Snow, School, and Serentiy

It has been an eventful and positive couple of days. Yesterday afternoon we were finally able to meet with my son's teachers. We were able to give them the full history of his mental health issues and it seemed like most of the teachers had a new understanding about what was behind his classroom behaviors. His Language Arts teacher is just a phenomenal teacher who clearly takes her profession very seriously. According to my son, who has always hated Language Arts, she makes the lessons fun and engaging. She's also really good at using technology to communicate with parents and keep us in the loop. So I think she's going to try some new techniques with my son and because he likes her so much I think we're going to see a good result there.

My son has two Science teachers who do a job share. Because of schedules, we've only ever met the one at parent-teacher conferences, and she said she didn't have any issues with our son. The other Science teacher and the Social Studies teacher (who just recently returned from maternity leave) are both very young teachers. I don't know that either of them have much experience with issues like my son presents, but they both seem like they'll take cues from the Language Arts teacher and I think they'll see better results also. Then there's the math teacher. I don't think she's coming from a bad place, I think she's just very old-fashioned (although I think she's younger than me) and thinks that there is one way to teach math and one way to learn it, which is quietly doing exactly what she does. As someone who loves math, what I enjoy about it is solving logic puzzles and figuring out how to get to an end result, and unfortunately I think her type of teaching can kill that love and exploration of math. So we're going to look into math club so my son can continue to be exposed to math as fun. The good news is that I think she won't keep fighting him quietly sitting in class but not taking notes verbatim. I think this is just one of those teachers that my son isn't going to click with, but I'm hopeful that this class will be a little smoother for the rest of the year.

After we left the school meeting, my husband and I headed up into the mountains for a weekend getaway. I was able to really put my new Xterra through it's paces. I had to put it into 4-wheel drive to get over Vail pass, and I was extremely pleased with the decision to get a manual transmission because I could just down-shift and I barely had to touch my brakes headed downhill in the snow and ice. We're staying at a lodge outside of Edwards, and the area is just beautiful. These pictures were from our balcony this morning. I took the picture before the sun came up barefoot in my pajamas, so that one was out the balcony door but from the room. I got dressed for the others so I was actually out on the balcony.

We went for a wonderful hike on the East Lake Trail. The sky was an amazing, bright blue; it was completely silent except for the sounds of birds. We saw deer but no other people until the very end of the hike. There are several pictures below, but they were so pretty that I had to share.

I imagine this trail was beautiful in a different way between four and six weeks ago when the hillsides were probably pure gold in aspen leaves.

This weekend is exactly what I needed. I'm feeling refreshed and ready to be the mother my children need when I get back home. Facebook presented me with a good article (which still creeps me out) about celebrities with mental health issues who shared them so others wouldn't feel alone. One of the celebrities who has many of the same issues as my son is John Green. My son really likes him, so I'm hoping that when I share that with him he'll feel less alone and realize that he can still do whatever he wants in life.

I'm also really excited about starting my new job on Wednesday. I'm hopeful that it'll be a better fit and since it's in a suburban setting I'll be able to take walks in nature at lunch which always soothes my soul. So the upshot of this fairly long post is that things are looking up, and I feel better equipped to manage my life.

Slowly Getting Better

I'm slowly starting to feel better. My mental state is improving a little at a time. Knowing that I'm going to be starting a new job soon is really helping. I've even started being able to view my current job objectively. I've got a ton of things to show other people, but I'm fairly well organized and have good notes anyway. As an analyst, I run lots of recurring reports for people, and each of those has an instructions tab as something that I learned as best practice long ago. So even if I wasn't able to finish the training, I think people will be able to figure it out. After recently going through the pain of figuring out how a former co-worker did her job because she didn't show us or leave documentation, I'm determined to leave my team in a better place with my departure.

My son is making some improvements at home and school. I think part of his improvement might be because we figured out that he wasn't consistently taking his medication. Now that we're managing that, he seems to be making better choices and we've received a couple of positive emails from teachers this week. The meeting at school didn't happen yet because of schedule conflicts, so now it's next week and hopefully it will be more collaborative and less adversarial if he continues to do better at school.

Now that I'm getting my mental house in order, I may finally be ready to start tackling my physical well-being soon. I haven't lost the desire to lose about 20 pounds, I had just stopped thinking about it for awhile because I had too many other issues to deal with. But now that we're making some positive, forward progress in other areas, it's time to start thinking about my weight again. I haven't devised a new plan just yet, but hopefully soon I'll have an update on that.

Now it's time to finish my Friday chores so we can ready to celebrate Halloween tomorrow!

Check In Part 2: The Difficult Stuff

I finally found some time and the emotional fortitude to write the second part of my check-in. My son's transition to middle school has been a bit of nightmare. If you've been following for awhile, you may have read my previous post about how difficult it has been dealing with son's issues. We got things to a manageable place in elementary school. He had a fairly successful fourth grade year because he had a teacher who had a son just like him and was willing to work with him. Fifth grade was tougher; that teacher had been teaching for over forty years and had some pretty old-fashioned ideas. But we managed and even though I don't think that teacher ever liked my son, he still got decent grades.

Now we're in middle school and we have several teachers that we have to work with, with varying degrees of success. His math teacher seems to have a major control issue and she and my son appear to have a major personality conflict. At this point they're both being intensely stubborn and I'm tempted to ask if it's possible to home-school for just one subject. I would look at another teacher, but with the inside knowledge we have from my husband working in the school district, I don't think there are any better options. We had quite the interesting email exchange with this woman yesterday, which made it abundantly clear that a student who is compliant is much more important to her than a student who is learning. I think one of my biggest frustrations from this situation is that my son has always loved math, and know he's saying he hates it. We're meeting with at least this teacher this coming Friday (and I'm hoping some of the others as well) and I think it's time to unleash my inner bitch. I've tried the calm, kind, patient, partnership mode and we're not seeing any positive improvement, so I think I'm done being nice. My son's education and his emotional well-being are too important to let this go any longer.

The rest of his teachers are frustrated because he doesn't put enough effort into his work. They all claim that when he's participating in classroom discussions he demonstrates very creative and intelligent thinking, but they can't get him to put any of that down on paper when it comes to homework and tests. He was placed in honors Language Arts with an excellent teacher and for the first time since Kindergarten claims to enjoy writing. But if he doesn't start putting more effort into his work, he's not going to get to stay in that class.  Aside from effort issues though, the rest of his teachers are dealing with him and not creating an adversarial learning (or non-learning) environment.

Part of the frustration we're experiencing is that once again, we're feeling judged and deemed unworthy as parents. Especially with this math teacher, who seems to think that we're not doing anything to address the issues. We're trying to keep the lines of communication open and we've been very forthcoming with our interactions with the psychiatrist and adjusting medication. We keep talking to our son about school and what he needs to do there. We are providing consequences and he's currently grounded from friends and electronics. Short of sitting with my son all day and making sure he's on-task, I'm not sure what else we're supposed to do. My daughter has never required this type of parenting, so these aren't skills we needed to develop prior to now. A big part of the reason I found a new job was so that I could be closer to home and have a shorter commute so I could be with my son in the mornings. We've read dozens of books* and the we're finding some promising information now in one called Smart but Scattered Teens which talks about the executive skills we need to help our son develop. We are doing everything we know how to do, and trying to find new solutions daily, but this teacher seems to think that if she just keeps telling us that he's not meeting expectations that we'll come up with some magic bullet to fix the problem.

If there was some magical solution that I could apply in this situation, does this woman honestly believe that I wouldn't have already done so? I don't want to watch my son suffer this way. I don't want to deal with his temper and outbursts every time we need him to do a chore around the house. I don't want to worry about his safety when he threatens to hurt himself or tries to run away. I was the girl and young woman who almost never cried, and lately tears have been almost a daily occurrence because I'm so worried about my son and how he's going to navigate life. I'm about 96% sure that we're doing the right things and once his brain development and maturity reach a certain point, we'll see a wonderful young man who can make unique contributions because he sees the world differently. But there's that 4% of me that worries that I'm raising my uncle. My dad's youngest brother and only surviving sibling is the most awful human being I've ever encountered. What if this is all genetic and my son grows up to be like that? That concern keeps me up at night and is causing me so much stress right now that I'm actually losing my hair. Instead of support and assistance from the school we're getting judgment and more stress.

My husband and the principal at my son's school were close friends in high school. We haven't wanted to call on that relationship to handle problems, but since we're about to go Falling Down on this math teacher, I think it's time to use this relationship to get some different results. We're going to go in with a list of items we need addressed and we're going to take the approach that due to my son's mental health issues, he needs accommodations from the school and his teachers. We are also going to investigate a 504 plan which will legally require the school to make some more accommodations.

If you've stuck with this long rant, thanks for reading. If your child has any issues with ADHD or other mental illnesses, know that you're not alone out there, and maybe the book I listed above, or one of the others below will help you. I'm trying very hard to get myself into a better mental place so I can be an effective advocate for my son, instead of just feeling helpless and frustrated. If I can help even one other parent, it will make this all feel more manageable.

* Some more helpful books:

• 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child
• Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence
• The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook
• Boy Writers
• Bright Minds, Poor Grades
• The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety
• Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Teens
• The Explosive Child
• Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (this one is for the kiddos)
• Mindfulness for Teen Anxiety
• Mitten Strings for God (this one is more about creating space in our lives, but I found it helpful)
• The Motivated Brain
• My Anxious Mind: A Teen's Guide to Managing Anxiety and Panic
• Parenting Children with ADHD
• The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook for Teens
• Stress Free Kids
• Superparenting for ADD
• Talking Back to OCD

Totally off topic, just wanted to share a quick snap of the rain of leaves on this lovely fall morning.

What a Week!

I realize that I haven't gotten a post up all week. This past week was...challenging; both at work and at home. It wasn't bad, it just maxed me out. A coworker who was exceedingly difficult to work with recently quit. While I'm actually pretty glad that she's gone because I think it will lessen the drama that we've had to deal with at work, the first week without her there was a bit stressful. I'm absorbing a big part of what she did, and her training was rushed, and the notes are full of holes, so taking care of those tasks was basically trial and error. The bigger problem is the things that I'm not taking on, which I've also had to figure out so I could train the people who are taking them on. The other issue was the three major errors that I discovered last week that had to be cleaned up; such a fabulous parting gift! In the meantime I also had all of my own work to do. This past week at work flew by though, and I was never bored.

Then at home we've been dealing with school issues. For my daughter she's just incredibly busy in advanced classes and with marching band, but is still doing really well. I feel bad that she's always got so much on her plate though. I had actually planned on getting a post up yesterday afternoon because I thought I'd have time. My daughter's school band does really well in parade marching because they're really good at the technical marching and playing. But the competitions are different and seem to be more about art, which I guess isn't her school's strong suit. They hadn't made finals in the competitions since anyone who is currently in the band has been there. So we figured we'd go watch the show (which was hosted by my high school alma mater) in the morning and then head home for the afternoon. But lo and behold, they made finals yesterday. It was really exciting for the kids, and derailed our Saturday evening plans. I did manage a walk in the foothills where the stadium is located in between times because it was such a nice, cool day.

Marching around their heart in their "Story of the Heart" show.

Low clouds over the foothills near the stadium.

The path up the back side of the hill.

My son is having a different experience at school. I returned to my desk from a meeting Friday morning to find a message from the school that my son's teachers would be meeting with him in the afternoon. Luckily both my husband and I were able to attend so we could try to figure out how we can help. One of his teachers said that if she could grade him on his contributions to discussions he'd be doing wonderfully because he really contributes and sees things differently than the other students. The problem is that she has to grade him on the work he turns in, which he's not putting any effort into at the moment. Another teacher showed us a paper where my son had actually written "idk" as the answer. My head just about exploded on that one. So now we're doing research on how to help kids internalize motivation. I'm definitely earning my parental stripes with this kiddo.

We're finally having some sustained cool weather here, and I'm loving it. It feels like autumn and the nights are finally becoming more conducive to sleeping. I'm hoping this coming week will be a little calmer. Work is still going to be busy, but hopefully it will start to level off soon. My daughter still has several evening events and another marching band competition next Saturday, though now I feel like we have a better idea what to expect. My son did his homework this weekend, and promised his favorite teacher that he would just do his work this coming week whether he felt like it or not to see how much smoother things will go for him. So maybe I'll have some time this week to get a couple of posts up, and maybe I won't be quite so maxed out. But I guess only time will tell.

The red leaves in one of my neighbor's trees.

Red Sun Rising, and Setting

For the last couple of days we've had sunrises and sunsets that remind me of those events in the Midwest. It didn't feel any more humid lately, so I was wondering what caused it. Then I saw in the news this morning that it's because of the wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. This afternoon I can't see the mountains at all and we're getting alerts that people with respiratory problems shouldn't be outside. So as pretty as the sunrises and sunsets have been, I hope they get those fires under control soon. Of course I was at work as the sun was coming up this morning, so I only had my phone camera to capture this morning's sunrise.

Today marks the end of the first truncated week of school for the kiddos. I think everyone is really going to enjoy family movie night tonight, the trick will be staying awake! I've mentioned before that my daughter got accepted into the advanced academic program at the high school that is in the Northeast corner of our school district, and we live in the Southwest corner. I'm glad that she'll get her driver's license in the spring of her sophomore year, because picking her up from school in the afternoon isn't easy. The high school is 10 miles from our house, and it takes about 25 minutes to get there. Then I have to sit in traffic with a bunch of teenage drivers to get back out, so it takes over an hour to pick her up. My son has been carrying around papers that he's supposed to turn in since Wednesday, so fingers crossed that when he gets home shortly, they won't be in the backpack any longer! I'm sure we'll all settle in soon enough, but this hasn't been the easiest week with both kids starting new schools.

Still Here

I'm still here; I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. There's been a great deal of activity at both work and home lately. I haven't had time to take any pictures and I haven't had much to say. At least not much that wouldn't make me sound like a broken record. 

When I took my walk this morning I had to take a different route since the city was watering the path I normally take. Watering with reclaimed water, which is great for the environment, but I'm not walking through that. Firstly, the part of the creek with lots of trees is really dark, and slightly creepy, at 4:30 in the morning when there's no moon. Secondly, walking past the elementary school where I no longer have any kids enrolled makes me sad. I  suppose I'll get used to it eventually since it's in my neighborhood, but right now it's still a forceful reminder that I don't have little kids any longer. 

I took another walk on this somnolent late summer afternoon while my daughter was at piano and got a few photos. 

This spider on the lamp was enormous, I wanted to get a photo with the light bulb to give some perspective on the size of this guy. You can also see the little tiny spider right next to him.

The second 10-day challenge that I've set for myself isn't going as well as the first one. I'm still losing, but not as much since I only maintained for a few days. But that's better than gaining again. I'll write more about that this coming weekend.

Nostalgia

I'm struggling a bit today as this particular summer is drawing to a close. I read a blog post the other day saying that people were jumping the gun here and that August is still summer, but the writer doesn't have children. My daughter had band camp at school this week, in addition to her freshman check-in to get her schedule. We spent last evening at the high school seeing a demonstration of what the kids learned this week. I was never in marching band, but my husband was, and he said they made an impressive amount of progress in one week.

This coming week my son has 6th grade orientation, and then in just a little over a week I'll have a child starting high school, and another starting middle school. There have also been some yellow leaves on our deck. So whether or not the calendar or the natural cycle are in agreement, our summer is almost over. The close of this summer feels like the end of one stage of our lives since we won't have any children in elementary school any longer. I'm feeling nostalgic and struggling a bit with all of this.

I love autumn and the cooler weather, plus this year I've got a new book waiting for me, October Dreams II, which I got for my birthday but have held off on reading until the right time of year. But not even the allure of autumn or the book are making me feel better about this summer ending this morning. I also found out this week that my husband and my daughter won't be home on Halloween this year. They're going to see the Winery Dogs (who I will always call the "Reservoir Dogs" in my mind) in concert on Halloween night. So even that's going to be different.

I'm worried about having less time together as a family once school starts up. My daughter is doing an advanced academic program so she'll have lots of homework, plus part of marching band is playing at the games. So there will be many evenings when we won't get to have dinner together, or even really see her. My husband and I were talking about it this morning and he reminded me that we've almost always sat down to dinner as a family and we've made time to be together all these years. He's right, and I don't regret how we've spent our time as a family (though I still wish I had figured out how to work part-time while my kids were little), it's just thinking about that time drawing to a close that's making me sad.

My cousin is heading home tomorrow, provided that the dealership is able to figure out why his van won't start. I've been holding my own on my second 10-day challenge by not gaining weight. But I also haven't been losing any. I'm hoping that starting tomorrow when we're back to eating regular meals that my husband has prepared that I can start making some progress again instead of sitting flat.

Now, I'm going to try to get out and enjoy one of the final days of our summer. My family is all home and together. We have some chores and probably a little shopping to do, but we should be able to do it together, for a little while longer.

Busy Life and Sunrise

Last night was another crazy night in our household. My son's homework load was rather overwhelming, though this was his fault for not doing his work in class. He's actually doing so much better now than he was for awhile, but his current teacher thinks that by setting him up to fail she'll teach him responsibility. I wish she'd listen to us that the "hard-ass" methods just don't work with him. Anyway...we also had piano lessons and middle school orientation. I think it was sort of fun for my daughter to show her little brother around the school. We got home and had to write an email to my son's principal about setting up a meeting with him and my son's teacher. By that time, it was just time to collapse and get some sleep.

I had to move into a different hallway at work this week due to the recent lay-offs and consolidating office space. I can still see Pike's peak looking southwest out my window, but now I can also see the sunrise looking southeast out my window. There's a tall building directly south of my window, and it blocks the sun during the day, so I get some nice views without the hassle of sun on my computer screens. The sunrise was spectacular this morning since we had some cloud cover. I looked out at one point and thought it looked beautiful so I snapped a photo (with my camera phone through a window). Then I turned around a few minutes later, and it was even prettier. This happened a few more times, so I have a photo progression of the beautiful sunrise this morning.

I'm still struggling with the time change. I did fine most of the day on Monday, but starting on Tuesday, I was just wiped out. I'm hoping that I'll be better next week.

High School Headache

It's another cold, snowy, winter-like day here in Denver.  Yesterday was the warmest day of the week with a high of about 38 degrees.  I actually love this weather, I just wish I could stay home when it was like this.  I was thinking the other day that I wish we had a more Victorian model where we would just stay indoors when the weather was bad.  But then I realized that was only for the wealthy, everyone else had to go work in the weather, so it probably wouldn't help me anyway!

It's been a very busy week.  My daughter will be starting high school next year and we attended a high school information night for the district on Thursday.  Our school district has 5 high schools and they all have specialized programs that kids can apply to.  They also open some of the schools up for choice, or we can just send her to our home high school (which is the only way the district will provide transportation).  Her current teachers want her to go to one specific school, which is where all the upper-middle class parents want their kids to go.  But at the moment she's actually interested in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) program which is conveniently located at our home school.  She's always said those were her least favorite subjects, though she's always been very good at them, winning an award for science student of the year in 6th grade.  In 7th grade she got an award for overall student of the year.  I will admit that since I love those subjects so much, it's making me really happy that she might choose that program.  But I don't want to try to live vicariously through my child, I want her to make the choice that will make her the happiest.

The high school that is on the same campus as her middle school (which isn't our home school, stupid boundaries!) has a very interesting global studies program that prepares kids to be business leaders.  But I knew listening to their spiel that it would not interest my daughter, and I was right.  She has absolutely ruled that program out.  But she still isn't 100% sure as there are other programs like the IB (International Baccalaureate) program that she may be interested in.  It feels almost like choosing a college and a major...for 13-year olds.  Most 18-year olds don't really know what they want to do with the rest of their lives (heck, some 60-year olds still aren't sure!).  This wasn't what high school was like when I went.  But I told her that even if she decided to apply to the bioengineering STEM program, she could still major in English in college if that's what she decided when the time came.  These programs can give students a leg up, but they don't have to define these kids for the rest of their lives.

It's hard to believe that we're at this stage in our lives.  It seems like such a short time ago when we were talking about starting a family.  High school makes me a little nervous, because she'll be so busy with school work and extracurricular activities, that I know we'll see much less of her.  Then it'll only be four short years once high school starts that she'll be moving away to attend college.  For the time being she said she wants to stay in state, so hopefully we'll still get to see her on a regular basis.  I guess this is one part of parenting that no one can really prepare you for; the letting go.  But that is still 4 1/2 years away, so I can make sure to focus on her and enjoy her company for now.

Weariness

I had intended to post last night, but I was so exhausted that I couldn't form a coherent thought.  The newness of school has worn off, and last night was quite the battle to get my son to complete his homework.  When you're utterly weary, the last thing you want to do is argue about getting homework done.  Plus, when I looked in his homework folder last night, I realized that he already didn't turn in the homework he completed last Friday.  That's one I'll never understand:  He does the work and just doesn't turn it in.  I was hoping that 5th grade was going to be the year where he'd have a better grasp on his responsibilities.  Sigh...

I don't have much more energy tonight, but at least I feel like my brain is functioning.  Homework was a battle again tonight.  My son actually answered a question on his math sheet saying "because of the stupid factor."  I made him delete "stupid" and he tried to replace it with "freaking."  And this is math, which he actually likes.  I hope they don't have regular writing homework this year.  But it did eventually get done.

I read a great short story today.  It's called The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell by Mira Grant.  It's definitely not an uplifting story, it is in fact rather disturbing, but it's fun and well written.  So if anyone is looking for some short, well-written zombie fiction, I highly recommend it.

Here are a couple of photos from my walk with my husband tonight in a very light rain.

First Day of School

I wasn't able to post last night because we were so busy with our second back-to-school night.  It started with me leaving work a little late because after my computer dying and having to be replaced last Friday, my printer died yesterday.  I can't print to a shared printer because I print such confidential information like employee salaries so frequently.  So after fighting that battle and IT finally giving up and just grabbing another printer, I finally got that back up and running.  My technology issues at work have been very frustrating of late!

Then after I got home and logged in to work for a little while longer, we left to go to my daughter's back-to-school night at her middle school.  I think I'm mildly agoraphobic, nothing debilitating, but I find those crowded halls to be rather uncomfortable.  It didn't help that after about 5 minutes my son informed us we'd been there for "5,000 minutes" already and he was ready to leave.  So he was very impatient with his sister visiting all the different classrooms so she would know where to go today.  But next year he'll understand when he starts middle school.  I was also really good with my calories yesterday, so by the time we were wrapping up at the school, I was very hungry and starting to get grumpy.  That doesn't really help stressed or bored kids.  But I managed, and I'm very glad that I'm making good food decisions again.

When we got home we still had to eat dinner, which my wonderful husband had prepared in advance.  He made green chili this past weekend and put beans in the crock pot yesterday morning, so we had yummy and fairly low calorie burritos last night.  Then I had to clean up from dinner, and I promised the kids they could have homemade scones for breakfast for their first day of school, so I had to make those before I could get ready for bed.  By that point, I just didn't have the energy left to write a post.

Scones and tea for breakfast

I took the day off today, like I do most years for the start of school, to be with my kiddos for the new beginning.  This morning I took my son to his last first day at elementary school.  I can't believe that was the last time we'll be starting a school year at elementary school.  I didn't get emotional in front of my son, but I did fight tears on the walk back home.  Luckily it was a lovely morning and our creek is just beautiful.

My daughter told me I could walk her part of the way to the bus stop this morning, just as long as I stopped before the bus stop was in sight.  She's at that age where acknowledging that you actually have parents is embarrassing!

I had taken a picture of a pretty plant the other day on a walk when it was dark out, and I really wanted to get a picture of it in the daylight.  So after I walked my daughter to the bus stop I walked up to get a picture.  I didn't realize that the corner where the plant is located is also a bus stop.  So I had to wait in a nearby park until the bus had come to pick up the kids, because I figured my daughter would be mortified if she saw me there snapping pictures.

Nighttime snapshot with my cell phone

Picture from today

Close up from today

I had a couple of hours to myself after I dropped my daughter off before my son came home.  I spent some time relaxing and took a short nap.  I also read a little bit.  I am reading a book right now that I'm too embarrassed to name; it's not a well written book, but it is pure escapism and helps me to de-stress.  I think I'll take the kids out for a special treat this afternoon to celebrate the first day, then tomorrow we'll all be back in the fall rhythm, even if the calendar isn't there yet.

Here are a few other photos I took while walking today, please enjoy!