Princess Hairdo

I used the "baby hair" tutorial on this website and used an old sock in her hair. She doesn't have enough hair or patience to look like a "manga" character, though. Princess will have to do. I also didn't have the patience to wind up bits of her hair everywhere, so I popped a scrunchie on it for a bit of foo-foo flair. Rose is running around everywhere grabbing her "donut" bun and asking everyone to "Ook a me shirt!" Pretty.

"I Bus!"

Happy Birthday to dear Rose! Isn't she *so cute?* She got to go on the bus to preschool with her big brother. Here she is on the porch being presented with her new backpack. She is going to be in a "special needs" room, but she doesn't get the super special needs (deluxe!) room with a one-to-one aide like Woodjie. Judging from the couple short sentences sent home, she likely sat still and wasn't sure what to do today. She got to eat GOLDFISH crackers for a snack. Elf, Emperor and I went to the *new* HyVee in town (overpriced, bad parking, no familiar cracks in the floors and 1980s decor... waah, I miss it) and then to lunch (Chic-fil-A, yumm!) and OfficeMax to buy special "Black Pearl" erasers that Elf can NOT live without. Cannot. I would say that it was eeeerily quiet with *only* two children, but it wasn't. I am now realizing that Emperor talks a great deal and seldom requires a response (that was for all you Pride and Prejudice fans). Anyyyway, I also want to wish a Happy Australia Day to all y'all who are a day ahead of us! I would have posted more pics of Rose, but it's HARD getting both the children on the bus with their stuff and not slipping on the ice.

Hair Bugs!

"Other cultures do not see lice as a problem, and don't understand why we've asked them to get rid of it. Some families have their own remedies from their countries, which never seem to work. Can you tell this battle has just exhausted us? We spend more time communicating to parents about lice than about their children's reading."

What would you say to this public school teacher?

Apparently, schools shouldn't be bothering with the "check for lice and send kids home" thing so much any more.  I guess that if your child is assigned a seat next to another kid with bugs and ickiness, it's just your tough.  Further, educators are celebrating this recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics because (yayy!) that means they can get back to their real job, which is teaching.

Um.  Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

Even in the old days when Patrick was in kindergarten,  the school would not tell you which kids had lice. I just happened to be able to be the involved parent and notice that (Name) was not in school for four days following the "a student in your child's class..." note that was sent home.  This girl sat next to Patrick!  Yuck.

I was grossed out.  It was the first day of KINDERGARTEN, folks.  What kind of trashy family sends their kid to school with head lice SO BAD that a rookie teacher would notice it on the first day of kindergarten??  I knew where this family lived, and they weren't in the homeless shelter or any sort of extreme situation like that.  They drove nice cars and lived in a nicer house than mine!  They just lived with bugs while they wore designer clothes??!  What is up with that?

The school can't control these people and what they do at home, but they SHOULD forbid them from walking in and sharing hairbrushes with all the other students.  They SHOULD bother to check for head lice occasionally, at least in the younger grades when kids are huggy and seated close together.   And if you've been sent home with the bugs, the school shouldn't let you back in until you are bug (and egg!) free.   Have to miss work to deal with this?  Tough nits.  There is no excuse for sending your kids to school to infect mine.  I know YOU wouldn't appreciate it if the situation were reversed.

And you know what?  I've never had lice, and neither have my children.  But that's just fortune and chance.  There is no shame in HAVING lice, just in KEEPING them.  We all know that little girl could have passed on those bugs to Patrick in a matter of seconds. I feel the same way about roaches.  Anyone can get roaches, and sometimes they are hard to get rid of.  But there is NO reason just to live with the problem and do nothing.  Eew.

From the post:

"The worst thing about lice is that your head itches. That, and knowing that you have insects crawling around on your scalp. Other than that, it doesn't get any worse. Strep throat, on the other hand, can get really bad. So can influenza, measles, chicken pox and the mumps. And unlike those afflictions, lice aren't terribly contagious. They can be controlled with reasonable precautions."


"So all in all, there's no compelling medical reason to keep a kid home from school just because she has head lice. The cost of a missed day of school is more than the benefit of a day of quarantine."

Oh, realllly?  The benefit of a day of quarantine is for the UNINFECTED children, not the kid with the nits.  Or the pink eye.  Or the flu.  Or whatever.  I keep my children home when they are sick or buggy.  So should you.

The Ten Commandments in Text

1. no1 b4 me. srsly

2. dnt wrshp pix/idols

3. no omg's...

Go check out Jungle Mom's post on "What if God Texted?" to read the rest. You'll enjoy getting to know her. :)

The Possum Socks

My husband is wearing socks made of possums and merino wool. Yup. Bonnie sent 'em to us, along with a ton of other stuff, from New Zealand (postage = yowie). There were gifts for EVERYONE in the family, including D. He just LOVES them, and has been telling anyone who will listen (and probably a few people who won't) about how he has possums on his feet. It's true! Wikipedia tells us that possums are Australian native animals, imported to New Zealand and devastating to the local ecosystem. So they kill 'em and make clothes out of them. These are not the same 'possums you're used to seeing around here, though. Those are opossums, and nicknamed 'possums. But they're not possums. Now you know. D will be wearing these socks to work tomorrow and showing them (and the packaging) to everybody. Seriously, these socks are the best and most unique gift he has received from anyone - myself included - in years. Thanks, Bonnie!

Eating School Lunches

Interesting little public school lunch blog here. (I don't think the lunches blogged so far seem very terrible!) Pictured are our lunches today. It's pretty much the same every day except Tuesdays, when we cook. Tuesdays are often our days to get adventurous. Note that Woodjie has a different lunch than the other children. He has a pretty limited selection of food he enjoys. When I'm out of the house, I'm always looking for something new (milk and egg-free) that might be palatable to him.

Famous Australian Landmarks

Um... this one is worth your time. It will be a new favourite, especially for my Australian readers. I saw the link to this at Brenda's Family Revised blog.

Our Classroom.

Hey! I'm participating in Darcy's Not Back to School blog hop and posting my "school room." There it is. Of course, it rarely looks like this. Usually during the school day, it has Elf and Emperor's papers and Woodjie's therapy workboxes and special weighted vest. I store Elf and Emperor's school supplies in a handy bookshelf near my desk. The bottom picture is a peek behind a curtain at our storage shelf in the basement. All our curriculum not currently in use is packed away here, mostly in Huggies boxes. They are nice, sturdy boxes with handles. And since I buy a lot of 'em, they're in uniform sizes. If you zoom in, you'll see that I TRY to group things by a rough grade estimate.

Congrats, Henry the Tuatara!

On becoming the father of 11 new babies at the age of 111. Chris sent us a book with rhymes all about the tuatara from New Zealand, so Elf and Emperor were very excited to see his picture and read his story in the news.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

We'll be reading the more traditional form of this book. Thanks, Jungle Mom, for letting me swipe this pic!

Pioneer Log House.

If the pioneers were all about seven, and had to build their log cabins out of pretzel sticks and peanut butter, not many of them would have survived the long, cold winter. This is in part because little children like to eat candy houses. How did the wicked witch in the Hansel and Gretel story ever make it through a good hailstorm? It's what I want to know. Thanks, Zimms Zoo, for this fun idea. It was too cool to wait 'till Tuesday to make.

Jesse James

Elf's artwork has been featured on Casdok's Faces of Autism blog.

September 11, 2001

Do you have a "September 11, 2001" story to share? Rick Moore of the Holy Coast blog is collecting them. You can pop over to his blog and leave a comment or email him your story.

My story is not very exciting. Little Elf was a toddler and Emperor was my snuggly baby. We took a nap together in the morning. It was so peaceful. September is the month when things start to get cooler and a nap with a sleepy baby is one of the most blessed things in the world.

The phone rang.

D asked me if I've been watching the news. Um, no... What's going on?

He told me a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City, and that a second plane just hit another tower and the buildings collapsed.

Yawn... huh? OK, this is not possible for the buildings to collapse. And... with two planes, it couldn't be an accident?

Duh! Just... turn on the news, ok?

Um, ok, but D... you are not understanding because you have never been to New York. Those buildings are really big.

It's on the news...

No, see... the buildings, they're REALLY BIG and they can't fall down...

*sigh* Just turn on the news...

I did, and it looked like he was right, though of course I was quite sure that the news people had fallen for an elaborate hoax. Any moment now, some clown with a cell phone camera will break in to the news on air and show us the buildings are JUST FINE. Imagine the nerve of these newspeople, broadcasting all this stuff! You see, it isn't really true because the buildings are really big.

I think it took me about two days to believe the news was real. And what convinced me that it was was a flag flying at half staff. I looked around town. Other flags were at half staff. Looking more, other people had flags everywhere.

So it *is* true. The flag told me so. Looking back, it's strange that I would not believe all the people on tv. I mean, really believe them deep down. I had to look around to see that other people believed it first. Patrick and G believed it, and within weeks I had little drawings everywhere of planes flying into buildings and Islamics being blown up by bombs. I don't think I saved these. I don't think I'd want to.

What are your memories?

Thanks, Jack and Annie!

Jack and Annie in Australia have sent us back our Flat Stanleys after their adventures. They enclosed a note and a gift of an Australia puzzle, some Vegemite, and some "footy" cards. I'm sure you'll love the Vegemite videos, but let's just say that we enjoy the footy cards and the puzzles a bit more LOL!

Emperor Eating Vegemite

Emperor has been going on and on for MONTHS about how he's going to move to Australia. About how when the Vegemite arrives, he'll prove he is a natural Australian. Yum! The poor fellow literally vomited about four times after this video was made. I'm sorry, but I don't think he's booking a flight anytime soon. There are many other nice things about Australia, though.

G Eating Vegemite

Elf Eating Vegemite.

This is Real and Not For Play

**************** *** ** *** Are you goin' vote Obama way? I saw this video and I'm not sure if this is REALLY a supporting-Obama-type video. I mean, ALMOST every bad stereotype you could ever think of is in this video. Please, guys, Obama is not "hood." He's not my fave, but I also can recognize that he's extremely intelligent and can speak in full sentences. Good grief.

Package From New Zealand!

Everyone dove in on the goodies. I also got a kiwi tea towel and a wooden NZ magnet. Elf and Emperor ran away happily with a book and some "bugs" before I snapped this picture. We got postcards, a keychain, a puzzle, some books, little notebooks and bookmarks, candies and a baby bumblebee for the little ones. Thanks to the H family! It's strange timing indeed because I've been thinking of Chris all afternoon. She's had a routine surgery that went bad and is currently in the ICU. Chris and family, all our prayers are with you and your precious family today.

The Flat Stanleys are having an awesome time at Chris's house in New Zealand. Have you ever heard the New Zealand national anthem sung while you looked at scenic clips of the country? Now's your chance! God Defend New Zealand sounds harder to sing than God Bless America, but maybe it's because they're singing it kinda show-y. Wonder how little primary school kids sound singing it? And do you see the lambs in the video? Did you know there are more sheep than PEOPLE in New Zealand? It's true. They must wear a lot of wool there; too bad I'm allergic because it's warm stuff.