Graduation Present

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!

I finally finished it.  Middle child's graduation present.

I made him a photo album.  Not just any photo album, I made this album into an A, B, C album that encapsulates his life thus far.  For example, "A" is for "Awesome", and I have his Senior Pictures. 
"Z" has been the hardest one so far, but we finally came up with an answer last night.  "Z" became "zzzzz" and I have pictures of him, falling asleep on his textbooks and the computer keyboard over the years. 

Putting this album together has been a challenge.  It's been fun.  Attempting to narrow down the boatloads of pictures that we have and find words to match the pictures has been more of a challenge than we expected.  But, I think we have  keepsake here that will last him a lifetime.  It's definitely a unique look back on his life to date!

A Kindergarten Story

I was subbing in a class of kindergartners yesterday.

We'd had a very interesting morning.  And I don't mean interesting in a good way. 

As we got ready for centers in the afternoon, the kids were all sitting angelically with their hands raised, ready to be chosen first to go to centers. 

I looked at them and said, "You guys know how this goes.  The first people I'm going to choose are those people who've been trying hard all day, doing their best job, and showing their pride."

I hear one little voice say "That's it, I'm screwed."

*This was originally published in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog on5/24/2013.*

AP Exams

 This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!

If you've got high school students, you know that AP Exams occurred over the past two weeks.

My two youngest kids took their exams over the week.  DD only had one exam- in AP US History.
She studied like a crazy woman, watched videos, and was worried about how hard the exams were going to be.  When the day of the exam finally arrived, she told me after the fact:  "The exam was easier than I was expecting.  I thought it was going to be impossible.  It wasn't impossible, and I knew a lot of the information.  I guess I was prepared enough."

Younger son, who is a Senior in high school, took multiple AP Exams.  AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Literature, AP Language, and AP Spanish.  Most of these classes he took this year, with the exception of AP Literature and AP Language.  His English teacher encouraged the seniors to take both the Literature and Language exams if they felt up to the challenge.  Younger son has taken other AP exams in the past.  He was not as concerned as his sister was about the tests.  While he was concerned, his strategy was to stay up to date on his homework throughout the year, and he attended every review session his teachers held throughout the year.  Taking this many exams, his biggest concern was getting enough sleep every night, and eating well each day to make certain that he was able to get through the tests.

While AP exams are time consuming, and they do cost money, they are cost effective.  Colleges and Universities will take AP scores and offer a corresponding amount of credit for the scores.  Whether the scores are counted in major, or as electives, or for how many credits, depends upon the college.  This is one of those crucial things you research in depth when you are looking at colleges.

We won't know the results of these exams until sometime in July. 

No matter what their scores, I am so proud of them for trying.

Blue Hair

 This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!

My 16 year old daughter dyes her hair.  I'm not thrilled with it, but if this is her form of rebellion, I can live with it.  Dyeing her hair is so much better than many other ways she could choose to rebel.  (Drinking, drugs, sex, etc.)

Usually, she dyes that beautiful head of brown hair red.

I came home to a different experience Thursday night.

Her hair was blue.

She had bought a bottle of blue hair dye at the store, and attempted to dye the red/brown mass blue.

Do you remember the story in Anne of Green Gables, where Anne attempted to dye the mass of red hair black, and it turned green?  This story reminds me of Anne's attempt to dye her hair.

Not only is her hair this hideous color of blue-green, so is her scalp.  And her hands.  Her neck.  Her ears.  Her nose.  Her forehead.  Her fingers are really blue, and her cuticles are just freaky.

Of course, she chose to do this on a Thursday night.  Do you see the problem yet?  She still had to go to school yesterday.  The good news is that hand sanitizer does remove some of the dye.  The bad news is, she's still a ghastly shade of blue.

Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor.  She went to school with a scarf around her neck to hide the dye on her neck.  She left her hair down so it would cover her ears.  Her face and hands are still a ghastly shade of blue, though.

When questioned about the blue, (as any normal person would), she told people one of three things:

1) I've been feeling a little blue lately.

2) I'm releasing my inner smurf.

3) I decided to go Avatar.  Didn't  you get the memo?

I honestly can't imagine what her day was like.  I offered the option of staying home, but she decided to go to school.

I'm proud of her.  It's not everyone who can pull off the blue look and hold their head up in school for the entire day!

T - Shirt Quilt

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

 For middle child's high school graduation, I am making him a t-shirt quilt.

I have amassed a pile of t-shirts from his robotics tournaments and such not over the years, and I have piled them all up into a great, large pile of shirts to make into a quilt to give him when he graduates.  (Yes, it's in less than a month.  Think I could have waited any longer?)

The most important part of making this quilt is to make certain that all of the fabric has been sized, and gone through the washer a couple of times.  I have three new t-shirts for this shirt that he's never worn before, so I've run them all through the washer and dryer several times over the last week, so that they will have shrunk up, much like the older shirts that he's worn many times over that are going into this quilt.

The next step is to cut the shirts up.  That's where I am now.  The shirts have been cut apart, so the arms and backs have been removed.  I have just the fronts, uncut, with the logos and pictures on them. 

I also have the backing from the fabric store.  There is a special backing that is ironed onto the back of the cotton jersey in order to give the fabric stability, so that it won't stretch oddly out of shape when it is sewn together with other t-shirts, or with the cotton squares I'll be using for contrast.

I bought other fabric at the store to tie it all together.  I'm not expecting to have enough shirt fronts to fill an entire quilt, so I am going to alternate blocks of t-shirts with blocks of fabric. 

And now, we arrive at my conundrum.  I have all the t-shirt fronts, but the designs are all different sizes, and I need to find a consistent size that will hold all of the designs so that I can cut the fabric blocks the same size. 

Ahh... Math.  I always wondered when you would rear your ugly head!  If only my math teachers in high school had told me that I'd need to know this in order to do craft projects, I probably would have paid closer attention!

Seriously.  I have a large mat - 36" x 36" for cutting out quilt blocks.  I'll be pulling out the mat later on today, and measuring the designs on all of the shirts and finding the one consistent size that I will need to cut every block.  I'm planning on going for the shirt with the largest design- and then adding an extra inch and half on every side- so that there is a fabric border around the picture, and 1/4" all the way around for seam allowance. 

I'll post the pictures tomorrow.  This promises to be an interesting experience today!

Spring Cleaning

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

I should be cleaning the house right now, but I decided to take a break and write for a while.  Okay, I'm procrastinating.  With graduation looming, the house needs to be cleaned.  I decided I start in the basement - in the family room.  It's a disaster area.  Literally.  We had some flooding over the winter downstairs.  While we've dealt with some of the damage, much of our stuff was just tossed to the side while we attempted to stop the onslaught of flood waters.

The source of the flooding is evident- our house was built in the 1970's.  I called a plumber out after the flood, he took a look at the house and said

Two Things need to be fixed before you start renovating the basement:
1) The house has settled.  You need to call in a professional to re-grade the slope around the house and then you need to add new landscaping.  Those bushes planted next to the foundation are the original bushes, aren't they?  Most likely, the roots are tampering with your waterproofing on the foundation.

2) Replace the gutters.

Okay, so we still haven't tackled the landscaping.  I want to be able to pay cash for the landscaping, I don't want to do it on credit.  My goal is to have $1,000 in cash before we contact someone.  We are very close to achieving that goal.  I don't even want to talk about the gutters.  I know they need to be done, but the roof will need to be done at the same time, and I'd really like to add a porch onto the front of the house at the same time.  That is not going to be a cheap endeavor!

But the fact remains that I still need to clean out the family room before graduation.

I began early this morning.  I've found notebook paper.  Lots of notebook paper, scattered all over the basement.  Nothing is written on it, it's just evenly spread across the floor.  Lots and lots of old e-mails.  Those are gone now.  I found the smashed remains of an old Easter basket, and socks.  Oh my heavens, the socks.  I know where the other end of the black hole for socks on the East Coast is now- it is in my family room.  I am currently running a washer load full of socks.  I seriously doubt if any of them have a mate, but I'm willing to sort through them and see what matches up.

Pencils.  So far, I've liberated 100 pencils.  They are all sharpened, and the erasers are all hardened, but I don't think we're going to have to buy any new pencils in this house again, ever.

I am curious what other treasures I will find down there while I'm cleaning.  I'm beginning to think of this as a treasure hunt.  Wouldn't it be nice if I find a couple thousand dollars while I'm at it?

It Takes a Village

 This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!

It's a trite saying, and we've heard it often.  It takes a village to raise a child.

I have been thinking of that statement a lot recently as I look back on the experience of getting the middle child through high school. 

Middle child has always been a challenge.  He sees school work as more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule.  He hates the drudgery of assignments that require you to regurgitate information, but lead to no actual learning.  He has a winning, smiling attitude, but if you are a teacher and he is bored in your class, you are going to have an interesting challenge on your hands.  I've had calls from teachers over the years as he's done everything from pounce on their math errors to submitting pages of information on grammatical and spelling errors on the school web site.  Let's not forget the 24 page lab reports for the chemistry teacher who told him he didn't give enough detail in his first assignment.   Fortunately, most of his teachers have been understanding and have taken this as a sign of him needing a greater challenge and have risen to the occasion and given him the challenge he desired.

However, nothing met this need for him as much as FIRST robotics.  In his Freshman year, his homeroom teacher snagged him for the robotics team.  He began working on the public relations team, and enjoyed the educational outreach.  He found out more about programming and began programming, and worked on the build team, helping to make the robot better.

Throughout the last four years, he has had all of the project based, meaningful learning that his heart could desire.  Keeping up with the drudgery of classwork was difficult, but he did it because the team requires a 2.5 average to remain on the team. 

The other parents are, without a doubt, my village.

Each of us has stepped in to guide a child when the parents are fed up and the children won't or don't want to hear what is being said to them.  The firm parental guidance of another parent (mentor) who respects your child and yet will also listen to them and help them through their frustrations with school, family, significant others, and yes, parents, has helped each of our children succeed.  They all know that there are other adults they can safely talk with, who respect them, and who will help guide them through their turmoils.

I have watched my son grow and mature over the last four years.  I can look at the three mentors who have worked so devotedly with the build team, and I can see the influence each of them has had on him.  Where 5 years ago, he would have yelled and thrown something if he didn't understand a new concept, I now hear the voice of one of the mentors as he says "Can  you go through that again for the dumbest guy in the room?  I got lost after you said....".  Everyone laughs, tension is relieved, and he gets another explanation of whatever it is that had tripped him up.

We have all taken each other's kids under our wing.  We are a family - a village - of people with one common interest.  Some people find their village through church, others find their village through scouts, or sports, drama, or music.  It doesn't matter where you find your village.  What matters is that you get to know the other parents of the children your child is friends with.  Only then can you help each other out, and watch each other's backs where the kids are involved.

I have been very fortunate.  I found my village.  I have helped many other teenagers through the challenges of high school, and I am truly blessed.  These are amazing kids who will go on to do great things with their lives, and make the world a better place.

Do you have a village in your life?

Getting Ready for Graduation

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

My middle child is getting ready for High School Graduation in a month.

It's hard to believe that so much time has passed.  It seems like only yesterday I was tracking down birth certificates, residence requirements, and shot records to register him for kindergarten.

When I think back over the trials and successes of the last 12 years, I can't believe how much we've been through.  The struggles with learning to read.  The frustrations he had when his school curriculum wasn't challenging enough, and the joy we experienced when we finally found teachers and schools who pushed him - and kept pushing him- until he finally found the thrill and joy of learning, and began to push himself to do more. 

I look back fondly on the last four years of high school, and I am so thankful for a staff that has allowed him to reach, stretch, grow, and try new things.  I've watched him become a self-confident young man with plans and dreams for his future that include earning a PhD.  He's come a long way for a child who didn't learn how to read until he was almost 9.

I've been working on his graduation paper work today.  Lots and lots of paperwork.  I think I'm tracking down almost as much paperwork now as I did when he started school.  The school wants the list of where the kids are going to school, their scholarships, number of seats we need for graduation, permission slips for the end of year activities, and the list goes on and on.  The senior handbook is 50 pages long, and I've ignored it for far too long.  There is much that is due in the next month - both to the high school and to the university that he will be going to in the fall.

It's a bittersweet time.  I'm thrilled beyond words that he has discovered what he wants to do and is ready to launch out into the world.  I am also sad, that my little boy is no longer my little boy.

*sigh*