Thursday Q&A {1}

Joni Rae at Tales of A Kitchen Witch asks:
Hi Sarah! I was wondering what would you do if one of your children wanted to go to school?

Ah school. We have done public school (three of them!), homeschool, and unschooling. All with varying degrees of successes and failures.

When I became pregnant with Daniel, I immediately decided he would be home-schooled. Fast forward to single parenthood, working full time (I’ve never received child support from his biological father), and a stressful living situation and the choice was made to have him start public school.

I was not confident in my decision. It felt wrong. It felt like it was too soon, that he wasn’t ready. I should have listened to my intuition. Surrounded by my family members who told me I was an awful mother if I didn’t send him to school, I started him at Brentwood.

From day one he was overwhelmed. The school focused more on the social aspects rather than the educational. He and this other little boy at the time, Christopher, did NOT get along. Daniel has always been very tall for his age and Christopher was of course, smaller. He would push my son and then claim he “had to” because my son “scared him”. I made numerous requests in person to the principal AND his teacher asking them to place my son in a different classroom. Instead, they “separated their tables”.

It killed me. He didn’t learn a single thing in kindergarten. Not one thing. In fact, he began to hate any kind of learning.

Then it’s time for first grade. This teacher refused to answer any of my emails, refused to schedule any conference with me, and again focused on the social aspect. During this time the decision was made that he would move to Pennsylvania to live with his biological father. WORST MISTAKE EVER, not only was my son abused physically/emotionally/mentally by his biological father and bio-father’s girlfriend, but again was set up to fail in his school (Laurel Elementary School) there. Their security was lax, in fact, it was brought to my attention that my sister had posed as me and spoke to the principal at that school on more than one occasion. I still don’t know what went on up there…

Anyway, after five miserable months in PA, he came home and started up at North School. Right away I was uncomfortable. His teacher (sensing a theme here!) never responded to my emails or in person contact. The principal would text my cell phone after 9pm suggesting my son go on more “playdates”. He spent most afternoons in her office because, again, he was not having good interactions with the other students. They would have him do handwriting worksheets as punishments.

Now during all this time and all those schools, what did he learn? That he needs to play nice or be “punished”. That’s it. He didn’t learn to write or read. Didn’t pick up any history or science.

Considering my own history with school, I was a bit shocked. After all, I really didn’t have any issues.

So Keith and I decided to homeschool. Then we chose to unschool very shortly after that. It’s now been a year and a half and Daniel does some writing, a touch of reading here and there, and is quite good at math. However, he still fights us every step of the way if we even SUGGEST he “read a book” or anything he construes as learning.

So you can imagine my utter shock when last night, Daniel told Keith and I that he wants to try public school again.

We spent over an hour discussing it with him. What his reasons were, that it would be hard work catching up educationally, that there is a lot more structure and rules, etc. That if he was solid in this decision, we would support him and make it work.

I am terrified.

I am worried that we will spend a small fortune to enroll him, get all the supplies the school “requires”, get all the clothes they require (as a lot of them are specific on a dress code), for him to decide he made a wrong decision and to choose to be at home again.

I am freaking out about the level of work that needs to be done to catch him up to grade level when it comes to reading (which he seems to hate to do).

I am concerned about potential bullying by other students, it seems like every hour of every day there’s another article released about bullying in schools.

I am stressing out over all the “what-if” scenarios.

I feel quite lost actually. Have you been in a similar situation? I could use all the helpful advice you have to offer!

Bokeh Goodness

Thursday Q&A {2}

Catie at Tales of A Midwestern Housewife asks:
What are your top 3 favorite things to cook or eat, and why? (bonus points for recipes!)

Oh my ULTIMATE favorite would be Mexican / Tex Mex. I can only assume it comes from my living in Arizona for my formative years! During BOTH pregnancies it was all I craved. Keith indulged me by making fajitas practically every night in the first trimester with Tristan! One of my favorite recipes would be my Pumpkin Tortilla Soup!

Most of our go-to dinner’s are along that cuisine theme. For example last night we made Chicken Fajita Rice Bowls, (shot on my iPhone), so tasty!

We have taco night often and I even make a tasty Southwestern Pasta!

I also do a lot of Italian cooking, tonight I plan on doing a roasted garlic and butternut squash risotto, hopefully it comes out tasty!

So to sum it up, my top three favorite things to cook & eat would be Mexican / Tex-Mex / Italian cuisines!

Sir Nummies

How in the world did I end up with such a sweet baby?

I’m Sad

Maybe sad doesn’t quite capture how I feel, depressed more like it. I know all of this will seem jumbled but I need to get it out of my head.

I can’t pinpoint a specific reason either. I feel like I’ve been on a slow decline since 2008 really. Combined with the hardest pregnancy I’ve ever had and the failed VBAC… I just can’t seem to recover. I keep thinking, if I just tried harder. If I just DID MORE. I could have prevented another c-section.

I went from having a large social circle to zero by the time I started my second trimester. My family is non-existent really, perhaps an email once every few months to inquire how my children are doing but that’s about it.

Tristan will be one year old in a matter of weeks. He is walking, laughing, playing, and mimics his big brother to the extreme. Just about two weeks after his birthday, I will have my own and be twenty-nine years old. Insane. I still feel like that scared seventeen year old hopping on a Greyhound bus to meet my online boyfriend (who ended up being Daniel’s biological father, go figure).

I’m overwhelmed with the house. I want to make it lovely and awesome but so many years of abuse (from Keith’s old roommates, from how it was ignored after his father passed away, etc) I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to make it fantastic for Autumn. I’ve been trying though. I spent most of my money at Target getting nice things for the kitchen table. I even got a Autumn themed piece for the door to make it more welcoming.

I’ve been trying to bake more lately too. I make a decent Banana Oatmeal Bread and Apple Crumble. I also like to bake muffins as it’s an easy snack for my boys.

I’ve generally been steady with my “full fat” WeightWatchers (I will write a post eventually on why I started again) and have lost just shy of twenty pounds.

Yet. I am still sad. I’ve lost pretty much all blogging motivation. I rarely tweet (and I don’t think anyone notices). The laundry is piling up and it’s all so overwhelming to me.

I’m LONELY. I miss having local friends. Yet I am so self-conscious, especially about my weight, that I’ve not made any effort to find any “mom” groups. I can’t handle the rejection.

I know I tend to dwell on things but my anxiety is insane. I worry about the most illogical things really and am quite paranoid about safety.

I wonder, does Daniel’s biological father even THINK about him? Does he know how much his son looks like him? That he is so loving and caring and is the BEST big brother? My son has a half-sister he doesn’t even KNOW and I wonder if they will ever have a relationship.

I wonder what the hell happened to me when I was little to cause the kind of anxiety and thoughts/worries I have today. I mean aside from the emotional / verbal / mental / physical abuse because THAT I am well aware of.

I don’t know how Keith puts up with me half the time really.

How does one do it? How do you go from years of a painful life to creating a happy present and future? I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, and feel very lost.

A Rose by Any Other Name…

Thursday Q&A {3}

Becky at Frantic Mommy asks:
I would love to know how do you remove the dates from WordPress blogs. I want to post on my WP blog, but don’t want the dates to show. How do I get them off? Another WP issue that’s kickin my butt (can you tell I am used to Blogger) is how to change font style and size on WP. Help Please!!!

When it comes to changing the font style and size on WordPress, that is usually contained within your theme’s style.css.

For removing the date, look at your index.php, single.php, & page.php templates. Usually the date looks like this:

<?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?>

Simply delete that line to remove the date from appearing on the post/page!

Random WordPress Tidbit

I’ve brought this up before in my post, Four More Ways to Improve Your Blog, but it bears repeating again!

Use “pretty” Permalinks
A lot of times you will come across a URL that looks like this: yourdomain.com/?p=146. That gives us no information, doesn’t even LOOK appealing, and rarely will I click on a link that doesn’t have a descriptive title.

In WordPress it’s very simple to change how our permalinks look! I personally go with just the postname.

In your WP dashboard, navigate to settings -> permalinks and change them as such:

Now we have a URL as such: yourdomain.com/awesome-post-of-awesomeness.

Life Changes

So Keith and I have mutually agreed we should get married.

It sounds SO much more fancy to say it that way instead of, “I just got engaged”.

I am one of those odd girls that don’t want a wedding, (I don’t understand them). I just want a nice wedding ring. Something shiny.

It will most likely happen soon. For sure before the end of the year. You know, tax breaks and all.

This is very exciting! I promise, I am generally much more romantic in other ways but this… this is hardcore business!

Signs of Autumn #1

Signs of Autumn #2 (Green)