Education Reform by Cyber-Parents

For a Printable, Document version, CLICK ME!

I have compiled some thoughts about education from parents and parent bloggers online, including some of my own unique thoughts.

Education Reform

by Parent Bloggers and Parents

compiled by Michelle L. Grewe, blogger for Crumpets and Bollocks

Another Title might be Ways To Spend More Money, but it needs it.

Top Topics of Parent Bloggers regarding Education

• Safety from school shootings
• Common Core Curriculum
• Attendance and Education Neglect
• Driving your kid to school wearing flannel pj’s (we won’t go any further into that one)

Topics covered below:

1. Standardized Testing

2. Bullying

3. Attendance

4. Security

5. High School Curriculum and College Credit

6. Classroom arrangement

7. Common Core

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that parents possess the “fundamental right” to “direct the upbringing and education of their children.” The Court also declared that “the child is not the mere creature of the State: those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35) The Supreme Court criticized a state legislature for trying to interfere “with the power of parents to control the education of their own.” (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 402.) In recognition of both the right and responsibility of parents to control their children’s education, the Court has stated, “It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for the obligations the State can neither supply nor hinder.” (Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158)  From http://mrsmomblog.com/2014/03/29/why-my-children-will-not-take-state-assessments/

When asked “What do you think are major problems in today’s education and how would you resolve them?” on my Facebook Pages:

Benjamin M Keysor The problem is kids are not punished for doing something they should not of been doing. When I was in elementary school, when someone did something they weren't supposed to they could potentially get paddled, with a wooden paddle. There was also detention, in school suspension program- where you sat in one room all day doing your work and only leaving the room for a few restroom breaks and lunch. You could also be suspended from school a few days. Then there was Friday and Saturday school. Friday school is where you would sit in the cafeteria for 3 hours after school let out. Then Saturday school, you reported to school on Saturday morning at 9 am and sit in one room doing school work/home work for like 4 hours. I would often get Saturday school from being late so many times but I would usually skip it and then end up getting suspended for 3 days. Now days you don't even hear of a kid getting detention.

Kim Myers In my opinion teaching has moved too far away from the teaching of children and into the teaching what curriculum has been funded and lobbied the most. As well as "teaching to the test" instead of teaching to the development of successful students.

The students recognize that once the standardized testing "season" is done essentially there is nothing left to do.

In short less focus on standardized testing and more focus on successful teaching and students.

Barbara Dodson I now have Grandchildren in school and as IN THEIR school, it would be more of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IF they went back to learning by unified recital of the ABC's n Timestables as well as the pledge of allegiance and morning prayer. THE POLITICIANS DO IT WHY SHOULDN'T we or our children.

Randi Evette All children do not learn the same way and the kids that aren't like everyone else get left out. Most teachers don't observe their students to see what makes them click, what gets their wheels turning. They are set in their ways and whoever doesn't catch on gets left by the wayside. This relates to special needs children as well as kids that just learn differently. I feel that we need to take a look at how other countries teach their kids, because they're smarter and somehow seemingly happier. I'll think of some ideas and email them to you. I just woke up and saw this.

Misty Boley Agreed Randi, I understand they have things that need to be taught on time, but, not every child is the same, learning struggles and set backs and teachers keep on moving forward

Lina Mumm Just take back everything George Bush has contributed to our wonderful education...no child left behind has ruined it. Teachers teach to the standardized tests. It doesn't help those who need the extra help to actually learn the material, and it bores the gifted students who actually need to be challenged. Kids shouldn't go to school to be brainwashed...they should be there to learn critical thinking skills.

Marguerite Louis More play to calm kids down

Shelly Bastion Drys Get rid of Common Core! This is killing today's kids love to learn and is even more difficult on kids who have learning disabilities.

Shannon Styles:  In a nutshell, here are the main problems with Ed Reform:

*Common Core was introduced and thrown on districts with little to no research. In order for states to receive the Race To The Top federal money (which turns out to be roughly $12 per student) the states needed to have an approved APPR (teacher eval) plan.

*The new APPR uses state test scores as a part of the eval score that put entirely too much focus on testing and prep rather than authentic learning.

*The new state tests are now CCSS aligned, but students in grade 3 have only been exposed to the CCSS standards for one year...there is disparity there.

*Modules:  NYS created modules which are units for teachers to use that are scripted and aligned to CCSS. They were not created by teachers and are extremely developmentally inappropriate.

*Money: districts are spending more each year on testing materials, yet state funding is decreasing every year. While schools are cutting staff and programs, the cost of Pearson testing materials continues to increase. Districts are spending more than they received through the RTTT federal money to implement CCSS and testing.

*The links I provided (below… look for Shannon Styles) go into detail and explain each point here.

Details of Issues

1. Standardized Testing

There is too much testing going on. The Problem? One, the schools are not adequately staffed to handle that load of testing. The burden usually falls on the Guidance Counselor, whose primary purpose is to counsel troubled students, one that gets the shaft when it’s testing time. Two, teachers tend to teach based on test performance as opposed to their primary purpose, to teach children in a manner where children learn. Three, students are being tested on subjects BEFORE they get a chance to learn them. We need to pick one test (SAT 9 is recommended most) and use that in all 50 states, once a year, end of the year. That’s it. All states using the same test would make it easier to compare results nationwide.

The money you save from excessive, anti-productive testing could be used toward better ideas listed below.

2. Bullying

West Virginia supposedly has one of the best anti-bullying policies out there; unfortunately, we parents have no idea what it is, or how to combat bullying when it happens. I have seen students bullied, not only by their peers, but also by the teachers, principals, and coaches. It’s out of hand in my state, and a problem nobody wants to admit is happening. We are in denial that bullying on every level exists.

What we need to do is not only create an anti-bullying policy on a federal level, one that is a no-tolerance approach much like a sexual harassment policy in the workforce, but we need to incorporate a system for fixing the situation. We need a place to report bullying, up a chain of command, where some form of enforcement takes place to resolve the situation. We need a protocol because some people are too busy to really know what to do or how to handle a bully-victim situation, and a protocol that disciplines those who neglect their duties in this realm (because frankly, some teachers and principals just don’t care about whiny kids complaining that their life is horrible because some kid is tormenting them). It would also have to have an investigation process to avoid abuse because bullies have no problem reporting victims as bullies in order to bully their victims.

3. Attendance

I understand attendance is important for successful learning; however, too much emphasis has been placed on it that it has become anti-productive.

For example, my child broke her arm at school last September, during recess, on the playground, and no teacher could tell me how it happened. She missed school to go to the doctor, get an xray and a broken arm diagnosis, and again to get a cast from the orthopedic, and then again when she broke out into a rash around her cast, and then again when she submerged her cast in water. Those 4 days had a doctor’s excuse, and I had a teacher lecture me about how those absences were interfering with her learning, threatening education neglect my way. Then, my second kid got head lice. The school explained to me that she was not allowed back until she was nit free. She missed two days for it, one of which was with a doctor checking for nits and the day the nurse sent her home. Yes, I got rid of head lice in less than 5 days including a weekend. That’s amazing considering some parents battle head lice for a year. So when the school threatened education neglect over her missing 2 days, including the day the nurse sent her home, I was a little livid to say the least. The year before it? My child was missing her chicken pox vaccination because the doctor ran out of it. The school explained to me she was just not welcomed there until she got it. She missed 5 days waiting for an appointment to get that specific vaccine, and not only did I receive a letter threatening education neglect, the nurse who kept her home those days demanded that education neglect charges be placed upon me for those specific days. Prior to that, when my daughter was in pre-school, the principal used to threaten education neglect charges against me for her absences, and the guy who actually does that explained there is no law requiring her attendance for pre-school in the first place.

If you cannot tell, people are abusing the attendance policy. It needs to go away.

Here is the problem this insane policy poses. You force parents to visit a doctor when the child does not need medical attention in order to obtain an excuse note, many of whom cannot afford it.  You force parents into sending their kid to school contagious, creating more absences from other kids. You take away the parent’s right to do what is best for the child. Sick kids do not need to be in a socially awkward, challenging learning environment. They need to be home in bed.

A solution might be to take the emphasis off of attendance and place it upon learning. Make a lot of the material covered in school available at home. While a kid might miss school for the stomach flu, the kid can at least not miss what was taught. I’m not talking about homework; I’m talking about making the learning structure available to the home. If the classes were online to that depth, it would be a great resource for home-schooled. In this day and age of technology, the information should be accessible from anywhere outside of the classroom. Of course, the policy would have to give time after the absences to get caught up because sick kids are busy being sick to learn at home, and some kids do not have access to a computer (schools have computer labs for when they return to get caught up). If this was implemented; however, there would have to be more funding placed on education specifically for the jobs this would add to the system. It would not be a cheap solution.

4. Security

Obviously, with the onslaught of school shootings, school security could be heightened. This is a top topic among parent bloggers, and most of them seem to lean toward Gun Control while others like myself lean toward Mental Health Awareness (see below for links to blog posts). My solution toward the general security is to have a cop on duty at the schools during the school day; more than one for larger schools. This could also include a dog capable of sniffing out bombs and drugs. Bars have bouncers. Banks have security guards. Many restaurants open 24 hours has a cop keeping guard during the wee hours of the night. Where are our priorities here?

If anything, we could start training our teachers to be military cops. Honestly, most teachers I encounter could use a little military basic training on their resume. Most politicians could too. For the character alone. But in all seriousness, we could easily train our teachers some of the following: securing an area; violence readiness; things to look for regarding safety; and self-defense/Marine Corps Martial Arts (as it’s the best for someone who is out muscled, though it all leads to death so maybe tweaked for civilian use and minimal force). The Air Force (with some Marines) can provide the training easier and better than any civilian contract.

.

In addition, this thing looks handy and should be in every classroom. The Sleeve.

http://wnep.com/2014/06/11/an-iowa-teachers-invention-could-save-your-childs-life/

5. High School Curriculum and College Credit

The problem: The playing field is not even. Lower-income children do not have the same opportunities as the wealthy. They are often working while attending college, building up loans they will never be able to pay back, and facing problems like homelessness during the week of finals while people like Mitt Romney gets his tuition paid for by his parents, in cash, without loans, and doesn’t have to work or worry about financial troubles when studying for finals. In addition, when I went to high school, I took honors classes, Calculus, Physics… just so I can do it all over again in college, but this time on my dime. I was so bored in college it was unbelievable. They just repeated my high school, and in many classes, it was easier than high school.

The solution: Make a basic education free for all. In this day and age, a basic education that gets you an entry level job is a Bachelor’s Degree. It would be easier than you think to merge college into our public high schools.

The general education requirements toward a bachelor’s degree generally includes classes like English Comp 1, English Comp 2, a Literature course, a Psychology course, a math course, and two science courses. The high schools already teach these courses, and we could tweak the curriculum to cover the basic necessities for a college to honor those courses as college credit. Each high school class would have to be designed to cover two college courses in the matter of a year. Considering high school usually offers 7 classes in a day while college usually offers 4 at a time to be full time; it’s possible to prepare students with more credits than necessary. Some universities are probably more lenient about giving credit, and I suggest checking with colleges like The University of Wyoming, West Virginia University (they offer a Regents degree based on work experience), and The University of Maryland University (they offer quite a few online programs).  

Then as you get into the upper curriculum geared toward the degree, the schools can shift learning to an individualized online learning system, utilizing computer labs. This is where the government wheels and deals with a college, like University of Maryland University Online, to educate on those programs, or provide a waiver program to pay tuition to a list of colleges a student can choose from. In essence, a high school junior and senior would be taking actual college classes online.   

Students then graduate high school with a high school diploma and Bachelor’s Degree, and the only education they have to pay for is their Master’s or Doctorate if they so choose to do such a thing. If people can gain college credit through portfolios based on work experience and CLEP tests, then I think a high school can offer something more than what is being offered if they just applied themselves.

6. Classroom Arrangement

Studies are showing that kids learn better in a flexible learning environment. One where the classroom is designed more for group activities, problem solving adventures, and collaboration between students and teachers (as opposed to the Victorian classroom settings we use for the most part). I really think this is important for grade school. Middle school has too much bullying and drama for group activity, in my opinion, and should be more of an individualized, learn-at-your-own-pace environment like a lot of private schools who use Lifepacs or Paces. Basically, I think the goal in elementary education should be to get the children to work together to learn; however, middle school’s goal is to keep the children away from each other as much as possible. If you are laughing, it’s only because you know I’m right. I assure you, get middle school kids in a group, and there is less learning and more bullying.

7. Common Core

No parent seems to really be a fan of common core. I think a lot of that is that the parent has yet to be educated fully on what common core means (as I am one of them), but I also think (based on mom bloggers I have read) the schools hastily ran to it without much testing and experimentation on the subject (which is really an ethics issue). Not every kid learns the same as others. A teacher needs the freedom to teach in the manner his/her specific students learn.

“Creating modules that are a scripted nightmare for both the teacher and student is not the answer. You are ruining children. You are killing their spirit. You are making them believe they are dumb because they can’t multiply and divide on the exact day that the module says they should be multiplying and dividing. You are creating a generation of disengaged children who now feel insufficient.” Shannon Styles

Blog Posts About Mass Shootings and Fear of Children’s Safety

Crumpets and Bollocks

http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com/2014/06/im-sick-of-talking-about-guns-without.html

The Bloggess

http://thebloggess.com/2014/04/please-talk-to-your-children-mild-trigger-warning/

High Gloss and Sauce

http://www.chicagonow.com/high-gloss-and-sauce/2014/06/dear-congress-my-kids-should-feel-safe-in-school/

Mary Tyler Mom

She has multiple posts on gun violence demanding gun control

http://www.chicagonow.com/mary-tyler-mom/category/gun-violence-2/

Ups and Downs of a Yoga Mom

http://www.chicagonow.com/ups-and-downs-of-a-yoga-mom/2014/06/dear-congress-please-fix-this-gun-problem/

Life with Penis People

http://lifewithpenispeople.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/1190/

Blogger Shannon Styles is a Mother and Educator

On common core

http://mrsmomblog.com/2013/10/02/how-common-core-is-slowly-changing-my-child/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannon-styles/white-suburban-moms-unite-a-letter-to-arne-duncan_b_4305599.html

On State Assessments

http://mrsmomblog.com/2014/03/29/why-my-children-will-not-take-state-assessments/

On Teacher Evaluations

http://mrsmomblog.com/2013/10/27/teacher-evaluations-and-your-child/

Calling All Parent Bloggers or anyone with an opinion really...

I'm an idiot suffering from Mom Syndrome. Since the onslaught of reproduction, I transpose numbers, and even worse, have poor editing skills. For instance, I leave out important words completely, and I can read it over and over again where my brain reads the omitted word so I don't notice the word is omitted. So when I made a poster for this post that said June 23 instead of July 23, I didn't notice at all and was wondering why nobody was submitting anything. Well now I know. I hope you read this is UPDATED.

I have a project idea I'd like to do. Hear me out please... I need help for it.

What I'd like are blog posts. You can link to them if you already wrote one, or you can publish it on your blog and link to it, or you can just submit something in text and I'll find a place to post it. What I'm looking for?

Education Reform.

Some ideas to focus on:

What would you do to improve the public education system we have in place?

How would you solve some of the major problems that plague us in the public education system?

What topics regarding education are important to you as a parent?

How would you revise the curriculum to improve on what our children NEED to learn? What real life classes do you wish they taught? How would you assess students learning?

I'm going to take a compilation of the posts, and...

1. Give it to a teacher who will be meeting with the first lady and a representative of every state to discuss education in the United States.

2. Give it to various representatives of my state, West Virginia, as well as providing resources for others to submit to their states.

3. Pimp it out to gain awareness and open the platform for discussion about a topic many people seem to want to avoid when it competes against gun control and gay marriage.

IF I get a large enough response, I may provide it as an e-book or a paperback, but I will sell it at cost. This is a non-profit endeavor. I'm just throwing this in there that submitting to this gives me access to your words, copyright stuff, to publish somewhere with full credit to you... possibly in the future because education is that important. You still own the copyright, but I just want permission to re-publish your works in pursuit of improving upon our education system and getting your voice heard.

I'll also link to your blog whenever relevant, and hold your blog at a higher priority in my head in the future when it comes to social media shares and blog reading. This is not only a great opportunity to get your voice about education heard, but also it's a great opportunity for free publicity of your blog.

Deadline: July 23, 2014 

Submission process: 

Email links, or the document itself, to

untouchable.cant.touch.this@gmail.com
Subject: Education Reform

Throw a comment here letting me know you emailed it, in case it goes to spam or social media or something weird and I miss it. I am also a facebook fanatic, so you can also always message the page (click the F on the right, or at the bottom).


THANK YOU! :)

Double Dare: From Idle to Idol

Remember those relay races in grade school? Tell me you guys did this. My kids don't seem to do this at all at their school, the thing where you separate all the kids into two teams and they get in line and take turns running down, around something, back up again to tap the next kid who repeats the process, usually with an egg on the spoon hanging out of their mouth or some idea Double Dare used in their show, and then of course the first team to get all the kids through it wins. What do they win? Bragging rights.

Meanwhile the losers feel like losers. There's always the one mouthy brat blaming the least popular kid on their team for the loss. The kids who win have mixed feelings of "Ha in your face we won it" and "I kind of feel guilty because the losers look so sad." You know, the same feelings you can feel by looking at the face of people who win the reality contests on television like America's Got Talent, or duh duh dummmm American Idol.

The thing with any competition from Olympics to a singing contest, someone is being judged, and all of us are judging them. Really, if these people wanted to receive judgment for their abilities, they could just start going to church.

I told you people I was gangsta. Eye roll please!

Like church, competitions are really a place where MANY of the people judging (NOT ALL) have no room to judge. Just like the little brat blaming the less popular guy, there are people who can't even lace their own ice skates sitting at home telling the television about the professional ice skaters who skate 12 plus hours daily for years, as if watching the movie The Cutting Edge makes them experts.

I'm really not a "competition" type of gal. Don't get me wrong. I'm somewhat competitive, mainly against myself and the smart people from school; oh wait, I am a smart person from school. That explains a lot.

(You just witnessed an epiphany)

But the thing is, competitions generally judge based on popularity or randomness. We the people decide based on what we consider norm, based on our truths that we hold evident. It's not usually based on actual talent or skill. This isn't just reserved for reality television series designed to up ratings by providing the right amount of asshattery to attract viewership. Even scholarships are based on this concept, no matter how hard someone may try to NOT make it about that. It's human nature really. Theoretically, the more you listen to me ramble, the more anyone is going to think, "Why do this? Why bother?"

Because God works in mysterious ways. That's why. Because no matter how much negative hype these competitions receive, people improve as a result of it. People grow through the chaos somehow. People who deserved to win still win because they were part of something. Because the experience helps them adapt and find new ways to succeed. Many find who they are through these things. You will rarely meet people who were part of a competition, who lost, who fell on their face and failed in inappropriate, unimaginable ways, say they wish they never entered the thing in the first place. Very mysterious.

(BTW, I'm totally aware that "Because blah blah blah..." is an incomplete sentence. It's actually a dependent clause. I don't care that I wrote it like a sentence. In my best Icona Pop voice, which kind of sounds like a constipated horse getting fingered in the butt by a veterinarian with a hangnail... 

I don't care. I love it.) 

And the judging, sometimes we need to be judged. Sometimes our self assessments suck. Sometimes we need someone on a high horse to trot into our lives and stir the shit pot in our brains just a little.

I need the shit pot in my brain stirred. Desperately. I'm idle. The car that is running but going nowhere. 

(a lot of phrases there masquerading as sentences)

After all this thinking about quitting this blog,

(read about it here where I explain my current writing style and why it is interfering with my dream of being a superblogger, like a supermodel, but sexier)

I think what I really need to do is get back to the basics. It's kind of like when you are lost in whatever stressful world you are in, a nice hike in the natural elements is sometimes all you need to find your center again. In the world of writing, getting back to the basics is that hike into nature. Basic sentence structure is the dirt and rocks under your feet. Adjectives are the color green you found on that one tree and the crisp you smelled in the air. Story structure is the landscape view you stared in awe at for a few minutes wishing you had a canvas and some paints with you.

I need to get back to the basics to remind myself that I am a writer, not an entertainer. I've been attempting the entertainer role lately, and that's throwing off my game. 

Part of getting back to the basics is assignments. Homework. I need a teacher to assign me tasks and grade me on it. I might of found that teacher. Maybe I didn't. Who knows? But if I get involved in this, I will be forced to get back to the basics. I know for a fact, I will grow from it just like everyone else who gets involved in these things do. It's not my usual style, but sometimes we must venture out of our comfort zone to discover something we couldn't find otherwise.

BLOGGER IDOL

As created by the amazing My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream

What can you win? They have some prizes worth money that sound neat, but what can you win? Have you been reading? The internets. Duh. No, you can win something more amazing than the prizes they advertise.

You COULD win

Self Actualization. 

How cool would that be to win some personal growth and self-fulfillment? Provided by people who obviously transcended. 

Thank you people for transcending.  

Maybe it's not in the stars for me. I can't imagine why these people would ever pick me for it honestly. So I'm kind of going into this as "If God wants me to do it, it will happen, but most likely, it won't happen because it would take an act of God to make it happen."

This contest is designed for good writers. I suck at writing. If you read my blog at all, you should know this. I can dish out an article about how to wear your ankle boots (I have never worn a pair of ankle boots in my entire life, shhhhh don't tell anyone) that will pass editor's approval, but I wrote alongside people who didn't speak English as a first language, so I kind of had that advantage. Yes I can write in that sense. But when it comes to "should I write a book?" maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I would be the Taylor Swift of writing where the only reason I'd ever make it in this world is because I used a gimmick like emotional appeal (I'd probably have to use a different gimmick). Toni Morrison, I am not.

You would never believe I read Toni Morrison, TS Eliot, and Goethe by reading what I write. 

Speaking of TS Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock asks, "Do I dare? And, do I dare?"

"Do I dare disturb the universe?"

Do you?

I say I DOUBLE DARE myself. If you blog at all, I double dare you to join me.

In fact, if you would rather, or if you don't make it in the top 12 to go with it, throw me a message and we'll do it too but not IN it. We can do the assignments with them and critique each other, even if we are a step behind them.

Regardless of who you are, you should check it out. Looking at some of the archived posts, it appears you vote as well. Regardless, I'm sure watching it will provide some amazing reads, and you may find another blogger who you idolize enough to subscribe to their posts.

In conclusion,

And if you are going to do it, you might as well do it well.

Ok. That's more about sex than blogging, but LL. Eye Candy. You're welcome.

Chaos. Blogging. More Chaos.

Maybe it's the season. Maybe it's the school back in session and our bodies kind of naturally go into this whole, "Stop having fun it's time to actually work" mode. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's just me. But at least I'm not the only one. Nikki from Moms Who Drink and Swear went through it, and it's actually her blog post that's helping me get through it.

This is her post... http://www.chicagonow.com/moms-who-drink-and-swear/2013/08/blogging-is-monetizing-your-blog-worth-the-price-of-your-dignity/

Yes, I'm re-thinking why do I even blog? What's the point? Like should I even bother keeping this thing going at all?

Maybe I should first explain the frustration. I need to face the fact eventually. The blog part of what I do online, and the Facebook page, the bulk of my time online, is not actually work. It's not a job. There's no money it. I don't want there ever to be money in it. I don't want to write about Pampers diapers and Citizen Watches. I once had a job doing that. I enjoyed it as jobs go, but as writing goes, I didn't. This blog was suppose to free me from that.

And with 3 kids, 6 and under, where I don't get much time away from them, I often feel like this blog distracts me from them, and they distract me from this blog. Like I'm just a distracted hot mess all damn day, every day, until the vodka kicks in and things make sense, and I'm not an alcoholic enough to drink vodka daily, so my life makes sense about twice a month.

For instance, I am now talking about a broken butterfly light up thing with my 3 year old. We just spent 5 minutes of her telling me in 20 different ways this butterfly light up thing is broken, it's now the one that belongs to her sister, I should get her sister a new one, her sister didn't like this one because it's broken. And she loves me. Meanwhile I'm watching the clock like a hawk because it's almost time to wake kids up for school. I want to squeeze in as much of this now before the day gets me, but apparently, I won't be posting this before 8AM. Do you think I have any idea what the hell I was saying? Nope. Reread....

Nevermind, oh wait, I can re-read.

Nope. She needs stuff now, in her house she made me build at 6:30AM, with blankets and stepstools in my living room because the step stools belong in the middle of the living room.

Now she peed herself.

Oh yeah, I was blogging. Let me try to reread again what I was writing. Oh yeah, so my life is frustrating and I'm frequently distracted. You know that blog I wrote about Miley? I did that half asleep in the middle of the night, somewhat tipsy, and I stopped to get some juice and get a blanky and hit a play button and what not. When I finally read the blog I wrote for the first time where I'm in a mind frame to understand what i was reading, which was days after I posted, like hundreds of people read this blog that I wrote before I read it, it wasn't the point I was really trying to get across. Not really even that close to it. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I was outraged over something I do. I twerk. I shake my ass. I don't play with my lady junk with my mop sucking on the tip of it, ewww, but I do dance provocatively with my mop. I think I mostly felt bad for Miley because she just looked like a crack head. Her rhythm was a little off, not like she's white and can't find rhythm off, but more like she was on some drugs and wanted to move faster than the song was going. It made her look desperate or something, but anyway, did I write about that? Nope.

Update: The 3 year old finished getting stuff in her house.

So basically I'm saying I have no idea what the fuck I'm saying on this thing half the time. For real, there are Facebook statuses I don't remember making. I take a minute to start something, and before I can finish, the kids send me off to their Wonderland by the time I come back, I don't know which way is up or down. It makes me wordy because I forget all my original thoughts and points, so I come up with new ones. This happens so many times I end up with 17 different blog posts into one. I have no idea if it makes any sense. By the time you read the same paragraph 27 times in a row, it looks like it's in another language. Yeah, that works. Whatever. Post it. If I don't post it now, it will just sit in drafts like the hundreds of half written posts sitting there.

Update: I just helped her take off a camel back. It's her dads. I guess it's her Dora Backpack because camouflage is so much better than sparkly purple DORA one. This actually makes me proud my daughter chose camouflage over sparkles.

Now she's trying to take the whole thing apart. I'm sure I won't be smart enough to figure out how to put it back together. Shit it's getting close to waking kids up time...

So, instead of re-reading because I forget what I was saying... hold on again...

I am now wishing she chose sparkles over camouflage and why? The sparkle one has one compartment to open and shut with velcro and that's it. No 50 places that zip and snap. This isn't a back pack. This is a toddler activity center.

Ok, so oh yeah, I was going to just get to the original thing i was thinking about when I first started this post, and I forget what it was. Nevermind. I guess what I'm trying to say is this isn't easy for me to post shit. It's distracting. And why do I do it? Because I am amazed if I make enough sense for people to want to come back to read, and who am I doing this for?

See, like this a normal blogger internal battle. What's the point of blogging it if no one reads it? But do I really want to blog for you, the reader? Or am I blogging for myself?

I just took off her backpack.

Because if I blog for you, then I go crazy trying to figure out what you want, from the topic to the writing style, to the level of snark to the kind of humor... Since I have no idea what you want because most of you won't tell me if I ask, it's trial and error. And even then, there will always be 5 people in every thousand who make absolutely no motherfucking sense. Like the 2 page unlikes from the Good Morning facebook status. It's like, "Excuse the fuck out of me for trying to wish you a good morning." They didn't just hide the post. Nope they had to unlike the page AFTER hiding the post. According to Facebook. Then I lose my purpose being the fan bitch. I then become that blogger who has no sincerity, who is only writing to appeal to other people, who is focused on marketing and PR.... Just to get a fan base to appear popular to who? My own ego?

IF I write for myself, then it's like why bring you into it? I mean, some of this sucks. My brain is weird. Some of it you are like, "Awesome, she's so weird." and other times it's like, "Damn she sucks, she's so weird."

She is now asking me about a sewing thing. What is it? I don't know. DO I look like June Cleaver. It's a device from the sewing kit... Now she wants juice...

Whatever I was saying, I originally approached this post in two parts. One part, explain my issues. I didn't get to do that well. Some of the things I was thinking about with that, I totally forget. I'm sure I'll remember days after I post this. Maybe I'll update at the bottom if that happens. The second part, the main point I have yet to get to, the one I almost totally forgot about making, I wanted to sit here and remind myself why I started to blog in the first place. I don't really remember what I was thinking. I know there were a lot of variables. What were they? What would I want from this now?

And now I have to wake kids up for school...

The experience was common. The multi-tasking doesn't stop with the blog. That's how I also don't find a hair brush, you know spending over a half hour looking for a hair brush which includes wiping 2 butts, plunging a toilet, finding a teddy bear, and stuff to not find a brush at all and send the kids to school with bedhead so we can be on time thinking to myself, "You know, if you didn't blog, you could have been looking for that hair brush instead, wait, like I knew to look for a hair brush before I needed a hair brush knowing exactly where two hair brushes are located, I wonder if the kids are hiding these brushes on purpose?"

The trip in the car consisted of conversations I don't remember, and then I had a kid scared to go (Kindergarten), then a man with reconstructed legs walked by

and the 3 year old needed help with a buckle to a toddler chair she's way too old for.

So as I was saying... well, I forget what I was going to say, so the trip home was a quiet time of reflection where I thought about how math and love are two universal languages and how they are so different and are there any more universal languages? And maybe my problem is I don't know how to keep it real anymore. No wait, the problem is as I've grown up, I've realized Schrodinger's cat is true in a metaphorical way to everything about life. Real quick, for the popular people who have yet to venture this far into nerdom, Schrodinger's cat is a popular example about how quantum mechanics works. Basically, this guy stuck a hypothetical cat (not a real one, no animals were injured in this THOUGHT experiment), in a box with some sort of device contrived to where if the cat hits a button, poison emits and kills the cat. You close the box. Seal it. Wait a bit. Is the cat alive or dead? Did it die of poison? Or is it chilling fully healthy and hungry. Did it die of some other cause? You don't really know looking at the box, but in quantum mechanics, all the possibilities are what's happening at once. That cat is alive and dead.

she needs out now. She also had wax fangs in her mouth, haha funny, and she removed them to tell me she wants bigger teeth. Then...

Wait, she's asking about her feet on her house.

OK, she went into a long story about her teeth will get loose, fall out, her daddy will lose her teeth, and she will need gold teeth that I must buy for her.

So, wait... She loves me. OK, so hold on. She's not done yet. Yes she is...

So, what was I saying? Schrodinger's cat. Why was I talking about his cat? Oh, yeah. So all the possibilities are happening at the same time until you find out otherwise. So I started thinking about life like this, without meaning to, like without making the association to some pussy until this morning in the car ride home which lasted all of 5 minutes.

Something is broken and has no light. Do not make me hook up those headphones to the xbox child?

Basically, like is Zimmerman guilty? No. But before we knew the court's decision on that no, he was both guilty and not guilty and neither guilty nor not guilty at the same time. If you think about it, in many ways he is guilty. In many ways, he is not. In many ways he should be guilty even though nothing illegal actually occurred. In many ways he is still a threat even though he isn't that threatening... Another example. Does my husband love me? He does. and he doesn't. He also hates me. All at once. It's pretty easy to have a series of contrasting emotions toward everyone. Life is a gray area, not because it's black and white, but because it's black and white.

Then I got home and made the kid ice cream, for breakfast, of which she had one small bite of. Because she's allergic to milk and soy, I was excited to give her ice cream for breakfast because for the first time in over a year, my Walmart started selling Coconut Milk based ice cream again. After licking the scoop clean, I have decided that shit would be the bomb with some rum and chocolate sauce. Like that's my next mudslide. I might post it some day as a recipe, Pitorro Mudslide.

Wait I must watch this. She is super fast and jumpy and tripped over, she's okay, yes I'm watching my dear. Awesome. You're welcome. Please just watch Dora. Ok, I'll give you a hug. Watch Dora.

Awww. Yes Daddy is not here. He's at work. I love you too.

This is why I don't have sex anymore...

She didn't make a bubble. It didn't pop. It didn't go in her mouth. Thank you child for telling me this 3 times in a row.

OK, what was this blog about? Why do I blog or why did I start one or why would I continue? Something like that. Let's just start putting out numbers before I forget again...

1. My facebook statuses were getting entirely too long.

2. Everyone has been telling me I should blog for years now. The first group of people were in a Catholic Forum as their nice way of telling me my posts are too long, put it on a blog and keep it out of their forum. At least they were kind about it. Because there's kind insults and not-so-kind insults ... Well we'll pretend they just thought I was so smart and thoughtful that I should blog like the people on my Facebook who kept saying I'm so funny I should blog. I'm only funny on MY Facebook apparently.

3. I really needed something that was mine. Something that gave me ME TIME. To reflect and think about shit.

4. I quit that one job where I was getting paid to write, and it burned me out. This is a great way to get me writing again. Best thing, I can fuck up my grammar, mispell words (notice I misspelled mispell?),

her teeth is starting to fall. She has to say this 3 times. She needs a blanky. It's lost. NOW I find a hair brush. Eye roll please!  While I'm up, after a cup of coffee and 2 energy drinks, I guess now is a great time to break the seal right?

And some other third thing... Oh yeah, I can say the fuck word on this blog.

5. It is very therapeutic to vent about stuff. It's also very therapeutic to reflect on life and remind myself to grow up once in a while. Like I can start writing out a huge rant about how motherhood sucks, and before I'm finished, I remembered how much I love my kids and how much it's all really worth it. If I didn't take the time to bitch about it, I could easily get stuck in a rut of pissed offness. It's really hard to hide impatience from the children.

6. It would be cool to write some articles about things I read about with parenting, but not as boring, something more entertaining. Like my recipes. Like take a boring subject and make it interesting. That was really easier said than done in retrospect.

7. I should probably write about autism. I'm having a lot of success with my kid and nephew on the spectrum. A lot of these mom bloggers who have a kid on the spectrum and are not on the spectrum themselves seem horribly lost. Some of the things they say down right piss me off. I won't comment on their blog about it because it's their blog, and while they may be wrong about autism, I still like them as human beings, and what would I accomplish to question their thoughts invalidating their feelings? I'd make them more lost, which doesn't help their children at all. In fact, if I'm too rude in an autistic like manner, they might resent autism all together including their child's. A lot of them already do resent autism. Maybe it's time i share my opinion from an informative light on my own blog right?


I think that covers some of the basic reasons as to why I started blogging outside "well everyone else is doing it why not?" and "oh look, some of these women are finding a new career from it. Maybe I won't be making any book deals, but this thing could take me somewhere I didn't expect to go, some place I can call a career when the kids are in school and I'm ready to work again seeing how I'm pretty sure McDonalds won't even hire me after 10 years of not working."

What do I want from this blog? Moms Who Drink and Swear said this in her post on this subject... "It was always about the connection, the community." That's my issue. I feel disconnected.

Nikki (Moms who Drink and Swear) goes on...

"Most bloggers I knew were struggling to find the balance between nurturing their community and generating quality content with the need to please the almighty gods of page views, advertisers and sponsors by sacrificing the soul of their blog.

It didn’t used to be this way, and in my experience, this kind of thing causes a rift within the various blogging communities, tapping into the greatest fear of a writer – the fear that our words won’t connect us with others, that nobody will care about what we write, that we will be harshly judged, that we simply aren’t good enough."

That's it. What do you do when you say Fuck SEO. Fuck money. Fuck product reviews. Fuck branding yourself? What if you write to connect with people and you find you are still not connecting? That your real words don't connect you with others? That your sincerity isn't good enough?

That's where I am at. I don't think I'm connecting because I'm

she just fell. Yeah, it's time to trash the high chair. I was going to give that away but apparently a kid cut the strap for the legs so now it's trash. She's ok. She didn't want out for a hug or anything. She demanded I put it (with her in it) in a specific place, and then I handed her the blanky and teddy for her to throw it back onto the floor to cry, "You didn't hand me my stuff." So I could pick it all up again and hand it to her because I can't totally pin-point her crazy but it's like a mixture of sociopath and autism. Like she wants to control me to get her her things, but also her brain is stuck on a specific process that if you screw it up at all, you have to start over.

That's why. I don't feel like I'm connecting because I'm distracted. I just don't make sense to anyone including myself. I am a Van Gogh painting of an MC Escher drawing sitting in the middle of a realism exhibit.

Now the phone rings...

I think at this point, I'm just going to blog when I feel like it, and I'm going to post half written blogs that have no end, like wherever I stop is where I stop. While a part of me is saying, "Just stop blogging. Just focus on the kids and this house," I know I will get lost in the kids and house. I need a me-something in my life. One I can do while watching the kids. And it goes against the mantra I'm trying to accept and follow.

Embrace the chaos.

There's my name again. Mommy. The three year old. Yes baby, I love you too.

If this disconnects me from you guys, sorry. I'm just not connected. My dots are floating around and they are not in numerical order. There is no connecting them. If this is one of the biggest fears a writer must face, why the hell not. I have been forced to face every one of my biggest fears in the last couple years, and you know what? I'm not afraid anymore. Embrace the chaos also means, love that which you fear. All of the best things in life are scary at first. Motherhood for instance.

If you have no idea what the fuck I just said, and you read this to here thinking, "Wow I so just wasted my time." Don't walk away empty handed. If you get anything from this, it's that you should too try to embrace the chaos because if you keep putting things in alphabetical order so everyone can mess it all up, you're going to lose your mind.

And the three year old needs help. Nevermind. She did it herself.



P.S. I'm posting this blog post. I will read it some other day to see if it makes sense.