12. Yummy, Yummy, Yummy

So, today was interesting... and by interesting I mean infuriating. I was told that my kids would be given a test tomorrow, so I thought I could use today to prepare them -- both mentally and emotionally -- but today I went into work and was told that the test was, well... right away. No warning, for either me or the kids. And the test, which was made by the director (Mr. Lee) was horrible. His understanding of what children are capable of is about as extensive as his understanding of English (and by that I mean he has no understanding whatsoever). The vocabulary section of the test was a crossword puzzle... and my kids are 5 (Canadian 5, anyway). I've been working on crossword puzzles with them, but it is just a hard concept -- the fact that the question is down at the bottom, and you have to write the answer up at the top, and in these little squares... they're still getting used to that. Not to mention the fact that 'questions' on crossword puzzles aren't usually technically questions, so that in and of itself is kind of an abstract concept. Oh, my kids are smart and will be doing crosswords by themselves in a few months, but for now it's just too much for them to do alone.

And I haven't even mentioned that the way he was testing their vocabulary was by using definitions... I don't know if there is any way to convey how ridiculous it was. I mean, one of the 'clues' was "to open your mouth wide and breathe in deeply". I didn't know what that was. Apparantly, that is the dictionary definition of 'yawn'. Or how about "the soft part of the inside of your mouth". When she read that, Annie started groping around inside her mouth to see if there was something in there she didn't know about. That was the definition for the word tongue. Oh and 'the front part of the top of your body' was 'chest', and 'feeling tired' was 'bored', which we had to tell the kids was a mistake and then act out being bored for them. The craziest one was this: "to press something sharp against the skin and cause pain". I could not for the life of me figure out what that one was. I almost don't want to tell you and see if any of you can figure out what it was... as a matter of fact, I think I'll do that. If you submit the correct answer you win a prize... um... I think my undying admiration should be sufficient reward.

Anyway, the test was stupid and caused one of my precious kids to have an anxiety attack -- poor little Judy just burst into tears, and even when I sat beside her and hugged her and basically told her the answers, she wouldn't write them down because it was all too overwhelming, so I told her the test was stupid and that she didn't have to write it because I know that she's smart. I spent most of the day feeling very angry and protective of my children.

I refused to put my kids through any more intellectual stress, so I spent 20 minutes on the easiest subject for them, and then we worked on some songs. I took some video of them and have just today discovered some editing software on my computer so I've put a little something together. This is my first time doing this sort of thing, so it's a little rough, but I'm fairly impressed with myself. Enjoy.


As always, love to you all!