Bragging Rights

For those of you who are expecting a Stapp photo, there will not be one attached to this blog, for reasons which will soon be made clear.

You may think you have bragging rights. So go ahead--brag your guts out. I do this on occasion because my kids are so darn spectacular. Whoops, I shouldn't have said it. I guess we all have the right, but the humbling consequence is usually well deserved. Please indulge me and read on.

There is a certain phenomenon, and from here on out I will label it the "Nose Against Dirt" (NAD). I will demonstrate this by personal experience. By the way, this is only one example of this occurance which I have endured.

Lately I have been bragging about Samuel, my wonderful (wait a minute, I think I'll take that wonderful back)...um, my son. Well, so Curtis signed a release form for Samuel to be featured on this years Yolo County Yellow Pages phone directory. Of course, a perfect opportunity for bragging rights. "Hey you over there, my BOY SAMUEL IS GOING TO LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE, well at least while you're searching for a plumber at midnight!!" "Dude, come this May you are going to get the coolest book left on your porch wrapped in celaphane. BE ON THE LOOKOUT!"

So tonight, yes this very night, I'm sitting in the Woodland Opera House, the very place that provides material for 75%-85% of my bravado. I hear the details of the Yolo Yellow Pages cover during the Spring Dance Recital in front of hundreds of yellow page users. My Samuel has been pushed aside for some other theatrical star! My head jets back and forth, my mouth wide open, "Whaaa?" People to whom I have bragged are seated around glaring at me, "Whaaaa?" I am guessing the parent signature was not a done deal.

NAD--ddefinition--strong and surprise attack from behind where the victim does not have time or wherewith all to react, therefor perpetrator is able to land victim on ground with nose against dirt.

I think I have blogged about this before. Maybe last year when I was braggedy brag bragging!

So here's to all your kids. I think they are better than mine! They are so accomplished and wonderful and famous! WOW-Whee! I wish my kids had their talents, intellect, physical strength, and spirituality. I guess I will have to settle with mediocrity.

(I wonder what the consequence will be of adding that last paragraph. I'll let you know!)

You're really Smooth Samuel!

What happens when your mom serves you a super-dee-duper thick blueberry-stawberry smoothy? Sometimes it's so good and it gets stuck at the bottom of the cup and you have to jolt it out. Then sometimes when you do that it drops out a little faster than expected! Then.....

Point Reyes

In March we took the most wonderful trip to Point Reyes with 15 kids and 9 parents. We spent two nights at the hostel and hiked somewhere around 16-18 miles. The weather was perfect. We had six nature/history teachers, two wonderful dinner coordinators, and a few tag alongs. I was the self proclaimed "boss" of the event. I brought some crafts and organized the night-time program, which included solo night hikes (no flashlights). In the hostel bunkhouse there is a boys and girls dorm. The kids had a great time harrassing each other! Paul Erickson was awesome at teaching astronomy! Basically we ate well, learned much, and played hard.

Come on! Let the Flowers Bloom!

Julia is getting ready for the ACT. Time to see where the homeschoolers on Fremont Street failed. Can't the college just come over here and scout her out like an athlete. How come athletes get a special viewing. I thought that it was a place of higher learning! I doubt the ACT can assess her true height of learning. Looking at the ACT prep, all the great subject she learned are not covered on the test. And of course, she was never timed while she disected that pig fetus!

I guess failure is only in the eye of the ACT board!

We have succeeded by the standards of famed authored Louisa May Alcott

"I never went to school except to my father or such governesses as from time to time came into the family. . . . so we had lessons each morning in the study. And very happy hours they were to us, for my father taught in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child's nature as a flower blooms, rather than crammed it, like a Strasburg goose, with more than it could digest."