Education Specialist

Today the kids and I went to a nearby park to meet Holland's Educational Specialist for this coming year. All the kids played and we were able to sit and talk about what she's legally required to do and what I will be asked to provide. Not only do we meet once a week for an hour, but I have to turn in 6 different pieces of work that shows Holland's been working on the required subjects. I've been blessed with a great ES because I used to teach with her at a Deaf School before I left for another position at a different school. She knows me, my situation with Holland's current school placement and is willing to make it work for us. She will take these work samples and write comments on her observations (it's not an evaluation, just a means of documenting compliance).

It all seems so weird right now. Each new year brings an entirely new way for me to school. I sure hope we can get past the experimental stage quick. I've gone through countless curriculums to make it work; he's been in a very strict public school program and now I'm returning to homeschooling with additional support. We'll see how much stress all this documenting weighs me down.

It's Elementary My Dear Watson!

Super Hero dad took the boys to a water park this afternoon. We had free passes from our library's summer reading program. I didn't want to take Egypt - it meant me in the water. So I called up my sister and asked if we could come over for a quick swim (her boys and DH were at a father/son camp for three days). Egypt wanted to know who was going to be at her aunt's house. I said that her uncle and the two boys weren't there. She just repeated this and said "oh." Then we pulled up to their house and she saw two cars and said "who drove him?" How in the world did she make that connection? It didn't make sense that his car was in the driveway, but he wasn't. Amazing mind of a 3 1/2 year old!

Ewww. Gross.

No two ways about this. Tonight I was getting ready for my monthly game of Bunco with my girlfriends. I had to make dinner, keep the kids from killing each other and I was washing clothes. I have a new pair of capri jeans that I wanted to wear. I went up to the washing machine and opened the lid. There was this white fluffy junk all over the clothes and stuck to the sides of the machine. One of the boys had left a pullup in his pajamas and put it in the laundry room. I can usually tell when there are pullups left in pajamas because I can feel the added weight :-) But this one happened to be dry. That is until I washed it. Now I know what the inside of a used pullup looks like. So I didn't get to wear my cute new capris. I had to shake off all the fluff, and vacuum out the washing machine and then rewash the clothes.

School Decision

I think we finally know what we're doing this fall for school for Holland. I was really wanting him at the same Charter school as his brother, but the rep and the principal are so against it, I feel I would not get the support I needed if I push the matter.

Right after school let out, my sister and I took a tour of the newest charter school in our area. It combines homeschooling into a public school setting. It's quite unique. You are assigned an Educational Specialist who works one on one with you to develop your yearly plan and they check in weekly. We put our kids on the wait list, not knowing what we wanted to do, but to have that option should openings occur. We were so far down the list that I was not considering that an option. I got a call yesterday that both the boys got in (I put Romania in there just to be able to change my mind about the other Charter school). I filled out the paperwork and they will request records, his IEP, and any other documents they need to transfer his placement to the new Charter school. I will get $575 to spend for the entire year. This can go towards curriculum, classes at the Charter school, extracurricular activities or lessons. The only catch is it can't be faith-based. So some of the curriculum I used before I won't be able to buy with this money. I can still use it, I just can't include it in my school schedule.

It will be interesting how this works out. I feel better about him not being at the same program he was at last year and hopefully I will be able to make some progress.

At this point, his placement from last year would just not work. Behaviorally he's improved so much that it makes no sense to put him back where he was. Springwater will not approve of the placement, so my only other option was to homeschool again. I see no reason to leave him in a classroom full of kids with potentially severe behavior issues.

Frogger

I haven't had anything funny, exciting or enlightening to share the past couple of days. So I thought I'd bore you with our hunt for Frogger. No, not the video game. A real frog.

Two days ago we were cleaning off the front porch and I happened upon a cute little frog. Holland and I caught it and put it in the little plastic fish tank we had. It has a hinged lid and some air holes. We wanted Romania to be able to see it before we let it go. He was spending time with gramma and got back today. Well, at dinnertime, Holland looks over on the counter and says, "Where's the frog?" We all look at the counter and then look at Egypt. She's sitting there so quietly, so coyly. I send Romania upstairs to find the tank. He runs to the stairs and shouts, "the frog is not in the tank!" We all run upstairs and just start tearing her room apart.

No frog. She actually built a little home for it. And if this was more humorous to me, I would have taken a picture. But I couldn't see the humor in a frog roaming around my house. We will probably find it in a couple of years, shriveled up. Poor froggy.

Here Comes the Sun

It's been hot here the past few days. Don't feel like doing much outside. But while doing laundry, I had hung a few things on the chairs on the deck because I wasn't sure if the stains I treated had come out. I could not believe how fast everything dried. I've dried clothes outside before on a rack, but the wood always get gross and looks moldy, so I don't want to ruin the clothes.

You might remember we have a zip line from our deck to a tree at the bottom of the hill. I've thought about hanging stuff on it before, but felt weird that my neighbors could see our laundry. My sister convinced me that it didn't matter, so I have a bunch of stuff hanging up. Egypt helped me with the clothespins and handing me clothes. It's so nice to do something that's FREE!

The Duck

Tonight we met Super-Hero dad at a kid-friendly restaurant. We had a birthday coupon that expired today and wanted to make sure we used it. There was a giant bird wandering around the restaurant (figure out where we went, yet?) and when I took Egypt to the bathroom, we ran into this creature. She was curious and gave him a high five. Then she turned to me and said "That's a big red duck!" I tried to explain that it wasn't a duck, but Red Robin. Heard lots of chuckles from patrons at nearby tables. She argued the whole night that it was a big duck.

Oops

The kids have been taking swim lessons last week and this week. The boys are in the same class and Egypt had just one other boy in her class last week. This week, she's all by herself, so it's like a private lesson without payin' the big bucks! It takes about 30 minutes to drive up there, so it's a big production to get everyone ready, snacks packed and dry clothes to change into.

Today after the lesson, I had to hurry everyone back to Holland's therapy appointment. It takes closer to 40 minutes to get back to where we need to be and I was frustrated because the boys took so long to get ready. It was like waiting for a teenager to finish showering. They were in the boys locker room for about 20 minutes. At least they're clean, right? So, hurry, hurry, everyone dash to the car, get your snacks and seatbelts on. I barely make it to her office in time and when she comes out, she says, "Oops. Looks like I scheduled two families at the same time. You guys flip a coin and figure out who gets to stay." Sheesh. Just what I want to do. Argue my case to a total stranger of why it's a lousy idea for me to come back, or even reschedule. Luckily, she was willing to take her girls to a nearby park and play for the hour and come back. I would have just given up had she not offered to do that. God knew that I couldn't handle any more on my "to do" list today.

Independence Day

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We drove up Friday and Saturday to the lake cabin. We opted out of spending the night (too many people - not enough beds) and just drove the hour each way. The kids had a blast with the junior activities (boat parade on the 4th, carnival games, popcorn and movie and the ever-popular crawdad races!) Holland and Egypt had crawdads win their first races and then raced each other, but we lost. They put 3 crawdads under a big plastic cake lid and then the crawdads race to the edge of the circle. It's really funny. Kids catch crawdads with hotdog pieces and name them for the race. I didn't get any pictures this year. It's really hard to see what's going on because there are so many people crowding around the circle. It's a tradition that has been going on for 7 years now. Holland won one year and we got to keep this plaque with a plastic crawdad on it in our cabin for the whole year.