Author Archives: Brainhugger
2E Tears
What’s that I hear? Is that the sound of little girls crying? Why yes!
It must have been the first day of school in the Brainhugger household.
Why, do you ask, would two girls, grades 4 & 7, both gifted, come home from school and cry?
Perhaps because they are Twice Exceptional students and have learning differences that make them anxious and scared to go to school and wary of the classroom, where they’re afraid their deficits will be revealed.
Yes, that must be it… 2E– the reason for the crying that gives me a knot in my stomach and the reason that the next 9 months of the school year will be fraught with ickiness at our house.
Organizing a 2E Student-The Gates of Hell?
End of summer is approaching. Dread. The hummingbirds will leave and the school buses will arrive, and this year we have to pay for them… 100 bucks per student to ride the bus.
The sight of school supplies piling up in the stores makes my tummy feel yucky. We have exactly 3 weeks.
Can you say, umm… The Gates of Hell?
(How handy that WT took 4000 pictures of this sculpture, before I beat him to death with a baguette.)
Guess what? Funny thing… Rodin wasn’t exactly big on school himself and not everyone ‘got’ him. Some of his most famous work was criticized and rejected because Rodin’s style and themes weren’t traditional. Sound familiar?
Anyway, soon we’ll be meeting with Lily’s team at school to talk about our plan to support her executive function deficits and teach Lily more organizational skills.
I feel like I’m cramming for an exam. I read for pleasure on the plane to Paris. I just couldn’t bring myself to think about the start of school yet. But now, I need to get down to some serious research.
I have a few books about organization I’ve started reading in preparation. I’m looking for some really practical, concrete suggestions & tips that will get us from home to school and back every day.
I’m not sure I can make it through another school year like last year. But I feel that, because of our mediation with the school district at the end of last year, we’re finally going to have some specific supports in place to make 7th grade easier on all of us.
Organizing from the Inside Out
Organizing from the Inside Out for Teens
Organizing Solutions for People with ADD
The Voice of Reason?
It’s been a while since I posted. I was vacationing in Paris, after all.
(And why no Wifi, Frenchies? It was nearly impossible to find Wifi there, or at least Wifi that didn’t cost a zillion dollars per second.)
I mean, of course, it wasn’t all Paris, Paris, Paris since my last post. There was a work trip to Hoboken for me, and for the girls… two ear infections, a bladder infection and don’t forget the fevers, coughing and vomiting.
Anyway, yes… I was in Paris! Met WT (World Traveler) there, while the girls enjoyed Iowa at Grandma & Grandpa’s house. They are still enjoying it and I’m missing them so much, I’m having dreams about them.
I don’t think the feeling is mutual because they’re too busy sewing, gardening, catching fireflies, eating corn, doing 360’s in the go-cart, playing dress-up and attending Grandpa’s Gun Safety & Target Practice Workshop.
It seems so long ago that I picked them up from camp. They had a great time and Lily, especially, came home beaming. When Lily’s counselor walked me to their cabin she said, “Oh no, you’re here to pick up our ‘voice of reason’. What will we do without her?”
Uh, whaaaat?!
Yes, she told me that Lily had come to be known as the voice of reason because of her calm demeanor and sage advice in times of tween drama. The example Lily gave me was when the girls were all freaking out and screaming because they thought they saw a skunk. Lily calmly pointed out that this furry animal didn’t appear to be a skunk since it was not black and white and instead was brown and looked like a raccoon.
Her counselor told me that it had taken a little while for Lily to warm up and get comfortable with the other girls, like a whole week. But her 2nd week was great.
As we walked out, I watched the other girls carefully for their interactions with Lily. They all hugged her and she seemed to be just fine socially. As we walked through camp, other girls and their counselors would pop their heads out and tell Lily good-bye. I was impressed with all the friends she had made. So, camp had a bit of a rough start, but a happy ending.
P.S. Lily did complain to me that the other girls in the cabin wore different clothes than she wears and knew songs that she didn’t know. Yep, that’s my plan. Keep the pop culture away for as long as I can.
Brainhugger 