Love = Buy Scholastic Books

Dear Parents:  buying books from our book fair will improve your child's vocabulary and make him more likely to go to college.  Not buying our books means that you hate your kid and are a terrible parent.  You are under no obligation to buy any books whatsoever, but we've used class time to take your child through the fair so we could prepare this wish list.

A Picture Post!

This was Patrick's "ghetto racket."  He bought it (in better condition) at a thrift store for $3 and was too cheap to spend his money on a new one.  His team-mates kinda made fun of him for it.  I finally bought him a new one, but everyone remembers Patrick as the "ghetto racket" guy.

Elf got a magazine from Hy-Vee grocery store in the mail and tried their strawberry-banana recipe.  He added a bit of topping as well.

"Aaaaaaammmm!"  Too bad the pic does not have sound effects.  It's part of the whole dessert experience.  Elf demanded I take this photograph and share it with you.

Woodjie's first day of kindergarten/summer school was Monday!  Woodjie is now a SHARK because that's the mascot of this elementary school  He is in their "integrate the disabled kids and hopefully not spend any money on them next year" program.  Ok, it has a nicer name than that.   But hopefully he does well!  I have no idea... there are no notes home in elementary.  I suppose I will call his teacher in a couple weeks and say "hi!" after the class is well-established.

Miss Rose is Vogue-ing a shirt I lengthened with a bit of fabric.  The pic doesn't do it justice; the shirt flares everywhere as she walks about and is really quite cute.

I hemmed in/made narrower a medium T-shirt I bought at the thrift store for a dollar.  I'm thinking to make the shirt more "dress" like that I will need a ruffle or something at the bottom.  Or.  With a little less smiling and the right footwear she can just be Emo.

Tales for Young Men

"Grendel's plan, I think, will be
What it has been before, to invade this hall
And gorge his belly with our bodies.  If he can,
If he can.  And I think, if my time will have come,
There'll be nothing to mourn over, no corpse to
    prepare
For its grave:  Grendel will carry our bloody
Flesh to the moors, crunch on our bones
And smear torn scraps of our skin on the walls
Of his den.  No, I expect no Danes
Will fret about sewing our shrouds, if he wins. 
And if death does take me, send the hammered
Mail of my armor to Higlac, return
The inheritance I had from Hrethel, and he
From Wayland.  Fate will unwind as it must!"

(Beowulf, lines 442-455, translated by Burton Raffel, Signet Classic edition)

Emperor seems to read well enough.  It is not his favourite subject, but he likes Beowulf a lot.  "It's very pretty," he tells me. "I like writing that is beautiful and has a lot of adjectives in it.  This lets me know what is really going on." 

Yep.  There's really no mistake about what's happening in literature like this, and the character motivation doesn't seem to be so deep or introspective as many tales marketed to children seem to be.  It's understandable to Emperor in a way standard "kid" literature is NOT. He has a lot of trouble with your usual kid-fiction. 

Emperor is currently being tested by our school district to see if he needs any sort of special services.  Lately the tests they have been giving him are reported to be boring.  Emperor tells me they had him read and answer stories about some child and a dragon.  "But, the story had no taste to it."

No taste?  Surely my kid isn't getting all highbrow and pining for classic literature only?  I asked him a few questions about the readings he was supposed to do.  One is about a dragon and a small town, he told me, rolling his eyes.  Well what about it?  "Four letters," he said.  "L-A-M-E."

Stories about odd creatures such as dragons and Grendel and Orcs and what-have-you are usually very exciting! 

Ughhh... Emperor explained that this one is about a dragon that steals people away from the town.  Everyone was scared and didn't know what to do until some little kid went off to find out what the problem was.  "And ALL SHE NEEDED TO DEAL WITH THE DRAGON WAS A MAP AND SOME FOOD."

As if this weren't insulting enough to the reader's intelligence, Emperor reports that the kid brought along as her companion some fluffy thing called MISTER FEATHERS.  Here I got another good eyeroll from him at the stupidity of the story. 

"Mister Feathers and the girl find the dragon and then they just TALK with the dragon.  The dragon tells them he is picking up all the people to save them from the avalanche that will be destroying the town soon." He shook his head and put his hand up to his brow as though the whole ordeal were painful to recount.

"THE END."

"The story just sucked, Mom."

Well, maybe it did.  I don't fault the school for having sucky stories during the testing process because I'm thinking that it might be a test to see if the child is able to remain calm and polite under duress or something.  (I dunno.)  Usually these "tests" have a hidden objective and the thing you think you're getting tested on isn't the thing they're really measuring. 

But on the whole, I hear boys are "behind" on reading.  I wonder at us as parents for not having better literature choices than the Junie B. Jones series in our personal family libraries.  Sorry, I hate those.  They are just WRONG. 

Am I the only one with reading pet peeves?  Looks like I passed mine onto my children somehow.

How We Act in School

Mrs. F:

Elf has had a *revelation* yesterday. He has been informed that attending school is a privilege, that the right to an education is not outlined in the Constitution, and that he is to do his best work at school out of respect for himself, his family, his teachers, and the taxpayer. (And so on and so on. The Mom lecture.)

I understand that he received a 70 on a recent math exam. If he did his best and tried to make up the work and/or do additional work and strive to understand the concepts, I would have to be ok with this even though it is a poor grade. But he has gotten the idea that a 60 is passing, that anything over 60 is good enough, and he didn't bother to take the scheduled makeup. That's his fault and I'm not writing to ask for another. I'm writing to tell you that I can't "fix" every problem behaviour or poor grade my son may have, but I certainly am not going to neglect to have some consequences at home if I'm made aware that this is a continuing problem. He's been told if something bad like this happens again, he will miss his fun activities for a whole week. We do our best work or we find there is no playtime.

Oh, you will love this part. He said he'd like to homeschool again because he'd love to have a break. I told him great but that if he came home, that he would just study everything little brother is doing. You should have seen his face crumple up because Emperor studies chess for two hours a day and Latin and grammar are regular parts of his life. Ha ha ha! Suddenly, he is *quite* motivated to do things your way. Isn't that nice? He's also been told that I would be emailing you (and I am cc'ing Mrs. G and Mrs. P so they are in on this!) so that you would feel free to drop me a note any time you feel there is a concern. He cringed a little, hearing that one. Making his life hard should be a team effort! :)

Hopefully he's left with the idea that we'll be communicating with each other and he's not going to get away with being a slacker.

Happy Elf Mom

Yet More School Stories.

Elf isn't doing so badly. I'm letting him flounder and figure it out for himself. It looks like every now and then, though, he might need a little hint about what to say and do.

I've been asking him to do things like tell me the names of two other students this week, and tell me what people are talking about in the lunchroom, and tell me about what you are saying in class, and all sorts of things like that. It worked very well in Mr. McC's class last year. He eventually learnt the names of six other children and was able to even tell me a little bit about a few of them. This year, not so well.

At least he does seem to want to talk to me about things. But he's making more than a few social mistakes. One of the teachers had an "icebreaker" sort of conversation a bit ago and went around the room asking each of the children what they were doing over the weekend. Elf's response? "None of your business."

Yeahhh, he has been coached that next time, "I'd prefer not to talk about it," or "Can I please skip my turn?" would have been better answers. The teacher also had a "discussion" about "respectful behaviour" as well.

Or this. Elf has figured out that table "18" has the best conversations. They don't have very interesting chats at 15, Elf told me. It got pretty boring there, and Elf wanted to (I guess??) talk about something else.

"Could you please spice this conversation up a little bit?" he asked them. "My mom wants to know alll about the things we talk about here, and I don't want to have to give her a bad report."

Can you believe this approach didn't work?? Can you? Things just don't work out for this kid and he's trying to figure out why. So. He can go to "table 18" on W days or something like that. They have the best conversations. One of the things they do is play some sort of "pass the expired milk carton" game and another is to discuss which food is the nastiest and plan a large "last day of school" food fight. I'm now cluing Elf in to the fact that the last day of school is NOT a good day to sit with the people at "table 18."

Patrick is trying to teach him to say "Yo Mama said so" at the table as a good way to socialize. I dunno, I guess that's what the high school kids do, so maybe it will be avant-garde at the middle school. I remember hearing this "Your mama" thing in college. One fellow from the 'hood just threw, "Yo mama so fat she breaks chairs" or somesuch into the conversation. MYYYY, was I insulted. I told him he didn't know my mother, and how dare he? He thought this was all HILARIOUS and started in on other Mama being fat jokes. I told him for his information that my mother lost QUITE A BIT OF WEIGHT on Nutri/System, so that just shows how much he knows.

Rolling, he was.

More School Tales

Here's a story Elf told me, pretty much verbatim:

Something exciting happened at school yesterday. It was awesome. In Communication Arts (English), Mrs. P is really really scared of SPIDERS. And guess what? There was a big egg sac under her cabinet and we got to see all the spiders come out of the eggs! It was AMAZING. And Mrs. P got upset because there were HUNDREDS of tiny li'l baby spiders and they all crawl everywhere, all ways at once and under things. Some of them went into her desk and lots went around the room and into our desks and some were going into her supply closet and getting into the books.

Mrs. P gave everyone paper towels and rulers and told them to squash the spiders instead of reading today. We didn't see any mommies and daddies spiders but these spiders were light brown. (Listening to the story, they sound like poisonous BROWN RECLUSE spiders.) Mrs. P called the custodian RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS and he moved projectors and other things around. They found lots of dead mommy and daddy spiders and they were brown, the big kind you are scared of. (Brown recluse? Oh yayy.)

I know Mrs. P had a bad day but it was SO FUN to watch all the spiders hatch and then go hunting for them in class.

(Here I asked him about the bus.)

On the bus, I know I am the last stop. The bus driver told me when to get off after I got lost that first time. I am listening to all the words everyone says because I want to hear *swear words.* So far what I hear is a lot of yelling and someone said "crap." They're yelling about something I don't get. They are also talking about things I don't know about. I sit in the front and the bus driver talks to me a lot but I don't understand what he is talking about. I am trying to be polite and listen carefully but everything is confusing.

Elf Update

Elf has been very overwhelmed with his "tiresome" days at public school. His bus stop was half a mile away, which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have locker troubles and have to carry ALL his books in his backpack. And bring his violin. I blogged a little earlier about how he was having a bit of difficulty this school year. I've met with his teachers and school counsellor this week to discuss Elf's adjustment. Elf has provided a list of things he wants the teachers to know about his troubles at school:

1. Lunch is too long. No one is allowed to get up and throw away trash or move from one table to another. I eat my lunch and then have to just sit and wait while everyone is talking. I don't know what they are talking about and I just want to leave.

2. I am listening, but not understanding the teachers when they talk. I am trying to do my work but it always winds up I DO THE WRONG THING and didn't do the directions right. Mom, it would be nice if you could be one of the teachers, but I won't ask because these people need jobs.

3. I don't understand my schedule. I am always going to the wrong classes and am going to be marked absent. Maybe I will be missing and no one will find me. I have an "A" day next week and have only had "C" days so far. I have a schedule but don't know how to follow it. I am going to get lost.

4. Lockers are impossible.

I brought up his concerns and here's what I got back:

1. This is the way lunches always work in our district. We're overcrowded and if everyone got up to throw away each scrap of trash and/or talk to friends, it would be mayhem. The children put all their trash in the middle of the table and then they are dismissed by tables at the end of lunch. They clean up and throw away trash at that time. (Ok. I find that a disgusting eating environment, but I guess you have to do what you have to do.)

2. What strategies did his other teachers use that might be helpful here? (Well. I was his only teacher until the very end of fifth grade. He got to ask as many questions as he wanted and I also picked out curriculum that is suited to his needs. I don't mean that your curriculum is bad, just that you have 150 kids that need to learn the same thing and I didn't have that. So... not sure how to help here except ask maybe that he sit near a good peer model if you assign seats and just keep his difficulty in mind, along with the 500 other things you also have to keep in mind while you teach.)

3. "Almost ALL the other kids are going through this, I promise!" The school counsellor said that at least four families just the previous day had a similar complaint. And if it helps, they haven't lost a kid yet. One of the teachers also showed me where she had organized Elf's binder and taped a handwritten/deciphered schedule to the cover. It also had a "Things I need for class each day" note because Elf WILL forget things. It was PERFECT. I just loved it. He forgets about everything except "bring the binder." Well, wow. It's like a checklist he can do as he prepares for class. He can do that.

4. His gym and orchestra locks were loaned to us over the weekend and now Elf can undo them like a pro. Turns out? The WRONG combination was listed on one of the locks. No wonder it was too hard!! There is a difference between a 2 and a 12, people...

After a bit of wrangling, I got Elf's bus stop changed to one about a block away. Not to be picky, but expecting someone with asthmatic symptoms that flare up in the winter to go that far and wait in the cold is too much. He had no trouble getting the bus but was very, very late yesterday afternoon. My, that bus was late. In comes a sweaty, sunburnt and exhausted Elf. "That's a long bus ride!" I told him. After he got hydrated a bit and expressed his extreme displeasure with the new bus schedule, he told me he got off at the wrong stop and walked well over two miles, much of it on the highway. I guess he doesn't recognize landmarks and will need to be very attentive on his ride today.

And why didn't you borrow someone else's cell phone and call? Oh, because HE DOESN'T KNOW HIS PHONE NUMBER. I can't tell you how long we've worked on this. He's lived in the same place all his life, and had the same phone number all his life. BUT. He can't remember it. Have sharpie-markered it inside his backpack. If he gets lost, he can find his phone number. Trust me, he'll remember where to look for the number, but he won't remember the number. No matter how many times we go over it.

I have *just* sent him off to the bus stop and asked him to 1. tell the bus driver what happened/ask for help knowing where his stop is, and 2. if you miss your stop, don't just get off the bus ANYWHERE. Let the bus loop back to the bus barn and give us a call. We'll be there as soon as we can. We might have to wait for the preschool bus to arrive before we leave, but we will not abandon you. You should not have to walk that sort of distance in the heat with a full backpack.

Well! We'll see how it goes today. I am very proud that he made it home and is able to express his concerns rather than freaking out (most of the time).

Goodbye, PECS Book.

We got this beautiful PECS book when Woodjie was absolutely non-verbal and added to it over time. How it works is this: take several of these little velcro-backed pictures (called PECS) and pop them on the cover. I've organized them on different sheets: foods, toys, places to go, things to do (painting, play-doh), routine items (go to bed, eat, brush teeth). Woodjie can make a choice (for example, to play with bubbles!) and hand it to you. I know, you're saying to yourself, "If he can pick a choice from the board and hand it to you, shouldn't he be able to say the word?" and I'd have to answer, not necessarily. It's also useful to "show" the person you're communicating with what is going on.
*
Woodjie used this to make breakfast and lunch choices (sandwich or bagel? and so on) and communicate some of his needs for a long time. I was cleaning because Woodjie's preschool teacher was coming over and I wanted to pretend that the house is usually neat, and I got a bit overzealous: with Patrick's help, I cleaned out and COMPLETED ALL THE PUZZLES IN THE HOUSE. While I was finding odd pieces here and there in my cabinet, I came across this book. Still in new condition, all lost and forgotten.
*
I cried. You know... for so long, I thought this book or something like it would be a part of our lives forever. And it isn't. I took out the "go home" PECS with our house pictured and other personal items, and gave it away last week.
*
It was my privilege and honour to give it to someone who was instrumental in getting Woodjie to talk. Ms. "P" runs the "communication classroom" (code for: autism room) at the local public preschool. When Woodjie began school at age three, he knew three words: ball, no, and more. He can now say short sentences such as, "I see a animals." Hey, I never said his grammar was great. I just said he can talk. Every word is precious.
*
Because Ms. "P" works in a "communication classroom," she will be able to give it to a family that can REALLY use it. :)

The First Day of School, According to Elf

A small Elf was very enthusiastically telling me about his "tiresome" school day yesterday. This is his story, with my notes in parentheses:

I was running to the bus stop (half a mile away!) and Patrick came after me and ripped the tag off my backpack. (Patrick is a senior, and they started school the following day.) We waited and waited for about 5 minutes and a bus came, but it was not my bus. The next bus was my bus! I got on but I couldn't sit all the way on the seat. I had to keep my foot out in the middle between all the seats so that I wouldn't fall over. It was very crowded and there were no window seats.

At school, I got out my inhaler. I went to the nurse's office. There were people in front of me. I waited. Then, I gave the medicines to the nurse. AND! Went to my locker.

I knew the combination, BUT! The locker did not work. SO! I went to the counsellor's office. Hmm, hmm, hmm, there were some people in line so I waited! THEN! They helped me with my locker. I put my backpack in. I put my lunch in. I got ready for my first class.

(Weren't you very late by then? No, Elf answered, I was just on time!)

Ok. THEN! I listened to a huuumungouslyyy longg lecture about school rules. After the first class, I stayed in the next class in the same room with Mrs. F but later realized I shouldn't have been there. I had some different class I never went to. I was not going to let that happen again, SO! I packed up ALL my stuff. I went out in the hallway. I looked down at my schedule. And the schedule said... I was supposed to be BACK in Mrs. F's class for third period. In the same room I just left.

SO. I went back in there and had that class. They went over the same lecture about school rules and all the things bad that will happen to you. I was bored like this (makes face) because I already heard this two times. Then I went to my fourth period and we were supposed to write things on index cards about ourselves, the teacher passes them around, and everyone has to guess who wrote what.

(So what did you write on your index card? I wrote, "I do not want to do this." The boy who got my card figured out right away it was mine. Because he saw me write it and laughed. What did the other children write? Well, one said, "I have a sister named Emily." Things like that, and they were hard to guess because how can I tell who has a sister named Emily?)

Next, I had PE. Mom, I am like in the Army. They want you to GET UNDRESSED there and wear the PE uniform. It is disgusting. But there are no girls that take PE in the same place. (Yeahhh, that makes sense.) They get a different place and don't do the same PE as us. BUT! You have to pass by the girls sometimes. Also? There are showers in there so somebody must be getting all naked.

Then it is LUNCH. They tell you when you can eat. Our class must sit at tables 15-17. (Who did you sit with at lunch? Some other kids were there. I ate my lunch. They talked about some other person who was not there I did not know.)

Next, health! I couldn't find the class and looked everywhere. I went in the sixth grade hallway. I looked around the corner. I went back to the gym. THEN! I went to the counsellor's office. He told me where the health room was. It was back near where I went to PE! I was (here he gets dramatic) running and going here and there and I had to pass *the girls doing PE.*

(Apparently this is embarrassing because "of what that looks like to them." So, are you their boyfriend if you walk by? NO! It just looks bad. It is embarrassing to pass by the girls.)

Up to health. The health teacher said I was in the wrong class! BUT! My schedule said health, SO! I went to the counsellor's office...

(Whew. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful but "tiresome." Guess what class he was supposed to be in just then? Something called "core skills." They teach you organizational skills, time management, that sort of thing. I sorta think he would benefit from that, but I'm SO PROUD of him for holding himself together the whole day and making it home alone etc.. A much smaller Elf used to run away and get very upset when things got hard.

PS. Another guess what? I think the counsellor is tired of seeing him and wants to see me soon to talk about his "adjustment" to public school and give me an "opportunity" to meet all the teachers. Ok.)

The Happy Elf

I don't get it. Elf LOVES school. The school people are nice to him. Here he is in his "1st Class of Oak Tree Elementary ALUMNI" shirt that was distributed at school. Elf's name is printed on the back under Mr. McC's class column with the other students. Aww! Why couldn't we have had this wonderful experience when Elf was in school before? Ah, well, I have been *very blessed* to have him home all this time... though I must say, I was scared to death and upset about the very idea of this "school" thing for a while there. So was Elf. But now he has a friend he is meeting at recess to discuss existential questions such as, "What if there were no recess?" Might as well. Poor kid is not allowed on the equipment for a good while; the orthopaedist has dealt with G and his shenannigans and doesn't want to take a chance on Elf being silly and injuring himself. That means he stays home from the BIG FUN fieldtrip on Monday. A full day of PE/climbing and jumping activities. Fittingly, we will stay home and make cookies. And eat them.

The Retirement Party

"Guess who's retiring, Elf?" I asked.

"DAD?" Elf said in amazement. No, not Dad. It was his first grade teacher, Mrs. Old. Mrs. Old probably is an excellent teacher of complaint little girls, but of autistic elves? Not so much.

Elf was OVERJOYED to hear that Mrs. Old would be retiring. "Can we make a cake to celebrate??" he asked. He said this was a great day for *all* the little children. I don't think a politician could make a more declarative statement. His pudgy little face just beamed.

Actually, Elf, Merriwether and William Elementary is having a BIG PARTY and the public is invited to celebrate Mrs. Old's retirement on Tuesday night.

"If they knew she was that bad a teacher that they had to have a party because she is leaving, they should have gotten rid of her a long time ago," he told me sternly. Well, that's sort of one of those things people do... they have parties when someone retires. (Come to think of it, why do we do that?)

"Can we go to the party?" he asked. "We can say that we are very *happy* she is going away. And we can eat cake."

That doesn't sound very nice, Elf. Nevermind that it's chess club night. You're supposed to say nice things about the person retiring at these parties. OK? OK, ok, ok, he said. Here are some ideas he's come up with for the card he wants to make:

* Happy Retirement.

(And Mom, just saying that isn't bad. Hoping she has a happy time. I will draw happy children on the front of the card and it will look nice.) And on the inside of the card it should say, "Hope your retirement is so happy that you realize this is something you should have done long ago."

Another idea for a card:

*Don't worry about things getting worse when you leave!

What, none of these work? How about a "congratulations" card to the first graders at Merriwether and William Elementary? No?

Well, I had *hoped* that hearing of her retirement would be a mildly interesting tidbit and perhaps bring a smile to his face. Not jubilant Munchkin dancing and requests for Mrs. Old's address and a stamp. I think Mrs. Old is going to enjoy her retirement. I know this because she was counting down the years and days since G was her student many years ago...

Elf at School

At school, everyone is nice. No one is ever mean. The only thing that is very bad is the angry art teacher. Mr. McC told the class that there had better not be another "massacre" in the art class before he took them over. He told Elf that it is best that he not everr knowww what happened in art class before he got there. Angry Art Teacher told all the students they had best shut their mouths and not talk.

Elf said he was veryy quiet and made a cutout picture of some kind in that art class for the school art fair, did you know that? That was fun. Art class is *great.* Maybe the art teacher is great, too, but had a bad day because of the "massacre" that happened before. Mom, what is a "massacre?"

In class, sometimes they play games. Elf won a grape pop! It was super cold because it had been in the freezer. Mom doesn't usually give grape pop. School is *great!*

Every week, they get to watch a movie. This one was a ghost story and a lot of the kids were screaming and scared. Was Elf? Welll, let him just say that it *was* sort of a scary story with a surprising part to it. He got to eat his lunch by the screen. Mom doesn't let him mix up his movies with his meals.

They also have "PE" in school. They will not let him run or play because of his broken bones. He has to stand or sit to the side with a couple of other children who are also not allowed in PE. That part of school *would* be great, but isn't right now. Elf is sure he can do bunches of pushups when he is allowed.

Elf's teacher is also really *great.* He can teach better than his mom! Mr. McC says this part of his starting school is called a "honeymoon" and that we should enjoy it while we can. :)

Elf Goes to School

I took about 50 pictures but since I got there early, I didn't hold up the dropoff line. ALL the pictures in which he is facing the camera wound up with his eyes squeezed tight, so I am posting the pic of what I saw as I was getting ready to drive away... *sniff*... Goodbye, Elf. He says he will miss me, but I don't think he will. Do you know who is very sad? Emperor. I've already played (and lost) two chess games and he's been online "battling" other players for a while now. I'm going to have to pull him away soon and tell him it's time for other lessons. He will have a hard time doing his schoolwork without his best friend. Thankfully for him, Elf will only go half days for a while, so math and science are done at home. And chess. DO NOT forget chess.

Snug Blanket of Homeschooling? Damn Straight.

This superintendent is FED UP with bad treatment and decreased funding for public education. He IS, however, content with leaving paddling on the books in his district. You won't see a demonstration against that! I'm sure the teachers realllly care, though. They've lobbied against corporal punishment in the schools soooo consistently. I mean, the NEA website is just riddled with calls to activism against -

What? It isn't? Ohh, my. How surprising. Just look at me jumping out of my seat with amazement. (whoo.) I'm so amazed. Here I thought so many of the teachers were concerned about homeschoolers because they, you know, might be abused at home. Locked in a closet or something. You know... like my son was at school. That's the reason we started homeschooling. Ohh the irony.

Parents like me enjoy wrapping our children in the "snug blanket of homeschooling." Watch the video. He said it. I imagine that he means we overcoddle our children and protect them from the normal, everyday things like the homelessness, poverty and drug addiction that HE is dealing with in the public school. If I've overcoddled my children, I figure the snug blanket will be removed soon enough. The guy's speaking from TEXAS, though. Nobody wants a hot, fluffy blanket in 90-degree weather! What kind of analogy is that?

Not to mention the insults this superintendent throws at his own schoolchildren. He has the gall to get up in front of God and everybody and say right off the bat that public school students are NEVER really going to be as shiny and new or "scrubbed clean" like privately-schooled kids or homeschoolers. Yeah. I'd be danged insulted if I had a child in this guy's district. My kids are clean enough and I resent the implication that just because I'm lower class, that I need to learn what this "soap" thing is. Hey. My kids' clothes are stained and threadbare because they are old and we can't afford new ones every week. But they are *clean.* Maybe I spent my money BUYING BOOKS for my kids like the private school kids he's busy deriding.

But... you have to admit, it IS nice of him to be a fighter and march into that school building every day, all bleeding and bruised (did you hear that insane talk?? He really said that!) **sniff** but those valiant teachers... they're not gonna give up on the kids. You can cut this fella's pay back to minimum wage and he'd still be there fighting. Oh, yeahhh. Know why? Either the benefits are dang good, or he's lying as some sort of stage gimmick for emotional effect during his speech. I'm thinking lying, but his benefits are still probably better than mine. See, but I don't feel his money needs to be redistributed to my pocket "for the kids," though. That's the difference between us.

Get Effervescent With It.

I know parent-teacher conferences aren't until March, but it can't hurt to start thinking about them a little early.

Patrick and Me.

Patrick and his orchestra group left at 3 a.m. yesterday morning. They should be in Beijing right now finishing dinner and getting ready for bed. I am 5 ft 8 inches tall, and Patrick is not standing as straight as he could be. I'm thinking his legs are probably sore from being cramped on the flight. :)

New Teen Craze!

Forget this earring thing G just did. That's nothing. He's nowhere near as fashionable as the teen WEREWOLVES wandering around schools in "packs." I guess in Missouri, we are behind the times fashion-wise, but I have yet to see children howling in large groups outside our local mall and wearing long furry tails. As explained in the video, everyone is part animal and we must find this part of ourselves and embrace it. Sort of Darwin meets occult spiritual practice meets third grade reasoning skills sort of philosophy. Does anyone else remember the cheesy Teen Wolf movies from the 80's? Car surfing is apparently not part of this culture, however.

Fine Literature

Patrick's English teacher is one of those East Coast liberal types, full of crazy ideas, Patrick tells me. She spouts off nutty ideas in class and runs the school's Native American Club after school. No, there's nothing wrong with "Native Americans," but basically, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture is pretty consistently denigrated by her. About half the works assigned weren't even originally written in English! In an English class, that's just wrong.

She's figured out by now that Patrick is a Christian, and a conservative one at that. She has a few snide things to say, and Patrick has a few snide things to say back. When assignments are handed out, Patrick gets the ones that refer to the Bible because she knows he likes all that stuff. We can't really avoid the Bible, she tells the class, because it's the most classic literature written by a committee, not to mention the fact that it gets referenced in the *older* literary works.

In short, Patrick is the God-boy of the class. He takes advantage of this unique opportunity to be an ambassador for Christ by using the cartoon assignment to portray his teacher as a two-headed worm that takes in assignments at one end and um, produces grades at the other. He writes things like "our honourable chairman said..." in his reviews. He compared the current public educational system to the Nazi concentration camps for his "satire" assignment. Obama, of course, is vaguely alluded to as the Communist, Nazi leader of the free world, and he writes about what a great thing that is that teachers will have more power than pesky parents with much sarcasm.

In short, he gets her goat and she grades him accordingly. Sigh. Brown-noser, he is not.

This is the same young man that I got a worried phone call about a couple of years ago. They were studying ancient Greece and he refused to look at the nudie statues, the social studies teacher told me. He needs to complete this assignment. Could you tell your son he can look at the statues? Um, ok... I told him he could look but not loooook. No ogling. Compromise met. Patrick wasn't particularly pleased, but he dealt with it.

Patrick said that he was just assigned a "mature" book in English class. He raised one eyebrow as he said it and told me I ought to look at it. "Mature," I guess, is eduspeak for "written porno that no way any decent, God-fearing American would allow to be distributed in the local library, let alone keep in his home."

My. This book is the most smutty, disgusting, amazingly bad work of "literature" I think I've ever seen. I tried to give it a good chance... tried to see some redeeming literary value in the OVERALL of the book. Sometimes when a rape scene or the like is included, it's used to demonstrate injustice or bring to light some element of the human condition, etc. I really tried to give this book a fair chance.

I got through about 20 pages. Lots of incest. Large breasts. Genital smells as turn-ons. Chastity belts and marital rape. Spears through the throat. I finally put the thing down when it went into some detail about how the mom in the book is checking out her young teen son's penis and thinking about its size in comparison with his dad's.

Done. Just done. So I wrote the following excuse note:

Dear Mrs. English Teacher (note I did not use preferred MS. title, sure hope she's married):

Please excuse Patrick from reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in English class. Surely some other, more ennobling work can be selected that fulfills class requirements. We would like one that does not cater to the prurient interests or is otherwise unwholesome.

Thank you for your prompt consideration on this matter.

Mrs. C
email address here

Patrick had a good chuckle when he read the note. "This is just what she needs to hear," he said with a big grin. "Perfect." He wanted to know why I wouldn't just email his teacher and why I handed him the note.

Honestly? I am giving him the note because he is nearly 17. In a year and a half, he will be able to watch porno without my consent if he's out of the house. He will be able to do all kinds of things without my permission. Patrick knows my preference on the book. I told him, though, that if he wanted to fill his mind with that smut, that he is old enough to understand the potential consequences.

But I am giving him the note so that the decision is truly his. He can hand in the note, or not hand in the note.

I have a feeling that he will hand in the note because not only does he not want to continue reading this book, he will also drive his teacher batty with the parental backup.

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.

Goodbye, Woodjie.

Woodjie's first day of preschool. Here he is waiting for the bus and getting on. I swear I have five other children, but this week, life is all about him. :] Can you tell it's starting to get cold outside?