Russia or Bust!: 08/01/2009

I have enjoyed the month off of work with my two beautiful children. I teach on a year round schedule, so every three months I have a month off. No big summer break, but I really do like my schedule like this. I will be going back to work tomorrow for meetings and prep., starting with students returning on Monday. My next chunk of time off will begin the week of Thanksgiving and I will return to work after the New Year, 6 weeks because of the holidays…NICE =)

Dylan went to Oklahoma for 12 days this past month to visit family. He really had such a great time and came home exhausted. I know this for sure because when he is over-tired he walks, talks, and does very strange things in his sleep! This month took the award of weirdness so far in his life. He had a really bad dream and decided to take on his furniture while sleeping. Furniture won, he ended up with a black eye! We spent some time the next day researching bad dreams, mostly because he needed some reassurance that he is not psychotic. Sometimes these dreams happen and we really are unsure why. He does feel there might be a relation to some of the things recently in the news that occurred her in CA. Happy to report we have all been sleeping fairly well since.

Tori is done with Dr. appointments for a while, I hope! She does have a follow up eye appointment in a two weeks. I guess I should say at least a huge bulk of Dr. appointments are done with. I attended an IEP for Tori yesterday through the school district. It went really well. I had gone to the school district shortly after arriving home, requesting a speech and language assessment for her. Her medical information from Russia indicated she was speech delayed. I felt I wanted to tackle this right away and not wait for her to begin school. I gave the district some information on Tori’s background and the decision was made to do a full assessment on her; which includes speech, language, cognitive, health, etc…..They came to my home to do the assessment and hired someone that speaks Russian to assist. In a nutshell, she has no qualifying conditions for Special Education services. The conclusion, she is doing really well and has learned so much for just being her a short time. I agree wholeheartedly. After reviewing the paperwork I had given them from Russian doctors, they were not sure what to expect when they arrived at my home. Upon leaving my home and at the IEP, they were very complementary about what an amazing little girl she is and as to how well she is doing! She really is pretty amazing!!!! =)

Along those same lines, Tori has started preschool. This is her second week of attending. I was fortunate to find a lady about a mile from my home that runs a preschool out of her home in the mornings and offers daycare as well. For now, Tori has just been attending a few hours in the morning to get her used to it. Starting Monday, while I am at work, she will be going all day. She is really enjoying it and continues to learn so much!!!! =)