WTF

Today the Bunster brought home #68 in the series of tiny little pamphlets that his school uses in place of the old Dick-and-Jane books I remember from my childhood. You know the stuff: "See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. See Jane. See Jane run." and so on. Well, compared to these modern little gems, the D & J's were major works of literature.

Here's the latest, in its entirety:

Music
Don likes music.
Don's mom also likes music.
Mom says humans can make nice music.
Mom drops Don off for music class.
Don plays the bugle.
Don makes music with his bugle.
Don is a pupil in music class.
Don likes music class.
Mr. Cupid is starting a new music unit.
It is a unit of new music.
Don is a human who makes music.
He makes music with his bugle.

Yes, it's plotless and written by a robot with a tin ear. Why don't they just have the kids read a random list of words with the "u" sound? It would at least be less of an affront to the sensibilities of anyone who values literature and the English language.

The previous sixty-seven booklets were varying degrees of awful. Meaning that none were actually good, but about a half-dozen of them were passable and at least another dozen were as bad as this or worse.

I know I can do better. Indeed, it would be quite difficult to do worse. So here's my first attempt:

See this pamphlet? It is a unit of words. It is a unit of words with the sound "u." You are a human. You can read the words. You are a human who reads words with your eyes. Mom says humans who read words like this will grow up with no appreciation of the beauty of the English language. Mom despairs for the young humans being taught with this crap.

What? Wait, Halloween's OVER already? How?!

Oh, hey, it's November. Whoops, I completely missed my October post. I'm trying to check in here at least once a month...you can see how well that's working for me.

And I even had a few topics to blog about, too: my first mammogram (not too bad, once I quelled the panic), our yard sale (also not too bad), the Bunster's Halloween costume (another not-too-bad one), and of course the election (which was both fantastic and awful, depending on which part you look at). Hey, I even found a use for this blue tool. But despite having plenty to say, I didn't find the time to say it.

And I'm not going to be able to say it now, either, because I'm out of time. Ain't that always the way?

So here's the Bunster in his light-up satellite costume.


See you next month!
 

Six months already?

Writer's block? Procrastination? Ennui? Intimidation? Lack of time?

All that and so much more, I guess.

Some of the things I didn't blog in the last six month: Kindergarten, taking a Japanese class, a trip to the desert, the Bunster's first trip to the emergency room (he's fine now, after three stitches), reconnecting with my sister, and a trip to Ren Faire. Among others. I don't think the problem is a lack of material, anyway.

No promises to get back on track. If I do, then you'll know by reading (all two of you left, that is!). And if I don't, then I shouldn't have promised what I couldn't deliver.

One of the things I've been doing in the past months is trying to dig myself out of years of accumulated clutter and keepsakes. Any idea why I kept these?


Maybe I'm planning to open a museum of defunct comic book production materials? I can't really think of any good reason to keep a couple of rubber cement pick-ups and a burnisher...and yet here they are, fresh out of my desk drawer. At least I'm not putting them back.
 

Orange you glad?

After much deliberation, the Bunster decided to be an orange crayon for Halloween. "Fantastic!" I thought, "This will be easy to make." And it was, since I made it out of felt and didn't have to hem anything.

Here's how it came out:



He went trick-or-treating with a group of kids from Kindergarten and they all had a great time. He got so much loot that he still has a bunch of the "good" candy left. So far, I've been very good about not stealing it from him, despite the temptation.
 

All dressed up

The Bunster has started Kindergarten and I have a little free time again. Which I'm using to update the ol' blog constantly with amusing anecdotes from my super busy yet fulfilling life. At least that's the fantasy.

Also, in this same fantasy, the house is beautifully organized and dust-free, my wardrobe is perfectly color-coordinated, I'm running four amazing-looking web sites, our cocktail parties are the delight of all our friends, my hair is always shiny and bouncy, and my nail polish never smudges. Actually, I do have that last one, since I'm not wearing any. I have commando fingers.

Back in reality, I'm currently figuring out how to make a rainbow Halloween costume for a five year old boy that looks both boyish and rainbow-ey. And that he can walk and sit down in. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll change his mind and be a pirate instead. Or a rainbow pirate.

Halloween is always one of my favorite holidays, even though I'm not really into the whole gory, scary thing. It's a holiday where you can dress up in a cool costume and eat lots of candy. What could be better?

The Bunster, though, only likes the candy part. He's really not interested in dressing up, on Halloween or most other times. Growing up, my sister and I had a large dress-up box full of glittery fun costumes. Before becoming a parent, I assumed my kid would, too. But the Bunster just isn't into it. He does like to play pretend and he has a good imagination, so it's not that he's unable to understand being something else for an evening. It's just that he has no desire to. He says he just wants to be himself.

I have to admire that, even though I don't completely understand it. I've always wanted to be someone else or some other version of myself, even if only temporarily. Whether the transformation is something as simple as evening clothes or as dramatic as an over-the-top Halloween costume, I still enjoy it tremendously, even though my trick-or-treat days have been over for decades.

I've never really examined this before, particularly since so many of my friends feel the same as I do. (That might have something to do with where I met many of my friends...comic book company, renaissance fair, martial arts class...hmm, I kinda see a pattern.) Plus, there are always tons of ads for adult Halloween costumes, so clearly I'm not alone here. But now that I have the Bunster so adamantly himself and nothing but, I have to wonder. Is it really human nature to want to transform yourself? Or is it just a cultural impulse that I might not even have if I hung out with different people? I'm inclined to the former, since so many cultures embrace some form of dressing up. But I am wondering.

Meanwhile, I've explained to the Bunster that you have to have some kind of a costume to go trick-or-treating. It can be Bunster-the-firefighter or Bunster-the-geophysicist (don't ask), I told him, but it has to be something. And he picked a rainbow. Maybe I should have let him go as Bunster-the-Kindergartner instead.

At least he likes the candy. Not liking that would just be weird.
 

I'm back...and singing the lead toy blues

Sorry about the long hiatus. Blogging doesn't combine well with summer vacation, at least not without camp. The Bunster and I had a good time, but I didn't get a chance to get online very much. Anyway, now I'm back and already ranting. Maybe something on comics next week...

We finally got caught up in the Mattel recalls, after having to run several toys through their online check. The first few turned out okay, but the Bunster's little red Geo Trax engine turns out to be decorated with large quantities of lead. So I sent in the recall info, waited a couple of weeks (so much for 3 to 5 business days...but I guess they're kinda busy at the moment), and today I got an e-mail from them. Turns out the "preprinted mailing label" I've been waiting weeks for isn't postage paid, it's just got tracking numbers for their convenience.

So now I get to pay again for the lead-laced toy, this time to replace it with something safe.

So I just wrote the following extremely snippy e-mail to Mattel:

Excuse me, are you telling me that I have to PAY POSTAGE for the privilege of safely disposing of and replacing the toy that you tried to poison my child with?

You've now put me in a position where I either tell my son that the toy you promised to replace won't be returning after all, or paying even more money to get the toy again. It really doesn't matter to me that the money is going to the post office and not into your coffers...the fact is I have to pay AGAIN to get this toy.

It's bad enough that your quality control is so poor that you have to be caught before you start protecting children from poisons that have been banned for years, but making parents pay to have YOUR NEGLIGENCE corrected? That's adding insult to injury.

I have three birthday parties to shop for this week alone, one of which is my son's. I can assure you that NONE of the presents I purchase will be a Mattel product.

And I'll also be telling any parents who ask what my son wants for his birthday "Legos, cars, trucks, trains, and please, nothing from Mattel."

Sincerely and not at all happily,
Sara Kocher

It's actually four parties now, but it's not likely they're going to actually read it anyway. I get to vent, get a minimum wage customer service clerk to send me another form letter, and then either pay the postage or toss the toy and live with the guilt of dumping lead into the environment.

You know, the post office could really make a fortune on these recalls if they just got a few more Chinese factories to play fast and loose with the lead paint...
 

Filler, aka update 'n' rant

So the graduations both went well. The Bunster's surprised me by being quite age-appropriate and kind of cool. They all wore tee-shirts, black pants/skirts/shorts, Hawaiian-style floral leis, and little "grass skirts" made of what looked like sturdy construction paper. A few songs were sung ("Each of us is a flower, growing in life's garden," in case you weren't aware), the director made a quick speech, and each child received a fake diploma tied with a ribbon. And then were were done and it was time for the bounce-house, the hot dogs, some snow cones, and a bit of cake. Not simultaneously, of course.

The Bunster's older brother G.'s graduation also went well. Although the senior class was pretty large, J. was able to spot G. from the bleachers and got some pretty good photos and video, considering the distance. They had a party afterward (which the Bunster and I also missed, alas), which was low key yet fun. So that was good.

On a completely unrelated note, I read Luann (I know, shoot me now. I also read For Better or For Worse, and Cathy, so clearly my comic strip taste is suspect to say the least.) and something really bothered me today. Which, to be honest, I should say about this strip everyday, but anyway....

Luann's brother Brad is talking about his complete ignorance in the kitchen and appears to believe that antipasti, minestrone, risotto, and "a nice chianti" are French food. Leaving aside the Silence of the Lambs reference (what, he's going to eat his girlfriend's liver?), how has he managed to get to age 20-something and not know this? Did his parents just keep taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese even when they hit their late teens? Did they simply never take them to a restaurant at all? Who gets to early adulthood without at least one trip to an Italian restaurant? I grew up in the midwest and we all knew this stuff (admittedly I have foodie parents, but still!).

And now I'm off to Chuck E. Cheese with the Bunster for a 5 year old's birthday party. I know...setting a great example for his future. At least his favorite foods include goat cheese and sushi.
 

Moments such as these

On my way out of the Bunster's preschool, there was a big sign "Graduation and Make-up Photos are Here!" I vaguely remembered there being a picture day a few weeks back, so I stopped to check if we had a packet to pick up. Sure enough, there was a thick envelope with a horrendous photo of the Bunster peeking out.

At the Bunster's old school, school pictures were done just as I remember them from my elementary school years. There was one picture day per year. A few weeks later, you got a proof sheet and an order form that featured a variety of options, none of which were exactly the combination of photo sizes and numbers that you wanted. You bought the assortment you compromised on and it arrived not long afterward, along with a copy of the class photo. If your eyes were closed, you got one chance to retake the photo. And that was it.

Not at the Bunster's current school, though.

We've now completed the fourth "picture day" of this school year and I'm not sure we're done yet. We had the Fall photos, the Spring photos, the Graduation photos, and also a Natural Poses photo day, which we skipped (I think Natural Poses means positioning the child awkwardly with his hand curled under his chin in front of a cutesy backdrop, then photoshopping the image to make it look as much as possible like those fake vintage greeting cards. At least, as far as I could tell from the samples.).

With all this practice, we've gotten to know the drill. Each photo shoot involves several poses, some with accessories like wicker chairs or baskets of fake apples. A few weeks later, we receive a large packet with multiple photos of each pose. We select the ones we want to keep and return the rest along with payment for the prints we kept. The Spring photos also include the option to buy a class photo. And of course, each time we are also solicited to buy additional prints and miscellaneous photo-related keepsakes from their handy web site.

The Graduation photos, however, turn out to be a little different. There is only one pose, which they printed in various sizes. It shows the Bunster grimacing in a white gown and mortarboard, while clutching a white diploma tied with a gold bow. If you swapped out the mortarboard for a halo and the diploma for a cardboard harp, he'd look like a little boy who really doesn't want to play the angel in the Christmas pageant but is putting up with it, having failed in his struggles to break free. The photo is certainly a keeper, but not in quite the way they intended.

In addition to this, they included a handy ready-to-fill-out "Graduation Certificate" and photo holder, with gilt lettering (presented to ______ for successful completion of study and active attendance), and a pre-scrapbooked photo, with little mortarboard-and-diploma graphics and the slogan "Moments such as these only happen once."

Mmm-hmmm.

"Moments such as these" aren't going to only happen once. The photos seem to happen at a pretty steady pace. And as for the graduation, if this early start is any indication, moments like this will happen five more times. Maybe more, if he heads for grad school.

Why is there is such a thing as pre-school graduation at all? Sure, leaving preschool and heading off for Kindergarten is a milestone. But it's one that should be celebrated with cupcakes and juice. Perhaps a Spring Concert for parents to admire their kids as they sing and do a little play. Maybe even a bounce-house if you're going all out.

Instead, the Bunster's graduation involves the following:

• Six weeks of almost-daily rehearsal.
• Photo in cap-and-gown, with diploma and little blue "Class of 2007" tassel.
• A $25 "graduation fee" to the school.
• A requirement that we send the kids to school on graduation day in black pants (which is, of course, about the only color the Bunster does not already own).
• A special graduation tee shirt (nice, except that he has about 47 tee shirts already).
• The presentation of a fake diploma, so that the real one can be handed directly to the parents afterward, to preserve it in pristine condition.
• And worst of all, missing his brother's high school graduation, because the ceremonies are, by awful coincidence, on the same day, one hour and 56 miles apart.

I thought, briefly, about skipping the fake graduation in favor of the real one. And then I remembered the six weeks of preparation, the new songs, the constant hype the kids have all received. I thought about how I'd have felt, missing a party all my school friends were going to. And so the Bunster and I will be there, fakely graduating, while big brother G, J, and the grandparents will be doing the real thing.

At least we're sure to have plenty of photos.
 

Why I don't blog much

As all three of you know, I don't post very often. And there's a very good reason why. I'll spend a few days coming up with something pithy, maybe a bit funny, and start writing in my head in spare moments before sitting down to pull together a few paragraphs for the blog. And then I'll stumble across something like this and spend all my blog time reading and laughing instead.

And when I finally hop up from the computer to run out and get the Bunster from school, I'll be thinking something along the lines of "Oh my god that was so funny. I'll never write like that. What was I going to blog about anyway?"

Then whatever I was going to say has completely flown out of my head and I have to start the process all over again.

As the Bunster said in his very first swear: Darnut!


p.s. If you didn't click the link above, go back and do it now. You should read Quinn Cummings's blog...she's amazingly funny.
 

Completion, explosion, coughing, and vamping

Apparently, I don't post often enough. So, quick update time:

1. The kitchen is done, pretty much. We have one additional shelf to install inside a cabinet, but that's about a half-hour of work for J. next weekend. No big deal, he says. Here's how it looks now:
2. The brand new Blue Star stove exploded. During a dinner party, even. We're the most gracious hosts...we made the guests bring the main dish and then we blew it up.*

3. The Bunster has a slight cold. Enough to stay home from school yesterday and today, but just barely. So he's going stir-crazy in the house and we're both getting royally sick of playing Chutes-and-Ladders. It helps that he likes to play it backwards once someone wins (counting down from 100 to 1, so chutes are now good and ladders are bad news), but not by much. Does anyone make a strategy-based game for preschoolers? I'd pay good money for one. Probably willing to fork over way too much good money, if you catch me on a day like today.

4. I have no actual subject to blog about today, except maybe the kitchen. I'm just vamping desperately so I can post anyway. Can you tell?

5. Hey, here's a Meez!



----------------------
* Okay, actually, only the grill exploded, the rest of the stove still works great. And it's under warranty, of course, since it was just installed in December. And we finished the meat under the broiler (appropriate, since it was London broil). But the story is better without those pesky details. Can't grill with it looking like this:

Nice hole in the gas line, hunh? At least no one was hurt.

We just got the replacement parts from Prizer-Painter (who make the Blue Star range) and are waiting for a repair to be scheduled. Since simply getting the parts into the mail took 'em three weeks, we're just hoping to be grilling again before the weather gets too warm to do it indoors.

Fa La La la...

Note: I wrote this post on December 12, but didn't have internet access to put it onto the blog (thanks to a goof by my service provider...they forgot to update the build on a server). By the time I got DSL up and running again, I'd forgotten about this and didn't post it. So here's my last curmudgeonly post of 2006, backdated to avoid confusion (mine).

Today I received the following in a mass e-mail from the "room mom" for the Bunster's Pre-K class:

[About] Friday's concert/potluck: Thanks to all of you who have signed to bring something and those who will. The children will be singing "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer", however, the songs will be changed so that the word "Christmas" doesn't appear. Ms. Tonya wanted me to make sure that you all knew that.

What. The. Hell???

How does removing the word "Christmas" make "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" into anything other than screwed up Christmas songs?

I'm Jewish and I'm offended by this.

Why? So glad you asked...

For one thing, since taking out one word doesn't actually make these into anything other than Christmas songs, they're still completely ignoring the holiday I (and quite a number of the children) celebrate. So much for multi-cultural educational experiences.

For another thing, I'm bothered by the attempt to disembowel songs and strip them of their meaning. While these particular tunes aren't evocative of much in the way of religion, they are still symbolic of the holiday they belong to. And I'm generally against stripping the meaning from the various symbols and icons of a culture. Changing and evolving the meaning, sure, either as the culture changes or in an attempt to change it. But not stripping away all meaning until they're just hollow shells to hang crass commercialism on.

Maybe I shouldn't be. Perhaps the answer is to pervert every holiday and meaningful icon into complete unrecognisability, so that absolutely everyone can spend each holiday being offended and excluded. It would be very egalitarian.

So we can sing "I had a little top, I made it out of clay, and when it's dry and ready, oh top I will play" on Lighting Candles Holiday, salute the Lady of the Flowing Dress as we enter New York City Harbor, and of course fly our Strawberry/Blueberry/Vanilla Flag high on National Relax With a Picnic Day.

Nope. I'd rather keep Christmas, Santa, Chanukah, dreidels, the Statue of Liberty, American flags, and Memorial Day. We can just add more holidays and icons to our cultural pantheon until everyone is represented, instead of no one.

---

Update, 12/15: Turns out the lyrics in question have been rewritten as follows:

Then one foggy winter's eve,
He-ee came to say,
"Rudolph with your nose so bright,
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

As my next door neighbor said, "He-Eee? Who the hell is He-ee supposed to be, Baby Jesus?"

And people wonder why younger generations sometimes seem so ignorant. We've taught them to be.

Quiz

What's worse than a pre-schooler who won't sleep until midnight and then pops awake at 7:45 am? One that falls asleep at 9:15 pm, wakes at 1 am and doesn't fall asleep again until past 4 am. How much past 4 am I don't know yet. I'm hoping not much longer now...
 

Learning Curve

The Bunster is doing much better. Turns out that what he had was a short-lived stomach flu. His fever broke Monday night, after an experience not too different from last time. Only this time it was in the evening rather than the middle of the night, a slight improvement.

I keep guiltily thinking that it might have been even shorter-lived if we'd brought in the Pedialyte right away. Instead, we foolishly gave him milk (why? what were we thinking?), which prompted a second round of throwing up. And then we tried 33% apple juice/67% water and then just plain water. Not all at once, of course.

Keep reading...

Now I know, thanks to a super nurse at our pediatrician's office, that we should offer 1 tsp. of Pedialyte or Gatoraide every 15 minutes at first. Once things settle down and he has an appetite, move on to plain toast, bananas, and apples. This could also include rice, except that he won't eat it unless it's in sushi. Which I'm thinking isn't the best food choice when you have the flu.

Anyway, he's currently alternating between cooking in his play kitchen and racing cars, so everything's great now. Except for my work-load, after missing two of my three available days. Ah well.
 

Sick Daze

We're sick again, or at least the Bunster is. He's got a fever and is a lot less energetic than usual, but no symptoms other than that yet. He was fine this morning, feisty and full of energy. He refused to eat any breakfast and went to school with six ounces of milk and four dried cranberries in his tummy, but this is not unusual for him. His appetite veers from small to non-existent pretty regularly. So I'm not even considering possible illness, since he seems just fine.

Two hour later, I get The Call from the Assistant Director.

I scoot over there and the poor little Bunster is huddled forlornly in an office chair with his head draped over the arm, too listless to lift his head. If he were 12, it could have been a stellar performance, but with pre-schoolers, it's always the real thing, alas.

Keep reading...

So we come home, he drinks a little more milk and refuses all offers of food. I take his temperature, which is 101, and give him some tylenol. And then he goes right to bed, without complaint. He's been asleep for about two hours now.

With so little to go on, I'm warring between optimism and despair. "Maybe it's just a bug and he'll be fine by tomorrow!" Or "Maybe he's really sick and will miss the Girl Next Door's party next weekend and I won't be able to do any work all week."

I pay some bills, go online to kill my pointless thinking and immediately find a blog talking about whether to send sick kids to school anyway and how hard it is to be a working parent. Which is true, but not what I want to be reading right now.
 

Midnight hurl

I went to bed kind of late last night and was awoken after perhaps an hour of sleep by a little voice calling, "Mommy, my tummy hurts."

I think you can guess what's coming next. But at 2:15 in the morning, I didn't have a clue. Even though the Bunster has been recovering from the flu.

So I staggered down the hall, scooped him out of bed, and initiated soothing Mommy conversation #12: "Tell Mommy Where It Hurts." And some little lizard brain thing started propelling me away from the bed and slowly toward the door as he said "Right here" while pointing at his abdomen. "Do you think you're going to throw up?" I asked. "No," he said, snuggling closer and burrowing his head against my shoulder. And then he vomited in my hair and down my back. Plus a little on the rug and a miniscule amount on the hall floor, which is wood and easy to clean.

God, I love parenting!

I have so much more sympathy now for all the hurled-upon teens that Steve draws.

Keep reading...

So...J got a towel and I stood on it to strip off all the barfy pajamas. I wrapped up my hair in a beyond-gross barf-bun, and then washed up the Bunster and strategic bits of myself while J cleaned the hall. J took the Bunster and got him into dry pjs and snuggled him in our bed while I scrubbed the rug. Then we tucked the Bunster back into his own bed, where he slept peacefully. I rinsed off everything that needed it and J tossed the load of wash into the machine. Then I took a shower and scrubbed my hair. A lot.

After this flurry of activity, we finally got back to sleep at 4 am.

This morning, the Bunster was fresh as a daisy and none the worse for wear and every other cliché along those lines. And J and I looked like we'd had the flu for a week and might not get over it anytime soon. We brewed a giant pot of coffee. It helped a little.
 

M&M's Forever

The Bunster, my three-year-old son, can easily can take a solid half-hour to eat a small bag of M&Ms. Not only is he a slow eater anyway, but there's also the M&M ritual on top of that. Here's how he eats an M&M:

Bunster: What is this? (holding out his hand)

Me: I don't know, Bunster, what is that?

Bunster: A red M&M!

Me: How nice! And what does it have on it?

Bunster: A "M"! (He'll learn about "a" and "an" at some point. Kid's only three, so right now it's up in the air which he'll use.)

Me: An "M"? Wow! And why does it have an "M" on it?

Bunster: Because it's an M&M!

Then he eats that single M&M, fishes another out of the bag, and begins the ritual again.

It doesn't speed things up if I don't participate...he'll just prompt me for my lines and then wait patiently for me to deliver them. Takes even longer.

Oh, and that thing about "melts in your mouth, not in your hand?" Yeah, not so much if you're in preschool. And those dyes don't wash off easily. He always has smudgy rainbow hands for an hour or two, until I can sneak in a second hand washing to get the last of it.