Testing, testing...is this thing on?

OMG! I missed my blogiversary! How could I have let such a thing occur!?

Ahem.

So, school is out! Yea! I'm so glad to have my boys home. For the first couple days I would wake up and think, oh crap, I have to get PJ to school! Then it would slowly dawn on me, grinning, I would turn over, do a mini fist pump, close my eyes and catch a few more winks. Then the report cards came.

Now, I don't want to come off sounding like I had no idea what was coming, but I really didn't expect it to be quite as bad as it was. I knew that PJ was actually learning things (um, in his, uh, free range style) and I'm also aware that he's quite immmature socially. But I also know that he's a good kid and he reads way above grade level. So I'm at a certain level of acceptance with him. The other one, however, well, I knew he would have to repeat math, but math AND English? Come on! This from a kid who reads above grade level, too! Daily I pray, Lord, please keep my children from upholding the time honored family tradition of under-achievement. Amen. Yet thus far, in the area of academics, my prayers have gone unanswered.

So, long story short, this summer I bought them home work. The book of worksheets for the little guy is probably too easy for him, but my goal is to make him understand that sitting down and putting pencil to paper is going to be part of his daily routine. I just want him to do something every day, capice?

The older one was more difficult. Were trying a couple of different things I found on algebra plus he has to make up his English credit! From the sounds of the letter we got from school he was required to take summer school, but when I talked to the counselor he said that there were other options like correspondence courses, but he can't take two English classes at the same time and he needs 4 years of it to graduate. (WTF?) Somebody remind me why I didn't just home school in the first place?

Of course, things could always be worse. A couple of summer's ago, Eli discovered that he enjoyed splitting wood (for a variety of testosterone releasing reasons, I'm sure!) so we made sure he understood the rules of knife/hatchet safety, yet he stil managed to start casually hacking away at something while wearing his sandals and wouldn't you know it, he sunk that hatchet right into his big toe. No, I did not take a picture. Pity.

Of course, it wasn't as bad as it sounds nor as bad as the amount of blood loss might lead one to believe, but lots of people might have taken him to the ER.
Fortunately, I had quite a bit of experience with the er myself as a child so I had a pretty good idea of how they would treat that and I keep plenty of peroxide, betadine and neosporin ointment around for just such occasions, thank you very much.

So, as I say, it's important to put things in perspective. This summer he's taking driver's ed, repeating English and doing a self study course on Algebra. Oh, and he has Fuschia hair. And he's starting a band. And he babysits his brother. So the fun is just beginning! But at least they'll be too busy to sit around playing video games all day like last summer.

(Lest I sound like Cassandra, I must qualify that statement by saying that I actually do believe the fun is just beginning. That's one of the secrets to my success and it can work for anyone, but it's easier if you can still suspend disbelief. Faith is funny that way. But the best truly is yet to come. At least from my experience this is the case, the older they get, the closer I get to them because we can communicate on a higher level. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

One thing were all looking forward to with great trepidation, THE most important book of the summer (sorry, Al!) I'm sure you have already guessed I'm speaking of none other then the new Harry Potter! OMG, I can barely contain myself when I talk about it! Just know this, I am reading them again, some of them for the third or 4th time I'm sure, because of one little doubt. If she kills him off, I'll never be able to enjoy them again, so I'm reading them all over again from the beginning so that I can enjoy them one last time, just in case!

Next week were off to Canada so my next missive will probably be a report on the state of poutine. Although I did recently re-join the choir after a 21 year hiatus and that's been an adventure, but it's probably only interesting to me. For now I'll just say that it's good to be back, also, I'm glad I decided to challenge my brain instead of my vocal chords. I was a second soprano all those year ago because that was what they needed when I joined and I've always had a good range, but I'm really an alto. The challenge is that all the music I learned as a soprano, I have to re-learn as an alto! Anything to stave off the alzheimer's, ya know?