Editing

It seems blogger is having an editing problem with their program, thus the lack of paragraph spacing. Its very irritating and hard to read when there are no breaks in the writing. Hopefully the problem will resolve itself soon. But I am not going to slow down on my only stress relief writing. The house had a showing last night. Report cards came so I took the boys out to dinner to celebrate Riley's perfect As report card. There was even an A+ with an Outstanding student comment. Trevor did not have such an outstanding report card. Awful would not be too mild a term. He pouted much of the evening as I told him "No, he did not get a treat or extras." Riley basked in the glory of proud parents and many compliments. Trevor's music teacher had asked if I would reconsider sending Trevor on the band competition. She asked if I would chaperon. This report card put the last nail in his coffin. I am not relenting. We are not going on the trip. I do feel badly as I know many families can't afford to go or their children did not make good enough grades either. There needs to be some repercussions for Trevor's poor performance. This was an easy decision. It would have cost $500 for us both to go plus spending money. Trevor needs to learn and feel the pain. Next year he wont be able to play football if he can't make the grades. He has to try. Last Thursday when I had to pick a friend up at the airport, I left the house only to realize I had left my wallet at home. I had left Trevor working on his math. I walked in the door not five minutes later and he was already upstairs on the computer watching Net flix. I call to him asking if he had finished his math already. He answered yes. I went over to his paper where he had shoved it under his binder on the dining room table. Luckily it was a green sheet and very prominent. I knew immediately which page it was. It was blank. He had quit as soon as the door had shut when I left the first time. Now I was going to be late picking up my girlfriend and her family, because I had to sit on Trevor while he worked. That same weekend, Trevor got himself up on Saturday morning, grabbed a rake from the garage and walked to our local park where Kiwanis club was doing maintenance, spreading bark. Of course they did serve donuts for the early birds and pizza at the end. But he motivated and volunteered all on his own. I wasn't even around to remind him. So I know he can do things on his own. The things he wants to do. Some how we have to turn school around so he wants to do it. He is now constantly reading. But can he hand in a reading log to his humanities teacher on time ...no. I wish she would make them write essays now, after they finish the book, a summary. I think that would be more useful than reading logs. But then if he can't hand in a reading log, how can he write an essay and get that handed in. I just think it might be less boring and more interesting to summarize and try to sell a great book that he liked reading and might want to share. Work on writing skills at the same time. He went out the door to the bus this morning without his homework. I yelled and he came back for it. I did ask to see his work and see how much he had finished last night. I have no idea how much he was supposed to have done. According to the teacher's blog, the map was to be done and handed in at class already. Trevor says they are still doing it in class one more day. I am having a hard time trusting him. Riley is back in school. He missed only one day due to the stomach cramps. Tom gave him laxatives and that seemed to cure the problem. We were all relieved it wasn't appendicitis. We can't help thinking the worst when ever he gets sick. Riley's numbers were great. Which was also really uplifting. Our concern was that he is now off 25% on the drugs, his numbers might fall. They are not falling. His Creatinen number is still going up, which is why we really want him off the drugs soon. That is the kidney stress indicator. It is higher than a recovered alcoholic friend of 55. But the kidney does repair itself and Riley is young. He just may not be able to indulge and imbibe as much as his parents, which may not be a bad thing. Riley is loving his speech class elective this semester. Not a lot of kids are in the class. I knew it would be a great experience for Riley. Because of the small numbers he finds it less intimidating to perform. He also discovered he does best with props. He had to describe himself and took a book and a football and a brownie pan. He said he got the class to laugh during his speech. That class has been a growing experience for him because it is all about performance, standing in front of people and talking. It has only been two weeks and he talks about the class all the time. Tom asked me to look into private school for Riley in our new city, when we move. We are looking at all our options. He even told Trevor that another report card like this one and he would agree with me about repeating eighth grade. Its the band and football part I dread. Will Trevor be able to connect with the teachers and coaches and continue to grow. It might not be a bad idea for Trevor to reconnect by starting eighth grade over at a new school. He would then hit high school with established friends and network.