My name is Kate Hanke and this is my website.
You can click here for more information about me and this website as well as the “cast of characters.”
You will find stories here about our family, life, and thoughts about what is going on in this great and complicated world in which we live.
I attempted to capture Finn’s blossoming speaking skills and his sign language skills. Awhile ago I wrote about how I thought baby sign language was a bunch of bunk. I realized the problem (with Finn at least) was not with the baby sign language but that he was too young. He uses signs all the time to help communicate what he wants and I do believe it relieves a lot of his frustration. In the book I read it said to begin baby signs when at 6 months. It wasn’t until after Finn was over a year that he really embraced learning and using the signs. It was 6 months of frustrations for Josh and I while we expected him to do something he wasn’t developmentally ready for.
So I am taking time today to chronicle the signs he uses and the words he has started to say.
Milk
Juice
More
Help
All Done
Mama
Hazel
Tanner
Abby
Delta
Conner
Baa
Bo Bo
Ben
Finn can also make a vroom vroom sound for a car, blows kisses, waves bye, bye, and he pretends to sleep when we say “night, night.” Here is what I was able to get on film…
**Blast from the past…here is what I was up to a year ago**
I realized something the other day…and this may seem like the most obvious thing in the entire world to you…but it was a revelation to me. As a mom I was trying to find the magic road that would make me a good mom that would lead me down the road to making Finn into a good person and a contributing member of society.
Then I realized that there are many roads that end in the same spot. The end goal is to raise a good and responsible citizen that is empathetic and intelligent. However, there are many ways to get there. There is not one right answer or way to get there and there is also not one mistake or moment that makes them the opposite of that.
It is a lifetime of modeling and caring that makes a great person. So now I know that 2 + 2 always equals 4 but raising a child is a long road of single steps with no one right answer.
In all honesty this is not a true ode, but I wanted to write a congratulations to my mother. On Friday she opened her newest location of her business that she began when we moved to Rochester when I was 4 years old. She started her business in our home and then moved it into a basement downtown. From there she moved into a room in the Kahler Hotel, her next location was in the Kahler Subway. She then moved to a different location in the Subway and expanded her business. After much soul searching (and some other influences) she decided to go back to the core of why she started her business and moved into the Galleria.
So I just wanted to take a moment and say congratulations mom and I am so proud of the decades of hard work you have put into your business. I have always told people that besides Jessica and I, the legacy that you will leave behind is your business. You have been an amazing role model all my life of what it means to work very hard and love what you do. I have a job that I love and work very hard at because I know that it is valuable. Thank you for that. You should be very proud of what all your hard work has accomplished!
I talked about what my mom did for me when I was very sick last year. I was thinking more about it and I remembered how much she sacrificed and how stressful and scary it was for her to experience it with me. At one point it seemed like there were a lot of mistakes being made and she was scared that some platelets that I needed would make me very sick (because there was a small chance of that and the doctor at that time wasn’t very good at explaining the risks versus the benefits). She had been through too much and we both didn’t trust this doctor and he didn’t understand the concerns that she had.
It was at that point that I knew the toll of her being there for me was taking on her. She invited a couple of her friends that had experience with hospitals to come and talk to us about what they would recommend. I talked to both of them privately and asked what I should do for mom because of the stress it was causing her. The first one pretty much told me to act my age and stop being selfish and asking mom for all this support.
The second one said that it was very important to my mom to be there for me and that’s what she wanted to do. She said that she would work on being there for mom to lessen the stress on her. I tell this story (even though it’s probably news to my mom) because it is a good reminder to me that being a parent isn’t always an easy thing and there are REALLY hard parts. For my mom to be there for me when I was sick forced her to make lots of sacrifices. And for this I have endless gratitude and know the kind of mother I want to be. I also am forever grateful to her friend that was able to take some of the burden from my mom so she could be there for me even though asking her to do that for me made me feel like a baby and very selfish.
Another thing that I always respected my mom so deeply for was making the choice to let Jessica and I make our own opinions about my father and other family. As a teacher and in my personal life I have witnessed kids stuck in the middle of families and witness to parents spewing poison about one another.
If anyone had the right to bias their children about the “other parent” it was my mom. My father and his family gave her ample opportunities to tell us less than flattering things about them. When I would ask her direct questions about something about my father she would answer the question fairly and factually, she never let her opinion and experience shadow her answers.
She always let us make decisions about if we wanted a relationship with our father. When she knew that I was talking and writing to him she never discouraged or made me feel guilty about this. She always let me have my own opinion about my father. I can’t even imagine how difficult this was as she struggled to make ends meet and be a single parent; not to mention the pain he caused her.
So I just wanted to take a moment to say THANKS A LOT MOM. I really appreciate you setting unrealistic standards as a parent! I love you more than most infinity.
It has been said that you must kiss many frogs to find your prince. Well, I guess I got lucky and didn’t need to kiss that many frogs to find my white knight. So apparently I have been kissing pigs…that’s where you get the swine flu from…right? Can I go back in time and kiss some frogs instead?
I think it’s time for the comeback of a very funny picture…
Yes, I am at home with H1N1 (or at least as close as the doctor could tell by my symptoms…I didn’t have an official test or anything). Let me tell you, although what I am suffering through is not life threatening, it is also not much fun. I am bored out of my mind. I wish I could be working. I wish I could be doing laundry. I wish I could be cleaning. I wish I could be picking up dog poop in the backyard. This is how bored I am. However, when I stand up I feel dizzy. So I am sitting here doing nothing and it is driving me OUT OF MY MIND.
So you may want to back away from your computer in case this can be transmitted through the Internet…you don’t want to be infected! I am also quarantining myself from Finn, which also is NO FUN.
No more kissing pigs for me…no sir! And my kids are going on a field trip tomorrow…without me…will everyone survive?
We have a minority liaison at our school that also happens to be Muslim and wear a hijab. I wrote about this before here. Last year she was asked to visit classrooms and explain about the hijab and so this year she emailed us this video to show to our kids.
When I wrote about it previously I said that I realized all kids were the same and in some sense they are. I think the goal is to treat every kid fairly…however as I have become a better teacher I have realized that fair doesn’t mean equal. It is to celebrate differences and make sure everyone gets what they need. I pulled my 3 Muslim girls aside and watched the video with just them because I wanted them to know what was coming and for them to feel comfortable about it. They all said this was a good video for the kids to watch.
So I showed it to my class and afterward the kids asked questions to the girl (including one that no longer wears her hijab to school because when she wore it in Kindergarten she was teased). It was such a great moment for those girls to share their pride and knowledge about the hijab and their faith. The girls also told us about being teased and being asked if they were bald or had ugly hair and that’s why they wore them. It also gave the other kids time to ask questions that they probably had been wondering for some time and I think everyone learned something.
I was also really moved when the girls spoke about being teased and I could feel the other kids in the room feeling very sorry that they were made fun of about this as well as enraged. They then began asking how they can stick up for their friends if they see someone teasing a girl wearing a hijab. I certainly learned a lot that day, the biggest being that instead of pretending they were all the same I was able to celebrate their differences; at least in a small way. It about broke my heart to find out that one of my girls doesn’t wear a hijab because she had been made fun of.
Here is the video I showed my kids. I highly recommend watching it and I almost guarantee you’ll learn something!
Through websites I read often, I found this great website that invited people to write a post about bravery or courage and how it has touched our lives. I could make a list on here a mile long of people that I consider brave. If you know me, you’re probably one of them. I see bravery and courage in everyone. It’s hard to live your truth. I’m touched each day by courageous kids from something as simple as sticking up for a friend to something huge like learning in a second language.
When I think about courage I think about my sister. She has dedicated her life to teaching inner city kids. She lives and works in cities where most people would fear for their lives. I know she doesn’t tell me very many of the truths that she encounters each day because then I would go broke paying for a personal body guard for her.
I do know that in the first city she lived in, there were streets that she wouldn’t walk down because there was a very real and very large chance of being shot. She lived in an apartment building where homeless people slept in the entry way and in the morning she would find crack pipes. One of her roomates was beaten by a group of teenagers for no apparent reason. When a friend was visiting her, her car was stolen. My sister rides a bike and walks everywhere in these towns. She has had countless bikes stolen and someone even chopped down the tree her bike was chained to so they could steal her bike.
As far as I know she doesn’t feel fear walking and riding around these towns. I don’t know if it’s stupidity or courage, but I do know teaching these kids is an enormous act of bravery. I would be too scared to live and teach in these communities whereas she embraces it. She touches her students lives each day and gives them hope of living a better life than what is in their community. She believes with all her being that these kids are worth it and she will change these kids lives and in doing so, will make this community a better place for everyone to live which in turn will make the world a better place.
