Reasons 2B Cheerful - Growing Up

1
After sleeping in my bed for most of her life, DD finally slept in her own bed for two nights this week. It happened after a particularly restless night when I got very little sleep and ended up on the sofa because her bed was covered in lego. The next day I cleared up her room and put my foot down. There were some protests at first but we both got a great night's sleep. The next night there were no arguments.

I kind of missed her though so when she asked if she could sleep in my bed last night I said yes. I am probably my own worst enemy.

2
Today is the last day of school! Hooray! We have 3 weeks of summer school, till 1pm and only 5 days a week, ahead of us but at least no homework is involved. Well none that's not set by me and that I don't understand.

3
End of year report card. I won't know until DD comes home from school but I feel that we've made great strides this year. I can see the difference in self-confidence and independence from last September. For one thing, we've gone from me having to walk DD into the classroom every morning to just taking her across the road and waving her off as she joins the throng of children walking down the street to the school gates.

In the national tests in Hebrew and Maths she read the questions, answered them and finished the papers within the time. That could not have happened even back in January when I was called in to discuss how weak her language skills were (in Hebrew). The teacher told me then that DD wouldn't read one question or write one word without putting her hand up to check she was getting it right. And her maths which is good, was being dragged down by the word problems and not being able to read and understand the questions. It was heartbreaking.

However, with amazing help from the school, a "big sister" from the Big Brother/Sister programme, and some effort at home, we succeeded in breaking through the language barrier. I don't know yet if we caught up to end of 2nd Grade level as I've not seen the report card yet, but she's happy to go to school and she proudly shows me the ticks and smiley faces she gets in her notebooks. More and more she manages to finish her homework at school by working independently rather than wasting time so she can do it at home where I can help her. Night and day from where I'm standing, whatever the report says.

4
I wrote a controversial post about the EU Referendum. Huge backlash on facebook. Comments on the blog by some rather important figures in the blog world. I pulled up my big girl knickers and faced it all like a writer. Controversy is good (see, I've learned something from the Mail Online). Almost 1,000 unique views in 4 days. My Klout score went up to 51 - it's gone up by 8 points in the past 2 months. Now I'm just waiting to see if all this effort has got me back into the TOTS100 top 500. I can hardly bare the suspense.

I'm linking up with R2BC on Lakes Single Mum.