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School’s Out!
We are all officially in Summer Break! The kids’ last day of school was Friday, and it was a half day. The rest of us went to pick them up from school, and it was a pretty big event, with far more parents than usual and plenty of chaos.
The kids have mixed feelings about being done. Avey is both excited and sad that she’ll not be going back, and Carver seems to feel the same. That’s what comes with life’s transitions, I suppose.
We were again blown away by our kids’ standardized test scores at the end of the year. We got their reports and did a double-take when we saw that Carver had gone from the 86th percentile at the beginning of the year to the 99th percentile by year’s end in math. He also excelled in reading by going from the 97th percentile to the 99th, although we sort of expected that one: He’s been reading like crazy for the last few weeks, blowing our minds with some of the words he can figure out.
Naturally, Avey also remains the poster child of reading and writing ability, although she’s let her math drop a little. It seems that’s mostly because she doesn’t get the joy out of math that some do, and when she’s got some free time, she’s more likely to read or write something. She’s decided not to stay in advanced math for next year, although we’ll see what Indiana has available.
The weather was hot and humid for the first half of the week, and so I did my best to get the younger boys out of the house, taking them to a couple of splash pads, but the heat made it pretty hard on me. Thankfully, the weather was merciful for the last few days, staying in the upper 60s. It was just about perfect, so the kids have been spending more time outside.
We’re all relatively healthy, although I had a very strange stomach bug Monday night as I tried to get to sleep. I spent a couple of hours in the bathroom, and I’ll just leave it at that. No one else came down with it, and we’ve all shared food, so I have no idea what was going on.
On a similar note, my recent root canal solved nearly all of the symptoms, but it still hurts quite a bit to bite down. I dropped in Tuesday to my dentist to see if I should keep the Thursday appointment to fill in my crown or if I should see if the endodontist needs to fix the root canal. They said to keep my appointment, but then when I went in, they said I should see the endodontist (why didn’t we do all of this on Tuesday?). He said that it might take 2 weeks for the tooth to heal all the way, and actually it is feeling a little better now, so maybe it’s going to be fine, but I’d rather not have to open the tooth back up.
Merritt has been talking like a champ. He’s using full sentences pretty often, even though they are short. At a library yesterday, he spoke through some tubes that carry sound to the other side of the room. I spoke back to him, and he said, “I see you!” Naturally, he meant that he could hear me, but he’s doing great.
He has also been going crazy with his physical development. He’s watched Avey on her scooter so much that he’s got it in his head that he can do it. He’s been practicing on Carver’s scooter carefully for several minutes each day, and he’s getting pretty good at it:
Kira has been on a wonderful organizing and de-cluttering kick this week, so she’s getting rid of old papers and appropriately filing some that we may need. I’ve done relatively little packing this week. I think I’ve been trying to manage the boys so Kira could get stuff done, and I’ve been a little less motivated because we still have 3 weeks before the tentative move, but I’m sort of running out of nonessentials to pack. Also, I still have a fear that the whole thing will fall apart, so I’m trying not to get too carried away. I find myself about half of the time thinking we are not meant to own a home, and this was a silly venture in the first place, but then the other half of the time I’m very excited and calm about the idea. It’s probably good to have mixed emotions about such a big life event, I suppose.
With all of the packing, I’m finding that about half of what we own is toys. As I pack up some of the toys, or at least organize it, somehow the boys will find me and become instantly interested in what I’m packing up. Even though they haven’t touched the toys in months, they suddenly find a passion for them and can’t bear for me to pack them up, instead playing with them and spreading them around the house. One step forward, two steps back.
I forgot to mention the huge rain storm from last week. We had rain pouring for hours, and I finally took the two youngest out to play in it. Poor Merritt got more than he bargained for with all of the mud, and the depth of some of the puddles.
We’ve got another busy week ahead, but we’ll keep the updates coming.