I don’t know who I’m voting for. I am one of those great undecided voters that politicians salivate over. I liked Bush as governor of Texas and overall I think he did okay as president. Great? Mmm, not exactly, but I’m not totally dissatisfied either. I respected Bush because he never really seemed to care what other people thought. He didn’t run his office by the polls and that is why I voted for him. I’m not an expert at government or international affairs or the economy that is why I have a president. I don’t want him to take my opinion I want him to listen to his advisors, his experts and make his own opinion. Bush did that – whether I liked it or not he did that — I can respect that.

I’ve never cared for Obama. Don’t get me wrong he seems like a swell guy and if he had at least completed one term as a senator before running I think I would have more faith in his abilities. However, he strikes me as an idealist who will be crushed by the sheer enormity of the Washington political machine. I think like Clinton he will tell me everything I WANT to hear but never really level with me. He’s a wonderful speaker, a great orator, but I don’t have a lot of faith in his abilities. It’s great to talk about making huge sweeping changes but in reality none of it will happen. I am the only one who remembers Bill Clinton holding up the “national health care” card during his state of the union address promising us that we will all have them by the end of the year. Yeah, I haven’t gotten mine either. I’m not saying he didn’t try but Bill and Hillary are far more politically connected and astute than Obama and they couldn’t get it done. I don’t have a lot of hope for Obama’s promises. And without his big ideas there just isn’t much there. Come back in 8 years and I’ll think about it.

I like state governors. I think being a state governor is the best experience a politican can have before running for president. If we think of the US presidency like any other job you would want somebody who has taken on increasingly greater government responsibilities and state governors have done that. I think that is what made Bill Clinton well qualified, I think it is what made Ronald Reagan well qualified, and I think it is what made Bush well qualified. As a result Sarah Palin has more credibility with me. I like her — really, I do. Perhaps I like her because she’s a mom and I can relate to that. Perhaps I like her because she’s saucy, rebellious and from Alaska. I like her because she’s shown a pattern of taking on increasingly large amounts of responsibility and I can respect that.

However, I’m not sold on McCain. Again, seems like a great guy. He really does seem smart, and pretty moral. I think he does do what he thinks is best. However, politics calls for diplomacy and making friends with those we hate and I’m not sure he’s capable of that. I come from a long line of hot-heads and I know what that means. That means being a bull in a china shop socially and right now I’m not sure we can afford that as a country. I love what he’s done with campaign reform, and trying to tame the special interests in Washington. I cannot even imagine the experiences he’s had in Vietnam and I do think military experience lends credibility to any candidate but I just don’t view him as an inspiring leader.

So here I stand. Undecided. I have a dreaded disdain for people lumping Republicans into a bucket of bible-thumping-uneducated-conservative-pinheads and I also cannot stand those who lump Democrats into a bucket of give all the money to the poor-never go to war- hippies, who all hate God and have college degrees. I just don’t see our country being that black and white.

Oy! What is a girl to do?

Me: Max, you can’t wear socks with your sandals
Max: ME SOCKS!
Me: No, you cannot wear socks with your sandals
David: Why can’t he?
Me: Because
Max: ME SOCKS!
David: I think it is very European of him.

I’m always surprised when David makes an off-handed comment like; “how could you forget that at the grocery store,” or “can you take the van to the dealership and wait for 2 hours while they fix it?” My response to these things is always something along the lines of “I have 2 kids under the age of five….” After that I feel everything else is excused. As a result I would like to put out there a challenge – an obstacle course – a test of wills. Husbands welcome to YOUR Olympics.

Grocery Store Sprint
You are required to take more than one child with you to the grocery store. You must go at a time that is at least 1 hour within either nap time or lunch time. You will have to purchase more than 20 items. These items must feed a family of four for an entire week and not cost more than the allotted budget for your family. You have an hour. The challenge – don’t forget anything, don’t over spend, don’t buy the kids a junky snack in order to keep them quiet.

The Errand Obstacle Course
You are required to take more than one child with you and accomplish more than 3 errands. Each errand must require you to take the children out of the car and actually enter the establishment. None of these errands can be “kid-focused” (for instance, no going to the library or toy store) and at least one stop must require you to wait in a line for more than 5 minutes. Again, no buying junk food to keep them quiet or the promise of a pony if they are good.

The Phone Call Balance
You are required to call and schedule 3 separate doctors appointment. These appointments must not conflict with meal time, nap time, school time, church time, or other people’s schedules. You must also do this while all children are awake and in the same room with you.

The Car Repair Endurance
Take your vehicle to the dealership or other car repair location. This must be a repair that requires you to leave your vehicle (no drive-thru oil change). You must sit and wait, with the children inside the sometimes dirty, always boring, and germ-infested sitting area while your car is fixed. The repair must take longer 20 minutes. (extra points if one of the children is still in diapers)

Okay guys, the gauntlet has been tossed. You can either step-up to the plate or just admit defeat and secede the gold medal to the true winner in this battle — your wife.

This morning Max unleashed his tiny fists of fury on my laptop. The result, 20% of my keyboard is no longer functioning. I will be taking a short blogging break while my computer is repaired. In the meantime would anybody like to care for my son until I get over my inappropriate rage?

I can’t seem to get my mind focused enough to put together one cohesive blog post. I’ve started four and have finished none of them. As a result I’m just going to combine them into one sort of mish-mash post.

My Tiny Guy
The kids and I ventured across the street yesterday to visit our neighbor. Their little boy is 18 months old. As we stood their chatting we both could not help but notice that our sons were the EXACT same size (as a matter of fact her son had at least 8 lbs on Max). This means my 31 month old son is the same size as an 18 month old. In a panic I called the doctor who assured me that since January Max has grown 2 inches and based on his growth trend is just fine. And yet….he’s short. Because my kids have never attended school I don’t normally see them in context with other children and although I always knew Max wasn’t particularly big for his size his “petite stature” didn’t fully hit me until yesterday.

Bad Food
I started putting together a list of foods that I find gross and will never require my kids to eat. Any of these on your list?

1.) Green Peas
2.) Lima Beans
3.) Cauliflower
4.) Kidney (or other animal organ)
5.) pureed meat – so glad I’m past baby food

The Body Wonder
I had a physical last week because, well, I’m 38 and it seemed like the thing to do. Well low and behold my thyroid isn’t working. As a result I’ve started some new fangled medication that is supposed to give me more energy and allow me to lose weight (versus exercising in some sort of self-torturous adventure). Glad I got that physical – like seriously.

That’s it – that is what has been on my mind. See how I could never really tie all those things together? I don’t know – I’m blaming my newly malfunctioning thyroid.

This is a warning, that for the second time this week I will be stepping upon my soap-box. I promise to not make this a trend.

It’s the first week of school here in Dallas, as it is in most states. I teach college English and like most teachers I start every year with a couple of key goals in mind:

1.) How do I inspire my students to do their best work?
2.) How do I get my students to engage with my subject and as a result learn something?
3.) How do I make my subject matter relevant to them without deluding the quality of the assignment?
4.) How do I make them better skilled as a human so they can go be successful in the world?

I will be the first to admit that some semesters I am more successful than others. I am more successful with some students than I am with others. Teaching is never going to have a 100% success rate. EVER. Why? Because it takes at least two people to be successful in the classroom me and the student and as a teacher I can only control half of that equation. As a result, it infuriates me when bureaucrats, legislators and parents become enraged when they look at dropout rates or failure rates and blame the teachers. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of bad teachers out there, but you cannot legislate success.

This summer, in anticipation of this school year, the Dallas ISD passed a new grading policy that is effective across the district. Here are some highlights (for the full article go here):

1.) Teachers MUST accept late homework from all students
2.) If a student fails a test they are automatically given a chance to retake the test
3.) Teachers MUST drop any low grade that would lower a students overall average
4.) A teacher cannot give any grade lower than a 50%

Their defense of this policy is that they have a high dropout rate among 9th grade students who fail 2 or more classes within the first 6 weeks of school. However, the reason why they are failing the first 6 weeks of class isn’t because the teachers are failing them it is because THEY CAN’T READ! Nothing like treating the symptom but not fixing the cold. Just because we pretend that these kids aren’t failing doesn’t mean they aren’t. This policy absolutely horrifies me — it is neither helping the students nor assisting the teachers. Why as a society are we incapable of saying the tough things about our own education system?

I’m retreating from my soap-box and will place it back in the closet. Thank you for your patience.

I woke up to the sound of gunfire in my house. I rarely take a nap on the weekends, but with my sinus infection still putting up a good battle and the kids safely tucked away in my bed with a movie I thought it would be safe. I sneaked into Max’s room, laid down among the stuffed dinosaurs and fell asleep. It couldn’t have been twenty minutes when I heard the unmistakable sound of machine guns ripping through our house. I jumped out of bed and walked into our family room.

David was sitting in the family room with the TV on “fine-tuning” our home stereo system. Apparently, this delicate task can only happen by watching “Saving Private Ryan” with the volume set to a level that was so loud David didn’t notice I was actually talking to him. When he did turn the volume down we could hear Lucy crying in the next room. Not just a small weeping but a full-on “I’m going to throw up I’m crying so hard”. I innocently asked “why is she crying?”. And David, with only the wisdom a husband could possess said “Oh, I turned off their movie and told them to lay down and take a nap.” I stood there for a moment dumbfounded. First, Lucy is almost 5 and hasn’t been required to take a nap for at least 6 months which would clearly explain the tears. However, even if that weren’t the case is playing “Saving Private Ryan” at a decibel level that actually will cause the entire family to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder conducive to nap time? The good part to this story is that I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, I said “I don’t think they can nap with the volume so loud”. When I went into my room to check on the kids they were both sitting straight up on the bed crying and David – in an apparent effort to make the environment more soothing – had put on classical music at a very low volume level. The volume on the radio was low enough that the kids could still very clearly feel and hear the effects of the tanks rolling through Normandy.

For other husbands let me just clear something up so this mistake won’t happen in your house.

See the kind of public service I provide here?

I don’t like to talk about controversial things here – on my blog – because frankly that is not what this space is for. However, the front page of MSNBC had an article this morning and I just cannot ignore it. Vaccines. I’m for them. You can yell at me all you want but this is why:

• After reading research on both sides of the issue I feel that the risk of my child suffering a side effect is much smaller than the risk of them catching small pox. Mercury, which supposedly has been linked to autism (and yet vaccines are not required at all in Japan and they have seen the same increase in autism we have) has not been put in vaccines since 2000. The other argument I’ve read is that a child’s immune system is not strong enough. But it is – and that is the point – to make it stronger.
• The reason why the risk of children getting small pox is so low is because EVERYBODY ELSE IS IMMUNIZED. Which means that those who don’t immunize are in some fashion (conscious or not) relying on everybody else to immunize their child.
• When enough people don’t immunize diseases come back — which they are – like measles, whooping cough and mumps. (see link to this article on MSNBC). Personally I don’t want to be the one person responsible for an outbreak of measles in my school or to watch my child needlessly suffer in a hospital because they contracted whooping cough.

Perhaps it is because I am an “older” mother but I remember my parents telling stories of kids in their schools dying from Polio, being in the hospital for whooping cough, scars from the measles, etc. Everybody has to make their own decisions but when your decision starts effecting MY family (like drunk driving, robbing, etc) then I get a bit passionate about it. Go ahead – get mad at me – I’ve braced myself.