Category: Max

The bad news: Shawn and Gus didn’t show up. The good news: no one died.\
Max won his class spelling bee, so he got to participate in the school bee. The winner will be sent to the regional bee to compete in the 4th-8th grade group. I went to the school bee today and cheered Max on. It lasted an hour. The coordinator said this was one of the longest bee’s they’ve had. Kids kept getting the answers right! The bee started out with 14 students. Half of the kids were eliminated in the second and third rounds. Max, and everyone else except the winner and the alternate, were eliminated in the 5th round. He misspelled “enormous.” He told me he was glad he didn’t win. The PTA provided donuts for afterward, so at least the kids got to sugar-up for their effort.

The Coriolis Effect from Kevin Lawver on Vimeo.

Max and I made this little movie yesterday as his visual aid for his report on the Coriolis Effect. I figured out that it took us about an hour of work for every ten seconds of end product. I hope the boy gets an A.

It’s a big weekend for Max. He got his yellow belt last night, and it’s his 10th birthday on Sunday! Check out all the pics in the set on Flickr\
Also, my first blog post for The South is up! They asked real nice, and I’ll be posting geeky bits there every couple of weeks.

I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks and haven’t done anything other than the bare minimum to keep the household functioning. Sadly, blogging does not fall into the priority chores list. I did have to pop in to say, “Max made yellow belt in karate!” YAY for him. Hopefully Kevin will post pics soon from the graduation. Also, Max received all A’s on his first report card. Double YAY!\
Max’s 10th birthday is tomorrow, and hopefully Kevin or I will post about how awesome Max continues to be. Until then, just take my word for it.\
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Christmas in Mississippi 2006\
I want to complain some more about Max’s school. All of my complaints are sort of minor, but things I find annoying.\
I’ll just refer you to the post below to see my traffic-jam rant.\
The clubs have switched times from after school to the last 45 minutes of school. This happens to overlap with Max’s Gifted class. BOOOOOOOOOO. I really appreciate what Max learns in Gifted, but is that more important than what he could learn in The Philosophy and Art Club? The Robotics Club? Or the fun, friends, and self-esteem he could gain in Chorus?\
The parking lot is set up so that you have to walk a couple of hundred feet to get into the school, even though you can park a mere 10 feet from the building. It’s just a badly thought out design. One time when I needed to pick up Max from school because he was sick, he was too weak to make it to the car. 🙁 I left him at the curb and brought the car to him. Poor guy. That made me grumble for awhile. Actually, I grumble every time I have to go to the school when I see how badly it’s designed.\
Max has Gifted five days a week, where he is pulled from his regular classroom. The regular class is, of course, continuing their lessons. Last year Max missed Math. Everyday. No wonder he got his lowest grade in Math, claims it’s hard and is his least favorite subject. Ugh. This is the same problem that kids in ESL and other pull-out programs face. I think I need to talk with someone at the school about this.\
There is a club that is only open to girls- WTH? Discrimination! Discrimination! It’s a robotics club. I guess girls are still considered “behind” when it comes to this sort of thing.\
ETA- The Gifted teacher is canceling Gifted classes on Mondays and Fridays to accommodate kids joining clubs. Yea, that’s the solution. Oy.

• Max has started reading this blog (hi, Max!) so I need to stop with the adult or subversive posts. I’m not sure what else there is to write, ha. I haven’t been feeling ranty lately which is a good thing given my new posting restrictions. The Hofstra case really has me irked though.
• Max has been settling well in the 4th grade. He is still in the Art and Philosophy Club and is trying out for chorus. (What normal elementary school requires tryouts?) We also try to make time for karate twice a week. Later in the year, he will add Robotics Club. So many cool new opportunities! We decided to skip soccer at the Y, heh.
• I still spend 30-45 minutes each day getting my kids to and from school, most of which is spent in the parent-created traffic jam. The system is ridiculous. I freely admit to adding to the problem. I don’t want to have my kids ride the bus in the morning because pick up time is 55 minutes before school starts. Considering how late school gets out and how busy Max is afterward, he could definitely use that time more advantageously at home (usually sleeping).

Max started karate last week. I had intended it to be something he could do once a week, so that I wouldn’t be an “over-scheduling parent” but the instructor talked me into having Max come twice a week. Turns out, Max has been going everyday because he loves it so. So much for my intentions. We have to be extra time aware though because Max goes from Philosophy and Art Club to karate with less than an hour break on Mondays and then Brian’s soccer games to karate with no break on Tuesdays. The instructor said Max has really good focus. He knows a few of the kids from his school, which gives me warm fuzzies. It’s been neat to see him improve his various moves. We come home from class and show off the moves to Kevin. Even Brian has been getting into it, though he isn’t in the class. Brian can really key-op (the yelling that is done with each move) with the best of them.

I shall not question him anymore. Except sometimes.\
Two hours at the doctor’s office, hundreds of dollars, six medicines… Max has asthma, an ear infection, allergies.\
All three of my boys have asthma now. Woe.