Ian is excited about going to a public school next year. He'd like to play lacrosse. I don't think he knows what lacrosse is. He'd also like to learn how to box.They don't have boxing in school but he found out through the wonderful world of online research, that there is a boxing club in Bend. He found this out through the newspaper article that talked about brain damage suffered by a boxer at this boxing club and how he's still going to box. What a guy. What a stupid guy. He is also excited about the numerous skate parks in Bend.
I'm a little concerned about Ian returning to public school. This year in homeschooling not only have we caught back up after the five years of poor schooling in the public schools here, but we may have also developed some bad habits. For example, waking up when you feel like it, or racing through subjects you don't like (he may have picked up this bad habit from me). I've talked to Mike about him taking over homeschooling next year but his idea of homeschooling is to take him skiing everyday.
So Ian and I have been online looking at the different schools in Bend. Ian thinks he'd like to go to a boarding school. The bad mom in me says yippee, (not out loud) the good mom says that's not happening. He doesn't want to go to a school that has uniforms. He doesn't want to go to a school that he has to ride a bus to. Basically Ian's rules for school next year are: lacrosse, boxing, no uniforms, no bus.
I'm trying to figure out how to pick the best area to live in according to the schools and I'm doing that by going online. However, I become distracted by how "pretty" the website it, or how easy the website it to navigate around in. I look at the class offerings, which look fine. I look at pictures of the teachers online and except for the guy who has a huge white mustache whom I'm convinced is hiding a scar he incurred while in a bar in Mexico, they all look fine....well, there is also the woman who is not smiling and looks like she may also have a mustache, although hers is probably not hiding a scar.
I'm thinking of contacting teachers online and asking them. Maybe pretending I'm one of those Secret Shoppers. I could ask her/him questions like: Do you think your school is performing to the best of its abilities? Do you believe your students are completely engaged in learning? Do you think the guy running the detention room is having an affair with the teacher's aide? Do you think the woman who never eats lunch in the faculty room is an alcoholic? Do you think the principal is really that stupid?
Sometimes I think it would be much easier if I knew nothing about education (like most parents) and blithely sent my child to school everyday believing that the teachers were doing a great job. I hate being the parent who goes to school board meetings and argues with the superintendent (although maybe not as much as the superintendent hates me being there) I hate being the parent who calls the teachers and wants to know why, if parents are supposed to check online for homework, is the homework not online? I hate being the parent who meets with the principal and tells him that if a "policy" is not in the handbook, than it's not a "policy" and no, I'm not doing this (you should have seen Ian's principal when I told him this, he's overweight and I thought he was going to have a heart-attack.)
There is some validity to the saying "Ignorance is bliss." I wish I could be that parent. But I'll probably end up in Bend going to the school board meetings, talking to the teachers and when that doesn't work, talking to the principals, etc., etc., etc. My vow when I move is to not make any waves, okay, not too many waves, okay, not as many waves as I did here.
Wish me luck.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Springtime in the Rockies-Mike and Yoga
It's Springtime in the Rockies.
Before I moved here, I had a framed print that was titled "Springtime in the Rockies." It was a photograph of a steep mountain covered by acres of wildflowers. There were purple, yellow, lavender, red and yellow flowers. The sun was shining. The only snow was the snow capped mountain in the distance.
I gave the print to a friend of mine. I'm glad I did. It's all a lie.
Springtime in the Rockies consists of snow, still more snow and yet again more snow. The only difference with Spring snow and Winter snow is that the Spring snow melts...everyday, which leads to mud. Which freezes every night (the temperatures are still in the twenties at night) and then melts during the day and then it snows at night and we begin this process all over again.
There is not a purple, yellow, lavender, red or yellow flower to be found anywhere. However, there are multiple snow capped mountains and they aren't in the distance. Many of them are around our house where Mike has piled up snow throughout the winter.
This is what I've learned about living in the Rockies during the Spring. You do not wash your car until June-ish. First of all, no water is available outside since it's all frozen. The hoses are frozen and if they aren't, once you drag them outside they will be. If you venture down to the only car wash in the county, usually the soap mode is also frozen. If you miraculously manage to get your car washed (let's say you go down to Denver and it's sunny and there are flowers in the mile-high city) once you drive down most roads in the county your car will be covered with a combination of mud and mag-chloride which is a highly toxic chemical that is put on the roads to prevent ice. Thus, the only thing I've learned about living in the Rockies in the Spring is "Don't wash your car."
I do yoga almost everyday. Notice how I didn't say I "practice" yoga almost everyday. Those yoga fans who practice yoga know what the word "namaste" means, I don't and those of you that read my blog, know that I often (or always) never opt to look up the meanings of words. So I "do" yoga almost everyday. It helps keep most of my old-age and beating-up-my-body-by-riding aches and pains at bay.
Last night I was doing yoga and Mike walked by. I asked him if he wanted to join me and he said "sure." I didn't really want him to join me, I was just being nice and I thought for sure he wouldn't. Kind of along the same lines when you tell someone you'll have to get together, but you don't really want to and then they call you. So he flopped down on the floor next to me and I, still being kind but also a little annoyed, gave him my "bricks" and my "strap" that way he wouldn't hurt himself and I AM more flexible than him.
It was hard to do yoga with Mike. It was hard not to laugh. It's hard to breath correctly when you're trying not to laugh. It's hard to relax when you're trying not to laugh. Mike did a lot of grunting and, unbeknownst to me until last night, he doesn't know the difference between his right and left hands.
This morning Mike accused me of being competitive with Yoga. Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? This time I laughed and didn't try not to. He says he's not going to do Yoga with me again because I am more flexible and I'm secretly gloating about it.
Besides horses, yoga is the only thing I do physically that I'm better than Mike at. So yeah, maybe I am gloating and I'm kind of glad he's not going to do yoga with me anymore. I get to keep my bricks and my strap all to myself and I might even look up the word "namaste," just so I can keep that to myself also.
Before I moved here, I had a framed print that was titled "Springtime in the Rockies." It was a photograph of a steep mountain covered by acres of wildflowers. There were purple, yellow, lavender, red and yellow flowers. The sun was shining. The only snow was the snow capped mountain in the distance.
I gave the print to a friend of mine. I'm glad I did. It's all a lie.
Springtime in the Rockies consists of snow, still more snow and yet again more snow. The only difference with Spring snow and Winter snow is that the Spring snow melts...everyday, which leads to mud. Which freezes every night (the temperatures are still in the twenties at night) and then melts during the day and then it snows at night and we begin this process all over again.
There is not a purple, yellow, lavender, red or yellow flower to be found anywhere. However, there are multiple snow capped mountains and they aren't in the distance. Many of them are around our house where Mike has piled up snow throughout the winter.
This is what I've learned about living in the Rockies during the Spring. You do not wash your car until June-ish. First of all, no water is available outside since it's all frozen. The hoses are frozen and if they aren't, once you drag them outside they will be. If you venture down to the only car wash in the county, usually the soap mode is also frozen. If you miraculously manage to get your car washed (let's say you go down to Denver and it's sunny and there are flowers in the mile-high city) once you drive down most roads in the county your car will be covered with a combination of mud and mag-chloride which is a highly toxic chemical that is put on the roads to prevent ice. Thus, the only thing I've learned about living in the Rockies in the Spring is "Don't wash your car."
I do yoga almost everyday. Notice how I didn't say I "practice" yoga almost everyday. Those yoga fans who practice yoga know what the word "namaste" means, I don't and those of you that read my blog, know that I often (or always) never opt to look up the meanings of words. So I "do" yoga almost everyday. It helps keep most of my old-age and beating-up-my-body-by-riding aches and pains at bay.
Last night I was doing yoga and Mike walked by. I asked him if he wanted to join me and he said "sure." I didn't really want him to join me, I was just being nice and I thought for sure he wouldn't. Kind of along the same lines when you tell someone you'll have to get together, but you don't really want to and then they call you. So he flopped down on the floor next to me and I, still being kind but also a little annoyed, gave him my "bricks" and my "strap" that way he wouldn't hurt himself and I AM more flexible than him.
It was hard to do yoga with Mike. It was hard not to laugh. It's hard to breath correctly when you're trying not to laugh. It's hard to relax when you're trying not to laugh. Mike did a lot of grunting and, unbeknownst to me until last night, he doesn't know the difference between his right and left hands.
This morning Mike accused me of being competitive with Yoga. Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? This time I laughed and didn't try not to. He says he's not going to do Yoga with me again because I am more flexible and I'm secretly gloating about it.
Besides horses, yoga is the only thing I do physically that I'm better than Mike at. So yeah, maybe I am gloating and I'm kind of glad he's not going to do yoga with me anymore. I get to keep my bricks and my strap all to myself and I might even look up the word "namaste," just so I can keep that to myself also.
Monday, March 14, 2011
War of the Worlds and CSAPS....again
I'm afraid I'm teaching Ian bad habits.
"We" finished War of the Worlds day before yesterday and took the test today. Ian did well with no help from me since I didn't pay attention to the book. The first question was "Do you think the author was in favor of imperialism or against it?" Imperialism? Who remembers what that means? I know what a dictatorship and a monarchy and a democracy is, but imperialism? So rather than look the word up Ian and I figured he was against it since he wrote a book about it....makes sense (and we were right.)
My battle with the state of Colorado and the standardized test CSAP has continued, sort of. When THEY told me they would not transfer Ian's transcripts if he didn't take the test I laughed. Seriously. Who cares about an eighth grade transcripts AND when I read the handbook there was nothing in it about that. So then THEY told me the state of Colorado has that in their handbook...which they don't which I learned when I called one of the two people I know who work for the Department of Ed and asked them and they laughed. So then when THEY started begging and said they'd send a person up to Granby to test Ian individually and a time that was convenient for me I said okay.
THEY sent a very nice man up to Granby this Sunday and we tested in the public library. I told Ian if he didn't know the answer immediately to just fill it in. He could even bubble in some sort of picture if he liked. The very nice man kept remarking on how smart Ian was since he finished the tests so quickly.
Our art class has us making these stupid self-portraits out of different "mediums." Do you know how hard it is to get clay to look like a person, any person? So now Ian and I skip over the Art lessons.
This is what I mean by teaching Ian bad habits. I'm teaching him to argue, ignore things he doesn't like and wing it (or guess.)
My friend Laura and I talk a lot about starting our own school. Laura would be the evil witch and I would be the good witch (like the Good Witch Glenda from Wizard of Oz, but without the dress). Laura is very good with details and cares about things like rubrics in essay writing. One time I convinced her that I could read the first paragraph of a Freshman college essay and give a grade without reading the entire essay. We came up with the same grades except she spent 45 minutes more per essay.
My husband is also concerned about details and things like following the rules; this explains why he's managed to work for the government almost thirty years and why I worked for the government for one summer. Mike is worried that Ian will do poorly on his CSAPS and this will follow him FOREVER. I tried to tell him that no one outside the state of Colorado cares about CSAPS and once again...there is no PERMANENT RECORD (see previous Blogs).
But nevertheless, I have vowed to do a better job as a teacher for Ian. I will follow the rules. I will not ignore my emails that THEY send me. I will make Ian fill in all the blanks on his worksheets and....make a self-portrait out of clay. I'll send you a picture of it.
"We" finished War of the Worlds day before yesterday and took the test today. Ian did well with no help from me since I didn't pay attention to the book. The first question was "Do you think the author was in favor of imperialism or against it?" Imperialism? Who remembers what that means? I know what a dictatorship and a monarchy and a democracy is, but imperialism? So rather than look the word up Ian and I figured he was against it since he wrote a book about it....makes sense (and we were right.)
My battle with the state of Colorado and the standardized test CSAP has continued, sort of. When THEY told me they would not transfer Ian's transcripts if he didn't take the test I laughed. Seriously. Who cares about an eighth grade transcripts AND when I read the handbook there was nothing in it about that. So then THEY told me the state of Colorado has that in their handbook...which they don't which I learned when I called one of the two people I know who work for the Department of Ed and asked them and they laughed. So then when THEY started begging and said they'd send a person up to Granby to test Ian individually and a time that was convenient for me I said okay.
THEY sent a very nice man up to Granby this Sunday and we tested in the public library. I told Ian if he didn't know the answer immediately to just fill it in. He could even bubble in some sort of picture if he liked. The very nice man kept remarking on how smart Ian was since he finished the tests so quickly.
Our art class has us making these stupid self-portraits out of different "mediums." Do you know how hard it is to get clay to look like a person, any person? So now Ian and I skip over the Art lessons.
This is what I mean by teaching Ian bad habits. I'm teaching him to argue, ignore things he doesn't like and wing it (or guess.)
My friend Laura and I talk a lot about starting our own school. Laura would be the evil witch and I would be the good witch (like the Good Witch Glenda from Wizard of Oz, but without the dress). Laura is very good with details and cares about things like rubrics in essay writing. One time I convinced her that I could read the first paragraph of a Freshman college essay and give a grade without reading the entire essay. We came up with the same grades except she spent 45 minutes more per essay.
My husband is also concerned about details and things like following the rules; this explains why he's managed to work for the government almost thirty years and why I worked for the government for one summer. Mike is worried that Ian will do poorly on his CSAPS and this will follow him FOREVER. I tried to tell him that no one outside the state of Colorado cares about CSAPS and once again...there is no PERMANENT RECORD (see previous Blogs).
But nevertheless, I have vowed to do a better job as a teacher for Ian. I will follow the rules. I will not ignore my emails that THEY send me. I will make Ian fill in all the blanks on his worksheets and....make a self-portrait out of clay. I'll send you a picture of it.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Wonderful World of Wrestling
Mike and I went to our first wrestling meet last Saturday in Hayden. Hayden is a small town north of Steamboat. I think there's probably about 600 people in Hayden and they were all at the high school watching the meet. The concession stand sold pretzels with sugar and cinnamon (they weren't half bad), nachos with "cheese" and twelve different colors of Gatorade. They glass case with trophies was full of wrestling and volleyball awards dating back to 1928. The house right next to the school had yellow police tape encircling it.
I spent a lot of time watching the crowd. There were a lot of blonde-haired girls with tight jeans, cowboy boots and large buckles that made me wonder how they breathed. There were a lot of little kids with wrestling singlets running up and down the bleachers. Almost all the teams' mothers wore t-shirts with pictures of their sons on them and some catchy saying, like "Grind him into the mat," and "No Mercy." I told Mike we should have team t-shirts but by this time he was trying to ignore me.
I tired him out asking questions such as, "Why does that girl keep tapping the refs on the shoulder with a stick?" (To let the ref know the match is almost over.) "Why are the wrestlers wearing ankle bracelets?" (So the ref knows who gets what points)(I'm still unclear on that one, and I think Mike was too but being the athlete that he is he probably didn't want to admit that he didn't know what they were). "Why does the ref keep swinging his arm out to the side? (So the people in the booths can keep track of the points the wrestlers are earning.)
It's not a boring sport. Okay, maybe the sport is kind of boring, but there's lots of action going on outside the ring. It's not like soccer where you're stuck on the sidelines next to some mother you don't even like. Or baseball where nothing ever happens unless someone actually manages to the hit the ball. Or football where you don't even know who's who because they're covered up in protective gear and every three seconds the whistle is blown and the game has to stop, again.
Ian didn't win his match, but that didn't seem to bother him. He likes his team and his three coaches (none of which have those weird, shaped ears) and he likes riding the bus to the meets and stopping at Wendy's on the way home and practice and helping the coach roll out the mats and his new purple wrestling shoes and his fancy mouth protector because he has braces. Ian is always about the accouterments - we have pages and pages of pictures of him in his various Halloween costumes which, until he was about 10, wore them anytime of the year he felt like being a Power Ranger or Batman. If it's a sport that he gets to wear a uniform and buy new shoes and be part of team, he's in.
After living with boys my entire married life, I've come to accept the role sports plays in our household. It really isn't all about the "stuff." It really is about learning to be a part of a team and learning how to get along with others you don't really like since it's about the team and not you. It's about taking pride in accomplishments especially if you've worked really hard. It's learning how to lose, which is a heck of a lot harder than winning. And it's learning how to win graciously.
Of course, this great understanding of sports doesn't mean I'm going to go out and join a woman's bowling league and I'll still make fun of the moms who have their kid's pictures on their t-shirts (unless Ian asked me to wear one...then I would) and I still will never understand what offsides means in soccer, but sports does teach kids a lot of life-lessons that I sometimes think I might have missed.
I'm not a good team player and I don't lose well (or take no for an answer, ask anyone who's ever worked with me) and I avoid meetings and I don't try to get along with people I don't like. I keep telling myself that I'm over 50 now and I don't need to know this stuff, but I'm thinking I should try to learn a few things from Ian.
Like I said, he didn't win but he told me that that was okay, he couldn't wait for next weekend's meet and besides, they may get to stop at the hot springs on the way home.
Sometimes I'm not sure who's the teacher.
I spent a lot of time watching the crowd. There were a lot of blonde-haired girls with tight jeans, cowboy boots and large buckles that made me wonder how they breathed. There were a lot of little kids with wrestling singlets running up and down the bleachers. Almost all the teams' mothers wore t-shirts with pictures of their sons on them and some catchy saying, like "Grind him into the mat," and "No Mercy." I told Mike we should have team t-shirts but by this time he was trying to ignore me.
I tired him out asking questions such as, "Why does that girl keep tapping the refs on the shoulder with a stick?" (To let the ref know the match is almost over.) "Why are the wrestlers wearing ankle bracelets?" (So the ref knows who gets what points)(I'm still unclear on that one, and I think Mike was too but being the athlete that he is he probably didn't want to admit that he didn't know what they were). "Why does the ref keep swinging his arm out to the side? (So the people in the booths can keep track of the points the wrestlers are earning.)
It's not a boring sport. Okay, maybe the sport is kind of boring, but there's lots of action going on outside the ring. It's not like soccer where you're stuck on the sidelines next to some mother you don't even like. Or baseball where nothing ever happens unless someone actually manages to the hit the ball. Or football where you don't even know who's who because they're covered up in protective gear and every three seconds the whistle is blown and the game has to stop, again.
Ian didn't win his match, but that didn't seem to bother him. He likes his team and his three coaches (none of which have those weird, shaped ears) and he likes riding the bus to the meets and stopping at Wendy's on the way home and practice and helping the coach roll out the mats and his new purple wrestling shoes and his fancy mouth protector because he has braces. Ian is always about the accouterments - we have pages and pages of pictures of him in his various Halloween costumes which, until he was about 10, wore them anytime of the year he felt like being a Power Ranger or Batman. If it's a sport that he gets to wear a uniform and buy new shoes and be part of team, he's in.
After living with boys my entire married life, I've come to accept the role sports plays in our household. It really isn't all about the "stuff." It really is about learning to be a part of a team and learning how to get along with others you don't really like since it's about the team and not you. It's about taking pride in accomplishments especially if you've worked really hard. It's learning how to lose, which is a heck of a lot harder than winning. And it's learning how to win graciously.
Of course, this great understanding of sports doesn't mean I'm going to go out and join a woman's bowling league and I'll still make fun of the moms who have their kid's pictures on their t-shirts (unless Ian asked me to wear one...then I would) and I still will never understand what offsides means in soccer, but sports does teach kids a lot of life-lessons that I sometimes think I might have missed.
I'm not a good team player and I don't lose well (or take no for an answer, ask anyone who's ever worked with me) and I avoid meetings and I don't try to get along with people I don't like. I keep telling myself that I'm over 50 now and I don't need to know this stuff, but I'm thinking I should try to learn a few things from Ian.
Like I said, he didn't win but he told me that that was okay, he couldn't wait for next weekend's meet and besides, they may get to stop at the hot springs on the way home.
Sometimes I'm not sure who's the teacher.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
War of the Worlds
We are reading our third novel of the year and Ian had his choice of about twenty. I tried to talk him in to reading "Old Yeller," but he wasn't interested in a book about a kid who has to shoot his dog. He picked "War of the Worlds" which, for those of you who haven't read it, is classified as Science Fiction.
I hate Science Fiction. I also hate Romance, Fantasy, Christian, Thriller and all books with any kind of redeeming message. Give me a book about family dysfunction and I'm in my element. I recently finished "Left Neglected" which was about a woman who gets in a wreck on her way to her high-pressure and high-paying job which leaves her brain believing it doesn't have a left side. The plot is fairly ho-hum - you know this injury will change her life and she'll love her kids and her husband more and leave her high-paying, high-pressure job for a job like cheese-making in Vermont and live happily ever after, but it's kind of cool what you learn about the brain.
Anyway, Ian chose "War of the Worlds" and I immediately ordered the movie from the library. The movie is not at all like the book, as Ian informed me, because he is reading the book. I did not want to, which is why I ordered the movie. It won a special effects award for 1953. I know, 1953. It was a pretty cheesy movie and we laughed a lot, especially when the lead female actress screamed and fainted; she did this four times in the movie. Fainted. She screamed hysterically about 126 times. They had a lot of close-ups of her screaming; the red-lipstick mouth, the white, white teeth; this was probably why they won the award.
Ian likes the book. It's full of Martians and some English guy who leaves his wife somewhere (I'm not real clear on the plot since I find a lot of excuses to leave the room when we're listening to it) and the protagonist is looking forward to the war against the Martians. They use words like "armament," "treble" and "forthwith." The Martians have a "heat ray" and they are destroying the earth with this, although I'm still not clear on the reason why.
In the movie Earth is saved at the last moment because they're in the church and singing and praying and the male and female leads who were separated as he went off to save the world are reunited in the church and then the Martians with their heat rays quit heating and raying everything and the movie is over. It's 108 minutes, which is plenty long. I think there's some subtle message about religion, but I'm not sure.
The point of this is that it's fascinating what kind of books young male teens like. I know, from working in the library, that the young men who still bother checking out books, love the fantasy/adventure genre. There's about 50 popular young adult authors who make a rather good living by writing these in series.
When I was a young and an idealistic English teacher I argued, with anyone who still listened to me, that it wasn't enough to have students read, they had to read the "good stuff." Now that I'm older and I've become a more discriminating reader myself, I know that that isn't true. Maybe "Playboy" magazine did have good articles in it like my cousins told my grandmother. But as long as they're reading halfway decent reading (like this Blog, for example) then it's okay.
I mean, arent' we supposed to encourage the love of reading? If a young male teen loves reading "GameNation" magazine or "Chilton's Auto Mechanic Manual," what the heck, they're reading and they aren't playing a game on the computer.
If Ian wants to fall asleep listening and reading "War of the Worlds" I'm a happy mom.
But it doesn't mean I have to read it, does it?
I hate Science Fiction. I also hate Romance, Fantasy, Christian, Thriller and all books with any kind of redeeming message. Give me a book about family dysfunction and I'm in my element. I recently finished "Left Neglected" which was about a woman who gets in a wreck on her way to her high-pressure and high-paying job which leaves her brain believing it doesn't have a left side. The plot is fairly ho-hum - you know this injury will change her life and she'll love her kids and her husband more and leave her high-paying, high-pressure job for a job like cheese-making in Vermont and live happily ever after, but it's kind of cool what you learn about the brain.
Anyway, Ian chose "War of the Worlds" and I immediately ordered the movie from the library. The movie is not at all like the book, as Ian informed me, because he is reading the book. I did not want to, which is why I ordered the movie. It won a special effects award for 1953. I know, 1953. It was a pretty cheesy movie and we laughed a lot, especially when the lead female actress screamed and fainted; she did this four times in the movie. Fainted. She screamed hysterically about 126 times. They had a lot of close-ups of her screaming; the red-lipstick mouth, the white, white teeth; this was probably why they won the award.
Ian likes the book. It's full of Martians and some English guy who leaves his wife somewhere (I'm not real clear on the plot since I find a lot of excuses to leave the room when we're listening to it) and the protagonist is looking forward to the war against the Martians. They use words like "armament," "treble" and "forthwith." The Martians have a "heat ray" and they are destroying the earth with this, although I'm still not clear on the reason why.
In the movie Earth is saved at the last moment because they're in the church and singing and praying and the male and female leads who were separated as he went off to save the world are reunited in the church and then the Martians with their heat rays quit heating and raying everything and the movie is over. It's 108 minutes, which is plenty long. I think there's some subtle message about religion, but I'm not sure.
The point of this is that it's fascinating what kind of books young male teens like. I know, from working in the library, that the young men who still bother checking out books, love the fantasy/adventure genre. There's about 50 popular young adult authors who make a rather good living by writing these in series.
When I was a young and an idealistic English teacher I argued, with anyone who still listened to me, that it wasn't enough to have students read, they had to read the "good stuff." Now that I'm older and I've become a more discriminating reader myself, I know that that isn't true. Maybe "Playboy" magazine did have good articles in it like my cousins told my grandmother. But as long as they're reading halfway decent reading (like this Blog, for example) then it's okay.
I mean, arent' we supposed to encourage the love of reading? If a young male teen loves reading "GameNation" magazine or "Chilton's Auto Mechanic Manual," what the heck, they're reading and they aren't playing a game on the computer.
If Ian wants to fall asleep listening and reading "War of the Worlds" I'm a happy mom.
But it doesn't mean I have to read it, does it?
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