Yesterday Frances and Erin started back to school. Frances was adamant that she was going to walk to school (I'm wondering how long this is going to last?). She couldn't possibly be seen with mom or dad driving her now that she's a "High-schooler." Not that she had far to walk, it's just a few blocks from our home.
Her expectation though is that I continue to make her lunch daily. Somehow she just hates having to figure out what to take in her lunch. From her perspective its just easier for me to figure it out for her. So I give her stuff like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrots, bananas, juice, apples, stawberries, tuna, you know the nutritional stuff. She seems happy to eat whatever I make, at least she doesn't bring any left overs home. When I ask her if she ate all her lunch, she says, "Yep." She never asks what I've packed. Food I guess is not a big deal unless I packed sardines or something. Once or twice in the past I've experimented with like a deli sandwich or a meat roll-up and got comments like, "Mom, please don't pack that again, it was gross." Her main theme is not to have to carry a lunch box around. She likes everything in a brown bag, so when she's done, there is no empty containers to shlepp home. So ok fine, brown bag, no meat, no containers, and nothing that will squash too badly and make a mess in the backpack. Needless to say Frances frequently finds carrots, PB&J, juice, and fruit. Not a lot of variety.
Now that I'm packing for four kids instead of two, it takes me about half an hour to 45 minutes total just to put meals together for them in the morning. And seeing as they all have differing tastes and needs, I sometime struggle to figure out what is going to come together quickly. I always prepare Gillian and Nathan's meals first. Gillian is easy, breast milk, baby food, done. Nathan a little more difficult, usually rice, or noodles, with grapes (his very favorite fruit), apples, or mandarin oranges (his second favorite fruit), some kind of meat like ham, chicken, or turkey, and usually a cheese stick and some crackers. Most of this he only nibbles at, but I figure if I offer lots of choices I'll eventually figure out what he really likes. Mostly he's a rice cheese fruit man. Erin is the easiest, if I would pack her pizza everyday she would be happy, but I don't. Thankfully, she likes spaghetti, turkey or chicken sandwiches, yogurt, milk, cheese, fruit, ect. I've gotten into the habit of packing small servings of left overs from dinner for Nathan and Erin if there are any.
Erin's first day of school was more difficult for me and Cris than it was for her. We did manage to get her back into a regular education 4th grade classroom at her home school but the district is not happy and neither is the principal at the school. It's a bit of a long story and one that I will post at a later date as we will be going to several meetings with the district over the next few weeks. The one thing I will say is that the district claimed Erin made minimal academic progress in the last school year based only on her 2004 STAR CAPA test results (Erin takes an alternate assessment test called the CAPA in lieu of the full blown STAR test). So part of their placement decision is based on these scores. I'm happy to report that we received Erin's most recent 2005 CAPA results taken in March of this year 2005, and she scored in the proficient level 38 out of a possible 40 in the proficiency column for English-language Arts and 39 in Mathematics out of a possible 40 in the same category. Advance thesholds start at 41 for both academic areas. Now, somebody please explain to me why I should remove my child from the regular education environment? I can't wait to share this information with the district next week at our meeting. For some reason the district doesn't seem to have it. Or perhaps they only choose to use these results when it suits their purposes? Could that be it? I know I'm being sarcastic, but I'm so so so so so proud of Erin. She worked really really hard last year in 3rd grade and she deserves to remain in a regular education classroom. In my mind, she has "proven" that she is in the right place.
So back to the morning at school. The teacher welcomed Erin by shaking her hand and saying good morning and taking her over to see her new desk etc. Also, an educational assistant for Erin was there as well(I was concerned that this person would not be made available on the first day since the principal and district have completely stonewalled all communications with us and refused to schedule any opportunities for Erin to meet her teacher or see her new classroom before school started). Anyway, what was most interesting was the afternoon, when Cris and I met the teacher and the aide more fully. The first words out of the woman's mouth was, "Erin is smarter than I thought she would be!" "She's really good." OH - MY- GOSH, can you believe it!!! CAN YOU!!! Cause I couldn't!! I wanted to slap her (actually I did in my head a few times, but she didn't seem to notice it). In reality, Cris and I just smiled and said, yeah, if you give her a chance she does just fine. Her teacher was less enthusiastic, but said she would work with Erin as "best she could" considering she has 29 other students to worry about (like my child is deemed of less importance) until the matter with the district is resolved. What bothers me most is that everyone is looking at this placement as temporary, and my concern is that her academic goals are going to be put on hold until everything is resolved. I don't like that, but what can one do? Anyway, today she is still in a regular education classroom and that's what matters most. We will just have to take things one day at a time.
Let's see Gillian is crawling and scooting all over the place now and she's very adamant that solid food is preferable to milk from a bottle these days. It's a completely separate matter however, if the milk is coming from me. She likes "me." Yeah! That makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. She loves her mommy.
Cris bought Nathan the cutest shoes over the weekend. They are the Converse cloth basketball shoes. He is soooooooooo adorable, but they are a bear to put on him. On Sunday at church many of the fellow church goers commented on his shoes and how cute he looked. Yeah, we are aiming high.
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