A touch of rugrat...

Okay-- I've got some decent kid stories--the hard part is remembering them! Hmmm... Funniest first:

We went to see Trans-Siberian-Orchestra last night--it was nine buckets of awesome and one bucket of "Dammit, does Arco Arena have to have THE must uncomfortable seats on the planet?" Stepmom bought tickets for Mate & me & the big kids, and the big kids were ENTHRALLED--too. awesome. for words.

But if the big kids were with us, and we were with parents, where (you might be asking) were the short people?

It was a new experience for them, really--in Zoom Boy's memory, at least. They had a BABYSITTER! In fact they had two--and as I was going to pick up my victims, I mean my students, I mean their babysitters, Ladybug was unclear on the concept.

"I wanna babysit!"

"You can't, sweets--they're the baby sitters. You're the baby they're going to sit on!"

"They can't sit on me! They'll squash me!"

"They're small girls--they won't be that heavy at all!"

We dialoged like this all the way down to pick up the girls and I'd almost forgotten about it until we got home. When we got home, and my two intrepid babysitters got out of the car, Ladybug got a really good look at them and realized, OMG, they're adult sized!

"Mama! They can't sit on me! THEY'RE TOO BIG!!!!"

THAT story's going to make the rounds at school, I'm sure!

Zoom boy found one of Chicken's old art books--it's a fingerprint book. You make a fingerprint and then draw little faces on it--for a first grader? it's art MAGIC! The cute thing is, we didn't have any stamp pads, so I asked Mate to get *ONE* on his way back from an errand.

*ONE*

Apparently, Mate still has a little first grader in him--because he came back with *FIVE*--in rainbow colors. Zoom Boy spent two hours, making fingerprint pictures. I cannot convey the absolute adorablenes of him lying on the kitchen floor, art utensil in hand, creating a masterpiece. He's gonna be something brilliant and skeery, just mark my words.

The big kids can check their grades on computer from home. I think this is THE worst invention of the 20th century. There is NOTHING worse than kicking back with your kids on Thanksgiving vacation to find out that one of them tanked an Algebra test and got a bad grade on a paper she worked REALLY hard on! The thing is, she had no empowerment at all--no teacher to ask, no way to figure out how to fix it. All she could do was waste precious moments of much needed brain-recharge, weeping.

Have I mentioned my burning hatred of modern education? I think it's worth repeating. I know my own students have done this and I tell them not to. We can fix it when we're at school--when we're at home, we have other concerns.

Have I mentioned that we're going to try to get Big T professional driving lessons for his birthday/Christmas? I'll be sure to tell you all when to get off the road. I know most of you are out of state, but still... given my own track record in an automobile, you just can't be too careful.

Oh yes--one more charming story. My babysitters (SWEETEST girls on the planet!) were so cute when I told them Mate was going to drop them off. "His car is cooler than mine anyway."

"Oh naw, Ms. Lane. NO car is cooler than the minivan!" J'et adore!