Patrick is heading into pre-op right now and everyone is beginning the dance: Kristy’s husband Darin (whose knowledge of neurosurgery has been a tremendous asset) is taking the pre-surgery shift, my Dad is either on the scene or about to join the support team (or he might be on Jack duty), Patrick’s parents are standing by to take the second support shift and all of us outside of the radius of the hospital are praying for the doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists who are starting the scrub-in routine. Praying that they are well rested, extra sharp and efficient, and that their steady hands are guided by the one who created them.
While that family event takes place on the other side of the world, life goes on as usual here. Carter had a big project due today at school. To say he’s not academic-minded would be an understatement (he’s smart, but couldn’t care less about books). Each 5th grader had to pick a famous person to research. He originally picked Albert Einstein, but couldn’t find enough information on him so he switched to George Washington. (Seriously, that was his excuse.)
It has been difficult to find a balance between him taking responsibility for his own work and making sure the work actually gets completed. My feeling is if I have to sit next to him to make sure he does his assignments I might as well be homeschooling him. Needless to say, Carter does the bare minimum to get by. As you can see below, they had to answer 10 questions about their person (major accomplishments, character qualities, etc). Number 11, “Any other important information” was obviously redundant and therefore, not worthy of an answer. I’m sure he covered everything he could possibly say about the Father of our Nation in the first 10 points.
Since I don’t expect anyone else to be able to read his chicken scratch and his very inventive spelling, this is what he wrote in response to “Who is an everyday successful person that influences you?”
My mom because she is a hard worker and she does a lot of things like picking us up from after school activities, taking us to Taekwondo, and she makes dinner. She takes care of our baby sister and our dog. That might help me by working harder and to not give up.
I guess he’s doing just fine.