The Imperfect Community

[Petulant Pixie]

Some kid stories--

Katie has discovered lunch. She never ate ANYTHING last year for lunch. She'd want me to send her lunch (as opposed to buying it), but then I'd see that she'd take one bite out of a sandwich and eat a couple of carrot sticks and drink her juice and that was it. This year, either the hot lunches are better at this school or (more likely) they have a better system (kids have to stay to eat until the bell rings and THEN go out to play--at her old school, they could run out to play as soon as they were done eating, so Katie never ate). But...it was so funny the other day, Katie burst into hyperventilating tears because they had stamped her hand with LUNCH on it, indicating she had "two lunches left". Katie cried and cried, she thought that she had two lunches left for the whole year and had selfishly been eating up all her alloted hot lunches the first month of school. I explained that she had two left that I had paid for and that I'd send more money and she was all right, but awww, it was so sad to see her worried about no more hot lunches that she enjoys so much!

Katie also has taken to wearing karate shirts to school (tournament shirts, other logo shirts). The kids in her class were amazed that she is a brown belt and that she has won first place at tournaments, so she always wants to wear karate shirts now. I told her twice a week, on gym days (which was an Eileen idea!). Wednesday was gym day, but she didn't have any good pants to wear with a karate shirt, so I told her she could wear one the next day. She did. Jeans and a karate shirt. At the grocery store after school on Thursday, Katie casually announced, "Oh, and today was picture day!". I stopped the cart and viewed my lovely daughter--with her jeans and her "Sioux Falls" tournament shirt on and her ratty hair hanging in her eyes and said, "You're kidding". A mom who was passing by laughed and said that happened to them last year, do the re-takes. I will, but I am so ashamed! I filled out the form for the pictures, I sent money for the pictures. I KNEW that Thursday was picture day, but at the critical moment, it just slipped my mind!

Liz--she will not sign the signs I teach her. She comes up with her own signs and leaves it up to us to figure it out. She has well-trained parents, we have figured out what she's trying to say the vast majority of the time. She also tosses in a few words--kitty (and meow), doggy (and woof-woof), Alex, go, shoe, bye-bye, Laa-Laa and Po, up, down, Da, sissy, mine, no, yeah and a handful of others. Notice no "mama" or anything like it. Liz is really smart, possibly the smartest of the three, so the omission is somehow purposeful, I believe. Sooooo....I've been trying to get her to say Mama. I pat myself and say "Mama" again and again. So, what does the little shit do???? I swear it's on purpose, she is genuinely brilliant (I could go on and on with examples, so just take my word for it)...she pats her own belly (and laughs!) and says "Mama" and laughs and laughs. I say no,"That's Lizzie, that's Lizzie's belly, that's not Mama!" and I pat myself somewhere else (on the head) and say "Mama!", and she laughs and pats herself and says "Mama!". She's doing it on purpose, she's deliberately NOT going to call me mama! But...in the past couple of days, she's been so cute, she pats me and says, "Mine!". So, I guess that's OK

And one boy thing--Alex was doing his spanish homework the other day, and well, long story short (this is how great of a parent I am...) he and I were hurling foriegn language insults (lovingly) at each other. I never took spanish, I took french so my mild insults were in french while his were in spanish. Anyway, then he told me that they watched a movie in spanish class about vocaubulary and they had some things like "stupid" and "idiot" in it. Then he went on to say that for "stupid" they showed a chicken and the spanish word for stupid again and again. For "idiot" they showed a CHEERLEADER! He said she had pigtails and pom-poms and was being all silly with her jumping and cheering and waving of pom-poms and they kept repeating the spanish word for "idiot" over and over again. I nearly busted my spleen laughing so hard. God, I love that school of his.

[Jessica]

You should write a book. Your family is nuts!! (And I mean that in a good way!)

Now, your kids are going to public schools this year right? I know you've told me, bare with me, I'm getting old and I forget more and more.

That is so sad about Katie's lunch. What a sweetheart.

[Petulant Pixie]

Yeah, Katie is going to straight-up public school. Alex is going to a charter school (free, open to everyone, but not part of the school district).