Angry blogging

I guess it's kind of like drunk-dialing, only with less hangover and more fury.

I try not to blog about stuff like this very often, but I'm so damn mad.  Marissa has been doing really shitty in school.  She's the most well-liked kid, I swear, but her grades are crap, and going downhill fast.  We've tried every. single. thing. we can think of to motivate her ass, but it's just not working.  So the homeschool program I want to use for Phoebe does K-12.  And we're enrolling Marissa.  She clearly needs to be closely monitored, and I can't just let her piss away her grades -- if it's this bad now, think how much worse it will be in high school?

Anyway, of course we're asking my ex to pitch in for half of the tuition.  It's not cheap, and it's for her education, so I feel justified asking him to contribute.  After Bryan explained the situation to him on the phone tonight, he offered my ex the opportunity to get back on the phone with Marissa to talk to her about her report card.

You know what he said to her?  He YAWNED and said he's TIRED.  That's it.  Those were his motivating words, his cautionary tale, that's how he expressed his disappointment in her grades, and how he tried to dig a little deeper to find out what's going on in her life.

I didn't expect a grand speech, but shit.  I expected more than that.  I'm so furious, but I guess that's just how he is.  It makes me so angry because we get to be the bad guys, lecturing her, monitoring everything she does, calling her teacher every other day, and he can't even get it together enough to ask her what the hell is up.

Sickening. 

Snots

The kids are sick, and Bryan and I are trying to fight it off as best we can, with coffee (what? it's good for fighting colds, fer reals) and Vitamin C.  When the kids get sick we tend to let them hang out in their jammies for most of the day, because hey! We're lazy!  Charlie's outfit and hair were noteworthy in their awesomeness this morning.

Nightgown, inside out, crocs, sunglasses, and very awesome hair. 

Phoebe, being patient zero, has apologized to us every day that she got us sick.  Sweet, right?  It's alright, bangs, we ain't mad atcha.  We're all in this snotfest together.

Halloween

Our town does a Halloween parade every year, which is surprising given the religious nature of the community, but whatever.  We loved it.

This year, the town decided not to do a parade for "safety reasons."  Yeah.  I'm 100% sure it had more to do with some religious zealot getting their underpants in a wad, but the decision was made, and there was nothing we could do about it.  We called the school, and the principal dodged our calls.  Like that.

The benefit to living in a small town, though, is that you hear things, and you run into people.  I ran into the mother of one of Marissa's friends while shopping the other day.  She told me that there was a group of mothers who were planning to take their kids out of school on Halloween to do their own damn parade.  I smiled so hard I thought my face would crack, and told her to count us in.

There was a huge turnout -- I wasn't expecting so many kids.  Tons of people lined up on the street to check out the costumes and wave and cheer them on, and a few officers blocked traffic for the kids to cross streets and such.  After the parade we went to the Municipal building and the kids had pizza, chips, cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, candy, soda -- you name it.  All provided for free, from parent volunteers, who put the whole thing together at the last minute.

I have to say that as much as this place disappoints me sometimes, other times it rocks my damn socks off.

click to view our whole Halloween extravaganza