Weekly Report Week 23

The good news is that I finally caught up my calendar so I know what week it is, but the bad news is that we'll be 24 days behind last year's count at the end of this month.   I think this year I must have started later or something. 

The time change really got us this year.  We've been tired all week.

CC had a good week academically and a bad week socially.  She scored well on the tests she took last week, which is good except that she also received some hurtful comments from her classmates because of her grades.   She came home in near tears on Wednesday because she got two tests back that day and was told by some peers that she is a terrible person because she makes them look bad.  I was ready to take her out of school right away, but she wants to stay and is already looking forward to classes and teachers she'll have next year.  So instead of taking her out of school, I emailed the principal.  We'll see how it goes, but she's already met with the 6th grade team and found that the teachers haven't noticed this happening.   This has been getting steadily worse since Christmas break, and I've run out of ways to encourage and comfort her.  I want to see change, but having suffered this myself, I don't really believe this can be changed.

For LB, the warm weather contributed to a wonderful week along with some pain.  She's been taking her scooter to co-op and riding with her friends.  This week, she fell three days in a row and came home with increasingly worse skinned knees.  She also exclaimed , " I can read!" for the first time ever.  She reads well, but it is a huge milestone for her to realize it.  MUS is starting to seem easy for her so we've picked up the pace.  I won't skip any lessons, but at lesson 14, we're finally starting to move rapidly.  I can actually imagine her getting up to grade level before fall.

Wordless Wednesday 13 March

School report for first week of March

Last week, CC was home most of the week on doctor ordered rest.  She'd pick up a virus on top of her lingering mono, and he wanted her to rest for the week.  I enjoyed having her home with me and watched too much Doctor Who with her. She started feeling better and enjoyed a sleep-over at a friend's house on the weekend.   Her friend has food allergies so I relaxed a little bit because I knew her mom would know what to do.

She's been enjoying Cattus Petasatus and Harrius Potter.  She loves to translate Latin and is enjoying the challenge.

This week she had her first week of state standardized tests.  We've done the simple CAT tests previously for homeschooling, but this is her first time of taking 3 days of tests.  She said she was completely unprepared for how incredibly boring it would be.  She survived the testing and then welcomed normal school days. 

I'm amazed at how much her writing has improved over the year.  Last night she wrote a three page tribute speech for her Public Performance class.  She's always been a great writer when the topic was something she chose with her own timing, but it was great to watch her write a moving speech in a short amount of time.


LB has had a wonderful week.  She's been reading through her SL2 reader with a bonus that I read a chapter of Droon to her after she reads.  She could read Droon herself, but I'm hoping that this little addictive series will get to her and she'll choose to read them on her own.  She's still at a stage where she reads when she's told but not for her own pleasure.  I know it will come.   

We're slowly working our way through MUS Alpha.  We're on lesson 12, and she's still enjoying it.  I'd much rather her make slow progress with understanding than rush through going through the motions.  She gets math during her co-op also and has learned quite a bit which I think helps to round out the lessons at home.  I'm still worried because she is "behind,"  but I can deal with that better than with pushing her ahead without understanding.

This week spring started to peek out.  LB's class walked to the local money museum one day and took their scooters to a pizza place for lunch one day.  She also came home barefoot from school yesterday.  I love that she spends so much time outside.  She's  enjoying German and learning to play a flute as part of her co-op day.  She seems to have a talent for languages and music like her brother and sister. 

Week something in Feb. 2013 - It's been a long time

It is the middle of February.  It has been a long time.  I'll need to find the school calendar and see what week we're on.

Since my last post, CC has been in and out of the emergency room a few more times.  She's been very sick and has had very severe allergic reactions.  She still loves her classical school and her cello.  She loves math, grammar, poetry, history, Latin, and science.   She has learned something that twelve year-olds  don't typically know.  She has learned about her own mortality.  I've seen my poor baby cry because she understands how fragile her life is.  It breaks my heart because one of the beauties of childhood is that children don't know that life is fleeting. 

LB is the little smiling personification of whimsical childhood most of the time.  The Waldorf group continues to be perfect for her.  She draws, paints, sings, dances, sews, knits, cooks, bakes, imagines, creates, plays, explores and enjoys her way through most of her days,  After she gets home happy and tired, we do a lesson from MUS and read from a SL 2 reader.  It is perfect for her right now.

BB is back in Japan working in Tokyo.  He has finished classes and will officially graduate in June.  He was home for Christmas which was terrific.  I am so proud and amazed. 

The kids are all growing quickly.  Time is rushing past.   I always feel like I have been privileged to have stopped and enjoyed  this time with them instead of letting it slip by me.

Week 13 Long, Good, and Painful

Right at this moment on a Friday morning, LB is at the park where she'll spend the day playing at a nature center all day, and CC is sleeping after being in the ER with me until the wee hours of the morning.  That is a tiny picture of our week.  Yesterday, LB was at a Waldorf co-op that we recently joined making gingerbread cookies and painting with watercolors while CC was at school taking a science test and preparing for her winter orchestra concert.  Last night, after the wonderful concert, we found out that she is allergic, very allergic, to tree nuts.  I also had my first experience jabbing her with an epipen which was no fun.  It was a long, long week.

Right now, the Waldorf co-op is providing LB and I with a tiny community to belong to.  She's getting art, music, stories, and lots of outside time with a few children instead of just working around my work schedule.

I'm back to being very afraid for CC with yet another life-threatening allergy, but  we knew right away what the reaction was and didn't underestimate it.  We reacted exactly the way we should have even though we were afraid, and we didn't panic.  She seems to get in a perfect balance in her life then her health throws it out again.  We'll fight to get  control back again.

The best thing I heard all week:
When I came home from the ER last night I peeked in LB's room to kiss her sleeping head good night.  She rolled over and sang, "Carry me home."