End of school woes

It's SUMMER - YAY! Well, sort of I suppose. Today is my last day at home "alone". I've been "home" on "summer vacation" for the past 2 months; although of those 2 months, I think I've actually been home with nothing to do exactly two days - what am I EVER going to do when I get a full-time job?! How will I ever fit it into my busy life?! I've been on class trips, volunteering, taking my kids to see a play in Toronto, going to Wonderland, medical appointments, errands, shopping (you know, the IMPORTANT things), visiting, interviews, the list goes on and on. By 10:45 on Monday, Teen will be finished her final exam, and life as I've known it for the past 2 months will change - just meaning that I have to work their wants/needs around my coming and (mostly) going. A few days later, I'll have the other 3 all home as well. While I'm looking forward to the break from school routine and to what summer plans we have, I'm scared that my children will eat me alive and will suck the life out of me as they look for me to entertain them every single second of the next 2 months and one week - not that I'm counting or anything the in-between time is kind of sucky.

Imp completely comes unravelled doesn't deal well with change, transition or a disruption to his routine. He also DESPERATELY needs structure, and at this time of year - when report cards are already done and everyone is literally just putting in time until the last day of school, there isn't much work, routine or structure. While to most people, that seems like a 'fun' and welcome way to spend the last few school days; for a kid like Imp, it's a recipe for disaster. Yesterday we went to the Zoo on a school trip. It was a SUPER long day, and was hot as hell (in fact, I'm sure Hell isn't even that hot!!). Couple that with heavy traffic on the bus ride home, a late dinner, a later than normal bedtime, and then having to get up and go to a mostly unstructured day at school, well, you can figure out how it's going. Imp is barely coping with it. He's tired of his classmates; he's tired of his teacher; he's tired of the work; he's tired of what he percieves as inequalities (he's all about equality - if he gets in shit for something - he's fine with it, but make damn sure everyone else invovled gets punished too); and he's just tired of the school in general.

Today hasn't been a great day for Imp. This is the first time in awhile that we've heard anything from the school, so while that is great, and I'm not upset at him for getting into trouble (I know that everyone is entitled to have a bad day - particularly a young boy), the reality is, the timing of it tells me that the reasoning for it is mounting stress about the situation within the classroom and the fact that his routine is going to be dumped on it's ass next week. That makes us concerned about the handful of days he has left next week. SO . . . my other half and I are faced with a decision. Do we continue to send him to school and face the potential for disaster, or do we pull the plug NOW and let him end on a GOOD note? I hate to see him miss the excitement of the last few days, but on the other hand, I hate to see him self-destruct as well. I want school to be a 'positive' thing for him - not a mounting ball of stress.

We've had to do A LOT of damage control over school this year. For the first time in his 6 year school career (I'm counting preschool as well), he rebuked at the thought of going to school, and drove me batshit crazy with his rationale and attempts to persuade us why he shouldn't or couldn't go to school each and every day fought us over it. He developed tics that intesified on Sunday evenings, and all but disappeared on weekends and holidays. His big and bright eyes would well up with tears some mornings as he pleaded with me to allow him to stay home, and would complain that his stomach hurt. As a parent . . . that's REALLY hard to swallow, however, based on what I know about his first years of school, I'm not surprised this finally happened. Certain aspects of his education pursuit haven't been ideal or optimum, and as we've found out in recent times, certain things have NOT been dealt with in proper ways, and that he was allowed to self-destruct over and over without any attempt to find out any underlying issues or all sides of the story. However, it is what it is, and all this year we've had to do damage control to repair some of his broken trust and views of the school. We've really had to push for things to improve/change (which they have in the past few months). Thankfully we feel that we have things mostly under control (thanks to some GREAT people!), although I suspect there will be some fallout at the beginning of next year as he adjusts to being in a class with ALL of the grade 4's (there have been split classes that strategically kept the kids that clash separated for the past 3 years), and I know this will be a shit-show as some of these kids + mine = disaster!! I don't care what anyone says, some kids ARE assholes to other kids and taunt them deliberately - except they are REALLY sneaky about it and don't get caught a trying time for Imp as he finds his footing and learns to avoid those that bother him (because as long as we remain at this school, he's STUCK with the same damn kids until he graduates - so he NEEDS to learn some coping tools.

Anyway . . . through my rambling, we've got some decisions to make about next week. Sometimes I don't like being the adult. Every now and again, I long for the days where my biggest decision was whether to choose the vanilla or the chocolate cookies from the box of girl guide cookies (which indentally, the correct decision is 2 of each). And we wonder how my arse got this big . . . hmmm.