20 Weeks

I'm half way through this pregnancy and ready to skip to the end. Just bring on the baby, for goodness' sake. Between my expanding belly, my shrinking bladder, my dipping energy levels, and 3 more months of stinking hot and muggy weather ahead of me *sigh*...this ain't gonna be pretty :)

The last six weeks of pregnancy should be nice, though...October and into November. Cooler. Quieter (i.e. kids in school). Much less work to do outside in the garden.

Speaking of the garden, I met with several frustrating disappointments this week that made me quite cross (I've been watching the BBC's Doctor Who Series 7 lately, so my vocabulary is taking on an English hue...and I really, really want to try Jammie Dodgers):

• My "brilliant" plan to cover an entire garden bed in window screening is an enormous success...at trapping cucumber beetles around my cukes and melons. Dag-nabbit.

• I reacted too slowly to a solitary rabbit hanging out in our foot-high clover patch. Over the course of a few days, he found a mate and now there's a pulsing wad of bunny fluff in his shallow burrow...who knows how many babies are inside?! I don't dare mow anywhere near it.

• One of our new hens has started laying eggs! Yay! The frustrating part is how sassy and bossy this breed is compared to our last flock. As soon as they hear our back door open, they start squawking and moaning and whining in chorus. They want out. All the time. They mob the pen door and try to escape  while you're fiddling with the latch. Once you're inside with the door closed securely behind you, they periodically peck at your legs and shoes. Curiosity? Aggression? Affection? I don't like it, whatever it is. Robert's terrified of them. Alice is the only one brave enough to gather eggs. Until we start getting five eggs a day, I'm leaning towards eating the birds. The kids put up the portable fence so the hens could get out on the grass for a bit. Within 2 minutes, the birds were perching on top of the fence and flying over it. Our last flock NEVER dared that.

In other summer news, I've had the kids doing some workbook stuff, just to keep their skills sharp. Alice adores the books. She gets Robert to adore them. School is her thing. She is the exact personality that basic public school was founded on. These workbooks are like crack, feeding her addiction to the "introduce a mildly challenging concept, test your understanding of the concept, and reward mastery of the concept" thrill center of the brain. It's nuts. If you give her something truly challenging, she wilts into a puddle of self-doubt and frustration. But these workbooks are wily. Just a little bit tougher with each page:

"Subtracting three-digit numbers from each other?! *gasp*"
She's never done it before, but it's almost EXACTLY like subtracting 1- and 2-digit numbers from each other, so she devours it and does a happy dance.

"Times tables?! *gasp*"
But she's already super familiar with 2+2 and 3+3 and 4+4, so calling it 2x2 or 2x3 or 2x4 isn't that different. Chomp, chomp, slurp. She's giddy with joy.

"What's 'present tense'? Oh wait, I've been using verb tenses my whole life and that's just the name of one? Easy peasy."
Write, write, write, write, write.

I'm excited to see her enthusiasm here, but it also scares me. It makes me wonder if she's getting the kind of challenge she needs in the classroom. There has NEVER been a program in our school district for academically talented kids, by the way. I called up the district myself to ask. Never. I can't be the first parent wondering if her child is getting the right kind of challenge, right? What do all the other parents choose to do in this situation? Where are their kids now?

Anyway, I'm still fighting myself on this whole issue...how much do I push? How much do I let slide? She's only in first grade, for goodness' sake. If there were a quiet, easy way to do this that didn't take resources away from other high priority needs in the district, I'd do it! But as it is now, I get to research and ask hard questions and stew over everything :) My kind of project.