Dear Heidi,

I received your envelope in my mailbox, but just a few days before the date I was supposed to send it back to you. I really hope you had a fabulosa birthday! You totally deserve it.

I hope it's okay if we send you the cards back in the next few days. Our lives have been hectic.

Yesterday:

A had Physics (1 1/2 hr lesson at home, with tutor), French (at the Alliance Francaise 1 1/2 hr lesson), and a DNA class for 2 hours in which he swabbed his cheek to view his cheek cells under a microscope. "MOM I SAW A CHEEK CELL LYSE IN WATER! IT WAS AWESOME!"

We discussed his French class with his new teacher. Apparently, she looks like Isabelle Adjani. She did a lot of "memory jogging" exercises to bring out the French citizen who certainly lives in A's soul. Who was Serge Gainsbourg? What is muscadet? Bouillabaisse? Le Monde? Do you know who Jacques Chirac is? ("A stupid question," remarked A. "What was I supposed to say? Secretary of the French Treasury? Of course I know who Jacques Chirac is." Okay, smarty pants, let's get on with the memory jogging...) Do you know who was Général de Gaulle? Astérix?

Fortunately, A was sufficiently brainwashed to know the importance of Astérix and Obélix in our culture.

A studied for his Bio exam tonight which he missed last Sunday due to his sitting the BARD entrance exam that day, as well as Chapters 11 & 12 (Mitosis and Meiosis).

After dinner we discussed his upcoming LaGuardia High School (the "Fame" school) audition, the SSAT exam for private school and the SHSAT exams for Stuyvesant and Bronx Science (yes, we just LOVE that one of the exams could be pronounced "SHAT", yes sirreeee). A has sat the ISEE and BARD High School exams thus far. We are, believe me, examed out, and we're not even halfway there.

Today:

Me: Fill out school applications, send transcripts, DoE letters with transcripts. Send recommendation forms to Writing Teacher. Send A's letter for more science classes. Thank NYC Homeschooling Coordinator once again for being so fabulous with everything (for providing me information about the SHAT tickets, sending us last year's compliance letter when we never got one last year from my Region's counselor who loved to threaten us with T-R-U-A-N-C-Y), providing to us our homeschooling DoE Acceptance Letter this year, recommending LaGuardia High School as a possibility at all, etc., etc.), pick up photography leather? metal? portfolio from B&H Photo, write a bunch of checks to people and somehow fit lunch into my busy workday.

A: SSAT exam prep, Crew, Bio studies.