My kid did what?! and other random truths

Exhale....it's Friday! So looking forward to the weekend. Happy to kick it off with five fragments on Friday. Thanks, as usual, to Mrs. 4444s for the frag fix.


1. I'm feeling a little guilty about the slower pace of this blog lately. So much going on, however, not a whole lot that I can talk about here. So when I come to blog, I'm feeling a little forced because what I really want to say, I can't and what I can say isn't what I really need to say. Capeesh? The good news is that no one is dying or even sick. But lots of stuff I'm juggling and would appreciate your prayers for.

2. You know you're in trouble when you get to a meeting and before you're hind end has even made full connection with the chair, someone says "Oh, I HAVE to tell you what Robbie did today!" Apparently, my youngest (though likely not brightest) child was having a debate with a classmate about getting sick. Robbie was so adamant that he never gets sick that he said, "Watch -- I'll lick the cafeteria floor and I won't be sick tomorrow!" And he did it! He leaned over and he LICKED the CAFETERIA FLOOR! Ewwww! Thanks to the teacher who was also at the meeting who pointed out that, on the upside, Robbie's class is the first lunch period of the day. That was small consolation. And for the record, he didn't get sick.

3. Speaking of licks, Mike and I are headed to French Lick, Indiana tomorrow. Yes, it's a real place. I'm going for my Visit Indiana gig. (I love that job!) I had hoped to make a girls' weekend, but my girlfriends apparently have more of a life than I do. So I settled for Mike. He suggested I blog about it and call it "When your first love is your second choice."

4. We're half-way through October and I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet. This is almost unheard of. What am I waiting for? Please don't tell me yours is not only finished, but also wrapped. I don't need that kind of pressure.

5. Annie's got 2/3 of her high school shadowing finished. She spent the day at School B on Wednesday and really liked it. She said it's higher on her list than School A, but still below School D. She shadows at School D next week. I'm torn between schools B & D. Can't wait until the decision is made.

Ok folks. I've had 3 glasses of Diet Pepsi (at Panera -- no other option) and my bladder is demanding that I wrap this up. Hope you have a great weekend.

The great high school hunt

Where I grew up, when it came to high schools, you had two choices. The Catholic school or the public school. And if you lived in my house, you had one choice -- the Catholic school. Now that Annie is about to enter the 2nd quarter of her 8th grade year, we're knee deep in the great high school hunt.

Actually, we started checking out our (her) options last year, going to the open houses of three different schools. Before the open houses, we had schools A, B & C on our radar. Going in, I liked school A, based just on what I knew from other families. Annie liked school B, and we were both mixed on school C.

After the open houses, I liked school B best, she liked school A best and school C had pretty much been thrown out. So I was pretty sure that we'd be choosing between schools A & B this year. However, last May, enter school D.

D was really out a bit out of my comfort zone. It's a public school; I've always thought that our kids will spend 12 years at Catholic school. But, it's a charter public school, so it does have some of that private school feel. And it's got an arts bent to it, which sold Annie on the idea of school D even before she set foot in the building.

Mike and I decided we wanted to check out school D for ourselves before we allowed her to get all carried away with excitement (too late!). We scheduled a tour and spent an hour or so in the school during a regular school day. We were very surprised to find that we really liked school D. Some of our concerns -- there would be lots of weird kids there, it would be too small -- were just not true. The curriculum structure makes sense to us. But we still wanted her to look at schools A & B.

On Wednesday, Annie shadowed at school A. When I picked her up, she was all smiles -- so much that I wondered if someone had injected her with Botox in the science lab. She had a great time. Everyone was so awesome. People were very friendly. She knew a lot of the answers in Spanish class. The art teacher was really cool. And it was fun to see kids she knew from grade school. She said that on a scale of 1 to 10, one being "get me the heck out of here" and 10 being "sign me up now!," she would give school A a 9.

I began to wonder how schools B & D would hold up in comparison. The next evening, school D hosted an open house. I wasn't sure we needed to go. Mike and I had already seen the school and Annie will be shadowing there in a couple of weeks. But Annie really wanted to go and since we didn't have anything else planned and since it is kind of her FUTURE, I piled everyone in the car and we headed down there.

First, we went in the wrong door. Here I am, not even a school parent yet and already breaking the rules. We made our way to the cookie table first, to keep Robbie quiet get the boys a snack, then were paired up with two students to show us around the school. There were musical performances going on, amazing art displays on the walls and a whole heckuvalotuv people there. I was surprised to see six other families that we knew.

As we went from room to room, Annie started warming up, asking a question here and there to either the students showing us around or to the teacher at the front of the room. By the time we got upstairs, she had actual conversations with a math teacher, an art teacher and was deciphering Latin with the help of one of the school's Latin teachers.

By the end of the night, she'd made friends with a sophomore that one of her current school friends introduced her to and said she wanted to shadow with that student on her assigned visit day. I looked across the large room where we were standing and saw her standing there with these kids, absolutely at ease, not at all nervous.

Because the open house was drawing to a close, I gave Robbie and Charlie another cookie (so I didn't have to hear "what's for bedtime snack" when we got home) and tore Annie away from her conversation. On the way to the car, I asked her what she thought of school D on that same scale of 1 to 10. She said, "well, if school A was a 9, school D was a 13!"

She did not stop talking all the way home. She must have said "I love that school!" at least a dozen times. If I had said, "If you go to school D, you must scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush every night," I'm pretty sure she would have said OK.

We are still making her do the shadow day for school B (and for school D). But I'm afraid school B is going to have to spin upside down on its head while twirling firecrackers to get Annie's stamp of approval. And if it can, more power to them.

I wish I could explain how awesome it felt to see how alive she came just at the prospect of being part of the school D community. Awesome doesn't begin to describe it. But I looked at her, I watched her eyes, I listened to her talking to the teachers and I felt joy...JOY....to see that she knew where she belonged.

(Of course, she's a 13-year-old girl. So probably next week, she'll be all about schools X,Y, and Z and I'll be left shaking my head...)

Fragging when I should be sleeping

It's Friday. Really, even though I woke up on Thursday morning and haven't gone back to sleep yet. (Guess it was all that stockpiled sleep from when I went to bed at 7:53pm Wednesday night.) And because it's Friday, here I am, fragging with Mrs. 4444s.

Tomorrow -- I mean today -- is going to be a big day. First, I will be dropping off Annie's first high school admission application. Did I just type that? Who gave her permission to be ready to find a high school already? 

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Then, after a long-overdue breakfast with a friend, it's home to do some last minute cleaning so the IN Shape Indiana video guy won't capture some embarrassingly messy scenes when he's here to shoot my interview. 

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At the end of the afternoon, I have a counseling session. I told Annie last week that I was leaving for an appointment. "For what," she asked. "Well, it's a counseling appointment," I told her. I didn't want her to think that counseling is a bad thing. Most people would benefit from it once in a while and those who think they don't need probably need it the most. Annie didn't quite see it that way. "WHAT?! You're seeing a THER-A-PIST?" Someday she'll have kids of her own...

(This little revelation inspired by this post: The disease called "perfection." )

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Tomorrow night, Mike and I have a FREE date night -- we got tickets from Scotty's Brewhouse to see "The Social Network." Thanks, Scotty and crew!

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What I hope tomorrow does not bring is a trip to the doctor for Charlie. He got tackled at recess today and spent much of the day complaining about his ribs and his belly hurting. The belly hurting thing alerted the "I got my medical degree from Google University" in me and I invoked the "doctor lives across the street" privilege to have my neighbor come over and check him out. She said she thought he was ok -- probably sore, but likely embellishing the pain a bit. Tonight, after he went to bed, I went in and pushed around on his stomach to see how he would respond. (Sounds familiar, huh?) He didn't flinch, so I'm thinking we're good.

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Watching TV after midnight is just not the same without cable, so I think it's finally time to sign off and go to bed.(Although I think I might sleep right here on the couch. It's my favorite place to sleep. It runs in the family.)

Why pay for private education?

Momza asked a question in response to my last post about why people would choose to pay for private education. I started to reply to her in the comments, but it was getting long. Plus I thought if Momza asked it, chances are other people are thinking it. So I decided to just give it it's own post.

Our decision to send our kids to Catholic school is based on several things.

1. Tradition. My dh and I are both products of private education (me Catholic schools and him just private and expensive).

2. School size. The public elementary school my kids would go to is a good one. But it's also very large. Not sure of the current numbers, but I know when Annie was in the 3rd grade in a school with 3 classes of 20 kids each, the public school 3rd grade had 210 kids split among 7 classrooms. It just seems too big for a little person. The high school has over 4,100 students. Having attended small schools my whole life (there were 212 kids in my high school graduating class), that is just overwhelming to me.

3. Family atmosphere. I've explained it this way: I want my kids to attend a school where they know most everyone and most everyone knows them. If they are messing around in the hallway, I want any teacher or staff person to be able to call them out on it by name. Similarly, if they are doing something good, I'd like someone to be able to say "Thanks Charlie! That was great," even if it isn't a teacher Charlie has had. In addition, the people we see at church on Sunday are many of the same people we see in the pick-up line at the end of every school day. I like the consistency of that.

4. Faith experiences. I probably would have put this one first if I didn't worry about rubbing people the wrong way. (Some evangelist I would make, huh?). My children attend Mass on a weekly basis with the entire student body. Once a month, they go to Mass with their own classroom. The school prays together (via the announcements) in the morning and at the end of the day. There is prayer before lunch.

I think the value of sending the kids to a religiously-based school was really driven home to me several years ago when a student died of leukemia. The school prayed for her daily as she was fighting her battle. And when she died, the school was able to respond by gathering the entire student body together for prayer. As a parent struggling to understand the unfairness of a child's death, I was comforted by the opportunity to gather with the students, faculty and staff to grieve and support one another. This is an extreme example and possibly less important than the daily and weekly faith opportunities. But it's something for which I'm grateful.

All of that is not to say that sending my kids to private school absolves us of our responsibilities as parents. Although my kids go to Mass and have daily religion class, the formation of their faith and their moral character is still up to us. I also don't want to give the impression that I consider private education categorically superior. We have several friends whose children attend public schools who are smart, well-behaved, great kids.

There can be certain disadvantages to private education. No buses to transport kids to and from school. Smaller class sizes can sometimes mean that if a kid is labeled one way (nerdy or a trouble maker), it's hard to break away from that. Some private schools may not offer the racial and economic diversity that is a reality in today's world -- though my children's school does. Public schools may offer a wider range of special needs services and extracurricular activities. Those are all things to consider.

And we are not opposed to considering public education. We've talked about several times since Annie started kindergarten, most seriously this spring. But at this point, Annie only has one year left before high school and I wouldn't move her now. Sending her to the big, public high school from a school where there are only 60 kids in her class seems like not a good idea. But she has asked if she could look at a smaller, public charter school and we will.

Charlie would love to go to public school -- because they don't wear uniforms and he's convinced they don't have as much homework. We're going to see how this year goes and consider sending him to the public middle school. Though quite honestly, I plan to send him to Catholic high school because I want him to be able to play competitive sports and the public school is so large that only the most elite players make the teams.

Finally, our Catholic school has been so supportive of Robbie and his various issues. We've worked closely with them for the past two years to make sure he's getting best education and the best support. I can't imagine starting that all over with a new school.

So Momza, that's why we choose to pay for private education. And I hope my Currency Crunch post didn't make it sound like I was whining about the expense. Because we are members of the parish, our tuition is about $3,000/child. I think it's an investment worth sacrificing for.

Passages

It always sounds so cliche when parents say "where did the time go" and "how did they grow up so fast?" But I'm gonna say it -- Where did the time go? How did they grow up so fast?

Charlie's class watched THE MOVIE at school this week. I wasn't prepared for that -- probably because Charlie never gave me the letter saying that they were going to watch THE MOVIE. So, when he got in the car on Tuesday and said "Mom, we watched the 'Just Around the Corner' movie today," I about swallowed my gum.

(We call it the "Just Around the Corner" movie because that's the refrain for the song played in the movie, hinting that bodily changes are just around the corner for these 4th graders.)

Charlie was quite fascinated by the content of the movie and proceeded to tell me about in detail. Well, he tried to tell me, but Annie was in the car and positively grossed out which gave me the legitimate opportunity to tell him we'd talk about it later. Then as soon as Mike got home, I promptly reminded him that I had handled THE TALK with Annie and now that Charlie had seen THE MOVIE, it was Mike's turn to have THE TALK.

In another "where did the time go" category, Annie and I attended a high school information night at school on Tuesday. I swear she was just in kindergarten! She's only in the 7th grade, so we have a little time, but next month we'll be going to several open houses at high schools she is interested in.

When I was her age, I had two options for high school: Catholic or public. That was it. She has 5 Catholic high schools and the public school to consider. Truthfully, we're only going to look at 3 of the Catholic high schools, ruling out two of them based solely on the fact that they are too far away for a daily drive.

She doesn't want to go to the public school and I don't think I want her to either, but I do think we should at least visit and tour so we are clear on all of our options.

So we went into the information night knowing only what we've heard from friends about each of the schools. I had a pretty good idea where I thought she should go, as did she -- though her idea was different than mine. By the end of the night, we were still on different pages but we'd flip-flopped, me leaning more toward her original selection and she toward mine.

Good thing we have some time. If anyone has any tips for how to choose a high school, what questions to be sure to ask, I am all ears!

At least I still have Robbie, who will always be my baby. Today was gym day and I was caught with no clean gym shirts.

So I said, "Robbie, can you just wear a white shirt with your sweatpants?"

"Sure, Mom," totally unconcerned with the "what will the other kids say?!" and not even the least hint of drama about the potential (perceived) embarrassment.

Gosh, I love that kid!