There's always a lull in January, right? Wrong. January is turning out to be a lot busier than I expected. I always think of January as being the slowest month of the year. It's usually cold and filled with boringness and recuperating from the holidays. It's the month we use to EASE into the new year and everything else we need to do. Instead of calm nothingness, when I glance at my calendar right now I am gripped with anxiety over details I might be missing or meetings and phone calls I might be forgetting. It's so full, and it's only January!
What happened? I'll tell you what happened - Life! Instead of just one child in school, I now have two. For some reason Tyler's science project (see past posts on how much I dread and hate this project) had an abbreviated due date schedule so the whole thing had to be approved, planned, written, executed and then made ready for presentation in less than 2 weeks. His REACH independent research project that is due in April and not normally assigned until late February or early March is already in mid-research stage and requiring some extra time. Tyler is playing basketball and the first game was Saturday so weekly games & practices are added to our once a week swimming lesson schedule.
There's more, of course. I won't go into all the details right now, but let's just say that the junior high selection/application/program application/pre-AP/everything under the sun information meeting & application process (they have to apply for like EVERYTHING) is more involved than I went through to get into college. Seriously. And it's all happening RIGHT NOW. There is even an interview process in here! The good news is I think there might be a short lull between all the acceptance (hopefully not denials) dates and the actual enrollment/schedule selection process in late spring during which he will take his STAARS (or STARS or STARRS or whatever) tests. For those of you not living in the great Lone Star State - this is our new standardized test which is replacing TEKS which replaced TAKS which replaced TASP and way back in the day when I went to school it was SRA??? I think it was TASP in high school, but we didn't have as many levels in elementary school so who knows.
Tyler is great at taking tests so new format/old format doesn't make much difference to him. Content doesn't make a big deal of difference either. He just lets it roll right off of his back - usually. Until the other day when he came home alarmed. Because his teachers and principal were alarmed. And rightly so. . .
. . .Once upon a time I had an absolute hissy fit when I realized that my fourth grader was never going to get further instruction on how to write in cursive than the 6 week session he got in 2nd grade. When I called the school to find out why this was being let go I was told that the state of Texas didn't require it because we live in the information age and these kids were not going to write anything anyway, they were only going to type. Ahem. Further research revealed that the TAKS or TEKS or whatever required only that the writing section be 'legible' and print/cursive didn't matter. I also learned from teachers in the family that how much emphasis got put on handwriting had to do with how important it was to the school's principal. Our principal didn't care. I could write an entire blog about my problems with all of this, but let me sum up: My son cannot sign his own name, my son cannot read my handwriting so I must still print for him and he turns 12 in a couple of months, we are raising an entire generation that will not be able to read a primary history source and will have to take handwriting as a foreign language in college, and if it's all about the keyboarding then why haven't they spent more than 20 minutes once every 6 days teaching my kid how to type (those are the tech days and they do all the tech then, not just typing) so that his only two options are printing and hunt-peck???? . . .
I decided I would teach him, but his interest level was below zero so it wasn't a successful venture. Now, though, word has come down that although printing will be 'accepted' on the STARS test - cursive is preferred once a child reaches a certain level and points may be deducted, etc. I don't know if it's true or not, but it has the teachers and the principal freaked out and more importantly it has Tyler freaked out. He doesn't want to lose points for something aesthetic. So now his interest level has peaked. Since I refuse to have children graduating from high school that can't write, I am very pleased. I am also frustrated because in his minimal spare time I have to help him master this skill by April. Seriously though - won't they want cursive in JH & HS? It will be much faster for taking notes, which is what I keep telling him.
I am totally freaked out that Tyler is going to Junior High next year, but it's NEXT YEAR, so where is my year to prepare myself mentally? It was only a whopping 2 months because all this info started coming home in late October. I am totally overwhelmed and so not ready for the next stage. The next stage is going to be crazy and hectic and I don't know what. It looks like I will have 3 kids at 3 different schools next year. That's 3 different drop offs and pick ups before anything else gets thrown in the mix. Can you say taxi mom?
Which brings me to the rest of the stuff filling up my calendar. I have Scooter's first parent-teacher conference on Thursday and he is supposed to be reevaluated on the Autism spectrum again next month (since that's the only scale the state has for him with Sensory issues). Tyler has another concert next week and on the 30th I get to spend an entire day as a chaperone for 'Enterprise City'. Tyler has decided to run for Mayor of Enterprise City and has to have a speech ready by Friday. I have 2 meetings this week to explore Pre-K options for Riley in the fall and somehow I have inherited the job of 'care group leader' at one of my moms groups (please pray for me that I will be better at passive listening and not such an agressive active listener, something I am always working on and struggling with!). Oh and there's a pre-AP information meeting next week. And I am working on filing my very first homeowners claim that just might lead to a new roof and possibly some paint on my very orange house.
In the midst of all of this chaos I took Riley for a speech evaluation with the district, but he is starting to correct some of his articulation issues on his own. We have a list of things to work on and then if it isn't better by April I should bring him back to get him enrolled in their 'small talk' program next fall. I've been working and running and trying to fit everything in, including the house. I painted the insides of doorways that currently have no trim, caulked a bunch of doorways and windows in my house, painted the mantle (still needs one last coat) and then slapped some shiny black paint on both my front and back doors for a contrast to all the white and very light grey. Wow, it looks different, but soooo cool. And it's January so I will be doing a lot more bookkeeping and tax prep work for the next couple of months.
Shew! I am tired and it's only half way through the month. Maybe February will be slower. Hopefully it will at least have a little more structure as I have finally implemented a chore chart system for the kids. I never could get my head around how this could work with such different levels of ability, but I solved it by making most of the little guys lists about personal responsibility (clothes, teeth, bed, toys) but each kid has a daily task. They are pumped about it right now because it's new, but I already had to make changes. I had feeding the dogs as a rotating chore, but when it was Scooter's turn we had to completely shift gears. Somehow I forgot that he can't stand the smell of dog food and does a really good job of avoiding it most of the time. Forcing him to dig into a barrel of the stuff 3 times per week could probably be considered torture in his case. I doubt things are going to slow down though now that the two little ones are asking about spring soccer leagues and maybe baseball this summer. I better find some energy fast because if the rest of the year is anything like January is turning out to be, I am going to need it. And some coffee. And some wine. And maybe a trip to Jamaica. Just sayin . . .
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