Today is hard.

Every day that is wet and dreary seems a little bit worse than it otherwise might, but today has been particularly difficult. I had to pull my son home from a school activity he really wanted to participate in because his grades continue to tank. Now he's failing all five core classes, and he even dropped from his A+ in band to an A-. Small stuff there, but telling. Anything that required actual effort outside of the classroom did not get done.

When I got to the school to pick him up he had shut off his phone and disappeared. Since it's been pouring all day I figured he didn't leave the school building, but it's a big school and I could hear him starting to fall apart when I hung up with him. He did come when a teacher paged him, though, and came home sullen but without too much drama.

He's working on algebra now. There are two weeks of school left for him to salvage passing grades for the term. I've told him flat out I want him to repeat the grade if he can't do it -- not to punish him particularly, but because once he hits grade 9 that stuff stays on his transcript. If he hasn't got the hang of how to be a good student by the end of grade 8, I don't have much hope for his getting into a decent college.

The pity of it is that he's ridiculously bright. It's killing me to see him fail, but until he owns it nothing will change.