Happy Birthday Princess
Originally uploaded by JayMonster.
You forever changed the course of my life when you decided to make your world debut 6 years ago.
Six Years Ago? Really? It just doesn’t seem right.
In some ways, I can’t believe it is six years ago ALREADY. Time has seemed to fly by so fast. Wasn’t I just getting up for your 3 AM feedings last week? Weren’t you just learning to walk yesterday? Can it really be three years since you donned that Cinderella outfit for Halloween?
In other ways, it is hard to believe that you are ONLY six years old. Your maturity and kindness to friends and others make you far wiser than your years. The insight you have, and your reasoning and logic tell me that you are far more mature than six. You have already started to blossom so much as a person I am some times scared.
But six years old you are today, and I guess I had better not blink, because who knows how old you will be when my eyes open again.
Taking on the School Board
I admit it, I am a bit nervous, but will not deter me from fighting against a school board that has already show the level of silly decisions they will make.
The new battle that I am going to undertake is the Board of Educations attempt to put uniforms in our public schools. Now it is easy enough for me to point to the fact that there is Supreme Court precedent in Tinker et al. v. Des MoinesIndependent Community School District et al. that the Board of Education can not impede on a students freedom of expression. But I do not have the kind of money that afford to make a (literally) Federal case out of this and challenge it to the Supreme Court. Besides, if I can not get an immediate injunction pending the outcome of the case, my daughter will probably be long out of the school system by the time this case is completed.
I am appreciative that Kathy Howe, gave me a starting point for my arguements with an excellent list of reasons that school uniforms are a bad idea. This is very helpful, because I am so steamed about this. Not just about the school uniforms themselves (though that would be bad enough), but the way the school is trying to just shove this program down our throats.
It is obvious that they have been working on this idea for a while, because they have already budgeted $40,000 of taxpayer money so they can “provide” the first shirt for each kid “free” to “ease” the bugetary strain on parents. Pause a momment and re-read that sentence. Let the irony of it settle in and have a good laugh. (For the dense among us, which includes apparently my hometown school board: TAXING us so that we you can “give” us a shirt, does not make it FREE!)
Now any time while they were considering this assinine move, they could have solicited feedback from parents. But in an attempt to ensure there is little to no time for people that do not like the idea to band together (or give people enough time to actually THINK about it before redering an opinion), they opt to wait until JUNE to spring this on parents for this fall. The school year is almost over. Most if not all PTA meeting at local schools are done for the year, leaving precious little time and ability for parents to congregate and together discuss the pros and cons of proposal. No they wait until June to have an informational meeting on the subject to “get parental feedback.” What feedback are they looking for? They have already budgeted this program into the next years plans. This is nothing but a Cover Your Ass meeting, so that when people finally look at this program and complain, they can say, “well you had an opportunity to speak up.”
Next, they release the information aboout the program to the local papers. In an attempt to garner support for the program in advance, the primary reasons provided are the “picking on kids” who “can not afford” designer clothers, and… wait… get ready for this… “safety” and, the most laughable of all, “being able to ID the kids”
Let’s start with the easiest (and silliest) reason, “being able to ID the kids.” They would be THE SMALL PEOPLE that are in the school. Are adults (presumably ones short enough to fit in grammar school seats), sneaking into school for an afternoon of Social Studies?
When you look out over the schoolyard, are you not able to identify the pedophile offering the kid candy from students playing together, unless you can identify them by the shirt they are wearing? Perhaps then your problems go beyond what a uniform can solve. But this also brings us to the issue of “safety”. What does a single colored shirt and pair of khaki pants keep our children safe from? Abduction? Will the child wearing a uniform make it easier to spot an abductor? Every study that uses the words “safety” and “uniforms” together discuss one thing. SECONDARY SCHOOL. Using excuses like “Columbine” as an example where children were selected “for the clothes they wore” they try and argue that somehow the tragedy at Columbine High School wouldn’t have happened if they where wearing uniforms. First of all does that really make sense to anybody? If they didn’t pick out the students they were targeting “by their clothes” (which of course is impossible to prove in the first place) they would have picked them out by some other factor. The “reasons” these kids when on this spree (as published an publicized) was that they were outsiders that were not well liked by other groups. A uniform would not have lead them to suddenly NOT be outsiders. Cliques still form whether or not a uniform is worn in the school. But before I wander too far off here, “safety” is also associated with the removal of “gang colors” from schools, again something far more prevalent in High Schools than in Grammar schools.
Now again, using “examples” like Columbine, they try to tell people that kids get picked on because their parents can not afford to buy them the latest trendy clothes. First of all, I live in a completely middle class town. There is nobody wearing Prada to school here. For the most part clothes are very similar in quality, whether from The Children’s Store, Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart or other similar type of store, there is very little different except the tastes of the children and parents that buy the clothes. Second, some kids admittedly can be cruel and enjoy picking on other kids. But the problem is, these same kids will pick on whatever they can find. If it isn’t the clothes, then it is the shoes, the haircut, the backpack, how fat a kid is, how skinny a kid is, and so on. Teaching people to get along goes much further to solving that situation than a uniform does.
But of course, the school board is trying to use parents fears to justify this Draconian practice of turning our children into little matching drones, that all look and act alike in a very Gattaca kind of setting.
I this saying I am nervous. The reason I am nervous, is first of all that I am afraid that I am the only one that is seeing through this farce, or at least seeing it in time to make a difference. I am also afraid of failing my daughter if I can not get them to see the error of their ways. (Sometimes I wish I could just close my eyes and be ignorant and/or complacent, but I am just not wired that way.)
Advise, suggestions and opinions are greatly appreciated. Just don’t bother to try and sell me the “benefits” of uniforms.
The Birthday Party
What can I say, the birthday party was a grand success. All the kids had a great time, nobody wanted to go home, and I didn’t have to clean up after them.
It wound up being 12 girls and not 16 as originally anticipated, which saved me a few dollars, which I am always grateful for, and there were more than enough happy smiling faces to keep LatteGirl entertained the whole time.
It was interesting watching her in this setting, as it required some balance on her part. First she had her friends from school, then she had friends that date back to her Pre-K, and her cousin (who also happened to go to the Pre-K but was a year ahead). She was forced to try and balance her time between the groups, and make conversation as well as ensure she played with everybody. I did not interfere in any way (nor did the wife), and we just watched as she masterfully may her way back and forth between everybody. We were both quite impressed with her apparent social skills that we admittedly did not think she had quite mastered yet. Proved us wrong.
She is growing up so fast. I spend as much time with her as I can, and still I feel like sometimes I am missing so much. Am I not watching close enough? Where is my little baby girl and who is this maturing young lady that seems to have replaced her?
More photos are up on my Flickr Account.
Dance Recital
What can I say, but wow was I really impressed and surprised by the events of the evening.
When LatteGirl was in Pre-K she took a little dance class that was an extra activity (meaning $$$) at the school. Twice a year they had a little recital. It was cute, but the kids didn’t learn a heck of a lot, and while it was great in the “aww how cute” factor, other than seeing you child perform, there was not much to see.
So naturally, for her first dance recital, I was not expecting too much more. First of all, LatteGirl was staring to show some indications of stage fright earlier in the day (but she seemed to calm herself as the day went along), and second, the school had had a recital for other classes the previous evening, so I thought a quick hour in and out, take some photos and home. This was not the case.
Each class had to numbers to perform, once ballet and one tap. There were about 8 different classes, from 3 year olds to high school seniors that all performed some pretty impressive numbers, and the show was a solid 2-1/2 hours long, and completely enjoyable. The only real drawback was that the show started at 7:30 PM and by 10PM when the show was ending, the little ones (including LatteGirl) were pretty wiped out. They probably could and should have started this a bit earlier.
She is currently looking forward to taking dance classes again in the fall, but this much I have learned, what is true in the spring may not be true in the fall, and I will have to wait to see if she is really still interested. But if the smiles and sheer joy she exhibited at this recital is any indication, I think she will be back. And I look forward to seeing her dance again.
Start Of Something New
No, this is not a post about the release of High School Musical
No this something new, is my renewed effort to lost weight, get healthy and ensure I am around when LatteGirl gets married someday… way off in the future. After reading some information about it, and some interesting reviews (a couple of them can be found here and here) , I decided that I am going to give The Shangri-La Diet a shot, and give not only a review but a lowdown of what I think of it as I go along.
A lot to recap from weekends events but not enough time at present to do it justice, so I will have to wait until later for that. Suffice it to say for the momment that everything went as well or better than planned.
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