Future American Idol?

I love this little guy!  Do you think he has a future in American Idol?

Teacher Communication

 As I mentioned in my First Grade post, I've already had a few challenges with Aurora's new teacher.  We'll call her Mrs. P.  A week before school started, Aurora's school has an "Ice Cream Social" where they find out who their teacher is going to be and we sign up for a time slot to meet the teacher and have assessments done.  Each grade has a table with all of the teachers for that grade with their class lists and schedules and everyone lines up in front of the table.  It was supposed to start at 6:00 and we got there at 5:45 and were second in line.

6:00 rolls around and there is only one teacher at the first grade table.  A couple of minutes later another teacher shows up.  At 6:10, Mrs. P shows up.  I have no patience for tardiness but at this point I'm thinking that things happen and I just won't worry about it.  I introduced Aurora to her and she engaged her right away and asked her questions and seemed good with her.  We set up an assessment time for Friday afternoon at 4:00 and left.

Friday afternoon my husband and I bring Aurora in for her assessment and to do paperwork and speak with Mrs.  P.  There is no sign of her at 4:00.  At 4:10 I'm thinking I'm going to give her 5 more minutes and then we are leaving.  She finally shows up at 4:15 - with her own three kids in tow.  We enter the room and wait while she gets her kids situated with drinks and activities.  We talk for a few minutes....while her youngest, probably about three, is continually interrupting us.   Then Josh and I move to another table to do paperwork while she assesses Aurora.  While doing the assessment, she keeps stopping to speak to or correct her youngest.  Then she allows her to sit across the table from Aurora and pound on blocks and cups while Aurora is trying to read and answer questions.  I was pretty irritated.  Despite that, Aurora still did a great job.  We talk to Mrs. P again and go over Aurora's schedule and her before and after school transportation (she attends the onsite before and after school program) and other school business and then leave - with me ticked about her lack of professionalism with her children there.

Fast forward to the first day of school.  Josh gets a call from the school 30 minutes after school got out.  "We have Aurora here in the office and you did not come to pick her up and we need to know what to do with her."   What the heck!?!  Josh went to go pick her up and I called Mrs. P and left a message with her asking her to call me.  She does not return my call.  That night I write her a letter and told her that during Aurora's assessment we specifically told her that Aurora was in the school program before and after school every day.  And that she may have been too distracted by her own kids to remember what we discussed so I wanted to be sure were were on the same page.

No response to the letter.

The next day I get a questionaire from Mrs. P asking about Aurora's strengths, weakness, interests, etc.  The last question says, "Do you have any questions or concerns?"  I wrote, "What is the best way to communicate with you?"

No response.

Two days later I send a box of tissues and a container of Clorox wipes with Aurora to school since I know the classrooms always need that stuff.

No response or thank you.

Despite all of that, Aurora seems fine with her and is happy in school right now so hopefully she is better with the kids than she is with the parents.  But for me?  I think it's going to be a long year.  And our first parent/teacher conference is definitely going to be interesting!

And now I present Aurora's first writing assignment for the year:

He Can Talk!

I'm a bit behind on updates for Alex's speech issues as well!  You may remember last year Alex was diagnosed with a Severe Phonological Disorder.  At the time, people outside the family could rarely understand him and he left a lot of sounds out when speaking.  He qualified to go to special preschool for speech problems, but because he was not potty trained we decided to continue with the at home services he was already getting bi-weekly and wait until January.  

Well January rolled around and he still was not potty trained, and was making big strides with his speech.  Because he turned 3 after the cut off period, he could continue to receive at home services until August.  So I made the call to just keep doing what we were doing instead of putting him in the school.  Now it's August and I once again have to make a judgment call!  Except this time he is no longer eligible for the at home program so it's the preschool or nothing (although he does already go to a Montessori preschool full time, it just doesn't have speech therapists).

The at home program did a speech evaluation and found him to be in normal ranges for his age.  This did not surprise me, because they said he was normal last year too and then we had him formally evaluated by an actual pathologist and they said his delay was severe.  At this point I do not think he has a severe delay anymore, but I am not sure he is in the normal ranges.  There are still sounds he doesn't pronounce currently and he is still difficult to understand at times.  So I decided to have him formally evaluated again by the preschool's speech pathologists.  I wanted to be sure that he was in normal ranges before everyone dropped services and forgot about him.

He did great with the testing - he listened and did and said everything that was asked of him.  (I'll pretend I didn't bribe him with getting a new toy if he behaved for the testing).  The results were great!  Alex is within normal ranges for his gender and age and there were no signs of the severe phonological delay he had last year!  He still has a couple of minor issues - a frontal lisp (pushes his tongue to the front while speaking) and some broken blends (when two consonants are together he sometimes drops one) and she gave us come handouts and tips on how to continue to work on these at home.  Here's a little video of Alex talking:

First Grade!

I'm behind on posts again - life is so busy right now!  Last weekend we finished our preparations for the start of school.  Saturday we took the kids to get new shoes and haircuts!  Here they are post haircut:

Sunday Aurora and I had our traditional lunch and back-to-school shopping spree with Grandma S!  Aurora picked Chili's for lunch and we shopped at Target and the mall.  Aurora has very long legs and a tiny waist!  She's also not big on shopping so had to make sure she had some fun in the middle, like riding the quarter rides at the mall.  She did pick out some outfits for herself.  My mom and I were not very impressed with the selection this year.  Aurora's school has a lot of rules - must have sleeves, no graphics or pictures except for insignia's smaller than 3in., must be a certain length, etc. and we had a hard time finding cute clothes that met the criteria.  Regardless we did a pretty good job!

Finally the first day arrived - here's the first grader!

I'm afraid she had a pretty rough first day.  They are doing construction all over the school for a gas leak (that is apparently not a danger to the kids?) and there are lots of construction sites and dirt everywhere.  They can't cook hot meals until it is fixed.  They had a fire drill and a lockdown drill.  In the lockdown drill they told the kids if a bear comes in the school or a person with a weapon, they should hide and be very quiet.  I'm all for preparing kids for these situations, but on the first day of school when the kids are already nervous!?!?  Aurora said all they did all day was go over rules and "she didn't do anything fun."  On top of  that, there was some confusion with her after school arrangements (that's a WHOLE other post) and instead of going to the after school program she had to sit in the office until Josh picked her up.  She was not a happy camper.  :-(   

Luckily, the rest of the week went pretty smoothly and she's enjoying it a lot more!  She's even proud to have the special job every morning of taking the attendance sheet to the office.  Hopefully it will be a good year!

School Preparations

In just nine short days I will have a first grader!  I can't believe it!  

We spent the majority of the weekend going through the kids' bedrooms - cleaning, sorting toys, and going through clothes.  Alex's room, even though it has the majority of the toys, was relatively easy.  We sorted through toys and Alex was good at pointing out the toys he no longer plays with so we could donate them to kids who aren't so lucky.  He helped me sort them into bins and has actually been putting them back in the right bins when he cleans up.  We went through his clothes and it looks like he's in a size 3 for pants and shirts.  Ever since he lost two pounds when his leg was broken at two, he has been a little bit smaller for his age.

Aurora's room on the other hand, was a lot of work!  My daughter is a hoarder for sure!  She had SO much stuff - including food under her desk (ick) which is strange since we don't allow eating in the bedrooms.  She and I spent several hours cleaning and sorting.  We also had a few battles and tears about stuff to give away and toss.  She wanted to keep everything!  Clothes-wise she definitely needs some stuff for the new school year.  Looks like she's a size 6 for all.  She has long legs and a tiny waist (I'm hopeful she has Josh's metabolism) so all of her pants have to be adjustable.  Luckily we already have plans next weekend to have lunch and go school clothes shopping with Grandma S!

We did manage to take a break and go see Despicable Me and go out for pizza.  It was a great movie and we all loved it!  Alex is so good at the movie theater.  When Aurora was this age she couldn't sit still and always wanted to leave halfway through.  Alex doesn't move for the entire movie.  It was a fun evening!

Futterwacken

I haven't had much to post lately, as we've been mostly relaxing on the weekends lately.  August begins preparations for school to start, first grade for Aurora, and lots of activities so we will be super busy!  It has been nice just hanging at home, playing games, having Play-Doh competitions, dancing, and all number of things.  So, for your enjoyment, here are the kids performing the Futterwacken vigiorously!

I can't figure out how to get the video to rotate correctly.  If anyone has a suggestion please let me know!