Can you spell better than a..

first grader?

So I'm confused.  First graders are between the ages of 5 and 7 correct?

Maybe I'm seeing things.  You know hallucinating.

Because Daughter's spelling list this week includes the word "courteous".  I'll be honest, I don't even know how to spell courteous without:

A.  Picturing the the word and concentrating

or which is much more likely

B.  Spelling it wrong and seeing what corrections Word pops up with.

Courteous - courteous - courteous  Nope, still can't spell it easily.

Spelling List

Where do these words come from?

Is there a master list of spelling words somewhere that I'm not aware of?

Who on earth thought "Hmm, courteous is an excellent first grade spelling word, those 6 year olds really need to have a handle on words with EOU in them."

Seriously?

And why are we still having spelling tests anyway?

Isn't school over yet?

There is hell on earth..

.. and it is called lice.

Actually I shouldn't say that.  Lot's of worse things happen to people, so really what is lice compared to a heart attack, death, cancer or layoff?  Just a minor inconvenience really,  but boy does having lice suck.

Day 1

Son 2 is complaining of an itchy head.  I think that he just hasn't rinsed his head well from his shower and has soap residue.  Nope, Nadim checks him and sees lice.  I start freaking out.

I know people that have had lice and my sister is the health coordinator for a head start preschool that sees stuff like this all the time.  I know what is coming my way.

First stop, call my sister for all the details on what I should do, make a list and freak out some more.

I've now decided to treat lice as if it was the Ebola virus.  I'm going for defcon 5 or whatever the highest defcon thingy is.  I'm going nuclear.  I have a huge freaking pile of laundry.

I'm in full blown panic, work like a machine mode.  You know like you do when you have a newborn baby.  No stopping to think, just work, work, work.

Bags, bags and more bags.  It is possible to have any more soft surface toys in this freaking house???  Daughter has way, way too many stuffies!  I pretty much have to quarantine her whole room.

these shelves were full of toys

Nadim runs to the store to buy more bags, Nix lice hair treatment and a flea comb.

He comes back with bags and lice spray for the furniture.

Nadim goes back to the store and comes back with one box of Nix family hair treatment.

Now, Daughter has long, long hair and I have thick, thick hair.  We need at least 2 boxes and where is the flea comb?

Nadim goes back to the store and brings back all my requested supplies.

I continue to bag stuff, strip the beds, and vacuum every surface in the house.  Towels, bedding, curtains, pillows, back packs, all the kids clothes are thrown into my side yard ready to be laundered.

There is a literal mountain of laundry in my side yard.

Laundry still remaining after 2 days of constant cycles

Nadim starts treating the kids.  Son 2 is up first.  He is patient zero.  The Nix creme rinse stuff isn't that bad, but it stinks.  Open up all the windows.  Trying to figure out how to rinse the kids heads without the pesticide going into their nose/mouth/eyes is a challenge.

Nadim combs out Son 2's hair with a fine tooth flea comb that works great.  This comb is my new best friend.  Comb, comb, comb out the lice.

this is the best lice comb ever!

Repeat with Son 1, Daughter and then me.

I'm now thanking my lucky stars that I went defcon 5.  I NEVER EVER want to do this again.

My washer/dryer has been running for 12 hours and when Nadim and I call it a night.

Day 2

Start the washer/dryer going again.

I have a stroke of genius and decide to put the bike helmets in the dryer.  After a loud clunk, the dryer stops working.

I almost stroke out, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

I take out the bike helmets and bag them, who needs to ride bikes for the next two weeks?

I make myself walk away from the dryer while Nadim comes over and tries to fix it.  SUCCESS, Nadim is my hero and the dryer is working again.

More laundry and bags in quarantine

I am now re-evaluating my attempt to launder every single thing we own.  Nadim and I start bagging more and more items.  We vacuum the house for a fourth time.

We comb out the kids hair morning and night, the number of lice are cut dramatically and they are almost all dead.

We are making progress and the laundry outside is shrinking.  Twenty four straight hours of laundry will do that.

Day 3

I start up the laundry again, and I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

My office :)

I comb out all the kids' hair with some good news: Daughter and Son 1 are completely clear!  Nothing!  Son 2 still had a few dead lice coming out, but it's about 10% of what we found on day 2.

I just got a call from our neighbor that her kids are infected as well.  Nadim and I conference and we decide to keep the kids home from school because I don't want them exposed again.

I continue to clean, process the laundry and sterilize all the brushes and hair rubber bands after each use.

sterilized hair supplies

I call the school to see what they are doing.  My kids have reminded me about all the stuffed animals and pillows in the library and that the computer lab has soft cushioned chairs.  If I think to much about sending them back to school I start to hyperventilate.   Can you say re-infestation??

Home school is starting to sound doable.

The Principal calls and the home school idea fades into the background.  I feel reassured that the school has things mostly under control.

I might actually send my kids to school.

The laundry is going so well I consider un-bagging some of the stuff I bagged yesterday and washing it.

Day 4

The kids are back in school.  Hats off to the lice police front office staff, for being vigilante on sending kids back home that still have an active infestation of lice.

I'm beginning to un-bag laundry and wash it.  Somewhere along the line I've lost Nadim and my laundry bag, hopefully it'll show up in one of the bags.

I checked in with my sister who very helpfully reminded me that lice have a short incubation period and that if I missed even one egg I'll be back to square one.  I guess that lice comb isn't going any where yet.

The adrenaline rush has officially worn off and I'm exhausted, but feeling like I have things under control.

Is there such a thing as Lice related PTSD?  I might have it.

Five weeks later

No lice, let me say that again, no lice.  Ahh, that feels good.  Everything is unpacked and put away and the house is back to normal.

I'm still running the back packs and jackets through the dryer on high every day when the kids get home from school.  I'm not sure how long I'll keep that up, maybe the next year or two.

Things I learned

The very most important tool you can have when dealing with lice is a good comb.  The ones that come with the shampoo are absolutely worthless.  Buy yourself a good one.

The CDC has a ton of great information, but when you google lice the CDC website doesn't appear on the first page.  Check out these links:

CDC info on lice
CDC info on getting ride of head lice

By the way, after the lice epidemic was under control, I researched the defcon system.  Apparently Defcon 1 is the highest level of alert.  I guess I had the numbers backwards :)

Oh, and not to worry, I found this missing laundry bag.

Star of the Week..

otherwise known as Mom Homework.

So in the first grade students have a lovely assignment where they get to make a Star of the Week poster.

Glitter star, cause everything is better with glitter

On this poster they are supposed to tell about themselves with pictures, stickers, or whatever else they can find.

So next week is Daughter's week.

Glittered letter from Daughter's name

She has been looking forward to it, I've been dreading it.

First thing, we did was select 56 pictures ... yes, 56.  Apparently Daughter has a very healthy sense of self esteem and wants to share her fabulousness with all her friends.

Of course we don't have developed photos laying around the house, I mean who does?  So that meant I Nadim had to print out all the photos and Sophia I had to cut them out.

Front of poster

Most kids decorate one side of a poster board, Daughter did front and back.

Back of poster

Then Daughter threw some glitter in for good measure :)  Actually it was more than "some" glitter, it was like a giant tub of glitter.  Each photo needed to have a border of glitter for good measure.

Glitter border

Because nothing is better than a little glitter than a lot of glitter!

Teacher rant

Ok, so I'm mad.  Really, really mad.

So mad I want to drop F bombs and all other sorts of inappropriate language, but I won't.

Thursday is "conduit" day at school.  A conduit is basically a big envelope filled with the students work for the week.

Daughter's conduit had a surprise waiting for me.  A Habitat book, a trimester long project, that was given a score of 1.

Yep, 1 out of 4.

Here is the description of what a score of 1 means:  "1 point is incomplete or incorrect.  I did not follow directions.  I did not show that I learned about different habitats."

Now, I'm the first to admit that the quality of her work is sadly lacking and very sloppy.

What infuriates me is that..

The teacher never bothered to let me know that Daughter was not doing well on the project during the 2 months they worked on it in class.  Not one peep.  Not once, during the 13.5 hours I volunteered in her classroom, did one word cross her lips.

Not only that, as it turns out Daughter didn't do well in general during the second trimester.  Do you know what the teacher had to say when I asked her about it???  Apparently, the teacher decided to sit Daughter at a table with some kids who needed a role model.  Guess what happened?  Daughter's quality of work sunk to the other kid's level.

Now why the teacher would allow this to go on for the entire second trimester I have no idea.

I'm also really mad at myself.

I should have been more on top of things.  Daughter didn't like her new table and I should have listened harder. 

I thought the woes of the second trimester were over, Daughter has been in a new seat for 3 weeks now and seems to be doing better.

Until today.

Grrrrrr.


 

Field Trip Day..

otherwise known as Head Count Day.  Today, I accompanied the 4th grade class on a field trip to the San Juan Capistrano Mission, along with a couple of hundred 4th grade students from other schools.

These feet were made for walking

I take my job as chaperone pretty seriously and have attended every single field trip my kids have had except for one.  What about the one field trip I missed, you ask?

Well that happened way back when Son 1 was in Kindergarten.  The class visited a pumpkin patch. When my neighbor picked Son 1 up from school (we have a walk pool) she immediately noticed that he looked sick and was wearing his sweatshirt zipped all the way up in the 90 degree heat. Come to find out, Son 1 walked around in 90 heat, with his sweatshirt on, with no water to drink the entire duration of the field trip.  He tried to get his teacher's attention to tell her something was wrong, but was not able to speak he was feeling so bad.

Once I got him home, I gave him a cool bath and rehydrated him with water.  It took several hours for him to recover and I seriously considered taking him to the ER for fluids.  Once he was feeling better, I got mad.  Really, really mad.  I talked to the teacher and the principal about the total lack of supervision and attention paid to my son, and probably many other children as well.  I made a pretty big stink.  The Principal agreed that there had been serious problems and promised to make changes.

Fast forward 4 years and all the teachers know they can count on me to chaperone.  I don't care if I have to drive myself or pay my own way.  I will be there. 

Today I had 14 kids in my group all of whom were pretty well behaved.  After a few dozen head counts, blocking doorways and herding cats we had a successful trip.  Son 1's favorite part of the trip, the Koi pond.  My favorite part?  Students asking if I was going to be their chaperone :)

It's beginning to look a lot like

... Mom homework.  So I admit it, I'm getting pretty annoyed with the "fun family project" homework coming home from school.  Over the last couple of weeks I've, ok my kids, been assigned two pretty big projects. 

From the 1st grade class came, what I consider busy work, a "blend" assignment.  This entailed finding 4 pictures for each of 24 constant blends. For those of you not familiar with consonant blends let me refresh your memory:  br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, sh, sm, sk, sp, st, sw, tw - AND - for good measure the "H brothers" also known as th, sh, ch, wh.  If you are counting, which I am, that is 24 total blends which means a total of 96 pictures.  Let's pause for a second and take that in... 96, yep 96, still 96.  Hmmm, for a 6 year old this might as well be 1 million.

Here is the completed poster, fun times...

I helpfully pointed out to the 1st grade teacher that perhaps 96 might be a bit much, when I complained spoke to her about the assignment the next day.  I repeated 96 several times just to make sure that she really understood my point, but it didn't help.  The teacher responded that it took her only 4 days to complete the project and I had 3 weeks.  Not very helpful.

When Nadim came home that night I complained to him about the stupid, busy work assignment and he famously replied "That sounds like fun!", so I put Nadim in charge of the assignment.  Perfect!  The "fun" assignment lasted until he couldn't find any more pictures with the blends he needed.  So good Dad that he is, he sat down, made himself a list of all the words Daughter needed, googled them, and printed them out at work the next day.

"H" brothers side of the poster

When all was said and done, Daughter's part of the homework project consisted of writing the words underneath the pictures.  I'm really not sure how much educational value this had.  Now the poster board gets to live under my stairs for the next two weeks until it is time to turn it in.