Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Sue in Exile

Here I am driving a minivan with 3 child seats.  One of my charges forgot to take his underwear down this morning before using the bathroom. Another insisted on no syrup on his waffle after we already put it on. Then when we made a new syrupless waffle, he asked why wasn't it cut up and where is the syrup?

A rare break in the action. Oliver is in school; Tessa is taking a nap; Steve returned home for supplies and to water the flowers and Daniel is next to me playing on the beloved iPad, one advantage Gramma has over the missing mom.

I had three kids too but they weren't so close in age. Shanna was almost 12 when I had Naomi. I guess my chaos was more spread out.

This morning Oliver was difficult to wake up. I let him sleep as long as possible but we have to leave for the bus a bit passed 8. Once I returned from the bus stop (kindergarteners need an adult at the stops), time to get Daniel ready and off to his school 5 miles away.We are then left with one child, the easiest one. I go for a run, easy in the flatlands here. Even though east of here is fairly developed, directly west is all farms and dirt roads. My route looks like the opening scene for The Middle; straight as an arrow road going in between fields of corn. Thankfully very little traffic.  Corn fields even abut Shanna's back yard but I suspect, not for long.

Yesterday I did most of this on my own as Steve was dealing with Naomi stuff. Fortunately the weather was nice. After an hour in the park, Tess and I sat on the porch watching the boys bike back and forth. I try to keep them as active as possible because I want them to sleep. Tonight Oliver has soccer which should help him sleep. For homework, he has to read to me. He is a quick learner. He makes good guesses for unfamiliar words and remembers them when he sees them again.

Back when I was in kindergarten, there were only 3 goals to attain: learn the alphabet; count to 20; and tie ones shoes. Although Oliver has trouble with the last skill, he attained the others by 3. When I coached soccer for 7 year old boys, the number of kids able to effectively tie their shoes was about zero. Of course, soccer cleats might have been their first non-Velcro shoe. His school is big on ability grouping both for reading and math. I am guessing he will be in the top groups for both. When I was in ed school, they were very  much against that but I disagree. Even though we had grouping when I was a kid, I remember being impatient listening to kids struggle over words. I'd finish the sentence for them.

Using an unfamiliar computer is always an adventure. For reasons I don't understand, the screen will suddenly switch to an advertisement that is hell to get out of. Can Windows 8 suck any more? Hopefully by the time we need a new computer, they will revert back to 7. I'd use my iPad but can't get the wifi to work.



 

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