Playdate

No Turkeys

...but we're having fun anyway!

A recent trip to PA for a birthday bowling party sparked HUGE interest in the game for our boys.  They LOVE bowling! 

Well, it's no surprise. 

The apples don't fall far from the trees.

They had no chance.

You see, both Rob and I were on our High School bowling teams.  We both graduated with our regional championship trophies and we both have our own balls.  (Really. Is our infinite dork-dom a surprise to you anymore?)  But unlike Rob, I'm just a poser.  Rob plays a really good game.  He averaged 185 in HS.  When we played "leisurely" with our college friends, he was one of the strongest players.  Me on the other hand, I've never scored much over 100.  (I found that I play better while drinking- go figure.)  My HS average score was like 75 - great for golf, not so much for bowling.  It's not my fault.  A friend and I were lured onto the team to fill empty spots.  We were awful.  (Sorry Marcia, I'm outting you.)  Despite our abysmal scores, our team won the Island Championships and I have a trophy - somewhere in my attic - to prove it.  We were just riding on the coat-tails of our bowler friend and team co-captain, Stef.

So it's no wonder the boys have taken a liking to the game.  Ethan was thrilled to visit our local lanes and throw a few balls.  He did really well.  Owen scored better than my HS average.  And thanks to the gutter guards, I had my best game ever!  116!!!  Rob had a bad day - he blames the boys for using his ball and jinxing it.  I think he's just rusty and he'll be getting Turkeys the next time we bowl.

(How cute is this picture?)

End of the year...

So it's the end of the year, the traditional time to think about ... yes, you guessed it, charities. 

I mean, obviously.

I don't usually do this, but I thought I'd pass along one I found out about recently.  It's DonorsChoose.org.  There's been quite a bit of press about these guys, but basically, they provide funding to very specific education projects.  Teachers put together a one page summary of needs, and then people can browse the website and see what interests them.  I had some concerns about just random people posting on here, and I'm not totally convinced of the vetting process -- I can't imagine it's terribly thorough, but donorschoose buys the materials, etc., and sends them to the classroom instead of just sending them the cash.

What's nice is you can search by school district, age group, subject, etc.  I spent quite a bit of time the other night looking at areas near where I went to high school (which is very very poor) as well as around this area.

Here's some press, if you're interested:

From Fast Company:  43 Entrepeneurs Who are Changing the World

From ABC News: SchoolKids get what donors choose

Wikipedia entry  (Wikipedia calls their business model peer-to-peer philanthropy.  Ha.)

Charity Navigator on DonorsChoose

Anyway, I hadn't heard about them before, and I found their model pretty interesting.  Just thought I'd share it with you guys...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Holiday Greetings

I received an email this week from a friend.  It was a holiday e-greeting.  If that wasn't environmentally conscientious enough, she had a tree planted in our name (and a few other recipient's names) in California.

This is a wonderful greeting "card".  Sure, it makes me feel that my recycling efforts are inadequate but more than that, it offsets the tree I cut down for my holiday cards and envelopes.

   

Crap, I forgot about the postal trucks' emmissions.

Amazon loves us

I love Disney

So...  I thought maybe I'd write a more thoughtful post this week.  But my mom is in town, and I just had to pick up my daughter from school because she has a fever, so I'm just going to point you to something that I read recently.  Thanks to Angela for introducing me to this website.

This is why I love Disney!

My favorites:

#4.

Sunflower the Centaur from Fantasia

Of all the items on this list, this is the one Disney has tried the hardest to make us forget.

Lesson Learned:
Even in Fantasia's beautiful, magical landscape, African centaurs are hoof-polishing handmaidens for prettier, Aryan centaurs. Also, 1940 was a great year to be a centaur fetishist and/or Don Imus.

Best (Worst?) Moment:
It was insulting enough for Disney to include the smiling servant stereotype to begin with, but, to make matters worse, they started categorically denying Sunflower's existence with the Fantasia re-release in 1960. How does that possibly make things better? "No, you misunderstand. In our perfect, Fantasia world, Africans aren't servants. They don't fucking exist."

#2.

Uncle Remus from Song of the South

The tales of Br'er Rabbit are relayed by kindly old Uncle Remus, a black man happily working on a plantation in the post-Civil War South. Disney has never released this one on home video, for some reason.

Lesson Learned:
The late 1800s were a great time to be African-American and possibly on acid.

Best (Worst?) Moment:
Less eerie than any imaginary singing birds is what's not in the film. It's as if someone made a children's musical about Jews in post-World War II Germany that had a number titled "Hey! Nothing Bad Has Happened to Us, Ever." Also failing to reach the screen: When the movie had its world premiere in 1946 in Atlanta, James Baskett, the actor who played Remus, was not allowed to attend. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!

But enough about Disney...

From the same site, check out this, in the spirit of the holidays.

The Bizarre Origins of Christmas.

 

This is Journalism?

I used to watch network news all the time in my 20s and early 30s but it got so damn dumbed down and sensationalistic that I stopped.  I also had a subscription to Newsweek for over a decade which I canceled for the same reasons. 

Last Thursday I was watching the local ABC affiliate's 5 o'clock news so I could get an update on the weather (We had plans to travel out of town, but the ice storms brought those to a screeching halt).  They were doing a story about the Democratic Presidential Debate that took place in Iowa that day.  Rather than inform us about the various candidate's views on a pressing national issue (I dunno....Health care coverage for children?   The mortgage collapse?  Fucking Iraq?) the journalistic wizards over at ABC decided to talk about Clinton's laugh.  Yes, folks, she laughed!  Film at 11.

You can see the clip here, but basically what happened is the moderator asked Barack Obama how he reconciled his self-stated "break from the past" candidacy with the fact that he has hired many of Bill Clinton's former advisers.  Somebody started chuckling (one of the other candidates) and then Hillary laughed, made a comment and laughed again.  The newscaster giving the story actually said, and I am not lying, "You can hear Hillary cackling here."  Excuse me, what?  CACKLING?  Oh, no you did not.

First of all, for the love of god, the woman laughed.  WTF is the big deal?  Other people on the panel and in the audience were laughing too.  Are we talking about Joe Biden's CACKLE?  Bill Richardson's?  Would we ever?  

Secondly, Obama threw a zinger right back at her, and everybody laughed more INCLUDING her.  You can hear her.  She was joking around, she laughed, and she laughed again when he joked back.  Are we talking about that?  Noooo...instead it's all about this bizarre, grotesque "cackle".  Oooh, look at the witch as she rubs her hands together and cackles with glee.  Bwwwaaaahaaaahaaaa.

Lastly, really?  This is objective journalism, ABC?  Deriding the laughter of the only female candidate in a disrespectful, clearly biased way (the men were cackling too!).  Are you kidding?   I expect this kind of crap from the talk radio/political TV wingnuts and from right-wing lunatics with a computer and internet connection but nary a cogent thought in their heads.  But this is ABC News.  Peter Jennings is rolling in his grave.

This kind of crap makes me so mad I can't see straight.  So far during this campaign we've had to hear the shocking (SHOCKING!) news that Hillary Clinton, in fact, has breasts.  And this isn't the first time we've been subjected to expert analysis of her laughter.  Of course her marriage is always open to scrutiny in a way that no other candidate's is.

I've had it with this nonsense.  Talk about her Senate record, her initial support of the Iraq war and subsequent change of heart (a flip-flop, if you will), bring up the health care debacle during her husband's administration if you must.  We want to hear facts, people, you know, like you learned about in Jernalizm Skool.  Not that her laugh scares you and you saw her boobies once.  My husband is pissed too.  Every time one of you writes or says something sexist and irrelevant I send the Clinton campaign more money.  It's adding up.

Good intentions

So I had this idea that I was going to write a post about all the big trees down in a couple of my neighbors' yards from the storm yesterday. 

But... I was gone all day and didn't have a chance to take any pictures.

Then I was going to write about how I was planning to go see FELT at Here's to the Arts tonight, but I couldn't find anyone to go with me.  (I know, I know, I should just start going by myself...) 

But... I wasn't able to go anyway, so this time _I_ was the lame one.

And then I thought, hey, I heard this interesting thing on NPR on the way to work the other day about someone who drove from New York to Wisconsin in like 18 hours.  I'm making that number up, because I have no idea how long it takes to drive to Wisconsin.  But that wasn't the amazing part.  The amazing (and, let's face it, insane) part was that he listened to Christmas music the entire way.  Shudder.

But... I couldn't find the link to that.

So, honestly, I give up.  I'm going to go back to reading my bad Stephen King novella. 

Oh, and... because I've had pretty much the exact same conversation about five times this week with five different people (interestingly, all my libertarian friends) about Ron Paul: apparently he wants people to donate to his campaign on Sunday.  Well, I'm assuming he'll take it any day you want to give it, but whatever, there's like a _thing_ this weekend.  So, you know, if you're inclined to do that, go ahead.*

*This is not in any way an endorsement of Ron Paul, by the way.  I just thought I'd mention it cos I saw it on youtube.  Somewhere.  But I don't feel like finding it again.  I mean, let's be honest.  That Stephen King book is just getting interesting...

"Duck and Rabbit"

I got the most mortifying news I think the mother of a kindergartner can get.

Yesterday I went to Joseph's classroom to read a Hanukkah story and give the kids jelly doughnuts, my all-time favorite Hanukkah treat.

His teacher asked me to come at 2:30, just in time for the kids to come back from P.E. I got there a little early and peaked through the gym doors hoping to get a glimpse of Joe. But when I didn't see him right away and realized I had been spotted by some of the other kids, I decided to duck out so as not to be a disruption. I went to the classroom to wait.

As the kids started filing in a few minutes later, the class aid stuck her head in and said, "Mr. P would like to see Mrs. Wolff for a minute."

"Right now?" Mr. Madurski asked.

"Yes, right now."

Uh oh. This can't be good.

Turns out Joseph had not been on his best behavior. The gym teacher heard I was there and thought he'd take the opportunity to tell me about it in front of Joseph. A little dissuasion by mortification, I suppose.

Turns out Joseph had been talking back. This is not really so shocking. I mean, he does this to me ALL. THE. TIME. But it is apparently not something he does to his teachers.

Also turns out Joseph got angry at another kid and threatened to throw a ball in his face. Again, something we see from time to time here when he loses it with his little sister, but not something they've seen him do at school.

Also turns out that when the teacher called him down for his poor behavior, my darling boy didn't like it much. So what did he do?

"He gave me the finger."

"I'm sorry. What?" I think I was barely breathing at this point. "He didn't."

"Yes, he did. Then he did it again and smiled."

WHAT THE HELL?!?

I mean, if he'd said "What the Hell?" or "Shit" or even "Fuck" I would have had to say, "Oops, my bad." But he flipped off his gym teacher?!? That's not even something we do. And Joseph is afraid to watch even the mildest of "kids" movies, so I'm sure he didn't get it from TV.

His teacher thinks maybe he saw it on the playground. My mother said she'd check to see if maybe someone she knew (meaning my 10-year-old nephew) might have taught it to him.

There's an old story in our family about the time my mother was walking through the mall with my then 3-year-old oldest sister and heard this bitty voice say, "Son-of-a-Bitch, I dropped my rabbit." Mom was mortified at first, but then sort of laughed to herself knowing everyone would blame such language on my father. The truth of it, of course, was that my mother was the one to curse and it was strong language for my father to even say "crud" or "heck."

So Adam and I have always joked that if and when the kids started repeating the inappropriate things that we have said in front of them, we would know just whom to blame.

Me: Shit, fuck, fuckin' A, what the hell ...

Adam, more creative things like, I kid you not: crappin' ass

This morning as we're lying in bed  talking about "The Incident," we hear Joseph and Hannah bickering in the other room. We're barely paying them any attention, but then we hear precious little Hannah say, "You fucking dammit, Joe. You fucking dammit."

I sat up and pointed my finger at Adam and said, "That's you! That's totally YOU!"

He was sheepish. He knew it was true. A long time later he blurted out "Duck and Rabbit!" in what I can only guess was an attempt to come up with something cute that he could use to mask what had come out of the mouth of his little angel.

I don't know. I don't think anybody would buy it.

So now the question is, how do we get our kids to stop making obscene gestures and using foul language.

hmmmmm. Advice anyone?

Potty training...

SUCKS SHIT.

My 3 year old is stubborn and flattly refuses to give up his diaper.  I know he's capable of using the potty but he only does it when the mood strikes him.  When the mood does strike, he's very happy and proud of himself.  But perhaps one proud moment per day is enough for him. 

Sure, "evidence" shows that parents should step back and let the child lead.  Sure, he's not going off to college in diapers.  Sure, he's healthy and happy.  But why shouldn't I gently guide the process?  Diapers stay on this earth for hundreds of years - and that stinks on many levels.  Diapers are costly when you're buying them for years and years.  Doesn't he know this????   

Each child is different.  Ethan never used a potty.  He prefered the cushioned seat on the toilet.  Owen, on the other hand, was afraid of the "big" toilet.  To encourage Owen, I bought this well designed potty/step stool/storage unit.  Isn't it cool?   

Owen thinks it's not good enough for his piss and he has yet to "Christen" it.  He likes the old school Bjorn, which is ridiculous because he's off the charts for weight and height.  To see him sitting on this tiny potty is like seeing a linebacker on a child's chair. 

The drastic measure is a scary one.  Do I just put him in underwear and let nature happen?  As stupid as that sounds, I've thought about it.  Thankfully, I've come to my senses each time. 

In Korea, they have children toilet trained by their first birthday.  Okay, so back when I was growing up moms did not have disposable diapers and so it was necessary to train kids as early as possible.  This only proves to me that kids have muscle control but we're letting them be lazy in diapers.  (Or....Maybe they don't and we just got smacked when we had accidents??)  My parents took an active role in my neice's and nephew's graduation to underwear.  Why won't she train another grandchild?  Okay, so I'm lazy too.  Fact is, Owen got his stubbornness from me.  And knowing I'm a control freak, I'm certain he's got a bit of that too. 

Still, a girl can dream of the day when she's not wiping little butts.  Dream big, I say.  Dream BIG.