I'm all, this is hard!

I love my Will and Grace references.

So, I listen to Dr. Laura. I spend a lot of time in the car throughout the day - going to meetings/events, picking the boys up from aftercare in Gonzales. I despise her. I find her hypocritical, abrupt, abrasive, insensitive, narrow-minded, hateful and lacking compassion. This is not a post about that. She makes me think about all the things that zoom into your radar when you become a parent. The fact that when I was Jake's age, I would leave my house on my bike and come home for supper, but my kids will never experience that. Or that we never heard about our friends being molested or abused at friends' houses, and now you almost have to do background checks on your kids' friends' parents before sending your child to someone's house. That I was at slumber parties every weekend by age ten and Jake may never get to do that. That kids today, including mine, can maneuver a smartphone but not ride a bike.

I also did not have homework in the second grade. Nor do I remember studying for multiple-page tests in the fourth grade. Say what you will about the LaSalle Parish School System, but I turned out okay. So it alarms and angers me that the boys cannot pass tests based on the learning they do in the classroom.

Punishing your kids means you punish yourself also. I was grounded enough as a teenager. I resent grounding myself as an adult.

So we come home with test folders today - the tests (not homeworks or daily grades) from the last week. This makes the FIFTH week that Landen had brought home unacceptable grades in Reading. For a while, I was looking for signs of dyslexia. We bought books and read extra at night. I met with his teacher last fall, and her professional opinion is that Landen chooses not to apply himself when he is not immediately familiar with the material (read: will make a wild-ass guess on an unknown word instead of sounding the damn thing out) or he just skims through paragraphs or questions with heavy content (read: boyfriend has The Lazy.) So we keep pushing, practicing and penalizing bad grades. He hasn't played a video game in five weeks. Tonight we took his television privileges away until next Wednesday's folder comes home. And he will write his vocabulary words and definitions every night and review the weekly story leading up to the test. Sad for a second-grader.

Then we have Jake, who struggles with #1 responsibility and #2 timed math tests. With his ADHD, if he was a student in the public school system, it would be a requirement that he be given extra time to complete timed tests. Parochial schools do not have to comply with this federal requirement, and his school has refused to give him extra time on these tests. He typically makes D's and F's on them, and we do flashcards and que sera the rest. But tonight we got a note from the teacher on a timed test that he turned it over incomplete with forty seconds to spare AND was caught copying answers from a friend, which is so very surprising from Jake. So because he did not even try, and because cheating is no different than lying or stealing in the Allbritton house, he's lost his television privileges also.

Jake is at the age where he can do his written work pretty much unsupervised, and we just check to make sure he completed all his assignments correctly. He has trouble remembering to communicate when things are due or he needs to study for tests. In fourth grade, they place the onus on the student for keeping track of their assignments, tests and due dates. So if one of his parents overlooks "test tomorrow" written in his assignment pad in his own handwriting for Social Studies and Jake the Snake does not bother to remind anyone that he needs to study for a Social Studies test, the material may not be reviewed the night before and the boy may underperform on the test the following day. So we're working on being responsible for our assignments.

This frigging SUCKS. No lie. Homework sucks. Studying for tests suck. Trying to figure out how to motivate the insecurity or underachieving out of your children sucks. Landen is a kid who can figure out how to MacGyver himself and his brother out of a travel trailer when locked in. Jake can give you the life story of Alexander the Great (minus the homosexual part) and wage mighty battles on Rome: Total War on the computer.

I've complained about homework before. It's been promoted to the bane of my existence. You cannot dismiss D's and F's in second grade, inconsequential as it may seem to real life because #1 you'll use those subtraction facts for life and #2 they have to grow accustomed to the expectations you have for them and understand the importance and consequence in meeting or not meeting those expectations.

Corey and I are not so stellar at this full-time parenting gig. Yet. We're getting better. It's trial and error, figuring out what works and what doesn't and adjust the game plan accordingly. The good news is that at the tender ages of almost-eight and almost-ten, they still seem satisfied and happy to be here with us. AND, hello! I got a pat on the head and a "love you, Nell" from Jake this morning. It's been a LONG time since once of those was thrown my way.

Oh, and on Tuesday we turned in our extensive application packets to transfer the boys to St. Jude the Apostle School next fall. Even though the boys love the school they currently attend and the faculty has been tremendous through Erin's illness and passing, we cannot continue driving back and forth to Gonzales (twenty + miles) twice a day. St. Jude is smaller than the current school and right up the street from our house. We should hear something before Mardi Gras. I think Landen is going to jump right into sleeping later and attending a new school. Jake is an anxious child and change of any kind throws him into a tailspin, so he's going to really struggle and act out with this. But we're working with his psychologist on steps to take to acclimate him to this change. And we're not telling them until probably April. Corey and I are a nervous wreck waiting to be evaluated and find out if our kids can move. We have a loose Plan B and an even looser Plan C, but fingers crossed St. Jude (the Patron Saint of hopeless cases and lost causes) finds room in their heart for us.

All this to say that after we pay $1.3 million in registration fees, we're re-doing the boys' room. They can't agree on anything, so Corey and I picked out a celadon green and brown quilt with a little light blue in it. Quite the graduation from the pirate theme they've been complaining about for a year.

Landen D. turns eight on February 26. We're doing a party at a cooking place and the kids will make their own pizzas (and eat them.) He's invited ten kids from his school and it took threatening to cancel the party to get him to stop talking about his birthday party at school. Check out how cute these invitations are!

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