{Insert clever title here}

We're 50/50 on the great public school experiment of 2013.  If I were writing this on day two, I'd be saying Jake is LOVING it!  Since it is now actually day four, I'll go with Jake is liking it.  It's a good little school, and I'm thinking it will be a good year for him. 

Madi is back to homeschooling.  She and I are very happy with this decision.  There are so many reasons for this, I don't even know where to start.  Since I couldn't even come up with a title, I'm pretty sure I don't have the mental energy to do this post justice, so I'll let the picture of day 1 do the talking.  Anyone who knows Madi can tell from this picture that this droopy shouldered girl is not Madi.  She's back to homeschooling (or will be when her virtual school classes kick in) and the sparkle is back in her eye.  It was only gone for 48 hours, but that was the longest 48 hours we've lived in a long time!

She did get a nice backpack out of the whole thing.

 

Jonathan is currently dual enrolled in three college classes and so far so good.

 

Mary has been a sweet and quiet addition to our family, tonight she had "pride night" at her school and came home with this...

 

Excuse all the mess in the background, I am a homeschooling mom after all.  I expect I'll have a clean house in about 8 years, until then I'm going to enjoy what I've got!!

7 QTs

1. Jake got the teacher that used to be a homeschool mom!  AND Josh from next door is in his class and sits right next to him!  Either they are really taking care of us at that school or God is giving us even more than I was asking for (or both)!  Of course I think Jake was praying for the teacher and Josh too, and I know I have a hard time saying no to him.

2. Madi got her schedule yesterday at orientation!  That was a huge prayer answered.  When we walked into the cafeteria at four minutes before the event was to start it was already packed in there and the guidance counselor and assistant principal were going on and on about how they did their best to get everyone's schedules, but some people, especially new kids, might not have them yet.  She did!!  Yay!!!  And it is mostly great!  She starts her day with Art and then Chorus.  The only glitch in the schedule is that she is in regular Geometry instead of Honors.  She filled out a request to change that, and my current prayer is that she can switch without it messing with the rest of the schedule (and all of the teachers we've already met).  An option would be to do Geometry Honors on virtual school, which would mean she could even leave school early.  The downside to this is that I'd still have to be the nag who says, "did you do your Geometry?" instead of the nice mom with cookies.  We'll see what happens next week.  They said sophomores might not get their requests addressed until the end of the week.  In the meantime, she might find out that the regular class isn't so bad and no one will try to sell her drugs or anything.

3. Jonathan starts three new dual enrollment classes on Monday.  He walked around at the school today to make sure he could find all his classrooms.  He is taking another English class (Literature composition I think), a math class (so I can stop hounding him about the Teaching Textbooks Pre Calc that he hasn't come close to finishing), and Intro to Theatre Arts (which he could probably teach ;) )

4. Mary has two Chinese friends here visiting right now.  I let them eat grapes up in her room. (Her room is Jake's room and it is so spacious and clean without all his stuff in it).  Jake's room is now the loft and it is as cluttered as ever! (Not ENTIRELY his fault.)

5. Little Mermaid pics...

 

6. I have a new baby cousin in CT!  He is my cousin Allie's baby.

 

Is he cute or what??  His name is Kade Matthew and he will be three weeks old tomorrow.  I don't get to meet him until Thanksgiving.

 

 

7.  School orientation pics...

Looking for more to read, go see Jen at Conversion Diary, I was the 156th person to link to that today!

Pretty Happy Funny Real

Pretty!  We went to our first ever Quincinera on Saturday.  It was Mary's first too :)!

Happy!!

 

Funny...

 

REAL

This is, as of now, the only curriculum that I am teaching this year.  The reality is, on Monday, Jake will be in fifth grade at the local elementary school, Madi will be in 10th at the High School, and Jonathan will begin three new college (dual enrolled) classes {he got an A in his first college class by the way!}  Mary already started school last week at a completely different school.  Today is Madi's orientation where she will finally find out her schedule, and tomorrow Jake has orientation and will find out who his teacher is.  There is a fifth grade teacher who homeschooled just a few years ago, and it would be awesome if he ends up with her.  It would also be great if he's in the same class with his buddy Josh, who rings our doorbell every single day. 

 

I'm off to tour the school...

 

 

 

 

Will be back with Little Mermaid pics eventually!

 

In the meantime go to Like Mother Like Daughter for more pretty happy funny real.

Mary

Today is our first day with our Chinese exchange student.  She arrived at about 9:15 last night.  She is currently in her room with the door closed and no noise coming out.  I'm letting her rest or whatever she's doing for a little while longer.  She ate breakfast with me, Jake and Madi this morning and we chatted for a while.  She played a beautiful song on the piano for us.  She was kind of looking at the piano and I told her she could play it.  She said something about her 20 hours of travel plus staying in Beijing for a few days before that, and I wasn't sure what that had to do with whether or not she could play the piano, but I know guess it was her way of saying she was a little "rusty" after not playing for a few days.  You would never know it by the way she played.  Just like you would never know Madi threw up during intermission when she was playing Ariel on Thursday and the camp that she works at was there to see it, but that's a post for another time... just remember I'm stress mama who wrote about EXTREME a few posts ago.  Back to Mary.  The other day Jonathan and Chloe were watching Tarzan (the Disney one) (they have this plan to watch 100 movies together this year) (Tarzan was the first movie Jonathan saw in the movie theatre, he was 3)  (this reminds me of when they do that pop up thing with movies on TV)  (maybe they don't do that anymore, was that a 90s thing?).  I mentioned how I am bugged by the part in Tarzan when they (Jane and company) teach him all about being a human with a five minute slide show.  I am reminded of that as we get to know Mary though, (whose real name is Hong Bing Pan {or Pan Hong Bing}), I feel like we were trying to tell her everything about being an American over breakfast on the first morning.  We mentioned things like Thanksgiving and Halloween, New York City, showers and dishwashers, junk food, cell phones, and of course the biggies around here church and theatre, so we're well on our way.  I explained how Madi and Jake have always done school at home, but this year will actually go to school.  Neither one will be going to the school she is going to go though.  It is a funny thing to have a stranger from a strange land move into your house. We had practice the past two summers with our short term exchange students, but this is the real deal.  It is kind of exciting.  She told us last night that she has fun with everything, we're off to a good start.

A tale of two restaurants

It's barely 1:00pm and I've already ordered two iced teas from two different establishments today.  The dichotomy of the two struck me so profoundly I figured I'd take a stab at writing about it.  This morning seven of us theatre moms went across the street to the local coffee shop to make candygrams for this weekend's shows.  Candygrams are little bundles of candy that can be sent back to the kids in the show during intermission, it's 5 cents worth of candy sold for $1 that make the young actors feel priceless.  Anyway, we have the very nice little coffee shop/ restaurant in a prime location to do this.  The food and drinks are yummy and they have various tables and comfy couches to sit at.  Sounds great right?  Here's the catch... they are mean there!  The owner and namesake has always been mean in a quirky sort of way, but today, even the usually nice waitress was terrible.  Here we are seven people buying drinks and at least 3 people ordered a full breakfast as well, but they showed us in no uncertain terms that our presence was not wanted today.  The theatre kids who frequent this place all the time are used to this treatment, and it's just not right.  It's not just us young people who feel this way either (I'm young..ha!), a few weeks ago I got into a conversation with some of the geriatric volunteers at the theatre and they feel strongly that the owner/ namesake is a "not nice woman".  It's annoying because this place is so convenient and pretty yummy.  I gently made my opinion known today, the theatre supplies this place with tons of business, and it would be wise for them to show us a little respect.  I left a tip larger than the cost of my dumb drink and didn't even use my 10% off discount card because I had already felt so put off by them.  I don't feel like going there anymore.

Fast forward a couple of hours, while out running errands I realize that today is the last day of the month, ie the last day of a free large soda at everyone's favorite fast food restaurant. (I use the term everyone loosely because we all know about the controversy, but this is not about that!)  Never one to pass up free stuff, I pulled into the drivethru where a smiling young girl tells me it will be her pleasure to serve me.  This is not through the machine, the smiling young girl is actually standing outside in 95* weather waiting to relay my order to the people inside.  I ask if I can substitute my free soda for an unsweetened iced tea, of course it would be their pleasure.  In no seconds flat, my free drink is ready at the window and the people inside thank me again for letting them give me a free drink.  I can bash corporate America with the best of them, and love to be able to give business to the small town locals, but sometimes big business is a little nicer than regular people, and other times, as in this case it is A LOT NICER!!  Interestingly enough Jonathan just turned in his first big project for college.  It is a five page essay on the positive side of the fast food industry.  He will be happy to hear this story. 

If I were smart and eloquent I could turn this into a whole thing about the teenagers (who so often get a bad rap in our society) at the fast food franchise who were so smiley and friendly versus the middle aged crabs at the other place.  Or perhaps I could point out the Christian business practices of said fast food place as compared to the very unChristlike behavior of the mean people, but my time and braincells are running low, so you'll just have to think about those things for yourself.

Extreme

I feel like (at least I hope) that I come across as fairly normal, and almost maybe a little laid back.  This is not usually what the inside of me looks like though.  When day three of parenting brings jaundice followed by a seizure and a stroke, you kind of kiss laid back parenting goodbye.  After a week in the hospital we continued on as almost normal parents right up until #2 was born and on the day she was to be baptized, #1, now 2 1/2, had another major seizure and a blood glucose reading of 21.  (there had been one other incident of 19, but no seizure that time).  We still managed to be almost normal parents with all of this except for the part about hounding the poor little boy to eat all the time (finish that cookie, eat some more ice cream) and waking up of every night in the middle of the night to give him a sippy cup of chocolate milk until he was about 5 years old.  Speaking of five years old, when #2 approached that age, in spite of never having a sick visit to the pediatrician in all her life, she threw us for a loop when she developed an auto immune scary condition that necessitated an ambulance ride and two nights in the big city hospital.   This was all before the scariest of all of which my husband was the culprit.  You can go all the way back to the beginning of this blog in 2007 to read about that one, I don't want to talk about it. 

In the last year Madi has twice had a freaky hives, vomiting, allergic reaction thing that we cannot figure out the cause of.  The only thing in common about the two incidents was that she was doing something completely new and was a little nervous.  This girl can sing and act in front of hundreds of people without even a flutter of butterflies.  As part of operation enter public school, she had to go to said school this morning to take a really annoying Algebra test.  This girl who doesn't get nervous was a little nervous, this mom who does get nervous was freaking out!  I was convinced that she was going to end up with hives and vomiting (part of me imagines anaphylactic shock).  The text that said "I feel a little sick, but I'll be ok" didn't help me.  Long story short, she was ok, she is done, and now back at theatre where nerves don't ever enter into the equation.  And I feel such relief.  I am used to this relief.  In the days of toddler Jonathan when I expected every second that something horrible was going to happen.  I would get myself so worked up that then when he'd wake up from a nap just fine, I'd celebrate an unbelievable feeling of relief.  I am weird and a little bit like the movie What about Bob?  Bob fakes turret's syndrome and other neurosis because "if you can fake it you don't have it".  My version is if I expect my kid to have some crazy weird illness, then they probably won't.  I might be sharing too much of my messy insides here, but since only about 3 people read this anyway, I think I'll take my chances.  Plus I'm not really as crazy and I'm making this sound, and I know that prayer is much more helpful than expecting something bad to happen.  Believe me I utilize prayer ALL THE TIME!!  Here's another part of it though, I have learned that sometimes bad things happen because they happen to us, but like that without darkness we wouldn't appreciate light kind of thing, I am so genuinely happy, when we jump another hurdle and nothing bad ended up happening.  With Jonathan driving everyday and Madi eager to drive as much as possible too, I get to practice this kind of thing all the time.  I pray, partly knowing everything will be fine, and partly preparing for the absolute worst case scenario, and then when I get that "I'm here" text or see the car pull in the driveway, I am so happy and celebrate the relief.  Without nervousness, we couldn't celebrate relief. 

Parent is a verb

I recently read an article about the "verbing" of nouns.  How nouns like friend, google, and photo shop are often used as verbs and some linguistic purists take offense to that.  I've been a big fan of verbing for years.  I was parenting when parenting wasn't cool.  How could parent possibly only be a noun if it is so much work and stretches you beyond your wildest dreams.  A word that huge has to be a verb.  The same is true of mothering and homeschooling as well, but since those words are more specified, I'll go with the more general parenting.  As I have mentioned in recent posts, I am hooked on some really good toddlermom blogs (and yes blog is most definitely also a verb).  A common theme is please don't tell a mother who is home with multiple toddlers all day that it gets harder as they get older or that time flies too fast.   Of course over here we are living proof that time indeed flies much too fast, but if you told me that when Jonathan was 3 and Madi was a baby it would not have helped me.  As for the 'they have little problems when they are little and bigger problems when they are big' adage, I'm not so much a fan of that one.  For one thing, Jonathan had a stoke at 3 days old, very little baby---big problem.  Here's what I know though, when they are little they have DIFFERENT problems (let's just say issues) than they do when they are bigger.  It is a whole new minefield to parent through.  Yesterday Madi rode with a teenage friend to a fairly far away mall in a fairly big city.  While typing this I just exhaled as the text came in that Jonathan made it safely to his class once again.  Daily I am facing new challenges as I parent these teenagers, daily we are making big decisions about what is ok and what is not ok.  It can be exhausting, no doubt.  There's a tradeoff though.  I am blogging in a completely quiet house, no one is climbing all over me.  No one is requesting a drink or a game of candyland, or to nurse for the 15th time that day, and even when everyone is home I can go to the bathroom all by myself for as long as I like.  So moms of toddlers (though I know you don't read my lame blog, even though I read yours), the exhausting part of parenting doesn't really go away, but the change makes it ok.  I get to sit and chat with friends over coffee or whatever, for hours on end with almost no interruption (except sometimes the occasional text) for a mom who couldn't go to the bathroom or to bed alone for years and years, this is an unbelievable luxury.  The other benefit is that teenagers are pretty cool.  Mine are anyway.  When they finally get back home from their latest adventures safely, we can have really good conversations.  Parenting is a hard job, Mike and I used to say if it's not the hardest job you'll ever have, you're doing it wrong.  But parenting teenagers is a different hard job than parenting toddlers.  I have the feeling parenting adults will have it's own challenges.  My kids are getting older and older everyday, time is most certainly flying, but I'm pretty sure I'll be verbing this parent thing for years to come.