Skip to main content

School Days

Faith is doing so well in school and I am just so proud of her! When I take her to school in the mornings, she arrives with excitement, practically bursting at the seams to say good morning to both of her aides. Then she'll briefly turn toward me, blow me a kiss and we part our separate ways. I have no worries, no fears, no concerns...I know she'll do great.

Then, after the morning and early afternoon has quickly passed, I return to school to get her and she greets me with a big smile, yelling out, "Mommy!" She's had a good day but she is ready to go home and relax. As I begin to push her home in her chair, she usually exclaims, "I had such a fun day at school today!" She then proceeds to tell me some of the things she has done which includes: calendar, reading, math, snack, driving her chair and any other special activities of the day. She also tells me about some of her friends who have helped her throughout the day. When she's done she'll say, "So how was your day mommy? What did you do?"

I love that she is talking so much about school and all that she is learning. When I hear all about her day, it gives me comfort knowing that we made the right decision to pull her out of her afternoon therapy sessions at Medcenter. I really believe she has added energy and she can put forth all of her efforts at school.

She is doing excellent with full days, five days a week - another decision that we know is right. It gives her more time to socialize with the other kids and participate in everything a full school day has to offer. She is not left out of anything. It's amazing to us that she has only missed a couple days of school so far. We pray this trend continues throughout the year.

I really like to hear from her aides things that she says or does throughout the day - like deciding that she wants to participate in snack time. If the snack looks good, she'll ask her aide if she can have some too. She can't eat everything that is brought to school, so if she wants a snack, they'll come up with something else, like her new favorite - gogurt. They are always so willing at the school to allow her to participate, try some new things and make sure all of her needs are met.

I really get a kick out of listening to Faith when she's home. She repeats a lot what is said in school. Like the time she was telling me a story and I turned my head away for a brief second and she asked, "Mommy are you being an active listener?" And when she wants to play a game she says, "Mommy are you going to buddy up with me?"

Last night she said she wanted to do math before she went to bed. Her math problem revolved around four ducks and after one duck was gone, how many were left. She did give the right answer but I believe her answer came from memory more than from figuring it out on her own. Which is fine because I believe she is starting to understand the concepts of math and reading and one day she will be able to understand and comprehend and figure them out instead of relying on her memory.

I remember as a little girl, going home and playing teacher with my sisters and how much fun we had. That's what Faith is reminding me of. She wants to come home and play school and I just love that! Words cannot express how proud I am of her. These school days are some of the most treasured days of all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Used to Our New School Schedule

Today marks Faith's 8th day of school and we are all adjusting to a new schedule. Faith has made huge strides this past summer in sleeping better and having more energy so we decided to have her go to school from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. 5 days a week. This is a change as last year she did not go Tuesday and Thursday afternoons due to how tired and worn out she would get. Faith's first day of 4th grade School starts at 8:30 a.m. but we asked if it would be okay for us to get her there at 9:00 instead. This allows us to more time to get her first feeding into her before she even gets to school. Her aides noticed last year that when we brought her to school without any food in her tummy, she was pretty sluggish and tired upon arrival. Sometimes, after getting her to school she wouldn't start getting her feeding until after 9:00 a.m. which meant, that because she gets a feeding every 3 hours, her last feeding of the day didn't end until 10:00 p.m. Another advantage to

A Real Pain in the Arm

Last Wednesday I had my yearly doctor exam and when she said I should get my tetanus shot updated, I didn't think twice about it. The nurse said my arm would be sore for a couple of days, gave me a handout and stuck the needle in my arm. The next day my arm was sore and although I found it a little harder to pick up and carry Faith, I was glad the pain wasn't going to last long. Boy was I wrong! But not only was my arm sore, my whole body was. I felt achy and extremely tired. According to a medical site on the Internet, these were mild side effects of the Tetanus shot. If these were only mild side effects, I would really hate to have them at a moderate or severe level. On Friday, two days after getting the shot I felt so tired that I took a four hour nap after getting Faith off to school. Then on Saturday I took a three hour nap up until 7 o'clock but still felt tired and was able to go back to sleep around 10. On Sunday, finally the fatigue started wearing off and I didn

Goodbye to Our Special Tomato

Today we said goodbye to our Special Tomato adaptive car seat. And special it was. It helped Faith stay safe and secure in our Hyundai driving her back and forth to therapy appointments, shopping excursions and many other activities. It also helped us through our time of not being able to afford an accessible van. Like all adaptive equipment , the special car seat was expensive and although it is the law that a child is secured in a car seat while traveling in a vehicle, neither health insurance nor Medicaid would pay for it. Thankfully, we were able to receive funds from the fundraiser, the Great American Bike Race ( GABR ) which helps families pay for services and equipment that insurance doesn't cover for kids with cerebral palsy and related disabilities.  After doing research on the Internet and talking to Faith's physical and occupational therapists, we decided to go for the Special Tomato adaptive car seat. You would think something with that name would be r