All It Takes...

My kids. They solve all problems. They lift my heart up and make me dissolve into a puddle of giggles. I'd put my kids up against anybody, they are a handful....

Duchess is in the AR reading program for 2nd grade and every other day is bringing home new books to read then takes them to do her AR tests. She is turning into a reader like her mom. Except, she has her daddy's tastes in book materials. Every book so far has been a non-fiction about an animal. We've read 40 pages about each of the following: chipmunks, horses, frogs, hummingbirds, and etc....except last night we had to read about rattlesnakes. OMG. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate snakes for the record, very strong negative feelings. So right before bed, I curl up next to her and she reads me these books every night, except by the time we learned all about reptile species, pit viper classification, squiggling babies verses eggs, smelling with a flickering tongue and ears that are inside the body....I was sick to my stomach and when she closed the book, I was like "EWWWWWW". We agreed..NO MORE animal books for awhile cause that was disturbing. Except she gets off the bus and promptly hands me her new book (it's like a new toy for her, strange) and I was very dismayed to see it was about raccoons. Sigh........her excuse, "But mommy it's not about reptiles, I checked inside before I checked it out". Sigh......

Since tomorrow is Friday we had quite the homework tonight to prepare. Vocab test, timed math test and DLR for Duchess. Science test for Princess. YUCK!

Duchess and I went through vocab like a knife through butter, she's got this. She aced her spelling test earlier today so we lucked out there. The DLR was quick too, no worries. The timed math tests.................3 hours of work. She has to do 50 problems in 3 minutes. She made a 48 last time cause the kid freaks out with the idea of a clock ticking away and the teacher walking around during the test. She cried and told me it made her gassy (OMG) and sweaty. So we did test after test....failed each one. Until we took a break and danced in the kitchen, ate dinner, and did dishes. Then I got smart. I eliminated the distractions and put her on the kitchen floor facing the wall. She passed with 34 seconds left and got all correct. HELLO! So then we moved to the bar stool facing the wall. Another pass. Then we moved the bar stool to the counter, fail. Dang, so I'm working on teaching her to hunker down over her test paper and block out everything around her. Say a prayer for my baby, she's gassy and sweaty. Then we read about raccoons. I'll spare you the details.

Princess has spent every night this week holed up in her room with the science test practice study guide getting ready for this test. But come mommy verbal quiz time, she blanked on over half. So we spent quite a while going through the materials and quizzing. Then it was down to just ONE question she couldn't nail.....6 steps to scientific method. I got inspired and my 33 year old arse made up a cheer complete with a kick at the end and we belted it out in my kitchen over and over. She went to her room, practiced it and then came back and did it again. Finally, she nailed it! Woohoo.........I can totally see her doing the cheer in the middle of her science test in her chair to remember it tomorrow, lol.

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