http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=41720
credited to user mattfrisbee
Nana (my mother) used to work in our county’s public school system — first as a substitute teacher, then as a parapro, and finally as a PE teacher (before “retiring” to help take care of Captain Science while I finished my undergrad). She often referred to the children at her school as the “bubble wrap children of [NanaSchool] Elementary” due to overt helicopter parent over-protectiveness exhibited by the majority of the [s]mothers (and some fathers bothers) at the school.
One great example of this is during the Presidential Fitness Challenge. The children had to run a short distance in order to meet the standards. Apparently, many of these kids had never run before, because they were stopping in the middle of the run, completely freaked out, because…
Their hearts were beating fast and it was hard to breathe while they were running!
They would then go, wailing miserably, to the front office to call their mommies, who would come snatch their fragile darlings up out of school to take them home, declaring that they MUST have asthma (undiagnosed, of course, and oddly enough, completely asymptomatic otherwise) and should therefor never be made to do any hard physical exertion.
Whenever someone makes a comment to me about the sheltered existence of homeschooled children, I think of the bubble wrap children of [NanaSchool] Elementary, and I smile.
Yes. Sheltered. That’s totally us.
My little author finally decided he’d do the assignment as assigned. This version is a little less amusing, but actually correctly incorporated all 8 parts of speech and was free from glaring grammatical/punctuation errors (he could have just rewritten the first story, but wouldn’t).
Once there was a boy, living in a town, and he ran so confidently and fast during races that everyone who saw him run would say, “Wow!” One day, in a racing tournament, he participated and raced into the finals. as soon as the starter gun fired, he and his three competitors took off. He was in first place neck-to-neck with another guy. 100 feet…50 feet…he was now in first place alone. 25 feet…10…15…10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0! He won the tournament for the 34th time, and felt great holding up the golden trophy.
When asked to correct some minor grammar and punctuation errors, Captain Science instead chose to completely rewrite his story. Unfortunately, this resulted in it no longer fulfilling the requirements of the assignment, so he is now working on draft #3. As you can see, version two is as bizarre as version one, of not more so.
Once upon a time, there was a nice town, and nice people lived in this town, but they had been cursed by a wizard, so they couldn’t speak any adjectives. As a result, their sentences were dull. One day, a spy who worked for the wizard noticed two men talking…about his master! The first man said, “The king will surely like when I deliver the culprit.” The second man said, “He certainly will.” Then a third voice said, “Listen up, both of you! Your wretched town will never survive with my spied lurking in every corner!” The spy’s eyes widened. The third voice belonged to his master. He then hurried off to prepare for a siege.
Captain Science’s grammar work today was to choose one word from a list of choices for each part of speech, use those words to write one sentence, and then use that sentence to start a story. I had some trouble getting him to actually use all the parts of speech, and as you can see, he played a little fast and loose with the interjections, but I found his story to be…well, ok, I found it to be absolutely absurd.
Once, there was a nice town, and nice people lived in this town, but one day, they were suddenly cursed so they couldn’t say interjections like “yes” and “no.” One day, a spy was spying when he saw two men talking. The first man was saying, “…the lord will not be pleased–.” The second man interrupted with, “not you!” since he couldn’t say “no!” “Besides–” he added, but he couldn’t say any more since he couldn’t say “Why you?” “FINE!” shouted the first man, “forget it.” “Whew!” said the second man. “Let’s race to the park,” he added, and they took off. “I like the second man,” said the spy. “He saved my master’s life.”
Heather: can we move from “radical unschooling” to “radical XTREME unschooling” like Dew the Dew?
Smrt Mama: hahha
Heather: duuude
Smrt Mama: I’m tweeting this
Heather: 
Smrt Mama: There, tweeted
Heather: I’m infamous!
Smrt Mama: indeed
the infamous heather
Heather: also known as the fabulous heather
Smrt Mama: Yes.
infamously fabulous
fabulously infamous
I have sugar cookie scented bath salts
Heather: omg
Smrt Mama: and I’ve peed out three pounds this week
THREE POUNDS OF PEE, Heather
that’s, like, a lot of pee
Smrt Mama: um
did you collect it all so you could measure it?
Smrt Mama: no
Heather: or could some if it actually be weight loss?
Smrt Mama: but I weigh 3 pounds less today than I did on Monday
Heather: because i was worried you were getting all Howard Hughes on me
Smrt Mama: I do have a urine collecting jug
Heather: Embrace your first week
Smrt Mama: but not to actually use
Heather: DUDE
TMI
Smrt Mama: the OB gave it to me
I kept it, because hey, it might be useful
Heather: Okay
Smrt Mama: it wasn’t ever USED
Heather: I thought it was some weird homeschooling thing
Smrt Mama: I just threaten people with it
Heather: “Oh, hai! Let’s collect urine and distill it!”
Smrt Mama: I’m blogging this
Heather: Ever since I heard about mummifying a chicken, there are no limits…
Smrt Mama: Stop being funny. You’re making me have to copy and paste more.
Heather: Heehee!
After this conversation, I Google “things you can make from your own pee,” but nothing helpful came up. I stopped Googling before it became a thing.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…
Tonight, the Tank told Papa (my dad) that he loved him “eighty ninety.” He told Nana he loved her “ten-ny.” I asked how much he loved me. He looked me up and down and said…
“One.”
One? ONE?!?! I made a sad face. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, “Ok…five.”
Merry freaking Christmas, y’all. 
The Tank: “We’re watching Batman.”
Smrt Mama: “I’m sorry. You’re watching what?”
The Tank: “Batman. You know, Batman.”
Smrt Mama: “Batman? What Batman?”
The Tank: “You know, Mama. Batman. The blue Batman.”
Captain Science (hollering up from the playroom): “We’re watching Sleeping Beauty!”
The Tank: “Yeah. Sleeping Beauty Batman.”
The Tank goes to a Methodist preschool. A half-mile down the road is a Catholic private school. Both schools have carpool at the same time.
Today, it was raining pretty heavily as I dropped the Tank off. The carpool line stretched around the building, as only one car fits under the covered awning at a time. The other teachers working carpool mostly stood around looking disgruntled at the weather and how long it took to get everyone through carpool. The teacher removing the child from the car had to have at least a minimum of dialogue with the parent, of course, and a little chat with the child as the teacher proceeded through the unbuckling process with more cheer than haste.
After dropping off the Tank, I drove past the Catholic school. This carpool line was moving at its normal rate of speed, aided by a half-dozen teachers in, I kid you not, matching rain ponchos and umbrellas. In a perfectly coordinated dance, they managed to remove children from about four cars at a time, shuttling them into the building and keeping the line moving.
There you go, folks. The difference, in a nutshell, between Catholics and Methodists. The difference between Baptists and Methodists is that Methodists make eye contact and wave when they run into each other at the liquor store.
After a string of lame-to-adults, hilarious-to-kids jokes, Captain Science said, “I have thousands of jokes like that!”
I said, “Really? Thousands?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment and answers, “Well, probably not thousands. Tens of hundreds, though.”
