This is one of those squirrelly posts that’s kind of complicated. On one hand, I know that some folks are very interested (out of sympathy or clinical curiosity) about how things are going with Justin.

On the other, life is full of little victories and little setbacks, and sometimes the setbacks tend to outnumber the victories to the point where it doesn’t feel like I’m talking about ‘how Justin’s doing” as much as I’m talking about “how I’m ruining an otherwise innocent life with my bumbling ineptitude.”

This is one of those latter situations. Still, I soldier on in the face of inevitable ridicule and shame.

The last session of Justin’s six grade year went pretty darn well: he was getting alone with everyone (never really a problem), he was getting his assignments done on time, his Colorado Student Aptitude scores showed that he was within easy reach of finally being Well and Truly caught up with his grade level for the first time since he moved out to Colorado with us, and some of the perennial “issues” that we’ve been dealing with at home since 1999 seemed to have finally breathed their last.

Further, the summer break was a good one, by and large: one of the big… HUGE advances was when Jackie told Justin that if he wanted to see the third Harry Potter movie, he had to read the book first. For the three of you on the planet who haven’t seen that book, let me tell you that it’s a monster — Justin was, somewhat understandably, aghast — moreso when Jackie told him he had to write out a ten page paper on the story. Still, he gave it a shot.

A week later, the book was done and he’d written twenty-three pages on the story, then grabbed Book Four out from under my nose and gone right back to reading. By the end of the second week of 7th grade, he’d finished Book Five as well. That’s huge progress, and we were very pleased. He was reading for FUN, people.

So, when the year started, we’d proceeded the Grand Plan, which is to slowly allow Justin more (not “a lot”, but “more”) control and responsibility for the things that he can handle in the day to day routine, with the ultimate goal being that he’s actually able to take care of his life at about the same time that the World Says He Should Be Able to.

Well, let’s just say that we had to regress the Plan a bit. After some talks with his teachers about incomplete and missing homework and some recurrance of the Old At-Home Issues, it’s clear that he’s not ready to own some of these responsiblities. In a lot of ways, we’re in the same place we were about mid-point of last year: double-checking his Taskbook every day after school to see what his homework is and going to some of the Basic Rules of the House that we’d relaxed over the last few months.

Discouraging.

That said, there’s still a lot of good (and I’m glad I wrote this out so that I’d see that) — his reading and writing aptitude has come up dramatically in the last year (his math still kind of sucks, but we’re working on that) and he’s really starting to show his strengths — we’ve got a chance to get ahead of the curve for once, and that’s exciting. He really is a good kid. Really. Everyone mentions that.

And we really get a chance to bond with the teachers this way, right? That’s a good thing, right?

Yes. He really is a good kid, in a host of ways.

Yes. He really is a good kid, in a host of ways.

Mutter mutter mutter frelling echo mutter mutter ...

S'alright... it's something that it helps to repeat every so often.

In fact, when I am saying it, I'm usually forced to repeat it any number of times.

Sort of like counting to ten.

I've neither taken the time to look at a Harry Potter book, nor seen one of the movies, nor seen how thick they are.

But I've read the 2300 page history of German U-Boats in the Second World War by Clay Blair and his 1000 page history of the US Navy Submarines in the Second World War, so that gives me my geek points right?

Yeah, he really is a good kid. And yeah, the two of you really are doing saintly work with him. Keep soldiering on, it's all worth it.

The really ironic (and completely unsurprising) thing about this: after school, Jackie sat him down and went over everything that was going to change; double-checking his school assignments, stricter bedtimes and reinstatement of certain rules that affected said bedtimes.

He worked on his homework all night, getting almost everything caught up and missing football practice in the process, because we needed him to get the message about which was more important (natch).

But when bedtime rolled around, he was in a good mood. Almost giddy. Somewhere, not so far down in his subconcious, he wanted that structure back (or he's just relieved that he's not going to have late papers hanging over his head anymore).

Speaking as someone who has exactly the same problems himself, it was probably some of both.

And to echo the prevailing sentiment: Justin is a good kid. You guys do a job that makes me glad to know you both for yet another reason :)