Season's Greetings

Happy New President's day.

I guess that was yesterday, but he doesn't actually take office until January 21. All the conspiracy bums are wiggin out.

Personally, i am not very sure that i have an opinion about it. I have some strange ideas and some strong fantasies but not knowledge of truth on the matter. Obama is welcome to be president in my book. I mean , accepting reality, it does me no earthly good to bitch about it.

All we can argue is our fears about the what ifs, and cite history for an example to prove our points. But that is all speculation and conjecture and fear and hype.

(really the truth is i am too intellectually lazy to study up on the issues, i am very busy homeschooling my son for the second grade and would rather not involve myself in any complicated issue that I could not explain to an 8 year old.)

I have adopted a non-partisan wait and see attitude, with my fingers crossed that perhaps Mister Obama could be the next Jimmy Carter. Although i cant in the living memory of me tell you why I think he was so great. My only opinion of him was biased on a Saturday night live episode.

So, I am home schooling. I might start to sound like one of those average bloggers. But I so enjoy observing his young mind work.

I am unconsciously guiding my son to think of his work observationally, scientifically. Even his reading/grammar is being worked out. When his mental gears are working he likes to discover his lesson.

HA.... they told me he was ADHD and needed pills.........he thinks like a genius. But argh... I have to agree with the school people about his stubbornness. And well, he also acted out badly. Throwing desk, screaming, ranting, riping papers, attacking kids....

freaked out... and he simply does not act like that at home. I can't afford a shrink, i dont want assholes snooping about. So, I figured I had to help him myself. The school could not take the time to figure him out. I surely could not explain him... (face it as a mother, when you try to answer for your child you can only blame...erm incriminate yourself)

So I dis-enrolled him when he got suspended. His principle was very supportive. His class invited him back the next day to give him a proper sending off.

See, he is a sweet and honest child.

He was a favorite in his class.

(oh no he's the anti christ......hush paranoia this isn't your blog tonight...anyway... So I am homeschooling him and loving it.)

I am having a hard time breaking things down for him. I get impatient with him not focusing. I am afraid I am being too much of a perfectionist. But I am so scared that I will get lazy about this.

I am intimidated by the weight of responsibility I feel to his education.

Like, How do I progress him on to writing paragraphs when I can't get him to focus well enough to discuss or develop ideas?

I worry we will move too slowly and it is hard also to adjust my ideal work schedule to his mental needs.

Argh. So much to do, I hardly have time for my other obsessions.

But look on the bright side, perhaps my own grammar and spelling will improve.

Since I was a child, I tried to organise and work thru my school books. Within the first few days of school I had already counted the chapters, and pages in each chapter, and divided them by days and weeks. I normally had 2 month reading plan to have the book finished.

But I lacked discipline and never kept to my schedule.

I compensated by collecting text books and building a library that I promise myself I will read.

How mythological.

And when I had children I vowed that I would teach them to read by the time they where three.

I compensated for that by forcing them to play school over summer break. I made little planners. I got SO impatient with them. And the desire only lasted for about two weeks.

It did not work out. Too stressful. I guess I was trying to pace them..(erm, force march them) at collegial cadence.

But skill is often born of necessity.

We are in our fifth week of homeschooling. He works best, I call him golden boy , in the afternoon. But I feel strongly about getting started early. We do math first. We are working on Multiplication and Adding at the same time.

We spent the last two weeks practicing skip counting, and I plan to work out the next 3 weeks applying that with a little "cheat sheet".

I wish that I could be so organized about his grammar.

For English/Spelling/Writing we are focusing on penmanship, sentence structure, commas, capitals, reading vowels and consonant clusters, and using context, and reading comprehension.

For History/Social Studies and Health/Science. We are casually reading thru text books.

I think I just haven't understood how to engage him. How to spark his imagination.

(slaps forehead)

Dumbass!... I need to get him flipped over to the left side. I want "analytical imagination"

He get so super wild then. That's the ADHD. He gets exciting thoughts and naturally gets hyper.

I think I need to be more flexible about how long this takes to figure out. I mean, fact...He preforms beautifully in the mid to late afternoon.
I mean we don't struggle or fight (well, barely but) ... it is pleasant and even fun.

SO why don't I start then?

*whines* but I don't wanna be doing school ALLLL DAAAAYYYY loooooong.

But he works well, therefore it goes faster.

But i wannnaa be on the computer then.

Can't you be online during a long break?

NOOOO, not if I start in the after noon. *pauses*
I mean, because I am starting so late and that means working till nearly 4 to get finished...

Perhaps, that is a good time for your daughter to get the computer.

(grumbles...i think your going to win this argument)

It appears that way.


I will give it a try for this week, see how it goes.

This afternoon I will talk it over with him.

And now to try to think of something completely different.