Yesterday was a busy day for Brian. He had to go to church in the morning to get their version of the birds and the bees - not something I really approve of, but I don't really mind so much, either, since I doubt he listens to anything they say to him. He just goes for the munchkins and juice. After that he had a travel baseball game in Somerset, so he had to leave by 1. The neighborhood boys have decided that he's worthy of the occasional inclusion, so they came to get him to go play on the tennis courts at CBA (the Catholic high school behind our neighborhood).
After all this, and also after the whole day on Saturday had passed, he came in and asked in his innocent tone, "have you seen my new social studies book?" He is supposed to have a set of books at home so that he doesn't have to carry them back and forth to school, and in social studies they change books every unit. So it turns out he has a test on five chapters, and hasn't brought his home edition HOME yet! So it erupts, as usual. I explained to him that he is 12. He is in seventh grade, and it's April. This should not still be happening. I told him if he can't pull it together by next year, he will have to go to Oak Hill Academy for another year of 8th grade, and if that doesn't work, he'll have to go away to boarding school, where hopefully they will have someone who can teach him to be responsible for his work. He does not want to go to Oak Hill. The boys have to wear ties.
Eventually, he got copies of the work from his friend, and, as he had said, he knew a lot of it just from having read it in school. So, he went in early for extra help with Mr. Durr (how can you take a teacher with this name seriously, and to make things worse, he teaches special ed) and came home saying the test was easy.
See, I think that is the problem with the schools. If you can put in no effort at all and think the test was easy, then the test wasn't testing you well enough. But stay tuned for the results of that test in a few days.
So I only worked this morning. It was pretty easy. The first meeting was cancelled (I was floating for the child study team meetings) because the parent never showed up (!). The second was fine, I was in the resource room, where I will be all day tomorrow. They're a little hard to work with because all they do is look around and try to roam the room, but they're not bad, and they're just little. It's all second and third graders. Plus, I got to read to them from Ralph S. Mouse. I hope we read more tomorrow. Then I went into the 3/4/5 special ed classroom and played Connect Four with a kid who kept asking when recess would be over, because he hates to play, but the teacher has a rule that he must stay on task. The floating days are usually pretty low stress.
It's a little chilly here today, so I toured the yard and came back in. Megan wants to go back to practice tonight, even though she doesn't have to. It is a good thing, because she has still been having two dinners a night if she can manage it. The other day she went for a "run" and tripped within a half a block, so she came back home and had a snack.
So, in other news, I ordered two lampposts from a lighting store today. They will be in in a week to ten days and then we will have access to an electrician! It's all because of the lighthouse we bought yesterday, we need to be able to plug it in somewhere useful. But I have wanted outdoor lighting ever since we got the pool. Kevin likes those tiki torches, but they just cast a Survivor-like glow about the place. I also ordered a new lamp to put behind the piano. Rusty likes to knock things down, so he knocked over and shattered the antique lamp that we used to have ON the piano. I think this will work. Brian is having a lesson tonight. My friend Denise has applied for my dream job: control desk at the YMCA! She gave my name as a reference, and after trading calls with the woman for a few days, we finally connected. So I am waiting to see if they'll offer her the job. Hey, maybe if it's timed right, I can get her to drive Megan home from practice once in a while. (haha - fat chance!) I'll be so jealous if she gets the job. I always wanted to do that - except you have to start out on the night shift, and I won't do that.
OK, I'm going to get my camera and take pictures of the new shrubs. I'll try to link them in from photobucket.
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