Everybody on the Bus. We're Going Back to the Old School.

I am sharing my awesome at Momma Made It Look Easy; you can, too.

THIS is my exactly favorite time of year.  I love the smell of new crayons and the feel of new clothes. I love the process of  choosing which baby animal will adorn folders and the all important...backpack.  Maybe because life is so complex, these simple decisions are like a comforting sweatshirt on an early October day.

Hard on the heels of  'Back to School', comes Labor Day, the ceremonial threshhold between Summer and Fall.  Football season provides the background music to the (finally) cooling temperatures and the turning of the leaves from green to brilliant red and gold...

~sound of record scratching~

In a world where handwriting is disappearing from the curriculum and there are metal detectors in even the primary schools; back to school isn't what it once was.

In our house, we aren't just going 'Back to School'.  We are going back to 'The Old School'.  Join us if you will...

TEN WAYS TO GET BACK TO THE OLD SCHOOL FOR MY KIDS AND BOTH REMAINING BLOG FRIENDS

1. My Children, you will be learning to do your math with a pencil and paper.  You will not whine to me that computers do that now. You have to learn it.  The world may end before you use it.  That'll be a shame. Wah wah wah.

2. As I said before...handwriting instruction is no longer a part of the curriculum in some areas.  Don't you wish you lived there?  Someday, when you write sticky notes in your office, the administrative assistant will know you want him to pick up a dozen roses. Rather than pick his freakin' nose.

3. You have to make the grade. There is one right answer in Math. Spelling. Science. When there isn't just one, I know when you are thinking and when you are farting around.  Sucks, right?  No, not really.  Because when 'right is right', you know where you stand.  Your grade then belongs to you and has nothing to do with whether your teacher likes you or not.

4.  You still aren't getting a phone.  When you pay for it, you can sit and text, "kk", on your own dime.  Until then, the decision is mine and when you can "remember" to do your chores (Yes, I am on this again) I might trust you to take care of a $250 device with a $50/month bill.  Puh....

Moving on.

5. You are going to dress like you have some self-respect.  You are not going to wear skirts or shorts so short that if you fall down, bystanders are no longer innocent.  You are not going to wear shirts that look like you found them stuck to the street.  You are going to be clean, neat and presentable.  Oh, and no black fingernail polish.  It looks like you slammed all your fingers in the car door.  Yes, I know EVERYONE else gets to dress like a prostitute circa. 1981 (or Dracula).  I know.  That's why you are so lucky to be here at the old school.

6. Manage your money. Stop buying gum.  Daddy buys gum. You may not live here when you are thirty.  Please get a bigger life goal than getting a job so you can go to Dollywood.

7. Remember.  If you hate me for a little while everyday, I am doing my job correctly.  Roll your eyes and slam doors, but remember...I don't care.  Knock it off the hinges.  The women's clinics, juvenile courts and morgues are filled with young ladies whose moms are cool*.

8.  I will monitor heavily what you watch and who you hang with.  I am not from The "children-are-wise-and-make-good-decisions-if-you-just-give-them-the-freedom" School. I am from The "the-hell-they-will-ask-me-how-I-know" School.

9.  It is not as if we live like Amish people here.  Believe it or not.  Your entertainment is not my main assignment.  Your character is.  Yeah.  If you think that makes your days look bleak.  Imagine if you were me.

10.  I am comfortable with the order of authority.  I am comfortable with protecting you from the rampant skankiness in the world, and your own stupidity.  I am comfortable with you not being comfortable with being different from everyone else.  This is why children have parents.  More and more I see, that though you are taller than I am, you are really still children.  I am still the parent.  You get to be the child for a little while longer.  Enjoy.


Enjoy the Old School.




*We happen to know a young lady and her mom...  It's not if; it's when.  She's younger than my girls.

I know sometimes children do things, because "it seemed like a good idea at the time."  And it has nothing to do with the parenting they've rec'd...(see #8).