I'm happy to report that the first 2 days of school have been just great! Kaeli and Paige are both adjusting perfectly and I'm thrilled.
My fear that Paige might have an accident (pee) seems to no longer be a concern. Yesterday when I picked her up from school I hugged her and tried to check her bottom for wetness without letting her know what I was doing. I didn't want her to think I had doubted her ability to stay dry. But, she knew what I was up to. She didn't seem to care that I checked. But, I can't get her to tell me if she actually spoke to someone to let them know or if she just got up and went. I think she's training for a life in the mob. If she ever got interrogated I don't think she'd give up any information! It's like pulling teeth (very stubborn ones) to get her to talk about her day at all. When I ask her a question her canned response is "I forget". This afternoon Steve and I were working really hard at getting *anything* out of her. Here's a small piece of the conversation:
Steve-Did you do any worksheets?
Paige-No
S-Did you color?
P-Yes
S-What did you color?
P-I don't remember
Me--Did you color on the table?
P-no
S-did you color on the person next to you?
P-no
S-then what did you color on?
P-I don't remember
Me-did you color on a piece of paper?
P-yes
Me-did the paper have a picture on it?
P-no
We ended up finding out that ALL she did in K all day long was color on a blank sheet of paper. LOL No, we don't really believe that, but it was so funny when we came to the realization that we were not going to get much out of her.
But, here's the funny part. A little while later we were giving baths. I was in the middle of washing Paige's hair and out of nowhere she says "guess what? I was Star of the Day today!" Steve and I were floored! She never thought to mention this when we were badgering her over how her day went? So, I thought...great! now she's going to tell us all about being star of the day. I was wrong. The line of questioning began again. All I got out of her was that she got to sit by the teacher as star of the day.
Now, all that in contrast to Kaeli. I picked her up and I have heard almost every single detail of her day. Kaeli is very good about sharing every detail and every emotion she experienced during each moment. She can even act it out! :) Yesterday I heard all about how it was too hot to play on the playground so she sat under a tree. But, then a boy kept hitting her in the head with a branch. So, (her words) the playground was just horrible. Imagine that said with a GREAT deal of indignation. I also heard all about how a boy got in tons of trouble on his first day. Overall, though, she had a wonderful first two days. She's so excited about school and really loves it. Today she had her Accelerated Reader test. No word yet on how she did. She assumed she did "horrible" because the questions were incredibly difficult. This is very typical of Kaeli, though. I asked her if the questions at the beginning were hard, too. She said "No, those were REALLY easy....but the last questions were so hard I didn't even know what those words meant". I tried explaining to her that this is a kind of test that keeps getting harder until you start missing the answers so that it can see what level you are on". That didn't make her happy. She still thinks this means she's going to be on the very lowest reading level. I have no idea what this was about-but, she told me she and another student got taken out of class today to do "like 15 pages of math sheets!" Sounds like maybe to see what level she is at in math. She said the math was SUPER hard and that she didn't know anything. Who knows what that really means for Kaeli. It could mean that a few questions were hard or it could mean that she didn't understand any of it. I have a hard time believing she couldn't do any of it. But, her opinion was that it seemed like 4th grade math......so who knows. She also said the accelerated reader test had questions that seemed like it was for 4th graders and I know she's reading on a higher level than 4th grade. 4th grade is the highest level this school goes to so she must think all knowledge maxes out at 4th grade. :) I plan to email her teacher to figure out what it was about.
Ryan had speech therapy today. He is such a hard worker. His speech therapist also works on his occupational therapy goals. One of his goals the past couple of weeks is to learn how to do the shape sorter. He has trouble with this because he doesn't really stop to look at the shape first. He just grabs it and starts trying to shove it into a spot. He usually gives up after the first couple of shapes because it just seems too hard. Today I told him that if he got it right, I'd tickle him. We had so much fun doing that shape sorter after that. He really worked at finding the right hole for each one and didn't give up so easily. He loves to be tickled and it's so cute! He especially likes it when he gets the little goosebumps all over his legs. :) Heather (the speech therapist) and I talked about increasing his sessions to twice a week. She mentioned it a couple of weeks ago but never followed through. So, hopefully he'll start getting ST twice a week. I think it'll be good for him because he really does work harder in therapy than he does for me. I know I've mostly avoided discussing Ryan's developmental delays and therapy. But, for better or for worse it's part of our lives. I've hoped and hoped that it would only be for a short time. But, the reality is that it's looking like therapies will be part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Ryan is due for his next round of evaluations in November. His speech therapist says she's sure he'll still qualify for services. So, that means in January he'll be starting a "developmental preschool". He'll attend 3 half days a week. His speech therapy and occupational therapy will be done at school. They will also work on any other delayed areas. It sounds like a great program. There are only 8 students in the class. 4 are special needs students and 4 are typically-developing kids. So, he'll have plenty of good role models. The preschool is completely free for him since he has more than a 25% delay in 2 areas of development. The therapy he receives now is all free as well.
Not much to say about AJ at this point. He's still a VERY big baby! In fact, it's looking like Ryan and AJ might be sharing clothes this fall. AJ is growing out of his 12-18 mo clothes and the next step is 18-24 mos (or 2T). Ryan is still wearing mostly 2T's. He has a few 3T's, but they are still quite big on him. I just find that so funny. I always knew they might wear the same clothes one day, but I had no idea it might happen so soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment