Insight on the horizon

Good morning. Well, today marks a very nervous day for the twerplets. You see, they are off from school as this is parent/teacher conference day. Yep, we will meet with each of their teachers and discuss their progress in intimate detail (evil laugh). Worse yet, without a baby sitter they will have to sit quietly outside the classrooms while we meet which I am sure will only add to the tension. Yes, both Lynley and I demand to be present together for these meetings. We learned through the journey that is pediatric oncology that we both hear things differently and if we ever want to come to a mutually agreeable decision we both have to have the opportunity to hear information first hand and ask our own questions.

In other words, I like to be totally informed before she tells me what to do.

So, what are we expecting?

Well, you might think that we are expecting to hear good things regarding Sydney given the recent mastery on her 6 week report card. However, what you don't know is that in the last week Sydney has brought home a series of Cs on her math homework. In the end, we have resolved this issue. Frankly, she was rushing her work and not checking it thoroughly. A couple of parental drills later and we think she has fully grasped the importance of double checking. Cs bring with them a lot of extra work in this household. It is generally much easier to get an A in the first place because if you bring home anything less you will drill it until it has sunk in completely. Regardless, we know those recent scores will be a topic of conversation and I am sure that there are several other things that we are yet to become unaware of.

Graham and Ainsley are both up in the air. I anticipate good things in our discussion about Graham although I do expect his "sensitivity" to be an issue and the fact that he needs to be more "flexible", a topic. Afterall, it has been an ongoing subject since preschool. Although he has improved it still takes very little to ruffle Dudely's feathers. It will be interesting to get his new teacher's impression.

I don't know what to think about Ainsley. You may remember that last year's conference went about as poorly as can be expected. Her teacher failed her in every category of being a human, (much less a student) and offered no explanation or interpretation as to why she thought Ainsley scored so completely below the curve. This was a surprise to us as we have always viewed (and continue to) Ainsley as the sharpest tool in the tool bag. This is not to say our others are anything less that brilliant. Ainsley is just especially talented in her ability to learn. It will be interesting because I trust Mrs. Lewis to give us a pretty accurate picture of where she is scholastically. The good news is that regardless of what we hear, good or bad, I know that we will come out of this with a game plan.

Well I had best be off. Our meetings begin at 8:15 sharp and I am charged with getting a full day of work in before then.

Purpose is fast forward today.