I am officially poor now. Like...TOTALLY and completely poor. Going back to school has cost a fortune...and not a small one I might add. The cost of going back to school SO FAR has been $1046.29. And we are SO not done yet. There is still the Back to the Pool pasta event tomorrow night that involves joining the booster club ($25 at the lowest level), buying "spirit wear", providing a CASE of snickers bars and a CASE of Pepsis and a CASE of waters. Then there is "GreenBack night" at Clara's school where there is a "direct giving" campaign going on. Instead of doing fundraisers like selling gift wrap and cookie dough, they are just asking the parents to give cash straight up. They are hoping to get $65 per family. We all hope for something though, don't we? Then there is Green Back night at Max's school...same hopes for yet another $65...different school. I've already given a chunk of change at Ben's school. It seems there is a never ending drain right now on the back to school expenses. They all want and need money for something. As Chris pointed out tonight, we pay a HEFTY property tax here in Texas. It is not chump change and a great deal of that goes directly to the schools. It's frustrating to get hit from a million different directions by all the expenses. I can only imagine how hard this is hitting families who are financially struggling.
In addition to being broke now...I got a homework assignment from Ben's teacher. Like a real live assignment. Not just a form to fill out and return. An actual thinking and writing and being creative assignment. I was SO not excited about that. I'm probably the ONLY mom who was not excited about it. I went to orientation last night at Ben's school and he has his gifted classes the last three periods of the day...all three classes with the same teacher. It was obvious to me VERY quickly that one of these moms amongst the gifted parents is NOT like the others. I'm pretty sure it's ME! Uggggh! I think those parents are crazy!!! The teacher was telling us about this word assignment the kids will have every week and half the parents were already WAY over it and had a million questions about the extra practice website and how to record this and that and get on the scoreboard, etc. It was crazy! They were all over the homework and assignments and every freaking extra website even remotely mentioned. I don't even know how they KNEW about those websites, because I sure don't! And here I've been patting myself on the back if I get three kids out the door on time each morning with their books, lunches and deodorant under their arm pits! Obviously, I am WAY behind the curve! I have NOT explored these "extra" websites. I haven't even committed the teacher's own website to memory yet. In the next breath the teacher was telling us how our kids need to sit for the SAT and ACT this fall. And I'm like...as in the college entrance ACT and SAT tests? They need to sit for those NOW? In the SEVENTH GRADE???????????????? Are you even KIDDING me?! Man...7th grade has SERIOUSLY changed since I was there. So not only am I totally slacking in the get on board with 100 extra practice websites, apparently I am neglecting the whole tour the college campus circuit with your seventh grader gig as well. I suppose to their way of thinking, our Max is surely a lost cause. He is a freshman...in high school...and has never sat for the ACT or SAT (GASP!!!!). I know...the horror of it. I'm surprised the Texas CPS hasn't come and hauled our kids away since they obviously belong to unfit parents. To say that I left school last night feeling a bit defeated in the parenting department would be an understatement. Of course...I've had a night to sleep on it and now I'm just plain fired up. I'm fired up that the schools, because my child has a "gifted" label are fast forwarding him through his childhood and catapulting him straight to college level stress! I'm fired up that they think that gifted automatically translates to highly motivated, super overachieving and needs triple the work of all the other kids! They don't need triple the work. They need DIFFERENT work. Work on a different level. Work that challenges them and their need to be allowed to think outside the box. I'm fired up and mad that they are shoving college entrance exams at my kid who hasn't even hit puberty yet. He's not thinking past what he's having for dinner tonight...let alone college. And I'm fired up that the teacher was presumptuous enough to assume I, as a parent of a gifted child have either A) the time B) the energy or C) the interest in being forced to write a poem about their child. I'm half crazy right now running from orientation to orientation, from volunteer training to curriculum nights. Juggling three kids in three different schools, plus swim team, plus dance class, plus gymnastics and now water polo. The LAST thing I want to do is write some poem for a "homework assignment" at a school where I am most certainly NOT a student and get no grades for. Can you tell I'm tired and stretched a bit thin these days?! Grrrrr. Just so you know...I wrote the stupid poem already. I will probably sit on it and chew on it for a bit though because those gifted moms are vicious and crazy over achievers...they probably have big, huge gifted words the likes of which I have never heard before. The teacher would probably take one look at my poem and immediately jump to the conclusion that Ben MUST be adopted and think how sad it is that his obviously gifted parents had to give him up to such simpletons like myself! Yeah....definitely planning to spruce up the poem!
That's about all the happenings here in the Lonestar State. We are the tired, the poor, the weary...the fired up. yeah...that about sums it all up!
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