Supertramp

So Connor starts school next Tuesday, and I'm making that the day that I finally get serious about the twins' education. Loyal readers will be tired of reading how smart Maggie is, and how the twins won't match her because we haven't had the same one-on-one time and opportunity with them as we did with Maggie.

Because it's been 14 months since my layoff, the twins' lack of facility with the alphabet, numbers, physics and Classical Greek is on me. I have chosen play over academic drills, my own fun and laziness over play and academic drills, and the result is that my 44-month-old twins can get to G before spewing a mishmosh of sounds until they get to U, V, W, X, Y, Z. That's why they can't read yet.

Meanwhile, Maggie plows through second-grade books while laying on her stomach, twirling her hair and humming.

So, I am using Connor's first day of fifth-grade to promote the preschoolers' first day of homeschoolergarten. Number and letter flash cards for the twinnie twin twins and in-depth study of definitions and sentence structure as well as math for Maggie. She's a whiz reading, but is like a 4-year-old with math.

Something I discovered with Maggie that is probably a well-known phenomenon with early childhood educators and researchers: while taking spelling tests here and there with me, like we do with Connor during school, there are words I know she can read with no problem that she can't even come close to spelling correctly.

So, it has something to do with successfully sounding out letters when seen on a page, but hitting a wall when matching sounds to letters out of thin air, as in a verbal spelling test. Anyway, I want to make sure she knows the meaning of words now that I know she can read them and pronounce them correctly. Oh the dic dic dictionary, is very necessary...(old-school hip-hop reference, De La Soul I believe).

So that's it. If they don't give me an apple next week I'll be pissed. But I think this will work--they are excited to be like big brother Connor, and their Kindercare experience should have softened them up for me.

I said 'Criss-cross applesauce,' god dammit!

Stevie Ray Vaughan

What's strange is once your kids go to some school, whether five times a week or two, they come back knowing things you didn't teach them.

So the small ones have been going to Kindercare two times a week, and we're hearing songs we don't know and learning about kids we've never met. Not really sure where Darcy is getting some of her slinky dance moves, but she's a tiny go-go girl. Seriously, she may have a natural dancing talent, though it's worrisome to see a 3-year-old go all Soul Train in the kitchen. No school dances or teen clubs for that one.

It's nice though, feeling so secure about a daycare. Connor was a Kindercare kid from 2 until kindergarten. He made some friends, one of whom is still a buddy, though we live further away than we used to. I don't see what paying more will get you--Creme de la Creme, the Snobbington Academy, etc. I wouldn't feel good about a step down from Kindercare, but I am not sure what the next level up does for your kid, especially at this age.

They play, do crafts, sing, dance, do letters, numbers, socialize, eat well, no TV or movies, and many of the teachers that I've met over the years have been attractive. Maybe that's it..the Creme de la Creme teachers are dressed like Hooters girls. Great, because I've never thought that outfit or for that matter most of the girls I've seen there are special. They bait with the calendars, and switch with the boots on the ground.

But I digress, just a bit. Sometimes they bitch about going, but when we take them inside their friends run up to them and say their names excitedly, and when we pick them up they're grabbin ass and running around and their friends say bye and it's a nice feeling to see your kids are liked by other kids.

Gavin had a rough morning or afternoon once and got to hug it out with a big frog they have just for that occasion. There's a guinea pig named Mr. Incredible. They go on field trips to Outback and Noodle & Co. I bet Snobbington Academy doesn't do that. They probably have Rick Bayless stop by for some PB&J grilling.

I'm not paying extra for that.