Talents Old and New

We had the missionaries over for dinner. With Kent's work schedule, Sunday is really the only day that works. I remember how much I appreciated a hot meal when I was on my mission, it's wonderful to turn it around.

With the missionaries coming over, we had some talk about what a mission is with Ean. He's still not sure of the concept but he knows his daddy was a missionary. When talk turns to teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Ean usually refocuses on more interesting stuff, like pestering a sibling. However at five, I'd call him pretty darn normal and would think he was sick otherwise.

The Elders brought such a nice feeling into our home. There was a peace, even the bickering between Jane and Kate quieted down. One Elder, a young man from South Carolina, shared a spiritual thought from James. I wish I'd written the scripture down. I had such a strong feeling on how I need to live my faith. Actually, this whole Sunday was one giant reminder that that Lord expects not only good things but GREAT THINGS from us. And he's not thrown us out here with expectations alone but has given us tools to strengthen our faith, give us the resolve to keep the commandments of God.

My little brother is most cheerful in flaunting his choices that blatantly go against how he was raised but I find myself questioning his happiness because he seems to be searching hard for something. I know for myself I am happiest when I follow the subtle inspirations from God. They witness truth to my heart, guide me in teaching my children and sometimes, when life is really hard, there's a warmth that wraps around my soul giving me comfort and strength and allowing me to stumble forward.

I've spent a few years feeling spiritually numb. So much of my inner self has been sucked dry raising my children. Words can't describe how empty I felt the first few years of the twins life. I was to tired to feel and there were no breaks.

You know how on a rainy day, the clouds break and there's a glimpse of sun? When heavy and down, that simple crack in the gloom brings dazzling light and shadows across the landscape, showing that the world is really a bright place. The darkness and cold projected by the rain can feel like a lifetime and yet it never is.

I think, just maybe, the sun had broke through the clouds for me. And once the sun breaks through, I remember more vividly experiences from my past that I just haven't had time to think about.

One of the elders complimented me on two watercolor pictures on the wall in my front room.

When I was at BYU, I spent three years trying to get into the design program. I never got into the program but I did take a few watercolor classes along the way. I tend to be heavy handed with watercolor, never quite grasping the whisper touch required to let the paint work for you. Yet a few of my painting are intriguing, I have a good sense of design and color, I think that saved my watercolor grades. :)

I was inspired to paint what's hanging in my front room by an oil painting that hung in the art building. The figures were roughly lined in, the colors stark with a vivid contrast. It depicted the Savior while carrying the cross surrounded by solders. I was intrigued by the raw emotion, wanting desperately to try to capture that kind of imagery on my own. So I painted two pieces back to back of Christ outside the tomb right before revealing himself to Mary Magdalene. In the first piece I have her figure leaning against the tomb, it's a stormy sky and the dark blue grey sky bled into her clothes. Purely unintentional yet somehow it conveys her immense grief, as she doesn't yet see the Lord standing, commanding her attention.

The second one, has a better style I think but misses that emotion, yet you can still tell who the figures are.

It's been a long time since I thought of those paintings but I've been remembering vividly all night the intense desire to portray that image. I love my Lord Jesus Christ and the desire to put the image that's in my head down on paper is so strong, yet I've never quite had the talent to do so.

Very frustrating, which is why I no longer draw or paint. But tonight it occurred to me that I can paint these images down with words.

I feel almost as fulfilled tonight as I did when the paint was still wet on those watercolors.

OH THE DRAMA!

Apparently I am confused at what qualifies as a world ending event. Over Thanksgiving weekend, we've apparently had multiple and I've completely missed the serious nature of pretty much every one.

In all fairness, I'm not the only one to under value my children's life altering events, Kent is equally as guilty. Last night at the traditional "Parade of Lights" done after dark on Black Friday, apparently my son had a complete meltdown, multiple times when he wasn't directly handed candy from the parade. Kent said he dozens of pieces at his feet but instead of leaning over and picking. them. up. He chose to throw a fit. I guess because the candy doesn't taste as good if it's not hand delivered.

Kent was very unsympathetic and I suspect Ean might miss the next parade.

Kate told me in tears right before bed how *insert very dramatic voice* "It's so HARD to be eight!!" I do believe this statement came directly from a huge fight she just had with her sister and she got in trouble for throwing some of her sister's things on the floor.

Oh really? You think YOU have a hard life? I told there are children her age that work from dawn to dusk just to eat a handful of rice each day. She was very unimpressed so I suspect I will have to show her pictures and some books, maybe a good "National Geographic" so she can really see what a tough life is.

Then there's Jane.

Jane. Jane. Jane.

Dang, I love that girl. However we have a serious problem getting her to understand that there's a direct correlation between her choices and the ensuing consequences. Day after day we have the same scenario, Jane is given a task. Jane cheerfully ignores what is said and does what she wants. Even when warned of a consequence (such as not getting to go someplace special or missing out on a family movie because she still needs to perform the task) she gets very upset, why didn't we remind her? Why didn't we tell her that her time was running out.

Keep in mind this could be four or five hours after she was assigned a twenty minute task.

What she doesn't understand is that it's just as frustrating, actually more frustrating for us to see her lose out on opportunities because she's made a poor choice and not having her put two and two together, recognizing her role in the sequence of events, extremely frustrating for us! She very much feels the victim and often moans, asking why does she always have such bad luck.

I don't know what else to do other then to keep repeating that their individual choices have consequences and following through with those consequences.

Oh my word, today I was cleaning out the twins dresser. We attacked our Mount St. Laundry last week and have been working hard to keep that particular formation from, well reforming. *laugh*

The girls have been helping put clothes away. While this is suppose to help, I knew the disaster in the twins dresser was growing, so I went snooping today. I found every type of clothing, everywhere, including in the drawers, on the dresser and spilled over onto the floor on both sides.

*sigh*

So I put everything in a heap, cleaned out the drawers and started fresh in organizing that disaster.

It was fascinating, to say the least. I found my underwear in the twins clothes, a ballet skirt that belongs to Kate, TONS of socks that belong to everyone BUT the twins, a mountain of Ean's clothes, a t-shirt that belongs to Kent, and Kate's underwear. Obviously the girls have just been grabbing clothes, not even looking to see if they were even getting just individual pile and without even looking, shoving stuff where ever.

I told Jane.

Immediately Jane started with the excuses, "but it's so h..a..r..d.. to tell Ean's stuff from the twins. I pulled out my underwear without saying a word. "well, someone just put that in the wrong pile of laundry!"

I had to interrupt at that point, letting her know that she's to look when she puts stuff away and I showed her where the individual articles of clothes are to go. Yeah. I know she'll never follow through on that.

Well and I know Kate doesn't give a flying flip about doing it right, she's all about the shortcuts. I guess more checking is called for to make sure the job is done right.

I sure didn't save anytime the two hours it took me to sort through the twins clothes to put stuff away properly!

Random, all over the map stuff.

The twins school yesterday is in a more relaxed security mode. All persons entering the school must do so through the front door with the approval of a staff member. The doors to enter the building are locked and each mod door outside is locked.

The kids are not allowed outside with the exception of moving children to and from lunch from the mods, making for very long days in school and in the mods of course, almost stifling, since the classrooms door have to be locked. The school plans on keeping these security measures in place until the man that threatened one of the schools preschoolers is caught.

*sigh*

It's a crazy world. Just crazy.

I continue to send the boys to school, I know some parents are opting to keep their children home but honestly I don't feel like my boys are in danger.

The children are very normal in school. The extra security hasn't fazed them at all. Actually I had one little girl at lunch ask me if David and Greg each had their own beds.

Apparently identical twins throws the other children for a loop. David's class has a set of twins but their boy/girl twins so it's easy to identify them as their own persons. My guys are in the different classes, so it's confusing for the kids to see someone that looks an awful like their classmate. I heard a little boy from David's class tell his mom as he was going by me "Look mom, there are TWO Davids!!!!"

Seriously, I could have peed, I laughed so hard.

I let him know (quickly because they were headed out the door) that HE (pointing to Greg) was David's brother and his name is Greg.

I am glad they're in separate classrooms, that alleviates the whole "DavidGreg" thing they would have gone through if they'd been together.

On the home schooling front, I think we're doing alright. It's nice to have the math curriculum. We spent a lot of time yesterday working on reducing fractions.

I hadn't realized that Jane needs to have a system to write and figure everything out. I do so much in my head, I completely missed this aspect of how she learns. Once I showed Jane how to write out multipliers for the numerator and denominator and then find the highest number that goes into both, followed by dividing in, THEN she could reduce the fractions. Even the simplest, you just need to halve, 3/6 eluded her without mapping out each step.

I'm glad I decided to just start at the beginning of the math book. I have a feeling we need all the extra instruction we can get.

It's a bit of a challenge to get Jane to write as well. But we're working on it. And I was all set to have Jane send her letter off to her pen pal and we don't' have envelopes, Kent says don't buy them, he can get free envelopes and I *exasperated sigh* don't have envelopes. It's frustrating, and I know I need to be more proactive (hey honey, don't forget the envelopes!) but but but, it's been a crazy week and I haven't remembered myself.

One thing I have done to actually take care of myself, and get rid of some stress is swimming. Now I'm not a swimmer, actually I have a pretty healthy phobia of deep water and hate getting my face wet. When I was a child, another child, a boy held me underwater as a joke. When I say phobia of deep water, I. am. not. joking. My fear runs pretty deep of drowning.

However the pool at the gym is five feet at it's deepest part, I think I can handle that.

Mom, Jane and I swam laps Tuesday and Thursday. Boy we were baaaaaaad. Well not so much Jane but mom and I just suck at swimming. Our strokes are bad, we huffed and puffed at the end of every pool length, had to take a breather before going again. Pitiful are we. *laugh*

Jane needs a physical education like activity and putting myself out of my comfort zone, acknowledging that my gym membership is paid for, I might as well use it. I think we'll keep swimming twice a week until the membership runs out. I don't know if I can put face in the water. Really, it's harder then I can describe.

We did find out the gym has dropped the price of their swim lessons, so I'm going to sign the boys up for January. I don't want my water phobia to shed onto my children, I want them to have a healthy respectful relationship with the water. And I better get them in while I still have the discount.

So that's my little bit of everything blog for today. I didn't even touch some of my recent work stuff. No time, no time...

No real answers, and when to close a preschool?

So the boys preschool was under lock down again. If there really was a threat that warranted such action, why wasn't school cancelled? I don't know, I just don't know.

The local paper tied the preschool threat with a bomb scare at one of the high schools on Monday. However, I really have my doubts and the paper is notorious for getting their facts flat out wrong. So I take everything they say locally with a grain of salt.

My moment of nerves coming out. Starting to cry when I realized that Greg's hat and mittens were still in his classroom. I was embarrassed for being so upset but see, I can't reason with Greg. I just can't. He's obviously delayed on his comprehension, but not delayed enough he couldn't understand, BUT he gets so upset, he doesn't HEAR anything you say. And it's so hard to get him ready for school AND to have shoes AND to be waiting for the bus AND not have the world fall apart because *I* missed some kind of detail.

Throw in a twin who had HIS hat and gloves, really that leaves no hope and yes I got upset.

I like to think I can handle what life throws at me but truthfully, I don't. I get upset when things aren't right, when I see an obvious problem or glitch that WILL cause problems later on. I feel overwhelmed at the drop of a hat but what can I do? Seriously, what can I do?

I am mom. And at some point I thought I'd be a great mom. Maturity has lead me to realize that having no trips to the ER makes the day successful. Throw in nobody going hungry then it's a red letter day!

Days like last Wednesday leave me wanting to run screaming from the house. I don't know why my middle son prides himself on being the ultimate pain in the ass, but he does. Yes he's five. I realize he's five. But he also realizes that EVERYONE has buttons and he knows how to set every other person in the house off. Last Wednesday was the worst of the worst. He touched, jumped, pulled, was in every one's face.

I am at a complete loss on what I can do with him when he's like that.

Complete loss.

You know (channeling Ean right there :-) there was a discussion on my mother's board on why someone would delete posts. Truth is, I delete posts because sometimes I hurt so bad, I reach out and the pain of facing no responses is just to great.

Gosh I'm cheerful tonight. Thankfully most days are fine and I believe every mother out there faces the same ups and downs. Mine are just compacted, a whole lot of ups and downs in one day. That's what happens, the more children, the more ups and downs (cause someone is always, ALWAYS down). It wears on ya. It wears on me.

At least, Greg's teacher was able to get back into her classroom to get his hats and gloves. <3

*******LOCK DOWN******

Usually when you go to your child's preschool and you see two cop cars in the main parking lot, a whole lot of people out front and officers going to cover the road on both sides of the school, it's not a good thing.

This was the sight that met my eyes about two and a half hours ago when I went to volunteer in David's class. However I was driving up *right* at the beginning of the lock down and simply walked around the building to the boys classrooms in the mods behind the main building where I stood and waited outside their door. The secretary saw me and asked what I was doing, letting me know that I need to be in a classroom, no one is allowed outside.

Okay, now I know.

So she was headed into Greg's room to communicate with the teachers, three of their students (including Greg) were in a lab in the main building. I followed her in, and signed up to volunteer figuring they needed all the help they could get.

Sooooo, the school was under a code blue, a complete lock down, and I waited around the side of the building and followed the secretary in essentially completely disregarding the lock down. I don't know if I should be proud or embarrassed. :-)

The lock down happened at an extremely awkward time, it was time for lunch, past time for lunch actually and the kids knew their schedule was off. Miss Pam and Miss Karen sung some songs, had the children write in their journals and the school officials worked with the police to provide escorts so the youngsters could be fed.

I was there only an hour and a half but it felt like five. Not a move could be made without approval and a large portion of the time, Greg was in lock down somewhere else. It was really nerve wracking. I *knew* he was fine but still, mommy panic sets in, how could it not. You want to see and touch your baby. I kicked myself for leaving my cell in the car, but knew I couldn't leave the building and come back.

So I stayed and eventually Greg was brought back with his class THRILLED to see me. He even had a little time to eat his pizza.

Talk about odd, the classroom was left with puzzles on the floor. The kids were brought back to the classroom after lunch only long enough to get coats and backpacks. Parents were escorted to cars. Parents had to sign a form from the police before entering the building. I missed that part, because, well, I had snuck in, but I heard someone else talking about it.

To the staffs credit, the students were unaware for the most part that something was going on. I call that amazing. I think the teachers call it nerve wracking. :-)

I heard talk that tomorrow the school will be under lock down as well. I wish I knew the full story on what brought this about.

We have a math curriculum!

I bought a sixth grade curriculum, both student books and teacher manual. I figure we'll just start at the beginning and go from there.

Today just the twins were home with us and good golly that girl is easily distracted. I can see why a classroom of thirty students was overwhelming! It was hard for her to focus with her two three year old brothers in the room. I'm thinking Mondays will be a good day to get her set up with assignments and send her to my moms to work.

Having the math will make that sort of thing much easier.

I do need to outline my expectations better. I know that, yet I was still surprised today when I asked her to summerize the two chapters she's read on coyotes, and she showed me two sentences, one for each chapter.

Well we're swimming laps in the am, as soon as the twins are on the bus. Should be fun. :-) Then we sit for serious schooling, including how to outline (I'm thinking she needs a better way to sort through pertinate information in text like the coyote book) and her first math lesson.

Ean was down right pleasent about doing his homework after school and Kate was eager to please on writing her spelling words. I suspect a plot to show me how well they can work in an effort to stay home as well. Maybe not, I don't know but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth!! Those two being pleasent about school work? A very nice change of pace!

I did have a talk with David's teacher about homework. This is a bit embarassing but I told her it stresses me out. Trying to keep track of what I need to do with the three olders is MORE then enough for me. Add assignments for the pre-schoolers and i just can't deal.

I was telling Jane today that I just get so tired and need to rest during the day and she asked me why I don't quit my job so I don't have to work in the evenings.

*sigh*

If only it was that simple.

This month alone I bought myself three well needed pairs of pants, Jane's math curriculum ($86.00!!), Thomas the Train (at 30% off!) for the twins with other crafty presents for the girls and books for everyone for Christmas.

Not to mention the everyday stuff like Kate's gymnastics.

I hate to depend on my stupid little job, but right now we NEED that money. Oh sure, we could go without. We really could but the little bits that I can do for our children provide them with a little something that I think is important. They can have a sense of self and enjoyment while they're young.

Anyway. We couldn't even provide Christmas this year on Kent's paycheck alone, and that just hurts.

Soooo, yes, I'd love to quit but I love them to much to quit. I hope they understand when they're older.

WHAT? You want me to WHAT?

My eldest's incredulous look when I suggested we do research at the library truly was priceless. We've been watching a really interesting series on mammals. Except for the "REALLY GROSS" bit on birth (I love preteens!), Jane's absorbed the information like a sponge.

Since it's something that interest her, I suggested we find some books to read and she write a few pages on a mammal. She was dismayed at that idea. :-) I want her to enjoy learning and in turn learn about what interests her, at the same time she needs to read and write, daily. I figured this loosely defined "paper" would give us a chance to explore what our goals are together as we home school.

I say us, because I see our relationship as symbiont, neither one of us succeeding in our goals (Jane's education) without coexisting together.

So my vague ideas and my mother's willingness to take Ean on his "off" day of Kindergarten left us alone to tackle the library where we dutifully typed in mammals. We quickly found over a thousand entries on a good 100 web pages. Words of previous English instructors lecturing on the importance of narrowing a topic echoed briefly in my head while Jane and I scanned the list. Luckily the word "Coyote" jumped out at Jane and we were spared any more "research". We quickly found a few books that were perfect, not to long or scientific, just basic facts in an easy to read "YOUTH" type format.

One book was kind enough to bold important words, which I had Jane write down the meanings when she read the first chapter later that morning. It seemed like an awful school-ish sort of thing to do, but keeping in mind that Jane doesn't always comprehend or retain what she reads, it seemed like a good chance for her to stop and think about the meaning of the words, and text of the book.

We'll talk more about what she read on Monday. I plan on showing her an outline, both in reference to note taking (she could use all the help she can get with organizing her thoughts) and in paper writing.

Hopefully her math curriculum comes soon. We're covering a smattering of topics across the board but I'm not math minded so I don't naturally turn to math examples while teaching her. I'm more of a thought, idea person, so that's how our conversations are geared. It works great for Social studies, English, literature and even science (we had a great conversation on why Pluto is no longer a planet Friday) but eh, not so much for math.

We did stop by a local store with educational resources and picked up some great references to help guide us through some of our topics. It is a bit daunting to see a whole world of opportunity out there to study and knowing we can only brush the surface of a fraction of it. That is why my ulitmate goal is to teach my girl HOW to learn, so she can have the tools to find answers to whatever questions she's searching for.

This will be an interesting journey, of that I have no doubt.

Snow!!! So how's a family to spend a Saturday?

Well we went swimming of course! *laugh*

Since Jane's quit taekwondo (we've let her know that if she chooses to take it up again, we support that decision), my gym membership is ticking away like a time bomb. See I was required to have the gym membership for Jane to go to this particular school. When Jane turned ten, she in turn was required to have membership in connection with my membership. On top of these expenses there's a monthly fee of $25.00.

It sure sounds expensive typed out, but when the monthly cost is figured out, it was still cheaper then most martial art academies in the valley. Throw in the incredible quality of her teachers and it was worth every penny. She gained so much from Taekwondo. Truly it's amazing.

However her instructors are opening a school not associated with the gym, and I frankly am greatly dissatisfied with my membership. I've had a membership for almost eight years, I always pay in advance for a year (early on I did six months at a time), I'm the sort of person they should be catering too.

Uh no.

The owner is abrasive and difficult to talk too. They raised fees when two new gyms opened. They will try to cut deals with new memberships while keeping old members paying excessive fees.

Yeah, I'm done.

But my paid membership is good until May first. Hot dog, we need to use the pool more! Kent was able to get a promotion, a two week membership free, so today and next Saturday, we take advantage of the pool.

It's no easy feat with the twins and Ean, none of which can swim but my mom met us there and we were able to get some good practice in for the boys. I'm not the best instructor, I don't put my face in the water and I'm not an accomplished swimmer, but I can get by. The boys didn't seem to care and the twins can kick with great relish! Ean was more stubborn, just sure I was trying to drown him when I suggested he kick to my mother.

We went at three, came home by 4:30 and (hysterically) Greg was asleep by 5:00. Everyone else quickly crashed after dinner, so it's been a really peaceful evening.

Of course Kent and I are to tired to do anything. :-)

I felt so good about today!

Jane and I put the twins on the bus. Ean and Kate were at school and it was just the eleven year old and myself. A chance to really talk. What a rarity in our house! Jane's at the age where she doesn't always reveal herself either. We're in the rocky ground of respecting her sense of self and privacy while still wanting to maintain that communication and dialog that is so vital for teens.

I called my mom and invited her on a walk, so Jane and I went over and picked her up. We walked a good forty minutes and while walking discussed what makes a good writer. We talked about shaping your writing (Jane wants to be an author), reworking your words, shaping your ideas.

Jane then told us about a book she read and she mentioned a girl that was a slave because she was poor. This led to a fascinating discussion on how being poor can make someone a slave. We discussed what real poverty is and how cruel slavery is. After our walk Jane and I watched a PBS show on slavery and how slavery started in the U.S. It was very interesting.

I volunteered at head start and Jane worked on a letter for her pen pal followed by some math games on the computer. It was a very fulfilling day.

Jane said she enjoyed discussing things without someone behind her flicking rubber bands on her head. So there you go. Day two.

Our first day of school

Really today wasn't the best of days for it to be our "first day." I don't have Jane's math curriculum yet. Ean was home from kindergarten and his special brand of chaos makes any day challenging and I had to leave first thing to go to the twins parent teacher conferences.

However recognizing that we won't be perfect and it will take a few months to "get into the groove" I chose the "no stress" option and just let the day be what it was.

Jane had read a chapter out of a new book yesterday. I had talked to her Sunday night about what a summary is and the differences between a summary and a story of her own creation. She needed to write a paragraph summarizing what she read in that chapter.

See Jane's had comprehension problems, the skill of recalling important information from a text is a struggle for her, so I want to work with her on recalling and summarizing and understanding what she reads. I figure the skills she needs can be developed in whatever context, fiction or non-fiction so we'll just work on summarizing everything. Hopefully it will get easier to recognize information that's important and easier to retain and recall that information. She did really well on that paragraph.

We then proof read her work together. I've introduced her to dictionary.com and have a dictionary here at the house she can use. She misspells very basic words, so that's another skill we'll be working heavily on.

We then went to the Library. Ean was with my mom, so it was the two little boys and Jane. Jane had the hardest time picking out what she wanted to read. I hope to go regularly so hopefully she feels more comfortable just taking a chance recognizing that if she doesn't like it, there's always more books to get. Greg however had no problem picking out books. He came running to me regularly with a handful of more books he wanted to take home.

I do believe he has no clue what the Library actually is and that we will have issues when the time comes to return the books.

Jane picked out a series on mammals that we will watch together and I picked out a series on the history of America that focused on slavery. Jane announced that one didn't look like fun, but it's a very important subject that she needs to know and understand. She can't understand why it was wrong if she doesn't realize that slavery happened.

I think I'll go the thrift store this week and see if I can find some textbooks that fit Jane's age/grade so we can have reading material in the house as well. We can get so much off the Internet but it's just not the same as leafing through a book.

Jane's biggest home school question to date was "Do I have to wear shoes when we have school?" *laugh* Ean's big question was when does HE get to have school at home. I had to break it to him, that the answer is not anytime soon. He's to busy and doesn't listen at home. I can't teach him. Not now anyway. Kate's concern was over Jane getting a school tubby with paper and stuff in it. We let her know that she has all that stuff in her desk.

So everyone will adjust.

I should mention that parent teacher conferences this AM went fine. Surprise surprise my boys are adored by their teachers. But who doesn't adore my children? :)

Some lighthearted updates.

First the big news. At school on Friday, TWICE, yes TWICE my son Greg announced "I gwo potty" and went and did his business. Oh my, how exciting is THAT?! *laugh* Not only that but my silent guy who has spent so much time in his own world announced to his teacher at lunch "I open my chocolate milk miss Pam"

How wonderful those words are!! Simply wonderful!!!

David is also using the potty at school. Neither one is using the potty for bowel movements but they're definitely making progress and I'll take what I can get!!

It's been a crazy week but apparently it's my job to provide light hearted laughter for my boys teachers. Karen (teaching assistant in Greg's class) noticed that Greg was walking funny so she went over to him to check and see if his shoes were on the wrong feet. Left foot..... left, right foot uh.... left? Wait the child had two left feet. She had to go check David (in the class next door). Oh yeah baby, David had two right feet.

Everyone had a good chuckle.

Other humorous stories, a friend volunteered in Kate's classroom. This friends daughter is in the same room as Kate and well, she's a sucker. Kate could W O R K her.

Apparently everyone needed to get their paints and Kate went to get an extra one, another child had taken the extra that was in plain sight. Kate turned on the water works and this friend totally called her honey, totally felt horrible Kate was so upset.

I told her she should have told Kate to get a grip.

Kate's teacher knows Kate and in total non-nonsense voice asked Kate the problem and told her where to go get the paints. See, the teacher "gets" Kate.

I let my friend know that she wasn't allowed to have Kate over at her house until she learned a few key phrases with Kate. Telling Kate "you're fine, go play" is perfectly acceptable!

Ahhhh, this week needed a little humor!

Jane and the decision to homeschool, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Friday was her last day of public school. She's already second guessing her decision but she knows we're doing this for the rest of the school year and if she doesn't like it, she can go back to middle school for seventh grade.

It's really a pity, up until this year public school was a good match for Jane. Actually it's interesting how we were led to public school. Jane struggled so much as a small child, just not comprehending language, vocabulary, grammar, basic sentence structure was completely absent from her speech. It was frustrating for both her and us. She obviously needed help but I held off until four determined to do everything I could for her.

It's interesting because I'm no dummy with language and no stranger to speech and language delays but something about Jane's processing made it impossible for me to reach her. I just didn't know how. So feeling like a failure I went to our Local early learning (schooling for special ed between 3 and kindergarten). Actually I tried getting her into head start but our income was way to high, luckily the individuals I talked to recognized that even though I didn't know the system and didn't realize that help was available for Jane, she needed help. So after testing she was admitted to school.

It was a good year for Jane and she learned a lot but was still short of what was needed for Kindergarten. We plowed forward anyway and were lucky enough to meet Susan M. the speech teacher, a woman fiercely devoted to her kids. She latched onto Jane and spoke on her behalf, getting her every ounce of services we could muster from the school district. Susan along with a smattering of teachers did everything they could to reach Jane's needs.

Hindsight is a funny thing. I can see why Jane needed public school, even more I can see why *we* needed Jane in public school. See, when Jane was in the system and getting so much help, I got pregnant. We didn't realize it but that pregnancy would change our lives and I simply would not have been able to home school at that time. Between doctors visits and bed rest topped by a whole lot of worry, yeah, I had no time for schooling kiddos. My children were fed and clothed and everything else was survival mode.

I don't think we attended a single parent teacher conference that year. :)

Jane's support continued even after she tested out of her IEP at the end of forth grade. See the local elementary had no problem setting an iplan into place. In Idaho if child that doesn't qualify for resource room is recognized as needing extra help, an iplan is put into place. It's not legally binding like an IEP but the school sets forth on what they're going to do to help the child, reading like an IEP. Basically it sets kids like Jane up for success. I think it's wonderful to catch those borderline kids and was thrilled that for fifth and sixth Jane's elementary was going to do everything possible to get Jane ready for middle school.

It was a great plan and for fifth grade worked fantastic until the school district got this fantastic idea to move sixth graders to middle school.

We lost sixth grade, half the time we had counted on, I had counted on, to prepare her for middle school. Jane freaked out at moving up and I worked hard to reassure her that we'd make it work.

Fifth grade ended and summer was okay. Jane was nervous, well we all were nervous but Jane had a couple of good friends she could lean on and I knew that would help. I remember how my good friends pulled me through those difficult times making it possible to keep going forward. Finally the first day of school arrived and Jane walked with her two friends. They continued to walk again through most of September.

Things were a bit more frustrating with what was happening inside the school.

The very first frustration was after being reassured that sixth graders would be kept at a sixth grade elementary format, the middle school put them on a rotating schedule going to different classes just like the seventh and eighth graders.

That was the beginning, then there was Jane's iplan. Even though the elementary had sent the iplan to the school and Jane tested extremely low in language comprehension (which HELLO, makes everything harder!), basically for eight weeks, the school said "we don't know what to do to help her." She was frustrated, we were frustrated. Finally I made some important connections getting her some help. To start with I contacted her math teacher, who was completely puzzled that Jane had never been exposed to long division. I explained that Jane was a resource room kid that had not yet reached grade level.

Light bulb moment for her teacher.

I explained that we had counted on the sixth grade to get her to level for seventh grade. *sigh* And we lost that chance when the school district kicked those kids to middle school. This teacher offered to help Jane after school two to three times a week and I encouraged Jane to see her. Within just a few weeks Jane's math improved tremendously.

Here was a child that had math explained in a room with five other students, thrust into a room with 30 students with language comprehension problems being told to perform at a level she hasn't even reached yet! And this was just math.

The school had an after school night the end of September (school had started mid-august) and Kent and I made sure to speak to every one of her teachers and we got some directions to move her forward and get her the help she needed. We felt good, most of her teachers recognized that she was struggling and wanted to help her. Her main teacher also was working to get her back into resource room.

This was a step in the right direction, then a week after this school night where we had talked with all of Jane's teacher we found out the middle school hadn't confirmed the states requirements for sixth graders. The state requires over a hundred minutes a day back to back, without interruption for the language arts. Since the middle school didn't follow through on the elementary school format and had them switching periods, they were not fulfilling the states requirements. So seven weeks into school after we had talked with and worked with Jane's teachers, Jane got a new schedule with all new teachers.

*frustration level rising*

And if this wasn't hard enough for Jane, her two friends, one of which she'd been best friends with since first grade dumped her. Said they didn't want to be friends with her anymore. Started crossing the street while walking home to get away from her. I haven't confirmed but I believe they decided to go with more popular "cool" people and Jane just didn't fit the bill. It was a crappy thing to do to Jane and school turned even more lonely.

Now I don't believe Jane was bullied or picked on more then anyone else, but she's sensitive, she internalizes making any teasing that much more painful.

When school started, I had expressed a desire to home school but acknowledged that with my schedule, it just wouldn't be possible for sixth grade. I have to give volunteer time at head start. The twins are also home on Mondays. Ean has a nightmarish rotating day schedule, going to school Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other Monday. The boys make an environment that is not conducive to serious learning. Trying to help Jane with homework with boys jumping all over us has worn my nerves to a frazzle as is. However I had a brainstorm.

My mom bought a house within walking distance. I talked with mom and she's agreed to help. Of course I would be Jane's primary teacher but my mom's house would be a perfect study hall. A quiet place to do school work without all the distractions our home has. I think Fridays will become Ean's special day with Mormor. That will give us one more day during the week with Ean free time, where we could focus one on one.

I talked with Jane. She completely balked at the idea. It was crazy talk. Not go to school?

We entered a balancing act of me trying to push Jane to understand what home schooling really involved and Kent stressing that it was HER choice and that it wouldn't happen unless Jane said so. I confess that stressing it was Jane's choice worried me because I didn't want her to continue on being miserable until she was beaten down and her esteem was in the toilet. I know it had to be her choice, but I worried that she'd hang in there until she just couldn't stand it anymore.

After talking to her dad about what it's like to be home schooled, she asked me if she could stay home one day and see what it was like. I let her know that one day wouldn't give a fair picture and she needed at least until the end of the year to really decide if she liked it or not. When I let her know that if she didn't like homeschooling, we'd register her for seventh grade at the middle school in the fall, She made her decision on Wednesday before school.

She asked if she could just stay home. :) I told her she needed to finish out the week. Get all the telephone numbers of her friends, people she wanted to stay in contact with and she needed to clean out her locker, return books ect.

Friday morning right after sending her off, I called the school and let them know.

Jane is already second guessing herself. The unfamiliar is always scary. I think she'll settle down quickly as we establish a routine. She was also disappointed when I took her booty from her locker and sorted out "all the good stuff" to put in the newly dubbed "school tubby".

So I am Jane's teacher. For everything. Wish us luck.

Wow language explosion!

Greg came running up to me this AM while stating "MOOOOM Ean he a pus(h)ing me" Well first, why do they always know how to elongate the vowel in "mom" and second, wow, we knew exactly what he was saying. So I told him, Greg tell him not to push you!

Except Ean is in the front yard on his way to school. So Greg runs over to the window, opens the window and starts yelling "Ean, you no pus(h)ing me, you no PUS(h)ING me!!" Well Dave has to start yelling at Ean too and Ean is just getting flustered and upset and trying to argue with them! Finally I got Ean to walk with Kate only to have him come back two minutes later crying because Kate kicked him.

Apparently I need to speak with Kate on using HER words. *eye roll*

Also David was just doing a headstand on the recliner, he started lowering and raising his legs while stating "UP.... DOWN... UP.... DOWN.... UP...." stopping every now and then to say "WOOK, I upSIDEdown" It was very cute. I am a tad jealous, I wish I had his abs. :-)

Completely changing the subject, onto me. I was a smidge annoyed when told that going veg is really going "overboard" Thanks honey. I didn't just decide on a whim, I put a lot of thought into my decision. It feels right TO ME, so it's something *I* need to do FOR ME. And don't worry, we can still go out for Mexican.

Speaking of Kent, it is kinda nice to get told that despite feeling like I was mean last year when I policed up the candy and let the kids have a little baggie of candy to work out of and then I gave as I deemed appropriate the rest of the their junk until gone, it was a far better system then the chaos of this year where I didn't police anything and the twins had a gorge fest on every one's loot.

Both boys are sick and I'm pretty sure it was the sugar that made Greg's cough so bad yesterday.

So no more sugar free for alls at our house. BLECH!!!!!!