School Pictures

Friday Eve

Well, it is the eve of Friday, what a big Friday it is, our schools have a three day weekend. We are just back tonight from the open house at the other local Catholic high school, which in Brian's eyes eclipsed the first one by a landslide. This school had a very nice feel, although at first I didn't think it would. It's as large as the public high school (about 1000 students, a bit more even), and the building is old. However, as we went through on the tour, which was pretty well run and everyone was nice and well-spoken and just, well, normal, we got more and more comfortable.

One thing that particularly appealed to us in light of Brian's chiari issues is that the entire school is on a laptop program. Every student has a laptop and the entire building is wireless. Notes can be taken on the laptop, either typed in or written as if it were a tablet; all assignments are turned in electronically. All teachers report grades via 'parent connect' which is something I have heard quite a bit, but for some reason our public schools don't do. There are no textbooks to be toted around, they stay in school and are usually available to be viewed online at home.

Of course, this comes with a price tag. Our next visit is Sunday or Monday to one more school, and then Brian will visit the public school on the 28th with his middle school. Oh, and the school we went to today is also on "block scheduling" meaning that they have four classes in the fall, and four classes in the spring semester. Classes run for 70+ minutes, and they all have an hour for lunch in the middle of the day, which is also when a lot of clubs meet.

Progress reports also finally arrived, although Megan's did not. I called her guidance counselor and he read it to me, so it was all positive, the worst being the B she is getting from the chemistry teacher who feels it is his job to break the A students in to failure (not that a B is failure, but the 65 on her last quiz practically was). She has another quiz tomorrow. I always panic when she has a quiz in there after a particularly long day of swimming, because she's tired and has less time to prepare. And she's been not feeling so great the past couple of days.

Brian's was pretty good as well, the worst on his being that he is talkative in MATH class!!! The math class is taught in a strange way, though, and may lend itself to non-attentiveness. I thought at back to school night that it didn't sound optimal. Hopefully he's learning. He also has a test tomorrow; in that class and one in science. And then today, I got a call and an email from his social studies teacher, just to let me know that he has been doing very well in that class! So that was nice.

And in other news, I am still unemployed but will not be tomorrow. I awaited a call this morning to see if I would work today or tomorrow, but it turned out to be neither. But later, I got another call and have a pretty good assignment, I daresay. It's from about 10-1, so that should be great. Kevin has just informed me that there are TWO munks on the back porch, and all this without any cats being let out at all today! I got mad because yesterday I let Wren out, and she spent hours out there, and then came in, and went straight to the litterbox and left a big dump in there, didn't even bury it! Oh, and the house is clean. Today was a cleaning day. That's always noteworthy.

Wednesday Morning

Here it is, Hump Day, and I am not motivated. I am unemployed yet again. I checked last year's schedule and noticed that I was really quite busy, but I was also working as a substitute para, and that seemed to bring in a lot of my hours, this time last year. However, I did have a day or two of work each week as a teacher sub as well. Last night, the new caller tried to call. I had Kevin on the other line, and he wouldn't stop talking. By the time I got to her, she had hung up. I called her immediately back, first she picked up and put the phone down, and then I called again and left a message, but the call was never returned. I'll call her again today, because I can't work in the afternoon tomorrow, so I'll request a morning, and a job for Friday, and see what happens. After 7 years, I am in my 8th, I have gone to being a nobody again. By the way, that is longer than I ever stayed at any of my other jobs.

I have to finish work on the directory for the middle school anyway, but all I have to do is delete a few names and print it out for proofing, and that won't take long. Otherwise I have laundry to finish up and I have to get the house straightened for the cleaning lady, who comes tomorrow. (yay) Maybe I'll go for a bike ride or take Molly for a walk. It's supposed to reach close to 80 degrees again!

After school today, Brian has swimming followed by baseball. Megan has nothing but a swim meeting at school and a Spanish Honor Society meeting. This is good, because she isn't feeling well. I have to go and get her some drugs; it's her usual November affliction of stuffiness. She also jammed her finger on someone's finned foot at practice the other day. Swimming CAN be dangerous!

Tomorrow is the next open house at one of the Catholic high schools. There's another on Sunday, but we have to be at the Y, so I may call the school and see about going another time. They do 'open tours' and also allow the students to experience the school for a day, which is a great idea. We have a lot of days off that they don't, including this coming Monday, so that might work out. Anyway, the school is far from being a first choice.

Meanwhile, I started letting Buddy and Wren out from time to time while the weather has been nice. It cuts down on litterbox cleaning, and they don't go far. However, Wren has become quite the chipmunk hunter. But she doesn't kill them. She brings them home to keep as pets. She meows while they're still hanging, terrified, in her jaw, and she brings them to the back slider and tries to get in! Yesterday, Brian saved one by chasing Wren around the yard until she finally dropped it and it escaped. But she's out now. She busted out when I was checking on the car.

In other news, STILL no progress reports. Maybe today. I was pretty sure they had gone out yesterday. And I definitely will get paid, thankfully, because I have no more money and there is no more food in the house. Having to budget not just money but how much food to buy is proving to be more challenging than I had expected, with another mouth to feed. And a big night tonight! First, the Phillies in a win-win situation. If they win, they go to the World Series. If they lose, they get to come home and win the pennant on their own turf (because of course, they will win). Second, the final debate, and being held at the renowned Hofstra University. How much more excitement can be packed into one night? I can hardly stand it.

Brown Spot: BEGONE

And it is! The brown spot that has plagued me all summer is not only gone, it is benign. I got the call today from the nurse at the dermatologist's office. Of course, after checking messages all day, I went out to pick up Megan and E at the mall, and called home to check again. Brian picked up on the second ring, so I assumed there had been no calls.

"Oh," he says. "No, the doctor called."

:-O ... he knows I have been waiting, but he was too ensconced in his XBox to call and let me know, or even to NOT pick up the phone so that I would get the message. I called a second time. "BEEEEEPPPP" The machine malfunctioned. I was broken out in a cold sweat before I finally managed to get through and get the message to play, and I heard that it was the voice of a woman, signifying a favorable result. The doctor had said that if it were bad, he would personally make the call.

During this time I was also listening to the radio, and they were discussing the meningitis vaccine, the same one that I just agonized over for Megan, and finally opted to take. Not only did that radio conversation reinforce my thinking that I did the right thing, it made me want to run Brian in, rather than wait another year or two for him, as I did for Megan. I wanted to make sure that he isn't at greater risk of a side effect, due to his 'events' of recent years.

And tomorrow is the last day of summer vacation. I plan to spend it at home, doing laundry and getting things ready for school. We have also hired a cleaning service, and they will come Thursday for the first time. I am so excited to have a clean house, and they'll do things like clean moldings and doors. I can hardly wait!

I took Megan and E to the mall so E could meet my friend's daughter, and I think it went well. Brian and I joined them all for lunch, but we came home sooner. My credit cards are up pretty high right now, so I have to wait until Friday to start charging again. Oh, and I have to take Molly to the vet for that growth on her paw. I hope it won't need to be surgically removed, but I fear that it might. It is on the same paw as the one that was removed back in February 2007. Poor old dog.

A few nights ago we were down at a restuarant by the beach and we saw some girls doing a photo scavenger hunt, so Megan and some others dreamed up the idea that they should have one as well. They have made up some teams, and they're meeting up there at 6:00 tonight. We'll see how this is going to go. I asked her if they were all dressing alike, and she went, "oh."

Guess not.

In other news, the mailbox manages to remain upright. The pool chemicals are normalizing after an attack by chlorine, at the misguided hand of Kevin. We need it to recover in time for a little BBQ we are having on Sunday night for some swimming families. We also need the approaching hurricane to move through on SATURDAY even if it does mean Big Brown will have to outrun a bunch of old nags under sloppy conditions. Oh, and I think Megan is trying to coordinate the like-dressing after all.

And She's ... Delayed

So far, the plane has not taken off. This is the worst day so far! Even the day that the plane was late, it took off an hour and a half late. Even yesterday it did that and was still relatively on time. I can't imagine why, the plane was on time to Denmark last night, maybe a little delayed, but that seems to have been its way. But this morning, I woke up and checked, at 7:30 our time, so 1:30pm their time. According to the SAS website, the plane is not going to take off for two more hours!!!

So, such is my punishment for risking the concert tickets. Another flight tracking site says it will take off at 2:15, which is in half an hour. So I'll go out and water the shrubs and just hope that by the time I get back in, she will at least be airborne. I guess technically we really only need to get to the concert by 7, I don't think they close the gates if you're late, but ... grr!! Now I have to see if we send someone to the concert, like Kevin and Brian, to hold us a pretty good spot on the lawn, or if we just take the chance and all of us show up late. I guess we'll wait to see what the actual arrival time will be. As of now, SAS estimates 3:44.

Kevin is checking the airport information, and the other flight that leaves at the same time (for DC) left on time. So, what is the problem? I'd be a wreck being on that flight, in light of the recent airliner news out of Spain. The plane that was involved in that crash was actually owned by SAS, according to Kevin.

I hope E is not totally exhausted and unable to make it to the concert! We'd have to give the tickets away in the parking lot. :-O

Anyway, in other news, I still have not totally cleaned the house, but as I expected I would do, I convinced myself that it's best to get it presentable, but not spotless, so she knows what she's in for right from the start. I also need to make some phone calls, to try to line up some housecleaners for the school year. I can't let it go as I like to do, if I have someone else living in the house! I spent yesterday taking Megan to a store that someone had given her a gift card to, and she roamed around for 45 minutes, unable to find anything, all the while texting people who were sending her their schedules for school. We had to rush home after that so she could see hers. She was happy with it, or as happy as one can be when one has geometry, pre-calc and chemistry every day. Afterwards I went to the doctor because I messed with a small bump behind my ear and it grew to three times its size. I self-diagnosed it as a sebaceous cyst that needed antibiotics and the doctor took one look at it, and gave me some. On the drive home, I got a migraine in the car wash.

Stay tuned for updates.

E Minus 1

So it is our last day with just the four of us. Megan has some summer reading to finish up, and also a chemistry packet (they have a test on the third day of school, they had to teach all of this to themselves over the summer), and Brian has baseball tonight at 6. I've been following the SAS flight that goes back and forth to Copenhagen, and it was on time on Monday, but over an hour delayed yesterday. This morning, it was an hour and a half late landing in Denmark, but was still scheduled to take off on time, in fact to land three minutes ahead of schedule this afternoon in Newark. Not sure how, as it seems to have taken off 40 minutes late. Tailwinds? But we will keep watching.

We survived Megan's gala last night, the kids had a good time. A police car even drove by at one point, and didn't take anyone into custody, as far as I know. There wasn't even much of a mess to clean up, just some cups out by the pool and a bunch of leftover junk food.

We ended up getting Megan an LCD flat panel TV for her room. Then I was able to move her old one into E's room. A problem has arisen, of course. First, the LCD TVs are best when they get their signals through cable boxes. We have this one directly linked to the cable. Second, we thought her old TV had an inferior picture, but in the other room, it does not. However, the brand new LCD does! So obviously it's a problem with the cable in her room. But we'll work that out. It's a nice TV.

So the plans for today are up in the air. We are still considering a visit to the Old Folks Home in Philadelphia, but that's looking less and less likely as time goes by. Megan wanted to go, to be trapped in the car for 3-4 hours, so she might finish up that reading. She isn't enjoying The Devil in the White City very much. Reading comprehension is not her strength, and this one is very full of detail, apparently. They were all complaining about it yesterday.

In other news, the two main floors of the house, and the main bathroom, are now respectable. That just leaves the three other bedrooms (E's is fine, the door is closed to protect it from roaming cats), the hallway and the master bath. That won't take long. We plan to leave for the airport tomorrow at 1, unless the flight ends up being severely delayed. Which it had better not!

15 Candles

Well, this is it. I am officially over the hill. The Doll took Megan out shopping for her birthday, not lunch since she still feels toothless, and I happen to notice the card. It said, "Happy 15th." And I thought, "No! That just can't be."

But it is. Fifteen years ago this moment, I was in the labor and delivery 'recovery' area at Winthrop University Hospital, being fed pound cake by a woman who had tortured me for hours leading up to that moment. Her name was 'Fitzy'.

And so Megan is 15. I have no card for her, and no present! We don't know what to get her, although we have tossed around a few ideas. Luckily, part of being 15 is sleeping until 2:00 in the afternoon, so I have time to sneak out and get something, at least a card. Plus she is having a few friends over later on to swim and have pizza. Which is why this was the only day with 'isolated thunderstorms' in it for the week.

Today also marks our second-to-last day as a family of four. I can't help but think how strange it must be for E, to be at home in Denmark thinking, "today is my second to last day living here, until next summer!" She is getting excited. I'll be happy when we have her schedule set on Friday, then I will feel like all of her ducks are finally in a row.

The sports physical form totally confused her, and of course, I can't begin to tell her about the ridiculous visit we had to the school. I decided to stop by to pick up the packet that I would need to register her. While there, we encountered much idiocy. First, we met the secretary, who tries to be helpful, but really doesn't check with the right people before telling us what we have to do. So I was told I have to have ANOTHER form notarized, to state that E is not our legal child, but that she is living with us, we take responsibility, and to prove our residency in the township. Note here that I also will require two proofs of residency AFTER I have this notarized, which, in order to do, I must present a notary with two proofs of residency. Also remember that I have two children in the district, and I have already submitted piles of paperwork and notarized documents in order to obtain board approval in the first place.

In this district, every endeavor is a clear case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. Only it is actually more like the pinky finger doesn't know what the ring finger is doing.

But then they told us that there was a notary in the main office, and she could probably do it on the spot. Excellent. I'll fill in another form, if it means I don't have to drive to the bank and wait for a notary to finish filing her nails. But the woman said no, she didn't want to do it. She said we should go to the bank, where the people actually know who we are and where we live. Huh? What? What bank does she think we go to? Mickey's Main Street Savings and Loan, where everybody knows your name? But off to the bank we did go, and coincidentally, I did know the notary, but that had nothing to do with her working at the bank, our kids are in school together.

And now we're ready. We also found out that E's guidance counselor is NOT the swim coach, but a nice older man who knows his stuff, but has a hearing problem. Like when his phone rang, he looked around and said, "is that mine? oh! it is!" But he also offered to come in just to meet with us at 10am Friday. Which was nice.

The guidance counselor also told us that the schedules are being mailed out tomorrow, which was of interest to Megan, but he answered a few questions and read us her brutal schedule, which starts with honors geometry and ends with honors chemistry, with the teacher she had hoped not to get (but expected to, he teaches all but possibly one section of the chemistry honors classes). She was also disappointed because she had hoped to have the old swim coach for History, and she got someone else. We also met her new guidance counselor (the old one retired) and he seemed very nice.

In other news, I did not accomplish much around the house yesterday. I really need an incentive, and having a house full of kids tonight will provide that. I'll focus on the downstairs today while Kevin puts the bathroom back together, and then tonight, to keep me busy, I'll straighten up the upstairs. Megan actually has a lot of summer reading and work to finish up, and I suggested she might want to do this before E gets here - although E will have summer work of her own, I don't think they exempt her because she 'just found out' . Megan wants to go to the beach, since it's her birthday, but I told her that once you're 15, it's the hard-knock life for you.

Home Sweet Home

We're here at last, back in the Land of Cats and Dog. Everyone survived, but Molly is still panting a lot, especially at night. I'm afraid to take her to the vet because I know it could mean, at minimum, a chest xray and blood work. I was worried because our pet sitter left a message, but it turned out she was just telling me that the roofer had shown up and started ripping off the roof! We were not expecting him, didn't know when he'd be coming, because we had asked him not to come during our Fresh Air week, and he just never called again. He did stick a giant sign on our lawn, though, about three weeks ago.

I guess it's better in a way - we missed out on two days of banging and flying debris, but today will be another big one.

So the week was fine, not really where you would choose to go on a vacation, but Silver Spring was an interesting place. There was a lot to do near the hotel, but they had only valet parking, so you had to tip the guy every time you wanted to take the car out, so we used that sparingly. And Megan swam OK, about how she would have been expected to swim with the amount of practice she has had this summer, and the pools she's been swimming in - half of them not even long course pools.

Brian had the two teeth pulled right before we left, and they have healed without incident. In two weeks, he goes back for the spacers in those two gaps. Starting next week, we have all of our doctor appointments. I'm taking them both to the dermatologist for various things, then we have the neurologist on the 11th and on the 12th the orthodontist. E arrives on the 21st, and Megan and Brian both have their check-ups on the 26th (happy birthday to Brian) and I have my dermatologist appointment on the 28th - if I can make it that long. I have been panicking over a small light mole on my cheek, because it sits on a bed of age-spot looking skin.

In other news, I heard from the guidance counselor regarding Brian's 504 plan for accommodations. He didn't really want to be bothered making any changes to it, but I don't really think three C's on a report card are a good sign, especially when they are there mainly due to lack of studying and failure to turn in assignments. So I want to see what else we can work out, or what we might be able to put in there. If I can't get any input from the doctor, I might seek out someone who specifically helps with these modifications, like a child psychologist or neuropsychologist. I'll talk to the pediatrician too, if I don't really make progress with the neurologist. He seemed happy enough to wait it out when we talked to him in February. But maybe we have waited long enough.

Just Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

So it was a late-ish night last night, what with the bad service we had at Bahr's, my favorite restaurant; and then I stayed up to finish my book, until probably 3am. Megan had to be at a swim meet for a 6:30 warm-up, so she and Kevin were gone, and the cats and I settled in for a good Sunday "lie-in". Until, that is, the phone rang at 6am.

It seems that Megan had grown bored of being left in the running truck while Kevin got the coffee and bagels, so she decided to join him in Dunkin Donuts. Safety-minded and well-taught, she locked the door behind her. The door of the running car, with the key in the ignition.

But of course, all's well that ends well, and another family happened to be there at that very same Dunkin donuts, 15 minutes from home, and they took her in time for warm-ups, while Kevin waited by the newspaper box for me to come with a spare key (thank goodness I knew where one was!)

Last I heard she had still not swum, but she was the top seed in both her freestyle events, the 200 and the 400; she was seeded fifth in the 100 back, which used to be her best event before swimming endless laps of freestle took over her life. I am sorry I won't be able to go to watch the races, hopefully Kevin took the video camera up and will capture the moments. Brian and C are still sound asleep, worn out again, I guess, from all the 'Fresh Air'.

We really have been lucky with the weather so far, and the forecast remains pleasant. Tomorrow is not supposed to be nice, but that works perfectly because Brian has to go to the orthodontist in the morning anyway. C can come along, they have a room full of free arcade games for him. Maybe afterwards we can bowl or see a movie. And then, on Tuesday, I plan to bring him to the swim practice down at the beach and see how he does. If he likes, he can swim in the meet that evening. And I still owe them all a trip to the water park - I'll have to coordinate that with weather and swimming.

Last night we were really lucky, we even did see the poor dolphins that are stuck in the rivers. They were swimming around just as happy as they could be. C said he had never seen a dolphin, so I wish they had come closer to our boat, but they were close enough. All the boats were hovering around and looking at them. At one point, they came really close to a group on a jet-ski. Afterwards we went to Bahr's, and C ordered lobster! It was the most expensive thing of any of our dinners, but we figured it's his vacation and his birthday, so we sucked it up and took a picture of him in his plastic bib. He was wearing a sweatshirt I grabbed from Brian's closet, and when I brought it in later, I found the bib all rolled up in its pocket, and also a broken up crab claw. He must not have known what he was supposed to do with them, although he sure knew how he was supposed to eat that lobster!

In other news, we are still thinking of what to do today. It is St. Patrick's Day in July at the race track, and we will get free grandstand admission for wearing green. Also, it seems to be a beautiful beach day. I guess I'll see what happens when the boys wake up. I hate to have to pay the $20 guest fee for the beach club, so I am trying to avoid it for the weekend. I had asked if they'd let C in for half-price, but they agreed so reluctantly that I just paid the whole thing, to avoid controversy.

Summer Blues

Yes, every summer Megan has to come up with a malady. You would think that with all of the different pools to which she is exposed all winter long, she would not have such issues with pools in summer. But each year, once she's been in them for a while, she gets something weird. Twice it was skin rashes. Thankfully, it has never again been the oral thrush, THAT was bad. Last year it was a bad sinus infection and ear infection. Now it is swimmers ear.

Imagine she's been swimming since she was 3 and this is her first true swimmers ear. Last year they gave us drops for it but I think that was really her sinus/ear infection. So she is miserable. I used the drops yesterday morning and she felt better, so she spent the day in the ocean, then went to practice. After practice, she was quite uncomfortable. I think we have kept it at bay by treating it, so the pain hasn't become agonizing, but she holds it constantly. She doesn't want to miss the beach club time trials tomorrow, and the doctor actually said she could go as long as she wore earplugs and a bathing cap :/.

Otherwise, nothing is too exciting. We're probably going to get a new roof any day now. There is a big obnoxious sign on the lawn that says Chuck's Custom Roofing, it popped up while I was out driving around this morning. I bought some crab cakes for dinner tonight, and Brian, who is punished for saying, "oh my God!" when I told him that he had to sit on something other than just his towel in my car, is resisting the meal. His punishment is that he is not allowed to go down and play Call of duty. You know that I love to punish him from this, because technically, since it is rated 'M', he is not supposed to be playing it anyway!

In other news, Megan had her training for her volunteer summer job today. It turns out there are just two volunteers per class, so I guess sometimes there is just one or none, since Megan is only doing if three days a week, and some kids do it even less. The session begins on the 7th, and since we'll be away, she needs to email the teacher of her room to let her know this. Oh, and we got tickets to the Chicago/Doobie Brothers concert tomorrow night!! I had seen it online, and then Kevin saw it advertised, but we didn't do anything about it. This morning I got an email that tickets would be $10 apiece starting at 9am (lawn seats). So we got four. We're all going. Of course, they really cost $21 per ticket, when you added in the $6 for parking (we should go in four separate cars) and the other service charges. But still, that's pretty cheap for a concert. Even if we have to sit on the lawn. I think. But we'll see. The weather should be nice, and if nothing else, I will get to hear 'What a Fool Believes'.

Of Moles and Men

As I slowly recovered from the sight of Brian's report card, Megan's showed up in the mail. She completed another year with nothing less than an A, and in fact, mostly A+'s. Since these are all in honors classes, they will be weighted more heavily than a regular, non-honors class would be. So when they calculate class rank in two years, this year will give her a boost. and, hopefully, she can keep it up, although she has some really tough classes next year, including honors chemistry and a second math class in addition to the required geometry.

Anyway, that was one small consolation, although not an unexpected one. And if only she could put that kind of effort into cleaning her room, or washing her face and hair, or even caring for these warts that she has on her foot, another source of angst for me. About two years ago, they were only one wart. She had a pedicure, and the wart was filed. It blossomed. I took her to the podiatrist, where we had had such luck the last time, and he started the same treatments. It seemed like they were working really well, you couldn't see anything, but he said that he could still see a small bit of it, and freezing would take care of it. So he blasted it with the liquid nitrogen, and it responded by multiplying like chipmunks. Now it is a pile of warts, and I will not go back to him. He said the next step was laser surgery to remove it.

But we have appointments at the dermatologist next month so I'll show it to him. He's very good, too. Really, they are not a problem, but they are unsightly. I have told her to try what he recommended, 'wart stick' followed by duct tape, but she doesn't like to use the wart stick because it makes them stand out more initially. So that's a saga for another day. She also has a mole on her shoulder that is looking scarier, and Brian has his large 'congenital nevus' that needs to be rechecked. I'm sure it hasn't changed, but I try to stay on top of it anyway.

The Christ Church Pilgrims left on Friday for their pilgrimage to Northumbria, England. They left without Megan, and two others from their group, but one of the two is a disabled boy so that is a different story. I have been feeling slightly guilty about not having sent her. I regularly follow a few caringbridge sites, and I am still following the page of the swimmer with the brain tumor.

This girl was an Olympic hopeful a few years ago, at the age of 15, when she was stricken with brain cancer. An initial surgery was supposed to be all it would take to halt this non-aggressive cancer, but three months later, it was back, and it was aggressive. A second surgery rendered her unable to use one side of her body effectively, and dramatically stunted her speech. Over the past few years, she has been fighting, with her parents (mostly her mother) by her side the whole way.

Through it all, she has never stopped swimming. Her father got a new job in Seattle, so they moved across the country and had to find all new doctors, friends, and schools. She continued to swim. The tumor was back and she was told there was no hope, but they found a clinical trial for her. That held the tumor at bay for quite some time, and then there was a change again. Still, she swam. Just over the past few months, she was selected to represent the US in Beijing at the paralympic trials.

Then she got sick again. One of the tumor sites (I guess) bled into her brain as a result of the radiation it received. Also at the same time, they discovered cancer cells in her brain stem. She had more surgery to clean up the bleed, and just underwent more radiation on the brain stem; it was her only hope of halting this dizziness, which had put her Olympic dreams on hold again.

Anyway, in reading this blog for the past few years, I have followed her many travels to exotic places, and read of the things she has done with her family. It all makes me feel very small and insignificant in my little world where I didn't want to allow my daughter to travel to Northern England to tour monasteries and revisit the roots of the Episcopal church. I am not so much saying that I wish I had let her go, as I think that we need to do more of these things. The Fresh Air Fund and the exchange student are a step in this direction, but we are still keeping ourselves in this little world, and part of the problem is swimming. It is so all-consuming that there is no time to live. For any of us...and for what?

Well, those are my thoughts for the day. In other news, C called us yesterday morning! All he said to me was "yes" or "no" but then he got on the phone with Brian and talked a little more. I was surprised to hear that he is only going into 5th grade, which is two years behind where he should be, which is probably not unusual, but is unfortunate nonetheless. We have still been emailing back and forth with E, but now she is off to a week-long adventure at an outdoor concert series. I hope she never asks me to allow her to do anything like this! I'll have to defer to the agency rep. I wouldn't want to allow her to do anything where she might potentially not survive! Finally, we are off to the Blue Claws game this afternoon. Our church bought a bunch of tickets, and then they were unable to sell many of them. I bought five to bring a friend for Megan, thinking Brian's group would be there anyway. But we were the only family in the group that bought tickets, and Megan couldn't find anyone to go. So it's just us, and our one extra ticket. They were only $6, so I consider it a donation to the church.

Damn those Ducks.

Not enough wine in California, I say. It's just been one of those days. I let Megan skip her beach club practice because she had two Y practices yesterday and was just worn out. I dragged Brian out of bed and took him, because he needs it. I went for my walk and was sweating bullets from the humidity. I thought I must have bullet holes in my face and blood was pouring out, but I was just sweating.

Anyway, come back to find out that between bees and lane line issues, they did a beach practice instead of a pool one. Waste of time. Then it started to rain. But at least I wasn't the one to crash my car into the seawall, as the Favorite Boy's sister did. Oh well. A lesson learned about the hood of your car being longer than you think it is.

So then our E saga continued. I realized the paper she had been sent told her almost nothing about us. She had Megan's Facebook, but that is mostly meaningless banter, plus it says she is married to someone named Michael, before that she was married to Charlie and before that Michael and Charlie were married to one another. But E doesn't know that. So I sent her a whole email telling her about the town and the school, and attached a few pictures of us, and, lo and behold, she still wants to come! So she will be here sometime between August 21 and 26. She said her original date was the 23rd, but other students are leaving on the 21 and 26, so she will travel with them if possible. I told her the 21st is better, but we will work it out no matter what. We have our physical appointments for the school sports forms on the 26th in the morning.

Oh, by the way, the board approved her enrollment last night. Now we just need an official letter.

But then, the mail came. Sigh. Oh, make it stop. In the mail was a letter from the schools. I thought it would be Brian's test scores, but worse, it was his report card. He received three C's this marking period: spanish, science, and language arts. I am so upset about this. Somehow I feel the school will not think it is worth getting this upset over, but I certainly do. Social studies was a B+, as was math; math should have been an A. I do not know what to do with this kid anymore. So I took him to baseball, and came home and poured myself the largest glass of wine that I could hold. It just never ends with him. I was expecting report cards tomorrow. And I still have the test scores to look forward to. Oh, help me, please.

Oh, yeah, and Megan's SAT2 scores were finally available online. Her friends texted her and said they got a 540 and a 560. I couldn't log in and then finally managed to. She got a 530. Not so good. The others studied and prepared more, but honestly, that is out of 800, so none of them are getting into any school based on those scores. Any school that requires an SAT2 in the first place will look for a grade of 700 or higher - perhaps even an 800. But I don't think most schools actually even require them anyway, which renders this nothing more than an exercise in test taking. The girl who got the highest score left the most blank. The others must have lost points on their guesses. Megan, rocket scientist, answered them all.

So that is that. In other news, um. Well, we have strange white bugs in the soil under one of the plants in the yard. I am going to try to trap some and take them to a garden center. Hopefully they are easily eliminated; I hope the plant will at least bloom. It looked like it had been doing so well up till now! Oh, and the shed. Kevin's shed is being delivered on Saturday. He is so excited! And the neighbors who already hate us because our pool ran water past their driveway for ten days will be really furious when they see this thing show up!! Haha!

National Honor What?

OK, so the story goes that in order to be on the National Honor Society (in?) at our high school, you must satisfy a list of requirements. Among them is the community service hour quota. A student must have completed at least 100 volunteer hours by the time that they make their application. Which is not too bad, considering you do have about four years in which to do this, right? Hmm. But what if nobody tells you about the requirement before you're a senior? I don't even know how I found out about it, but I did. The guidance counselors do not tell the freshmen about it. But I have been on Megan to get to work on these hours.

In order to try to knock off a chunk of the hours in one summer, Megan applied to work at the school district's extended school year program. She had to fill in an application, write an essay on why she wanted to do this, and another paragraph summarizing her extracurricular activities. Then she had to get a letter from a teacher or guidance counselor, recommending her. She did all of this, and I dropped it off before the due date. (This was the first time I tried to get in touch with them regarding the exchange student)

The volunteers were supposed to be notified by today. She has heard nothing. Two of her friends received letters with assignments. She has not even recieved a letter turning her down, or thanking her for making the effort to apply. One of the girls who is doing it did it last year. The other, like Megan, was applying for the first time, but her mother is active in the PFA at the middle school, and probably at the high school as well. Anyway, it's demoralizing, as there is no apparent reason for her to have been passed over; not to mention that it's just plain inconsiderate of them not to even contact her with a letter of rejection.

So we're having to scramble to figure out what she should do this summer instead. Honestly, if not for the insult of it, it is not such a bad thing. She was going to have to miss a couple of the five weeks of the school for trips, and then she was going to have to work MWF from 9-1 until the middle of August, including the week when we will have C. If she doesn't have to do this, she can volunteer at the church's vacation bible school, and get 15 hours while having fun. So she will do that as soon as I get the mail tomorrow and confirm she has in fact not been assigned to a class. Then we will be free to entertain C as a whole family for the entire week. It's too bad she can't get some hours for that. I am going to email them and ask if they have opportunities for her to help. There's a picnic for the kids in July and maybe she can help out at that.

We also tallied up her church volunteer hours and found she has already gotten 26 just from her acolyting, then another 25 from the 30 hour famine (she skipped some!) and she will do some community swim lesson volunteering on Friday at the Y. Then add on Vacation Bible School for another 15, and she should be at 75 or so hours by the end of this year, with two years still to go. So we should be able to get the 100 without their help, but it still makes me so mad.

But the one thing that really burned me about this is that, in typical Middletown fashion, the Superintendent's newsletter says that students who missed too much school this year to advance a grade (more than 16 days unexcused) may make this up by volunteering the hours in the extended year program. Beautiful, right? Take the kids who skipped too many days of school and put them in the positions instead of the straight A honors kids, who work their butts off the whole year and DON'T go to the drinking and pot smoking parties. I am quickly beginning to think our new administration may be worse then the ones we have had in the past. It's really not a nice thought that this would be their priority. I'm seriously considering getting Brian out of the system after 8th grade and sending him to one of the Catholic high schools. I wish he would show some interest in the county schools, but he insists he does not. This should be the topic of many blogs-to-come once the new school year begins.

So that is all for now. In other news, we had a nice day at the track despite some violent storms that passed through. After that we had dinner with the Doll for her birthday and Father's Day. It was a nice day. Finals are this week for Megan, and I am working four half days; three of them will be applied towards by sub certificate, which is good for the next five years. After that (if not before) I suspect I will have had enough!

Rite 13 Day

Today is Brian's big day. He has to stand up in church, with a whole bunch of girls, while the church recognizes his transition into "manhood". All of the other boys (well, all three) did this several weeks ago, and I hope it's done differently. Dean, our priest, made everyone stand with their hands on the shoulders of the person next to/in front of/near to them, while he went through eternities of readings. My shoulders were killing me by the end of it, and the Rite 13 (this is the name of their class) kids were in a circle in the aisle. But it's already nearly 8, I am the only one up, along with cats, and I have no idea what any of us are wearing.

Then we have to go for a pizza party tonight, so I have to get cookies for that. At least it's nit a nice day, all of this would be eating into our yard time. Yesterday, after running Brian to the soup kitchen and Megan to various random locales, we went to the garden center and picked up mulch and a "sand cherry" shrub to replace the half a tree. We also left our name so that the landscape designer can call us about redoing the shrubs in front of the house. We presently have Sigmund the Sea Monster devouring the front of the house, and he needs to be ripped out. I've spent so much energy on the back of the house that I have failed to mention this.

Kevin wants them all out as soon as possible, I wanted to finish up the back yard first. But this guy can also help with the movement of the evergreens, that will take over the yard if they're not moved around a little. When I bought them, I wanted quick privacy, and we will get that in a year or two. But in five or ten, we will have problems. And we need to install a shed, but in light of our disagreeable neighbor, we have to make sure we go through the town and get permits, and have the thing bolted to the ground, which means we need to put it in exactly within the confines of the zoning laws. With our house on this odd corner, that can get tricky.

So, that's about it for today. I hear the first person arising - and it's Kevin, of course. I will head off to the showers, after:

In other news, Megan's report card arrived and she got TWO A's, not just one (math and biology). That's it, time for a tutor. (joke) The rest were A+'s. She has nine absences in one class! That's because she was sick one day, missed seven for swimming, and made me pick her up at the end of the day once, for a stomachache. Really, she needed to come home and use the bathroom. Anyway, as they're honors classes, they will be more heavily weighted when her average is computed, so if she keeps it up, she should still be attractive to colleges. I forget if I mentioned the little boy at school who had been taken off in an ambulance. I asked on Friday and was told he'd been transferred to Robert Wood Johnson, a little north of here, so that can't be a great thing. I guess I'll ask again when I go in tomorrow. I hope it's nothing serious, but obviously it's nothing minor or they would have kept him where he was taken in the first place. Finally, Brian's rec baseball team lost AGAIN. I left at the end of the fifth, thinking it was the top of the sixth and the game was over, and apparently they staged a rally. But they did lose, 9-7, when two of their heavy hitters failed to get on base. At least Brian had a hit; even though when he scored, it was from a walk. He was left on base the other time.

Sorry, didn't mean for this post to get long. I guess I can't stop myself. (disclaimer: post not proofread)

Friday News

Well, the day was not so bad, even after the principal happened by and found the class largely not on task at 9:30 because we hadn't started our lessons for the day. The band teacher had forgotten his stands at his other school and had to go get them, so we were waiting for the first group to leave for band before launching into poetry and alliteration (as if I even know what that is). Anyway, perhaps she was checking up on me, because she came back about 20 minutes later, to tell me I had to give up my prep to meet with the other fifth grade teachers to sort through the science kits in the All Purpose Room. Well, luckily I had the class entranced with my fascinating readings of the poem, "Souvenir"; they were so quiet at that time that you could have heard a pin drop. Come to think of it, maybe they were asleep.

So it really was an OK day, this teacher leaves reasonable lesson plans, but her entire room is a mess! She has stacks of papers on her desk to the point where you are afraid that if you move one, the whole desk might collapse. To some degree, she leaves duplicates on a table at the front of the room, but you must brave the Big Desk first, in order to get your bearings for the day. When she had Megan for fifth grade, I sent in Megan's baby picture for the yearbook, and she gave it back to me at the end of the year, after finding it on her desk. Luckily, I ran the yearbook and substituted another one.

But those days always go quickly. We were scrambling to get things done. One kid would say, we always do it like this; to which half the rest would all respond, "no we DON'T!!" with indignation. I had to put out a lot of those first throughout the day, but it was fine. I'd go back. Not like that first grade class last Friday. Give me this group any day. Even Nick D., who couldn't stop talking. Then I had to remind myself that this might be how Brian behaves in class. With that in mind, I took away five minutes of his recess. While he was on the bench, one of the other teachers told me he sits there often.

Speaking of Brian...today his report card came and it was not good. Of course, there were some positives, so I can start with those: as he has redeemed himself in chorus and been granted amnesty from the Seat at the Head of the Class, he has been given an A in chorus again, as well as in math. When I told his math teacher that since the brain surgery, blah blah blah, she wrote back saying, "I didn't know he had brain surgery! The poor baby! Does he need a computer? I'll send him a book for home, and some ????"(no idea what this was, but she sent it, it had to do with 3D shapes for geometry); and she did. So he got an A.

Which was interesting, because the other day I had a conversation with his fourth grade teacher, which I started by telling her that was the best academic year he ever had, despite having brain surgery, pneumonia, and missing 32 days of school. She insists that this is not because she was strict (she doesn't think she was, but she is mistaken) but rather because she let the students know what was expected of them, and she took an interest in them. Perhaps she is onto something after all. Too bad she''ll be retiring, along with the teacher I subbed for today.

Otherwise, I believe his social studies grade also improved from a C+ to B+ or some such ... which is a start. We haven't heard how he did on the last test, though, the one he didn't study for until we got the chapters copied at 8:00 Sunday night.

Onto the rest: science declined by a + ... meaning it's a B without one now. But that's sort of OK. I think the grade was mainly based on project work done in-class, and for some reason, Brian hasn't mastered independent work yet. But the biggest dismay comes from the languages - both Spanish and our very own, English. In LA, he dropped a full letter grade, from a B+ to a C+, which may be due in large part to the Rip Van Winkle test I uncovered yesterday, with "67D" written on the top. One example of his response to the vocabulary part:

word: pestilence Brian's definition: something from your past

and so it goes. Here's one from the written responses:

Question: Why did RVW prefer younger people? Brian's response: Because they were nice to him, and he liked them.

And this, folks, is my life. Oh, wait, Spanish. Now he has gone from C+ to C. He claims it's a test he took after the trip to Florida. But funny thing about that, he had the Spanish book with him in Florida. He even ... "studied"...

One thing about Spanish 1 in 7th grade. It is a high school level course (reminder: despite these C's, he got an A on the midterm) in which one must maintain an average of C+. So he is in danger of having to repeat it. Which, according to Megan, may be OK. She says Spanish 2 is "much harder." She is now in 3. It isn't a big deal, I guess, because I would never put him into 3 anyway. I'd have him either repeat 2 or change languages. Megan's teacher speaks to them IN Spanish. He would never survive that. I'm sometimes not sure that he understand English.

Megan's report card should come tomorrow. Stay tuned.

In other news, Megan's knee is hurt. She went to the beach practice the other night, and hated it. He made them run six miles. Six. She has not run since October. Now she can barely walk. She had to run the mile in gym today, too. So she did it in 7:12. I believe she normally runs a 6-something (ha!). But she won't complain, she is too stoic. She'd rather run on it and ruin it for life. If it isn't better by next week I'll have it checked, but I'm furious. She's a good runner and if her knee gets wrecked because he made them overdo it their first time out ... expletive ...I know how it is to lose your knees before anything else. I think I'll buy her an embarassing knee brace tomorrow...hahah -- when I bought mine, I traded woes with a senior citizen and her husband. Her xray had just shown arthritis, and she needed to wear this brace over her knee-highs.

Tomorrow: landscaping!!!

Is It Really Only Tuesday?

This week is creeping by. Today I had to work all day in a resource room. The thing about the resource rooms is that they have very few kids, but the kids are all at such different places that there might as well be 100 of them. Luckily, in this class, one of the kids has a para (personal aide) so there was an extra person in the room. The other thing about the resource rooms is that they group the kids by relative grade level, so you never have just one grade at a time.

The push for next year is "inclusion". The latest trend in education thinking is that special ed and resource kids will do better if you mainstream them, but give them in-class support in the form of a resource teacher. I have heard that there will be no resource rooms next year, and the resource room teachers will "co-teach" in selected regular ed rooms. I have also heard that the elementary schools will only hire new teachers with dual certifications in special ed. There are so many kids who can't keep up in school today. I don't know if it's No Child Left Behind, vaccines, or just our society, that teaches 'to the test'. These are all reasons that I don't think I would ever go back to school for my degree. I've seen too many do it, and they're all still out there, searching.

At the end of the day, one of the special ed kindergarteners had some sort of medical incident and was sent to the hospital in an ambulance! They said he had a seizure, and he had a low grade fever, but his poor teacher was waiting by the door in tears. She is two days from her last day before maternity leave for her second child, with the first being not even two years old. She has one of the roughest classes in the school, with only ten kids (!), and then this had to happen. So hopefully he will be OK. I like this kid, despite himself. He's quite a character, and very smart, so I'm not sure what his classification is. Maybe he's mildly autistic. When I was in the class last week, he said to me, " I don't want to do math. It's boring." And he's six! (I have to admit, it probably his - he is capable of much more than calculating how many apples go to each child when there are six apples and two children)

So otherwise the day was OK, just a little long and I had one kid that couldn't understand me no matter what. It went like this:

Me: there are 36 inches in a yard. How many inches are there in a yard?
Kid: (looks intently at book): Um. One?

This happened in reading, too:

Me: The main idea of this story is getting energy from the wind and the sun. What is the main idea of the story?
Kid: Um. Windmills?

And that was that. Luckily you have pull-out only for an hour in the morning for reading and for forty minutes for math in the afternoon. And I haven't been in this class a whole lot, so I don't know the kids as well as I do the 4th and 5th grade resource kids - who are - by the way - much farther along.

After that, I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the AT&T customer service people. It seems that the place where I bought my cell phones and have changed the plans over the past, oh - I don't know - 12 years? - has been going into the system and making changes to my plan. I have caught the changes, but no rep has bothered to help figure out how until today. This one looked it up and saw that thay had even entered a false drivers' license expiration date, and changed my plan. They actually screwed everything up, because they changed Megan's line to the main line, and they did away with my texting ability completely, which it took me a few days to realize. I just thought everyone was ignoring me all weekend.

So she corrected everything, gave me a credit for the month's fees for my troubles, and said she would register a complaint against the franchise, which is privately owned. She also made a change so only corporate stores can change my account, or I can do it online. That's just insane. I guess they're compensated for new services sold, like the time they put roadside assistance and voice activated dialing without my permission. Jerks.

And there was my day. Brian is searching for Ralph S. Mouse so I can find out how Ralph does in The Great Mouse Caper, as I have read three chapters to this resource group and am dying to know how it turns out. He doesn't seem to have it. Now he is talking about Mr. Popper's Penguins.

And finally, in other news, Megan has come down with the sniffles. I gave her the last of her prescription decongestant, but this seems to need more than that. She is in good spirits, but she's trying to get out of going to school. She also informed me that her math grade has dropped to a plain A. So she won't be #1 in her class after all. Oh, there go my hopes and dreams. It's because of the week missed for Nationals, she got two 86's on tests. Sigh. Brian's baseball team lost tonight, again, 6-3. He had an error on first, a few strike-outs, and four runs scored in the innings he pitched. Other than that, he did great. Oh, and they had a bad ump. That's always fun. I am hoping for no work tomorrow so I can catch up on laundry and chores, and spend some time with Rusty in my lap. But if they call, I will take it, because someone told me today there are nine weeks of school left!

But .. it is only Tuesday.