Candy cigarettes and Xanax

After getting Georgia off to a good start back at school, and a new routine, she came down with nasty cold. I kept her home Thursday and Friday, but all was not a total loss. We were actually able to complete all of our lesson plans. It made me briefly consider just keeping her home for the remainder of the year, but I know she would miss school, and she desperately needs that socialization. And we'd also probably both go bonkers after a few weeks.

I'm getting more and more familiar with the lessons, and how to conduct them. We're now three weeks into this learning adventure, and if there's one thing I've gleaned from all of these lessons it's that the English language is a bitch! It's a wonder anyone learns to speak it or write it at all. Really! Right now we're trying to get Georgia to hear, and identify vowel combinations correctly: short and long vowel sounds & what they look like, and their variations: oe, ee, oo, o_e, i_e, aw, au, .... you get the picture. Well, I skipped ahead to see what was down the road for us, and found a laminated "AST-Reading Multisyllable Guidelines" chart. HOLY MACKEREL. So after I've got her to recognize one set of rules, I basically have to tell her "Now that you've finally got those pesky little devils down, TOSS THE BUGGERS OUT!"

On Friday I began feeling like "WOW, I think I may really be able to pull this off!". But then Georgia will start to give me some attitude, and I start to get frustrated. Things have not totally unraveled yet, though. I've managed to keep my cool. But I had to kind of let her have it this morning after a particularly annoying whine-fest. In a stern, but level-headed voice (and today "level-headed" is substituting for the word "demented"), I told her I am not here to torture her, and I understand she wants to be doing other things, but this is important work. Trust me, there are a million other things I could think of I'd rather be doing. Especially when it takes up weekend time. But under no circumstances am I letting up, giving in, or aiding and abetting her ESCAPE! (cue maniacal laugh) Bribes have been instituted, and she received her first on Friday. An M&M's Candy Fan. It got me to musing about inventing a candy chill pill and marketing it to stressed-out parents. Then my mind wandered to visions of the hate mail I'd find in my inbox from the anti-drug task-forcers. Yeah, they'd pound me for sure. I mean can you even FIND candy cigarettes anymore?! But really- who are we kidding..... the *best* parental "chill pill" is Xanax.