Lessons Learned from a Fall Field Trip.

Chaperoned my son's field trip to a pumpkin patch today.  And what a perfect day for the trip. Couldn't think of anything I would rather do then spend the beautiful fall day with my little guy and his classmates.

And of course, there was much to be learned today.

1. I learned that if you scratch a farm dog in exactly the right spot, he will pee all over an unsuspecting 6 year old.  Can I mention how relieved I was this child wasn't riding home with me?
   
2. Prickly burrs grow in pumpkin patches.  Something I wish we had learned before we let loose a group of 1st graders into a field to find a pumpkin.
   
3. Prickly burrs also grow in corn fields.  Again, something I wish I knew before I spent 15 minutes removing the burrs from the pumpkin expedition.
4. There is one strand of corn silk for each kernel on an ear of corn.  Did not know that. 
   
5. If there is one cat and one person with cat allergies on a 100+ acre farm, the cat will indeed find and stalk that one person.
   
6. This rule also applies to bees and children terrified of them.
7. I learned that the inside of a green pumpkin is orange, the inside of a white pumpkin is white.
   
8. Soybeans eaten directly out of the shell taste horrific.  Trust me, they need to be roasted first.
   
9. If you've watched or read "Children of the Corn", you'll find corn mazes a lot less charming and a lot more frightening.  Stupid, scary movie.
10. Speaking of children and corn, if you are responsible for 5 boys in a corn maze, chances are they will all choose different paths in the maze.  Some will even make a path of their own (at which point the map becomes completely useless).

No bee stings, no allergic reactions to soy nuts, all children returned safely home.

A very good day.

89 Fake Spanish Dollars.

If you happen to have some extra fake Spanish money burning a hole in your pocket....

I just love the clever idea my son's teacher had to teach the kids how to count in Spanish last week.  She asked each child to bring in an item that they would be willing to donate to a class auction.  Something small that another child would be willing to bid on.  My son scoured the house and finally settled on three very old, unopened McDonald's Happy Meal toys.  Each child was then presented with 100 (fake) Spanish dollars to bid on the auction items.

My son had his eye on a mood ring but was outbid.  He was, however, the proud winner of a mysterious beaded ornament (I think that's what it is anyways) and the lovely fall treasure pictured above.  Somewhat surprised by the items he chose, but he had a great time counting in Spanish and competing in the auction process.  And he still had 11 fake dollars to spare at the end of the day.

I would have loved a game like this when I was growing up.  And more importantly, I'm always happy when a teacher can find a creative, exciting way for the kids to learn.

 

We Made It.

It's official.  We made it through our first week of the 2009-2010 school year.  And despite all my worrying, everything worked out great.  The boys have easily adjusted to the change.  They've made many new friends and the younger two have pretty much forgotten they ever attended another school.  I would never have thought I would be able to say that 3 days into the year.  No tears or screaming or boys being angry with me for this decision.   In fact, I'm hearing a lot more "please and thank you" and otherwise respectful words out of their mouths this week.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a great school year!

The Teacher That Changed My Life.

It was a complete fluke I ever ended up in Evelyn Askey's high school art class.  I suppose I can thank Kelli, my 8th grade best friend, for that twist of fate.  Sitting next to her filling out my 9th grade class schedule, I needed an elective.  Kelli chose art.  So I chose art.  You don’t know how many times I wonder where I’d be now if she had chosen agriculture instead.

Ms. Askey was one of those teachers that truly loved every part of her job.  She was passionate about art and sharing it with her students.  She took us on field trips to art galleries, she arranged tours of artist’s studios.  She cried when Georgia O’Keefe died.  She cared about the art community and she cared about her students.  She cared about teaching.  And we all knew it.

But most importantly, she believed in us.  And having someone believe in you, that you can do something, that you can be someone, is a very empowering gift.  Knowing what I wanted to do with my life and having such passion for it, made every other part of my life easier. I worked harder not just in art class, but in all of my classes.  Art club became my life, art class was my reason to get up in the morning.  I asked for extra assignments, I stayed after school.  I carried a sketchbook everywhere I went.  I wrote advertisements for school dances, sold donuts to earn money for an art club trip to New York City.  And I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Me and Ms. Askey at my high school graduation.  That's my Gramma in the background in the top photo.

Ms. Askey encouraged me to work harder, get better, do more.  She submitted my artwork to national competitions where I won blue ribbons and gold keys.  And with her help,  I earned a scholarship to a college I would have never been able to attend otherwise.  She wrote me letters of encouragement the first year I was away.  Letters which I will cherish forever.  

Sadly, she passed away a few years ago.  And when the news let out that she was dying, I hear she received an outpouring of letters from her students.  All thanking her for changing their lives, and encouraging her to somehow beat the cancer she was battling.  You better believe I had a letter in that pile and I was grateful to have had the chance to let her know how much she meant to me.  

Every day of my life I am grateful I walked into that art room.  Every single day.

I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends.

“fall is here, hear the yell

back to school, ring the bell

brand new shoes, walking blues

climb the fence, book and pens

i can tell that we are gonna be friends”

 

My sons started school today.  Scratch that.  After 7 years, my sons began a new school today.  With much preparation, they all seem to be fine and are actually very excited about the change.  Me?  Well, I’ve been a bundle of nerves for a week, I can’t do anything today but wonder how they are doing.  Frankly, I’m counting down the minutes until I pick them up this afternoon to see how their day went.

Academically, my boys will be fine.  It's the friend thing I always worry about.  School is so much easier when you have a good friend by your side.  So throughout this nerve wracking morning, my favorite back to school song plays over and over in my head.

I can’t help but hope that my little guy finds a new friend like the one in the song.  Someone to chase ants and worms with.

And that my middle son finds a partner in crime, someone to share a giggle with.  There’s nothing like listening to his infectious laugh.

My oldest?  He’s the one I worry about the most.  I pray he can find a friend or two that he feels comfortable around.  I hope his year is filled with good things and people that are kind to him.  A true friend or two to play video games with, ski with, confide in.  And I truly hope he comes home with plans for a sleepover in the immediate future.

 

“…and when i wake tomorrow i'll bet

that you and i will walk together again

cause i can tell that we

are going to be friends”

15 hours and 13 minutes.

That’s all that’s left of the summer of 2009 at our house.  And we must have had too much fun around here, because it went by entirely too fast.

We made many wonderful memories this summer.  Here are the ones I remember the most:

1. Celebrated my middle guys 9^th birthday this summer.  A birthday that will go down as the year I locked the entire family out of the house (and car) on the way to his birthday dinner. I will never hear the end of this.  Never.
2. Sleepovers anyone?  The boys slept over, had sleep overs, slept in each other's rooms.  They were nomads.
3. After 17 years, the washer finally gave out.  This was the year I entered the 20^th century and bought the front loader.  For the record I miss the old machine terribly.
4. It was a life changing summer.  Decided to spend our life living life and not living in the car.  We walked to get ice cream, rode bikes to get lunch and drove 2 miles to the pool instead of 30.
5. This was the year our youngest was old enough to join his brothers on the swim team.  And also the year our new team beat the old team.
6. My baby lost his first tooth this summer.  How can that be?
7. We made wonderful new friends and kept the old ones.
8. We watched old friends move out of town and in turn, gained a new city to visit.
9. Coldstone Creamery makes cupcakes.  Big discovery this summer.
10. Business was good the summer of 2009.  Received recognition from Martha Stewart, completed my first official celebrity order, worked with clients in Australia, Canada and the U.K.  Saw my work in a magazine.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.
11. This was the year Michael Jackson passed away.  And my hard rock music lover son discovered pop wasn’t so bad after all.  Still working on that moon walk.
12. Got to see the inside of a toll booth this summer.  Really could have gone without that experience.
13. We became a family with an overpriced and never used basketball hoop at the end of our driveway.
14. Learned how to play ghosts in the graveyard and stayed up until midnight playing it.
15. We didn’t go to the beach this summer.  And that was okay.
16. Our family ate our body weight in hamburgers, mini corn dogs and ice cream sandwiches.  We drank soda.  Bed times no longer existed.  We got up late and there were days the boys never changed out of their pajamas.  We didn’t always collect the mail.   The boys played too many video games and watched too many movies.  We ate candy and didn’t always brush our teeth.   We relaxed.

And it was the best summer ever.

The Kid in the Middle of the Class.

Two more days and school starts back up for the boys.  Thinking about them returning has caused me to reflect on my own school days.  I couldn't resist digging up old photos of myself at their respective ages.

Yikes!  Look at the hair in 6th grade.  All of middle school was tough for me, actually.  I wasn’t the smartest,  I wasn’t the prettiest,  I wasn’t the funniest and I admit I certainly wasn’t the nicest.  Heaven knows I wasn’t athletic.  Last one picked in gym class?  Always me.   Growing up in middle school, I always felt like I was just…there.  Not really noticed, not really important.  I was just there. 

If you’re a teacher, chances are you have a student like me in your class.  Not a trouble maker, so you won’t need to dedicate time watching their every move.  Not a genius or a brown noser, so they won’t stand out or draw attention to themselves.  There will be a kid in your classroom that will do average work, follow the rules, and won’t cause you any trouble.  They’ll go unnoticed.  I hope as the school year begins, you’ll take a minute to seek out that kid, I know from experience they won’t come to you.  But I hope you’ll notice that kid and let them feel important, no matter what you’re teaching.  They may not tell you how much it means to them now, but I can guarantee you, the rest of their life they will be grateful to you.

Fortunately for me, I had such a teacher in high school.  And she changed my life forever.

Back to School Wine for Back to School Week.

Since the beginning of August, I've planned on dedicating this entire week to back to school blog posts.  And I couldn't have found a more perfect bottle of wine to start the week off.  

A salute to teachers for the latest in my "Cheap Wine with Pretty Labels" series:

Teacher's Pet is a Chardonnay bottled by JZ Vintners in Sonoma County, California.  And it is one of the most clever labels I've seen in a long time.  The details in the illustration alone are worth the $9.99 I paid for the bottle.   I love how the wine name is printed in a typical text book font and printed on handwriting paper.  I love the big apple, the teacher hiding behind the desk, the chalkboard in the background.   And if you look closely, there's a decorative alphabet border above the name of the wine.  I couldn't help but notice both the letter "d" and "p" are printed in Greek letters.  I'm betting that's a sorority reference.

Even the writing on the back of the bottle is thought through.  Here's the touching dedication of the wine proprietor to his mother: "I especially dedicate this wine to my mother, who after raising four kids at home, went on to educate many more in and out of the classroom."

I enjoyed a glass while watching "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".  And if you happen to be in the mood for a good back to school flick, here's a link to Entertainment Weekly's 50 Best High School Movies. 

So back to school week begins.  And if the calendar wasn't proof enough that summer is coming to an end, I spotted my first fall leaf of the season yesterday.  

Oh, and Ferris Bueller, by the way?  Number 10.

Shopping with Boys and Wooloomooloo.

Yesterday was day 68 of summer vacation for the boys.  For 67 days, we have had a wonderful time hanging at the pool, relaxing, eating our body weight in ice cream.  Good times.  That was until we went school shopping.  

And everything fell apart.

Let me give you a brief synopsis of school shopping with 3 boys (and a husband).

Why do we have to go?  Because I need your foot with me in order to buy you shoes.  Can’t you just trace my foot instead? You’re going.  Stand up straight so we can measure your feet. These shoes are too tight.  They hurt. (My children have been in flip flops or barefoot the entire summer.  Socks feel tight at this point).  Walk around and see if they fit.  I said walk.  Stop running.  Get back here now.  Stop touching your brother.  Stop touching your brother.  Are you touching your brother?  Leave your brother alone.  Yes, you have to try the pants on.  Stop touching your brother.  Stop licking the mirror.  Stop touching your brother.  Are you kidding me, no, I will not buy you candy.  How many more stores are we going to?  He’s touching me.  It takes a lot longer when you horse around.  Oh, Dear Lord, are you seriously touching your brother.  I have to go to the bathroom again.  How many more stores are we going to?  I swear if you don’t stop touching your brother.  You can ask me as many times as you want, but I’m still not buying you candy.  Get away from your brother.  Look, Mom, my leg is bleeding in my shoe!  You can't possibly have to go to the bathroom again.  For the last time, get your hands off of your brother!  This is the worst afternoon of my life.

And as much fun as that sounds, the day ended with us getting stuck in rush hour traffic for a solid hour.  I’ll let you imagine how enjoyable that was after an exciting shopping excursion.

 

All of this led to a bonus “Cheap Wine with Pretty Labels” post.

Wooloomooloo is a Red Blend from South Eastern Australia.  The wine was good.  Quite honestly, this probably wasn’t the best day to have me pay attention to the taste of wine. You could have given me a glass of swill and I would’ve been thrilled.

So here’s my review.  Cool label, good (much needed) wine.  Cheap ($7.99).  As for the name?  I am positive it’s a swear word that means school shopping sucks.