Fly on the Wall- September!

Hey there!  Welcome to the September Fly on the Wall Group Challenge. This month, 14 awesome bloggers and I are describing what it would be like if you were to take a peek inside our homes....

Have a "look" around mine, and then go visit the other blogger's pages. There's always something fun, sentimental, or better yet, embarrassing going on. It's like your house, only we're admitting to the craziness. You have our permission. Get in there!

Cast:
Me
The man
A., the eldest (daughter, 19)
C., The middle (son, 15)
J., The youngest (son, 8)
Our dogs: Lila and Henry

Football:

A., seeing the first NFL game of the season on TV, sighs: "Let me guess, there will be no going outside of this house until February?"
The man: "You can go out if you're going to get chips."

***

J. (bringing up the newspaper to his father): "Let's make our picks."
Dad agrees and starts marking up the paper with our initials.
The man: "Ok, who do you pick, the Lions or the Cardinals?"
Me: "The Lions of course. Don't you see my shirt? Don't you see Lila?"
The man: "So is your pick about pride or points?"
Me: "Both. I'm going (as always) with Detroit."
The man and J. look at each other and simultaneously say "Cardinals."
Traitors. (Cardinals win by 4) Boo.

Our own After School Special:

C. (has a few of his friends over after school)  "Mom!"
Me: "What?"
C. What's with all this fall stuff?
Me: (thinking to myself, 'If you're trying to show off in front of your friends, I'm going to beat you'.) " I worked hard putting that stuff' up. What's the matter with it?"
C. (in a smart a** voice) "Mom, I take pride at my procrastinating. I proudly say I get that from you. You know it always works for us. It's like 7 days before Fall. What am I supposed to do with that pride? What am I supposed to believe in now?"
Me: (looking over at the boys, who are clearly confused at our sarcasm) "Don't let C. fool you. This is all from last year. In 7 days this will all make sense. See, C., procrastination does pay off."

***

C. (leaving with those same friends) : "Bye Mom. I'll be home by six."
Me: "Okay, be safe. Make good choices."
C. "Is selling drugs a good choice?"
Me: "I don't know. Are they my drugs? Do I get a cut?"
I wonder if I'll see his friends again.

Tech Geeks:

The youngest has decided he wants to be an automobile modifier when he grows up.
J. : (on the computer) "Look, I'm modifying your car. The doors are going to go up backwards. I think it will be able to fly if you honk the horn. I'm going to modify it to have the seats made of bacon..."
Me: "You know what would be cool? If the seats turned around and a flat screen came out of the back. Then we could watch movies right in the car!"
J. "Um, I don't think that's very realistic, Mom. You have a really small car."

***

For those of you with iPhones, yesterday was a big day. iOS7 updates were available. Don't ask me what that means, but everyone was pretty excited. The eldest updated my phone and showed me hers while mine was doing its thing. 

Me: "What's the big deal? Is it faster? Does it hold more data? Is messaging easier?"

A. : "Yeah, Yeah, mom. It's all great. Check this out..."

She pushes the button and SIRI answers.

A.: "Siri, What is my name?"

Siri: (In her creepy voice,) "You're name is A., but you asked me to call you 'Super Master-Ultra-Mega-Princess-Buttercup-Wonder-Buns, The destructionator Mega-Master Druglord, 101."

The phone calls her that, every time she asks.

Yes, people. That is a smart phone being put to good use.

Home School, Old School:

Homeschooling the youngest has been a process, for sure. He is studying along with an online program called K12. I like it because it has a nice schedule, J. likes it because his online teacher is cute and has a good singing voice. It's amazing how he misbehaves one minute with me and the next, he's angelic with his teacher via Skype. All in all, we're finding a rhythm. A huge help has been my mother in law, who retired from teaching last year. Every Friday, she has taken J. for a field trip. They've been to the museum, the state fair and the zoo. Pretty awesome if you ask me. J. is allowed to count any field trip time as school. If he is at the museum, for example, that counts for art. If he's at the zoo, it can count for science. This got me thinking...

Could these ideas count as well?

Going to the dollar store for Circus Peanuts and Red Vines = Math

Folding Laundry+Sorting socks =Math

Baking cookies= Science

Reading the ticker on CNN (mom can't see that far) = Reading

Endless skill-building possibilities, my friends.

***

J. and I were huddled together in a booth at Denney's.

A mom and her children walked up to us.

The Mom: "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice you two. Are you homeschooling your son too?"

I nodded yes, waiting for her next comment.

"We are just over at this table. We come to practice our Language Arts. We're studying predicates today."

Me (still nodding). "We came here to read, too. And eat".

The Mom: "Well it's nice to meet you."

Me: "You too. Perhaps we'll see you again..."

She goes back to her table and I look at J., who is still on my phone. He looks up and shows me the screen:

J: "So if you just clash these two wrapped candies together, that should get you to the next level of Candy Crush".

Yeah. Homeschool Rocks.

Thanks once again for stopping by, and to the Fly's AMAZING creator, Karen @ Baking In a Tornado, aka "The Blogging Original", for hosting this challenge! Would you like to join in the next FLY challenge? Click on the FLY button on my side bar. Karen will more than take care of you.

Take a look at what the other bloggers have going on inside their homes. Go on! Leave them a comment. You know you want to...

Baking in a Tornado                                    

Just a Little Nutty                                

Follow Me Home                          

Stacey Sews and Schools               

The Sadder but Wiser Girl                              

Menopausal Mother                   

Moore Organized Mayhem            

The Insomniac's Dream                              

The Momisodes                                      

Spatulas on Parade                      

Searching for Sanity                     

The Rowdy Baker                                 

Writer B is Me                        

Sorry kid, Your Mom Doesn't Play Well With Others       

Get out and enjoy the beautiful colors if you can. Soon, it will be too cold to move :(

Happy Weekend, friends,

-Michele         

I didn't know my child was a loser until the PTA told me....

Trophy Triumph!!

I received this cute little trophy from Karen@Baking in a Tornado. She created this award with her friend Kristy over at Black Sheep Mom. It represents making it through the everyday things that might otherwise break us down. Karen wrote me a message before giving it to me, asking if it would be okay. OK? Are you kidding me? It's a trophy of a woman ready to pull her hair out! How does that NOT scream, "Here you go Michele, enjoy your moment with a trophy of a woman that could be your twin."? Nope. She gave it to me because she is awesome and because with the trophy you are allowed to vent. Mmmhmm. If you live in "Blog Land" you're probably thinking, "Shellybean venting? Oh this is going to be fun!" If you live in my real world and know how I can be, you're scooting up really close to the screen hoping this is not about you. (Don't worry, it's probably not.)

In accepting this award awesome trophy, we must do the following:

1. Display the Trophy in your post.
2. Write a short piece that starts with this: "I didn't kill beat up____________today. It doesn't have to be a person; it can be an appliance, a business or anything else you choose.
3. Nominate a few people to pass the trophy on to and let them know it is THEIR turn to vent.

As usual, this is my story to tell. Please do not take offense to the following vent (unless it was you):

I didn't beat-up  a few of the "ridunkulously tunnel-visioned"adults  at my son's school today. Not that I would, I'm not a violent person. I've had just about enough of the "Haves/Have Nots" business going on in our elementary school right now. Here is one of 3,567 things I'm venting about...

The thing is, I actually taught at this school. For a good chunk of time.  I don't know how else to explain it. I was the first teacher that many of the students at the school encountered (I taught Kindergarten.) For the first month, all we practiced were procedures. How to sit in a chair, how to share pencils, how to work as teams, how to enjoy books, how to be kind. That last one was a doosy. I wasn't a strict teacher, but I always felt that my students deserved to feel safe, loved and accepted. I demanded this from each person I met and I demanded it of myself. The reasoning behind this has to do with my childhood and the fact that school was a safe-haven for me. I knew that I wasn't ever going to let a student slip through my fingers without knowing that they mattered; that they were important and respected. If you made someone else feel like less of a person because they didn't have as much money, if you mentioned someone was wearing the same clothes two days in a row, If you made fun of anyone that didn't meet your standards, we would spend another day practicing. "You can't say, You can't play." It was our cheesy mantra, but we lived by it. Teachers after me kept that attitude going. We were a school of equals. Every student was valued.

So you might understand my anger when I say that my son came home last week from school crying. When I asked what was wrong, he didn't want to talk about it. "Did you get hurt? Did someone hurt your feelings? Did you get into trouble? What did you do?" As a teacher, that last question usually gets asked first. Through the sobs he finally told me. "We were in last place. Our class was in last place!"

"Last place for what?" I couldn't think of what he could possibly be talking about.
"Our class didn't raise enough money for the pizza party." he continued.
This is when I figured we'd be having the talk about how it was OK to not win all the time; to take defeat by congratulating the other teams. But then came this:
"Mom! We came in LAST place. Our class walked the track just as hard as everyone! Every class brought enough money for the walk-a-thon except for us!"

All right. "Enough money?" He was definitely exaggerating now. Who would be unkind enough to infer that there was a last place? I'm sure he was just upset that he missed out on a pizza party. This wasn't about how much money an 8 year old child could give, right?  We wouldn't embarrass children for not collecting enough money from their parents. No.

Yes, people. That is exactly what happened. I wouldn't have believed it myself until our school newsletter came home. On page 3 (of 4) was a list of every single teacher's name along side an exact amount down to the cent of what their contributions were. My friend's class collected $935.59. My old coworker was slipping at her job. She collected $552.52. It went on and freaking on. Every teacher. and at the bottom of this money tree was my son's class with a meager $139.02.  Here's my issue. Did they really need to list the amounts? The classes were also placed in order of the parties they won. Pizza parties to 8 classes. Ice Cream Parties to 13 classes! Pizza and Ice Cream party AND a 1 hour recess to 5 classes. The big winner, who collected $1, 472.23 gets a party at a gymnastics center. I'm pretty sure it was the 23 cents that put them over the top. My son's class and one other class were under the "Thanks" column.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not a sour grapes kind of girl. I'm thrilled that there were winning classes. I'm pretty excited that the new playground will finally be up to code. I'm also sure that there were volunteer parents who worked their butts off at the event. What makes me sick is that someone actually printed this list out, with exact numbers of money, had it go through an editing process and be okayed to print. Why not just say, "Our school raised 17,000 dollars! Thank you everyone! Our top class was.______________We will contact the winning classes!" Nope. Just that list, a calendar of going-ons, grade news, and a list of PTA Thank yous...

Here is another vent. There is never a thank you to the handful of parents who were too busy working two jobs so their child could have shoes to wear to school. There were no thank-yous to the other families who quietly donated to every other fundraiser/field trip/art project this year. I don't think I witnessed one shout-out to the single dad that walks his kid to school everyday (because they don't have a car) so that child can take advantage of the free breakfast program...Are those children less worthy because they have a different home-life? On and on it goes.

I apologized to my little boy. I had to tell him that his class didn't "lose" at anything at school. His class donated 7 dollars per student. That was wonderful! I explained that parents give what they can. That it was in some degree, a contest among them, and not the children.

I would totally give up class parties and Field Day to not have another hard-working, loving, young child humiliated. Oh, and those last place teachers of my son's? They have rocked his education this year. He loves going to class and has made all kinds of forever-friends. His teachers have loved my son and have given him all that they can. There, dear readers, are your winners.

So, no. I didn't beat-up those select few tunnel-visioned adults. I'm nicer than that. I don't know what happened in their past that would make them think that any of that was acceptable. I simply hope that they will rethink patting themselves on the back at the cost of others next time. If you can't work together, you will fail alone. Heck, I learned that in Kindergarten! Or on "LOST". I can't remember everything....

Okay. Breathe in-breathe out. Thanks for thinking of me, Karen. You know I love you. I'm passing that sexy-lady trophy to two man-bloggers! They both have salt-of-the-earth blogs and I honor each of them with this prestigious accolade. Work it, boys.

Slu from Slu's World

Jon from Speaking My Mind.

Happy "Be kind to everyone" day, friends.

-Michele

Day 39 of Forty: Don't Spoil it!

Yesterday, the youngest brought home an Easter basket that he made in his first grade class. He's been pretty glad that HE didn't give up candy for Lent. I know this because there are chocolate foil wrappers and empty plastic eggs all over the house and I know that at least 40% of those are not from ME. He also has a mustache the color of green apple Jolly Ranchers. Hey. It IS Spring Break, AND he gave up french fries this year...

The little man asked his dad who he thought filled the baskets in his classroom. The man just shrugged and smiled at me. I smiled big right back, because scenes like this ALWAYS remind me of one of my favorite Kindergarten stories...

There was a little boy named Billy (not his real name,) who came to school crying his eyes out one cold, December morning. When I asked him what was wrong, he said, "Dean (not his real name) told me that Santa Claus is not real! He told me that I'm a baby for not knowing that my parents are the ones who bring presents! He told Sarah and Joe from the other class too....Ahhhhhhhhhhh (more tears) Is it true, Mrs. M.?  Is Santa not for real?"

"Oh honey" I said, totally unprepared, "what do you think?"

"Well I sat on his lap on Saturday! He knows what I want for Christmas! We're making cookies for Rudolph! I think he's real, but Dean says..." said the boy whose chest was still rising and falling with sobs.

"Billy, you can't listen to everything Dean says...and I'm so sorry he made you cry. I will talk with your mom about this later today, okay?" I said, absolutely relieved to hear the morning bell ringing.

After the children had said the pledge and began their morning lessons, I called lovely "Dean" into the hallway. He knew what I was calling him out for because he spoke before I was able to.

He said loudly, "Billy is such a baby! It's not my fault he doesn't know there is no such thing as Santa! My mom told me that when I was like, THREE! Duh!"

All I could think of was the rest of the children I would have to be consoling for the rest of the day over this. I paused for a moment, then leaned down very close to Dean's face. These are the words I chose, and I spoke them slowly, so Dean would understand..

"Dean. I understand that you are very grown up. I get that you don't believe in things like Santa or the Easter Bunny anymore. I respect that your mom has told you the truth about these things, but really. Other parents may not have told their children this yet. You may NOT go around ruining this for other children. The others will all learn in their own time.  For now, PLEASE don't say anything more to the children, okay?"

Dean looked back at me with tears in his eyes. This was a rare sight. I couldn't believe that I'd gotten through to him. Usually he was the one who would shrug his shoulders or nod carelessly. His mouth had begun to quiver and my heart started to ache for this little boy. I hoped I wasn't too stern; that wasn't my intention at all.

"Are you okay?" I asked, holding both of his hands.

"NO!" he yelled. He was in full-force crying mode now.

"Dean, what's the matter?" I said, squeeze-hugging him and checking out the children who were starting to stare at us through the open classroom door.

Dean pulled away from me. He looked me in my eyes, then ran to the teacher from the next room who had come to see what all the fuss was about. During the run, Dean screamed in a piercing voice for all the school to hear,

"Mrs. M. said there's no such thing as the Easter Bunny! She said he wasn't real!!!".

Holy marshmallow peeps, people. It takes skills to kill kid's dreams.

Happy, "believe-whatever-you-want-to" Saturday, friends.

Day 31 of Forty: Wild and crazy mom..

Congratulations to Ann W. who won yesterday's comment contest. Something is on its way for you!!!

Today's post is a quiz:

What does one do after a day of teaching 100+ elementary students about sentence fluency?

Would they:

A. Go out for drinks?

B. Go out with their main squeeze to catch "The Hunger Games"?

C. Invite friends over for dinner?

D. Jump in the shower, put on their jammies and color the junk out of a Super Hero Squad Activity book with their very favorite student?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Crayons and Coloring books rock, man!

What's your silly stress-reliever?

Happy Friday night, friends!

Day 29 of 40: Student Story of the day..

"We just got back from a field trip to the Nature Center. There were all these cool animals and we learned about wetlands and caves and birds AND turtles! Tomorrow we're going snowshoeing up in the mountains and my dad is going to be a parent volunteer....Friday is going to be "hat day" and that's when you come to our class and teach writing. AND I had pizza for lunch! You know what Mrs. M? It's a REALLY good time to be a kid". -A., age 10.

Ah, to be young again.


Happy Wednesday, friends

Student Quote of the Week..

"My mom is getting a new job...I don't remember what it is but she's going to be really busy, because being a wife to a man is a pretty big job already".. -B, age 6

Hallelujah brother.

Happy Tuesday, friends

Quote of the weekend...

"I want you to homeschool me until the tenth grade, or until I can read 'good'..."-says the youngest, confirming the awesome talents of his mother. Oh dear...

Reach for the stars, friends :)

Student Quote of the week...

"I've never been to Kindergarten, but I HAVE been to the Olive Garden." said B., age 6. He attends a Montessori, where they study in age groups, not grade levels. That quote just about completed my life :)