Ty practiced writing the alphabet. I wrote the capital letters on the top, and he copied them on the bottom (where he was supposed to write the lower case letters, but that’s beside point). After I took this picture, he practiced writing his name, four times, and then wrote my name. I was touched!
A Florida boy was physically forced by public school teacher to remove his braids.
Since when does a teacher have the right to hold a student down (unless he’s flailing a knife around)? The parents ought to know better than to send their boy to school with a freakish hair-do (unless it’s a school for freaks). Poor kid. This is the kind of stuff that sticks in kids’ minds. In a decade, he’ll be going postal. Poor kid.
On Monday, I took the kids to pick up my paycheck. Ty opened the door for us and demanded “ladies first.” I reminded him to greet the people in the store, and he responded with a furrow brow and a deep “No.” But after bribing him with cookies from Wild Oats, Ty went up to one of the managers and shook his hand, “Good afternoon.”
I took my check and walked the kids to Wild Oats to enjoy bagels and cookies. Then we walked to the post office, picked up the one piece of junk mail, and headed back to the car. The little ones fell asleep (we walked across two separate strip malls) by the time I put the car in gear. We stopped by the grocery store to buy some stuff for Dad and then went home. I worked that afternoon.
In the morning, Dad asked me for my paycheck. And I could not find it. I looked in my wallet, in my bag, in the car, and even in Ty’s pockets. I spent the day wondering where the check could be. I called the music store to ask if I had left it there, but they said that I had taken it. And I remember putting it in my wallet. So where was it?
On Wednesday, between students, I physically retraced my steps and asked the managers of the places we visited if anyone had found a check. They said, “No,” in Wild Oats and at the post office. I drove to the grocery store, praying that it would be there. After asking a clerk at the customer service desk if anyone had turned in a check, she asked to whom the check was made. I was surprised because no other manager had asked me that. So my hopes lifted. She also asked the name of the party writing the check.
“Hey, Frank, do we have a check for Mom from Music Store?” she asked the guy in the back. I was in tears when she handed me the check. Wow, I may have dropped it out of my wallet when paying for groceries that Monday. I’m thankful for honest people – and having a unique name.
On Easter Sunday, we woke up extra early to catch the Easter Bunny hiding the eggs. But Dad took the boys into a room and distracted them, so the Easter Bunny wasn’t seen by anyone but the garden gnome who doesn’t talk. We don’t usually get visits from him, but I suspect that he knows that the children are growing and hunting for eggs is fun fun fun. So the lads and lass donned their homemade cloaks (that I fashioned out of old bedsheets) and proceeded to the backyard. It was COLD! Well, about 60 degrees, but we are not used to that down here in the swamps. After ten minutes of searching for eggs, we figured that we had found them all, so we went inside for a nutritious Easter breakfast of Reese’s Pieces and Brach’s Original Jelly Beans.
When I came back from playing the piano at the church, Dad was finishing the last touches for the birthday party. His mom and he share a birthday which usually lands on or around Easter. At 1pm, our party started, and we feasted on homemade herring dip, potato salad, and ice cream birthday cake.
Ok, well, now that Easter has come, it’s time for summer! Yea, that’s the weather here. On Easter Monday, the birds of prey were packing their things to head north, the bugs came out of hiding, and the rain thunderstorms came. Not that I’m complaining. We really did need water – and still do. The county-enforced water restrictions have not yet been lifted because a thunderstorm or two or three isn’t going to dramatically increase the levels of the aquifer.
The storms were beautiful, however. A severe system passed by one night at bedtime. I was afraid that the storm would wake and frighten the children, but they slept through the night (unusual for the trio). We are usually in bed by 10:30pm but couldn’t get to sleep until close to midnight. It wasn’t because of the cracking of the lightning nor the booming thunder. It was that the lightning was so darn bright! It was like daylight in the room for several seconds at a time. Closing the windows isn’t an option because we’d be roasting; we turn the A/C unit on during the real summer, when it’s swampy and the palmetto bugs are flying across the room.
A storm here. A storm there. The last storm was the height of this particular system. Around 10am on Thursday, gusts knocked off coconuts and palm leaves, which is very dangerous if you’re driving along a row of palm trees. What’s worse, and this is gut-wrenching, none of us went outside to play this week, and no laundry was dried on the line!
*faints* It’s a lot like being snowed in… except there’s no snow. And I’ve never even seen snow, so what am I talking about?
The public school students have this week off for Spring Break. So I didn’t have any piano students on Monday. Dad and his business partner had some stuff to get done because the county fair had ended, so the kids and I took off on a field trip. We came back tired. Tired tired tired tired.
1. Grocery Store: Not the usual grocery store. I had found a gift card for $5 from the not-so-great grocery store. I thought that we could buy chips and generic breakfast pastries for our outing. What I didn’t forsee was the 20 minute wait in line. A lady in front of us wanted to get her dog food free of charge because she was paying with WIC. How does that reconcile? Beats me. I didn’t mind waiting the first 15 minutes, but the boys started getting restless and Taylor heavy. Finally, we got to pay, and I swore that grocery store off. Forever.
2. Back Home: Because we were gone for nearly an hour, the boys needed to use the bathroom, and I wanted water.
3. Park: And a lovely park it is. The kids climbed the monkey bars for half an hour before it started getting hot. We walked into the woods and followed the Nature Trail. As we got deeper into the woods, Ty kept asking where we were going. “I don’t know. Do you want to go in there?” I would respond while pointing to some crazy path, id est, a racoon cave. “No, thanks.” He’d reply. There are signs with pictures throughout the trail. I read aloud information on butterflies, native plants, and spiders. “Spiders?” Yes, spiders. We were about a hundred yards in when we saw a pair of vultures sitting on a tree limb, guarding a gigantic nest. I know that vultures don’t generally attack people and that these vultures are probably used to seeing people, but they were sitting next to a nest. No, thanks! We turned around and walked back. We hung around the monkey bars for a few more minutes before I saw a cool tree that was begging to be climbed. I think that the boys may need more practice climbing this particular tree.
4. Back Home: Kneaded bread into loafpan, changed a diaper, and collected more water.
5. Ocean Zone: That’s what I call the shore that isn’t exactly a beach. It meets the ocean, canal, and nature preserve. We found a niche under the mangroves. It was completely shaded and away from the kids who were fishing and using questionable language in front of their “parents.” My boys found hermit crabs, seaweed, barnacles, and rocks. Lots of rocks. They threw the small, barnacle-free rocks into the water while I watched and carried Taylor – some more. Ty didn’t like the seaweed. He said that it kept moving. I think that it’s because the water kept hitting it, so it looked like an animal as it swayed. Some people who were there before we must have had party because we found at least six “shells with lots of legs,” which I explained to be the remains of lobsters and made of chitin, the same stuff that protects bugs. I saw a fish skull, the size of my open palm, along with its spine. Ty didn’t like it. Fire ants were eating its eyes and other soft tissue. Kyle was in awe throughout this part of the field trip. He didn’t say a word, only slack-jawed gasping. There was a dog on the loose, and I made a big stink to the people who were fishing along the canal that it’s against the law to have the dog outside without a leash, but they didn’t understand me or my language as they also parked directly under a NO PARKING sign.
6. Home At Last: It was time for “Arthur.”
I’m so glad that I have no more days off this week. Too much educational fun!
As my parents were leaving Kyle’s birthday party, Dad asked my mom, “Which of your kids liked to play with their poop?”
*****
I was sitting on the couch when Taylor crawled onto my legs, laid her face on my leg and bit me. BIT ME! So I put her in her crib. I heard her playing a little bit. I washed dishes, made lunch, put laundry to dry on the line, blah blah blah. I put my ear to her door and heard nothing. She fell asleep, I thought. I went on with my business. Some moments later, Ty walked into the room. I heard him mumbling something to Dad, something about poop. I hung my head. She dug into her diaper, I thought. So I followed Dad and Ty into the room. Dad took one look at Taylor and said, “Eeeeewwwwww! Taylor, you have poop everywhere.”
Now, I know Dad to use hyperboles every so often – and it’s April Fool’s Day, so I wasn’t worried. “She has it in her nose,” he added.
WHAT?
Taylor had dug into her diaper and spread the fecal matter on the bedsheet, onto both hands, into her hair, and all over her face! She looked like she was having skin treatment! “Taylor, you’re going to get sick!” I exclaimed. I picked her up by the crooks of her arms (the only parts of her body that seemed feces-free) and put her in the tub. She didn’t want to be in there. I had trouble taking her dress off. She wanted her hands washed first
Dad thought that it was funny, and I have to admit, it was a little funny after I realized that she didn’t get any in her eyes. It took me three washdowns to get her clean. I soaped and scrubbed and shampooed and rinsed and soaped and scrubbed, et cetera, for almost ten minutes. I’m sure glad that’s over.
But we know that it’s not really over.
