I’ll probably say that even when he’s 30, but the reality is, my baby is not a baby anymore. He’s headed for his tween years and that means it’s time for Health & Human Development classes… the “intro to sex ed” if you will.

The parents are invited to an informational session and a chance to watch the videos the children will also see. As a parent, you can, of course, opt your child out, but it’s important for them to learn.

And it’s important conversation we need to get comfortable talking about with the kids.

But, for the next week or so, I’m going to enjoy my “baby” and pretend he is still naive to the ways of the world.

OK, so it wasn’t nothingness, but it was a solid week and a half of no real schedule, and it was LOVELY!

A few pictures…

Ben fell off the couch and got a black eye, December 16th. It’s FINALLY now all gone. Weird that it took two weeks. Now Connor has one on the same side, but lower down… from sledding.

Here is our =Christmas tree, ready and waiting for the kids. We kept our shopping in check this year… considering we needed a new oven, and now a new garage door, we figured, less was more. Though they did get a ping pong table that was too big to fit under the tree. (Ignore the kitty, he was just checking things out) In the morning, the poor kids had to wait an hour to open gifts though. Before we could do presents, Jeff and I had to get out Christmas dinner onto the smoker outsise. They were NOT happy to wait.

We had our maid of honor and best man (and their kids) over to celebrate New Year’s Eve and our 14th Anniversary. It was lovely.

Only the youngest kid (3.5) and the oldest kid (10) made it to see the ball drop. Connor barely made it to 10pm (above), Austin struggled through and toasted with his mommy at midnight!

And now it’s a new year of go, go, go. I hope you all had an enjoyable end to 2012. Cheers to a great 2013!

Wishing you a very Happy Holidays.

Jeff and I both got home early because our new oven was arriving. As I pull up he said I had just missed the kids as they had headed to the neighbor’s (4 houses away).

We got involved with the oven and lost track of time. We look up and see it’s a minute or so after 4, and they were due home at 4. Ben and Connor come running in the house. No Austin. I ask where he is and they tell me he left awhile ago to come home.

I panic a moment, feeling for sure he had just decided to go next door instead of come home, but not knowing for 100% sure. I grab a coat and slippers and run next door. I knock and hear their friend say, “Austin, it’s your mom”.

The kids open the door and one look at my face and it’s clear Austin KNOWS. Whether he saw fear, relief, anger, or a little of all three, I’m not sure. But he immediately starts (sincerely) apologizing. Mom comes to the door and immediately says, “you didn’t know he was here, did you?”

I think the events last Friday have all parents a little on edge. Without asking her, she said she’d ensure in the future that we KNEW if the kids were at her house.

Austin and I talked on the brief walk home. I was calm and never yelled, but just explained that I was scared when I didn’t know where he was. I can tell he took it to heart, because all evening, unprompted, he continued to apologize to me.

I don’t suspect this will ever happen again.

Last Christmas, my boys received SnackTAXI’s from my cousin. They use these daily to carry their snack to and from school. They can fit their snack, a spoon if necessary and even a small ice pack for those snacks that need to be kept cold. They are made from 100% cotton with a polyurethane coated nylon on the inside.

The bonus is they wash well in the washing machine…a must with my three messy boys…or as I affectionately call them, my nasty cretins!

My darling Connor has a habit of forgetting his at school, so I decided to order more for them. Unbeknownst to me, they come in snack size and sandwich size (which is what I think they currently have). They also make lunch bags and napkins and aprons. They come in an assortment of prints and a few solids.

A double bonus… it appears Honest Weight Co-op in Albany sells them, as does For Earth’s Sakein Saratoga.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

***I received no product or compensation for this, nor do they know I wrote it. I just really like them and think you will too!***

(Sorry I cut off part of my image)

I think an easier way to solve, using a bar model is to say if 2/5 is 3600, each 1/5 is 1800 meters. Then the total cycled plus ran is 1800×5 or 9000 meters. So if 3/4 if the race is 9000, each 1/4 is 3000. So 3000×4 is 12000 meters total.

But I don’t know if that is an acceptable way to teach him.

What are your thoughts?

I could do the problem, but I used a little bit of algebra. Explaining this to Austin was VERY hard and I’m not sure he really understood. I’ll post the answer later.

Sharon participated in a triathlon. She swam 1/4 of the distance. The cycled 3/5 of the remaining distance and then ran the rest. She ran 3600 meters. How far was the total triathlon?

So, can you figure it out? And how would you explain it to a child who can only use multiplication and division of fractions?

Jean Bambury!

The entire family wishes you a very happy Birthday!

I had raced home from bowling with the intention of making brownies and preparing to have family over for dinner. Jeff had been smoking a ham all day.

Instead the oven shorted and spewed black smoke everywhere. Burning electrical wires and 911 calling. That was NOT on my to do list for the day, week or even my life.

But I am thankful today for one of my husband’s “flaws”. He always leaves one part of a project undone (drives me crazy). Back in 2006 we replaced our oven, cooktop and counter tops. For some reason he never got around to screwing down the counter above the oven. This worked in our favor yesterday when we were able to remove the counter and ensure there was no active fire around the oven.

By the time the policeman arrived and even before the fire trucks rumbled up, we had the counter off and could see no active fire. I didn’t know this when I called 911 and I don’t regret that I called them. They were happy to thermal scan the walls to ensure there was nothing we couldn’t see.

I did learn a valuable lesson though.

Despite all our talks with the kids about fire plans and what to do, we obviously need to review again. As I am on the phone with 911 and yelling at my kids to get out, Austin was calmly sitting on the floor TYING his sneakers, not 2 feet from the sparking, smoke spewing oven. I told him next time, grab your shoes, leave the house, THEN put them on.

The one light hearted moment of this all.

After all the commotion died down, we were packing up dinner to move to my in-laws. Ben realizes he forgot his retainer case up in the tree house… with his retainer in it. I asked him why it was there and he said he got it out of the house when we called 911.

I guess Daddy’s threat that if he lost it, it would cost him 10 years worth of Birthday and Christmas presents really sunk in.

At least now I will have a new oven for Christmas. And on my to do list for today…pick up a fire extinguisher for Jeff’s stocking. 

In September, at Back to School night, the teachers mentioned a new math program. It seems the whole district switched to Singapore Math this year. I’ve done some research and it seems like a decent program, in theory any way. The program spirals. Each year you learn a little bit of a topic, only to return back to that topic later and build on it. Starting in grade 2, the kids build and build until all topics are mastered. Great, I want my kids to master math.

Skip ahead to October when I met with Austin’s teachers. They were thrilled with his progress. He was doing great in all areas, math included. They said he was firmly in the middle of all the 5th graders for math. I noticed the math topics were getting a little harder, but didn’t stress. The teachers expressed their displeasure with the math program, but were hopeful with tweaks, everything would be okay.

In November, we received his report card. Imagine our shock and devastation when we saw that Austin had received 1′s in math. (grades are 1-4 with 1 being “not maintaining grade level”). This was followed by a math test with a 60 on it. That math test included a note saying all the kids had performed horribly and that the teacher had not even graded most of the test because it was beyond their level of understanding. That night I made Austin re-complete the entire math test. He struggled but we worked together and got through it. I emailed the teacher and she told me not to worry, all the kids were in the same position.

Since then we have worked together on math every night, with me making up sample problems above and beyond his homework each night. He is adding and subtracting fractions, figuring remainders and decimals. Simplifying his results. These are all multi-step problems. Tasks like this are harder for a child with a processing disorder, but we have fought on. Despite all his learning issues, he has always fought on and eventually he masters it.

Monday we got home another math test. This time he got a 33. Again there was a note from the teacher that only the first 6 of the 14 problems were graded. The rest were determined to be above the level of 5th graders. Austin and I sat and discussed his test. You can see he is getting discouraged. He realizes that all the work and effort we are putting in is getting him no where. He wants to know why he is “so stupid”. I made him read the note from the teacher, making it clear it is not him, it is a class wide issue, all the children are struggling. We again sat down and re-did his math test, he signed it and turned it in. Again he’ll miss recess on Wednesday so he can stay in and work on math with his teacher some more.

That night I began to fume. Why are they pushing this program if the whole class is failing? The note from the teacher acknowledges this, but then says they will continue on to the next chapter. Really? The whole class is failing, oh well, let’s move on? I understand the teachers don’t have a choice, they were given a curriculum and they have to follow it. But will they push on at the expense of an entire 5th grade failing math? I sat and wrote a letter to the teachers. Asking for help, asking what and why?

I realize this program spirals and builds on concepts. It seems like a great program to start from the beginning (the twins are in 3rd grade and seem fine). But how do you take a bunch of 5th graders, kids that haven’t had the chance to build a foundation and throw them into this program? Any engineer can tell you a foundation needs to be strong and stable before you begin to build the floors above it. So Austin and his classmates are on the 5th floor and now there are these cracks in the foundation. What do you do?

I asked the teachers this. What do we do? What is the plan going forward? Are we going to keep building and hope the foundation doesn’t crack worse? Do we let the whole class fall? How do we fix this?

The teachers kindly responded and said they don’t know. They are going on the curriculum. They copied the principal and the head of the math department. I was content to sit back and wait, but now I am mad. I have a child that see no matter the effort he puts in, he’s still failing. And in my opinion, the district is failing him. The teachers are told to push on regardless of grades. They aren’t given the option of stopping and re-teaching and shoring up the foundation for these kids. Instead they push on and keep building higher.

Now all I can do is I sit and wait for the fall.