Meanest Mom in the World

Just read this BBC article and I feel my right to announce that I oppress my children more than any other mother out there has been challenged.

Challenged heck - it's been overthrown and stomped in the dirt. I can't begin to compete. And there's a whole nation of these people!

I thought (and my kids doubtless agreed) that I was really mean because this summer I gave them a whole two days of pure relaxation (except for the cleaning the rooms and the den part) and then threw them into Summer Schedule. It's not really that hardcore. M-F they are taken to the cardio room and do 45 minutes to an hour excercise. First week I didn't really bother them with what they were doing, so long as it was long enough. This week they had to do 20 minutes without stopping on one machine (thus ending whack-a-mole version of things with all three popping up on one machine or another every five minutes) plus five minutes cool down. Then they have to do light muscle work on the resistance machines and fritter the rest of the time on the machine of their choice. Since they have to get up at 6:30 to do all of this there was a leetle bit of fussing over the idea, but when I pointed out it meant spending more time in the miracle of modern air conditioning they settled down.

Part two of Summer of Doom was that each one had to choose three topics to study, and then have something to talk about and/or show at the end (6 weeks broken into 2 week portions for easier digestion). This weekend we get the first reports. I didn't dictate the subjects, or even suggest. So, child one will be demonstrating a variety of nomadic structures (it wants to built its own tent), and children two and three will diagram the innards of a lock and talk about the fine art of lock picking.

I figure we're set now. If worse comes to worst we'll be able to construct our own shelter, and if it rains we'll just break into a house of our choice. And when the police come to drag us all away we'll be able to run for at least 20 minutes, making for a damn fine chase scene on COPS. Life skills baby.