Parent-Teacher Conference

Tonight we had Carson's Parent-Teacher Conference. I knew that academically everything would be fine, and it was. I also knew that behaviorally everything wouldn't be fine, and it wasn't.

Academically, he is doing great. He does all of his work and he gets most of it right. As I've been reviewing his papers since the beginning of the year, I have noticed that whenever he misses something it is because he rushed through it and not because he doesn't know the answer. I'll ask him the answer and he will get it right. I'll ask him why he got it wrong the first time and he says he doesn't know. I think it's because he knows he's smart and he is trying to whip through everything as fast as he can so he can goof off. One thing I am most proud of him for is his reading ability. He is a great reader and he loves it. I think it is very important to be a great reader and to love to read. Carson's teacher gave us a paper containing diagnostic information about his reading skills. He is in the top 1% of kids nationally in the 2nd grade as far as reading skills. Yes, I am bragging. He needs to start reading harder books because he is reading far above his grade level.

I feel it is very, very important to be a great reader and to love to read. Books are one of the best ways to get an education. My dad is the person that instilled my love of reading in me. My dad was a very smart person. He dropped out of college after two months and never went back. He worked for the railroad for 44 years to the day and his particular job didn't require a lot of intelligence. But he read constantly. He would read four or five books a week. Since he read so much he knew a lot of information about a lot of different subjects. I used to call him all the time with random questions that I needed help with for work, and each time I would call I would be sure I had a question that would stump him, but he always knew the answer. My dad taught me to read when I was three years old and I've loved to read ever since. When Carson was born my dad started reading to him from the day he was born. Carson would be snoozing on my dad's lap and my dad would be reading to him. It was so funny. Unfortunately, Carson is the only one of my children to benefit from having my dad around. My dad died when Hayden was two weeks old. He died of cancer and he was so sick by the time Hayden was born that he couldn't even hold Hayden. A couple of times we propped up some pillows on my dad and laid Hayden on his chest so he could talk to him, but he was so weak he couldn't even hold him. A couple of days before he died he wanted to read to Carson and Hayden, so Carson climbed up into bed beside him and we set Hayden in his carrier up on the bed beside him and he read a book to them both. I was lucky enough to get that moment on video. Even though he was only around for a few weeks after Hayden was born, somehow his love of reading even rubbed off on Hayden. Hayden is only in Kindergarten and he is already reading chapter books. A funny story about my dad is that six months before he died his doctor told him he couldn't drive anymore because he was on so much pain medication that it was dangerous. My dad agreed, but he said he would only drive to the library because it was less than a mile from home. The doctor told him that he couldn't even drive that short of a distance. My dad was so mad at that doctor. During the whole time he had cancer and was dying, that was the one thing that he was really ticked off about. The library was so important to him. So my mom would drive him to the library and drop him off and he would call her a few hours later and come and pick him up.

Getting back to Carson, since this is supposed to be about him, his behavior at school leaves a lot to be desired. He is disruptive because he talks when he's not supposed to, he bugs other kids and he doesn't mind his teacher. I knew that we would be discussing all of this at his conference. We spent probably two minutes discussing his academic progress and the rest of the time we talked about his behavior. I just knew we were going to come home after the conference and I would be very disappointed with the whole thing, but, surprisingly, I came home feeling very positive about everything. His teacher is such a great teacher. As we talked about his behavior she got Carson's opinion on everything: what he is good at, what he needs to work on, what his goals are and what he can do to accomplish those goals. She had him tell her specific things that might help him accomplish his goals, such as doing extra work or reading when he is finished with his work, sitting in a different seat so he's not around specific kids he's tempted to bother or talk to when he shouldn't be, and projects that he can work on during class. I really thought it was great that she was so positive with him and let him decide for himself what things should change to help him, instead of just telling him that he needs to behave better. I think the fact that the ideas were his (with a little help here and there) and that he knows he is in charge of himself will really help him change the way he behaves. On days he gets in trouble he will often tell me he didn't get in trouble, or he doesn't remember why he got in trouble. He has a planner that he brings home every day that tells what he did that day and that he can write down upcoming events in. We decided that each day at the end of the day he will write down in his own words how he thinks he did that day. Then his teacher will write down what really happened. Then if he was truthful about what happened he will get a sticker or a reward. That way we will know what really went on at school, and he will start to look at himself and the way he acts and he can focus on what he needs to work on.

Overall it was probably the best parent-teacher conference we've ever had and I am extremely impressed with his teacher. She realizes that he's a very smart kid and he needs help figuring out how to focus on certain things and she has come up with some great ideas on how to do that. Hopefully the rest of the school year will go smoother for him than the first couple of months have so far.

I Need to Get Out More

Today was the second day in a row that I went shopping. That is unheard of for me. It's not because I don't love to go shopping, because I do, it's just that we haven't had a lot of money lately so I haven't been able to. Luckily that should change soon because at the end of the month my job is changing a bit.

I went to Office Max because I needed to copy some stuff for work, and I ended up getting a few fun things there. Then I wanted to look for something to put our Summer Reading Program stuff in so I went to Michael's because they had their baskets on sale. I found a great one with a lid. I like the fact that it has a lid because it hides all the paper inside. While at Michael's I decided to look around a bit. I really wanted to see the new Martha Stewart stuff they have there. There is a lot of neat stuff. Since it is over by the rest of the scrapbooking stuff I decided to check some stuff out. I really haven't been into scrapbooking, although I have done a few pages in a scrapbook years ago.

Most of my problem is that I am a huge slacker on getting prints of my pictures. As I was organizing the family room the other day I went through a box that I throw in 35mm film that needs to be taken to get developed. There are 70, yes 70, rolls of film that need to be developed. Here's a little background story on my lack of getting prints made. Back in 2002, two weeks after I gave birth to Hayden, my dad died of cancer. He didn't want a funeral so we just had a Celebration of Life at my mom's house. He died on a Saturday and we were having the Celebration the next Saturday, so we had a week to prepare. We made up some posters that had pictures of my dad from the time he was a child up until the most recent times. I hadn't gotten any pictures developed since shortly after Carson was born two and a half years earlier, so I had to take all my undeveloped film in that week, 35 rolls in all, so I would have some pictures of my dad and Carson to put on the posters. Well, that is the last time I had film developed. The only exception to that is our trip to China. As soon as we got back I took all of our film from that trip in before it could get mixed up with the rest. So, in the 70 rolls of film there are pictures from almost five years ago. The only fun thing about this is that when I do start taking the film in I will have no idea what to expect, so it is kind of fun seeing what pictures are in there. Also, I haven't printed out any pictures, except for a few here and there, of my digital pictures. I got my digital camera right before we went to China in 2005, so there are a lot of pictures. I haven't even printed out our China pictures because I can just look at them on the computer.

Anyway, back to my story. I am totally amazed at how much cool scrapbooking stuff there is. It has got me really excited to get all my pictures developed and get all my digital pictures printed out so I can start putting them in albums. I'm not a huge scrapbooker so I won't spend a ton of time on each page, but I do like to put a few backgrounds or stickers here and there. There are so many cool albums, too. I'm trying to think of how to organize my pictures. I've always thought I would do them chronologically, but now I'm thinking maybe by subject. I read that tip somewhere and I can't credit who I got it from because I can't remember, but I really like it. I want to do one for sports, one for the pets we've had, one for vacations, one for family reunions, one for each kid for all their birthdays, etc. Then I would have one or more just general albums with pictures of the kids around the house or at the park, etc.

I can't start doing this until I have our whole house organized because I may have some pictures hiding somewhere that I don't know about. I think I have all my pictures in a bunch of boxes that I know where they are, but over the years they have been in so many different places in the house that if I were to start some albums and then come across pictures that should be in an album that is already filled I would be really ticked off. I think that will be a project I will start in the fall. I got my first camera when I was about 10 and I'm 40 now, so I have 30 years worth of pictures just shoved in boxes. It's sad. I want to be able to enjoy them and let my kids see them, too.

One thing I did start doing is scanning in all my old printed pictures so I can have copies of everything on the computer. That way I can back all my pictures up onto CDs and store them somewhere else so in case our house ever burned down or got ruined somehow I would have copies of all my pictures somewhere else. Mike's grandma's house burned to the ground years ago and she lost everything. To this day the only thing she still talks about all the time is her photographs that were lost. Her family has hardly any pictures of when the kids were little.

Another thing I want to do is scan in all of my mom's pictures from when I was a kid and all of Mike's mom's pictures from when he was a kid. I would love to do an album for each of us of our childhoods.

It's so funny because yesterday and today I told Mike I was just going to be gone for a short time and I ended up being gone for hours because I was having such a good time looking at stuff. The funny thing is I don't even go to the grocery store. Mike does all the grocery shopping. We started that because years ago I was going to school at night and it made more sense for him to go do it while I was at school than waste our time on the weekend doing it. The other day Carson's class went on a field trip to a grocery store to see how things work behind the scenes, and I was just as excited as the kids. The other moms looked bored out of their minds, but I was having a great time seeing things I don't normally see.

I told you I need to get out more.