Ahhhhh....sometimes I wish for the good old days where my only concern was keeping Jamie alive.    When he popped into this world unexpectedly, I got an unexpected dose of reality:  Keeping him as a living and breathing homosapien on this planet is hard work. 

Nothing's really changed on that front except now instead of I.V's and blood transfusions, it's paragliding with a paper bag off a cliff and trying to cut up lemons with forbidden kitchen knives (attempt number two today at homemade lemonade).

But....

On top of all of that, (which I still maintain is a full time job) he now has to do things like read and write, start math, and go to school.  Suddenly zero to five years old seems like it was so easy.   I spent thirty minutes yesterday trying to stay calm, practicing my breathing like I was in a LaMaze class, while Jamie struggled to read things that were easy for him to read at the end of last year.   The letter U is apparently incomprehensible to him, but he can talk about epithelial tissue all day.    He can barely write his name (a prewriting worksheet is a rare form of torture unless it's disguised as a maze), but he can draw you a disgustingly detailed picture of the e.coli bacterium ("google images+germs" is his friend).

There are so many things about him that I don't understand.  To quote an Anne book, he's nothing like my personality, and I have at least a dozen of them.   When I was a kid, I had to prop my sleepy eyeballs up with spoons in the morning, while I surreptitiously shoveled my oatmeal down the garbage disposal.  I could barely remember my own name before 10am.  Jamie this morning made his own breakfast and had three lessons of math done, while I was still attempting to wake up.   Since it was before 10am, I couldn't figure out how he successfully completed math lessons he had no instructions for, until he proudly showed me the teacher's manual he'd gotten out of the bookshelf and meticulously copied all the correct answers from.    I was surely not prepared to give the "cheating talk" this morning, and like Amelia Bedelia, I don't think he really got it either.  He was rather proud of himself. 

Yesterday I was so depressed by his abysmal reading and writing capability, Jamie climbed into my lap and asked me what was wrong.   Since my Ohio trip to Nona's funeral, I've turned over a new leaf and am trying to be uber encouraging like she was.  I told Jamie that unless he stopped jabbering about connective tissue, and improved his handwriting, he was going to end up a doctor.  He must have taken it to heart, because at the moment, he's got magazines tied up all over Charlie as splints for all of Charlie's broken bones.    Charlie is wailing that he doesn't have any broken bones, but Jamie's not listening.  He tried to doctor the dog, but Barnabas is smarter (and runs faster than Charlie).   We all think Jamie's bedside manner could maybe improve, he's a little too gleeful.   
Maybe more writing worksheets will help.