Knee Surgery

Just avoid it. Knee surgery is evil - a necessary evil in some cases - but evil none the less. I had surgery on my left knee last Friday. Today the thing is still swollen and looks like someone took a bat to it.

And this it looking *better*.  And yes, it DOES look like it has chicken pox. Those are hives. I have hives all over the front and back of that leg. Just THAT leg. The kids have been remarkably good about letting me rest it. They've stayed on task, for the most part, with school. They've not watched excessive amounts of T.V.  They've helped out a ton with puppies by letting them outside and feeding them and the kittens. They can get their own smaller snacks and drinks with only minor spillage which they attempted to clean up by themselves.

So for the most part the kids are doing fantastic with it. *I* am exhausted from it hurting constantly. And I admit I've been impatient and probably doing more than I should with the darn thing since it still won't bend well because of swelling. Buuuuuut you know there are certain things around the house that won't do themselves and after a week I get a little antsy. I have read 6 books. Seriously. 6. I stole C's nook that I got him for Christmas because I kept running out of library books and started downloading free ones. Today, I borrowed some from my friend N because she had the last book in a serious I've been reading and well.. I wanted it like Gollum wants that darned ring. So I sit with some Lipton Diet Iced Green Tea and some Caramel Rice Cakes and a giant ice pack on my knee and some painkillers and read. I've done this for 7 days straight now.

The one positive thing from this is both kids curl up near me (although they do have a healthy respect for *away from the leg*) and read chapter books too. T1 has gone through 2 Babysitters Club books and T2 has gone through almost every single boy book we have in the house. We need to get him some harder Boy books. I just didn't expect my 5 year old to be on a 2-3rd grade reading level so I figured we'd have more time. Guess I was wrong. Although of all the horrible, tragic things to be wrong about, I'll take it.

Reading

So I did reading level tests with 1 & 2 this morning. T1 is showing that she is proficient at a beginning 5th grade level. T2 is showing he is proficient at a 1.4th grade level. Must say I'm proud of both of the little monkeys. T1 never has had trouble learning to read. She's never struggled at all. T2 has. He and I battle with it almost daily, but he's clearly learning how to read. Though he would have been starting kindergarten this year at public school, he's clearly RIGHT where he should be.  It makes me happy that we've made the right decision for him. I think everyone who homeschools worries about that at some point. Is their child learning? Are they better off at home than at school? I like to occasionally do things like reading assessment tests (even though we don't do TEST tests) to make sure they ARE at a minimum level of where I put our goals - which I hope are more lofty that TPS's.