Accomplishments.

  Next post will have pics, well probably. I'm fighting a bug that all my kids have had. Right now the score is Bug 2, Me 0. This is the second day, so I am hoping to feel better by tomorrow. I'm teaching a grossology unit at the kids school, and I'm not all that into it because I feel bad. Tomorrow we are touring the hospital lab which all the kids are excited about.

Last week was a week of accomplishments. My struggling reader has made tremendous strides. I'm super proud. It was just crazy, and his teacher and I have met several times to figure out how to help him. He had zero fluency. They are supposed to have a fluency score of 80% and he had 14%. You'd listen to him read and think that there is no way he is grasping any of this, and then he'd get every single question right. So, it became a question of bumping him back to easier books, or letting him struggle with the harder books? At first we did one of each, but eventually we decided to scale back to easier books. I want my kids to enjoy reading. Not for it to be a daily torture session.

Angie got her bridge up kick over in gymnastics. It was so exciting. She is in a group of kids much much younger than her. One of her coaches praised her leadership skills, but I could tell that she was getting discouraged. Her other coach told me that gymnastics is really hard at her age, and even girls who are much more advanced lose skills because they lose power for a little while because their bodies are changing so rapidly. Anyway, it was a huge confidence booster for her and for me a parent. I got to say, see if you work hard, eventually it pays off. I'm curious to see what she does next

Zac and Aiden's flag football team won the championship on Saturday. I was more excited that the other team lost than that we won. I'm not a sports fiend, so let me explain. These are boys K-2, and I felt that the other team was unsportsman like. Zac was punched in the chest, Aiden was pushed down for no reason. This is flags and the rules say no contact. I can understand boys getting a little excited and tripping each other up etc, when they go for a flag, but my friends son was hit in between plays just because he pulled the kids flag. It happened right in front of the ref and nothing happened. We made a touchdown and the coach had the ref call a penalty flag for illegal blocking. It was behind the scrimmage, the ref didn't see it, but he overturned the touchdown. Then the other team worked the clock for EIGHT minutes. They had time for one last play, and then they fumbled! Karma. So, we won 16-14. I tell my kids that you can't always make people do right, but you still have to set a positive example and not let it get to you. Again, not a sports expert, but I think that flag should be about playing as much as possible and that every kid should play. One of their kids sat on the sidelines the entire game.

Nothing this brag about

     Well, I'm 8 weeks into my class. I have to say that I am enjoying this second half of the class which is focusing on legal and ethical issues much more than I thought I would. I was doing really well in the class, and then this week I had a quiz that I made a 72 on and it really dropped my average. I never have done well on quizzes where all the answers are right, and you have to pick the most right, or where they ask you which you will do first. In nursing, the "most right" answer is situational, and we often work as a team and in reality there is no 1st, 2nd, 3rd, but rather each person takes a task and carries it out all at the same time.

     Going back to college in your late 30's is so much different than going to college in your late teens. I am a much better reader now, I have better time management skills, and my life experiences add interest to my written papers. While I am better able to accomplish the work, it is so much much harder. Online classes give you the flexibility to do the work at your own pace, in your own time, but I have more assignments than I ever had in a traditional class. We also have discussion boards to interact with each other. If you know anything about my antisocialness, then you know that this is the hardest part for me. And let's not even mention how hard it is to balance home, work and family without adding in school.

     I'd like to say that I have lots of help and support from my family, but that only comes every few weeks after a meltdown, and it doesn't last long. Just the way it is when you have worked so hard to make yourself irreplaceable I guess. Totally kidding. The reality is that there are some things that just don't get done unless I do them. I'd like to be able to "brag" about the kids in this blog, but we have had a rough few weeks, and are experiencing some important growth trials right now. I have a GT kid in tutorials for math and other struggling to read. I have a kid with severe anxiety and can't cope. Another who wants to only do activities in which they can come in first. Another prone to fits if they don't get their way and one that is extremely sarcastic and disrespectful. The last several weeks have been kind of rough for me and not exactly what I'd call joyful parenting. Sometimes I wish my kiddos were more cookie cutter. It's interesting that they are all different, but it means that each time they face the same trials, I have to come up with a new way to help them so its like failing over and over.

Hopefully, I can write in a couple weeks with some proud moments, but right now I got nothing.