Very Quick Update

This needs to be quick as my battery life is nill and I'm not going back to my desk tonight. Today Max and I went to visit the charter school. It was nicer than I expected although by Max's very intention of attending the fifth grade teacher was suddenly 3.5 months pregnant and made the announcement today. It is his peculiar karma to cause turnover in any classroom he enters. Heaven forbid he should have a seasoned teacher who has last year's lesson plans to lean on if she's feeling a little under-the-weather. The only reason this didn't cause me to chuck the whole plan was because I sooooooo had nothing to lose so I flat-out asked the teacher if she knew if anyone else already had their eye on the position. Yes, as a matter-of-fact, the third grade teacher did.

I felt a lot better. Chances are the third grade teacher wanted it LAST year, took the third-grade position when it was offered to her, spent the whole year thinking, "these kids are cute, but what I wouldn't kill for at least the beginnings of some abstract thinking skills" and was the first to heartily congratulate the fifth-grade teacher on her good news. This is how these things work when you want to work at a charter school and there's only one lead teacher per grade. Or per two-grades in this case. (Fifth grade teacher this year has both 4th and 5th.)

I don't care what they might teach my kids in science and history, since the books have anything remotely controversial scrubbed out of the text (remember, I work for these people), I'm not worried he might accidentally learn anything I might care about. That said, maybe he will learn something--they claim to be literature based. We'll see. At any rate, it freed me up to pester them about math and writing and spelling and their Chinese and Spanish-language programs. We were entertained by the Chinese lessons. Max less so than I. He was really bummed to learn that he couldn't just request French if he wanted. I told him if he was still interested in French I'd be happy to get him the French curriculum for him to do at his own pace at home just like we'd planned to do. He perked up. I reminded him that his father knows little beyond, "Where is the celery?" (Chris HEARTILY corrects me here. Apparently he is still somewhat fluent in French and I never knew. He only speaks to me of celery when speaking French.) and I know nothing beyond "Frere Jacque". If he's been willing to teach himself before, there was no reason he couldn't do it on the sly anyway. Learning at home won't stop being learning at home. It just won't be learning at home all the time.

I'd like to discuss all the emotions around this, but I just can't. I'm following a hunch here, that's all. I can tell you this, just to save anyone who might be tempted to say the wrong thing here--he'd still get a better education from me. There is still noone on the planet who knows him better than I and is more determined that he get the education he craves and deserves. I will still gladly lose sleep to mix work and homeschooling. I'm writing it here because it's happening and it looks like the right decision right now. But I might change my mind without apology before September. I might pull him out again in November. (And for reasons that have everything to do with charter school enrollment, lotteries, and the popularity of this school and in spite of my desire to wait until next September, he may end up attending for the last two months of this year. I go back Thursday for more discussion.) Regardless of what I do it won't be without, likely, thinking it to death. I only get one shot at mothering this kid and this is really hard. The last time I let the schools have my kid they REALLY SCREWED IT UP and it caused a LOT of pain for my kid and my family. I think it might work this time, at this one school, for this one year, but I might be wrong and I won't do what I did last time--say he has to stick out the year so he doesn't learn that misbehaving will get him out of something he doesn't like--and then regret it ever since I finally got the whole story when the teacher was fired the following year.

Oops, let some emotions out there. Where was I? Oh yeah, Max had a great time, is only worried about whether he'll make any friends (I'm sooo not worried--they thought he was great--they were all calling his name when he left. Bye, Max!!!) I gave him the right of veto. He wants to go. I'm going to let him for as long as that seems a good idea.

Let's not comment too much about this one yet. I'm kinda raw about it. Thank goodness for Chris to discuss this all to death with. He has said, repeatedly, all the right things, and often wise words.

I finished Baby Oliver's first sweater. Adorable. Milo and I are breathing better--I did double dose him today, but I could have trippled dosed him had I not read the directions more carefully the second time. Apparently that dose is a ONCE a day dose for three days. Not three times a day for three days . . . riiiiight. Caught that. phew. He seems to have survived just fine.