Hunter's Lucky his Mom is a scrapbooker

Hunter is in the sixth grade in all accelerated classes. Many, many times I ask myself, WHY are my children in all accelerated classes? They have SO much homework! I absolutely HATE projects and middle school seems to be riddled with projects. When I FIRST started teaching and I was young and naive and had NO children of my own, I assigned projects, however, as soon as I had my own children and realized the horrors of homework and projects, I STOPPED doing them. It is my belief that when you grade a child on homework, you are grading his parents. Yep, because the kids that get the good grades are the kids whose parents do the homework with them, feeding them the answers, and do the projects, just like the science projects that are beautiful and WIN, and the pinewood derby cards that are perfect, fast, and WIN. Well, I am NOT that Mom, I think the kids should do it, so of course, my kids cars never win, their science projects are never beautiful, AND we fight about homework for hours every night, ESPECIALLY Hunter, the poor kid has glasses, braces, ADHD, and ODD..... Life is a challenge, being Hunter's Mom is a challenge, every day, almost every minute, and sometimes it's heaven.......sometimes.....

He has this ONE teacher, now mind you, I am not especially fond of MOST of his teachers, but this ONE, and of course he has her for not one, but TWO periods, likes to assign these crazy projects. This month ONE of the projects is to read a biography or fictional book and make and pack a small cardboard box suitcase that the person you read about would take on a trip. It needs to include the following: A luggage tag that has the person's name, address, and destination written on it. Memorabilia to decorate the outside of the suitcase such as bumper stickers or mementos from previous trips. Ten items that the character would pack. A brief explanation of why your person chose to pack each item.....

Hunter, of course, wanted a huge box. I finally convinced him to print out pictures of the items to pack, NOT THE ACTUAL items, and we decorated a pencil box using That's Amore Level II paper (he never thought I would have a masculine paper--LOL!!), Dimensional elements monograms, we even put "feet" on the bottom of the box using bigger brads, and photo hangers on the top and chocolate ribbon from the designer ribbon rounds for the handle. We stamped "Tough as Nails" by the monograms and put a postcard from Yellowstone on the back because the character from the book is from Wyoming. I had some fun luggage tags laying around that I had purchased from Target a few summers ago for the kids luggage and never used. When he was done, Hunter was proud of himself and happy that his mom is so cool and scrapbooks. Now, hopefully he won't get in trouble for having his character "pack" a PPW (Personal Protection Weapon)--tazer......

Hunter also had his "puberty" exam today. The reason I share this is because I just LOVE my pediatricians!! Henderson Pediatrics, Dr. Kulic and Dr. Levin. None of my other children had this 11-year-old well check, but Dr. Kulic (woman) did have a discussion with Kassidy when she got shots two summers ago and Dr. Levin (man) had the same type of discussion with Hunter today. Basically about drugs, alcohol, eating healthy, abstinence, etc. LOVED what they had to say! They are very frank, yet sensitive. They have Saturday and Sunday morning SICK hours and I can't say enough good things about their office (it's even close by!). So if you live in the Henderson area and are looking for rockin peds, look them up!! Hunter screamed for 15 minutes when he heard he was getting FIVE shots, but the nurses were so nice, they assured me that 95% of 11 year olds react the same way and they hurried and got the shots, as soon as he got them, he settled down because they realized they weren't as bad as he was imagining...... (add another reason to my list that I'm glad I'm NOT a nurse) Thank heavens I only have one more child that gets to turn 11.....

Blair got to design her class ring online and we went to a meeting and had it sized and ordered it tonight. Class rings have really changed since I was in high school about ten or so years ago--LOL! They had several that looked like birthstones and although they were pretty I tried to steer her toward one that at least looked like a class ring instead of a birthstone. This is part of her Sweet 16 birthday present. She chose the stones green (her favorite color), and diamond (her birthstone). I let her drive home. I must say, I like it a lot better when she drives Harry around instead of me..... I was STRESSED even though she did nothing wrong... Love ya, Blair!!