Monday, Monday

Rain, rain, go away. It's been raining since Saturday night, rather hard at times, and the end isn't quite in sight yet. It's a good thing in some ways. I don't need to be spending all morning tomorrow at a tennis clinic, even though I'd like to be, and I don't need to be spending any more money there, either. I have Sarah and Rebecca coming over tomorrow afternoon to do some LLL stuff, and I need the morning to get our regular stuff at home done. What is most exciting is that we don't have much of anywhere to go tomorrow--people are coming to us. Except for gymnastics, we're operating from our base here, which is, sad to say, comparatively rare.

Frances and I read Latin Ballet books tonight--The Steadfast Tin Soldier, which is her performance coming up in a little over a month, and The Legend of the Poinsettia, which was danced in this winter. Poor little tin soldier--melted down into bare metal at the end, even if he did turn into a heart and his love into a lone sequin. I can already picture the show--will Allison be the one-legged ballerina (Frances immediately pointed out that the ballerina did not have one leg, she was just doing an arabesque)? I was impressed today at how far Frances has come now in flamenco. She was not only keeping up, but has real verge when she dances, which I think is why Ana supports her so much--she has a lot of stage presence and a keen body sense, when she's not fooling around. Ana also told me today that Frances is going to be featured on the front of the year-end program. Last year, she managed to get up on her toes, nearly en pointe, if she only had pointe shoes, and she looked lovely. She's the youngest girl by quite a bit in her class, and though she has moments where she is overwhelmed by the desire to kiss herself in the mirror, she keeps up extremely well.

Today was our next to last class at RES. It admit, it's a little frustrating that it seems like everyone else fudges heavily on the age ranges for classes, something that has affected the classes I've taught (skewing ages lower in classes intended for older kids) and making us not really get our needs met particularly well. I wonder if Ollie would be given more opportunities if he was taller and bigger? I guess I don't do a very good job of advocating for him, insisting that he's a child prodigy, but what makes it frustrating is that others do, leaving him behind with younger kids and not with a true peer group all the time, especially when I am seeing that a situation isn't optimal. If all the prodigies kept their prodigies mostly together, think of what interaction might go on! So I'm kind of over the situation now, having some regrets that I signed up again, and wondering whether I'll use our membership for next year. I'm happy to get a break from the stress of it for a while, happy to be able to be ourselves by ourselves so that we can do what works for us without worrying about placement, grade level, age ranges, etc. It seems like suddenly "middle school" is the place to be--strategic game clubs, debate teams, Model U.N. It leaves a nearly 10 year old with interests in those areas kind of lost in the zone of less challenge, a situation I was trying to avoid by homeschooling. My leading edge of problem solving lately has been making sure that we're not just covering bases, but really making life interesting and providing opportunities, especially as the boys get to a point where they are starting to show their talents and, for lack of a better term, areas of specialization.

Ollie is still struggling some with multidigit multiplication--multidigit times multidigit. He has a lot of trouble remembering procedures, and his continuing difficulty with handwriting and controlling placement of things on a page isn't helping him. I have started making worksheets on the Math-U-See website for him because we've used up almost all of the Gamma book with Walter and I don't want to order him a brand new one when he is only about 5 lessons from the end of the book. The used curriculum sales can't come soon enough--I really need the fraction overlays and the next math books up for the boys and some Bob Books for Frances. Her reading is coming along. Maybe not at the pace or with the enthusiasm I had hoped, but it's coming.

Poor little puppy spent way too much time today in the car and in his crate, due to the rain. I am hoping that tomorrow will be nice enough that we can take him outside for some good long walks and to run around. It's still pretty high maintenance having him in the house, since he has lots of accidents, and I know that I'm not supervising as well as I should. I need to go out and get a book on housebreaking, but I'm concerned that it's not lack of knowledge that is my problem, but lack of motivation to get off my butt and let him out or watch him as intently as I need to so that he doesn't have an opportunity to make mistakes. He is really a super dog--quiet, great with the kids, calm, so very happy to see us. I think we may indeed have gotten what we were looking for!