[email protected]

This morning, while reading the newspaper and drinking coffee and waiting for
my kids to wake up, I saw the parade of parents and children trekking down
for the first day of public school. Catholic schools started yesterday, but my
neighbors drive instead of walking, so it's less of a spectacle.

I realized this would have been Nathan's first day of school - he turned five
a few weeks ago, before the birthday cutoff. He would have been one of the
youngest in his class. Most of his friends were born after the cutoff.

He also would have had to get up early, eat breakfast right away instead of
an hour into his day when he gets hungry, gotten out of his pjs before
breakfast and then gone to sit in a classroom for an hour. When would he have had
time to draw and cut out the unicorn he decided to make this morning while I made
muffins? How would he have learned to make four legs and struggled with the
proportions of a side view of a unicorn? When would he have played with his
gears set and talked to me a mile a minute about the wind tunnel he played in
at the children's museum yesterday?

And my just turned four year old daughter would have had to have her sleep
disrupted to accompany us to the grade school. She slept until 9. They sleep
when they are tired and eat when they are hungry. How can you change that
midstream? It would have been an ugly morning of rushing, dressing, indigestion,
anxiety and probably a good dose of yelling. And what about when the baby
comes in January? What if he's nursing when it's time to leave for school? How
in the world to people cope with this nonsense.

And these are only the scheduling concerns, not the mind controlling,
behavior modification concerns I have about school in general. They don't know they
aren't supposed to learn about the orbits of the earth, sun and moon until the
second or third grade! To think I answered their question when they asked,
we got to the computer and googled some really cool images!

I'm so happy we are home!

Elizabeth


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Heidi

Excellent Post!!!

My 15 year old has a good friend whose handwriting is so lovely. She
knows how to do all these graceful serifs and curlicues and such in
all of her letters...but she has about a 1.7 gpa, because she has
perfected her "fonts" during class time, doing something quiet at her
desk so as not to be disruptive in her boredom, because her classes
mean nothing to her.

Your post, about your boy making the unicorn, reminded me of all the
hours my daughter's friend has spent practicing handwriting and
failing her classes...how much better for her it would be if she
could just practice her handwriting AND WHATEVER ELSE SHE WANTS
instead of wasting her time sitting at a desk...

And it reminded me of how blessed my kids are, too. 1:30...at the
local school, they're sitting in their desks, some of them practicing
their fancy writing, some of them drawing pics of fighter jets, some
of them staring out the window...my kids are making cookies, in
preparation for putting together homemade ice cream sandwiches.

it is a blessing to be home!

HeidiC

--- In [email protected], ejcrewe@a... wrote:
> This morning, while reading the newspaper and drinking coffee and
waiting for
> my kids to wake up, I saw the parade of parents and children
trekking down
> for the first day of public school.

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2003 2:46:48 PM Central Daylight Time,
bunsofaluminum60@... writes:

> And it reminded me of how blessed my kids are, too. 1:30...at the
> local school, they're sitting in their desks, some of them practicing
> their fancy writing, some of them drawing pics of fighter jets, some
> of them staring out the window...my kids are making cookies, in
> preparation for putting together homemade ice cream sandwiches.
>
> it is a blessing to be home!
>

Yup, local school started today here and our friend's son started K today.
He got on a school bus at 8:30am and is arriving home about now. He's 5. My
friend is very proud of how easily he left her because he's been in preschool
for the past 2 years, though she is a little upset that he refused to kiss her
goodbye in front of the other kids.
We visited another homeschool family and then went out for ice cream.
Amy Kagey
<A HREF="http://www.ubah.com/ecommerce/default.asp?sid=Z0939&gid=1684902">my Usborne Books website!</A>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/26/2003 3:59:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
amycats2@... writes:

> >And it reminded me of how blessed my kids are, too. 1:30...at the
> >local school, they're sitting in their desks, some of them practicing
> >their fancy writing, some of them drawing pics of fighter jets, some
> >of them staring out the window...my kids are making cookies, in
> >preparation for putting together homemade ice cream sandwiches.
> >
> >it is a blessing to be home!
> >

We spent all day SHOPPING!! Had a bunch of returns to make, but went to the
huge art supply place an hour away and spent over 120.00!!! Got some of the
coolest stuff!! Can't wait to try it. At out at Burger King, got some cool
stuff at the Dollar Tree, then went to Staples and bought 4 new computer
games...2 scooby doo ones (we tried one before and it was a lot of fun), one
cluefinders, and our first SIMS game...can't wait to get started!!

Nancy B. in W.V.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Gary & Lisa Williams

Hi Nancy~
If you ever get the chance, check out SIM Safari. It is awesome and very
addicitng!!
ALL members of our family enjoyed this one.
Have fun, Lisa

Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 21:36:24 EDT
> From: CelticFrau@...
> Subject: Re: Freedom
> ...then went to Staples and bought 4 new computer
> games...2 scooby doo ones (we tried one before and it was a lot of fun),
one
> cluefinders, and our first SIMS game...can't wait to get started!!
>
> Nancy B. in W.V.

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/27/2003 4:18:54 PM Eastern Standard Time,
glmnw@... writes:

> Hi Nancy~
> If you ever get the chance, check out SIM Safari. It is awesome and very
> addicitng!!
> ALL members of our family enjoyed this one.
> Have fun, Lisa
>

I have a question about SIMS....we were going to buy one at the store (it was
a sixpack with the sim city classic game in it) and he said unless we have
the original, we can't play it. He said no one sells it anymore either. But
when I looked at the pack it said that one of them was the original. So I
bought it anyway. Did this guy know what he's talking about? We haven't tried it
yet, been so busy with other stuff.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fetteroll

on 8/27/03 7:36 PM, CelticFrau@... at CelticFrau@... wrote:

> I have a question about SIMS....we were going to buy one at the store (it was
> a sixpack with the sim city classic game in it) and he said unless we have
> the original, we can't play it.

You need the original SIMS game to play the expansions, but that's a
different game than Sim Safari, Sim Ant, Sim Mall, etc. The SIMS is a
neighborhood simulation with lots of different families. The original SIMS
is still being made.

I've gotten lots of the Sim games from the library and all of them are
immediately playable from just the disc they come on.

Joyce

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/27/03 06:42:49 PM Central Daylight Time,
CelticFrau@... writes:
I have a question about SIMS....we were going to buy one at the store (it was
a sixpack with the sim city classic game in it) and he said unless we have
the original, we can't play it. He said no one sells it anymore either. But
when I looked at the pack it said that one of them was the original. So I
bought it anyway. Did this guy know what he's talking about? We haven't
tried it
yet, been so busy with other stuff.
This guy didn't know what he was talking about. You only have to have the
original IF you are buying an expansion pack. So if you want an expansion pack
for say SIM Theme Park then you do have to have the original SIM Theme Park, but
just to buy any SIM game you don't have to have THE original SIM game to
play. That only applies to expansion packs.

~Nancy

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered
whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.
Douglas Adams


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]