All posts for the month August, 2010

Homework, Homework, Homework!

My youngest daughter started 6th grade about 2 weeks ago. She has attended the same Catholic School since Pre-K. She has a very small class, under 20 kids and all of us parents talk to each other.

This year we have 2 new teachers that will be teaching our kids. Both of these teachers are 1st year teachers to boot. During “Meet the Teacher” we parents ganged up on the new teachers about homework. We made it loud and clear that we would not tolerate a ton of homework every night. I figure 30 minutes per subject is more than enough per night. That puts us at about 2 hours a night of homework.

This past Monday my daughter came home and jumped right on her homework. She started at 3:30 and at 5:00 I asked her what she had left to do. She told me that so far she had only been working on English and that she had Math and Science to still do. UMMM….I don’t think so!

I went straight up to the computer and e-mailed all the class parents about the complete overload of English homework. I wanted to make sure I was not alone in my opinion before I e-mailed the teacher. I was not alone at all! Each and every one of us sent an e-mail off to the teacher to let him know that this was unacceptable.

The next day we had the same problem!! So we parents got together again but this time we moved on up the ladder to the principal. Hey, we warned the teacher at the Meet the Teacher! You just don’t mess with the 6th grade parents!

I received an e-mail this morning from this same teacher about my daughter’s spelling homework. They had to use their spelling words in a sentence and he said he did not appreciate me giving my daughter sentences to write down. I replied back to Mr. 1st Year Teacher that I do not do my child’s homework and as a matter of fact, I did not even look over her sentences because I was too busy sending off e-mails to other class parents that night! I made sure I copied the principal as well!

The Spelling word was: chaos

My daughter’s sentence was: Too much homework causes chaos in my house!

I love my daughter! I have taught her well!

5 Comments
by Heather on August 25, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Heather on August 25, 2010

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/homework-homework-homework/

My Dream Gnome

About two weeks ago I took my daughters down to Galveston to do our traditional “End of Summer Blowout!”

This year we went to the Moody Mansion. We love visiting the old historic homes in Galveston. I think now we only have one more home to visit but it won’t re-open until the Fall of 2011 due to damage from Hurricane Ike.

We took a stroll down on the Historic Strand. The kids played with the life-size chess board and we of course got our traditional dose of candy from the best candy store on earth, The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!

While we were down on the Strand window shopping I found my dream Gnome! If the thing hadn’t cost well over $100 I would have bought the thing right there and then!

Jim Shore is the artist. I love his work! Now I ask you, after seeing this how can you hate Gnomes!

4 Comments
by Heather on August 21, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Heather on August 21, 2010

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/my-dream-gnome/

Update To Parenthood Sucks

The other night the mother of my oldest daughter’s friend called me. This is the lady with whom my oldest daughter has been staying with. She wanted to hear my side of the story.

I informed her that I kicked my daughter out because she would not follow my house rules and she knew the consequences of her actions if she failed to come home last Friday.

She said “Hmm.. so she didn’t flee an abusive household? She got kicked out?”

Apparently my daughter lied to this woman and she is quite pissed at my daughter as well as her own. We have since joined forces and are fast becoming friends.

I printed out all the e-mails that my daughter and I have been going back and forth with since Friday and I showed them to the mother. Total proof to my side. We talked about what we should do next and we put a plan in motion.

This morning I went over to where my daughter has been staying and we had a nice little talk with my daughter and her friend. We talked about how the real world works. You know graduate school, get a job and pay your own way. Once we got through with the economic lesson I turned to my daughter and gave her 3 option packages to choose from:

  1. Home ~ Come back to my home under major conditions. Follow MY house rules, go to school, find a job and pay 25% of your earnings to the household. The final condition to this option package is to start attending Al-Anon meetings at least once a week.
  2. Military ~ Quit school, get your GED and join a branch of the military.
  3. Tough Love ~ Don’t choose either of the above options and you are on your own. Kiss my ass and leave me alone!

My daughter asked the other mom if she could stay put and think over her options for a day. The other mom agreed to 1 day after that she needs to leave her house no matter what because guess what she has the same house rules that I have!!

We will see what option my oldest daughter chooses. It is now in her hands. I did also tell my oldest daughter that if I did not hear from her by this afternoon that I was going to let her little sister have her room (it’s bigger) and if she decided to come home after I made that switch she would have to move into the smaller room.

I was on such a roll I went home and told my husband about my talk with my daughter and I informed him that his butt needed to make some major changes as well! If he is sober he may join us for dinner if not stay away. I will be sleeping on the fold out couch until I can no longer smell alcohol seeping from his pores. He no longer has parental control over the kids. I make all decisions regarding the kids!

Anyone else want to mess with me today?!

3 Comments
by Heather on August 18, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Heather on August 18, 2010

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/update-to-parenthood-sucks/

Parenthood Sucks!!

I think the minute the nurses hand you that beautiful little bundle of joy in the hospital and they see the love in your eyes that they should warn you that one day it will be sucked right away from you. The only difference will be that you don’t get nine months to prepare for it!

My oldest daughter turned 18 mid-July and she came to the conclusion that since she was 18 she could do whatever she wanted because she was a legal adult. She decided mid-week that she was going to leave and go out of town with some friends that I barely know. I told her no and she threw a fit. After she got done calling me every name in the book she said she was leaving and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I informed her that if she left that would be it, she would need to find a different place to live. Her little sister even told her I was not playing around.

Needless to say she left and when I managed to get in contact with her she informed me that she would be back the day before school started and that I should leave her the F***k alone. SOOOO… with that she is now left alone. I took everything in her room and packed it up yesterday. I went out and rented a storage room and put all of her belongings in it.

She called this morning and point-blank said “I guess you kicked me out.” I informed her that indeed she was. She made an adult decision to leave and now she must face the consequences. She is staying with a friend of hers and as far as I know the mother of her friend will make her go to school. I told her today that if she needs school supplies or food I will help her with that but I will not give her any money. She needs to go find a job and figure out that in the real world you have to do things for yourself, it’s not all fun and games.

This afternoon she came over to the house to get her bed mattress and I gave her the key and the information that she needs to get her stuff out of storage this afternoon. She walked up to her room and I thought she was going to pass out when she saw everything gone. I think she really thought I was bluffing. She got in her friends car and started bawling. It killed me!

Every time I think about her I just want to tell her that it’s all ok and that she can come home anytime. Then I think about all the crap that she has been giving me and all the crap that her little sister has had to listen to and I know that I have to stick to my guns.

I might be totally wrong or this could be the best thing that ever happens to her. Either way it just plain sucks!

5 Comments
by Heather on August 15, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Heather on August 15, 2010

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/parenthood-sucks/

Change Is Good

It’s that time of year again… Back to School Time! My youngest will be going into 6th grade. {Sigh} Junior High here we come! Her school had a bit of an uprising over the summer and this year we have basically all new teachers for 6th-8th grade. Personally I am looking forward to the new change. Some of the teachers have been there since my oldest went to school there and it wasn’t really a good thing.

My oldest daughter will be starting her Senior year this year. So now I have to start getting myself ready for her {again sigh} graduation. Right now she is having scheduling problems with her classes and I could jump in and fix them but I have decided since she is an adult I must let her fix them. I must also realise that if she doesn’t fix them it’s not my problem it’s hers! That sounds so good in writing now I just have to get my head and my heart to really believe it!

Another change I have made is my work schedule. Yes, it was great only working Monday and Tuesday from 8-5. But I have gone and changed it all up. I even did it without discussing it with my kids or my husband! I made a decision on my own to heck with everyone else! Boy did it feel awesome! OK so this is what I have gone and done, I will now work Monday, Tuesday and Friday from 8-2. It is the same amount of hours but this way I can be home in the afternoons with my kids.

Last year I had some major problems around my house when I went back to work. My husband had to pickup my youngest daughter from school and then he had to help both of the girls do homework. I would come home from work and there would be total chaos! My youngest daughter had concerns about her dad being sober when he picked her up from school. Well she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. Then when it came time to do homework he would tell her to do it his way to hell with what the teachers wanted. Fights like that you take up with the teacher not the kids! Well now she doesn’t have to worry about that either!

Change is good, change is good….

David Bowie

Changes (2002)

2 Comments
by Heather on August 12, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Heather on August 12, 2010

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/change-is-good/

Trolls

This afternoon we took my youngest daughter bowling. At our bowling alley they have these little gumball machines that are always filled with cool little toys. Today we hit the jackpot!! They had Trolls in the machines. So for a mere $1.50 we bought 6 Trolls.

Now do you remember that my oldest daughter hates Gnomes? Well she hates Trolls just as much. So of course my youngest daughter and I had to do something with our new-found Troll friends!

We put them in my oldest daughter’s room. Unfortunatley she came home early but we got her anyway! She screamed when she saw the following!

 

It would have had a more dramatic effect if it had been late at night! But our evil Troll plan worked out just fine none the less! <Insert Evil Laughter Here>

2 Comments
by Heather on August 5, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Heather on August 5, 2010

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/trolls/