One step forward, three steps back

I'm happy to report I'm off to a great start this school year. Back-to-school night was a hit, my lessons are going well, and my students are enjoying school. Even better, there have been miniscule improvements in their behavior that signal I might actually reach June with my sanity intact. By Christmas, I might have second graders that act like second graders.

But of course, for the universe to remain in homeostasis, someone else's school year needs to be starting horribly. As luck would have it, that someone else happens to be my three DARLING children.

Erin is actually getting off easy on this front. She manages to do her homework most nights. She just never remembers to bring it to school. Considering she's in kindergarten, that is at least partially my fault. But since I'm the type that's lucky to get out the door with keys in hand, she needs to step up.

Chris has had probably the worst start to a school year yet. Third grade is chock-full of writing assignments. For The Boy Who Hates Writing, that is just asking for a disaster of a year. Something's going on with his ADD medication right now, because it's taking him four hours to get homework done again and we're both ready to kill each other by the time it's finally finished. He also kindly neglected to tell me he has to have a speech prepared on the last Thursday of each month...I discovered this by randomly flipping through his binder on the last Tuesday of this month. He's doing his homework at my desk each day, which is just a picnic for both of us, what with him staring off into space in the middle of every problem, doodling his answers instead of writing them, and playing "blast off" with his pencil. And he's taking the constructive criticism I am required to leave on his weekly writing assignments kinda harshly...writing great a great big "NO!" here and there where I've asked him to go into more detail. I've sent off an email to his teacher to find out if this is an all-day thing or if it's just an issue with his meds wearing off too early, but this has GOT to stop soon or I'm going to be down a child.

Brian was my responsible one, my one ray of hope that the year wouldn't be a total disaster. Until today, when I encountered his teacher waiting for me when I showed up to pick up the boys. Apparently he has not been the beacon of light I thought he's been the past few weeks. Changing his card (behavior system thing), not turning in homework, neglecting to have me sign his planner nightly...and to top it off, he had a SPEECH due today that he's known about all month that he didn't do. Just what I wanted to hear when I was already running late on my lunch break and had back-to-school night to plan for.

So we're going to have to revamp the system around here somehow. I'm not sure how, because I already have no transition time between home and work in the morning, and picking the boys up and getting back into my classroom in the afternoon...how is it September and I'm already looking forward to Christmas break?

Hopefully this is not actually how the entire year is going to be. Because I don't think I have anything left to ground the kids from, and it's only the first month of the school year.

Erin's illustrated birthday list

Christopher's birthday is less than a month away, and so he's spent the evening poring over the Lego catalog, creating a birthday list. He was thoughtful enough to only write down the sets that cost $100 or less, figuring the $300 ones were a bit out of the question. He'd have done better to pick the ones that were $20 or less, but then I guess that would have been a very short list...

Not to be outdone, Erin also began HER birthday list tonight. Hers has the added benefit of being illustrated:



And being Erin, she can't do something as common as writing up a birthday list without making it uniquely her own:
"Mermaid. Yes. (picture of mermaid toy)
Dress up. Yes. (picture of dress up clothes)
Mud. No.
Stuffed animals. (I'm guessing that's a yes, since there's pictures of them.)"

It's such a good thing she wrote this, because I was all set to get her some mud and wrap it up in a box. But now that I see "no" next to mud, well, I'll just re-think that idea. ;)