Waiting

Well, yes, waiting for June 12th arrive, obviously, the day we fly outta here. But also waiting for Cierra to write her next blog. She started it, but she is really incredibly busy, and has had no time. I actually am quite pissed off, as is she, at her English teacher!

I have nothing against English teachers, mind you, (although recently an English teacher at the high school where I work stormed into my office and yelled at me, but that's another story...), so Cierra's English teacher is a recent sub placed in her school about a month ago when her regular English teacher had to leave for health reasons. This new lady, if you can call her a "lady", seems to think it is her responsibility to cram as much reading and homework into the last month of school as she possibly can, and has no sense of how her class is not the only class the kids do homework for. Cierra has had an average of 1 hour of homework a night this year. This is so much better than it used to be, when she started middle school and was doing at least 3 hours a night! So I've been relieved that this year she has had a lighter load. But suddenly she is back to 3-4 hours of homework a night! And to add that to her very busy life has not been easy. This teacher needs to get a clue. I'd make a big stink and complain about it, but really there is only one more week, and then it's all over, Arrivederci!!

Cierra may not have mentioned to you that she does A LOT of extra-curricular activities. (By the way, why is it that kids are supposed to make school their priority and have everything else be "extra"?? I certainly don't like making work my main focus in life, so why should we expect kids to do that about school?). I don't ever force Cierra to add activities into her life, and have often had to remind her that she needs time to rest and do nothing, but she is so in love with everything she does, that she can't seem to let anything go. The following are her "extra" activities, which are really her passions:

Irish dance, tap and jazz, voice lessons, choir, singing with our band (The Sugar Shakers), musical theater productions, indoor soccer, writing songs, writing her blog :-D, being with her MANY friends, shopping, fashion, make-up, and babysitting. PHEW!! And guess who drives her everywhere? Here is Cierra in a rare moment of rest:



Cierra mentioned that she has diagnosed herself as having OCD. Being a therapist, I can't actually say she has all the necessary characteristics of someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but she definitely has some "features". For example, she mentioned that when she was two-years-old she organized all our shoes in the closet. This is not an exaggeration. I was in the kitchen and went looking for her one afternoon only to find her sitting in the closet having matched up every pair of her dad's and my shoes, VERY neatly and in perfectly straight lines. When we would go to the vet when she was a baby, she could barely walk but would re-organize bottles and boxes on the bottom shelves in the exam room. She used to do this with her crayons and markers too, organizing them by color and ranges from red through indigo, and then into the blacks, grays, and browns. Even when drawing she would make sure to place them back in the exact order in the box, and would get very upset if I didn't put them back exactly as she had organized them. With her clothes and shoes, she has also been pretty orderly, wanting things in the drawer in just the right places, and folding her underwear. (I'm pretty much the opposite. I'm lucky if I get to folding my clothes at all!).

Another thing about Cierra is that she never loses things. You know all those mom's who are constantly having to buy new jackets for their kids because they never remember to bring them home? Cierra has lost a total of ONE article of clothing in her entire fourteen years of life, ONE! This is even with having to go back and forth from her dad's house to my house since the age of four. I have many more examples, but I think you get the idea.

The one area where she has lightened up is her room, which is now pretty much always messy. But I really can't complain. I actually think it's GOOD for her to let her room be messy! (Sorry Cierra, but here it is):

So when Cierra gets homework assigned, you can imagine what happens right? She has to do it all, and she has to do it perfectly, and she would rather go to the dentist than turn in an assignment late. Needless to say, this is all an explanation for why she has not had time to blog, and told me today that she plans to do lot's of writing on the plane, if not before :-)

So be patient, as I am trying to be. June 12th is coming up fast! OMG!!! You should see my to-do list!!

Ciao for now,
-Jessie