Today, of course, a Monday, is an
absolutely beautiful day. I want to play
hooky from work. I want to start
planting the flowers JoAnna and I let sit on the picnic table in the back yard
all weekend.
It rained much of Saturday. Andy 10:30 soccer game was cancelled, even though
the rain had let up by then.
Surprisingly, Eddie’s first baseball practice of the season went on as
scheduled. During the middle of the
afternoon, JoAnna, Eddie, and I walked our bikes the few blocks to Middleton
Cycle and Fitness just as a light rain started to fall. After letting our bikes hang on hooks in the
garage for five or six years, JoAnna and I decided to bring them back from the
dead and get them tuned up. Eddie’s
bike, a hand-me-down from his brother, will also get tune dup. Then he can learn how to ride it. Eddie still hasn’t mastered a two-wheeler.
Sunday started out as drearily as
Saturday, but the rain in the forecast never happened. By late morning, JoAnna and I were outside
tackling a variety of chores. JoAnna
edged the lawn along the sidewalk and cut down one of the cedars along the
driveway. We plan to put a trellis in
its place, accenting the entrance to our side yard. I plucked weeds out of the
lawn in the back yard and transplanted some ferns and other perennials to think
out certain garden areas and fill out others.
I mulched the area of perennial by the patio.
The new grass I seeded in the back
yard has really taken hold. The large
bare patch is just a bad memory now.
Based on the success of this project, it looks as though I’ll be doing a
lot of lawn doctoring this summer.
By late afternoon, the sun was
shining. After driving Eddie to his
soccer practice, I moved the back yard, except for the new area. Only the second time I’ve used the lawnmower
this year, the first time in the back yard.
With all the rain we’ve had lately, part o the lawn was starting to
resemble a hayfield.
After consulting with our
pediatrician, JoAnna and I decided to have Eddie participate in a Ritalin blind
test. Ritalin is a prescription drug
that is used to treat attention deficit disorders. Dr. Koslov described it to Eddie as “glasses
for the brain, something that will help you concentrate better in school.”
The test will last for four
weeks. One week he takes two doses of
the drug, mone at breakfast and another at lunch. Another week he takes a placebo. Only our pediatrician and the pharmacist
knows when each type of pill is administered.
Eddie’s teachers will note his behavior at specific intervals during the
day.
Even though he has already shown
great improvement since starting his special reading classes, JoAnna and I want
to determine if Eddie does have attention deficit disorder, and this test is
one way to do that.
A
Tuesday postscript
Yesterday evening I was able to do some
planting, a combination of coleus and pansies next to the patio, but only had
time to fill in about one-third of the bed.
JoAnna worked on rearranging the patio blocks that form a pathway along
the south side of the house. It’s hard to get much done on a weekday
evening. We don’t get home until nearly
6:00. We need to eat,. The boys have homework to do. Eddie’s is interactive, i.e., we work with
him as he identifies a list of words or reads a series of short sentences. I always have to take a few minutes to
decipher the hieroglyphs in Andy’s assignment notebook. His handwriting is so sloppy. He brought his mid-quarter grades home
yesterday, and they were worse than I expected, and I had lowered my
expectations significantly. D- in
Language. C in Math. In both cases, the low grades are the result
of late assignments that have yet to be turned in. JoAnna and I just don’t understand what
happened to his attitude about school during the past couple months. I tried to talk with him about it at bedtime
last night but he offered no enlightening answers, only a mumbled, “I don’t
know” every now and then. I think he
just never connected with his teacher this year. One of her children has been quite sick and
maybe that family concern has left her preoccupied in the classroom. Andy just doesn’t seem to care anymore, and
threats aren’t making much of a difference.
Part of me says, “OK, relax, it’s only 4th grade. He’s got plenty of time to recover. Look how you goofed off academically in 8th
and 9th grade to no severe effect.”
But then we don’t want Andy to develop bad (or nonexistent) study habits
that he can’t break. If I don’t go
completely gray or bald within the next 8 years, I’ll consider it a miracle.
JoAnna worked with Eddie last night,
helping him as he tried to take that first ride on his bicycle. An event yet to happen. The level of frustration he reached precluded
any successful outcome. Being the
perfectionist that he is, Eddie did not take his tumbles with a pleasant
composure. A piercing wail of defeat
carried over the roof of the house and settled over the back yard, where I was
planting flowers. I got up from my
crouch to investigate. Walking along the
side of the house, I saw Eddie, fresh from another tumble, at first wrestling
with his bicycle, then becoming stubbornly immobile, as if suddenly overwhelmed
by the experience. One of these days,
he’ll feel the exhilaration of zipping along on his own.
Happy Mother’s Day to you, Mom, from
all of us here. We don’t have any special plans at this time. Just the usual house & yard activities at
this time of year. More flowers to
plant. Mulch to spread. We’ll be going to Two Rivers for the Memorial
Day weekend, which will coincide with our anniversary celebration.
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