Almost there!!

I'm almost there! ("Push honey! Push!") Yup, my homeschool portfolios are almost finished for the year. Whew.

In Florida, we have a few different ways to certify our homeschooled kids as having received an education. We can have our portfolio reviewed and certified as showing that our child has "made progress commensurate with ability". We can have them take standardized tests and submit the results. We can have them take (and pass) the FCAT. Any way we choose to do it, we must make a portfolio and keep it for several years. (I'm not sure how many, but it's longer than I've been homeschooling!)

Portfolio means something different to different people. I always write about a ten-page summary of the school year and their accomplishments, broken out by subject. (I know, I know -- all educational fields overlap and we must integrate their learning. Blah, blah, blah. Just do it, dummy!) Then I pull out a sample day's work for each subject from each month. That comes to six subjects times nine months, times three or four pages each, or almost a half-ream of paper. Ick.

It's supposed to give me (and the reviewer and the state) a neat picture of the progression of skills, and I suppose it does. But I'm sick of doing it. My poor scanner and printer are, too. I feel like it deserves a margarita once we're finished. Or an oil bath. Whatever scanners like.

I can't wait...

It's child abuse...

My kids are abusing me -- I haven't slept in weeks. Are my kids newborns? No, not even close. They're just trying to kill me.

The Boy is a night owl, like me. Left to his own devices, he stays up as long as he's physically capable, plus a half hour. Then he tries to sleep all day. Yesterday I got him up at 9:30, 10:00, 10:15, and finally succeeded at 11:15. He stayed up until at least 1:00 this morning, which is when I fell unconscious.

Why, you ask, would I allow a child to stay up that late? After all, he's only 11.

I like to have a half-hour to myself before I go to bed, just to unwind and have an independent, complete thought. So, I curl up with the laptop and The Boy annoys me until I give up, somewhere around 1:00.

Then, The Girl (my morning child) wakes up at 6:00 the next morning. This morning, I got up at 6:00 to help her change her "girl sticker", medicate her, and go back to bed. The Husband goes off to work at 7:30, and I stagger out around 8:30. The Boy is unwakeable (is that a word?), and it starts all over again. By dinnertime, I'm just about to collapse on the floor.

Today, I say, "No more." Here's the plan. You have to tell me if I'm crazy.

6:00 is dinner.
6:30 is cleaning up and watching the news.
8:00 is The Boy's shower and The Girl's walk and shower.
9:00 is reading with The Boy. (The Girl puts herself to bed around 9:30.)
10:00 is The Boy's snack and brushing teeth and The Girl's tuck-in.
10:30 is The Boy's bedroom time and my quiet time.
11:00 is LIGHTS OUT.

At 11:00, I swear on all that is holy, I'm turning the lights off, even if I have to throw the circuit breaker.

So, now the question to you all is -- what is the penalty for breaking the "lights out and don't leave this room unless you're vomiting or bleeding" rule? (Death? Please say death or dismemberment...)

Window screens and growing up -- a Friday mix

I just had a radical thought. Those screens on the windows are really obstructing my view of the hummingbirds? Why don't I take those down? Seriously, no one in her right mind is going to be opening those windows for at least four months -- live it up! Talk about this being our stuck-inside-with-crazy-kids season, eh? Instead of going skiing/sledding, we just go to the pool/beach instead. Otherwise, it's the same. That grocery store parking lot? BRUTAL. See?

In other news, The Boy is progressing nicely into tween-hood. He walked past me last week and asked, "What the heck is that in your hair?" "It's a plastic butterfly hair tie I found. I thought it was cute." "Please don't wear that -- it looks dumb." Yayy!!

See, raising kids on the autism spectrum really backward. Our kids learn to lie? Yayy! Our kids tell us we look dorky? Yayy! They want to do everything for themselves? Yayy! They get greedy and want to do all the chores? Yayy!

Lying is a very complex social skill. Self awareness is a hard concept to develop. Self-reliance is a sign of maturity. Financial planning, ditto.

So, when you start to complain about your kid being snarky, remember -- it's a part of growing up. And that's a good thing.

Oh sure, it's hot here, but...

Okay, I caught some grief for yesterday's post. Sure, "only 91 degrees" isn't so bad until you consider that I don't have to check the forecast again until, oh, November -- cause it ain't gonna change. Day after day of "heat index 101" will wear a gal down. There's something about our sun angle that makes "91 in the shade" kind of irrelevant.


Don't get me wrong. We can't top 110 degrees. But you all will have crispy fall leaves by October. Us, not so much. We'll be swatting killer spiders with the Fall L.L.Bean catalog long before we have to break down and wear socks.

And the high in Washington, DC for Saturday? 84 degrees.

Now, Tulsa? That's a different story. Just give up now. Move to Alaska. I always wondered who came to the Florida beaches in the dead of summer. Now I know. You people are crazy.

Tulsa Oklahoma:


We'll leave the light on for you...

Oh dear...

I've decided to rename the group of months known as July, August and September. I am no longer calling them "summer"; they are now to be known as "Swearing Weather". As in, "Yes, it certainly is swearing weather today."

If you walk out the front door and spontaneously take the Lord's name in vain, it must be...


Oh yeah mama. Damn it's hot.

The (temporary) end of the world as we know it...

What to do?! It's raining in Florida! And we're not talking about the "if it's 2:00, it must be thunderstorming" kind of rain -- it has been raining for hours with no end in sight!

The kids have resorted to a dump-and-spread sort of activity that involves singing "Get Along Cow" and accidentally dumping half of a bookcase. Maybe you had to be there to understand. Heck, I was there, and I don't understand. But my 11-year-old daughter is now reading a big ass book entitled "Biblical Literacy". (Somehow that one didn't get exactly dog-eared from repeated readings.) They're now carrying the books through the house, and I'm not stopping them. Why?

One reason. I've lost the will to live. Remember the phrase, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine?" (Okay, if you're under 35, just nod and smile.) See, in Florida, a day without sunshine is a Big Deal! We lose the will to live without at least 8 hours of sunshine a day. Sure, we curse it all summer, but it's still there, giving us a will to live.

Now the kids are searching the house for The Boy's DS. It's small, dark, and glossy. Yeah, they'll find it. Reeeeeeal soon. I've suggested cleaning his room first, but he just looked at me like I was nuts.

What I want to do is make a roadtrip to Lowe's. The Girl "needs" a ballet barre, and I've figured out how to make one with saw horse brackets, two 2x4's and some PVC. I'll post pictures if I can get it to work.

But alas, it rains still. Can't breathe. Reaching for the light... Rose... Bud...

It's official...

The Boy is headed into teenage-hood. Last night when I put him (forcibly) into bed at 12:30 am, my son asked me, "Mom, why do you have to ruin my life?" I told him, of course, that I couldn't ruin his life until he was 14, when children usually start claiming this. Then I took all his electronics and turned out the lights. Check. And. Mate.