Parent Teacher conferences

This week has been pretty ordinary. I wish I could say that every week is full of rainbows and starbeams and dancing unicorns (oh, wait, there was that Just Dance version of "Holding out for a Hero" . . . got the unicorns covered this week), but most of the time, it isn't.

This week was a little off because of SEPs (and parent-teacher conferences), which meant the kids got out early every day, which was awkward for the days I teach when they got out before I was done teaching. But we managed to make it work (with some help from Bubby and some neighbors).

The kids are doing well in school: Andrew reads at the highest reading level they test for at the school, so we don't really know his level. He does well at most academic subjects, except handwriting (and homework). His teacher said she enjoys having him in class, which is always good to hear!

More surprisingly, Evelyn's teacher said she was one of the top students in terms of reading and math. I suppose because Andrew has always been so driven and Evelyn hasn't, I think of her as a more average student. Apparently that's not entirely true. Evelyn's real strength is in how friendly she is to everyone around her--lots of people love her because she loves everyone.

There are a lot of things I could improve on as a parent, but at SEP I'm always gratified to realize that at least I've taught my children to love reading, and that goes a long way in school.

We made a quick stop at the book fair after conferences (buy one get one free! how can I pass that up for books?). Dan stayed with us to make sure I didn't cave and buy too many books. ;)

The rest of the week was pretty ordinary: school, work, scouts, writer's group. I had student conferences this week with my students instead of holding a traditional class--I'm always surprised to remember both how helpful one-on-one conferences are--and how draining.

Oliver got to go to the doctor this week for a steroid shot to head off croup--but other than that he's done pretty well. Until he puked in nursery today. (He told Dan, "I don't like that cheese. I choked on the cheese." So maybe it was food related. Or maybe we finally caught the stomach bug that we've managed to avoid so far. I'm hoping for the former.)

The kids' highlight was probably going swimming yesterday--until the pool was closed because some kid left some poop floating in the toddler pool area. (Always a fun way to end things).

This week is spring break for Dan and I--which I'm hoping translates into: get lots of work done! We'll see.