A Productive Day

So John was up early this morning. So was Will. Even the hot water heater cooperated, so we made the bus. Ran 4.2 miles, went to the gym.

You know the drill: Biked 13.2 miles and swam a half mile. Had a banana and yogurt for breakfast, chased with a handful of peanuts.

Our local mountain has closed, so the gym is pretty empty for now. That's the good news. Bad news is, the gym is going to be closed from April 22 to May 6 for some renovations. Piling on, the internet cafe in our town now has cut back on its hours for spring and is likely to close for good in late April when Celeste, the owner, joins her boyfriend in Vail. Sigh.

Got in the car and headed across the state border to the nearest Starbucks/Panera complex for the free wifi, since I had some heavy-duty downloading to do and didn't want to get another nasty fair-access violation notice from the ISP. Ran around doing some errands first -- a book on biking state back roads from Border's (my bad -- I should hate them more and shop at an independent), a bike lock and swimsuit (the old swimsuit is tarting to chafe), and a cheap-o Timex at Target (on sale for $13, probably because the temperature sensor would rather read partial body temp than the air temp).

Can I rationalize, or what?

Anyway, worked in The Big City in The Other State most of the afternoon. Had a salmon salad and apple at the Panera. I'm hardly ever this good (less than 400 calories!) when I eat out. Headed back around 5p. Made twice-baked stuffed salmon potatoes for dinner and made myself crazier than usual with attempted hard drive repair.

Saw a couple of deer on the way home. They're getting bold; they know it should be time for gardens to start. It'll have to wait another few weeks, though. Big snow reputedly coming in Thursday night.

Here's Trudeau humor for the day:

On a less trivial note.

I'm having one hell of a dilemma here. My oldest son just isn't doing well in school. He qualifies for a little extra help, but he's such an organizational mess that there's only so much to be done.

Without going into details, this is not his fault. He was born like this, and there's not much changing him. We've tried a one-on-one aide, we've tried resource room, we've tried withholding privileges, threatening to withhold privileges, bribery, etc.

He's very candid about his shortcomings. Once upon a time, he told me that sometimes his brain wanders off and he forgets where he put it. Earlier this week, he asked me if there was a cure for stuttering. I told him I thought it could be managed, and he wanted to know more about it, because his brain sometimes stutters.

Anyway, I'm thinking about modified home school, where he can take the classes that give him the most trouble -- algebra and science -- at home via correspondence course, and take his fun stuff (and still get to socialize) at school.

He loves learning. He gave me chapter and verse on different ways to abuse drugs last night. But he's failing health, because he either can't concentrate and/or can't find his homework and/or just forgets to turn it in.

No, thank you, drugs will not help.

Anyway, I'm going to have to spend a few days on this one. It's a big commitment if I do it, but I think it's worth trying. And I get the sense he might actually enjoy it. I just worry I might not be up to the job of educating him properly.