I'm fine. It's fine. Everything's fine.

We're wrapping up the grade battles.  Mark's view is:  just take the pass.  My view is:  no way.

It hasn't been as fun as it sounds.

Also, his grades have improved dramatically since he and I have been home together.  I don't know if you should feel more sorry for me or him in this circumstance.

I made Mark email his teachers if he "didn't know" what to do to improve his grade.  (Is this when I become a Tiger Mother?)  Mark's teacher emailed this back after Mark said his parents wouldn't let him take a pass.  I may have never felt so validated.

So now we're embarking on the summer school portion of the fun.  Mark's grades in two classes last fall were abysmal, which happens when you don't go to class.  (Life hack:  go to class.)

So he has a semester each in two classes that he is retaking online. (You can guess whose idea that was, mine or his.)  He also didn't want to take English 12 and the English 12 teacher at good old PGHS is one Braeden and Emma both had and I decided then that another child of mine would take a class from her over my cold dead body.  Pleasant Grove: great for performing arts, not for English.

So he's taking English 12 online this summer too.

Please keep us in your thoughts during this difficult time.

Here's the thing.  My one amiable and easily entreated child is grown up and married.

Mark and I had a round of battles at the kitchen table yesterday morning.  Then I went in Emma's room for moral support and to decompress.

She asked, "He's more stubborn than I am, isn't he?"

"Yes," I said. "And how is that even possible?!?"

Besides being stubborn, Mark is also very smart and very careless and very sweet.  Let's hope resilient too.  Let's hope we're both resilient.

Or we'll never survive this summer.