Category — schooling

Summer…over! Where’d it go?

Between summer school, trips and guests, it flew by! I still want it! I’m not really ready for the whole school routine. Guess I better GET ready, because when I wake up it’ll be staring me in the face-wake up at 4, pack lunches, listen to 3 girls bicker over the 2 showers, fight for my own shower time, make sure everyone eats something-even if it can’t be considered breakfast, load everyone into the van, fight the morning traffic, drive 15 miles and fight the traffic back. Yea!

I can’t say it hasn’t been a good summer. It’s been different from what I’m used to, but it’s been good. We’re all a lot tanner and there’s a light dusting of sand on the bathroom and laundry room floors, so we obviously enjoyed the beach and parks. Can’t complain there!

Ok summer, I’ll say good bye. But only because I know that in a blink of an eye, you’ll be back~

Here we go!

Today is Freshman orientation. The girls had to show up to school in their “Dress Day” uniforms at 8 am for yearbook pics & spending the day on campus to get acclimated to the campus and their schedules. It jogged my memory of what the school year schedule is like. Starting next Monday, the 3 girls will be back in school and we will be leaving the house at 7 each morning to fight the morning traffic, drive the 15 miles to the HS and then get back home to get the day going for everyone else. But that’s just the beginning-once the other kids start (Sept. 7th) I’m going to have to have 8 lunches packed, 7 kiddos dressed, homework in hand, dinner in the crock pot, myself dressed & ready and EVERYONE out the door by 7. I’ll get off at 12:15, take Lex with me to the gym, get a workout in (I’m pushing for this!), pick the kiddos up from school & begin the afternoon/evening of sports, homework, dinner, writing and the bedtime routine.

Yep-I’m trying to savor the last fleeting days of my semi-hectic summer before it gets turned up to full speed. Yikes!

So, I better get to the shower, clean this house, keep the kiddos entertained, work on the paperwork and try to remember that these are the easy times

Doing the Dance of the Children and easing back into the routine~

My camera was MIA all weekend. I missed taking pics of Kateri leaving to go back to school and snapping pics of the 3 different St. Greg’s boys that we’ve encountered since Friday. We had 2 boys overnight on Friday and one is staying until Wednesday and we met up with another at church on Sunday. I can’t believe that they are all visiting while JJ is away!

But I found the camera again and decided to snap a pic of the project I was working on. Gabi brought home this “Beautiful Butterfly” a few days ago and promptly dropped it on the ground, while trying to show it to one of her sisters. I scooped up the pieces and told her I’d buy some Super Glue and get it put back together. I should’ve known better! I’m classically clumsy-it’s just a fact! And why I thought I could take on anything that had to do with broken glass AND a super-strength glue, I simply don’t know. After successfully gluing the first piece of the wing on, I was feeling pretty confident. Then I cut the tip of my finger on a sharp piece, dripped the glue all over my hand and the other pieces, effectively glueing them (let me rephrase-SUPER GLUING) them to the bowl and having to throw the entire thing away, bowl and all. Of course I hid it all under other trash and had it taken out. Not sure what my explanation is going to be.

How this house has stayed intact and these kiddos have thrived under my butter-fingered guidance, I’ll never know.

~sigh~

So…it’s the week before my high schoolers go back to school. This means sports tryouts. Arianna is trying out for tennis and volleyball. Her first passion is volleyball, but she wants a back-up plan to keep her moving. I give her a TON of credit! She hasn’t played tennis since 4th grade! I LOVE her drive and self-confidence. I wish I would have had it at her age. She tries new things all the time, gives them her all and is largely successful! I’m so proud of her!

My lil kiddos head back to school in a couple of weeks and that means back-to-work for M.O.M. I’ll be aiding in the preschool again. I really enjoyed my time there last year and can’t wait to get to know a new group of preschoolers! Of course this means I’ve got to get used to the crazy schedule of crockpotting every dinner and having everyone (myself included) dressed and ready for the day before 7:30 am. Whew! Doing the Dance for sure!

So, I’m going to try to enjoy my last couple weeks of morning Boot Camp and the “Lazy Days of Summer” (anyone seen those?) and then jump into the whole routine like a pro double-dutcher.

Wish me luck!

It’s Thursday of another summer’s week gone by. There are only a few weeks left and I have a mountain of housework/school prep/paperwork to get through. There are kid’s physicals, sports tryouts, school shopping and the last of the summer house guests to keep me Doing the Dance. But I wanna play! The beach is RIGHT THERE and it’s screaming to me and the kids. The pools are sending out invites and wondering why we’re not lying in the San Diego sunshine in lounge chairs by their clear, blue sides. The parks are whispering of shady trees and picnics. I’m so torn!

For today I’m working in the house for a little while longer and then packing up my bickering brood and heading for the pool, book in hand. But I know I’ll come home this afternoon, look around at all that’s waiting and wonder what magical thing is going to happen to make it possible for me to get it all done.

Why, oh why are there only 24 hours in each day? This M.O.M. needs more. More of everything! More time. More help. More solutions to my inner tugging between work and play!

Grab some time on these fleeting, summer days and try to enjoy it before it’s gone. The work, well, it’ll still be there. I promise

Doing the Dance of the Children and trying to keep my balance~

Only 2 more 1/2 days at school and then we’re callin’ it summer! I can’t wait! I love summer and being able to be on my own schedule (ok, in reality I only FEEL like I’m on my own schedule. The kids really rule the hours. But I LIKE feeling like I’m in charge). In preschool, we enjoyed a Luau themed party and activities for the last 2 days and for the next 2, it’ll be Pajama Party themed. This means popcorn and movies and lots of lil kiddos in pjs. Gabi and Lex are looking forward to it.

I heard from JJ this morning. Yea! There hadn’t been any word since the boys left for their pilgrimage, more than 2 weeks ago. But he said he was in Spain and was doing well, just tired. They’ll be back in the States on Thursday and he’ll be home for the summer on Saturday. I can’t wait to hear the stories from that trip!

Tomorrow, after work, I’m grabbing most of the kids and heading to the San Diego County Fair. We haven’t been in a few years, so I’m looking forward to checking it out!

I guess I better call it a night. With Slumber Parties and The Fair looming, I’m gonna need my rest!

Good night~

What a great weekend! All the prep work, stress and busyness of the last week paid off. The girls memory boards were done for Memory Lane, they attended their luncheon, last dance of the year and 2 of the 3 graduation parties that are scheduled. The last party is later this week. Family and friends were on hand to celebrate with them and we had a great family dinner at one of our favorite sushi restaurants.

Whew! I’m glad it’s over and that it was all good for them. Now they have a week off and then it’s into their high school uniforms and off to summer school. I have math books to order tomorrow. It just never ends!

On news of my other graduate-JJ, I do believe the boys are finishing up their pilgrimage and heading back to the U.S. in a few days. He will be home for the summer, this weekend. I can’t wait to hear about the amazing journey that he and his fellow classmates went on. I can only imagine the stories that 16 boys, on bikes, for about 1,000 miles thru Spain and France are going to have.

For my 4 youngest kiddos there is one more week of school. So, regular bedtimes and wake-up routines until Friday when we can throw up our hands and welcome summer. I can’t wait!

Here’s to the last week of this school year.

Doing the Dance of the Children with My Eyes on the Beach~

The last couple of days have been consumed with all things, 8th grade graduation. I’m still working on the girls’ memory boards and have until this afternoon to be finished. Then they go onto Memory Lane, where each of the graduates has all their special items set up for all to see.

This week is filled to the brim with kid stuff. Yesterday the 8th grade went to Disneyland. After school, today, many of them will head to Soak City. Tomorrow is the dance and then a party. Whew! By Friday we will all be more-than-ready to have graduation and call it quits.

I managed to grab a couple hours, yesterday, to take Gabi to a friends’ house to be outfitted for a Poodle Skirt. The preschoolers have a special Father’s Day performance on Friday and Gabi is the lucky recipient of a fancy, new skirt. It turned out SO cute!

Such a busy week! I love projects, but I hate deadlines! I’ll be glad when these boards are finished up and the girls have graduated. Then the work of getting them set up to start high school begins.

Doing the Dance of the Children, One Project at a Time~

For the last 3 days I’ve been browsing craft stores and sitting, for hours, at my computer, pouring over pictures of Arianna and Maddi. All of this in the effort to get started on their 8th grade, graduation, memory boards.

Did I wait until days before they were due because I didn’t know what to do or what to expect? Heck no! These are the 4th and 5th boards I’ve done and a year ago, when they finished 7th grade, I told myself I should start prepping the photos so I wouldn’t be rushed or anxious. Ha! It’s just that everything got away from me (whine, whine, whine, excuse, excuse, excuse). I was single-parenting, due to deployment and I spent the summer days keeping the kids busy. The nights were spent trying to catch up around the house and to get a little sleep. Then the Fall came and I went to work (more excuses). I spent each day juggling school, housework, sports and a work schedule. Then February arrived and my brother came to stay. Life got a little easier. I looked around at all I was behind on, thought of the girls’ graduations that were merely months away and did another load of laundry.

Fast forward to the first weekend of June…Uh…it’s time!

This week is a little crazy and I’m feeling overwhelmed. But, the girls will graduate. The boards will be done. Life will move on.

So-deep breath and a glass of water for this M.O.M. and tomorrow I will tackle a little more. And hopefully I’ll learn from my great dislike of anxious feelings and not do something like this again…

Somehow I have a feeling I’ll be writing like this again. There are lessons we just don’t learn.

Doing the Dance of the Children~

It’s been 2 weeks since JJ graduated from High School and only a few days afterward, he and his class, along with a few chaperones, got on a plane headed for Spain. Each person was outfitted with a new bike and a few essentials for the long road ahead of them. They are heading out for a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

This journey takes them through Spain and into France. I have to admit that, even though I’d heard about the trip for a whole year, I hadn’t given it much thought. Sure, I took him to the post office to get his passport and I sent money for the new bike, but I hadn’t looked into the route or researched the journey. I knew that the Senior classes before JJ’s had done this trip and that it was a wonderful experience.

Yesterday I finally sat down at the computer and typed “Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela” into my Google search box. I was fascinated with what I read and saw! An excerpt from the book,
Pilgrimage to the End of the World states-”A satellite image of the pilgrimage routes provides a little reality check to the bland abstractions of a traditional map. But even this isn’t enough to convey the toughness of the trail. The daunting mountain ranges of the Pyrenees and the Cantabrians speak clearly enough of the great challenges the pilgrim must overcome.” I’m in awe of these boys, on bikes and with little in their pockets, taking on this trek!

There’s been no word from the boys, so I’m going with the phrase, “No news is good news” and trusting that all is going well. I can’t wait for JJ’s return home so that we can hear all about this adventure, both spiritually and physically. I’m just more proud and pleased than I can convey that the boys are having this experience!

I truly hope that each of my children gets to embark on experiences like this one!

Doing the Dance of the Children and hoping to foster their dreams and nurture their souls~

I am so tired!

Right at this moment, that’s overshadowing the fact that I’m in PA for the weekend to be a part of my oldest son’s graduation.

Ok, tiredness aside…I can’t believe how quickly the last 3 years have gone! JJ left as a Sophomore and already he’s graduating! Then it’s off to Spain and France for a biking pilgrimage. He will be home for a couple of months this summer and then is off to the University of Dallas for school. College!!!!

Here’s a little of how this trip has gone so far-

I left on Thursday, after work. Kateri is home to take care of the kids and keep their routine running. I spent Wednesday evening writing out a plan to make life a little easier on her. It looked a little like this;

Of course there was a backside to Thursday’s plan and Fri, Sat, Sun and the meal plan all followed.

After making my way across the country, I arrived in Scranton, PA a little after 11pm. Clay and Mariah had taken an earlier flight and met up with my sister, Bridget, who is out from Portugal to attend the graduation and then to visit family and friends in Ca. They all picked me up and we decided to get something to eat. We found an open Waffle House.

We headed to the hotel, got some rest and then went out to the school. It was good to see JJ at school and to go to mass with all the boys.

After mass, we headed to lunch and to get a new shirt for graduation.

Now, it’s time to rest a little and then back to the school for the play that the Seniors are putting on.

Everything at home seems to be running smoothly. Thanks Kateri, Ted and Maggie!

You can bet there will be pics of the play from tonight!

Cinco De Mayo…

Today we helped the kiddos in preschool learn about Cinco De Mayo and shared a snack of taquitos, salsa and chips with them. As the teacher read a story about why we celebrate this day all I could think was that I never really knew the significance behind today. I knew there was a battle, but never  paid attention to the details. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I ever learned them at all. Is my brain fuzzy or did we learn about Cinco De Mayo when we were kids?

I’m not sure, but I think I’ll ponder it over a margarita!

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

We’ve been getting the kids in the classroom ready to celebrate Earth Day. They’ve been learning about bugs and we have caterpillars in a netted home where the kids can watch them go through all their phases of metamorphosis. I put together a playlist of songs about the earth’s changes from season to season, recycling and gardens (some of my favorite children’s songs are on that playlist!) and the class has been learning about planting and growing. They’ve planted sunflowers and watched as they poked thru dirt to becoming seedlings. A few days ago we had a great visit from one of the children’s fathers, who taught the kids all about growing tomatoes. We decided to have the kids each plant tomato seeds and the seedlings will be placed in hand painted pots for Mother’s Day. I think the kids have had fun learning about recycling, growing and conserving. Today and tomorrow we’ll give them a little treat (the cookies pictured above) and listen to the noisy classroom, since it’s raining and they won’t be able to go outside.

~sigh~

It’s tough to get the kids to be excited for the rain that’s helping the flowers grow, but keeps them inside. But they sure can be funny and creative! Here’s a funny story to share that happened while I was helping one of the little guys plant his tomato seed for his mom-

Me-”See how small this seed is? Isn’t it amazing that a whole plant is going to be able to grow out of that tiny seed and real tomatoes can grow on that plant? And then you and Mommy can go pick them and eat them!”

5yr old boy-”Um, well, Mommy is on the Medifast diet and there are no tomatoes on the Medifast diet.”

Me-*holding back a laugh* “Well, they sure will be pretty to look at”.

Happy Earth Day! I hope it’s a good one~

I wanted to take a minute to address some of the comments I’ve received about the on-going issue of undone school work and my kiddo who isn’t happy with school. I’ve had several thought-provoking responses and I think they deserve to be responded to.

In my 21 years of parenting I have approached schooling in many ways. I’ve had children in public schools and in the private school system.  There was also a time when we were frequently moving because of military orders and it made sense to take schooling into my own hands at some points during those moves. There have been issues with the way a child learns or how to best help them glean the knowledge that’s within all those text books and I chose to bring a child home for a year and 1/2 to try to find the holes in their learning, plug them and get the child back into the classroom setting. We’ve worked with tutors and learning centers along the way. In my journey through parenting and schooling I’ve had to face something head on-when choosing to homeschool, both the child AND the parent have to be considered. I have had to be honest enough with myself to face the fact that I am not a parent that is well-suited to homeschooling. I have neither the time nor the space to give it the solid attention that I desire and that it deserves. It’s been a bitter pill to swallow. I have had friends and acquaintances throughout all of my years of parenting who have done a very good, successful and solid job of schooling their children. I have had to realize that it is not for everyone and just because I have a child or a situation that isn’t particularly suited to the traditional classroom setting, doesn’t automatically mean that the answer is for me to become the child’s teacher. Believe me, I have tried this, been successful (enough) at it and still had to accept that it’s not for me.

Many kudos to those that have done and are taking on this immensely, important task in their children’s lives. I TRULY wish I could join you. But we must all face our strengths and weaknesses, be honest about them and then work from there.

Many of you have suggested that my child who is having such a tough time at school and within the structure of the classroom, be home schooled. You have suggested I look at all the people, throughout history who have contributed great things to our world and how they didn’t fit, well, into the traditional settings of school. Thank you. I do see this. I will have to weigh all my options while leaving homeschooling out of the equation.

As for my meeting with the teacher…it could have gone better. I understand that she is just as frustrated as I am with what we are seeing. However, I give her credit for seeing that this isn’t an issue of work that is too difficult-it’s not the curriculum, but an issue of learning to work within the structured environment. I know that some of you are of the opinion that it isn’t particularly necessary for my child (or any child) to HAVE to learn to do this. On this point, we disagree. I feel that it’s important because in all the stages of our lives and in all we must do to be successful, functioning parts of our society require us to learn to work within the perimeters of that structure. We get to choose our outlets, whether they be sports, music or art, where we are able to find the way in which we like to use our time and let our thoughts be free-flowing, but there is always going to be the job that we must go to and the way in which that job must be functioned. If a child doesn’t learn to work within a structured environment and under time constraints, I don’t see how they can fully function, successfully as an adult, in society.

Thank you for all your suggestions and thoughts. I will continue to try to find the best way to give my child the tools needed to become a happy and successful student and growing kiddo.

Onto this day and Doing the Dance of the Children~

A while back I talked about finding many, MANY pages of undone or partially done school work under one of my children’s beds. This happens to be the same child who is hating school. After making the kiddo climb under the bed and pull out all the papers and letting them know that they would be brought into the teacher and we would discuss how and when to get them all done, I figured the problem was over. Shortly after that, the teacher let me know that she had found several undone papers crumpled in the back of this child’s desk. We, again, made a plan for getting the work done-some of which no longer counted toward grades.

After having met with the teacher and my child and talking about the importance of the work and that if help was needed, all they needed to do was ask, I made the decision to change the way this child did homework and made sure that they were accompanied at the table, over each piece of work. So, since January, this child comes home, gets a snack and then sits down with someone and is guided through the homework that’s been presented from the back pack. Apparently even THIS isn’t a sufficient enough way of doing things to keep the child on task, because 2 days ago I received an envelope of papers and a note. Yep, more crumpled papers in the back of the desk!

So, last night I pulled all the papers out and organized them into piles. There was a total of 46 undone or partially done worksheet pages representing all of the subjects being studied. There’s the pile of “Done but not turned in” (I still don’t understand why that’s happening). There’s the pile of “Is this too old to matter?”. And finally the pile of “Completely not touched and needs to be tackled”. I wrote a note for each pile and am taking them into the teacher today to have her glance through and let me know that she wants each item taken care of.

~sigh~

This whole thing is making me crazy. Yes, I’ve sat and talked with my child. I’ve asked all the questions and offered all the help. I’ve taken the steps to make sure guidance is in place. I’ve done everything short of sitting in the classroom with them. Is that next?! Am I ultimately headed back to grade school?! I know, I know…just a little bit of being dramatic there.

Ok, getting the kids going for this new day of school and going in to talk with the teacher…again.

Prayers and well wishes appreciated!

Have a great day~

~Sigh~

One of my kiddos truly hates school. Every Sunday they look at me and say,”I know what tomorrow is…the worst day of the week.” The work curriculum isn’t a problem. Friends aren’t a challenge. They just, truly hate having to go and sit in a structured environment and complete work in a given time-frame. This particular child is a big thinker and is always thinking of a better way to do things or a better way to build things and can get lost in thoughts of planning and inventing and building for a long time.

The teacher and I have had several meetings and have come up with all sorts of ideas to help this child look at the whole thing differently. But each plan has failed. I’ve got someone working with them to see if we can find better tools for them to succeed inside the perimeters of the school day and the classroom structure. But that takes time and the school year is speeding toward it’s finishing point.

I’ve had another child who felt this same way and was just as lost in thought and they are now a successful High School Senior who is headed off to college in the Fall. I’m hoping they will have something to offer their younger sibling to help change all these feelings.

Anyone been here? What did you do?

Have a great day~