Midterm Madness

How many of you out there can relate to this?  You mark it on your calendar.  You dread it for weeks.  You secretly pray it will all be okay and then the moment of judgement comes.  The kids get in the car and you ask the dreaded question (half holding your breath and half squinting) "well........how were they?"  What you of course are referring to in late September are MIDTERM GRADES.  That day was today in my house and that day has not gone well so far.  

The 12 year old brought home A's in all of the important stuff like religion, P.E., art, music and computers (typing not programming).  Those other minor subjects like math, science, language and social studies have not fared as well so far this term.  As of now he stands a good chance at being pope (you know, if the smoke stack signal ever chose a straight A religion student from small town Missouri America) or there is still hope for truck driving school because he is not yet 16 and can still try his hand at driving.  Other than that, if we don't pick things up quickly here those are the career choices. (The eight year old cannot even fall back on truck driving school as he wrecked his go-cart this summer) The grades were NOT GOOD.  

Now let me put some things in perspective for you.  Our children are tutored twice a week to maintain AVERAGE grades.  (Remember average?  In the grade rule book a grade of "C"  is average).  My boys' baselines when left up to their own devices are way below average.  I find this to be sincerely frustrating.  Their father TEACHES  ENGLISH for a living and I am a speech-language pathologist working in higher education.  How can that even sorta result in a "C" in language class?  REALLY????

Now I know it takes a village and our villagers are working overtime.  We have two tutors, one reading teacher, one language based literacy clinician, one nun, one priest, two class room teachers and two parents who actually CARE!  Why why WHY is this not all resulting in straight As?!?  

So the husband and I have had the beginnings of the "talk" about what to do for the 2nd half of the term.  He is strongly in favor of them living Amish.  I've tried this before.  It involves completely unplugging the kids.......like from everything.  Do you know what kids DO when they are completely unplugged besides sit in their room and pretend to study for 10 minutes at a time or fall asleep?  They become your shadow and I don't mean in a good way.  I mean in a "I'm tripping on you please get off my feet" kinda way.  

Since we don't believe in beating our children the remaining options were this (blog) and create some other ways to cope.  I am taking a two pronged approach.  The first is tap into the available dead Catholic helpers.  (This one is for you Ned!)

In addition to tutors it seems like we could use some serious prayer.  Saint Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint to turn to in times like this.  It is reported that he is the patron saint of "academics, against storms, (huh?) against lightning,(good to know as I hate lightening) apologists, (not sure what that even means) book sellers, Catholic academies, Catholic schools, Catholic universities, chastity, (good to know for later occurring prayers for them) colleges, learning, pencil makers,(seriously, there is a patron saint for EVERYTHING if you look hard enough) philosophers, publishers, scholars, schools, students, theologians, universities, and (the ever important??) University of Vigo. (I wonder if they take students with bad grades?)
 
 When you look more deeply into this guy's history it turns out he was the Son of the Count of Aquino, born in the family castle in Lombardy near Naples. Educated by Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino, and at the University of Naples. He secretly joined the medicant Dominican friars in 1244. His noble family kidnapped and imprisoned him for a year to keep him out of sight, and deprogram him, but he rejoined his order in 1245.
He studied in Paris from 1245-1248 under Saint Albert the Great, then accompanied Albertus to Cologne. Ordained in 1250, then returned to Paris to teach. Taught theology at University of Paris. He wrote defenses of the mendicant orders, commentaries on Aristotle and Lombard's Sentences, and some bible-related works, usually by dictating to secretaries. He won his doctorate, and taught in several Italian cities. Recalled by king and university to Paris in 1269, then recalled to Naples in 1272 where he was appointed regent of studies while working on the Summa Theologica. On 6 December 1273 he experienced a divine revelation which so enraptured him that he abandoned the Summa, saying that it and his other writing were so much straw in the wind compared to the reality of the divine glory. He died four months later while en route to the Council of Lyons, overweight and with his health broken by overwork.(taken hastily from www.drstandley.com)

My first thought was maybe I am related to this guy.  I could defintely see myself dying overweight and overworked.  Then I remembered he was born in the family castle and there goes our familial relation.  My second thought was that maybe the 12 year old would do better if we kidnapped him and TRIED to keep him away from learning.  I mean, it worked for this guy.  Nevertheless, prayers to St. Aquinas it will be.

The second prong of my approach is to award the boys my own grades.  These kids are not star athletes or star musicians or even star citizens but they at least TRY.  For that, they deserve some A's.  Here goes:

I am awarding a grade of A to the 12 year old for sarcasm.  He does not have to study AT ALL and he is amazing with this skill.  (I wonder where he gets that?!)  He also gets an A for being afraid of the creatures from the movie Gremlins.  Seriously, he hides the DVD under 3 blankets that are topped off by his heaviest shoes and he sleeps with a bat "just in case."  He is AWESOME at eating the rolls from Colton's steakhouse so he gets an A for that too. 

The eight year old gets an A for selecting books that are WAY above his little dyslexic reading level.  Honestly, he brought me the ("mom, its a classic") Mutiny on the Bounty from the classic literature section of the playroom last night.  He tried and tried and TRIED and after an agonizing half hour of sounding out the first page he gave up.  (On another note, I am now staying up late reading it because he left it on my bed and I was too tired to move) He also gets an A for general care and compassion for all living things from his dogs to his hermit crabs AND for finding his belt everyday.  (Hey, sometimes its a reach to find material that is "A" worthy in our house)

Finally, I will give them both A's in kindness and goodness and perseverance.  No matter what we throw at them they keep TRYING and for that, I am one lucky parent. With that I will close this entry of Midlife Melissa.  At the moment I am at my office and I just called home.  "Living Amish" has begun and the 12 year old cannot quite get his head around this reality AND the fact that the Cardinals are making the playoffs.  Its gonna be a LONG few weeks.
 

St. Thomas Aquinas FEAST DAY: January 28
SAMPLE PRAYER: Through Jesus Christ's Precious, Pure and Holy name I pray. - Amen

And the boat horn blew again........

Well, with the end of Labor Day it appears as though we have officially put another summer to bed.  Many things happened during the summer of 2012.  We said goodbye to another one of my grandparents at the beginning of it.  Adam was diagnosed with dyslexia and survived a serious go-cart accident in the middle of it (Luckily, the two were in no way related!) and we ventured back to Arkansas at the end of it. 

For over 25 years my sister and I have taken a trip to Arkansas with my dad.  The tradition began back when Caterpillar tractor company shut down for two weeks every July to provide a company-wide vacation time.  Dad began to take us to a beautiful lake near Hot Springs called Lake Ouachita.  We stayed at the same resort for most of those years, a little family owned business called Shangri-La.  I have always intended to write a book about our history there and hope to call it "Growing up Ouachita" because we literally, grew up there.

My sister Molly and I learned to ski on that lake and for most of the 25 years dad had the same boat.  It took me a loooooong time to get up on skis but when I finally did, dad blew the boat horn as an auditory message to the skier that said "good job kid, you DID it."  Every year we returned to the lake and every year we skied once again.  Each time we finally "got up" dad blew the horn.  It was an expected tradition for me and one that I look back on fondly.  Years later our oldest son Alex learned to ski on the same lake and behind the very same boat. 

As we got older some things changed as they always do.  My sister is now "aunt Molly" with her own boat in Missouri and still a great skier.  My dad is retired now and living out side of Hot Springs.  He still keeps a boat on lake Ouachita, though sadly, not the same boat of our 25 + year history.  (Although this NEW boat has a slide and is a BIG HIT with the grand kids).

Last month, we were back on lake Ouachita once more and enjoying some family time boating.  Alex learned to ski several years ago and quickly became confident and perhaps a little cocky as only 12 year old boys can.  He spent lots of time watching his aunt Molly slalom ski and was frequently envious.  Dad decided that this was the year to really try and get Alex to slalom.

Learning to ski using only one can be a definite challenge for anyone, let alone the highly un-athletic like my son and myself.  The long-standing joke in our boat was that when you were learning to get up on one ski it was gonna be a "really hard pull."  Alex experienced this first hand many times.

 The great thing about this kid is that he NEVER gave up.  He never whined.  He never complained.  He just kept trying over and over and over.  Those of us in the boat circled MANY times and returned the rope to him so he could try again and again..........and again.

He was determined and as predicted, it was a REALLY hard pull.

He focused, prayed and I am sure in his head at least, he cussed just a little at the difficulty of this task  But his aunt Molly could do it and he REALLY wanted to be successful.  Many many attempts later, he finally opened his eyes to discover himself on top of the water on ONE ski.  He was so excited and you could literally read the word "pride" on his face.  He stayed up and skied for a few minutes to enjoy his new-found success before tossing the rope and giving up to drag his exhausted adolescent body into the boat.

But prior to ending his ride, as the sun set late on that August day over lake Ouachita those of us in the boat cheered as dad blew the boat horn once again.