Exam Week in In the Meadow

Kayla and Timmy are home today because this is the midterm exam week for high schools. It is the week when kids take the New York Regents exams. This week definitely makes me feel like the mom of high schoolers, since we had Regents exams when I was in high school. My grandmother took Regents exams when she was in high school in the 1930s, so they have been around for a while. The twins do not actually have any exams this week. They will take the exams for their classes in June. The January exams are mostly for students looking to graduate early. There are no exams for ninth graders. So the twins basically have a week-long vacation. I remember taking one January exam when I was in high school in twelfth grade. In senior year we had a class that only lasted for one semester.

Sixth grade is moving right along for Aaron. He is going to a classmate’s birthday party tomorrow. I can’t believe my baby boy is going to be twelve in four months. When I went to the conference with his teacher she said that he has become more talkative since the beginning of the year. He was fairly quiet at the start of the year and she has been working on getting him to be more outgoing as this will help him in middle school. Math is his favorite subject right now.

Kayla is going to be in the school musical “Oliver.” She is in the chorus. They have had about a week of rehearsals so far. Kayla has been required to go to rehearsal on two days. As it gets closer to the time of the production she will have more frequent rehearsals. Timmy is on the school hockey team. He has been on different positions but has mostly been an offensive player this year. Aaron is playing on the youth hockey team. He has practice in the evenings two or three days a week.

Otherwise everything has been fairly quiet. My brother has been visiting us for the past couple weeks. He is high-functioning autistic and attends graduate school. He is leaving in the next few days to go back to school. We have taken some trips while he is here such as going to museums and shopping.