Graduation Parties are Dumb

With Dancer graduating next year, naturally we know a lot of kids who have graduated in the last couple of years and, in turn, have attended quite a few graduations.

It seems that kids, or at least their parents, start planning their graduation parties during graduation season the year before.  I have also noticed that cake and ham buns just doesn't cut it any more as acceptable graduation fare.  Now they have themes, gourmet food, some kind of bar (candy, ice cream, fish taco, etc.) for guests to graze on while staying at the party for what seems like an appropriate amount of time, bounce houses, petting zoos and even fireworks.

It also seems that no matter how interested I appear to be in the plans for their graduation the dreaded question always comes, "What does Dancer want for her graduation party?"

"Um, she doesn't"

"She doesn't?" they ask with the same disbelief we heard in their voices 13 years ago when we said that she wasn't going to kindergarten because we were going to homeschool.

"No," and this is sort of uncomfortable when we are at a graduation party, "She thinks they are dumb?"

Chirp, chirp, chirp......

So let me explain why she thinks they are dumb.  First, Dancer is not a "look at me, life of the party" kind of girl.  You could go as far as to say she is a bit of an introvert, okay, a lot of an introvert.  She has lots and lots of friends, but you might not hear her talk very much until you have met her a couple of times.  So being the center of attention at a party would be equivalent to having a root canal without Novocain.

Secondly, why would you invite a lot of people over who don't know each other (which is really the case when you homeschool) and you don't really have time to really talk to them?  I never thought of it that way but yes, that does make sense.

I try to explain this to people, which usually results in a little smile and a quick change in conversation.  One parent, however, said that I should force her with the reasoning that she will regret it later in life.

Okay, now I think that is dumb.  I just spent 17 years teaching her to be a critical thinker, not go along with the crowd if she feels differently just because it is the ideas of the majority, to be her own independent person and feel comfortable being that person and to make her own choices.  Why would I, at the end the road, "force" her to have a party?

So will there be a graduation party in honor of Dancer's hard work next year?  I don't know, maybe she will opt to have a few low key bonfires with groups of friends.

And what about Spark?  He is already planning his party and I wouldn't be surprised it included fireworks. And a taco bar.  He's already making a guest list.    

A Bit Of Parenting Advice

Get rid of all the carpeting, tile and hardwood floors (especially the tounge in grove kind) in your house.  Put in wall to wall linoleum.  Make your children have their rooms picked up with nothing on the floors, that goes for the rest of your house too, especially the path to the bathroom.

If you don't take that excellent advice, get yourself a good carpet cleaner (You only have to use the carpet cleaner once to think it has paid for itself no matter how much it cost).  The carpet cleaner will come in handy at 1:45 a.m. when you are awoken to the second sick kid you have had in two days christening the carpet.  Nothing gets your blood pumping more that a two hour session in the middle of the night scrubbing grout, getting in between those little slats in hardwood boards and a good carpet cleaning. 

Linoleum - may not be all the rage on HGTV but you could be back in bed in minutes. 

Bang Bang

Dancer came out of her bedroom making a shooting sounds with her fingers in the shape of guns.  Then she laughs and says that if she was in public school she would be suspended for doing that.  She is such a scofflaw. 

It wasn't until after I downloaded the picture that I saw that the lights from the dining room were reflecting right at the end of her finger gun making it look like she has magic pistol fingers.

Scent Of A Woman

Dancer and I were meandering around Macy's this afternoon while waiting for Dad and Spark to do a little birthday shopping at a different store at the mall.  We got by the perfume section and Dancer was all excited to check out the Justin Bieber perfume "Someday."  She sprayed a couple of hearts with the perfume, tried some of the hand lotion which has glitter in it, and got a little sample vial.

We get back in the car and Dancer said that she could still smell the lotion on her hands.  Spark pipes in with, "I think if you want to attract men you should smell more like Fleet Farm."

Say What???

Is this an oxymoron?  Is it frosty or is it boiling?  Is someone making snowcrab legs?  Is boiling frost so remarkable we have road signs to alert motorists to investigate the amazing phenomenon?

For our followers, who don't live in the great white north, a frost boil happens in the spring when mud that has been under pressure, underground breaks through the frost in the soil (The earth here freezes solid to a depth of several feet in the winter) and pushes out in mini volcanoes.  O.K., mini-volcanoes may be a tad dramatic--they are more like a pimple or boil on a person's skin.  They are really common on gravel roads but also often break through asphalt.  The road is closed until it's base can be reinforced and repairs undertaken.  Until then gravel is just poured on the ever widening mudpits.  

Even after the frost has left the ground the forces for equilibrium continue to create these prolems.  An additional note for our viewers "down south", in the ditch you can see how long our grass is (and fields still unplanted) on May 19th! 

Color Or Black And White

I was talking to some people this week and one of them was telling the group about a dream she had had about t-shirt colors as it related to our conversation.  Another person said something about don't we all dream in black and white?  Another person said that black and white is really a new concept to people dating back only to when photographs and t.v. were invented.

I found this so interesting, mostly because I had never thought of it myself, that I had to come home and ponder it with the kids.   We decided that it must be true that black and white is a new concept because why would anyone just single out black and white.  Why not blue and orange or any other color combination.  We also dream in color, in fact Dancer just had a dream last night that she was riding a carnival banana ride that was yellow and I dreamt there was a blue mongoose in my room chasing away snakes.  It was a little hard to fall back asleep after that one because I had to convince myself in my sleep like mind that it couldn't be true since we don't live in India. 

We also wondered if animals really see in black and white?  We looked into this and found that there is a lot of discussion about this very topic out there in the scientific world.  A few interesting things we did find is that to see colors like we do, we need to have three different types cone cells.  Dogs and deer have two cones so they are what we would call color blind.  For example, we can wear blaze orange hunting and the deer see it as a shade of green.  Dogs see red and green the same so it was advised in one source that you don't let your dog drive the car.  Most fish, reptiles and birds see in color like humans.  Birds, lizards and turtles have an oil droplet by their eye cones and it is thought that this droplet may let them see colors more vividly.    Snakes have a pit organ just below their nostril and in front of their eye that lets them detect infrared light.  Mice, gerbils, bees, butterflies and many songbirds can see ultraviolet light.  All this, of course, is only theoretical and we will won't know with absolute certainty until these animals start talking and can do so on a quite advanced level.

We could keep pondering this but we have probably given it enough thought and will move on to the next topic that catches our attention and sends us down a rabbit trail.    

I Think We Irritate Our Neighbor

Our human neighbors pasture goes right up along side the road where we walk.  When their cows are out they always stop grazing and look at us.  Not just a normal look but a glare.  A glare that says,  who are you trespassing in my pasture?  A glare that sometimes makes me wonder, is there something on my face, is my shirt on backwards, do I have a trail of toilet paper stuck on my shoe, bad breath, some other offending oddity?  You may think "One cow that's not so creepy".   But this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are dozens more like her.  Watching, waiting, plotting some nefarious scheme.

They complain noisily as we continue our walk, often walking along side of us to make sure we are really leaving.  Maybe they are like that "Far Side" cartoon; standing on hind legs, leaning on trees, smoking cigarettes, only to act like cows when humans are near?  When they feel we have moved a desirable distance from them they get their graze back on.  Is it jealousy?  We can hear these cows so I'm sure they can hear our goats.  Perhaps our goats mournful wailing is actually gloating about their treat filled life.  Sometimes I wonder if they are trying to follow us home.

When we turn around to return home we get the stink eye again.  Last year there was a really pretty brown cow that Dancer dubbed "Lilly" but this year we haven't seen her, just these annoyed bovines.  We walk there pretty often so I'm sure they will warm up to us like Lilly did.

My Frustrated Bookworm

Dancer has books that she has ordered from the library.  They are "In Transit" but not at the nearest library branch yet even though she ordered them a couple of days ago and she was sure they would be there today.  To make it worse, I told her we would run in and pick them up if they were there today.  She keeps checking the email for a notification and it isn't showing up.  In frustration she says "Don't they know they are interfering with my education?!"  Then she put her head down on the table and said wearily "My head is going to explode."  I guess she is practicing that virtue patience today.

Deep Thoughts by Dancer

Do people who write joke books laugh while they are writing them?