An Angry Goose in My Kitchen and Other Reasons I Hate School Fundraisers

Since Connor is in the first grade, this is only our second year of school fundraisers.  It might be our last.  Not because I don’t want to raise money for them, because I do.  They work really, really hard for our kids, and they need all the extra money they can bring in.  I just think there must be an easier way to do this.

Our school’s PTA has chosen cookie dough, pies, and mini pizzas as the must-have items.  I already find the whole process awkward to begin with.  I bring the catalog and order form to work, and pass it among my co-workers, fully aware that we’re in a sucky economy and that spending $14 on a vat of cookie dough is not a priority for most people.  But still, I deliver my sales pitch, complete with my patented doe-eyed stare that silently wills people to support our school by purchasing these overpriced snacks.

And don’t forget, the kids earn PRIZES for selling this stuff, even though the kids never sell this junk to begin with, it’s the parents that do all the work.  Connor doesn’t even understand the concept of “fundraiser”, he just sees the glossy pictures of M&M cookies and tells me he wants THOSE.

The order form and money were turned in, and last week Connor came home with an array of junky plastic items.  He doesn’t even know why he got them, he just thinks that today was “Loud Annoying Plastic Horn Day”.

No, really.  It was a horn.  The kind that looks like he’s summoning the commoners to come and kneel before the King.  Like this:

But it didn’t have a flag.

On Saturday morning, I was in the kitchen at 7:20 a.m., looking around for something with caffeine, when behind me I heard this very, very loud “HOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!”  Keep in mind that this horn does not sound at all like a horn, but sounds more like a very angry male goose, with a deep goose-voice, about to jump on your head and peck your eyes out.

Will eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

So I heard this, sans caffeine, and I did one of those startled jumps that people do, where your body kind of jerks and stiffens, but when I did it, I heard this errrrrk sound in my back, and had a very sore lower back the rest of the day.

What I thought was happening in my kitchen, but really wasn't.

It’s embarrassing to explain to your first grader that they cannot blow their goose-horn early in the morning because Mommy is so old and decrepit that it causes me physical pain when he blows the horn.  And all the while I’m thinking, fuck you, PTA…you couldn’t have quiet prizes like bouncy balls and play-doh?

Then the fundraiser orders came in, and I had to pick them up from the school.  Two big boxes of stuff that I had to take home at the end of the day and play Tetris to fit it all in the freezer in the kitchen, and the one in the garage.

But then, THEN I get to haul it all to work.  And I left one woman’s box of dough at home because I thought I heard her say she was on vacation all week.  But I get to work, and NO, she is not on vacation.  She is here, so I have to explain why I didn’t bring hers, and I will bring it tomorrow.  But her co-worker IS on vacation this week, so I had to put her dough in the freezer in the cafeteria kitchen, and hope that one of these mutant cubicle zombies doesn’t swipe it before the end of the day when I can transport it BACK TO MY HOUSE and back to my freezer until next week.

And all that is why at the next PTA meeting I will be suggesting that next year’s fundraiser is wrapping paper.  It’s lightweight, portable, and easy to store.  I know they’ll listen to me because I’m going to blow that fucking goose-horn to get their attention.

Proof That Karma Exists and It Is Out To Get Me

Do you remember my last post about the neighbor boy, Wee Man??  Oh, you were super busy that day and missed it?  Well here then, just go here real quick and catch up.

Back?  Great.  Let’s get on with the show then.

I posted that little gem yesterday, Tuesday.  It just so happens that when I was at the library last week, getting the next book in the Outlander series, I picked up a flyer about the Friends of the Library.  They do all the fundraising and activities planning for our city library.  Their newsletter said they needed volunteers, and someone to be their historian.  Well since I have an abundance of spare time, I decided to email them and let them know I was interested.  They asked me to come to their monthly meeting, which was TUESDAY EVENING.

Okay, so no problem there.  I attend the meeting.  At the end, there’s some friendly, idle chit-chat, and they ask which school my son goes to, so I tell them.  Then one of the ladies says, “Oh, hold on a minute.”  She goes to the library desk, and comes back and hands me a book.  Someone had dropped off a school library book at the city library by mistake, and it was from my son’s school.  Well of course I wouldn’t mind dropping it at his school.

Okay, meanwhile, back at the ranch.  Connor has always had sleep problems, and some kind of weird sleep cycle where he is up in the middle of the night and not sleeping well.  We can’t figure out the cycle to save our lives, we just know it happens every few weeks.  It happens that he is in the middle of a cycle right now.  And we all know that when our kids don’t get enough sleep, it exacerbates their challenging behavior.

Well this morning, instead of already being awake and bouncing around, Connor kept on sleeping.  I decided to let him sleep, and go in to work a little late.  Getting enough sleep just makes everything else easier, so once in a blue moon I will do this.

Once he was up and ready, we took off to school.  I usually drop him off and let him walk himself in, but since he was late, and I had that library book to return with an explanation, I walked him in.  It was 9:15 a.m.

Now, are you ready for this???  As we go to the door of the school, and reached for the handle, Wee Man and HIS MOM came up to the door next to us!!

I have never, ever seen her before.  And what are the odds, that the day after my library meeting, in possession of the missing library book, and bringing my sleep-challenged child in late, that I should run into her???

So what did I do??

Not a damn thing.  I was rushing to get Connor into school, had to get myself to work, and couldn’t think of anything other than “good morning, how are you?”  Also, I was trying to quickly take her in, and see if she looked like a bad mom, or a drunk, or the operator of a meth lab.

Wack-a-doodle-doo!!!

And she didn’t.  These things always perplex me, because no matter how old I get (ahem), I still expect people to look a certain way, and they just never do.  She just looked like a typical, suburban mom.  I was caught up, trying to reconcile in my head why Typical Suburban Mom lets her six-year-old roam several blocks from home, on his bike, completely unsupervised.

Totally normal...as far as YOU know.

Has she not heard about kidnappings??

What about reckless teen drivers, careening through the neighborhood?

So I missed my opportunity to make an introduction, and try to salvage some sort of budding friendship between the boys.  I hate it when I choke under pressure like that.  But then, maybe it’s really for the better.  The last thing I need right now is for Connor to start badgering me about wandering around our neighborhood on his own, because it’s not going to happen.

But do you see what I mean about this Karma thing??  How many planets had to align for me to run into her, the very day after I wrote about her kid coming over??

Stupid-ass Karma!

And how many damn times have I mentioned Johnny Depp on my blog, and I still haven’t run into him at the freakin’ grocery store or gas station.

Also not seen at Wal-Mart....

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Behold the Pale Rider, He Hath No Training Wheels

A few weeks ago, after a bad report at school, Connor and I were in the front yard doing some hard labor yard work.  All of a sudden, I heard a voice call out from the sidewalk, “hi Connor.”

We turned, and there was a pale, blonde boy, on his bike.  We said hello back to him, and I asked the usual litany of mom questions.  Turns out, he goes to the same school, is also in first grade, is also 6-years-old, but is in a different classroom.  He offered to help us, but I told him it was Connor’s job today, but maybe another time.  He asked if he could come over and play sometime, and I said “of course.”

As he rode away, the wheels in my tiny, little brain started turning.  Granted, I grew up in the wild and crazy 70′s, but I wasn’t even allowed to roam the neighborhood until I was about ten.  By that time, my mom didn’t care if my rambunctious band of hooligan friends and I had massive amounts of C4, or the Lindbergh baby stuffed in our backpacks, as long as we were out playing and out of her hair.

But six?  Seems kind of young to be out gallivanting around the neighborhood unattended.  It left me feeling uncomfortable, until two days later.  Home from work and school, there was a knock on the door.  You guessed it, the same boy.  He wanted to play with Connor, who was bouncing around behind me, thrilled to have a visitor.  I asked wee man if his parents knew where he was, and he assured me they did.  I saw his bike out on the front walk, and hesitantly let him in.

The boys disappeared to the toy room for several minutes.  I went to check on them, and heard Wee Man telling Connor, “You still have training wheels?  I don’t have training wheels anymore.”  I knocked and opened the door to ask if they wanted a drink, and Connor informed me that he wants his training wheels taken off his bike.  I told him to take it up with daddy, the Lord of the Screwdriver, then I asked Wee Man again if his parents knew where he was.

Although he assured me again that his whereabouts were known, I told him that in five minutes they had to wrap it up.  Then I told him that my husband and Connor would walk home with him, so they could let his mom know where he was, and my husband could introduce himself.

“They don’t have to, I have my bike.”

“Well, that’s how we do things in our family, we meet the parents, so just ride slow.”

Off they went, and five minutes later, Connor and hubs were back.  Apparently the little huckster ran off ahead, and into his house.  When hubs came to the door, he opened it, said “you can’t come in right now, and slammed it shut.”  Connor carried on all the way back home, because he had his heart set on seeing the boy’s room.

I guess we will never know what’s going on in other people’s homes, but I was glad we tried to do the responsible thing.  Although it was only 15 minutes, the whole time the boy was in our house I was creeped out, because all I could think was, I could never let Connor go into a stranger’s house and feel safe about it.

Anyway, the following Saturday Connor insisted he wanted his training wheels off for good, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t ride without them.  Granted, he did suffer a crash that scraped his ankle, but he calmly said he needed to go in for a band-aid, and once acquired, he marched right back outside to ride again.  He was so proud of himself, and so were we.  For once, he was determined to see something through, no matter how hard it was.

We haven’t seen Wee Man lately.  Maybe he got his driving privileges suspended, or maybe his parents are paying more attention to his whereabouts.  I sure hope so, anyway, since I’d hate for him to show up at my house with a backpack full of C4.

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Pigs In a Blanket and Time Management

Double the time needed to complete a task for children with ADHD.  Every book I’ve read on the subject makes this assertion.  And they’re right.  If the average child can get their shoes and socks on in 5 minutes, mine takes 10 minutes.

And that’s with me, shouting from the other room, “hurry, get your shoes and socks on, we’re going to be laaaaaate!!!”

And the boy, shouting back “I AM getting my shoes and socks on, why are you always rushing me??  I’m going as fast as I can!!!!”

Fine.  You’re going as fast as you can, says you.  Like earlier, when it took you 23 minutes to eat a bowl of Cheerios….while staring slack-jawed at the Backyardigans, singing and dancing as pirates.

This has been pretty much the routine each morning as we rush out the door for school and work.  This year, Connor has asked for the coveted pull up and drop off, rather than the park-the-car-and-get-walked-in-by-your-mom routine.  I’m fine with that, and want him to feel like a big boy, so each morning at about 7:30 am, I pull into the drop-off lane and send him on his way.  Class starts at 7:40 am, so it’s just the right amount of time to go to his resource room first.  It gives us an extra 5 minutes of getting ready time in the morning, since I don’t have to worry about parking.

Then, a couple of days ago, a statement of account came home.

What could this be??  Why, it is a statement of the balance on his lunch money account, and it says there is a negative balance of -$6.00.  Hmmmmm, I know I still had about $5 on it, and he has taken his lunch every day this school year.  Last night I logged onto the lunch money account, and found an activity report.  Here’s what it says:

Student Meal History

Date	Student Name	School	Meal	Items Purchased	Price
9/27/2011	Connor	Neighborhood Primary	Breakfast	BFAST 3	$1.75
9/28/2011	Connor	Neighborhood Primary	Breakfast	BFAST 2	$1.75
9/30/2011	Connor	Neighborhood Primary	Breakfast	BFAST 2	$1.75
10/3/2011	Connor	Neighborhood Primary	Breakfast	BFAST 1	$1.75

It appears that someone has been double-dipping on breakfast.  But beyond that, it confirms that little man is more capable than he appears when it comes to time management.  He is managing to go to the cafeteria, charge a breakfast to his account, and sit down and wolf it down in 10 minutes.

So busted.

BUSTED, BUSTED, BUS-TED!!!!!

We had a little chat this morning, he and I, while he ate his oatmeal (making sure he’s got something substantial in his gut!).  In his defense, he didn’t really seem to think there was anything wrong in what he’d done and, to be honest, I’m pretty sure I never clearly said, “do not go to school and buy another breakfast since you are eating this at home.”  It just never occurred to me that I needed to cover that base.

Frankly, it would save me a lot of hassle in the morning to just let him eat breakfast at school but, unfortunately, the school serves up a big load of crap in the cafeteria.  Here is a sample of their breakfast menu:

Monday:  Breakfast pizza and graham crackers

Tuesday:  Turkey pancake wrap with syrup

Wednesday:  Pancakes with syrup or oatmeal

Thursday:  Egg biscuit with cheese or blueberry muffin

Friday:  Chicken biscuit sandwich or oatmeal

As you can see, it is a veritable cruise ship smorgasbord there at the primary school.  No fruit, yogurt, or cereal.  I suppose they expect a 6-year-old to have the self-restraint to choose oatmeal over pancakes, but mine has not developed that level of discipline yet.

Nor have I.  I would pick the pancakes too, hands down.

But it does show that when a child with challenges is HIGHLY motivated, he or she can do amazing things.

And if one more flyer comes home from the school about physical fitness, and promoting healthy habits for my kid, I am going to be HIGHLY motivated to start a picket line at the district office.  Offer my kid a big load of crap to eat, then put the onus of health and fitness on the parents??  This little piggy in a blanket goes WEE-WEE-WEE all the way to the school board.

For now, I need to figure out how to get this newly acquired time management skill transferred to the home environment, without using food bribes.  Oh, and thanks to the school, now I have to explain why they don’t serve healthy food, even though it’s important to eat it.