Will I get to stitch today???

Maybe you could apply for a volunteer position in one of the local schools so you can teach proper manners to the kids. I'm sure they look for volunteers in your schools. I know they do here.

Lucille

So all you really know is what the parents of children near you in Sacramento are teaching their children.

My experience is quite different. Perhaps people on the East coast are just more polite and teach their children better manners than people on the West coast. But somehow, I doubt it.

Elizabeth

Tough though it is, you stay in kiddo !

LOL - I know this feeling. I do get to stitch 'cause in about 15 min I'm heading to the shop to take Donna's "Baseball Biscornu" class. And DH will have to fend for himself dinnerwise. I already (though early) watered part of the rear, now will just have to reset the sprinkler for the other section before I leave. The front garden - ummm - I think our neighbors hate us - but perhaps this weekend it will finally get cleared of the huge weeds, and I'll transplant the lavendar that Cousin It (the not-so-dwarf anymore Weeping Pussywillow) has taken over.

What fun - I knew I loved this namesake! Rock climbing - what fun.

OTOH, job starts on Monday - YEAH. But, in the meantime tomorrow is a massive housecleaning because, I do believe, finally, finally, DH is going to take Friday off so that he and Donna's DS will unload our storage unit. After which the house will be a carton filled mess, but, hey, I'm hopeful to get it all unpacked before hockey really starts (priorities). I figure then we can have a housewarming winterfest party in December - 3 yrs not too bad.

ellice

Hope you did well through the storm. DH, when we spoke yesterday was prepping for a trial - supposed to start today. But.....

Ellice

I think it is YMMV situation. I see very polite children and obnoxious little beasts in a 50-50 ratio. Some days lots of the first, some days more of the other. It seems to balance out.

Yes, but that is a lovely thing to do. I live in a wealthy to middle class area and just our annual school taxes are 3,000 dollars which doesn't include county and city tax. They are currently building a new high school, the tenth in our district of 80,000 populace and the football stadium is TWO FRIGGIN MILLION DOLLARS! This is the sort of stadium of a major university, not high school. I went to James Madison High School on Bedford Avenue and Quentin Road in Brooklyn and we had some bleachers and parents brought folding chairs. Here, in TX, high school football in reported on the news. It's a bit insane and I will never get used to it. Not as long as teachers have to lay out money for supplies.

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:25:35 +0100, "Bruce Fletcher (remove dentures to reply)" opined: \>>>

OMG - you mean she was right ??

Actually, Office Max has white Elmers for 1 cent, and box of pencils for 1 cent and post it notes, etc. I stock up on them and also acid free glue sticks, those area two sticks for 10 cents and I buy a load. I have enough notebooks to last the rest of my life as those were 10 cents as well as those black and white composition books. They came in green! Okay, I'm border line hoarder...sort of, maybe. Not really. Nah. NOT. Am. NOT. Am. Shut up, no you. No you. No you...excuse me, I'm having a discussion with myself!

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:08:08 -0400, "Lucille" wrot

I'm so sorry you are going through this. It's so horrible to be trapped inside if you want to be out. At least you have power and access. I wanted to move to Florida eventually, but Mark is not buying. I actually wanted to look in Destin, not the peen portion of Florida. The panhandle gets hurricanes too, and I believe though there is a barrier island they can get hit pretty hard.

Anyway, you aren't annoying, just frustrated. I can tell the diff.

I have a strong hunch that mothers were saying that to the kids when they were off to fight Tyrannosaurus Rex. Make sure your loincloth is spiffy clean just in case Dino wins!!!

On Aug 20, 5:46=A0pm, Jangchub wrote: =2E. =A0Her kids who've

Equally bad, IMNSHO, are teens and tweens with cell phones who spend the entire evening on it (as weas the case at a wedding reception I attended last summer) or texting.

We have two pay as you go cells, no texting. Our kids get them when they might conceiveably need them - mostly when travellingw w/o mom or dad.

Linda

Attendance has become a real issue these days. With the increased curricular load and the high stakes testing, it's a big problem if kids are out of school. Washing hands can make a major difference in terms of how many kids are out sick and for how long, particularly when norovirus or something else highly contagious goes around (seems to happen at least once a year around here).

Sending everyone to the bathroom to wash hands takes a lot more time (time away from academics) than passing around the bottle of hand sanitizer.

Best wishes, Ericka

I use them (or try to remember to) when chaperoning at Nutcracker. The years I forget to tuck a bottle of hand sanitizer into my apron-of-many-pockets and use it liberally, I invariably end up sick as a dog from all the contact with germy little kids with depressed immune systems after all the stress and lack of sleep. I slather the kids down with the stuff during Nutcracker season too. It really does make quite a difference, even though the rest of the year things generally go along fine without being so vigilant. If there were time to get them to soap and water frequently enough, that would work as well or better, but there isn't time for that.

Best wishes, Ericka

I'm not saying the above is in lieu of washing hands after using the bathroom. At that point they're already *in* the bathroom and ought to be washing their hands. I was talking about all the other times of day. They ought to wash their hands before going to lunch. They can take 20 minutes standing in the hall sending kids into the bathroom to wash hands and miss most of their lunch, or they can pass the hand sanitizer around the last few minutes before leaving the classroom for lunch. It helps cut down on transmission of illnesses if kids wash hands on the way into the classrooms. They can have major backups trying to clear so many kids through the bathrooms for hand washing before school starts, or they can pass the sanitizer around during morning work. If there's a special birthday snack in class, they can eat with dirty hands, take 20 minutes to run everyone down the hall and through the bathroom, or they can pass the hand sanitizer. Not to mention that the teacher can't duck out of the classroom every time some kid sneezes on them ;-) It's just a way of getting hands a bit cleaner without taking more time than is available. I sure hope that if the kid takes a trip to use the restroom, he or she is washing hands at the sink when done.

Best wishes, Ericka

You know, it wouldn't hurt them to do that once in a while - in order to build up an immune system you have to be sick once in a while and you have to be exposed to things like (shudder!) dirt.

I think another reason (besides resistant strains of bugs) people get so hung up on cleanliness/hand washing is our society no longer has tolerance for illness. You are expected to be at work or shcool unless you are throwing up. Kids also get sent to school sick more often than in the past becuase parents are working and don't have the time to stay home with them.

LInda

We have pay as you go also. I wouldn't know how to text if I tried! I know it's free texting, but why? Am I so important I must be in touch with everyone every second of day and night? I don't even know the phone number of the stupid thing. Oh brother are Mark and I glad we don't have kids. They'd be DEAD. I'd kill them dead!!!! Kidding. Punished severely? Still too much?

This is what I think about phones and call waiting; if someone calls and the phone gives a busy signal, it means I'M ON THE PHONE. Call back. And I utterly despise when people are on the phone up and down the rows in the grocery; "do we need crackers, what kind should I get and how about soup, how about soda, milk, dope, pot, beer, LSD." Sorry, I'm in this Olympics are horrible mood!

Of course this is a reasonable application. I wasn't really talking about the same setting. Actually, it's the adults I'm talking about. It's too late to restore immunity for children. Antibiotics have already messed that up FUBAR. Maybe I'm wrong.

Off into another tangent, last year my white count dropped so low my hematologist wanted to put me in the hospital, but he was afraid to do that. The infection in hospitals is so rampant he did't want to compromise me. He gave me injections of Nupigen. That may have been the most painful experience in my life. It plumps the white cells rapidly in the marrow and almost pushes the bones from the inside out, particularly in the spine. I fainted from the pain. I had to go to his office every day the way he do rounds. So, I do know infection.

Sorry for the tangent. I know what you're saying and understand fully. School is much different than daily life of a homemaker. It's more practical to use the sanitizer in that event.

Again, it's not just that (although that does mean that there are more germs in the classroom). It's also that kids simply can't afford to miss that much school with high stakes testing. It is no longer the case that an elementary school kid can be out sick for a week without teachers and administrators going ballistic and the kid having a miserable time making up all the work. In this area, the schools that have missed AYP have identified absenteeism as one of the biggest issues getting in the way of raising achievement levels, and keeping kids from getting sick makes a significant dent in absenteeism. They don't mess around with attendance. In fact, our school district just changed its policy on head lice to say that kids are expected to be in school if they do not have live lice. If it's just nits, they're expected to be in class. Staying home for nits results in too many kids out of school too many days.

Best wishes, Ericka