Health Issues

I never thought I would dislike the subject of Health. When Deanna was in Kindergarten, First and Second Grades, I couldn't wait for her to have some new, interesting subjects. This year, they added Health to the curriculum. What I thought would be wonderful has become a thorn in my side.

Deanna spent the first 2 months of school spouting daily at the breakfast table, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Then she went through a season where they were studying the food pyramid and she had to eat a balanced breakfast, including fruit, each morning. Now, I don't make slouchy breakfasts. On Monday, we have eggs, toast, and sausage or bacon. On Tuesdays, we have French Toast, Waffles, or Pancakes. Wednesday is hot cereal day - Cream of Wheat, Oatmeal or Grits. Thursday I've declared Junk Food Morning - toaster streudel, pop tarts, those wonderful pastries you can now buy in the frozen food section that look line mini cinnamon rolls but you put them in the toaster. Friday (Don's morning to do breakfast) is cold cereal. Variety is key. I rotate from week to week what we have each of these mornings, so we don't eat oatmeal two weeks in a row or waffles twice.

I think I do a pretty good job with breakfasts. BUT . . . Deanna had to have a "food-pyramid-balanced" breakfast. I had to add lots of extra foods to include a piece of fruit every morning, then there's be so much food on the table that the children couldn't eat it all. I was very happy when they finished that module in Health.

Next came the Digestive System - oh, good grief. As we ate dinner, we'd get a lecture on appropriate chewing habits, how the digestive juices begin working in the mouth to break down food, then continue the job in the stomach, then to the colon, etc. Great dinner table talk. They actually took a field trip and spent a whole day studying the stomach. In a city near us, there's a museum where they have a 3-story boy and you can walk through his internal organs. His esophagus is a slide. The Third Grade spent an entire day wandering through somebody's digestive tract. Gross (educational, however).

And, OOOOOOOH, the skeleton. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the proper names for bones. When Deanna broke her foot, she babbled for hours about which bone in her foot had broken. She discussed various bones with the Doctor as if she were an Intern. Musculature became a frequent topic.

"That's your trapezius muscle, Mom. " "Don't you know that's your clavicle, not your 'collar bone'?" "My triceps are sore." "Dane, that's your patella!!"

My daughter has become a know-it-all. She's old enough now to know lots of stuff but not yet old enough to know that you don't have to show everybody just how much you know.

The maturing process - learning when it's appropriate to share knowledge and when you should quietly keep it to yourself. Come on, Maturity. We're eager for you!!