It's Official

Received the report card in the mail . . .

Straight As for the second nine weeks and the first semester.

Yippee!

End of Nine Weeks

Without the official report card in hand, it is being mailed, but after checking my favorite website Parent Portal, I feel confident I can write . . .

CHRISTOPHER MADE ALL As!! For both the second nine weeks and the semester!!

Talk about achieving a goal. We are so proud.

Attendance Office

I called the attendance office Tuesday morning from our plane as we left Boston. I needed to notify the school Christopher would be out.

What a difference middle school is.

In elementary school, we told his teacher before he would be out for a trip and we would get the homework prior to his missing school. And, the teacher would be thrilled about the adventure. No worries about notes, excuses, absences.

When I called the school the day he would be out (no calls prior to the day), the call went as follows:

Me: My son will not be in school today.

Attendance Office Guy: Grade?

Me: Sixth

Attendance Office Guy: Team?

Me: Y, Rockets

Attendance Office Guy: Name?

Me: Christopher Petri-Adams

Attendance Office Guy: Petri- Adams?

Me: Yes

Attendance Office Guy: I have it marked down that Christopher Petri-Adams won't be in school today.

Quite an official call. Tuesday evening, we received a call at home from NEISD reminding us to bring a note because our child missed one or more periods.

Wednesday a.m. Christopher brought his note to school, which I wrote with the basics -- he missed school January 20, 2009, due to personal reasons. The end.

He went to the attendance office, got his slip, had each teacher sign and he was done.

Just the facts. Get back to class.

Backpack by Chris

I'm trying to use my Under Armour backpack. It's smaller than my Nike backpack.

It's hard to get your binder out. It's small and my backpack is huge. The backpack then looks huge so I don't want to wear it.

I had a hard time getting it out today. I was struggling.

I'm just going to keep on trying to stretch it out.

I'm not sure if I'm going to wear it tomorrow or not. It depends if I can stretch it out.

Emo

Apparently, the clique labels of jock, prep or kicker have been joined by a group called Emo. Not sure what it stands for, what it is an abbreviation of or what it really means, but it's a group.

This group dresses somewhat goth-like -- dark clothes, dark stringy hair, skinny jeans, dark eyeliner. And, it's both boys and girls, sixth through eighth grade. I've seen kids matching this description walking to and from school -- plus Christopher points them out to me. He has no desire to dress like them or hang out with them, but he knows who they are.

Today, while he and his friend were walking home, there were more than the usual numbers of Emos walking home. When he called me to tell me his was on his way home, he made a comment about the Emos and how they looked. He wasn't scared, but I thought it was interesting he pointed it out.

I told him, just ignore them and they will ignore you. I think there appearance bothers Christopher . . . and a big group of them didn't help either.

He and his friend made it home. They are OK and they aren't Emos.

Forgetful Day by Chris

Today I forgot everything.

I forgot my test in PE.

I forgot my sketchbook for Art.

I took my test to PE later and got a 100.

Since a lot of people forgot their sketchbook in Art Mrs. Fox said we could bring it tomorrow.

It was a forgetful day.

Elective Decision

The time of year is coming 'round where Christopher puts together his seventh-grade schedule. We plan on putting him in pre-AP math and if it is available Science. His grades and interest this year indicate he should be successful. Of course, we'll talk to his teachers before signing off on the classes.

The highlight of next year's schedule is getting to take two electives. One being Athletics so he can play football and basketball. He doesn't quite understand why he has to take Athletics to get to play sports, but I think it will eventually sink in. The other elective will probably be Art. He's really taken to it this year. But, if he takes Spanish in the seventh and then the eighth grade, he earns a high school credit. High school requires two language credits.

He loves Art so shouldn't he continue with it? Or do we get him ahead of the game and knock out a credit? And then there's other electives -- computer class for one.

Decisions, decisions . . and we haven't even finished the second nine weeks!?

News from English

Christopher is at an 89 again in English. We have one week left in the nine-week term.

I e-mailed his teacher to ask about getting that grade up because again, this is his only B . . . all As in his other classes.

She responded this time. The previous e-mail inquiry about the first nine-weeks 89 was answered by her telling Christopher, "I got an e-mail from you mom." Alright.

The response indicated he had a quiz today and a test next Tuesday along with a couple of grades not posted. Plus, he turned in a vocabulary packet today which will result in a 100. With that in mind, she wrote "he should be OK." I took that to mean he will get an A.

I'm watching parent portal these next few days to see if indeed he is OK.

Mosaic by Chris

My mosaic for art was hard on my fingers. I did a sea lion and used a bunch of blue paper. I had to go to tutoring yesterday to work on it. It took a long time. Mrs. Fox wanted me to do the lips and whiskers. I didn't plan on that.

I'm finished now.

Bedtime

Christopher does a great job waking up in the morning. On days without tutoring it is 7:15 a.m. He takes a shower, brushes teeth, does the hair, gets dressed, eats breakfast and does a devotion all in time for us to get out the door by 7:55 a.m. Tutoring days, he gets up at 7 a.m. so we can leave at 7:35 a.m. Most days are easy. It's just the occasional clothes drama that sets us back.

Bedtime is another story. I go to bed by at least 10 p.m. each night -- most nights I'm knocked out by 9:30 p.m. We try for Christopher to get to bed by 8:45 p.m., but more often than not it is 9 p.m. That's still right around 10 hours. He is a sleeper and needs that amount of sleep. If not, he is one cranky mess.

He wants to stay up later. With evening activities, dinner, homework, brushing teeth and reading, I do sometimes feel like we are on a chain gang knocking things out to get to bed. Sometimes, I just want to talk with him or play a game. My motivation for getting him to bed early is so I can then get my sleep.

Maybe we'll officially name 9 p.m. as bedtime. We'll see how that goes for a while and then maybe push it to 9:15 p.m.

Once basketball season is over, there will not be as many evening activities -- Christopher's practice is Friday nights and tournaments are on the weekends. We may be able to avoid the rush and still get to bed early come March.

I need to read up on sleep time for pre-teen boys and call our pediatrician. In my heart, I know my child needs his sleep. He has always been a sleeper, for which I am grateful because I am a sleeper.

In fact, I need to start getting ready for bed now!

Debate Sub by Chris

We had a substitute in debate. He asked us two questions and told us to talk to our parents about our answers.

The first was should women and children have been allowed to get off the Titanic first? I was on the no side because I said it should have been families first then handicapped.

The second was should there be rules at the beach? I was on the yes side and I said there should be rules because if there is broken glass on the beach and someone steps on it they will get hurt. Rules keep glass off the beach.

Drop-off Traffic

38 minutes.

That's how long it took me to get Christopher to school and then get out of my neighborhood. Traffic was horrible this morning.

We experienced a perfect storm to create our traffic havoc:
1. Rainy, cold weather prevented 99 percent of walkers from walking. We had parents dropping off who normally don't do so.
2. Second day of school back from two weeks vacation. People were probably leaving a bit later than normal so regular schedules weren't being followed.

Those two elements combined for a frustrating morning. I dropped Christopher off at 8:20 a.m. He had 10 minutes to go to his locker and get to class. Granted, that is plenty of time for him because his locker is next door to his first period classroom. Nonetheless, it was cutting it close, considering we normally get to school around 8:05 a.m.

But the long line to get to the drop-off lane was only part one. Part two was getting out of the school parking lot and looping back to the main road. The perfect storm continued as I watched cars creep through the green lights to line up for a turn into the drop-off lane.

Thank goodness my boss is OK with my wandering in late. Our normal eight minute run from the house to school through neighborhood increase by half an hour. I'm ready for drop-off traffic to get back to pre-holiday mornings.

Holidays are Over

Back to school today after a two-week break. The morning went quite smoothly. Christopher laid out his clothes last night. He's decided he'll do that each evening rather than commit to a week's worth of outfits on a clothes calendar.

I kept asking him if he remembered the combinations for his lockers. He would rattle them off no problem. I remember always struggling with that at school after a long break.

We all got to bed early last night because I anticipated a rough morning. Nope, the alarm went off and he hopped up, jumped in the shower and was downstairs in time for breakfast and devotion.

The devotion this morning was on having a plan. Great connection to today. We continue to focus on planning ahead, getting things done earlier than required and avoiding last-minute stress. He does really well. I think he depends on me to help keep him organized, but he's learning how to handle that on his own.

So we're back to our regular weekly schedule. Without having to shop for gifts, bake or go to parties, the evenings already appear a bit more relaxed. Nice.

Yes, the holidays are over and we're back to our routine. We work well that way.

Back to School by Chris

It was kind of like not wanting to go and wanting to go back to school. I was tired.

I remembered both locker combinations. I kept trying to open it this morning and kept messing up, but finally got it. I think I was putting in my PE locker.

I got a lot of homework today. English, Science and Social Studies.