30 September 2010

Please Talk to Mom!

When Woodjie gets off the bus, I take his shoes off on the front porch.  A zillion grains of sand fly everywhere.  I take off his socks.  I brush everything down before we go into the house.  It doesn't matter if it's 20 degrees below zero; the child will have an entire beach in his shoes.  They get removed on the porch.

Next, without fail, it's time to dump the shoes/ coat/ backpack/ everything by the front door and take off all his clothes in the bathroom.  Bath time!  Get the kid dressed and feed him and his siblings dinner.  While they're all eating, I go back to the front door, shake off the coat/ check the backpack for letters and do his school paperwork, pack a snack for the next day and generally tidy the entryway.

But the other day, I saw this horrid mark on Woodjie's neck when I was getting him undressed for the tub.

"OH, NO!" I howled.  "What happened?"

"Happened!" Woodjie told me.

"No, no... how did you get hurt?"

"Urt!"

"Um... did you fall down?"

"Owwwn?"  Woodjie has a big, big smile and is starting to stim with both arms, flappy-style.  Now it's a "repeat after Mom" game.  Arg.

The teacher has no clue how this happened, but relates that Woodjie has had dooooozie temper tantrums at school.  Throwing himself on the floor and making a nuisance of himself, is what he does, though the teacher was very careful to use the educationalese "Woodjie was having trouble making good choices" sort of wording.  (Which... is ok by me.  Way better than hearing my kid is actin' like a brat, I'd say.)  She isn't sure when he got hurt, but she's going to guess it was when he first got off the bus and got angry.

I try not to freak out about stuff like this.  I know Woodjie.  He can be in my care and sport new bruises that I can't explain.  I shouldn't get upset about this!  The preschool, I remind myself once again, is my friend.  It's in the elementary school that public education can be a horrid place in this district.  But it bothers me.  Things like this really break my heart.  Not so much the scratches (not a biggie), but this idea that my child can be hurt in all kinds of ways and never be able to tell me.

I cried so hard.

Cupcake Update

The bakery that refused to fill an order for a homosexual group faces eviction from the city-owned building in which it operates.  Story here.

Actually, this makes perfect sense.  If I own a building, and I clearly state as a rental condition that you are not to run a business that discriminates based on this or that, and you do it?  You're outta there.  But I'm not sure if such a local ordinance is even Constitutional, given what's going on in Arizona with the state laws/ immigration situation.  (Maybe Arizona AND this city are acting within their bounds.  Not sure.)  I'm not entirely clear on this idea that cities have the right to create a protected class of citizens... to my knowledge, this has been the federal government's purview/ see 14th Amendment/ but I'm not a lawyer so there ya go. 

And by the way, I'm not saying that to be snarky.  I don't see any specific "equal rights for women" in the Constitution, either.  Voting isn't everything... or at least, it doesn't CODIFY everything.  Interesting that no one is really looking for specific equal rights for women to be spelled out in the Consititution without much talk about transgender people using the bathrooms and molesting children.

Maybe I'm a secret closet-y liberal.  I think women should have equal rights on paper, and that the bathroom and military service red herring arguments can be worked out relatively easily.

But back to cupcakes... I do know that when you rent from someone and don't own, you can run into all kinds of problems, and nevermind the politics.  As an aside, I think that when churches operate under the 501 (c) thing, they stifle themselves politically and (consequently) morally.  Only think of the things your pastor wants to say but cannot when he's on that stage. 

Any time you entangle yourself with government, the tail can wag the dog so to speak.  I'm starting to wonder if those Mennonites aren't right in not getting involved with worldy politics and whatnot.  But then... isn't that just what would help evil people win elections?

Well, I just thought I'd pop on and give everyone an update on the Rainbow Sprinkles post.

29 September 2010

Grumble, Grumble

We've been hitting the part of the school year where children are annoyed with each other constantly.  In no particular order, I'm starting to hear the following complaints (and more!):  He's cracking his knuckles again.  He burped and didn't say, "Excuse me.
Sometimes I will star a problem at random for no reason. 
"  He just touched his toe and THEN TOUCHED THE PAPER without washing his hands.  He just read the wrong word in the BIBLE, and that's changing the Word of God, and you need to do something about that!  Why is he done with his math first? It isn't fair!  He got more cuddle time with you during reading because I took a while to find my spot in the book!  Why can't Elf have to do handwriting like me/ Why can't Emperor be required to do spelling like me?  His question was longer than mine, so I should get the next two questions.  He wasn't reading with dramatic flair and so I couldn't understand him.  He didn't write that last sentence neatly/ I saw his fingers off the "home" keys while he was typing so he didn't do it right/ IT'S NOT FAIIIIIIR.  And I'll bet they don't have to learn about appositives AND nouns of direct address in public school, or diagram their sentences!  Patrick didn't!  He can't even diagram a sentence!  It's not faiiiir.
The Golden Tack Award!
  And so on and so on and so on.  I am trying to spice up some of our day with the Golden Tack Award for Most Dramatic Reading (yeah, you put the brad on your shirt.  It's a major award, ok?) and do odd things like star certain problems in English or mathematics.  Sometimes, the reward is an official Golden Tack (collect more than your brother!  You'd be surpriiiiised at how motivating this is!), and on other occasions, I realize that I have overeaten again and there are three Oreos left in my bowl.  Guess you get one after I brush off the other crumbs.  Yeah.  I planned that as your reward.  I was just... rewarding *myself* for all the great teaching I was doing this morning.  Yup.  You're welcome.

28 September 2010

Miss Pretty Pretty Fashion Show!




You didn't think I'd just post a picture of the skirt and hair scrunchies without some of the girl as well, did you?  Her reaction to the outfit?  "Ooohh... mine skirt. Girlie skirt."

Skirt Finishing Tutorial

The finished products!  To make the scrunchie, use a 8-12 inch bit of fabric about 4 inches wide.  Fold together so that the pretty sides are touching each other and the not-beautiful side is what you see as you sew.  Sew together.    It should look like a long bookmark.  Turn right side out (use a closed pen to push fabric through if necessary), thread about 5 in. of elastic through (use a safety pin so you can "find" the elastic inside as you're threading it).  Then tie the elastics together tightly and sew your scrunchie ends together so that the elastic doesn't show.   If you measure your fabric and elastic (I never do), you will have a more "standard" product.


Skirt Step One:  The cloth is laid on my vinyl floor.  I count two and a half squares over and cut... meaning that my cloth strips are approximately seven inches wide but that my measurements are very rough.  It doesn't have to be exact with ruffles!  Part of the prettiness is the uneven rumpled look.  Next I lay several pieces, right (pretty) sides together and sew them end-to-end so that I have a long, long strip.

Step Two:  finish the bottom of the ruffle. Otherwise, your cloth will fray.  Fold in about a centimeter, then fold in again so that none of the fray-able ends show.  Sew about in the middle, but closer to where your folds will meet the "wrong" end of the fabric so that the ends are held together nicely.  This will keep the bottom of your skirt from fraying.  By the way, if you're using fleece instead of cotton, you can skip this step entirely!
Step Three:  Sew to denim skirt.  I use the hemline on the denim skirt as a natural place to align my other fabric.  About every three inches I fold the fabric over about an inch.  For more fluffy ruffles, use more folds.  As you round about the end where you began, you'll want to leave a gap and sew the two ends of your pretty fabric together, leaving a little extra space to sew to the skirt as the final ruffle.  Enjoy!  PS.  Do you have a BOY you need to sew for?  Try my tutorial on lengthening shorts/converting hole-y jeans into shorts!











25 September 2010

Fall Festival!


Six Gun Sally's sells soaps, toy guns, yo-yos, and about everything "frontier."  We got some rubber band shooters and handmade soap here. (sixgunsallystradingpost@hotmail.com for info)

The older children and I piled into the car and went to the Liberty Fall Festival.  We saw several booths, bought popcorn and T-shirts and books, and had lunch in the local Mexican restaurant.  We also watched a parade every politician and marching band for about 50 miles around must be required to attend, as well as all police and fire units.  It started to rain, so we missed Jesse James's scheduled bank robbery at 2:30.  He robs the bank twice during every festival; you'd think the cops woulda caught onto this gig by now.  Yes, the bank in town he robbed is really a museum and (ironically) named for Jesse James to draw the tourists.




Yep.  Emperor's Hello Kitty getup is getting him quite a few stares and backhanded comments.  He doesn't notice.


The Southern History buffs WILL talk your ear off, but they're nice folks and you'll learn a lot from them.  They just don't take too kindly to that revisionist history they teach in public school and are *happy* to see homeschoolers pop by.  The ladies pretend to be shocked at seeing you in your "undergarments" when they see you in shorts that reach your knees.  Probably when you're wearing a hoopskirt on a regular basis, that's what it looks like.

This is Duane Porter, author of the Molly O'Malley series as well as a book on chess.  He beat both the boys in short order at the game.  Elf lasted longer than Emperor in the fight. (http://www.buriedtreasurepublishing.com/)

The new high school, Liberty North, has a marching band, fight song, and football team. And new uniforms. But the old high school has about three times as many people in band and a football team that occasionally wins games.

24 September 2010

Re-Fashioned


Miss Pretty-Pretty

 I've sewn a bit of extra material to the bottom of Rose's skirts so that they'll be longer and useable next year.  The skirt Rose is wearing has a bit of flowered material I bought at Wal-Mart, and the other skirt in the picture is obviously updated with a bit of extra material I had left over from making little valances in the kitchen.  I will also later make the denim skirts that are available locally PRESENTABLE with a bit of material at the bottom.  Sorry, folks, but the girl will NOT be sporting the "Denim Uhura" look next year.  The skirts are actually a bit long for her right now, but I've done them up with *next* year in mind.


"The Sound of Music" look.  Hung in kitchen for demonstration purposes only.  D was afraid he'd have to deal with "dippy" decor.







19 September 2010

The Two Ankles

Both Emperor's ankles are knobby and hard, but only the one on the side of his foot bends.  Funny the doctor has seen the kid a million times and never commented on this.  I thought perhaps I'd best make an appointment and bring it up but Emperor tells me that this is just normal.  That everyone has this.  That he was "birthed" like this.  Umm... no.  Why does Mom think this is "blog-worthy?"  And if it's that unusual, will people send in $10 each?  (Probably not.)  OK... how about a dollar?

Packing and Unpacking

Are you getting ready for fall at your house?  I've been diving into our storage bags, organizing and moving things about.

Not too tough to organize my clothes.  I gained 35 pounds this year.  Funny how that sounds.  People love to announce when they lose weight, but never say anything when they gain it.  If you hadn't seen someone for a while, and suddenly see them 60 pounds heavier, it's a bit of a shock, isn't it?  Ahhh... well... so clotheswise?  I think I am going to buy sweatpants from Wal-Mart this year and just forget it.  You know? 

Elf and Emperor did that "growing" thing over this summer.  I've taken their clothes out of their dressers and set up a plastic shelf in their closet.  I'm too cheap to buy proper storage units or new furniture for the children so that they have nicer-looking things.   Right now, they are growing up AND wearing things out.  Maybe later.  :)

So.  I've taken all their clothes out and sorted 'em.  Their underwear and socks go in a milk crate, and each child has two shelves, one for pants/shorts and another for shirts/sweats.  We have a small hanging spot for coats not in use and a bin for shoes that will be grown into or used next season by Elf/Emperor.  Woodjie is using their old drawers.  Yep, the baby is growing up, which means his clothes are too big for a couple of Rubbermaid containers.

Does every large family use Rubbermaid containers for their small children's clothes at some point?  I think I sense an ad campaign coming on here. 

Now it's time to get all the clothes out of the garbage bags in the next size up.  Separate summer clothes from winter clothes.  Pack most summer clothes into a garbage bag.  Label with masking tape and marker.  Leave a couple T-shirts and shorts for each child and figure that I need about seven outfits per child. 

Time to try things on the children! 

Emperor will not wear jeans.  He started screaming that these were TOO SOFT and jumping about.  No jeans.  He can wear the camo pants I bought new from LL Bean for $4000 each years ago.  Yay.  But I can't see myself buying any new ones for a nine-year-old currently wearing G's eighth-grade stuff.  How tall is Emperor going to wind up if he's bigger than G was at this age, and G is 6 ft. 3? Yowie.  Someday we really WILL need a new bed for him, or he will have to sleep sideways to avoid the footboard.

Ok.  No jeans.  No things that are too tight.  No pull-ties.  I'm not kidding when I tell you that aside from the hand-me-down camo pants (that have been patched three times and he needs a belt for), he has nothing but jammies.  Some of these jammies have pink Hello Kitties on 'em.  Arg.

Basement: clothes for Woodjie
Elf... your turn.  OH NO!  He can't do buttons.  No jeans.  That means the 10 or so pairs of pants I so carefully saved from Patrick and G's outgrown clothes are... useless.  Into the bin they go for Woodjie... later... maybe.  (I know you LOVE to store 10 pairs of pants in every size for about ohhh... 11 years before someone MIGHT use 'em, eh?  Our basement looks like something out of "Hoarders!")  We are eking by with some sweatpants and jammie bottoms, but he'll likely need something new as well.  It would be SO much easier just to teach him to do buttons... no, maybe not.


Woodjie, Elf and Emperor's room.
I think all of us will be wearing sweatpants from Wal-Mart this year.  Sigh.

17 September 2010

Help From School

 I've been having a hard time figuring out how to "work" with Woodjie.  He's getting bigger and more resistant to doing things he doesn't want to do.  Ordinarily I let my children have a fair bit of leeway in doing whatever they want in their free time.  But Woodjie simply needs a lot of extra work to approach anything even resembling being functional... even in our very controlled environment.  He needs to learn some communication skills and figure out how to deal with "not yours" or "hang on a minute" for an answer.  I'm not really sure how to work with him on these sorts of things.  I would imagine the first thing we need to learn is how to attend and follow simple directions when necessary.

So I asked Woodjie's teacher for a little help, to show me some practical ways I can work with him at home.  For now (to start with), we're doing a little program.  The teacher brought this BEAUTIFUL laminated green sheet and big velcro buttons.  She also brought some picture cards, but I have cut them smaller and laminated them because um, I like to give chocolate milk-free frosting, other foods or play-doh and that sort of thing as a reward for good work.

Want to read about what I do with Woodjie each weekday?  Ok.  A word of explanation.  Each of these cards has a symbol on the front.  For example, "eat" is shown here.  Another has an injured arm with an arrow for "boo boo."  We want Woodjie to do his best job repeating after Mom or Teacher.  If he can't say "boo boo," can he say "buh buh?"  If not, "boo" might be easier.  And so on down the list until you get to the simplest to say, "buh."  I've seen Rose's speech teacher use this approach as well, which I was highly surprised about.  You'd think teaching a child to say "yeh-yeh" instead of "yellow" if "yellow" is too hard would reinforce baby talk, but that's not the current thinking.  The current thinking is that you reinforce that she can make these words and improve on them as she develops more control.

The buttons up top are, of course, little tokens.  We start off with Woodjie only needing to earn one or two before he receives his "reward" for a few minutes (a timer can be used to limit the break, so you can get back to work with the next round).  Eventually, he will get through the whole stack of cards for a button, five times over.

Or better still, eventually he will speak so much that we will need more difficult cards.  The key is to find a reward that the child wants.  With Woodjie, this can literally change minute to minute (this has been remarked upon several times by school staff).  I am working to get together a small bin of rewards, but for right now, Woodjie thinks that chocolate frosting in a spray can is super-yum, even if was scary to see the frosting pop out at first.  Now, it's joyously wonderful!  Yay for frosting!  Yay for Woodjie!

Parent Power?

Don't you hate those dumb letters that come in the mail from the school the week before the state test?  They tell you to be sure to feed your child nutritious foods and ensure that he gets enough sleep so that he can perform well.  Once I even got a note from a teacher stating that we were to avoid scheduling all but emergency doctor visits and to get my child to school on time!  Because (drumroll, please)... school is important.

I can see that from the school's perspective, they want your child to do well on the tests so that they look good and don't lose their accreditation.  And they seem to have about a million bucks they NEED to spend on paper and postage each year, because that money DOES burn their pockets.  We wouldn't want the school credit cards the administrators have been using on hotel rooms and booze to melt...

I think about 5,000 letter recipients called the administrators to thank them the last time they were sent.  The phone lines were flooded!

"Oh, Mr. Barnes," the standard conversation would begin, "Thank you soo much for that note I just received with your personal (stamped) signature.  Here I had been thinking of feeding my children nothing but Twinkies (tm) and keeping them up until 3 a.m. during testing week.  Your letter *changed my life!*  You are soo wonderful!  Any ideas on how to make literature fun through the use of reading logs?  Or how to reduce bullying by 'being nice?'  I can't WAIT until the next newsletter! *Mmwwaah*"

Um, ok.  Just as a TAXPAYER, I need to tell you that I find these notes worse than a waste of money.  They are just a liiiiittle insulting to the parents schools need to get all "involved."

All kidding and snarkiness aside, it's the same all over the world when it comes to schools wanting to tell families how to live their lives at home.  Some people are figuring out that it just isn't going to work:

"The rhythm of life in Middle Eastern, North African, and European countries is different from Anglo-Saxon countries. People wake up, work, eat, and sleep at completely different times than our societies are used to.


"In our overseas school, while we imposed an Anglo-Saxon schedule on children at school, in terms of lunch times and school hours, this did NOT mean that families or children would eat or sleep at Anglo-Saxon hours, and this was a CULTURAL conflict that we (as foreign teachers) did not even understand was even happening."

I had no idea that "eat a good breakfast before school" was an Anglo-Saxon thing before this!  But then, I've never lived anywhere but the US and Australia.  You'll find this blog post informative.

16 September 2010

The Happy Uneaten Pizza

I'm trying to put a positive spin on Emperor's milk allergy.  I'm telling him that he gets to be "allergy twins" with Woodjie (because Woodjie is allergic to milk) and Patrick (because Patrick is allergic to dust and dogs).  So, look how blessed he is!  He has been cuddling up to Woodjie during meals and saying things like, "Look! And we both have soy milk because we're allergy twins!"  Woodjie doesn't care.  This is how life has always been for him, so far as he remembers.  But for Emperor?  This happy face pizza was a sad, sorry dinner.  It lacked cheese.  And it was made with Crisco instead of butter. 
*
Emperor, I could tell, was almost crying with disappointment.  "I miss pizza," he said.  Um, that IS pizza you're holding.  "No.  I mean... real pizza.  With cheese and butter and stuff like that." 
*
Well... Sorry about that.
*
Emperor has done VERY WELL with this not eating bunches of milk products thing.  I'm amazed.  I'm absolutely amazed.  You offer to pay him $100 to not jump around and avoid eye contact while you're talking to him... but it wouldn't make him any richer by the end of the day.  You could beg and plead with the kid to PLEASE STOP TALKING while he is doing his maths.  Yes, he can talk AND calculate at the same time.  Accurately.  And he can follow the conversation.  (I cannot.  Shh.  Just... shh.)  But he just can't.  It seems his mouth and his thoughts must both be running in three different directions at the same time.  I love him.  I know that it wouldn't be so maddening if I had this ability myself.
*
So I was expecting this big fight over the milk thing, but I haven't gotten one.  He had a little cheese and some Doritos with his taco today, and that's the first milk product he's had since we found out.  He probably technically shouldn't have it at all.  But tacos are his fave.  I suppose on birthdays, he will eat pizza as well.  Likely between special meals like this and tacos, it will work out to about twice a month, not counting the miniscule "may contain traces of" stuff that might be in his food. 
*
Thank God he is not that allergic to milk that we need to freak out that badly.  Do you know what "may contain" milk?  Something that says "PURE BLACK PEPPER" on the front.  Yep.  Plain old pepper from Wal-Mart.  May contain milk.  I don't get it!
*
Patrick said they scraped the pepper off of some hobo's leftover scrambled eggs and popped them into our container.  (Do hobos have leftovers?)  But seriously.  How could you possibly run a totally milk-free kitchen, or buy products from other people, if things get contaminated all over like that.  Don't you think PURE BLACK PEPPER ought to be pure? And black? And pepper?  In other words, not milk?
*
Ahh, well.  I'm very happy that things are going so well in this department, even if it is a major lifestyle change for Emperor.

14 September 2010

Ten Misconceptions About Back-to-School

Passed around facebook under the title, "10 Misconceptions of Moms and Back-to-School."  Can't seem to find an author.  Um, just read it and tell me what you think...

Misconception Number 1: Moms miss their kids when they go back to school . Seriously. I’ve had enough of you by now. Every morning with the “what are we going to do today, Mom?” is finally over. I’ve had looked at your face twenty-four seven for the last 77 days. It’s time to go learn something. No more asking me about the pool, when is the next snack or if you can stay up late and watch a movie. It’s over….You’re going back to Hogwarts and I get to have a life again. There is a Christmas morning for parents and it’s called “back to school”.

Misconception Number 2: Moms like to go school shopping. Are you freaking kidding me? Why do I pay taxes?…so I can rack up a 200 dollar bill at Staples for crap that we have laying around my house in junk drawers. Why does it have to be new pencils? What’s wrong with the chewed up, broken strawberry shortcake pencils sitting in the bottom of the toy box for the last 6 months? And how many subject books can you possibly need? What happened to reading, writing and arithmetic. If they added a couple of things for parents to that list I wouldn’t mind so much….why not pencils, erasers and vodka or some Nyquil.

Misconception Number 3: Moms like back to school night. Why must we do this every year? I got it already. You’re the teacher…I’m the parent. My kid is either going to be smart or dumb. If he gets a certain number or colored dot on his discipline chart, he can’t get a prize from the prize box. Pretty simple stuff. Listen, I’m pretty old school. If he doesn’t listen to you…you can throw something at him. I don’t care. But I got a lot of work to do at home and I’m paying a babysitter right now. Plus, I’m pretty sure you are going to assign some project on wigwams made by some Indian tribe I’ve never heard of, so I need to get home and start my research. So, I got it. We’re all here for the betterment of the kids. Blah Blah Blah. Can I leave now?

Misconception Number 4: Moms like school paperwork. How many trees are you planning on killing to tell me the same stuff I had to pay a babysitter to listen to the other night? You know our name, where we live and our emergency phone numbers. He doesn’t have a nickname….call him “stinkbutt” for all I care. We don’t have any “special circumstances” that you need to know about. He lives in a home with two parents who may or may not like each other at any given time and they will fight. If that qualifies as a reason he can’t get his homework done on time then he won’t be able to function as an adult and have a real job so you may want to “educate” him on that life lesson.

Misconception Number 5: Moms like covering books in that annoying sticky paper. What exactly will you be doing with these books that I have to cover them in a plastic laminate? Do you often teach in the rain? Or while the children are drinking soda and eating soup? Do you know how long that takes? Has any parent in the history of education been able to do it without any air bubbles in it? From now on I’m covering it the old way…brown paper bags. That way I can cover the books and pack their lunches at that same time. Who says moms can’t multitask? PS. Please tell my son if he can’t find his lunch to look in his science book.

Misconception Number 6: Moms like helping you with your homework. What? I am scared out of my mind. I’m pretty sure that I forgot everything I learned in fifth grade by the time I was in sixth grade. I have no idea what you are talking about most days. I don’t really know my 12 times tables, I read the cliff notes to all your summer reading and I don’t know how to conjugate anything but I do know that song “conjuction junction what’s your function” if that helps at all. And please don’t even say the words “new math” to me. What the heck was wrong the old one?

Misconception Number 7: Moms can’t wait to pack your lunch every day until we die. I hate doing laundry. Making dinner every night is the bane of my existence, so making your lunch every day for an entire year, in terms of “mom fun”, lies somewhere between brushing plaque off the dogs teeth and scheduling my annual pap smear. Listen, as a child I hated what my mom packed me for lunch. But, like every kid before me, and every generation to come you will find a kid to trade with…I’m sure someone likes sardines.

Misconception Number 8: Moms love after school activities. I don’t know who made up this idea of organized clubs and sports but they should be the ones in charge of carting your ass around. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against all after school programs. I just wish they would offer it during hours that would work best for me so that dinner wasn’t at 8:30 at night followed by 4 hours of homework. Why not do it on the weekends and call it “after-hours activities” so mommy and daddy could actually go out one night and pretend that we have a life of our own. Don’t worry about us though I’m sure that me and “what’s his name” will be married a very long time.

Misconception Number 9: Moms don’t mind taking you to school if you miss the bus . Your bus comes at 7:10 am….which means that you should be standing by the door at 7:05 am. Not eating breakfast, chasing the dog around the house or in the bathroom, asking me to check your homework while I’m taking a shower. Get it together! I don’t like running down the street in my jammies at 7:12 screaming , “Please wait”

Misconception Number 10: Moms cry on your first day of school . We do cry but they are tears of joy. I have done my job. I have successfully kept a human child alive for at least 5 years without doing any major damage. Motherhood is the hardest job in the world!! Sure, doctors save lives and CEO’s run million dollar businesses but…you teach a kid not to poop their pants and then you can say you’ve made the world a better place.

12 September 2010

Big Brother in the Cafeteria?

"We’re making sure that as they’re leaving the lunch line that the menu items they’ve selected match up with state law, so they’re selecting a meal that has all the basic [components] of good nutrition,” said school district spokesman Jarrett Peterson. “We’re not tracking what each individual child eats.”  (article)

No, not tracking what he EATS.  Just what he BOUGHT.  Just the things, aside from the twice-cooked broccoli, he almost certainly DID eat.

YES, your local school is issuing "PIN" numbers to each child, just like Mom and Dad have for their ATM cards.  Actually, this has been going on in our district since Patrick was in kindergarten, and he's a junior in high school now.  I always knew they could pull up records on everything the child bought forever and ever ago, but I always thought that this was so that Mom and Dad would know what their child is eating at school and how the money is spent.

We wound up owing something along the lines of $60 for G's french toast and waffle breakfasts for a while there.  HOW did we know this much money was being spent?  The deadbeat "pay up on your account" letter that showed up in the mail sorta gave us a clue. I called the cafeteria manager and she was *so* nice and *so* happy to talk to me. 

Oh, yes, he LOVES french toast breakfast the best, she'd tell me.  And he sometimes gets an extra serving of pizza or ice cream.  She knew far more about my child's eating habits than I did, tell you what.  Here for about a month I'd wonder why half his lunch came home uneaten and he'd refuse to eat dinner if it were something that wasn't his favourite.

I was downright mad.  Mostly at G.  But partly at the fact that in the old days, you'd buy a lunch card and they'd punch that puppy when you bought a meal.  NO WAY you could charge up $75 without Mom and Dad knowing.  Don't have money?  No food for you, boyo!  And they'd add that little social stigma feature by giving the free lunch kids a different colour card than the rest of us, remember those days?

I WANT to be able to have a lunch account if it could be managed properly.  There have been a few rare occasions here and there that I've been in the hospital or run out of bread... perhaps two or three times per school year.  Though in G's case, to my mind, it would be ok for the kid to skip a meal and come home and eat because he has LOST TRUST at home in regard to the account.  It would be a natural consequence.  

But here's the thing:  no matter what I said to the school about his having lunch packed every day,  they wouldn't ever deny a child a meal if he came through the lunch line and wanted one.  The teachers refused to take on the task of checking to see if he had a lunch, and preventing him from ordering one if he did.  And get this:  EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE MONEY IN YOUR ACCOUNT, YOU WILL BE CHARGED.  Does it comfort you that they will "only" let the kid have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if your account has a negative balance?  It doesn't do too much for me... because they charge the full lunch price for the sandwich.  Why wouldn't you give the kid the better meal for the same price?  Profit, I'm thinking.

Easy to say "just charge the kid if he eats lunch," but at $2.30 PER DAY, and his earning $1.90 after tithe PER WEEK, you can see where this is going.  Even my *trying* to put a lock on my thin child's account aroused some suspicion.

So I suppose I could check the account EVERY DAY, because I have nothing else to do, or I can train G to do a better job at self-regulation.  Let's just say we're working on it.  But at 15, he's still autistic, he still has an IEP and he still is pretty well functionally illiterate.  No fair complaining that my homeschoolers can't tie their shoes if my publicly-educated child CAN, but can't read the shoebox they come in.  (Just saying.  We all have different abilities, ok?)  So his self-regulation difficulties and his IEP would make for a good argument that SOMEONE ought to ensure that he isn't racking up a huge cafeteria bill for breakfast when he ate at home, and lunch when he has a perfectly good peanut butter sandwich in his bag.  It's maddening.

Here's where I'm coming from:  if you're on the free lunch program, you're accepting some oversight into what your child is eating at school.  And if they want to track you, tough noogies.  Don't like it?  Don't eat "free" food.  But those of us who are paying out of pocket do NOT need our information tracked at the state level.  That's just wrong. 

I'm wondering if the children in the article cited above are on the free lunch program.  Yes, it makes a difference.  It sure sounds as though these parents aren't going to keep their children away from eating the lunches as I do, so it's a suspicious situation in my mind.  Hellooo, parents, "free" really isn't free. 

10 September 2010

Zis French Mustache,

... she is brought to you by ze magic of Oreos.  Tres magnifique!
And all ze vogue girls are wearing ze cheez-ball lipgloss this summer.

09 September 2010

An Update

I've ordered some Handwriting Without Tears workbooks for the Emperor.  I let him decide which level he would be most comfortable doing.  The lower levels are a bit overly simplistic intellectually, but Emperor figures he's working on his HANDWRITING and just plain old needs the bigger lines.  I think he made the right decision.

I know... you're going, "You let the CHILDREN decide on curriculum?"  Yep.  I offer a few choices I can live with, and they pick the one they like the best.

I also found a nifty Geography program.  Free Rice is running slowly of late, so for the present moment, this is what we're using.  Emperor complains that it's hard for him to click it properly when he does European countries.  He winds up in the ocean because the countries are too small for him to get to.  The kid is mixing up Sweden and Norway, but otherwise doing pretty well on this program.

Elf has been taking placement tests in Singapore Maths and in the Teaching Textbooks curriculum.  They've helped me see just where some of his problems lie.  It's not entirely a language problem, but a good part of his difficulty is understanding exactly what the question is asking, and then remembering to give the answer to what the question is actually asking.  For example, Elf gave the correct fraction as an answer to a problem, but because the problem asked for a PERCENTAGE, he got that marked as wrong.  He tests at a fourth grade level in Singapore Maths and a beginning seventh grade level for Teaching Textbooks.  Nevertheless, he's going to be "wandering in the wilderness" for a bit, doing worksheets and reviewing closely with Mom before being placed into any one program.  I want to see a bit more clearly how he responds to the review before placing him in any curriculum which will leave problem areas behind.  The kid will have to slog it out in his problem areas until they aren't problem areas any more.  :)

In other news, I can't speak highly enough of our chemistry program.  It's engaging and not too "gather these 40 things in your kitchen and do this experiment that won't work"-y for me to accomplish.  I'm the type that in high school "discovered" new creatures with my microscope (it turned out to be sweater lint, but I spent several class periods drawing it and documenting my findings... sigh).  Here at home, frequently I "prove" things that are scientifically impossible.

And Woodjie.  Sweet little Woodjie can say something new.  "I burt!" he'll tell you after he purposely burps in your face and laughs about it.  Yes.  I can't take any credit for that one.  Maybe he is a natural unschooler type, as he has learnt about 15 Pokemon words but not too many functional ones such as, "Oh, Mother, what a lovely breakfast you've served.  I so very much enjoy it.  And the house.  So clean and tidy!  Rest assured that your efforts are very much appreciated."  Nope.  Maybe that's next, right??

07 September 2010

Homeschool Failure

Siigh.  Getting real.

Emperor's handwriting leaves much to be desired.  The more I work on his cursive, it seems, the worse it gets.  I finally asked Woodjie's preschool teacher how they teach their tinies to write and she recommended Handwriting Without Tears rather strongly.  It isn't, of course, what they use for the standard issue children in our district... they use that cray-zee "D'Nealian" stuff that makes you write from the bottom of the paper up, sidewise and backwards.  (Look.  To make a lowercase b, one must go UP to make the loop at the base.)  I taught him to print just as I perfected my handwriting as a teenager, and yes, that means Emperor makes his lower case a's to look just like the typewriter kind, not the o with a stick on the end.

So.  I'm looking at the catalogue and thinking about what to do for Emperor.  Emperor is in tears and insulted because his handwriting is already perfectly neat (even though much of it is unreadable if you don't know him).  He says he refuses to do anything else; he's done with handwriting. 

No, wait!  He's left-handed now!  Except on assignments where speed is required!  In which case, things are even worse!  But look how neatly he can write with his left hand!  And yes, he can.  If I want to wait 500 years for a page-long paper, this would be the way to go.

Now I'm all confused and don't know what to do.  The strength of homeschooling is that you can cater to your student(s), but that's also the drawback.  Stage a mini-revolt, and Dad gets involved.  And once that happens, then Mom and Dad fight about who's the best teacher for the kid, who's getting criticized, whose feelings are hurt, whose kids are these anyway and blah blah blahhh. 

I guess because our lives are perfect and we don't have anything else to fight about.

Or take this.  I saw a nifty little game called Free Rice.  How fun!  Hey Emperor, come over and play this geography game.  He took a look at the country on the screen.  Ohhh, I shouldn't have asked.

"How am I supposed to know the answer to THIS?" he asked incredulously.  I told him that he can do this... he knows this... just sit down and look carefully. 

"Well, doesn't it have an easier level?  Can't you give me a hint?"  Um, no.

Dad gets involved and can't believe what he's seeing, that Emperor doesn't know the answer.  Emperor claims that it's not fair, he didn't get to study for this, and how is HE supposed to know which country this is!???  He has NO IDEA?  Where's the hint button?  Can't Mom help him?

Siiigh.  "It's the United States of America," I told him finally.  "Hit 'United States,' and look at the next one.  Maybe it gets easier later."  (ha)

Um, but it did.  Bam! He knew New Zealand.  Bam!  Iceland.  Bam!  Austria.

Ummm....???  We spent YEARS learning about our own country before learning about other lands.  And who cowers in fear before the Icelandic and New Zealand armies?  Sorry to all y'all Icelanders and Kiwis, but really.  You know STINKIN' ICELAND and its location, but not the US?

And Madagascar?  Madagascar!??  Instantly, this kid clicks the right answer for that one, too.

D is all mad.  His teacher should have done a better job with this "countries and their locations" thing.  So now, guess what we are doing every week?  Yep.

And Elf.  He did poorly on a math quiz.  Since we found out he'd copied the answers on occasion a few times in the last several weeks, he must take an assessment test.  He's flunking fourth grade stuff.  Arg.  And it's stuff I know he knows... (the value of the 3 in 3,000 is not 1,000... but yes, it's in the thousands PLACE.  I still have to mark this and several other answers WRONG.  Because they are.)

I'm afraid of what's going to happen if he tests into first grade and Mom and Dad need to work out what to do.

06 September 2010

Burning the Koran

Last I checked, this is America.  We should be able to burn the Koran, the Bible, the Book of Mormon or whatever if we're looking to make a statement.

Is it a *nice* thing to do?  Nope.  Should we teach our children to do it?  Nope.  But your being dopey and burning the Bible is hardly something that, say, I'd send my kids out to die over.  I'd just figure it was one of those infidel NIV versions and rest easy.  (What-ever. Also last I checked?  The Word of God will NEVER pass away.  You cannot destroy it completely.  Never.  So go have fun with that, but I'm not buying your matches.)

Life must be pretty cheap in these Islamic countries that they can send their kids out to die over some pastor in Florida burning a few Korans in his sorry 50-member church as a publicity stunt.  What are these parents thinking?  "Ohh, I sent Omar off to die for the Dutch cartoonist, and Muhammad can die over the burning of the Koran.  Next week, when someone finds the image of Khadijah on her burrito, I'll have to send Mustafa.  Then I will have only seven sons left, but if the cause is really worthy (like these), I'll just send 'em off.  I hear some teacher in Indonesia nicknamed a teddy bear after The Prophet, so that might be next on my list."

Ok, that was just me showing how IDIOTIC that idea is.  Nobody's gonna do that; come on.  Can we please reason that MOST Muslim people probably are reasonable and not quite that nuts?  Pleaaase?  And yeahh, some of these fundamentalist Islamics have some wack ideas, but I can't imagine REASONABLE PEOPLE sending their kids off to die because some dude in Florida burnt a Koran.  Shouldn't they have killed themselves over Porky Pig cartoons fifty years ago by this logic?  Or over Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue?

I suppose this general fellow has met a few more strange enemies in his time than I have.  And he might just maybe have some more military training and combat experience and whatnot.  I can sort of concede that.

But doesn't this announcement seem a little... political to you?  Doesn't it seem that anyone who wants to link Islam with ohh, "All I need to know about Islam, I learnt on September 11th" and the phrase "Never Forget" is on the wrong end of the marginalization campaign?  I mean, not all Muslims are terrorists, RIGHT?  So... it should stand to reason that one ought be able to burn the Koran without MUSLIM TERRORISTS blowing people up.  RIGHT?  Which is it?  Muslim people are reasonable folks who can handle someone disagreeing with them, or crazy fanatical right wingers that we'd better appease by not eating BBQ ribs or burning books?

I'm sure I've missed a jump in logic somewhere.  Sure seems to me that making announcements like this has the intended effect of silencing speech.  Just think, the next "announcement" might just be that disagreeing with Obama *might* fuel hate, and someone listening *might* take those words in just the wrong way, and then that someone *might* try to shoot him.  And despite the entire US Secret Service protecting him, that someone *might* hit him.  And he *might* get injured.  He *might* even die.  That's a lot of *mights,* and how many people are YOU willing to make shut up so that Obama *might* be safer?  And what would our government look like if debate were effectively shut down?

I can't get on any news article without some lewd reference to Jesus,  Republicans and tea-party folks having sex with their cousins, teabagging, ruining the country, and um, participating in oral sex with donkeys in the comment section.  (Ok, that last one I haven't seen every time.  But I've seen it.)  It's a pretty rare day when Jesus, Republicans or tea-party folks go shooting other people over it. 

I mean... not that it's NICE to do that.  Not that we SHOULD call people teabaggers without a good social consequence.  It would be nice to have some respectful discourse.  But sometimes free people do stupid crap.  :)

05 September 2010

Autism and the Word of God

God can still speak to people, and prophecies can still happen.  I believe this in theory.  In practice?  I'm getting tired of flaky Christianity.

Come on, guys.  Do you think in Bible times that someone got a "word" in synogogue every Saturday?  Or that they needed to share a "verse of the day" in the town square (mark your X if you "like" this.  Let's start a REVIVAL here on facescroll!).  Really. 

Um, I know plenty of people I genuinely like who do this sort of thing, and I guess it's harmless enough.  But IMO real relationship and personal revival is a tough, tough thing.  It takes a little more than you and a million of your friends and friends' friends to click "like" for the Holy Spirit to sweep you off your feet in some "new and fresh way."

I'm thinking that God is alive and He's powerful, and I really can't speak directly for Him, but based on my understanding of scripture, He *likely* isn't going to tell some lady I've barely met a bunch of stuff to say to me.  Sure, it could happen.  I guess.  Elijah and all.

But if that's God, I have a beef with him.  Why, God, are you directing some lady who has never dealt with autism in her whole life to come up to me and declare that YOU told her my children are perfectly NORMAL and they are well in Jesus' Name?  (Yes.  They are normal.  Do I really need to hear that condescending stuff from her?  Do I, God?  Because we both know she couldn't hack nursery duty, dealing with just TWO of my six children, but she feels empowered to say this anyhoo.  Is this a "refining" thing, or should I do the "Get behind me, Satan" thing?  I really wanna know.)

Anyway... so God directed her to tell me that. 

THEN, a few months later, He directed her to write some detailed instructions as to how I'm going to run my family.  We're talking a family schedule, the prayers I need to say, and the claims I need to make (or the magic won't work, I s'pose). 

It was very nice of her to write that note for me and present it to me just after I had, with much pain and anguish, revealed to the ladies of the church that one of my sons has been in the mental institution for the tenth time and was quite ill, shockingly ill, our family in turmoil, no help on the horizon.  It really hurt my feelings to see her happy-happy-joy-joy face as she presented me with this instruction without one whisper of, "God wants me to help in a practical way with dinner or childcare!  Call me!" Or, "I'm so heartbroken for you!" Or... something that would show genuine empathy rather than the ol' giddy smile because she has the "joy of the LORD" or whathaveyou.

And dear God, why did You instruct her to spell my name wrong on the paper? 

Is it a "sign" that I should be so, so, sooo done with "church" as an institution?  Because I've been getting a lot of those.

I'm free now.  I'm free.

04 September 2010

Support Group Stuff

I did it.  I went to one.

I've read blog posts written by autistic folks saying that it's doggone insulting that their parents went to "support groups," because that implies that they are a burden to raise and need to get support from others just to make it through this unpleasant experience.

Um, guyyys.  Y'all are different. 

I love my autistic kids, and it is NOT altogether entirely unpleasant to raise them, but I'll tell ya: they don't present the same sort of parenting problems I see my neighbours and previous friends dealing with, mmkay?  They don't.  And a support group is just a place for a mom or dad to go and compare notes and exchange information like "regular" parents do at the playground or through the traditional annual Christmas letter (ugh, honour roll again.  shut up already.).

Support groups just are a way to get together and encourage each other that we can DO THIS PARENTING THING.  And that YES, your perspectives on thus-and-so are right on, and NO, you are not alone in having a hard time potty training kids over four or dealing with the "you are stupid, make that kid behave" stare. 

But ohhh... I just bawled my eyes out after that first support group meeting I went to.  There were other people there, and I'm even getting to know a few people who have more than one autistic child, but I was the only one with four.  No one else even had three.  It's not a numbers game...  I was just sorta hoping someone else like me would be there, that I wouldn't hear about ohh, here's a family with six and they're on TV!  I was kinda hoping that 27 other families in my suburb would also have several diagnosed children and show up. 

Guess not.  I'm hearing there aren't too many families like mine out there, but they are out there.  Maybe they stay home?

I have to say it was wonderful to see other people who had children who struggled in some of the same ways mine do.  I think because the group is led by someone who is a POSITIVE person, sharing resources, stories and that sort of thing, that this is something I'll want to get involved with as much as I can.  No cure stories, and yes, there were some "wish things were different" feelings expressed, but for the most part, it seems this group is going to stay away from the vax debate, the recovery thing, all that.  Here are some brochures on this or that program in the lobby; pick what you want.  And you homeschool?  K homeschools, too.  Ahhh.

And I found something else there.  No.  I didn't. 

SomeONE else found me.  She gave me her email and phone number and then after that?  Messaged me on facebook.  I don't know if she figured out that I don't know what to say and couldn't quite bring myself to write an email, or if she's one of those "extroverted" creatures I hear tell of, but there she was.  A friend.

And we've gotten together to do social stuff.  Twice.  And not only that, on one of those occasions, her two autistic children came by to the house!  And we still liked each other at the end of the visit. 

Yessssss.

Update:  And my friend has a blog.  Please visit and give some luv.

01 September 2010

Emperor's Allergies

Since we learnt about Woodjie's allergies, I've been getting each child tested when a regular appointment is warranted.  G, Elf, and Rose have been tested and are just fine.  But we just got the call about Emperor. 

Ready for a list?

He is very allergic to cats, and we have one.  She's 17, and we just won't get another.  Meanwhile, we've been advised to keep the cat away from him, have him wash his hands after handling her, and change our air filter frequently.  We could do shots for this and his bad dust allergy.  He has an allergy to dogs which is thankfully mild, so no problems there other than the fact that getting a dog wouldn't be such a hot idea.

We already have a documented nickel allergy.  This child has a severe, horrid reaction to nickel.  He had a little bracelet as a preschooler with a large nickel snap.  It took all my bravery to take that boy to the doctor because it sure LOOKED LIKE someone burnt him with a large cigar.  It only took a few days, and it realllly did look awful. 

He also has a milk allergy, just like Woodjie.  He had milk on his cereal and in his cup for breakfast this morning, but lunch was a sad affair.  Potato bread from Woodjie's stash.  Soy milk.  No chips.  You would think that barbecue or salt n vinegar chips wouldn't have milk in them.  (You'd be mistaken.)  He had some Fritos from Woodjie's stash.  Ohhh, some little boy has a lot of adjustments to handle.

D asked why he couldn't just go on eating milk and why bother not feeding him stuff he's allergic to if we haven't seen a major problem as yet?  So... I did some research.

For starters, loose or bloody stools are a common symptom.  Now, I don't search through anyone's stools, but seems to me you wouldn't want ANY blood in your stool, let alone wait for stuff to get so bad that you can SEE the blood in them.  And chronic snuffles.  Emperor is always just a little nasal there, but mind you, I'm guessing it's going to be hard to tell which allergies are bothering him when.

I know you're reading, so there you go, D.

Here's a link readers may find interesting:  there are several different ways to test for allergies.  The method we used for Emperor is called the "fast" method.  As implied, the "fast" method would show a pretty immediate reaction to the allergen in the blood.  To my mind, all the more reason to try to avoid the allergens or at least reduce them.

Bringing Garbage Home

Some people up the street were throwing this table away. It was in pretty bad shape and one of the legs was off. I've glued the leg back...