Quick! Type something!

Are the kids gone? Is anybody lurking around the corner? No fifty page papers to write? No grades to look up? No obscure civilization to research?

Whew! Then I can FINALLY blog!

You know you're back in school when all of a sudden, everybody needs to use the computer all at once, and everything is due tomorrow, and there suddenly don't seem to be enough hours in the day. You'd think that, with three of the four girls in school most of the day, I could easily fit in a half hour here or there on this blessed computer, but ... well, if you do the math, I still have one child at home. And that child is completely co-dependent. Sophie really doesn't enjoy playing by herself. She's never had to, really. But now that big sisters are out the door before she even wakes up, four days out of seven (yes, you read that right -- but I'll talk about that in a minute), and most of her friends attend preschool or even kindergarten, Sophie is one bummed out chick.

And I am no fun anymore.

It's funny, I don't remember becoming un-fun. I know I'm getting older, and it's not as comfortable to get down on the floor and play on my hands and busted knees, but I think I'm a pretty entertaining sort of person. Sophie, aparently, does not agree. I'm just old.... and it's very pressing to think about.



Still, we got Soph her very own set of homework books and we made her these clocks to help her pass the time throughout the day. Most of the time, she ends up drifting towards the computer where she can turn it on, plug in one of her favorite Jump Start Preschool cd's, and go to town. And before I know it, hours have passed. The dishes are done, the laundry is folded, and the floor is mopped, but my poor child is sucked in to her cyber babysitter. Which I'm sure cannot be entirely healthy.

Luckily for us, we are very blessed to have a few friends that don't do preschool every day. Today is one of those days, and Sophie was thrilled beyond reason to actually get to have a playdate. Me, too. So here I am, catching up on the last ten days. The laundry can WAIT.

So, the whole four day school week is starting to settle down in our school district. In an effort to save money and prevent firing teachers, they cut out twenty whole days out of our school year. We have two more weeks of school, but without all these Mondays, they are hoping that a smaller utility bill and less bussing is going to even out the budget cuts. Education has become so political! I really don't understand all of it -- I mean, if it were as simple as cutting out brand new cars for our state representatives so our kids could actually get an education we could be proud of, then it would be a no-brainer fix. But, alas, there is no easy solution to this problem! They're still talking about cutting teachers! They cut half of the hot lunches! There's no more music program in the elementary schools! And most of our classrooms have close to 40 kids!

WHERE DID OUR STATE GO WRONG??!!

Home schooling has become a subject of much debate. It may solve the problem for my children, perhaps, but for every kid that drops out of school to go on their own, the state cuts a percentage of funding. So that's not a solution for the bigger problem, either. All I can promise is that we will take every opportunity to expand my children's education on our own, and hopefully, they can still manage to get into college someday. Someday in the not too distant future, I might add...

Meanwhile, I'm still breathing. I'm an active PTO parent, as much as I can, anyway, and my kids' teachers know me as an involved parent. That's as much as I can do for now.