Law and Order: KI - A Cautionary Tale

I think Spring has finally sprung!  Woo Hoo!  My assistant decided to celebrate this by giving all our kids a dollar store pencil and eraser. They came in this morning and found the loot on their math journals.  One of my children, to whom we will refer as the defendant, immediately broke his pencil and in the ten minutes I was standing in the doorway greeting the children, proceeded to come over not once, but twice and tell me I "forgot" to sharpen his pencil; to which I replied, "NO, I didn't forget, I actually have something I'm supposed to be doing now and it is not sharpening your pencil."  This is where the tale takes a turn--pay attention, you may learn something....After everyone arrived, I then took said pencil to FIVE DIFFERENT PENCIL SHARPENERS.  None of them could sharpen the pencil.  So twenty minutes later, I had a nub with Easter Eggs on it and no lead.  I dug around in a draw and found a shiny, blue substitute pencil to placate our defendant.  This is when the crime was committed....

Here's the dollar store nub. Don't give these to your kids unless you want to spend all your time trying to sharpen them in a vain attempt to find the lead.



Here's the substitute pencil. He had this for approximately three minutes before he had to have it taken away.



Here's the defendant.



And here's his victim.



I'll let him tell you what he did. Note that he kind of indicates it's her fault for sticking her finger on the pencil.



Here's the victim's version of events. Notice she's so choked up at the end, she can no longer speak.



And here's the big apology...Sincere, isn't it?



Yes, that's right, in the three minutes he had the pencil, he stabbed someone with it and "it bleed". After I spent twenty minutes sharpening then replacing it.

That's what you get for giving out prizes at the BEGINNING of the day...

I'll Bet He Wasn't Even a Real Doctor....

If you don't work in an elementary school, you might not know that Dr. Seuss's birthday was this week.  That's a big deal around these parts, and I'm not even sure why because his books are kind of, well, stupid.  I know, I know, it's like I'm Sinead O'Connor ripping up that picture of the pope on SNL and I'll admit that some of his books, like The Lorax, are exceptional but come on, have you read Hop On Pop lately??  Anyway, my kids lo-ove his books.  It's kind of like Nick Jr. in literary form.  What's great is after I've read about four of them one of my kids will say,"Hey, that rhymes..." Why, yes, yes it does.  So in order to be on the bandwagon and all that, we had lots of fun Dr. Seuss activities.  And here is the photographic evidence...

Here's the Cat in the Hat.  They made the eyes, nose and mouth themselves.

This is the green eggs and ham we made.  Doesn't it look appetizing?  They ate the heck out of it.

Everyone tried some.  Even the one who said it looked like lettuce.

Here's our hats.  And you thought paper bags were just for lunches.

AND we made cute little bowties to go with them.

Look at that face.  What a cutie.

Now his hat may LOOK like everyone else's, but it's not.  I saw a pencil sticking out of it, and when I asked him about it, he informed me that it was a magical hat and that he could pull things out of it, like the pencil, an old post-it note and a paper dinosaur he had made.

Hmmmm....sounds like an idea for a Dr. Seuss book.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

This has been a long time coming.  I'm actually surprised this hasn't come up before.  This is a ranting post.  If you know me at all, you know that I tend to rant about things...things I find stupid or annoying, like people who sit at green lights or the fact that iTunes won't back up your music even if you spend approximately $42,783.99.  Seriously, is it too much to ask for them to keep a copy?  They know you bought it, because they sure won't let you share it with anyone...Anyway, back to the matter at hand...This is about fruit.  Specifically, those crappy little fruit cups that little kids carry in their lunch boxes.  Who is the moron/sadist that designed these things?? Are you trying to be mean or are you just an idiot? It is physically impossible to open one without spilling that syrup all over yourself.  And what's worse is, just when you think you've gotten that little plastic lid off, BAM! you try to pull off the last little bit and it spills everywhere.  And this is not brand-specific.  Oh no, we can't lay this all at the proverbial feet of Dole.  Now, if you have one kid, maybe you don't see this as much of a problem.  But when you've had to open, say, eleven of them in a row, it gets a little annoying.  And it's not limited to those peaches.  In fact, I once had a kid who tried to open applesauce and it went off like a bomb that would have made Hamas proud.  Four people were covered with apple shrapnel.  They stood there gaping while he proceeded to sit down and enjoy his lunch.  When, in one of my teacher-of-the-year moments I ran over and said, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he shrugged his shoulders and gave me one of those, "Geez, Lady, what's your problem?" looks.  What indeed.  And even if you manage to get that little lid off without wearing most of the contents of that stupid little cup, the kid will spill it all over the table as soon as you walk away.  Then your room smells like peaches and everyone who sits at that table has stuff sticking to them all day (Picture Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation--"Little full, Lotta sap..").  So the next time you're in the grocery store and you're looking at the (let's be honest) fake fruit, for the sake of your child's teacher, realize a) they can't open those things and b) they won't eat them....and head for the bananas.