Meeting and blood work

Just a quick update with more to follow in the next week or so. For about the last two or three months I have been taking David into his classroom each morning and helping him go through his a.m. routine: Hang up coat, give teacher his folder, write his name and go to his station. We just had a meeting with David's teacher and the principal yesterday and they would like me to just drop David off in the morning or have him ride the bus again. They think David needs to work on developing his independance again. It's a welcome break for me really. I wanted to lend a hand but it's a big job each morning especially when your not a morning person. So next week we'll start that up. I have had a lot of advice from people about seeking out a special diet for David and looking into Naturopathic care. I talked to David's pediatrician about doing a special blood test to detect if he has allergies to any types of foods. I think it determines the major allergies like peanuts, dairy, gluten etc.., She agreed to let me have that done. We did the blood work on Monday but I haven't heard back yet. If the testing shows that he does have allergies then I will consider a special diet and naturopathic care. We already usually avoid most of the things that would be considered a problem for a child with ADHD.

Post meeting with the School...

David loves his teacher Mrs. Nelson and she adores him. It really makes a mom feel good to know that her child is in good hands. Well, last post I mentioned we would be meeting once again with David's teacher and the school psychologist and I thought the principal but I guess he wasn't in on it this time. Anyway, they wanted to discuss the "next step". Even with the ticket system in place David still struggles to follow routine, stay on task, and handle carpet time well. He's doing better but not where most kids are at this stage of the game. Mrs. Nelson likes and would continue to like me to come in daily as would I, however, the school psychologist believes that David needs to be able to handle being at school without me there. I respect that and even agree mostly with that point. Sooo, I will begin to phase out my involvement on a daily basis. Today was my first day in weeks that I didn't stay to help out. I did come in 15 minutes early picking up David to see if there was anything I could help with. What can I say, I've grown to love the place.
The other next step is to have David thoroughly tested by the school, all of what's involved I don't completely remember, but I know their will be some in class time observations made of him and some meeting up with the school psychologist to answer questions, etc...all of this to see if David needs special education assistance. Basically they want to see if what he is being taught at school is sinking in. Howard and I don't have any problems with that so that should take place in the next week or so I guess. I wasn't exactly clear on the time frame.
I guess that's all for now. I'll let you know how the testing turns out.

The continuing saga of David's schooling...

David and his beloved caterpillar

In case you've been wondering how things are going on the David front here's an update. Awhile ago we implemented a ticket system at home for chores. He can earn a ticket or two worth .10 cents a piece for doing a chore. This seems to work out pretty good at home and so we have extended the system into David's school life. Some of the tickets are used to earn a break during class to do something like drawing at teachers desk or come to see mommy out in the pod area when I'm volunteering...which is almost every day lately :) More on that later... David also earns some tickets to bring home for family meeting on Wednesday nights where he can cash them in to earn a special trip to ice cream, omsi, pizza etc... or for some toys. That's a longer term reward so for the short term he can earn the class rewards of the "breaks" and can also get a ten minute early release from class to go home with me instead of riding the bus. If it's been a rough day then he stays for the full length of the class and then we leave. It's a little bit of a sacrafice for me but it's worth it to help David.

The extra volunteering all started about two weeks before christmas break. Mrs. Nelson wanted to have the kids do a special calendar for a christmas present to their parents. This involved painting the kids hands in twelve different ways, one for each month of the year, and stamping them on the top of the calendar. We got started late with the project and I felt the need to lend an extra hand to help it get done in time for Christmas. Well, as many in our area know the weather had other ideas about when Christmas break should start and we didn't get the calendar done despite working every day for a little over a week. Since I was there every day David was able to take little breaks here and there with me and Mrs. Nelson noticed it had a bit of a calming effect on David. Soooo...after Christmas break was over I began my daily volunteering again, to finish up the calendar and now also to support David in his continued success at school. Mrs. Nelson has been overwhelmed with all my help and has often commented that she doesn't want me to get tired of helping. I reassured her with the fact that I had planned to homeschool David but felt too overwhelmed to do it on my own...I was just glad to have a partner.

So now we are back from Christmas break...finishing up those calendars :) and helping to support Mrs. Nelson each day. I'm not sure if I'll be there every day, maybe not for the full time but as much as I can and Daniel will let me. By the way, Daniel is by my side and doing soooo well. He is AMAZING. I bring him snacks, paper, crayons, stickers, paint, his leapster, my ipod :) (which for those of you that know my boys lost it before and might be wondering if I'm in my "right" mind to let them borrow it again, It's all good, It's just Stuff. :) and besides I have two now so at least I'll always have one...right?), and then there is always all the toys at school for him to play with. Anway he keeps busy and hasn't been complaining so for now that's what we do each day.

So that's how things are going. We have another appointment to meet with the Principal, School Psychologist, and David's teacher, Mrs. Nelson on Jan 12th. That's next Monday. More to follow...

Just some funnies

If this picture doesn't make you laugh maybe the following comments will :

One night as we were eating dinner at Izzy's the boys were asking questions left and right when David asks, "Dad, how do you make macaroni and cheese?" Howard answers, " You put macaroni noodles with cheese sauce." David looks at him kind of funny and says, "No dad....wronnng answer...I've seen it on "How it's made" and you make a macaroni noodle with lots of different ingredients...

Daniel was sitting with me playing when all of a sudden he says, "Mom your breath looks like it's a chicken leg. I think this meant my breath was bad?


David has had an upset stomach so today I told him the nurse recommends that he eat chicken broth for awhile. Daniel comes up to me and says, "Mom can I have some chicken breath too."

I was tickling Daniel this morning and he said, "Stop mom, I'm not a ticklish man"

Okay last one for now, The other day Daniel asked Howard if he would get the Bob the Builder phone for him so he could call someone to kill Handy Manny.

By the way if you got this post in your email it's because I found a setting on my blog that allows me to send my updated blog posts to up to 10 email addresses and you were people that I thought might like to be included. I hope you don't mind.

Winter vacation so far...

I have been wanting to post a lot of the fun pics we've been taking during our winter vacation but I have soooo many and they take forever to download so I have downloaded them to Facebook and have copied a link so that you can see them if you haven't already. The link will be at the bottom of this post since I can't figure out how to move it up here :)

Here are a few of my favorites so far...I'm excited that we still have about 2 weeks left of vacation so there will be more to come...

This was not my favorite family shot but it was one of my favorite parts of our vacation so far. It was our first day of vacation and it's one of Howard's favorite things to do...see his Blazers.

My favorite boys :) This was Monday Dec 15... Howard's 40th birthday and our first day of snow (or was Sunday the first day of snow?) Well, anyway it was our first day playing in the snow. The beginning of Arctic blast 2008.

Just one of the beauties of the beginning of our wintry weather Dec 15th

Our favorite family tradition for the last 3 years is zoo lights at the Washington Park zoo in Portland. This was taken on Wed December 17th. Snowy but no real ice yet. We rode max from Lloyd center to the zoo...the boys loooved it. We even got some cool little lights from some police men we met in the tunnel on our way back.

My crazy crazy cuties!!! My big gift to Howard for his 40th was to take the boys with me to stay at a hotel (Courtyard by Marriott here in Clackamas) on Friday, Dec 19th so he could have the house to himself to play his favorite video game, eat pizza and watch movies. I had the BEST time with the boys...we swam in the pool, went out to Pizza Schmizza for dinner, explored all 4 levels of the hotel (I even found a little business center where I could check my email and get on Facebook) we ate candy shamelessly, watched xmas movies, drew pictures, ate more candy, played games and so much more. I had such a good time and Howard appreciated it SO much.

This is my favorite picture taken today Dec 21st of the maple tree in our front yard. The effects of Arctic Blast 2008 are visually breathtaking. I have quite a few more pics of our wintry wonderland on Facebook.

Daniel, my beautiful brown eyed boy who hates the camera most days has told me that he thinks he likes pictures now. I loved his sweet face in this picture. David is so full of life and creativity. I can't wait to see all that he is going to do in his life.

My crazy fun husband. I love him dearly. I've been saying that I've been married for 18 years already but actually tomorrow Dec 22nd is our anniversary and it will really be our 18th anniversary!

There is more to come and more to see already if you follow the link...

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/profile.php?id=1591312650&v=photos&viewas=1591312650

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The lights are hung ...

The stockings are hung...

Oh wait, I mean the stockings were hung :-) ...

The yard decoration is out...

(we just started buying them and are doing it very slowly)

Now where did those christmas stockings go again?

Practice Christmas has begun...

The holiday season has begun...

Give Thanks

Don't you love the days when you used to eat olives off your fingers. I still do sometimes :-)

Howard, David, my brother-in-law Phil and his son Matt enjoying some games. Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without game time!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving with Howard's side of the family this year. It was a big group, probably 18 people, but not all were in attendance so it wasn't as big as it can be. Wow, I can't imagine how we are all going to fit into my sister-in-law Laura's house when we celebrate Christmas!!! If I'm doing my math right there will probably be 28 people when we get together next time. It will be good.

Things I'm thankful for:

My husband and best friend Howard

My boys David and Daniel

Our family's good health

Our extended family

Howard's good job at Xerox

This shouldn't be last but my Friendship with God