Stop oozing color!!

I wrote a couple of posts ago (in case you missed it) how Thing 1 has been frustrated lately that there's not enough time at school for her to express her artistic side.  Third grade has too many scholastic requirements and art got squeezed out.  Even though she has an after school class in which to expend artistic energy, unbidden creativity oozes out of her sometimes.
She was frustrated last week that her teacher scolded her for being artistic.  When the assignment came home I saw what happened.

Now I realize that the teacher must have her reasons for stopping Thing 1 from going psychedelic on her assignments...  Maybe she's worried if others see Thing 1 doing it, they'll want to do it too, and it will slow down the class.  Does she think decorating your homework is one more stepping stone on the path to becoming a graffiti tagger?   I don't know... but it was so sad hearing Thing 1 (who is an angelic student) get reprimanded for anything, and even harder to hear she was reprimanded for finding a way to be artistic.  

Here's the assignment.  

Exhibit A

 

You can see where she got caught, then had to go back to basic one color shading. 
What the heck is wrong with Partridge Family Bussing her assignments? Not a darn thing that I can see. Those little smiley faces aren't making up for the fact that she's being forced into conformity.
Curse the homogenization of the public school system!  

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The kids saw this post sitting up on the computer screen and I got the whole story.  
Thing 1 said she had half finished her math worksheet but then had to go to a reading group.  When she came back to her desk the note was there and the (student) teacher came over and told her she couldn't draw pictures because it wastes time and she'd have to do the whole thing over again plain.   Grrrrrr!

HIV/AIDS Presentations for 3rd Grade

Thing 1, in 3rd grade, brought home a note last week that said:


"HIV/AIDS Presentations will be held on Tuesday, February 8th.  Listed below is the time schedule for grades 3 - 6.  Each presentation will only last approximately 50 minutes. All presentations will be held ina classroom of the particular grade level.  Permission slips were distributed for all students in the registration packets.  Thank you."

AIDS?  You're teaching my 9 year old about AIDS!?

It kind of bubbled to the bottom of my priority pot, until the night before when I saw the note on the bulletin board of "Things I Need To Deal With."


I logged on the district website and was horrified to see an outline of related school topics mandated for discussion which included naming male and female body parts, and explaining the mechanics of how to get pregnant...
(In retrospect the list was a broad outline for all sex-related discussions for the whole district. A break down of what grade level would be discussing what topics would have been REALLY HELPFUL.)
Anyway I nearly swallowed my tongue.  Thing 1 is NOT ready for any sort of frank discussion of sex.  She is desperately trying to not grow up any faster than she has to. She was very unhappy to be turning 9, she wanted to remain 8 years old a few more years.  Which is fine with me.


The morning of the presentation I tried to briefly tell the girls over breakfast that there might be some movie and a discussion in Thing 1's class about a disease called AIDS, which is a pretty serious disease but no, little kids don't get it.  No, honey Mommy and Daddy won't get it, and I could already see panic starting to rise in Thing 1's face so I quickly wrapped it up and changed the subject.  Thing 1 has been having a nightmare that Hubby and I are eaten by a shark and lately his and my safety is her top priority.


I called the school after I dropped off the kids to see if I had signed the permission slip with the registration packet.  I was told the whole class was going, but I could speak with the principal.  The principal told me this is a 'district mandated' and 'required' program, that I could come in and sign a waiver if I felt it absolutely necessary, but eventually if she stays in this school she will be required to see this program.  I was really upset on the phone with the principal, not wanting them to tell my 9 year old about AIDS, yet embarrassed to be apparently the only parent who feels this way, and frustrated and angry and I started tearing up.  The principal was very kind, and assured me all parents don't want their kids to grow up so fast... she concluded by inviting me to come in and sit with Thing 1 and watch the presentation with her.


The timing wasn't very good, I had planned some other things - including my a shower and washing my hair during that time frame.  But I threw on a hat and ran over to the school stinky as I was.

Two student nurses, probably in their 20s, ran the class.  There was a movie, a power point, a play, and a question and answer period.  There was one other parent, and the teachers.  Thing 1 sat next to me.

Sex was never discussed.  It was all about germs, viruses, and diseases.  The most risky topic that was brought up was not touching anything that comes out of someone else's body, including blood, saliva, vomit, urine, stuff like that, and not letting anyone else touch yours.  Lots of emphasis on washing your hands, and a demonstration of what to do if you have a scratch or bloody nose, and how to help someone with a scratch or bloody nose (don't touch it, the person whose blood it is should throw away their own tissues/paper towels).  Cover your mouth with something when you sneeze, wash your hands.  And never touch a medical needle you find anywhere, get an adult.  It was mildly humorous in an appropriate 3rd grade level way - the little girl in the movie showing what to do with a bloody nose also demonstrated how you should NOT go running crazy down the hall screaming.  Stuff like that.

The play was a demonstration of how the body fights diseases, with the kids dressed up to act out the parts of the blood that identify the disease, attack the disease, and clean up.  There are scout cells, the memory cell, the commander cells, the clean up cells, stuff like that.  One little girl was the HIV cell, who teamed up with the commander cell, and then none of the other cells would do their jobs.  

That was it.

The question and answer period was rather innocent, how far does it shoot out when you sneeze, and what happens if you change a baby's diaper and get poop on your hands, etc.  My favorite question was "Are there new disease in space that we don't know about yet?"  Yes, I expect there are. 
 
I want my kids to know about sex, I don't want it to be mysterious and frightening.  I intend to teach them about it, and I expect them to have some instruction about it in the school.  Just not when they're 9.  Safety is important when they're 9, sex is not.

In the end I was satisfied that the presentation had been appropriate, it was all about disease prevention.  That's fine.
I was also frustrated that the flyer and the district page had been so cagey, and told me enough to get me in a tizzy, but not enough to really explain what was going on.  At some point in the phone conversation could the principal have emphasized to me, "this is about disease prevention and washing your hands and not picking up needles.  This is not about sex."  No, instead I get to work myself up to a tizzy, and lose an hour of my day making sure my 9 year old isn't going to have nightmares for the next year.


But I'm glad I found out for sure.

Scheduling is hell

Scheduling anything with Hubby is usually fraught with danger.  The danger of cancellation or of having to call everyone else involved to change the date.  Birthday parties, group photos, get togethers...  nearly anything involving anyone beyond me, Hubby, and the girls gives me a headache and requires multiple phone calls and emails.  If it's just the four of us our options are always open anyway and I know things will change dramatically at any moment.  We just don't plan much of anything and as much as possible we're a seat-of-the-pants kind of bunch. That's fine.  Sometimes annoying, but fine.  It's when other factors, like extended family, or Delta, become involved, that I go crazy.

A couple months back Hubby got a four day contract in Nuremberg.  Then there was a two day class for him to teach in Hamburg the next week. If we wanted, we could schedule them as far apart as possible, and the girls and I  could  come to Germany and play with him in between.  If I had my top choices of where it would be cool to take the family, Bavaria would be right up there.  I've been there twice, I know some fun things to do there, it's a beautiful area.  Hubby's never been to Germany, I could show him around a little too.  We weighed all the options.  Briefly.  For a couple of days.  Seriously enough for me to see that if we DID decide to go, we had to renew the girls' passports. Yeah, how freaky is that?  I got my first passport at 18 or something.  My girls are 7 and 9 and they need theirs RENEWED, and they've actually needed them TWICE.  The times they are a changin'.  I digress.
We decided to go to Germany.
Then we talked about it some more for another couple weeks or so. Of course when I say "talk" I really mean "brought it up while squeezing everything of relevance into a late night phone call, or an intercontinental skype session in which one of us was trying to have dinner while the other was trying to have breakfast."  That's what I meant.
After briefly discussing it a couple times, for many reasons we decided not to go.
Then Hubby talked to his contacts in Hamburg to see if he could schedule his thing there the 2nd week at the beginning of the week instead of the end, and only be gone for 7 or 8 days or so all together, instead of the full 2 weeks.  They said it's too late to move the dates, so he'll be stuck alone in Germany for the full two weeks, just working at the beginning and the end.
So we decided the girls and I should go meet him.  We're going.  We're taking the girls to Germany! 
We looked into airfare. It seemed relatively inexpensive, and we got these sweet direct to Paris flights...  so we bought tickets.  That's always a scary moment... the "YES DANGIT GO AHEAD AND DO IT!!!  LET'S GO TO GERMANY!!!" moment.  Everything is rolling toward going.
I told the girls' teachers at parent teacher conferences that we'd be leaving on November 10th after school, coming back the weekend of the 20th.  We'll come get any homework assignments for them to take with us and do on the plane. It's getting closer and closer!
Then on Saturday Oct 30th I get an email from Hubby telling me his thing in Hamburg at the end of the 2nd week in Germany was canceled.  Suddenly we have no real reason to have a big family vacation, with the girls missing 7 days of school, in the middle of November, right before the Thanksgiving break.  
We talk.  We decide to cancel, eat the change fees on the tickets and use the remaining credit to go somewhere else another time.


Hubby calls the airline to make sure it really is a $250 fee per ticket to cancel an international ticket.  Yes, it is. He is shocked that it really will cost us $1000 to NOT go, in changing his ticket and cashing the girls and my tickets in for credit.  He gets off the phone and doesn't cancel.  We start talking about what we'd do in Germany.  I start getting excited, and telling him all about Bavaria and the castles and the nutcrackers and the shopping and on and on...
We decide maybe we should go.  By now it's Sunday evening.
We talk some more.  We weigh our options.
By Monday we'd changed our minds again.  This one is looking final.  The reasons to go?  The experience, the cancellation fees on the tickets.  The reasons NOT to go?  For me, the thousands of dollars of the expenses of this trip (in addition to the price of the tickets we have sitting on this cycle of the credit card) and the fact we'd be pulling the girls out of 7 days of school.  There are quite a number of other, lesser reasons.


So we're not going.  Hubby leaves Saturday for Nuremberg, and will have to change his ticket anyway to come back the following Saturday.  And will enjoy having a week at home, for a change.  We've told the girls to tell their teachers we will be here after all.


There.  The decision is made.  Final.

This is not the first time a European trip was cancelled for me... the last time I found out TWO DAYS before we were leaving that our trip to Sheffield England was off.  But knowing in the back of my mind it always could fall through isn't much comfort.  I'm still sort of sad... I did really want to go.

Tadaki has shrunk

I haven't seen Kelly since forever so I took the girls and the dog over to her place after the first day of school.

We had lot going on after the school and it was somewhat hectic getting out of the house, but once we got over there the dogs ran in a wild pack, and the girls jumped on the trampoline. I got to admire Kelly's shoes, quilts, and everything else she's done since I saw her last; basically we had much needed grown-up girl time.

The funny part was how much Kelso had grown. I got a picture of him next to Tadaki soon after we got him last October...


Then Wednesday I took a picture of them side by side again.


I thought Tadaki was SO HUGE back in October... I think he's shrunk. Kelly said he's not so broad across his chest because he doesn't pull her around as much every day as he pulled each day in training, but she assured me he's not the victim of some tragic dog shrinking disease. Kelso has just been growing like a weed. He put on 10 pounds a month for the first 5 months we had him. At 11 months I took him into the vet for a weight check and he was 80 pounds. He turned 1 year old on August 1st, and I suspect he's gained a couple of pounds since then. I understand the bigger they are, the later dogs will mature... so I'll give him a couple of months and then have him weighed again.

First Day of School

Wednesday was the first day of school. Quite a day. Thing 1 has been pretty neutral about school starting up again. The only thing she was really looking forward to was seeing her 2nd grade teacher, Mr. C again. She wasn't really thinking so much about going into 3rd Grade, it didn't seem to be occupying her attention so much.

Giving the dog a hug goodbye, all ready to walk out the door to our first day of school!


We dropped off Thing 2 first, so Thing 1 could get a hug from her favorite teacher, now Thing 2's teacher.

Thing 2 has been floating so high, planning what she'll wear the first couple of days, how great it will be at recess, she is excited about school lunch, and she is deciding who is going to be interesting to meet based solely on their names, "Roger sounds interesting. And Hunter! I wonder if he hunts. I can't wait to meet them!" Going into 1st Grade from Kindergarten, and now into 2nd Grade from first, Thing 2 has been one of only a few kids (mostly boys) from her previous class that end up together. So every year is like moving to a new school, where she hardly knows anyone. There are three classes each year, you would expect that 1/3rd of her previous classmates would end up with her, but no. Only her and one other boy from their kindergarten class were in the same 1st grade class, and this year one other girl and two boys from 1st grade are in her 2nd grade class. But she was undaunted. She has Mr. C, Thing 1's favorite teacher in the world. Everything will be wonderful. She has been so excited, there was nowhere to go but down.

See that face? That is a happy girl! She is ready for school! Ready to learn! She has the world by the tail!


Thing 1 met her teacher, who will be great and I am pleased about.


When I met them after school yesterday of course I could tell immediately that Thing 2 was not happy. She was quite subdued, not normal for her. No, she did not have a good first day. But she didn't say too much. Thing 1 was her usual even-tempered self. Yes, her day was fine. The best part was reading, she was asked to bring a book from home to read and she's reading the 2nd of the "My Father's Dragon" books and loves them.

We walk in our front door and Thing 2 disappears. I found her on the family room couch crying. In a nutshell her laments are:
1) No one likes her.
2) Anyone who might like her is already paired up with someone they know from kindergarten or first grade.
3) All her friends from last year are in one of the two other 2nd grade classes.
4) Mr. C is NOT NICE. He is MEAN. He's mean? Well, maybe not mean, but he's certainly not what she expected. Sure, he told a few jokes, that was the best part of her day... but in between he was not nice.
5) She was the last one to sit down at lunch and there was no room at her assigned table. She had to carry her lunch tray around until she found Mr. C, he came to their class table and had everyone scoot together to make room for her. But she was HUMILIATED that she had to walk around carrying her tray and no one made room for her until forced to.

Horrible, horrible, horrible, it was just horrible. And she certainly didn't want to go back. Ever. And, furthermore, she has to share a locker. With whom? She doesn't know, some wild boy ran up to her and wanted to share her locker and was so excited to share her locker and since he wanted to so badly she said fine, whatever. Who is this boy? She doesn't know, can't remember his name. Horrible horrible horrible the whole day was horrible.

I held her while she cried, and told me her sort of jumbled myopic replay of some of the more painful moments of her day. While I know that just being held while she cried was mostly what she was looking for, I couldn't help trying to help just a little, and I pointed out that no one will want to play with her at recess if she's walking around moping, she should jump rope, or play hopscotch, or do something fun by her self, and maybe someone else will want to play with her. She insisted she hadn't been moping, she demonstrated her "I'm happily looking for someone to play with!" expression. So we talked about this a little, and I cited several examples from her own past about girls she had been friends with at the first part of 1st grade but things had cooled within a couple of months, and things will change, but mostly she concluded she doesn't like jumping rope or hopscotch that much, and whatever solution I tried to propose she'd just counter with the "No one likes me!" and more tears. I hate watching her face screw up and the tears squeezing out...

It just so happened that yesterday two packages arrived for the girls, one was the ants (for the ant farm we gave Thing 1 for her birthday nearly a year ago) that I finally ordered, and the other contained caterpillars (for the butterfly cage they received two Christmases ago) that I finally ordered. (On-the-ballness has never been a virtue I have been overly troubled with.) But both insect packages arrived and we got to look at the caterpillars (who will stay in their little environmentally complete cups until they go into chrysalises) and we dumped the ants into their cage. That was thrilling, the girls were very excited, and the horribleness of the day was put aside.

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I should break here, and finish in another post. But I'm just going to push through.
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This morning I did my best to launch the girls on a good start to their day. I had noticed as I comforted her yesterday that Thing 2 needed a bath, but we got in late last night so they HAD to have one this morning. This is usually a recipe for hurrying and rushing and me getting tense and all of us being late, but I got up early and got them in the bath early, and they were downstairs clean and dressed and ready for breakfast early. They ate quickly, and we were ready to walk out the door about 10 minutes early. I made a massive fuss about how fabulous they are, how quickly yet calmly they performed the morning routine, how speedy they were in the bath, and how amazingly early we were. We practiced our silly walks to the door. We strolled to school, examining each interesting bug and flower that we passed and still arrived several minutes early.

I am a lousy housekeeper, an unenthusiastic cook, and I fail as a gardener. I wonder why I get to be a stay at home mom, because in many ways I'm terrible at so many of the aspects involved. I have many many failings, BUT I can be a great cheerleader. (Or so I like to believe. If you disagree please keep your opinions to yourself as I need to feel like there's at least one thing at which I excel.) I did everything short of donning a miniskirt and waving pompoms. I made it very clear that they had an amazing morning under their belts.

We took the dog to school, and instead of standing up at the edge of the school ground to kiss them goodbye, I brought the dog down the stairs to the playground where the kindergarten and 1st grade kids play and wait for the bell to ring. The dog and I accompanied them down the sidewalk past the 1st grade door to the 2nd grade door, where there was a clump of kids waiting for the bell to ring so they could go in the school. I don't normally do this because I am very aware that not all little kids like dogs, and even some that do are daunted by a huge beast who can nearly look them in the eye. I took him on a short leash, with the intent of bringing our handsome, sweet, huge, furry, attention-grabbing dog to the door where perhaps some of Thing 2's classmates will see him, become interested in him and this will translate to someone becoming interested in her. Maybe they will find they have something to talk to her about, and will look upon her in a more favorable light. I am nothing if not calculating. I plan to do this until she tells me she has a friend.

So I was on pins and needles today, to see how School Day #2 went. As I was waiting for the final bell to ring, another mother whose son was a friend of Thing 2's from kindergarten walks by and says Thing 2 and her son are sharing a locker. Really? Your son, who I KNOW Thing 2 knows is the pushy mystery boy who insisted they be locker buddies, whose name she completely forgot?

And Thing 2 comes bouncing over to where I always stand and announces today was great, everything is good. Did you make a friend? No, but she had a great time at recess doing the monkey bars, now she can traverse them hand over hand hanging from the bottom. Wahooo! Did you sit by anyone at lunch? Not at first, because she was toward the beginning of the line and everyone came and sat down around her when they got their food this time and school lunch was Chili with hot sauce! They have great chili! And she is one of the only ones who takes hers with hot sauce, the other kids are complete hot sauce wimps! I do not know where her hot sauce superiority stems from, but at this point I'm not going to argue with her that liking or not liking hot sauce doesn't make you a better or worse person. I'm just thrilled she's thrilled. Mr. C was much better today, he was hilarious and she has math homework, just one page and she knows how to do it and is excited to demonstrate her knowledge and this was a great day! I told her I had just talked to her locker buddy's mom, and was surprised she hadn't told me it was her friend from kindergarten. She said oh, yeah, she'd just spaced off his name. It's fine.

I should know better than to worry too much about her. As low as she will be one day, she'll probably be that high or higher the next. I hope I can help her navigate her roller coaster.