Today is my kids’ last day of school. Just the thought of summer break strikes a crippling fear in my heart and now, it is on my doorstep, ringing the doorbell. “I’m not home! Go away!” I’m yelling from under my blanket of denial, but he refuses to leave. I know that I have to open the damn door. I know it. I just cannot bring myself to leave the comfort that has been my denial for the past few days.

I have all of the teacher’s gifts, wrapped and ready to give. It is my last ditch effort to plead with them to take my kids home for the summer. My second grader’s teacher asked if we would keep the class pet, a frog, for the summer. I offered her an even trade…the frog for the second grader. She laughed. I didn’t. Maybe nobody will notice if I forget to pick up the kids after school today. Maybe I can bribe the custodian to lock them in the utility closet for ten weeks. Maybe I can pay her to slide some food and water under the door, so they survive. Maybe I can find a mission trip to send the kids on. What better way to spend the summer than learning about how good life really is in the United States? So they risk Malaria and other unpleasant side effects of third world visitation, it is all part of the experience, right? With great rewards, come great risks!

Okay, so I sound a little desperate. I am. The little beasts were off of school for one extra day, last week. Our house and my temper suffered greatly, that day. They “accidentally” spilled a smoothie in the cable box and broke it. They “accidentally” rode their scooters in the house and made several gouges in the wall, before I caught them. They “accidentally” poured a bottle of baby shampoo all over the bathroom floor, to clean up the ink pen that “accidentally” broke and splatter painted the floor a lovely shade of midnight. They “accidentally” killed my last shred of sanity. I’m not sure how I’m going to avoid being the next “Parent Gone Mad, Drowns Her Children” news headline, but something has to be figured out. I decided to seek out divine intervention, yesterday. I emailed my husband’s uncle, who is a priest, to seek some advice. I kid you not, this was our correspondence:

“Hi Uncle John. How are you? We are fine. The kids will be out of school on Friday. I’m a little scared. It makes me wonder how your sister (my mother in law) survived summer break with 13 kids! Any guidance that you can offer me? Love, Kadi”

“Dear Kadi, I am doing well. Find a summer program for the kids…quickly. Love, Fr. (uncle) John”

I was expecting some words of wisdom, a prayer, a novena, or even a suggestion of exorcism. Nope. He told me to find a place to shove my kids for the summer. Even the priest knows I’m doomed. I’m heading to the store now, to buy a lot of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, Clorox Wipes, duct tape, rope, Lexapro and other survival essentials. Then, I’m going to schedule some weekly phone “confessions” with Uncle John, because I’m going to need some major absolution of sin, for the next ten weeks! Now, how am I going to leave the house, without opening the door for the grim reaper who is still lurking on my stoop?

Bookmark to:
    

Now is the time of year when all the bold, bright colors seem to spring up – overnight. No, not spring flowers, I’m talking fundraising forms. “Please give” they all say - give time to sell; give money outright; give us your grandmother’s bank account and we’ll just empty that for you. It’s all “for the kids” after all.

Yesterday alone my children trucked off to school with no less than $40 in “mad money” (as in my money and I’m still a little bit mad about having to part with it) to attend a charitable fundraiser at school. Sure, I’m all for saving the whales who suffer from diabetes or what have you, but at some point something’s got to give.

I am not a hard-hearted soul. I’m as for (or against) whatever cause is up for discussion as the next person. I’m for new playground equipment, basketballs, and paving stones and against cancer, diabetes, natural disasters, and gift wrap.

What I don’t get is how our nation’s children have been drafted as the next major workforce of volunteer salespeople and nobody but curmudgeons like me seems to care.

They keep telling me that schoolchildren have barely enough time in the academic day to have one recess, let alone the three I routinely had when attending grade school. Today children wolf down lunch in twenty minutes or less (with 19 of them spent standing in line waiting to buy). Our school has even cut out keyboarding because time is so tight (computers? Who needs ‘em? I’m sure that’s just a passing fad).

Ironically, they have no END of time to take my children out of class, herd them into the auditorium, and fill their impressionable heads with visions of the riches ranging from personal mp3 players to scooters to be had if only they can convince mom and dad to sell 10,000 units to coworkers, family, and friends.

I have taken a firm “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to fundraising among family members. You don’t scratch at my door with your scented candles and discount cards and I won’t scratch on yours. Still the fundraisers keep on coming.

Who knows, maybe it’s just sour grapes? Unless all you blog readers are interested in buying oranges, candy bars, and “World’s Best Grandma” plaques from me online, I don’t see this mommy making much headway in selling at work.

Utimately, I’m all about helping America’s youth. I’m just not convinced they should all be pushed toward a third grade future in sales.

Bookmark to:
    

I do not understand the yellers. The people who cannot live another moment unless they tell you just how badly you just fucked up. I really don’t get it.

I’ve been the recipient of yelling on two occasions recently, and yes, I readily take the blame for having erred. Once was at the very first Academic Triathlon meet that I’ve ever hosted for our school. I was supposed to read the scene for the P.A.R.T.Y in a Box for the audience before the first team performed, and I forgot. I realized as soon as they started and planned to go up and apologize and read the scene after they were done. It was MY team, so it wasn’t like this was causing some unfair disadvantage to anyone else. In the 5 minutes they were performing, something like eight people came up to me—stood in line behind each other—to tell me that I was supposed to read the scene before they started. I cannot even fathom standing in a line and hearing several people ahead of you say exactly the same thing you intend to say and still go through with it. Really, what did they expect me to do about it at that point? To make it worse, three people called me at home the week following the event to tell me that I should have read the scene before the kids performed. How do you respond to something like that?

The second incident was just yesterday. The car in front of me turned the corner to get in the line in front of the school to pick up the kids. Then it was my turn and as I turned the corner, I realized that the cars weren’t moving up as much as I anticipated they would. I had misjudged the amount of space available and part of my car would be in the crosswalk, but I couldn’t put my car in reverse back around the corner. I was pretty well committed to this awkward situation. I’ve seen it happen to other people. It’s not always easy to gauge from around the corner how much room there is, but since the line behind you extends out into another intersection down the street, you want to scoot up and keep things tight. I’ve also seen cars honking at people who are waiting for adequate room around the corner and aren’t turning when the people behind them think they should. It’s a high-emotion corner. I’ve never been honked before. Truth be told, my daughter prefers that I get there later so she can hang out with her friends, so there usually isn’t even much of a line by the time I get there, which is fine by me because this whole situation seems to turn grown ups into a bunch of squabbling idiots. Anyway, so once in a while, somebody misjudges the available space and their ass is blocking the crosswalk. Yesterday, it was mine. One kid approached the crosswalk while I was left dangling out in it, and he had to wait about 90 seconds for the line in front of me to move so I could scoot up out of his way. In that 90 seconds, a woman stopped at the stop sign coming the other way rolled down her window and made angry arm gestures at me. I made a “What?” gesture myself and she shouted, “What’s the matter with you? There are KIDS trying to cross the street!” and continued with the huffy arm movements and scowling face as though this was the worst offense against humanity she’d ever witnessed. OK, yes, I did in fact screw up. In the years of picking my kid up at that school, this is the first time I’ve misjudged the space, and I’ll be careful to not do it again. But, what exactly would she have me do about it right then? Her yelling at me actually delayed the child’s progress home by a few seconds because I was distracted by her when the car in front of me moved up and I could get my tail end out of the crosswalk.

I don’t understand the yelling. Is it that people need to be so right all the time that they just can’t stop themselves from pointing out someone else’s error? Even if a bunch of people already have? Even if pointing it out will do nothing to change what’s happening now? I obviously figured out the P.A.R.T.Y in a Box thing and fixed it at the first opportunity. The car situation is bigger than my little error yesterday, but it might serve everyone better if a long-term solution is proposed to the board, rather than just continuing to honk and shout at each other at the street corners. As for me, I’ll try to just avoid it by getting there after the line is gone.

But, the thing I really don’t understand, is what I asked before … how do you respond to people when they do this? Not just at the moment, but later, when you have to see them again? I may have committed an unforgivable offense, the lore destined to passed orally from coach to coach through the rest of time when I forgot to read the scene from the P.A.R.T.Y in a Box at the January 11th Round Robin, but all those people who lined up to alert me of my fuck up again, and again, and again and then called me at home to make sure I knew I fucked up? I’ll never be able to look at them like they’re normal human beings again. I feel like Mel Gibson in Signs, pointing these people out to my kids and saying, “See that lady? I don’t any of you spending any time with that lady alone. Understand?” Because what kind of people DO this? The lady in the car yesterday, what am I supposed to say to her when I bump into her at some pot luck? My husband suggested I ask if she’s over it yet. She won’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about because she probably goes around yelling at everyone for everything and my most horrible crime against children there at the crosswalk will be long forgotten. But, I won’t forget her. Her twisted face looking comically demonic from behind the windshield, her wild arms gesturing violently through the SUV’s open window. The scene has been burned into my brain forever. The honkers are no better. How do they greet each other at the soccer games after they’ve just been mechanically screaming at each other day in, day out? We have to live together on this planet. We have to do our best to make our way through interactions with each other. There will be bumps. There will be accidents. Mistakes will be made and corrected. I know I am embarrassed when I screw up, but I’d be even more embarrassed to make such an ass out of myself rushing to point out someone else’s screw up. To err is human, to have a big screaming hissy fit about it is just stupid.

Bookmark to:
    

As a work-at-home parent (or WAHD), having the kids home all day every day for the 2 week winter break can be a bit, shall we say, DISTRACTING. My productivity levels were about as high as an unsupervised and disenchanted college intern who just discovered the subtle pleasures of Minesweeper. So it is without any shred of guilt that I say I’m exploding with joy that the little shitheads — I mean ANGELS — are back in school today.

Even despite my 9-year-old’s comment, “You’re just happy to get rid of us.”

Yep! Don’t let the school door hit you on the ass on the way in!

Can I get an amen?

Bookmark to:
    

For me, the 4th grade was fairly uneventful. It felt to me what being the middle child might feel like — nondescript, confusing, awkward, boring, a teacher that I couldn’t stand and a bully that taunted me. One thing that does stand out though, the day I got my recorder. It was an instrument in which I dreamed that I had control over, that I could be taught to play beautiful notes on and my family members would sit around a fire while I played melodies that lulled them to sleep. It was so beautiful. So…beige-y. So new. I believe it actually glowed and little sparkles could be seen from its edges. Well, it didn’t happen. It wasn’t beautiful, I couldn’t make it sound beautiful and it always retained spit in the plastic nooks and crannies that would make my skin crawl. Truth be told, I’ve never heard anybody play it well. The music teacher was always busting our balls that we didn’t practice enough and after a while, it became more of a chore in which there was no reward. I gave up on it shortly afterwards and my recorder dreams were destroyed.

I have to admit however, when my older son brought home the form asking for a $5 fee in order to get his own 4th grade recorder, it brought back memories. I felt all warm and cozy to think that the tradition was living on. I knew that my son would look at his shiny new recorder and fall in love with it until reality set in.

He brought it home and his little brother loved it/wanted it so much, I made a run to Target to get him his own recorder too. The two played in unison. In ear piercing, nails on a chalkboard, screeching tires, screaming baby, drilling, and toilet plunging sort of way. It was horrible and then my older son proceeded to follow us around the house for days, like he was the Pied Piper or something, playing it like a whistle — the kind of whistle that makes puppies cry. Now I know why they call it a recorder — because you just can’t get that high pitched sound out of your head.

The charm is lost. I hate the recorder. I’ll bet my mom hated the recorder too. After the 4th grade recital, it shall be given a proper dirt burial.

Bookmark to:
    

ANNOUNCEMENT: School is officially over and summer vacation has begun. All form of peace and quiet and the expectancy of sane work hours and regular uninterrupted time has ceased. Blog posts of mine containing bits of nonsensical sentence structure/grammar errors/typos/all of the above should be looked upon with pity and wishes for the speedy return of my sanity, expected to take place somewhere around Labor Day.

That is all.

Bookmark to:
    

Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about classroom size. Pop quiz — you have a choice for your 2nd grader: a class with 30 kids, or only 20? Seems like a no-brainer, but a story in the Chicago Sun Times indicates it’s perhaps not quite as intuitive as it seems:

The 25 highest-scoring schools in CPS [Chicago Public Schools] average roughly seven more kids in their primary classrooms than the 25 highest-scoring suburban schools, or about 27 kids vs. 20, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of state public school data indicates…Chicago’s 25 lowest-scoring schools averaged around 7½ fewer kids per primary classroom than the city’s 25 highest-scoring schools, the most recent state data indicate.

Last year, a school in Chicago’s Edgebrook neighborhood topped out at 40 kids for its only 1st grade class — and posted the highest test scores for the city’s neighborhood schools. I know around here it seems the big bitch of the majority of parents focuses primarily on class size. Perhaps if we shift our mindset a bit and instead look to improve the things that principals cite as being most influential on education quality — poverty, teacher quality, and parental involvement — instead of blindly throwing money at school construction budgets, we might be able to slowly form an effective grassroots organization to fix the mess of our education system.

Bookmark to:
    

Here’s the latest piece of news that set off my Libertarian Bat Phone™: Nevada, the state known worldwide for its conservativeness, high moral standards, and overall regard for its citizens, pushed a law through its legislature requiring Nevada school districts to send home the “Educational Involvement Accord” with all of its students. The EIA is a contract that parents must sign, pledging “active involvement” in their child’s education, and that they will encourage their children to read, attend school, complete their homework, and cut back on TV and video games. The big kicker is that they must also promise to volunteer a minimum of 5 hours per year at school or a school-sponsored event.

While no one would argue that the above recommendations are worthwhile, and a goal we should all strive for, taking it beyond suggestion and signing it into law is going too far. A parent that takes no interest in whether or not their son skips school or if their daughter studied for that Algebra final is a shitty parent, to be sure, but they have the right to be a shitty parent. If I choose to allow my kid to flunk out of school, then my family has to deal with the guilt and the consequences. Every child has a human right to a quality primary education, but that doesn’t mean they should be forced to take full advantage of it. It’s extremely insulting to us that actually *do* give a rat’s ass — I have no one to answer to about my children other than myself, period. Being required to volunteer at the school feels less like volunteering and more like being sentenced to community service. To solve the problems within our school districts, we need *less* government interference in education, not more. Is it any wonder that private schools are better than public, while operating at the same — and often less — cost per student?

What’s next, government appointed guardians who keep a log of my children’s fruit and vegetable intake? Maybe transponders installed in our televisions and computers so schools can monitor our kids’ off-campus activities? Oh, right…

Bookmark to: