Sundays with Stretchy Pants

It’s like Tuesdays with Morrie, without all the wisdom.


It’s About Homeschooling, I Swear.

You could put that Will.I.Am Yes We Can song on a cat food commercial and it would make me cry. Here it is trying to make Lena and Liberty’s review of Nikki Grimes’ Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope review less, well, boring. It was the end of the day and neither of them was really into doing the review, but just like the Gosselins, we don’t have child labor laws in this house so I made them do it. And it was boring. And I told them it was boring and they were like, “Yeah? Well? It’s a boring book.” And then I called them racist and sent them to bed.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s a boring book. It’s important to learn about important people in history. And now that he’s our president, I felt comfortable putting it on Kids Know Stuff. I didn’t feel comfortable before because I thought somebody would see it and then make me review that John McCain book by his heir-head daughter. I just can’t support Meghan McCain. As a daughter from my dad’s first marriage, it enrages me that she excluded Sen. McCain’s first marriage and her own half-brothers (half-, not even step-) from the book. Plus, she’s super rich and not that talented. I heard her once on NPR and she was all, “Like, yeah, it was super sweet writing that, like, book about my, um, dad and stuff?” And then I punched the car radio in the face.

Why am I still talking about politics? I’m not, I’m talking about my kids. That’s why this post is going under the “I Homeschool” category and not “I Like Politics?” I homeschool. And part of homeschooling is Kids Know Stuff. And part of homeschooling is being called racist by your mother. They have to learn.

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*dreamy sigh*

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Do you see that? There, in the bottom right corner? Cool. Just in case you can’t see it very well:

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That’s right. Barack Obama really is our next president. Woohoo!

We had a little party over here last night. I thought when I woke up this morning, Mr. President-Elect would’ve had this place all cleaned up, but he didn’t. I’m beginning to regret my vote. I voted for change and it’s all just the same: I went to bed with a dirty house and woke up with a dirty house. Kidding!

Sorry about the delay in the acceptance speech, but he was busy emailing me to thank me for everything I did for his campaign:

I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.
We just made history.

But I want to be very clear about one thing…
All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,
Barack

Yup, we’re friends. What? Other people got that email too? Well, it’s just because Barack has lots of friends. It doesn’t make my email any less special.

So the kids filled out the electoral college map with red and blue stickers. It came with the School House Rock Election Collection DVD.

They seemed to have fun with that, but they kind of balked at watching the acceptance speech. But Dawn and Kristen and Lynne and I weren’t having it. We forced them to watch history happen and, dammit, we forced them to like it. I liked it. Did you like it? If not, were you as gracious about it as Sen. McCain? Or did you boo like his a-hole supporters did every time he mentioned Obama in his concession speech? That was lame. But I thought McCain’s speech was excellent. Very classy. Now I have to make like Obama and clean up! Have a good first-day-not-worrying-about-the-election! Unless you live in Minnesota.

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Tongueless

We’re just getting back and unpacked from our trip to Chesaning. I think I might have bitten my tongue off at certain points, but it grew back and the trip was still lots of fun. And my husband is proud of me for just shrugging, shaking my head, and hiding in the other room from time to time instead of shrieking, “ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS TERRORIST CRAP?” over and over. Because, really, I can handle most any other reason why a person doesn’t want to vote for Obama, but the terrorist stuff? That’s just ignorant.

A couple of times when he saw my face turn red and noticed the arch of my eybrows and the cock of my head that usually signifies the beginning of a verbal onslaught accompanied by The Tone, he had to squeeze my shoulder and whisper through clenched teeth, “Do not get involved. Promise me you will not get involved. Here, drink this! Drink it faster!” I don’t know what he was so afraid of.

For the record, there are lots of Obama supporters in the family on both sides, but it was still plenty disconcerting scary interesting to be around the very few McCain supporters. My dad accused me of brainwashing my children, so I had to tell him and his girlfriend that brainwashing wasn’t necessary, as my daughters are afraid Sarah Palin is coming for their uteruses, which made Maya say, “Does Sarah Palin want to take my uterus?” To which I replied very sweetly, “No honey, she just wants to be the boss of your uterus. But we know she’s not the boss of your uterus, right? Who’s the boss of your uterus?” And she very proudly pointed to herself and said, “JUST ME!” Good times. In fact, that visit was so fun and has me feeling so bipartisan-ish today that I’m going to post a “Women for McCain” video that my sister-in-law, Tracy sent me.

Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

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Love and Confusion

How much do you love what Colin Powell said on Meet the Press? Not even the bit about endorsing Obama but this bit:

Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I cried. Did you cry? I did. Because he’s Colin frickin’ Powell and he’s finally saying what I wish all of the other powerful people would say. Even if he came out to endorse McCain, I would have still felt the same surge of extra respect. Endorsing Obama is just the icing on the Colin Powell cake.

As for the Sarah Palin on SNL, I’m confused by my feelings. First of all, she wasn’t funny. Second, she just kind of seemed like a punching bag, which I love, but that also makes things murky for me because here’s this woman who isn’t smart enough to realize that just because she’s on Saturday Night Live doesn’t mean she’s in on the joke. She was still the butt of the joke and the fact that she wasn’t smart enough to realize that and not put herself in that situation speaks to her desperate ignorance even more than any terrible Katie Couric interview. It’s one thing for Tina Fey to do her hilarious imitation of her when Palin isn’t there, but I couldn’t believe that Palin felt good about standing there while Alec Baldwin went on a tirade about her, calling her “that horrible woman” and her only comeback was to tell him that Stephen is her favorite Baldwin brother.

I was afraid that they would write some really funny stuff for her and then she would seem human and hilarious, but that’s not what happened. Remember when Hillary Clinton was on SNL? It was good and funny and smart. And, of course, the writers wrote better for Clinton, but I think that Palin should’ve been savvy enough to realize that the writers would not do that for her. At every turn, I thought it looked like they were all laughing at her, not with her. And it made me feel weird, like, as a woman, which was confusing because I really, really abhor her as a VP candidate, so I would think I would have just laughed at her, but I didn’t. I don’t even know if there’s a word for how I felt. I thought I would be happy that she didn’t have any good lines, but it just made me go, “Holy cow, you really are that dumb.” And it made me sad-ish. And scared. What if we have a VP who is that dumb? That would be bad.

So I walked around with a furrowed brow all weekend wondering why I have any feeling other than, “Haha! You’re dumb,” and wondering why I would even hope that she would be show us a glimmer of intellect. I guess I’m just going to chalk it up to the fact that she’s a woman and when a woman with that much power looks bad, I worry that we all look bad. Way to go, Palin. You are a ridiculous embarrassment and now I’ll never be chosen as anybody’s VP candidate. You’re ruining it for everybody.

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I’ve Missed You, Junie B.

I like Junie B. Jones. I know a lot of people don’t like the fact that she talks like a Kindergartener or a First Grader, but I think she’s cute. There, I said it. I love being controversial on my blog.

It’s been a long time since Lena and Liberty were into Junie B., but, thanks to a life-size poster in our library, Maya has jumped on the Junie bandwagon with full force. She’s been checking out book after book and listening quietly to chapter after chapter. This is kind of a big deal because Maya has never been the “listening quietly” type. Never. Goodnight Moon? Feh. The Runaway Bunny? Boring! But Junie has a hold on her. Maybe it’s because Maya has a bit of a speech problem, so she feels she can relate to Junie B? Whatever the reason, she’s hooked. And a lot of my day is spent with her following me around saying any of a number of versions of, “Remember when Junie B. lost her furry mittens and then she was sad and then she went to the lost and found and then she didn’t find them yet and then she wanted that backpack that wasn’t even hers? That was funny!” And I totally agree. It was funny!

I got nothing else today. I’m tired and it’s raining and Sarah Palin is still making my ovaries act all rebellious. I swear, it’s like they’re trying to get out so they can use the fallopian tubes to strangle somebody. Probably John McCain. Will the Secret Service read that and think I’m serious? I hope my ovaries don’t go to jail. Or maybe I hope they do go to jail. I can’t decide.

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Fabulous

Fabulous speech, Mr. McCain, but even seeing you with all of that make-up and with your lips actually moving a little bit when you talk didn’t make me forget that you are super old and near death. And Sarah Palin is your VP choice. That was dumb and it won’t be forgiven.

P.S. You’re old. And Sarah Palin was a poor choice. Because you’re old and everybody thinks you’re going to die soon. But you and Sarah have a super good speech writer. Kudos on that.

P.P.S. You’re not very young. And Sarah Palin makes my ovaries angry.

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