Today is the first day of summer/last day of school, depending on which kid you are at our house. The elementary school finished up yesterday and the Middle/High school had one last 1/2 day this morning. Last year I made my kids go on the last day, figuring if the teachers had to be there, they should be there too, but this year I figured I wouldn’t make them waste their time since they had finished all their finals already. Ironically the kid who would have begged to stay home every day of the year (Carter) wanted to go to school, mostly because he had grand plans to visit the teen center with his friends after school and play video games all afternoon. Live it up, my son. The video game ban starts at 5pm today.
Our kids are not great with test prep and my casual attitude towards grades with homeschooling has carried over to traditional school. BUT, I expect them to put forth a good effort. When they kept protesting that they had studied enough and didn’t need to spend any more time preparing, Josh warned them if they didn’t get a B or higher on all of their finals then they would be off electronics for the first month of vacation. Carter gambled and lost. Whoops. He called me this afternoon to tell me he was “mad” about his C+.
Meanwhile, Calvin is mad that I’m not mad at him about his mediocre grades (Bs and Cs), and wishes that I would be harder on him. I explained the beauty of self-discipline and self-motivation and how me hovering over him, demanding that he perform to a set standard, wasn’t going to create a successful adult. If a C isn’t good enough for him then he needs to figure out what he needs to do to change that. I don’t care if he’s an honor roll student, I care if he is a kind, hardworking, gentle, generous, considerate, patient, humble and genuine person. I see all those characteristics developing in him so I’m not worried about his C+ in Chemistry. When I see him leading worship for our family Bible study on Wednesday night, playing the drum box along with the church worship team on Friday morning, and interviewing and being hired for a summer job where he will earn money, that is how I measure success.
Meanwhile Bob is soaring with all As and basking in the glow of finally being a Middle Schooler. His proudest achievement though was being voted “Fastest Runner” and “Best Athlete” in his class. Our scholarship hopes are riding on him.
Seeing that it was the first day of summer for 1/2 of us, I thought it would be a quiet morning. Instead I was woken up by shrieking at 6am and I pulled my phone off of my nightstand to call Carter and ask him why he was waking me up and why Camille was awake so early. (Yep, I love my morning sleep. I didn’t want to wake up enough to walk into the other room and yell at him in person.) It turns out that they were watching the Warriors win the National Championship so I quickly forgave them and told them to keep their cheering down for the rest of the quarter. Then I fell back to sleep until 9.
Yes, I do have a 4 year old. How do I do that with Camille in the house? Dirty secret — usually she sleeps until 8:30 or so, but Josie arrives around 7 and starts cleaning downstairs so I know that if Camille is awake and I’m not, Josie will get her breakfast and watch her until I’m up and about. Besides, Camille may have given me hundreds of sleepless nights over the past 5 years, but she doesn’t get into the kind of trouble that the boys did at her age. When she’s unsupervised she might look at a few books, draw pictures on pieces of paper, or talk to her stuffed animals. My 4 year old boys were getting into everything, making messes and jumping off of furniture. I would have needed 3 Josies back then.
I’m finishing up packing for our trip to Poland/Germany tomorrow. I’m going to freeze my butt off. Last night Josh and I walked to get ice cream and I was wearing yoga pants and a wool sweater. It was 93. Currently it’s 63 in Krakow. I need to go back into my suitcase and switch out a few tank tops for long sleeves. Brrr!