Fun Fact:  Orcas kill sharks by torpedoing into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

My Husband is Confused

If you had asked my husband a week ago if his wife decorates for Halloween, he would have given a resounding, "NO."  In the ten years he's known me, I haven't so much as put up a ghost or carved a pumpkin.

But this year, whether it's because I have trolled a few blogs (Halloween mantels are FAB!) or because my son's birthday party is this weekend, I have gotten into the Halloween mood.  You're not gonna see tombstones or blood here, but I did snap up some festive cute-ness.

That's hubby's jack-o-lantern.  Lovely, isn't it?

I went Martha on the steps: (I was going to make these myself, but I weighed the $7 against drawing and cutting, and the $7 won)  (Please don't look at the CRAP on the stairs ...





I have added a few friends to the house:

these light up!

And my favorite thing so far:

be nice ... still learning my photo editor thing!

I have some more odds and ends, and I will put up some spider webs right before the party... 

I Love This: Frixion Pens

Remember these?

I remember making "mistakes" so I could erase them.

I also remember the futility of erasing (by pen OR pencil) from that crap yellow paper... and the blobs of errant ink, smearing all over page and hand and mysteriously proving to be the only stuff non-erasable.  Black eraser detritus becoming more and more amalgamated with paper pulp, thus creating an indelible slime.  Oh, and lose the cap? You are now the proud owner of a not-quite-black writing instrument that has lost its only purported virtue.

So when I saw the new Pilot Frixion pen, I withheld excitement.  A large dose of skepticism and distrust, coupled with a tinge of contempt and even disdain ("Erasable? Yeah, we've heard THAT before.  Fat chance!")  But at the risk of throwing good money after bad memories, I went ahead and dropped a dime.

 I'm so glad I did.

This pen, along with its more colorful brothers and sisters -- red, pink, purple, blue (and cousins: ERASABLE HIGHLIGHTERS! *swoon*) --  have become this commitment-phobic pen geek's quill of choice.

To quote Cuppa Jo, "[T]his pen has revolutionized my life! My planner now works the way I need it to!" (I think she color-codes it, by category or person).  Hyperbole?  Maybe.  Still, it's very exciting to have a product fulfill a definite need (no more carrying around white-out tape like the big nerd I am) and work as it promises.

The cool, "space-age" feature of the pen is that it doesn't use an eraser ... it just uses a nib of rubber? vinyl? which when rubbed across the ink and paper removes the ink.  Friction, baby.  No eraser shavings, no used-up eraser.  Ever.  THE ERASING THINGY OUTLASTS THE INK.  Brilliant.

K Squared

Last year, as Spring sprung, the Manatee's teacher pulled me aside to chat.  The basic gist was "she's young, she's not quite as emotionally mature as her classmates and you might want to consider having her repeat kindergarten."

[*insert Mommy-Jaw dropping here*]

Let me back up to explain that AM is frequently mistaken to be around two years older than her actual age.  This is partly due to her relative size (as a just-six year old, she's sporting size 7 clothing and size 2.5W shoes) but also has a great deal to do with her verbal and literary prowess; she's been reading (and I don't mean "cat, hat, rat") since she was three, memorized the alphabet backwards on her own around that same time, and, well ... simply doesn't miss much anything.  I think it's safe to say, in all humility: I gots a bright kid.

Repeat Kindergarten?  I had a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions.  I think the first was, "What? MY kid? but she's so SMART!"  Followed shortly by, "Hmm... so what is it that she hasn't learned, socially, that puts her at such a disadvantage?  Was there something we I could have done?" [*insert Mommy Guilt here*]

Her teacher rattled off the opposition I'd get: "She'll be bored," "What about her friends," "But she's so smart," "Won't she be upset" and "What will the other kids say?"  She assured me that in her many years of experience, none of these proved to be an issue --especially in kindergarten.  (She didn't prep me for "They're just trying to improve their test scores," and "They just want more taxpayer money" (huh?!?), but I digress.)

I spoke with a few more of her teachers, who all echoed the same thing.  Right now, everything might be fine, and she may be getting by, but at 3rd or 4th grade, everything "hits the fan" and educators see emotional and social problems with children who were "sent early" (which, technically, she wasn't).

I even sat in on a day of school, to observe her classmates.  I don't know what I was looking for ... some great disparity between her behavior and theirs that would signal, unequivocally, that she needed to do this K thing again.  I had no light-bulb moment.

I prayed for clarity a sign.

My Significant Otter's response was: "They're the professionals.  I respect their opinion."

I started to poll the community for a consensus (hey, I wanted to make an informed decision, ok?).  Every parent who "held back" --in whatever form that took-- is grateful and confident of that decision.  Those who chose to "send them on," (and some did both) have doubts.  Not that their kid is perpetually screwed up, but they can identify struggles based on the age-maturity gap.

I thought about my own school experience.  I was old for my grade (November birthday), and I don't recall any particularly immature classmates ... I do remember, however: MEAN GIRLS.  I can't protect her from them, but I can give her an extra year, can't I?  Equipped?  As her teacher put it: "we want her to be a total package."

In hindsight, had I known this would be an issue (is it an issue??) I would have waited to send her sent her to preschool an extra year.  But I trust that God was orchestrating all of this - when we moved, when she started preschool, when we moved again, etc - and so I have to trust that even though I could have waited, I didn't, and He has/had a reason for that.

Do I question our decision?  Sometimes.  Like when I walk into Open House and see her former classmates scooting about as first graders.  What's so different about my kid? Why can't she hack it?  But then we get on with the weekly grind, and I get over it.

People ask me, tentatively: "How's that kindergarten thing working for Audrey this year?"   I smile and say, "She loves it."  Because the truth is, she enjoys everything about school --the teachers, the students, the learning, the making and doing.  I don't really know how it's "going" for her; only time will tell.  The decision has been made, we're moving on with life, and I have to trust that God's got my back on this one, too.

Samuel Johnson observed, “A man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance.” He added, “What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.”

Foto Friday: This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. -SouleMama

Fun Fact: Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.