i fear the state may be underwhelmed by my parenting skills

Howdy, blogworld! I wanted to give you an extra day to let it sink in that I have possibly starved to death several hamsters and a school of fish, and I have a child with Failure to Thrive, and another child who is so severely malnourished that she is experiencing neurological symptoms along with stunted growth. HOLY CRAP! I seriously thought I was reasonably good at the very basics of parenting, like feeding and bathing and clothing and  whatnot. Apparently that was a delusion (vitamin B12 deficiency?) and I super-suck at all of this! And while the boys are reasonably good-sized, they probably have some food allergy that causes the dark circles under their eyes. And P has the most godawful gas if he has regular dairy products, so I buy him lactose-free milk but all our other dairy stuff is just regular.

Sigh.

So anyway, I withdrew Miss A from her regular school today. I wanted to write to you about my impressions of the charter school when I enrolled her there last week.

The school is in an old building. The kind of building I went to high school in before a school split and new building my senior year. It was built in the late 1940s, and has lots of cinder block. It feels homey and, to me, like a school ought to feel.

When they buzzed me in, a swarm of kids about Miss A's age were running down the stairs, arguing about something that had happened in gym class. There weren't any teachers. If you have spent much time in an elementary school lately you'll get how weird those two sentences are.

At our local elementary school, classes are escorted by a teacher at all times. There are multiple pep talks before, during, and after any trip through the halls, about being quiet and holding a bubble in one's mouth. As a person with a very small pack of kids, I really get why it has to be this way. But I liked that the charter school kids were trusted to move through the building without an escort, and I liked that they didn't have to be quiet.

Kids were in and out of their classrooms, too. As the admissions coordinator gave me a tour, kids would yell, "Hi Mrs. C!" and come out of their classes to hug her. No one yelled for them to come back, and all of them seemed to go right back. That was also a big difference from our local school.

I got to see the art room, which was being used for a violin lesson at the time. Four kids of different ages played a simple piece on the violin, very badly. I was relieved to see that Miss A will still be allowed to suck at things she's only beginning to learn. I guess I had a small worry these would all be super-geniuses who've been playing concert violin since age 2. I want her to be challenged, I guess, but I don't want her to be intimidated. Actually, I don't even care about her being challenged. I want her to be happy. If challenging work accomplishes that, fantastic. If sucking at the violin does that, super. If homeschooling does it, that's great. If being tranquilized so she can receive B12 injections does it, that's acceptable too. I worry that we're getting to a point where she needs to pull out of this, or it will become who she is.

I know none of us is locked into being a certain way, but I'd love to see her functional sooner rather than later.

In other news, Miss A auditioned for another musical and got a part -- a bit bigger than the role she got last time. Last time was good for her -- I forget if I ever managed to write about it but I could see her expand over the three months of practices. It was interesting to watch.

She was home sick today -- legitimately sick, with a high fever -- on her last day of classes at the local school. She wasn't bothered by having to miss her last day. She's, unfortunately, missing her transition day at the charter school tomorrow, but they said I can stay with her the first hour or so on Monday to ease her in. I'm excited to see where this and some B12 shots take us.