Minion construction Day 1

Yes, you are correct.  This is not a minion.

I love creative costumes like this one pictured above.  It is easy, kid-appropriate and humorous.  Especially if you tried to sit down.  I bet I could whip this up in about a half-hour - unlike the stupid undertaking I am in the midst of, making not one, but TWO minion costumes.  These minions are the costume creation from hell, I tell you.  I think at least 287 different steps are involved.

I am the proud owner of a new glue gun, since my trusty old one is currently 'misplaced' and no one is fessing up.  My new glue gun is the boss.  The glue gets wicked hot.  WICKED hot.  Like, shout-several-curse-words hot if glue oozes out over your skin. Which of course it does!  And, wouldn't you know... gluing foam is difficult, and holding two pieces of foam together, sandwiching 1000 degree hot glue in between is not a pleasant crafting activity.  The directions I am following for these costumes made is sound like you just glue here, press here.. glue there and press there, and voila!  A perfectly rounded minion head!  So after expending a lot of mental energy in trying problem solve glue vs. foam, I have some insight to share.  

Clothespins, crafty people!  Clothespins are your friends!  After struggling with that stupid tube of foam for the entire first half of the Broncos game, I got wise and figured clamping it shut with the help of clothespins would do the trick, since I clearly did not have enough hands.  Besides, clothespins do not have nerve-endings.  My hands do.  I pinned up twelve seams sealed with hot glue, still burning each and every one of my fingers plus a way-too-curious child (or two) in the process, but the clothespins got the job done in holding everything closed until the glue set (I actually let it sit overnight).  The kids wondered if this freaky-looking minion head with about 50 clothespins sticking out all over it was the finished product.  Uh... no.  I am now in the process of working on minion head #2, in between math problems, dirty dishes, phonics and tuna fish sandwiches.  

Maybe it was the cool moon spectacle messing with my crafty mojo last night...  

Epiphany

**Note - this post was written in late May, but never posted.  (No idea why)  It expresses lots of good stuff for a homeschooling parent to ruminate on, so I thought it worthwhile to set it free...

Yesterday morning, in the midst of the chaos of baking muffins, answering email, finding clean underwear and pouring grape juice and then cleaning up spilled grape juice, I had a thought come to me.  Well, several, actually.  The thoughts were like teeny tiny droplets of water that were spread out over a leaf, and then the leaf was disturbed and all the droplets fell victim to gravity and rolled down toward the center of the leaf, gathering speed...

I had planned, so very carefully late last summer, to dump any unnecessary or unfulfilling obligations, clear the decks, free up our (my) time and let homeschooling take center stage.  I sought out an ally - Calvert, to help me do this.  I let Calvert dictate the schedule, the process, the content and so forth.  I let the teachers work with my kids, they took tests, did assignments and got grades.  It actually has been a good experience - mostly for Jordan.  It allowed him to really grow as a student this year, his writing skills, planning skills and organization skills are getting a workout, and we both feel he is ready.  He is ready to take on public high school next year, a transition that is right for him and for me.

For Rylan and Owen though, the experience has been difficult.  Rylan loves the social aspect - the twice-a-week online classes complete with chat box, but hates, HATES, H.A.T.E.S. the school work. Rylan is not the complete-a-worksheet sort of learner.  She loves projects, she loves to write, and she takes initiative  - - when she is inspired.  Otherwise, she curls up into a ball, faces the back of her chair, and all of sudden her head is simply too heavy to hold up.  Same with her pencil.  In Owen's case, he is in la la land.  He fiddles with everything within arms reach, ignores any requests that involve moving a pencil on paper, yet he has this irritating gift that he hears everything you say even though you think he took a mental vacation to who-know's-where, and can repeat it back to you, word-for-word.  Owen also has a gift of finding patterns in everything.  Math with be a breeze for this kid.  But he also finds patterns in language - surprising me at every turn.  This is also the boy who can't tell a 'b' from a 'd', or a 'p'.

Which brings me to my epiphany that I had this morning.

We are slogging through the last four weeks of school.  All three kids are finishing up projects, have tests to take and so forth.  Both Rylan and Owen take the STAR test.  They took it at the beginning of the year, then again at mid-year, and now they have to again at the end.  Since we school at home, the teachers send us a link to get into the test, and we are supposed to take it within a two week window. When we did the tests before, I followed the teacher's directions and once I was sure the test was started and they were in good shape, I left the room as I was instructed to.  I know what the STAR early literacy test is, I had my own students (back when I was teaching in public school) take it and so forth.  But here is the rub - at every opportunity, the kids were wearing headphones.  I never heard the audio that goes on during test.  This time, since I was curious and the house was unusually quiet, I unplugged the headphones during Owen's test so that I could watch and listen.  OMG.  

This.

This is why we made the decision to homeschool in the first place.  This is why I hate testing and lost my teaching job because of it.  Testing is so fucking stupid.

Here is why I am pissed.  All year long, in Owen's case, we have been working on learning the alphabet, phonemes, beginning sounds, ending sounds, vowel sounds, blah, blah, blah.  It is presented in the same fashion, every time.  I am supposed to present it a 'certain' way, much like reading a script.  Occasionally I would vary it if we were working on a Bob book or something, and Owen worked on Reading Eggs as well, which adds a ton of variety.   But when it comes to the test... oh the HELL NO.  Here is a sample:  The question shows three boxes, with a word in each box: 'lip', 'cat', and 'jet'.  Then there is a word printed at the top - "sit".  Then an annoying voice says, "Which word has the same middle sound as in the word "sit"?  Okay, - yes, this is a good question.  But the presentation, the multiple skills involved at decoding, phoneme matching and selecting are all really complicated to begin with - for a beginning reader.  Also, never in the lessons has isolating the middle vowel sound ever been presented in this way, so this is totally new to him.  Furthermore, the annoying voice only gives you 10 seconds to think about it and then it asks you again.  And again.  And again.  Even I was thinking hard and saying "SHUT UP!!!! LEMME THINK!!!!" inside my head.  Poor Owen.  It was the same scenario in Rylan's case, too.  And it was question after question, just like that.

I already know what their strengths and weaknesses are, I hate that I have to put them through this.  Yes, I want to see benchmarks met and check for growth, but if they can successfully do something this week that they couldn't do last week, that's good enough for me.

I've had a lot of brief conversations with other homeschooling friends lately, they know I am struggling with Calvert and ask how it is going.  I've heard lots of stories and affirmation that kids will learn, in their own time, their own way, and if we just get out of the way and stop putting limits on them, they will find the connections, and in a much more meaningful way.

Calvert did let me take a break from having to plan everything.  I didn't have to scout out the right materials for each subject, I didn't have to construct the proper pace or sequence...  In fact, Calvert allowed me to check out completely.  Which allowed me to have a complete emotional breakdown, and the stress of keeping up with mountains of worksheets led to lots of crying and thoughts that I completely suck at anything I try to put my hand to.

I reminded myself a few days ago to take myself back to when I was last truly happy in life - a happiness that you feel at your very core, a joy that can't be rattled or dampened.  I was happy when I was in flow.  I was in flow when I was planning, organizing, scouting out materials, writing, presenting.. all the things I was doing as I was in school getting my teaching degree - and I would also have to add my first year of teaching - up until that fateful month of April when my name on the classroom door changed.  Twice.

The fact that I haven't been able to stop thinking about the curriculum that I wished we could be using, or the activities I know the kids would get much more meaning from, or the fact that we are bound to the desk and can't be out exploring and doing, tells me that my heart knows where we need to be.  My heart is aching for that place of pure joy again - that place where flow was happening.  If I could just get my head to stop interfering with what my hearts wants, all would be good.

Therein lies the epiphany.  Follow your heart.  Your heart knows the path you must take.

It is also a message that has been tattooed on my ankle for the past 22 years.  Go figure...

A reflection on Calvert

I'm free!!!

The past few weeks have been pretty hairy.  It was an absolute fight to the finish to get Calvert wrapped up for the year.  I have been keeping mum about Calvert because...well... it's complicated.  It is a sorta-like/hate relationship.  It is everything I despise about one-size-fits-all education, yet it's everything I like about keeping myself accountable and on track.  Which I did a HORRIBLE job at this year.  I can't drag three children, kicking and screaming all the way, on this road to intellectual enlightenment (ha!) if they continuously misplace their books, can never find their pencils, and not get the big picture of what this is all for in the first place.

What we did accomplish this year:

Jordan learned to take notes.  I learned that it is a good idea for me to teach the skill of note-taking.  He learned that turning in late assignments affects your grade.  I learned that I hate having to scan in assignments at 11:59 pm to make the midnight deadline.  He learned that writing isn't so bad.  In fact, Jordan realized that he loved writing.  I learned that Jordan had actually been listening to me for the past eight years every time we approached writing, composition, grammar and so forth - because his 'voice' in his writing is fantastic and he really knows how to construct a good sentence.  Sentence diagramming is difficult and makes us both tear our hair out.  (The geek in me though secretly loves it). NaNoWriMo, assigned by his Calvert teacher, was especially helpful in drawing out his writing voice.  Writing a short story was something I would never in a million years have asked him to do, and yet it was because of Calvert that we both made this discovery!   He learned algebra.  I learned that I still remember algebra. (happy dance)  Jordan learned how to type faster.  falls out of chair laughing.  He went from 25 wpm to an astounding 29 wpm! Jordan earned his 8th grade diploma, and will be moving on to public high school next year.

Rylan learned that dropping your pencil on the floor 518,397 times a day does not get you out of your schoolwork.  She learned how to spell 'people' and 'because'.  Rylan learned multiplication, just don't ask her to do it at anytime other than when she is in the mood.  Which is never.  Rylan learned to contort her body into 37 different pretzel shapes while sitting in her chair, all of which face away from the desk, and coincidentally, away from her schoolwork.  Rylan read two novels this year - and has quite the reading pile for the summer.  She also took an avid interest in ASL, after reading a short story in her reading anthology about a deaf boy going to a concert.  I may need to pursue this for her.  Rylan loved her online teacher and her classmates, so she wants to do this all over again next year.  The social bits, of course.  NOT the schoolwork.  

Owen learned to read.  This accomplishment alone is what kept me going through the darkest of schooling hours this year.  Several times in the past couple of weeks, he has read signs around town, carefully sounding things out.  This makes my heart sing.  He loves his online teacher, his class, and anything to do with math.  He has learned to like holding a pencil, and writing with it.  (just a little).  He loves to draw and paint.  He is more than willing to sit down and do schoolwork, as long as it doesn't interfere with his Minecraft or lego building time.  Which is never.  Which is why I can't ever get him to work with me for longer than 2 minutes without a fight.

This year has been full of tears, lots of yelling on everyone's parts, lots of high-fives, cajoling, swearing (under my breath), deal-making, begging, pleading, a-ha moments... unfortunately the bad is far out-weighing the good.  It's partly the program and partly me.  I've been lax, lazy, disinterested, and fighting my own battles.  The spillover has not been pretty.  Some serious soul-searching needs to take place this summer about what the next step will be.

All I know is that this is not how I envisioned how our homeschool experience would go.  Eight years into this journey, my (our) primary purpose has always been and always will be to put childhood first.  Play (and not the screen type) has as much - if not more importance in shaping a child's mind, than worksheets, descriptive paragraphs and addition problems.  I don't like the complicated, regimented, competitive and petty environment of public schools - in the younger grades, especially.  At the high school level, these social stepladders do have *some* merit, I suppose, when it comes to beginning to discover who you are and what you are made of.  I also know that these lessons don't only happen within the confines of a classroom.

The work Calvert requires of the kids is not inspiring, with the exception of Jordan's reading curriculum.  Hands down, that was fabulous stuff that has helped us cover so much literary knowledge this year.  Otherwise, the caliber of the rest of the curriculum is... meh.  I am pretty disappointed, actually.  It was actually painful to shelve all of our tried-and-true stuff last year when it came time to unbox the Calvert books after they arrived.  Throughout the entire school year I constantly found myself referring back to our other curriculum for this and that, because it was just so much better.  I am confident in Jordan's abilities because of what we used in the past.  Jordan has been the model student all these years, as we have traveled this homeschooling route.  He's done the work when asked and without question, and performs very well when the time comes to assess his knowledge and skills.  The younger three kids have so many issues I don't even know where to begin.  In reflecting on their behavior this past year, a lot of it comes down to a sense of entitlement that they have.  They feel that they are entitled to their free time, so schoolwork has become a secondary, painful experience for them - and having very boring, worksheet-style learning as the primary source of instruction is NOT helping that situation.

So I have a lot of thinking to do.  I'm doing some major decompressing at the moment, which is good for me.  Our calendar is completely blank, with the exception of a weekly violin lessons and the occasional field trip.  I'm not even having the kids do swim lessons.  I can tell I am feeling more than a little shell-shocked from the stress of this school year.  This is a huge sign for me that maaaaaybe Calvert isn't the best fit for us.

Hollywood and the horrors of driving in L.A.

Today we visited Hollywood.  I got behind the wheel to drive us there, while Dean helped me navigate by watching the right side of the car, while I watched the left.  L.A. traffic is the most freakish driving experience ever.  Nobody signals, nobody cares, everybody speeds and everybody shoots into view out of nowhere at the last possible second, making lane changes a terrifying act.  Let me take a moment to extol on the virtues of the Waze driving app.  This app made driving in Los Angeles tolerable.  Maybe even survivable.

We managed to make the harrowing drive to Hollywood, and parked in a large parking garage at Hollywood Blvd and Highland.  I joked that we were taking a risk doing that in case there was an earthquake.  Not funny.  We made our way out onto the boulevard, and met up with the rest of the family, as they parked in a different area.  Hollywood boulevard is just a scary as I remember.  That is why I don't have any pictures.  I kept my phone in my purse, and my purse clamped to my side, and a small child clutched in my arms on the side of said purse.  I was wary of anyone who came within my personal space.  And that meant everyone.  It was so, so crowded.  I hate crowds.  I hate crowds where half of them are in costume, wanting you to take their picture and give them money.  I hate crowds where women aren't wearing very much.  At all.  I hate crowds where people jostle you, step in front of you, and then stop to take pictures.  Tourists..

The stars on the walk are neat to see, as are the footprints and handprints and signatures.  I've seen them before, but Dean and the kids had not, so I followed along as they wondered at what they could see.  It was neat to see the spot where the cast of Harry Potter all sealed their fame in footprints and signatures.  It was sad to see the star of Robin Williams, gone too soon.

It was drizzly and cool, and we were hungry, so we walked a couple blocks to an In-and-Out burger.  So did half of Los Angeles, apparently, because there was no place to sit.  We finally secured a table.  A single table for 12 people.  Then another two-top cleared, so that helped.  The burgers were good, so I can see why it is popular.  As we left, a fight broke out over a parking spot between the drivers of to two very fancy SUVs.  I'm glad we were on foot.  We made our way back to our car, and left for the long drive home.  It was only 13 miles, but it took nearly two hours.  It was raining, the freeways were choked with traffic, so we took a different route through downtown.  As we left Hollywood, we took a turn and wound up alongside the Paramount Pictures Lot, which was cool to see.  As we drove on, we also ended up alongside this, my only picture of the day:

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, which I thought looked especially cool in the rain.  About this time Jordan needed to go, Owen needed to go, and Colin needed to go.  So we pulled over on a not-so-busy side street and made use of the pee bottle.  Jordan didn't understand that getting out of the car was not an option.  Dean said, "Do you see all of the graffiti?  The amount of graffiti is equal to the amount of you DON'T want to get out of the car".  We continued snaking our way south and east, all the while wary of how close we were to Compton.  Definitely a place we did not want to accidently venture into.

We finally made it back to the hotel, and the kids headed for the pool and then got right back to building with their Legos.  We ended the day with a drive to a restaurant a few miles away and had a very nice meal.

The CSB

I'm afraid I don't exactly *love* Calvert anymore.  It's been a such a tough beginning (this trimester), as we have pushed on and forward, yet falling ultimately further behind.  I know that things will drastically improve in December when several hours in our schedule will free up, and that is the hope that I am hanging on to - with all I've got.  I feel like a doofus for saying in the past that I wanted to be accountable to somebody, because that would help us stay on a schedule.  Our insane schedule has driven me to drinking (coffee - and tons of it) and constantly updating vast spreadsheets I've made of assignments, due dates, pacing schedule and so forth.

1. I now officially hate being accountable to somebody.  I feel guilty if we take a half hour to ourselves and go to a park, or if I have to run an errand.  We're so behind it feels like every hour has potential to get just 'a little bit more' done, so we have minimal contact with the outside world (doing stuff that is fun, and stuff that we want to do).  I hate to admit that this accountability has been good for us, because we have accomplished more schoolwork already than we accomplished all of last year.  I just don't like losing so much of our freedom.  The freedom to make your own schedule is a big part of what homeschooling is all about.

2.  I am no longer okay with somebody else picking out our curriculum.  In the past week it was suggested in Owen's Kindergarten curriculum that I reread a story about a walk a child takes with fuzzy farm animals no less than 10 times.  10 TIMES.  It was to be reread during each lesson - and discussed ad nauseam - for 5 lessons in a row.  Yes, each rereading used a different approach or covered a different aspect of the story (predicting, color of animals, fur/feathers/scales, sentence structure, blah blah blah)  Owen was ready to poke his eyes out with his big yellow pencil.  Rylan just completed the most horrific math chapter on bar modeling.  She is a whiz with three digit addition with carrying, three digit subtraction with borrowing - done the traditional way, and then they throw this crap at her.  I HATE SINGAPORE. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  I've been standing before my schoolbook cases - now covered in dust - looking longingly at the awesome curriculum we had to shelve when Calvert came along.  History of Us, Story of the World, R.E.A.L. Science 4 Kids, Shurley English, All About Spelling, Meet the Masters, Wordly Wise 3000.... so sad.  so so sad.  There just isn't time, and it breaks my heart, because this was good stuff.  I've got to find a way to work it in, or substitute things, or...something.  Something!

I am pretty sure I will not pull the plug here mid-year, but I am undecided if we will continue with Calvert next year.  I constantly sit and fantasize about how I would take what I have learned about scheduling and pacing, and make it work with the curriculum that I want to use.  The other factor is that the kids do love their online class time - and there is no way to replicate that.  What to do, what to do, what to do...  uugh.  Sometimes I don't like being in charge.  Here we are at that stupid crossroads again - what if I make the wrong decision?  What if they fall even further behind?  Am I ruining them by keeping them home?

Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart.  You've got to be strong in your convictions because you will tested.  Constantly.  I am strong in that I want them home.  I could never surrender those Aha! moments of first words, first writing, first reading to another teacher.  Never.  I would never surrender them willingly to the social ladder of the classroom, the chaos of the lunchroom and playground, or the unrelenting schedule of homework, book reports, school functions and so forth.  I want them home so that their day can go at a reasonable pace, so that they can get adequate amounts of sunshine, playtime and downtime, so that they can go long in math and short in writing, or switch it if the mood arises, so that we can Google that question, YouTube that demonstration or build that next creation.  This I am strong in.

Where I am weak is how to go about it.  There is no ONE way - yes, I know that.  But our way over the past few years hasn't worked very well.  I'm weak in the execution of it all.  I'm weak in multi-tasking, delegating, time management - and with four kids that is a big liability.  My weak side has been winning lately.  First, I sabotaged our schedule by allowing Jordan and Rylan to do an activity that was clearly in conflict with school.  It has created a huge, huge problem, in fact.  I didn't factor in the time expense, the $$ cost to participate, the shuttling kids back and forth, the group snack headache and $$$$...  These are all things that I loathe about activities like this.  For Jordan, the reward does not even come close to the pain.  In fact, there has been damage done to relationships because he is so unhappy with his group.  For Rylan, the reward has been mostly worth it.  She has learned some new skills, made a new friend and looks forward to participating.  I am just too quick to agree to things.  I really need to sit down and work out the cost analysis before saying 'yes'.  I am also not managing our time very well.  Hours slip by without much to show for it, as I spend the time doing silly things like looking for lost items, going back to the store for forgotten things, shuttling kids back and forth to stuff, and making spreadsheets about how I should be spending my time.

All of this weakness has led to some not-so-good-things.  First of all, more than once I have woken in a cold sweat - certain that I forgot to pick up a kid from somewhere.  I have even got up, and gone to the kids' rooms to do a headcount to make sure everyone was accounted for.  There is just way too much picking up/dropping off going on, and every day is a different routine.  I check the calendar about 20 times a day because I am constantly afraid I am forgetting to do something or that I am late for something.  Panic attacks.  Daily, if not hourly panic attacks.  I panic about the schedule, the schoolwork, the house repairs, the towering stack of unopened mail (what is in there?), my knee rehab, two upcoming road trips... my heart races, my chest hurts and I think I am having a heart attack multiple times a day.  No joke.  There is also the crushing depression.  It's back, and with a vengeance.  I can't get anything done.  I am so overwhelmed, I can't care about the unopened mail, the unbalanced checkbook, the unfinished compositions, the dirty house, the child that is still having multiple 'accidents' a day, or even writing on here very much.  I don't have a clue about where to start.  I went to my doctor a few weeks back to ask for help, and I am back on an antidepressant.  This time I am trying out Prozac.  It is too low of a dose in my opinion, but it is a step in the right direction, and we'll up the dose next refill.  There has been some improvement, but the panic attacks have not stopped.  :(  I also think about where I was a year ago, vs. now.  I've gained nearly all of my weight back, due to lack of exercise because of my knee, and way more comfort/stress eating than I care to admit.  I know that the daily walking/running I was doing last year played a big part in keeping the depression at bay, and that I am soooo close to getting the all-clear to start walking daily, at least.

I think that this fall has just been particularly hard.  It's been a whole slew of a lot of little things that added all together made up the perfect clusterfuck stress bomb.  Let's just call that the CSB.  The new school 'thing', the hailstorm and the subsequent house and car repairs and the constant - daily! - meetings and phone calls with insurance agents, contractors, subs, shopping excursions and actual repair work, the knee surgery/rehab and the 30+ doctor appointments I've had since July, the insane activity schedule and so on, and so on, and so on...  I can't wait for December.  Even though Nutcracker craziness will be a part of the first half of December, that's okay.  We've actually really been enjoying that, for some reason that escapes me right now.

Contractors are a whole other breed...

I am not new to dealing with contractors.  Back in 2003 I purchased my first home, a brand new build.  They broke ground in October 2002, and I moved in in March of that next year.  Since the house was just a few blocks away from my job, I visited the site almost every damn day.  Things went wrong almost immediately.  The foundation was dug and poured, and when I went to look, it made no sense to me at all.  I cocked my head from side to side and walked around the entire property several times before I realized that they had flipped the entire plan.  When you sit and look at house plans for hours and hours, trying to picture the layout, the views from windows and the light that will come in and so forth, you get used to the way you have looked at it.  To have the entire thing flipped meant that all of a sudden I had to add windows where there weren't windows before because now I had a serious lack of natural lighting issue and so forth.  It went downhill from there, for the miscommunication was rampant.  I remember those times, and so now, as we are getting the house fixed up from the storm in June, it is coming back to haunt me.

First of all, let me say that State Farm is the best insurance company ever.  Ever.  EVER.  After much squabbling back and forth about replacing several windows, they sent out another adjuster a week and a half ago to look over the place again.  Our claim estimate jumped from $13K to $24K to account for more paint, a new garage door and some other things.  The adjuster was very courteous and absolutely thorough, and has a fully operational bullshit meter.  It appears that the windows subcontractor was pushing up numbers a bit, but on the other hand, the gouges left behind from numerous golf ball-sized hail that peppered all over the house, meant that one coat of paint was not going to do the job.  I mean really, the previous agent submitted for ONE coat of paint on *most* of the house.  That's ridiculous.  It pays to complain loudly sometimes.

We picked out a new garage door, and also decided to go ahead and replace the front door and both of our back doors - those will be on our own dime and labor.  (thank you honey!)  We made our color choices and style choices, and I submitted a flurry of paperwork to the HOA last Friday for approval.  I am competing with about 80% of our neighborhood for the coveted HOA signatures.

Monday (of this past week): I finally had the line item insurance paperwork in hand to show the contractor so that he knew exactly what the insurance company was going to cover, and so we could draw up a new contract for the work to be done and how much we would pay.  He came over that afternoon and I showed him the garage door that we had picked out and he placed a call to the garage door sub.  They responded later that afternoon with a 'yes, we can do that' and it would be ready in two weeks.  Remember that.  Two weeks.  Meanwhile, we went through the rest of the list and the contractor reminded me that I needed to get a check from the insurance company. Asap.  (vermin)

Tuesday: phone call from contractor:
C: Have I called you yet today about your garage door?
Me: (what now?....)  Uh...no?
C: Oh, well they have it ready to install, and can be there tomorrow between 10 and noon.
Me: (shock and more than mild irritation) Ummm... let me look at the calendar.. (several complications), Yeah... I guess that will work.

I think about a total of 18 hours had passed since the "two weeks" statement and the "they will show up tomorrow" statement.  Now, I know that most people have the opposite problem.  They pay for work and it never gets done.  I have a different problem.  I know my contractor has a cell.  I know that all of the subs have a cell.  But nobody EVER CALLS to set up a time to come by - they just show up.  They seem to think that I am always at home, and that we never leave the house to do things, and that we never need advanced notice for anything.

People in the contracting business, hear me out.  IT IS FLAT OUT RUDE.  okay?

So I got on the phone and moved the violin lesson, arranged a ride for somebody else, told Dean we needed to clear out the garage that evening, and then freaked out because I had nothing from the HOA.  They had the paperwork for all of one business day so far, and that's only if they had picked it up from the HOA office.  As luck would have it, that Friday before I had received a nice phone call from one of the ladies on the HOA board to let me know that I had verbal approval on the paint color choices, and that the paperwork would be on its way soon, as soon as it was signed off at their next meeting.  So, with her number in hand, I called to plead my case that my contractor was messing with me and that the garage door was being installed tomorrow instead of two weeks from now and I needed approval for that.  She was very sympathetic and understanding.  Those HOA people need Christmas cards this year because our entire neighborhood has worked them overtime in the past couple of months.

Wednesday: right at 11:58 a.m., the garage guys showed up and installed the door over the next three hours.  All irritation aside, it looks beautiful and totally changes the entire look of the house.  I won't show pics until all the work is done.  I received a call from the insurance guy, wanting to know if I had a signed contract with the contractor in hand.  (I did)  He will be by the next day to get a copy.

Thursday: Insurance guy shows up at appointed time, inspects the new door, takes the contract and gives me a substantial check.  I may have trouble getting it cashed since it is large and I have to get two different banks' signatures on it as well.  This could take some time.  I call the contractor later to tell him I have the check and let him know that I will work on it beginning Monday, to get it endorsed by a bunch of different people, as this takes time, and I don't want to do it on Friday because it is Halloween, and that doesn't sound like fun.  Halloween is supposed to be about fun - not spending the day in the car going from bank to bank.

Friday:  Contractor shows up, unannounced, looks at the new garage door and then the real intention of his visit is clear:
C:  Do you have a check ready for me yet?

I seriously want to go impale myself on a pitchfork.  I would make a nice yard decoration for this Halloween evening.

A house update...

So you may remember me mentioning that our house was damaged in a storm back in June.  We had the insurance adjuster come out and the findings were that we needed to replace the roof, replace a few windows (the seals had broken), a few window screens, the shutters, gutters and get the house painted.  Plus get the car fixed.

So far, we have accomplished one of those items.  The roof was replaced on July 29th, two days before my knee surgery.  It looks beautiful.  Since then, we have had countless meetings with the windows guy, but no windows have been even ordered yet.  The windows are a huge problem, actually.  We have wood windows, original to the house (built in 1992), and they are extremely expensive to replace.  They are also extremely energy inefficient.  The way to go is to do vinyl, but a more expensive vinyl, since we have to match the wood grain trim that is everywhere else in the house.  I would love to switch to painted trim, but again, it would mean ALL the trim in the house, the doors, the banister...  The problem is, if you change even one window, you eventually have to do them all.

If the insurance company will only cover a glass replacement because the seal is broken on five different windows, that is all fine and good, BUT one of those windows also has a small half-moon-shaped nick left by a particularly large hailstone in the plastic portion of the exterior frame.  So that means the total window needs be replaced according to the insurance guy.  That's fine...the problem is, is that the manufacturer of our particular windows is no longer in the biz.  There is no other way to source the needed parts either.  Soooooo, if one window in a bay window needs to be replaced, and vinyl is our only option, then to make it appealing inside and out, all the the windows need to match, so therefore all the windows need to be replaced.  Which means a lot more money than the insurance company was bargaining.  It also means that the pair of windows directly above this bay window need to be replaced too.  Which means that there is a behind-the-scenes fight over who is going to pay how much to solve our windows dilemma.  A special claims guy from our insurance company, who hails from 'Nola, is paying us a visit next week.  A full THREE MONTHS since the roofing job was completed.  He will be meeting with our windows guy and hopefully they can come up with an agreement about how much will be covered.  In the meantime, I expect our pocketbook will be taking a serious hit.

In other developments, some random person (from the company we hired that is handling all of the repairs) showed up last week confirming what color we wanted the new gutters to be.  We don't have the house painted yet because we have been waiting on the windows for a full THREE MONTHS.  So we had no idea what to tell him about the color.  Then, on another day, another guy with a handy-dandy Honda Accord pulled up, again unannounced, to pick up the shredded window screens that need to be repaired.  I'm not sure what he was expecting to pick up, but it certainly wasn't full-sized window screens.  He said he would ask somebody else with a pick-up to come by the next day.  At least she called before she came by.

Sigh.  So I called the contractor to say that no matter what is happening with the windows, we need to move forward on the house painting before it gets too cold and wet.  He agreed.  That was last Monday.  I've yet to hear when the paint guy is coming.  We do have paint chips in hand though, so we're ready for him whenever he shows up on our doorstep, most likely unannounced.

At least we have a solid roof over our heads, so I am very thankful for that.  I just can't imagine getting windows replaced in November or December.  Totally goes against all common sense, in my opinion.

First impressions of the Calvert Curriculum

I will let my extended absence from my blog speak first and foremost as to how the whole ‘Calvert thing’ is going.  I have no time anymore, it seems.  I knew it going in that it would be a tough transition from how we used to do things, but I think there have also been some unintended consequences as well as some positive results as well.  Here are my impressions so far..

Attendance

Colorado Calvert is officially an online public school, so they have to take attendance.  For a homeschooler, the Colorado State Statute requires a minimum of 174 days, at 4 hours per day, for a total of 694 school hours per school year.  The state, of course, never checks that you actually met this.  The way a public school takes attendance is by counting heads every single school day.  (a fellow homeschooling friend jokes that she take attendance by noting if any of her boys have gone missing, lol...)  The way Calvert handles attendance is to require that the student do something called a checkpoint.  A checkpoint is a short 1-5 question review that covers the material taught in a particular subject that day.  In Jordan's case, a typical day means he has a checkpoint in each category that he worked on in that day's lesson: math, grammar, composition, reading comprehension, history, science.  As long as Jordan completes at least one checkpoint on a given day, he is marked 'present'.  The checkpoints are time-stamped.  We can do school on any day of the week, even on holidays, and if he completes a checkpoint that day, it is considered a day spent in school.  This is where online school gets brownie points for being flexible.  So far, attendance, with the exception of October Count has not been an issue for us, and it's that 'thing' I needed to hold my hand to the fire and keep me accountable, and hold my kids accountable too.

October Count

October Count is the God-forsaken day that the bean-counters in the Ed. Dept. devised to tie actual attendance to per-pupil funding.  If the child is present on that day, the school will get funding for that pupil for the year – something in the range of $7-8 K.  October Count for most public schoolers is on Oct. 1^st.  Parents get a slew of letters and emails in the weeks before reminding parents that only death should prevent their child from attending school that day.  Otherwise, they had better damn well show up.  I received much the same communication (in a much nicer tone), but because Calvert is an online school, their October Count window was from September 24^th to October 8^th.  I was in charge of making sure that each of my children completed a checkpoint, watched a video, attended class on class days, played a game and did an enrichment activity BY NOON, every. damn. day.  Only problem is, we unfortunately have scheduled activities most every morning that require us to be out of the house, so getting stuff done in time has taken just about every last ounce of sanity I had left.    I had never intended for these activities to be on the schedule in the first place, when I first signed up for Calvert.  I had made a strict personal rule: NOTHING ON THE ACTIVITY SCHEDULE BEFORE 3 PM.  I had visions of unrestricted mornings that required no rushing, yelling, searching for clean underwear or breakfast-in-a-baggie in the car just to get to some class or group activity on time.  That madness was reserved for kids that went to public school!  Well, that was the grand plan before I blew out my knee (which requires multiple daytime physical therapy sessions) and before I received a Lego practice schedule that meets for 4x a week in the mornings, (it used to be late afternoons).  L  It has been pretty ugly around here getting this October count requirement met.  Early mornings make for cranky kids.  Tight schedules to get kids where they need to be make for cranky moms.  The kids were doing checkpoints on half-finished lessons because it was 11:59 a.m. and we HAD to.  That is no way to get an education!  It’s not Calvert’s fault.  It’s the bureaucratic we-need-data bullshit I ran screaming away from 8 years ago.  Anyway – it is past October 8^th and I am celebrating.

Lessons

Each Calvert 'Lesson' equals a full day of school.  Each child's teaching manual contains a list of the subjects and activities to do for that day's lesson.  In Jordan's case, he has a list that rotates just a bit, adding in computer on this day, or switching back and forth between history and geography... so every lesson is not exactly the same lineup of stuff to do - which he and I both like.  I like that he can at least get part-way through a lesson, complete a couple of checkpoints to get his attendance logged for the day, and then we just pick right back up where he left off on the next day.  The only issue with this is that he is really supposed to be doing an entire lesson in one day.  We have a pacing guide that we are supposed to follow.  We are now significantly behind, but Jordan has made great personal strides in the past week or so, and is now getting through about 80-90% of a lesson in a day.  He’s almost there!  

Rylan has the same lesson line-up, except there is one major annoyance.  Her checkpoints, with the exception of math, have all been combined into one big one.  So even if we manage to do 5 of the 7 things she was supposed to cover, we can't do the checkpoint yet because we didn't finish.  So that day's attendance is screwed, unless we flub her answers and get to those activities we missed on the next day.  But, again, we are really supposed to do it all in one day.  It is Rylan's schedule that I am most concerned about because she is by far the busiest kid with her insane activity schedule.

Owen’s lessons are the easiest, but I have zero time to do any of the enrichment activities with him – which are the activities that make Kindergarten so awesome in the first place!  I don’t know how families with multiple kids in this program do it, I really don’t.  I am exhausted.  Each kid needs one-on-one, which means - after bouncing back and forth all day, about a 12 hour school day for me.  (not them..me.)  This includes taking what work we can in the car to fill whatever length of time we will be gone and so forth.  Every minute of every school day, somebody is working on something with me, unless I have made the blessed escape to physical therapy.  So far, this really sucks.

Math

Okay, no offense to any of you Singapore fans out there, but Calvert uses Singapore and we all hate it.  We have used MEP up till now, with Teaching Textbooks and Khan Academy as a resource.  Who ever heard of a 14 year old begging to do math 'the way we used to'?  I have!  I have no idea if I can pull some strings or not, but we can't do a whole year of this.  Singapore does such an awful job of presenting material (a short, difficult-to-understand paragraph) followed by a mind-numbing amount of repetition that calls for no variation or creativity....  MEP WE MISS YOU!  I am vowing right now that we are picking up with MEP again and carrying onward in our own way.  I can't do this to my kids.  Singapore will kill math for them, and I have been fighting like mad to keep the wonder and magic of math alive as they progress.

Reading

In Jordan's case, I am thrilled with the Language Arts component that Calvert offers.  He is learning so much with each lesson (which illuminates for me all the stuff I wasn't covering, but should have).  Jordan read Jack London's To Build a Fire during the first week. You know?  Of all the literature I read in Jr. High and High School, it was THAT short story that I remember.  Any time I tromped through the snow, I would think back to that story.  Jordan has a special appreciation for it since he has done the Klondike scout campout every year, and can personally identify with dealing with intense cold.  He is recognizing that literature does not take hold of you, unless you can make a personal connection with it.  He has also read a slew of short stories by various authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Ray Bradbury and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  He’s checked out a couple Sherlock Holmes mysteries at the library because he really likes that literary style in particular.  Bless him.

In Rylan's case, she uses a standard classroom reader.  I do like the activities associated with it, and there is some writing involved, which makes me happy.  The rest of her work is pretty standard, and sort of uninspiring, if you ask me.

With Owen, I am reading stories or poems to him and then we discuss them.  He is learning  his letters and sounds...finally.  This is all stuff he has been working on with Reading Eggs for the past year, but only now has he been willing to sit down and actually move a pencil around on paper.  Ever since we finally broke through that barrier, he is now a willing participant in coloring, writing, cutting and pasting.  He is a whiz with shapes and counting.

The Assignments

Not only do the kids do a checkpoint for their subjects, they also have work to turn in.  Each week the teachers post a list of assignments (that are a part of the regular lessons anyway) that are due.  I have to scan them, save them to a separate file folder for each kid, and then submit them.  The first couple of weeks were tough, because it was almost 20 files.  Now it is about 8-10 that I send in on a weekly basis.

The Teachers

I love Rylan’s and Owen’s teachers.  They are real pros at this, and have easily made a connection with the kids through the online classes.  Each kiddo has class twice a week – one is math and the other is language arts.  Owen’s class is about 20 minutes long.  He puts on headphones and talks part of the time.  His teacher has the ability to turn on each student’s mic as she chooses – that way they are not all talking at once and producing feedback.  So every now and then I will hear his voice pipe up with an answer to a question she asked.  It is the same way with Rylan’s classes.  Her classes last about 30 – 45 minutes.  Owen’s class is also interactive, so he can use the mouse to do different things on a work surface on the screen, when it is his turn.  I think that is really cool.  Jordan’s classes last about an hour, and they don’t chat via headphones, except in his small-group math enrichment class.  Jordan’s teacher is new this year and I can see that she is learning the ropes just as we are.  She is a very nice lady, but a bit reserved and hard to read.  Jordan likes her well enough, but there is not a personal connection yet.

The Fieldtrips

We have had two ‘fieldtrips’ so far.  The first was a school picnic that met the Friday before the first day of school.  The kids got to meet their teachers face-to-face for the first time, and meet any other students that came.  We had a good time.  Owen’s teacher gave him a pencil and a lucky penny, and you would have thought he had won the lottery.  Rylan’s teacher has a very lively personality and she took to her immediately.  Jordan joined a game of soccer with the older kids, within five minutes of arriving.

Our second ‘fieldtrip’ was a gathering at a library about a month after school started.  The kids split off into two groups – older and younger, and did literary activities for a couple of hours with their teachers.  They had a fun time and could now connect better with classmates since they had seen them online a few times.  Jordan made quite the connection with a girl, actually.  They now exchange multiple texts every day.  Unfortunately (for Jordan, not for us) she lives over an hour away.  They have been trying to figure out a way to meet up ever since the library gathering.  We’re suggesting the families meeting up for dinner or ice cream at some half-way point.  We’ll see…

The Backlash

Unfortunately, a stinging remark or two about making Calvert our chosen way to homeschool has been directed my way, and left their mark as I have incredibly thin skin when it comes to that type of thing.  Well, any type of criticism, really.  It’s bad enough that I already question absolutely everything I do as the right thing to do every second of the day.  There are definitely opinionated camps as what is the correct path to follow in regards to how organized you should be.  Homeschooling is starting to feel as lonely as ever.  I’m worried about my mental health with the amount of stress I am under to get the work done, and how the schedule leaves zero time to fit in anything that could be considered down time with the kids – like a play date or a nature walk.

So that is Calvert for us at this point in time…I’ll reassess in a few more weeks.  By that point both Lego and my physical therapy will be done, so we will have gained back some crucial daytime hours that are so negatively affecting us right now.  

Warning

As I am sure is true about a lot of cities, there are certain times of the day where it is virtually impossible to get from point A to point B in a given amount of time.  The witching hour for our neck of the woods is 4:00 pm on a weekday.  Everybody and their dog, laptop, soccer ball, or ballet shoes has someplace they need to be.

I've been spending an extraordinary amount of time in the car during the past month.  My schedule is so full I want to cry.  It's partly my doing, as I wanted to cram trips into the most compact schedule possible, piggy-backing every class I could so that I could build up the largest chunk of at-home school-time hours I could, but ultimately I am at the mercy of the class schedule in the first place as I have to work with what I get.  If it were up to me, I would not be on the road during the witching hour.

Tuesday is the tightest commute day, and Wednesday is so full I'm wearing a stopwatch and barking out new move-out orders every half hour, it seems.  On Tuesdays, I have exactly 30 minutes to transport Rylan from her Lego Robotics team practice at point A to her tumbling class at point B.  In between these points is several miles of green space as they are in different cities. This requires that I get her out of the door on time at point A (hasn't happened yet, as Lego is fun), and that I drive with laser-sharp focus to navigate the minivan-choked roads to get to point B.  I've tried three different routes, and the interstate "seems" the quickest, provided there is no massive miles-long traffic jam, slowing down to check out the vehicle pulled over on the shoulder TO CHANGE A TIRE. *WOW*

This past Tuesday I was paid a personal visit by a state trooper on the side of a very busy three lane highway during the commute from point A to point B.  I had just pulled off the interstate, gone through a couple of intersections, and was just pulling through another one - after stopping for a red light - when lights fired up behind me.  I wasn't even aware I had a trooper behind me, as I was deep in conversation with Jordan about what spatial organization in paragraph writing means.  (This is where I can say with pride that, yes, my 14 year old and I were engrossed in how a writer can lay out a description of their topic in a spatial way.  This is new territory for us since I have mainly focused on expository writing with him over the years, and to me, I never really thought about using spatial organization when, for example, writing a five paragraph essay about 'Why I enjoy camping'.  Seriously?)

Anyway, lights are flashing in the back window.  I look at Jordan and stupidly ask him, "Me"?  Is he wanting ME?  What did I do?  I couldn't have been speeding, we were just at a stop light!"  I notice the other cars around me, which are all traveling faster than me, so no, I certainly was not speeding.  What the hell?  I start talking out loud to myself, because that is what I do when I am a little freaked out.

"ME?  Why me?  What did I do wrong?  Shit... stupid car get out of my way so I can pull over!  Here?  Should I pull over here?  Is he still behind me?  Did I just say the s-word out loud?" (winning!)

I pull over, put the window down and turn off the car.  And then I turn to look at Jordan and point to the paragraph about spatial organization in his language arts textbook and continue what we were talking about.  Like I said, we were engrossed.  Maybe that was the reason I had committed some horrible traffic violation and wasn't even aware of it.

Finally he approaches the car.  He was the spitting image of this guy:

We are big Jimmy Fallon fans, and so I couldn't help but crack a smile.  He cocks his head to the side and looks into the back of the van to survey things.  "Are they twins?", he asks as he's looking at Owen and Colin in the back seat.  My smile froze.  fuuuuuuuuuck......

(Colin is a chronic unbuckler or even non-buckler.  Half the time when we drive across town, as we unload Colin just casually slips out from his car seat.  I know that he cannot unbuckle the ridiculously notorious red button on the center buckle, so there is no way for him to exit his seat unless he didn't buckle in the first place, the twerp...  I constantly forget to make a point of double-checking before we start driving.  (winning!  again!)  So as the trooper is examining my children, I am afraid to look around and see for myself if Colin is buckled or not)

I try a diversion tactic instead.  "Would you believe they are two years apart?  So, should I pull off over there, instead?"  pointing ahead to where the shoulder is a lot wider, because right now I am in a pretty narrow spot thanks to the stupid car that wouldn't get out of the way.  He tells me no, and asks if I knew that my left rear brake light was out.  "No, really??? I had no idea". (total lie)  "Can I see your license, insurance and registration?"

Dammit.  Now we are going to really be late for tumbling.  I have yet to make it on time for this stupid class.  I hate our schedule....

I comply, after sweating for a few seconds worrying about if I had remembered to switch out the insurance card for the new one.  I continue talking with Jordan, the kids seemed nonplussed that we've been pulled over, (??), and then he comes back, gives me my cards back and a warning ticket about the brake light.  "You get that light fixed as soon as you can, okay?  Drive safe!"  How can I stay safe?  We are all maniacal lunatics just trying to get from point A to point B, on time or as close to it as possible.

I shove Rylan out the van door when we get to point B, and then after class I go in and explain to her teacher that Rylan will be late by 10 minutes every week until the end of November when her Lego team finishes with competition.  She nods in understanding and admits she was late for class too.  "Traffic...it is just impossible to get anywhere on time at this time of day!"

Tell me about it.

New Roof, Physical Therapy, Traffic Flow, Birthday and Friendship Blues, Schedule Hell

New Roof

I don't think I mentioned it, but our new roof went on 7/29, two days before my ACL surgery.  I got up early and reparked the cars, we moved the roofing materials that we had stored temporarily in our garage for a few days out onto the driveway, and then a couple van loads of roofers showed up at 7:14 a.m. and got busy.  They were fast, efficient, and stuff was flying off our roof within 15 minutes.  Not a moment was spared.  The kids and I watched chucks of roofing fall from the sky for the next couple hours.  The sound was loud, but not deafening, unless you were in the garage.  In there, chunks of wood were falling from the ceiling.  We left for about three hours for errands and then came back.  Storms moved in around 1 p.m., the rain started to really come down at 2 p.m., and still they carried on with the work.  The entire job was done, the yard was picked clean, and they were on their way at 4:10 p.m.  I have only found two nails in the days since, so they did a really good job with the clean up.  The new roof looks absolutely beautiful.

Physical Therapy

I have made it through my first week of physical therapy on my knee.  I only have anywhere from 7-11 weeks to go.  The difference between my physical therapy this time around and the therapy I had on my shoulder is like night and day.  My shoulder therapist (different clinic) was cool, indifferent, and she did no manual therapy (like massage) on my very stiff and sore joint.  The only thing I did was lift weights in all sorts of different directions.  This time around, in a clinic in the same building as my surgeon, I am with the nicest therapist, ever.  Except that what she makes me do hurts more than you can imagine.  She massages my knee first, loosening my very stiff and swollen knee, and then has me work almost exclusively on contracting my quadricep - over and over, to strengthen my weakened leg.  Twice now it has been done with the help of a vicious torture device called STEM, which delivers an electric current to my muscle, to make it contract.  It hurts so bad it brings tears to my eyes, but I know it has to be done.  The nice thing is that after it is over, I get to relax while a nicer version of STEM massages the muscles and a bag of ice helps with the swelling.  I had the rest of my stitches pulled out last week, and just yesterday I graduated from the walker to a single crutch, which I use opposite of my bum knee.  I struggle with hyperextending my knee backwards (due to weak muscle control), so I have to walk very slowly, concentrating on keeping my knee bent ever-so-slightly as I move.  Now that I can walk with a free hand means that I can now carry a few things, which is like a whole new world.  I hated being so dependent on others to carry absolutely every little thing for me from point A to point B.  Therapy will continue for the next several weeks, twice a week, for an hour each visit, plus the time to drive 70 miles round trip to get there.  The good thing is, Dean can drive over from his office and meet me there and take the kids for the hour while I am in there.  The bad thing is it occurs right in the middle of the day, which isn't conducive to proper homeschooling.  :(

Traffic Flow

I've had a lot of people flow in and out of the house in the past couple of weeks.  Normally that is a thing that makes me break out into a cold sweat because that means people are in our house and they can see it for the messy disaster it is.  Dean really got things into shape while he was home that first week, and we have been fighting like hell to keep it that way.  So far we have had multiple visits from the window contractor, a couple of different guys who delivered and set up medical equipment pertinent to my knee rehab, the parents of Rylan's friend that lives on our street - as they shuttle the girls back and forth on play dates, my cousin and aunt who paid me a visit, my mom's cousin visited for a day... lots of traffic flow.  In the first few days, I was stuck in bed.  The contractor CAME TO THE BEDROOM to discuss plans for replacement windows with me.  He and Dean had toured all over the house, while I had to stay in the passive motion machine.  I was not exactly up for wandering around the house, anyway.  The contractor seemed totally nonplussed by it.  On his next visit, he had a measuring guy with him, and he was totally uncomfortable with it.  He couldn't even make eye contact.  So while there was a ton of traffic, what I wished is that it wasn't a parade of strangers in my house, but a continual flow of friends instead.  The visit from my cousin and aunt, my mom's cousin, my brother, mom and dad were all very nice indeed.  They were integral in keeping my spirits up, but I wish it had been more.

Birthday and Friendship Blues

My birthday on the 8th sucked.  Several of my family members were on a cruise, and they were out at sea on the day of, so phone calls could not be made.  I was in pretty serious pain.  I was still struggling with an ineffective dosage amount of my pain meds, plus terrible cramping in the gut, and all I could do was curl into the fetal position and lay there.  Which meant I wasn't in the mood for company.  Which meant that I was left alone for hours (my own doing, not because my family was not taking care of me), with no means of getting anything I needed when the need did arise.  By the time dinnertime rolled around, I was dehydrated, had very low blood-sugar, and thoroughly pissed off for even being in that state.  We were to meet my dad for dinner and ice cream, and I could barely keep my bearings in the car, as woozy and dizzy as I was.  Dinner helped, the ice cream was better, so the day felt a little salvaged, somewhat.  In looking back, it was just an unfortunate confluence of a lot of different circumstances that couldn't be helped, that made the day what it was.  There was a nice trickle of messages throughout the day on Facebook, and that helped, but you know... I've had a lot of time to lie around, thinking about different things.  Friendship, and what it means, has come to mind a lot lately.  This recovery has been one long and lonely road.  My phone has been rather silent, my inbox a little too empty, and my heart a little heavy.

I've talked about these friendship troubles with Dean at length, as he lets me vent and feel sorry for myself.  He sees that at times I hold myself distant from friends, and that I close myself off.  I think that is true.  There are so many hurts and let-downs in my past that I think I use that as a protective measure so that I don't get hurt anymore.  But I think that loneliness hurts even more.  So, take a moment and give thanks if you have that close circle of friends that rally behind you when you face adversity.  If you have that friend that shows up with a cup of coffee and stays an hour to visit with you and makes you laugh to momentarily take your mind off your pain or your troubles, if you have that friend that calls you up to see how you are doing - just because, if you have that friend that drops off a new library book, or a casserole, or fresh produce or flowers from her garden.... you are so, so lucky.  Friendship is precious.  I have a lot work to do in the department of being a good friend and creating better friendships.

Schedule Hell

School starts for us tomorrow.  It is not the *official* first day for Colorado Calvert Online Academy, but we are getting a head start so that we can figure out how it all works beforehand.  The new school room is ready, but not quite ready for pictures.  I still have a few more things to get put away today.  For the past several months I have been hard at work clearing our schedule so that when we did make the jump and start up with Calvert, nothing during the daytime hours got in our way as a distraction.  Then I tore my ACL, and the rehab alone will steal hours from our school time.  Then, late last week, I realized I completely forgot something when planning out our fall schedule.  I spaced that Lego NXT is starting up again.  Both Rylan and Jordan are on Lego NXT teams.  Rylan is on an all-girls team, and her practices started last week.  I love Lego.  I love that they are excited about Lego.  I just don't love the time slot they practice in very much.  Monday-Thursday, for two hours each day, Jordan and Rylan will alternate days for their practice sessions.  I don't have a schedule yet for the times when Jordan, Rylan and Owen meet online with their teachers, but I anticipate we will have a serious time conflict in very short order.  I keep telling myself that Lego and therapy will only last until mid-November, but that is not helping very much.  This was not the start I was envisioning.  I'm already stressed...

Turning 43...

My sweet daughter made me a birthday card and a get well card today. Not only that, but Rylan's neighborhood friend, who spent the morning at our house, made me a card too, which was very sweet. I spent the entire morning making trips between bed and bathroom. Dizzy, nauseous and in pain isn't how I wanted to spend the day.

A man from a medical supply company came early in the afternoon to deliver yet another torture device for my knee. I have to wear a muscle stimulator cuff around my thigh twice a day for the next month or so. Twenty minutes of squeezing pins and needles, as electric currents stimulate my quadricep muscle. This was my surprise birthday gift, I suppose. (Yay....)

In the late afternoon we picked up my dad and drove to Culver's to have dinner and then take ice cream to the park. That was nice to see my dad and catch up with him. The kids were squirrley, the restaurant was loud, and my pain meds are still clearly not working well in the pain relief arena, but they were sure doing their job of making me dizzy and sick.

I went straight to bed when we got home, but got up around 10 pm when I heard Colin crying in bed. He just needed to be held. Dean lost his patience with him days ago. I feel bad that I have difficulty being the mom I need to be right now. I held Colin, propping him on my good leg, and he fell asleep after awhile. Holding a sleeping child is birthday gift enough for me.

No deep reflective thoughts about the past year at the moment, other than I hit the highest high and the lowest low in regards to my health and emotional well-being. Since I am in the midst of the lowest-low, the only way is up, so I hope this next year brings better health and happiness my way.

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Swimming Lessons, Forgetfulness, Paper Overload

Swimming Lessons

Swimming lessons go either way for me.  At times they are the bane of my summer existence.  It means no lazy mornings, constant laundry and lost goggles on a weekly basis.  At other times I love the summer sounds of splashing and coaching and the relaxation of reading by the pool.  It has certainly gotten easier over the years.  When we started, Colin was a babe and the prep work was insane.  Suits, towels, diapers, multiple changes of clothes, snacks, juices, bug spray, sunscreen, toys... all for a measly hour at the pool.  Now, as the kids are reaching the age of self-sufficiency, they each have their own swim bag and they are responsible for packing a change of clothes, a towel and goggles.  The bags hang from the banister in front of the hallway laundry, and that is their permanent summer home.  The suits get hung up to dry, and the towels go directly from dryer to bag and as soon as the suits are dry, they go in as well.  The goggles are accounted for before we leave the pool, and again as each kids tosses their wet stuff in the washer upon arrival home.  I only wash the suits every other day, so wet suits go on the drying rack.  Rylan has taken over snack duty, and she actually does a great job.  Usually a yogurt, granola bar, banana and a juice box.  She even packs a snack for me!  Swimming lessons have actually become enjoyable, except for the fact that the youngest child has made a thorough nuisance of himself.  He refuses to get in the pool for his lessons now.  He lasted all of seven days - and they weren't even consecutive.  I want to rid myself of the ultimate motherhood fear that a child will drown (followed by run out into the street and get hit by a car), and Colin will have none of it.  This may take years. :(  Rylan and Owen are doing great though.  Rylan has reached the point that she is a competent swimmer - just not a strong one.  She missed out on the latest swim session because there were not enough other kids to make a class, so I opted to pay for a couple private lessons for her.  At $20 a pop, this is not sustainable.  And, as I was watching, I kept thinking..."I could teach her this... why am I paying for this??"  This is a similar thought pattern that we have all experienced - you know the scenario - you're standing in front of a painting worth millions, and you think to yourself, "Why, I could paint this!!"


Forgetfulness

In the midst of worrying about hail damage, my knee and stuff, I forgot to do something.  I had arranged with my friend/girl scout co-leader last weekend to do a playdate on this past Thursday.  A lunch playdate.  We would all eat lunch, the kids would chase chickens and play, play, play, and we would wrap up the paperwork and badge stuff for the year, and strategize for next year.  I thought about it a bit on Wednesday.  I was planning on bringing a fruit salad, so I made a mental note that I needed to go shopping.  Unfortunately it didn't stick.  Thursday came, we did our swim lessons and then headed home.  According to my calendar, we had a whole day ahead of us to do with as we wished!  We went to the river and the kids played for a good long while and then we came home.  I was standing before the fridge, wondering what miracle I could perform in coming up with something for lunch when the phone range.  I saw the name on the caller ID, and my heart exploded with self-loathing, stupidity and embarrassment all at once.  We were late.  Like an hour late.  They were hungry - I could hear the girls in the background fussing.  She had grilled chicken for us.  She was worried.  I'm an idiot.  Luckily for me she is the forgiving sort and knows that I am the most forgetful person on Earth.

I have difficulty remembering things in times of stress.  I have to write everything down - sometimes in multiple places.  This is supposed to be second-nature for me ever since I had a head injury when I was 19, but sometimes I still forget - as I did this time after I forgot to put our plans on my calendar.  I remember thinking to myself, 'I won't forget!  This is a fun thing, so I will be looking forward to it and I won't forget!', aaaaand I forgot.  This really sucks because a.) she cooked and cleaned for us  b.) I have annoying financial paperwork for girl scouts to finish up and we need to do it together c.) I struggle so much with making solid friendships - somehow I always screw up by saying the wrong thing, doing something wrong, or...something.... I don't know.  I feel really bad that I screwed up yet again.  I just have to shake it off and move on, and try and act like a responsible adult next time.


Paper Overload

Mail, medical paperwork, scout paperwork, schoolwork, forms for everything under the sun, warranty stuff, 'art work', receipts, three different copies of the same bill (ahem)... There is a pile of some sort of paper on just about every flat surface in this house, which means I currently have to check about six different places in order to find something.  It is just how it has come to be - it is up to me to gather it all up, sort it all out, and deal with it.  Sometimes I begrudge that fact, other times I think that if were the both of us handling the influx of all things paper - us with two very different levels of pickyness, trying to handle something as volatile as FILING, emotional disaster would ensue.  I know it could all be easily managed if I had a system in place for every different piece of paper that comes into our possession - and indeed I do, just like I have a system for coats, shoes, library books and wet bathing suits.  It's just that nobody else seems to be aware of the system.  The memo must have got lost in all the paperwork...

Favoritism, Hail, Surgery and Flowers

 Favoritism

As per custom over the years, when Jordan arrives home from a stay with his mom in OK, he will eventually share some annoying and typically hurtful comment that his mom made in his presence - usually directed at either 'us' or 'me'.  This time it was about our switching to Calvert this coming school year.  We have enrolled in Colorado Calvert Academy, an online, virtual public school.  Calvert, for me, is all about the curriculum.  I have studied all of the grade levels (K-8) with a teacher's eye, lining up the scope and sequence with Colorado State Standards, and it makes me wish August were here already so we could start - that is how excited I am about it!  Calvert is not shy about letting parents know what the expectations are in the role they must play in this.  I am to expect that Jordan will have 5-6 hours of work per school day to slog through (count that as 7-8 for the distracted ADHD child), and I will need to be at his elbow for a significant part of it.  And not just Jordan, either.  There will also be Rylan and Owen to attend to.  Aaaaand to keep Colin from destroying the house in the process.  This also does not count the extras I fit in, like Nature Study, Lego League, chess club, swimming....   In Jordan's mom's eyes, this switch is because I have become lazy about homeschooling Jordan, and I want someone else to do it for me so I can spend more time with the other kids.  So I guess all of the children are getting the 'lazy treatment', because I don't show favoritism.  I. do. not. show. favoritism.  If you were a fly on the wall in our home, you would in fact think quite the opposite.  My time and attention is predominantly spent with Jordan, because he is the oldest.  When you spent your entire day, day after day, surrounded by little kids, you crave any type of adult conversation you can find.  Poor Jordan has been my guinea pig.  As soon as he could sustain a conversation, we were talking.  We talk about everything under the sun - history, science, math, literature, religion, technology, child rearing, gardening.... and I think he enjoys it as much as I do, because he will recall many a conversation with me (several of which were prompted by the Core Knowledge reading for the day) and relate back to it in some way.

His mother's comments are serious button pushers for me.  I understand where they are coming from - she is no longer the principal parent, she feels threatened, she probably has a lot of anger and resentment, and I seem like the easy target.  That doesn't mean that these comments don't bother me.  They bother me a great deal.  The comments hurt my feelings and question my integrity.  Parenting a child should be a partnership, not a game of one-up-manship.  A child is a human being with feelings - not a piece of property.


Hail

We had a wicked hail storm late Tuesday night.  It went on for a very long time, and the average size was somewhere between a quarter and a golf ball.  Dean and I traveled from window to window, getting more and more excited as the hailstones grew in size.  This was the big one we have been hoping for!  The next morning revealed that the roof had taken its last stand (yay!), the window screens were shredded (yay!), the shutters on the front windows were cracked and even broken in places (meh), there are pits and dents in the garage door and trim (yay!), there are dents in the hood of the minivan (meh), the passenger side mirror is cracked (meh), and there are pits all over the fence.  We are still waiting for adjusters to look at house and car (State Farm - I am NOT impressed...), but we did have a roofer come out on Wednesday to have a look and I am pretty excited about the findings... ;)  Can't say much more than that at this point, but the house will be getting a makeover very, very soon.

Surgery

Yesterday I met with the surgeon I had picked out to do my knee surgery.  He has done the knees and shoulders of three of my relatives and several of Dean's coworkers, and they all sang very high praises.  He concurred that surgery needs to be done if I want to return to my favorite physical activities.  I guess there are people out there who elect not to do this because they don't want to go through the rehab.  An ACL replacement is not for the faint of heart.  In fact, it makes me sweat with fear thinking about it.  It is tough-going in the rehab department.  Like - really tough.  I am 42, and my age is affecting my prognosis.  I have elected to go with an autograft of my patellar tendon to replace the ACL.  This is the more difficult one to rehab - it will take longer and will be more painful.  It may mean that I can't ever quite get down on my knees again.  (thank goodness I don't have babies anymore, and don't expect my floors to look clean ever again).  I am choosing an autograft over an allograft (donation from a cadaver) because the thought of tissue rejection and infection scares me.  Plus, and I know this is weird, but the thought of someone elses' tissue in my body gives me the heebie-jeebies.  I know I would feel quite differently if the case were that I needed a new liver or something and couldn't live without a transplant, but in this case I just feel weird about it.  BUT - the fact that I am 42 means that being my own donor brings about other concerns.  My tendons are older, may not be as robust (too bad tendons aren't fatty tissue!  No problem there...), and may not give the best results. I've studied the outcomes and the percentages are not in my favor.  This is where I get scared.  What if I go through all of this and find out that my knee will still never be stable enough for skiing, hiking or running?  This instantly brings tears to my eyes.  I would be crushed.  Damn...

The surgery has tentatively been scheduled for July 31st.  I am to work very hard on my PT for the next three weeks to see if I can really improve my range of motion and strength.  He'll reassess at that time and decide whether or not that surgery date will work.  If I am not where I should be recovery-wise, the surgery will have to be pushed back.  Talk about pressure!  If the surgery gets pushed back, life will get seriously difficult - beyond difficult - if I can't drive by September.  I already have the mindset that we are taking off the month of August from absolutely everything, so that rehab is the only focus.  Then after August, I have 2-3 months of PT, twice to three times a week to look forward too.  Damn. Damn. Damn.  It will be difficult enough to launch a whole new curriculum and homeschooling rhythm, without throwing constant therapy appointments into the mix.  AAAGGHHH!  I hate stress.  :(

Flowers

As frustrating as this week was - although the hail was actually a good thing in our eyes - it was an act of kindness that helped sooth out the worries.  After I had arrived home with my appointment with the surgeon, the kids and I grabbed our rakes and cleaned up the mess left behind from the storm.  I had left it as-is in the hopes that an insurance adjuster would be along shortly to look at all the damage, but by Friday morning it was looking trashy, so I decided it was time to clean up.  As we were doing so, a van from a local greenhouse pulled up in front of our house.  At first I thought they were asking for directions.  Then I thought that maybe they were jumping out to help (lol...).  Nope - a guy and a girl hopped out and announced that they had been instructed to drive around and give away hanging flower baskets to any takers they could find, since the greenhouse had too many.  I was dumbfounded and so, so touched.  I think this was the owner's way of reaching out to those who had storm damage and give a little bit of happiness.  I called the company right away to express my heartfelt thanks.  I've got to remember in these tough and scary weeks ahead that I need to look for the good, and be thankful for what I do have.

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Bouncing back...

One of the kids' favorite TV shows is America's Funniest Videos.  It was my favorite when I was growing up as well.  I've noticed that a certain (disturbing) video seems to get a lot of air time, and never grows old.  It's the video of a well-endowed woman trotting on a horse, with her boobs flopping up and down from chin to belly button.  The video clip makes me cringe, every time.  I am embarrassed for her - how awful that a less-than-flattering image of her becomes a regular video clip for all of America to laugh at on a weekly basis.  I hurt physically for her - I've been there, and it is painful.  I am disgusted at who we all are as a people, that we still engage in the monstrous behavior of poking fun at the physical attributes of certain people.

I hate the 'bounce'.  For YEARS I have refused to do stuff that would cause it - running, jumping, dancing...it would just draw sideways glances from some, to outright rude stares from others.  Jumping was the worst.  I loved jump rope games at recess as a kid, but as the years passed and the chance came around again for me to jump - as a teacher on recess duty, I always told the girls 'no' - I'll turn the rope, but no jumping for me.  I eventually gave in and did it once.  My resolve broke down - they were having so much fun and begging me to jump too, so I couldn't resist.  One year after having Rylan, there I was, jumping rope.  One, two....three jumps and my bra strap snapped.  I'm not kidding.  I dashed to the classroom and had five minutes to fashion a fix with duct tape before the whistle sounded.  Fast forward six years to when my daughter just turned seven.  She received a beautiful new jump rope from a friend for her birthday, and really wanted to jump.  So we went to a park one afternoon and Dean and I turned the rope for her.  I jumped a little, just to give her some pointers, and Dean politely said that my shirt was flying up and things were falling out.  So that was the end of that.  In the back of my mind that day, I already had the big upcoming BR surgery to focus on...I knew change was coming, and that in a years' time, I would jump the hell out of that rope and not feel a hint of bounce - and no x-rated peep show to boot.

So three weeks ago, when I found my opportunity to jump, I felt absolutely elated.  I wore my iron-clad sports bra that had proved itself on many a run post BR surgery, and I was ready.  I jumped.  I jumped in front of people.  I don't know how to express just how huge that is for me, but I am trying.  For years I have tried to shield myself from others, but on that day - I was in front of people.  I jumped and I jumped and I jumped.  Inside, my heart was absolutely singing.  I was trampling all sorts of personal demons as I jumped up and down, left and right.

And then I slipped and fell.

I went from the highest high to the lowest low in seconds.  My little shovel can't dig deep enough or fast enough into my personal pit of despair.

How fucking unfair!

HOW FUCKING UNFAIR!

Years and years of pain and physical set-backs that made exercise off-limits.  Three pregnancies, plantar fasciitis, bursitis in my hips, shoulder surgery, breast reduction... lots and lots of chiropractic visits and physical therapy....and now THIS??  NO!  I was poised for the most awesome and active summer ever, and now I have a torn ACL, torn MCL, sprains, bruising and swelling... the laundry list from the MRI is so ridiculous it is laughable.  I have many months ahead of me with my knee in a brace, surgery, therapy...blah fucking blah, blah, blah.  I hate to bitch but it's the Murphy's Law(ness) of it all.  It just plain sucks.

Yeah...I have not been in a good place these past few weeks.  I felt it best to detach myself and let the emotional freight train run its course.  I'm a mess, inside and out.  The only thing to do is get back in the saddle and start over.  Again.

So in trying to find something to smile about in all of this, I thought that my downshift into a snail's pace means that I will have time to smell the roses.  All of them.  Twice over.