The Perpetually Dirty Bathtub, Some Background History and Changing Dynamics

Today started like any other in The Lyon's Den, alarm went off and Aaron went straight to the TV without blinking....turned on Arthur and proceeded to spend the next hour playing with Play-Doh and periodically looking at the screen or singing the theme song over and over. Most days start like this because I need to stumble into the kitchen for either tea or coffee, and get to work on the bathtub. Now, before I go too much further let me tell you that we rent a second story apartment in a building that is a little under 100 years old, the attic that runs the entire length of the house is our as well as an entry way the size of a garage and a sun room is ours too. We have large place and since we rent from a friend we have a cheap rent. He has tried his hardest to fix the bathtub so that it drains properly and there were a couple of weeks that it did, 2-3 glorious weeks I might add, but the only real way for the problem to be fixed is by pulling out all the piping and basically starting over. He is not able to afford this expense and since it is the only real issue we have we don't fight him on it. Also, a few weeks after we moved in the bathtub leaked into the downstairs neighbors so the maintenance man came over and spread this opaque goo along the sides and down the middle where there was a crack, and while it doesn't leak anymore it looks awful because it is totally a different color then the tub and it dried solid but not smooth. So what we have is a tub that doesn't drain and looks disgusting even when it does drain. Of course, we put a mat down to cover the goo mess but the draining causes real issues. Matt and I both have long hair and Aaron is able to get dirty doing nothing, so here is the dirty shower water sitting in the tub while it slowly drains, so yeah, not much of the dirt gets anywhere but along the sides of the tub, making an already disgusting tub even worse. That is why each morning I get up and clean the tub, I wipe it down and clean it to it is as clean as possible but of course after everyone has a shower the tub is back to looking disgusting, and then it starts all over again. I wipe it down in the morning now because Matt takes his shower at night usually, I know I should do it after I take my own shower but usually I am running out the door to work.

After I cleaned the tub Aaron and I made pancakes from a homemade mix that a friend gave us. It was so good and I was happy that Aaron was able to read the instructions and knew how to make it for the right amount of servings. The mix container made 2 servings but the instructions were for one serving. It is such and improvement for him to be able to figure that out himself. When we took him out of school last year he really had no logically thinking process. I think that is the best thing about having him at home being able to help him think things out in a logically way instead of him just learning a rule and sticking to it or memorizing something and repeating it. Certainly some of education is that but what he was missing was the why? I love the why? now. It shows me that he is taking an active part in his own education. He is learning to question things not just at random but thinking something through and then asking. He was not able to do that before. Actually, Aaron was being left behind at school, he had just reached the point where he no longer cared what he was doing or why he just did the least he could get away with. I don't know where that attitude came from but I know he was set up to fail with the way the classes were run. It started because he was partially deaf when he was born so he had to have speech therapy in K and 1rst grade, then he had to have speech and reading the first part of 1rst grade and the second half of 1rst grade speech,reading and math. He continued this through 2nd grade but by the end of the year his teacher said he was caught up. We had him do summer program to keep up his skills and then 3rd grade came, the first day they took him to speech and then said he was behind in all the same things. We felt a little weird about that but we didn't put up too much of a fuss figuring that we must have missed something, but in the back of our minds were wondering what. Then he got his report card and it looked fine. Then they called us in for meeting and told us that he was a great kid, how he got along great with everyone and what a good helper he was and how happy and oh btw, he might need even more special ed this year. I asked why and they said "oh in the afternoon he looks a little tired and when we ask him if he is tired and he says yes we just don't make him do anything". I think I literally dropped my jaw. I could not believe it. This was the same group who had said moment earlier that he was working too hard at school and we couldn't expect him to do anymore at home when I had asked what I could do to help with his math and reading. I didn't say much because my 20 minutes was up and I went home and started looking over Aaron's work a little closer. I noticed big C's on his papers which I assumed meant CORRECT. Upon closer examination, the problems and answer were all wrong. We called Aaron to us, and I am not proud of this moment as a parent but, we yelled basically WHAT ARE YOU THINKING??? ARGH!!!! Rant-rant-r-a-n-t, r---a---nn------t. And Aaron just looked at us and said...they said it was ok and it says correct and I am so bored. But, after we apologized for our little outburst we realized, he could have shown more initiative but what kid wouldn't want to get out of work if they could, the school made it ok.

Now, going back a little further about 2 year ago, I made a claim for homeschooling and Matt was not even close to allowing it. He was very hard to deal with about and eventually I let the subject close because it was making our relationship bad. I knew there was no way I could do it without his support. I had secretly hoped he would someday come to it on his own and the day I came home and told him about the meeting he did. On his own. He went into his room, came back out about 30 minutes later and said, lets make this his last week. We have close friends that homeschooled their kids, one right up to college, and they got us in contact with the right people to fill the paper work out. Aaron said good bye to his friends and the week of Thanksgiving was his last week. He does enough outside activities that he is in contact with his friends often which brings me to the final subject....

Changing Dynamics...over the last month or so I have noticed that Aaron, who has always been kind of a follower, has been stepping out on his own a little more. Not playing games with kids who are being mean to him or other people and just kinda doing his own thing when he felt like it. The first couple of months homeschooling he seemed a little desperate to please when he got together with kids he use to go to school with but tonight I definitely saw the difference. One boy he always tagged along with was at the pool and started to boss Aaron around and Aaron was kindly standing up to him and then the kid got out of the pool and was like.."Aaron I am a getting out!" and Aaron was like "ok, see ya later" and the kid said it like 3 times, I think expecting Aaron to follow, then the kid came back like 3-4 times to check and see if Aaron was going to follow him but, by then, Aaron had started playing with some other kids. The boy came back and started playing with Aaron again but it was a little different. He wasn't bossy or pushy with Aaron and the two of them played for about 45 minutes evenly. Aaron wasn't pushy or bossy and neither was the other kid. It was a very proud moment for me.

Now it is off to bed!

Sweet dreams out there :)

~Heather