Cold

Yeah - the arctic can keep it's air, thank you very much.

Although, I took the recycling out today in knit pants and a sweater and said to myself "this isn't so bad - they canceled school for this?" 

Then I decided my brain must be frozen.

Conjured a spirit

It's like writing about the principal Jacob was so scared of must have conjured up some bad mojo.  I got a call from Jacob's teacher today that he got into a little bit of trouble.  Apparently they use this card flip system (I say "apparently" halfway through the school year because Jacob has never had the need to bring up their classroom behavior management system before) and Jacob went from green to yellow and then in Spanish class - to red.

What are the horrors that happen at Red?  You have to spend 5 minutes of your recess talking to the teacher and "debriefing" about what happened.  OMG!  Tragedy!

Well, I guess Jacob got really upset, didn't eat lunch, stayed out in the hallway, wouldn't talk to the teacher, the (different and seemingly very friendly) principal, or the guidance counselor.

So, I'm at a loss.  On the one hand - Yay!  He doesn't like to be in trouble (which is a good thing, right?).  OTOH - he freaked out about a relatively minor consequence.  Like, is that so terrible?  Why all the anxiety?

He hardly bats an eye at consequences at home.  In fact, he often weighs them against his behavior ("hum..... this is super fun, but is it no-minecraft-for-the-rest-of-the-weekend fun?"); so I know he doesn't harbor some secret fear of getting in trouble with us when he gets home from school.

And since he's in trouble at school relatively infrequently, I had hoped he'd simply outgrown this.  Or, maybe now that he knows getting in trouble at his new school does not mean the world comes spinning to a stop - the next time won't be as bad?  I dunno. 

Sometimes I think it might be nice to take some traits in the kids and average them.  Like - subtract a little "trouble anxiety" from Jacob and give it to Allison.  In exchange, take some of the "Oh is that all?  No biggie" from Allison and give it to Jacob. 

dinner humor

I realized something at dinner tonight - a small bit of broccoli goes a long way when you have to pick the kids servings out around the offending broccoli.  That leaves ALL the broccoli for you.

Then Jacob said the following: "I bet it's not as good as Daddy's, because Daddy is a chef and you are obviously not."

(I think it would have been ok without the "obviously" in there).

And then this description from Jacob: "There were four drops.  One was short.  One was long.  One was longer.  And one was the longest."

A-hole, yes; Criminal.... idk

A letter came home today that the principal of Allison's school is going to trial for his role in the teacher abuse that happened at the school in 2011.  It's a long and weird story that I won't rehash here (you can Google it).

But the man was first suspected of wrong-doing in 2011 and suspended.  Then found to not have committed criminal wrong-doing and was reinstated.  Then charges were refiled in 2013 on the wrong-doing, and he was NOT suspended (on the assumption that they would also be dropped).  Now they are going to trial in 2014 and he's "reassigned."  I think one difference this time is that it's him and not him + his boss + the superintendent + the district.

I STRONGLY dislike this principal - just go back and read the post from when he suspended Jacob.  I think he's a bully and an a**.  I am totally not sad to see him leave the school and I support his removal as principal in general.  I mean, really - your role in reporting abuse of students has to be "criminal" before you are not allowed to be Principal?  I think there can be a level below "criminal" which is still "not fit to lead a school."

Anyway, we shall see where this goes.  Hopefully, it makes everyone more likely to act quickly when abuse is suspected.

Facebook

I've been pondering facebook status updates  Perhaps this could be an extension of the Thanksgiving facebook blog post - only with less ranting and more casual observing.

Trend 1 - Cryptic but dramatic status updates that lead to a pity-party.

"Totally crushed right now"

I mean, what's the appropriate response?  I feel like (a) the person did not share what was going on, so therefore doesn't want the world to know.  Hence, I shouldn't ask why the person is totally crushed, which is my first logical response.  Or (b) the person clearly wants attention and I feel put-upon that I'm suppose to instigate or head-off some sort of pity-party.  This is sortof the internet equivalent of "this dress totally makes me look fat" to which everyone around you is supposed to respond "oh no it doesn't - you look great!"

Trend 2 - Cryptic but dramatic posts directed at someone that you hope this person is not facebook friends with.

"It's terrible how some people have no regard for other's feelings."

My response is pretty much the same as before.  I don't ask - you don't want me to know; or I don't know you well enough and it seems like the people involved clearly already know - so by asking I'm totally labeling myself as the outsider here.  But I'm really fricking curious!! 

Trend 3 - Not-so-cryptic, but why on earth do you want to post that?

"I'm surrounded by idiots."

Yeah, I know....  Ok -wait, don't we work together?  Am I the idiot?  What did I do?  Wait, it can't be me.  Can it?  But hold on... you work with a lot of your facebook friends.  So, your either being rude to me, or to other people I know.  Maybe I also think they are idiots.  Maybe I don't.  I have no idea how to take this.


Facebook is definitely a different experience than it was when I first logged on.  There are ads and "sponsored links."  My newsfeed has whittled down to a few people who tend to post a lot; and a lot of my friends hardly post at all.  Then some posts never show up at all because there is some relationship between your clicks and the likelihood that you'll see another post by that person.  And facebook has become a primary source of news and announcements from other entities, like the kids schools or sports clubs.  I don't know if it's good or bad.  It's mostly just interesting to watch it evolve over a relatively short timespan.  I first logged onto facebook in 2008-ish(?).... back when you still had to have a .edu e-mail account!  Wow, it seems like forever ago, except that it wasn't.

MLB - not yet....

I just got a super nice phone call from the Little League director asking if we meant to sign Jacob up for Rookie league again.  (The birthday cutoff is 9yo by 4/30, which he will not be, but 3rd graders who are 8 can play "up" with the 9-11yo if they choose).

Apparently, they opened Jacob's registration and then opened our neighbor's registration (same birthday month, same street) and Lucas chose to play Minors.  It was super nice that she called to check and I can see that some parents wouldn't realize they qualified for Minors.  Plus - the coincidence of getting two registrations for kids who were pretty likely friends at the same time for different leagues..... I can appreciate her concern.

I think Jacob will be OK playing with the Rookie league again, and I did approve it with him before signing up.  I think it will be good for him to get a little more developmental play in.  Also, I worry that being the youngest kid on the team would put him on the bench most of the game in a league with different minimum playing time rules.  He could be on a team with kids who were three years older than him! 

His team last year also had a lot of skilled players on it, which consistently put him in the middle of the batting order and many innings the outfield.  So, he could use some experience playing infield and getting more at bats.  Plus, his team last year had virtually no practices - which is a key component to skill development (IMHO).  Finally, he doesn't play year-round like many of the kids moving to Minors. (yes, they play baseball in Wisconsin all year - indoors in the winter - crazy!!)

I make this strong logical argument here not because anyone cares particularly which baseball league Jacob plays in.  I make it to justify to myself why he's not playing with all his friends.  Because sometimes it's a difficult decision when you know what's best for your child is not necessarily what everyone else is doing and it might open him up to teasing "why are you still playing in the Rookie league?"  Luckily for me, Jacob is also persuaded by a strong logical argument and two of his buddies are a year younger and will be Rookies again too.  But even so - it's not easy.

Just like Artemis

We've started our new rounds of winter activities.  True to form, there is way more cool stuff going on at the YMCA than I would care to admit and have probably signed the kids up for too much crap.  Oh well.  Someday, I'll learn.

Soccer continues for Jacob.  I think it would be nice if the coaches could indicate that their teams are either (1) developmental/competitive or (2) recreational and therefore the teams could first play the others in their category before playing teams from the other category.  I watched the team who played before us lose 10-0, followed by our loss of 11-1.  Then realized that since there are more teams than weeks, we never get to play that no-scoring team, but we do get to play the team that won.  It's too bad, as it would be nice to play another younger and less competitive team, and I think they'd probably appreciate playing us too!

Jacob also starts basketball, which he's a little iffy about.  Most of his friends signed up for this tournament program at the local high school.  So that the HS is sure to get good bball players, they start their developmental program in 3rd grade.  There was an article in the paper about how players who do not do the developmental program rarely even make the JV team.  But, we didn't do that - mostly because bball ranks pretty low for Jacob on his list of favorite sports and because they play only these weekend-long tournaments and I'm not thrilled to give up my whole weekend to watching youth basketball games (though considering how many swim meets my own parents had to sit through - there is probably some karma waiting for me sometime).  Anyway - we signed up at the YMCA, but not our local YMCA because we were too late.  But this is a nice middle ground of one practice and one game per week.  He's on the Mav's, which the poor YMCA girl who called the first night pronounced the Mave's.

Finally, Jacob was forced back into YMCA swimming lessons until he can swim front crawl down and back without stopping.  He's not thrilled, but admittedly he did not complain this week like he did last week.  Heaven forbid he be accused of "liking" it.

Allison also went back to swimming lessons, though at a different place with smaller class sizes (read: much more expensive).  In a very surprising turn of events, she loved the swimming lessons.  It was unexpected because she was in the group that swam back and forth in the back lane.  Definitely more work and less play - but she was in an extremely good mood after the first lesson and was happy to go back for week 2.

Allison is also trying something new - Archery.  The YMCA (see the trend....) started offering a Special Needs archery class and Allison and her friend Melanie signed up.  They were, in fact, the only people to sign up.  They had their first lesson yesterday.  These are not Hunger Games girls, though.  Melanie was excited to shoot like Meridith (from Brave) and Allison wants to be like Artemis (Goddess of the Hunt).  Because I know nothing about archery, it was interesting to watch.  They shot real arrows with real bows in the gym of the YMCA.  They were both really good at hitting the target.

Almost a heat wave

So I took stir-crazy and over-minecrafted Jacob to the park to play on the dinky little hill.

Also, from my observations following yesterdays rain storm - roundabouts and ice do not mix.  Both roundabouts near us had lost about half their signage.

Going back to school!

The kids are going back to school today!  It's still -26 wind chill..... but yay!

Also, it's a Late Start day, which was a pre-planned event where the teachers have 2 hours in the morning to collaborate and the kids don't go to school until 10:27am.  So, it's sortof like they go back to school today - except that one of them is still home (Jacob is at a friend's house and will go to school with him).

On our days off - we did this:

 Which was a Christmas present from Grandpa Jim and Grandma Darleen.  You might notice some inconsistencies in the blue pieces.  That might be because every shape was 'almost' identical - and finding the correct location for nearly identical shaped and colored pieces ended up being more like "yeah, if I sortof force it in here - it works."

Also - God-willing, they never get funding to complete the giant .... eh.... "spire" that's hanging out by navy pier.  It really screams: "So, you think you're so young and sexy, Dubai..... Well check out my new mid-life-crisis-tower! Kiss that Spire! - Yours Truly, Chicago"

Overall, though, the puzzle was pretty cool.  Now we need to figure out how to glue it to a board or something.

It's a wonder anything gets done at all!

So, I'm going to put my work rant on the blog because I am friends with too many coworkers on facebook.  I received an e-mail earlier this week that said - in effect - "your spring class websites are ready, please log in and do these things before the students can access them on the 20th"

Ok.  So I did.  And I discovered two things.  (1) one of my online classes is missing and (2) the other has no content in it.  It's blank.

So, I returned to the e-mail just to make sure I didn't misunderstand and it might have actually said something like "your spring class websites will be ready next Friday, please be patient and make sure you do these things before the students can access it on Jan 20th."  But, no, I had it right the first time.

So in reading the e-mail - in two totally different locations!!! - it said "if you have problems please contact "contactusatthisemail@thisemailshouldwork.edu."  In fact - the e-mail address was even underlined and highlighted to draw your attention to it.

Well, I sent a short e-mail to that address with my two problems stated above and I got an autoreply that said "please do not use this e-mail to contact us, in the future, please direct your inquiries to tagyourit@runaround.wtf.edu."

OMG.  I am just trying to Do. My. Job.

Is gonna be cold

Guess what?  It's winter!!  Oh, yeah, and in northeastern WI - that means it's going to be cold.  Really cold.  "Once in a decade" cold.  "You haven't seen this cold before if you are younger than 40."  "Frigid." 

And this gives us all something to talk about.... namely that it's winter and it's cold.  It's OK - I prefer talk of cold to talk of the Packer's playoff game - though admittedly discussion of Packers and discussion of cold have a fair amount of overlap because the Packers will be out playing in the cold.

But it was cold enough that they almost didn't sell out a game.  THAT would have been something to talk about.

I also learned that the school district has a "When to Close the Schools Because It's so Fricking Cold" policy.  (though I don't think that's the official title - WCSBIFC is not a good acronym.  "Appleton Schools Should Close On Listed Days" would be better.)

Anyway - the policy is that school is closed when windchills are below -35 degrees F in the hour before school starts.  That's really, really cold.  Every weather-person out there is predicting windchills well below that for Monday morning and maybe also Tuesday.  I'm sure AASD will make the decision around 5am on Monday.  Because - you never know - every weatherperson in the country could be wrong.

Merry Christmas