What a week or two!

Of course it was my intention when starting this blog to update it three or four times a week-you can see how well THAT is working out. As a matter of fact, I have several drafts of blogs saved, and none ready LOL. But I do have reasons why...

First, it's soccer season. My 3 oldest kids all play soccer. We have two games every Saturday and then at least one either Monday or Wednesday. Every Saturday morning the city of Trinidad, about 30 minutes down the road from us, becomes soccer crazy. Everywhere you look you see soccer uniforms. At any given moment there can be up to five games going on-which crushes schedules quite a bit when you have multiple kids playing! It's nothing for Larry to drop off me, a little and a middle while he takes Aimee, a little and a middle to another field, then goes and picks us up and takes us to the other field. Poor guy, spends a good deal of his Saturday driving.

Next, Larry is finishing up school. Lots of excitement there, and some night classes involved, too. He graduates May 9.

Then there's Spring Cleaning, something I will be blogging more about later. I got a late start on it, and haven't been able to properly do it in a few years because I was either pregnant or had a little. So, as you can imagine, it's a large task this year.

We've been on Fire Watch, and with Larry being a volunteer firefighter, this always bring an added sense of awareness. Driving to Trinidad can mean a detour for a smoke chase! There was a huge fire a few hours away from us, near Ordway, and two volunteer firefighters were lost. Larry wrestled back and forth about going to the memorial for these two heroes, and ultimately did not go. I think he has a hard time facing his own mortality in the loss of a brother. I have a hard time with these losses, too. It's hard for me to face Larry's mortality.

We've been trying to decide whether or not to homeschool the middles. I haven't talked a lot about this, but they are special needs, but on the other end of the spectrum from someone who is learning disabled. Aimee, my oldest, is a sophomore, and wants to graduate with her class. I can respect that, but if she won't graduate ready to go straight to college, I will homeschool her, too. See, living in a small town, our school doesn't have a lot of funding. The average cost of a house here in town is less than $120,000, so there isn't a lot of property tax. They also don't have a grantwriter. So they are strapped for cash. Our teachers and aides just got their first raise in SIX years. Saren has already been bumped up a grade, and could probably go to the junior high for math but I don't want him there, he's not socially ready for that. Nikki isn't socially ready to be bumped up but she spends half the day in the next grade up. At seven, she reads at the fifth grade level. Any special needs money is spent on the learning disabled kids. While I'm not saying that they shouldn't be getting that money, I AM saying that my kids have special needs, too. Aimee was mainstreamed, and I regret that decision. While her grades are great, I can see that she isn't always as challenged as she should be, and that leads to some behavior issues. The high school math teacher, at her last conference, said that she corrects him often in front of the whole class, and it really bothers him because she's usually right. This one was a challenge because technically she's not talking back to him, so, umm....soldier on, Sir. A few years ago we had an issue with a teacher where Aimee would refuse to do the work because it was too easy and the teacher easily intimidated. Had to have a chat with my girl about that. While I was proud of her for speaking her mind, she has to learn the proper respect as well. But anyway, back to the school. Because there's no money for my children's special needs, they can't get the challenge that they need. I have resisted home schooling them in the past for a few reasons. One, curriculum is expensive, and two, if my kid is correcting a man who has a master's degree in math, no way am I qualified to teach her. Also, the teachers themselves at our school are fantastic. I mean, beyond the call of duty. Remember the aforementioned no raise in six years. Despite the fact that we are the lowest paying district in the state, most of our elementary teachers have stuck around. We have lost quite a few high school teachers, but most of those were valid reasons. One retired, one had a baby, one had a job offer from New Zealand (yeah, I'd jump on that, too!). A few have left for higher pay, but not too many. None of the elementary teachers have left for higher pay. They are dedicated, and willing to work with our family, within the boundaries of what the district has available. They deal with my crabby 5 am emails without complaint, they give me their home phone numbers and private email addresses. No one in the administration at my school has done anything but lie. Yes, Aimee will graduate ready to go straight to university (they STILL don't have foreign language or higher math, but I can sign her up for online classes at TSJC and pay for them out of my own pocket), yes, we will have a gifted and talented program in the 2007-2008 school year (umm, it's April, no GT program, although testing has been done, but not evaluated); yes, we will make every possible accomodation for your gifted kids (but there's now a team in place which must explore and approve every change of the type my kids have already done such as spending half a day in another classroom so it will take months to implement these changes).

Well, typing this out has certainly helped. Guess I should have done this awhile back. Because re-reading it makes it all look ridiculous. The overwhelming attitude that I get from them is "Sorry that your children are smart, but we can't help them." So, thanks, anonymous readers, for helping me to make a decision you didn't even know you were going to help with when you came here today!

I have managed to finish a couple of books-Looking Glass Wars by Frank Bedder and Diana, Her True Story. Looking Glass Wars was great, an alternate look at Alice In Wonderland (and I'm currently re-reading that) and Diana was, well, depressing, in light of everything that eventually happened in her life.

More later, littles, middles and big all awake!