suffering through the raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring.

I look very good on paper. I have a family, and I write a newspaper column. In real life, I have to pick superglue out of the carpet, rarely remember to defrost for dinner, and plan to have BECAUSE I SAID SO engraved on my tombstone.

Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping-and, dare I say it, the Burlington Free Press-seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's car, and say, "Great. Maybe YOU can do a better job."

Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.

Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt.

Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal.

Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they'll be looking and looking for ages. 

Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.” ― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

So, as we trudge along through the raisin bran that is summer vacation...remember, real mothers, that the house doesn't have to be clean, the kids don't care if they eat cereal for dinner instead of a home cooked meal, we have to enjoy the magic ring that is this time spent with our children. They don't expect us to be perfect...they just want us to be THERE.

I used to inwardly roll my eyes when people would say to me, "Enjoy them now, they grow up so fast". When my kids were 1, 2, and 3, I thought the endless days of diaper changes, feedings, laundry, and spit up would never end. Now that they are 8, 9, and 10, I realize that those people were right-they do grow up too fast!! While I appreciate that I no longer have to give them all their showers at night (how nice is it that they can wash themselves, get on their own pajamas, and brush their own teeth), I still miss rocking them to sleep after reading I'll Love You Forever for the hundredth time. I miss their endless two year old excitement at EVERYTHING ("Mommy, did you see how big that leaf was?"). As they get older...I miss being needed!  While I am happy that I have raised self-entertaining, self-sufficient kiddos (for the most part), it is nice to be needed too.

This summer vacation is a good reminder that they are still young and I need to focus on being there for them instead of being the "perfect" mother. As I clean up their messes and do the laundry, I should be appreciating that I am still needed and be thankful for these chores that mean my kids are around.  So the next time I come across a spilled cereal bowl or a fight between my three kids, or my daughter asks me for "just one more book" again before bedtime, I am going to stop, take a deep breath...and look for the magic ring amid  the raisin bran!

Loving' The Whole Foods Thing

So for two weeks now my husband and I have been eating a whole foods, plant-based, diet. No processed food, no meat, no dairy. I have to say that I thought this would be really hard...but it hasn't been hard at all. I am actually starting to crave vegetables and fruits and even looking at a donut or a hamburger makes me feel sick. I am full all the time and I don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything. I have been having a blast trying out new recipes...so today I thought I would share some of my favorites from the last two weeks.

The first one that we use every morning is the Green Smoothie. This is a quick and delicious smoothie that we whip up in about 4 minutes every morning. We use 1 cup soy milk, 2 cups spinach, 1 tbs flax seed, 1 banana, 5 frozen strawberries, and 1 scoop Amazing Grass in chocolate flavor (the amazing grass it what makes it taste so good-like a chocolate shake). I whip this up at about 5am and it keeps me full until about 9am.

Some of our favorite dinners so far have been: 

Marakesh Vegetable Curry (could be the best food I've ever eaten)-     http://allrecipes.com/recipe/marrakesh-vegetable-curry/detail.aspx

Indian Style Rice with Cashews, Raisins, and Tumeric-  

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/indian-style-rice-with-cashews-raisins-and-turmeric/detail.aspx

Quinoa Chili (I added  tvp, to give it a meat consistency) 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quinoa-chili/detail.aspx

Low-fat Tahini-Chickpea Salad Dressing (the best dressing I've EVER had) (see photo above)

http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2011/08/low-fat-tahini-chickpea-dressing.html

Zuchinni Tomato Casserole(yummy with nutritional yeast in place of cheese) 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tomato-zucchini-casserole/detail.aspx

Homemade 100% whole wheat bread (with honey) 

http://cookingforseven.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/favorite-100-whole-wheat-bread/

Low Fat (no-oil) Hummus (great on sandwiches/pita)   

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=7262.0

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies  (best cookies I've ever had) 

http://www.cookiemadness.net/2012/01/vegan-chocolate-chip-cookies-with-kelapo-coconut-oil/

Some MUST have items in the kitchen:

Coconut Oil (healthiest oil to cook with-use in scant amounts)

100% whole wheat flour

Nutritional Yeast (to replace cheese in recipes-cooks to creamy deliciousness)

Maple Syrup (great in many recipes)

Fresh spices (love the co-op for these)

Quinoa, couscous, basmati rice

I have to say that a pressure cooker also makes this type of cooking a breeze. I throw in whatever veggies, grain, and spices we are having and it takes about 10 minutes and it's done!! For example-the marakesh vegetable curry: I chopped up the veggies (took about 4 minutes), threw everything in pressure cooker, and 15 minutes later we are eating the most delicious meal I've ever had. A pressure cooker can cook most vegetables in under 4 minutes and grains in under 10 (amazing since otherwise it would take about 45 minutes to cook quinoa or lentils). Here is a link to the time charts I use so you can see how amazing it is

http://fastcooking.ca/pressure_cookers/cooking_times_pressure_cooker.php

That's it for now-hopefully you are inspired to try some of these recipes. Jacob is really loving them and Josh and Katie are trying them...and then eating healthy cereal or whole grain pancakes with fruit for dinner. Joe and I started this as a sacrifice for Lent (giving up processed foods) but I think it will become a major lifestyle change for us!

Day 1 of our Whole Foods Diet

Breakfast for myself and Joe: Green Smoothie
1 cup soy milk
2 cups spinach
1 tbs flax seed
1 banana
5 frozen strawberries
1 scoop Amazing Grass chocolate powder

DELICIOUS!!

My lunch:

1/4 Cup of Bob's Red Mill Scottish Oatmeal

1 cup blueberries

Family Dinner:

Sweet Potato and Quinoa Cakes with Salsa

Salad

The best part about the recipe above was how QUICK it was! I made the quinoa and lentils in the pressure cooker (which only took 7 minutes). The sweet potatoes cooked in the microwave during that time. Then I mixed them all together, added chili powder and formed them into cakes. I baked them in the oven for 20 minutes and they were delicious!!

It's the First Day of the Rest of My Life (kind of dramatic but I'm trying to pump myself up)!

After much influence from my mom and my cousin Jason in Colorado-I have decided to try to sacrifice the convenience and my love of crappy food during this Lenten season. I stress the word LOVE now because I love food....fast food, dessert, fried food, etc. Yet, after watching the movie Forks over Knives

(available to watch instantly on Netflix for those who are interested), and listening to the wisdom of my MUCH older cousin (ha, ha, Jason), I have realized the danger that eating our current diet is putting us in. Joe and I both have a history of heart disease in our families and I want to spend as much time on this Earth with both him and our kids. So we are going to be trying out a whole foods (mostly plant based) diet for the next 40 days. I know it's going to be hard, and I'm sure I will slip up, but I'm not going to let that deter me! As a hard working mother and wife, I deserve to be healthy and happy and I think that eating the right foods will be a great step in the right direction.

Numerous long term studies have shown that eating a whole food diet can greatly reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer as well as providing numerous other benefits. The sad thing is, that in the United States, the American Dietetic Association, USDA (the governing bodies who recommend what foods we should be eating) are controlled by food corporations who are making money off the Standard American Diet that is high in meats, dairy, and CORN SYRUP. The pharmaceutical companies are making billions of dollars each year on our chronic illnesses. We need to start changing our diets now so we can help prevent our children from the obesity epidemic that is overtaking our country.

I recently had lunch with my kids at school and was appalled at the hot lunch options offered to our children. Most of the fruits and vegetables they are offered comes out a can (loaded with sugars and sodium). The meat is often unrecognizable (I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be chicken or beef underneath the gravy that day). Some of the offerings at my kids school: mozzarella dippers (since when are sticks of cheese considered a main meal?), mini corn dogs, hot dogs, nachos, and lots of pizza. We have always packed our kids lunch, and while I admit to throwing in a bag of chips now and then, I am confident that the food I was sending with them was much more nutritious than the food they would get at school. 

I KNOW that it is going to be hard to get my kids on board with this whole foods way of eating (my daughter lives off macaroni and cheese and pancakes). It will be a challenge to try to find healthy alternatives to these things (but I found a great whole wheat pancake mix at the store today) but if we don't have unhealthy food available in the house, they will be forced to choose from the fruits and vegetables that are available. We will see how it goes and I will keep you all updated!! Stay tuned for a post tomorrow showing our first day of menus containing only whole foods.

Teaching Online and Why I Love It!

In case you didn't know, I teach several online courses for UW-La Crosse as an Ad Hoc Instructor for the Therapeutic Recreation department. Since they have added several Child Life classes in the past few years...and I have been looking for ways to supplement my income without being away from my kids...I found a few gaps that I thought should be included in their curriculum and proposed some courses. Luckily, they were able to add my courses to their course schedule by offering them through the Continuing Education department. The only downfall of this is that I get paid a percentage of the tuition raised from the class...so when I had 1 person registered for my summer session class (which I still held since the student needed it to fill a requirement for the child life exam), I didn't make a lot of money.

This winter session I am excited to be teaching my death and dying course for the first time (officially titled Helping Children Cope with Grief and Loss) and I have 12 students taking this course (I even have a student from Maryland enrolled this semester). Since I am a Certified Child Life Specialist-current students, or recent graduates, can take any of my online courses and use them for the requirements to sit for the Child Life Certification Exam (one of the new requirements is that each student MUST take a course from a Certified Child Life Specialist). This has really helped me boost my advertising ability to other child life specialists and recent graduates because they can take the course as a "special student" without officially applying to UW-La Crosse and while paying a discounted rate.

What I love most about teaching online is the flexibility that it offers (to me and to my students). I can work on the courses I create while my kids are in school... and I often grade papers while they are in bed at night. They barely even notice the time I spend on it and I am able to make money in the process. I also love that students can take these courses and still fit them into their current class schedules. They can find a time that works for THEM to work on coursework.  I always inform them that they should be prepared for a great deal of work for an online course. Some students believe the myth that online courses are easier (but having gotten my master's degree online-I KNOW this is not true). There is a great deal of self-discipline required...as well as a need to be a good writer (because most of your assignments are written).

I love finding ways to spice up the online learning experience by including You Tube videos, Jing presentations, and other innovative methods to help engage the students. I also require that they respond to their classmates posts so that I know that they are engaging with others in our "classroom". I have had a lot of positive feedback about the online learning environments I have created and this is great because I spent a LOT of hours creating these online courses. The good news is...that once I create a course online...I can copy it and paste it into a new course to use another semester (of course I delete items, change test/quiz questions, update information, add new requirements). So far I have 3 permanent courses that are now set into the TR course rotation (Helping Children Cope with Grief and Loss, Coping with Pediatric Disabling Conditions, and Helping a Child in Pain). I am also working on creating two more (one on family centered care and the other to be determined) so I will eventually have 1 course every semester (including summer and winter sessions).

Another thing I LOVE about teaching is that I get to connect with many of the students I have in class through my job at Gundersen. I am in charge of supervising all of the child life students that do practicums and independent studies at Gundersen Lutheran. Many of these students that I have in my classroom also complete hours with me in the Outpatient Surgery Center. It is always fun to help them apply what they are learning in class to what they see in their hours with me!

While I really enjoy teaching, I am fortunate enough to be able to do it without being away from my kids. I did teach one semester of in class coursework (Child Life Theory and Practice) while the regular instructor was on sabbatical and I hated being away from my kids for 4 hours every Thursday. Teaching online is a great compromise for my family and for my students.