School Kids @ MindSay 
I guess there are a few reasons, but I want to start by saying it is NOT because I am secretly a boy (eddiec, I know you've had a bad dream about this lately, and I just wanted to let you know it isn't THAT).
The first reason is, it's okay before and after school, when there aren't kids, but when school is in session... I don't wanna pee with a 2nd grader next to me (damn grown-up bathrooms being so damn far away!). You know? That's weird. As a grown-up, it's weird for me, and also, I don't EVER want to be accused of doing ANYTHING not-appropriate.
The second reason is...and it's not just this school, but apparently all schools... kids no longer know how to flush. Parents aren't teaching this skill. Everyday, without fail, if I got into the multi-stalled bathroom, I will get the privilege of seeing the remnants of someone else's bathroom time. 9 times outta 10 just yellow, but... not delicious either way.
Which brings me to my next 'weirds me out' part: A LOT of the time, there's pee in the toilet, but no toilet PAPER. In a toilet designed exclusively for girls. Are they not even doing that part? shudders
Now that I've found the 'adults only' bathroom that has a heater... this will be a non-issue because why go ANYwhere else?, but....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!
I get up at 4:30 or 5:00. get the triplets up for morning feeding. then I feed the animals and gather eggs. Then I get the kids up and going. THe older kids eat, while I rub down YY to desensatise her enough for her to get few bites down.farm and house chores follow breakfast. At 8:00 the little kids head over to the Church school for instructaion and the little kids go to pre-school/pre-K or infant care. I used to teach at the pre-K, but I'm on leave right now. At 11:45 I bring the kidlets home and start lunch. at 1 we start classes and they run till 3:30. (Some older kids are at the regular school and the llittlest take naps) Then we have activities (soccer, dance, clarinet, violin, gymnastics and\or brownies) THen dinner, chores and possibly church activities. (Many nights there is a game night, youth club,AWANA's and mpvie night. MOST of the kids are in bed, lights out by 9. The 16 year olds sometimes later, but only when their workin.
Today:
YY stayed up until 4:00 am, then sacked out till noon. She constantly fought with everyone else and got in the way. Now she's crashed out in the goat crate. Oh well. If that's what makes her feel safe, I cn't really complain. After all, the goat sleeps on the bed.
My response? Only some fundamentalist Christian groups got angry over this. The kids still had fun. It was part of a "Wacky Week" dress up event, the sort of thing even I did as a kid. If you read this article, and the ones on national news reports, you'll discover that no one seemed to get angry over the kids also being encouraged to dress up as old people. It's yet another sign of adults reading too much into something innocent. Do you think the school went too far? Or are the Christians out of line?
I think it's stupid that such a thing was protested to begin with.
I am a firm believer of chidlren getting plenty of sleep. When my kids were babies, I would let them set their napping schedule and eating schedule through out the day. But they always had a set routine from day one of coming home from the hospital about bedtime. Since they were babies, bath time and bedtime were about 10 pm. Killed me cause I also had two toddlers at home and a hubby that worked swing shift. My evenings consistited of nothing but feeding, bathing, and preparing for various kid bedtimes. We had to make sure Randy's two girls (the toddlers) had a set schedule in our house because their mother allowed and still does those girls to dictate when they would go to bed. Starting at 4pm (when my kids where babies) I would start cooking for me and the girls. At about 5 pm, I would get the girls eating at the table and set the babies up either in their highchairs or their inside car seats with a bottle or finger foods. After the girl's dinner, it was their bath time so they could have at least an hour or two to wind down after bath time. At 7:30pm, it was the toddler's bedtime. I would then wait a hour to hour and half before I started getting my two kids going on their full blown dinner and baths. They were put down no later then 10pm.
Now at that age my kids didn't sleep through the night till they were almost 1 years old. Actually Coltin to this day still can't sleep all the way through the night. He is up at times from going to bed at 8:30 (most nights depending on what we have going on in the evening) at about 1 am to 2 am. Randy gets soooooo irriate because he is a light sleeper and works 10-15 hour days and hears Coltin. I managed to negoiate with the males of my family. I understand Coltin better then I do DeLaney who LOVES her sleep. Coltin takes after myside of the family. Early to bed, early to rise, stay up late, can still get up early, if he can't get to sleep he is going to toss and turn, and if he wakes up he has a hard time going back to bed. His poor lil mind is constantly going and going and going. The deal is, if Coltin wakes up at 1 or 2 am, he is NOT to come wake me up cause he might wake Daddy up. He is to get up, go potty, and grab his pillow and blanke and go downstairs and flip the tv on. If he feels hungry he can grab a snack but NOT eat us out of food. He eventually goes back to sleep about 3 or 4 am on the couch and can wake up in a realtively good mood. DeLaney can and will go to sleep with in minutes of hitting the pillow and LOVES to sleep in.
My kids are now honing big time on tweenie years. And I know a LOT of kids get up early for various sporting and school events between the ages of 7-19, but at the age my kids are, I don't push them unless they are really into something. Tae Kwon Do case in point. We took another long break and just started going back last night. The kids picked up on everything with in the first evening that we missed the week after testing! Saturday's class is at 9 am. Usually not a problem but we drive a half hour to our academy. I don't make the kids go to bed at 8:30 when they don't have school the next day. Or if they have something going on and we are running all over hte place and dinner is late so therefore bedtime is late. I was up at 6 am this morning, because I want to go to TKD but Randy is not into any type of sport really and was pushed hard growing up to do things and then his parents never supported him so he is really against making hte kids do anything sports related. Randy left me a note asking me to hold off on morning TKD classes till after the kids' First Communion the first Sunday of April. Saying it isn't really fair that they get no morning to sleep in at all if I wake them up at 7 am on Saturday to take them to TKD and also making them wake up on Sunday at 7 am to go to Mass with Mammo.
I debated and I realized that yes the kids really enjoy TKD and even though we missed out on Leadership this last go around because of the weather and then all of us getting sick and me developing pnemonia basically that Randy has a point. I would go to this morning's class because I was raised in a household where we, the kids, decieded what we wanted to do out of choices and then our parents supported us. But they put limits on what we did because of not only money but because we were KIDS! This Sunday my moms and pops are on a small trip and Mammo can't take the kids to Mass. It is Palm Sunday and it is the start of Holy Week. The Priests and Nuns are really going to be watching which kids out of the First Communion and Confirmation classes are going to Masses this week. Which means I have to suck it up, put a pair of big girl panties on and take the kids to Mass on Sunday and through out this week till my Moms gets home to do it for me. I only tech have three more Sundays to get the kids up early on Sunday and have them go to Mass.
They didn't choose to get First Communion. I am making them. They were baptised Catholic for a Death Bed Wish from my favorite Aunty. And my Mom's pointed out that if they should deciede when they are older to switch to full blown Catholism instead of a chosen path of Paganism, or actually any Christian denomination, it would be easier for them if they at least had First Communion and it was an age passage rite in our family. It means they are getting closer and closer to the out right war of puberty. My moms doesn't ask much of any of her kids concerning their children so I made the kids do this for Mammo. But they have made no bones after First Communion they will NOT go to many Masses with Granny nor will they do anything outside of Catholic School for the Church.
I called Randy and told him I debated and I agree, until the time of First Communion is over with; I will NOT be making the kids give up their one and only day to sleep in. It wasn't fair to them and they need their sleep.
We already get called over protective parents along with a couple of the kids' friends parents because we make the kids go to bed between 8 and 8:30. DeLaney threw a HUGE fit that we weren't making Coltin go to bed at 8, until she found out that her friend in the 4th grade still has a 8:30 bedtime and she is 10! Her mom and Choka (grandpa-lives with them) said this summer her bedtime will increase to 9 for the next school year. So see folks, there are some of us parents out there that not only know but demand our kids get the proper amount of sleep and can take a step back and say: "Hey, we are pushing the kids a bit to much, lets back off and make some cuts or negoiate on things!"
Jr. High School kids are a strange lot. I feel sorry for the ones who are having trouble fitting in, because I just know how awkward and strange they feel all the time and how much they get picked on. I feel bad for the popular ones, because for the most part they are probably peaking now and it's going to be a rough ride down into early and middle adulthood. I even feel sorry for those middle of the road kids because, despite being well adjusted, they are not really allowed to explore their own personal interests in lieu of strict rote learning.
But there seems to be one connecting factor between all these kids. Yes, from the lowliest nerd to the coolest pop-star looking kids, Jr. High School kids smell bad. Very bad. Not just "no deodorant" bad, but full on "I haven't bathed in at least three days" bad. I find it amazing that my girls who expertly apply their make-up each day smell like they just swam through a combination of onions and vinegar.
Now, I don't just go around smelling my kids. It's when they come up to the head of the class and I catch a whiff of them as they write something on the board or turn in completed papers. My grade school kids are thankfully free of body oder, but anyone who's ever had or worked with kids know that they find ways to compensate for their inability to make their own stench.
I love my kids tho, stench or not. I'm really hoping I get to stay at the same schools until I go home so I can watch them grow and become more mature. With all the schools and classes I have each week I'm only now starting to know some of my students personally. Of course, they are just now warming up to me as well, so it's nice that we are mutually making efforts to get to know each other now. Besides, now that I'm getting to know names better, I can keep a better list of the ones I should breathe through my mouth around.
-Maru!
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