Saturday, March 28, 2009

Mid-term/semester update...

This Thursday, we attended parent/teacher conferences. We started the afternoon with a playdate after school at Tower Grove Park with friends. The weather was so nice and we ended up staying until 5 p.m. The playdate was impromptu though so the boys were starving and I decided to make a quick run through some fast food joint. I dreaded the experience and the place we went lived up to the expectation. The service was super-slow and the food was eh. I'd chosen fast food because I thought it was going to be fast...it wasn't we ended up running late to the parent/teacher conference. My anxiety was only exacerbated by the fact that Dirty called to tell me he was also running late because of traffic. Eventually, we made it to the school and were really only five minutes late. Monkey's teacher assured us that it was no problem.

We went into her room and sat at a table. The boys played quietly behind me as she paged me through his portfolio. Not too long after we started, she said, "Come on in, we're just getting started." That was Dirty getting there. We finished looking through the portfolio and Monkey is continuing to progress in writing, letter and number recognition, she said he's ready to start reading and that he would start that soon, she said his drawing has improved and that they are becoming more recognizable, then she let us have it. Monkey has not been behaving this week. She said that she has seen a whole new side of Monkey that she did not know existed. Normally, she can easily redirect him, but this week he has really been misbehaving, he's not napping, and he's been really defiant. We expressed our concern and did the parent thing, by trying to rationalize, with decreased sleep, diet changes, et cetera. All of which is true. Plus, we are coming off of spring break where we didn't have set bedtimes, routines were screwy, and he was gone from school for a whole week. She told us that she didn't say anything throughout the week but it has been a bit of a problem. At least, academically he is doing well. I'm sure he'll be back to his normal Monkey self soon. The Scientist, on the other hand, is doing great.

The Scientist's report was gleaming compared to Monkey's (which I won't do because good parent's don't do that ;). His teacher said his writing has much improved with his confidence since the beginning of the year. He received "A's" in Reading, Social Studies and Math, which his teacher usually doesn't give out until 4th quarter. Mr. C. said that The Scientist's ability in those areas is really exceptional so he'd earned the "A's". All of his other subjects he is still doing well in. He's still a bit too talkative at times, but he's gotten better at controlling himself when he's supposed to. Finally, there's me.

I would love to say that I've got straight "A's" again, but sadly I don't. I have one "A" and three "B's". There is a likelyhood that I will get two of those "B's" up to "A's" by the end of the semester. The one "A" I have is in Anatomy and Physiology though, so I'm pretty proud of that. I've made it to the point where most people drop A & P and I've made it here with an "A". I filled out my financial aid and will receive even more than I did for this past year. It's nice to get "something" for the almost eight years that I've been a stay-at-home-mom. All the sacrifice and low-income is paying off with...free schooling!!! Totally worth it. I got to be home and raise my children during their more formative years and now, with more confidence in myself and my abilities, I've started a path that I've always wanted to take, and I'm doing awesome.

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