B has been doing great! Loving life, making good grades, playing tons of video games, planning his paintball birthday party, and getting ready for summer.
But, apparently as things are coming to an end at school my guy has some catching up to do. The last few weeks he has missed a couple days, but I was under the impression he had caught up on all his work. He walked in the door yesterday (he rides the bus) and proclaimed- "I have to get to work. I have 3 projects to finish." Not cool. Once I got a little more information- it was more like he had 2 projects that he had done a little research for, but that needed to be started AND finished by tomorrow. The other just needed to be saved in a different format. One down, two to go. The next was a 4 page newsletter in Microsoft Publisher which we don't even have. He had 1 page done. It was supposed to be completed at school, but he "didn't have enough time." Since that was the same excuse about the other project (including that he had to change topics a couple times) his mother was NOT a happy camper. We sincerely discussed his need to work during class when he was given the time and to not get distracted. I assured him that the teachers don't give more work than can be done, so he must have had plenty of time- maybe he just hadn't used it wisely. He cried. Then got to work. He finished the first project while I emailed the teacher to ask what to do about the second. Even if I wanted to buy Publisher, they didn't make it for the Mac.
After dinner we decided B would write out each title/paragraph/image in a Word document so he would have all the info and then would just have to input it into Publisher at school. He was focused and determined and completed it (formatting aside) before bedtime. Job well done. He felt good about himself. I felt good.
I then checked my email again. I had a note from his teacher. She assured me not to worry about B's un-finished work. His absences when he was ill had put him behind and she would give him plenty of time to finish them and take that into account during grading. But, the main reason for this entire blog post was the last part of her email.....
"I never worry about Brendon and his work ethic. You have done a wonderful job with him. He is in my top twenty of all time faves! :) (I've taught for 23 years so that is a pretty darn good place to be!!!) He is someone I will always remember."
He makes me proud.
