Saturday, September 28, 2013

Congratulations Marlenne!

We were able to celebrate our niece Marlenne's graduation from high school.

Highlights:

1. Trying to catch balloons for the kids.

2. A dove flew into the graduates seated on the football field, seemingly targeting a particular girl and causing chaos for several moments.

3. Firefighters setting off fireworks intermittently behind the bleachers accidentally set one off exploding through the crowd, exactly where we were walking below the bleachers, freaking out both kids and forcing us to almost leave.

4. Stephen chasing a lazy, helium-filled balloon that kept trying to very slowly float away.

5. Marlenne graduating!

Head Start

Sarah finished up her first (partial) year of "school" at Head Start.

Her first question every morning was, Today I'm going to skewwol?

Everything about her going to Head Start was good. She learned how to write her name and made some friends with boys and girls. It gave the day some structure while exposing her to learning activities every day. And it gave Mama enough of a break to help keep her from going crazy, and to give her some more one-on-one time with Stephen.

Her classroom is closing after this school year but she should be placed in another class in the fall. We went to visit a classroom in North Tempe that hopefully she will be able to get into and attend 6 hours per day.

Head Start is going through budget cuts due to politics on the federal level ("budget sequestration" due to Republicans desiring to cut expenses spend on the majority of the country for the benefit of a tiny fraction of the very richest among us).

It's very sad because there should be nothing that holds us back from investing in our children, and preschool education for kids Sarah's age has been shown to make such a big difference over the course of their entire lives.

Boo to the "elected" Republicans in Congress!

("Elected" because their majority was achieved through gerrymandering, not through getting a majority of votes. Democratic representatives for the House received a total of 1.4 million more votes than the Republicans, and yet the Republicans won 32 more seats than the Dems. Seats that the Repubs are using to obstruct anything constructive and promote the interests of giant corporations and the few thousand richest Americans and the detriment of science, education, the environment, truth, decency, and everything good.)

If you are reading this in 2033, and the Republicans are still around, they sucked in 2013. Really, really, really bad.