Dare I come back to this blog? I surely will fail to update it regularly once again. I have to sigh and admit though, that words are making me itchy, and the sole way to scratch is to let them out...so here we go.
Today is the first day of 8th grade for my daughter, and 5th for my son. I had a very near miss on a panic attack this morning around 4 a.m. as a result. My heart was racing and it felt like the ceiling was going to slowly lower onto me, and press me to the mattress like the world's least appealing panini. I breathed through it, and reasoned through it...and managed to push it away and fall asleep for another hour or so.
I laid there when I awoke again, and listened to the familiar sounds of my husband prepping for his workday. The shower, the toilet...the occasional blast of flatulence (sorry dearest). The pattern is comforting for all that it heralds that today Summer is REALLY over, and it is back to the potential emotional rollercoaster of "school". Now in a lot of households this is a day of happiness, expectation, or sadness and longing...here it has always been one of borderline terror.
Dramatic, yes. That doesn't make it any less true. One of those times when I just feel like if I do ANYTHING other than allow one day into my mind at once, I will straight up lose it and be dismantled completely, I mean stripped down from "I Got This", to a drooling idiot sucking her thumb in the corner (I really did used to suck my thumb as a kid, BTW...til I was close to 9.). One day at a time. Today I am going to get Eli and Lily to school...and things will not fall apart...today.
So. This year Lily is in 8th grade, last stop before she enters the whirling dervish of drama and "life choices" known as "High School In America"! I am not anticipating too much in the way of dire occurrences, she has a full load of Pre-AP classes, and Orchestra...she can handle those and if she needs help she will ask. I love that about her. My worries for her mainly hinge on my own ability to deal with her inevitable self-doubt and lack of motivation to do more than "decent".
Eli...well he is my bigger concern, and bad I feel for saying that, he is the one who's school year delivers me the most ulcer-worthy moments. I broke things down after this mornings weirdness. I am going to do three things: Contact the diagnostician about moving his ARD meeting to an earlier date. Contact his Resource Math teacher so I know he is still going there and won't get sucked into the vortex of long division and mixed number fractions before he is ready. Lastly? Renewing my own volunteer status so I can stalk, oops...help out wherever needed this year.
I have done all those things and now I am writing this out. This year is a big one. The STAAR looms even now, on the first day...in my mind. This is one of those years when not passing it absolutely does affect a kids ability to move on. A year that matters. He was no closer to passing it last year than he was the year before...so well. Yeah. Concerning. Part of the reason for moving the ARD was so we could get some answers about what will happen when he does not pass it this year, either. They completely removed the Modified option that kids in SpecED were to take...what they have replaced it with, I have no idea. Maybe they haven't replaced it with ANYTHING? That is a huge fear of mine. A fear so big I haven't even been able to bring myself to look on the website to check. I will. Just not today. Today I have the above to do...and I've done it. I also have to go and see him at lunchtime...just this once, just to see what he is like. Back on the Concerta, back in school. To eyeball the kids in his classroom...see if any are trouble, potential sources of unkindness or bullying for him. Make sure the teacher knows I am watching her kids just as much as she is. That I am involved and around...and accessible.
That is all, for today. Then later tonight after dinner probably...I'll start letting myself think about tomorrow. That is how I have to do things...so I don't get panini-ed.
