It's not everyday that I write odes. They're tricky, odes are. They should convey deep thought. And plus also, you need to get a good grade on them because your ode could mean passing 8th grade or staying in 8th grade.

But this ode is special, so I feel the need to try. It's for someone who has touched my life in a most basic of ways.

This ode is to Easy Reader.

For whatever reason, I have been hooked on Easy Reader videos from Youtube. I watched these circa 1970s videos that aired on PBS' The Electric Company when I was a kid. Now, through the wonders of youtube and some youtube poster who calls himself/herself "crotchrot" I can wax nostalgic and get puddly all over the leather sofa reliving the glory days of Easy Reader. Slap a Kleenex on me, will ya?

I had been under the misimpression that Dick and Jane taught me how to read. But I've finally realized that Dick and Jane and Spot and Mother and Father and Teacher had precious little to do with it.

Easy Reader taught me how to read.

Top to bottom.
Left to right.
Reading stuff
is outta sight!

Reading's groovy.
Reading's nice.
And I got a way
to do it twice!

Now that I think about it, I've known since I was knee-high to a grasshopper that TION spells [shun]. Easy Reader taught me.



And what about OA says [oh]? We all know the first letter does the talkin', the second does the walkin'. But Easy Reader taught it to me with words, music, and jive talkin'.



Then there's the more complicated plural form of a noun. This doesn't come naturally to some. Take Benjy, for example. He puts an S on most of his nouns regardless of their plurality. Not that he knows they're nouns yet. I'll show him this video and I bet he'll be slappin' some plurals in all the right places.



Odes aside, did you ever notice how awesome Sylvia dances? I wanted to dance like her on the tall platform at American Bandstand.



And who didn't practice reading the shampoo bottle ingredient list in the bathtub?



Forget the ode. I just wanna go read a book now.

Did I ever tell you that I had this closet obsession with Eminem when I was incubating Benjy? Yeah, I did. I was a bit embarrassed about it, so I kept this close to my chest. Then one day after jiving to school with The Real Slim Shady, I could hide it no more. I came out of the closet in the staff lounge during lunch. I was eating my daily peanut butter and jelly with a V-8 because not only was I with child, but also I was health conscious back in the day. Somebody mentioned John Mayer. Yeah, I like him, I agreed. And somebody mentioned the Rolling Stones. Duh, of course I like them. (Who doesn't?) Then a singer I'd never heard of. And another. And yet another. Not to be outdone, I squirmed in my seat and then let her rip.

"Youwon'tbelievethis,
butIlikeEminem."

I stabbed a grape in my fruit cocktail while the room grew silent. You could hear the 2nd graders in the lunchroom across the hall, but not a teacher spoke in our room.

"Well, I just like the beat. You know, the beat."

I sipped my V-8. Opened my Snack Pack chocolate pudding.

"You know, he does have a good beat. He's a talented musician," the music teacher offered.

Zing!
The music teacher thinks he has a good beat!
She thinks he's got talent!

But I knew better than to elaborate. I had regaled these teachers for months with my obsession with the Sopranos, and they probably feared that I was Tony's consigliere as it was. I didn't really wanna be rogue gangsta of Green Valley Elementary School.

Yeah, I couldn't help it. It must have been the hormones.

Due to the salacious, abhorrent, and indecent lyrics and content of Eminem's performance of Without Me, video is not posted. However, Without Me's beat is still notable.

We had a titillating grammar conversation at taekwondo tonight. Actually, we had our deliberation which was positively enchanting after the TKD class while standing around the parents' lounge all sweaty and breathless-like. On the agenda was the preposition-at-the-end-of-a-sentence dilemma. I've always been of the mind that some English constructions are just plain awkward if you manipulate the preposition from the end of the sentence to someplace else, say, for instance, under the couch, simply to avoid breaking this mother of all rules.

And with these words from Sir Winston Churchill, I am almost ready to rest my case:

“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”

A Washington State University professor has a substantial list of common English errors that includes these non-errors. (Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English.) This site refers readers to The American Heritage Book of English Usage, which I did not write. From there, I paste these nuggets of English wisdom:

It was John Dryden, the 17th-century poet and dramatist, who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end a sentence. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. In fact, English syntax not only allows but sometimes even requires final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or That depends on what you believe in. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying “This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.”

Even sticklers for the traditional rule can have no grounds for criticizing sentences such as I don’t know where she will end up or It’s the most curious book I’ve ever run across; in these examples, up and across are adverbs, not prepositions. You can be sure of this because it is impossible to transform these examples into sentences with prepositional phrases. It is simply not grammatical English to say I don’t know up where she will end and It’s the most curious book across which I have ever run.

So, bite me, John Dryden.

Click HERE to see other non-errors so you can impress your friends with your blatant disregard for schoolroom grammar. And click HERE to see the home page of the professor who maintains the site and his other projects. OK, that's where the grammar stuff is at. :)

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I leave you with Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader.

I groove on all the words around.
Ah ah ah.
As long as they are written down.
Ah ah ah.
Easy Reader, that's my name.
Ah ah ah.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Me? Only about 15 minutes if I compact it all down and take out the extraneous moments like stopping to listen to the weather or tell the boys for the 238th time to get up or pick up my coffee mug to take a sip or three. Really, I'm a fast get-ready-er.

Eaglescout rises and shines, yes, shines and sings and sometimes even dances, at 5 a.m. It's strange, but he's at his best at that hour. Too bad I don't care to hear a single word he has to sing. He wakes me at 5:30 with a cup of coffee. He's much better at coffee than dancing. I just lie there in bed counting the minutes on my clock. 5:35. 5:36. 5:37. 5:38. 5:39. 5:40. My clock, you see, is set five minutes fast, so I always think I have an extra five minutes to sleep. It works for me. Really. My feet finally hit the floor at 5:40 and I trudge to the bathroom to begin my get ready ritual.

I'm one of those chicks who has to wash her hair every single morning before facing her people. My shampoo of choice is Prell. It smells clean, fresh, and nothing like the shampoos that sent me hurling when I was pregnant with Benjy. Shampoos, detergents, hand soaps, perfumes. Oh, the scents that put me over the proverbial edge (of the toilet) for 105 days. The doctors finally told me to take vitamin B6 and Unisom for the nausea and, wowie wow wow, I was cured. It was a miracle, I tell you.

So, there's the hair washing, hair moussing, hair drying, hair spraying. That takes around 5 minutes tops. Short hair makes it all work out time-wise. I only lather lotion on my face, followed by blush and a tad bit of eye shadow. Lipstick tops the ensemble and I'm bound to smear a bit on Eaglescout before we bid adieu. Usually he doesn't even know. Clothes are a cinch if only I could decide what to wear.

I swear, it's not the getting ready part that causes me to fret and yell and turn into a raging monster at 6:30 every school morning. It's the boys' get ready ritual that brings out my less flattering side. While I can create a do and find clothes to wear in 20 minutes, again, compressing the unnecessary parts like when Eaglescout wants to dance while the day's forecast is on so I have to dance and then catch the next forecast segment, the boys dilly dally and talk and waste toothpaste for 40 minutes. And they don't even get up till 6:00! By the time they've wolfed down waffles and milk and vitamins and not a little sugary maple syrup and brushed their teeth, it's 6:37 on the clock and I'm in full-out panic mode. Then we have to find our shoes. Great day in the morning, who hid the shoes?!!! We are lucky if we scream out of the garage at 6:48 on my van clock. This clock is set three minutes fast, and so I know it's really only 6:45, but I have to be in Armbrust at 7:00. That's hardly legal. By the way, did you ever notice how folks around these parts don't pronounce it Arm-brust? They say Arm-Burst. As in "my arm burst into a gazillion pieces of flesh and bones." This drives me up a tree, but nobody cares. They continue to butcher the pronunciation, but I refuse to give in. Even if I look weird.

So, what's your morning like? Blog about it, people. You know you need something meaningless to write about. And I need something mindless to read. :)

This is my first-born. He's heavy on personal style and light on patience. He has an opinion on every subject, even the ones he cannot pronounce. He's speaks often and loudly. He's the one Mom wished on me when I was but a wee girl. "I hope you have one just like you when you grow up!" It's a wonder I ever had the second child.

Meet Camden. He's my mini clone. This shot was taken about 5 years ago when he went through his WINTER IN SUMMER phase. He wore turtlenecks, sweatshirts, sweaters, any form of winter-wear during June, July, and August with his yellow rubber "Rescue Hero" boots. He wore this get-up most every single day. Nothing I could say would sway his decision. Sweat would bead up on his brow, belly, and stinky feet, and still, he'd pull on those smelly boots - sans socks - and run outside in all his insane glory.

There's something about a child this stubborn that makes being his mother both a migraine and a pure pleasure. That may explain why I take Lexapro. But I learned a long time ago not to sweat the small stuff. Smelly rubber boots aside, Camden was a joy to watch during this summer. He rejoiced in every single endeavor - finding frogs by the pond, memorizing Golden Books' Beauty and the Beast, teaching Benjy how to play hide and seek, driving his screechy fire engine pedal car down the sidewalk blaring his self-voiced siren. Camden has always been a child who lives his life with zest.

It's taken some time and perhaps a few kicks to the head, but I've grown to embrace this robust side of Camden and appreciate it for all the wonder and life and love he brings to our family. I even miss those yellow boots. Occassionally.

It occurred to me at TKD tonight that I am short. Actually, it's occurred to me on many a night, but tonight it became abundantly clear. Here I was, partnered with Princess, holding a pad for her to roundkick. Only I had to hold the pad at chest-height to accommodate her long legs that she perches her body on. This is particularly uncomfortable for my girls (you know, my "girls") when you're taking hits off the pad and it smashes against you. Short people got no reason. Thanks, Princess, for a bit of clarity on my otherwise beautiful day. :)

Being Forked

I had never been forked until we moved to Ohio in 2003. Benjy was just a few months old when I was forked for the first time. It was election season of 2004. I remember that because I had a Kerry sign in my front yard. To this day we do not know who forked us, but I do recall that Kerry lost the election. Camden was offended, but we just laughed because being forked was, well, so funny. Actually, it was kinda cool to be singled out as worthy of a few hundred forks poked in the yard. If only we knew who liked us so much....


And now we've been forked again. Just when we'd written this town off, Greensburg comes through. And this time we know the guilty parties.

Tami, aka Homeschooling Ninja Turtle Princess

Leslie, aka Lady Leslie

Can you fathom how many forks this must be? If you can guess correctly, you will win an invisible prize. This is the scene we found when we came home from celebrating Benjy Boo's birthday at the hotel with a pool and a party room. (i.e. Room 513)

We had to smile that somebody loved us enough to go to all this work. And we naturally suspected our dog sitter, Leslie. Emma confirmed this for us.


Emma also confirmed how her peculiar bed pals arrived in her bed (i.e. OUR bed) She was sad to see them go back to their own chair, but while she had the bunnies, she was one happy dog.




Thanks, Princess and Lady, for the swell homecoming. It was almost as good as the Clone Cake. :)