Men Losing Sleep Over Palin

FYI — This is NOT a political blog.  This is my first, and most likely last, blog on the upcoming election.

I saw this graph today on Coginitive Daily.  I found it fascinating that people lost more sleep over the Olympics than over election speeches.  I didn’t participate in the survey, but if I had, I definitely lost more sleep over the Olympics.

Cognitive Daily

The thing I found most fascinating was that they found a correlation (albeit not a statistically significant one) between men losing sleep over Palin’s acceptance speech vs. women.  Interesting.  Let’s just hope that those men use their northern brains when they cast their votes in November.

September 12, 2008 | Filed Under Rants, Moods and Attitude | 7 Comments 

Team Names

Soccer season started this week.  All three boys are playing this season, which makes for interesting schedule management (especially for Theodore who practices gymnastics 4 days (12 hours) a week).  Anyway, Ward Cleaver coaches two of the teams and he tries to get first pick of jersey colors when they are distributed.  Last season, both of his teams had blue shirts.  The teams chose “Blue Dragons” and “Blue Lightning” for their team names.

This season, Ward Cleaver asked Alvin what they would name the team if they got blue again.  He said “Aleve!”  I realized he was talking about the pain reliever, and I had this brainstorm.  They should call the team Viagra!  It opens up a whole new meaning for chants from the sideline like “Keep it up!” and “Go for the goal!”

September 7, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 3 Comments 

Chef in Training

He loves to bake.  Usually, I do most of it and he helps.  This time, I let Simon do the whole thing by himself.  He made sugar cookies.  I watched (and took pictures).  We were so busy eating them afterwards, I forgot to take a picture of the result.  They were rolled in colorful sugar sprinkles.

Baking 1a

Baking 2a

Baking 3

Baking 4

P.S.  I got that shirt at Wal-Mart a couple of years ago and I’m still not exactly sure what it means, but it seemed appropriate (”School - the reason I don’t get up every morning”).

September 6, 2008 | Filed Under Learning | 5 Comments 

First Day of Not School

I’m an unschooler at heart. I WANT to believe in unschooling. I’ve seen it work in people I know and love dearly. I have seen it in process with friends’ kids. I read about it and believe in it. But I cannot seem to shake the fear that it won’t work for MY kids.

But apparently I don’t actually believe in it! You should have seen me last night. I wish I had had my camera out. I was meandering back and forth from the bookshelves to the floor hauling books from the shelves and piling them in stacks around me — math, vocabulary, science, reading, literature, writing, and everything else. As I sat in the middle of my stacks, I couldn’t believe all the stuff I had purchased with high hopes of using it and them loving it. As I went through this process, they fairly well ignored me and watched TV while my husband built a new computer for me from scratch (nice guy!).

I started getting frustrated and expressing it. I stated that I couldn’t believe that we hadn’t “done anything” since November 2007 (I date the pages as they complete them). Then I went on my math tirade (more of a verbal diarrhea then a tirade actually) about how you have to do math every day or you forget it, like a foreign language. Yada. Yada. Yada.

Mind you, this was about 10:00 p.m. I hauled out an Usborn Book of Knowledge and handed it to dumped it on Simon saying, “Here. Find something interesting to read.” I did the same to Alvin with a Kingfisher book of Science. I continued on with my quest to organize and decide on this year’s plan.

Before I knew it, Simon had found something in his book about sonic booms with an actual photo and couldn’t wait to show it to me. Alvin was up in the kitchen doing experiments with sound (he had put saran wrap over cup, salt on the wrap, and was banging a drum next to it to watch the sound vibrations make the salt jump). He ran to his dad saying, “Did you know that sound travels 100 times faster through wood than through air?!” They had taken those books and reveled in the new knowledge. I was so happy!

And tonight, probably out of guilt, Simon completed Lesson 1 in Wordly Wise 3000 book C. It is a 2nd grade book. He is now in 6th grade. He said he wanted a harder book. I said, “Try this one first. I’d hate for you to try a harder book and get discouraged.” He promptly completed Lesson 1 with no errors. None. I showed him how to use the pronunciation guide and how the accent symbol works. He read through the word list and finished all 4 exercises. It was definitely too easy for him. He was right.

As for math, we have done a great job with Living Math. Ward Cleaver is FANTASTIC at involving them in real world math problems based on our daily lives. He tries to make it fun for them in a way I cannot do with my left brained, sequential belief in math textbooks.

Writing is a completely different issue. I really think we fail in that category. But again, I need to find a way to make it meaningful for them. Tonight I think we came close with Simon. We explained to him the reason why we changed pediatricians when he was younger. Nobody could read this doctor’s handwriting, not even the doctor himself. That may have never been a problem for some patients, but since Simon had some health issues, we depended on accurate records of his doctor visits. Suddenly, I think he understood that written communication is only meaningful if others can read and understand it. It was like a lightbulb went off for him. Maybe tomorrow it will be gone, but I really hope that we sparked enough understanding in him (at age 11) that he may just believe that writing is important.

So I haven’t solved my unschooling problem. I still want to unschool, yet I feel compelled to force math and writing on them. I have heard numerous stories about how math and writing suddenly click for kids as teens, but I’m so scared to wait that long. Does anyone have advice?

September 3, 2008 | Filed Under Homeschool Issues, Learning | 25 Comments 

ADHD Serves a Purpose

Since I am apparently incapable of writing anything of my own (sorry, I’m a very busy mom these days), take a minute to pop over to Stephanie’s blog Throwing Marshmallows for a great post about Michael Phelps, ADHD, and spelling.

August 16, 2008 | Filed Under Homeschool Issues, Learning | 1 Comment 

Fire

Little Lake Santa Fe.  We go there every year, sometimes twice a year.  This year, there was some excitement.  We watched smoke rise from the trees for about 20 minutes before something struck us as odd.  Initially, we assumed it was a brush fire.  People burn stuff on their property all the time and nobody takes notice.  But the smoke just didn’t seem to let up.

Picture one, 1:36 p.m. when we decided something was not right:

Fire 1

We kept on tubing and having fun, looking over to see if there were any changes.  By this time, people were starting to drive their boats over to watch.  Suddenly, we notice a huge change in the smoke.

Picture 2, 1:41 p.m.:

Fire 2

The smoke had become very black.  We assumed they had a brush fire gone wrong, and headed over on the boat to take a look.

This is what we saw.

Pictures 3 and 4, 1:48 p.m.:

Fire 3

Fire 4

About the time we saw the very black smoke, we also started to hear fire engines.  The smoke had been showing in the sky for over 20 minutes.  At home, there is no way anyone would have waited to call the fire department.  In this area, however, smoke is a normal thing.  The first thing you assume is someone is burning their brush.  The other weird thing was that we drove the boat past there once, before the flames showed, and people seemed to be outside looking around the house as if something weren’t right.  But it was a solid 20 minutes before the sirens could be heard.

The Gainesville Sun reported the fire the following day, but they didn’t have much more information than we had:

Cause of house fire on Little Lake Santa Fe Unknown

Ooooh big excitement for a little town.  I’m feeling really bad for the people who own the house.

August 6, 2008 | Filed Under Trips and Travel | 4 Comments 

R.I.P. Tiger Woods

No, not THAT Tiger Woods, our hermit crab Tiger Woods.

I was giving Simon crap about not giving his hermit crabs water and food the other night.  He finally got off his butt and did, but he came to me and said, “Mom, Tiger’s not moving.”  Sometimes Tiger is shy, so I was hoping he was just not in the mood to move.  I went to his cage and picked him up and as I was lifting his shell out of the cage, he flopped out of it into his newly filled water dish.  Dead.

Poor Simon.  His face just went white.  And Oh.My.God. what a smell!  Aaaaack.

So I did what any good mom would do, I called my husband down to take care of it.  LOL!

We had Tiger for almost a year.  We got him after Albert, who is still alive.  Simon came to me last night and said he couldn’t get the image of Tiger falling out of his shell out of his mind.  He said it scared him so much.  Poor thing.  I know what it is like to dwell on things that bother you.  It’s a tough lesson, and there is nothing I can do to help him with this.  I told him to try to remember Tiger in his shell when he thinks of him.

Tiger and Albert

Rest in peace, Tiger.  (he’s the one on the left in the picture)

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under Parenting | 7 Comments 

Five Places I Have Lived

Geez, it takes a meme to get me off my fat ass and writing again.  BORING.

My buddy Meg at Get In, Hang On posted a meme that I thought was interesting, so I tagged myself (per her instructions).

The fine print:

Name 5 places you’ve lived. Be as specific or generic as you like.
List 5 memories associated with each of those places.
Tag 5 others.

Like Meg, I’m not going to tag anyone. Tag yourself and let me know if you do it.

I’m a bullet kind of gal, so here’s my list. These are the first five places I lived.

Fort Riley, Kansas (age 2 (second home, but the first home I remember))

– Duplex house (the family next door had 9 kids, we had 6 – can you imagine?!)
– Kid next door stealing the streamers from my tricycle handles
– Helicopters landing and taking off
– My dad coming home from work and sitting in the big green recliner
– The last family photo before my dad left for Vietnam (I’m the cute one in the blue dress)

Last Family Photo

Alexandria, Virginia (age 3-18)

– Playing the piano and imagining someone kidnapping me and forcing me to play for an audience (obviously I have issues)
– Playing Kick The Can, Ghost in the Graveyard, Hide With Them with zillions of neighborhood kids and no supervision
– Learning to ride a bicycle, cutting up my knees on the driveway next door
– Playing by the river, making forts, sliding down the cliffs to the water on our butts (again, with no supervision)
– Learning to drive a car (um, no, not legally)

Blacksburg, Virginia (age 18-23 (college))

– Playing backgammon at Top of the Stairs
– Playing darts at Ton 80
– Tubing on the New River
– My first apartment
– My first car

Madrid, Spain (age 20 (study abroad))

– Afternoon siestas
– Tapas and horchata
– Partying until 5am (the bars never close, or if they did, we never noticed)
– Traveling south to Malaga/Calpe, and north to Santander with friends
– Bullfighting – I found it both intriguing and disturbing

West New York, New Jersey (age 22 (internship at Citicorp during grad school))

– The “A Great Place to Live and Shop” sign at the town limits
– The commute to work - Bergenline Avenue bus/Lincoln Tunnel/Port Authority/E Train to Midtown Manhattan
– Hauling laundry 5 blocks uphill to the Laundromat
– Putting “No Radio” signs on my car windows (and having no radio)
– Hocker Pschorr Weiss Beers at The Brass Rail in Hoboken (Did we actually steal a parking meter? Nah. That would be illegal.)

Aspen Hill, Maryland (age 24 (first apartment out of college))

– Wondering if I would ever find a job
– Having to turn left onto Georgia Avenue every morning during rush hour with no traffic light
– Commuting 25 miles each way to Reston, Virginia from May – December while they were widening the Beltway (yes, I finally found a job, just not in an ideal location)
– The squeaky butt sound of the fat guy upstairs taking a bath
– A burglar in my apartment

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 5 Comments 

Herbies - The Love Bug

My nine year old, Alvin, is sitting on our bed watching some program on Discovery or some other normal cable station. I’m in the bathroom getting ready for bed.

Alvin: Mom, what’s herbies?

Mom: Huh?

Alvin: There’s a doctor on TV talking about herbies.

Mom: It’s a virus. There are all sorts of drugs advertised on TV.

Up next, erectile dysfunction. (pun intended)

Oooh I can’t wait to see what sort of search hits I’ll get now.

June 26, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff, Parenting | 6 Comments 

Happy Second Blogiversary To Me!

Two years of sporadic posting about dumb stuff. Who knew I could keep it up this long?! And I’ve had almost 34,000 hits. Amazing.

A few weeks ago, some blogs I read were posting funny searches that lead people to their blog. I decided in honor of my blogiversary I would do the same.

  • What was june cleavers husbands name

Ward

  • Wepinds.com

I’m assuming this is an 7 year old kid trying to find weapons. At least, that’s how my 7 year old spells it.

  • Odds of pregnancy while nursing and on pill

100% and his name is Theodore

  • June cleaver (dirty pics)

Ewwwwww!

  • How do i stop my internal clocks

You can’t. Stop searching.

  • Homeschooling boys who can’t sit still in a regular classroom

They can’t sit still at home either.

  • Are homeschoolers weird

Depends on how weird their parents are. Are you weird? Were you homeschooled? Did you know any weird kids in school?

  • Where can i get permanent cement for teeth

At the dentist. Don’t even attempt that at home.

  • How should i punish my homeschooler

What did he do?

  • How to prepare a child for preschools interviews

LOL!! Don’t get me started. If you read my blog, you know what I think of this sort of thing.

  • How will a girl of eleven go out with me

If you are eleven too, wait until you are older. If you are older, get out of my blog

  • Show kids pictures getting dressed

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are a preschool teacher who wants to post helpful pictures on the wall in your classroom.

  • Why not just make ten louder?

These go to eleven.

Thanks everyone for visiting and commenting (and those of you who visit every day and don’t comment really should comment).

June 20, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 9 Comments 

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