This Week in 5: (Easter) Edition 8

1. Melissa Harris-Perry. After the debacle on her show over Mitt Romney's adopted grandson, I was like belch. I watched her apology and actually respected her for it. My respect has grown with reading her Q and A session on Jezebel.com. My favorite has to be "You're their colleague, not their daughter or their date. Be smart, not nice." 
2. Last weekend, Calgary experienced what the police referred to as the "worst mass murder" in our history. In the midst of that tragedy, there was consolation is seeing how the city reacted to both the families of the victims and the perpetrator. Erin sums it all beautifully and I have to say, the longer I live in this beautiful city of Calgary, the more I fall in love with the goodness of its spirit
3. Since I moved to North America, my old-school, religious spirit has struggled with the commercialization of the important days in the Christian Church's calendar. I know I need to move from irritation to graceful acceptance and this article helps point me in the right direction. 
4. When I was growing up, frejon was a popular good Friday dish that I never tasted - because I was THAT picky child when it came to food. Now that I'm all sorta grown-up, I actually plan on making it today using this recipe and trying it out on the girls. 
5. It was hard to find a good video of Nicole C Mullen singing Redeemer; this is the best I found to share. You wanna have a private praise session in your car, download Redeemer on your phone, make sure all the cars windows are closed, set the bass and treble just right and be taken away by this woman's beautiful pipes and praise

Happy Easter all. 

"Because He lives I can face tomorrow 

Because He lives all fear is gone 

Because I know He holds the future 

And life is worth the living just because He lives" Bill Gaither

The Market has More Than One Entry (Learning Styles Edition)

"The market has more than one entry"

That's my literal translation of a yoruba proverb (ono kan o w'oja) which just means there's more than one way of achieving a goal or getting somewhere. It's one of those sayings that's had moments in my life when it was my mantra. Yesterday, I had THAT moment again when it came to my twins, how they learn and their approach to tasks.

It actually started a few months back when I was trying to teach them to count objects on the pages of a counting book. Sugar quickly grasped the concept and could count along the line of objects but Spice struggled. She would skip objects and jump lines and I knew a moment of hyperventilating-panic. Girl's got a 4 of engineers and a maths teacher in her direct genealogy and she can't count a line of 6 fish???  This mama had to work hard not to panic. I reminded myself that she's still young and there's plenty of time to learn to count and that was it. 

The next day as we drove by a construction site, she yelled "look mama, there's three diggers". I absentmindedly nodded in agreement before I felt a jolt of awareness. MY BABY CAN COUNT! She just is not interested in counting stuff on the pages of books but she can count just fine. Mama learnt her lesson and that was a good thing because whenever it was time to practice writing letters in our "homeschool", Sugar quickly learnt most of her letters and enjoys writing whenever she can get her hand on pencil and paper, chalk and board, crayon and walls... you get it. But Spice would pick up a pencil, look me dead in the eye and declare "I'm tired. I can't do it", and that was that She refused to write her letters and I didn't force the issue.

That brings me to yesterday. We got home and both girls asked for TV time. I suggested we write some letters before TV and handed them their books and pencils while I cooked dinner. When I turned around, Spice and turned to the last page of the book and done this!

Ladies and gentle people, MY BABY CAN WRITE HER LETTERS! She's just not interested in writing them unless there's an important reason like watching Diego and Dora perpetuate world peace.

Lesson learnt: The market has more than one entry and kids have more than one learning style.