Ah the sounds of morning during the school year. Allow me to paint you a pictures:
"Time to get up."
"Ugggggh leave me alone."
"Time to get up." (shakes leg to rouse) "Time to get up"
"Stop it!"
"You have to get up for school"
"Ugh I don't even CARE!"
Meanwhile, I'm dancing through the house singing, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" with school year modifications. Here is my short list of recommendations to make your mornings easier with a teenager during the school year....
1-Duck and cover to avoid flying objects
2-Shield yourself from hurt feelings because they're gonna be buttheads about having to wake up
3-Be glad that they graduate and go on to college in a few years.
Happy School Year 2016
Showing posts with label #schoolisback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #schoolisback. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Stop Complaining About These 3 Things in Elementary School
As the school year begins for a slew of elementary school students, let me be "that" parent. Let me be the parent that tells other parents to stop whining about how unfair their school is. Let me be the parent that tells other parents to appreciate that your school has rules the way that they do for a reason. Here are my top three for elementary school....
Allergy Limitations Seriously, just STOP complaining about this. My kids have no food allergies. Is it always convenient to avoid allergen foods in your kid's lunch? No. But guess what? Your kid may not like any sandwiches except PBJ but you can pack pasta or a bagel or some other option in that cute little sandwich box and it won't kill your kid. Pack a peanut butter sandwich and a child with severe allergy that is even in the same ROOM can go into anaphylactic shock. Seriously, deal with it. There are other options and sometimes you need to suck it up for the sake of another child. It takes a village, my friend.
4 boxes of tissue Okay, I get it. No, really, I do. I have four kids. I've been the mom that has to buy 30 boxes of tissue. It's perfectly acceptable to tell a teacher, "Hey, when you run out of tissue, PLEASE let me know and I'll bring you more then." Teachers don't always want to store it, either. That said, teachers aren't given much money to buy supplies. I'm sorry that you don't like supplying tissue for the classroom but you must remember that you send your little snotty-nose kid to school during cold and flu season when "they're not sick." Everyone does. They're at the end of that cold and they're healthy enough to go to school so you send them. Their nose is still running. Do you send them with their own tissue....how about hand sanitizer. Mm kay then. Suck it up.
Cutting around in the carpool lane Okay this is my pet peeve. It is perfectly acceptable to go up and knock on the window of a mom that decides she wants to take a phone call and just SIT for more than 4 minutes in the carpool lane. What is NOT acceptable is cutting around . Seriously, if 1-3 minutes is the difference between you getting to work on time or not, then you need to change YOUR schedule. You are putting other kids and parents at risk when you cut around traffic unnecessarily. So stop it. Either pull into a parking spot and let your kids out or deal with the extra couple of minutes in the carpool lane. Don't be that guy.
Instead of bitching about what's wrong with your kids' school, how about you praise the things that are right and know that the staff and volunteers are doing their best. Suck up your pride and know that they're kicking ass for YOUR kid too.
Allergy Limitations Seriously, just STOP complaining about this. My kids have no food allergies. Is it always convenient to avoid allergen foods in your kid's lunch? No. But guess what? Your kid may not like any sandwiches except PBJ but you can pack pasta or a bagel or some other option in that cute little sandwich box and it won't kill your kid. Pack a peanut butter sandwich and a child with severe allergy that is even in the same ROOM can go into anaphylactic shock. Seriously, deal with it. There are other options and sometimes you need to suck it up for the sake of another child. It takes a village, my friend.
4 boxes of tissue Okay, I get it. No, really, I do. I have four kids. I've been the mom that has to buy 30 boxes of tissue. It's perfectly acceptable to tell a teacher, "Hey, when you run out of tissue, PLEASE let me know and I'll bring you more then." Teachers don't always want to store it, either. That said, teachers aren't given much money to buy supplies. I'm sorry that you don't like supplying tissue for the classroom but you must remember that you send your little snotty-nose kid to school during cold and flu season when "they're not sick." Everyone does. They're at the end of that cold and they're healthy enough to go to school so you send them. Their nose is still running. Do you send them with their own tissue....how about hand sanitizer. Mm kay then. Suck it up.
Cutting around in the carpool lane Okay this is my pet peeve. It is perfectly acceptable to go up and knock on the window of a mom that decides she wants to take a phone call and just SIT for more than 4 minutes in the carpool lane. What is NOT acceptable is cutting around . Seriously, if 1-3 minutes is the difference between you getting to work on time or not, then you need to change YOUR schedule. You are putting other kids and parents at risk when you cut around traffic unnecessarily. So stop it. Either pull into a parking spot and let your kids out or deal with the extra couple of minutes in the carpool lane. Don't be that guy.
Instead of bitching about what's wrong with your kids' school, how about you praise the things that are right and know that the staff and volunteers are doing their best. Suck up your pride and know that they're kicking ass for YOUR kid too.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Appreciate Your PTSA
I am just as guilty as the next mom of rolling my eyes when confronted by particular members of my PTSA. I've posted before about the annoying PTA moms. You know who you are and you're proud of it. You actually take great pleasure in guilting the single parents who can't make it to your meetings. You take great joy in belittling the working parents that are just too exhausted to make it there. You feel as if you're better than everyone else because you make it to each and every meeting, event and party. You're a better parent, right? No. You're giving a bad name to REAL PTSA moms that are judgmental asses. You're the bad apple that gives a bad name to the whole tree. So today, I'm not going to focus the majority of my post on the rotten fruit. I'm going to focus it on the hundreds of good apples out there.
With that ugliness out of the way, we should be thankful for our PTSA. I know, I know, I'm dodging the rotten tomatoes of those that have the aforementioned butthead PTA parents at their school. Hang in there, they aren't all like that. We should be taking a look at the good PTA parents. Moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more that are focused on making the school a better place. We should be taking a look at the teachers that work all day and then make time to come to the meetings and make their voices heard because they, too, care and want their schools to succeed. We should be looking at the the community members that are trying to contribute to making our school an amazing place. These are the people we should be thankful for.
Maybe you don't know what the PTSA at the majority of schools does. Let me give you a brief list of what it can include: dinners for teachers during conferences, school dances, pep club for sports events, spaghetti dinners, donuts for dads, muffins for moms, science fairs, talent shows, funding for teachers to have new equipment and/or necessary supplies, funding for kids that can't afford to do special events, and more. There are so many arms attached to the PTSA octopus that we don't even see. We don't necessarily realize that it's as important as it is. The PTSA is our school's voice. It's the way that our community can speak out to better the next generation.
For every aggravating PTSA parent, there are 20 great ones that just want you to be involved. Some are better than others at knowing how to make that happen. Be patient with the new ones because they're doing the best they can and better than most of it could hope to. The seasoned ones know exactly how to promote growth. They know what the needs of the parents are and how to boost volunteerism within the community. They spend countless hours of their own time working on PTSA events. They spend hours on the phone trying to arrange volunteers. They spend hours in their garage building props for the book fair. They spend hours cleaning up afterwards when the parents who volunteer forget and don't show up. They know what they need to do and they learn what they don't know. They are the champions of our schools' needs.
So take a moment and join your local PTSA for your school. If you can attend the meetings, try to. If you can't, try to keep up to date on what's going on. Shake the hand of the people that are fighting to make your school a better place and know that they are a great asset to your children's school experience.
With that ugliness out of the way, we should be thankful for our PTSA. I know, I know, I'm dodging the rotten tomatoes of those that have the aforementioned butthead PTA parents at their school. Hang in there, they aren't all like that. We should be taking a look at the good PTA parents. Moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more that are focused on making the school a better place. We should be taking a look at the teachers that work all day and then make time to come to the meetings and make their voices heard because they, too, care and want their schools to succeed. We should be looking at the the community members that are trying to contribute to making our school an amazing place. These are the people we should be thankful for.
Maybe you don't know what the PTSA at the majority of schools does. Let me give you a brief list of what it can include: dinners for teachers during conferences, school dances, pep club for sports events, spaghetti dinners, donuts for dads, muffins for moms, science fairs, talent shows, funding for teachers to have new equipment and/or necessary supplies, funding for kids that can't afford to do special events, and more. There are so many arms attached to the PTSA octopus that we don't even see. We don't necessarily realize that it's as important as it is. The PTSA is our school's voice. It's the way that our community can speak out to better the next generation.
For every aggravating PTSA parent, there are 20 great ones that just want you to be involved. Some are better than others at knowing how to make that happen. Be patient with the new ones because they're doing the best they can and better than most of it could hope to. The seasoned ones know exactly how to promote growth. They know what the needs of the parents are and how to boost volunteerism within the community. They spend countless hours of their own time working on PTSA events. They spend hours on the phone trying to arrange volunteers. They spend hours in their garage building props for the book fair. They spend hours cleaning up afterwards when the parents who volunteer forget and don't show up. They know what they need to do and they learn what they don't know. They are the champions of our schools' needs.
So take a moment and join your local PTSA for your school. If you can attend the meetings, try to. If you can't, try to keep up to date on what's going on. Shake the hand of the people that are fighting to make your school a better place and know that they are a great asset to your children's school experience.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Appreciate Your School's Staff
With school starting up again soon (though in some places it's already begun), I want to take this opportunity to remind you to appreciate your school's staff. Now, before you suffer the slap in the back of the head for saying, "But there's Teacher Appreciation Day for that," let me go ahead and remind you that the teachers and staff at your children's school are largely responsible for molding your child's awesome personality and habits. Today, though, I'm focusing on the non-teaching staff of the schools.....
Appreciate Your Principal/Vice Principal: Whether you've had a flawless school year and scarcely encountered the principal in the past or you've been in his or her office constantly, they truly do represent a big part of your school's overall experience. You can agree or disagree with them and that's okay but remember that they have the best interests of the school at heart and they have a very difficult job.
Appreciate Your Superintendent: I have had the opportunity to personally speak to ours and cannot compliment him enough on how well he's handled our schools. They have a tough job to try and represent everyone while making sure that the needs of the ones that need it most are met in the best way that they can be.
Appreciate Your School Nurse: You may roll your eyes when she calls to ask if your child can have a Tylonel but appreciate her job. She is there for every belly ache, headache, earache but she's also there for every asthma attack, insulin shot, broken bone and more.
Appreciate Your Office Staff: I seriously love the office staff at all of my kids' schools. They are so completely friendly and wonderful. Your office staff might know you by name (like mine does) or they might be overwhelmed with the amount of people but remember that these people are doing the job of many, many people all combined into one nice, messy package.
Appreciate Your Janitorial Staff: I cannot say this enough. Teach your child to be respectful and clean up after themselves and teach them to always show appreciation to the janitorial staff. They keep your child's school clean and have to deal with everything from muddy feet to vomit.
Appreciate Your Bus Driver: Lord, have mercy, they do a job I couldn't do. I love kids but being on a bus with a whole slew of them moving around and being silly...yeah, I couldn't. Appreciate their job and the stuff they put up with.
Appreciate Your Volunteers: I cannot preach this to enough people. Appreciate the moms, dads, grandmas, aunts, uncles, nannies or whoever else is volunteering at your child's school. They might be doing something seemingly "simple" by reading a book to a kindergarten class but they are taking time out of THEIR day to do something awesome. Sometimes it's as simple as making copies and sometimes it's wrangling a crew of kindergarten students. Regardless, it's awesome.
This may not cover the whole crew but hopefully this gives you a start. Say a big "thank you" when you register your kids. Then continue that throughout the year. They truly are wonderful!
Sunday, July 31, 2016
School Supply Deals
School supply shopping for four kids can be a real hand full but I got it done on a relatively good budget. Here are some of the deals I stumbled across that might help you....
Amazon: I am not a fan of cheap backpacks that only last a year. I've paid my dues with the annually purchased character backpacks that have holes and broken straps by the third quarter of the year. I need something tough and durable. I've changed over to spending a bit more to buy a new one every few years (or as needed). This year, Amazon has had a great sale on a good number of backpacks. It is of note to say that if you're child is a picky fashionista, this may or may not be a good option. However, I was able to provide several different color options and purchase an Eastsport backpack for under $20 that had great reviews and could easily move through the elementary to middle school (or even high school) transition without looking "too babyish."
Staples: If you ARE buying a backpack in person, Staples has some great options AND you get 25% off of your school supplies if you buy your backpack there. The durable ones were around $40+ and their character backpacks were very reasonably priced. Here are some other deals
Wood Rulers $.25
Filler paper (Staples wide ruled and college ruled) $.75
Staples composition books $.50
Staples RULED index cards (of note because there is a better deal on unlined elsewhere) $.48
Wescott 12" acrylic ruler (if you must have a see-through one) $1
BIC Comfort grip pens 12 pack (black) $1
Staples brand 4 oz glue $.50
2 pocket folder with fasteners $.17
It's of note that Staples will not only price match but give you 110% price match.
Office Max/Office Depot: I love these guys because of their penny items. My particular penny items included unlined note cards and 2 pocket folders. These items are only a penny with a $5 purchase AND they are limited quantities (usually 10). Other deals worth mentioning.....
This week only: Pink eraser 3 pack $.01 with $5.00 purchase
This week only: Composition books $.01 with $5.00 purchase
This week only: Elmer's 4 oz school glue $.01 with $5.00 purchase
BIC 12 pack of stic pens $.25
Crayola brand markers 8 count $.25
Keep an eye on the ads because the penny items change weekly and it's a great way to tackle some of those more expensive items.
Walmart: It is of note that you can price match any major competitor at Walmart. You may tick off the person behind you in line (and possibly the cashier) but you can. My suggestion is to bring the ads with you (or have them ready on your phone but this is less convenient) and have the items circled for quick access....
One subject notebooks $.17
2 pack pink erasers $.48
24 pack of Cra Z Art crayons $.25
1 inch binders in various colors $.99
I did find dividers back in the office section for $.48 (5 pack) but they sell out fast and you might need to ask about them. Otherwise $.88 dividers
4 pack Kleenex facial tissue $3.48
I have the ability to jump between stores (as they are all close by). I have heard that Target has some great deals as well. Keep your eye on the paper as many have coupons on pens, etc and you can get your pens at an even greater discount. School supply shopping can be done on the cheap but it requires planning and careful execution (and often spreading it out over the course of several weeks to get the best deals).
Happy Hunting Denverites
Amazon: I am not a fan of cheap backpacks that only last a year. I've paid my dues with the annually purchased character backpacks that have holes and broken straps by the third quarter of the year. I need something tough and durable. I've changed over to spending a bit more to buy a new one every few years (or as needed). This year, Amazon has had a great sale on a good number of backpacks. It is of note to say that if you're child is a picky fashionista, this may or may not be a good option. However, I was able to provide several different color options and purchase an Eastsport backpack for under $20 that had great reviews and could easily move through the elementary to middle school (or even high school) transition without looking "too babyish."
Staples: If you ARE buying a backpack in person, Staples has some great options AND you get 25% off of your school supplies if you buy your backpack there. The durable ones were around $40+ and their character backpacks were very reasonably priced. Here are some other deals
Wood Rulers $.25
Filler paper (Staples wide ruled and college ruled) $.75
Staples composition books $.50
Staples RULED index cards (of note because there is a better deal on unlined elsewhere) $.48
Wescott 12" acrylic ruler (if you must have a see-through one) $1
BIC Comfort grip pens 12 pack (black) $1
Staples brand 4 oz glue $.50
2 pocket folder with fasteners $.17
It's of note that Staples will not only price match but give you 110% price match.
Office Max/Office Depot: I love these guys because of their penny items. My particular penny items included unlined note cards and 2 pocket folders. These items are only a penny with a $5 purchase AND they are limited quantities (usually 10). Other deals worth mentioning.....
This week only: Pink eraser 3 pack $.01 with $5.00 purchase
This week only: Composition books $.01 with $5.00 purchase
This week only: Elmer's 4 oz school glue $.01 with $5.00 purchase
BIC 12 pack of stic pens $.25
Crayola brand markers 8 count $.25
Keep an eye on the ads because the penny items change weekly and it's a great way to tackle some of those more expensive items.
Walmart: It is of note that you can price match any major competitor at Walmart. You may tick off the person behind you in line (and possibly the cashier) but you can. My suggestion is to bring the ads with you (or have them ready on your phone but this is less convenient) and have the items circled for quick access....
One subject notebooks $.17
2 pack pink erasers $.48
24 pack of Cra Z Art crayons $.25
1 inch binders in various colors $.99
I did find dividers back in the office section for $.48 (5 pack) but they sell out fast and you might need to ask about them. Otherwise $.88 dividers
4 pack Kleenex facial tissue $3.48
I have the ability to jump between stores (as they are all close by). I have heard that Target has some great deals as well. Keep your eye on the paper as many have coupons on pens, etc and you can get your pens at an even greater discount. School supply shopping can be done on the cheap but it requires planning and careful execution (and often spreading it out over the course of several weeks to get the best deals).
Happy Hunting Denverites
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