Saturday, I took the girls to go visit their mother.

It was actually, a nice day. Calamity was bright, funny and as much with it as she can be now. The girls played with their baby sister, and played a couple of games, (well TRIED to play a couple of games) with their Mom.

She stayed on task most of the time, and didn't appear to be too overwhelmed. We actually had a conversation about nothing which didn't involve tension in some manner.

Only one time, she was making lunch, I was in the living room, the baby was in her high chair and Calamity was in the kitchen, the baby crawled out of her high chair (she hadn't hooked up the seat belt onto the baby), and was literally in a crawling position on the tray of the high chair !! Calamity saw her in time (fortunately), and grabbed her.

This is one of the things that I talk about. In and of itself, it seems harmless. But, Calamity is not all there anymore, and it is these little things that can happen to any mom, but usually don't happen more than once, because your brain tells you “HEY!! don't EVER do that again...”, but only in Calamity's case, it doesn't seem that her brain tells her not to do it again.

She just isn't able to stay on task anymore for more than a couple of minutes. I think that is the part that scares me the most. You cannot turn your back on a one year old baby, or a nine year old girl, for more than about 2 seconds without courting disaster.

With the three girls together in the house, she was a bit flustered. I did have to jump in numerous times to redirect the girls from activity that wasn't good, to activity that was good. That's normal for me, not normal for her. I see things that she totally misses.

She reminds me of a 1950 sitcom mother, the kind that just sort of stands there waving their arms, totally helpless in any situation? Arms flapping around, the chaos ensues around her and she just rides with it.

That is the part the counselor was talking about, how ½ Pint doesn't close emotionally from chaos. How she was in a constant state of anxiety because her mother's life involved one chaotic event after another, even small events become chaotic. And so, little ½ Pint was in a state of constant flux when she was around her mother, and so was constantly emotional.

I sort of saw it on Saturday. I had heard about it from Counselor Lady, but hadn't really been able to see it in action, so to speak.

I am reading a book Counselor Lady gave me. Toxic Parents. To try to understand more of what happened to Pint, and what to watch for in the way of 'aftershock' or long term consequences of her mother's choices/behaviors/drug usage, or even if you just want to be a better parent and not make common mistakes!!

It is a good book. I recommend it to anyone who has issues left over from childhood.

Today was okay. Pint has the OAT test today at school. She has test anxiety. It's rough. She is one of only two children in the third grade who are in the gifted program. It is also unfortunate that schools teach to the 'test', but that is the way their funding is set up. Because of the “no child left behind' policy, the schools have no choice.

For the gifted children, their Achievement Test Scores mean a whole lot more than the non gifted children's scores.

By that, I mean, that the entire school is scored on two levels. The first is the number of children who actually PASS the test. In order to score well, all of the children have to pass the test. They don't almost always achieve that, but they try.

The second part of the scoring is the curve. It's rather like a GPA. You take all the scores, and divide by the number of students. The same way you did your GPA in high school.

The thing is, if you had all C's and one B, and one D, then your GPA was only a low C. But if you changed that D to an A, and threw in one more B, then your GPA would have been a low B.

So, when the top score on the OAT is 500, and two kids score a 487 (her practice score), and the majority of the kids score a 410, and 5 kids score a 390, then your average would be 444.

If you take out the high achievers.....you get an average of 438.


You might not think that six point difference is much, but the school does. Totally does. Because it affects their state scores, and their funding. It's not quite as simplistic as I make it, but it is along those lines.

So, they actually tell the gifted kids that their score matters for their school.

I don't know if that is fair, but it is honest at the least. And, for the most part, the gifted kids don't cave under the pressure, and they learn that the actions of the few can affect the many, a good lesson in life to learn.

The achievement tests don't start till 3rd grade anyway, so this is really her first year here having that. She did have one in her old school, in 2nd grade. She placed in the 99th percentile in the United States which means that only 1% of the kids in the US scored higher than her.

And, the school knows that.

So, she was nervous about the test. Can't blame her. Can't change the facts either. I told her, just do the best you can do and leave it go.

Here's to hoping she has a good day!!