Still agonizing

We've been talking and talking, asking opinions, trying to decide on our final decision. It's really overwhelming. I have been reading an excellent book, Deconstructing Penguins. I've been thinking of running a book club this summer and this is an excellent place to start. It's really interesting and gives lots of ideas - although I want a better outline - I guess I need to do that myself. I need to write more about this but later. The book has the poem from Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken and it really hit me that that is where we are.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;
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Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,
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And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.
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I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.
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We are standing there looking at the 2 roads and trying to look down each one so we can pick one and it is SO hard. Now it's not just us but the kids and how our choice will affect them. We do tend to take the one less traveled and like it. Maybe coming here was taking the known one and it's just not the right one for us.

Charlotte's Web

K was interested in seeing this movie when it came out in December. I think she saw all the advertising. At first I wasn't going to do it but decided to have her read the book. So, she's been reading the book and we've been doing lots of literature discovery with it. I've been trying to make a list of vocabularly words and we've been learning about compound words. It's been slow (she has her school books to read too) but good. So, her incentive was after she read it then she could see the movie. I was worried she would be emotional with the ending. She was fine with reading the ending. She ended up reading it with Grandma and telling me how cool it was that Charlotte had 514 eggs.

So we see the movie yesterday. It was pretty good. She's fine through the whole movie. However, I took C too. He had heard her reading the book to us so he knew it was about a pig and a spider. I figured he was too young but he would enjoy the experience. He was scared at times and then at the end he's sobbing. He was so upset. I was really surprised. I guess I should have been more worried about him! He can be very sensitive and emotional but I just didn't expect this. It was a good lesson for me.

what to do?

I have not been writing too much on here but think maybe I should now. D has an offer for a job in NYC and we have to make a decision tomorrow. I wanted him to finish all the interviewing before accepting something but the other company hasn't called back and the other one said the position they interviewed wasn't the right fit maybe there would be something else. The job here in OH is not working out. We moved here 3 years ago to be closer to family and it seemed like a good opportunity. But D is not happy. Of course K is very happy. C would be happy anywhere. I'm torn, I was happy in NYC and I've grown to be happy with what OH has to offer. K loves being near her grandparents and having lots of cousins nearby. I've been back and forth on what to do. We have family here and some friends and I've spent some time meeting people. We just joined a Cincinnati support group for EG/PG kids and that's been great. K takes a Saturday class now. We would have to figure out the schools wherever we moved. That's time consuming especially after spending 2 years touring and researching here. (The result is not that great so that's something to factor in to my thoughts). If we move east, we have to decide live in the city or suburbs. We lived in the city prior to moving to OH and we loved it. But now we would have the school issue. And, we missed the deadline for the big gifted school in the city - Hunter. We've missed the deadline for the other gifted options in the city for the 2007-2008 year. I've been trying to read up on suburb schools. It's really overwhelming. Of course D says just homeschool for a year and apply during that time. The problem is most of the gifted programs admit in Kindergarten and just have attrition spots to fill in later years so she may not get in anywhere. I'm just going round and round right now. I read an article where it said it is important for the parents to have a good marriage, good career and then the kids will fall into place. Kids are resilient.

Letter

We received our acceptance letter yesterday. It was very exciting and also a relief. We explained it to K but she thinks it's a school so she's nervous about it. I'm slowly sharing the news with some people.

Sleepover

Last night we had a sleepover with K & C's cousin. It was fun. We need to do more sleepovers with all the cousins in the area. It's a great way to get to know your niece/nephew. We have 11 nieces/nephews in the area and 4 out of the area and I really want to get to know them all. We watched "Herbie Fully Loaded". I've been looking for more movies that a wide range of kids can watch and enjoy. We had a 3 year old, a 5.5 year old and an almost 8 year old. This one is OK for that, I'll have to keep looking.

I have a new thing - yoga. Both for me and for K, C and if I can persuade him to join in D. We visited 2 schools that had yoga part of their curriculum so I thought it might be something good to do at home. I got some DVDs at the library. The kids DVDs are OK, one was a little silly. K really enjoys it and C does a pretty good job. He gets frustrated when he can't do a position. I'm enjoying mine too. It's a good thing to do with all the cold and snow we have had this winter. It's starting to warm up finally.

Grandparents Day

Wednesday was Grandparents Day at school. My Dad and D's Mom and Dad were there for the last hour and then I met up with them and we all went to lunch. They were very impressed with K's multiplication skills. She uses the multiplication board and was working on problems she had and some they gave her. She's able to come up with answers a couple different ways now. C was excited to show everyone his work, he loves puzzles.

Testing

We met with the public school last month and officially requested acceleration. We still are not sure public school is the right option but if she does go to public school, it would not be in first grade. We took her test scores and had a pretty good meeting. Now K has to do some aptitude testing. We are going to use the Iowa acceleration scale to determine if we should accelerate and to what grade level. Since we've done the cognitive and achievement testing, we have to do the aptitude testing and the parent and teacher sections. We just filled out a package of papers on her behaviors and strengths and her personality.

She loves to do testing so that's one good thing. She's actually asked if she could do some testing at some of the schools we visited.

The other major positive for me was a conversation I had with K a couple weeks ago. We've been visiting schools and talking about starting first grade in the fall. She said Mom why would I do first grade in the fall? Last year I kind of did kindergarten because I worked with all the kindergarteners every day so aren't I doing first grade this year? So, I think she will be pretty open to accelerating to second grade.

Negatives: She doesn't want to go to a school with desks. Montessori doesn't have desks and she keeps commenting on this when we tour schools.
In French class she has to ask permission to leave the room and go to the bathroom and I think someone walks her down the hall. She hates this. She says she should just be able to go when she needs to go.
These could both be major issues for public school. She may have a harder time with rules than I originally thought.

Visitors

We've had visitors since Wednesday. The kids are loving it but we've been very busy. We saw Night at the Museum yesterday. It was Ok, K definitely picked up on history and things. She was very excited that Dick Van Dyke would be in it since she loves him in Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. K & C are really enjoying The Story of the Orchestra book. We've been listening to it constantly in the car. K's teacher mentioned her answering all the questions in music class last week. She knew the sounds (and names) of the cello and double bass. Her teacher mentioned that she is coming back out of her shell. She was answering questions again. Her cousin came to visit at her school too. She liked that.