Magical Monday (plus a bit)

Back to School - already??!!?

I could easily enjoy another month or two of warm summer weather, sunshine & shorts, no need for jackets, and long summer days. That’s one of the most noticeable things already – the days are growing shorter as fall approaches. It’s getting dark already before 8pm, which is a sure sign that summer is drawing to a close.

So here they are, the young scholars: Mustang entering Grade 5 and Button starting Grade 2.

Grade 5!!?!! How did that happen so fast? It seems just a short while ago I was dropping a little girl off at the school door for her first day of Kindergarten. Some days you think they grow up so fast. (These, of course, are offset by all the days you wish they’d display a lot more grown-up behaviour!)

Another cycle of life – plans for Thanksgiving, Villages season, Christmas and the winter to come and finally the burgeoning of new life once again. All in its due time…


So here it is – the beginning of another school year. I know Mustang would have loved another month – or two or three – of holidays. Button too, though he’s somewhat more academically inclined, is still not a fan of spending days at a desk.

Double-digit kid!

Happy birthday Mustang!

We celebrated her TENTH birthday today! Can you believe it? My girl is 10!!!!!!!

She woke up before the alarm rang this morning, eager to head downstairs and see the two little presents I said I’d set out at breakfast (for both her and Button, whose birthday comes in a mere six days…). She climbed into bed beside me until the radio came on and I said she could wake her brother and go check out the prezzies: one from me (a Littlest Pet Shop critter) and one from Lovely (a ball thrower with some balls).

Nanny had baked cupcakes yesterday, at my request, so I drove the kids to school so we could carry the two huge containers into the classroom easily. Today was Jump Rope for Heart day at their school, so they had that as well as cupcakes (in Mustang’s classroom) to look forward to.

Our friend Giggles said she’d come over this evening after supper and bring Mustang her present, so there’s that to look forward to. We won’t do anything much else special, as Lovely has her training session tonight from 8-9.

Tomorrow will be the big party day – each kid invited three friends and I’ve spent the past week getting things organized. (Didn’t really start thinking of what to do until Monday, so it’s come together in short order!) It’s a joint Littlest Pet Shop-Pokemon themed party. Having a theme always helps! Kids have been helpful in getting things organized – and I decided to purchase a cake – though not the fancy custom-decorated one, just a regular $10 Happy Birthday variety.

Mustang at 7

Mustang at 8

Mustang at 9

and Mustang at 10!!!

Magical Wednesday

Here are the last of the "historical" photos from March. These ones are from Mustang's fourth Family Day (march 14th)! We visited her favourite Chinese restaurant with her favourite friends.

Magical Monday

I've been lax in posting real family pictures here recently. I've been taking them, but the transfer to the computer, and from computer to blog, just hasn't been happening. Here are a few to make up for "lost time"! These date from March - we don't have snow any more!!!

Riding lessons

A visit to the Sugar Shack

Picture thinking

Last Friday I mentioned that Mustang is working with some software that is supposed to help train the brain to hear better, with a view to ultimately being able to read better.

Well, today she’s also starting a one-week intensive “intervention” that is supposed to train the brain to “see” better – or, more specifically, to hold its perspective so as to make it easier to decipher what’s on the printed page. This is accompanied by specific procedures to help kids form mental images of “trigger words” that they have trouble picturing – the theory being that many dyslexic (and ADD) kids think pictorially rather than verbally. (A “right-brained” phenomenon.) Mustang has told me that she “thinks in pictures” and I have no reason to disbelieve her. (While most of my thinking happens verbally, like a little interior monologue, I do sometimes think in pictures too. I suspect Mustang does thinks verbally sometimes, but picture-thinking is probably dominant for her.)

Since it is known that dyslexic kids often say that words and letters “jump around” on the page for them, I have asked Mustang if this happens with her and she says yes. (When I asked her again recently, she said it doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but it still does happen.) This is yet another manifestation of picture thinking, according to the book that got me onto this particular idea: The Gift of Dyslexia, by Ron Davis.

Davis claims that children who think in pictures, when faced with a word – which is a symbol, rather than an actual “thing” – try to flip the physical object (the letters in the word) around in their minds in order to make sense of it. Of course that doesn’t work because the letters d – o – g aren’t an actual dog, they just stand for one. (To be precise, they stand for the sounds that, in English, represent the thing dog. So written language is doubly symbolic, making it even more difficult than spoken language for people who have difficulty interpreting symbols.) But what it means is that children with this problem often reverse letters, flip them around in words (felt for left and vice versa, was for saw…), and even read words in the wrong order. These are things that Mustang frequently does.

Davis also claims that children who think pictorially often stumble over words that do not easily translate into pictures – the more abstract words as well as grammatical markers (the, a, is, was, are, to, on, up, etc).

In light of these constraints, the Davis method starts off by training the brain to “stay oriented” so that the child maintains the correct perspective when looking at letters on a page, and no longer attempts to flip the letters around mentally. Then, once you have trained the “mind’s eye” to stand still, the method calls for helping children to form mental pictures of words that are difficult to represent pictorially – the “trigger words” that they stumble over when reading. This is done by working with a physical substance – clay – to build pictures that the student can then internalize.

When reading the book, much of what he said resonated with me in my observations of Mustang – from words “jumping around” on the page, to the types of reading mistakes made, and even her very physically active nature.

Once again, this is an “alternative method” of treating dyslexia that, it is claimed, works to overcome rather than simply deal with the underlying problems. (Or, rather, to use the dyslexic’s inherent strengths of visualization as an asset, rather than a hindrance, to reading.) Once again, the claims are a bit fantastic – an average one to two grade levels improvement in reading after just the one-week intensive training. And once again, I am enough of a skeptic not to expect such miraculous results, but enough of a believer to think she stands to benefit. And, once again, it certainly cannot hurt.

Brain exercises

A couple of weeks ago a friend lent me a copy of the book The Brain that Changes Itself, by Dr. Norman Doidge. I was eager to read it, as - since Mustang’s official diagnosis of dyslexia with a particular issue around working memory - I have been interested in finding more about memory issues and how one might be able to improve the brain’s capacity in this area.

Chapter three of the book focuses on learning issues and how the brain can, with “exercise” and concentration, make new neural connections that will restore lost functions or improve weak ones. It mentions some software called Fast ForWord, created by Dr. Michael Merzenich and colleagues, that is supposed to help dyslexic children not just “cope” but to actually improve their brain function in areas of auditory processing (often an underlying issue with dyslexia) and memory.

A Google search quickly took me to some info about Fast ForWord, including the Scientific Learning company that developed the product, which had links to companies offering the software and support services. I found and contacted one located in New York State, called Gemm Learning, that offers a “distance” service to people located in other areas. After some thought, and discussing it with Mustang (who was eager to try it out – she likes computer games and she wants to be able to read as easily as other kids), made arrangements to use their services. The software arrived last Friday and Mustang has been working on it daily since then. The recommended “protocol” is 50 minutes a day, five days a week, for up to six months. There is a sequence of products, initially focusing on auditory processing, then moving on to exercises in following instructions, distinguishing grammatical elements, putting words together, and even some math-related exercises to improve basic math skills.

I am hopeful that this will eventually prove beneficial to Mustang. The theory is that when children have auditory processing issues (i.e. have difficulty distinguishing certain sounds, or process sounds more slowly than ideal for comprehension, which relates to reading abilities), by training the brain to process sounds faster it will improve their capacity to translate the sounds into words. There are, of course, those who state that claims of the software’s effectiveness are largely unsubstantiated. But much of what the software’s developers say about auditory processing and dyslexia just jives with what I see in Mustang, that I decided it was worthwhile to try.

Whether it will be effective, or how effective it will be, remains of course to be seen. I'm enough of a skeptic not to expect miraculous results, but enough of a believer to think it could benefit her. At the very least it won't hurt, and since the vast majority of approaches to dyslexia just try to "manage" it through compensatory strategies and accommodations, if this has even the slightest effect in overcoming the problem it will be beneficial.

Mustang's fourth Family Day

Can it be four years already? It was a cloudy Monday in Taiyuan, China, when the active and spunky little girl known here as Mustang was brought to a plain bureaucratic room to be introduced to her new Mommy, Laolao and Laoye. She was curious, uncertain, wary – and pleased with the little pink bunny Laolao brought for her. (Her love of stuffies continues to this day!) She cried, twice, but not for long. She would often run and hide, but never where we couldn’t find her – it was a game. She was wearing a bright red, satiny padded jacket and pants (now stored for safekeeping, along with bunny, in a bin in the basement) which we promptly traded for “western” wear when we got back to our hotel. (She didn’t mind the trade.)

Since then:

• She has had palate surgery to close her cleft palate, and in the coming months will begin to be prepared for the next surgery on her jawline, beginning with some dental work and wearing a space to straighten and space out some of the adult teeth.
• She has learned English well – including proper articulation of the consonant sounds – and now boasts a very good vocabulary.
• She has completed almost four years of schooling, learning to read and do basic math.
• She has learned to skate, ski, ride bicycle, swim, roller blade, draw, colour, and more!!
• She has entered my heart and made herself a place there, never to go away.

Happy Family Day, Mustang!

Varia

Spring is on its way, though it is not quite “here” yet. We have had several very nice days, mixed with some cold and windy ones. Not much new snow, which is heartening, but the old stuff lingers on, though diminishing bit by bit.

Laolao and Button finished off the 1000-piece puzzle on Monday – all but two pieces, which were lost. Button found one by searching through the baskets under the table, but the other remains lost. That evening I took a 500-piece puzzle that was sitting in Nanny’s room and dumped it out on the table. So yesterday he started in on that one, putting together a small section.

Skating and skiing lessons are done for the year. Mustang has started a new round of horse riding lessons and I’m trying to find some good art classes for her to take starting in late March. Though my philosophy is generally one art and one sport (at a time) for extracurricular activities, since last fall the sports have dominated. But it’s high time to get Mustang back into art, as she really enjoys it and I do think it can help to enhance cognitive development! Button will have a bit of a break until late April, when they’ll both start swimming lessons again, and then in late May he’ll start soccer twice a week on a team that plays through the summer.

I’ve started reading a very interesting book entitled The Brain that Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge (MD). I’m not far into it, but the bit I’ve read so far is fascinating. It’s all about neuroplasticity – the capacity of the brain to change, form new circuits, repair itself, and develop new functions and capacities.

In one appendix he talks about how culture affects the brain and perception, citing (among other things) the Sea Gypsies, a tribe of people in the south Pacific who live as much on the water as on land and who have developed the extraordinary capacity to see under water with great clarity at great depths, and to hold their breath under water far longer than most people.

The first chapter tells the story of a woman affected by the loss of the sense of balance (leading to the perpetual and debilitating sensation of falling) who was cured by the use of a device that transmitted the messages that the vestibular system (responsible for balance) normally does via stimulus to the tongue. The brain was capable to taking those messages, which would normally be classified as touch (a sensation like champagne bubbles bursting on the tongue) and recognize them to be related to balance, and re-learn the sense of balance.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book and highly recommend it for anyone interested in the brain and how it works.

Next week is March break. I’m developing a list of various activities for the kids. Only thing is, I keep thinking of it as things “we” can do – until I remember that I’ll be at work!! I’ve promised each child one evening out with Mommy all on their own, for a bit of dedicated Mommy time. I think I need to do a bit more of this, for their good and for mine.

And on Tuesday I got a bit of Mommy time all to myself – while Laolao took Mustang to horse riding and Laoye put Button to bed, I went to a movie. Saw Slumdog Millionaire, which I really enjoyed. A very interesting premise, and a fascinating method of telling the frequently disturbing story. Well worth seeing (though NOT for children under the age of at least 14 – as it is rated).

Magical Monday

Puzzling behaviour

About ten days ago, the Monday evening after the weekend Mustang had flu, I took out the 1000-piece ocean life puzzle I’ve had lurking around for the past six years or so and dumped it out onto a table in my bedroom. The kids helped me spread out the pieces and then started to pick out some of the coloured pieces and fit a few together with great gusto, while I continued turning over the pieces and spreading them out so there would be no overlap.

I told them then, and repeated it several times, that this was a hard puzzle with lots of pieces and they shouldn’t expect to get it done in one evening – in fact, it would probably take a couple of weeks to put together. I also said not to let themselves get frustrated if it wasn’t going quickly and they couldn’t find pieces to fit together – just take a break, go away for a few minutes or hours, and come back later to do a bit more work on it. I said this was the kind of puzzle that takes a long time even for grown-ups to do, and if they found it too difficult, well not to worry. They could work on it or not, whatever they wanted. But both of them were keen.

One evening later that week, after they were asleep, I searched out all the edge pieces I could find and worked on the border, getting almost all of it put together (on a little card table next to the table containing the spread-out pieces, as it wasn’t big enough for everything!). The kids noticed this first thing the next morning and were keen to do some more work themselves. They picked out some more of the pieces of brightly coloured fish and got a few more bits put together.

Bit by bit over the last ten days we’ve all worked on it and slowly it has come together. All that remains now are the shades of blue – bluish fish, bluish dolphins with some white streaks across their backs, and plain water. Laolao and Laoye have chipped in with bits and pieces, but most of it has been done by me and the kids, particularly Button (who has more time in the day to work on it).

I’m quite impressed by Button’s persistence and patience, and his improved puzzle skills. Even just a month or two back, he would frequently pick up totally inappropriate pieces (wrong colour, wrong shape) and try to fit them in somewhat randomly. But with all the puzzles we’ve done recently, he’s starting to pay more attention to colour and shape – picking out the pieces with three or four “outies” or “innies” where that’s what is needed, noticing the slight variations in shading that make a piece appropriate or not, searching for (and finding!) the right piece based on which part of it should be a given colour and what markings it ought to show as judged by the picture – and popping them into place!

Mustang, too, is showing improved puzzle skills along the same lines, though she was already better at puzzles than Button if for no other reason than being older (and further along developmentally). Recently, her greatest areas of improvement have been her patience with puzzles and interest in them – important factors in and of themselves not just for puzzle work but for many areas of endeavour, including academics.

I think one of our next puzzle purchases might include a 500-piecer – not quite as big and challenging as the one we’ve almost finished, but still enough to keep us going for a few days.

Official diagnosis

Mother’s instincts triumph again…

This morning I saw the psychologist who has been doing Mustang’s psycho-educational assessment, to review his findings. They show that, indeed, Mustang has a learning disability. She assesses very high (high average to significantly above average) in three areas of intellectual capacity, and very significantly below average in “working memory.” This type of inconsistency, coupled with lower-than-expected achievement in terms of school performance (and the lack of any other explanation, such as illness, depression, home environment factors, etc), is the hallmark of a learning disability.

Thankfully, the school has been proactive and has already started to take measures to address her learning issues. The psychologist will be making several recommendations that should have the effect, if followed, of reinforcing and extending the type of services available to Mustang through the school system. It may take until the end of this school year to get everything in place, but this will lay the foundation for continuing support and instructional modifications for future years.

I’ve known since early Grade 1 that things just weren’t clicking like they should. Now it’s official.

Flu, stories, puzzles

This past weekend, it was Mustang’s turn to be sick again, this time with flu. High fever, chills, fatigue (thankfully no vomiting). We had a quiet Saturday at home.

Button stayed home from skiing lesson as he developed a sore foot, the cure for which would have been for me to stay at the ski chalet as usual to “watch” him and our companion skier friend instead of dropping them off and coming back home to be with Mustang. As I wasn’t willing to leave Mustang with Nanny all day (on Nanny’s regular day off), his sore foot remained incurable and prevented him from having an active and fun outdoor day.

We listened to books on CD, read stories, watched a short movie, and did lots of puzzles. The latter were mostly done by Button and me as Mustang didn’t even have energy for much puzzling. She mostly lay on the sofa and listened to the stories on CD. We finished off Magic Tree House book #16, Hour of the Olympics, then listened to CS Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, and even started on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I called various church people to trade off Sunday School teaching duties and to apologize in advance for Mustang missing her choir’s performance of a song in the church service.

As it turned out, by Sunday morning the fever had broken and Mustang had a lot more energy, but we still stayed home to have a restful day to stave off a relapse and gather energy for school. Finished listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, watched another movie, did more puzzles… In the afternoon we made a short excursion to Scholar’s Choice to buy a few more puzzles – we’d done every single one in the house, save one, and the kids wanted more. I happened to know the store had a buy-2-get-1-free sale on Ravensburger puzzles, and with the kids’ saved allowance money they’d have enough to each make a purchase (and I snuck in the free one for a later occasion). So we nipped over and they each chose, not the unicorn puzzles they’d started out saying they wanted, but some other lovely pictures from the 300-piece puzzle selection.

Got home, dumped them out on the table, and set to work.

As the 300-piece puzzles are labelled as for age 9+, I’d steered Button (age almost-6) towards one that I figured would among the easier of the lot (dolphins jumping out of ocean against sunset sky), with lots of colour in distinct bands and a nice, clear picture with easy-to-distinguish detail. He set to with gusto, refusing all offers of help, and in about two hours managed to complete about half the puzzle all on his own. The picture chosen by Mustang (age almost-9), while very cute (Mommy giraffe “kissing” baby giraffe, with several other giraffes, against a savannah background), was harder as there were really only three distinct colour groups (sky, trees/grass, giraffes), each of which occurred in three or four different places. She grew somewhat discouraged as the pieces didn’t just “pop” into place – though largely, I think, owing to it being already late in the afternoon and she was growing tired.

After the kids went to bed I continued working on the puzzles, almost completing Button’s (with his blessing!) and doing almost half of Mustang’s. Monday morning, they hopped out of bed and raced downstairs to work on the puzzles. Button easily fitted the final 17 pieces into place (he’d told me I should almost finish it, but leave some for him to do), and Mustang made progress with the giraffes and trees. She wanted to finish it before school but, alas, there wasn’t quite time, though between the two of them they’d gotten all but about 30 pieces done.

Conclusion: I think it’s about time to take the 24- and 48-piece puzzles in our collection to Value Village (or pass them on to someone with younger kids) as the kids can whip them up in no time already. They’re at the stage where 100 pieces is about the minimum that holds any challenge, even for Button.

A good big sister

Last weekend Button had a bad cold and was quite wiped out most of the weekend. It was a long long weekend for the kids – PD Day on Friday, Family Day on Monday. Though I don’t get the Family Day holiday as I work for the feds, I took the day off anyhow.

Had planned to get groceries on that Monday, but on Sunday realized that since Monday was a holiday the grocery store likely wouldn’t be open. Called over to confirm and yes, they would be closed Monday. We really needed groceries, so I decided to go Sunday afternoon. Stalled a bit, as Button not feeling energetic, had supper … then really needed to get to the store. Tried calling one or two neighbours to see if they could take the kids for an hour, but no one was available. Button really really didn’t want to go hang around in the grocery store, even though we said he could just sit in the cart. So I called a couple of friends from church and finally found our good friends Alleycat and Bigger D who were home – parents were out of town, but both teenagers old enough to take responsibility. So dropped the kids off at their place (not too far from grocery store) while I went and stocked up.

When we got home it was around 7:30 and Button was fading fast, but I needed to get groceries put away. I told Mustang I had a special job for her – could she take little brother upstairs and help him get to sleep while I put away the groceries? She thought that was cool (and Button didn’t insist on Mommy) so off they went. About 15 minutes later she was back downstairs, Button fast asleep (in Mommy’s bed!).

The two of us had a good time reading together, drawing pictures, and enjoying ourselves before she needed to get to sleep too.

(Later last week she picked up Button’s cold and on Thursday was running a fever so stayed home from school – to her great chagrin, as it was a field-trip day to a neighbouring school to see a play. Poor Mustang!)

Poles!

Mustang’s ski instructor told her last Saturday that she’s ready to start skiing with poles!!! They start the kids off with no poles, to ensure proper balance and control, and add poles once they’ve demonstrated good technique. Mustang was quite excited about this; she’s been wanting to use poles since her first day skiing.

Our friend DC came skiing with us last Saturday; she took the kids down the big hill once before their class and again after lunch for about two and a half hours. She said “they’re little speed demons!” – yes, they both like going fast, especially Button. I climbed partway up one of the slopes to watch them come down; close to where I stood was a little section of bumps. The kids aimed for the bumps to get some lift under their skis; Button fell both times I saw him try to go over (but that didn’t deter him the slightest!), whereas Mustang fell once but the second time she made it over upright.

Kids are looking forward to a long weekend – PD Day on Friday and provincial holiday on Monday. Nothing much scheduled, just fun time at home and of course skiing on Saturday. Button was coughing a lot this morning; hope he doesn’t come down with bronchitis like Mustang had week before last.

I think I’ve found a series of exercises to work on spelling that will work better than the routine stuff her teacher was sending home as spelling practice. One evening we spell the words using clay letters; one evening practice typing them; one evening use a special mat with alphabet letter cards to spell them; and one evening do some pencil & paper practice. More varied, more hands-on, and gets the typing involved too. She’s got almost the whole alphabet down with the typing; just a few letters on the bottom row left to learn. We’ve only been using this routine for a few weeks so I’m not 100% sure how well it will work, but it seems a better “fit” to me at least.

Now I’m turning my attention to trying to figure out how to work with her on math. Again, looking for some more hands-on activities as well as potentially software or games that can both teach and reinforce the math concepts and provide more practice. Any ideas?

Magical Monday

Report Card Day

Yesterday was report card day. Mustang’s teachers have worked in the past couple of weeks to prepare an IEP (Individual Education Plan) for her so that, in their words, she could be given marks reflective of the effort she is putting in. Her IEP focuses on reading, writing and math. With the IEP in place, she received very good marks – mostly Bs.

So far we have really focused at home on her reading skills. That is no doubt why her reading is approaching grade level. Her teachers say that whenever there’s a break in the work and she has a bit of “free time” or she’s done what’s expected, she’ll pull out a book and read. Yesterday she took to school the Magic Tree House #30 which she received as an Advent present on Sunday, because she wanted to get right at it. They view it as a good sign that she likes books and reading so much, despite still struggling with it. So do I.

It’s high time, though, I started working more on math with her. We’ve done occasional bits of review and practice, but nothing sustained or systematic, which is really what’s required.

The thing is that she already works so hard in school, I don’t want to overload her with work at home. If we do 20 minutes of reading, 10 minutes of typing, and 10 minutes of math every day, that’s a pretty heavy workload already for an 8-year-old. Add to that the school-issued homework – perhaps 10 minutes of spelling practice three or four nights a week, plus one page of language arts and two pages of math homework per week that we try to complete in two nights (so as to keep the weekend free of school-issued homework) – and it really adds up. (By mid-January I'm hoping that she will have good enough keyboarding skills that spelling practice and typing practice can be integrated at least in part.) But Mustang is beginning to recognize more and more that to make progress she will have to work harder than many other kids. But she still needs time just to be a kid and have fun.

As for Button, being in Kindergarten, he did not receive a report card this term. I will meet with his teacher on Thursday to discuss his progress, but no formal report card is prepared for Kindergartners until term 2.

Off-hand, I’d say he’s doing quite well. He’s recognizing letters and numbers, can count fairly reliably to 20 (though for some reason 15 if often dropped!), can do some basic addition counting on his fingers, has a pretty good number sense, is getting better at printing the letters and numbers, and likes to (pretend to) read.

When he’s playing on some of the kids’ websites on my computer, he’s quite capable of using the Favourites to get to some bookmarked sites, based on recognition of the first letter of the word or words that make up the shortcut and their position in the list.

And the other day, playing a number recognition math game on the kids’ computer (counting the number of balls on the screen and then clicking on the right number), he used a “short-cut” strategy to try to get the answer – if there were lots of balls on the screen he’d pick the biggest number first, rather than stop to count them. Unfortunately for him, this resulted in a lot of wrong answers (he’d pick 10 when there were really 9 balls, for example) – but I found it interesting that he already had the sense of large quantity relating to high numbers and knew which ones those were!

Mustang learns to sew

Back in early autumn, Mustang said she wanted to learn to sew. She’s 8 now (actually 8 1/2 as of last Friday!), so I figured she was old enough to learn to use the sewing machine. I think I was around 8 when I first started sewing.

I had bought a whole bunch of fabric for a variety of projects, including some short lengths of flannel for the kids to use as blankets for their stuffies. Owing to getting two of the (similar) fabrics mixed up at the cutting table, I’d ended up with 2m rather 0.5m of the flannel for Button’s stuffy blanket.

So for a first project I told Mustang she could make a two-sided blanket for her stuffies. We took the 0.5m of panda flannel she had selected and cut a 0.5m length from the extra piece of Button’s snowflake flannel. Put them good sides together and all she had to do was sew around the four edges, leaving a small opening to turn it inside out. We then ironed it out nicely and she sewed the opening shut. This didn’t take long, so at the end of the morning Mustang had a beautiful two-sided blanket for her stuffies!

Since then she hasn't done a lot of sewing, though several of the prezzie projects for friends have involved making a few seams which I have had her do.

One of the bigger projects for which I bought material back in September was to make a fleece outfit for each kid. I had her work with me in cutting out the material for her outfit. Since then the pieces have just been sitting there, as I've been busy working on other projects and the kids prezzie projects have taken priority. But now (finally!) the fleece outfits are next on the agenda - along with a set of jammies for me. We bought flannel for jammies for each of us, and while I sewed the kids' up first thing - Mustang's wearing her new jammies in the photos here - the cut pieces for mine have been sitting there, near the bottom of the priority list.

Hmm, maybe I'll see if Mustang might like to help sew them together!!

What’s up, doc…

Learning disabilities

I’ve been doing some reading on learning disabilities. No earth-shattering revelations as of yet (once you’ve read one book, a lot of the information is repeated in others). So far most books talk about what it is, how it’s diagnosed, how it affects kids (& adults). I’ve yet to find much on treatment or techniques for helping kids learn better. But the one I’m reading now has a few chapters on “treatment” and another one is designed for teachers working with kids with learning disabilities, so I have hope of finding a few ideas.

I also took out a video called “Bright kids, bad grades.” After watching it, I thought Mustang could benefit from watching it too so we did so on Sunday afternoon. She found it very interesting and I think it helped her to see she isn’t the only kid with these kinds of problems. I’ve also started reading her the story bits of a book that combines a story about a kid with LD with other information about LD. She’s finding it interesting too. One section where it describes the tests the school psychologist did with the boy, she got all excited because they were some of the same tests / games the psychologist did with her last Thursday.

Of course, a diagnosis has not yet been made, but I have few doubts. (If it doesn’t come back as an LD diagnosis I will be both perplexed and frustrated, because she simply isn’t learning the way she “should.”)

Work

It’s been pretty hectic for the last two weeks. I am discovering how much politics there is in how decisions as to government funding programs are made… and how that can interfere with the completion of processes designed to move the government agenda forward. Everyone wants/needs time to do their job properly, but the politics sometimes means decisions are delayed and then the resultant (approval) processes get rushed. Much of my current job is process-driven, which is not my favourite thing, but as long as there’s enough content-driven work, too, it’s not too bad.

Camera

As noted before, I’m desiring a digital camera. I would appreciate any suggestions as to a good but inexpensive model that fulfills the following criteria:

• lightweight and compact (but not excessively small);
• capable of close-focus (within appx 30 – 45cm of the object being photographed);
• capable of turning flash on or off as desired; taking photos on delay-release setting;
• does not need to be SLR, though that could be nice if it meets the size and price criteria;
• does not require a super-high pixel rating, but would like larger pixels for sharper/brighter images;
• some zoom capability (optical zoom preferred over digital zoom);
• price of under $250.
  

Afternoon with friends

Right at the end of summer we met up with a couple of Ethiopian adoptive family friends (who couldn’t make it to the gathering a couple of weeks earlier). One of the families lives on a farm about an hour’s drive from the city and has all kinds of animals rescued from animal shelters. Since Mustang LOVES animals, I invited our family out to the farm. Finney made it a super fun afternoon by inviting SK and her gang of four, as well as Finney’s sister and her kids.

It was a gorgeous late August afternoon. We basked in the sun (and shade, when it got too hot).


The kids (and a few grown-ups) got a soccer game going in the yard. Everyone said Button was a pro – get your autographs now!!


Then there was the pond, complete with frogs…


After playing we had a lovely supper with Ethiopian food made by SK’s nanny.


Then the three of us headed over to Finney’s sister’s place, a short drive away, because she had HORSES!! Each of the kids took a turn riding the pony bareback (being led).