School's Out For Summer!! New post

Gosh, how time flies! All three girls graduated with honors!. Pint, is now going to high school, she will start 9th grade next year at age 13 and 25 days old. She graduated 8th grade with a 3.75 GPA. She had a wonderful year, made some friends, does not have a boyfriend (and I am so totally okay with that...) and is in LOVE with one of the boys from the band 1 Direction. She is the quintessential pre-teen, her room was papered (until last week) with Justin Beiber posters, now to be replaced with 1 Direction. She is funny, quirky, can sing well, and slightly pudgy as she has entered puberty, but not quite outgrown the belly fat that goes along with puberty. she is ready to enter a vertical growth spurt and anxiously awaiting that!! As soon as she does, look out! She is built. ARRRGH.  She is a bit scared about entering high school, and our school district has several programs where you can attend college (3 blocks away) at the same time = dual credit.  I entered her into the Middle College program, and her 9th grade advisor booted her up to the secondary education program. She is to take the ACT's in September, and will begin her college education in January. Okay. I am scared too. But, it's a small satellite college, and I will be taking her there, and waiting outside the class rooms each day. she is allowed to take two college classes per semester while attending high school, and the tuition is covered by the high school. She is in chorus. She cheered in 8th grade, but did not make the 9th grade team (all the skinny girls did though :)  Pint is having a few issues revolving around Mom, but we are working through them. She was the one that was exposed to Mom and Dad more, up to age 5.

3/4 Pint, is my awesome kid. She is so much like me, and not her mom LOL. Her mom is all about dressing for success, makeup and etc. 3/4 pulls her hair into a pony tail, puts on clothes that match, or not, and goes about her business. She is a tree hugger. She is all about saving the sharks from extinction. She LOVES bugs, reptiles, amphibians and sea creatures. She wants to graduate Marine Biology and build her own sea animal rescue center, and I believe she will!!  She graduated 5th grade with straight A's all year long. She worked hard, and achieved all her goals. She joined Band and plays Clarinet, she does so well at it that the school started giving her private lessons, and tells me she plays on the level of about a 4th year student (this was her first year). She LOVES playing the Clarinet! She still lives primarily with her dad, Cop, but sleeps at our house because he has to be at work at 5:30 a.m.  She see's her mom on the weekends, most of the time. She has a sort of small window of toleration for her mother LOL. Her mom is Nursey, and she is a great person, but very superficial and somewhat narcissistic. 3/4 is not tolerant of that. She wants to be left alone to dress the way she is comfortable, dig in dirt and play with bugs. She is hilarious.  I worried about her being with 1/2 Pint because they are 2 years apart and in the same grade. I worried that she would feel inadequate and have worked hard to make sure that didn't happen. So far, so good. 3/4 is so involved in science and biology that she just doesn't worry alot about what anyone thinks, or says, or does. I am quite proud of her. She has come a long way from the little 6 year old who had a nervous breakdown when Mommy divorced and moved her to the big city! She is the coolest kid!

My little 1/2 Pint. My baby who I have had since she was 3 days old. She is so very....incredible. She graduated 5th grade with all A's all year long except for one B. I told her "hey, ONE B?  really, and you are upset about that????  You are fantastic!!  Listen, you are going to school with kids 2 years older than you who are failing and you are mad cause you got ONE B? C'mon!!  LOL. She is sensitive, funny, dances, sings, plays flute in the band. She is better at Math than any other subject and just won a tournament on the last day of school for math. 1/2 doesn't go visit her mom very much, she usually has other plans. I leave it up to the girls as to whether or not they go, it's THEIR call, not mine, not their mom's.  1/2 is sort of ambivalent about the whole Mom thingy. I'm good with it either way. She will start 6th grade as a 10 year and 5 day old student. Wow is all I can say. She has decided (and for the record, I am not exactly for this) that she too will begin college courses in 9th grade, but SHE intends to graduate H.S and College at the same time with a BACHELORS degree in Psychology, at age 16, and then enter Med School. She has it all figured out. And, she will do it too. She is that motivated and disciplined. Her goal at the beginning of the school year was to get the highest score on the Ohio Achievement Test for fifth grade in her school, and to be in the Top Ten for the entire State of Ohio. Guess what? She did. At age 9. Fifth grade. It boggles my mind. Totally. I so do not push these girls. I just want happiness, wholeness and no drugs. But, this one? She pushes herself. I have had her working all year long with a psychologist to slow her down a bit, let her be a 'kid' and not just let her push herself. So, she integrated being a kid into her routine, and STILL managed to achieve all her goals. Yeah, that is really scarey!

I love my grandgirls. I am so proud of all they have accomplished. We live a normal life now, or whatever is close to that.  They don't even see a counselor regularly, they tell me when they need an appointment to talk to their therapist, and it is like, 4 times a year.

We are soon to have a new addition to our family. Baby, ...... is preggers. she is due in January, a New Year's Baby.  She is going to a clinic where they work with psychotic pregnant women. It's a great place, and yes, everyone, I am scared shitless. Baby is 23 years old, with Traumatic Brain Injury, no short term memory, permanent brain damage, a processing I.Q. of 70, a main I.Q. of 100, and having a baby in 6 1/2 months.  She is living with us, and has agreed to live her until the baby is at least a year old.

I have to teach her to do lots of things. It....sort of goes well, and then does not go well. If she is NOT on medication there is a 100% chance of a psychotic episode. If she IS on medication, there is a 50% chance of a repeat psychotic episode. She is on medication, but yeah. I told her, Sweetie, Daddy and I are NOT immortal, and we can't raise babies forever!!

But, as always, we will do what we must.

Life...it's NOT like the brochure. And, I wouldn't have it any other way!! <3