In stumbling around the Internet, I came across a funny site entitled “Oh, Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook.”

I joined facebook in 2004, as a senior at Harvard (the school where the site originated). My member number (the order in which you joined the site, relative to everyone else) was in the hundreds. Facebook now boasts millions of users. Though I am late 20s, I felt no shame in my social networking addiction.

Until my parents joined. And my crazy relatives. And they all friended me. Not only did they friend me, but they started posting on my wall and messaging me PROFUSELY.

Suddenly, I saw a vision of myself 20 years from now. I hope to god I have enough self awareness not to put Gavin through what my “I’m 20-something still, aren’t I?” relatives are currently putting ME through.

No one ever told me that parenting a toddler was a full-contact sport.

When my son was born, my friends showered me with gifts of cute little onesies, baby bjorns, and stuffed animals galore. Had one them been a parent themselves, I remain certain they would instead have given me full body armor and a helmet.

You see, I am writing this post on the eve of my septoplasty. For those of you who don’t know, a septoplasty is a surgical procedure done to repair a damaged septum. I was not born with a deviated or damaged septum. No, my injury occurred at the hands - err, the diapered butt - of my three year old son.

Two months ago, I was very innocently lying in bed on a Saturday morning. Gavin, thrilled that it was a weekend day (what he aptly refers to as a “Mommy-Gavin Day”), bounded into my room and threw all 40 lbs of his toddler self upon me. In his pure elation, he did not consider neither his takeoff nor his landing, and he landed, diaper first, right onto my face.

My nose wasn’t broken, so I assumed all was okay. The only thing I found strange was that ever since the nose-landing incident, I suffered an unusual amount of congestion. Finally, I took myself to see a doctor who quickly assessed the situation. My septum was bent and the only way to repair it was through surgery. (He assured me that this was a very common injury, especially for those with large dogs and / or small children.)

So, tomorrow I will have my surgery. The sympathy from those around me is truly wonderful, though. When I told my Jewish mother what had happened, her reaction was, “So you’re having a nose job?” My Ex is having even more fun telling people that I am “having my nose modified.”

FML.

The Minnesota Department of Education recently approved a four-day school week for the MCCRAY school district located in rural west-central Minnesota. Starting this fall, students will attend school Tuesday through Friday for ten hours a day. The move to four days was driven by an attempt to save money.

School officials justify the move, citing an expected $85,000 in saved energy and transportation costs. Other communities that have instituted similarly compressed school weeks say that the concept works and that it does save money.

However, I’m not sold on the idea. First of all, this means that children will now be home on Mondays, a day that working parents likely won’t be. I’m sure there are plenty of mothers in this community who stay at home, but I like to believe we as a society don’t want to further this as the status quo. And for those who do work, they will now have to find (and pay for) child care one day a week. At that point, wouldn’t the children be better off in a classroom?

Second, while students will still be technically be spending the same number of hours per week in school (four 10-hour days vs. five 8-hour days), those hours will likely be less effective than before. Let’s face it - 10 hours is a long day for anyone, but it’s especially long for students and for the teachers who instruct our understaffed, overpopulated classrooms. How much quality learning will really be going on come 5 pm?

Furthermore, we are falling further and further behind the rest of the developed world in terms of providing quality education for our children. I understand and empathize with the desire to save money (just read any of my other posts), but I also recognize the value of a long term investment. There are places to cut costs and then there are places to invest for future return. This is one area where I wouldn’t skimp simply to save a few bucks today.

My son is only two years old and before his birth, I was a strong advocate of public schools. I still am a strong advocate for them and I think we need to fix the problems our public schools face rather than looking for ways around them. However, moves like the one by the Minnesota Department of Education make me pretty nervous over the thought of leaving his education at the mercy of the state.