For WEEKS now Kaiden has been coming home with these rubber band-like bracelets on her wrists that she has gotten from friends at school… “Silly Bandz”  She has been begging me to get her some, but with her behavior lately, I have not.  I finally decided this week that I would go ahead and get her some, as her behavior had shown improvement and after spending Tuesday going to multiple stores just to find out they were all sold out of them, I was ready to give up and be done with it.  At the last store, Five and Below, the lady said they were getting a shipment in Wednesday morning.  So I seriously left work and ran up there to get her some… just to get the last six 24-packs they had, because they had already sold out that fast… again.  The sad thing is, I remember being her age and how important those fads were to me… jelly shoes, Swatch watches with the colored Swatch guards, jelly bracelets, woven string “friendship bracelets,” Esprit purses, banana clips, watch rings, suede belts with matching suede boots, braided barrettes with the strings that hung down, flojo sandals… the list goes ON AND ON AND ON.  It may seem retarded to me now, but I DO REMEMBER how I was the exact same way when I was younger - so I do need to make the effort to let her enjoy having something that is the latest fad… even if it is a $3 pack of Silly Bandz!  That IS a part of growing up… just because it is retarded as hell to me now… it is not to her and her friends.

This morning, when I went in her room to make sure she was getting dressed and had not laid back down and passed out… she had like fifty on each wrist – which immediately turned into a fight of wills with me allowing five of them on each wrist.. but with a stern warning that if she played with them during instruction time at school and I found out about it – they would all be gone for good!  I am well aware that this is a complete waste of breath… but at least I feel like I tried.  Of course then I got to work this morning and opened up Yahoo, just to see the following article front and center:

Silly Bandz Bracelet Craze: School Ban Over Distraction

The Bandz are now contraband. Schools in several states, including New York, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts, have blacklisted Silly Bandz, those stretchy, colorful bracelets that are creeping up the forearms of school kids across the U.S. And starting this week, all 800-some kids at my son’s elementary school in Raleigh, N.C., were commanded to leave at home their collections of rubber band–like bracelets, which retail for about $5 per pack of 24. What could possibly be so insidious about a cheap silicone bracelet? 

“It’s a distraction,” says Jill Wolborsky, a fourth-grade teacher at my son’s school, who banned them from her classroom before the principal implemented a schoolwide ban. One student stole some confiscated Bandz from her desk, choosing them over the cash in her drawer.  Students fiddle with them during class and arrange swaps - trading, say, a bracelet with a mermaid for one with a dragon - when they should be concentrating on schoolwork, teachers say. Sometimes a trade goes bad - kids get buyer’s remorse too - and hard feelings, maybe even scuffles, ensue.

That’s what prompted Karen White, principal of Snow Rogers Elementary School in Gardendale, Ala., in October to become one of the first administrators to forbid students their Bandz. “We try not to limit their freedom of expression and what they wear, but when this became a problem, I knew we had to nip it in the bud pretty quickly,” says White, who has since extended an olive branch in the form of monthly Silly Bandz days.  (more)

GREAT!  Thank god school is almost over and summer is here.  I hope she enjoys wearing them at school today, because it will probably be the last day I allow it.  Maybe I will go get her a pretty braided barrette for her hair and work on trying to bring those back!!!

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My friend that I grew up three doors down from, since the time I was three years old, Jeff Laughead, texted me last night to let me know that his sister had found this old poetry book from Elementary School and had mailed it to him.  I vaguely remember the book.  It was a book being put together between ALL the local Elementary Schools and anyone could submit poems and hope that they would be picked to be published in it.  My poem got picked - I was in the 5th Grade.

He sent me photos of it last night and it was cracking me up.  He uploaded a lot of the photos to Facebook also - there are lots of poems from lots of people I have known for a very long time - and every one of them is hilarious!  I was quite the poet… but now, at 34 and with kids of my own, I wonder what the heck the man feeding the colorful ducks in the park was REALLY doing…

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