I haven't slept worth beans in about 4 days. I had a scratchy throat and woke up with a full-blown awful cold on Thursday. I called in sick on Friday because I felt like crap and couldn't sleep due to non-stop coughing. It's been that way every since. Lots of coughing, little to no sleep unless I nap during the day.
Like I said, I called off work on Friday. Hubby took the kids to daycare and I napped as much as I could until the kids got home around 3:30.
That night there was a trunk-or-treat event at the elementary school. My plan was to help the kids get made up for it and then let Hubby take them. He said I couldn't miss it, though, because it was a neat first time thing for all of us and I needed to be there to experience it. It was neat, but it was cold and I think it may have been too much for me. On the plus side, then kiddos had their picture taken and should be in the local paper.
Hubby got up really early Saturday morning to go hunting (ugh), so I was left with the kids until he got home, which I think was around 2 pm. I am fortunate to be able to say that the kids were well-behaved and SS was especially helpful, so I could nap and take it easy until he got home.
Sunday I stayed home from church because I still felt bad. Besides, when I dropped the kids off for Sunday School in the morning no one would let me come inside because of how bad I sounded, and when I came to pick them up after a few hours everyone who saw me would make an 'x' with their pointer fingers and back up.
It's not like I have the plague...for goodness sake.
Even my parents wanted to pick the kids up from my house so I didn't come over to theirs. While my mom made it seem like it was so I could rest more, it felt more like they just didn't want me to infect everyone.
It ended up being pretty nice because Hubby and I got over 24 hours of alone time.
Yesterday we had the parent-teacher conferences early in the morning. With the way they were scheduled I was able to attend the one for SS and Hubby attended the one for DD.
SS is doing great with his spelling and I think he's doing pretty well with his math. He didn't pass his last math test, but his teacher thinks it's because he ran out of time, not because he got any wrong. He has 1 minute to answer 12 math problems and he didn't answer three, and they can only miss one and still pass. His reading level is almost a year behind. He also has issues with the sound of a pencil on paper. He covers his ears because he says it hurts. I think this is misophony, which is something I seem to suffer from with other sounds. He also seems to rush through his work, which makes his writing sloppy, and he loses his attention pretty fast.
Hubby and I think all of this means that he needs to focus more on school and less on sports. SS's mother disagrees.
The thing is, we're fairly certain that she doesn't do any kind of reading or practicing with him while she has him Saturday night through Tuesday morning. One time I heard her arguing with Hubby, saying that it takes away from their time to do fun stuff.
But then when we have him during the week, he literally gets home, has an hour to do homework and eat dinner, then goes off to practice, gets home, takes a shower, settles down and sometimes reads, and then goes to bed...just to do it all again the next day. Cut out the practices, and he could take his time doing homework so he actually understands what he's doing and why, take time to read a book and understand it, and have time to go over the math flashcards so he can answer the math questions faster.
Maybe we're wrong, but I'm pretty sure we're not. And Hubby had a valid point that if he's in sports when he's older and his grades are suffering he won't be allowed to play due to school rules.
So while his conference wasn't awesome, I think it's something that can be fixed...though it seems like fixing it will complicate other things.
DD's conference went really well. Her teacher showed me one of her journals, which was really cute. She said that DD is a real sweetheart and is really kind to the other kids. She has mastered her letters and apparently is on a higher reading level. Or at least it's higher for kindergarteners. She said that the books she's reading are challenging for her, but if she took her down a level they would be too easy. For math and language arts she scored where a child halfway through the kindergarten year would be. The only negative thing she said was that she is easily distracted by the other kids or the world around her and she sometimes doesn't finish her work.
Besides the conference, DD loves to do homework and she asks to do it, even when she doesn't have any.
After the conferences, we did some birthday shopping for DS and priced pre-lit Christmas trees and got some lunch. Then we came home and I took a nap. Then we went to my parents' house for dinner.
And now I'm back at work after another restless night. I normally try to nap when I get here, but I have a feeling that I'd be more groggy if I did that. I have too much work to do to be extra groggy. A portion of my desk looks like a small pharmacy, but I hope it'll get me through the day.
I guess I'll get an slightly early start on my work.
Oh yeah, I want to change the initials for DS and SS to LB and BB. I call them both "Bud" and they get confused...so I started calling DS "Little Bud" and SS "Big Bud". And it's more fitting because while BB is my step-son, he's more like my own.
Off to work mode I go...
