…but somewhere in that murky period where unschooling takes place and I don’t actually cross anything off my schedule.

• Where we are staying in Washington, one of the primary industries is shell fishing. In fact, there are clam net thingamajigs on the beach right in front of this house. We were all quite curious about this, and have discovered that the main fishery here will give us a tour of their operation. We are going on Thursday, and I am already feeling smug that education will be happening next week.

• We spent a lot of time talking about mollusks. Big got up one day, said “I want to do some notebooking” and proceeded to unpack supplies. I was helpless in the face of this enthusiasm, and dutifully followed orders to find worksheets and printables and coloring pages.

We have diagrammed squid, talked about adductor muscles in clams and watched videos about geoduck farming. Big extracted a promise to take him to Pike Place Market so he can see a real geoduck in action.

Ah, the geoduck. For those of you unfamiliar, go ahead and google it. I’ll wait.

Uh-huh.

An entire day spent on that creature. AN ENTIRE DAY. Complete with his own diagrams and drawings and notebooking pages. I would post them here, but they would probably be blocked as Adult Content.

Right?

I mean, it’s not just me… is it?

I awarded myself sixteen thousand homeschool mom points for the geoduck. I kept a straight face all day, people. I deserve it.

• We also learned all about octopus, squid, and barnacles. It is surprisingly difficult to find a decent barnacle printable – if by surprisingly difficult I mean Big harangued me until I finally found two diagrams after over AN HOUR AND A HALF of searching. I also spent a lot of time cutting and pasting pictures and editing info into various word documents. Like, a LOT. Three thousand more homeschool mom points AND a junior biologist ribbon for me.

Unschooling isn’t for sissies, yo.

Preschooler’s Homemade Lunch Replaced with Cafeteria “Nuggets”

State agent inspects sack lunches, forces preschoolers to purchase cafeteria food instead

So a GOVERNMENT AGENT is inspecting lunches brought from home and deciding whether they are APPROPRIATE? Shouldn’t she be out, like, inspecting the size of holes in swiss cheese or something truly helpful?

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.

The girl’s mother — who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation — said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a “healthy lunch” would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.

And the government sees no irony in deeming a sandwich brought from home as inadequate and instead providing chicken nuggets. AND THEN charging the mom for the priviledge of essentially being replaced as decision maker and provider for her child?

What in the HELL is going on in this country?

This story makes me want to weep.

**By the way, I don’t need any help deciding what kind of light bulbs to buy either.

Michigan House Education Committee, February 1, 2012.

Debbie Squires, Associate Director of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association

Wow, they scrubbed all traces of the video! Huh. I can’t find it anywhere.

It was a hearing in which she is explaining why her organization opposes online schools or cyber-schools in Michigan. During her testimony, she says, “Educators go through education for a reason. They are the people who know best about how to serve children. That’s not necessarily true of an individual resident. I’m not saying they don’t want the best for their children, but they may not know what actually is best from an education standpoint.”

The quote that really got me though - and I can’t find it anywhere - is she said something along the lines of “if parents want a say in their children’s education, they can express that at the ballot box when they vote for their local board of education.”

So yeah. Just cast your ballot every few years and watch educational reform happen!

You know, if you want. No pressure.

• My mother-in-law was here last week, so this will be brief and possibly lame as I struggle to recover.

• While I was getting ready so we could go pick her up at the airport, I was in the bathroom debating whether to wear makeup while Jim took a shower.

Me: staring in the mirror, fretting over wrinkles. “I can see the beginning of the old lady face. Look here, do you see this? I can see the bags of the future.”

Jim: “I can’t see anything….”

Me, thinking: AWwww!

Jim: “….I don’t have my glasses on”

• So far, everywhere we’ve stayed has ant problems. I am so sick of ants, I can’t even tell you. There was an exceedingly ugly incident wherein I thought I had an eyelash in my eye but when I looked in the mirror to get it out, IT WAS AN ANT.

I HAD AN ANT IN MY EYE.

MY EYE, PEOPLE.

It must have gotten on my hand when I was putting my contacts in.

There was screaming and then crying.

And maybe some cursing.

Anyhow, last week I was cruising around Pinterest and I saw a recipe for homemade ant poison.

That picture is disgusting, isn’t it? But I was encouraged by the comments that this stuff works, so I ordered some Boric Acid from Amazon (I love you, Amazon), and whipped up a batch.

It worked! I vanquished the ants! There were 3 or 4 ants milling around in the bathroom when I set the poison out. Pretty soon there was a whole line of ants, marching up and down the wall, taking the poison home to mummy. It was SO GROSS.

I may or may not have felt compelled to check on the ants every couple of hours and whisper “Die ants, DIE!” After about 24 hours, they were all gone!

I thought about getting a little ant carcass and hanging it in effigy to warn any future interlopers, but that seemed like a lot of trouble.

Nature needs to keep the heck out of my house.

• Happy Monday, y’all!