Make It Stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarah finally stayed after the class went to recess and told her teacher that she wasn't actually eating the candy she was getting in class.  She told her teacher that they weren't allowed to eat candy and I was giving them money if they brought it home.

The teacher met me after school on the playground and told me that they have always had the choice to choose a pretzel, animal cracker, or candy.  They have chosen candy.

Can anyone believe that given a choice, a child wouldn't choose a salty, dry pretzel stick over a lollipop?  What a shocker!!!!

Gregory was furious that Sarah ratted them out.  He was eating half his candy and bringing the rest home for money, so he was the Golden Boy.

 I told the teacher that Gregory has had cavities and he can't have candy all day long on his teeth.  I didn't even go into the whole "artificial dye makes my children psychotic and then I become an alcoholic during homework" thing.  It's just too hard to explain without sounding weird.  Where do you even start?  Do you say, "Have you ever heard of Feingold and hyperactivity?"  Why can't you provide links for people in real life conversations?

So while all the other kids in class are eating candy, my two children will be getting pretzels and animal crackers from now on.  Gregory is so mad at me.  We had a long discussion about dental hygiene and Sarah told me there is a boy in their class who told everyone that he's never owned his own toothbrush.  He doesn't have his own bed either.  He sleeps with his five siblings in one bed.  Sarah said all his teeth are silver from fillings and she's worried about him eating candy and not having his own toothbrush.

I'll let you know when I stop crying about that.

 I'm really bothered about using food as a reward, though.  I don't think they should be getting food for any reason other than lunch.  I, personally, have never used any type of food as a reward for anything.  I never even bribed during pottytraining.   I don't use food for motivation.  I don't bribe with food.  I use food for nutrition.  I don't understand why every single thing we do is tied to food.  Shouldn't you do your work at school because that's the requirement to get good grades?  If you complete your paper like you are supposed to, why does that warrant a Scooby Snack?  Are the kids dogs, or children?

And it's not JUST school, it's every damn thing we do!!!!  Look at soccer!  They get about 1000 calories to run around the field for 45 minutes, as a reward for running around the field which is the requirement of being in soccer.  I'm pretty sure they'd still run around, with or without the excessive food.  Does anyone put their kid in soccer with the expectation that they'll get a cup of grapes, a Gatorade, and Oreo cookies when they play a game?

Would any of you say, "My child has been here almost 27 minutes and he hasn't had a Ding Dong yet, goddamn it!!!  I want my money back!!!!"

And before anyone gives me a tongue-lashing for depriving my children of candy, believe me when I say that there is not a single week that goes by that there is not a birthday, a birthday party, an activity, a sport, an outing, or something being passed out at school, that my kids go without candy.  I do not buy candy.  Candy rains down from the sky!!!  It just comes in buckets!!!   It's more plentiful than water.

So let's talk about this today.  Why are we teaching our kids to expect food or a treat every single time they do something they are required to do?  If they get something every single day of the week, is that really a "treat"?  When did this start and why isn't anyone saying, "STOP!  JUST STOP IT!!!!!!"?

I'll start.  MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Laundry Can Be Educational

Austin had a really bad day 2 day ago.  He came out of school and he was crying and saying his head was hurting him and his eyes looked really bad.  He cried and cried and cried and cried.  I thought he was having a low pressure headache from having low levels of cerebral/spinal fluid.  Unlike the rest of us who have the constant same amount of CSF circulating between our spine and brain, Austin has to constantly make more CSF because of the brain surgery to bypass his tumor.  His CSF is constantly going out the hole in his third ventricle.

One of the ways to combat low pressure is to give the person caffeine as it will trigger CSF production.  I rushed home with him, gave him Motrin and went into the garage to find Greg's secret stash of soda, only to discover his secret stash of canned corn.  (??????????????????)  We had no soda at all.  I scrambled to make him iced coffee with sugar and milk and he did not like that.  I did get enough into him and it took over an hour before he stopped crying.  I felt so bad for him.  Two hours later, it was like it never happened.

Note to self:  Have a can of pop for emergencies.

We have been motoring through homework so we can spend the evenings outdoors.  It's still Hotter Than Hell during the day, but once the sun sets, it is absolutely gorgeous.

Amanda lost a bottom tooth at school and came home with it in a nifty tooth container.  She even got to go to the nurse!   Sarah lost a top tooth that very evening and cried because she wanted to lose hers at school and get a tooth container also.  What an injustice!!!

In great news, Austin's first year teacher is not losing her job.  She gets to stay in the classroom.  I won't go into all the gory details of how that was accomplished, but let me just say that there was a master chess game going on behind-the-scenes and it was nothing short of a miracle that it played out the way it did.  Austin will be getting four new students in his class today.  Gregory and Sarah are getting four new students in their class today and Amanda is getting three.

Not one single one of my children is not being affected by the budget cuts this year.  Austin's class will end up with 20 children.  The other children will have 22.   So when I was out there fighting for funding, it was personal for me because I knew it would have a direct impact on our school.  And it did.

In other news, my new guilty pleasure is watching documentaries on Netflix while I fold laundry.  Since folding laundry is a daily event for me, I've been watching a lot!!!  My favorite this week is about the bottled water industry.



We don't buy bottled water very often, but after watching this show, I am going to make an even bigger effort to not buy bottled water ever.  I had no idea that the big corporations - Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi - were going into rural communities, tapping their underground water, draining their aquifers, and not paying for the water and not paying one cent in taxes for the water.   What a rip-off!!!  The scary thing is they can run a community dry, dry up their wells, and the community can't stop them.  WOW!

Do you guys buy bottled water????

Who knew laundry could be so educational?

Loving The Hell Out Of You

People think we don't have churches in Las Vegas, but we totally do.  Totally.

Imagine Amanda's horror to go to school and find her little classmate in the same shirt she had on.  Her classmate was thrilled and excited to be "twins".  I could see right into Amanda's mind, as she smiled at her little friend.  She was thinking, "OHMYGOSH.  My mother made me match my sister since I was born and I'm over it."

She was loving the hell out of her matching friend!!!!  On a serious note, she's still having a hard time making friends.  Even though she's known her matching twin since kindergarten, I would not call them friends.  I see little girls approach her and try to be friendly and she rebuffs all advances of friendship.  She's very stand-offish.  Gregory, Sarah, and Austin hang out with a big pack of kids and play soccer on the playground and she doesn't want any part of it.  She walks around all by herself.  If I stay on the playground in the mornings, she is on me like a barnacle, instead of running off and playing, then she clings to me when the bell rings.

She completely cut off any shred of friendship with the "Rich" Girl in her class.  This is the little girl who tells everyone she is rich and lives in a mansion and is soooooo spoiled.  Amanda's teacher told me she heard Amanda telling the other girl, "If you were actually rich, you wouldn't have to say it."

Then the Rich Girl told Amanda, "You're rude!"

Amanda came to me and wanted to know if we were rich?  Some of the kids in her class told her she was rich.  I can only imagine that conversation started because of the Rich Girl and her constant proclamations of wealth and superiority over her classmates.  I told Amanda if we were rich, we wouldn't be going to that school and neither would anyone else that goes there.

In my futile attempt at trying to expand her horizons, she went to jump rope practice last week with one of the ladies on the PTA. That is going to work out so well.  Mrs. N swings by and gets her at my house so I don't have to juggle the other kids at practice.  I hope she is able to make some friends in her new activity.

I told her yesterday to act friendly and she might actually become friendly.  Smile more!!!!  Fake it till you make it!

It seems almost genetically impossible that I would have given birth to a child who doesn't know how to make friends.  I'm friends with everyone.  I love the hell out of all of you.

You Win Some. You Lose Some.

The kids and I ran over to the Asian market on Saturday so I could get some gluten free oyster sauce.  If you aren't gluten free, then you probably didn't realize that all Chinese food contains wheat.  Soy sauce contains wheat. Oyster sauce contains wheat.  Teriyaki contains wheat.  Surimi, which is the imitation crab meat in California rolls, contains wheat.

It is dismal.  Fortunately San-J makes a gluten free soy sauce and the green label only in the Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce is gluten free.

I decided to make Singapore street noodles yesterday since I had a huge head of cabbage.  I used this recipe, which is not the recipe I've used before.

I've also decided that on Monday through Thursday, when the kids have homework, I will either have all the food prep ready for dinner before they get home from school, or I'll already have dinner in the oven or crockpot, because getting dinner ready while the kids do homework isn't working for me.

So I got everything ready.  All I was going to have to do was stir fry after homework.  I wouldn't have to chop anything.  It was going to be super easy.  I felt so good about it yesterday!

Except then I realized I didn't have any shallots.  Then I didn't have enough curry.  Then I didn't have any limes.  But, heck, I was close to having the right ingredients.

And I have to say that homework is getting better.  It turns out that the kids don't need to just be separated for it to go smoothly.  They actually can't even be in the same house together.  Sarah did her homework on the back porch.  Gregory did his on the front porch and Amanda did hers inside last night.  I didn't even get mad at anyone once and I didn't even have to text anyone for moral support like I have over the past 4 weeks.

I haven't mentioned it for fear that Greg might read my blog, but I've been lunching with Misti and whoever else is available, once a week since school started, and mostly all we talk about during lunch is how we are turning into raving lunatics during or because of homework.

So, really, if yesterday was the turning point for me and the kids in this Homework Hell we've been stuck in, it will be such a relief.  I remember when they were babies and we had a week of good naps and I would proclaim that whatever terrible sleep phase we were in was OVER, then they wouldn't nap again consistently for weeks.  I hope I'm not jinxing it.  I'm really stressing that they do the homework first, on their own to the best of their ability, then we'll go over it.

I told Amanda, "I've already been in second grade.  Now it's your turn."

One of you guys told me to say that, so THANK YOU.

Despite having a good homework session and spending so much time and energy making sure dinner would go smoothly, the noodles did not turn out.

Even the chickens were like, "Is that curry in there?"

"Are you guys sure it's okay?"

Sarah came home last week and told me that one of the boys in her class has a weird smell to him and she doesn't like to sit by him because she doesn't like the way he smells.

"Does he smell dirty, like he isn't taking a bath?", I asked her.

"No.  I think he must smell like his house.  You know how different houses smell different?  I think his house must smell weird.", she said.

I wonder if his mother made Singapore street noodles from the same recipe I used?

"Did someone take a dump on our dinner?"

"It could be poop.  You try it first."

I really won't be surprised if the noodles are still there today.  You win some, you lose some.

We Will All Be Evil

If any of you thought we lack culture in Las Vegas, I'm telling you we totally have museums here.  Totally.  We had to cross over the "cultural center" in the underbelly of Vegas to get to the mall yesterday.

Helene is now a personal shopper at Saks in Ohio, so we met her at the employee entrance before the store opened yesterday and she ushered us right in.  Normally I don't even walk through Saks when I go to the mall because it's evident to everyone who works there that I am poor and buy my clothing at Target, so they usually sneer at me as I make a beeline for the exit.

If you are with Helene, you just walk around like you own the place and she barks out orders and gets it done.

She'll even make you try on $1050 Harve Leger bandage dress for fun!  You should have seen Misti trying to shove my back in this dress while she yanked on the zipper.  It was not a pretty sight from behind at all!!!

Helene knows all the secrets for increasing your "attributes".  Yes, I forgot to put lotion on my hands yesterday.  Yes, I do a lot of dishes and gardening.  YIKES, old lady housewife hands.  In fact, Helene is actually a professional bra fitter, so yesterday I was forced to purchase a new bra because she was horrified by my ill-fitting Target bra and the lack of support my girls have been getting. Helene believes in supporting her friends at every level.  

Sadly, we did not find The Dress for Misti's reunion.  She did find the most awesome pair of black pants that makes her legs look like they are pencil thin, so all was not lost.  Plus, we had a blast.  I love when Helene is here!

When I got home, the children told me they spent the day touring Halloween stores with their father looking for their costumes.

"I want to be an evil doctor!", Gregory told me.

"I want to be an evil cheerleader!", Amanda said.

Seriously?  Does Greg encourage that??????

"Why does the doctor have to be evil?", I asked.

Greg said it's Halloween and you are supposed to be scary.  I don't ever remember being scary.  Do you?

I'm going to go as an evil Triplet Mom this year then if this is our scary theme.  

Death By Chicken

My triplet mom friend, Melanie, saw this plaque, thought of me, bought it and sent it to me!!!  I'm going to hang this one right in my kitchen.

I guess it's a good thing I like chickens.

Greg and Jerry's Dad took all four kids to the UNLV football game last night and they were all gone for six hours.  I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but Jerry's dad was the starting quarterback for BYU back in the day.  And I mean, back in the day.  He was also a high school principal for a couple decades and Greg says he can't even walk in a store or business without knowing half the people there.  When I told him who the principal of my kids' school was, he said, "Oh, yeah.  He's a good kid.  So was his brother.  Nice family.  Good people."  Vegas used to be a small town.

So Jerry's dad got them all in the VIP tent for dinner, the kids were on the giant screen during the game doing the chicken dance, and after the game they got to go down and run around the field.  I actually had to wait for them to come home so I could go to bed!!!!

Today, my friend Misti and I are meeting our triplet mom friend, Helene Slustsky at Sak's Fifth Avenue on the Strip.  Helene is in town and we plan on spending the day finding Misti the most perfect outfit for her high school reunion that people will fall down from her beauty when they see her.  Once this magical outfit reveals itself to us, we are going to lunch/dine at Maggiano's, which has a full gluten free menu.  Doesn't that sound splendid?

Meanwhile, Greg will be watching the kids all day, after watching the kids all last night.  Before anyone starts feeling sorry for him, he's leaving for 12 days in October under the guise of "working with his friend Scott, who has a BIG job going on."  After 22 years of hearing made up stories, I simply Googled, "Western Michigan homecoming dates 2011" to note that the homecoming dates happen to perfectly coincide with this "big job" that he absolutely has to be there for.

I think the children should get a chance to peck on their father all day since I will be bloody stump by the time he gets back.  Fair is fair, right?

Meanwhile, I thought you might want to see what I do online when I'm not blogging.

Yes.  The children watched a movie during library this week.  Wouldn't it be weird if they read books at the library?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I don't want to freak anyone out by that revelation.

I should let the chickens meet the Librarian.

I'll Run You Over With My Car

Yesterday morning, I ran over to Star Nursery to buy my fall vegetables, only to find almost no selection at all.  They had no broccoli or cauliflower in at all.  They had tons of collard greens.  BLECH.  So I found the manager and asked him what was going on?  Where were the fall vegetables?

"I'm sorry.  You missed them.  Growers are under extreme financial pressure this year and we won't be selling any jumbo packs.  The growers just can't afford to not sell out, so we already got in what was available and it's sold out.", the manager told me.

I was like, WHAT?  I'm sorry, WHAT??????!!!!  I cannot even imagine living through a whole winter with no plants in the ground.  It was like he was talking Jibberish.

So I got in the car and zoomed over to PlantWorld, a locally-owned nursery.  They had almost nothing, except 3 four packs of broccoli for $2.99.  That's a horrible deal.

I called Greg and told him what was going on and he started yelling at me, "Don't buy those!!!  That's not COST EFFECTIVE!!!"

"I don't plant stuff because it's cost effective!!!!!!! Are you insane?  It's my hobby!!!!!", I screeched back at him.

I bought the twelve plants anyway and drove to Home Depot, Lowe's, and Walmart.  I found four more anemic broccoli plants at Lowe's for $1.68.  It seems the only supplier this year is Bonnie Plants.  How scary is that?  I should have started my own seeds weeks ago.  I had no idea!!!!!!

Greg called me back to find out what was going on, "Good.  You found some.  You need to save eight for my mother."

"I'll run your mother over with my car before I give her eight of my plants.", I told him.

Sorry, Grammy!!!!  Greg thinks his mother is going to grow broccoli on her mountain.  HA!  The jackrabbits eat everything in her backyard, including her prickly pear cactus.  You come over to my house and I'll just feed you broccoli when mine is done growing, Grammy.   I ended up finding and planting spinach, brussel sprouts, green cabbage, and romaine lettuce.

I was picking up my fruit and vegetables at 6:30am from my food co-op.  I got the conventional basket this morning, plus an extra share of fruit.  This cost $25.  Not bad, eh?

I also got an Asian pack.  Look at the size of the cabbage!!!  What on earth am I going to do with that behemoth?

From there, we were on the soccer field at 7:45am for team pictures.  They were as happy as they looked in these photos.  It is sweltering hot today.

You should have seen what I looked like!!!!!!!!!  I should run the picture scheduler over with my car.

Somebody Loves Us

We were laying in the trampoline last night when a plane flew over and wrote an S right above us!

Then he wrote a heart and disappeared.

"Somebody loves you, Sarah!", Gregory told her and we all started laughing.

Greg took Amanda to the dentist yesterday because he was so freaked out by her tooth and that he might have to pay for braces.  By "taking her to the dentist", I mean he drug her with him because he was meeting his dentist and her 90 year old Vietnamese mother at a foreclosure the mother is buying as an investment.  They wanted Greg's advice on how much to offer based on the repairs it was going to need.

Here's something I bet you guys didn't know.  The real estate investment market in Vegas is almost entirely controlled by little, old Asian women under 5 ft tall.  Greg had to learn the hard way that their diminutive size in no way matches their fierce competitiveness and that he's no match for them.  They love to yell at him and he loves to yell back at them.  Every single day he'll walk by me while yelling at some old lady on the phone.  The other thing he's discovered is that the husbands have no say in how their wives spend their money because whenever he talks to the men, when he thinks the women are being stupid or unreasonable, they say, "I don't know.  That's my wife's money.  You talk to my wife."

As you can imagine, I'm in love with the little, old Asian women.

So the dentist called me while she was looking at Amanda's tooth and she said that her jaw alignments are great and we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  She said if we went to 10 orthodontists, we'd get 10 different opinions and we'd surely find more than one willing to take our money now.  She said her front tooth is not bucked, it's exactly where it should be, and it's likely tongue pressure will move that other tooth forward and since all her adult teeth have not come in on the bottom and are not touching or rubbing the tooth that is behind, just leave it alone for now.

I'll take her to my dentist next and see what he has to say.  

I told Greg a few days ago that if he didn't get my garden tilled, I was going down to Home Depot and hiring a day laborer out of the parking lot and bringing him home with me to get it done.  I simply do not have the strength to get down deep in our desert soil.  I can literally jump on the shovel and I just stand on it.  It won't even go down, so I've been harping on Greg for 2 weeks to get it done.

So he finally went and got our neighbor's tiller and prepared the soil for me.  I am heading to the nursery today to see if broccoli is in.  In the fall, I plant broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and spinach.  The spinach will last until we get our first freeze, which won't be for some time since it was 100 degrees yesterday.

It's Fall in the desert, which does not mean apples or bonfires!  It means we're getting close to POMEGRANATES!!!  YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's One Way To Get It Done!

Remember the old scooter Greg hauled home on trash day?  He cleaned it up and put a new battery in it and it's still going strong five years later.  That was the best trash find ever because it's been a favorite toy in our driveway.  When the kids got too heavy for me to pull, I just drug them around with the scooter.  I couldn't tell you how many children have ridden it up and down the driveway over the years.

We still have it.  Look how I found Gregory getting his 20 minutes of required reading in yesterday morning.



I suppose he'll be eating, shaving, reading the paper, texting, and talking on the phone, while driving someday. With his feet, of course!!!!

The Drama Goes On And On And On

At this time of the year, I park it in a chair in the driveway after dinner.  I can't wait until Greg's mom gets back from Michigan, because Grammy parks it next to me.  I like hanging out with 72 year olds.

Seven year olds can be pretty entertaining as well.

And six year olds are fun!  Plus, I don't even have to move for drama to happen.

People begin spontaneously bleeding at my house at least once a day.  I recommend teaching your children to put their own band-aids on at an early age.

The game must go on, despite injured players.

Within minutes, Sarah was back outside and kicked her soccer ball right into our barrel cactus, puncturing a hole in it.  

This is a ball killer.  This cactus is responsible for the death of all our balls.

It killed one ball too many yesterday.

Greg went insane and went after the cactus with a pick ax, while I begged him to spare its life and move it to a different location.

Then he went after the one next to it.  Good grief.  We've had those for 16 years.  They now reside on the side of our house.

The girls and I decided we'd had enough he-man drama, so I actually had to get up and go feed the chickens.

Can you believe that the little baby chick I hatched in my hand on the 4th Of July is this big gigantic rooster already?   God has cursed me with roosters. His cone has just started turning red, so I expect he'll start getting mean and nasty and start crowing his head off in about two weeks.

Amanda is going to have to go to an orthodontist, isn't she?  Greg seems to think the adult tooth behind the sideways front tooth is just going to magically straighten up all on its own.  It's not, is it?  I should just be prepared to open up my wallet and tell them to take as much as they need, shouldn't I?  When you guys stop laughing at me, just tell me the truth.  I can take it.

The drama goes on and on and on and on.

Cash For Candy

I am now giving the kids 10 cents for every piece of candy they bring home uneaten.  This is how much they got yesterday at school.  Can you imagine Gregory, with his bad teeth, eating all this candy per day?  He absolutely cannot have sugar sitting on his teeth all day.  We'll go bankrupt with cavities.  

They actually ran out of class yesterday telling me that I owed them money.

"Did you tell your teacher that you can't have candy anymore?", I asked.

"No, Mom.  I want money!", Sarah said.

Sarah started reading Little House In The Big Woods this week and she is so into it that she is reading when she wakes up, when she gets home, and when she goes to bed.

She ran out of her room yesterday and said, "Mom!  MOM!  They cut the hog's head off, then they boiled it, and made head cheese.  Can we do that?"

I told her to keep reading and maybe they do something with chickens and then we can talk.

Gregory is on the second book in the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series, so he passed his first book to Amanda.  

Austin is plugging along with all the Dr. Seuss books and beginning readers.  

Aside from all the drama going on at school and in the school district, I can honestly say that in second grade, the curriculum finally caught up with us and all three kids are finally being challenged.   I cannot imagine where they would be if I hadn't spent all the time preparing them up until this point.  They really did seem to come into second grade at a much higher level than they left off in first grade, so I can see a big jump with the higher standards.

We are still waiting for word on Austin's teacher's fate.  Turns out we were only short 3 students on Count Day and we had 3 students register yesterday.  It's heartbreaking.  She has so much talent and potential and you hate to lose a good one.  UGH.

Sarah and Gregory both have colds that started yesterday.  It's going to be one of those days where you have to make the decision on how sick they are and whether they should go to school.  I hate those mornings.  I go back and forth a thousand times in my mind.

Then I usually send them.  My rule of thumb is they must have a fever, dark yellow boogers, or vomit.  Runny noses, coughs, and general complaints do not get you a reprieve.  I'll just tell them if they don't go, they'll miss out on Cash For Candy.

Keep Your Hands Off My Children's Breakfast

There is a rumor going around our school.  Let it be known that if there are ever any rumors going around anywhere, I need to know about them so I can get myself all worked up into a tizzy and then share the rumor with no less than 1,000 of my closest friends.

So the rumor is that next year at our school, all students, regardless of their income level, will be required to go through the free breakfast line at school and participate in eating free breakfast at school.

As you can imagine, I had to wait a few days to even write about this one coherently because this rumor sent me into the abyss and I am only now crawling my way back up.  I was so mad when I heard that one that I literally blew a gasket.  I will feed my own goddamn kids, thankyouverymuch.  I do not raise chickens and shovel chicken shit so my kids can go eat muffins, and Trix, and Crustables at school.  Can we all agree that "muffin" is just a clever word for CAKE?

I am so morally and ethically offended by the fact anyone would dictate that my children get a free meal when I am capable and willing to feed them, I almost can't find the words to write how pissed off the thought makes me.  Why would the government pay for MY kids to have free food????  Does that even seem logical????

So once the blood got back inside my brain, I started researching and guess what?  There is a national movement to make universal free breakfast part of every school day, just like lunch.  It's being spearheaded by the Food Research And Action Center.  Do you know who funds FRAC?  ConAgra, the National Dairy Council, General Mills, Kraft, Sara Lee, and Walmart, to name a few.

This is my favorite part of why FRAC thinks children who can afford their own breakfast should eat breakfast at school anyway.

Regardless of income, families today live busy lives that often make it difficult to sit down long enough in the morning to eat a nutritious breakfast. Sometimes children are not physically capable of eating breakfast at home when they first wake up. Other children may have long commutes to school or long periods between breakfast at home and school lunch, making breakfast at school an important option.

Translation:  We know a lot of you are too lazy to wake up five minutes early and stick a piece of toast in the toaster and peel a banana for your kid, so we're going to make them eat a Smucker's Crustable instead, because we want them exposed to the processed food of our sponsors, so that we can shape their palates while they're young.  


FRAC is also pushing their food agenda by endorsing Universal Free Breakfast as a way for schools to make money.

Each school day in 2009–2010, schools lost at least $1.46 in federal nutrition funding for every child who would have received a free breakfast and $1.16 for every child who would have received a reduced-price breakfast, but was not served. An additional $0.28 in federal funds per child per meal was forfeited if those low-income children attended a “severe need” school—one of the thousands of schools in which at least 40 percent of lunches served were free or reduced-price.  

If each district in this survey had provided at least  70 low-income children with breakfast (through the School Breakfast Program) for every 100 low-income children that received lunch (through the National School Lunch Program) in the 2009–2010 school year, an additional 595,649 students would have eaten a healthy school breakfast every day and the 29 districts would have received an additional $151 million in child nutrition funding.

Translation:  We'll give you loads of federal money if you let us feed your kids what we think is healthy.  We don't really care about the kids, our large corporate sponsors want to get federal money for producing processed food and making everyone eat it, and the schools want to get federal money for providing it.  


The interesting thing is FRAC sites all these "studies" that prove the reason universal free breakfast at school should be expanded is because it improves student behavior and test scores if every child in school eats at school.  However, that was NOT the findings by the USDA.   I am highlighting the interesting parts of their assessment of Universal Free Breakfast.

Breakfast Participation and Dietary Intake

• Participation in the SBP nearly doubled in the treatment schools (from 19 to 36 percent). Greater increases were seen among the paid-eligible participants than the free and reduced-price participants.
• Few elementary school students, less than 4 percent in both treatment and control schools, skipped breakfast altogether.
• Students in treatment schools (80 percent) were more likely than control school students (76 percent) to consume a nutritionally substantive breakfast.
• Given that most students in this study consumed breakfast, universal-free school breakfast seems to have shifted the source of breakfast from home (or elsewhere) to school.
• Students in treatment schools (7 percent) were more likely than control school students (4 percent) to consume two or more substantive breakfasts.
• There was almost no difference in the food and nutrient intake of treatment and control school students at breakfast or over the course of a day. Food energy, protein, and vitamin and mineral intakes of most students in both groups met the standards for dietary adequacy.
• Few students, teachers, or principals in either treatment or control schools reported a stigma that associated breakfast participation with students from low-income households.

Cognitive Functioning and Academic Achievement Test Scores

• Treatment and control school students had similar scores on a cognitive test battery that assessed a range of cognitive functions including attention, short-term and long-term memory.
• There were no differences in math and reading score gains across all grades between treatment and control school students.

Other Measures

• School attendance, tardiness, social/emotional functioning, food insecurity, and health status were not different for treatment and control school students.
• The prevalence of overweight was similar, but high, in both treatment (17 percent) and control (18 percent) school students.
• There was one significant difference on a behavior rating between the treatment and control school students. Treatment schools students had a slightly more negative rating. In addition, a significantly higher number of disciplinary incidents were recorded in treatment schools.

Translation:  There is no measurable difference between giving universal free breakfast, except if kids eat the school's shitty, disgusting, chemical-ridden, processed food, they will behave more poorly and get in more trouble. 
Bonus:  Taxpayers can foot the bill.


FRAC is aggressively trying to expand Universal Breakfast across large, urban school districts.  For the record, 98 percent of schools in the Clark County School District already offer free breakfast for children who qualify.  I understand how important it is to get food to children who don't have any at all, but I do not agree with giving food to kids who can afford to feed themselves.  I also understand the other reasoning for offering food for everyone is to take away the "stigma" of being poor and getting free food.  I'm sorry, no.  You can't take away my rights to save everyone's feelings.  I've been poor.  I qualified for free food as a child.  I chose not to eat it.  I survived.   

These sort of programs are part of the Farm Bill, which is up for renewal in 2012.  Make no mistake, it may be called the Farm Bill, but this omnibus bill includes 400 billion dollars in food assistance and that's a large piece of the pie for our food industry.  This bill shapes what we eat, how we grow it, what our kids eat, and what our kids are taught about food in school.  It's also a huge cash cow if you are a dairy producer or food processor.  I urge everyone click on that link and get involved in helping shape the Farm Bill for 2012.

Meanwhile, my kids will not under any circumstances be participating in Universal Free Breakfast should this rumor be true.  We will continue eating our fresh, right-out-of-the-chicken's-butt eggs, homemade jelly, and organic bread, right in the comfort of our own home.  I'll even make you a deal!  I'll even agree to pay for it myself!!!  You can keep the change.  

So Much To Do!!!

Greg took Amanda to the UNLV football game last night by herself.  She was so excited!!!!  He had VIP tickets (given to him, of course), so they got to eat in the VIP tent and she talked to cheerleaders.  He said he's going to take each of them to the game this season.  How fun for them!!

As previously noted, I detest sports so this will work for me as well.  The rest of us went bike riding and watched two documentaries.



This movie was great!  I could watch food movies all day long!  I am really wanting to try juicing this week and it is absolutely imperative that I get my winter garden in this week also.  So much to do.  So much to do!

I found out the reason the kids were so out of their minds during homework last week when I cleaned their backpacks out.  Sarah had about 50 Dum Dum wrappers in there.  Apparently they've been getting loads of candy at school and it has been making them insane.  If any of you think artificial dyes do not effect your children's behavior, I am telling you that ALL children are effected by it.  Whoever was supplying them with the mounds of crap ran out halfway through the week and it was like someone turned a switch off.  We have had zero problems with homework since then.  In fact, the last two days of homework were actually pleasant.

I told the kids they are absolutely NOT to eat candy at school.  Can you imagine?  Gregory has had eight cavities filled.  The last thing in the ENTIRE WORLD that kid needs is constant sugar on his teeth all day.  His teeth will rot straight out of his head.  No joke.

I am looking forward to homework  being just a small, drama free part of our day now that we got a handle on the root cause of the problem.

Poor Greg is having a heck of time getting our rental house rented.  You wouldn't believe the derelicts he's been showing it to.  We are soooooo lenient on requirements, too.  We don't even ask for first and last month's rent.  We just ask for a security deposit and the rent, yet even that is too much for people.  We're lenient because you can kick people out in five days in Nevada, so it's not like we really need the last month's rent for security.  

We got a call at 8pm the other night and they wanted to see it right away.  I was freaked out about him meeting people at night.

"Watch your back.  Look for sores on their faces, in case they're meth addicts.", I warned him.

The last thing we need is a meth lab to be responsible for cleaning up.  That's my biggest fear.

Turns out they were just two twenty-something girls with no money.  They asked him if he would just please rent it to them, but they only had the $500 security deposit.  Uh, okay, we'll just let you live there for free.  How about I buy your groceries, too?  I mean, seriously?

I can only imagine the gems he's got lined up to see it today.  Being landlords is so much fun!!!  Squeeeeee!

No Pressure, Grammy

I had to have Sarah and Gregory on the soccer field at 7:30am this morning.  I'm sure it's not necessary to say that Greg was incapable of making such an early game.

Imagine my surprise when Gregory and Sarah's teacher came to their 8am game.  Can you imagine going to an 8am game to watch children you didn't even give birth to on purpose?  It's mindboggling, ain't it?

She is the most wonderful teacher ever.  Yesterday when Austin didn't get his Scholastic book order and the other kids got their books, he was so upset and crying and she let him come pick a book out in her classroom and keep it.  She's the best.

I found out yesterday that Austin's teacher is gone for sure and we are also losing a second grade teacher.  So that means that the older kids will be getting 5 extra students per classroom and I have no idea what will happen to Austin.  You guys, Austin is going to be hysterical.  I haven't told him yet.  He's going to be so upset.  He gets so attached to people.  You see how he is with his grandmother.  He is going to bawl his eyes out.  I feel so bad for the little guy.

We had a doubleheader today, so we drove home to get Greg and the other two kids and nobody was dressed.

"If the kids' TEACHER can make it to the game at 8am, you better get your darn clothes on RIGHT NOW!", I screeched at Greg.

Speaking of making it to a game, Grammy has yet to see a game.  No pressure, Grammy.

Austin and Amanda both want to play again.

Ohmygosh, you have no idea how great it is that they don't take late sign ups.

Send Me To The Farm

I'm beginning to believe that my girls are never going to get another top tooth.

I think it's possible Sarah has one side and Amanda has the other and there will be no second tooth coming.

Gregory had a big scab on his nose when he went to bed and when he woke up, it was gone.  It was like magic.  He's been asking me to get rid of his mole under his eye lately.  He said he doesn't want it there anymore.

I've been putting Selsun Blue on Austin's cheek for a week now and his fungus appears to be gone in this photo!!!  Yeah!  Bob wants us to go the lake with him on Sunday, so maybe we'll just wash our bodies in Selsun Blue on Sunday night.

Speaking of Bob, we decided a couple weeks ago to kill four of our older hens.  One hadn't laid in over a year and the others were laying very infrequently.  To make matters worse, the older hens wouldn't let the newer hens, the ones who actually lay, eat.  Remember.  Chickens are mean and nasty.  So we were paying money to feed old, fat hens, who were no longer producing and there is no retirement plan on my farm.

Bob had a lady from California staying in his guesthouse, and she overheard us talking about killing the hens, and she said she'd take the four hens to Fair Oaks, California, where she lives, and give them to her friend, who owns a bunch of acreage close to the American River.  So Bob and I trapped the hens and stuck them in a box and loaded them into her Mercedes.  For the record, chickens don't like Mercedes.

So that was the end of the story.  I forgot about them five minutes after they left, until I saw her car in Bob's driveway yesterday.

Turns out that the chickens got out of the box near Zzyzx Road on the I-15 in California.  If you've ever driven to Vegas from L.A., then you know that road.  She pulled over and tried to get them back in the box to no avail, so they rode the rest of the way roosting in the back window of her car.  Can you imagine driving by a car and seeing chickens in the back window?

They now have the run of an entire orchard and a giant tomato field and she said she saw them the day before she came back here and they are very happy.  (??????????????)  As if you can tell if a chicken's happy, but that sounded good to me.  Beats getting your head yanked off.

I kicked some major housewife ass yesterday and cleaned the entire house, did five loads of laundry, and made two pot roast meals, one for us, and one for the lady at school, whose husband had a heart attack.  I got her address from one of the ladies on the PTA and the kids and I loaded up buns, the meat and vegetables, cookies, and salad, and drove over to her house.

When we pulled up, I was shocked that the house was way, way, way nicer than ours.  In our neighborhood, we have million dollar homes next to 200,000 dollar homes.  Austin has a boy in his class who lives in an 11,000 square foot home, only 5 blocks away from our dump.  

So we all got out and the kids ran to the door and started ringing the door bell and knocking.

"Who is it?", said a mean voice of an elderly lady.

"It's the S family!!!  We're here to bring you food!", I shouted.

The door wedged open just a tad and she peered out at us.

"What?  Food?  Why are you bringing me food?", she demanded to know.

The kids were all, "Hi!  Hi! Hi!  We've got buns!  Cookies!!!!"

"Well, that's nice, but I don't need any food.", she told us.  "Who are you looking for?"

That's when I realized we were at the wrong house.  I was off by one digit!!!!

We did eventually find the right house and delivered the meal and I made sure the mom knew that I am available for childcare if she ever needs help.

What's three more kids?

On second thought, maybe the lady in Bob's guesthouse will drive me to California to live the rest of my days on a lovely farm.