Good Morning everyone- eta- i wrote a novel big enough to rival Nova's posts..lol..
I had this huge paragraph typed and quotes and then my cat jumped on the keyboard and somehow it deleted everything and put me on the homepage.
Not going through to get it all again.
Im going to summarize.
Juise if you told me moss it was in some alien name, lol. I would LOVE moss. But its around five dollars a pot- a very tiny pot.
Cute calf.
School systems:
My son was a straight A kid, great kid went to school every day, etc was always polite, etc *i was always shocked when someone told me how good my kid was, because he was the opposite at home- but if you have to act up somewhere, better at home than out in public*. The school put my son in ninth grade in the classes where they had the gang members, the druggies, the bullies, etc. They actually fill a class with them in this highschool instead of having the 'bad' kids dispersed. I went to the school- WHY do you have my straight A son in these classes? They told me and I quote "He is such a great guy, we want him in these classes to be an example on how to act, how to be a good student".
Well, my son didnt get beat up, he didnt get picked on, he didnt get teased. Nope, he became friends with these guys, got on drugs, quit taking his meds for bipolar, and dropped out of school in tenth grade- despite me trying everything I could. I put him in an alternative highschool the following year- and he just wouldnt go, or he would get dropped off (school was fortyfive minutes away) and he would hang out at another alternative hs skippers house all day.
My daughter has a hearing disability- and she spells like she speaks and like she hears words. She has straight As. She works hard, and takes school serious. Very serious. All the teachers love her. She is fabulous in her ability to get her work done, extra credit, etc. despite a few setbacks. She wears a hearing device the teacher wears a microphone that goes to her hearing device. One math teacher, very frustrated with Tiffs inability to understand some algebra stuff, saw another student trying to help her. He forgot he had on the microphone and said, "You can't put dumb and dumber together". That affected her in the best way, once she was over the hurt. She decided she was going to SHOW HIM. She is now in honors algebra, advanced placement geometry, and starting trig this fall semester.
I truly enjoyed going to the schools meet and greet with my youngest daughter and walking up to him and saying, "Her sister is Tiffany. Remember dumb and dumber? Well, now she is in blahblahblah..."
The school tried to put her in some of those classes with their "difficult" students- and I very ADAMANTLY refused and threatened to pull her out of the school completely.
She has test anxiety. She can have straight As on homework, class assignments,etc- but take a test and she fails it, or gets a C. Asked the school for help with this. I dont know any more how to help her out. Her one teacher said, "tell her she can bring a teddybear to class and hold it during a test." SERIOUSLY????? She is sixteen. That would go over great with her peers.
Which brings us to my youngest daughter. She is epileptic and probable bi-polar- as her symptoms are identical to her brothers.
My daughters elementary years were pure hell.
I fought the school all the way up to the top deputy dog of the states special education system. My daughter was not diagnosed as epileptic until fifth grade. Crucial learning years- third and fourth grade, fifth grade...LOST.
She was having up to a hundred seizures a day- not flop on the ground, but stare-off seizures. The kind where you are here then you arent then you are...gone just long enough to miss instructions on how to do something, to miss "take your book out and turn to page 4..." They said she was rebellious, didnt follow directions, didnt pay attention, wouldnt answer them, etc..
They took away her recesses.
Then when she didnt have her recess, they took away her gym class.
Then when she didnt have recess, or gym...they made her eat lunch alone in the class room.
I fought them. She was diagnosed with ADHD- the doctor put her on meds.
The teachers put her in the very back of the class, next to the trash can, and forgot she existed. I argued, and I lost. "We have thirty one other students who WANT to learn"....
The adhd medication caused my daughter to have a huge grand mal seizure in the school hallway. There was the beginning of our diagnosis. Her pediatrician said, "this is a very safe adhd med, but if a child doesnt have adhd and has epilepsy, it can bring on a grandmal. Next step was a neurologist to confirm it.
The school moved her along grade to grade even though she didnt learn the basics. Reading was impossible, and is still very very hard. She cant spell at all. She doesnt know the basic rules for most subjects. Now, the teachers say: the instructions are on the top of the page"..well, she doesnt understand the instructions. They cant be bothered, and tutoring is SO crazy expensive, I cant afford it.
She has developed an attitude that works for her, but not for me or society- in order to not feel stupid, or look stupid, she doesnt do the work. She gets detention, she gets Ds. She gets an attitude, and she gets suspended.
They tell me that she will have to pass Algebra one and two in order to graduate. Well, Im sure she will have major problems in highschool next year. There are no real programs to help that are available to us. Sometimes she cries and cries and thinks she is stupid, but mainly she has adopted the "I dont care" attitude.
She is excellent in art, far above what I would expect from a fourteen year old, she is great at cooking, sewing, gardening, animal-care,etc. But none of that is going to get her to pass the 'graduation requirements'. They made her take Spanish this year. Cant understand basic English rules, but put her in another language. Yep, failed that class.
She got detention from a substitute teacher once because< "they were watching a movie, and when it was done and all the kids went to their seat, Kayla just sat there, staring at the screen. Refused to answer the teacher, refused to return to her seat." I asked, "did she say anything to the teacher?" "Was she insubordinate, rude, rebellious, etc?" Nope. Just sat there and refused to take her seat. So, I asked, innocently of course, "Well, I am certain that this substitute teacher read her IEP and knows about her seizures, right? Can you honestly tell me that she was NOT having a seizure, and was indeed disobeying the substitute? At thirteen, she would sit in front of a teevee screen on the floor while the rest of the class went to their seats- to defy a teacher?" Oh no, they couldnt do that. In fact, they said, "Im sure the substitute was unaware that Kayla is epileptic." COULD YOU PLEASE PUT THAT IN WRITING? didnt want to do that, they dismissed her detention.
I know what classes they are going to put her in in the highschool. And she actually needs those. However, they also have the other group of kids in there that are in there because the school doesnt want to deal with them....
And Opa, I really like the one you wrote for your mom. Reminds me of my boys. 
Glad I got the chicks to you and the dude that picked 2 of the roos. The remaining two have been huddled under mom in the cold snap we are having and at 4 weeks old, I don't think she could have fit everyone under her, those 2 just barely fit. 
