Time Flies

Well, that month just zoomed by. I remember when I first starting reading knitting blogs, I'd see a blog that hadn't been updated for a month or so and would wonder what dire happening had prevented the blogger from getting to her blog. Now I so understand that it's usally nothing more than busy-itis. In one of my last entries I wrote about how Kai was about to graduate eighth grade, something that, as my husband points out, many schools don't acknowledge other than to hand out a report card. Well, Kai's school acknowledges it in a big way, while, at the same time, not pretending that it's anything more than a small step toward much bigger achievement.
I haven't written about Kai's school before....since this is a knitting blog, but oh well. I have bragged quite a few times this year to friends that Kai attends a private school on the taxpayer's dime. No, we haven't ventured into some voucher scheme. What I mean is that Kai's little public K-8 school is more like a good private one. It's a "country" school in a town of about 200 people fifteen miles from us. To keep their attendance numbers up, the school allows kids from our town to go there. I had kind of turned my nose up at parents who put their children on waiting lists to get in there because I felt that our local parents should work on improving our elementary schools instead of "jumping ship." On the other hand, I was exceptionally unimpressed with out junior high school. Kai's not a complainer, but I knew that he wasn't too happy about going there, so when an opportunity arose (the superintendent called to ask if he'd like attend) we took it. There were ten kids in his graduating class. Kai worked harder (not that that's saying that much, ha, ha.) than he ever has AND, along the way, had incredible extra-curricular experiences . One day I came to pick him up from school, and his class was out in the school yard digging stuff up. His teacher had "planted" archaeological items for the kids to uncover, and then they had to write about what they had found. The biggest thing that Kai's school gave him was that it allowed him to stay a kid for a year longer. The teachers and kids were often playing softball when I came to pick him up, no prepubescient couples pawing each other or sneaking into the alley to smoke. The school is in a poor town, but the school has money because of tax revenue from oil companies. Many of these local kids are from extemely dyfunctional backgrounds, but when I get those kids at the high school, most comtinue to do well. I think elementary schools have become so generic, so worried about marching lock-step to canned programs that will supposedly bring their test scores up. It's a shame. School shouldn't be about preparing for some inane corporate test. I know that it's not possible to emulate a lot of what Kai's school did. One night his entire class spent the night on the school playground looking at stars as part of an astronomy lesson. I didn't think twice about allowing Kai to go. A teacher would have to be crazy to consider that with a class of thirty kids, even good ones, which is also highly unlikely. Most schools are going the wrong way ...and I'm not so sure that it's not an intentional ploy by powerful people who want to make a buck off our kids. I take that back..I'm SURE it is!


I have been knitting some, even if I haven't blogged about it. I had been thinking that I needed to give the bunny knitting a break, but I got some news that made me change my mind. I live in the town I grew in, but none of my family still live here and few of my old friends. I still stay in contact with my best friend from high school though and I talk to her mom often because she lives near me. I loved my friend Sara's younger brother, Hans. We've rarely seen each other since we've been adults, but I recently learned that he and his wife are having twins, a boy and a girl. I just had to knit some bunnies for them. I knit some little Mary Janes too. I like this pattern, but it always seems like the patterns turn out too big. This pattern called for size 2 needles, and I used size 1. They're still definitely not 0 -3 months like the pattern says.
Yes, that is a cat on our table, not only on our table, laying on an antique tablecloth that my grandmother stitched!