Crazy week

This past week or so has just been crazy busy. Especially for and with regards to M. Over the weekend he had to finish up his science experiment, write it up and do his triboard. Tuesday he had math team practice starting at 7:30, then parent breakfast at 8:15 and science fair project due. Then they took the Explore test (some sort of pre ACT I think) all morning. Then after school he had a game design class. Home for a quick supper, then he and I went off to the magnet school to hear about their program that he is applying to for high school. Last it was hurry up and finish packing for the 8th grade trip to Savannah. Whew. Makes me tired just remembering all that. Luckily D could take him to school early on Wed to catch the bus for the trip - they had to be there by 7:00.

The rest of this week has been busy enough, even without all that. A had his usual afterschool activities on Wed and Thur. I've been trying to get us ready for Thanksgiving - baking quick breads and making lists. And realizing that Christmas really is coming up faster than I'm ready for and I'd better start thinking of getting ready for it.

In the midst of all this, A had another project for school. I don't know why the teacher is so insistent that all these projects be "illustrated" in color. We don't currently have a color printer, so anything we print out has to be hand colored - and A HATES to color. He never has enjoyed it, so its a rather tiresome requirement - and one that I really can't see how it adds to the educational knowledge. On top of that, D was gone last night for the last of the info sessions for the magnet school while A and I went to his pack meeting. They were serving dinner supposedly around 6:30, but when we got there, no dinner in sight. In fact, they hadn't gotten started fixing it yet. We finally ate at 7:45. Had I realized it would be that late, we'd have eaten at home! We usually do, but last night, because it would only be A and I at home, I thought it would be easier to have dinner there - and they were serving pancakes - yum. They were good, but not enough of them - I only ended up with 2 pancakes, so I came home hungry.

All in all, a crazy week. I'm glad we've got next week off. But with both kids wanting computer time, I may not get much time on here myself.

Fallingwater

It's finally done! Hallelujah!! Here is A's model:

and then a side view:

As you can see, we didn't bother with fancy bits like railings on the terraces, which D thought we ought to have. Yes, it probably should have them, but A was having trouble with cutting through the foam board and I was getting mighty tired of cutting foam board with him. A's been working on this building for a solid week (with varying amounts of help), from finding scale drawings and getting them printed out big enough to work with, to finding materials we can cut to cutting, positioning, glueing, etc. I'm almost positive we have the plunge pool elevated when it shouldn't be, but there was NO way to get teeny tiny stairs to descend that much elevation in the little space we had (plus I think the river was supposed to be a bit wider there). But its DONE! finis. complete. at least as much as its going to be.

And, of course, while all this construction was going on, A was also trying to write a paper. Someone needs to teach a class for these kids on how to write a paper. I just thought tonight that of course, what I should have done is have A make notecards. It would have been easier to manipulate the info (and make sure that it was in his words) with notecards. But I only thought of it tonight, not a couple of weeks ago. I talked with A's teacher today and we both agreed that they need to do something to teach how to research because clearly most of the kids don't know how to do it effectively - from a book or from the computer.

Last, but not least, A has to give a presentation on his paper/project - which we weren't completely clear on until this morning. The rubric the teacher sent home didn't mention any oral presentation (and my message to her over the weekend evidently ended up in her junk mail folder, until I called today), so he didn't practice any until tonight. I caved and typed up notes from the paper for him to have for the presentation. I wish we'd had time so I could make him do them, but it was almost 9:30 by the time he went to bed as it was - and that was with me typing the notes and him only practicing once. I told him he needs to practice the presentation at least twice tomorrow morning before school.

The final fun will be tomorrow morning when I get to drive the project over to his other school. I don't think that asking him to lug the project on 2 buses is a good idea.

I hate projects!

A has a project to build a model and write a paper for one of his classes. This is turning into a LOT of work, for A and unfortunately for me. When M took this same design class 3 years ago, they had to draw out a house plan for a specified situation (so much money, so big a family) and they did it all during class time.

Now, when A is taking the class, they are writing a paper on a building. Now, they did do some of their research in class, but they had short class one week due to conferences and they had no class at all last week due to a furlough day. So, he had chosen a building and done some (but not nearly as much as he should have ) research. Therefore, all week here during break, I have had to assign him tasks at the computer - go over the assignment with him and break it down into parts. ie, now write a paragraph about Frank Lloyd Wright's background, now about when and where and why he built Fallingwater, now about some other famous buildings he built.

Yesterday and today have been all about trying to build a model of Fallingwater. My word, but that building has a LOT of ins and outs! We found some plans online and D managed to blow them up and print them out. Then I helped A to trim the pages so we could tape them together. Next we traced the footprint of each level as well as the footprint of interior space on each level. Then pinned the level on some foamboard and cut it out. A did a reasonable amount of each of these, but some of them took more than 2 hands, and the cutting was a bit tricky. He did some of that, but the foamboard is a bit tricky for him to cut all the way through. He did much more of the cutting on the styrofoam by himself. Then he started gluing pieces together.

More gluing to come tomorrow. I need to remember to get him to glue the 3rd floor together before church, so it can be dry by afternoon. Then we can try to match up the 3 floors and try to glue them all together. Or maybe we need to figure out how to get the whole thing up off the board a bit so the stream can go underneath.

I will be SO HAPPY when Thursday comes and this project is done. Of course, between now and then, he still has to finish the paper, practice his presentation, and finish the building!

I imagine that the teacher didn't really intend for the building to be quite this involved, but I can't figure out how to make something that looks at all like Fallingwater otherwise. I did see that you can buy a Lego model kit of Fallingwater, but I'm not spending $100 on an elementary school project. (plus its backordered even if I had been tempted).

Fall Break

We're off for a longer fall break than usual this year, thanks to budget cut furloughs. The kids were going to have a half day today and no school tomorrow, with the teachers still going through Friday, but now everyone has been home today and will be for 10 more days.

It was lovely to sleep in this morning and sort of laze through the morning (and afternoon). However certain someones couldn't keep their hands off each other and got banished to their respective bedrooms for a while. I hope that they got that out of their system for a while, because I'm tired of people attacking each other.

Boo Hiss

We were planning on going to Baskin Robbins tonight for their 31 cent special. It was only for a small scoop, but you could get multiple scoops - up to 10! 10 scoops - who would eat that many? It was even going to be rather celebratory since the kids finished their spring testing today.* BR's website said the special was good from 5-10 pm. We even have a new BR near our house - all seemed perfect.

But then.... we headed out of the house a little before 8, only to discover the doors were locked when we got there. HUH? I looked at the sign on the door and they close at 8 pm. That just seems crazy! Maybe these are just their non-summer hours, but that seems way too early to stop serving ice cream.


*While its nice to celebrate the end of testing, the kids are actually a little sorry to see it end - because testing means no homework. A was lamenting the fact that he would have homework again next week after none last week or this week. On the other hand, since there are only 3.5 weeks of school left and they can't have homework the last week since the books are being collected, there are really only 2 weeks of homework left. Aiyeee - I'm not sure I'm ready for summer yet and its lack of schedules.

I HATE pantry moths!

We've been fighting them off and on for at least a year. This time, it's gotten really, really bad. I was finding multiple moths on the ceiling of the pantry and sporadically worms as well.

So, I started clearing out the pantry. Removing items, checking them for infestations - opening boxes (but generally not inner packages). I have found moths, coccoons, and worms in the oddest of places - inside a box of vanilla extract, inside a box of tomato paste, inside a box of ziplock baggies, under the bottom of a can of tomatoes. I'm seeing a pattern here - maybe they like to create coccoons in the dark... So, I am checking every single item in the pantry. And then putting them into rubbermaid storage containers.

I went to T*arget this morning and spent $30 on plastic storage containers, so I could group things in slightly smaller and more coherent groupings. Unfortunately, 2 of the containers are cracked and I have to exchange them. But I also think I need a couple more boxes.

This is driving me CRAZY!!! I've spent hours today, wiping, examining, squishing bugs. And there is still stuff in the pantry. I'm hoping to finish emptying the pantry tomorrow and start vacuuming and wiping. That's what Google tells me to do. Oh, and then use more pantry moth traps to monitor. But I don't want to monitor, I want to ELIMINATE them, ALL of them!

What seems the worst is that after starting to clear out the pantry and remove contaminated food, it seems that I am seeing even more moths and worms. Maybe its just that I'm stirring things up, but it doesn't seem to make sense. I did seem to find a mother lode of bugs in some trail mix today, so that went immediately OUT. Not to spend another second in my house. Plus 4 trash bags have gone out today also. I'm sick of this!

Homework

I don't know why it is, but 3rd grade A seems to have a good bit more homework than 6th grade M. Now, each kid's school claims that they aim for the 10 min of homework per grade level, meaning that M should have 60 minutes and A 30, but that's not how its working out in practice. Instead, A is spending closer to an hour (not including his reading, which he enjoys and spends more than the required 15 minutes). Meanwhile M is spending 20-30 minutes max (again, not including reading, though I'm not sure if there is any particular requirement - other than 25 books over the course of the year - in and out of class). And some nights M isn't doing any homework. If he doesn't have any specific homework, he is supposed to be "studying or reviewing his notes". Yeah, right. Some one of these days its going to come back and bite M that he doesn't study and doesn't know how to - but for now, he is making A's without particularly studying - so, from his point of view, why should he?

Another mom from A's class asked me about homework last night and we both agreed that it is getting out of hand some nights. One night last week A spent almost 2 solid hours and was in tears when he realized that it was almost dinnertime and he hadn't "had any fun yet". He had done a bit of paperwork that wasn't actually homework - he asked me to show him how to write his name in cursive - but to him it felt like he'd been at the homework all that time.

I emailed the teacher this morning about another issue (miscommunication over a classwork/homework issue that had A thinking he had to do 2 days work in one - she didn't explain well to the kids or (more probably) A didn't listen/understand) and mentioned that he was spending a lot of time on homework. She explained the miscommunication, but didn't comment on the excessive time on homework. If/when we get another night of too much homework, I'll talk with the teacher again. But I heard that several parents were going to "express their opinions" on too much homework, so maybe the teacher will moderate the amount. I can always hope...

Venting on Scouts

We had our Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet last night. It was nice, good food, pleasant time. I'll post some pictures later (when I have time and the computer the pictures are on is available both occur together).

Right now, though, I'm very frustrated with my Scouts (or more correctly, their parents). I currently have 5 Wolf Scouts, but only 2 of them showed up for our banquet (and one was A). One told me he probably wasn't going to be able to make it, but the other 2 never told me - even after I left messages for them asking them to call me and let me know. I had to plan a skit, not knowing how many kids would be there. I tried to find out whether anyone was getting any more beads for finishing achievements.

Last week it was just A and I until more than half-way through our meeting when 2 boys showed up. Then I had to scramble to get them caught up with what we were doing.

Up until Christmas I had 8 Scouts coming. When 3 who had been regulars stopped coming, I emailed them (and a couple others who came occasionally) to ask them to let me know what's going on. I got exactly one email back (and once bounced email back). Is it so hard to reply with a simple sentence that you're not coming anymore?

It's hard to stay enthused or even caring when I can't get cooperation from the parents. I guess I'll just concentrate on making sure A gets his Wolf badge and if the others do, great, if not, oh well. I don't know what else to do.

Mom 1: Lice 1

Well, we fought the lice all day yesterday and seemingly we tied. M is back at school today, but A is not. M got checked and passed - went back to class, missing only part of the morning news show. With A, though, we kept finding nits. A's hair is finer than M's and the nit comb doesn't do much on it. We spent over an hour in the nurse's office at school removing nits and then the nurse found a live louse. That was the kiss of death.

So, now I'm waiting for a nurse to call me back to find out what more to do. It may be that A is resistant to the medication we used (or that "his" lice are).

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

.......

The nurse says to do the mayo treatment - so we've been to the store to get full-fat mayo and A is now covered in mayo (and a showercap) for the next 8 hours. Washing all that mayo out is going to be so much fun....

Pediculosis

otherwise known as lice. Arrgh.

When I got home from running errands today, my mom was here with both kids. Yep, both have lice. First time for either one. Guess I jinxed myself when I read about someone else's battles and thought "it's passed us by".

So, both kids have had:

1. a haircut - M's hair is actually short again.
2. a bath/shower (complaints of "but we just took one last night") with non-conditioning shampoo.
3. Permethrin lotion rubbed into their hair/scalp to sit for 10 minutes
4. hair rinsed in the kitchen sink
5. hair combed through with nit combs (at least 3 times - the first time taking at least 45 min)

I've changed all the beds in the house. Run 8 loads of laundry. Still at least 2 more of our bedding to go. Plus our regular laundry still to go. All of the kids laundry is done except what their wore after their shower/bath.

Tomorrow I have to take them to school and hope they pass the nurse's inspection - if not, its back home to do more nit-picking (and re-scheduling M's conference - oh, crud, and A's speech IEP meeting). Either way, the laundry marathon will continue... there's a reason I don't usually wash ALL the bedding (esp all the blankets & quilts) at once.