Labor Day

We have a 9 year old who believes the rules don't apply to him.  This makes me very disappointed!  He knows that he is not supposed to turn on a screen before 8am on weekends. He was up early and on a screen well before 8.  He knows the rules. He chose to break them and I am now figuring out how to deal.  I don't want to take the screen away for the entire day, but there needs to be a consequence.

I'm also a little grumpy.  George woke up last night with itch bug bites around midnight.  got that taken care of and then I had to get up at 3am to get the pork in the oven so we can have pulled pork for dinner tonight. This is the recipe I am following this recipe. A lot of favorable reviews!  Now I just need to get my kitchen (and the rest of the house clean) before 2:30.  Family should be here around 3.

Have an enjoyable and relaxing Labor Day.

Last week

The iPads have come home from school!  George was happy and we are in the routine for getting it on the charger every night and in the backpack every morning...We have had an issue with screen sensitivity.  It isn't very sensitive.  You want to see a kid frustrated with technology?  Have him do his math and see that he has to write numbers or part of numbers over up and exceeding 3 times before the writing will take on the screen.  :(  We tried it with a stylus and with just his finger to similar results.   So...I let his teacher know and she said it seems to be the case with almost all of the class and that she is having issues with hers, too.

He has gotten two grades on homework so far.  An F on a math worksheet.  (The 2.5 out of 5 I posted about, earlier) and a B on an English assignment.  We have talked about it and he knows he can bring his math grade up, he just needs to do his best work in class.  He's pretty pleased with the B in English, so far.

I got up before everyone else this morning in hopes of heading out for a walk...and as I put my shoes on Eric came downstairs.  I told him I was going for a walk and as I poured my coffee to take with me, George came down.  So much for a quiet morning!  At least my walk was fairly quiet. I drank my coffee.  Saw a Red-tailed Hawk, Goldfinch, Cardinal, Blue Jay, and maybe a wren?  I don't have a decent enough camera on my phone to catch good pictures.  Maybe next time I'll bring my binoculars.

A new week has begun

This weekend was pretty laid back.  We didn't go an do...we stayed home and worked in the yard. We have two gates to the back yard from the front.  One is by the garage and the other is out the front..."down the hill".  The gate down the hill is at the lowest point in the yard and, it appears, is in the path of a natural drainage swale.  Unfortunately, this swale was overrun with water a few weeks ago when we got 6.5 inches of rain in the span of a few hours. There was about 6 inches of silt built up over the pavers put down at the pass through...and then an additional 6-8 inches of sticks, pine needles, leaves and other debris that were caught up against the closed gate.

I spend a few hours removing the built up silt and debris from the pavers and walk through. I also found some leftover garden edging and used those to make a barrier around the pavers.  Nothing is going to stop 6 inches of rain, but maybe this will catch the debris before it hits the gate?  Since I spent a bit of time out there, I also noticed how poorly the grass grows under the trees there.  There are also a lot of weeds in the general vicinity.  I am contemplating landscaping the area with some good under tree plantings.  It would stop us from attempting to mow dirt and weeds and provide a prettier border between our yards.

So, while I'm dreaming...the plantings I put in at the front of the house where the living room window is...all but one of those trees and shrubs have died.  :(  So...I was thinking about how much I like to sit on the stoop and drink my coffee in the mornings and then I thought...well, could I make this area more of a patio area?  I could maybe pull some pavers from the back yard.  There are quite a few that are buried in ivy back there. I could put the pavers down (and slant them away from the house for better drainage) and put the small table and chairs that are on the back deck by the chiminea out front.  Then I could look out at the front plantings between the two houses...

Oh so many ideas...

Correction to last post...George got 2.5 out of 5.  I misread the scoring on the sheet.  It seems that part of his issue was not writing out the place value.  40 hundreds + 40 thousands...he left off the hundreds and thousands and that makes a HUGE difference.  I showed him his letter grade in Skyward this morning and told him that one grade does not make the school year...he's got a good shot at figuring it out and getting it back on track. Here's hoping!

Finishing out the week

Last night we had our first Pack Meeting of the year.  It was also the night to sign up for scouting for the newbies.  It went well.  I think we added 12 new scouts to the Pack.  We apparently had a goal of 15...so it ended up being a pretty good turnout. A couple people left with packets but didn't fill them out, so there's a chance (slim chance) we could add a few more.

George and friends were running around afterward while the adults cleaned up, made sure paperwork was in order and took care of the money issues. I am Treasurer currently and this was my first go at an "event" without the previous Treasurer around to hold my hand.  It went well.  I do need to make a deposit at the bank in the morning, though.

Last night, George woke up multiple times with a sore throat and stuffy nose.  I gave him allergy meds and Tylenol.  He wasn't feeling too fantastic this morning, so we made a trip to the Dr.  The answer is Allergies.  I was afraid it could be something more since we are back to school.  The doctor didn't rule that out entirely but felt that the lack of fever indicated more allergy than anything else and she also didn't see anything that would lead her to believe it might be strep.  So Zyrtec it is!

Dropped him off at school after the appointment, so he did manage to make the majority of the school day, thankfully.  He said he had a decent day...but when I went through his backpack he had a Math sheet that had 5 points out of 25.  I don't know what day the sheet was assigned.  But we will be reviewing it tomorrow.  George wanted to wait until he had a good night sleep so that he wouldn't be so grumpy.

Mom called his afternoon and she got her first letter from George yesterday!  She had some questions about his science experiments.  We will probably give her a call tomorrow and George can fill in the gaps.

Ho Hum

The rest of the weekend went with out issue.  George is getting back into the swing of things. Tuesday he came home from school and was a little excited because he was VIP...which I guess means line-leader? He was selected due to his math understanding and work.  I guess he shared the honor with another kid in the class.

This morning he had a bit a of a sore throat.  He said it wasn't *that* bad.  Since he isn't running a fever I didn't keep him home.  Half expecting a phone call, though.  :(

Otherwise, things are still moving forward.  He's fallen into routine and I think this is good for him. His room is a mess and I think he is still spending too much time on screens, but what do I know!

The rest of the week

We did great for the rest of the week.  He managed to get up and out with a little foot dragging, but not the mini-meltdown that was going on before.  I'll take it as a win!

Friday night was bumpy.  He didn't want to do his 10-20 minutes of reading out loud.  I gave him the night off.  I mentioned that he needs to learn to read and understand stories on his own because mom and dad won't read to him forever.  You would have thought I stabbed him through the heart!  He looooves being read to, and I know this...I just didn't think my saying this would feel like I was beating up on him!  So, I told him we would continue to read to him, but that he needs to also read for himself.  Still a battle.

Today we headed to Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead.  It was a fun time...I had forgotten that the baby goats are all named after Harry Potter characters!  We found George Weasley and the George's had their pictures taken together. Some day I want to go and just look at the gardens and flowers.  It's never going to happen with the boys with me!  It was very hot today and Eric was miserable and there was no way the gardens would hold George's interest in the heat.

We left Deanna Rose and went to the library. We had a book with a request that needed to be returned and I had one on hold to pick up...and wouldn't you know, Baskin Robbins is just down the street...almost on our way home, even.  With the heat, it just made sense to stop and have a bit of a treat. We got home, wrote our sentence to Grandma and took some zoning time...

Oh!  On Friday I also received an email from George's teacher saying that he had a good week and that she wouldn't have any grades to post because they mostly did testing this week. Good news!

And Tuesday Wednesday

So, he righted the ship Tuesday!  Yay, George!  I am so thrilled that he was able to get control and keep it through out the day!  Tuesday night's routine went well, too.  Eric went to the first PTA meeting of the year. So it was just the two of us for bedtime.  We worked through the routine so that it will be...well, a routine.  He did decide that he was ready for stories before his screen-free playtime was up. I reminded him that he needed to read out loud to me first. He did that...and for a bit longer than yesterday, but not a full 20 minutes. It was hard tracking time because my alarm is set on the checklist schedule and we did deviate from it.  He ended up reading until the alarm went off to *start* his 20 minutes. I did glance at the clock and *think* he read for around 10-12 minutes or so.  And then I read his new library book (Tuesday was library day) out loud and he was done for the night.  Except for the 2 wake ups... :(

On the downside, he had another mini-meltdown on the way out Wednesday morning, too.  I think it's the screen.  He's watching a YouTube channel in the morning when eating breakfast and when Dad announces, "Time to go!" there's a fit.  We have told him that if he cannot make the transition to leaving without the fit then we are going to have to take away the screen time in the morning.  He also didn't eat any protein Wednesday morning with breakfast. I tried and he said no.  Not sure if I should give it to him anyway or what to do.  I don't want to waste food, either.

Went to the library to pick up a book and wasn't able to find it on the shelves even though the library listed it as available. I didn't ask anyone for help because everyone seemed to be busy. I may request the book and pick it up when ready.

Wednesday evening routine went great.  It's a little different when Dad reads...he did ask him to read to him before reading the stories, so I had George read to me for a bit before songs.  We worked it all in and it went well.