Doc Update

So Princess has had a few doc appointments lately. Let's go back to August:

She saw the ophthalmologist, Dr. R. The great thing about this was that Dr. R is LOCAL! Like here in town local! Granted, it's only twice a week, or something, but still! We'll take a LOCAL eye doc over a two hour drive any day! Oh, and this was like the QUICKEST we have EVER gotten in to see a specialist EVER! Princess's therapist, J, called on a Tuesday morning to get all the info so he could submit the referral (thankfully we didn't have to go through her PCP, as her 15m appointment got bumped). That SAME DAY we got a call from Dr. R's office to set up an appointment! And the appointment was only like a few weeks away too! We were concerned about astigmatism, as when the nurse came out to assess Princess back in January, the nifty eye machine detected such. But Dr. R didn't see it at this time. She had her eyes dilated and things looked good. She goes back in 6 months just for a quick check and then it will be yearly!

Dilated and waiting to see the doc.

 Then at the beginning of September, Princess FINALLY got in to see her new pediatrician. Because we go to the "clinic" which is technically a "rural clinic" with labs, and specialists and even dental services on site, we will only see the new pediatrician, Dr. M for well child visits. If Princess or Little Man get sick, they can be seen the same day by a PA there at the clinic. So we get in there and, as expected, it takes 2 hours! For one, Dr. M runs late. For two, we had the WHOLE HISTORY that is Princess to go through. So by the time we left, it was two hours after Princess's appointment. And I still have forms for record requests to turn in! Of course Princess fell asleep while we waiting. The only good thing is that we don't have to go back until Princess is 2 years old, outside of the kids need their flu shots, so we'll do that in October sometime. Being we probably won't see Dr. M except for well child visits, I'm okay with her.

Waiting to see the doc.

Fell asleep waiting.

Then last week, Princess had her nephrology follow up from June. (Backdated post coming soon on the nephrologist from June.) I took Princess by myself so Little Man didn't have to miss out on his classes. Dr. H was running "more than 30 minutes behind." So I KNEW we were going to be there for A WHILE. Well, when we got back into vitals, Princess was having very little to do with ANYTHING. She wasn't screaming until we attempted to get her blood pressure. Then we finally got back into the room and she wandered around and played for about ever. Dr. H's new med student came in to take Princess's history. We attempted another blood pressure with MORE screaming.

Leaving on the long drive there!

In the waiting room.

Waiting for the doc.

Dr. H came in FINALLY after being back there for like an hour! (Talk about B-E-H-I-N-D!) So, we talk, I have her fill out the dietary form for food stamps, I get what I'm supposed to put on her medic-alert bracelet. I tell her about my mom's nephrologist and how he said that if something were to happen to her and she was stuck locally and couldn't be transported, he'd be in contact with her. And when I told her that the only time he had seen PHA2 was while he was with her, she shot her med student this look that said "I told you you were going to see a rare one!" So then when Dr. H tried to listen to Princess and feel her tummy and all that, Princess was having NOTHING to do with it. Even when the nurse went to put a bag on her so we could get a urine sample, she screamed. We did labs with MORE screaming and then attempted another blood pressure, again with no luck. I had to go down to the car with her so we could get her kool-aid so she could have something to drink so we could MAYBE get something for the urine catch. FINALLY we got that! Then we were able to check out! We were supposed to do a renal ultrasound, but after all the trauma that Princess went through, I opted to wait until next time, unless we have to do it locally. All in all, it was a 3 hour visit!

Still waiting on the doc.

Crashed out in the car on the way home.

Then on the way home, there was an accident on the road we were taking back up to the house so we had to turn around and go a different way. So by the time we got home, it had been about 8 hours from the time we left!

The day after the nephrology clinic craziness was Princess's IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan). That wasn't too big a deal outside of they are trying to be more family friendly with the goals. Okay, great! Let's take two educators (me and J) who have worked with IEPs and say "no more edu-speak" and instead be all family friendly is really kind of hard! But things worked out and her goals for the next six months are as follows:

1. Walk up the stairs at the park. (This might actually be more difficult than expected as some of those steps on those play structures come up to the kid's waist!)
2. Use a regular cup independently. (I'm not expecting no messes ever, just to be able to use a cup!)
3. Use a spoon. (This also might be a little far reaching, as most kids don't "master" this until almost 2 and a half, but again, I'm not expecting every time, just often enough to actually get food in her tummy!)

And I have to call and get her medic-alert set up. Maybe I'll have enough money to do that soon.

Milestone Monday: Blocks, Walking and Big Girl

So first up is that Princess has figured out how to stack her blocks. The most she has ever stacked is 5, but those tend to fall right away. She usually manages about 3-4 blocks before they fall over.

Next up is that Princess is WALKING!!!!! She's been cruising since she was about 15 months old and started taking like 2-3 steps on her own at about 16 months. Then about two weeks later, she started getting brave and taking more steps on her own! It was decided that if we put her in shoes, it should help her toe dragging. Well, the problem was putting her in shoes! She HATED them! Then we went to the zoo for Labor Day. We put her shoes on her and she found out that she can WALK by holding someone's hand and she can go where SHE wants to. So now, she has been very good about putting shoes on when we go out. She LOVES her shoes now. And we even got her a pair of Mary Janes and she LOVES her "pretty shoes." She now will get up and walk all over the house. She's walked from one side to the other by herself!

Then, on Saturday, Princess didn't want to eat lunch. So MeMe suggested that she sit at the playschool table. So we tried it.

Later that day, MeMe and Pops went out and found Princess a toddler bed. It was a Minnie Mouse one but we decided not to put the Minnie Mouse stickers on it. Pops had to put it together and of course Princess had to help.

Once we got her "big girl" bed together, she had to sit on it. She got a pillow, a Doc McStuffins pillow case, a Doc McStuffins doll (that is about as big as she is!), a butterfly blankie, and a new butterfly sheet for her bed.

Later that night, we started a new routine: bath (if needed), jammies, story, bottle, and then bed. So far she has spent the past 2 nights in her bed. Of course, she doesn't want to sleep on the pillow and instead sleeps at the foot of the bed, so she has fallen out a lot. We're going to put pillows down tonight. Last night, we put a baby gate up at the door because the night before, the dogs kept coming in to sniff at her. Hopefully by her IFSP, she'll be sleeping in her "big girl" bed by herself and not falling out of it.

Week in Review: First Week.

So this past week was our first week of school. I had wanted to start back when the local schools started, but things just weren't to be. Instead, I cut myself some slack, did some more research and decided to start the week before Labor Day.

Being Little Man is "technically" in preschool now, I still fall under the "not legally homeschooling" category. There are no regulations about preschool (yet). So we're doing some random things here and there to just keep him learning, but not really focusing on any grade or curriculum. (Here are our Curriculum Choices.) Since he's not really going to preschool this year, I felt left out of the all the "first day of..." photos that all my friends were posting on Facebook. So I snapped this one of him on the first day of his Tot Time class at the rec center.

This week, I had planned a four day week, being Little Man had an appointment on Monday. It didn't wind up working out to be a four day week. Instead, we took a field trip on Friday!

So on Tuesday, I helped Little Man set up his Interactive Notebooks.

The ones that didn't have Expectations in them got them glued in. We also glued in the spelling list for the week. The spelling isn't so much about learning to spell the words as it is practicing his writing.

We also read "Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes." And then I had him do some writing to go with it!

It says "I love my blue shoes."

That was pretty much it for Tuesday. I wanted to ease into school.

The next day we went through just about everything. One of the things Little Man liked doing was the dot sticker page for spelling.

For math, we did a "math about me" page and glued into his notebook. He also worked on writing letter L and number 1. (I'm going out of order for the letters and focusing on formation of them. This way he has some success at first doing "easy letters.") We also talked about "The Three Little Pigs." We'd already read it, so he got to pick what he would make his house out of and write a sentence and draw a picture. It was a shared pen writing. We did science, which we are finishing the five senses. This week was the sense of smell. We also read from the Bible.

On Thursday, things were pretty much the same. We did counting by 5s in his math journal. I got this page idea from: Miss Van Maren's Fantastic First Grade

He wrote letter T and number 1. (We'll focus on one number a week.) He wrote his spelling words in capital letters. We read "The Three Bears" and he wrote that he didn't like oatmeal. Science was good vs. bad smells and Bible reading. Next week, we are introducing the review pages!

We had planned to finish the week on Friday, but being MeMe was off of work, she wanted to take the kids to the zoo. So we had a field trip to the zoo! (Blog entry forthcoming!) And one other thing we did, was during the week, we received a package from Great Grammy. So I had Little Man write her a thank you note!

So what was Princess doing while I was teaching Little Man? Well, with a little help from MeMe, we put together some Discover Bins for her. These are like the prelude to tot trays. In them, we have different things: post its, silk leaves, craft sticks, pom poms, books, just things for her to explore.

So far, they are keeping her busy. But I don't know for how long.

Curriculum Choices 2014-2015

Since Little Man is officially in "preschool" now, I figured I'd better figure out what we are doing. Since we are still "unofficially" homeschooling, as there are no regulations on preschool (yet), I figured I'd better assess Little Man FIRST and see what he can do. I found a GREAT kindergarten assessment (link will be at the bottom). We've pretty much gone through it and there are a few things that we haven't touched on in the Language Arts part and he can pretty much do just about ALL of the math. So technically, "preschool" is more like "fill in the kindergarten gaps"! (Gotta love an intellectually gifted child!)

So the plan this year is to do "playschool" about 3 to 4 times a week. We will ALWAYS have at least one day off, if not two or on occasion three. I don't want to overwhelm him, as I have no clue as to what is going to happen when he finally enters school in the fall of 2015. I don't know if the school will keep him in kindergarten or contemplate moving him up. We will just have to wait and see.

So what are we doing this year? Well, I plan to do "Interactive Notebooks" with him instead of a bunch of worksheets for everything. Not to mention, all the "Pre-K/K" packs are too easy for him. We have 4 Notebooks: Math, Spelling, Science, and Writing.

Math: I'm going to be using some of Easy Peasy's Math 1, but otherwise, I'm just going to fill in gaps. We'll do addition and subtraction, skip counting, even and odd, time, money, shapes, graphing. I'm going to be using Pinterest a lot to find pages for us to do.

Spelling: We are using K12 Reader's first grade spelling words. We more than likely won't get through all the lists. The intent isn't so much that Little Man learns to spell them, as they are primarily word family based, but that he works on his handwriting.

Science: We've been doing science for a while now, but I decided since we're not really focusing on a specific "grade" so-to-speak, that we would come back and do some science. So this allows us to finish some things we didn't get to last year and also allows me to do some fun things with him. I'll be looking primarily at kindergarten based "units" of science.

Handwriting: I managed to snag a free handwriting download from The Moffatt Girls. So we are using that for letters. And I am going back to the way the letters are formed and not going in alphabetical order. So essentially, they start easy and get more difficult for him. Little Man also still has reversals with his numbers, so we are using a few different sites for those pages. We'll do one number a week and then come back if he still has problems after 9 weeks.

Writing: We started a journal not too long ago. But we're going to be focusing on some prompt based writing, some interactive (shared pen) writing, and some free writing. I'm trying to get him to write FIRST then draw, but sometimes we may go the other way. We are going to be working on sentences.

Reading: We're not really going to have a reading curriculum, as he can already read at about a 2nd grade level. Instead, we'll read some classic literature. Maybe do some kindergarten literature units. We'll also work on comprehension with K12 Reader's comprehension pages. They tie into the spelling of the week, so that will work well together.We will also be hopefully attending the library's story time every Friday.

Bible: We'll be using Easy Peasy's Old Testament curriculum. We're only going to be doing it maybe twice a week and will be reading the stories out of the NIrV. It starts with New Testament, but we will get to Old Testament once we get through the Gospel of Matthew.

Review: Right now, we are still working through the K-1 Summer Bridge book. We are into "month three." We will do one side of a page each day or two, it just depends. This is just to keep Little Man fresh on things that we may not cover every day.

Socialization: This is our MAIN focus. One of the reasons I haven't put Little Man into an official preschool is because of his intellectual/verbal gifts. I KNOW he would be bored with the curriculum of learning shapes and colors and letter ID and sounds. The biggest thing he needs is socialization. So, instead, I have opted to put him into "Tot Time" through the recreation department in town every couple of months. It is for 3-5 year olds. There's some structure similar to preschool. It's twice a week for 2.5 hours. So essentially the same amount of time a kid would be in preschool. It's about half the cost of a traditional preschool, as well. Little Man will also be trying "Tot-nastics." I figured this might be a good way for him to do all that "climbing/falling" off the couch he's been doing lately in a safe environment. There was a 3 week program, so I signed him up for that one, in case he hates it. He's also got Rainbows on Wednesday nights, plus every other week, he'll be doing Sunday School at church. And when he's not in "Tot Time," I've got a playgroup that he'll be attending. (It just happens to be the same time as "Tot Time," so when Little Man is there, it will just be Princess and I.)

So that is what we are planning to do this year. I was going to post this earlier, but I just now got around to doing it! I'll be posting about our first week in the next day or so.

Specific Links:
Mrs Ricca's Kindergarten (blog)
Kindergarten Assessment

Everyday Snapshots
Learn to Write Numbers (She's up to 7)

Confessions of a Homeschooler
Kindergarten Printables (We're using the 1-20 Writing Practice vol. 2)

The Moffatt Girls
A-Z Handwriting Pages (You have to like their Facebook Page to get to it)

The Measured Mom
Numbers of All Sizes (They're at the bottom underneath all the letters)
Teaching Journal Writing in Preschool (This is how we started our "Writing" Notebook.)

Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits (blog)
Journal and Folder Labels (I got the cute labels for our journals from this teacher's TPT store for free!)

One Year Later...PHA2

There are certain dates I will always remember with Princess. Her birthday. They day she came home from the hospital, the first time. The day she came home from the hospital the last time. And today.

One year ago today, I got told exactly what was wrong with Princess. It was an endocrinologist, Dr. G, who told us. Apparently, Dr. H, our nephrologist, had already suspected this because she had put Princess on the medication that would be the "tell" and would help with the hyperkalemia and hypertension. I remember when I walked out of the endo's office and we were walking back to the car, I called my mom and told her. She enjoys researching medical things and has actually been following the whole rare disease/orphan drug scene for a long time. She looked it up and that evening, she sent me a bunch of websites and told me that she suspected this back from when Princess was in in PICU almost two months before. In fact, I do remember her saying when we got home that she probably had Gordon's Syndrome, but all we could find at that time was that it was familial and no one that we knew of had it. (Gordon's Syndrome is one of the other names for PHA2.) So we had kind of pushed that idea to the wayside and kept looking, but I knew if someone didn't say something, I was probably going to be fighting with doctors about it, like I had with her milk protein allergy in the NICU. Thankfully, I didn't have to fight with anyone and we were already connected with someone who I have come to find out has diagnosed more PHA2 cases probably on the West Coast than anyone else, and she's only diagnosed a handful.

That was Friday. It was the the three day Labor Day weekend. The following Tuesday we had an appointment with Dr. K, the cardiologist. By the time I walked into his office that Tuesday, I felt like we had had a diagnosis for 3 months, not 3 days! In that time, I spent hours on the Internet reading essentially the same thing on about 6 different websites. I actually found a support group on Facebook! (I guess you can find ANYTHING on Facebook!) And between their files and my mom sending me links, I found a couple case studies. Dr. G had said that Princess would likely be short. I had kind of laughed at her and said, as long as it wasn't dwarfism, which was a whole new can of worms, we'd be fine with that. (I'm not quite 5' tall.) One of the case studies that my mom found was of a 17 year old patient in Asia who was 5'1" tall. That's actually like average for over there, so I'm not really worried about Princess being short. Here brother is probably going to be around 6'. He can get anything down for us!

So, here it is. One year later. Not a whole lot has changed in things. We (as in the whole family) are on a low potassium diet. We've been told that right now as Princess is young, it's better that the whole family take on the diet. This way, she doesn't feel like she's missing out on stuff. Yeah, it kind of makes things difficult sometimes, but otherwise it's okay. When she gets older, we'll be able to tell her what she can and can't have and what's going on. Her medication is still the same. Dosage has increased at times and we're probably due for another increase here soon. But between the meds and the diet, her potassium level has remained in the normal range.

Princess has not been in the hospital since she was 3 months old! Even though she has had 3 colds and 2 stomach bugs. This is a big miracle in my book. Now, am I thinking we are done with the hospital? No. It's always a thought in my mind when she gets sick. But we're doing good so far!

The things that have changed are all with the PHA2 itself. One is that there is finally a test available in the US. But we have been advised to not worry about it right now. Reason: even if we spend the money, she could still turn out to not have it be on one of the 4 genes they know of now. It doesn't mean she doesn't have it, it just means that it's obviously not one of those 4 genes. Plus it doesn't change the clinical side. She'd still be on the meds and the diet. The other thing is that they have FINALLY decided that there can be de novo mutations. I mean, of course there can be new mutations! How else did someone START passing it on and it becoming something that runs in families? This is Princess. Yes, she will have to worry about passing it on to her kids. But that's still YEARS away. So we aren't worried about that right now.

I've actually found another family who actually has familial PHA2 through the support group and have been helping the mom get information together for her one son whom she suspects has PHA2. And I think there is another little one with PHA2, not entirely 100% sure as she has a host of other issues to go another with it. So our little PHA2 support circle is slowly growing beyond my daughter and the other 4 year old in Canada whom I know of.

Princess is doing well. There is always the worry in the back of my mind about her potassium level, but being I can't just have her tested any time, I try not to let that overwhelm me. It doesn't keep me up at night. It just stays prevalent in my prayers. God told me He had her and I trust Him. He's got a plan for her, I just don't know what it is.

Alphabet Journal

After a year, we have FINALLY finished our Alphabet Journal! So I figured I would share it with you! It was just a composition book. Little Man picked blue and he wanted to decorate it with digger stickers.

We started each week with the letter in construction paper.

In the beginning, we would do something that started with the letter for our next page. Stickers. Glue. Cutting practice were all incorporated.

Sometimes we did science in our journal too! This was before we started our Science Journal.

Apple Science for A week.

A really neat experiment with an egg in a little plastic bowl about the brain and the skull. We'll probably do this one again later!

Little Man LOVED all things vehicles, so I was SO lucky that I found Royal Baloo's Zoomin' Moving Alphabet! We did a lot of things from her packets in the beginning. But towards the end, we only did a few things: dotting the letter and gluing whatever the vehicle was onto the letter. I always cut out the letter and glued it into the Alphabet Journal. In the beginning I didn't have a color printer, but towards the end, I did.

In the beginning, we did a number every week too! I found this great number book that I would cut the number out and he would put the correct number of dot stickers on it. We only did number 1-9, even though there was a number 10.

We also did a memory verse every week. I got these from Totally Tots. And we did a page from Homeschool Creations Preschool Alphabet Pages. She has A LOT of great stuff on this page, but we just did the alphabet cut and paste pages. I would cut the letter out and glue it into the journal and then Little Man would glue all the pictures around it.

At first I didn't have a color printer.

We also used the journal to just draw and write in. And even did a "I'm Thankful For" thing each day the week of Thanksgiving.

At first Little Man would draw and I would label.

Then he would label. "DIGR" (Digger)

"I'm Thankful For..." DUMP TRUK. All his days were like this until the last one.

"BABE" (baby). He was thankful for his baby sister!

I had Little Man draw a picture of himself towards the beginning of our "school year" and when we finished our Alphabet Journal.

Little Man's self portrait in October 2013.

Little Man's self portrait in July 2014. And yes, he did write his name at the bottom!

Miracles

Not long ago, the church I was attending put something in the bulletin that just struck me as odd. Here's a little background:

One of the members of the church has a grandson who suffers from seizures. He was currently in the process of doctors trying to figure out what to do. Was medication going to help? Was he going to need surgery? What kind of surgery? Well, in the bulletin, a little about his story had been posted along with a picture and the phrase "Pray for a miracle."

I found this to be a very strange request.

It's not that I don't believe in miracles. I do. I've seen God perform them. But is it my prayers that determine if God is going to work a miracle? No. Ultimately it's God's Will as to whether He chooses to work a miracle. And what if that miracle isn't what I was expecting? Is it any less a miracle?

So what do I pray for? I pray for God's Will to be done. I know that is kind of difficult to understand, especially when I've seen God work so much in my daughter's life. But, to be honest, even when we were in the middle of the NICU and later the PICU, I never once prayed for a miracle. Don't get me wrong. It is miraculous that Princess doesn't have any lasting effects from her prematurity and didn't have any of the scary things like brain bleeds or lung issues or anything else happen. But that wasn't because I was praying for a miracle. I was simply praying that God take care of her. He told me He would. It's also a miracle that we got the diagnosis we did when we did. If there is a rare disease that is better to have than another, PHA2 falls in that category. There's a treatment for it. So many rare diseases don't have treatments.

So when someone asks me to pray for a miracle, I just find that to be rather strange. Having a special child and having followed several special children online, praying for a miracle just doesn't seem right. What exactly are you praying for when you pray for a miracle? Chances are, people are praying for a spontaneous, miraculous healing. But what if that's not what God wants? What if God wants to use this illness, injury, or other trial or tribulation to strengthen someone? What if God wants to show how He works through surgeons and doctors and technology and other advances? What if God needs to call this person Home because their work on Earth is finished?

I find the last question especially poignant when I think about sick children. But at the same time it's still a miracle. God has decided that yes, they do need a miraculous healing, but it won't be here on Earth. Instead, they will get their perfect body in Heaven.

Another thing I prayed for while we were in the NICU and PICU was the other children. When Princess was in the critical room, I didn't see many parents in there. I don't know if they just couldn't bring themselves to walk into the hospital knowing their child was so ill or if they were afraid to grow attached only to lose them. But what I did was I prayed for all those little ones in there. I prayed for the doctors to have the wisdom to know what was wrong with them so they could help them. I prayed for the nurses to notice when something wasn't right so it could be taken care of promptly.

I don't know. Maybe having spent time with Princess in the NICU and PICU, two places I NEVER thought I would be as an adult, has changed me in more ways than just what other parents who've been there say. Yes, I treasure every milestone Princess has. I pray for yet another day with both my kids. But having been through the most scary thing as a parent you can go through and coming out the other side with my faith in tact has allowed me to grow. Not just as a person, but as a Christian. When you finally realize that prayer isn't a laundry list of wishes, but that it is a conversation with God, the Creator, then things happen in your life. You can really let God handle all those things He has told you He would handle if you would just let go of them. Even though God has given us Free Will, ultimately it's His Will that will act in your life, if you let it.

Daily Calendar Notebook

I loved the idea of calendar notebooks for the classroom when I found out about them last year on Pinterest. Well, I'm not looking to keep 30 students on task during calendar time, I'm working with just one, so I did a little researching. On Confessions of a Homeschooler's Calendar Printables, I found a preschool version! I printed out what I wanted (her version has lots of pages to it!) and put parts of it in sheet protectors. As long as you get the glossy sheet protectors, the kids can use a dry erase marker on them and reuse the pages in them frequently.

I took these photos back in November! I just haven't written this up until now!

We have the following pages:

The daily pages where Little Man traces the day of the week, colors in the number of the date, writes that number and then, if the number is below 20, he writes the word too. I'm looking at using the Elementary ones of these pages as he gets a little better at his writing. So as a result, right now we don't do these pages. We've actually have an Elementary page in there and sometimes he'll write the days up at the top. (He gets about 3-4 letters) and he'll do a few other things on it too. And come fall, he will be doing the Elementary page instead of the preschool page.

There has also been a days of the week page and months of the year page. But this is something Little Man already knows and therefore we don't do this anymore. It will be coming out of the binder this fall. I also created a "Number of the Day" page, but now that I think he understands most of the concepts on there, we may or may not do it any more. I may keep it in there for review though.

Behind that is the blank 100 chart:

He colors in a box and then he goes and adds a craft stick to our place value cups.

I got our cards and labels here. Royal Baloo has a ton of great stuff in the whole pack as well! We have added the States and therefore also have a blank US map that he colors in the state of the day.  Here's how we do our place value cups. When we get to 10 sticks in the ones, I rubber band them together and put the whole bundle in the tens cup. As we get more tens, Little Man counts by tens and then ones as we add more ones. This is a great addition to it and prepares them for kindergarten! This also goes along with our "Days in School" chart on our Calendar Board.

After we do the place value, Little Man would almost always counts the boxes on his hundred chart to make sure they match what we just did. 

Then there are 2 pages of where he can write his name every month. We do this at the end of the month as he has to write his name at least once every day.

After that are the calendar pages. He has to trace the date and any days we miss every day. I believe come fall these will get more difficult as he will have to write the number in himself instead of trace it.

Behind that is our weather graph. Every month we do a different pattern.

I also added numbers of 1 to 20 for him to trace. I'm not so worried about number recognition as I am about his writing the numbers and the number words. He doesn't do this anymore. These will come out come fall.

I'll be sure to post an updated version of our Calendar Notebook when I get it together this fall!

Happy 100th Day of Playschool!

Okay, we hit 100 days! YAY! For us this is kind of like a BIG deal anyway. We've had so many things happen this past year! Let's see: Princess was born in March and Little Man came out of his playschool at the end of May. Princess came home in June only to go back to the hospital for another week. So by July, we thought we had everything figured out, except Princess had appointment after appointment for months! So there were some weeks we got one or two days of schooling done. Then the Big Chaotic Mess happened and we moved. That put a damper on things again! Between my battling depression over the Big Chaotic Mess and battling with my son and appointments that can sometimes take MOST of the day because they are so far away now, we have just NOW hit 100 days! Eh, I'm not too worried about it. It was like he went 2-3 days a week and had Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving off.

This is from our Calendar Notebook. Little Man has had to color in one square every day we've done school.

We are one day away from finishing our Alphabet Journal. We also finished learning all the letters today. And this weekend, the playroom/schoolroom becomes JUST a playroom and the schoolroom stuff gets moved inside. I don't know how I feel about that, being Princess can climb up on the picnic bench we use for schooling. And in the following photos, she climbed up there and sat down next to her brother. So, I gave her a crayon and some paper. She actually scribbled and dotted a little. She also tried to eat the crayon!