Softball

C's coach has been switching her positions around to see where she works best. She was tired of third base. She did well there, but she requested a change. What she really wants is to be pitcher, and she has been working hard at it. She's actually not bad pitching, but another place she likes and is good at is catcher. Ugh! You couldn't pay me to put all that extra gear on in the hot, humid midwest, and spend the inning squatting on my poor old knees.

The coach actually called us the other day about C. He is impressed with her, and she is one of the two best players on the team. She has NEVER struck out in 3 years. She has NEVER had to sit the inning out in the dugout. She is good at getting opponents out. He wants us to look into getting her individualized coaching from a softball coach at the local Catholic high school. That man trains younger girls who show a special talent for softball. I am getting the information from C's current coach, and will contact the man. I hope we can come up with some money. He isn't cheap, but C has 2 big passions in her life, and softball is one of them. And she really is very good. She sure doesn't get that ability from me! LOL

This wouldn't happen in public school

Saturday afternoon. We have half an hour before the softball game. (Yes, we actually managed to get a few in between storms and rain) Kids have been playing outside and helping with our back yard all day. C wanders into my room and says, "Mommy, I'm bored. Can we maybe do some math?" I was tired, and didn't really want to. I said, "Well are you sure that's what you want to do? I was letting you have a two week break." C replies sadly, "Oh. Okay. Well if you don't want me doing math it's okay."

What was I thinking? Why should I turn her down? Isn't that the cool thing about homeschooling? I can teach her what I want, when I want, and we can spend as much or as little time on things as we want.

I said, "For a kid that hates math, you sure seem to excel at it. It was your highest grade for 3rd grade, and you do each lesson so quickly." She said, "Well, I like it when YOU teach it Mommy." So we did math. : )

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I would just like it to be known that I'd like to see some softball this year! We haven't been able to have a softball game in 9 days. Out of the past 4 games, all 4 have been rained out and rescheduled. C is supposed to have one at 4:00 this afternoon (rescheduled from last Sunday), and it is pouring again! The softball fields are flooded, our yard is flooded, everything is flooded! We have had severe thunderstorms and/or tornadoes every day this week.

Very Busy Lately

Whew! I was beginning to think I'd never get back to time enough to write entries in a blog. Here's what all we have been up to the past week or two:

1.)Friday before Memorial day weekend. Shadow, the black lab, still very sick and losing weight, so we took him to the vet. She had no ideas.

2.)Saturday-Monday, Memorial Day. Dog continues vommitting and having diarrhea, still refusing to eat. By Monday he is so weak I'm thinking he will just waste away and die. He only moves to follow me from place to place. I call our vet's emergency on-call. This vet says she can't do anything, and to call the vet school at a nearby University. They will be glad to see Shadow....for a base fee of $800-$1,000. Can't afford that, so no help for Shadow. Husband and I spend Monday scrubbing carpet.

3.)Last Tuesday the vet was finally open here, and I took poor Shadow in to get barium X-rays. This was an all-day procedure. (and a $200 one at that) The good news is we finally found out why he is sick: he didn't have a blockage, as we'd suspected, but he HAD had one sometime prior, and it had been so large his large colon was distended and "stretched" to 4 times normal. Peristalsys was not working because the bowel was so distended. The bad news is that the vet said there is nothing to do for this. Hopefully his body will heal on it's own and learn to adapt, but only time will tell. His weight had plummetted from 49 pounds to 40 pounds. That's 20% of his body gone when he should be growing!

This was our 8th grader's last day of school, so had to run across town to pick up all her diabetic supplies from the school. I've spent far too much of this year at that school having conferenes with the dean, the principal, the social worker....glad this time was my last trip over there.

This was ALSO the first day of softball for C. She lost her first game 8-6.

4.) Last Wednesday I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to the poor dog laying in his crate covered in liquid stool. Covered! Poor thing couldn't help it, but what a wonderous day that was! Me, in nightgown in the front yard with a hose and a disgusting crate...dog in back yard with disgusting crust. After coffee-ing myself up I got dog clean in the shower in the basement. This was quite an ordeal for the dog AND me, but by 8a.m. we had survived and were clean. I figured Shadow would never speak to me again, but he still follows me everywhere. He really is my Shadow.

Wednesday was also E's last day of pre-K at public school. I was almost sad that it was over because she is my youngest and growing up so fast! She is so social; I have to find something for her to get involved in with other children.

C's second softball game; her team won 17-3! It was a very short game.

5.)Thursday I FINALLY got some formal schooling in with C. We had a good day. She did Math, History, Reading, Language Arts, Science, and a Reading quiz. She is getting all A's, except in Reading, which is a 90.9%. I gave her the option of officially ending 3rd grade with those grades, or going a few more days to bring the Reading grade up. She opted to get the grade up because she is a perfectionist, and doesn't like anything less than A's. Wonder where she gets that....? ;)

6.) C and I only did History, which we actually do for fun, and she read 2 of her library books Friday. She gets credit for these, as long as she can tell me about the books, so that I know she understood them.

Her softball game was cancelled due to thunderstorms and tornado warnings all around.

7.) The weekend. Hmmmm...we didn't really do anything in particular. I caught up on a lot of laundry and cleaning. Hubby mowed the lawn, we went to the store, he spent several hours playing softball with C, and working on pitching with her. Her game Sunday was canceled due to more thunderstorms. Her coach called, and spoke with me about getting her into more intensive softball training. She is the best player on her team, and he wondered if she would be interested. Besides animals, her passion is softball, so YES, we are interested. I knew she was good last year, and she is this year, too, but it was good to have that phone call from a coach to verify that I wasn't being a biased parent.

Saturday evening the dog began to eat. He hasn't wanted to eat anything for over 2 weeks. By Sunday he seemed to be making up for lost time. He ate. And ate. And ATE! He hasn't vommitted since last Monday, and his stools are getting a little better. I imagine HE knows better than I when he is well enough to handle food, so I allowed him to eat when he was hungry. He ate every 1-2 hours Sunday. I'm so happy he is feeling better!

8.) Monday I averaged out the girls' grades again, and C had raised her grade to a 95% in Reading. I had been trying to decide if it would be cheating if I gave her extra credit for something, but I didn't have to! She spent a lot of time reading last week and over the weekend, so with all that it really helped.

I issued E and C's report cards. They both got straight A's, and were promoted. E to Kindergarten (even though she's been doing that since January) and C to 4th grade. They were more excited with their grades and promotions here than I would have thought. They were jumping up and down screaming because they are now officially in a higher grade. I am going to go broke, though. They get $1.00 for each A, and any child in our house that gets straight A's gets an $5.00 bonus. I owe C $11, and E $12! E has an extra dollar because she had an extra class in "Critical Thinking" that C didn't have. Music, Art, Handwriting, and P.E. don't count. I debated on Bible, and decided to count it because C works hard to understand that and read it, and they both work together in their Bible study workbook. It's just as much a class as Math or Science, and it is a class that they NEED to have for life. If you don't know and learn the Word, when it's time to account, God isn't going to care you got an A in Math; He will care how you lived your life and treated others.

9.) Yesterday. Oh yesterday was a lovely day. Ha! Our oldest daughter woke us up at 1:30 to tell us B had run away again. (She left notes again)I figured where she went, and checked the phone. I was correct. We called the police, who finally showed up 2 hours later, and made another report. B has quite a lot of police reports for someone that turned 14 only 2 months ago. The police went and got her and brought her back home. Her friend's mother had actually come and picked her up at 11:15. What kind of parent would just pick up a mentally ill, diabetic young girl after curfew without talking to a parent?!? The house was pitch dark. It was obvious we weren't awake! B took 2 huge bags of clothes with her and flat out told the woman she was running away. She gave her usual "My Daddy beats me" saga, and added to it that we only allow her bread and water. The woman told the police she figured it would be okay with us. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's great. Come get our daughter in the middle of the night without even letting us know or asking. I would NEVER allow one of my children's friends to come over here or leave with us without first speaking to a parent. and if they gave a little teen-age drama-queen story of abuse I would call the police. Either it's made up, or there really is abuse, so I should let the proper people know to get help for the child. NOT just take her, and whisk her off to drop her at ANOTHER girls house. This third girls mother didn't even know B or us.

Thanks to B I was up from 1:30a.m. yesterday; she was brought home about 5:30a.m. By this time we were under thunderstorm attack again, so I stayed up. I tried to sleep, but the thunder and dogs whining kept me awake. Hubby got back to sleep until 11:00. He didn't have to work due to the rain. We had thunderstorms off and on all day yesterday, and by bedtime last night there were tornado warnings all over around us. C's softball game was cancelled again because of the weather....three games in a row now! I stayed out on the couch watching tornado warnings until midnight last night. I NEVER stay up that late...especially when I've been up 23 hours.

I made it up by my usual 5:30 today, though, and here I am. Now I've caught up on all the basics here. All the girls, except B are doing great. The dog is doing great. I haven't weighed him, but his ribs and hipbones aren't sticking out anymore. I'm doing great...for a woman with a total of 8 hours sleep in the past 48 hours. : ) Hope amyone reading this is doing well, also.

Science and History

After learning about ancient Egyptian farming methods the girls decided our local river was The Nile, and the surrounding "farmland" needed irrigating, so they built canals.

Science and History

They also dug up quite a collection they call the "Museum".

Just a Rant about a few Things

Two incidences have had me angry this week.

The first incident: 14 year old graduated 8th grade public school Wednesday. Why should this anger me? It angers me because she did not deserve to pass to the next grade or attend a graduation. She has done nothing all year. I know because I have so many conversations with her teachers, her dean, her assistant principal, and her social worker. She averaged a 37% in English the third nine weeks, and a 33% this quarter. Her school sends out weekly "what your child is failing this week" letters. I have one for every week this semester. Out of 4 core subjects (Pre-Algebra, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science) she has consistently been failing a minimum of three. This is in addition to Band and P.E., which she also is failing. She returned to school Monday after her suspension. I spent hours last week attempting to help her make up some of her work. She didn't turn it in. She threw it in her locker, and was a smart-alek to the teachers when they asked for it. So....even though she was failing 5 out of 6 total classes BEFORE her suspension, and got zero's for the 6 school days she missed, she graduated. Her highest grade was a D- in Pre-Algebra. She was quite angry with us when we weren't gushing over her "accomplishments". Oh well! I feel she didn't accomplish anything this year other than to drive the middle school staff as batty as possible so they would get her out of their hair! Oh, and they accomplished sending off another "successful" student to high school next year, and thus get their state funding for another student well-taught....

The other incident that has me upset involved my 9 year old. She was invited to a friend's house to play yesterday. They have been friends for several years, so off she went. When she came back home she was noticably subdued, so I asked if she had fun. "Not really", she replied. "There were some bigger kids there, and they were mean." The older girl is a friend of our 14 year old,(the graduate) and insisted on arguing with a 9 year old. She called my daughter, "gay" and a "wimp" and a "loser" because my 9 year old wouldn't fight her. WHY in the hell would a 9 year old want to fight at all, let alone with a much older girl? She was arguing with her over where big sister was. This girl insited she was at a boot camp for "bad" girls, and C kept trying to tell her, "No, she isn't. She's right down the street at home." The older girl repeatedly threatened C, and C was unsure how to handle it. Where were the parents during all this? Inside on the phone the whole time. Luckily the bigger girl didn't actually get physical.

I explained that with a sister like C has, she will have to deal with people saying things all her life. I know. I went through it all my life due to an older sister's issues. (a sister that left home before I was even born, for crying out loud!) The best thing to say is, "I am not my sister. I can not control what she does or has done. I don't like to fight because fighting is for people too ignorant to use words."

From now in, C may see her friends, but not at that home anymore. If they want to play, they can come here. I have kicked plenty of children out of our yard in my years as a mom, and I have never felt the slightest bit guilty for it. If you can't be civil, and follow the rules, you can get out. If I wanted my daughters to be bullied I would have left them in public school. If I wanted them to graduate with failing grades, and no education...I would have left them in public school.

Amazing Coincidence

I frequent an online homeschooling forum. One of the women on there made a few comments through the months leading me to believe she lived near where I grew up. That in itself, is amazing, because I grew up in a very tiny farm community. No one has ever heard of it unless they live within 20 miles of that town. She never gave any specifics; I just had a feeling. I made a half joking comment to her yesterday, and we decided to e-mail each other. Lo and behold, she lived very near that little town, had actually been there that day, and attends church in the even smaller town 5 miles away that I moved to after high school. I don't personally know this woman, but we have many mutual friends. I really do find that an amazing coincidence: I joined the online forum because of the excellent curriculum reviews and advice on the site. There are thousands of women there from all parts of our world. I never would have dreamt that I would meet someone on the internet that is from the area I spent 24 years of my life in!

Not a Productive Week

This week was crazy. It began with 14 year old step-daughter managing to get suspended until the 19th, so she is home for ten days straight. That meant me having to run across town to her school every two days to pick up her homework. She has not done a thing all quarter, as usual, so is failing 5 out of 6 subjects, and in danger of failing 8th grade. I informed her she WILL do her work here at home, and not be sleeping all day. This was fine in theory, but in reality she drove me crazy. She accomplished quite a bit, and hopefully enough to pass, but she needed me to walk her through every single assignment. She and I spent tons of time revising, researching more material, and finishing her report on Edgar Allan Poe. It actually turned out to be a good report. We spent quite a bit of time with me trying to teach her 6 years of WWII in one day. Maybe if she had paid attention in school she would have a clue! She did well, but I had to "hold her hand" more than I do the younger two! With B taking up all that time, I schlepped on poor C!

We also had our newest dog, Shadow, neutered Thurdsay. I had to have him to the vet at 7:00a.m., and pick him up Friday. We waited 40 minutes to pick him up. His pain medicine makes him nauseaous. He threw up most of the afternoon/evening yesterday, so several clean-ups, and one carpet shampoo were unexpectedly thrown in my day.

I guess E's week wasn't bad; we finished two of her books, so she currently has 3 to work in. We did school 5 out of the past 6 days. E is only 5, and we get tons done in about 45 minutes-an hour. Most of E's work is done near bedtime. She gets wound-up in the evenings, and school-work gives her something fun to do, while keeping her and C seperated. Much quieter than no school. : )

C, however, accomplished virtually nothing. As posted earlier, she did complete her 3rd grade Math final exam with an A+. Wednesday she did flash cards and wrote a beautiful essay for her sister (A...17) as a birthday present. Her writing is improving. Thursday we finally got back to History; it had been 6 days. We also did math orally together....a page of think and solve problems, and we began on dividing with a remainder. That could have waited until next year, but we have been doing division basic facts anyway, and it came up with one of our word problems, so we just went to the first lesson in our extra textbook, and discussed remainders, and worked through 30 simple problems together. Friday we did only History. I can truly blame the poor dog for this, though. Luckily C's official year is complete, and we are just killing time with review, and the "fun" subjects for a few weeks until our official summer term begins.

I was discouraged over our lack of school this week. But all I have to do is look in my box of finished work, and in C's binder. We HAVE accomplished more than I thought we would in 4 months times. Several completed books (the box has room for only one more), and her writing skills have dramatically improved from even just 6 weeks ago.

I hope we get A LOT more work done next week.

Finished with 3rd Grade Math and Phonics K!

C officially finished math for the year yesterday. She only had a few pages left in her book, and all of it was repetitious. I decided to offer her the final exam. I made her a deal that if she got an A+ she could be done with school for the day and play Guitar Hero. C chose to try it, and and an hour later proudly earned the right to play hookie the remainder of the day. Awesome job! The child who hated math in public school was now asking when we could begin 4th grade so she could "get ahead". She finished 3rd grade grammar a week or two ago, and basically is doing all 4th grade level studies now, with the exception of writing.

E also finished her Kindergarten level Phonics book yesterday, and only has 2 pages left in her Critical Thinking book. She loves her workbooks, so will be moving on to 1st grade Phonics within a few days. She is also in the midst of several other books, but her favorite is "Number Skills K" We usually do at least 4 pages a day in it. She is reading, spelling, and sounding out basic CVC words well now as well as knowing many sight words such as "a, the, you, little", etc...)

Both girls will work 2-3 days/week through the summer, so we don't have to waste a month in the fall reviewing. This also will give us some lee-way for taking time off for field trips or sick days through the typical school year.