PJP Made It To Graduation!

It's 7:51AM on a Saturday morning. I've been awake for an hour.

Why is it so hard to wake up early during the school year? But then, once it's summer time, I'm up early every day, no matter what time I go to sleep?

Ridiculous.

 

Anyways. That's not what I wanted to write about this morning. Granted, I shouldn't be writing at all this morning because, well, my mother is flying in today and I have to pick her up in a few hours and because my house is a disaster and we are having people over tomorrow.

 

Why is my mom flying in and why are we having people over?

 

PJP is graduating on Sunday!

 

 

 

Yup, my baby brother is graduating on Sunday. Can we kick him out yet???

 

Just kidding!

 

My little brother moved in with us last August. And boy has it been a crazy ten months. When he got here, he was enrolled to start school in the middle of August. Everything was do-it-yourself, at your own pace, no teachers or classes to deal with on a daily basis. We were kind of wary of this type of schooling for my brother because he had previously been enrolled in a similar type of school and failed to do all of his work, hence the reason he moved here.

 

When he started, back in August, PJP had a little over a year and a half worth of high school classes to complete. And he only had until June of this year. Alright, we got this. He can do it. PJP is intelligent, we just have to map it out to make sure we get every class done on schedule and we will be good to go.

 

So we sat down, we mapped it out, and school started.

 

Well, a few weeks into PJP doing schoolwork, KBug started school again, which means GMa and I went back to work. It's actually really nice to have all of us on the same basic schedule that revolves around KBug's school schedule. It just makes life so easy.

 

So I was only supposed to work 30 hours each week. Enough to keep my healthcare, but not so much that I couldn't complete any school year. See, I'm on this track to graduate at the end of this summer, so keeping on top of my schoolwork is very important. It would also afford me the time to help PJP stay on track.

 

Well, 30 hours quickly turned into 38 hours. And then I was asked to be an assistant coach for a running program. And I was asked to be an assistant coach for the cheerleading team. Alright, I got this.

 

Until October when I didn't. I wasn't getting my schoolwork done, I wasn't helping PJP keep on schedule and I was stressed to the max, not eating, losing weight like crazy and it was just not good. Not good at all.

 

So we talked it over and decided that I would put in my notice for the biggest part of my position with the school and only maintain my position as a middle school teacher. Two weeks later I was no longer part of the team in the three year old program.

 

It was a very good move for all of us because it opened up my schedule to help PJP completely. I was willing, I was ready, I was just waiting for him to need help.

 

The trouble with PJP, though, is that he doesn't like to ask for help. So here GMa and I are sitting, thinking he's on track and chugging right along like The Little Engine That Could. Boy were we wrong on that one.

 

PJP ended up ridiculously behind on all of his classwork and before we knew it, Christmas was here and he was going home to visit my mom. He promised us that he would catch up on all of his work before he came back to us in three and a half weeks.

 

Guess what?

He didn't get his work done.

 

So now it's the middle of January and he is behind where he should be with his schoolwork still. We all sit down, have a heart-to-heart and he seems like he's ready to buckle down and get his work done. He had two major English courses to finish by May and the only thing standing in the way was a semester of Government. Easy, right? He had ten quizzes to do online, open book, and then he could take the big test and be done.

 

End of February he says he only has one more quiz and he's able to order to final exam for the class. We heard the same story at the end of March. And finally half way through April, after hearing it again, we stopped fooling around. It became a game of "you get this done by the end of the day tomorrow or you're on a plane back to Arizona with no high school diploma or future". Well, that's when PJP finally came forward about not doing so well on the first couple of quizzes so he just gave up. He quit doing the work because he thought he couldn't.

 

Seriously? Three months and you couldn't have said anything until now? At the last minute? When you only have a little bit of time to finish up your last two courses and they're monsters with book reports and all sorts of craziness.

 

I finally sat him down, got him through his quizzes, basically by standing over his shoulder until they were done. We were able to order the final exam at the end of April so he could take it. Who cares if it took four months to complete one semester of one class. PJP got it done.

 

But we've now spent the last several weeks eating, sleeping and breathing World Literature and English 12. Having to sit on top of my almost 19-year-old brother to write a book report he should have had done several MONTHS ago is not fun at all. It's actually very frustrating, let me tell you.

 

He's done, though. My baby brother pulled it together at the last minute.

 

PJP is graduating.

 

Me? I'm sitting here thinking there's no way this is actually happening. My little brother can't be graduating. He's only ten years old, cute as a button, with no attitude to speak of and that adorable little high pitched voice. I don't have a giant, almost 19-year-old brother with facial hair and a passive-aggressive attitude towards everything.

 

It's not possible that my brother could have survived life for this long, right? He couldn't possibly have made it through and come out the other side of it. There's absolutely no way.

 

I think, even with my mom here, even after watching my brother walk in his cap and gown, I'm going to live this weekend in denial. Forget that we are having a bunch of people over to celebrate tomorrow afternoon. It's just a nice social gathering. There's no graduation of any kind.

 

Can I do that???

 

No, I probably can't. So I suppose I should get up, eat something, grab a shower and go pick up my mother. Then I will come home to clean my house, fold more laundry, set up party decorations and be amazed that I have somehow managed to live with my brother for the last ten months without causing him serious bodily harm. Trust me, I've considered it a few times, but he's been lucky. See, I actually love my brother and would like to see him become a successful adult, as hard as it is for me to wrap my head around the fact that all of the things I want are beginning to happen now.

 

I am incredibly proud of all that he has accomplished this year. It's not easy to do a year and a half of schoolwork in one year. I would know, I did it my Junior year of high school. So to have watched my brother do it just shows me that he can do anything. He just has to get his head screwed on straight and decide what he wants to do it. Once he's decided, the rest will be easy for him.

 

My little brother is graduating high school this weekend.

 

Wow.