Yes I know it has been a while.  Yes I know I am not being a good blogger.  Yes you can assume much has been going on in my world.  Too much for me to concentrate on my blog.  But I am back and I hope you missed me.  Drew has been receiving home and hospital for the past couple weeks.  Trying to ease him back into the idea school is safe.  He has been going for OT and language therapy.  His classroom teacher has been coming to the house a couple days a week to work with him on school work. I have noticed the longer he is away from the class the more issues we are having.  He will be going back next year on a trial basis.
I am fortunate that his teacher understand that learning can happen AWAY from the brick and mortar so she has no problem when I pull him for a day to do a tour or activity with our homeschool group.  It is actually the best of both worlds.

We are gearing up for Phil's graduation and wedding. Drew and I leave next Tuesday and will be in Kansas for a 8 days.  Much planned.  Drew is very excited to see everyone.  WE get back the 15th and are having a party for Drew's 10th birthday on the 19th.  Drew has been a real trooper about how everything is so centered on Phil right now.  Phil's birthday, graduation and wedding all in a 2 month period.  We are not doing much for Phil's Bday.  I will just throw some money in his checking account. Easy.

I do have a new Mixbook give away coming up this week. Everyone has weddings going on and needs guest books.  So they are allowing me give one away on my blog.  Look for it in the next few days.

I haven't posted pictures of Drew lately so here are a couple from a family portrait sitting we did a few weeks ago.

feeling vindicated

I am so over public school.  We had Drew in a class for ED (emotional disturbance).  Several years ago when we home schooled he was having lots of emotional issues.  WE found out later it was because of his age and not being able to verbalize what he was feeling so he acted out.  So we made the mistake of trusting public school.  The end of his second grade year all he did was sit in a class, play legos, color pictures and watch movies.  This year there has been more learning if you could call it that. The teachers did the work for him and he just copied what they wrote.  They claimed they talked about it with him and wrote what he said. UMMM no boss will ever do that.

I am now aware there are some kids in that class who have severe issues who should be in a different class.  But I have also found out my gut feeling about Drew is pretty spot on.  He can read and he can read well.  He doesn't like to but he can.  He can also comprehend what he is reading.  He can do math and do it at a 3-4 grade level.  right now I am working with him on learning to write a paragraph.  He did know how to do that before I turned him back over to public school but since it and other things were not used they were not retained so in many areas I am having to go back and reteach.  I have also discovered he can't think for himself.  I asked him to take his spelling words and make up a sentence about them.  He had no clue about how to do it.   So baby steps over the next few months to get him up to where he should be.

I am already seeing improvement in attitude since he is no longer in public school.  His fears have abated and he is sleeping in his room again.  The tourette's is still there but not at the intensity it was when he was subjected to daily bullying and fear.  The admin has chosen to ignore the issue. They say it would happen in a Gen Ed class as well and I have to just accept that is the way things go.  I will not accept it and it is not the way things go.  I don't home school because of religious beliefs I homeschool because California schools are broken and no one wants to fix them.

Christian Version of Weird Al

This song made me smile today.  It is by the Weird Al of Christian Music.  Hope it makes you smile too.  Happy Easter.  And FYI - it is OK to celebrate the Risen Christ as well as the Easter Bunny.  I think God wants it that way.  Why else would it be all right to eat pork to celebrate a Jewish man who has risen from the dead to save us all from our sin.  And yes I am a Christian who attends church regularly.