School Prep Starts

Yesterday I made turkey bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Natalie is just like her father. Even though I had already put lots of pepper in the eggs, she added more pepper even before she tasted it. We had to wake Anthony up around 9:30 am because we had an appointment with the director of his school. Every time we've seen Mrs. F she is so positive and enthusiastic about whatever it is she is talking about that we can't help but be positive and enthusiastic as well. We hoped for a good solution to Anthony's schedule conflict.

I mentioned briefly last week that there was a conflict between Anthony's soccer class and Calculus BC. Both are only offered during first period. Calculus BC is supposed to cover two college semesters of Calculus whereas Calculus AB, the class he is registered for, is only supposed to cover one college semester over the whole school year. After our meeting, the details of which I won't explain fully here, we decided that Anthony would stay registered for Calculus AB (last period) and soccer (first period). He would also, however, get the Calculus BC textbook and possibly other materials and study independently for the Calculus BC Advanced Placement (AP) test at the end of the year. He has to be more of a self-starter/self-motivator in order to be successful at this, and we are all confident that he can do this. It'll definitely be good preparation for college.

We also talked about what classes he plans on taking his last two years of high school and how this fits in with his plan for college. Mrs. F gave Anthony some great suggestions and reading materials to help him decide his career path and what he needs to do to get there.

After the meeting, we fed Anthony and then dropped him off at a local arcade to meet up with some of his friends. There were a few plan changes, but the end result was that he and two of his friends spent the night at our house. I prefer knowing where Anthony is and what he is up to. They ended up staying up to watch Fight Club. Patrick watched with them so he could interact with them. I love that he wants to get to know Anthony's friends. They're much more comfortable with him than with me.

Because the three teenagers were crammed into Anthony's room, I tried to keep the little ones from making too much noise. That meant indulging them with some iPad time. I have to say that when I walked into the game room, this sight made me smile. They don't always get along, but it's wonderful when they do.

Eric also cracks me up with his constant use of his Lightning McQueen slippers. They look gigantic on his feet, but he puts them on every night and every morning until he changes clothes. Then he puts on his Lightning McQueen crocs. Occasionally he asks for the Lightning McQueen stuffed toy from Target. He's been even more Cars crazy since seeing the Cars 2 movie. Today when we were at Target he asked for some cars from the Cars 2 movie again. I bought them but with the agreement that if he can keep his pull-up dry for a whole week, he'll get to play with the new toy. We'll see what happens. He's so close to being potty-trained. It'll be nice if he is when school starts in another week.

We're in the middle of a drought here, and we currently have "Stage 2 water restrictions where we can only turn on our sprinkler system one day a week. The rest of the time if we want to water the lawn we have to hand water. Patrick has been the one to do this for most of the summer, but recently we decided that the boys should help while they're still out of school. Tonight Anthony and Alex were both outside watering the lawn. They both sprayed themselves as well as each other. Eric saw them both outside from the upstairs window (the one on the stair landing) and tried to get their attention. Finally Anthony saw him and sprayed some water up to that window. Why not have a little fun while you're doing work?

Tomorrow Natalie goes to the orthodontist to get molds of her teeth made. I have to go back to work. Natalie has piano lessons in the afternoon. Our vacation is over, but we still have one more week before school starts.