DC Metro Moms

Standardized Testing is Testing My Standards.

In Virginia the public schools just completed the SOL (Standards Of Learning) testing. Our third grade son took them this year for the first time. As part of the preparation for the testing, the elementary school held a meeting for third grade parents to discuss the SOL testing; i.e. what to expect, how the testing is monitored, who grades it, when the scores get returned, etc. I attended the meeting more out of curiosity than a need to know since we have an older son in Middle School and he's taken the SOL's since he was in third grade.  Prior to the meeting I had offered to provide the school administrator with some talking points about kids and testing, but more from the perspective of giving parents permission to relax about the testing. After all, this isn't an SAT, the third grade SOL will not determine if your child will be accepted to Harvard. It's mainly a test to determine a school's educational performance, not individual student learning. However, despite what the test is supposed to measure, there are parents who are dead set on their children acing this test and getting a perfect score. 

I used Saturday Night Live as a parenting tool. So what. Who cares.

I live in suburbia and I drive children to soccer practice in a minivan. Now that we've gotten that bombshell out of the way, let's move it along.  The Pool I schlep includes my own 13 year old son, 3 other members of his U13 soccer team, and from time to time it also includes my almost 9 year old who keeps me company for the ride. Last week I had both of my sons with me as we picked up the other riders. Once everyone was assembled, we headed to practice.

The boys usually spend drive time talking about their teachers and homework assignments. Occasionally one or two of them may be plugged into an iPod so they can't hear me singcan have some chill time before hitting the practice field. Sometimes they will talk about stuff they have watched on TV, heard on the news or funny stories/jokes from school friends.  Most of the time it's age appropriate potty humor of the middle school variety.  Most of the time the older boys keep things in check if they see, or are reminded, that the younger Renner boy is in the car too.  But sometimes through no fault of their own, my younger son will overhear something and store it away like a squirrel preparing for a long winter.

It's one thing to watch Top Chef, quite another to do The Running Man with one.

Last week I walked into a wall. In my own living room, all by myself. At least I can say it was dark and not in broad daylight. For the first couple of days my wrist felt fine, but by Saturday I was in terrible pain. So I drove over to the ER figuring if it hurt this badly, there must be something wrong. And I was right. Looks like I've got myself a third degree sprain, which may or may not mean I have a torn tendon/fracture.

My son took this picture of me wearing my fetching wrist spint. I look far more "SWAT Team" than fashionista, and I'll be sporting this look for at least another week until the docs can fully assess the damage to my wrist.

Typing with one hand is very slow going, and if you know me, I don't like being slowed down. Hell if it was going to get in the way of my commitment to the Go Humans Go! project. I'd already confirmed I would attend, I already arranged to pick up Chef Spike and bring him with us to the Capital Area Food Bank, so all that was left was for me to take my vicodin and make Sarah do all the driving.

Maybe there's a little kick-ass cowgirl in each of us

When I was little, I was the type of kid who liked to dress up. Halloween, costume parties, whatevah. So much so I went through a period of time in Nursery school when I would only wear party dresses. Each day, every day. Of course this also required the wearing of the tights, since New York in winter isn't going to break any heat index records. My mother didn't argue with my penchant for wearing the pretties, figuring that like my jello eating penchant it too would pass, but she was hell bent on not buying me 500 pair of tights. You see in addition to wanting to wear party dresses, I also didn't want to give up the climbing on the jungle gym, the jumping rope and the crawling around on my hands and knees pretending to be a cat. All of this action packed adventurism created a plethora of rips and runs in my tights. My mother did what made sense to her, she sewed up the holes.  Only problem is my mother didn't always use matching thread.  This created a somewhat Frankensteinesque feel to my ensemble at times.  But I didn't care, I got to wear a party dress and all was right in my world.

During this period of time, we visited my grandparents in Colorado. On a trip to Sears I spotted a yellow cowgirl outfit and begged my mother to buy it for me. It was yellow, it had white fringe. It included a vest, white blouse with yellow swirly stitching on the collar, pearl snaps down the shirt front and a yellow skirt with fringe along the bottom.  It also came with it's own silver pistol and holster. Yup, I was gonna be a bona fide pistol packin' cowgirl once I put that outfit on.  Once purchased,  I don't think I took that outfit off for months. I remember wearing it a lot. I loved it. It made me feel like a powerful cowgirl. I'm not sure what it was about being a cowgirl I equated with being in control and confident, but I do remember having both of those emotions running through whenever I put on my yellow cowgirl outfit. What I don't' remember is if I had boots to go with the outfit. I can't remember wearing boots with it.  I think I must have, but while I have a sharp recollection of the clothing, I have no memory of any footwear. 

My Son Wants to Celebrate Christmas. Um, okay, but we're Jewish.

Having grown up Jewish, I knew it was only a matter of time before one , or both, of my kids decided they no longer want to be Jewish. I expected this epiphany to occur in any given year right around November or December.  This is the year Son Two decided he's celebrating Christmas and isn't going to be Jewish.

Was his religious switch caused by deep theological introspection where my son has dug deep into his heart and found Jesus?  Nope. We're not whisking him to our Baptist's friends in Shreveport any time soon.   More like he's hoping we will dig deep into our wallet and buy him Christmas presents like the ones he keeps seeing advertised on TV and the ones his friends are telling him are on their Christmas wish lists.  He's just wishing he was Christian so he could be like his friends. Not be different. Feel like he belongs. But those are the deeper reasons he hasn't yet reached, right now he thinks he just wants Santa.

What about the other 9 months?

I get annoyed every year at this time.  Why? Because there is such an emphasis on charitable giving it irks me. Not because I am against giving to charity. I believe in doing so, very strongly. I myself do indeed give and we teach our kids to give as well. 

What I don't buy into is the emphasis on giving as a seasonal holiday event.  Emphasis on the word "event."  Yes, this is a huge time of year for charities to receive donations and no, I am not suggesting that stop.   But the needs don't just exist 3 months a year, charitable organizations and non-profits need our support all year long.  Many organizations are utterly swamped by people wishing to donate their time, attention and money between Thanksgiving and New Year's, but the rest of the year? Feh.

While the United States is a developed nation we have a dismal record regarding how many of our children live in poverty. Oh hey. Yeah, that's right.  Poverty.  We've got families in our country who do not have indoor plumbing nor electricity.   We've got entire families living in cars.  Not good.  My irritation about annual giving campaigns has evolved, I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I didn't like it.  It has been years in the making. 

Over a decade ago The Huz was packing up relief supplies to drop into Somalia.  At the time we were both kidless and living in Louisiana.  I looked over the list of stuff that was being put on the plane and asked if I could have an extra box to bring 45 minutes up the road to the families I was serving at my school in Plain Dealing.  I knew plenty of families in need of relief there too. 

Governor Rendell? Please step back to the podium.

"No family." Shut up! No he just didn't! 

Janet Napolitano is someone's daughter, and she has two siblings which also makes her a sister. Janet Napolitano does in fact have a family. I believe it is patently ridiculous in this day and age for a family to be uniquely defined as a husband, a wife and their children. I recently read the rules are being rewritten on that so I'm turning my attention to another overheard statement the Governor made, "Because for that job, you have to have no life." Can you please repeat that? I'll wait. Does the finality of that statement sit well with you? I don't want that to be the last word. There is much more to be said.

But shouldn't Governor Rendell just sit down now and be quiet? Hasn't he said enough? No.

What kind of person does something like this? Tell me!

Thanksgiving 2001. Our family was living in Swansea, Illinois.  Maybe you are more familiar with Belleville, home of Jimmy Connors? Sure. You know it. You just didn't think you knew it.  Glad I could help you with that. Now back to the story.

10:00 PM the night before Thanksgiving I realize I forgot to buy the ingredients for an apple pie I make every year on, wait for it, Thanksgiving.  I grabbed my cookbook and keys got in the car and headed out to the grocery store closest to our house, Schnucks. Yes, that is the actual name of the store,look right here if you don't believe me. (My husband still calls it Schmucks, so you aren't alone in that if you are already going that way).

Usually I take time to type out a shopping list into one of those convenient online programs that organizes the ingredients by location so I don't have to wander around the aisles for hours buying crap we don't need find the items and get out of the store fairly quickly. I had already completed my major shop. As I was shopping for one recipe, I figured I'd just take the cookbook with me, grab what I needed and come right home. Everything went as planned. Well,almost.

I'll Never Have Hair Like Jan Brady, and I'm totally fine with that.

When SVMoms Group announced we would be having a topic day dedicated to Diversity, I had two possible posts in mind. Right up until the last minute I wasn't sure which one would end up traveling from my memory, out through my fingers and onto the keyboard.  The decision came to me as I was walking down an aisle in Giant and a bottle of Jergens Lotion caught my eye. I bought it, took it home, opened it up, slathered it all over my arms, sat down in front of my computer,inhaled deeply and I knew exactly which post would be typed up and shared today.

For almost a decade I had the same child care provider taking care of me and she was called a "Housekeeper."  I know in New York, where I once lived, people still have Housekeepers, but some families now use the term Nanny, or possibly Au Pair, to describe one-on-one in-home childcare. We had a Housekeeper. When I saw the word Housekeeper in my head, it always began with a capital H. Dorothy Jacobs was our Housekeeper and I considered her to have one of most important jobs in the world second only to my mom and dad. Dorothy Jacobs took care of me during the week when my mother was at work teaching. Dorothy Jacobs was a member of our family yet I also knew she had another family where she was the mom and not the Housekeeper.

On Veteran's Day, we remember.

It's Veteran's Day. A day when we memorialize those who have served our country and honor those who serve it now. This year marks the 20th my own husband has served our country. Our family has seen multiple deployments, months of separation. We've had two wars during these 20 years. Even with all of the chaos swirling around us, we still live life day to day doing all the things non-military families do.

We bridge both worlds in many ways. Nothing reminded me more of this dual citizenship than the time my father-in-law came  to The DC for his first visit.
xxxx

It was not long after our family arrived in the Washington DC area that my husband was promoted to a higher rank. My father in law came out to attend the promotion ceremony. The kids were excited to have Grandpa visit and show them our new house. Grandpa was excited to see the kids again.