Evolve...tonight

Baxter, poised on the dresser, waiting for treats--pole position allows him the opportunity to knock the treats out of my hand, perhaps allowing him to snag a few extras.

Today was a big day for us. L. started her homeschooling year--third grade. She started, as usual, whining about having to "work", instead of bumming around all day as she did through the summer. It will take her a week or two to get back into the groove. It irritates me, though, as she has no clue how much easier and more flexible her schedule is than it is for those who attend "regular" school.


Even more exciting, D. started college today. She only had two of her four classes today, and she will attend the others tomorrow. I'm shocked that she signed up for a 9:00 am class! That was a surprise to both M. & me, as she is so not a morning person. I'm anxiously waiting to hear how her day went, but she had already gone to work by the time I got home from work.


Our baby mourning dove is well. We've named her Cypress, and we were able to move her into the bird room last night. She is still caged, as she needs time to acclimate and gain strength. Once she's used to the environment, puts on a little weight, and learns to fly, she will be cage free, like the other birds. Saffron (our Indian ringneck dove) has been lurking around Cypress' cage all day. Saffie is prone to crushes and really wants a best friend. Saffie is a big part of the reason that Cypress won't be out of the cage unsupervised until she gets bigger. Saffron follows her 'crushes' around and can become very irritating. Cypress needs to be a little closer to Saffie's size, so she can handle her pushy love.

Oh, L. & I are reading, "A Wrinkle in Time" for our bedtime reading. What a good book! We just read chapter 4 tonight. I don't know how I missed reading this classic in my youth, but I'm having a blast reading it with L., and she's really enjoying it, too.

Back to school season brings the inevitable glut of posts on my 'mommy board' that absolutely infuriate me. "My poor innocent child got kicked out of Kindergarten/1st grade/whatever for hitting a teacher/assaulting a student/whatever, what can I do". The other parents on the board, who are too lazy to actively parent and discipline their children, always have the solution--"Get an IEP". One huge reason that I homeschool and one of the biggest single factors in the destruction of the school sytem is the 'mainstreaming' of troubled, violent children. Naughty, uncontrollable, disruptive, violent children are all now "special needs", which means that the other students in the class have to be exposed to their crap, which is often frightening to the children. The teacher has to focus her very limited time and resources on dealing with the rotten kids, leaving little time left to educate the rest of the class. Why are bad children (yes, I realize that in most cases it is the parent's fault) excused and accomodated at the expense of the children who have a shot at being productive, contributing members of society? Why must the entire class suffer because of one or a few rotten apples? If our school systems are even savageable (and I'm not sure that they are), the only hope is to pull these problems out of the classroom and keep them with their own kind. Sorry if that sounds cold--wait, no, I'm really not. A message to the lazy parents creating these little brats: "Clean up your own fucking mess. Stop inflicting your poor parenting mess on the rest of the world. We all pay the price." I didn't have the luxury of the option to homeschool my oldest child. She was exposed to things that no child should ever have to see/hear, especially at the place I sent her to become educated. I watched her lose countless hours of classtime due to these children, and see how undereducated she is--and she was in AP classes!

Sarah Palin--the worst VP choice ever!! That is one scary bitch for so, so many reasons. Keep pushing that abstinence-only sex ed, Sarah. We need more knocked up little girls shitting out kids they are ill-equipped to raise in an overpopulated world. I guess it makes it okay, at least for dominionist-fundamentalist-creationst beauty queens, as long as they make their knocked up little girls marry the baby daddy. Yeah, that fixes the problem. That's a way better idea than teaching kids to use condoms. @@ (<-- BIG eyeroll here, in case the sarcasm wasn't evident).

Now that I've taken care of my venting, I can go watch EVOLVE, on the History Channel. It starts in a few minutes, and I don't want to be late!