eternally chaotic » school

Flying on Smencil

Isi — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:52:50 +0000

A recent foray into the kids school yesterday to return a book bag overlooked by its rightful owner upon exiting the van while hastily headed to stand in a magical line. Said book bag in hand I signed into school and applied my sticky name badge identifying myself as non-hostile. It was then that I noticed an unusually large number of kids standing in line around a corner, a destination somewhere unseen, and sound decibel levels near rock concert pandemonium. Earlier the kids were excited about purchasing a special pencil at the book store before class so I figured Piper, the rightful owner of the abandoned book bag, would be in line somewhere. Searching, I was passed by kid after kid, each with a pencil in hand, or tucked up under their nose, all sniffing heftily. The line continued down a hall and around a corner and at the end I saw the destination of each of the queued – an ordinary looking table, attended by ordinary looking teachers, selling ordinary looking pencils. But wait. The kids near the front of the line were vibrating with joy and excitement. Looking past each ahead with both envy and hatred that they might reach their destination first and by chance deplete the stockpile of tabled treasure. I heard then from the peddlers up ahead, a dreadful announcement, “Only three left”, followed by a roar of elementary curses and a crushing push from those in line trying to rush the table in a last ditch effort to get their clammy hands on the last of the vehicles of their writing desire, the type of rush you would expect when Great White uses pyrotechnics on stage. It was at this moment that I learned of the connection between this now hysterical line and what our kids had been robbing piggy banks and having lucid dreams for. Smencils. These crafty little gems things are drugs but for entry level fiends. These magical little rolls of graphite surrounded by wood and topped with a squishy colored eraser might as well be laced with Florida Snow or Fatty perfectly disguised for private consumption for the level of obsession they insight. The line alone to purchase one of these was on par with how the Mac-ites enthusiastically lines up days ahead to offer paper donations to their fruity deity. I finally caught up to my bag-less princess and her brother skipping their way to class from the now broken line of envious onlookers. They were not in the lucky bunch to get a hit but both were optimistic that the next time the peddler came to bear gifts that they too might be able to fly.

Sheep with the Curly Horns

Isi — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:06:12 +0000

Today Violet performed in her school nativity play as the “Sheep with the Curly Horns”. They have been practicing on and off since the end of October and it certainly showed. She was very serious about her performance and we even saw her lip-syncing other classmates parts while they were singing or talking. Violet thought the Sheep with the Curly Horns was very cool and was excited to play this part even though it meant she would have to do a solo part. We are very proud of her.

A Gift of Myrrh

Isaac’s Writes About Uno

Isi — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 02:59:35 +0000

We found a story in Isaac’s school work about our family dog, Uno. He loves to watch and play with Uno and we guess he has recently noted one of Uno’s special fall time activities. Our precious family k-9 has taken to befriending his pillow bed in a somewhat feeble attempt to sate his masculine urges. I have to wonder what goes though his head when this happens. Whenever we see Uno partaking in his enjoyment we stop him quickly but I am curious what the kids think he is doing…..Hiyo Silver….Away.

Uno’s Recovery

Piper’s Kindergarten Concert

Carol — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:04:43 +0000

Tonight was Piper’s first concert in kindergarten. She has been excited about it for the past few weeks, continuously singing around the house and wanting to show us her “moves”. It was very important for her to wear a ~~formal~~ princess dress during the performance.

In anticipation of the concert Violet has been learning the songs and moves from Piper. Tonight all through the show she was insistent that she should be on stage performing. It wasn’t until afterwards though that she got her chance. Both girls wanted to get on the stage and show us one of the songs from the concert, they decided on “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” as their masterpiece.

Missy, Violet and I enjoyed cheering Piper on throughout the show. Afterward we tried for a photo op with our celebrities but they were famished and ready to head out for the post concert festivities…..dinner, bath, bed !!!

A Gift of Myrrh

Isi — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:25:52 +0000

Violet’s preschool put on a Nativity play recently where all the kids had a chance to participate and play various parts. Violet was insistent upon the role of a “Wise Man” as her part – interesting choice but she is always running around the house pretending to be the prince while Piper plays dress-up like a princess. It was a pleasure to see her perform in her first play. She did well with her part, a few songs, a one liner and most importantly she even stayed on the stage with the rest of her class.

“This is my gift of Myrrh which will keep your skin soft”

Piper’s Debug Session

Isi — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:06:16 +0000

Sitting at the island while I poked around on the laptop the kids were playing in front of me in the living room. They were all edgy after doing homework and getting a snack and had not really settled into any type of comfortable evening routine. Anytime one of them did something another did not like, a wartime skirmish would break out on the living room floor – Lego, PlayMobile and horses be damned.

It was during one of these particularly conversational skirmishes that I intervened, trying for the sake of sanity only to add some sort of reasoning to the seeming mindless bickering so it could be solved in a civilized manner – silly me. Piper stood up and said, “Daddy, I am not whining. I am debugging.” The statement was said with direction, strength and finality, as if there was no further explanation necessary and this was not only a sufficient response but obviously the only one required.

Carol and I couldn’t help but turn our backs and laugh quietly to each other. The debug system (love it or hate it) is something they teach kids in school these days as a way towards conflict resolution without resorting to the sticks and stones that we grew up with.

Flying on Smencil

Thriller Night

Isi — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:43:29 +0000

Last night Berkeley Lake Elementary School had its school concert for the third and fourth graders. Jacob has been excited about going for the past few weeks. He has been asking us to play various Michael Jackson videos online and has every now and then been dancing like a zombie in the kitchen. I didn’t know why, or didn’t put the two together, that he might be performing something special for us. Well now…were we in for a treat.

The first part of the show was what I would call a typical elementary school music class presentation. Each of the kids in the third grade, all dressed the same, were lined up on a raised platform and sang a few songs for onlooking, camera happy parents. The second part was nothing I would have expected. We had to leave the cafeteria, the location of the first event, and head to the gym. Parents were situated around the edges while the kids populated the center, spaced nicely apart. Now I thought we were going in here for a “dance” were we might get to spend some time doing mommy-son or daddy-son dances but that certainly wasn’t the case.

The first song they danced to – and i do mean danced – was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller Night”. It was amazing fun. I would have never expected this from a third grader class. They all knew the moves and danced in unison from their assigned spots. Jacob was full of energy and fantastic to watch. He was situated at the very end of the gym somewhat in a row by himself and he took advantage of the space to show off his moves. The second dance was the “school dance”, the Berkeley Lake Bear Shuffle. I didn’t know schools had dances…and well maybe they shouldn’t…the kids had fun with it jumping in circles for a few minutes. The last one was also not expected – The Macarena – seriously. I would never have believed it had I not seen it. Forty or more kids dancing to the beat of the song and doing the moves right along with it.

Once the kids were done we got to come out and dance the Macarena with them – a couple of drinks and we could have made this a good night!

The Lonely Snowman

Isi — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:06:37 +0000

Last night I had the pleasure of dictating a story while Jacob thought it up. This was an assignment from school that he started but wasn’t able to finish during class, so together we completed it last night. I love story telling from all different angles but I have usually been the story teller not the audience. Getting a chance to hear Jacob’s story about his “Lonely Snowman” was intriguing. His idea throughout the story was that the snowman was lonely and wanted some friends to play with. The snowman and his friends did whatever they could to ensure they continued to have fun – including the annihilation of planets and alien species in the process. Fun. You have to love boys. His story was all over the board but the general idea remained the same.

A part of the assignment, which I didn’t really understand originally, and was confused somewhat when he started talking about, was that he had to incorporate various terminology from his math class into the overall story. Currently he is learning about various shapes and the parts that make them up – such as a circle which has a radius and circumference or a rhombus and its angles. Many of the characters in the story come from distant worlds and take on such shapes.

Even in the role of stenographer the story was fun. Granted hearing it vs. reading might have been different, especially with the enthusiasm and speed with which he delivered it – I can type fast buddy – but certainly not as fast as you can talk – and who the heck knew Rhombus was spelled Rhombus? Spell check couldn’t figure out what a “rumbas” was – thank you Google for the assist.

Here is Jacob’s story:

The Lonely Snowman

Once there was a very lonely snowman. He had no one to play with. All that he had to play with was a fake snowman that was not alive. It was plastic! All he had to was throw snowballs at the snowman and it was really boring. One day a snow saucer came down to snow earth. A he saw a snow alien coming out. He was so excited because he thought they were friendly. And he thought they would play with him. Then the snow alien came out of the snow saucer and he looked mean. And the snowman said “Oh No!!!”. And more and more came out of the saucer. And when they finally all came out there was a hundred million. The snow saucer was so big it that if filled up the whole snow earth. Then they took out their blasters and zapped all the snow men on earth. Then a snow alien baby was born. And then a parallelogram from another planet was born. And then more and more and more. Then there was a trapezoid from the trapezoid planet. Then a rectangle from the rectangle planet. Then a square was formed from kryptonite from a distant planet from the far off side of the universe that the snowmen could not find at all because it was on the other side of the universe. And then circles from the circle side of the universe. And the circle drew a line through the middle up from top to bottom and this was its diameter. Then he drew a line around the circle and that was called the circumference. Then they all came to snow earth. Then there was a tiny winy square that was born but it had super power. And then a rhombus, but it did not have super powers. It was just ordinary. and then the grew up until they were bigger and they were thirty years old. When they were old enough to use blasters. The snowman was thirty-two so he could use a blaster too. And the quadrilateral was just born and he was very tiny tiny tiny and his mother was like four hundred years old. And the rectangle, the parallelogram, the square, the rhombus, fought the snow aliens and they won. But this is not the end yet. After a few years some more snow aliens came and they were ready to fight but these ones were friendly. And they came and there was only five or six of them and they came in a snow cruiser. And then they all played and had fun playing board games: chess, checkers, backgammon, and any kind of game you can think of, including risk. They played and played and played until their deaths. And then more and more and more children came alive from all the humans in the world. And then our whole family made most of the snowmen. They also made snow bunnies and rabbits and ants and turtles and they added a sea of snow marine life and snow land animals. Plus made snow dinosaurs and birds. They all came alive and then some more space aliens came to play. They came and played until they were the same amount as the beginning of story. One hundred million plus one hundred million equals two hundred million. A hundred million more aliens came and there wasn’t enough room for the snowmen. And the children said they need to make the world builder and then they make the world ten times bigger. Now they have enough room for the snow aliens, all the polygons from all the different planets so they call all play big boy games and baby games. After a few years the children got bigger and bigger until almost all of them turned nine. And they got bigger until they were grownups and they didn’t want to play with the snowmen or the polygons so they left the snow earth and went somewhere else with snowmen and polygons.

The end.

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Bus Stop Mania Resolved

Isi — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:41:35 +0000

Today marked the first day Jacob and Isaac rode the bus into school. For various reasons it has worked out better in the past to drop them off on my way into work – reasons such as getting to sleep later…and…well sleeping later. They have however been coming home on the bus for quite a while now and without fear of being run over by the very vehicle that drops them off and is supposed to keep them safe. Working with the Gwinnett County School System worked out pretty well once the issue was escalated to someone that actually gave a damn…I mean cared. We found out that there was a bus stop diagonally across the street from our house that the bus should have been stopping at for both pick-up and drop-off. For whatever reason the stop had been removed from the paperwork that both the particular school and driver use. So in defense of the driver, she wasn’t even aware there was a stop near us and was just doing her job.

I am glad this is taken care of. With one car and four of our six going in different directions, all between 7:30 and 8:30, our mornings are hectic to say the least. My one complaint is that I think the situation could have been resolved much quicker than it was. It took nearly three weeks of working (or lack thereof) with the local transportation superintendent to realize that he didn’t care about what we needed or had to say – safety related or not – we were just another pair of complaining parent. Realizing this and believing that we were being ignored we wrote a letter to the county commissioner at the recommendation of Carol’s dad and friend Heidi. They both work for school systems and had some good advice on how to get the appropriate level of attention. Once the letter was complete, proof read a dozen times, we stopped before sending it and called another person up the management chain for the transportation department. She listened to what we had to say, asked for a copy of the letter we were going to mail (I mentioned it to her), and a few phone calls and two days later the problem was resolved. Thanks Patty !!!

Piper starts pre-k

Isi — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:01:09 +0000

This week marks the start of pre-k for Piper, about a month behind schedule. She is still at the Legacy but in a pre-k program that is ran by the state. Up until recently we weren’t sure she was going to be able to attend pre-k, well at least not the state sponsored version. Legacy was passed over for the first round of Bright From the Start funding and weren’t certain about their prospects with the second round. We looked around the area for other places to go but the pickings were slim at best with waiting list after waiting list. In the end patience persevered, well that and not really having any other options.

We were able to meet her teachers this week at a short meeting where they told us about the program details. They both, Mrs. Gail and Ms Mayonn, seem to have their ducks in a nice neat row. Having taught at elementary school and daycare in the past they are both excited to being doing pre-k. As with every government run program, the state has strictly structured exactly what the teachers can and cannot do with the kids. There are deviations of course but only off the record. I think Piper is going to do well and I hope she won’t be on a learning plateau until kindergarten. If anything she will sharpen what she already knows, add bits more, and be ready to run once she gets to elementary school.