sandy's general musings

First the good news.. Jack got into tag. I am very happy about this, but still sad that Alyssa did not get in. though I sorta knew all along. Both kids did about the same in academics and creativity. Both have about the same IQ, where they did not meet the 96%tile criterion, but the difference being that Jack's is almost the same in all 4 areas and Alyssa has a 11 pt gap between her highest and lowest. The BIG thing is that Jack scored a 98/100 on motivation and Alyssa got in the 60's. This is indicative of my kids. I can always ask Jack to do a workbook or something and he will jump in and do it. Alyssa will moan and groan about it. Up until this year she never finished her work in school so she never got recommended before. TAG is a program where you do your work and then extra stuff.
Alyssas big issue about not getting in is that all her friends are in there. She wants to be with those kids. I am happy that she migrates towards the more studious kids, but she honestly doesnt belong as much as she and I both want her in TAG. I do hope before middle school she does get in though, as I heard without it our middle school sucks. Those in TAG have a much better experience. The thing about Alyssa is that she is bright and intuitive. I believe as they get older she will do much better in school work. Also, she understand the world around her.
TAG is not the right place, though advanced classes as she gets older might be.

Then we migrate to the social issues my kids have. Neither of my kids excel in socialization. Alyssa does have some friends but a lot of it is me pushing playdates all the time, etc. She has has her issues as I have discussed before. I guess I was asking too much to have social kids.
Jack , on the other hand, would just rather be by himself. He does prefer girls. He is very social with grownups and is "outgoing" with them, but not with other kids. He is a bit touchy , so he needs to learn to back off a bit. But then come recess and school he just would prefer not to play with the other kids. I REALLY need to make male playdates for him. I guess he is so easy at home, that I usually let it slide, whereas having playdates for Alyssa made my life easier. Today at the school carnival Alyssa did meet up with this one girl she has been on again , off again friends with; today they were on. Jack really just hung out with Felix or myself except when this one girl he is friends with showed up, but he barely talked to her; just hung out.

One thing that suprised me at the carnival was the one mile fun run. For jack being a total couch/computer person, who I have to push to play outside, he pretty much jogged the entire run. Alyssa, who seems like she always has ants in her pants, cannot jog and kept talking about how she "wanted to puke". I though Jack woudl give up and be the one to lag behind. Nope.
you watch him at soccer or baseball and you would never know he could do that. Now that he is riding his bike, that is even better; I almost dont mind the TV /computer time that he does.

Alyssa in her dramatics last night (must be pms'ng) also talked about how much she hates her hairy arms . Not much she can do there. Then she talked about how the girl that she hung otu with today is "perfect". So I asked that girl if she did not like anything about herself. She said her height. Now Alyssa is also smaller, but the height thing doesnt bother her as much. So I made my point that everyone has something that they dont like about themselves. Noone is "perfect".

Also I must have missed a few nits last week, as when combing Alyssa hair last night I found a few small lice, but no nits. Hopefully that is the last of them. I really hope they are the ones that hatched that I missed and we still dont have a big issue. I went over Alyssa's hair today and could not find nits. I am also beginning to think that I have them, though never finding them and maybe I am passing them to her? We dont share brushes or stuff though. I have had others look at my head, but honestly with all the dry scalp/dandruff it must be hard to find nits. Maybe I should just fully treat myself regardless. Nothing has been found, but who knows. I have checked Jack and so far he is still "safe". Felix has been as well.