So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Last summer my wife told me to submit an application for our oldest daughter to attend a local charter school. I said, “ What ? She is like 3. Pretty sure we have some time.” She said, “Your daughter is 4. And we don’t have a lot of time. There is a waiting list.” “Is this one of those schools where there are yet-to-be-born children on the waiting list?” “Probably.” “Okay I will do it tomorrow. One question.” “What?” “What is a charter school?” My wife delved into some explanation that did not necessarily serve as an answer to my question. So I looked online. According to Wikipedia, “a charter school is an alternative education system where a school receives public funding but operates independently.” So basically … I still don’t know. It sounds like a charter school is a school that has its cake and eats it, too, and also we pay for the cake. Nevertheless, I filled out the application under the impression that the school would prefer a child who came from less than ord...

Note: This column appears in the 8/26 issue of The Glendale Star and the 8/27 issue of the Peoria Times Last weekend we happily hosted a first birthday party. The theme was butterflies. Even though I had attended several first birthday parties in the past year or so, and acquired some knowledge as to their culture and thus gained some confidence, there were still many facets of first birthday party etiquette that I was unaware of. For example, I learned that one cake is not enough cakes. I thought that one cake would be enough, but that was before I discovered that one cake is set aside for the sole purpose of allowing the birthday girl to smush her hands and face in it so that you can take funny birthday pictures. Then that cake is removed and a different cake is brought in for guests, so as to reduce the likelihood of your guests finding boogers in their cake. Luckily for us our friend Donna took care of the “real cake” personally by making a full batch of her Sassy Pops , which are ...