Monday Notes

It’s Monday AGAIN.... we keep doing it the same each week.

TAKS
This is TAKS week here in Texas. All the kids have lots of testing this week going on this week. The schools are serious about this stuff and the kids sometimes get stressed out about it. As do the teachers! The results are basically the teacher’s grade on their performance. For some reason, our state believes they can grade the teacher’s abilities to teach children solely based on the outcome of these tests. No consideration (or very little) is given to parental involvement, children’s willingness and motivation to learn, and children’s test taking skills and environment. All of these things drive children’s academic results, not simply the teacher’s abilities to teach. Important yes.. no doubt. But without parent’s motivating their children, holding them accountable, and encouraging them to succeed, you are quite likely to have children who are unmotivated and therefore, don’t see a reason to learn. Makes teaching them difficult at times. Can you tell I’m married to a teacher!!

Rachel and Stephen usually do just fine on these tests and other than making sure they get a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast in the morning, they don’t stress too much about it.

Baseball Update
Saturday’s game that was cancelled due to the abundance of rain we received on Friday night was rescheduled and played yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, the Knight’s lost this really hard fought game to the Scrappers 7 - 3. It was a lot closer for most of the game at 4 - 3, but in the last inning, the Scrappers extended their lead by 3 more. Stephen had several balls come his way out in the field to which he fielded well and got back infield. Scrappers had some big bats going on with some big kids. The Knights were hitting but luck was not on their side as the Scrappers fielded them very well. Next game on Friday.

Rachel’s Surgery
Today was the Pre-Op Doctor’s appointment in preparation for Surgery Day which is Friday, May 1. The doctor told us the risks and of course, I had to sign that I understand them risks. What are they, you may ask? Two that he told me - First - risk of infection, etc. as with any surgery and Second - she will have to keep her left hand pretty much resting on her checks for 4 weeks. If she moves it away from the body straight out, the shoulder could end up just like it is again. She can lift hand/elbow up slightly to allow for bathing, etc. but not outward/away from the body. This should be interesting. We’re told the whole process should be about 4 - 5 hours on Friday. We will get a call from the hospital telling us what time to be there Friday morning, but likely to be about 6 or 7 am for all the pre-surgical stuff. The surgery itself should be about 1 hour long and then recovery time before going home in the afternoon. I’ll probably send things to the blog or twitter on Friday.

Rain, Rain - Again....
Here we go again with rain tonight. Maybe I need to start building that ark now. We’re about to get whacked with another strong storm coming through and lots of rain again - we just love April/May in Houston. Lots or rain.

Later!

MA