Amy Writes

It's been an interesting few weeks in the world of alternative, or, as some know it, "public" schooling. First, we are the proud parents of the Student of the Month. Woohoo! It took some time and investigative skill to learn what this actually meant - since we found out about it by the fancy laminated certificate signed by the principal that quietly came home in the school folder. Turns out, there was an actual assembly where the students of the month were recognized in front of the whole school (we weren't there but we were supposed to get a letter about it but we didn't) and it's given out to two students per class, PER QUARTER. AND, it's based on character, not academics, which pretty much rocks, and means we all went to Cracker Barrel to celebrate our student-of-the-month-actually-quarter. Second, the student-of-the-month-actually-quarter has a "best friend." She bounded into the car one day brandishing a note from said best friend's mom....

God and I have this little game that we play. I think He calls it: Go Ahead, Make a Decision and Then See What Happens When I Change the Circumstances at The Last Minute. I am a notorious mind-changer. Mind-changing differs from wishy-washiness in that I say, affirmatively, what I am going to do. And then, usually at The Last Minute, I say that I am going to do the other thing. For example: I will stare at a restaurant menu and declare I am having the Grilled Chicken Salad. And then I will hear myself say to the server: "Bleu Cheese Burger and fries, please." It happened with my college choice. "I am definitely going out of state." And then..."Two bits, Four bits....all for the Gators..." It happened with getting married. "I am starting my career, somewhere exotic." Followed 4 months later by..."I do." It's happened with having kids and with nearly every vacation I've ever planned. I make a plan. God changes the circumstances. ...

Where I live, "People Like Us" don't send their children to public school. It was "never really an option for us." If I had a dollar for every time I'd actually thought or said "public school is not an option for us," we wouldn't think twice about writing the check for one of those private schools in which we'd planned to enroll our kids. In our "circles," the following unspoken rules are followed: 1. Private Christian school kids breed Private Christian school kids . It's the natural order of things. 2. Private Christian school kids who choose not to take out a second mortgage to pay for Private Christian school breed Homeschooled kids. It's the backup order of things. 3. Under no circumstances do Private school kids breed Public School kids . This phenomenon has no place in the order of things. I've never been clear about the reasons why Public School Is Not An Option, but I'm pretty sure the reasons include met...

I managed to sneak out for some girl time on Tuesday night. What a treat it was to have dinner with some girlfriends and take in a movie. A musical, nonetheless! A cheesy musical, in which actors who don't specialize in musical theater were cast in order to sell tickets. Arrrghh... Surely there are 427 more age- and voice-appropriate actors waiting tables on Broadway. Meryl and Pierce are brilliant, but not in this. Anyway, silly though the movie may have been, I am still looking forward to seeing the show live in the spring, and it still managed to elicit crocodile tears from me at one point. Check out these lyrics, and imagine the damage they do to the emotional well-being of a mom about to send her baby to kindergarten. Brutal. These 5 minutes quite unfairly blindsided me. "Slipping Through my Fingers" DONNA: Schoolbag in hand She leaves home in the early morning Waving goodbye With an absent-minded smile I watch her go With a surge of that well-known sadness And I ha...