Life With Frenchie

Okay, so technically I don’t get a summer vacation. Actually, as a parent, I think we get double duty during the summer! This summer was no different. Well, maybe it was because we had a crazy busy schedule! So much stuff went on, I think I will need to break this up into multiple posts - for my own sanity as much as for yours’!

Last year, we were supposed to go to Virginia for a week to visit EP’s family, my mother, and our friends. Unfortunately, I ended up having surgery and we never had another week where we could make the trip last year. This year, it was a priority on our list!

So, the week after school was out, MM, EP, and I packed up and headed north. It was a great trip because I got to meet most of EP’s friends from childhood through college at our engagement party. My maid of honor was also there. I was so excited to get to see her because I haven’t seen her in almost 2 years and she is also engaged and I had yet to meet her fiance, even though they’ve been together for about 4 years now! We had so much fun those first few days. We went into D.C. to have dinner with my MOH and her fiance. We went to EP’s high school (his mother still teaches there) and ran into some of his former colleagues from his teaching days. We attended a lunch in honor of his mother for her hard work as head of her department at the school. We had dinner with his father. We spent a wonderful evening with his friends and our families celebrating our engagement and just having fun. It was a great start to our summer!

After the first few days, EP flew out to Las Vegas to help his cousin ring in his 50th birthday. While he whooping it up on the strip, MM and I ventured an hour or so north to visit with my mother. Originally, we were supposed to go to National Zoo with my MOH and her fiance, but my mother wanted to take us to Williamsburg, VA so no zoo for us (can you believe I have never been to a zoo before?!?!). The last time I was in Williamsburg, I was just a year or two older than MM. MM has read the American Girl books and she really enjoyed Felicity’s story, so I thought she would enjoy seeing the city where it all took place. Although she did enjoy seeing the Governor’s Palace, touring the historic buildings, and seeing people dressed in period costumes, she did not like the walking! And we walked….A LOT! At one point, she was complaining so much, I had to resort to drastic measures and lock her up! We planned to go to Jamestown as well, but we got there very early and after waiting around a while for it to open, we decided we were tired and just headed back to my mother’s place.

Bright and early the next morning (about 3 AM actually) I headed out to make my way back home. At the same time, EP was on his way back home from Las Vegas. We both had a very long week and by the time I made it home (about 4 hours after EP, who waited at the airport for me) we were pooped! MM stayed in MD with grandma for the rest of the month while EP and I enjoyed some more summer “vacation”!

Well, I think that’s enough for now. Next time, I’ll share with you MM’s summer at camp and our first of three weddings that we have to attend this year!

Stumble it!

It’s not the whole story. Apparently, “No Child Left Behind” does not mean that the educational system works to help students excel in academics - it means that they make sure the smarter kids don’t get too far ahead of the rest of the class. *eyes rolling*

I try not to be “that mom” that insists my child’s a genius. Actually, I don’t even think that. I do, however, think she is a smart child and know that she is capable of excelling academically. This summer, EP gave her math work to do every day and made it very challenging. She worked through 6th grade math review, learning decimal functions, percentages, etc. Now, we are well aware that this is above her current grade level (she just started 5th grade), but we had no idea how pathetic the curriculum was in our system (and it seems like the whole state!). She is in her 3rd (I think) week of school and her math homework is not encouraging. Today’s homework, for example, reads as follows:

672 - The __ is in the hundreds place; the __ is in the ones place; the __ is in the tens place.

I poop (yeah, I’m trying to keep it clean) you not!!! It got challenging *serious eye rolling* when they gave her numbers in the thousands to work on. Come on!!! What is this crap? In the meantime, EP is still giving her daily math problems to work on. Today, she had six problems. An example:

Find a number so that 17.8% of it is 115.

What is 4.4% of 25?

She needed the first type of problem explained to her, but was able to do the second type with no problem.

Her spelling/reading is no better. Her spelling words for the week?

Oak, Tow, and the like

What. The. Hell? I know that the beginning of the year is usually review for a while, but who are they reviewing? This is like 2nd grade stuff!

Seriously, I’m so disappointed in our schools! We have had her tested for the gifted program, but that won’t solve anything because, at her grade level, it does not give her advanced work in her regular academics. So what are we to do? For us, homeschooling and/or private schools are not an option– at least not at this point. I’m just so frustrated I can’t even put my thoughts together to make sense!

Stumble it!

As Colleen pointed out, I experienced a blonde moment this evening. Am I really getting that old? Is it early onset???? Seriously, it didn’t ever dawn on me that I had my holidays backwards. Maybe all the studies are right — all those beers in college really did kill brain cells!

I feel like these moments are coming more and more these days. I think I just might have to start keeping track of them. I may run out of space though…

Stumble it!

Okay, so it’s not that holiday yet, but it’s coming!! In the meantime, it is a holiday weekend, and a very important one at that. Monday is Memorial Day. One of my favorite poems always comes to mind around this time of year:

A Soldier Reports to God

The soldier stood and faced his God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as brightly as his brass.

“Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?”

The soldier squared his shoulders and
said,”No, Lord, I guess I ain’t
Because those of us who carry guns
Can’t always be a saint.

I’ve had to work most Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the streets are awfully tough

But, I never took a penny
That wasn’t mine to keep…
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.

I know I don’t deserve a place
Among the people here
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.

If you’ve a place for me here, Lord,
It needn’t be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don’t, I’ll understand.”

There was a silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God,

“Step forward now you soldier
You’ve borne your burdens well,
Walk peacefully on Heaven’s streets,
You’ve done your time in Hell.”

Enjoy a safe one everyone and remember our soldiers.

Stumble it!

One of the joys of having a young child in your household is that you, at some point or another, have the chance to experience many of the new “fads”. There’s one that’s been sweeping the nation lately that doesn’t inspire the usual cringe when MM walks in the room and starts a conversation with “Hey Mom! I want to try something new…” Today’s generation of youngin’s are being taught to be much more environmentally concious than I was. It’s not that it wasn’t that it was not talked about when I was in school (hey, I was president of Student Activists for a Viable Earth at my school!!!), but it didn’t have it’s own cool moniker then.

So MM wants to “go green” in our house.

Easier said than done! It’s apparently going to take baby steps. She chastizes me for leaving the television on when we go in the kitchen to eat (yes, our family eats dinner together, in the kitchen, almost every night!), yet she leaves her iPod playing all night long and often leaves her CD player on while she’s at school. *shakes head* One place that we’ve started has been with our dishes.

For some reason, our small family goes through enough dishes to make you think we ran a boarding house. It seems like we are forever doing dishes. When it was just MM and I, I always washed dishes by hand. But, once we moved in with EP, I realized I would soon have prunes for fingers if I tried to keep that up. Even with using the dishwasher, there are still times when I do a lot of dishes by hand. Okay, so baby steps…let’s start by using products around the house that are more environmentally friendly. I found out that Clorox has a new line of products called Green Works. It’s natural cleansers with plant-based ingredients. One of those products is a dish soap, so I decided to give it a go….

At first, I was skeptical about even trying it. I just knew there had to be some flaw that would cause me to say “See! This is why we aren’t going green!” but I actually really like it. It doesn’t have any funky scent to it. Actually, it’s a fairly pleasant scent compared to the stuff we normally buy. Also, an added bonus is that it doesnt’ dry out my skin! LOL I’m sure that’s probably not what Clorox was going for with the dish soap, but it’s a plus for me since my hands get so horribly dry and cracked whenever I do dishes. Normally, I have to run from the sink to my bedroom for lotion as soon as I’m done. But, with the Green Works, I don’t feel like my hands are getting anywhere near as dried out.

I’ve since found out that Clorox has developed a whole line of Green Works products, all of which I regularly use around the house. Maybe this going green thing isn’t going to be too hard. Just don’t ask me to turn off my computer!

Stumble it!

I haven’t forgotten about you kiddies. I am carefully composing my essay on how I spent my summer vacation. But, I stumbled across this and just couldn’t believe it! The guy (well, that’s questionable now) that I just knew I was going to marry turns 50 tomorrow:

That’s right! Michael Jackson is 50 years old! Man!!! I feel ancient! It’s scary to look at him these days, so that is why I am not going to post a picture of him as he looks now. The man in the yellow shirt and bow tie is the one I was so in love with! I remember kissing his poster every night before I went to bed! Yes, I am a ginormous dork, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one…..

Stumble it!

Just a quickie for now. I’ll be back soon to catch y’all up on my M.I.A.-ness. But, as usual, another Florida teacher has been caught messing with the kiddies.

Joel Matthew Cupp, a teacher at Trinity Oaks Elementary School, was chatting with two different undercover investigators with the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and one with the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit, believing he was talking to three young teenage girls.

Cupp also exposed himself multiple times over a web cam to the “children.”

He’s a teacher at an elementary school near my home!! As a matter of fact, we were considering trying to get MM into this school! YIKES!!! I don’t know how long it will be up, but if you’re interested, he’s got a blog. Another sick f*ck in our already pathetic excuse for schools in the grand ole state of Florida.

Stumble it!

Someone pointed me in the direction of this article this morning. I don’t even have words…

When Abbie Hawkins felt a strange vibrating sensation in her bra while at work she simply assumed that it was her mobile phone ringing.

The hotel receptionist was therefore rather taken aback to discover that it was actually a bat that had made its home in her underwear – and that it had been there all morning.

Really???? C’mon! How do you not notice this at any point when putting the bra on?!

Stumble it!

This evening, I logged on to see how our wonderful schools here in glorious Tampa were faring after their “grades” were released and instead I stumbled across this horrific story. Apparently, some dumb ass decided it would be a cool thing to toss a lit firework into the backseat of a car where a 1-year-old and his 2-year-old were sitting:

Someone in a group of young adults and teens on the sidewalk had tossed what Felix thinks was a lit Roman candle through the open rear window of her Toyota Camry.

It landed in the lap of her 1-year-old son, Juan Coley, who was closest to the open window. His legs were on fire when Felix pulled him from the flaming back seat. His Pampers had exploded from the detonation.

“I could hear my kids screaming. They were burning,” Felix said from their hospital room. “Smoke was coming off my baby’s legs.”

What the hell is wrong with people?!?! This happened in Fort Meyers while the mom was stopped at a stop sign, on her way to the store to buy juice and milk for her kids. Unfortunately, she did not get a look at the person(s) who did it. Now, she has to sit in the hospital with her two young children and find a way to comfort them and try to understand why something like this happened.

Seriously, if there is a hell, the person(s) who did it surely belong there!

Stumble it!