the devil and rod paige

Isn't she sweet? And now for my tirade...

The "t" in Texas actually stands for standardized testing. It's the cornerstone of our education system. It's the measuring stick that determines how schools (and therefore principals and teachers) are graded. I blame this apocalypse on Rod Paige.

This week, the poor children of Texas are taking the TAKS, a state-mandated exam that forces principals to put pressure on teachers, teachers to put pressure on children, and children to worry and stress over things that children have no business worrying and stressing over.

I'm not a fan.

Sunshine is too young to take this marvelous exam, but her school is on "lockdown" this week because of it. No ancillary classes, because her ancillary teachers are helping with test administration/hallway duty. No early dismissal for doctor's appointments, because that might disturb the children testing. No parents at lunch or volunteering in the classroom, because that might upset the sensitive testing environment. Every elementary school in my district is rated as Exemplary and we just wouldn't want to lose that, would we?

Sunshine is spending the week watching inappropriately rated films, playing iStation on the computer, and going to the park down the street for recess. Two of the 1st Grade classes are too close to the testing wing, so they've divided those students up among the other classes. More chaos contained in a tiny classroom prison. Super. I feel really good about waking up early to iron her clothes each morning to send her off for this riveting educational experience. I'm just being a brat, because of course she's still doing work, but isn't it a little early in the year to be acting like it's the last week of school?

And because I, along with esteemed educator Charlotte Mason, object to "learning that we may know, not that we may grow," I would like to leave you with this quote by Winston Churchill, who I think turned out pretty well.

I had scarcely passed my twelfth birthday when I entered the inhospitable regions of examinations, through which for the next seven years I was destined to journey. These examinations were a great trial to me. The subjects which were dearest to the examiners were almost invariably those I fancied least. I would have liked to have been examined in history, poetry and writing essays. The examiners, on the other hand, were partial to Latin and mathematics. And their will prevailed. Moreover, the questions which they asked on both these subjects were almost invariably those to which I was unable to suggest a satisfactory answer. I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations.

Winston Churchill My Early Life 1923 p 156

Camp Classen

Sunshine and I spent Friday, Saturday and the wee hours of Sunday at a Girl Scout camp in Oklahoma last week. The child was hilarious the whole entire time.

Incident #1
I was one of three organizers of this event. We had 300 people showing up, so we had to get to camp a few hours early to set up shop. That meant that Sunshine had to show up a few hours early. Wasting no time getting acclimated, she started talking to Brad, the YMCA Camp Director about her dragon toy and asking him what he liked best about dragons in general. During the conversation, she kept making the dragon toy soar over the Camp Store shelf, so that that poor Brad had to keep bending down to pick it up. He tried so hard to teach her how to aim it, but aim wasn't of concern to Sunshine. Blasting it off was her first and only goal. All the while, I'm begging her not to bother him and he keeps laughing it off. Sunshine laughed me off, too. Brad finally asked Steve, one of the cowboys, to take her outside to the sand games and teach her how to play. She skipped off happily, accompanied by the other organizer's 15 year old daughter. Sunshine saw nothing odd about playing sand pit dodge ball with a hardened old cowboy and a 15 year girl. I should mention that it rained the whole entire weekend, so this activity was right up her alley - messy.


Incident #2
People came up to me from the first moment we arrived and commented on how happy she was, but incredibly bizarre at the same time. Yes, that's my Sunshine. When she put her cap sideways during dance class, I heard things like, "Is she for real?" Yes, yes she is. When, it was pouring rain during horseback riding, she shouted, "This is the best day of my life!" The instructor said, "She's the most optimistic person I've ever met." Yes, that's what happens when things pass right over your head 99% of the time. No worries, my friends. And my favorite comment was from the boating instructor, "She's the kind of person I want on my boat if it sinks. I can just hear her, 'Oh, look! Water in the boat! How different! And now, we're sinking. Look, I can swim! Oh, I wonder if there are mermaids down here.' The rest of us would be freaking out and she would be floating around on her back taking in the scenery." Yes, that's most assuredly her.



Incident #3
On Saturday's horseback riding trip, Steve the Cowboy was her horse wrangler. He was trying to teach them different horsemanship points, so they could pass off a scouting badge. Sunshine just kept staring off at other girls riding,


or finding dirt to kick around.


Finally, Steve said, "Pinky! Eyes over here! We've got horses to learn about!" Pinky laughed and stopped kicking dirt...for about 15 seconds.


Incident #4
"Here's some great mud my mom hasn't seen yet. Let's play in it! It looks really messy!"
That's what I heard her say after I kicked her out of a mud puddle for the umpteenth time this weekend. After that, I just gave up.

Incident #5
On Friday night, the rest of our troop didn't show up until really late. So Sunshine was still hanging out with gals she didn't know...all of whom were quite older than her. I brought three videos from home for the girls to vote on, Camp Rock, Troop Camp Dad, and a Strawberry Shortcake camping movie. The idea was that the little Daisies would watch the Strawberry movie for the first shift at the movie theater. Then, they would go to bed and the older girls would watch another movie. It ended up that there were no Daisy troops checks in until really late, so we started the 8pm movie with just Sunshine and the older girls. I still let them vote on the film they wanted. First, I held up the Strawberry Shortcake movie, knowing they wouldn't vote for it. Sunshine, however did vote for it. When the herds of older girls started moaning, she stood up laughing and said, "Hey, come on guys. This is a great movie!" Then they all laughed with her. The child really doesn't care what people think about her. It's really cute how that still works for her.



Incident #6
At Archery, you could aim for targets or these foam animal targets. The animals were really crazy looking, so everyone just ignored them and aimed for targets. I trying to help Sunshine aim, because she had that possessed look she had when she was running down pedestrians at Safety Town. She still just couldn't get the hang of it. Finally, we let her do it on her own, the possessed look returned and she said, "I'm going to kill me that bear." No, joke. And she proceeded to aim for it and hit it. Apparently, she needed a more real target to excel. "Yes!" she said, "I really wanted to kill that bear!" When she left her window to pick up her arrows, she walked up to that bear and stabbed him, laughing hysterically. The child is insane. Completely crazy.


Incident #7
One of the badges they could earn was "Dancerize." (Don't laugh, Don. Boy Scouts has plenty of silly badges, too.) Her good friend, Jess taught the class, so Sunshine popped right in the front row.


After flipping her hat sideways, because that's obviously going to help her channel the rhythm she wasn't born with, she started following Jess's instructions.


And by that, I totally mean that she did whatever she wanted.


When everyone turned right, she turned left. When everyone swung their partners one way, she did it the other way.


She does her own thing, folks, and she always has fun.



Incident #8
Throughout the entire trip, Sunshine went her own way. Even though one of her very best friends went with us, she never partnered herself off with gals from our troop when we were at Service Unit-wide activities. Even when the big girls would start games and included everyone, Sunshine popped off and went after them without a care if anyone she knew was with her.


When the girls in our troop (an even number) all chose a troop friend to partner with, Sunshine chose the stranger next to her who was at the class without any troop friends.


When the kids had to line up with older girls to go roast marshmallows, Sunshine didn't get in the line with everyone else. Instead she hopped over to the other fireplace where Jess' was leading a line and talked to the teenagers and complete strangers while getting her smores stuff.



Instead of making the fancy flower brooches the other girls in our troop made (and I really, really wanted her to have), she made a lot of bracelets.


She was able to help retire a flag, which is something neither of us had seen before.


Good times were had.


Memories were made.


I learned a lot about Sunshine, which is always a good thing for a parent to do and we made it home safetly after a real-life near death experience and are better for it.


Thanks to Don and Dad for holding down the fort.

the mother son western dance

The Little Master is finally getting to the age when there are lots of fun activities for him to be a part of. When our city announced that they were holding a Mother Son Western Night, I was really excited to sign him up. There was to be dancing, pony rides, games, and dinner. Unfortunately, I had a prior commitment that I was helping to chair, so I couldn't attend. My good mom agreed to take 2 days off work and fly in from California to attend with our little Buddy. As luck would have it, my event ended up being cancelled, so I was going to be able to drop them off at the dance.

So Gramma flew into town ($$)


we got him a fancy new haircut ($)


went shopping for matching outfits ($$$)


got all dressed up, wearing a favorite belt from his cousin Nate


and posed for photos in front of the house.


When we showed up at the event, the parking lot was strangely barren. We walked in and were told that they were closing for the night. I asked, "Where is the dance being held then?" and was told, "Oh, they cancelled that."

It seems as though we signed up AFTER they cancelled and so our names weren't on the list of people to contact. Heartbreak ensued, my friends. There were five hearts broken in that car. I've been coming to terms lately that I can't have something that I very much wanted. Not through any fault of my own, but I still couldn't have it. It's been hard for me and I'm old enough to know well enough to snap out of sad little funks.

My sweet little four year old, who has some issues trusting people already, doesn't know about things like this yet. He doesn't know better than to feel despair and he became mute. He didn't talk for almost 30 minutes. He just stared out the window crestfallen.


We took him home to change him out of his fancy cowboy getup. We offered to take him to the Wiggles Play Center or Chuck E Cheese. He started at me with a blank look on his face and whispered, "Wiggles." Don was home by this point and hopped in the car with us. Buddy said, "They cancelled it Daddy. Why would they do that?" Sweet Don said, "I don't know, Buddy, but that's not right!" The bros sat in the back of the SUV and bonded. He told Don all about how he was going to teach the little kids at the Wiggly Center how to use the slides and the secret passageways. Then we drove into the parking lot and all of the Wiggles signs were missing. The decor and signage that had taunted us from the parking lot two weeks ago were all gone. 'Cause that's what happens on bad days. Businesses go bankrupt right when you need them. So, Buddy just started to stare out of the window again.

Luckily, Don was there because my mom and I were just dying. He suggested that we go bowling across the street. Good thing for us, they hadn't gone bankrupt or closed early, so we eagerly paid the $50 it costs for six people to bowl and rent shoes on a Friday night. Then Gramma took us out to dinner at IHOP, a magical kingdom for Buddy.


Thank goodness for bowling and IHOP. Thank goodness for sisters who support you when you're feeling sad. Thank goodness for grammas who will do anything to make you happy. Thank goodness for dads who know just what to do when mommies have hit a brick wall.

Oh, the hurt I felt for him. My poor little guy. You can be assured that I was on the phone with the superintendent of the parks department this morning.

some things I've learned about parenting lately

I feel like my parenting is something that I'm constantly reevaluating. Not being a parent, but how I parent. The kids get older, get wiser, get immune to certain rewards/punishments, change their schedules, host visitors, come in contact with new people or situations, etc. Things that worked last week don't always work this week. It's hard because I'll think that I have one little thing finally under control and then it changes.

One aspect of parenting that I've tried to change lately is how we approach our responsibilities in our home. The kids have always had "chores," but I'm coming to believe that those chores weren't really teaching them much about how a home runs. Of course, we have to make our beds and put away our clothes. That's kinda a no brainer. It's like flushing the toilet - common sense. I don't really think that's teaching them all that I can be teaching them. And really, one of my largest goals is to raise children who can leave my home as young adults and replicate the spirit and organization they grew up with. I know it's a grand goal, but I believe in setting high expectations for myself and my family.

So, what to do? If you've talked to me at all in the past month, you know that I've been reading a lot about one family in particular and how they manage their home. One of the things they do that I really keyed in on was giving each child a set of chores. Nothing radical about that, right? But the chores were the kind of things that I usually do, not my kids. If I gave some of my chores away to the kids, I could focus on things that they really couldn't do themselves yet or let's be honest, do well enough to please me.


I looked around at the things that slow us down in the morning and what keeps us kinda rushed each day before Sunshine leaves for school. Brushing their teeth always slows us down. I go in the bathroom, take out the stools, put on the toothpaste, turn on the water, etc. Also, one of my problems, and this is my own OCD issue, is that I can't leave the house with gunk on the sinks. It totally freaks me out. So I have to clean out the sink and put away the stools before we leave. Well, now each morning, Buddy goes to take out the stools and turn on the light. Sunshine puts the toothpaste on. Buddy puts away the stools. Sunshine takes a wet rag and wipes down the sink, lifts up the canisters on the counter, and wipes there, too. They repeat this exercise at night. It gives me time to do something else for 2 minutes, which doesn't seem like a huge deal, but it is for me.

We've been doing that for two weeks now and it works out soooooooo well. The kids feel really responsible. Buddy is so jazzed that he's in charge of something exciting like stools. I can't tell you how pleased Sunshine is that she's a part of something like this. Just yesterday she said, "Uh, Mom, we're running low on washclothes in the bathroom. Can I help you sort the laundry so that I can fill up that drawer?" See! Something that would have never crossed her mind before.

So, now I'm on the lookout for more chores like that. I want to introduce a new aspect of home management to them each month. Any suggestions of little itty bitty things they could do? We're not starting a work farm =)

And now, one more photo for my sister, who gets mad when I post and there are no photos of children.

the little ones

Sunshine and I spent Friday, Saturday and the wee hours of Sunday at a Girl Scout camp in Oklahoma. I left these two littles at home with my dad and Don.


I've never spent the night away from Miss Pocket before and I've only been away from Buddy when I was in the hospital giving birth to or tending Pocket.

They've spent the past two days paying me back for leaving them. Lesson learned, my friends.

allergies, howler monkeys, and weed killers

The school district tried to steal one of our snowdays recently. We'll be having none of that. Once a snow day is awarded, I keep it. Take that! Just joking. Kinda. Sunshine was home with allergy issues, as you'll be able to see in her eyes.

But we did stay home and ended up making FABULOUS dioramas. Buddy was dead set on doing a diorama with a howler monkey and a snake. So we settled on him making a jungle/rainforest one. Sunshine is studying butterflies at school, real live ones, and wanted to make a butterfly one. She did research about which ones she wanted to study, found a fact about each one, and chose a way to represent that fact in the diorama. They each made a list of the supplies they would need, went shopping in our craft closet, and then took the remainder of their list to Hobby Lobby. The people at Hobby Lobby thought that two little people with lists was hilarious.

Buddy rolled those snakes from clay and painted them orange, because he thought Grampa P would like that. I have to say that my favorite part of his was the alligator. It turned out really nice. He worked really hard on tracing those animals onto the shrinky dink paper. I had no idea how hard it is to use shrinky dinks. My gosh. It took forever!





Sunshine's creation turned out really cute, but I was really impressed by her research skills. This is the second year that she's had to do a research project at school and she's really gotten good at it. I didn't know that farmers used butterflies as natural weed control. Learn something every day!






That night while on the phone with my mom, Sunshine said, "We homeschooled today, Gramma. It was so much fun!" I tried to explain that every day of homeschooling isn't just making crafts, but she didn't care.

And yes, Rebekah. This was harder than I imagined with Pocket around. I couldn't just put out all of the supplies and move from section to section. We had to do each part separately and couldn't multi-taks. Also, we did all painting while she was napping, so it ended up taking three days!

scootin' in the 'hood

My favorite thing about the park on our corner is this sign. I just love it when people don't really, really edit things they publish. We break the first rule every time we go. Shame on us!

Don's parents bought my kids a GREAT gift for Christmas this year. Until a few weeks ago, they had only used them indoors. But now that the weather is fine, we've been taking them out each night for a run at the neighborhood park.

Sunshine is our daredevil. Every time she turns a corner, she flips her leg up as high as her hips. I wish I could have gotten a picture that turned out of her doing it. It scares Don to death. When she went by the sandbox, she would ride up next to it and kick off of the fence with one foot. She's hilarious.



Buddy is just plain ole crazy. He's soooooooooo fast and makes these crazy sounds/faces as he scoots. He cracks me up. His Razor has a kickstand in the back for doing tricks. Honestly, I don't know why we thought that was a good idea, but he's always doing tricks on it.



Pocket is the cutest thing on the planet on this Razor. If you've never been on a Razor scooter, they're different from other scooters. First of all, there is only one wheel in front and one wheel in the back. The wheels completely pivot, so the scooter can move and turn easily. But that means that they move and turn easily, even if you don't want it to. So you have to have a lot of control. It seems like it would be impossible for someone so young to ride, but she's gotten really good. She's also wearing flip flops while doing this. Talk about coordination! At one point, she started shaking the handlebars and said, "Did you see my cool trick? Watch me do it again" and she did it again. LOVE that kid!



Can you see the older kids in the background?


Thanks, Gramma and Grampa P!!! They love their little Razors and I love gifts that get them active and having fun.