This time of year

Dear all of us,
If you have school aged children then you know first hand how much this time of year stinks. Stinks? It sucks. There is an end of year party for every activity that your child/children are in. There are teacher gifts to buy(G_d bless those teachers), there are recitals, performances, graduations and so on.  In between all of the crazy, the kids still have homework and depending where you live there are the dreaded end of year tests.
I have been dealing with the dreaded end of year standardized tests for 5 years now and I have 4 more years to go.
They might be the death of me.
Seriously, the death of me.
Starting in 3rd grade(where I live) children are expected to take a standardized test. Most of the kids are told that if they don't do well that they will be held back.
Awesome motivator isn't it????
No! It's not!
We have no opt out option here although I'm sure there will be one as soon as my kids are done with the tests.
So, how do I explain these tests to my kids? I tell them that I expect them to do their best no matter what that is. I know, and I hope that they know that one test does not tell us anything about them. One test does not tell me about their academic successes or struggles. One test does not tell me if they are a good friend, person, daughter and so on. One test does not tell me what they will be successful at once they finish college.
I want my kids to do THEIR best. I want them to follow THEIR interests. I don't want them to watch a years worth of hard work to go out the window because of one test.
Do you have standardized testing where you are? How do you handle the stress?

I think a little wine is in order….

Skin test results

Well, today was the day. We woke up and had a nice breakfast, sent her older sister off to school and we headed to the Dr. We chatted about her medical history etc. Then it was time for her to get poked. They wrote on her skin (that cracked her up). They tested her for apple, applesauce, walnut, birch pollen, the control and the histamine. She said it hurt but she barely flinched and no tears. Much easier than the blood test. They test for birch because that cross pollinates with apples. We waited the 15 minutes and saw hives at the control, the histamine, and the walnut. We were right. Still no eating of tree nuts here. The control is not supposed to react so she has been diagnosed with dermatographism. That's very sensitive skin. To confirm the diagnosis the Dr. ran a wood stick (the medical kind not one from outside) along her arm and she turned red from that. Unreal........
She did not react to the apple, applesauce, or the birch. The Dr. said that we could food challenge the apple and sauce today. Little one did not want to eat the apple today so we will push that off to summer. She did eat applesauce today and she passed. She's a very happy camper.
She has had a nice dose of benadryl. Her arms look so much better already. She's now relaxing on the couch watching Brave.
She picked where we will eat out tonight, Moe's. Yummy! Strangely enough it's right next door to Sweet Frog. I see frozen yogurt in our future.

Test results

Well, two weeks to the day we got the test results. It's taken me a few days to get my head straight. So, here we go. The results are good. Her numbers are low enough that the Dr. wants to skin test. That is the next step in the process. If she breaks out in hives from the test then we are done and we carry on as we have been for the past four years. If she does not break out then we will schedule food challenges. This means going back into the office for every tree nut and apples too. She will eat increasing amounts. The amounts increasing about every 20 minutes or so unless there is a reaction, in that case the food challenge is over. I can't let myself look too far ahead. I need to just keep my eye on Monday. One test at a time. I can't let myself think ahead to watching her eat walnuts. They almost killed her four years ago. How do I let her eat them? What if all her allergies are gone? We go back to a normal life. What is a normal life? I don't even remember what it's like.
Oops...just got ahead of myself.
Lets get through Monday first. Fingers crossed.