Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

As much as I love Dick Van Dyke, I just cannot bring myself to like this movie.

For some strange reason, I’d never seen it as a kid, and thus my first viewing was that of a cynical 40 year old, which may have something to do with it. My husband was stunned that I’d never watched it and insisted on telling me what a great movie it was.   Look, he said, it has a three and half star rating!  That’s one half off of a four star, so there was no way it could be bad.

Don’t believe the hype.

There are so many plot holes the mind simply boggles. And know it is an unfair comparison, but Sally Ann Howes?  The poor man’s Julie Andrews.  I told my husband there was a reason Julie is a household name and good old whatshername isn’t.  Listening to her caterwaul around her country estate in her fake hair for what seems like eternity about how she loves this guy she just barely met makes me want to throw the remote at the television.  A billion times.

The name Truly Scrumptious and all of the horrible songs about it that pepper the entire movie are JUST WRONG.  There should not be a famous movie with a character named Truly Scrumptious in it.  Hmmph.

The irony is my daughter adores all of the musical numbers in this thing, and I have had to endure them an untold amount of times.

Is there a classic children’s movie that you know you are supposed to like, but don’t?

Maybe it is due to the year-round termperate weather where I live, but not a single one of you uses your garage as a rec/play room.  I suppose though, that we don’t have basements where I live either, so that might have something to do with it.  45% of you keep your car in the garage, mostly due to weather issues, and 33% just have “stuff.”  A couple I know keeps their $60,000+ car in the driveway so that they can keep their $5,000 (max) amount of stuff in the garage.  This, it makes no sense to me.  22% do not have a garage, and in a way, you are lucky because they are junk magnets, to be sure.  My husband was so proud of himself for clearing the garage this weekend and we actually have one of our cars inside of it! Whoo hoo!  Well, for him, anyway…

Today I want to find out how you feel about cleaning your home.

Of course I don’t mean that only nutjobs homeschool, because then of course, I would be implying that I myself am one.

Well, maybe I am and I just don’t know it.

Making the decision to homeschool was one of the most difficult I’ve yet to make as a parent.  There is such a stigma surrounding the whole process, and in talking to people, I found that many had the impression that people who homeschooled were sort of odd, or anarchist-leaning,  or crazy, or religious, or some sort of combination of all four. 

But the reality is that there are as many types of families who homeschool as there are in any school setting.  It would be nice and easy to label homeschooling families as nuts or weirdos, but I’ve found in my dealings with the homeschooling community that there aren’t really many of those around.  It is entirely possible that I haven’t been looking hard enough, though.

For whatever reason, the formal school system wasn’t working for their children and their families, and so they decided to be proactive about it.   Say what you will about homeschoolers, but they are obviously not an apathetic bunch.

I cannot even begin to tell you how our lives are different now that we are homeschooling the Munchkin.  The freedom that this type of situation brings to a family is amazing.  To say that I am stress-free would not be true, as I have a toddler after all, but I am actually much less stressed than when he was attending school.  

I must admit that I am fortunate to have a student who “gets it” on the first try.  There is not a whole lot of explaining to do when it comes to math or reading, and when we hit a bump in the road we quickly address it, conquer it, and move on.  I have a newfound appreciation for how special and unique my son is, and even if he decides to go back to regular school next year, it will have been worth it just for that alone.

So if you are on the fence about homeschooling, I would seriously advise you to give it a try.  You just might like it.

65% of you say that if people are willing to pay more for child-free flights, if offered, then godspeed to them.  23% find it discriminatory, and 10% of people with kids would fly it themselves if they could.  To be honest, the child-hating trend that is out there right now concerns me a bit.  I mean, it is one thing to have smoke-free flights because second hand smoke is dangerous to your health.  Are we really lumping children into a similar category?  I could possibly embrace a child-free section of the airplane. 

Today I’ve got a personal question for you.  Well, it’s a personal question for me, to be honest.  My family, including grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. is going to have a formal picture taken by a professional photographer.  Formal meaning that we are going to be all lit up nicely and all that jazz that comes with a professional.  Now, the rub is that we don’t know how to have everyone dress.  We are actually quite a small family, and the total number of people is going to be 16.  Should we dress in a color-coordinated way?  Casual? Semi-casual? Semi-formal outfits for everyone and color matching be damned?  Everybody wearing essentially the same outfit?  We are at a loss, and turn to the wise members of the Manolosphere for help.

photo via

Last Friday was the Munchkin’s last day of “real” school.

Yes, I did the unthinkable.  At least, based on the reactions of almost everyone around me, I did the unthinkable.

What I really did was enroll the Munchkin in a school-at-home program run by the education department in my county.  So he still uses state-approved textbooks and a state-approved curriculum, it is just that he no longer attends a public school and I am his teacher.

I want to talk about  the way everyone acted when I told them he would no longer be attending public school and instead schooling at home.  I got everything from a “Good for you” (the tiny minority) to a long and dramatic “Ooooooooooh-kaaaaay” (the vast majority).  When my husband went to pick him up early one day during his last week, the secretaries, unaware of who my husband was, were actually gossiping about it at the front desk as he walked up! 

This was not a decision made lightly.  My husband and I have actually been pondering the idea for at least two years now.  I can’t tell you how many people have such a negative view of schooling at home, which I think in large part comes from a vision of a brood of children hunched over Bible verses instead of math books, but that is a story for another time.  A large part of our putting it off was based on how much people told us that it was a horrible thing to do, both to our son and to our sanity as parents.

But then it finally came to a point where I knew the Munchkin was losing interest in school. It was a fight every morning to get him out the door.  He was bored. He’s eight!  He has no business being uninterested in learning.  I figured I could never forgive myself if there was something I could have done to reginite that love of learning he used to have and used social conventions as my excuse to not do it.  We have done it at this point in the year on purpose, as the bulk of the year is over, and if for some reason the whole thing is an unmitigated disaster, he will not have lost much in the way of curriculum. 

I found the county-run program we are enrolled in almost by accident, but now I’m pretty sure there are no such things as accidents.  If you are considering taking the leap into schooling at home, but are intimidatd by thinking you have to do it on your own, it is well worth to check if your school district or county runs their own programs.  We meet with a teacher once every three weeks to check his progress, they gave me almost a thousand dollars worth of textbooks, and they have tons of field trips (much more than regular school) as well as computer, language, and music classes!  He will still take the state standards test, and he is given a report card, just like “real” school!

He always has the option to go back to public school if he wants to.  This is not something we are mandating, but a family decision that is flexible and committed to the best outcome for all involved.

We are only in day two of schooling at home, and I am still sort of getting the hang of it, as is the Munchkin.  But suffice to say that when we complete three day’s worth of work in one hour, I can’t help but feel vindicated.

This is a bona-fide exchange between my second-grader and his teacher:

Teacher: Class, when you are coloring your dinosaurs, don’t use purple or blue.

Munchkin: But, why?

Teacher: Because there were no blue or purple dinosaurs.

Munchkin: But how would anyone know if there were no purple or blue dinosaurs if there was no one around to see them?

Teacher:  Because…just…don’t color them blue or purple, OK?

Jesus Christ on a stick, what is with this school district and their issues with coloring? Coloring!

If only they put as much energy into addressing the kid in my son’s class (keep in mind this is 2nd grade) who still throws himself on the floor (in class!) during a tantrum, which apparently happens when he gets in trouble.  Which is much too often for my comfort.

Last week I asked how you would feel about vacationing with extended family, and 53% of you categorized it as possibly pleasant.  Which is technically indecisive because only 14% said it would be great.  31% are of the mindset that it would basically be akin to torture, and it’s good to have those that are brutally honest with themselves.

Today I’ve got a question for you that oddly enough, I’ve never asked on this parenting-centric blog.

Much ado is being made about Amy Chua’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Tell us how you really feel, Ms. Chua.

I have to say upfront that I truly know nothing about Chinese parenting methods, and the little I do know comes from reading Amy Tan novels.  Which could possibly be the same as nothing.

But what strikes me about the article is the strident nature of Ms. Chua’s superiority.  And in a sense, I suppose she is correct in saying her parenting style has produced results.  Her daughter has apparently played piano at Carnegie Hall, which is a wonderful accomplishment. My son, on the other hand, has played the tambourine (badly) for an audience comprised solely of his baby sister. So I suppose she is at least one up on me there.

She does say that the term “Chinese mother” does not necessarily apply only to people of Chinese ancestry, but is rather describing a certain parenting style.  This is opposed to “Western parenting” which she says can also be anyone of any ancestry.

That being said, I fall firmly in the Western category, and I’m not ashamed of it.

I cannot bring myself to dictate to my son what his interests should or shouldn’t be.  Ms. Chua states that she only allowed her daughters to study piano or violin, no other instruments were considered.  I can’t imagine doing that to my son.  I mean, I might be depriving the world of a world-class tambourine player if I did so.

This part of her story, though, did resonate with me:

First, I’ve noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

I think she might have a little something there.  It is possible that Western parents are too worried about self-esteem.  I mean, hello everybody-gets-a-trophy sports!

The way in which she describes going about motivating her youngest child to master a particularly different piano piece, however, seem a bit over the top to me.   But, a book needs to be sold, does it not?

But that must be the sloth mother in me.

I’m going to overcome my weak Western parenting style, ASAP.

Tambourine practice, seven days a week.  I hope the Munchkin is ready for it.