And They Fledge...

One of the assignments for E's summer writing class was to write a poem about summer. Now, when E has a writing assignment, it means that both of us do a lot of work. It's just where she is in her development—she has absolutely no idea how to take her teacher's posted assignment and translate the words into a plan and process on her end. So I'm much more hands-on than I've ever had to be with either of the boys' online classes. This is mostly because E is taking her first class at age 9, while L and P started their first online classes at 13 and 12, respectively. But this is also because they're boys, and she's a girl. That's an obvious statement which probably lacks obvious relevance to my reader and therefore sounds pejorative... unless you happen to be raising or teaching both boys and girls at the moment, and you've already noticed for yourself that they really do tend towards some major differences in their learning approach. L's first o

June has been a big month for us. It is littered with wonderful answers to prayer in the midst of a hard situation. D had been affected in early April by a mass layoff at his company, and as the job search wore on, we got bolder and more specific with our prayers. Every one of them was answered, and the biggest upshot of June was that D has a new job; a great new job that is the right next step for him. Appian Swag! June is also full of other milestones for our family. P graduated from middle school with a bang and is now officially a 9th grader. His chemistry teacher (note that P was taking HIGH SCHOOL chemistry in 8th grade) unofficially gave him something along the lines of a "most improved" class award. He told P that he had seen how hard P had worked to implement his constructive criticism, and he wanted to give P the chance at ending up with an A. He gave him a couple of last-minute extra credit opportunities. P rose to the occasion and ended up with JUST enough