Making our Neighborhood beautiful

Today was an Oregon state wide day organized to clean up the neighborhoods. We live in a great neighborhood with wonderful maintenance workers who sweep the curbs every day-so luckily there wasn't too much to clean up. But the kids spotted every cigarette butt or stray gum wrapper and picked it up with their extended arms. Here is the group-Luka didn't want to wear the orange safety vest-OR his sun hat. He was a true pirate.

Luka is helping his brother make his Bobo feel better. Alyosha got a big scratch on his chin-you will see in future pictures how we decorated it with Zelonkia.

We also planted wild flowers in the field in front of our bridge. Hopefully they will all sprout-it will be beautiful.

I (Jen) carried Niki most of the time because Roma was carrying the big trash bag, but in the end I was releived by Roma and the Baby Bjorn--Niki isn't really supposed to face forward yet, but he likes to see the world.

In the afternoon we trecked over to Wallace Park beside the elementary school Alyosha will go to in September-It was a beautiful day. You can see where the scratch is hidden by the green paint.

Luka is a monkey robot. For some reason, he decided to talk like a robot all afternoon.

Alyosha thinks he never goes to sleep because he just lays down and then the sun comes up-like the night is only a minute long. When he got into bed he said that this was a really great day and he wanted to do it all again tomorrow!

We are famous

The neighborhood news descided to do a nice little story on families that live in downtown Portland. It was fun to have Michalea and Ken over for the interview and photos. We didn't know that it was going to be the main story though! They did a good job, I think.

Kids and School

Our neighborhood has a pretty new children's community center. One woman got a grant from some place and now she has organized a community of over 200 people who have families in the Pearl District and we do all kinds of activities. Sometimes Roma takes them, sometimes I do. Roma has school on Monday afternoons and I take the kids to open gym play. Usually there are about 20 kids, 10 mom's and 1 Dad. The older kids swarm the dad because he is the only one kicking the soccer ball or shooting the basketball. Luka stays between me and the big kids because he wants to be with them, but can't quite keep up. Alyosha is so good at trying to include him--only until he forgets to because Jack (a 6 year old) wants to race him across the gym.

Between bobo's and potty breaks, I get a chance to talk to the other Moms because the kids are so occupied. The Pearl District was built with diversity in mind. There are million dollar condos alongside income restricted apartments and private organic grocerers down the street from the regular grocery store. Families idea of how to best educate your kid is just as diverse as the economics--except for one thing, all of these families are doing everything they think they should to make their kids outstanding. Some of the parents have their kids in $1,000 a month preschools where they are learning to speak Chinese. Others pay $700 for a child led preschool where the kid, individually, chooses what he wants to learn and the teacher facilitates. There are a few parents who do home preschooling like we do; OMSI, Nature and Music School, Zoo Scope and other activities that are going on around the city. We are lucky to have a great community to work with in Portland.

However, I definitely don't think that my kids are at a disadvantage because we don't send them to $1,000 preschools (or can't afford to!!) It is up to Roma and I and how creative we can be as parents. The most important thing I want my kids education to give is to have passion in their minds; who cares what they can or cant have or how many different private lessons they go to. If your children suffer because of what you financially cannot give them, then they will always suffer because money can't buy the most important things.