Again with the school

I HATE being called into the school. If Steve's meds are slow to kick in, or I forgot to give them in the hustle of the morning, they call me up to say I need to get him. In short, they are saying they will not teach him unless he is medicated. It eats at my soul.

When Steve got all that testing done, 2 years ago, and they designated him as learning disabled as well as ADHD, I thought it would be okay. I THOUGHT the diagnosis meant he would get needed help. They wrote out EXACTLY what help would work best for him and all the specialists agreed what was the best strategy to teach him. It was excellent! BUT the reality is it's much easier that I just drug him for the ADHD and let him muddle along with the Learning Disability (he is very bright, so the LD just slows him down to below average output.... quite acceptable to the school system....).

I also THOUGHT that if he could just learn to learn, then I could stop the drugs before puberty. But it has backfired. He has no coping skills at school outside the drugs. And the onset of prepuberty has made him stick out like a sore thumb when he is unmedicated... that combined with his fierce temper, and small size (and glasses, etc) has made him a target for teasing and bullying.

We don't medicate him at home, and he is fidgety but fine. But we don't demand any sitting for long times like the school does.

I am at a loss.... since they can not or will not put in the time to teach him how to cope, it is the drugs or homeschooling. I am not the homeschooling personality.... I have a million things to do already during the day, and he needs the social interaction and he has an amazing gift for pushing my buttons (as most kids do with their moms). Now if these drugs were harmless I'd say it was fine, just an aid to help him do better (indeed that's what I have been pleading with T this whole time), but there are side effects, and he seems to have most of them.

(((( PULLING OUT MY HAIR)))))

He is NOT a severe case! He shouldn't have to go through all this political crap!

I have written to the principal pleading for guidance, but she has not written back yet.

Truck Hunting

It's official, we are truck hunting.

T is scouring the classifieds online and dragging me out to car lots. He is doing consumer report research on which ones are most reliable and we are honing what we want out of our next truck.

4 doors
long box
full sized truck.
Preferrably 2wheel drive light duty.... but they seem to be hard to get.

All in all the Toyota Tundra comes out on top for us.... but the box is very short. And more importantly they cost almost DOUBLE for a comparative domestic of the same year. So T has been looking south of the border, and for some strange reason they are way more affordable down there even with the abysmal exchange rate on the CDN $$$.

Now we need to research what it takes to bring one up.

OR we could save the headache and $$$ and buy a domestic brand. The Ford is comfortable and beefy, but the years we are looking for have a nasty mechanical flaw according to the consumer reports. The Dodge is very rigid and cramped in the back seat.... notorious gas guzzler, And the Chev has a shorter box than others by a precious 3 inches! These things are all important details when we are looking at shelling out our entire safety net to get it.

So why don't we just spend the $2000 or so to get our current truck fixed? Well, it's old (not a fault unto itself) and it's starting to rust in some bad places, not too visible yet (give it a year or so) and the boys are getting rather scrunched in the back area that they so laughingly call a bench seat. Otherwise it's been very reliable, easy to drive and not too bad to look at (I even like the rims)..... it's tempting to just live with it until it dies entirely.

EXCEPT T wants to drive up to Fort St John (with the family and the dirt bikes) to see his brother this late Spring, and he simply does NOT trust the truck to haul us all that far. SO that's the push.

It's exciting and stressful looking at spending that much money in one shot! We could easily qualify for a loan, but I have a hard time making payments on something that is depreciating. England will have to wait a bit.... Stevie's full set of braces will have to wait a bit too (WHY isn't your mouth covered by medical?)....

A vow of stability

This is sprung from a post on the blog "The Happiness Project"

Apparently, Cistercian monks make five vows at the time of their profession. Most know about the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but it turns out they also make vows of stability and conversion of manners.

Gretchen explains: the vow of stability means that a monk stays put. Unless he’s sent somewhere else by his superiors, or gets a dispensation from Rome, a monk must remain in the monastery of his profession. So by making a vow of stability the monk renounces the idea of wandering off to find a ‘perfect monastery.’ This implies a deep act of faith: the recognition that it does not much matter where we are or whom we live with!

In everyday life there are areas that this could be applied.

Marriage is a vow of stability, made with the conviction that by committing yourself to one person, you’re better able to achieve a content and fulfilling life than by searching continually for the “perfect” person, and that the comfort and predictability that descends on it after the newness and excitement wear off is, in fact, one of its most prized aspects. This vow of stability is easy for me to embrace, I love my husband for being there, my vows were for the better and worse and it is an easy commitment in many many ways (compromises and all).

Then there is the other areas where stability would be a comfort. If I knew FOR SURE that my address was fixed at least until the mortgage was paid, that would be a relief. Somehow I cannot wholly commit to it though! I'm not sure I can do it. It’s too tempting to think that I'd be even happier if some of my environment were different: bigger yard, fruit trees, flat driveway and detached shop.... even a small town far away from this pulp-mill city?!

BUT I have to be honest, though not IDEAL, I really am content with this house I already have, it is within our budget, a manageable size, a neighbourhood that we are entrenched in and we have added the details that make it our HOME. It is truly a fine home, it is a tight fit for our lives, but it is a fit nonetheless, and the security it holds in it's predictability is valuable to the young kids. (Especially since it is far too late to have my kids educated in the Comox Valley as I always wanted). These things that we want from another property are things that come with sacrifice and compromise and change and the truth is I may not get it all in this lifetime.... I haven't given up hope entirely, circumstances change in the blink of an eye.... and maybe that's why I can't stop looking at listings, drawing plans and doing the math around moving?

Sometimes I think I should embrace a vow of stability with this house and make my happiness in the situation in which I find myself ... instead of searching restlessly for the perfect property. I wrestle with it everyday, my heart says I have it all, my nature says I need to grow, expand, demand more and never settle! Stability is easier said than done, in this life the commitments of my past have outlined the foundation for my future, where I went to college, who I wed, the business I have built, where we enrolled our children in school and the home we built. Maybe I didn't know when I chose these things that they would mean decades of immobility, but here I am, and if I chose it, I can take comfort in the stability and maybe even be happy about it!

Kodak moment

Me and my sis decided to go on a little outing together, not even out of our neighbourhood yet, we discovered this hilarious sight:

"Ahahaha, where's my camera?!" I squeal with glee. I only had my crappy little camera on me, and I was laughing so hard that I didn't know the picture would be blurry until we got home.

Note the absense of car and trailer at this angle. It looks like it just dropped from a tornado or something.... in actual fact the collapsed trailer was in front of the boat and the mid 80's Volvo (and distraught owner) in front of that, but I didn't see those untill we passed the boat! We passed a BOAT! (still makes me laugh)....