If I Were an Ant, Would I Teach all of the Ant Children?

Remember how last night's ER was going to be a "WILD ONE"? Well, it was so wild that I fell asleep. The sheer wildness was too much for me...I mean I was watching it and all of a sudden they were having a meeting with Weaver and then Pratt was rude to a patient and that new weird intern, you know the one who used to be Darlene on Roseanne, called Luca "hot." I mean really, by the time Neela had agreed to move in with Ray, the excitement had mounted so much that I just collapsed into a stimulus-overload-induced sleep.

Exactly.

My kids read a short story about a Native American Indian this week. We talked about how Indians would give themselves new names when they came of age, and these names were usually based on some skill or trait that the individual had, and nature symbols were used to express these skills. For example, someone really fast might be called "Swift Wind," or something such as that. So, the next natural step for me as a teacher was to have my kids come up with their own Indian names. I told them to think of a skill that they had, something about themselves that they were proud of, and then to think of something in nature that could symbolize that skill or trait.

Allow me to present the greatest hits of made-up Indian names:

"I would be called "Little Bow Wow."

"I'd name myself chicken-eater-corn-peeler, because of my chicken-eating and corn-peeling skills."

"I would be an ant. Or maybe a cat."

Wow.

Something else funny. At practice we use a whistle to get the girls' attention. The other day, they were running their own practice, but without the precious whistle because, hey, we put our mouths on those things! So anyway, at one point, one of my girls wanted to get everyone's attention. She walks to the middle of the court and yells out: "WHISTLE." Hah. Love that kid.

And, just to clarify, when I was a tutor for USC's Athletic department, the boys never fought with other teams during a game, and they definitely never stole computers. Coincidence? I think not.