Sunday, February 13, 2011

I'm still here

I have no picture to give me inspiration in this post. I haven't picked up my camera in too long! Why is this? I'm guessing because it is February--the busiest month of the tax season and I'm doing taxes for hours everyday. The kids haven't caught onto this quite yet and so the other day I had to have a little sit-down chat with them to let them know that when I'm on the basement computers I'm working. Like people in offices, except that I'm home to take care of them. You'd think when they hear me getting up every 5 min to deal with a screaming John it might cross their minds that I could use a little cooperation.
As in pacify him, don't antagonize him.
Course John's so easy to work with and all.
"Noooo!!! I want Mom to get the milk! Don't touch the glass! Your germs!"
It seems my germs are less germy to John.
But sometimes, if I happened to have touched the rim . . .
It doesn't help that he won't drink out of the same cup twice. Or that they have to be blue.
I've thought about buying more blue cups, but then I'd just be washing more blue cups.
So I haven't.

I'm also homeschooling Rebecca for the last 2 hours of school now. I drop John off around 12:10 and then pick her up at 12:25 when she gets out of Resource. We then have 2 semi-uninterrupted hours to do work one on one. I think she is doing better, but who knows what the school really thinks. I know I'm the dreaded figure lurking in the halls all the time. I should have my own office there some days. I don't feel like I've been accusatory, or rude (this school year anyway) but I do need information. Like on the curriculum--for this week. What are you doing in science this week? They may not hate me, but I think they really don't like me.
They referred me to the "reading specialist" last week. They benchmark their reading by the alphabet--and as they progress through the grades they want them to be further and further along the alphabet markers. Like in 4th grade they want them to be somewhere between "M" and "R." So I want to know exactly what letter she is on.
"Well, we don't really like to tell parents that because it is really more of a marker for the teachers . . . "
Bla bla bla, just give it to me. And then tell me what it means.
Turns out they have her on a reading level with books like "Arthur Goes to School" and "Amelia Bedelia." Very discouraging. I know her vocal reading is terrible. But she can read and understand books at much higher levels. For her book report I had her read "Winn Dixie" and now she is reading "Felicity, an American Girl." But she reads lots of things in between. Mostly fact type books.
I hate that she hates reading. So I tell her stories about how Einstein didn't do well in school and how Walt Disney was told he wasn't creative and how lots of kids that struggle at her age go on to be doctors. I keep telling her she is going to love it when she finds what she likes to read and can read it without struggling. She is getting tired of me telling her these things. She just wants to go play with her friends.
We've been considering a program called "Learning Techniques." See website here. It's not just that its time consuming--I mean really time consuming, but I have to drive her to Orem once a week to meet with a specialist for 6 months or more.
Oh, and it is $3300.
With the discount if I pay up front.
Course if we could be sure it would help her. But I'm very disappointed they don't have more current data and reviews. And that they don't seem to keep running stats on the kids. I'm a skeptic. I need to see numbers.

In other news I got all the kids new Vans yesterday. Lily works at the Vans store in Orem and can get me her sisterly-discount, which is the bomb. This is the 1st time we have done this since she got a job there. I got 6 pair yesterday for $130 bucks! John and Sarah got 2 pair and Nathaniel and Rebecca got 1--soon to be 2 when they finish going through the boxes in the latest shipment. Vans for the price of Payless. So great.
We had to go on a Saturday night because that was the only time I could take all the kids in when she was working there. It took me no less than 25 min to get out of the parking lot. I'm not super fond of shopping at the mall, but on Saturday night? A lot of things I'd rather be doing. Nathaniel kept telling me how if I let him drive it would have been faster.
Yea, faster to our deaths.