A big weekend

DD turned 13 on Friday.
Yesterday, she "became a woman."
I'm all verklempt. *sniffle*

But boy is she gonna be peeved when she finds out she can't go to the pool this week!

That's all right. Today, we start the library summer reading program and our summer school work. Yes, I'm a mean mom who makes my kids do a whole 10-15 minutes of school work/day during the summer. DD especially needs to learn Spanish because she goofed off so much during the school year that it was a total waste.

The rest of it, though -- math and writing -- is just to make sure that they don't totally lose what they've learned. And DD needs to learn how to outline and structure an essay because, I swear, the school REFUSES to teach these kids how to write!

DD finally had to write a 3 paragraph essay about something, did a terrible job, and still made a B! I'm peeved, to say the least. This was the Challenge Language Arts class and their standards are impossibly low. Well, my kid is going to learn how to write well if it kills us both!

And honestly, she's a good writer. It's just that no one has ever taught her how to structure and plan out her writing. It's frustrating.

But for now, I'm off to work out!