<p>The NHPS system has canceled orientations both today and tommorow d/t the storm damage and many of the public schools are without power. School was to begin on Wednesday… they still haven’t said… I guess we will have to wait and see…</p>
<p>She will be taking AP psych, Honors Latin II, Medical Spanish (for those on the health track and usually reserved for jrs), Honors Algebra II, Honors Geometry, Honors Bio, Honors English II and Honors US History II.</p>
<p>NewHavenCTMom - my D14 works one weekend day a week -Usually Saturday, from 10-5:30. She likes the extra cash and although she has to be a bit more organized with her school work, hasn’t had a problem. Her boss is great though and very flexible if she needs time off so that makes all the difference. I would think it will depend on how many hours they want your teen to work.</p>
<p>Hi OrdinaryLives…
love the name and tried to get it with gmail but it was taken… :D</p>
<p>Rant alert all…</p>
<p>Ok so my younger kiddo is
<p>grrrrr
<p>I said…
why are you stil in school since you know so much more than x,y,z…
fuming…still…</p>
<p>AND</p>
<p>this younger kiddo does not exactly have the grades and ECS etc etc that older sibling does…</p>
<p>WHAT IS WITH THE ATTITUDE OF 15 YR OLDS???</p>
<p>OK
So pass the chocolate and adult beverages
rant over</p>
<p>Hell-o fog-fog! So is THIS, the ‘new normal’ we were looking for?!? ;)</p>
<p>Sorry, I couldn’t resist! Rant away, I’m your gal!! S3 (aka Bluejrjr…haha this thread doesn’t really know that name, weird) is a chatterbox…talk-a-talk-a-talk!! The other two are not like that. He makes me exhausted. Sometimes I have to tell him “Son, you are talking and talking and you are saying nothing!!” :o He <em>is</em> getting better at self-monitoring the chatter though… </p>
<p>Maybe your 15yo is just going through a stage? (Wishful thinking?)</p>
<p>I’m sure my 15 year old thinks he knows it all - He’s just too polite (AKA savvy) to say it. It’s my 11 year old who won’t let me help him with his pre-algebra class because he knows he’s right (and is wrong) that is driving me crazy. Stubborn kids…</p>
<p>:D fogfog and blueiguana. I guess our New Normal is going to be just as Abnormal as our Old Normal.</p>
<p>^ Seriously seattle mom! Just a different kind of abnormal, which makes it a new abnormal? Yea, that’s it. Wow, we have to be careful carrying over topics. We’re confuzzeling everyone! :)</p>
<p>We weren’t home 24 hours from dropping D’11 off at college when I had my latest “Mother of the Year” moment. Got up Saturday morning, D’14 went to marching band and we had the parent preview show that afternoon. We came home and H and I got ready and went to a wedding for one of his employees. Returned home around midnight and came to the realization that I never even thought about dinner for D! It wouldn’t have been such a problem except with all the craziness over getting D1 off to college, I haven’t really been grocery shopping for food for home. Apologized to D the next morning and got the response, “it’s okay… I found some cheese to eat.” Like I said, Mother of the Year!</p>
<p>D is definitely tired of being an only child. She is spending more time in her room, reading or listening to her ipod, partly I’m sure to get out from under our more available/watchful eyes! I’m sure she will be glad when school starts on Tuesday. I got tired of the summer reading delays and did not want a repeat of last year’s ruined Labor Day plans due to her vast amount of reading she had left, so took away all electronics and communication tools until the last book was done. It took the better part of Tuesday, and she won’t admit it, but she is enjoying being able to hang out with friends these past few days and I feel better that it is done.</p>
<p>Hello all, been long time since I posted on this thread. MY D14 has entered the new school year with a pretty good attitude. She epecially likes her english teacher which is a huge relief considering last years hell she went through. Only teacher she is concrned about is her geometry teacher. I am not too worried though, Math comes pretty easy for her. We will know more after the first test I am sure.</p>
<p>She is watching all the mayhem and associated chaos from her D12 sister’s college application experience. It is revolting to her watching D12 apply to so many schools and last night she said “I’m not doing all that.” Which I took to mean, I am applying to 2 maybe 3 school and that is it and they will probably be Akron, Ohio University and Kent state. I wish she had bigger goals but for now I am just going to focus on her getting at least a 3.5 this year instead of a 3.2.</p>
<p>My eldest just applied to Ohio State so that is 1 down and 9 to go!</p>
<p>Lots of familiar names here. Yeah!!</p>
<p>S started school on Monday. Schedule: English 10, Latin 4, Spanish 3, Physics (school does not offer APs except for math, but lots of kids self-study. Don’t know yet what S will do), BC Calculus, watercolor/photo. Plus 3 seasons of sports (2 required) and chorus/glee club/maybe a Capella group (tryouts ended last night and he will find out today).
It will be a busy year and he is feeling a little intimidated. Part of that is his schedule, part is his teachers (they are great, but very demanding), and part is the legacy from his sister’s college search last year. She wound up with some wonderful choices, and he is feeling the pressure to do as well but still hopes to get there with half the work and none of the angst. We’ll see.
And he definitely thinks there is a New Abnormal with all the attention he is getting. After 3 years (his school started in 7th grade) of having to make the train, come home by himself, etc., I am suddenly free to drive him places (his sister played a sport located in a dangerous-after-dusk area not accessible by public transportation and did not drive, whereas he has train, subway, and bus options between home and school). He is adamantly keeping to his independent ways, and is suspicious of my offers to drive him more frequently. We’ll see if that lasts when he has to start getting up in the dark!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I second that! Must be a thing about spacing kids 3 grades apart. :D</p>
<p>Our D is also now an “only child” as big brother was moved into college and launched last weekend although it seems like weeks or months ago. Although she does miss him, D is adapting well as she is very busy with school and the tennis team. In fact we are driving to Columbus tomorrow morning for her tennis match. Since S is not home, she wants to help me paint the bathroom they used to share in “her” color scheme this weekend. I am betting on lavender or pink. </p>
<p>Oh, by the way for anyone counting, only 941 days until the 2014 launch of the SS Indecision on April 1, 2014. :eek:</p>
<p>So odd to read of others kiddos who have just started or are getting ready to start school. D’14 has been in school for over 3 weeks with progress reports sent home yesterday! LOL! </p>
<p>Her schedule isn’t too bad:
1st semester is Honors English 10, Marching Band, APUSH, and Health/Drivers Ed (each is 9 weeks)
2nd semester she will have APUSH (the only year long course at the school), Wind Ensemble, Spanish II, and Algebra III w/ Stats (she decided to detour off her math track and wait until next year for Pre-calc…she hates math even though she can do it)</p>
<p>Her activity schedule has been packed! She has something every afternoon/night of the week! So far she seems to be handling it, we shall see as the symphony season starts picking up speed.</p>
<p>D’14 is definitely missing D’11. She even admitted crying a couple of nights when going to bed (they share the same bed!) and even though she acted like she wasn’t excited to go visit her last weekend (we went to take D’11 out for a birthday dinner) she was grinning the whole time :)</p>
<p>Right now D’14 is getting all the attention at home because of the activities and poor S’18 is getting dragged around or left to himself. Need to get him involved in some activity, but I don’t know how we’d manage transportation! Missing that 3rd driver!!!</p>
<p>Good luck to those who are having “adjustment” attitudes…I’m sure you’ll get them adjusted soon ;)</p>
<p>Mine shared a bed, too. Not that each didn’t have her own, even her own room, but d11 was always deathly afraid of things that go bump in the night and would almost always find her way to d14’s room. (FWIW, I was SO glad d11’s new roomie is from too far away to go home for the weekends. D11 would never sleep if she had to be alone in the room.) The other day, D14 actually said she missed waking up and finding her sister there.</p>
<p>D’11 has her own room in a suite of 4 and she trying to adjust to having a room all to herself! Even when she went to residential music camps, she had a roommate in the same room. D’14 doesn’t want to stay upstairs by herself! They shared the upstairs bonus room as a bedroom, so she is moving downstairs to one of the bedrooms…as soon as I finish installing the wood floors in there.</p>
<p>S’14 is actually pretty happy to have D’11 and her drama moved offstage for a bit. He’s found a very strong interest in game programming, which should help him with motivation to do his best academically. While it’s nice to “know things” about the college process coming up, we’re not really thinking about it any active way.</p>
<p>So why am I here? I think it has something to do with filling the void left by D’11…</p>
<p>To those with only one left at home (I have 4), AFS is looking for host families for foreign teenagers… I was an AFS exchange student and volunteered before our kids arrived so I’ve been getting emails. I still have too many at home to volunteer for another teenager but it is a good experience…</p>
<p>Afternoon everyone,</p>
<p>Just finished first full week of school, since kiddo2 went with us to the U for move in last weekend
IDK what the work load is really like since I have been very hands off of the kids work since beginning of middle school…
Do know that the first few grades have been good, which is a nice start…</p>
<p>As the New Normal…idk what that will look like here.
It is hard that kiddo1’s room isn’t being used. Older kiddo is settling into NewHaven well and kiddo2 chatted online for about 5 minutes the other evening…</p>
<p>Hoping we get a call --I think we’d all feel better if we had a mental picture of the routine/lay of the land for kiddo1…classes, how big, lab?, sport/dorm etc…</p>
<p>For kiddo2 it is a completely different journey. Different personality, etc etc.</p>
<p>Kiddo1 cast a BIG shadow and I am hoping with more sunlight that kiddo2 will really blossom this year.</p>
<p>The chattiness is refreshing–though at the dinner table each night, DH and I are done and kiddo2 has a plate full of food left.
The other night kiddo2 was discussing why the book Night was titled that (kiddo2’s interpretation) and also discussing Siddartha by Hesse and some imagery there…</p>
<p>New normal?? hmmm</p>
<p>Excited to see some many familiar faces/voice here. In a small way it makes it a bit easir a transition rom the pace of the last 18 months of college search/apps/launch to the much slower pace of a soph.</p>
<p>No school yet for S’14 – Irene dumped a lot of water in the school, so instead of starting Sept 6, it’s Sept 7 – and Kindgergarten is delayed for 2 weeks! They’ll never get into Harvard!</p>
<p>He started Fall Ball and did a double something according to H (he got one boy out, then he got another boy out – right away real fast).</p>
<p>D’11 has a very big room; S’14 has a much smaller room. Instead of relocating him (which makes sense conceptually but not practically), I decided to upgrade his dresser and bedside table. So today, while he is off at a concert with friends, I waited for the Pottery Barn people to show up. And now I want to cry – apparently, “espresso” finish means “reddish-cherry” to some people, and nothing matches. Do you think S will notice or care? Not at all. But I care. 
</p>
<p>I called to vent, and they gave me 20% off! So if this ever happens to you, PB will do what they can to soothe your pain.</p>
<p>Still, I had fun moving his t-shirts and shorts into new drawers. I’m going to tell him “it came with all these clothes in it!” and see if he grunts appreciatively.</p>
<p>The strangest things make me happy…</p>
<p>Oh C’O215! yes, PB expresso is more like a dark cherry. It’s beautiful if you weren’t expecting expresso as in brown. We have a PB Outlet nearby where I snagged several pieces in the expresso stain for my office when we built this house. I’m sorry it wasn’t what you wanted. That is really frustrating when you have something else in mind. </p>
<p>I hope your son at least grunts in appreciation. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>AAAAAAUGH! “Don’t Tell Me!” (a quote from my youngest’s 2yo days)</p>
<p>fogfog I hope you get a call soon – I would be going much more crazy without having seen DS11’s room so I can now imagine him in there.</p>
<p>My DS14 has had the start of school delayed until September 12th due to Irene! Although the town is really back to pretty good condition, the water main is still out so there is a water conservation order that would make things very difficult for the cafeteria, bathrooms, etc. and also a bridge between the school and some of the students is still out. They decided to delay until Sept 12 in one fell swoop, rather than leaving it up in the air and pushing it out a day at a time, though I think they probably would be able to open earlier than that, knowing what we know now. This has made completing the summer reading/assignments less pressing, so of course they are not done yet. “Almost,” I’m told…</p>
<p>Our HS scheduling is screwy, and for a number of reasons, which do make sense, DS14 is not able to take the usual 10th grade history class this year. Which is “ok” because he can double up next year or take one senior year (he only needs 3 to graduate, and since it’s his least favorite subject, that’s all he’d ever have planned to take), but I worry about it making scheduling an even bigger mess in future years. It just occurred to me to check whether he can fit in the usual 11th grade history class instead this year and just swap them… I’ll check that out.</p>
<p>DS14 and DS19 (!) are BORED and I’m personally looking forward to the start of school. DH and I both work from home, and it’s tough when the kids are here but we can’t entertain them, and they’re tired of entertaining themselves…</p>