Museums and ADD

So the family I am nannying for this summer has a membership to the Children’s Museum. Since the mom works at home, I try to get the kids out as often as possible, so we are at the museum every other week or so. The kids are under 3, so they have no problem doing the same thing over and over.

Every single time I go, I am thankful that my parents were not the kids museum going type when I was little. We went to places like Sturbridge Village and Mystic Seaport, both New England attractions that are historical villages. Most of the attractions are outside, and are way more low key.

I’m an adult now, with way better coping mechanisms, and the children’s museum is an assault on my senses the second I walk in. Bright colors are everywhere, screaming kids, and the smells that go along with hundreds of small screaming children in a small space. Three whole floors of this.

I couldn’t imagine taking a child with ADD here, without careful prep. Even going on off hours, there is so much going on in each exhibit that I think a kid with ADD would be overwhelmed if he or she was the only person in the building.

I think we often fall prey to the common notion that ADD is something that only affects kids in schools, and when I visit sensory rich experiences like this, it reminds me how much of a misconception this is.

This Is Why Everything Takes Forever

I can’t just take a calming relaxing bath.

No, in order to bathe, I must first find candles, and spend an hour making a calming itunes playlist. I seriously am the queen of wasting time.

First Week of Teaching Down

In other news, I still haven’t finished the cleaning that I posted about. What I came home to still on my bed at 12:30 got unceremoniously dumped on the floor at the end of my bed, and is still there, four days later.

This week was Teacher Orientation, also known as Torture Those with ADD. 6 hours of professional development each day, with a measly 30 min lunch break. That’s right, from 8-12 and 12:30-2 I had to sit still in a seat and listen to someone talk about how to teaching writing. First lesson. Not by making the kids sit for ridiculous amounts of time.

I also got to meet some of the parents, and some of the kids. Lordy, will this be interesting. Expect funny stories. Lots of them. Also, hair pulling. Most likely mine.

I am trying to focus on the little things, and create habits to fit my new space. I was really proud of myself for getting up at 6ish each morning, taking a packed lunch, and being dressed appropriately, complete with jewelry. Goals for next week include packing the lunch the night before EVERY time, and making my own coffee instead of buying it at Dunks.

Pre-School Cleaning Post

Really, I shouldn’t stop my momentum by typing this, but hey, shiny!

Things that Work
-Instead of leaving the room to put each thing I find out of place away, I have a single box that everything gets tossed in. Then, I can walk around the house putting these things where they belong
-Same theory in the room itself. Focus on one area, for example, top of the dresser. Anything that goes in the desk gets placed on top of the desk, to be dealt with when I get there. This keeps me from getting distracted in organizing the desk before the dresser is done. It does mean, however, that I have to do the whole room before I stop, otherwise, 3 sections are spotless and 3 sections are impossible to use.

Things that Don’t Work
-Facebook
-Livejournal
-Tossing all the knitting into a pile
-Making An Itunes Playlist to listen to while cleaning
-Going out with a friend at 7pm and not coming home until midnight, when I have to be up at 6AM and my bed is still covered in stuff.

The first step is the hardest

I’ve been back from 2 weeks of no internet, no air conditioning, and no crazy city life for 3 days now, and I’ve only put a dent in my to do list in the last 15 minutes. I’d like to point out that a good portion of this to do list needed to be done in July.






I find things hardest to do when they are already over their due date. It’s like, well, I already fucked it up, why even bother? Of course, lots of things are still perfectly fine if they are done late, but it is very hard to get out of that high expectation rut. It is one of the reasons that I hate To Do Lists. They end up staring at me, pointing out the things I failed to accomplish.Then I fail to accomplish more, and it is one big spiral down to that happy-fun-ADD-depression.






The only thing that sucks more than fear of failure is actual failure. It is really hard to face it and say, yeah, I fucked up, so now I should do the best I can to fix it. It’s way easier to ignore it and hope it goes away. Sitting here typing, I can be like, hey Nic, that is a stupid plan, but I keep doing it, in school, in life, and romantically. It really sucks watching yourself make the same damned mistakes, over and over.






So that’s it. First step done. I sent those overdue emails. Now, to do the cleaning that I planned to do sunday, and then I will finish dealing with my fucking school loans tonight.