November 13th–I bought milk this morning stamped with that use-by date. Where did my year go?

I ordered School T-shirts for our entire family, in what I thought would be a size too large so they could wear them for two years. Curse you, irregular size fashion industry! What they use only Small, Medium, Large and so on for these shirts, I tried to match them to numbers we’ve used as sizes. Turns out all the children’s shirts are about 2 sizes above what they wear, so nobody should be growing out of these shirts for a while. Oh well. It’s still fun for us as a group.

Duncan’s class field trip to the YMCA camp earlier this month was filled with high flying fun. He thought it was the best two days of school he never had. Lots of outdoor activities, team building exercises and so on.

We had the piano tuned this month, and it looks like it may have been the first time since 1972, according to the card stapled under the piano lid. The tuner loved it, said you really can’t beat an old upright like this in good condition. When he comes back next time he will fix the broken hammers–those keys have been out as long as I can remember playing around in my grandparents’ basement.

Emma is back safe and sound from her 3 day trip to the Marine Institute on Santa Catalina Island. More details and pics to follow.

Tonight marks the 4th Halloween activity our family has participated in, and that’s only because we missed two others we were invited to, and does not count the adults-only party Richard and I went to the previous weekend. Duncan was the lone one in choosing to wear his costume to school today, and I think the girls were starting to regret it as they saw other classmates in costume during drop-off. We’ll see if they change their minds next year. By the way, no treats at school today. Just report cards  =)

I discovered that again last week (I’d say learned, but it’s a repeated mistake, so probably not learned just yet). I forgot to make my follow-up doctor visit back in August, and ran out of a prescription medicine that helps me sleep at night, among other things. So I think, things are going well enough, I can make it until next week’s appt no problem.
[collective headsmack from reading audience]

WRONG.

By Thursday I was a foggy shell of myself, desparate for sleep and unable to take care of most any thing. Thankfully Richard’s morning routine is flexible enough he could drive the children to school. My visiting teacher noticed I was off right away, told me call my doctor and she would go get the medicine for me as soon as it was ready. I felt so embarrassed that it ended up in such a mess, but felt much improved withing 16 hours of taking that next dose.

When I saw the doctor yesterday he asked where I even got the idea that I could just stop for a few days and be fine. Just me and my silly brain. A brain that’s grateful to have a body getting back in whack =)

We have a few more Halloween activities coming up this week, and the children might even wear costumes to school on Monday. Their treat at school? Report cards. Oh yeah!

I had PTCon yesterday and GenCon today. The former was foreign to me, but I typed up questions I wanted to ask all of the teachers and then took notes as we discussed each of my scholars. This helped me keep everything straight after meeting with 16 teachers and I was able to relay everything in detail to Richard later. This record will also help for future conferences.

• ~What is your impression of [name] as a scholar?
• ~How does s/he interact with you? With others?
• ~What are [scholar]‘s strengths?
• ~What does s/he need to improve?
• ~What are your goals for October/prior to report cards?
• ~What can we do or emphasize to realize those goals?

The teachers were all very pleasant and eager to answer all of my questions. I like how well they are trying to keep in touch with e-mails and newsletters through the year. Each is there because they truly want to be there, and it shows.

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Today has been the Saturday Session of the 181st Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Familiar territory for me, at least. I took notes here too. I like Church at home, so to speak. Tomorrow we’re having a turkey dinner to make room for sales in November. Life is pretty good in casual clothes with the occasional sweet treat.

Elena is playing flute in the band. She just made a volcano with Ruby Red Squirt & barbecue sauce and I helped her burn the edges of a map she’s making for a Treasure Island project. Elena says her favorite class is math, barely inching out language arts.

Emma toots on a clarinet in band class. She just did a project on Marco Polo where we put together a costume and she gave a biographical speech. According to Emma, Language Arts is her favorite and she likes the kindle readers.

Cheanna chose trombone as her band instrument. She has been creating word puzzles for spelling, playing football in p.e., and started in yearbook club. Cheanna greatly prefers Language Arts to her other classes.

Ah, this is beyond that. Absolutely decadent. I stayed in bed almost 3 hours longer than usual. A wonderful surprise… typically my body is so well-trained for school days, if I go to sleep earlier, I wake up earlier.  Can I say I love the four day school week? ‘Cause I do. Even on Fridays when I wake up at 5am. 

Now what else can I do on this wonderful autmnal equinox day to keep that delightful feeling? Maybe I’ll have some root beer in a glass bottle and nibble on some raspberries as I read my morning newspapers.

Through this miracle life is smooth enough that we decided to sail into unknown waters this year and the Robinson Academy is outsourcing for the first time. We found a local charter school which emphasizes the adventure of learning coupled with  personal responsibility for the scholar and parents. If things continue to go well, everyone will be out of the house for the 2012-2013 school year. I will be alone during the day for the first time in 15 years. What a strange new world this is…

School’s out for summer.

  I had one yesterday to write a blog post. I countered with the argument that yet another post about how much I’m looking forward to the end of the school year makes not a post but a broken record. I won that round.

  Today I have the urge to write a blog post. I couldn’t come up with any good reason not  to do so. I acquiesced. Thus, here we are, dear reader, and together we will wade through the resulting slop. Or you can just stop here… that works.

  Earlier this week I felt the urge to switch things around upstairs to solve a few quality of life issues we’re having. First, my craft corner in our bedroom is completely out of control and I’m not actually sewing or scrapbooking there. I decided it would be easier to have a new table for a workspace and I bought one of those 6ft ones that you can fold in half to replace the old card table I’d been using. I added a few plastic totes to better organize items currently in cardboard boxes. I removed mostly-bare-and-rickety wooden slat shelves and set up a trio of wire units instead.  

(We use several of the 48″ wide versions in the garage, and two of these 36″ ones with extra shelves in the pantry section of the laundry room. I love putting them together)

Ephraim and Anya haven’t been sleeping on their trundle beds in Duncan and Cheanna’s rooms, respectively. Many nights they end up in our room, which is better with the king size bed, but we like sleeping together alone. Emma and Elena have asked about getting bunk beds again, so this got me thinking. The twin bed in bedroom #2 will go to Duncan. Duncan’s bed will go to Emma and Elena. Emma and Elena’s twin beds will go to bedroom #2 for Ephraim and Anya. We will put together the matching dresser for bedroom #2, grab the other lower closet rod from the garage and then the two of them will be able to access their clothes easily. (both share closets with the oldest two right now).  Yeah, it’s a big project that could easily end up with the two of them continuing to sleep anywhere but their designated areas, but maybe having something that’s more of their own will work out.  I hope it fills the needs of all involved. With no school summertime and Memorial Day weekend just around the corner, it’s the perfect time for projects, non?

I acted on another urge recently, one brought on by the extreme-not-responding-to-prescription-pain-killing-medicine pain I was in last week. I decided to go ahead with my doctor’s recommendation of diagnostic laproscopy. I’ll be out of commission for a few days, but the pain has been doing that to me off and on for, well, years really. I will, of course, post updates for you, my dear reader.

As long as I have the urge to, that is…

I’m not sure, but my motivation is draining rapidly.

Just under two weeks left in the school year and I think I’m looking forward to summer break more than the children are…  Cheanna’s long-term science project hit a (should have been foreseeable) snag and it took us a little while to come up with a solution rather than scrap the project and start over at this point.

Even my gumption to do simple things like, oh, laundry and basic grocery shopping is lacking. We ran to Circle K this morning to get milk–we were totally out and I didn’t want to bother with an actual trip to an actual grocery store. That and our truck’s gas is down to a half-tank, high time to push the pump’s single transaction limit again. Oh, and I wanted their version of a Big Gulp.

I’ll pretend that’s where the sucking sound is coming from, and it’s really going to replenish me. That’s the ticket.

It’s AIMS week here. The Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards is a test that everyone is taking this year–last year Elena took the Stanford 9–covering mostly math & reading, with 4th graders like Emma Catharine taking an additional science, and 5th and up also submitting a writing sample.

The first year Duncan took the writing exam he came home extremely disappointed. He was given the subject something like “what would you do as principal for a day?” and he had no idea what that would entail, having had no interaction with an elementary school principal. This year it was writing a letter to the school board about a topic (not going to say which one as not all schools have taken the tests yet) and he felt confident about his ability to address the subject matter. Cheanna had a topic to advocate for [redacted]  in a classroom and also felt she could write well about the subject.

We will all enjoy when this time is over and we can get back to a normal routine. For another week, at least, and then we have company coming =)

Ephraim’s reading makes me wonder how much he comprehends and how much is just knowing how to say the words he looks at. He certainly enjoys reading, so I have to imagine he understands enough to make it something worth doing in his mind. He fell asleep last night with our DK book on LEGOs. It was so cute. Did I think to take a picture? No. Silly Mommy. Right now he’s sitting beside me reading the booklet we got the from the Pokémon Black & White tour, detailing new regions, new pokémon, and activities at the mall attraction. Sometimes he asks me, “What’s this text?”

Recently he was arguing with me about how “know” was pronounced. He so wants phonics rules to apply for all English, ha ha.

Me: That’s pronounced “no”

Eph: k-now [rhymes with 'pow']

Me: The k is silent. It really is “no”

Eph: now

Me: no, it sounds like “no”

Eph: *sighs* now

Me: No, rhymes with grow.

Eph: Know [says it correctly]

Me: That’s right. *wonders if he will secretly think “k-now” or “now” in his head despite what I said*

Anya wants to be included in everything. “I’m big enough to do school.” I’m not sure what we we’ll be doing next year school-wise. I do know there are some ladies in the neighborhood that run a preschool at their homes. It could be an option that would be positive for all involved. We’ll see what choice(s) we make over the summer.