Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Slipping
Well, I am slipping in posting FREQUENTLY! Saturday and Sunday don't count since I don't have hardly any waking hours at home on the weekends...but, I have no excuse for Monday and Tuesday--other than I just couldn't think of anything at all to write about...and still can't!!!
Doug is finishing up his last week of public school and then he will have a week off before attending summer session all through June. I wasn't going to enroll him in summer school this year...in fact, I let the deadline pass. But, then the special ed department realized he hadn't been enrolled and they just fretted over it until I sat down and talked it over with Doug. By that time, the kids who WERE enrolled in summer session had been talking it up at school and, unlike our first conversation on the subject (MONTHS ago), Doug now WANTED to go. And the special ed department was eager enough to get him admitted into the summer session even though we were well past the 'deadline' for enrollment. Doug is pretty excited about it and keeps asking me when his 'new' school is going to start. They do do some fun activities in summer school and the three hours a day of special ed tutoring that he will receive will be good for helping him to retain through the summer the gains he has made this year...so, I guess it is just as well that he wants to go to summer school. Earlier when I had decided NOT to send him this summer, my major concern was that I didn't feel like attachment was progressing as well as it needed to be progressing...and that the extra time at home was more important than a month of extra tutoring would be to him. But, lately I have been feeling a lot more comfortable with the progress he is making as far as attaching within our family. I guess two steps forward and one step back is to be expected and not something to be alarmed over. (Easier to feel now that we are back into the two steps forward phase instead of falling back a step.)
Darcy still has quite a lot of homeschool to finish up this year...she will be doing 'summer school' too, it looks like! And it is about time to get started with Rayna in earnest.
Like, I warned you...not much new or interesting... but, at least now you got it straight from the horses's mouth (no comments, Aunt Ruth!!!).
(OH!...Darcy made it four and a half days without slipping into barking! She is WELL on her way to racking up the needed points for a Game Boy Advanced. (Something that she has absolutely no need of and that I had no intention of buying her...but, that is what she wanted to save points towards. I thought I had made the point system challenging enough that it would take her the better part of the year to reach her Game Boy goal...but, she is a lot more determined that I had anticipated. It isn't going to take her more than a month (probably less) at her current rate of racking up points. ('Lest you think I am too stingy...she COULD get a Game Boy with HALF as many points...but, she would have to share that Game Boy with her two younger siblings, too. She is the one who decided to save up twice as many points for its purchase so that it could be exclusively hers and hers alone.)
(She has been using some of her points for more immediate rewards...like cashing in small amounts of her points for computer game time on my notebook computer--which she much prefers over her Mac or our old PC that tends to freeze and crash. When I got the notebook computer, Grant and I had decided that the kids would absolutely not be allowed to play on it at all. That about killed Darcy. So, I relented some...but the small amounts of time I allow her on the computer aren't as good (in her mind) as the uninterupted HOUR of time she can purchase with fairly small portions of her no barking points. She can also redeem points for books and game cartridges for her current Color Game Boy. The only reward that has a high point requirement is the Game Boy Advanced that I really didn't want in our house to begin with! The Game Boys just have absolutely no redeeming qualities in my mind. They are time consumers with no benefit. Just having the beat-up, used Color Game Boy in our house that a friend passed on to us has distracted the kids away from the Leapster Games which ARE educational and do have value. Fortunately, the little kids are more interested in the Leapster games, once more, now that the new has worn off having a Game Boy in the house...and, Darcy is old enough that she wasn't really LEARNING anything new as she played on the Leapsters...so, it doesn't concern me quite as much that she prefers the totally non-educational Game Boy over the Leapsters. (But, it does pull her away from READING, too...which DOES have value). Anyway, that is my bias against Game Boys...be they regular, Color, or the enticing new ADVANCED!) ¶ 5/24/2006 08:19:00 AM
Doug is finishing up his last week of public school and then he will have a week off before attending summer session all through June. I wasn't going to enroll him in summer school this year...in fact, I let the deadline pass. But, then the special ed department realized he hadn't been enrolled and they just fretted over it until I sat down and talked it over with Doug. By that time, the kids who WERE enrolled in summer session had been talking it up at school and, unlike our first conversation on the subject (MONTHS ago), Doug now WANTED to go. And the special ed department was eager enough to get him admitted into the summer session even though we were well past the 'deadline' for enrollment. Doug is pretty excited about it and keeps asking me when his 'new' school is going to start. They do do some fun activities in summer school and the three hours a day of special ed tutoring that he will receive will be good for helping him to retain through the summer the gains he has made this year...so, I guess it is just as well that he wants to go to summer school. Earlier when I had decided NOT to send him this summer, my major concern was that I didn't feel like attachment was progressing as well as it needed to be progressing...and that the extra time at home was more important than a month of extra tutoring would be to him. But, lately I have been feeling a lot more comfortable with the progress he is making as far as attaching within our family. I guess two steps forward and one step back is to be expected and not something to be alarmed over. (Easier to feel now that we are back into the two steps forward phase instead of falling back a step.)
Darcy still has quite a lot of homeschool to finish up this year...she will be doing 'summer school' too, it looks like! And it is about time to get started with Rayna in earnest.
Like, I warned you...not much new or interesting... but, at least now you got it straight from the horses's mouth (no comments, Aunt Ruth!!!).
(OH!...Darcy made it four and a half days without slipping into barking! She is WELL on her way to racking up the needed points for a Game Boy Advanced. (Something that she has absolutely no need of and that I had no intention of buying her...but, that is what she wanted to save points towards. I thought I had made the point system challenging enough that it would take her the better part of the year to reach her Game Boy goal...but, she is a lot more determined that I had anticipated. It isn't going to take her more than a month (probably less) at her current rate of racking up points. ('Lest you think I am too stingy...she COULD get a Game Boy with HALF as many points...but, she would have to share that Game Boy with her two younger siblings, too. She is the one who decided to save up twice as many points for its purchase so that it could be exclusively hers and hers alone.)
(She has been using some of her points for more immediate rewards...like cashing in small amounts of her points for computer game time on my notebook computer--which she much prefers over her Mac or our old PC that tends to freeze and crash. When I got the notebook computer, Grant and I had decided that the kids would absolutely not be allowed to play on it at all. That about killed Darcy. So, I relented some...but the small amounts of time I allow her on the computer aren't as good (in her mind) as the uninterupted HOUR of time she can purchase with fairly small portions of her no barking points. She can also redeem points for books and game cartridges for her current Color Game Boy. The only reward that has a high point requirement is the Game Boy Advanced that I really didn't want in our house to begin with! The Game Boys just have absolutely no redeeming qualities in my mind. They are time consumers with no benefit. Just having the beat-up, used Color Game Boy in our house that a friend passed on to us has distracted the kids away from the Leapster Games which ARE educational and do have value. Fortunately, the little kids are more interested in the Leapster games, once more, now that the new has worn off having a Game Boy in the house...and, Darcy is old enough that she wasn't really LEARNING anything new as she played on the Leapsters...so, it doesn't concern me quite as much that she prefers the totally non-educational Game Boy over the Leapsters. (But, it does pull her away from READING, too...which DOES have value). Anyway, that is my bias against Game Boys...be they regular, Color, or the enticing new ADVANCED!) ¶ 5/24/2006 08:19:00 AM
