Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Greatest Gift

Don't have much to say today, but I want to post this because I love this song. This is another one that I wind up blubbering through. Enjoy.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Second Grade

E was tested today by a private school and is being accepted into second grade. I am kind of two minds about it. He was clearly not being challenged at all in first grade. I am just amazed at how easy the work has been so far. I can understand maybe taking a couple of days in the first week to go over things they may have forgotten from the year previous but we are a month in and I would have thought that everything they are doing was learned in kindergarten (or preschool). How much review are they going to do?

"Nat sat on the mat.
The cat sat on the mat.
Nat sat on the mat with the cat."
That’s first grade work? Adding together numbers less than ten? I look at the reading list for first grade and these books are all too easy for him. He is adding and subtracting, carrying and borrowing. He is learning his multiplication tables and is beginning division (I work with him a lot on math). We read a lot of books together. He has shown great interest in books on science and geography. I want him to be excited about school and learning. Right now he is not learning anything at school. And looking at the curriculum I don’t think he would learn much in first grade at all.

But it is a great social place. He makes friends easily and gets along with everyone. I hate that this will be the third school he will attend this year. He will be younger than everyone in second grade. He won’t turn seven until December.

He is still young and will adjust. I worry about kids teasing him because he is younger than they are. It is good that he is tall and looks older than he is. He is so tall. He already looks like a second or third grader (or fourth grader). Maybe he won’t be the tallest kid in class anymore.

I’m sure it will all turn out. But I will worry.

That is what mothers are for.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Myths and Distractions

So, my son lost another tooth yesterday. His top four front teeth have been wiggling for months but one of them was wigglier (is that a word?). He has been sitting and playing with it now for over a month and yesterday at school it finally decided to take the leap and came out in his hand. His teacher, the sainted woman, had a little ‘tooth box’ just big enough for him to carry it home in.

Naturally the trip home consisted of talk of the Tooth Fairy.

“What will she bring me, mommy?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. We will have to wait and see.”

We got home and I took a picture of the hole left by his errant tooth. He called his grandpa and told him, “Mommy took a picture to send to you. Give it to grandma to make her smile” (bad mommy – it is still in the camera).

And sporadically throughout the evening he speculated on what the Tooth Fairy would bring him.

Bedtime (blessed bedtime) and bad mommy watched a movie and forgot about the tooth fairy.

*early this morning* “Why didn’t the tooth fairy come, mommy?”

*still asleep* “Unngghhh…” - crap – stupid tooth fairy, “I think she was real busy last night, sweetheart.”

Memo – keep small, cheap pieces of crap around house feed tooth fairy myth. Bitch.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Oh, Those Awards Shows

I don’t watch awards shows. The Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, Tonys, whatever. A bunch of the so-called rich and famous patting themselves on the back just makes me want to puke. And there are so many of them. Sheesh, every time I turn around there is another stupid awards show: Golden Globes, People’s Choice, SAG awards, Latin awards, NAACP awards, Dogs Chasing Stagecoach awards, Blonde Receptionist awards, ad nauseum.

Maybe one reason I just can’t get into these things is that I so seldom see the shows that are nominated. Until I took my son to the new Star Trek movie this summer I hadn’t been to a movie since before he was born (he turns 7 in two months, people – thank god for Netflix). Right now we don’t even have a working TV. We have so far not opted to connect the cable and our TV is so old (and we never got a converter box) that it can’t pick up the HDTV signals. Fred Flintstone has better electronics than we do.

I do read the recaps, don’t ask me why, I don’t know. And I need to see the fashions that are worn. Some of the dresses are nice, some are what-the-fuck-was-she-thinking. Then I notice the actresses. And realize what most of them need is a sandwich, not a statue. I don’t know who this woman is or what show she is on but I just want to dangle a brownie in front of her face and watch her gag. Good god, she is so skinny I can almost see right through her.

So what's my point? Well, how about a list?

  1. Awards shows are stupid.
  2. Actresses are (mostly) too skinny.
  3. Some of the dresses are laugh-out-loud funny.
  4. I need a new TV. And cable. And to get out more.
  5. There is no way to end this post so I will ju

Friday, September 18, 2009

To All the Skinny Girls...

Take that, tall skinny-legged girls...

Who knew that my fat thighs were good for my heart?

Thursday, September 17, 2009

RIP, Mary Travers

Mary Travers died yesterday. She was one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary, the folk trio who gained fame in the 60s with protest songs and anthems. I have always favored songs with good lyrics, melodies and harmonies, so I have always loved PP&M.

But a tall, blonde woman and two goatee’d men (all three aging) with two guitars singing of civil rights and protesting a war that is only known in history books do not sell records anymore. You only heard of PP&M when they went on a reunion tour or had a special on PBS. Last year I watched a PBS re-run of one of their ‘reunion’ tours. I sat and sang along, mostly with tears in my eyes. My son saw me and asked, “why are you crying, mommy?”

“Because this song is so beautiful, sweetie.”

“Don’t cry, mommy.”

They were playing Puff, the Magic Dragon. I wasn’t thinking of a dragon but of a battered yellow fish and a pink and green bear, both a bit ragged as the softness has been loved off of them. I looked at my sweet boy and knew that soon these two little stuffed animals will wind up stuffed in a box somewhere just as Jackie Paper’s dragon was. E won’t want to sleep with a bear and a fish anymore and I will lovingly store them in a box somewhere awaiting a time when perhaps my son’s child will need some comfort as he sleeps.

“Yes, my sweet, this song makes mommy cry.”

And it probably always will.




A dragon lives forever, but not so little girls. Rest in peace, indeed, Mary Travers.