I need a wife....or a mom to swoop in and take over all of these balls that I'm trying unsuccessfully to keep in the air. Things are just crazy around here. When I have a moment of quiet, I feel baffled by the chaos and activity.

Andrew turns 13 in two weeks, but he has officially entered the world of teendom early. My sweet, kind, gentle boy now just smarts off with a "shut up" to anyone..including Thomas and I. He and his buddies have all started to develop little potty mouths and the moms and I are all beside ourselves. How did this happen? When did my loving, gentle boy turn bad? He has lived without his wii or gamecube for a couple of weeks now and it seemed better until the other night at 9:30pm when Thomas announced that he needed to go to bed. Andrew turned around and said "You can't tell me what to do. I'm not a child".

He's not a child. He's nearly as tall as I am and he weighs 100 pounds now (normal weight, btw). He can be mature beyond his years and then minutes later have a tantrum that puts my 18 month old to shame. I just can't get over this. Everytime I look at him, I remember the gentle, loving little toddler with curly locks that adored me....and instead, I see a young man who rolls his eyes at my obvious complete and utter lack of brain cells.

I want my little boy back....and I'm not going to get that. His childhood is over...it really is...he is changing.....and we are going to have to buckle down and ride the bumpy years of adolescence with him.

Amanda, on the other hand, has evolved from being my sassy little hellian into a kind and caring young lady. She is an incredible help with Zoe and Aidan and we have wonderful conversations now. This morning while I drove her to school, she was talking to me about her feelings about the miracle of pregnancy and abortions and why people would choose that as an option. I really enjoy her now more than I think I ever have. She is growing up and changing and it is coming out in good ways right now.....but......

drumroll please.........

Her report card arrived last week in the mail. She got D's in EVERY major subject: Language arts, Science, Social Studies, Reading and Math. D's. D as in door, day, damnit.......................

Amanda has never gotten bad grades. She has stumbled through math before, but a D in language arts and a D in READING? HOW can that happen?

So I was off to conferences on Monday to find out....

I realized while I was sitting waiting with the vice principal (who was also attending Amanda's conference...be still my heart) that there are a few things that I just can't talk about in real life...they are childhood traumas, cancer, and my kids shortcomings.

I sat in the chair in the hall with my heart pounding, my palms sweating and thinking seriously that I would just give it all up and homeschool. The vice principal sat next to me and asked me questions about our Thanksgiving and my face was red (WHY can't I control that?) and my voice trembled. It was so embarassing. She actually put her arm around me when we walked into the room. I just was mortified. Generally speaking, I'm pretty bold about things....just not things that get to me at a gut level.

After we all sat down, I got the lowdown. Amanda's disorganization has reached new heights. The child who last year was one of the most organized students in her class in now one of the least. Gone are the nightly checkboxes next to her bed: shoes, coat, bag, reading minutes....Instead, her papers are all crumpled at the bottom of her bag. She has D's for 2 reasons....MISSING ASSIGNMENTS and poor performance on tests. The teachers all commented on how capable she is and that when she does get things in, they are well done.... :huh:

The test issue has already begun to remedy itself though. Amanda asked me a few weeks ago if she could work with Mrs. Anderson again and so I arranged it. I think it took a lot for her to ask for help and I told her that I thought it was a very grown up thing to do. A lot of people struggle without asking for help. The sidenote here though is that I told her she didn't need to see Mrs. Anderson again. "Amanda, I can help you. Why don't I sit down with you?".
"Ummm, no offense mom. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but...I don't want your help."
"Why?"
"I just don't....oh...great...see...now it's written all over your face that I hurt your feelings."
"No...no, my feelings aren't hurt." (said while I tried to remove any shred of hurt from my face and just tuck it away in my heart).

Her last science test she got an 81% which was a huge improvement for her. Her math classroom grades are all A's and B's...but she crashes on the tests every single time. Mrs. Anderson met with her for 2 hours the first time, and told me that it took her an hour of working with Amanda just for the math anxiety to go away. She is convinced that Amanda has test anxiety. She told me that when they just sat and worked the problems she got them all right...when she did a timed test, Amanda's face was red, her hands were shaking and she missed 1/2 of them.

I told her this trimester the grades start over. She can be an A/B student if she wants to...it's a fresh start, and I can tell that she desperately wants this success. Today she has a test in science and social studies and she knows it all cold. She studied the science for the entire thanksgiving vacation, even instructing our foreign students in 5 different types of joints and we went over the social studies so much that I could write a little essay about the beginning of Trade in the US and the voyageurs. Go Amanda Go!

Then we move on to Alex.....who still is my sweet, smiley little boy. He is so effortless sometimes that he gets the least amount of attention. This year, he placed into the highest math group and they are flying in this class. All of his homework and in-class work is A's. His last two test grades? D

Again with the D thing. The teacher contacted me about 10 days ago and said that it is obvious that he is capable...he gets everything right on their daily work....but that she can't keep him in the class if he tests badly. :huh: I asked what the problem was with the tests from her perspective. She told me that Alex rushes. He was the first person done both times. Sooo...I had Mrs. Anderson (Elizabeth from here on out) work with him yesterday for an hour after school as well. She told me that he didn't make a single mistake on any problem. "Kris, he knows this. If he doesn't get an A on this test, I will throttle him.". So will I.

Elizabeth also told me that she had spent a half an hour with both of his teachers talking to them. "You know that his teacher doesn't even know about the cancer and everything?"

"I don't know why they would, Elizabeth."
"I told them about Alex and how he wouldn't go to school and how hard it has been on him. They were surprised that you hadn't mentioned it."
"Elizabeth, it was TWO YEARS ago. It's over. We have all moved on."
"Kris, your children are still recovering. Don't you see that?" She added a few comments about what she saw during that time about how they were affected and what she sees now, but I'll spare us all by not writing about it...especially myself. I don't want to look at it. This is someone that I have known since a year after we moved here. She has nurtured two of my children in her first grade class, tutored Amanda off and on since second grade and has been a part of our family. She is the person who had to help me get Alex out from beneath furniture and redress him with me some mornings....She knows it all about us. I trust her judgement. Still, I need to move on.

But I haven't really moved on, for all of my fanfare about it being over. I ran into a woman in Barnes and Noble 2 weeks ago who is also a 2 year survivor. We started chatting and again with the face turning red, hands shaking trembling voice thing. I think I apologized 10 times in our short conversation because I was so nervous that I couldn't really carry on a conversation. God, I embarass myself.

But back to Alex....he has his chapter 4 test today and then tomorrow he has a Unit 1 test over the first 4 chapters. I can barely deal with the stress of it and worrying that he'll be tossed out of this math group.

Aidan continues to be my little living action figure. He has boundless energy....but....he is small. Our pediatrician has told me not to worry because he's continuing to grow....he's just teeny. He is still wearing pants that are 18 months. Zoe is moving into the 24 month sizes, but they just fall off of his waist. :huh: He has a huge personality though to make up for it. He is always trying on different super hero costumes and his latest obsession is with transformers. I still can't believe he's already 4!

Little Miss Zoe is......adorable as usual. She is so busy and so...cute. I just love everything about her right now...(except the whining!) She seems to be developing appropriately. She still has the intoeing thing going on,but her vocabulary has increased enough that she can communicate a little bit. Her first word was "mine" (Ummm, yah, I guess if I was the littlest of 5 it would be my first word too ), and she says yum yum, Katze (cat), Nase (nose), Booo (for Buch the german for book), poopoo , potty, FooFoo (That's what she calls Amanda...it's a long story ), Mama, Papa, and Molly.

The thing is, with all of this going on...with all of my mixed feelings about the last two years and my daily struggles to get kids where they need to be and make sure planners, reading minutes, reports, tests and other papers are signed each day, I feel.....happy. I really do have what I always wanted....a big family. I even mourn the fact that there will never be a #6 (someone slap me). I am truly content with my life as it is. I know that some day my house will fall quiet, the laundry won't be exploding out of the laundry room and everything will be clean and organized...and I just want to savor these moments of chaos and activity. I really feel so blessed.[/quote]