— in fact, today happens to be a very special Monday, it being my son’s first ever day of school.
Hard to believe. And sure, it’s only pre-K, and he’ll only be gone about 12 hours a week — but to me, it’s going to feel a lot longer than that.
My heart is sad. Though on the plus side:
I’ll try to post some stuff later. This morning, though, I’ll running around with the video camera capturing everything I can.
Ooh, which reminds me: I should probably get some footage of the boy, too!
School is where you learn.
I feel you!
My oldest is starting Kindergarten in a few weeks – sigh.
Ah, how time flies. Before you know it, that cute little tyke will be breaking into your liquor cabinet.
Oh, gosh.
You should get a blog, or something, Jeff.
Man, that is a bittersweet time. When we dropped off our oldest to Pre-K, our hearts sank as our little girl was becoming a big girl, but the pride in her face and the excitement in her eyes lifted us up beyond measure. Enjoy the day, Jeff. Take lots of video.
My oldest starts her first full week of 1st grade today. Didn’t school used to start after Labor Day ?
I remember on my youngest’s first day of preschool, dragging her in and then the teacher having to tear her away from her mother and I as she wailed at being abandoned with these strangers. Then I remember, later that day, having to drag her kicking and screaming away from all her new friends. We never saw the first bit again, but got an awful lot of the last, but without quite so much drama. Good, good times.
I remember when my eldest first went to pre-school. I kept on throwing a dowel over the edge of his crib and pulling it back with the string.
My heart, it is very very sad.
On the plus side, 12 hours to blog!
My son starts first grade this week, switching from half-day K to full-day 1. Preschool was the hardest on my heart, K less so, and now 1st grade – heart leaps with joy!
A momentous day. Looking forward to pictures or even video.
Sometimes the face of a child just says it all. Especially the mouth part of the face.. –
Jack Handy
It really pained me to walk her out to the bus this morning.
My youngest started second grade today. Despite her (feigned, apparently) nervousness over the weekend, she walked into her classroom without a glance back at me.
We all want to be at that point, but it’s kind of a letdown when it happens.
Oldest begins seventh grade, but she’s EAGER to get to school. She even offered to buy the one textbook we haven’t purchased outright yet, out of her allowance, so she can have a copy at home and not be in danger of falling behind.
Congratulations.
If/when he screams holy terror as you leave, just keep walking out the door. Which can be an astoundingly tough thing to do. Two minutes later he’ll be fine.
The twins start kindergarten in two weeks. It’ll be interesting. They were in pre-K year-before-last, but we decided to keep them home last year, as they didn’t seem to be emotionally developed enough. Plus the fact that my wife really wanted more time with them. I really can’t tell which was a bigger factor for
herthem.They seem to be looking forward to it a bit more with each passing day. They remember some of their friends, who will be there with them. Which is good.
Swapping war stories is always fun, eh?
I’m a control freak. Docweasel said so. Which means I simply can’t have others infecting my son with their poisons.
I mean, what if he meets, say, a mini-docweasel, and comes home a complete asshole? With a porn stash?
No. I’m retying the cord.
My daughter’s teacher has a Baracky bumper sticker on her Prius. This could be a long year.
My eldest starts high school this week. Must be prepared for foul moods, zits and pregnant girlfriends by week’s end.
Just wait till your youngest is starting his sophomore year in college. Serious depression.
OTOH, my wife is starting her first year of third grade.
ohnoes. Don’t be sad. First day of school is joyous in George W. Bush’s Amerikkka. Giddy, even, are the peoples.
Dude, a porn stash!? At least let him come home with the stash, first. Of course Pre-K porn may not be what you’re looking for.
JD – get used to that. Is she hot at least? That makes the conferences a little more palatable. I denounce myself.
In three or four years you will become happier and happier with each summer day that brings the start of school closer. On the first day of school, you will weep with joy. Guaranteed.
If a paradigm helps, think of your relationship with the district like that of a blogger and a commenter – only you’re the commenter.
Despite the fact that you’re a tax-payer.
Despite the fact that you’re the parent.
Despite the clearly worded Mission Statement about “Educating All Children” in the handbook
et cetera, et cetera.
Good luck to mini-Jeff. School blows.
Yes. When I was in high school, it changed. Big day for me. I’ve got nothing to do (computer’s churning some crap in the background for a couple hours), so here’s the story.
My birthday’s in August. One year, out of the blue, school started that day, instead of the usual day in September. So I didn’t show up. Because fuck them. It wasn’t even a Monday. My ass.
Back then, you got suspended from school for not going to school, and being suspended from school meant you didn’t go to school. (Remember?) So my school year was set to start after Labor Day. I high-fived my awesome self many, many times that week — mostly while watching 11 a.m. UHF reruns of The Avengers.
But — surprise — my school year never started. I showed up at the office on my first day to get my schedule, was summoned to the counselor, and sent away. Forever.
During my extra vacation, this counselor — always sympathetic to my school-hate, and annoyed/saddened that the guy who should have been his assigned fraction of the alphabet’s best student was so far from it — had finagled to transfer me to the local college. I just had to say yes. I did.
(Do they still do that? Can they? I assume not. It’s not very rulesy, and it caused some ruckus when I went to real college. I’m still not a high school graduate — in modern times, one of only [some very small number] to have nonetheless graduated from [never you mind]. Woot.)
My absence from the daily halls greatly increased my sway with the left-behind high school girls, the ones at the college were sluts (sluts? at college?!), the classes were hilariously easy, and I finally stopped being constantly hassled by basketball coaches to join the team, because the college faked up transcripts for a whole high school team from Atlanta and didn’t need me. I loved those guys.
(The coaches’, uh, recruiting had been a serious problem for me in high school. They even messed with my grades to pressure me — one source of the counselor’s sympathy.)
Anyway, point: If they hadn’t fucked around and tried to steal my birthday, I’d have missed that week of Avengers reruns. Diana Rigg was in all of them.
Enjoy Jeff.
My first day I escaped. Bolted the classroom! Beat a path back to my Mom’s tit.
Happy birthday, psycho! Close enough I guess.
We’re way past the pre-school years, but we’ll always remember Bruiser’s first day of kindergarten. He was our #6, and Mary, #7 was only 10 months old. We had a Club Wagon van for hauling everyone. I was at work, so Mom got the job of taking Bruiser by herself. He’d been to pre-school, so we didn’t think there’d be a problem dropping him off. If we did, I would have to go along because he could (and still is) a real hand full.
Well, Mom had to stop on the way to get some gas, so she stopped at the mini-mart, got out of the van, and admonished Bruiser to stay seated and watch Mary while she filled the van.
While Mom was dispensing the gas, she noticed Bruiser standing behind her. She says, “I thought I told you to stay in the van and watch Mary. He replied, “It’s okay, Mommy, I locked the door so no one can steal her.†(She was a very pretty baby!)
Of course, the keys were in the ignition. Mom pondered a few seconds, then ran into the store with bruiser under one arm, and asked to use the phone. The clerk advises her that there’s a pay phone outside. Mom tells her that her purse is locked in the van along with her baby. The clerk says she can’t let anyone use the phone, but she thinks you can call 911 from the pay phone without having to pay. So Mom is fairly frantic by now, but she finds the pay phone and dials 911. Luckily, someone did answer.
A few minutes later, the police were there trying to figure out a way into the van. It wasn’t an emergency at this point because it was still early in the morning and the sun wasn’t a factor yet. One of the officers found that he could slide a wire under the rubber seal in the back door window and hook the locking knob. So, with the van unlocked, baby unharmed, bruiser entertained by all the activity, and the gas paid for, Mom proceeded to the kindergarten to deliver our eager child slightly late.
Good times, in retrospect!
Our 5 year old Cory starts kindergarden next week. She is excited, yet anxious. Bittersweet for us indeed.
Yay, psycho. That is a happy story, with the happiest of endings. And a happy birthday in a day or so to you too.
Ah Jeff, welcome to the DPS indoctrination! Your kid will come home talking about “life skills” and the red alert system in place for any behavior construed as bullying. That being said, our school system in the greater Denver area is pretty damn good. You will be amazed that your kid has homework in 1st grade. Well I was anyway.
-Dario
Sweet stuff, Jeff.
Mine completed HS this year; per Dario, keep an eye on stuff. And pursuant Dan, you’ll need a blog for what’s coming.
Oh, and Russia.
Dario —
We managed to get the boy into a charter school. See he gets to keep going through 8th grade now that he’s in — and there’s talk that in a few years they’ll go all the way through grade 12.
Booyah!
The school uses a core knowledge curriculum, and is very parent-centered. They had to fight tooth and nail to open — but they finally beat back challenges from DPS and the union.
That seems like a good sign to me.
For those of you who know of such things, here’s the basics:
* A reading program that emphasizes phonics in the primary grades as well as development of rich vocabulary, comprehension and fluency using a variety of literature.
* Emphasis on the basic skills of reading fluency, writing, grammar, spelling, oral communication, computation, and problem solving.
* Character education that is integrated into all classes and subject areas.
* Curricular materials that integrate rich literature, art, music and drama.
* Math, science and history curricula that emphasize sequential learning, mastery of critical skills, and project-based activities that accesses various learning styles.
* Covenants with students and parents/guardians outlining the expectations of participation by the student, parent/guardian, and the school.
* Frequent and consistent assessment of student progress; the results used to evaluate individual student strengths and weaknesses as well as to improve instruction.
* Intervention and intensive help for any student who is struggling to learn, or not achieving the grade level expectations in a particular subject area.
* Challenging materials to enhance the curriculum for students who surpass grade level expectations.
Let me know what you all think.
ps. Happy soon birthday, psycho.
I think you did your homework and found a place where the camel’s nose of sanity has made it into the tent of progressive nannystatism. Good on ya.
Do they have a recess area where the boys can play smear the queer?
Mix in a little basic, extra-curricular catch wrestling and some sly humor skills and I think he’ll do just fine.
The only opinion I have that I’m sure of is that being able to read well and having a good vocabulary are essential to success in academics. No single skill is more important. It seems they have that covered.
Yeah. From what I understand, they try to have the kids diagramming sentences by the end of second grade.
Plus, sports-wise, they’re new — so it’s an open field. I might try to get a youth wrestling program going (taught by someone with good amateur wrestling skills). Then, when the kids get older, they can come to my catch classes and learn to dismantle a fucker.
Jeff,
How soon before he starts guest-blogging here? ;-)
Oh, heavens. Never, NukemHill.
I want something better for my child than what I have. So I’m thinking, like, circus geek, or maybe proctologist.
I avoided all that “first day” stuff. I’m actually giving my kids the next two weeks off – since they’ve been doing it all summer. Two weeks should be enough time off, right?
Oh, who asked. you anyway.
Excellent, Jeff. My oldest is in a charter school, but so far they’re only K-8. One class per grade; SMALL. Big on discipline, school uniforms, everyone knows everyone else. They don’t have to follow county school regs; all they have to do is do their thing and stay accredited. I think they made “A” school last year, with about 30% disabled and learning impaired.
The younger kid is more self-starting, and she’s in (I say) the best elementary school in the county by far. They put her in Accelerated Reader in Kindergarten, and put her in Gifted in 1st grade. We’re still talking with them about kicking her up a grade, but neither of us is in any particular rush to do that, as long as they’re keeping her challenged.
There’s diagramming sentences and then there’s diagramming Goldsteinian sentences I think.
I’ll make myself available for his career day. :)
Something tells me thor has issues.
oh hey speaking of the education and things why come Baracky can go to Hawaii and no one asks about the Akaka bullshit stuff? I remembered this morning I was waiting for that angle cause Other Guy was in Hawaii at the same time and this is his first day back.
For real it’ll be odd for people to wake up to this later when no one thought to make an issue of it while he was prancing around the islands all freaking summer I think.
That sounds great Jeff. We moved out of Denver when my first was 1 with a second on the way strictly for the school system. Didn’t want to chance it. Parker(Douglas County) is where we landed because of those schools. DPS does seem to have a somewhat sound charter program, but the publics are a crap shoot.
You do realize, Jeff, that you’re depriving your offspring of the opportunity to learn the alphabet through interpretive dance, don’t you?
What will the other boys in the neighborhood think? You’re setting him up to be sniffed at when he won’t touch the arugula.
Hmmmm, diagramming Goldsteinian may frequently require one of these, I think.
Also McCain is certainly gay enough to support this sort of thing so for real someone should ask him about it too.
Oh, this is apropos.
http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/lb0819gd.jpg
They posted it today and everything.
Also I miss MayBee. I wonder where she is and if she’s happy there.
diagramming Goldsteinian sentences
Editing: The other white meat!
Yea, hf, MayBee and alpuccinno have been not in the neighborhood lately. What up wid dat?
They blame me for Karl, I guess. Or think I’m a dick.
Or else maybe they’re on vacation.
That sounds like a decent school, Jeff.
I’d also be interested in school’s approach to technology integration.
1) On-line research skills (using search engines, evaluating the credibility of results)?
2) Computer-based tools for creating, editing, and remixing prose, visual arts, and music?
3) Visualization and data analysis tools for math and science?
Your son, in specific, might not need it (since I’m sure he’ll learn a lot of that stuff at home), but it’s worth considering.
Naturally, learning how to read and write trumps everything else.
OI – Yes, she is.
OTOH, my wife is starting her first year of third grade – It only took Better Half 4 years to finish 3rd grade.
I saw a big computer lab, SBP. So I assume at higher grade levels that kind of thing is integrated.
Everything looks brand new.
Just dropped him off. Took video. Then went to the car and wept like a baby.
Now y’all will have more stuff to talk about though. It will be fun. Oh. Also you need to make sure you have good non-slidey refrigerator magnets.
On my son’s first day of school, he couldn’t wait to get to the bus stop and join his friends. He was so excited about being “grown up” and going to school. He could have cared less that I was hovering and worrying how he would handle it all. As he completely ignored me in favor of his friends and the approaching bus, I bawled like a baby as it hit me that my baby wasn’t a baby anymore.
Per your post #33. sounds perfect. i highly recommend supplementing that with the work that needs to be done on your end. To that end check out “How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber, and anything by Haim Ginott. Worked for me (as a single dad) and my now 24-yr old daughter. They are the bedrock of quality parenting, which will become more and more important as Satch spends more and more time away from your influence. You are a lucky man with that curriculum! And he will still break into your liquor cabinet, but hey, you can talk about it!
I had a Maybee sighting over at Tom Magwire’s blog.
I don’t know, I blame ass balloons.
Also myself. MAYBEE! come back.
Also the curriculum is outstanding.
Jeff, grats on what sounds like a good school. Bear in mind, though, that if he doesn’t do well in the school, it’s not necessarily his fault, it could be the school. Home school should always remain an option; blogger Kim du Toit has home schooled his kids, and they have thrived:
http://www.theothersideofkim.com/index.php/essays/98/
Good luck!
As far as diagramming sentences goes, my high school honors english teacher was surprised (and a little annoyed I think) when none of us remembered how to do it.
All four of my boys start school on Wednesday and their mother can’t wait. I’ve been on the road for the last month, so I’m a little misty, but I’ll be on a plane when the bus comes.
I do miss my youngest sitting on the floor of my office, playing with toys and crapping his diaper, weird as it sounds. My office was his “spot” before he was potty trained, and it was nice to have him around.
He’s only in school three days a week, and I’m sure I’ll see a lot of him if I ever get back home, but damn, I get weepy whenever I hear the Backyardigans.
“Beat a path back to my Mom’s tit.”
When you’re ready to leave, thor, we’ll be here to welcome you. Then again, my milk’s not in, so it may be a BYOB thing.
Slartibartfast,
If you’re wanting to do the double promotion thing, the earlier the better, although I’d recommend against it at any time. You can always add academic challenge, social/physical dislocation is harder to remedy. Skipping the sixth grade, I had entirely different tit issues than thor.
Tears for tits, every healthy male knows a good thing when he sucks it.
Sounds like the voice of a lot of experience, there, thor.
David, we’re not going to do it until such time as the kid’s gotten so far ahead of her class that her teacher can’t keep her challenged at all. If she starts getting bored, that’s when we move her up. We keep her learning at home; she’s getting her multiplication tables now. And she understands what a square root is.
It’s all I ever wanted for Christmas ever since.
SHOCKA, thor.
oh man, I wonder if I’m going to cry too. My oldest starts kinder next week. I am thinking I’m going to do a victory dance…but secretly wondering if I’ll bawl. :(
PC – The first day of full-day kindergarten was brutal, for me. I had to leave before my angel saw me getting all misty eyed.
Do they have a machine shop? All that book learning is nice, but if you can weld and run a milling machine you will never go hungry.
I went back to school today too. Spent my time in an unairconditioned auditorium reviewing text-based learning, comprehension assessment, phonetics and phonemics, DRA testing schedules, something I missed when I was looking out the window at the blue sky, literacy mapping, and then “come back tomorrow, same time same place for more of the same.” The excitement; it was not there.
He should be home soon, no?
I don’t remember pre-school hours. Kindergarten I got out at like noon, but my little brother later did an afternoon kindergarten thing. I was always a way better student than him but he makes more money which is not particularly fair I don’t think.
* Math, science and history curricula that emphasize sequential learning, mastery of critical skills, and project-based activities that accesses various learning styles.
Sounds like a class my Obama-voting friends could greatly use, especially the history part.
Question: If history does repeat itself, would an Obama presidency would be tragedy or farce? Both?
Back OT, good luck with Satch’s charter school, Jeff.
I saw photos of my eldest nephew a few weeks back, he had just graduated from basic at Camp Pendleton. I remember holding that new born in my arms as if it was yesterday – yesterday obviously being twenty years ago.
I have some inkling, Jeff G.
Maybee’s been scarce most of the summer, it seems.
True story: I didn’t have any problems going to kindergarten. I went there when I was three. It was spring and I was bored, I wanted to play with my big brother (he was seven) so I went to the school. It was just around the corner and the first door opened into the hall next to the kindergarten. So I went in there.
Mom was frantic; she had called the police (it didn’t help that she was about eight months pregnant) and then she got a phone call from the school. Needless to say, I got sent to nursery school that fall.
Jeff: I saw a big computer lab, SBP. So I assume at higher grade levels that kind of thing is integrated.
Maybe, maybe not. A lot of schools spend money nice-looking hardware (’cause that’s something visitors can see), but lowball hiring and/or training the teachers who can make effective use of it.
B Moe: Do they have a machine shop?
Alas, not very likely in this day and age. Liability and the perception that actually making shit with your hands is somehow not a worthy pursuit have taken a serious toll. It’s a real shame; some of my best memories of junior high and high school are of wood and metal shop. Yeah, I learned the hard way that chips are hot — still have a small scar on the back of my hand from a flying piece of drill press swarf, in fact. It was worth it, though.
I went to kindergarten with this kid Robert, who’s leg was really, really messed up. It was like unbendy and puffy, looking like a bad zombie-movie makeup job. He would pick at it, which I thought was the coolest and grossest. Been hanging out with the freaks ever since.
Anyway, maybe it was leprosy, looking back. Kid was pretty insensate to pain…
I dunno. I understand the impulse and feel it myself, but can’t help also feeling that crying under such circumstances is a bit, well, Sheehanish.
Our task, as parents, is to start with a blob of protoplasm and end up with an autonomous individual. It has to be done in stages, and it’s possible, even common, to go too far too fast — everybody’s encountered the self-willed brat, with Mommie (of whichever sex) crying “No Johnny No Johnny No Johnny No” to no avail, and Mommie is doing Johnny no favors. None the less, the goal is (or should be) a person, not an animated toy, and if you regard occasions such as this as triumphant small steps toward that end rather than, or in addition to, the loss, it’s easier to take in my experience.
And yes, that includes the time they pull a duffle bag out of the back seat, give you a hug, and walk off to join the rest of the people in camouflage clothes.
Regards,
Ric
He should be home soon. And then next time he goes it will be his second day of school. That’s the one where you can play it cool I think. It’s ok to be a little traumatized by change. Change is extremely startling I think, especially when things were just fine the way they were.
Thinking of my little nine-pound football
who could now crush me with his bare hands.
One little wrinkle of my eyebrow in his direction is still all it takes to check shenanigans.
How did that happen. I was the worst teenager on the face of the earth.
Good that you found a good school. We put our daughter in a private preschool about 1-1/2 yrs. ago (she and Satch were born just a few days apart). She’s now reading some simple books and is learning arithmetic (simple addition). Even though the curriculum doesn’t cover that at her level, their work has certainly helped her development both academically and socially. Unfortunately, we may not be able to swing it this next year.
OH. I forgot. You have to have a snack made for him when he gets home. My mom would make those things with the layers of chocolate pudding and cool whip in wine stems. She really got points for that I remember. I should be sure and tell her that. Later on mostly I kind of just went straight for the Lucky Charms, but still, she’d surprise us sometimes. Then she went back to teaching school and no more pudding and it was change and it sucked.
I remember that I was held after a bunch because Michael Mann and I used to crack each other up over Popeye jokes, and that the walk home seemed really long.
not the Miami Vice guy… you’re not that old I don’t think
I was a latch-key kid myself. Typical Gen-Xer.
Michael Mann? The guy what faked the hockey stick?
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf
Geez, Dan, you been hanging with a weapons-grade liar.
Are you saying those Popeye jokes weren’t true?
I wasn’t a latchkey kid, Carin. Mom was home (or would be soon). I think I mentioned how it was being in the same district that my dad taught in, and having a number of my teachers on the same bowling league.
(It was better than my cousin Freddy who had my mom as his kindergarten teacher and wondered why he had to call her Miss Martindale at school when at home he could call her Aunt Annie.)
Well Dan, if you keep your dick in Olive Oil long enough it will get soft.
Trust me.
“would an Obama presidency would be tragedy or farce?”
More likely comedy, in both the modern and ancient (happy ending) sense. Grams is my kinda gal, and I like mutts like me. If tragedy breaks out, I’d blame the coattails. He fell in with a bad crowd at a young age. Now they’ll want payback.
“One little wrinkle of my eyebrow in his direction is still all it takes to check shenanigans.
How did that happen. I was the worst teenager on the face of the earth.”
Why do they hire hackers to design security systems? He knows what you know, and he’s in awe.
Strauss (who, Google sadly informs me, is no longer of this earth) and Howe discuss cycles in parenting styles in their book Generations, which has turned out to have non-zero predictive value.
Okay. So while the kid was at school I cut the tip of my right index finger near off cleaning an immersion blender. Luckily, no tendon damage. But 15 stitches, including 5 inside.
Typing this taking me a long time. Guess I really was distracted today. Having been with the boy all day nearly every day of his life had a profound effect on me.
Anyway, 10 days until stitches are removed — first 48 hours elevated and unbending the finger must remain.
Great first day of school story, though. Looks like podcasts for a while…
Arghhh, finger cutting is bad news on an otherwise nifty day. Here’s hoping it doesn’t throb too awful bad. Course if it does, take Scotch in moderate doses until other throbbings take over and blot out the pain.
Ow. All I got is it’s better than kidney stones. That’s probably not very comforting, and the no-typing thing is bad. Usually the way I clean blenders like that is just plug them in and run them in water with the dish soap that smells like watermelons.
Ye grrrate big nancy, yah, grrreetin’ o’er the wee bairrrrrrn, as if he canna tak care o’ himsel’.
I would be, too. Somebody said that having children means that you spend the rest of your life with your heart outside of your body. Congrats, Jeff, this is a big step for the both of you. And double congrats on getting him into the bonny school you described. Dinna ye let the scunners fash ye.
All the best to you and yours,
T&T
I’ve never played Smear the Queer, thor. Perhaps you can tell us all how it’s played.
Ouch! Jeff G., I have some nice scars on my left hand near the thumb. I was cutting wood with a very sharp bow saw at the Youth Camp when a kid came up and asked me a question. I Turned to look at him as the saw ent back and forth…
Needless to say I don’t remember the question, just his “You’re bleeding!” comment. I looked, put the saw away, called the kids together (no other counselor in the area) and took them on a walk where “Today we find out all about the infirmary.”
Yeah, hospital emergency room, along with a girl who had a horse step on her foot. The fun could not be measured!
(Really! You can’t measure that level of fun! [Everyone came out okay.])
Ow! Geez, Jeff … you’re supposed to unplug the blasted thing before you wash it, or, at least, throw it in the dishwasher.
Parents never seem to deal well with the anxiety of separation … even when the kid leaves home for good. I still don’t. He’ll survive despite you ;)
Jayzus, Jeff.
Well, it could be worse.
Here is a movie about how to make a coconut grater. That page is some text about it where he tells you that coconut oil is 90% saturated fat. The link for the movie is here. I remembered that cause grating coconuts you have to be careful about your fingers too.
And yes, that includes the time they pull a duffle bag out of the back seat, give you a hug, and walk off to join the rest of the people in camouflage clothes.
Not sure what you mean there, Ric, but I’ve always admired the way Archie Manning has made sure his sons know he loves them. Nothing Sheehanish there.
Be glad it’s just kindergarten. My older daughter is moving out next weekend, and she found an old stuffed doll from when she was a baby. {Shameless blog plug alert!] Nothing really prepares you for having one of your children leave home.
Jeff:
I’ve had that sort of day also–sans dismemberment.
I almost fell off the roof of the house I’m painting.
Later, some wasps below the gutter determined that they wanted me DEAD, NOW!!!
Finally, I called it a day, came home to shower and stuck my hand in the ceiling fan while taking off my shirt.
It’s only 7:00, but I’m pouring myself a stiff drink and going to bed.
My twin grandsons have been back to school for a couple of weeks. First grade and it was a bit traumatic because this year they are in different classes. Nik, who defers all questions to his ‘mouthpiece’, bro Sean, was stunned. He went along, but silently, and sat at his desk and refused to engage anyone. Sean seethed in his class and each morning vows he won’t go to school.
But he’s adjusting. Mom (daughter #2)? No wonder she’s thin.
Cowboy
Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.
Well,
The cat’s in the cradle
and the silver spoon,
the little boy blue
and the man in the moon.
Is that the tip of your finger
in my gazpacho, Pa?
Is that your finger in my soup?
~~~~~~~~~
Heal quick. Follow wound-care advice.
Order pizza when he starts first grade.
–
Hey – got a great idea – if you’ve cut your finger near off, you could put in some guest bloggers!!1!
/nah. Take care of your finger, dude. Less typing = more time to listen to school stories.
Was it a white immersion blender by chance?
We don’t live in a blender blind world yet ya know. Not yet! An uppity struggling finger still ain’t got a chance. Push the wrong button, oh no, you don’t won’t to do that if you’re just a finger. Crazy fingers won’t even do that. Lucky the thing didn’t steal your wallet too.
That is one scary mf doll. It looks like if you reached for it, it’s eyes would open real fast and it would have teeth and take a digit off.
Hey, they spelled apocalypse like they had coconuts on the brain. There you go: “Acocolypse” I will use that in the tropical end-times. That thing also looks like it could take a digit off.
OMG, Jeff. I guess it could have been worse, but its bad enough. That is a most painful place to be injured.
Yeah, and stay away from industrial fans when he leaves for college.
Blender is red. Fucking commie Indian.
On this particular day, 21 years ago, I married the most wonderful woman in the world. And she’s just gotten better as the time has gone by.
Don’t blink. It’s all I can say.
So it’s like a pretty good day here in Utah.
Red, to hide the blood
Crap, Jeff, I’m really sorry that happened. It’ll hurt like mad (but I won’t talk about it.) Add that scar to the others. Like Mikey, I have some doozies too, some dating to the sixties. A wonder we’re around to talk about it at all, I suppose.
Speaking of which, anybody here ever barely get out alive? Me, I grazed by a few, whether capsizing or other gales almost taking the scaffolding down. Somehow made it this far, everything more or less intact and functional…
My kid had a giant pink elephant from which he was difficult to separate. A “flataphant” I think. Actually he had at least four of them, ground one by one into flinders.
Fingered a red blender? Red! Ain’t you hear any of ’em stories of what unlucky fingers done went through back when. Some fingers ain’t got enough sense to run from the sirens of the police.
Jeff: So, red blender. We meet again!
Red Blender: ZZZzzzzzTTT!1!
Jeff:
Jeff: You mother fucker!
Red Blender: Looking at?
Jeff: Fuck you and the coupon I bought you with!
I always use a wadded up sponge to clean the business end of my emersion blender.
That is a most painful place to be injured.
No, Sarah. No, it isn’t.
Silly, not the most painful place.
But I’m afraid of the story you will tell me. Are there bees?
JHoward:
Cancer’s too pedestrian, I suppose, but other than that, when I was seven a bunch of Humphrey supporters surged behind me at a rally and shoved me into a cyclone fence. Head met razor wire.
Damn hippies.
A Secret Service guy hauled me over the fence, took me over to meet the candidate, and then–coolest of all–a Missoula, Montana police car took me to the hospital for stitches.
It probably wasn’t as close a brush with death as most, but the cop let me push the siren button.
Oh, and I commute 70 miles each way every day. In the morning, it’s just me and a bunch of drug-crazed truckers.
Every day is a brush with death.
My daughter will be going back to Penn State fo0r her Senior year of college, my oldest son is moving in with his giorlfriend, and MAtt the Marine will be deploying to Iraq.
It never ends, Jeff.
Right index finger…yeah, that’s the important one. Those finger injuries throb for days. I was hunting as a teen and fell in an arroyo, and grabbed out for…a barbed-wire fence. Yep, opened up a finger to the tendons.
I can attest that they are white.
RACIST!!
Brings thor to Jesus, jedi mind tricks DocW into immolating himself, flexes massive proud father muscles, then is felled by a blender.
Not a bad sitcom episode.
“I am determined to remain persistently frivolous, a quality which goes down with the Ambassador but no one else in this establishment, despite all, and confine the serious side of my nature to academic subjects and private life. I now know that solemnity and public seriousness are fatal qualities in the conduct of public affairs and shall never believe anything else.”
– Isaiah Berlin
Red Blender: Sorry I went off like that.
Jeff:
Red Blender: Margarita to ease the pain?
Jeff: Want more of the microwave? Keep talkin’.
Red Blender: Control freak!
Jeff: Post-modern kitchen appliance pussy!
Red Blender:
Jeff: Got your warranty right here, bitch.
Red Blender: Receipt?
Jeff: Oh it’s on now!
Sounds like you have found a excellent school. Bravo.
I’m pretty sure there weren’t any pre-schools when I was a tyke, early 50’s, but my mother who taught school taught me to read before kindergarten. I thank my lucky stars for my parents.
As for diagramming Goldsteinian sentences, this should help. The inventor reminds me of the host here in humor and ability to make the complex understandable to others.
Mine were so cute years ago when they first started with Mothers Morning Out. They tried so hard to be brave as I bundled them into the classroom, but they couldn’t help tearing up.
Kids today…soft, soft. I was thrown out of my first kindergarten. Troublesome yout.
But, things might be turning around..
Yeah Jeff, I remember those days and still can come to a tear. My oldest just moved out. and that hurts, but nothing compared to when my babies first went to school. I still keep the pics on my wall, both are smiling and happy, but me? yeah…a cupla tears too.
By the way? How the bloody HELL did you slice yourself up like that? Use mine all the time, and with liquids, do what HF does. Solids? dishwasher.
First day of school for my eldest son too, Jeff. He’s off to college tomorrow morning. My youngest just got out of the diaper habit a few days ago.
Every little milestone is bittersweet. I deal with it by having shitloads of kids. I have my real estate agent looking for deals on a bigass shoe we can all live in.
Its good. Its really good to be a dad.
Well the comments by the Dad’s on this post (and especially the bittersweet one of Jeff’s) just makes me say “awwwwww…..” Seriously. So wonderful.
Not to complain, cuz all men are different, but I don’t think my hubby even noticed when it was the first day of Kindegarten of any of our kids. Not that he is heartless, but he was always gone during the day anyhow so it really wasn’t that different fo him.
Anyway, it’s sweet how of you guys love your little guys (and girls)
Jeff – you’ll have the opportunity to bawl like a baby when you drop your son off at college, and when he gets married, and when you hold your first grandchild in your arms……
…and the car insurance payments Lesley.
Sounds like you’re in good shape Jeff. The only thing that’s shocked me about public school is that all the teachers look like they are in their mid 20s. I remember all my grade teachers being ancient. Then again, it’s a matter of perspective.
Jeff, don’t be surprised to see sentence structure and story writing by the middle of the 1st grade. At least through DPS they do. By far the most interesting time in the Denver Public School system is Christmas season. There’s a full court press for all the kids to get educated on Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa. My 1st grader got all excited about Hanukkah and I had to explain we aren’t Jewish. Wonderful moment, that. I think in the end we agreed that Santa kicks major ass even though the family kind of does the Buddha thing here.
Sorry to hear about your finger. 15 stitches, Ouch!
Working with my hands I usually have 1 or more cuts bandaged and healing but rarely anything approaching yours.
Take care and get well soon.
I saw the tendons in my finger once. I was playing with a hunting knife, tossing it up in the air and catching it by the handle, except one time it wasn’t the handle. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it was. My tendons were white too, does that make me a racist?
Yeah, I saw mine as well, alongside what looked like steak tartar.
Fascinating.
What a lovely mix of emotional landscapes. Koko the gorilla playing with a kitten cuteness side by side with swollen human eyeballs the size of softballs gore.
Just another day here at PW.
Believe it or not, we sent our son to pre-K at a Quaker school, and I think it was the best thing we have ever done for him.
The school was not religiously oriented, and the teachers were incredible, and wonderful people on top of that. My son was eager to go, and seemed to have no separation anxiety at all. But then again, he was always a little adventurer, and didn’t seem to mind hanging out with different people.
He spent two years there, and I just don’t believe that we could have found a better place for our son’s “intro” to school.
He is starting fourth grade soon, and, even though the schools around here are as good as it gets, I still worry about some of the political crap they are stuffing into his head.
So much baloney is now institutionalized, you just can’t avoid it. Sometimes I wish I could wash his ears out with some kind of special soap when he gets home everyday.
My son greeted the principal at his preschool the first day and asked her to pull his finger. He’s a marine now, so it was a portent of things to come.
Jeff G – Here’s to hoping for a speedy recovery.
thor – Here’s to hoping for a speedy vasectomy.
Brava, Diana!
nnivea – bravery!
Cowboy, my mom grew up in Missoula! She was long gone by ’68 (raising me and my brother in Sacramento) but her mother and stepfather still lived there then, I think. We visited them there in ’66, is why I think so.
Jeff, the worst I’ve ever had was a broken nose. Twice.
Second time was in a fight, but since I’d had it broken before it didn’t have the effect the other guy hoped for.
I got 76 stitches in my thigh when I was young. I fell off of a 10-speed bike when my brother jammed a stick through the spokes when I rode by. I landed on the spiky metal pedals. It hurt.
I take it you never saw Koko pet his kitten, tickle its belly, look into its eyes. Those are special images absent your type’a ugly backhanded vasectomies. Hallmark cards! That’s how cute Koko and his kitten are! Bestsellers!
My older brother was, for some reason I can’t remember, whirling an ice chopper (it’s a Northern state thing) around in a big circle, and I did not put my right foot in. Nor did I put my left foot in. No: I put my head in. Fortunately, it only caught me across the face, so: five stitches below the left eye and five stitches above the right. Could have been blinded or killed, so: very lucky.
Slarti – I can picture that happening. Ack!
I was a complete klutz as a child. Ran into the corner of a wall – 14 stitches on forehead. Fell out of a tree – broken arm. Skiing accidents – Broken shin, thumb, and disclocated shoulder. Basketball injuries – torn ACL, MCL and PCL, knee reconstruction, and more severe ankle sprains than I can count, micro-discectomy and 3-level fusion. Pain is my friend.
Well I had to buy my baby a backpack. That was weird. Especially since she’s too small for the regular elementary-sized ones – we had to get one of those baby ones with Disney princesses all over it. And a rainbow belt for her jeans. And a Hello Kitty lunchbox.
I’m feeling sick.
JD,
Sounds like Fentanyl(?) should be your friend.
I’m feeling sick.
PC, you are preaching to the choir.
TLD – It should be, but since I have been clean and sober, pain medication is off limits to this addict. Grit my teeth now.
I was the only kid on my block that didn’t fracture something during elementary school days. I made up for it by slicing and dicing myself. My body seems to attract sharp metal like a magnet. Also a ruptured appendix at age 10 caught me up on hospital time to equal my friends. It seems a wonder we all survived somehow. Still all in all a great childhood.
#156 Slartibartfast:
When I was five my brother had a tube from a roll of carpet and was launching the old corner molding through it – it was a cannon. I looked down the barrel and caught a shot in the nose, in the strip between the nostrils. Result: a trip to Oakwood Hospital and stitches (damn lucky it didn’t hit me in the eye!).
Dad busted that tube up pretty quick.
Second result: Always be wary when the older brother says “You go first because _____________.”. You realize early that in his eyes you’re expendable.
[…] (Not) Just another manic Monday  in fact, today happens to be a very special Monday, it being my son’s first ever day of school. […]
They come back. We just dropped the youngest off at grad school. I sure am glad she’s independent, well except for car, insurance, and a new computer… The middle daughter is visiting, with her daughter, who is crawling around and terrorizing the cats. Another couple weeks, then they’re off to Hawaii for a few years. Interrupted by son-in-law’s second tour of Iraq. Maybe we’ll get to visit them sometime. The son now has his own house, but shows up every Friday for a home cooked meal – and enough leftovers for the upcoming week.
Where did the time go? I’m not old enough for this.