LG

Sunday homework
I believe I already wrote about our frustrations
with the amount of homework Abigail has in 6th grade.
But the frustrations have been so monumental
that I can’t write about it enough.
I am having a parent/teacher conference
with all of her core teachers about it on Tuesday.
I sent them an e-mail last week
out of utter frustration.
LeGrand laughed on Thursday,
when for the second day in a row
Abigail came home with no homework,
except for the 4 major projects that had already been assigned.
LeGrand said,
“Do you think that this change is a result of your e-mail, Alice?”
The change had been drastic.
Abigail has been doing homework every waking hour
since school started.
My reply with a wink:
“I absolutely think it is because of my e-mail.
Why would you think any different?
You know that
I have influential writing skills.”
We laughed.
Well, here is a church sign that I captured this past week.
I am posting it in honor of the homework
we will be supervising with Abigail all evening.
Supervising meaning
she will have to do the work,
but we will have to make sure she stays focused
and gets it done.
I am kicking myself for living the hell
we call Sunday night homework.
I remember how my parents
used to always beg us to get our homework
done on Friday or Saturday.
But really, I don’t have the heart to
make her do it on Friday night,
when she is completely wasted mentally.
And Saturdays are busy!
Sunday just seems easier,
as all we really have scheduled is
a three hour block of church.
Tonight’s big assignment is a current event project.
I can’t wait.

When I saw this church sign,
I couldn’t help but think about
this post on a blog that I have been frequenting.
The Knoxvillian author of mamapundit
just lost her son to a drug overdose.
I am appalled at what people say to her.
It has some serious religious fervor going on.
It gives you a taste of
living in the Bible belt.
Of course, I put in my two cents.
Well, I believe I will copy and past my e-mail,
(to the teachers, not to mamapundit)
in case any of you ever need
some influential writing.
What is your opinion about the homework thing?
Dear Ms. Parker and 6A Team Teachers,


Abigail Gold is my daughter. And as I know none of you well, I want to preface this e-mail with the fact that I am not one of “those parents”. I will absolutely do everything in my power to support you all in your goals as I will for my child. I know we all have her best interest at heart. Abigail has always been a straight A student and has never had any problems completing assigned homework. I am worried that her Honors classes may be too much for her to handle at such a young age. If we were to take her out of honors, would there be a considerable difference in the amount of homework?

My husband and I are both very dedicated to helping Abigail succeed with her education. We are very concerned because Abigail has had an abundance of homework. We are worried on two accounts. One, is all this homework really necessary? And two, does our child need an A.D.D. assessment? She is having a terrible time concentrating on her homework. I am not sure if it can really be considered Attention Deficit Disorder or if she is just sick and tired of studying all day every day. She understands the material and so I hate to take her out of Honors, but I am worried about her emotional well-being. She doesn’t have a minute to relax anymore…not a minute…until Friday night. This past weekend, we did homework for eight hours on Sunday, where we repeatedly corral her back to her desk to focus. I have thought that our 3 other children were a lot of the distraction issues for Abigail, but on Sunday our other children were at their Grandma’s.

Tonight we did math for 2 hours, social studies for a 1/2 hour, and language arts for 15 minutes. This doesn’t even touch the 1/2 hour reading she is supposed to do for her Reading class. She also has 4 ongoing larger projects that she has only barely started. Today, she came home from school, did homework until she ran out the door to her soccer game and then came home and ate dinner while working on the rest of her homework until 10 p.m. This has been typical since school has started. Even on the nights she doesn’t have soccer or church, she is still doing homework from the time she comes in the door until she goes to bed.

I understand that Knox County has raised the bar, but is homework the answer for these kids? As adults, we don’t want to work all day every day, and I especially don’t think it’s fair to expect that of an 11 year old child. I don’t think it’s healthy. I also don’t know if this is just an Honors thing, but if it is, is it really fair to approach honors by giving the excelled students more work than they can handle healthfully? Our whole family has been negatively effected by the amount of attention is required for Abigail’s homework.

Trust me, I am all for teaching my child good work habits. (Let’s not even talk about the chores she never has time for anymore) Abigail has high goals for college and talks of Ivy League schools, and I understand that she needs to learn good study habits, especially if this is her future goal, but I am sending this e-mail with grave concern for my daughter. I hope you can all shed some light for me. I know all the other parents have said that their kids have a ton of homework too, but I think we may need some medical attention for Abigail. I have been told that the schools conduct assessments when a parent expresses concern, and I wonder if this is true? I know you all are much more experienced with middle school and with a variety of students and I am novice with my oldest child just starting 6th, and so I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.

Band Blues

Abigail surprised us by bringing home her french horn yesterday.
She said the band teacher made everyone take their instruments home.
She hasn’t been going in early to practice
because she says that they have only learned three notes
and she already has them down.
She took out the instrument to demonstrate.
I said, “What notes were those?”
She said, “Mom, that was one note.”
LeGrand and I busted up.
We couldn’t help it.
And then LeGrand said,
“Alice, maybe you should go down to the school
to see about switching Abigail over to just choir
instead of the choir/band combination.”
Abigail smacked him.
And her and I proceeded to the piano to practice some more.
It’s about time the kid has some humbling experiences.
Between band and never-ending homework,
I think she’s finally being challenged.
We are happy.
And still chuckling
over
“which notes were those?”

How to dress up like a cow
We recently took a trip to Chick-Fil-A
for some free chicken.

All you had to do was dress up like a cow.

It was in this setting that I realized,

that moms can try as hard as they want:
they can make costumes
and help coordinate efforts

but, they can
never
even
try to
replace
dad.

LG is such a good sport.
Or he really just likes free chicken.
Nobody got his costume.
Except for this other dad,
standing close by
in his sissy
jersey spots.
He let out a good manly chuckle
at the sight of LeGrand,
being the man that he is.
I think he is going to rethink
his costume next year.
I wonder how many men
will show up as bulls
next time?
But, remember,
you saw it here first.
LeGrand needs all the manly points
he can get
in this household
full of women.
Like our 4 daughters
always say,
“even our cat and dog
are girls.”

Ish

Sophia started another new vocabulary word.
I told you before about
We’ve been using it for a while.
We’ve also been using
Ish.
It means kind of, nothing exciting, mediocre, in the middle,
or I am not really sure what to say right now.
It’s a noun, verb, and adjective all in one.
How was that ski lift?
Ish.
Were you scared?
Ish.
What would you call a ride like that?
Ish.
How old is this picture?
Ish.
Implement it.
It’s a perfect word.
Perfect-ish.
Shortened to ish.

Love Hate Relationship
I won’t tell you who constructed such a fine piece of artwork.
As they might have morning after regret.
But, I will tell you
that karma is a bummer.
And for all the times I said this exact thing to my mom
I want you to know
that I always knew you didn’t hate me.

If helping you to learn to clean your room
so you can have
a nice home of your own someday
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If disciplining you for
disobedience
so that you will learn
that actions have consequences
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If reading scriptures with you every day,
so that you will know
the love of God and Christ
means I hate you,
then I must hate you.
If sitting down with you to
do your homework
every day after school
so you won’t be a procrastinator
means I hate you
then I hate you.
If telling you to hurry
because you are going to be late
for soccer again,
so that you will learn to be responsible
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If asking you to remember
and wash your face every night
so you won’t be scarred
by the effects of
adolescent acne
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If taking your phone away
so that you can learn to
have a real conversation
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If requiring you to wear
modest clothes
so that you will
have self-respect
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If limiting your TV time
so that you won’t
turn into a couch potato
means I hate you,
then I hate you.
If asking you to help
with household chores
so that you will learn
to be a contributing member of society
means I hate you
then I hate you.
Now,
go back,
and read
every one
of these stanzas
over again.
And where they say,
“means I hate you
then I hate you”
please replace with
“means I love you,
then I love you.”
And then add this last one.
If laughing
when you make a sign like this
so that you will
learn not to take
yourself too serious
means I love you,
then you must know
that I really love you.
Because I am still laughing.

Love is everything
Last week, I kissed my husband at the dinner table
and asked my kids if they knew how much I loved their dad.
All the girls gave a rapid yes
while covering their eyes and giving us the pukes.
I kept kissing.
And then asked,
“How do you know.”
Bella answered eagerly.
“Because you have four kids.”
LG about sprayed his Crystal Lite Lemonde
in the baby’s face.

“Right”, I told her.
And then declared to LG that I was going to have a great blog post.

Happy Anniversary to my husband of 13 years.
Who made this message possible.
With some good love making.

There are certain spelling mistakes that this mother can overlook.
Especially when it comes to love.

Only Sophia

A little while back Sophia had some fun by saying that if she would have gotten her middle finger cut off she would have to say “give me four” when wanting a high five for the rest of her life.
 
I recently came across this picture, and wanted to share the funny story.
 
Raising Sophia is so much fun. She is hilarious. She is smart. She is beautiful. She is SWEET. And she is also blonde. Very blonde.
 
A few years back, as we were visiting my in-laws, for some reason, LeGrand and the girls and I ended up driving to church in Grammy’s van. Aunt Michelle was with us. Halfway to church, Sophia starts screaming from the back. We, being the experienced parents that we were, told her to knock it off. Michelle attentively found out what was going on. She calmly declared, “Her finger is stuck in the seatbelt.”
 
“Well pull it out”, I say. “It won’t come out”, Michelle says. Sophia is now crying with full force, which is slightly louder than a whimper. I forgot to tell you the girl is quiet. And although she has mostly outgrown it, she used to be terribly shy. I climb in the back of the van to take care of whatever it was that 22 year old Michelle couldn’t.
 
I was in for the shock of my life. HER FINGER WAS STUCK IN THE SEATBELT. What the heck? How did this happen? Sophia explained that she was just trying it on for size. You know, like a ring. What?.. had she worked her way up to the middle finger from the pinky? Well, she found the finger that it WOULDN’T fit. The middle finger was painfully and obviously TOO BIG. Honda Odyssey engineers must not have thought this one through. 3 year old stuck in a van + an empty middle seatbelt = an ultimate disaster.
 
I still thought I may be able to rectify things. I asked Michelle to hand me the A&D Ointment out of the diaper bag while thinking “thank goodness I still have one in diapers.” I slathered it good. The finger would still not budge. It wanted to keep that seatbelt on for the showing I guess. Sophia started really screaming good. I pulled hard to no avail. That thing, that ring, um, I mean that seatbelt was not coming off, and her finger was now swelling up good. The seatbelt started cutting into her skin.
 
By this time, we pulled into the church parking lot. LeGrand got in the back of the van to assess the damage. He calmly asked Michelle to go into the church building to get his dad. Papa came out and was astonished. Remember he is an engineer and he raised five kids….one of which, was Jordan. (a whole other story – one bragging rite was rescuing Jordan vs a hot water heater and although the hot water heater tried to shock Jordan to death, Jordan still won) Who would have guessed this could ever happen? Not any of us if we weren’t staring at it with our own eyes.
 
We decided I should try and get some ice from the church to see if we could get the swelling down. At this point, Sophia is resigned to be stuck in this van for a very long time. At least she had stopped screaming. The ice didn’t work. At all. It may have cooled her off a little but, that was about it. The only other thing we could think to do was call the fire department. I went in and found a NON EMERGENCY number and called. They questioned, “Her finger is stuck in the seatbelt?” “Yes”, I said, “but it is so much worse than that.” “We can’t get her out of the car.” With my brief explanation and their utter curiosity they said they would send someone out.
 
Meanwhile, we solicited the help from a prison doctor who happened to be attending church. He tried the trick of wrapping the string around the finger. It wasn’t even close to working. I guess it works on real rings…just not the steel kind. People from the earlier congregation start filling the parking lot as they were leaving. They looked over casually wondering what all these people were doing standing in the back of a van. It was July. It was hot. All of the sudden, you can hear the sirens. They are screaming from down the street and they are traveling fast. Could they possibly be for our Sophia? Why yes. They were.
 
First, the firetruck arrived. In LeGrand’s words, “Three big old firemen” all decked out in their flame resistant uniforms went to work. They assessed the situation and found a perfectly happy and shy little girl confined to a life in the backseat of a mini-van via seatbelt confusion. The confusion being theirs. They called the fire chief. He had to come and see for himself. Shortly after he arrived and checked things out for himself he said he had been the fire chief for thirty years and had never seen anything like this. Well there’s really no other way to celebrate America on the weekend of Independence Day, is there? The irony – no freedom to be found without the jaws of life.
 
Well, before they went as drastic as the jaws of life they decided that they would consult with their buddies, the paramedics. The paramedics offered nothing, except for some real eye candy for the people leaving church. We had a lot of gawkers. Not to blame them. How could they not wonder what was going on?A little girl in the back of a van. Emergency workers each taking turns checking out the situation. An array of emergency vehicles, inlcuding, but not limited to: a firetruck (with lights and sirens), an ambulance, a couple of police cars, and the truck of the fire chief.
 
Oh yeah, after putting all their heads together, what did they come up with? They were gonna have to cut her out. That was all they could do. They cut her out of the seatbelt and gave us their best advice, “Head on over to the emergency room to see if they can figure out some way to remove the metal from her hand”. “Oh, and tell your other kids not to play with the seat-belts in the future.” “Why thank you. Thank you so much.”
 
LG, Sophia, my father in law(Duane), and I head on over to the emergency room. We get to start it all over again. At the front desk. “Hi.” “hi.” “How can we help you?” We all look totally fine and we are dressed to the nines compared to the rest of the room because our Sunday worshop was apparently happening on their floor of the hospital. LeGrand starts to explain, “This is our daughter Sophia, she got her finger stuck in the seatbelt.” Blank stare. Me: “let me show you.” I held up her hand to the receptionist who immediately dropped her jaw in astonishment.
 
This exact scenario happened at least 20 more times while visiting the hospital. We finally just started throwing her hand into the faces of the medical gawkers. Everyone wanted to see what a finger looked like on a little girl who stuck it in a seatbelt. Nurses, doctors, janitors, desk workers, x-ray technicians. You name it. None of the emergency room docs knew what to do either. They tried the string trick, ice, but gave up shortly before the second round of A&D ointment.
 
It all ended with a visit from the orthopedic surgeon who declared, “we are going to have to do surgery with our diamond saw.” Are you kidding me?
 
As he started to explain that he was pretty steady with the saw, but there were still all kind of tragic possibilities including the loss of a finger, I quickly reminded him that LG was in law school and he better not screw up. He didn’t appreciate that. I started crying and begging him to not cut her finger off. He assured me that if he did cut it off, he would be able to most possibly successfully reattach it.
 
That was the longest hour of my life. The surgeon did a great job. I never did tell him that LeGrand wouldn’t have sued him even if he cut her whole hand off. I was so relieved that she was all in one piece.
 
Today, Sophia is really proud of two things. One- she was in a movie and two – she has a beautiful and modern ring that is an original. (I haven’t had the heart to tell her that has probably happened to someone else out there in this big world) The ring is cut into two pieces in her box of keepsakes and she is free to try it on whenever she feels a hankering. We figured that would be the surest way of keeping her away from the same exact seatbelts in our current van.
 
I wish I could have been at the Honda Dealership when my father in law was explaining the situation. He had to pull out a picture of WHY the fire department had actually cut the seatbelt out of the van. “She got her finger stuck in the seatbelt” just wasn’t cutting it.
 
Our hats go off to Honda who has a lifetime free replacement for their seatbelts. Maybe one of these days they will call to let our children safety test their vans. I am sure there are other possible disastrous scenarios that their engineers haven’t thought of. Adding a blonde child to their team could only help their safety regulations. I know four children that could give them a run for their money, as long as they won’t lose any fingers.
Adding this video in on 1/24/2014 for your reference to the string trick mentioned.

Wishful Thinking

Happy Birthday Big Guy.
I wish we could stay in bed all day.
And do nothing.
Or something.
But instead we will be
getting Caroline tubes in her ears,
closing your practice,
searching for a new job,
taking kids back to school shopping,
paying bills,
cleaning house,
and
working on church callings.
All of which will require us to get out of bed
VERY EARLY.
I’m so glad I married a morning person.
One of these days,
let’s get out of bed early,
and go somewhere
where we can stay in bed all day.

Self-Employment

For the past two years,
LeGrand has been running his own law practice.
It is a two years that I would
NEVER want to live over again.
LeGrand has done a great job.
His practice has been successful.
He really did amazing things.
He’s accomplished a lot of his goals.
And he has gotten to know himself
more than ever before.
I bet he has been significantly more successful
than most people who start a practice
right out of school.
But it’s all because of God’s grace.
And it does no good for anyone
to compare themselves to others.
Better than monetary success,
LG has helped a lot of people.
And that makes LeGrand
really happy and proud.
He could keep going,
and we would only get richer.
But, life isn’t about riches all the time.
Sometimes it’s about having some vacation time.
I can’t wait for the day that LG clocks out
and leaves work at work.
I want to be the wife that looks forward to
that summer vacation.
Instead of feeling guilty for asking the man
to take a day off of work.
I couldn’t be happier,
that it’s time for the next adventure.
Because the stress that LG has carried around,
has about killed his wife.
And I am pretty tough.
Thanks be to God
for letting us know
that we can finally move on
from our second two year mission.
Or maybe it’s our third mission.
The first being our literal church missions.
(Where we met by the way)
The second being having all of our children
while finishing college.
And the third being the law practice.
I wonder what the 4th will be?
Here’s to NOT minding your own business.
And going back to working for the man.
I know that LeGrand will find the perfect job.
People would be stupid not to hire him.
He’s a genius.
What does this have to do with church anyway?

Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me #1

I found a little gem of a book at our local used bookstore and quite possibly one of my favorite places on earth, McKay’s. The book was fifty cents and it’s filled with wisdom. A lot of wisdom is funny, go figure.

I am going to try and share the little tidbits from time to time, and of course, I will add my opinion to go with it.

Just in case you want to read the whole book yourself, it is called Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me. The author is Cynthia Copeland Lewis.
So on to #1
Jump right in or you might change your mind about swimming.
I live by this philosophy. Sometimes it gets me into things that I regret, but because I tend to jump into it and not look back, I get a lot done.
When you jump in wholeheartedly, you can’t back out. Are you midjump in something that you need to fully commit to?
Me personally, I need to jump into a freezing cold shower this morning to wake me up.