Our Family Chronicle

this is from last week

Teacher parent Meeting.

Meeting with the teachers tonight was not overly surprising.  “First off they said, “We want to say what a great child Alex is and what a pleasure he is to have in my class.”    Do teachers learn this line of crap when they go to teacher school?   It is obvious that this is a line that they use on all the parents.   I know Alex is a good kid but what are you doing to teach him?  We wanted to ask :  What are you doing to help him read? To help him be organized?  To help him move forward in his education?  This whole time the number of teachers in the room kept increasing.  I was starting to wonder how many teachers does he have.  Add to this that our (Pattie and mine) attitude with his main teacher was a little bit hostile so Alex was getting nervous.  We found graded papers that had been marked as not handed in and confronted her on this.  All she could say was hand them back in.  This is a bit frustrating as I get after Alex for not handing things in.    One of his other teacher’s was desperately trying to redirect the conversation by asking Alex questions.   “So Alex what do you think you do well?”   “What do you think you should work on?”   Alex was definitely outnumbered and overwhelmed but he did have some answers to the questions.  We are proud of Alex.  He is smart.  Actually, his verbal speech is quite advanced.  We will continue to work to get his spelling up.  He is also trying to learn to type.  We hope that being able to keyboard might just give him the edge he needs.

Melinda is doing very well and her teacher showed us how Melinda is above the average by a fair amount.  She tries to not be a rebellion in class and is quick to correct anything she does wrong.  Basically, academically Melinda is achieving above grade.  We are proud of her.  We need to work on opening her mind and understanding why things work not just using her rote memory.

I had a talk with Alex about Melinda doing better than him in school.  I told him that I am very smart and I had trouble in school as well.   This seemed to help him a bit.  Pattie mentioned to him how at the 5^th or 6^th grade she had to admit she did not know how to multiply.  Over the summer months Pattie had to practice her multiplication tables while her younger brother taunted her.  Siblings are always waiting to tease the other but it is our job as parents to even out the mark reminding them that no one is perfect and each child does have their strengths.       

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There are times that the kids are truly remarkable.  Sometimes they are remarkably annoying.  The game boy thing is truly annoying – While at the ski area they decided to spend some time playing (and taking turns?) this silly game.  Why are we not skiing???

At any rate I knew it was just a matter of time before the “taking turns” with the game would turn ugly and it did.  The excuse for bringing the game was that it could entertain them on the drive up and back.    Though that worked ok the game has somehow found its way into the lodge. It obviously has legs of its own because no one knew how it got from the car into the lodge and all the way to our table.   The finger pointing became a game all its own. She did it, no you brought it in, I didn’t take it out of the bag.  Than why did you bring it in the first place?   Enough I say – I don’t care just stop playing it and go out in the freezing weather and ski and you better enjoy doing it.  Very fatherly of me don’t you think?  Through it all they Alex is still big brother – We went up the lift and I made my way through a large group of racers at the top of the mountain.  Alex was behind me but he yelled at me to stop because Melinda had not been able to get through the racers.   It was very nice that even though they had been fighting he was still looking out for her. Remarkably nice and responsible of Alex.   I had to just smile.  And yes they had fun skiing in the cold.

Tags: Kid's and animals, family activities, parenting by Randall
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Today I had another meeting with Alex’s teachers.   It always seems like some kind of inquisition and I am on trial to see if I am doing what is right for my child.  I thought the reason I send my kids to school is so teachers trained to teach would teach my children.  It is as if I am being judged as to how good of a parent I am by teaching my child. It seems that what they want to do is tell me how I need to teach my child.   We have to sign everything he is supposed to do for homework – the responsibility thing.  But I do not see them telling me every little thing that they are doing to teach.  If a child is learning than the teacher is quick to take credit but if your child struggles it must be the parents fault.  I am not sure how that has come about but it has.  Ultimately it does not matter because I want both kids to do well so they will have choices when the get older so I will take the time needed to help them learn whatever they need to.

Tags: Public education RANT by Randall
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Yesterday (Saturday) Pattie, the kids and myself made a trip up to Evergreen to see Grandma Judy.  It is a bit difficult for all of us to be up there with out grandpa but it was great to spend a little time with grandma.  I hope she didn’t mind us coming up as we all enjoy visiting and the kids love playing up their (actually so do I).   

We went up to ski today – Pattie was suppose to work but talked them into letting her go make some runs with the family instead.  Melinda and I talked a little bit about grandpa because he had planed on skiing with us today.  Melinda said she believed he was skiing with us but his leg no longer bothered him – a comforting thought.  The first couple of runs I made with Melinda were very cold so decided what Heaven would be.  Heaven, she told me would be skiing on nice cold powder when it was warm out.  I have never thought about it much but I believe she’s correct – that would be Heaven.  It never got too warm today but with no wind and no clouds we thought it would be a good day to go up to the ridge and take in the incredible view on the continual divide.  It was still cold up top so we enjoyed the view quickly and skied back down.  We ended the day early and made our way home before THE GAME.  We did not watch the game, but we were home in time to do so.     

Tomorrow Pattie starts the second week of her new job and I will get use to working at home alone.  Sound a bit like a movie.

Tags: family activities by Randall
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