New And Improved

Sooner or later I'll figure out how to get my google profile to link directly to my new blog.
Or not.
I'm not terribly technically proficient.
In the meantime, please go to ourfrontdoor.us for blog posts that aren't from 2008!

Breakfast. It's What's For Dinner

My family eats pancakes and eggs for dinner waaaaay more often than they do for breakfast. I don’t so much love cooking in the morning. I’m not really a morning person. I’m a morning crab. Mostly, they fend for themselves at breakfast with cereal and fruit and juice and I feel no guilt over it. Those are healthy things and they all make it to lunch without starving to death. It’s all good. I did recently formulate this recipe for

Overnight Oatmeal

though that should provide some variety without requiring that I be perky before 8:00 a.m.

I’m in a beginning-of-the-school-year-organized mood right now. Today I made the menu and grocery lists for five weeks. FIVE. I filled in every Monday-Saturday leaving Sundays blank because it’s embarrassing to write in “fend for yourselves” and pin it to the fridge for all the world to see. Besides, more often than not, that’s pancake night and if I write it in, I’ll ruin the happy look on everyone’s faces when they realize that’s what we’re having.

What are your lazy-night meals?

Scatology

You are all so glad that I don’t have a picture for this one.

The Pooping Bandit

has not made a re-appearance yet this year. We’re hoping that means he was a kid who has moved on to another school and that he’s not just waiting for a good moment to start stuffing the toilet paper dispensers with excrement again.

There

was

notable poo this week though. A staff member was in the cafeteria and noticed a suspicious object on the floor. A custodian called over for a consult confirmed that it was indeed a round little turd. I guess someone was walking around with a collection in their underwear and it fell out onto the floor. No clue as to who that would have been, so they just cleaned it up and moved on.

Elementary school is so interesting.

All You Have To Do Is Ask

It’s upsetting how often people don’t ask my opinion. Because I have one. Always. And it’s the right opinion too. Just in case you were wondering how I felt about naming children and were afraid to ask, I’m going to tell you. I have gone through over 600 registration forms this week of children ages 4-11 and I formed a lot of opinions. Here they are.

When naming a sweet, tiny, innocent little baby:

Don’t Be Weird.

Mostly celebrities are guilty of this one. Gwen Stefani named her boys Zuma and Kingston. That’s weird. There is a fine line between unusual and weird. Don’t cross it. If you like weird names, change your own to one. And just because YOU like Star Wars does not mean your little boy will appreciate being named Anakin. He’s the one who is going to have to put up with all of the Skywalker jokes - not you.

Don’t Be Mean.

Amarijuana should never, ever be a sweet little girl’s name. Neither should Remember Washington. Yet they are. It’s mean. Don’t do it. Get a dog instead.

Spell It Right.

Being that I was born in 1970, I am very grateful that my name isn’t Sunshine Moon Petal or something of that ilk. Very, very grateful. However, as an adult who has gone through life with her name spelled “wrong”, I beg you to not do that to your kid. I never could find a bike license plate, or pencil or mug with my name on it. I am constantly correcting Dr.’s receptionists and anyone else who writes my name down without asking. (Note: I love you Mom and Dad! and I understand that there is a purpose behind the spelling of my name and appreciate it! Really! Just trying to be a little humorous here. Mostly.) If you want your kids’ names to be “different”, then see rule #4. Don’t take a common name and spell it weird. Mackynae is still McKenna. You’re not fooling anyone.

Don’t Be Common.

This is the least important rule, but still worth considering. Every year they publish the 10 most popular baby names. Look at the list and then don’t choose any of those unless you like the way your last initial sounds with the name - like Jacob K. or Madison W. This rule is especially important when picking genderless names because then your little sweetie will be known as either Girl Jordan or Boy Jordan. I realize that I just offended most parents and I am sorry. Please know that this is the least important of my naming rules. All of the Jennifers and Jasons that I grew up with have turned into lovely people, I’m sure. So if you have an Emma or a Michael that’s fine. They are lovely names - thus their popularity - and are much better choices than the other examples.

So there you go - my opinion. Yours may differ. That’s ok, but just know that you are probably wrong. :)

Boot Camp

Kindergarten is rough. It was a tough week for everyone involved. The parents dropping them off cried the first day which made me cry too. It was sad! All those teeny, tiny people marching away from their mamas. You’d have to be made of stone not to have a little sympathy.

Then the teachers had the monumental task of turning scatter-brained free spirits into a class. The list of basics took a full three days.
They had to teach them how to stand in, and follow, a line. That’s apparently a huge and difficult concept. They don’t understand WHY they have to follow the line. Why can’t they just run ahead? What’s the point to all of this?
The kids had to learn to go to the bathroom when they don’t necessarily HAVE to before lunch and Specials classes. This has to happen or they interrupt those periods by running out to pee. And peeing is contagious. If one goes, they all have to go and that destroys lunch time or the Specialist teachers’ lesson plans. So kindergarteners have to learn to line up to pee when they don’t have to go. Big stuff.
Lunch is very, very hard. All day kindergarten necessitates that we feed them, which is a bummer. Try taking a group of hungry cats down a hall and into a lunch room and arrange them in an organized fashion around a table. We don’t even give them a recess time at lunch because it takes a full 30 minutes to get them to the cafeteria, through the hot lunch line and to a table where they eat

veeerrry

slooooowly

. They have to take their recesses in the morning and afternoon. I am so grateful that it is not my job to help open milks. Sadistic grown-ups designed those milk cartons. They are not designed for pudgy little fingers to open.
It turns out that you can’t nap when you want to in kindergarten. This blows the minds of some of them. The teachers do their best to keep them awake and active, but sometimes one will just keel over and you can’t wake them up for anything so you just have to let them lie where they fall until they wake up on their own. That’s actually pretty cute.
You have to stay ALL DAY! Even if you don’t want to. Even if you miss your mom. Even if you decide that this really isn’t your thing and you think that maybe you’ll just give up on the whole idea of “school.” Yesterday morning an adorable little girl was being walked to class by her big sister. As they got closer to her room, she started to struggle and finally broke free from her sister’s hand and ran for it. She went right by me and out the front door so I had to give chase. She was a fast little booger. Lucky for me, she’s short so I caught up about half way down the walk. I knelt down and asked her what was wrong and she cried and said she just didn’t want to go to school anymore. I empathized. Neither do I. I held out my hand and she came along calmly and I handed her off to the principal who walked her to her class.

I look at this year’s first graders who were just like this a year ago. They seem so tall and grown-up now and they all stand in lines and pee when they are told to and only very rarely fall asleep or run away, so there is hope. It can all be taught - and learned.

2008-09

We had a great first day. Everyone got up on time and looked great and made it through the day in good shape.

Faithy Beth is in third grade. For the first time in her life, she does not have a sibling in school with her. It is her time to shine. She also had her first dance classes of the year today and the season’s first soccer game is tomorrow. Faith is a busy, busy girl.

Reagan is an 8th grader this year. This means she is automatically much cooler than she has ever been before. You might guess from these pictures that Reagan only has one eyeball. That is due to the current style of “side bangs” that is making me crazy as she is constantly tilting her head and talking from under her hair. She is not interested in my opinion on the subject.

Hayden started middle school as a 6th grader today. Reagan picked out his outfit for him and coached him on middle school life. It’s nice to have a guide to 6th grade. We’re hoping for a good year and are encouraged by starting with a good day. :)

I’m working full time this year at Faith’s school. I dressed up for the first day in an actual dress which was silly because while I was supervising recess, I felt like an idiot every time the wind came up or I had to bend over to pick up a ball. You don’t get a picture of that. Tomorrow, more practical clothing for sure.

I Blame The Aqua Net

(I don’t know what to say about the shirt. I was trying to reconcile not buttoning the top button with wearing a tie. I should have picked one or the other.)

Two middle schoolers. I am the parent of TWO middle schoolers. As painful as that is, I’d much rather parent them than

be

them. Middle school was rough. I was full of self-doubt and wanted to be noticed and yet was also completely certain that everyone else was thinking of me and judging me at all times. My kids seem to be feeling some of that, but not on nearly the same scale, and I have to wonder why. Where is the awkwardness? Where is the angst? Let’s compare and contrast:

Junior High-1983 Middle School-2008

Drugs and gangs. 1) Drugs and gangs.
Russia was going to nuke us. 2) International terrorism
Totally rad music. 3) Unintelligible pop trash.
Clothes to look back and shudder at. 4) Ditto.
Hair prep - 90 minutes. 5) Hair prep - 90 seconds.

That’s it. I believe that this is the difference between my daughter’s happy self-confidence and my complete self-involvement. It’s the hair. The hair-do above started with a perm about every 4 months and had to be washed daily. Then -mousse, and I would flip over to blow dry it upside down and spend around thirty minutes carefully curling it and burning my neck. All of the effort was held in place with way too much Aqua Net. At this point, if I determined I was having a bad hair day, I would try to summon up enough symptoms to convince my mom that I needed to stay home sick. (Sorry Mom. To your credit though, you didn’t fall for it very often.) Failing that, I went through the school day convinced that people were pointing and laughing at me at every turn. Even on good hair days, throughout the day I ran for the bathroom mirror to see how it was holding up, but if it started looking bad there wasn’t much to do. You can’t comb through that much hair spray. Even ponytails required a lot of work in the 80’s. You had to have either a

banana comb

or a giant, floppy hair bow and you still had to tease and spray your bangs into place.

Reagan’s hair is so simple. She washes and conditions it and then brushes it into place. That’s it. (Although in this picture we did blow dry it to up the shininess.) No gels or sprays. If it gets messed up, she brushes it or throws it up into a messy ponytail which is just as acceptable. Not worrying about the state of her hair frees her up to actually participate in P.E. or sports and walk in the wind or rain without fear. She can sleep later in the morning. She needn’t carry a gigantic comb around in her back pocket.

Don’t let anyone tell you that it is harder to be a kid today. It is clearly much, much simpler. The proof is in the hair.