I Heart Homeschooling

School has been a struggle for Isaac from the beginning. We have had ups and downs, but things became especially bad during his 3rd grade year. I made the decision to pull him and Katie (Kindergarten) out of school that spring to try homeschool. We all loved it! But, a new job made me decide to send them back to the neighborhood school in the fall for 1st and 4th grades.

I didn't feel I could do their education justice with my attention being split. If only I could send them to school one day a week!--I thought. I looked into a private program for homeschoolers that provides exactly that. But, I decided to abandon the idea due to cost and the fact that it was 20-minutes away.

It turned out to be the biggest blessing because Isaac's 4th grade teacher was the exact perfect person for him in his life at that time. We had the BEST year. I also adored Katie's first grade teacher, but when I found out about a charter distance program in Ogden that provides homeschoolers with all kinds of support including ALL curriculum and supplies plus 1.5 days of school per week, Katie wanted to try it. I transferred her right away (halfway through her first grade year). Isaac didn't want to make the change and I fully supported his choice since I loved his teacher so much.

I tried to persuade Isaac to join Katie's distance program at the beginning of this school year (2nd grade for Katie, 5th for Isaac), but he is at the age now where he doesn't want to be "different" so he refused. It has been a miserable school year for him and hard for me to watch him struggle so much and be labeled by his teacher as a bad kid.

At the beginning of February, I sent him to one day of school at the DaVinci Distance program. He complied, convinced he would hate it, and letting me know he was only doing it so he could get out of a day of going to his own school. But, when I asked him how his day went, he was speechless. He could not put into words how he felt about his experience. After everyone in the house had gone to bed, he came into my room and woke me up to say that he felt like he was going to cry because he loved DaVinci so much, but going there would mean he would have to leave Polk and that made him want to cry. And not going there also made him want to cry.

I asked him why he loved it so much and he said, because it made him feel generic. I asked him what that meant and he said that every day when he went to school he just wanted to blend in like "the generic kids who did what they were suppose to do." But, instead he was always getting embarrassed by the teacher calling him out for his behavior. "When I was at DaVinci, I finally felt generic."

He decided to remain at Polk. I said, "I know you want to stay at Polk because of your best friend." He said, "I never get to see him at school because he is in the other class." I said, "I know you want to stay at Polk because you love recess." He said, "My teacher always takes all of my recesses away." I knew the answers to these and other questions, but I asked them anyways and I knew it would be a short time until he chose the distance program. I wanted it to be fully his decision. It was fine because I had already signed up to be the room mom for the Valentine's Day party, so I figured I should see that through. The day after Valentine's we went on vacation to Denver and while I was sitting quietly by the pool the spirit told me that I needed to get Isaac out of his current situation at school. I took him on the next DaVinci Distance field trip right after we returned from Denver--to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point--and while he was there having the time of his life, I lowered the boom by saying, "Don't you wish you went to DaVinci Distance so this could be a school day?" At last, he conceded.

He has been so much happier since we made the switch and that makes me happy! We are definitely sticking with it next school year too. My boy is finally where he needs to be. Both he and Katie are loving it. On Tuesdays, Isaac takes an art class, Karate and wilderness survival from the coolest lady ever. Wilderness survival! How awesome is that?

On Wednesdays, Isaac has the most kind and patient teacher. He is in a class with about fourteen 5th and 6th graders and I think he feels "generic" because the other kids are like him. They are cutting and gluing and drawing or folding paper while the teacher is teaching and as long as they are not being disruptive, she compliments them on whatever they are doing instead of making them put it away. It is such a supportive and wonderful environment. This teacher already has my heart for being so kind to Isaac. I told his previous 5th grade teacher, "It's really hard for Isaac to be Isaac. He has a lot of struggles. It's nice to acknowledge that and not make his life harder." But, I think he thought discipline would mold Isaac into being just like all of the other kids. I am here to tell the world--it will not. Punishing him will not bring out the best in him, but loving him might.

Yesterday we took a field trip to Loveland Aquarium in Draper. I had the most magical day exploring those wonderful enormous tanks (and the penguin exhibit) with Katie and Isaac. As we sat for a long time in the calming shark tunnel, I felt pure joy flowing through my whole body. I love this homeschool program for these two SO much.

Later, I shared the story of Isaac loving DaVinci because it makes him feel generic to a very insightful person. I thought it was lovely that he feels generic, but this person responded, "You see, that is part of the problem. Isaac will never be like everyone else but he describes being generic as a positive thing because he thinks it is good to be like everyone else and he thinks he has to be like everyone else to be loved and to love himself. Isaac will never be O.K. until he understands his uniqueness and accepts it. You have to let him be O.K. as he is so he can accept himself as he is." Not only is this special time with my kids one of my greatest joys at this moment in my life, I also feel like this program will have a healing effect on Isaac. Keeping that in my prayers.

Sweet 16 and a Tonsillectomy

Friday, March 3 was a strange day. In the morning, my iPhone 6 worked fine. But, a few hours later the screen was dark and it was completely unresponsive. I took it to the phone store with no luck. I took it to Bad Apple and they replaced a bunch of parts and told me it was a very rare case where they could not find any signs of life at all but also no signs of damage. They even waived the diagnostic fee. No one knows why, but my perfectly good iPhone 6 bit the dust unexpectedly.

There are two sad parts to this story. The first is that, back in October, a mere 5-months ago, I walked into the phone store with Brian to pick up his new iPhone 7 and the salesman told me about a promotion that was going on and I could have gotten the full price of the iPhone 7 in trade-in value if I upgraded my phone. We had just given Sophie Brian's iPhone 5 and I declined the offer thinking it would be better to give the paid off iPhone 6 to Ian in a few years and I could upgrade to the 7s or the 8 at that point in the future. They were going to give me roughly $700 of trade-in credit. Instead I got $64.

The other sad part is that I hadn't downloaded my photos off my phone in approximately 2 years and it turns out, I lost them all.

I really can't think too much about that or I will feel sad. Luckily, there are a precious few saved here on my blog! Luckily, my mom and Brian have also taken photos of my kids in the past two years. And, although I would be lying if I said I'm not sad to lose all those photos. Another truth is that it feels like there are millions (at least tens of thousands) of digital photos that we have never printed that I will someday need to go through, print and organize. So . . . I guess this will just make about 1200 less photos in my archives to worry about.

The next day, Saturday, March 4, my mom took Sophie shopping all day and then to her house to make fudge. She bought Sophie a Belle dress with shoes and jewelry to match.

On Sunday, March 5, my baby girl turned sixteen.

SIXTEEN!

 Oven pancakes and bacon with balloons and yellow roses at breakfast.

 My lovely princess daughter

Sunday dinner at my mom's with a tower of fudge instead of a cake

On Monday, March 6, we found out unexpectedly that Ian would have his tonsils removed two days later. All four of my kids have complained of allergies, etc. that prompted me to take them on separate visits to the ENT. 

The first was Sophie. The Dr. ordered a sleep oxygen test and nothing came of it except a prescription for allergy medicine and a recommendation that we consider allergy shots. Next was Katie who complained about a persistent ringing in one of her ears. A hearing test showed that everything is normal. So, when the Dr. ordered a sleep oxygen test for Ian, we returned the monitoring equipment and it immediately left my mind since I thought nothing more would come of it until we got a phone call late on Monday telling us he would have his tonsils removed Wednesday morning. Shock!

He had been telling me that he felt like he was drowning or being strangled in his sleep and was waking up feeling like his tonsils were choking him. When the Dr. looked down his throat, he said Ian's tonsils looked perfectly normal. But, the sleep test showed that his oxygen was very low while he was sleeping and he recommended taking out his tonsils and adenoids right away. So we did.

 The nurses had fun messing with this big teenage guy by having a teddy bear with a note waiting for him when we checked him in.

 This is taken right after he woke up -- still smiling!

There was a slushy machine in the recovery room.

This was the first time one of my kids had surgery and things went well. He felt pretty good days 1-3 and got worse on day 4 and even worse on day 5. This is what the Dr. told us would happen. He spent the weekend feeling pretty miserable and running a fever, but said he felt slightly better today (day 6) so I am hoping he has turned a corner. What a trooper!

The Saturday after Sophie's birthday (and the Saturday after Ian's surgery), she had her birthday party. When she was a tiny girl of about 3, I promised her a big Sweet Sixteen party because that seemed like a great idea at the time. Over the years, we have had some huge parties! We have rented the Treehouse Museum (when she was little), a huge gymnastics facility. We have had parties with outdoor movies, karaoke, custom cakes . . . Boy oh boy was I getting stressed about how we were ever going to top the over the top parties we've ended up hosting over the years. How would I ever meet her very high expectations? 

After some difficult conversations about reeling in the expectations that had grown over the years (like that we would host it at a park decorated in twinkle lights and Owl City would make an appearance), she settled on the most simple birthday party we've ever hosted. About 10 darling friends came over and hung out. We had party food and more fudge and in my opinion, it was about the best birthday party ever. Yay for simplicity!