School

Propaganda I agree with

I was one of “those”parents. I wrote to the principal to see what the school was doing about Obama brainwashing our kids. I was happy to find out that the school administrators had decided to leave it up to the individual teachers as to whether or not they would air Obama’s speech today.

I was happy until I read the script last night. In Tennessee, it’s a 50/50 shot at whether or not the teacher likes Obama. I knew most of my kids probably would NOT hear this today. And I was right. Not one of their teachers showed Obama’s speech in class today. And I so wish that they did. It inspired me as I read it last night. It made me want to go back to school.

And just for the record. I think that propaganda is perfectly acceptable as long as I agree with it. 🙂 Go ahead, all you Conservative freaks….hang me. I can’t wait to hear what you possibly found wrong with this speech. Bring it on. I’m waiting for some juicy comments.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one
of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to
discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can
provide.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end
up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write
your own destiny. You make your own future.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard
work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new
sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve
got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to
do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few
times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good
enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of
weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit
when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult
you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask
them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you
feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on
yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your
country.

Speaking Out

I read a quote on Candace Salima’s blog this morning.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

I think Thomas Jefferson would have been proud of me yesterday. In fact, I think he would like me a lot; I’ve never been much good at keeping my mouth shut. There are times when a mom just has to speak out and yesterday was one of those. I just couldn’t turn my back on my great country.

I took all three girls to Wal-Mart yesterday afternoon. As I was waiting to check out, there were two women checking out in front of me. Between the two of them, they had three little girls. They were the most darling children. They were just beautiful. Two looked like twins and they were all about three years old.

My girls parked it on the floor behind my buggy with a People magazine. They always do this to pass the time, but this time they couldn’t completely concentrate. They were totally distracted by what was unfolding in front of us, as was I.

While the new checker was completely oblivious, these little girls started loading up their arms with whatever they wanted from the shelves surrounding the check stands. We may not have paid much attention either, but they were knocking down a bunch of stuff while in the process, and I was surprised that their mothers didn’t do anything about it. My girls were most certainly coveting some of the toys, lip glosses, and candy that they were gathering, but never said a word. They know that their allowance would have to be used and I was delighted that the magazine combined with these younger children misbehaving was distracting them from their usual, “Mom do I have enough money to buy this?”

So, on with the story, I was floored because the mother directed the children in Spanish to get a bag from the check stand and to put their stuff in it. The girls each got a bag and did exactly that. What really triggered me is that these sweet little girls kept adding to their loot. They were so excited about all their stuff and kept hugging one another and telling each other gracias and that they loved each other.

I looked to the front of the store to see if I could go and forewarn a worker before their exit, but there was just a teenage kid at the greeting place. I knew it was all up to me.

As the moms finished their shopping. I felt a twinge of guilt. I knew what I was about to do, but I have to say that I almost didn’t because I felt sympathy as they used the last of their food stamps and were counting change to pay for the remaining bill. They had only bought one non-food item, fabric softener. These children were clean and had obviously been cared for physically. They had cute little outfits on and darling sandals.

But, I forged ahead, as it wasn’t their physical needs I was worried about. My motherly instincts came out in full force as anxiety swept over me for the moral character they were being taught. Who teaches a three year old to steal? Especially when you live in a country that basically hands you everything you need, whether you are a citizen or not. And these girls were loaded up with non-essentials. Believe it or not, I was kind of scared. I started the inner dialogue with myself so that I could find the courage to do the right thing.

Right as the second woman was finishing up and the first woman had gathered all the girls around the buggy to leave, I approached. I looked the woman straight in the eye and pointing to the children and their loot bags I said, “They did not pay for those things. They can’t just take them.”

This mom was stunned. She gave me a non appreciative look which silently stated, “Mind your own business.”, but proceeded to take the things from the girls and she placed them on the adjacent check stand. She never quit glaring at me. The one little girl (who I believe belonged to this first woman) went ballistic, throwing a pretty good kiddy tantrum. The other two twins almost seemed relieved.

I guess they don’t want to live among tyranny either.

And, someday maybe my kids will remember me as a mom who wasn’t afraid to stand up for what was right. I hope they won’t just think that I don’t know how to mind my own business because I could have very easily kept my mouth shut.

The moral of the story: don’t check out in front of me if you are the kind of parent who corrupts my world. This mom happens to be one who still believes in the pillars of moral character that they teach at school. (Ironic that I took this photo at the school just one hour before this incident occured, huh?) And I believe in doing what it takes to teach my daughters and yours, and when you fail, you give that right to me.

Dad’s Money

A few weeks back Bella accompanied me to the bank. It was a wondrous experience for her as she had never been to Daddy’s work bank before.

We stood in the line for the teller.

Bella asked me about my little deposit bag. I explained to her that this was daddy’s bank for work

and that I had to give the bank the money that dad had earned.

She asked me how much money daddy had in the bank. I told her that it wasn’t very much, but that this deposit would give him more money.

She exclaimed to me and the three people behind us in line:

“Maybe we should go to daddy’s work and get his money.

Daddy has a lot of money at work.”

I was perplexed.

I then rememebered that we have been trying to teach Bella about coins. Daddy had given her free reign in his change drawer a few days before. She loved counting all those pennies. I guess I had better go and rescue the change from the office, now that you all know where mu hugely successful lawyer keeps his big bucks.

A Freakin elephant?

I’m still not in the mood.

Here is an e-mail forward from my dear blogging buddy Sheila.

And the mom’s advice for the day is to teach your slang straight.

The moral of the story. If you are going to say freakin, like me, make sure your kids know how to spell it.

You also need to make sure that they don’t repeat the word in front of my mom. She thinks the word freakin is as bad as the real thing.

My five-year old students are learning to read.
Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said,
‘Look at this! It’s a frickin’ elephant!’
I took a deep breath, then asked…’What did you call it?’
‘It’s a frickin’ elephant! It says so on the picture!’
And so it does…

‘ A f r i c a n Elephant ‘

School Shooting in Knoxville

I had chosen not to post about the school shooting because it is just depressing and that is not the purpose of my blog.

We personally had several of our friends in attendance at Central High School during the shooting this past week. One of our very close friends was running late and her son was very very fortunate for missing it all together, or he could have very well witnessed everything and needed therapy for the rest of his life.

I changed my mind as the dialogue going on over at almostgotit and it has motivated me to invite you in for some discussion. The past several posts over there have been very thought provoking and are encouraging me to take more action to assist our schools.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I can do personally? I am already a classroom volunteer, room parent, PTSO member and a parent of really good parents who mentors not only my own children, but their friends and many others at church and in the community?

I have done all of those things for a long time, but when we switched our kids from their last inner city school, I took it as a personal failure. LG and I had failed to make a difference there. We were more than happy to take our precious children elsewhere and they are thriving at a new school with a truly safe and positive climate.

Besides spreading true Christianity, what else can we do to stop our schools from being overrun by characterless children?

Off to school

Last week marked the beginning of another school year for the Gold Family.

It is a little historic for us, as Bella, our baby, finally gets to go along with her sisters.

So, now I am left filling my days without children in tow.

I think that this Wild Thing will be o.k.

When I started getting a bit sad, I decided I needed to embrace the change.

I gave myself a treat on the first day of my new found freedom.

I went to Panera Bread and got whatever I wanted.

I sat and ate and read my book just to make sure I could still enjoy some quiet.

I sure hope the girls enjoy school as much as I enjoyed my date with myself.

I also hope that they will find and be the kind of friend that is illustrated in the following story by Susie. And, they will always remember that prayers are answered.

Bella can attest to prayers being answered herself. All summer, Bella repeatedly told us she wanted Mrs. Nitz, and we told her that any teacher would be just fine and that she wasn’t going to get to choose. It ended up that she had been assigned a teacher other than Mrs. Nitz, the one Sophia had last year. Bella was bummed out during the first week of assessments, but didn’t complain. She just kept on saying, “I really really really want Mrs. Nitz.” To our pleasant surprise, when Bella reported to her second day of school, Mrs. Nitz was waiting. Bella had been changed to her class. You should have seen that smile of an answered prayer.

WET PANTS

Come with me to a third grade classroom…..

There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, ‘Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.’

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy’s lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, ‘Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!’

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy.. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else – Susie.

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You’ve done enough, you klutz!’
Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, ‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you?’ Susie whispers back, ‘I wet my pants once too.’

HulaHoop Fun

Ever since field day, Abigail has been obsessed wtih learning to hula hoop.

And, in typical Abigail fashion…she mastered it in a week.

Here is Abigail at the rest stop.

She’s got her two favorite birthday presents:

her birthday dress and her birthday hula hoop.

Abigail came home from school on Monday and surprised us with her news.

She had signed up for the impromptu 3rd grade talent show.

She would be doing the hula hoop.

Overnight, she taught herself to hulahoop around her neck down to her waist.

She taught herself to turn around while hula hooping and to do some jumping tricks.

She reported that she was a big hit yesterday.

She hula hooped to Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Appropriate for the lyrics, don’t you think?

“Me, I want a hula hoop.”

Fancy Nancy

A while back, the girls had a walkathon at school.

Because their grammy was generous,

they each got to buy a book for their school library.

They put Grammy’s name inside of the books.

They brought the books home for us to see.

Here is the book that Sophia picked out.

We instantly fell in love with it, and I’ve been meaning to blog about it.

I hadn’t gotten around to it,

so you can imagine my delight with Mia’s last post.

Now all I have to do is link.

Abigail has been trying to recreate her own version of Fancy Nancy.

Isn’t she so fancy?

If every day were field day

If every day were field day,

we could sit outside and smile at each other.

Everyone would love themselves and wear fancy hats.

We could pop balloons with our butts just for fun.

We could let out all of our frustrations by pulling on eight kids on the end of a very large rope.

Everyone would get some kine of award, and be very happy and proud of their hard work.

Our teachers would cut us a break when they had to replace the paper that they told us to be very careful with. They would forget that they told us to place it in a very important place instead of losing it out of our pocket on the playground.

Even though they said they would not reproduce our list of events, they would.

Why?

Because it is field day, and no one can go home disappointed, even if they tend to misplace things because they are too busy thinking about more important things.

(The little genius Abigail is just like her father. He needs a field day every day too so that when he loses that fourth wedding band [which is not a matter of IF but WHEN], I, too, will cut him a break.)

We could just hug our friends.