Adventures in Government

When I got married, I decided to keep my maiden name. I like my maiden name. My maiden name is far cooler than my husband's name. And married is married - what name people use doesn't matter to me.

But after the kids were born, with their Daddy's name, I felt that I should have a name in common with them. I decided to hyphenate.

Eventually I went down to the DMV to put my hyphenated name on my driver's license. I brought my marriage certificate with me, but the clerk didn't bother to look at it. In fact, she told me that I could put whatever name I wanted on the licesne. (Although after she said that, she told me that I couldn't hyphenate.) Whatever name I wanted. She didn't care. She didn't check ID. I thought that was awfully interesting.

I never bothered to do anything about changing the name on my social security card, and any time I am called upon to sign a legal document (house deed, tax return) I sign my maiden name.

A few months ago the State of Texas decided that this was A Bad Thing. They flagged my driver's license, and instructed me to come to the DMV in person to discuss my identity. I had lost my license anyway, so okay. I went down this morning armed to the teeth: SS card, marriage certificate, birth certificate, proof of insurance, water bill - whatever I could think of.

The first person I spoke with asked me for two forms of ID. He didn't even look at them. When I pulled two pieces of paper out of my purse, he simply checked his little "two forms of ID" box. They could have been anything.

The second person I spoke with told me that they could not give me my license unless I first changed my social security card. She told me that I would have to make the name on the social exactly match the name on the license (which I didn't have). Not in the mood to go to the SS office today, I asked her to just reissue the license in my maiden name.

She paused. She stammered. She thought. She was clearly taken aback. But since she could not come up with any reason to deny my request, she did it.

This is all ridiculous, though. When I changed my name initially, no one checked my identification. No one looked at my marriage license. In the nine years I've been presenting my social security card to these people, no one batted an eye that my maiden name was on one, and my maiden name and married name were on the other.

So now, even though I have my marriage certificate, I cannot have my married name on my driver's license unless I first jump through the SS hoops.

This is stupid and annoying. My driver's license should not have anything to do with my social security number, which should only be used for work and SS benefits identification. And I resent having to jump through these hoops for people who don't even look at the ID I bring them. I presume the goverment is doing this because I've raised a red flag, with the names not matching, and they want to make sure I am who I say I am, and both names are the same person, and I'm not trying to pull anything funny. And then the DMV workers tell me I can put down whatever name I want, and don't look at any of my documents?

Our tax money at work, folks.

Don't even ask about getting a car registered in TX if you're new to Texas and don't have a TX driver's licence yet. Ha ha ha. That's even more fun.

The Long Division Strikes Back

So I gave the boy a page of long division problems. These are easy: he was supposed to divide even and odd two-digit numbers by two, using the steps we've shouted over discussed.

He took the page. He whined.

Then he stopped whining.

Silence.

Then he announced that he was finished.

What? Finished already?

But finished he was. He looked at each problem, used his own method to divide it in his head, and wrote down the answers. Voila! Correct answers, no pain.

What can you do?

Very Funny

Do you know what happened last night?

The temperature bottomed out at 28 degrees.

The peppers, tomatoes and basil are all dead.

Bleah.

Being There

Miz Booshay recently asked her readers to name their favorite thing about homeschooling. And in the comments, MFS answered: "being there."

Yes.

This morning, for some reason, our house was seized with Old West Fever. Before I knew it, I had spent the morning cutting out sheriff's badges and turning paper bags into cowboy vests. Any pretense at sticking to our normal routine was abandoned as furniture, cardboard and tape disappeared into the boys' room, to be transformed into a ... saloon?

Yes, a saloon.

It seems that all they know of the Old West comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons and, of course, Support Your Local Sheriff.

They set up a bar, complete with swinging cardboard saloon doors. They created playing cards and paper money. They made cardboard guns (two each). They staged gunfights over gambling debts. They debated whether cowboys would sell snacks at a saloon. Griffin (four years old) was the bartender, and made us interesting drinks through the magic of food coloring.

Like I would miss this?

If I define "education" for my family ...

I can define it to leave out long division.

Can't I?

Please?

Pleeeeaaaaaassseee???

The lesson/session was not pretty. After all, although Mom can do long division, she can't necessarily explain the whys and wherefores of the steps. She'd like to just say "Don't think, just follow the instructions." But of course, that would be wrong.

Hmpf.

Weekend Roundup

It's fascinating. After three boys, you'd think I had seen it all. But no. Sometimes I think the gods sent me my fourth just because the other three were missing opportunities to let me in on some of those great parenting moments.

I was, apparently, missing a child with that special spirit of adventure. You know, the one that leads him to see just what will fit up his nose? Or if it won't fit in his nose, how about his ear? His brother's nose? That special sense of inquiry that leads him to wonder, if it's stinky, how does it taste?

And so finally, after managing to avoid this through three children, guess who managed to get to the scissors and decided to update his style?

Ah, well. It'll grow.

We had a nice, relatively healthy weekend with Daddy. In one of those crazy fits of springtime ambition, I went to the garden store. You know, just to get an herb or two for the garden. Heh heh. I walked out with tomatoes, bell peppers, Thai and sweet basil for the eating garden; parsley, dill, lantana and pincushion plants for what will be the butterfly garden. I think there's at least one surviving echinacea plant in the butterfly garden, and there's a nice bit of thyme and a runaway strawberry plant in the eating garden.

I also have several bluebonnets that don't have a home yet.

Of course we're going to eat the parsley and dill; they're in the butterfly garden because swallowtail caterpillars love to eat them too. Yay, little swallowtail caterpillars! Come eat the nice green plants.

True to Spring, it will be cool and rainy for the next couple of days. So I will leave you with my favorite picture of spring so far. There's just nothing better than a kid who won't get his nose out of a book, is there?