On Monday the kids had school off because of parent teacher conferences. All of the kids slept in, so Abe went to Lydia’s by himself. (Mary’s teacher was out and we have to go on a different day sometime for her.) This blog is basically private and we are writing for ourselves and our present and future family. So for those audiences, this next bit will hopefully not be off-putting, but informative and fun.
Lydia is a model student. She used to chatter in class a lot with her best friend, Grace, but the teachers separated them and that solved that. She is at a fourth grade reading level (although we thought that sounded a bit low, considering she can speed through Harry Potter books almost as fast as I can! She’s now on Percy Jackson and averages a book every two days. Maybe she’s skipping a lot of unknown vocab and got docked for accuracy…).
She’s at the top of her class in math. She is completing the multiplication unit and moving onto division. The goal for second grade is to complete the subtraction unit, which is what everyone else is doing. Her advanced state is entirely, one hundred percent due to Lydia’s own gift and effort. I have not worked on math with her since she was homeschooled, and honestly, back then I was so burnt out after reading and harp that we hardly did any math. I am too busy and burnt out to do more than ask her if she’s done her math homework, and sometimes I don’t even do that!
The teacher asked Abe and me to help her memorize her multiplication tables months ago, and both of us have never even tried. We’re always “too busy” or “too tired” or just bad parents, I guess. But Lydia, on her own, memorized her tables and is passing off that unit.
She’s also, her teachers said, extremely creative. This is definitely something we all know because in her spare time, when she isn’t reading, Lydia is ALWAYS creating things! She’s cutting out things, drawing, crafting, and sometimes even writing poetry for fun. This is a gift inherited from Abe, I feel sure.
Finally, her teachers said that whenever they ask, “Are there any questions?” Lydia always, always raises her hand. She almost never actually has a question, but she just feels some sort of primal need to respond to that question, it seems. Haha!
Abe and I were so thrilled to hear this report. It was SUCH a struggle to get Lydia to read, and I am thankful, thankful, thankful that she now has that skill. I am so grateful and amazed that she’s gifted in math. As a mom, I feel like to get my kids to achieve anything I have to put in a massive amount of blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes. It is kind of amazing and THRILLING to have Lydia achieve something remarkable without me lifting a finger! Negligence for the win!!
So after Lydia’s great report, Abe went to work and I spent the morning cleaning. Then I sat down with the kids and celebrated Black History Month with them by reading them out of Langston Hughes’ biography. I am still sick and congested, so every few paragraphs would end with me hacking, coughing, and gasping for air. But we plowed through and discussed Langston Hughes until I felt like my voice was almost gone.
Then we all sat down and watched Hidden Figures together. Mary didn’t understand the movie and was actually drawing racist conclusions about it, so I sat beside her and translated the whole thing for her. And then, to make sure those racist conclusions didn’t linger, I talked and talked and talked with my broken, raspy voice with all of the kids all the way to the Butterfly Biosphere in Lehi. I remember learning at Harvard that if you don’t actively teach kids to be anti-racist, they will organically pick up on the racist messages of our culture and unknowingly adopt racist biases and prejudices. I wish I had had more health and energy this month to celebrate black history more vigorously, but I guess all we can do is our best, right?
At the biosphere, Lydia started feeling REALLY sick. You can see it in the pictures. Soon after these were taken Lydia vomited in the lobby. She actually vomited blood and mucus everywhere because she’s been having loooong and frequent nosebleeds. It was so sad, but I couldn’t help her as much as I wanted because I was frantically running around with Clarissa on my hip trying to find/round up Mary and Ammon so we could help Lydia to the bathroom and leave. It was crazy, horrible and hectic and I felt so bad for Lydia who had to puke by herself while I was running around.
We took it really easy in the evening. Pictures (from before the puke):
