parent teacher conferences

Spent the day at Bill's parent teacher conferences before going in to work. It was sort of weird, knowing it will be the last time for this son. It will be strange not hearing the teachers complaining about not knowing what to do with him because he is bored in their classes. That complaint came today from his AP Calculus teacher. "I don't know what to do with him. He's bored in class, and whenever I give them time to work on their math problems, he finishes right away and works on stuff for his other classes instead." I asked if he was disruptive to the other kids, and the answer was no. He is getting a 96% in the class, so he understands the material. I told the teacher I did not understand why there was any problem, if that was the case. Eventually, the teacher agreed with me.

Bill is taking a good college prep curriculum this year. He has AP calculus, AP American government, AP second year chemistry, British literature, fourth year French, physics, and a year long independent study in architecture. Hopefully the colleges he applies to will look at that, and see he has a high GPA while doing two varsity sports. He doesn't have community service, which most of them seem to want, other than through his sports programs (teaching soccer to little kids, etc.) but he does work part time, so hopefully that counts for something?

I honestly don't know what half of these colleges are looking for.  Why does Michigan want an admissions essay on the differences between beauty and logic? What is that supposed to show?

I will miss Steven's conferences this year because they are at night, while I am at work. But he seems to be doing fine in school this year. He loves English this year, because the teacher lets them pick out the books they read. He did a fantastic book report, filled with original computer drawn artwork. I was amazed when I saw it.

Where did these fantastic and talented kids come from? I hit my math wall with graphing quadratic inequalities, and Dan didn't even make it that far. And I don't have a bit of artistic talent, though it does run in Dan's family. Is it because we encourage and expect them to do well in school? Is it because we encourage Steven to draw and write? I look at my sons, and it amazes me that I grew them under my heart, held and cuddled them as babies, hugged them when they got skinned knees, encouraged them to go out for sports even though they didn't think they could, watched them growso much. And even though I had no idea of what I was doing when it came to being a parent -- my own mother sexually, physically, and emotionally abused me -- but somehow my kids are not completely and totally screwed up. In fact, they are awesome. How did this happen? How did I somehow stumble into not screwing them up since I had no idea of what I was doing? The only thing I went by is always letting them know how much they are loved, because it is the simple truth. Maybe love is the answer?

My children are the greatest and best part of my life. After my own horrible childhood, I was so frightened of having any children of my own. But I am so happy that I did!