... my blogging mojo that is. As I am sure you have all noticed (all 2 or 3 people that actually read this), I haven't been blogging much. Partially because I haven't wanted to, partially because we haven't had a lot going on. But I feel the need for a post... so here goes...
Zach is going to be 5 soon. FIVE! How did that happen? He will be starting kindergarten this fall. After months of deliberation, we have made our choice on his placement for his entry to elementary school. It was a hard decision. Here's why. Part of me wanted to push for regular, fully integrated kindergarten. I feel like he would adapt well to his "typically developing" peers and he would learn well from them. And I feel like as his mother, and his advocate, I had to push for that right? We went and toured the special ed class in our district (I don't think they call it special ed anymore, I am sure it has a much more PC name). We weren't overly impressed with it. It was kind of tucked in the back of the school. Kind of the way we remember the special ed classes when we were in school, which was... oh I don't know... a couple decades ago. It was a neat class. The teacher and aides seemed awesome. We left there more confused. With his pre-school class (which is also the special ed class of the district), we walked in and fell in love. We knew he would thrive there and knew that was it. No questions asked. We didn't get that feeling from this class. After talking through different options with his teachers, and amongst ourselves, we decided on the special ed class for next year. One of our biggest reasons is that with budget cuts, the K classes are likely to have 30 kids per class. That is a lot for any teacher to deal with. In the special ed program, they aren't taking any budget hits, and he will get much more one on one time which I think will greatly benefit Zach. We had his IEP today and there are many of his goals that deal with integration. So he will do some classes (art, music, etc) in the regular kindergarten class. Our hope is that next year, maybe he will be ready to transition into a regular ed class. Maybe repeat kindergarten in the regular class. That remains to be seen. For now, it is nice that the decision is made.
We also signed Zach up for soccer again. This year we opted out of the special needs league. While it is a great team, we thought he would do better with kids his own size and age. Playing next to teenagers that were 4 times his size just wasn't a great fit. So, he is all signed up to play in the Under 6 team and games will start this fall.
Zach's speech has been taking off lately. His pronunciation of words has been noticibly better in the last few weeks even. We are so proud of him and how hard he's worked, and for putting up with us not understanding him. Zach is such a smart kid that he has all these thoughts in his head he just can't always find the words to express his thoughts.
Hannah is almost 20 months old. She is a (as a friend recently called her) "little ball of fire". She talks like she is much older than she is. She speaks complete sentences and repeats everything you say. At her last doctor appointment (about a month ago) she was 30 lbs, 34 1/2 inches tall. She loves to color and draw, play in the dirt, and kick a soccer ball. She gets in trouble for picking the flowers in the yard at daycare and when asked about it she says "Pretty!" and tries to put them back on their stems.
Her and her brother are such a pair. They play wonderfully together and you can see their true love for eachother. If one isn't in sight, the other is asking for them.
Here are a few recent pictures:
This picture isn't spectacular of them, but I want to explain. It was like 100 degrees that day and they were hanging out watching a cartoon, Chris and I were doing something in the kitchen and I go to check on them and Zach is running his fingers through her hair and she was just loving it
I just love her eye lashes in this picture
Zach talking to a baby at a family function.......
...... right before pimpin his sister out to him (love the looks on her face)
We were out of town, and they were supposed to be sleeping, I went in the room and found this
Hugs (and actually if you look close, he is kissing the top of her head)
