a new word jumps into your life.  It’s a word that may redefine…everything…or nothing…or something just very difficult. 

The word is dysgraphia, and it has to do with the struggle our 11 year old has on a daily basis at writing at the expected level for his age.  Now – when I say writing – I’m not just talking about the content of his sentences and sentences within paragraphs.  I am talking mainly about physically how he writes – always in fragmented sentences, words pushed together with no space between, letters large and scraggly  – too large – like those of a child who is just learning them.  B’s and D’s still written interchangably.  But mostly…it’s just illegible and looks like a 2nd grader wrote it.  And that includes the content.

When asked to write in cursive, if he’s had his medication, it’s different.  His handwriting isn’t amazing, but it’s a far cry from print.  It falls probably more along the lines of lazy 5th grade – but it still lacks actual content.

SO today I started the process with his teacher of exploring what special services he may qualify for.  I don’t know if they will give him special ed time to work on handwriting, or to teach him techniques for holding the pencil differently, or what.  Basically what it comes down to is the number of things most of us just completely take for granted that are planning functions done by our brain – they come harder to him.  He DOES have to think about them, and it’s HARD!  I’ve researched a bit tonight, and found several citations where not only are students given special considerations as they struggle through their work, but special focus, accomodations on note taking and testing…things that can help.

And this is another of my ruts – because I really want the kids to function WITHOUT that help.  I want them to learn to manage their time and there homework, and their handwriting, and everythign ON THEIR OWN – without somebody making it easier for them. Becaues really – life isn’t going to make it easier!  But…if it’s a matter of get the help, or fight this fight another 7 years?   Yeah, get the help.

So we shall see where this goes.  bleh.

I feel like I’m in a rut lately – like this blog is all wah wah wah all the time!

What it comes down to is, I started my new routine a week before school started - and I don’t feel like I have hit my stride yet.  It hasn’t become natural, and I hate that feeling.  I mean, barring nights with no sleep, I am back in the swing of things, getting up at 6, getting breakfast and lunches made, keeping up wtih cleaning and laundry, and keeping my 2-year-old reasonably educationally entertained through the day. 

The thing holding me back is my older kids, and I hate to admit it, my husband.  While I planned out our new schedule, and posted it for everyone to see, it has not been embraced by everyone!  Hubs still gets moving whenever he feels like it, which throws a wrench in the morning transportation plans since we have three drivers and two cars, and everyone’s needs have been SCHEDULED, PER MY SCHEDULE, but others are not following it. 

The ‘middle kids’ also aren’t getting up when they are supposed to, even when woken up, and that causes problems.  On mornings when I am baking or making a more involved breakfast, I do plan on their help for making lunches, or watching BonBon, or helping out with other things.  When they don’t get up, I get no help.  I also have stated the expectation to them that before they leave for school, they are to bathe if necessary, dress in CLEAN clothes (I ask SOOO MUCH), tidy their bedroom and make their bed.  Given that they are all SUPPOSED TO BE up at least an hour and 15 minutes before they leave, this should be no problem.  Alas, it is. 

So I have been really, really frustrated by this, and today, I kind of exploded.  I got up at 6, showered and dressed for the day (make-up and all!), and went out to the kitchen to make pumpkin scones for breakfast.  I needed help.  The trash was never taken out last night – which is NOT OK when it was overflowing the can, and we’ve had a mouse running around.  As the morning ticked past, and nobody got up, I got more and more steamed. 

At 6:45, kids started showing up – you know – once they could smell the pumpkin scones baking.  I decided at that moment – everybody who got up late did not get scones, and I wasn’t making their lunch!  (I am such a big meanie.)  That meant two kids had to scramble to get their lunches put together, and one didn’t eat breakfast.  I feel bad, but at the same time, I am struggling with how to get through to them that I am serious.  Their continued choice to ignore not only the schedule I have set, but also my expectations for what they get done before and after school feels like complete disrespect.

The thing is, I know they don’t MEAN to hurt me by what they’re doing.  They don’t really MEAN to be disrespectful.  They just don’t care. 

SO, I unloaded on Hubs this morning, and I think he gets where I am coming from.  He has set his alarm for tomorrow, and will be getting up on time. (I have explained to him that he IS setting an example, and it does make a difference when he doesn’t get up when he should.  Obviously, there are allowances for when he has to work all night, but on a day-to-day, he’s going to make a better effort to follow the schedule.)

Tonight, the kids will be putting together their cards which explain what they are supposed to do every morning before school, in the afternoon, and before bed.  Hubs thinks having flip cards, which they can go through and remind themselves, will help.  (He did this in the past when I was working out of town, and had success with it.)

So I am optimistic.  I want this house running like the well-oiled machine I dream of.  Will it be perfect all the time?  Probably not.  But…I just keep hoping we can get there.

If not, this rut is gonna kill me!

(PS, the supermommyness category was used just to counteract Ren’s dislike of the FAILMOM category!)

Ok, there was a post here that was written normally – and then when I looked online, somehow it had gotten all discombobulated!

Starting over…

I will admit, yesterday I had gotten pretty frustrated with the way things were going. I just felt like I’ve been swimming upstream, dragging Pez behind me, for 4 months. I was tired of the same fight, different day thing we’ve been going through. I sat here googling different options – trying to find SOMETHING affordable for us that wouldn’t mean sending him back to school. What I found was Time4Learning, which is a website that contains an entire homeschool curriculum (which can also be used for summer learning or extra help for kids who need it). It has every grade, and the core subjects, with lesson plans all planned out, and it automatically grades the child’s work! It only costs $19.95/month. Sure – free would be better, but whaddya want? $20 a month is pretty reasonable, if it works.

Yesterday I set up our accounts and got Pez registered, joined the parent forum, and looked into what I needed to do today. All in all, the investment of my time to get him going this morning was less than 2 hours. I’ve sat next to him all morning helping him figure out what he’s doing, but really, he had the navigation figured out in less than 10 minutes. The look and feel of it is nice, and it not only has a wide variety of content, it has a lot of games, so that the kids can spend some time on the “playground” in between subjects. The absolute best part about that is, it limits their “playground” time to 15 minutes. Pez IS a little frustrated with that, because sometimes the games take a little time to load, and it uses up his “play time”.

Our only REAL complaint so far is that we are getting a TON of page load errors, particularly when doing quizzes and tests, that cause Pez to have to start over. It’s REALLY frustrating, but usually you can get back in within a few mintues. I’m hoping this is just some sort of glitch today, becuase if it works this way all the time, it is something that would make me reconsider using their system.

All in all though, Pez seems to like what he’s doing. I’m not frustrated, an figured out what I need to do pretty easily. If we can conquer the page load problem, and if Pez stays interested, we’ll be good. Granted, this is entirely with me sitting right next to him. We’ll see what happens if I get up to do any housework. I did have to disable our web blocker, but hopefully if it becomes a problem, I can find a way around it.

Today I am feeling very much like Professor Umbridge. NO, I am not making Pez write “I will not tell lies.” into the back of his hand, but I do have to keep disciplining him, and it’s just NO FUN.

One of the particular challenges with Pez is keeping him on task. His ADHD makes this a much harder task than you would think. You literally would have to be sitting next to him, staring at his screen and him at all times to keep him on task all day. As you can imagine, with a toddler around and the rest of the household to run, that’s not happening. Prior to this week, it was even harder, as a snafu with our medical spending account left us without his ADHD medication for 2 weeks.

I have been struggling to make progress with his studies even when he IS medicated – so the lack of medication really set us back. The problem is corrected now, but we still struggle.

Two of Pez’s courses are done using the Alpha Omega Switched On Schoolhouse software – so the entire course is done on his laptop. Every morning, he logs in to SOS, and the computer tells him what he needs to work on for the day. Well – he figured out how to skip problems, and was skipping entire assignments. I was just looking at the percentages in the student version, and missed that he was doing this until I had almost 300 problems that I had to individually go through and reassign to him.

Sadly, this version of the software does not have an option to not allow him to skip. Hubs and I both lectured him about the skipping, told him never to do it again, and sat him back down at the computer to fix everything. Hubs even tried sitting next to him last week.

When he said he was done, I logged in and checked. ANOTHER 241 skipped problems.

::sigh::

In addition, we’ve had problems with him getting on the internet and playing games, or bringing up games on his computer to play when he thinks I’m not looking. Frustrating, but I blocked the internet, and figured we were done with the issues.

Yesterday, I told him if he got caught up with everything (which was very doable), we would go see Harry Potter on Friday. I reminded him of that this morning when he started his schoolwork.

Less than an hour later, I caught him playing Solitaire instead of finishing his work.

SO – HP is off the table. I chewed him out. I called Hubs, and made Pez tell Hubs what he was doing. I’m just kind of at a loss, and having to play the enforcer of the rules rather than the fun, exciting teacher is just…a downer.

I’m feeling pretty discouraged at this point, and not sure what to do about him. I really, really felt this was the best option for him, but with the way he abuses it, I just don’t know. I’ve dangled so many golden carrots – playdates with friends, movies, computer time playing games, xbox/wii time, etc….and none of it seems to make a difference with him. I’ve pumped him up for the good things he does…and he still chooses to not do what he’s asked to do. The really frustrating thing is – none of this is HARD for him. He can figure it all out if he chooses to.

I have threatened him with going back to regular school. The therapist told me I had made a mistake in pulling him out of the art/music/gym class he was doing daily when he was having behavior problems there. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had told the therapist he didn’t want to go do them anymore. SO – he acted out and I gave him exactly what he wanted by pulling him out. It’s not a huge jump then to figure out that he thinks, if he just keeps misbehaving, I won’t make him do his schoolwork at home.

I don’t know – I knew this would be a challenge…and I’m not a quitter. I just….didn’t think it would be THIS hard to get him to do such basic things.

For some reason this didn’t post earlier!

I’m feeling a lot better today. Granted, we did pull a LITTLE trick this morning. My van keys happened to be in the bedroom, so I grabbed them at 6, and hit the panic button. It only got ONE of them up, but hey, that was an improvement over yesterday!

Homeschool-wise, we’re all caught up and on track. I’m managing, but I still sometimes worry that I’m going to miss some crucial point that he NEEDS TO KNOW! But mostly, I think we’ll be fine. Pez is going to the regular school each day for gym/music/art, so he is still getting some interaction with other kids. I’m torn on the value of it, though. It does disrupt our day, although truth be told, he could be completely finished with pretty much all of his homeschool stuff by the time he goes to school at 1, if he really focused. Alas, that’s his biggest problem – focus. The first few days, though – it really was a struggle to get him refocused when he got back, and I was feeling like maybe it was doing more harm than good. He has settled down somewhat, so we’ll see how the next few weeks go. The school has been AWESOME about working with us. He does gym/music/art, and he can check out books and such. I’m kind of wanting to ask whether or not he could participate in the standardized testing, to make sure he stays on track, but I’m also not sure how I’d handle it if his scores dipped! (He always tests very highly on the standardized tests – if he’s had his meds.)

Hubs and I spent a little time reconnecting last night, and it was really needed. It seems silly when I’m writing it out, to say that he and I can get disconnected in just a matter of a week or two, but it really does happen. The thing is, when we’re good, we’re great. So the slightest misalignment, and it just feels like life is crashing down a little. It’s like having a popcorn kernel stuck in your teeth…it’s just a little thing, but creates a lot of discomfort!

I have to say, though – I’m really impressed with him. Lemon Drop had a doctor appointment this morning that didn’t go the way Hubs wanted it to. He got all huffy and blustery about it, and then realized what he was doing. He took a minute off the phone to stop, pray, and redirect himself. In the past, that never would have happened. He was kind of known for his rants! It is so awesome seeing the changes God is making in him.

Anyway – that’s about all I have to blab about today. I’m looking forward to the long weekend. I’m hoping the baby might allow us to sleep in a little bit at least ONE day!

Hope you all have a great weekend!