Nobody said it was easy

I am at the end of my rope these days dealing with the grades of my high school sophomore.  The rope was frayed to begin with so I am barely hanging on. The grades are not good.  They are basically the opposite of good.  They are getting "invited" to attend parent teacher conferences for the first time in your parenting life for two teachers not good.  I woke up this morning dreading this week because of the never ending saga that plays out daily on his grade portal. 

I don't know how to make him care. 

He is smart.  He has never had to work at school to do well.  He has sailed through school with mostly A's and a few B's.  His first year in high school he had a four point average until the last trimester when it fell to a three point nine.  This year is bad.  This year is going to undo all the good that he has done and I don't know what to do about it.

He has two advanced classes and he doesn't know how to study for them. Because he has never had to study or read something on his own and be tested on a topic that the teacher hasn't even touched upon in class.  Not to mention - he doesn't want to.  He has never been a self motivator and if I didn't believe it before I now know it to be true.  The worst part is that in talking with his two teachers about the issues ( two teachers he really likes by the way) they say he is just not trying at all.  They have talked to him about putting in one hundred percent effort and he promises to do it and then totally flakes.  If he won't listen to teachers why would he listen to us?

I am full of frustration and anger toward him because it is not that hard to put in the effort.  I am full of frustration and anger at myself for agreeing that he could register for the advanced classes.  Sure his last years teachers raved about what a great student he was.  How smart he was.  How he really needed to be in AP classes.  We beamed with pride at the the time but there was the pit in my stomach saying - should he really- they don't know his work ethic - but they are teachers, they must know what they are talking about.  Forgetting for a second that teachers are human and don't always know the whole story and will make mistakes. 

I know that he is smart enough to be successful in school, even in the advanced classes.  He just has to work at it.  He just can't get to that place.  It is another one of those hard places in parenting where you are caught between your role and your past.  I certainly didn't ace through school with a four point average.  I couldn't count the number of times my mom told me that I really needed to apply myself.  I never really put in the effort she desired  but my grades got me by and my educational life all turned out good. Now the tables have turned and I realize exactly how my mom must have felt. 

So I keep pushing and praying and grasping at the frays.

A Monday Miracle!

Two weeks in a row!  This may be some kind of record.  I even had a chance over the weekend to go back and pull some pictures from the last few months that I wanted to post - those are still cued up in the edit post file but stay tuned.

I was so happy when I went grocery shopping last week and saw that Mrs. Meyer's has her spring scents out.  I had to buy a lilac  - my absolute favorite. 

Evan is nearing the end of practice for James and the Giant Peach.  I made him pose in his show tee shirt and he was being a goof.

I was trying to think creatively about what to do about a peach inspired bouquet.  I typed peach into the Amazon search engine and it brought up a bunch of stuff including a giant peach squishy and some peach socks.  I ordered both of those thinking I could incorporate them into a bouquet with some other peach inspired things.  The super weird thing was that when I went to check out the total was 19.84 which was EXACTLY the amount I had left on an Amazon gift card in my account.  It was like it was meant to be.

The sun was out and setting and these two decided they wanted to eat outside and enjoy the sunset. 

We had a gorgeous weekend.  The sun was out and the temps got into the forties.  We took advantage and headed down to our happy place to hang out.  The beach was amazing.  Not a breath of wind.  Hailey would have stayed there and messed around with the ice all day.

She liked breaking off chunks and throwing them back onto the ice Frisbee style.  They would shatter and make the coolest sound.

On our walk back she looked up and saw these trees and wanted me to take a picture to be her screen saver.  "It just looks so beautiful!  I love nature!"

On Sunday we ventured back to the shore - this time with Daddy Boy as well.

Yesterday afternoon Hailey made some cut out cookies with dough in the fridge that I had intended to be Christmas cookies.   I am not sure why she went with the Christmas cutters - bold choice.  She had fun decorating her trees and gingy boys. 

Because it's Monday and I am still here sometimes

I really want to get back into blogging.  I feel like I have conversations with myself in my head all day long.  Maybe if  I have somewhere to actually write them down it can quiet the internal noise just a little bit.  

That is pretty deep for right now though so I am going to start with a couple baby steps and just do a quick Monday Moments post of some random photos that have been living in my phone. 

Hailey a week or so ago at her annual physical.  She was devastated that she was going to have to get shots and begging for me not to ok the flu shot.  She looks a little Girl Interrupted here and the "I Love Santa" socks don't do much to help that. 

FYI - she did not get the flu shot but she got two others.  Plus she had a skin thing burned off her leg and left with a slip for a baseline xray for scoliosis.  It was the roughest appointment she has had in a while.

After school homework project with her friend.  I couldn't believe how old they seemed sitting there doing homework on their laptops.

One of Hailey's birthday gifts was Gelli Bath.  Some rando product that turns the water thick and slimy.  She said it was relaxing and she loved it.  It was actually more hot pinky than the murder scene red portrayed in the photo.  Either way I am sure it was not good for her pipes or our actual pipes so I am glad she didn't soak very long.

Spencer decided he wanted to try out contacts.  He is doing well with them but is kind of lazy to put them in in the morning.   This pair he has is a trial for us to determine if we want to order the year supply.  He told me the other day that he felt like most days he would wear glassed but then wear the contacts for show week.  I told him there was no way I was buying a year supply of contacts for him to wear for one week - the split had to be at least fifty fifty or forget it.   He is still pondering what he wants to do.

I spent most of the weekend condensing two linen closets into one.  I was amazingly proud of how well I was able to purge.  This is my bathroom linen closet after all was said and done.  Pretty amazing that a whole big closet was empty and I still had space to spare in our bathroom linen.

Empty hall way linen closet. 

Hailey and I were talking about her upcoming Father Daughter dance.  The theme this year is Red Carpet.  She tried on this dress that was my sisters for fun.  She was not super impressed with it.  I am not sure what I will find for her to wear.

So the empty linen closet we are using for a closet for Hailey.  The closet in her bedroom is way too small and as her clothes get bigger the closet is more and more useless by the day.  She is thrilled about her new space.  I just ordered some closet storage bins from Amazon so we have more to do, but so far we are all extremely happy with how it is turning out.

That is the moments from the past week or so.  Hopefully I can stay on the blog track!