Hinder & Saving Abel, Cracker Spelling and Hunters Bags

Each year the Fort Leonard Wood hosts a concert. Last year we went to see ZZ Top and Bowling for Soup. I love love love me some Bowling for Soup! This year we got Hinder and Saving Abel!! I love Hinder and only knew a couple of Saving Abel's songs but I loved it!

I'm too old to be so close to the stage and deal with the nonsense of others. I was "accidentally" groped, fondled and even dry humped more times in that 2 hour concert than I have ever been in my life! And I yelled at so many people and made use of my being a bossy, pushy witch more than my share of times. It got to the point that I was intentionally taking up more than my one square foot of space just to be able to block people who thought they could squeeze in a little closer!

Hinder

Here's Saving Abel

Buying a concert ticket is like buying permission to reach back into your closet where you stashed all of your bad 80's clothes and squeeze yourself into them and think you look great!

Here a few examples. Since were stuck so close to others I only got a few pictures this year as opposed to last year when I could actually turn my head from where I was sitting.

Yep the blue leopard print, skin tight skinny jeans!

And then we have the horrible zebra-ish print stretchy capri pants with a too short skirt and sneakers. I'll be finding me a pair of these so soon!

These three girls were some of my favorites! First is the hot pink skinny jeans with white sneakers and a stripped sweatshirt...weird. And Then the girl in the middle with her skinny jeans in red and flip flops...interesting. But their buddy takes the cake with her mini skirt with a tulle tu-tu under it and sneakers.

Here's a picture of some oddly dressed people. Weird, t-shirts and tank tops and blue jeans that aren't tapered, weird. Or hot! I think HOT! Aren't we cute? If only I could've fit into some skinny jeans.....wait I still wouldn't have!

Enough of that nonsense! Here's what we've been up to on the home school front.

I found these great Scrabble Cheese-It's at Wal-Mart (don't judge me, it's the only store within 30 miles. And even then there's only a K-Mart. The nearest Target is 70 miles away!)

The kids were each given 30 crackers and had to make 5 words and write them down. It was fun to see them asking for the letters they needed to complete their words from their friends. We had another homeschooling family over for group day.

We're studying the Revolutionary War right now and have this awesome book:

It inspired us to make these really cool hunters bags like they used during the Revolutionary War to hold their ammunition and the kids think probably a sandwich for lunch!



We also made these cool pierced tin lanterns yesterday.

Tomorrow is another group day and I'm gonna have my camera charged this time! We did other activities last week and I missed out on pictures because mine and Tayton's camera's were dead!

~Till They All Come Home~

Now I Remember but Did I Forget to Mention That?

I got a little side tracked and thought for a moment or twenty that the reason we were homeschooling was solely based on the whole sexual assault thing. I had forgotten it was something we had always considered and even actually figured we'd end up having to do one day. The reason being that my children have a problem fitting into the cookie cutter student mold. Most types of children can find their fit in public schools but with Tayton's Sensory Integration Disorder it makes things hard. One day he might be fantastic at one thing but need major improvements in other and the next week it could be completely opposite. This makes it tough on the teachers, other students and especially on Tayton.

After the rough start we had with homeschooling last week I needed a little time to regroup. I realized that what I did wrong was pushing the kids too hard too fast and forcing them to conform to how I expect them to learn. I put work books in front of them and said work. Well DUH of course that doesn't work.

We took Thursday and Friday and slowed things down and did some new plans. Today was the first day of the new plan and it was perfect!

We spent the morning at the eye doctor (health). We came home the kids played outside for a bit while we made lunch. After lunch we colored maps (geography) and talked about all of the states the four of us have been. All of our maps are colored differently. It was fun. We also checked out the new states the boys (Kirke and I already have them colored) will get to color when we drive out to NY in March.

OH did I forget to mention that? We're on orders. We'll be leaving the great state of Missouri and heading back to where Kirke and I met 11 years ago. Ft Drum, New York! But that's another story. We can't wait to get back up there and show the boys that part of our past! Our first home as a married couple, where we met, where we spent time together and so much more!

Ok so back to school. We played a math game instead of focusing on work sheets. We did language arts workbooks and they were okay with it. Then we went to the playground and the kids wandered down to the skate park where they had a blast running up and down the obstacles.

I think I can remember what works for us. Again the 4 month break was a bit much it's going to take some time to get back on track!

~Till They All Come Home~

Sexual Assault is Ok in Our Schools

I wasn't going to post this but now I'm just mad and I've done everything I can do and I don't know what I wanted out of stirring the pot but damn it we're still suffering and the school got off easy. It's bullshit!

Ok back in October my son, 5 years old, was in the restroom at school with a friend we'll call D. Korbin and D were washing their hands and getting ready to head back to class......probably having a water fight or standing under the air dryer too. Another student we'll call M. came into the restroom,, walked up to Korbin and D and pulled down his pants M tried to get the boys to touch him. Korbin and D did the typical "eww gross get away" thing and that's when M grabbed my Korbin and tried to pull down his pants. Korbin's pants did not come down because he had on adjustable waist jeans. D was not so lucky. He had on sweats and his pants were yanked down by this other boy. Korbin took advantage of this time to run away and get help. This is sexual assault!

This is the story we were told when we picked up Korbin and D from school that day. October 10th to be exact. We weren't notified during the day that anything out of the ordinary had taken place that day. D's mom and I talked for a few minutes and thus began a friendship strongly centered around our children's experience.

Over the weekend Korbin's behavior changed. He became very defensive and angry and mean. In fact he picked up an end table over his head and was ready to throw it at his brother! Not typical Korbin behavior. I spoke with the counselor on Monday and asked her to talk with Korbin because I noticed his behavior had changed. She assured me she would. She never did.

A fews day later after speaking with D's mom we decided we needed to meet with the principal and find out what, if anything was being done. M was still in class with our kids. Still roaming the halls and still alone with other children. I approached the principal on Wednesday that week and asked if we could meet with her Thursday or Friday. She informed me she was quite busy and couldn't schedule an appointment with us and if we wanted to talk to her it had to be right then. Since D's mom and I wanted to be together as to not be bullied that didn't work for us.

Friday morning we decided to just drop in and meet with the principal right then. She didn't even offer us a seat. She basically just said what she needed to say to shut us up and get us out of the office. At this time the counselor still had not met with my son even though it was specifically requested by me that she do so 5 days earlier. A week had passed at this point.

The following week nothing happened and my son continued to become angrier and more defensive. On one occasion Korbin came home with a note saying he got in trouble for "growling" at other kids. I told the teacher I'd growl at other kids too if no one was going to make sure I felt safe at school.

That Friday D's mom and I both emailed the superintendent of the district to alert him of the situation. The boys had both stated M had tried to get them to touch him and possibly had tried to touch them as well. They were reluctant to talk about the incident.

Monday morning the superintendent assistant called and said he'd look into why the counselor hadn't met with the kids and basically just saying what he had to say to pacify me. Remarkable the counselor met with both boys the next day and did a class (at my request) on good touch/bad touch with the students and appropriate behavior. Then that was the end of it.

Well unfortunately my son continued to become more and more aggressive and get into trouble and be disruptive in the classroom. I took Korbin to the behavioral health child psychologist on post who said Korbin has ADHD and has put him on medication. He stated that he felt that the onset of the ADHD symptoms came on so strong because of the incident but that they would have shown up in time. I went ahead with the medication because of the anger and violence not because he's a wild little boy. We love that about him!

D's mom and I were fed up with the schools administration and in November we both removed our kids from school and opted to home school them.

Well here I am 10 months later stewing over the issue again. I raised attention to the incident with our rear detachment commander at a meeting last month because I felt that the incident was not handled right and that my son was still suffering from the incident and I wanted to know what was supposed to happen in a situation like that.

Today we had a meeting with the family advocacy representative, the rear detachment commander and Kirke's 1SG. They had met with the schools administration and basically felt they did their share to handle the situation. They claimed to be unaware that there was an attempt to force our kid to touch M and that M tried to touch them. They freakin lied through their teeth about when they met with the students.

Today is the day I drop it. The school did not take care of my son and keep him safe and upon realizing he was in the situation played it off as boys being boys. That is not okay!! I'm pissed off but I don't know what I want that would make me not be so pissed off. I want my sweet loving happy little boy back.

The meeting we had today basically showed me that no one but me thinks this is a big deal. They made me feel as if I'm just being an over protective pain in the ass parent. I don't know what I expected but I didn't expect to have the situation minimized once again.

I'm not impressed. I feel like they are saying it's acceptable behavior. If this had happened to a little girl it would have been handled differently. If the other students parent wasn't an officer it would have been handled differently. If Korbin and D's daddy's had been here instead of in Iraq it would have been handled differently.

I miss my lovable sweet little guy. We love homeschooling but it's expensive. It's really been to our benefit that we've pulled them out of public school but damn it's just not right that THIS is the reason why! It's bullshit and I'm mad as hell but I've done all that I can do. I'm just grateful that my children aren't in school with kids who are allowed to bully them and hurt them anymore.

I'm not proof-reading this because it'll just make me mad all over again so forgive my typo's. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

I just figured out what I want out of this. I want people to stop saying things like this happen and it's gonna be okay. I want people to say "You are right, this is not acceptable behavior and I'm sorry that this happened to your son. We will do everything we can to keep it from happening again!" I'm sick of people in authority positions just blowing it off like it's no big effin deal. It's a big damn deal and it's NOT okay!

~Till They All Come Home~

The Homeschool Plague

We're new to this whole homeschool thing. There are days that I wonder what the hell I was thinking but most days I'm grateful to have this opportunity and love working with the boys. The biggest problem I've encountered isn't really a problem but it just kinda bugs me.



We interact with many people in a regular day. From store workers to waitresses and neighbors and friends. People always talk to the kids, or the kids talk to them. Duct tape should solve that little problem. . We all know that when you talk to kids the normal things get asked "How old are you?" "What grade are you in?" And then there's the one that makes us outcasts: "What school do you go to?"



Now as a mom to public school kids I never thought much about homeschoolers. I always found it interesting and appealing but never had a negative thing to say. Unfortunately, telling people that we homeschool is like painting a big red X over our heads because we must be religious nuts, crazy and obsessed with something or we must have this need to keep our kids out of and away from public school and the students who attend schools.



There isn't just a line in the sand between homeschoolers and public schoolers, its a freakin brick wall sometimes. And the question always comes up "why do you homeschool?" and you can sense it even if it isn't spoken. I notice myself constantly not only explaining our choice but also defending it. This isn't usually because someone has attacked our choice, but because I feel like if I don't explain it then I'm automatically stereotyped.



Now don't misunderstand. I totally get where this wall between the two gets built up. I recently joined a local group online of homeschoolers that meets weekly and communicates using yahoo groups. I read a few of their conversations and went ahead and deleted myself from their group. They were way too religious and anti-public education for my taste. I also have struggled to find a curriculum with a good balance of core subjects without over emphasizing religion.

We don't have the plague, we aren't crazy nutcases we just had some major issues with the local public schools. So major that one of the boys is now going to be seeing a psychiatrist and is on medication to help him control his crazy mood swings and impulsiveness. Thank you local elementary for failing to protect my children!

I'm glad that we're at the end of the school year and we're going to take a normal summer vacation and refuel for next year. We bought a complete curriculum which should be easy to follow as opposed to this year where we jumped in head first without time to plan or adjust.

Okay I'm off to count our hours and see how much more we have to squeeze in before we can officially start summer vacation!

The Teacher Called in Sick

Last week the teacher called in sick. She said she had strep throat and thought she was gonna die. She didn't die. She's here.

How come no one sent a sub? Don't ya think that if a homeschooling mommy is sick they should send in a sub? That sub has to perform all of the duties of the regular teacher. These include but are not limited to keeping the boys up their school work according to the lesson plan. The lesson plan we try to follow but end up veering from daily! That's totally allowed by the way but only for the regular teacher! The sub must also perform the daily home school maintenance and cleaning. Meals must also be prepared for the students.

For some strange reason the doctor wouldn't write me a prescription for a sub or an excuse note from work! Nuts! Call it a snow day cause we took 3! All better now.....for now. Strep throat sucks just so you know.

Four Years And He's Done

My little Tayton just graduated from Speech Therapy! Woohoo!



He's been in speech since he was three. His speech was really rough up until about a year and a half ago. He really started to speak more clearly as he started to learn to read. And just over the past six months or so I have finally given up my habit of translating for him when he speaks to other people because they keep looking at me like I'm stupid since he's been easy to understand for some time now. He went from being barely intelligible to correcting other peoples speech! It's great!



So now my baby is almost 7 1/2 and yesterday when I was finishing up everything to dis enroll them officially from public school they asked if we wanted to continue speech services so I asked to speak to the speech teacher because I didn't feel the service was needed any longer. She agreed! She said he has mastered all of the sounds and she hasn't been working with him on individual sounds just more on his anxiety levels as they escalate when he's speaking, but his pronunciation is great!

Woohoo Tayton!! Way to go little guy!

Korbin did two years of speech therapy and tested out last year so we are now a speech-therapy-free family for the first time in four years! Woohoo!



We are also now officially a homeschooling family and having a blast and learning so much! Even in our PJ's if we see fit!

I'm Ready to Learn

Part 1:

This morning we all slept in and I decided since we are getting so close to Kirke heading back to the sandbox that we'd take the day off from doing homeschooling lessons and just relax. I told the boys this plan. They seemed okay with it.

Then we came downstairs and sat down and Korbin had moved a chair right in front of the big United States map we hung last night. He then shouted "I'm ready to learn! Mom or dad come and teach me! I'm ready to learn! Teach me something please!"

Here is a video we took of Korbin after the story above happened but it's pretty cute!

Part 2:

I don't want to watch Muzzy!

We ordered the Muzzy DVDs so that we could introduce Spanish to the boys good and young with hopes of them getting the hang of it and it sticking with them. The package came today and Korbin wanted to have the big, fuzzy green Muzzy toy but then said he doesn't need to watch Muzzy cause he already knows Spanish. "I already know Spanish, uno, dos, tres, cuatro! See!"

Of course I told him to sit his butt down and watch Muzzy and he whined but as soon as it came on he was fascinated. And he's sitting here talking along with the bits of Spanish he does know from watching Dora (I'm guessing) and Sesame Street.

We had Ambers family over after her daughter and a friend's son got out of school and they ALL sat and watched Muzzy over again and didn't act like fools! I'm so impressed we LOVE Muzzy!

Yep that's 5 kids ages 2, 5, 5, 6 and 7! They sat and watched the show and didn't bug each other and even got caught saying a few of the words and dancing in their seats to the songs! Muzzy we love you!

Day 1: We Survived

Kirke is home and his days are limited so we decided we'd let the boys miss a week and a half of school to spend time with Daddy. We are planning to start homeschooling in January so we decided to use this week to run some practice lessons and see what we might need to tweak before we're in all the way.

Tayton and Korbin both responded really well. We started the day by going to the library to register so we can start checking out books. I assume we'll be doing this often. They were excited to go to the non-fiction and hunt for books on their latest obsessions: Noah's Ark and the Titanic.....ironic huh? The wooden vessel no one believed in except Noah and his family and the steel ship that was deemed unsinkable. The outcomes have both boys fascinated!

We worked on each subject area using the workbooks I bought as guides. I'm waiting on our Five in a Row book to get here so we can get started using that curriculum with the workbooks to supplement.

Tomorrow we're thinking about a trip to Springfield to get me a printer that works. Actually to exchange the one that doesn't or at least get it fixed. We're going to go to the Discovery Center to let the boys have some science fun and the day won't be wasted hours of no schooling.

I just thought I'd let ya know we're doing okay still and that I think this is going to be great. The boys both learned new concepts today and had fun doing it and I felt stress free all day long! What more could I ask for?