The Legal Stuff

I remember the first time I attempted a legal name change for Emma. I loaded her into her stroller, got the bus to our local courthouse, and picked up a thick packet of forms. The legal stuff was all foreign to me at the time, and I didn't have the confidence to fill them out on my own, nor could I seem to find anyone to help me fill them out. I'm pretty sure that was over seven years ago! This Labor Day, I sat on my grandmother's couch and electronically filled out every single form that I need to make this happen, including a fee waiver for filing/court fees, which I'm eligible for. Now comes the fun part - getting Emma's dad to sign off on legally changing the first name that he gave her, at a time when he's already come to the conclusion that I not only think that I'm "better" than everyone how high school is that!, but that I'm in the business of making decisions for him. His ability to make good decisions could definitely be argued, but this decision isn't about him at all, and I hope that he will be willing to hear me out, and not block this from becoming a legal reality. I didn't fight for this name eight years ago, but I'm prepared to do so now.

I'm not quite sure why the forms and/or the process was so intimidating at the start, but it felt good to be able to breeze through all seven forms this time around. We'll see just how painless this process will be.

Rockin' & Rollin'

The first week of school brought a lot of smiles and tales. I enjoyed hearing all about the excitement of Emma's days on our walks home. Well, I walked - she rode her scooter about 15 paces ahead of me while shouting out all the fun activities of the day. I love the way her eyes light up as she sings a song to me that she learned in class, or shares something else that just happened to be her favorite part of the day. Her happiness is priceless. I'm hoping that week two, and every week of this school year brings the same level of joy.

Over the weekend we received Emma's standardized test scores in the mail from her old school. Last year was her first year taking the test, and her class spent a lot of time preparing with practice assignments. I guess it all payed off because she did great! She placed in the Advanced level in Language Arts, and the higher end of the Proficient level in Math, surpassing the California standard in both. With math being one of her favorite subjects, I was a little surprised to see that this wasn't the category where she had an advanced score, but hey, 24 points shy of advanced, in standardized testing terms, ain't half bad.

I finished up my first set of homework problems over the weekend, and might I dare say, I enjoyed sitting in the middle of my bed, surrounded by pascal's triangle, inductive & deductive reasoning, universal/sub/proper & improper sets, integers, cardinal numbers and a notebook of notes. It just all kind of flowed - stress free. Let's all hope that this contentment continues as I move into future homework sets and exams! Just three more months to go and I'm home free!

I hope that everyone had a wonderfully, labor-free, weekend!

Appreciating You!

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