So it's February. Hard to believe that the year took off with such a bang. Some things turned out better for this year than I hoped they would, some worse. I was really apprehensive with my eldest starting grade 4 this year. The year of writing exams for the first time. After the massive amounts of homework they do in our school for grade 1-3, I really thought grade 4 will be difficult. But, it turned out not too bad (so far). Apparently, homework is supposed to be work that was done during class, and not finished by the child. Makes perfect sense to me, so why wasn't that the policy of grade 1-3 as well? Why must our poor 7-9 year olds suffer to get through spelling, reading, speed reading, sentences and maths every day after school. It takes my daughter between 60 and 90 minutes every day to finish her homework. Yes, she isn't the fastest little girl. But she's AVERAGE. She doesn't have a diagnosis of ADD or anything. It's not even that she sits and dream. She's just slow. We spend almost an hour every day on reading, to get her to the level I believe she should be on for grade 2. Maybe my standards are too high? But without reading...what hope is there for a child in later school years? They need that foundation. It's already going so much better than a month ago when school started. And much better than grade 1, where she sometimes took 2 hours to complete her homework.
On the other hand, my grade 4 son, almost never has homework this year. It both scares me, and makes me tremendously proud. I'm scared, because I'm worried that somehow he doesn't do everything? But, he is a very fast and dedicated worker, and his grade 3 teacher taught them the value of rather finishing what you can during school hours. Instead of talking to mates and wasting your time, rather finish your homework. Then you don't have anything in the afternoons to do. It makes me very proud that Mr N learned this lesson so well, that he now rarely has homework.
This weekend, he started to study. Next Thursday, he starts with exams. Every Tuesday and Thursday they'll write one subject. They have a total of 9. Can you believe that? Ten years old and they have 9 subjects. Poor things. So he not only started with Thursday's exam's work, we also started with the week there-after's work, because his birthday and parties are around next weekend. So I don't want him to have to study next weekend. I want him to have a good time. Enjoying it all, as a 10-year old should. Today, we spent another 2 hours practising his maths and Afrikaans. Tomorrow and Wednesday we'll only concentrate on Maths, for the first test on Thursday. Then he can have a break until Sunday afternoon.
I'm hard at work with planning the birthday parties. We're having them together, but two of them. One with friends after school, and one with family over the weekend. I'm sure both boys is going to have a blast and enjoy all of it. Mr N chose a Ben 10 birthday party. Gosh, any ideas on the cake????? Me and his dad has this thing from birth where we make their cakes ourselves. Even though we're not creative or talented at all. It's just a tradition. I showed Mr N the pre-made rice cake and icing sugar pictures today, which you just place on the cake, and he said no thank you, I want mommy & daddy's cake! Uh-oh.
In the meantime, we're still waiting for the neurosurgeon. As promised by his receptionist, he did phone me. When I was in church!! So I missed his call, and phoned them to ask him to call me back again. Which, 7 days later now, he still hasn't done...:( I feel so frustrated, helpless and powerless. Boeboe's botox in the bladder is working out, and things are going downhill fast. There's definitely less function this February, than there was last February (before botox). So even though botox helped to paralyse the bladder, nerve damage was still taking place. It saddens me so much.
But still, between it all, she's doing very well. Her reading is slowly improving with our very hard work on it. She's gained tremendous confidence and a sense of relief and happiness with being on the pull-ups. She's darting around the house, smiling and tantrums have diminished ALLOT. It really surprised me. But it just goes to show. We ALWAYS said these tantrums ARE NOT NORMAL. But when someone here the word tantrum, they say oh yes, know what you're talking about. All 2-year olds goes through it. It's normal.
But there's normal, and there's Boeboe. Boeboe would be triggered by something so small, you'd be astonished at the sudden fury that blows over you like a hot sandstorm. Burying everything alive in her path. We'd shake our heads in absolute amazement with the force, power and endurance her tantrums showed. I once timed her, to see if I just didn't ignore tantrums long enough (ignoring being the choice of treatment accordingly to the experts). After about 2 and a half hours of CONSTANT, and I do mean CONSTANT screaming, her voice was gone, as was my patience, my sanity and my hearing. Ignoring Mr N's tantrums worked like an absolute charm. He had it for a full 6 months and then never again. He was still naughty, don't get me wrong. But no jumping up and down screaming or falling down on the ground. Anyway, I'm pretty convinced now that a BIG part of Boeboe's tantrums was both the painful/uncomfortable sensations her bladder caused her, as well as the tremendous effort it took from her to keep from having accidents. Of course, this isn't the only causes. It just exacerbated it, in my opinion. She still is, after all, my child. Fiery, stubborn, opinionated and sooooo righteous!
Monkeyman is also doing great. He's really enjoying school, though it does make him very tired. Ontop of going to school, we also have recorder practice on Tuesdays for Mr N and Boeboe in the afternoon, so it's a very difficult day for Monkeyman. He doesn't make it difficult for me though. He just takes it in his stride, and accept that his nap moves on with 2 hours. When we get home, he goes straight to his bed and falls asleep within minutes, poor thing. I have to wake him after almost 2 hours, for dinnertime!
But the rest of the week it's not too difficult. Mr N also wants to do chess, but it hasn't started yet. And we decided boeboe's just taking the recorder lessons. We don't want to make life too difficult for ourselves with too many activities after school. We still have to fit in study time every day as well as homework. For the next month Mr N will need a couple of hours a day to study, and if we have an extra-mural activity, it cuts down severely on study time for that day. After all, I come from an academically inclined family where sport and culture activities always came 2nd to academics. And that's what I prefer for my children as well. Sport is all well and good for children, but it's not (except when you're really exceptional) going to provide you with a salary one day.
In any case, it's going well with all of us. Very well indeed. My children are happy and thriving, and that pleases me. That's why I've been so quiet on the blog-front, LOL. Nothing to report really. Which, I know, is a very good thing! :)
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