The Many Elementary Schools of Portland, OR

The last month has been consumed with visits to elementary schools around Portland and considerations of the various special programs offered at each, particularly language immersion, so that I can enter the school transfer lottery.  My son is going to be in Kindergarten next year, and I would dearly love for him to learn a foreign language at his young age, particularly since I had so much trouble with it in high school and college myself.  It seems like there is a window of opportunity for learning languages that starts to close in the later elementary years.

Portland Public Schools (PPS) offers several language immersion programs in Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.  There are various elementary schools that have Spanish immersion, but only one of each for the other languages.  So first I visited Woodstock Elementary to learn about the Chinese immersion program.  It is an excellent program overall, and the school seemed nice.  The only problem I had with it was the distance from where we currently live, and the fact that the 2nd half of the kindergarten day is $335/month.  Next up was Japanese immersion at Richmond, another excellent school, but with the same $335/month fee.  It is much easier to get to from our current apartment, though.  I would find it challenging to wring that much more out of my current budget.  We’re paying $120.00/month for preschool, so it is quite a bit more, but not impossible if I start saving for it now (which I have). These two schools work on a 50/50 English/target language model.

Next I looked at two different schools that offered Spanish immersion.  They are 90/10 Spanish/English in kindergarten, declining to about 50/50 by 5th grade.  I like that idea a little better as it seems like actual “immersion.”  I looked at Beach and Cesar Chavez elementaries.  Beach is the closest to our apartment, but Cesar Chavez is pretty easy to get to, also.  Beach seemed cluttered and run down compared to the others, but not unpleasant.  None of the schools were particularly impressive structurally.  Beach has a Fallout Shelter, for example, but isn’t retrofitted for earthquakes.

I perused various website for school ratings and reviews and test scores.  Of course Woodstock and Richmond were 9 out of 10 in all counts.  Excellent.  Beach was a 5/10 and Cesar Chavez 2/10!  That was a concern.

I also looked at the neighborhood school we are assigned to, which will be the default school if my son doesn’t get into any of these special programs.  They are entered by lottery and there are really very few spots available.  I can only hope.  Our neighborhood school is Chief Joseph which is a respectable school with a 5/10 on the reviews and test scores, but anecdotally even more well regarded.  I will not be unhappy if my son has to go there, failing to get any spots in the lottery.  And it’s only 2 blocks from our apartment.

So the way the lottery works is that you can have three choices, ranked by the one you would most prefer on down.  So I decided to go with the two nearby Spanish immersion programs for my first two, for logistical reasons.  And because they have fewer spots available.  Also, I feel there is more opportunity culturally to benefit from knowing Spanish in this hemisphere.  My third choice was for the Japanese immersion program at Richmond.  It was hard to move it down to third, being an excellent school.  But logistically it would be hard to participate fully in that school.  But if we get in, I will certainly try!  And I’m trying to save up for the fees in case we do. Unfortunately that meant I had to leave the Chinese immersion option off the list.  Poor Woodstock!  I feel torn about that choice, but I couldn’t see any way that we could realistically get our son there and back each day.  It is far across town, and far from either of our jobs and our childcare providers.  That was also the reason I didn’t bother to look at the Russian immersion program.  It was even further out.  I also heard at Beach that they will still accept transfers into their program for first graders, but not after that.  So I guess I could try again next  year if we don’t win the lottery this year.

I turned in my application today and the deed is done.  It’s in the hands of fate.  I have made up my mind to be happy with whatever the results are, and not be too disappointed if my son doesn’t get into any of them at all.  We should get the results in 6 weeks.  In the meantime, I need to find something to distract myself from dwelling on it!

Omar and the spinach casserole

I made a Spanikopita Greek spinach casserole the other night.  It is a lot of work, being that there are layers of Phylo dough on top and bottom with the filling in between, but I like to make it once in a while.  Omar helped me paint melted butter between the Phylo dough layers with a pastry brush.

He was really doing a good job for being 2.5 years old, until he decided it was just as much fun to paint melted butter on the table.  Then he decided he wanted to poke holes in the casserole when I was doing the top layer of phyllo dough.  I told him not to do that anymore after he gouged a particularly large hole in it and sat there laughing about it.  I told him he was going to get a time out if he did it again.

I didn’t know what to do about the hole, really, so I tore off a piece of phyllo dough and wadded it up and stuffed it in the hole.  Omar said, “You stuffed a napkin in there?”  Phylo dough does look like paper.  So now Omar thinks I’ve stuffed a napkin in the middle of the casserole!

He wanted to poke more holes and I wouldn’t let him, so he decided he wanted to ask Daddy about that.  Milad had gone to bed already, so Omar went upstairs to consult him.  Milad called me at work this morning to ask what the heck Omar was talking about last night.  He’d been up there rambling something about poking holes and Momma getting mad and sitting on the stairs, and Milad couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, but thought it was quite funny.

Baby Hat – another project idea

I have more ideas than time.  But seeing as I’m expecting a new son in late April, I’ve been keeping an eye out for cute, plain baby boy clothes.  I’m just not feeling all the hot colors this year.  Never did like really bright stuff, so I’m having a hard time with the neon pinks and yellows and blues this year.

I found a darling little sweater at The Childrens Place a few weeks ago.  They had matching hats, but I didn’t get one, and then when I came back they were out of them.  So I went on a quest to find a knitting pattern for the seemingly-simple design on this sweater that I could use for a hat.  I’ve got the cable pattern, but just needed directions for the twiggy design.

The name of the sweater on the Childrens Place website was “pointelle.”  But this seems to be more picturesque than an accurate description of the pattern.  Pointelle seems to refer to open-work knit designs, which this isn’t.

I was pretty sure it was a pattern I’d seen before, but trying to figure out what it might be named was challenging.  I spent an afternoon googling likely names, like vine, tree, trellis, branches, etc… with no luck.  There was a similar-looking but not symmetrical pattern in one of my books called “twigs.”  I don’t know where they got the names, but apparently they are not standard.

Then I stumbled upon the exact pattern as part of an aran sweater pattern in one of my knitting books.  They called it “tree of life.”  But googling that came up with all sorts of other patterns, but not this one.

At least I determined that it is an aran design, and have some basic directions for it.  I can probably figure out some way to apply it to a hat pattern.  The challenge will be figuring out the gauge and how many panels of this pattern alternated with the cable I can get onto a baby hat in the size I need.  I’m thinking of just making a beanie style hat right now.  I’m not sure how I’ll do the decreasing at the top of the hat and maintain the cable patterns.

Now to just figure it all out and find the time to do it.  That will be most of the challenge.

Christmas 2009

I set out to make some felt Christmas stockings embroidered with snowflakes this year.  I didn’t finish them by Christmas.  I got as far as getting the snowflakes embroidered on one side of the felt for four stockings.  The other side, which I also planned to decorate, has not been finished yet.  I did draw the snowflakes on in chalk to sew over, though.  It rubs off the felt pretty easily and keeps me from going astray as far as positioning them.

We got a tree this year.  A small noble fir.  It smelled great.  It was about 5′ tall, which seemed like a great size for our apartment.  The tree was decorated with faux birds and tinsel and pink and white lights this year.  I kept the breakable ornaments hidden away this year.  Sure enough, my 2-year-old spent many an hour redecorating the tree.  The faux birds didn’t look as subtle as I hoped.  Many of them were bright, garish colors to start with.  I added a few pine cones later.  I didn’t do much decorating other than the tree this year.

We went to my folks for Christmas dinner.  Steaks – my favorite.  My dad even grilled outside.  Omar got into a bowl of chocolates.  We have been keeping him ignorant of sweets pretty well up until now.  He did not learn of cookies this year (he thinks cheese-flavored fish crackers are cookies).  They were on the table.  He didn’t reach for or ask for any.  He was already aware of pie, but only took a few bites and then went off to play.

Omar climbs

Omar has figured out how to get up onto the kitchen counters now.  He really wanted a muffin.  I told him he couldn’t have one.  He pushed one of his little chairs over to the kitchen counter and used his sticky little toes to scramble up the side of the cabinet and onto the counter where the muffins were.  Well, there’s no stopping him now.

He did it again last night and my husband saw him do it and freaked out.  He is scared that Omar is going to fall off the counter and break his neck.  So he took his little chairs and hid them.  I really don’t think this will stop him, though.  He’s going to find the chairs or use something else.  He already pushes his high chair up to the light switch so he can flip it on and off.

Halloween was a bust

Omar was too tired to go trick-or-treating as he didn’t take a nap all day.  We got him into the dog costume, but he wouldn’t let me paint his face.  And he didn’t want to wear the hat with the ears.  We gook him to three houses and then gave up.  The first house he was fine.  The second house was playing some scary music and he didn’t want to wait around on the doorstep to get a piece of candy.  At the third house he wouldn’t even go up the steps.  So we walked around the block and looked at jack-o’ lanterns and then went home.  He didn’t even want to eat the candy. Maybe next year.

Baby talk

Who says the 2’s are terrible?  Terribly cute?  Omar is talking up a storm now.  Last night he was watching “baxit ball”  with his dad.  Then we carved pumpkins.  He helped pick a face from a few that I drew on paper, and he tried to help sort the seeds from the pulp so that we could toast them later.

So later I was toasting the seeds and taking out the pan to stir them around.  Omar was watching.  He declared “I LOVE pumpkin seeds!”

“You do?” I said.  “Have you had them before?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you have them before?”  I have never given him any.

“On the floor,”  he said.

I gave him a toasted seed to try later, but he didn’t like it.  He chewed on it and spit it out.

Later he found an unopened box of sidewalk chalk.  I have to admit I’d bought it for him months before but then never gave it to him.  I’m fairly certain he hasn’t seen it before. The package is still in shrink wrap.

“Open this,”  said Omar.

“What’s in there?”  I asked.

“This in there,” he said, pointing to the chalks inside.

“What are they?”  I probed.

Omar looked stumped for a minute, then he said, “Roddins.”

“What?”

“Roddins in there.”

“Okay,” I said.  They are sort of rod-shaped, but I have know idea if that’s what he really meant.  He is pretty good about just making something up if he doesn’t know.

Omar’s new joke

Omar will ask for a drink of water.  He’ll drink some.  Then he’ll fill his mouth with water and spit it in his dad’s ear.  He thinks this is highly entertaining and will do it over and over again.

We have not idea where he learned it.

Death to Fruit Flies

I didn’t find a single fruit fly in the kitchen this morning.  There were at least a dozen of them in there last night.  Maybe they were hiding in the house plants.  Maybe they don’t like to get up early.  Maybe they were sleeping in today.  Or maybe my husband finally had enough and killed them all.

It’s hard to get rid of all their food sources. We finally made room in the fridge for all the tomatoes from our garden, so now it’s just some pears and bananas in the fruit bowl, and the jar of sourdough starter that they seem to like.  My husband really hates fruit flies.  He saw them swarming around the fruit bowl yesterday and was seriously thinking about refrigerating the bananas, even if it does make them turn black.  I tried to talk him out of it.  The lid on the sourdough jar is not tight, so I put a towel over the whole jar to keep them out of it.  So now they just land on the towel and bask in the odor.

I haven’t had any luck trapping them in dishes of vinegar or alcohol or any of the other organic home remedies.  They tend to migrate to the damp soil of the houseplants once we get rid of all their other food and water sources.  It’s hard to convince my husband to let the soil dry out between waterings.  Watering the plants is sort of a comforting daily routine for him.  He even waters the cacti every day.  He claims I never take care of the plants and they’d all be dead if he didn’t water them.  Never mind that some of them have been with me for decades – long before we got married.  Sometimes he’s as fruity as the flies around here, but I still love him.

Omar the Apple Juice Fiend

Omar loves juice of all kinds, especially apple juice.  He’s taken to calling all juice ‘apple juice’ now. (Except for the stuff in the jars of baby wieners that he likes to drink.  He calls it meat juice.  I suspect it’s little more than broth and gelatin.)

We were out at the folks’ one day and sitting around the table talking.  We gave Omar a glass of water and everyone else was having iced tea.  Omar threw a big fit and kept shouting, “apple juice!”  My mom looked at me and said, “I’m completely out of apple juice.”  Omar was reaching for his dad’s glass.  It dawned on me that he thought the ice tea was apple juice.  So I said, “Just give him some ice tea.  He thinks it’s apple juice.”  Sure enough – that settle him down.

Yesterday we were at the park after a rainstorm and there were puddles of muddy water on some playground equipment that Omar wanted to climb on.  “Daddy, clean the apple juice,”  said Omar. He wanted his dad to wipe up the puddles of muddy water.