jennifer patel

I have spent countless hours browsing Pinterest and one of the funniest things I've seen is the "Nailed It!" pictures where people attempt to try things they see on Pinterest and fail miserably. Nailed it! We planned to celebrate a co worker of mine for becoming a citizen and I volunteered to make a patriotic cake that, of course, I found on Pinterest.  Sure it was intricate, but I had spent a week reading over the steps and to me, it seemed to be just a little more work than making a regular cake.  ok, I knew it wouldn't look as good as this...but still seemed manageable How many times have I ranted about how I hate Martha Stewart (secretly love) and how I know she leaves out the most important tips when giving recipes and crafts just so she stays superior and people say, "well I tried, but it didn't turn out as good as yours..." When will I ever learn... I had a plan. I came home from school Thursday afternoon and immediately began ...

So it happened. An 8th grade boy mumbled "suck my balls" when I asked (not told) him to get back in line in the hallway. My first reaction was to laugh...because secretly I share the maturity of an 8th grade boy...but instead I took it as an opportunity to also say "suck my balls" and be over-dramatically loud in school. Lose-Lose = Win?  No. (Not as in telling him to, but saying, "Did you just tell me to suck your balls?!  That's sick, holmes!"  I know rule #1 is to not humiliate a student in front of other students...but it was a rainy Friday and I couldn't even help myself.) After only 3 quiet weeks at alternative school (it never stays quiet for long), things are starting to pick up and I'm dealing with my first "problem child." He's an ass munch and a half and makes it near impossible to accomplish anything academic and definitely impossible to do anything procedural even though we do the same thing every.single.day. ...

sad and immobile This is me and my cousin, Mary.  We are two days apart by birth but several weight percentiles apart as six-month-olds.  I used to tell everyone that I had a twin sister and we were separated at birth and that I would find her some day like The Parent Trap .  Too bad I ate her... I arrived from the mother country just weeks before this picture was taken.  Mary: Jennifer, you're wearing a snap front sweat vest.  It's Monday Me: So? Mary: So that's against the rules and you can't sit with me on this blanket! Me: This is all that fits me right now... *Mary crawls off the blanket...

I hate to make everything about me all the time...really I do. When we got home from Korea with Alex, within the first months home, he identified and recognized V as "dad".  He could say it, and when he saw him, he called him by name. Mom, mommy, or any other version of the word was a different story.  His first nights home, he would wake up screaming for his other mother, "eomma" and when that stopped, for the next 10 and a half months would not call or identify me with any version of the word mom.  I read him books about mommy and baby everything and would point at myself and say "Alex's mommy" every time one of his cartoon shows would have a character calling for their mom. Nothing. I empathized with his trauma and need for time to attach, but I couldn't ignore that in my fragile state, I was feeling rejected because he wouldn't call me mom...even though I knew to expect it.  I also couldn't help to feel jealous that V was Dad almo...