OMG! I'm in Heaven!

I just did a little old Google search and found something that I wasn't sure existed: a liberal homeschool resource! And they have two groups in Houston, no less!


http://www.uuhomeschool.org

I actually brought up the subject to Y tonight. At first he was giddy and kept saying he doesn't want to go to school tomorrow at all. I told him that he has to go to school tomorrow because there are certain legal requirements I must complete before I can remove him from public school. I told Y my plan was to remove him from public school for the last 2.5 months and homeschool him from now until the school year begins again in late August. He seemed okay with that, and actually sounds like he wants to go to high school next year. I explained that I didn't think the school and teachers would be able to help him enough to bring his reading and math up to par in the next two months. I also told him that he would still go to Sylvan for 4-6 hours a week, but that he would have additional schooling at home with me after work on Mondays and Fridays, in addition to an extra two hours or so on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Y told me, "You no can teach me math!" Poor thing, he has no idea what's in store for him. I told him absolutely no slacking off, and no telling me that he didn't want to do school today. I told him if he ever sassed me, that I would re-enroll him in school the very next day and he could start getting up at 6:30am again!

Y told me that he wanted to ask his friends questions at E's birthday party on Saturday afternoon and he would give me his answer sometime Saturday evening or Sunday. He was less than thrilled when I told him that we would still have gym class every day, too. Y wants me to buy him a Bowflex like the one Bill took with him when he left. Not likely. We have a Gold's Gym five minutes away. We'll be visiting that once or twice a week. Plus, of course, we have four big puppies that would just love daily walks/runs/bike rides/swims in the lake, etc. I'll get all my exercise just kicking Y's ass on a daily basis.

He will be involved in the family budget as much as he can understand it. I will be using combinations of info gained from Suze Orman, Ric Edelman and Gail Vaz-Oxlade of CNBC's "Til Debt Do Us Part." I've already bought five jars to use for 'food,' 'transportation,' 'clothing & gifts,' 'entertainment,' and 'everything else.' I'm going to make Y use a budget binder/book, and he'll have to tell me first which jar each receipt belongs in, then he will be responsible for recording them in the budget binder/book and ensuring that we do not exceed the weekly amount allocated to each jar (ie, $200.00/wk for food, $75.00/wk transportation, $25.00/wk entertainment, etc.). I'm sure Y will hate the entertainment budget, since he'll have to share it with me! I might make it easy on him and buy him a calculator. Not.

As for reading, I will be supplementing Sylvan's stuff with the Rosetta Stone English edition that I bought last year.

Not sure what I'll do to meet the requirement for "good citizenship" just yet.

Gotta go to bed, Y goes to school tomorrow and I go to jury duty. Too bad I can't take him with me tomorrow!

Natalie
TX

Please Visit This Website About Adoption Tax Credit

There is a website devoted to alerting everyone that the adoption tax credit is set to expire at the end of this year. Without this tax credit, most families would not be able to afford adoption, and many children would be left without families.

Please visit, and contact your local congressman and senators.

Thank You,
Natalie
TX

http://adoptiontaxcredit.blogspot.com

One Year Home

Finally, that one year mark!

Way too much to blog about now, but will get back to it next week on my breaks at work.

Even spent St Patty's Day dragging Y to something else he didn't want to do - testing at Sylvan Learning Center. They're way expensive, but they already have a definite plan to get Y reading up to speed (or very close there) before he enters 9th grade. Makes me want to pull him out of school for the rest of the year and just have him go to Sylvan. Seriously.

Natalie
TX

I need another hole in my head

Seriously, I must need another hole in my head, because we have a new addition to the family.

Please welcome:

Miley Montana

She's about 4 months old and a Rottweiler/Blue Heeler mix. Not the best picture of her, I know, but I'll get a better one here soon enough. Let me explain her name. As some of you know, all of our animals have Disney names:

Squirt, 6yr old Pit mix, name of turtle in "Finding Nemo"

Tigger, 4yr old fat cat, spelled T-I-double Grr- Rrr from Winnie the Pooh

Daisy Duck, 4yr old fluffy cat, wife of Donald Duck

Goofy, 2yr old humongous lab, Mickey & Minnie's dog (or is Pluto their dog and Goofy their friend?)

Michael, 1yr old boxer mix, Wendy's little brother in "Peter Pan"

Now, on to Miley Montana. For those of you without young kids, she's named after Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana of the Disney Channel. You can't really see it in the picture, but her face is half rottweiler and half blue heeler. So, I thought it would be quite appropriate to name her after a gal who plays two characters on Disney TV. Boys have one name in our pet household and girls have two names, hence the two names of Miley Montana. We'll just call her Miley, though.

Both Mama and Papa doggies are from our neighborhood. Mama Rottie lives just down the block from us, and Papa Blue-Heeler/Lab mix is 'owned' by our Ukrainian neighbors. Apparently he made a nocturnal visit or two down the block last summer. There were three puppies from that little liaison, two girls and one boy. I don't know what happened to the other girl, but the family with the rottie is keeping the boy. They also have a female black lab. She's not fixed either, and the last time she went into heat, she terrorized Miley to the point that Miley was a shaking pile of fur when she was rescued by our Ukrainian friends and taken to their house for a few days. Papa Puppy wasn't too happy to have the intrusion on his territory, either, so they asked us if we could take her in.

So far, this puppy has been a big old lump of LAZY. I've never had a puppy that just lays on the bed/couch/floor all day. She's really lively when you go for a walk (although she walks on a leash very well - better than Michael), but inside she's a quiet little mouse. We'll give her a few days to acclimate. And, she is so totally unconcerned that we have cats. Hey, they're nice things to look at, sniff once in a while, but she really doesn't care what they're doing. Michael, on the other hand spends 60% of his day concerned with where the cats are, what they're doing, and can he get away with chasing them.

The initial meet-n-greet went okay, for the most part. Our friends' daughter, A, was so concerned about the puppy that she begged to come back with us and see her off to her new home. I hope we allayed her fears. Miley met with Squirty first. Amazing, the pit bull is the most mellow dog in the house (well, until Miley got here). He was excited to meet a new buddy and completely un-territorial. Miley was a little hesitant, but within five minutes decided she had met her new best buddy. They met outside, so I told the kids to stay on the back deck with those dogs, and I went inside the house to deal with Michael and Goofy. I put Goofy in the cage, and tied Michael up outside by the front door. It took Michael ten seconds to smell Miley in the backyard and freak out. He was so hyperactive and excited to meet her, that she wouldn't come within five feet of him. The closer we got, the more of an A-hole he became, so we decided to let her go inside and meet with Goofy next. Miley decided that the laundry room was awesome and she wanted to stay there for quite a long time. Goofy took about ten minutes to calm down, and I let him out of the cage and put a leash on him. He is the alpha dog, and I needed to insure that I could control his meeting with Miley. It went relatively well, but Goofy started to corner Miley in the laundry room, so she snapped at him. I corrected Goofy and pulled him back, then I went in and sat next to Miley and praised her for being calm in Goofy's presence. After five minutes, I took Goofy back to the living room where he and Squirt sat at our feet while we watched TV.

Miley got up after a few minutes and investigated the kitchen and breakfast room, and Goofy and Squirt stayed at our feet. Then it was time to go to bed, so Y took Miley into his room and shut the door. I took Michael, Goofy and Squirt into my room for the night. And not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

I decided the next morning that I did not want to go through the logistics of keeping Michael and Miley separate until Michael calmed down enough to accept her, so Miley was kept in Y's room when we left for school/work. I called the trainer we've used before for Miko, Squirt and Goofy (Man's Best Friend) and arranged to bring Michael in for two weeks of doggie "school" Friday afternoon. Our house feels so much calmer without all of his hyperactive energy in it. Let's put this in perspective - yesterday he got 1 hour of swimming in the lake, plus thirty minutes of chasing his butt around the neighborhood when he decided to bolt from the lake, plus 20-30 minutes of pulling Y on his skateboard, plus 30 minutes at the dog park - and he STILL had energy left to freak out when meeting Miley.

With Michael gone, Miley seems to be fitting in seamlessly with the rest of the household. Ahhh, two weeks without Michael!

Spring Break is starting out to be pretty fun!

Natalie

TX

This Ain't My First Rodeo, Ya Know!

Well, actually it was. The first one I ever attended and the first for Y, too. Can't believe I've been in Houston over 11 years and never once went to the Rodeo. Of course, I got the standard, "Mama, I no go, I stay home and play on computer," for the week leading up to our "rodeo day." So I enlisted the help of E, she called Y just before noon on Sunday and they had a little conversation. When they hung up (er, when she hung up on him), Y said, "Okay, I go shower now," with a smarmy little grin on his face. It turns out E chewed him out for wanting to stay home: "What is more important, your computer or your friends!!!" - click! Y insists he went becuase I told him he could stay up late a few nights to "make up" the time lost from playing on his computer, but I know he went because he's terrified of E being mad at him. She even punched his arm, hard, when we finally got down to the rodeo and found our friends.

There's a huge carnival outside, and the kids had a good time riding till they ran out of tickets while the adults sat down and chatted. It was tough finding something relatively healthy to eat, but I ended up with a grilled shrimp sandwich, and Y ate most of my french fries. I even talked Y into getting his picture taken at the rodeo, and he talked M into getting into the picture, too. They decided to dress up as Frank and Jesse James, and their sepia toned photo looks awesome. I'm scared just looking at their scowls. Five minutes and $50 later we had a copy of the photo for each of them. Y said the guns were real, but they weren't loaded and wouldn't shoot anyway. If I can get the photo scanned in, I'll post it at a later date.

The actual rodeo takes place at Reliant Stadium. Being a Texans season ticket holder, I have a relatively good knowledge of the place. It makes a pretty good rodeo, too. We saw bronc busting, bull riding, barrel racing, chuckwagon racing, steer rasslin, calf roping and my favorite, the mutton races. That's where 5-6 year old kids put on helmets, grab the coat of a sheep and hold on for dear life for about 75 feet or so. I'm sure in 10-15 years some of those kids will be the ones riding the bulls. Then they drug the stage out, turned out the lights and we got to hear some music from a gal named Debbie Lovato and then some little group of boys called The Jonas Brothers? Anybody heard of them before?

Those girls were going nuts down low when the lead singer ran over to the edge of the stadium, climbed up on the rails and sang half the song to them. I bet a few of them fainted, too. The Jonas Brothers are not really Y's cup of tea, so we left after about three songs. As we were walking out, all Y could think about was asking me to buy him an "Icee." I reminded him that they were not Icees that he saw at the football game, they were Margaritas, and Hell had not yet frozen over. He kept at it, and I told him I did not want to get arrested for buying him alcohol. Y insisted that it was okay, "In America, you my mother, you can buy me - is okay - I tell you!" Well, there were two cops standing up ahead, so I walked right up to them and asked them to tell my son that I would get in trouble if I bought him alcohol. Imagine my surprise, when the first question the cop asked me, "Are you his mother?" I replied, "Yes," and the cop said, "Well, then legally you could buy it and give it to him and there's nothing I could do as long as he isn't driving home."

Well, you could've bowled me over with a feather! Hello! Legal to give a child alcohol as long as you're their parent! I knew Texas was stupid about stuff, but I didn't realize how stupid. I said to the cop, "Well, you could've lied to me with my 15yr old standing right next to me! Thanks for making my drive home so unbearable now." And then began the litany of, "Okay, you buy me Margarita now. Policeman say is okay, Mama! Why you no buy me?" RRRRRRRRR.....

Y was so relentless with his questioning on the way back to the car, that I said something that should've been left unsaid, or at least approached in a different manner at a different time. "Y, your parents are alcoholics, so I worry that you have that same thing in your brain that makes you want more and more alcohol as soon as you've had your first drink." Well, then came the very emphatic reply, "My father no alcoholic! Why you say he alcoholic? I no say bad things about you family!" I reminded him that he told me there was always money for vodka, but not always money for food. Anyone who buys alcohol first and food for their child second is an alcoholic. Y was so angry at me, that I told him maybe I was wrong when I thought he was talking about his birth father, maybe he meant his stepdad when he said that. He barely spoke to me for the rest of the trip home. However, about 20 minutes after we got home, he wanted help with something on his computer, so he broke his silence and all has been well, since.

Y did stay up two hours later than normal last night. He was tired, too, but there was no way in heck that he was going to sleep away any extra computer time he was granted. He gave me no problems getting up this morning, and was very chipper after school. He took his ticket in for a little show and tell, and came home with the news that one of the 14 year old girls at the school was pregnant. Specifically, he said, "Because she do something and now she have baby in her belly." I said, "You mean she had sex and now she's pregnant." Y - "Yes."

Oy. 'That' something. Guess we're going to have 'that talk' pretty soon. I'm not 100% sure that he makes the connection between sex and babies yet. I'm pretty sure he knows what sex is, but not necessarily the science of it all. I did tell him, though, that having a baby at 14 wasn't necessarily a good thing. I told him he needed to do some more work on how to be a good son before he starts thinking about being a good father.

Natalie
TX

Mr Charming and Mr Snarky

Mr Charming came grinning to his bedroom door Tuesday night at 11:45pm when I came home from work. I knew he was awake, his light was on when I came down the driveway. Busted! The babysitter laughed when I told her if she heard screaming from upstairs in a few minutes it was going to be Y when I ripped him a new butthole. He knows when bedtime is (10pm) and he knows the rules apply whether I am there or not. He just figured he could get one over on her last night. My only problem with this babysitter is that I don't think she's forceful enough with him. I don't know if she's afraid of making him angry or what, but we'll have a little talk tonight when I get home. I'm gonna show her how to unplug the main internet connection from the office downstairs. Y does know where that is, but hopefully he will get the message that it's time to sleep!

Y told me that the reason he was still up, and still on his computer was because Monday he did not get to play at all. He has a very short memory - he played on his old computer because the 'new' one had to be stripped back to factory specs AGAIN and have Windows reloaded AGAIN, and that takes about 4 hours. This time it happened because he interrupted a Windows update in progress to play games, and the computer was just way too confused what to do next. (I love my Mac.) I only had three words for him, "Turn it off." He asked for five more minutes. I told him he had taken an extra hour and a half without permission and he surely was not going to get another five minutes. "Turn it off now, or I'll turn it off for you." He kept begging, so I told him one more word and he'd lose computer privileges for the next night. He turned it off. Smart boy.

Wednesday morning was lovely, he refused to go to school because he did not get enough sleep the night before. The nerve of this boy! I gave him two choices:

1. Go to school with your clothes on.

2. Go to school without your clothes on.

When he refused to get up again, I simply pulled on his arm till he realized I was serious, and he got dressed and went to school. The sitter said he was cranky all Wednesday evening, too. She told me he was playing on the old computer in the kitchen while she made dinner and his music was loud, so she asked him to turn it down. Then he played his game on that computer while she was trying to clean up the floors and the gunfire got on her nerves, so she asked him to turn it down again. Y told her that this was his house and he didn't have to! I was still at work when she told me this, and I told her to give him the phone. Y and I then discussed how, yes, this is his house, but the sitter is in charge because I say she is in charge, and he WILL follow the rules whether I'm there or not. If it will help him, I'll take a picture of my "Monster Mama Face" as Y calls it, put it on a stick and the sitter can hold it up to her face any time she has to tell him to do something. Apparently that talk worked, because the sitter told me when I got home that he came downstairs and apologized for being rude to her. Even shook her hand.

Thursday morning was even more lovely. He flat refused to get out of bed, period. Guess he thought he was calling my bluff from the day before? NOT. I had everything ready to go, including a set of clothes in the car. I went up to his room and when he refused to go to school for the third or fourth time, I put my arms under his, locked my arms around his chest and dead-lifted him out of the bed and drug him all the way out of his room before he gave up and got dressed. I might be losing weight, but I'm still bigger than him, and a lot stronger than I look. 155lb dead-weight! Heck, I carried a 65lb dog over a quarter of a mile home after he got bit by a snake!

I told Y in the car on the way to school Thursday that he had lost his computer privileges for the evening. He stays home alone Thursdays, and I get home either at 8pm or 9:30pm. This was one of those late nights. I did find out how to get Y to call ME when he gets home from school (instead of me waiting and then calling him): disable his computer! More specifically, take the power cords to both computers in the house with you to work. OMG!!! What was he gonna do!!! OMG! Mama! I no can play ALL DAY?!!! I told him to eat the dinner I had left for him, walk the dogs and go to sleep. He said he wasn't hungry. Then don't eat, I said.

Long story short, someone was dead to the world when I got home from work. Seems he got over 10 hours of sleep that night. Imagine what you can accomplish when your computer doesn't work? Friday morning he was extremely compliant, if not happy about his situation. After school, Bill came over and talked to him a bit, and when I got home they were outside and Y was riding the tractor and mowing the lawn for the first time this year. Finally a chore he actually wants to do. And, he was even pleasant to me, to boot.

When I asked if he wanted steak for dinner, he said, "No." Then I said, "What if Bill cooks it?" Y said, "If Bill cooks it, okay, because you no good cook." Brat. I've never cooked a bad steak on the grill. I suck at all other kinds of cooking, but I can grill pretty good. Kinda hard to mess that up.

Y even slept for about 12 hours last night till early this afternoon. He said Michael woke him up when he pooped in his room. (I let Mikey out at 5am to do his business, and then put him back in Y's room to sleep; apparently Y did not get up till after 1pm, so after 8 hours it's understandable that a puppy would have to go; Y cleaned it up, too, which is a huge improvement over leaving the evidence for Mama to clean like he usually does - guess he doesn't like that smelly stuff in his room!)

Now, just working on getting him to go to the Rodeo with our group of adoptees tomorrow.

Natalie

TX

Great Quotes

I was having a particularly hard day the other week after being proselytized at work (that's a whole 'nother blog and a whole 'nother story), and while talking to my sister the next day she read me some good quotes from her bathroom reader. I can't remember who said some of them, but I can guarantee you that I came up with none of them. I also cannot guarantee that they're perfectly accurate either. Some are from a few financial shows and other shows that I watch like Suze Orman, 'Til Debt Do Us Part and Realtime with Bill Maher. Here they are:

1. Don't be afraid that your children do not listen to you, be afraid that they're watching your every move.

2. The Bible is a very good book, but it's not the only book.

3. When you are in debt, you have fewer options.

4. If we let them (gun owners) have the second amendment, why can't they let us have the rest of them?

And my absolute favorite one:

You were born an original, don't die a copy.

Words to live by, if you ask me.

Natalie

TX