Do You Know The Mutton Man?

Chaos has gorgeous hair and lots of it. It's fine and soft but very, very thick. Oh, and red - on the strawberry blond side of the red spectrum as opposed to either the carroty orange end or the chestnuty auburn end. When he grows his sideburns out, he looks way older than he should.

I think he looks like a red headed Wolverine from X-men.

Occasionally he shaves his sideburns off and looks more like the eighth grader he is.

We just registered him for high school this week. High school! His school does "block scheduling" which means that they have four classes a day - each for an hour and a half. They cover a whole year's worth of a subject in one semester. I can't imagine that it works well for everyone but I think that will be a good format for Chaos. He has four honors academic classes and four "electives" for next year. I hope that he'll have two of each per semester. It would really suck to have one semester be World Studies (which is Literature and History together in one class that meets three hours a day!), honors Science and Algebra in one semester and Keyboarding, Public Speaking, Computer Aided Drafting, and Wellness in the other!! We'll see. He is less impressed by the fact that his teachers recommended him for honors classes (after he's slacked somewhat this year) and more worried about what classes his friends are going to be in. (I remember those days, don't you?) Next year we'll have some in elementary, middle school, and high school. I can't help feeling like right here, right now, this is the calm before the storm. Brace yourself!
Peace.

Lunch Time Goofiness

Sweet Hubby just called home to consult the "Wife-i-pedia" about French pronouns. Gosh, I love that man.
Peace.

A Blogging Fly By

I've been out of range for a week and then out of energy on the comeback. Last week VBGF's mother had her other breast removed and I went up to help VBGF take care of her dad and then to help her mother settle back in at home. I have a long list of posts I want to write but I'll have to start another day as I'm going back out of town tomorrow. Today I'll relay some recent conversations with the Ninja Princessa:

NP: Dad, I don't have any books to read. (Since we give the kids chores to fill their time if they ever say they're bored, this is as close to saying "I'm bored" as possible. Sometimes this gambit pays off in a trip to the bookstore and sometimes it just gets you pulled down the hall into our library but it almost never gets you in "trouble".)
Sweet Hubby:(starts pulling books off the library shelves and handing them to her) You'll LOVE this one.
NP: Is this a good book or is it one of yours?
I can only imagine the mock frowny face my husband pulled on her because then I heard: Ok, ok. I'll read it.
(If only my dad had handed me Marion Zimmer Bradley's Hawkmistress! I got handed Blake's Songs of Innocence and Milton's Paradise Lost. Bleck.)

The Princessa was on a roll because later I was sorting pictures and came across one from my junior year in high school. She grabbed it out of my hand and exclaimed, "Wow! You used to be pretty!" I think she heard herself because she started babbling things like, "I mean you're still sorta pretty," and "Gosh, that's not what I meant either. Forget it." I responded with "beep, beep, beep - CRASH!" but then I chuckled and gave her a hug. She had the grace to blush and hug me back. She's still a tween. I love her to pieces but I'm dreading 14 in a big way.
Peace.

The Ninja Princessa Diaries

Guess who won the "Celebrate Literacy" award for the middle school?


This is the Princessa's workspace. Butterflies and Buddha, laptop and mini lava lamp.

Early morning Princessa. (My favorite time of the day with her.)

Who does the family turn to for hair straightening expertise? The Princessa, of course. (Chaos' cool points would probably go down the tube if his friends knew how much he primped for school - so shhhhhhhh!) And since we're on the subject of hair - arrrrrrgh - I HATE today's middle school hair fashions. See the Princessa's? She wears plenty of headbands and bandanas - but always with most of her hair pulled forward and in her face. And they straighten it stick straight and flat. The boys too! Apparently the more hair plastered to the front of your face the better. I am such a square. I want to see my children's eyes and sweet faces!

Changing of the guard: the Princessa announced she is no longer obsessed with Jeremy Sumpter. She still likes the Peter Pan story but gone are the days when she quizzes the family on Jeremy Sumpter facts. Even the birthday cards she made for Jeremy have been taken down from her door. She has settled on a new obsession. His name is Josh. She's pretty sweet in her dramatic enthusiasm for boys she doesn't know. I hope this stage lasts a while. Obsessing about safely unattainable celebrity boys is a whole different ball game from noticing the boys who sit next to her in social studies class. Though now that I think about it, she's probably safe for the rest of middle school if the current hair trends continue. They all resemble Cousin It. How can they start relationships? They can't even see each other through the many layers of interceding bangs.

Weather Anyone?

The county schools were all released hours early today for "weather". It's a bit odd and I haven't been able to find anything other than the school closings on the news. (Mostly it's soap operas on the stations with scrolling lists of counties closing.) If the cub scout mom leading tonight's program hadn't called, I wouldn't have even known to go get my kids from school! The skies are blue and it's stopped raining completely. Mind you, the kids aren't complaining but they did want to know, "Why now? Why not this morning when it was pitch black and storming? Why did we have to race to the bus in pouring, sheeting rain with lightning flaring and thunder crashing all around us but we get out when it's sunny?" I don't have an answer for that. What I do have is popcorn and juice boxes and a fervent hope that this is more than a break between big fronts. Send us some good weather mojo?
Peace.