It's funny how those feelings of
needing a Senior Skip Day never seem to go away. The need for a skip day was alway greater after coming back from Spring Break :). Who really needed school when the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and the smell of Hawaiian Tropic was in the air? Well now I really don't even want to finish this, I want to just get outside and sit…focus Leigh. Anyway, now that we are older and more
mature we call it a Mental Health Day. I do have to confess since the kids
started high school I have been plagued with Spring Fever.
It use to be that I would plan the
most fun and entertaining unit studies for the summer. We would focus on
anything from science, marine biology (because I love anything to do with
water), cultural studies that would take us from the U.K. to Mexico (because
the layout of EPCOT always inspires me), to literature and music appreciation.
Then the kids got older and started going to camp, not only to be campers but
junior counselors as well. This left only a week here and a week there for
creative and inspiring unit studies. I found myself frustrated, if I couldn't
plan out a eight week unit study that would include a reading schedule, trips
to points of interest, work sheets, tests and quizzes why bother.
Spring Fever set in. As March would
come to a close I would notice the pile of books on the table and the two days
worth of papers I needed to grade. The kids hadn't stopped doing their work but
I had totally slacked off of mine. I still find myself doing this. What
happened to the person who would get up after working all night and immediately
start grading the papers (ok, maybe not "immediately", but
immediately after two cups of coffee)? Where was the person who would come home
after working all night and review with the kids what the assignments were for
the day and what we would be doing after she got up?
Needless to say this year is no
different. I am beginning to suffer immensely. Lauren could have doubled up on
math last year and graduated a year early, but she didn't want to do twice the
math. There was no way she was going to sit around another year just doing
math, so she has been doing a full load (7.5 credit hrs) of school work. She
finishes her math curriculum in two weeks but still has to finish up her
physics and psychology curriculum. I am so wanting just to call it all good,
pack up the books, highlighters, rulers, staplers and three hole punch and call
it a day. My kids are much better students then I ever was. I really don't see
her quitting early, but one could hope.
As I was writing
this, the catalog for school curriculum comes in and I sit and look at it.
Should I open it? I am sure there is some really cool stuff in there. I know
that if I do I will be inspired to do something rash, like try to fit in one
more unit study about WWII (it's the one I never did, that I wish I had). No,
NO I can't, I shouldn't. I get up and into the recycle bin it goes without even
a peek at the extracurricular section. I am strong! I knew I could do it! Now
to take it outside to the curb before I can't stand it anymore and find
something for Miss Lauren to do on the three weeks she is home this summer
before she heads off to college in August.
