Lifestyles of the Not Rich and Somewhat Famous!

Okay, I'm admittedly old. Because of that, I remember as a kid watching episodes of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, hosted by Robin Leach.

Real life and that life are two very, very separate entities. But, probably due to Romancing the Stone (Joan Wilder, I love you), being a romance author always sounded like a really glamorous life to me. Something that Robin Leach could totally report about.

In reality, last night I came home from school pink and itchy. I'm not sure WHAT I was reacting to, but something had my allergies in a tizzy. My eyes were even poofy.

So, I popped Benadryl, fell into a coma and woke before the alarm today. (I missed entirely everything that happened last night...)

My son then cheerfully handed me a ream of paper, all of which required my autograph (glam!) and money.

Eighty-six dollars, to be exact. While rummaging through the ream and trying to make my coffee-less brain focus on what he'd shoved at me, I noticed one of the papers meant pictures were today.

"Today?! The pictures are today? Quick, find a button down shirt or something not icky!"

After the ensuing argument, I realized I needed to give the school $21 for school pictures if I wanted to see how handsome my son was at the ripe old age of thirteen.

Besides that, they wanted $15 for a Chromebook. Apparently the school has decided to go paperless within the next two years and my son's class is the trial run for this project. So, they're assigning each student a ChromeBook.

Glancing up, I looked at the two computers provided by the online school that my older kids attend. I didn't have to give their school $15--they simply used the federal monies provided to the school to purchase computers for them to use. Also, a paperless school?

Basically, the district wants me to give them $15 so that my brick and mortar kid can go to an online school in a building?

Mmhhmkah, whatever, I gave them $15 for that.

Then there was another paper with the $50 pay-to-play so my kid could participate in a school sport. Gritting my teeth, I remembered again that the federal government has given our district monies for things like sports...and band, which they fail to fund properly...and art...and, Oh, don't get me started on the mismanaged budget in school systems or the state of the art sports complex which means I get to hand over $50 for my kid to be in the sport, not to mention the other money they're going to ask for because he is in a sport and...

Eh, whatever. Okay, $86 dollars so my kid can go to school today. That's cool.

I then headed downstairs to see no one did their chores, but man did they have a good night while Mommy was in an allergy coma. "You're cleaning that up, preferably before I get back home, right?" I asked my older two. Like zombies recently awakened from the grave, the teenagers dragged themselves out of bed and began to fix the mess.

Buzzing along on my way to school, the gas light came on in the car (ca-ching!) and I reminded myself that my birthday is only a few days away...

Which means I get to renew my license, buy that expensive sticker for my plates (which, to be honest, for $50 bucks should be a cooler sticker. I mean, it doesn't blink, light up, sparkle...nothing. A $50 sticker should be way cooler. Someone fix this.) and snag the van from where it is parked before those plates expire...

Oh, and crickets, I thought. I really need to buy more crickets to feed the frogs...
Without the slightest hesitation, I pulled into the school and parked right next to the sign that reads:

 

With a smirk, I said, "Hop off, kiddo. This is your stop."

Because for $86 dollars and online school in a building, I can drop him off wherever I please.

I'm such a rebel.

Was your morning as glamorous as mine? What made you twitch?
Tell me in the comment section below and I'll give one lucky blog reader a $5 Amazon gift card.
Smoochiewoochies, dah-links.

Funny Things Kids Say - Thanksgiving 2012 Edition

Doing a fact check with the kids, because someone on facebook didn't want Lincoln spoiled for them (No spoilers, because...well, they wanted to be surprised by the ending...) we got into another one of our funny things kids say conversations.

When I asked my daughter who won the Revolutionary War, her answer was, "Who was that one between again?"

*headdesk*

Well, who won the civil war?  Other daughter answered...
"The bluecoats!"  Who were? "Um...the Americans?"

Apparently we've a bit of history to work on with the kids. It seems to take awhile for it to stick...
Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?

"The pilgrams celebrated finding the new world!"
So they just got to the new world and threw a party?
"After a long journey and cold harsh winters that killed a bunch of people, they met Indians who taught them how to hunt, grow food and survive.  They were so thankful for this, they tried to convert the Indians to Christianity and built a villiage and were thankful so they threw a feast.
Me- Christianity?
Ash-Yeah, they wanted them to believe in one god rather than thousands of gods because it's less confusing to have just one so the Indians killed that guy with a poisoned arrow.
Me- What guy?
Ash- I read it in Social Studies weekly.  I don't remember what guy, but he made them mad. Drake!  Drake the Savage Sea Dog!  He was told to plunder places by Queen Elizabeth so he tried to get them to switch to Christianity so they killed them.

Dad- I don't think Sir Frances Drake had a thing to do with Thanksgiving.

Shell- Pumpkin pies and poison darts...

Dad- What was Sir Frances Drake the first Englishman to do?
Ash- Circumnavigate the world.
Dad- Forget all the poison darts stuff and remember that.

Dad... but what is circumnavigate?  Is it the same thing as circumcise?
Ash- No. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Education Rant

Random tidbit off http://www.arachnoid.com/reader_exchanges/autism_is_real.html
It is an article called autism is real but this question and response really meant something to me so thought I would use bloggie here to share:

Mother-"My fear is that neither one of them will be educated to their full potential in any type of school."

Answer-" That's a virtual certainty, because (1) schools only teach us how to teach ourselves, and (2) education never ends. For a "full potential" education, one must be willing to learn new things perpetually."

Due to my Aspergers/ADD/ADHD kiddos I was reading the article but this particular bit seemed to kind of sum up my problems with education nicely. Maybe that is why I am so frustrated with the public schools lately. It just doesn't seem like they are trying to teach my kids to LOVE learning. If they don't LOVE learning, well, why keep doing it? If they are made to feel stupid, unsatisfactory, unable to compete on a level with the other kids due to disabilities LISTED on their IEP's then how are they going to want to further themselves? If every nominal thing is berated, shunned... every independent thought squashed like a bug, why have them, why try? My kids learned the phrase, "I can't" at Jefferson. I hate that phrase. Rock Creek and I went round when Jus was in kindergarten due to a teacher (one who apparently since has retired) telling me in a conference that she could NOT LEARN.

I flipped out and stormed the principals office. The same principal who is currently in administration and apparently has forgotten this incident if present circumstances are any suggestion of memory retention. My speech to him involved Helen Keller. I blasted him with, "If Helen Keller, deaf, dumb and blind could learn and go on to do all that she accomplished as a person in her lifetime, which she did, then do not TELL me that my daughter, currently in possession of all of those abilities CANNOT learn. If we have to go about it in a different manner to get through to Justice, show me the way. You people went to school for education-- This is supposed to be your area of expertise. But to say a child, any child cannot learn is both arrogant and ignorant. And actually, while I am throwing out adjectives, laziness on the part of the educator." Or something along those lines. I was mad.

I can't say as I was a favorite that year. Possibly, that is why my kids are trotting through the school with bullseyes painted on their foreheads currently. Maybe he does remember...

Regardless, that is the point of education. It is supposed to be the basic building blocks for a lifetime love of learning. I learn something new everyday-- because I love it! I have always loved it. Then again at their age I, when asked, did not want to grow up to be a firefighter or a supermodel. I wanted, and I quote, to be "someone who never stops growing."

And at the end of the day that is what I want. Three kids who want to learn. Three kids with the basic building blocks so that they can go on and do what they dream and KEEP learning.

Is it too much to ask?

Apparently. My kids go to school largely because that is where you go. My daughter, who last year Loved school and thought that someday perhaps she would like to be a veterinarian, hates school and does not want to do any work at all EVER. Puberty. They are blaming it on puberty. Or something. I am not certain. They keep asking me if it is normal. I keep saying, as a matter of fact NO. She just started this year. At your school. After school started. After about a month or two. Suggesting something here is bugging her. What are they doing?

She is passive aggressive, they say. Let's skip her a grade. Get her with kids her age.

???

Get her out of your school you mean? Because you have no clue how to deal with a kid like her?

Ok. Because that is not going to create a BLACK HOLE in her education. Maybe socially great. Maybe a train wreck. She has never been around kids her AGE. Because of this school system.

Us?

YES YOU! Rock Creek messed up kindergarten so I repeated it homeschool. Then she completed first and I put her back in public at Jefferson, all nice and diagnosed as aspergers thinking you guys could help me and you said... well, lets put her back in first for a week or two and see how she does. Again, I had asked and you said it was a trial period. The trial period went a year and then you promoted her to second. When she was supposed to go to third. So Jefferson Area Schools did both of her grade "adjustments."

Hmm. Well, perhaps...

I scream and pull at my hair and continue to watch my daughter fall behind... Yeah, right through that NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND crock. My kid always gets left behind. And I am standing there yelling at the school and they then call me and ask me things like:

"Three boys were on the playground making fun of Justice because of a boy she liked. She then said to one of them, 'I am going to wring your neck.' Mrs. Nelson, do you feel this was appropriate and how should we handle this."

Me- Um.... thinking. "Did she wring anyone's neck?"

"No, but we do not condone that sort of talk. (or something like that) She should have gone to a teacher to handle the situation."

Me- Nod. "True and she knows better than to threaten violence. Years of counseling and psychiatry have taught her better conflict resolution than violence."

I stare and do not comment further.

"The three boys were good kids and I know, Mrs Nelson."

Me- Mentally screaming because if I get called MRS one more time, heads are rolling. "My kids are good kids. And three boys harass my daughter on the playground and all she does is threaten violence and you are asking me what I want to do to handle the situation? Where were the teachers when my daughter was being ganged up on by boys and wow, she really showed patience only threatening when being ganged up on by three BOYS. My little daughter. I am not going to teach my daughter to accept that or to stand and allow it to happen if the administration that is supposed to be protecting her so obviously failed."

"They were good kids and they came to the office because they wanted to let me know about this situation." states administration, cheerfully oblivious to the fact he is WRONG.

Me-Thinking that they came to the office to get my kid in trouble and because she took their abuse and only retaliated with one measly, halfhearted threat, she is in trouble and he wants me to punish her for getting bullied??? "I see your position."

Yeah. LOVING THIS SCHOOL.

That is one of many instances. The one that made me so mad that I could spit fire and wring necks myself. That is not the long list of calls I have received. The multitude of calls. "Justice said" which she states was a rumor started by a girl in her class. "Ashton said a bad word at school today." Gasp! An eight year old boy says a bad word? I am sure that my eight year old boy is the first in history to try out a bad word. And that surely is cause for a principal to call.

A note home? Sure. A phone call? Seems drastic. I like the attention. I wonder though if they are giving me this kind of "attention" how much "attention" my kids are getting at school? And how much of it is positive. *laughs* Positive reinforcement... yeah, oh. Funny. Where do I come up with these REVOLUTIONARY ideas?

Okay, this turned into a rant. Shutting up now.

Quietly goes off to not sign more assignment books and continue to self-educate failing children. Feebly hopes this year gets better... it has to get better... right???????????