This Saturday, the Chattanooga Futbol Club is playing their inaugural match, against Atlanta. I’d like to make some signs and I’m having trouble coming up with not-too-offensive anti-Atlanta soccer slogans. Can others make some suggestions?

Subjects I’m considering lampooning:

Atlanta’s urban sprawl
Atlanta’s attempted theft of Chattanooga’s water
Plays on the name “Atlanta” and its similarity to “Atlantis”
The illusory high-speed train
Our mutual insistence that Dalton belongs to the other metro area

All ideas will be considered. Thank you.

I signed up to receive a copy of Trebellina because I figured since Fuller is a musical kid it would be interesting to see 1) how the DVD teaches kids to read music and 2) to see if Fuller was receptive to learning to read music.

I popped the DVD in and watched Fuller watch the DVD. Fuller seemed interested and watched almost the entire 32 minutes. What I saw of the DVD was reminiscent of a Baby Einstein DVD and kind of hokey. But then again, Baby Einstein is hokey and we had plenty of Baby Einstein when Fuller was smaller, so I don’t view hokey as a reason to dislike Trebellina. Just consider it a warning to parents: hokey DVD interesting and captivating to the four year old, Mom was rolling her eyes.

We have watched it a total of five six times to get a feel of what the DVD is about.

As for the actual material: the goal of Trebellina, as stated on the DVD cover, is to teach children to read music. However, it seemed to me the DVD was all over the place and dipping its toes into all kinds of musical concepts.

In the reading music sections (there are three throughout), colorful notes appearing on the lines of a sheet of music. The note is sung and the corresponding note on a toy piano is played. This seems good, but when the notes are asked to play a song, the demo goes by so quickly (with the notes appearing above the toy piano and the corresponding keys highlighting), I don’t think the concept of “reading” music is efficiently portrayed.

The DVD then tries to expose kids to musical instruments, giving a rather thorough overview of the percussion section. Surprisingly, that means more than a snare drum! Fuller enjoyed singing along with the presentation (taking on the part of the tubular bells), but it did little to further the concept of reading music.

Three times there were Baby Einstein-like “movies” as a break. One showed various astral images while playing “Twinkle, Twinkle” in various arrangements. Then it transitioned to “Row, row, row your boat” and the required nautical images. The other two showed specific instruments, gave their names, and showed kids dancing and toys playing. Again, I bring up the word hokey. Fuller enjoyed it, dancing and humming, but I was looking for the fastforward button. (Are you getting the idea that the DVD is all over the place in the musical realm?)

An introduction to rhythm is introduced by counting beats, though I thought it was odd they didn’t say “count the beat.” It really, really, really bugged me the cartoon spring character was not jumping to the beat, keeping me mystified as to the usefulness of his character. (Also, his voice was annoying.)

I went to the Trebellina website and read lots of glowing feedback from parents on this DVD and I guess my standards are a little higher for my four year old. I’m not going to say Fuller can never watch it, but I would never suggest it to another parent as a tool for teaching their children to read music. Maybe with heavy parental involvement, this DVD could be used as a supplemental tool to help a child recognize which black dots on a music page are specific notes, but do not expect a child to sit in front of the TV and suddenly know how to read music. Use it as an introduction only. And then maybe sign them up for Suzuki lessons.

Technorati Tags: musical education, Trebellina, Cristofori Baby Company, reading music

We have had a very nice, very relaxing Mother’s Day. We want to wish all the other Mothers in our family a Happy Mother’s Day too. I know I wouldn’t be the Mommy I am today without these women in our lives.

Yesterday started at 3:45 a.m.

Tebow was hungry and as the responsible party in this relationship, I fed him.

Then for some reason, Tebow was not interested in going back to bed. Normally his one middle of the night feeding keeps us up for about 30 minutes. And if it goes longer, then I can count on him being back in bed within 60 minutes. Not yesterday. He wouldn’t settle down or when he did, he was back up within 5 minutes. By 6 a.m. I gave up and started the rest of my day.

The schedule only had one activity- Tebow’s 2 month well child visit. It was an 8:30 appointment, which was fine since I was already up. I was tired, but up.

Tebow’s appointment went well (stats for the Grandparents: 15 pounds, 25 inches) with praise for his strength and head holding ability. He got his shots and even though he cried, it was soon forgotten and he fell asleep. Sweet baby.

Sweet baby until we got home. Then it was cranky and feverish baby. I dosed Tebow with Tylenol and spent a few hours trying to soothe him. He cat napped, ate, fussed, cat napped, ate, and then fell asleep for two and a half hours.

This is important because yesterday we finished the laundry room/ mudroom project. Those two hours of sleep coincided with Fuller’s two hours of quiet time and allowed me the time needed to paint the entire area. I had to do detail work when D got home (couldn’t get the ladder because of my sprained arm), but at 4 p.m. I was looking at the painted walls and so thankful for 1) the time needed and 2) the energy from I don’t know where.

When T woke up he was back to cranky, but it didn’t bother me. I finished my part of the project and still had steam to get him bed (he slept from 11 p.m to 5:30!) and not cry about how tired I was.

That was yesterday.

While Fuller, Tebow, and I have been whooping it up in Texas, Damon has been back in Tennessee working on a house project- the laundry room/ mudroom drywall!

When we renovated the kitchen, we knocked down the walls to the “third bedroom” (more like a closet) and made a bathroom off Fuller’s room and enlarged the kitchen to include a laundry area and mudroom-like area in the back. While the kitchen has walls, the laundry room and mudroom had studs. Which is why the project of the last week was putting up drywall!

It’s been fun watching the pictures go up on Flickr (we are a 3 camera family) and see the progress. When I get home I’ll be involved in the priming and painting, so I’m starting to think about paint colors.

I’ve really appreciated the work Damon (and Ed!) have done this week and in the past on making our house a home. I know it has taken us a lot longer to do the work ourselves, but it was/ is Damon’s dream to restore a house himself.

Now I know we could have gone with a contractor who would have told us how, when, where, and how much, but I never would have known how to go about 1)finding a contractor and 2) how to know he/ she was reliable and trustworthy. I’ve heard stories about people hiring contractors who quote one thing and then charge another. Or the contractor never finishes a job. It is rare for me to hear a good story about a contractor, which makes me glad I’m married to a man willing to do all the work himself.

But, if we were into finding a contractor, I know there are so many resources we could use to be matched with a good one. After quizzing our friends for months, we might head to the internet to check out ServiceSpider.com, a resource that allows us to post projects (everything from drywall to carpet cleaning) and have contractors bid on them. The contractors are prescreened through Service Spider, so you should be getting good bids from good contractors.

Sadly, Service Spider does not have any contractors listed in their directory for the Tennessee Valley area (no NW Georgia either). But if you are in my area and know of one, maybe you can tell them about getting listed in the directory. Or they can go to ServiceSpiderpro.com to get help with their own online presence.

But for now, I’m happy to get to go home to my husband and see the work he has accomplished. And then I’ll be happy to find my paint roller.

We took a drive up to Oklahoma to visit the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Preserve. It was really exciting to see the buffalo, longhorns, prairie dogs, and beautiful scenery. We stopped at Lost Lake for a picnic lunch, took pictures, sent Grandpa Fred and Fuller on mini-hikes, and just enjoyed where we were.

The highlight of the trip was this buffalo taking a walk across the road to scratch his head on the sign post. He just casually walked toward the car and then moved in front of us (we were stopped) and made his way to scratch the itch. It was fun to roll down the window and snap his picture as he got closer and closer to the car.

The day was long and fun, leaving us tired but full of happy memories.