30 July 2012

Formula is Dangerous

It's just like a drug.  It should be locked up and nurses should not be able to give that fake milk stuff to infants unless they fill out paperwork justifying every bottle.

You have to love New York City.  It's a dirty, grimy, expensive place with lotsa muggings and homeless people.  But the government wants to make sure babies are breastfed and nobody drinks too much soda.  Seriously. 

You do know this will lead to babies going hungry for hours because forms aren't filled out.  It will also lead to too many nurses in the drug cabinets too often and things going missing.  Somehow. 

I got some really nice diaper bags and formula in the hospital when I had Patrick.  He never drank any formula until he ate cereal, when it was mixed in.  Free stuff is good!  Why can't the formula companies get a crack at buying my business?  Let them try.  Peter Rabbit is really cute.



27 July 2012

Hanging Out This Afternoon

Rose is supervising Woodjie's creative process.

I'm teaching Rose "ladder checkmate."  The second queen is an upside-down rook.

I'm also in the process of teaching Rose how the knight moves.  If your knight starts on a star, he'll have to hop over to the other star.  If he starts on a smiley, he ends on a smiley.  Two up, one over.  He always winds up on the opposite colour from which he starts.  The confusing thing about it is that this is true all around where the knight starts.  In the center of the board, there are eight squares to which the knight can move.

After Rose does a chess exercise, she gets to pick out a sticker and put it on her new princess. 

26 July 2012

13 Things Your Child's Teacher Won't Tell You

An article from Reader's Digest.  Hm.  These people have over 1,140,000 followers on facebook (!!) so they have to be good, right?  A few items from their list:

**
"Kids used to go out and play after school and resolve problems on their own. Now, with computers and TV, they lack the skills to communicate. They don't know how to get past hurt feelings without telling the teacher and having her fix it."  

This is one of those true/not true kinds of statements.  Sure, in the old days, we learnt not to whine to our teachers about every little problem.  That's because we got the "who cares/go deal with it yourself" line from them.  A little bullying never hurt anyone, was the prevailing attitude.  Some of us older folks lived through hell.  For years.  Because of that.

So overall, it's a good thing things have changed.  The flip side of that is that now teachers and principals seem to have to referee every hurt feeling, and parents (knowing now the dangers of bullying, who can blame them?) are often getting into the mess themselves.  But I don't think that children are entirely different than they were 40 years ago.

**
"When I hear a loud belch, I remember that a student's manners are a reflection of his parents'." 

And when I hear a bunch of bullcrap, I remember that it's probably coming from some super-liberal childless teacher who just got her first job. Tell you what.  After you raise four or more children to adulthood without any belching incidents whatsoever, I'll believe that your children are just as perfect as you think you are.  Until then, shut up.

**
"You do your job, I'll do mine. I have parents who are CEOs of their own companies come in and tell me how to run my classroom. I would never think to go to their office and tell them how to do their jobs." 

Ok, chicky.  You want to go there.  You are no CEO and equating your job with being the CEO of a major corporation is a wee mite big-headed.  So there's that.  Maybe let's go down a few notches to "do you want fries with that?" and pretend you manage a restaurant.  You're not super-powerful, but you're not nobody, either.  You answer to others above you and you also answer to the customer across the register from you. 

It can be complicated, managing people who sometimes have unrealistic expectations.  I appreciate that.  But I think most parents are pretty reasonable in their requests.  You have their child for most of his waking hours during the school year.  They are helping to pay for your salary and you are also asking them to help with homework and to back you up when issues with the student come up.  I know you have certain parameters in which to do your job, but you could at least listen a bit and work WITH the parent.

Aaargh. 

The "sources" of these happy quotes include teachers from several states and um, the American Federation of Teachers.  That's right.  The teachers' union is getting a chance to "create dialogue" with public school parents, and this is the tripe they came up with.  Meh.  :/

Gooood Morning!

Wake up in the middle of the night because Woodjie is hopping about.  Sure enough, he has to poop. 

Good wiping and hand-washing are foreign concepts to this kid, so I have to get out of bed.  Tonight Woodjie is explosive, runny, messed up all his clothes and about half the floor... smelly bad. 

Aaaaand there is NO WATER.  Just air when I turn on the faucet. Ew ew ew ew.  I dragged up an entire mega-mega Sam's Club size of baby wipes and just did what I could.  Changed clothes.  Can't even flush toilet or wash clothes.  Ew. 

Repeat this scene about four different times in the night.  This morning we had a trickle of water so you betya we flushed/ washed/ bathed Woodjie and changed him AAA-gain.

*pa-yeeww*

Laundry.  More washing.  The air is just... heavy with this stuff.  I'm about to get breakfast for littles when an important phone call comes in.  Emergency level.  I MUST, within the next hour, dig up every known financial record I have for the state.  Including burial plan policy numbers, amount and account numbers of savings accounts, worth of the real estate I own, bla bla bla.  SURE, I just did this a few months ago, but that's not good enough.  I need to drop everything and get it done again, NOW.

 Kids are hopping for breakfast and I tuck them in bed (as if that's gonna work, but this was really urgent). 

I sure hope my paperwork is coherent.  Ever have to dive for stuff like this because someone made you JUMP?  First thing in the morning?  I sure hope it is done well...

Called city utilities after digging their number up to ask if the water is safe to drink.  This answer I swear is almost an exact quote:  Well, nobody told US it wasn't.  What?  Did we test the water?  We've been BUSY.  I guess we'll test the water... just that... thing is, we never got a chance.  So.  I think the water is safe to drink but I don't want to say yes or no about a thing like that on the record.

REALLY???  How much money do these people earn each year?  Make me feel safe.  Today we are drinking bottled water.   Also?  Woodjie is wandering about in nothing but underwear today.

24 July 2012

Photos From the Kansas Open!

It's a real trial to get anything close to a REAL picture of these children...
This is my "I paid a billion dollars for this trip and I will have at least one good picture of you all so stand there and look happy or else" photo.  Look at Elf doing the "I hate standing here but I'm going to get it done so Mom is not mad" cringe.


Awww!  G was asleep on the other bed.  Over the weekend, the boys played in the Quick tournament as well as five games that can last up to four hours each.  We had a great vacation and we're home now.   I've crawled out from under the piles of laundry and vacuumed a room or two, even.  :)

21 July 2012

Kerrie And Me

I'm the crazy lady in the Happy Elf Homeschool shirt.  I had to squat so I wouldn't dwarf everyone.
I can now count my bloggy friend Kerrie as my IRL friend.  I am at the Kansas Open with G, Elf and Emperor so we met at the infamous McDonald's in Johnson County.  I even met Roberto.  He was so pleased to meet a friend of Kerrie's.  Kerrie, in real life, is one of those people who know everyone and if she doesn't?  She WILL know something interesting about you by the time you leave her presence.  While we were hanging out, she somehow found out some lady at an adjacent table was some mutual acquantance's fourth grade teacher... and was able to extract this information within about 30 seconds.  Really. :)

19 July 2012

Church Hopping


Bill The Church Hopper - By Jordan Mederich from worshiphousemedia on GodTube.

This is really a sad "churchy" take on people who go from one church to another when things don't work out.  I mean, really???  Do you think any person in his right mind is going to wake up that early and spend several hours of his day for a free bagel and some Starbucks coffee?  And let me add something else:  churches are the ones who are encouraging church-hopping.  Yes, they are.  Have you read their ads?  To hear them tell it, their church is the only one where "dynamic worship" happens or oh!  The latest ad I got from a church informed me that "God is real" at their place.

Um.  Yeah.  Because if you're going to one of those other churches, they don't have "relevant" ministry, God isn't "real," worship isn't "contemporary," and the atmosphere is not "friendly."  Seriously, these people would do well just to save their printing and postage costs and... I dunno... maybe minister to the people God ALREADY brought to their door? 

Would the Apostle Peter send out mass-mailings?  Emphasize the ways in which his particular church has lively services (thus implying everyone else is a fuddy-duddy)?   Do "free" car washes and raise thousands of dollars to go on "life-changing" ministry trips to other countries, but then come home and still not talk to their neighbours or let their kids play with the autistic children next door?  Yes, I'm going there. 

Meh.  It ain't worth the free bagel and the coffee or anything else, is what I'm figuring.  But you have to credit the real church hopper (not this churched-up actor guy) for at least trying to find a place to fit in somewhere.

18 July 2012

The Cyclops Child

Have you read it?  A STILL PRACTICING physician writes of participating in deceiving parents into thinking their infant is dead, kidnapping him, torturing him by secluding him and amputating his finger, and waiting around for him to die after 13 days of life.  He refers to the child as a "monster" and even in his later "clarification" essay (yeah, people got outraged at his original essay, imagine that), explained that he never told the parents about the child or took pictures because really, no parent wants a momento of something so ugly and awful.

Well.

Ok, I have to admit that this was 50 years ago.  Also?  Google-image search "cyclops child" and you'll see some of these deformities - as well as the one described in the article - are not really surviveable.  They are hideous to look at.  It breaks your heart - be warned!  Children with ears in the middle of their faces and no mouths, or deformed mouths.  One giant eye.

Dr. Neuman further describes how it upset him that staff began missing work to avoid hearing the baby cry inconsolably from its hiding spot in a back room.  He goes into great detail about how he could have smothered it, exactly when he had a grand opportunity, but considering that smothering a baby leaves some telltale marks.  Maybe no one would really care, though...

"Over all the years that followed, I found myself thinking from time to time of that picture, my hand over the baby's mouth. I knew then, and I still think now, that the right thing to do would have been to kill that baby. It wasn't really a baby; it just sounded like a baby--that's what I tell myself.  But I would like to stop thinking about it. After all, the whole thing happened over fifty years ago."

I know.  It happened over 50 years ago.  But it's amazing to see even now a good number of people think that it would be the right thing to do just to kill the kid.  And thank God there's abortion on demand today!  Oh, wait.  It's a "secular" website.  Thank The Goddess, then.

These people are our neighbours, and some of them work in hospitals.

17 July 2012

It's Funny Because It's TRUE.

Fake news article... but only just.  A teacher in an underprivileged school yaps on about how she's changed lives and mentored and all this other stuff.  OH.  Man.  It felt like reading the liberal teacher-chick blogs.  You know the ones.

Then counter point.  "Written" by a fourth-grader.  "I fully understand that our nation is currently facing an extreme shortage of teachers and that we all have to make do with what we can get," he writes. "But does that really mean we have to be stuck with some privileged college grad who completed a five-week training program and now wants to document every single moment of her life-changing year on a Tumblr?"

"For crying out loud, we're not adopted puppies you can show off to your friends."

No.  Because adopted puppies?  You have to train diligently.  You're entirely responsible for them.  You don't give up your "career" in teaching a puppy after three years.  You just don't.  You're either a good doggie momma or you're one of those flighty people who dump the dog off at the pound just as the puppy cuteness wears off and he's learnt some bad habits.

16 July 2012

Poor Woodjie.

His left knee is so swollen and hot that he is crying occasionally.  He's been to the doctor and has antibiotics.  Now we just have to wait for them to work.  The area feels hot.  We were told it is probably a bug bite the got infected.  :(

The Princess Dress

Worth every penny of the $5 I spent on it at the thrift store.  Rose just loves it.

15 July 2012

Bouncin' Boobs for Science!




Could you ever imagine an entire engineering festival selling boys the idea that they can be sex objects and great scientists at the same time?  Have a few oiled-up shirtless beefcakes strut their stuff in Speedos, do a few group-choreographed pelvic thrusts while chanting, "Chemical reaction!" maybe?  Could you?  To sold-out crowds at stadiums and whatnot?  And signing autographs after their "performance?"

That's right.  It will never happen.  People presume boys are more intelligent than that.  They have more self-respect than that.  They don't need to evaluate some dude's shaking wiener and butt to decide on a science career.

Why can't anyone respect the intelligent young women?  Is this really the sort of thing that "inspires" a girl to achieve academically?  I'm thinking no.

14 July 2012

Committing Suicide Because of Son's Autism

It can be difficult to deal with autism.  Or.  Rather.  It can be difficult to deal with autism when you don't have enough help.

A blogger recently was horrified when she saw that "want to commit suicide because of my son's autism" were the search words that led to her blog.  So she wrote a post in the hopes that the original searcher will find it and others are writing responses of their own.

I think searches are extremely cursory.  But yeah, they do say something about the person making them.  Someone searching those terms might just be feeling sad and want to see if others feel as desperate and awful as they do sometimes but have no set plan in place.  I mean, it doesn't count unless you go through with it.  I might also google "want to become Olympic swimmer" but believe me, I have no plans to actually do so.  I might just want to learn about swimming, extreme swimming culture, or whatever.  I don't even own a swimsuit.

I think all this horror is... odd.  Who would NOT think about killing themselves if they had children who desperately NEED services but realistically speaking will never get them.  I tell you, you do not know what you are talking about if you think this is not a normal feeling. 

Have you any idea how funding actually works?  Losing a parent bumps your kid up on the magical "how disabled/entitled to funding am I" checklist.  There are limited funds.  You are competing with others for those funds.  A rational parent, one who really loves her children more than life itself, would have to at least seriously consider it, especially if things are going badly just then.  Remember, normal parent-guilt gets amplified a whole boodle when you have an autistic child or four.  If you don't have support?  If you don't have balance?  Things can get dangerous, fast.

It's sick, really.  But that's how the system works.  I mean, with food stamps at least, one could ask, "Is your income below x level?  Do you have fewer than (number) dollars?" and *zing* you have benefits.

With disabilities, here's how it works:

Are you disabled?  Yes?  OK.  We have 200 slots for this special waiver that will give your family some help.  200 slots should do for the millions of people in the WHOLE STATE, right?  So all y'all people who have some disability-related trouble need to put on a really good song and dance for our committee.  Tell us why you are more worthy than everyone else in the entire state who is applying.

Oh!  Did I mention?  Only a few slots are open at any one given time.  Someone has to die or age out of the system to free the slot you want.  Also, you have to prove that your child would likely be institutionalized without this help.  But we're only giving help to a few people so guys?  Bare your souls, send us detailed forms about your income (and does your kid have a burial plan?  We need to know.  Go find the policy number.), go to monthly meetings that last for hours, fill out more paperwork... and then just hope no one else more disabled than your kid appears before the committee.  Someone else more disabled than your kid?  Would ruin it for you.  You start hoping the other families never hear about funding.  You're not going to share information with anyone.

It's like a sick game show where the prize is the help to which every family with a truly disabled child should be entitled in the first place.  I know for a fact that many families that are pushed to the extremes that, well, I'm not even going to outline.

Thankfully, one of my children is one of the lucky 200 children now using this Sara Lopez waiver.  I'm very, very grateful, but I think the process shouldn't have taken years.

I don't think this blog searcher, if he/she is desperate for help, is the only one out there hoping for real compassion and some tangible support. I'll tell you something.  It probably isn't one person's mental health problem that led to any such search.  Let's not think that.  My honest reaction isn't an uncaring one, I hope, but I'm genuinely not surprised to read that people are googling all kinds of stuff when they're looking for a way out of a bad spot.

Suicide is not the right way.  But are we willing to actually fund the right way?  I'm asking.

13 July 2012

Breakfast At My House

Good morning!  You can tell who sits where by the Polish pottery pattern. Do you like my flowers?  I put them in an old peach juice container.

11 July 2012

Happy World Population Day!

It's today!  Whoopeee!

To celebrate, let's make sure there is far less "population" to celebrate next year.  Just keep people in the third world nations from reproducing, and it's gonna happen! We need to educate these chicks and give them "family planning services."

And it's working!  In fact, maternal deaths have decreased because fewer people are becoming mothers!  (Can't have a maternal death without... you know... being maternal and all.)  "From these latest estimates," writes Babatunde Osotimehin, "we can see that investments in improving access to reproductive health are bearing fruit."

"Bearing fruit."  Oh ba ha ha!

This dude is appointed by the UN to sit in judgment of who is getting married "too young" or having babies "too early."  Notice nobody ever messes with the reproduction abilities of a man, folks.  Men would not put up with that crap.  Women shouldn't, either.

Bah.  Now I'm not in the mood to eat the cake I prepared for this special occasion.  It had sprinkles, too.

10 July 2012

Communication Arts

My teacher's guide.



















LIFEPAC Christian curriculum comes with ten workbooks and a teacher's guide.  I think LIFEPACs are clearer and simpler than many of the other things we've tried.  It's also extremely easy to tell where you are in the school year by how many workbooks you still have left to do.

Don't let the workbook format fool you.  This isn't a drill-type of curriculum.  It's lively, thoughtful, and it doesn't talk down to the student.   Most questions are multiple choice or require only a short sentence.  Perfect for Emperor who struggles to write long passages coherently, but is ready to learn some key concepts of the English language.
A sample page for your perusal.

The single thing I dislike about LIFEPACs are the teacher's guides.  Ughh, I hate them.  I've somewhat solved the "dig through the whole book to find what you need" problem by using Post-It notes for tabs.  But the teacher guides could use some major revision. 

We moved away from LIFEPACs for a couple of years and I wish I had stuck with them.  I think if we continue homeschooling Emperor that that is exactly what we are going to do.  With LIFEPAC, Emperor enjoys his English studies.  He didn't with the last curriculum we used.




A Man's Home is His Garbage Dump

Some hoarder dude left a trash pile around... for decades... that is big enough to show up on Google Maps... and cops and social services have been back and forth with this guy "discussing" the problem and doing a "welfare check" occasionally.

Finally, the county is stepping in and the fellow shows up in court going, "I've been sick.  So lemme have some time to collect evidence and get a lawyer." 

Really. 

But most comments on these sorts of stories sympathize with the hoarder.  He should have rights.  That's his stuff you're touching.  (Sure, it's full of rats, and is a health and fire hazard to everyone within a 5-mile radius, but it's his stuff.)  Bla. Bla. Bla.

See, I don't think so.  Weeds overgrowing a place that are consistently over a foot tall, or huuuge bunches of trash piled about the yard, means something needs to be done.  When things are way over the line we all think of as being in the "normal" range, and it's been that way for a while, something needs to be done.

And yet... around here?  The cops will look at the cars IN YOUR DRIVEWAY, and if the license plates are expired, you must have a junker car on your hands.  You get a citation.  Great source of revenue.

Or some other chick gets fined for growing tomatoes in her front lawn.  Sure, it's tacky and I think pretty ugly but hey.  Her land.  Why can't we all just be reasonable?  Huh?

09 July 2012

The Computer Just Knows.

Some psychic ability in police software consults the spirits and "knows" when and where the next troublespot will be.  It can pinpoint what's going to go wrong tonight within 500 feet.  The archaic notion that cops need to "walk a beat" and form relationships within a community is rightly derided. 

Let's just use the cops "effectively."  They're really just widgets, replaceable, who cares.  We'll just decrease cop hours.  With this new software, officers just pop out of nowhere when trouble starts.  Neighbourhood watches?  Thing of the past.  The computer will tell you when to worry.  So shut up.  And don't worry.

All this will make for better officers because their paperwork will be virtual as well.

"All they need now," quipped one commenter, "is virtual doughnuts."  I'm thinking they can find those in CafeWorld.  With sprinkles.
 


07 July 2012

The Special Shoebox

Elf is pictured holding the shoebox he got for his tenth birthday.  He was having some trouble coming to terms with the fact that he is not a real Keebler elf, so a retirement party was in order.  The "Keebler elves" made this box with some xeroxed cookie pictures and personal messages taped all over.  Inside were a package of cookies, a new book, and the special "Elf ID" you see below.
The "Keebler elves" made this genuine Elf ID with a xeroxed picture of Elf, a Keebler brand cutout and a typed sworn statement from "Ernie Elf."  It's all laminated.  Elf is over twelve years old, but he still has this stuff and it is probably one of his favourite possessions.  What I didn't realize was that he thought the Elf ID and the box were really from the Keebler elves until one day about six months later when I was talking with a friend about how I made these items...  This box and some of his favourite little things (including the ID) belong on his bed and no one else can touch them but him.


06 July 2012

Stupid People...

... make stupid laws.

It is illegal for just anyone to light fireworks here, you know.  There are some people who have lost their home when fireworks got up into the wooden shake roof.  Or children who have lost eyes or gotten burnt.

So. 

Yay for no fireworks being set off by stupid people who are unlicensed and don't know how to handle them in my city!  You'd think.

But noooo.  See, there are huge "fireworks tents" on about any big streetcorner here in the weeks leading up to July 4.  Because you can sell fireworks.  Just don't light them here.

Yeahhh.  You know... I'm not anti-fireworks.  I'm anti-stupid people.  I'm anti-stupid people who light huge rocket-y things right in the MIDDLE of the street in front of my house and probably about everywhere else in this city.  I don't recognize the drunkards this year, so I'm imagining they wandered over a few blocks so they wouldn't light their own houses on fire....

I know we cannot legislate common sense, but I hate July 4 because no one else seems to have it on that day.

Seriously?


This guy is a real, actual congressman from Indiana (!??), and he thinks public schools should be just like the madrassas and teach children from the Koran.  Probably only male children.  This guy is elected?  Ok, where are the newspeople and why haven't they pounced on this crackpot?

03 July 2012

Science 2012 - 2013

D bought everything except the "activity manual" at a thrift store for less than $5 total.  I repaired the science book cover with some Hello Kitty duct tape, bought an activity book and we're in business for the year. 
BJU, Grade 6 Teacher's Manual
 I've noticed in looking at science curriculum that many of the same topics are covered in most texts written for this level.  Sixth grade books seem to push to cover absolutely everything:  plants/animals, earthquakes, volcanoes, erosion, the stars and solar system, electricity, atoms and molecules, machines and how they work... whew.
BJU Grade 6 Activity Book

We're using BJU Press Science this year.  I like the workbooks that go with the curriculum.  You can tell that someone put a lot of time and effort into making these colourful and inviting and easy-to-follow. I also appreciate that the curriculum is definitely written from a Christian point of view without being too "preachy."  For example, there is an "Earthquakes in the Bible" activity page.  It isn't really "science" per se, but it's at least related enough to the topic of earthquakes as to be an interesting aside. 

The textbooks are a good size without being overbearing and somewhere between hard and impossible to navigate (like ones they use in the local public middle school.  Homework is hell with those).  And as is usual with BJU stuff, you're going to LOVE the teacher's manual.  I think about the only criticism I would have is that  the teacher's manual is not all in one spiral book; there is also a "key" to the activity book that comes separately as well as a test booklet.  It would just be easier to have, say, everything dealing with Chapter One in the same area of the same book and reproducible tests instead of diving for this and that in a separate book here or there.  It's just one more thing to keep track of during the year.




Zelda Game Review!


If you play Zelda, you'll love this review from the "Terrible Gamer."

01 July 2012

The Perfect Crime

1.  Find a disabled person in the state of Illinois. 

2.  Beat, starve or otherwise mistreat him until he is ALMOST dead, but not quite.  After the victim goes to the hospital, the state might start investigating you but meh.

3.  If the victim dies, the investigation is off!  Woo-hoo!

4.  Conclusion:  unlike about any other type of murder, nobody cares as long as the victim is handicapped in some way.  

This is the reality that disability advocates have to fight.  This is absolutely sick.

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...