Life Update

Baby J is doing great with his therapy. Sometimes he can practically walk across a room and other times he'll take a couple steps then start crawling again. He's beginning to talk and communicate much more, however he's started hitting when he gets frustrated. Lately he pretends to cry in order to get a hug, it's about the cutest most heart-meltingest thing ever! He learned that from me since I pretend to cry and he learned to give me hugs to make me happy. Oh, he's at such a cute age.

Last week we pulled the kids from their school and put them back in their home school. It was a decision I agonized over, and one that caused me much anxiety and sleepless nights. Without going into details, I just flat out did not like Landon's teacher. I got into a disagreement with her and afterward she became vindictive and very unprofessional. One Thursday she didn't communicate with me on something very important and I just decided it wasn't worth it and had John pull them out on Friday. Yes, the education was superior, but it just wasn't enough. Landon wasn't as happy this year and begged me to let him stay home everyday, so he is delighted to be back in a school with all his friends...AND get to choose his own outfit. I'm concerned he will be bored. Landon's a bright kid and school is practically effortless for him. He was in above grade level classes and still had no trouble. My current plans are to finish out this year and then decide if he needs to be challenged more. We received an email last night from Landon's (former) teacher gushing about how smart he is, how he was a natural at science, a strong leader, a bright spark in the class...and we just had to roll our eyes. Why didn't she ever communicate this before? Oh yeah, because she was mad at me. Landon's biggest concern with changing schools was his writing. Cursive is more natural to him than print and he has beautiful cursive. The first thing he asked his new teacher was if it was okay for him to write in cursive.

I'm also concerned about Carson. He was doing great in math this year since they put him in an accelerated class to make sure he understood all the fourth grade subjects as well as new fifth grade math. He was in a seventh grade novels class and LOVED IT! This kid loves to read and I'm worried how he'll do going back to the tedious little fifth grade stories after reading classics like Gulliver's Travels, Tom Sawyer, Little Princess and so many others. In fact his teacher complained to me at parent-teacher that he gets in trouble for reading while she's teaching. His strength is definitely in reading, paragraph writing (even though it hates it), and history. Carson really had very little complaints about school, but says he prefers his home school. He was so happy to go back and see all his old friends. So while I know they are in the honeymoon phase, both boys are just happier in the morning...and I don't have bundle up baby J to take him out in the cold. Plus I now have another 1.5 hours in my day since I'm not waiting in carpool lines. Only time will tell if this was a good move. Parenting is hard work.