Busy, Busy Week!

Starting with Monday which was probably the quietest day of the week as it was just a typical day...I was completely off my game and dropped the ball with FHE...*sigh*, it happens.  Tuesday morning Devin had speech therapy which is finally going really well. He is gaining leaps and bounds in his speech...he still has a lot of pronunciation problems but he's starting to put two words together, and he tries to say everything you do.  He is a perfect parrot! And we have broken through a major "barrier"  in his receptive language...he all the sudden understands so much!  They were really hoping this would happen in his 2nd year, and he sure didn't waste anytime! He was re-evaluated a few weeks ago and is no longer delayed in receptive language!  In fact his receptive language in now at a higher percentage than his expressive language.  He's still learning to use his language skills and use them properly but it's so exciting to see all the leaps and bounds of progress!  Tuesday afternoon I dropped a very excited Devin off with his Aunt Ketty to watch him while I took Elizabeth to a consult appointment with her pediatrician.  You see I was hoping that I could start Elizabeth into a good kindergarten this year(even though I knew she'd need an accelerated learning program and probably first grade work)....but the Utah state education board is very strict with the Sept. 1st deadline these days thanks to growing class sizes, so that was absolutely not a possibility. :( So we were meeting with her dr to do an evaluation of where Elizabeth is at these days intellectually(I can do this up at the sate health department but Elizabeth associates it with the hospital since they're next to each other...it's also more expensive and intimidating, so I went this less evasive route to roughly determine where she's landing intellectually these days) And to get her dr's input on Elizabeth's education plan.  She did a non-official IQ test and an overall evaluation.  Her *non-official* results put Elizabeth's score at 186, which after reading her notes isn't her IQ it's her ranking on that test which would put her IQ around the 140-150 range, which is considered highly gifted which is above mildly and moderately gifted and below exceptionally and profoundly gifted.  Honestly I don't so much care about the official numbers, I just want to know what is best for her in life.  So in more simple, practical terms, as far as academics go she is overall at an end of 1st/beginning of 2nd grade level.  Her reading and comprehension, math and science were at a 2nd grade level. Her writing spelling and social studies were at a closer to first grade level.  So this little girl of mine who can't even go to public kindergarten yet, needs to be put in 2nd grade in the fall...sigh.  So after being wowed by miss Elizabeth, her pediatrician and I discussed what the best option is for her education and came back basically to the same place we always do.  Public school just won't work for her... right now.  We could send her to a private school if we had the money....which we don't,  so home school it is! I must admit though it is nice to know I'm doing something right in schooling her myself, if her pediatrician(who isn't fond of the home schooling idea) is telling me I'm doing a good job teaching her myself and to keep on doing it!  My biggest fear with teaching her myself is holding her back or keeping her from excelling to her fullest potential. But now I honestly think I may be the best person for that job.  I love teaching Elizabeth(most the time) she really is pretty easy to teach and we have so much fun learning together and it is very satisfying to see her excel academically!  Toward the end of the visit her pediatrician pointed out she noticed a change in her behavior and asked if we were having trouble with her behavior to which I had to give a resounding YES!  Lately Elizabeth has gotten almost impossible to deal with at times!  She found it odd that she was just now exhibiting behaviors we expected but never saw in the last one to two years.  She suggested a highly recommended book, on parenting a gifted child, and that we crack down on her discipline, and see if there is some improvement in a few weeks.  She also threw out a possible post traumatic stress like option.  That because of some of the things that occurred in our life in the past few years when she was too young to process them she is now suffering some of the effects of them.  I can't believe I never thought about how seeing your mommy in the hospital time and time again, and being shuffled off to here there and everywhere with just about everybody, seeing your mommy unable to walk...take care of you like she used to or even talk right sometimes must have affected her, at a time when she was incapable of understanding or processing the stress that it must have put on her.  And now on top of all that she has an Autistic little brother that has a lot of special needs and very thin ice...the complexity of which she can't be expected to fully understand, or know how to cope with.  She has had quite a medical history of her own, which have included several unpleasant and some downright painful procedures at the hospital which she must have already had a terrified tainted image of.  Her dr said her worry level seems to be through the roof.  The feeling of true actual worry doesn't usually develop until around 5 but she told me she knows with Elizabeth's higher intelligence she has no doubt Elizabeth is capable of feeling real genuine worry...that something bad could just all the sudden happen to mommy again and that she'd have to be cared for by lots of strangers as everyone she knew and loved in our old neighborhood are gone.  That she could have to go to the hospital and have horrible painful things done to her.  That all of her little brother's special needs might not leave room for her in this family.  My heart completely broke when she said that last one.  Being gifted often comes with over thinking things, and sometimes to beyond the point of practicality.  So if the disciplinary counsel in faithful execution doesn't seem to be helping in a few weeks she suggested having Elizabeth see a therapist to see if she may need to work out some resolvable and possibly built up stress in her life that could be causing her undesirable behavior. It was quite the appointment.  Devin has a behavioral therapist, so I'm going to bounce some things off her and see what she thinks.  Devin already goes to the Children's Center so I could definitely look at getting her some help there as well if needed.  Since Elizabeth did pretty darn good during this long intense visit I got her a happy meal on the way home(and since it was over on hour past her dinner time and she must have been starving...but surprisingly was not throwing a fit about it).  What a Tuesday!!
Wednesday evening we met up with a couple of our scouts and delivered the scouting for food bags to our designated area, we'll call this an FHE activity as I talked to Elizabeth about how the food collected helps those in the area who don't have food to eat, and we were out walking as a family....so ya we're counting that as FHE!  Thursday Devin had behavioral therapy which went petty well, she had lots of good information and ideas!  I totally forgot to talk to her about Elizabeth's stuff so I'll have to do that at the next visit.  That night we had pack meeting for scouts, it was the Space Derby, we stayed and cheered our one representing scout until it was time to go home and put the loud ornery kids to bed.  For fun Friday I let the kids have a "free day"...basically they watched Nick Jr. all morning(I only feel a little bad about this because they never watch a lot of t.v., and it was at least educational shows, and just because it was on all morning doesn't mean they watched it all morning, they played as well while it was on and they just paid attention to the parts they wanted to).  In the afternoon my good friend Kim came for a visit and brought lunch too!  We had a really good chat and it was just what I was needing.  We had such a good time and at times were laughing harder than I've laughed in oh so long!  Best medicine!  That night we took Elizabeth and Devin cause he kinda has to go with us ;), to McDonald's to have dinner and more importantly play at the play place as she earned enough stars on her behavior chart and that was her reward.  She had a blast!  Devin did pretty good he had some definite hard times when there were a lot of other kids around him, but eventually he gathered up the courage and climbed up into the play place....he of course couldn't get back down and wouldn't let his sister help him out either, so I climbed up in there and retrieved him.  Then we went over to Smith's and did our grocery shopping.  Saturday we a lot to do.  We started at Lowes where we picked up a little build and grow hammer for Elizabeth, then picked up the kids little build and grow projects to do with Tony at a later time, then it was up to Riverdale, where Tony went with the kids to pick up our pictures from JC Penny, and I went to Carter's to use our $10 reward we earned a while ago, I found a cute outfit for Devin with a nice little spring jacket which he needs, I also found coordinating outfits for our family pictures in June.  Success, and we didn't even spend a ton of money like we usually do in that store!  Then we went to the Lifetime store in the Freeport center as they had their wiggle cars on sale for a really low price, we were just going to get one for Elizabeth as we didn't think Devin would be able to use one...but of course he showed us wrong and they both cruised around on their own wiggle cars, so we ended up swallowing the cost for two(although thanks to the amazingly low sale price you practically got two for the regular price of one!) We of course had to let the kids play on the fun splay sets they have set out in front for a little while, then it was time to go home for lunch.  While Devin was down for his nap Tony put the wiggle cars together and Elizabeth had some fun on hers.  She of course had to ride it to the front door, then played with it outside while Tony did some cleaning/straightening up in my parent's garage.  After Devin woke up from his nap we loaded up and went out to Antelope Island where our parents were RVing together.  We didn't get to stay long as we wanted to, as we didn't realize the gates closed so early(at 7:30!) but we did have some good playing and visiting time, and a yummy taco dinner with them before we had to go. Sunday went really well actually!  Sacrament meeting went very well, Devin only had to be taken out once for just a little bit towards the end and Elizabeth was really good!  Devin went in willingly and and stayed in nursery the whole time and was reported as being pretty good!  And Elizabeth reported being good in primary(we just took her word for it) she even gave us a very good  explanation of what she learned in class....and now I'm thinking about it I think what she was trying to tell us last night was that in Sharing time she they talked about Easter, which she was able to tell us about, and in class they talked again about baptism. (I was confused about why she talked about both Easter and baptism in class but now it makes sense)  After church we shared our delicious crock pot BBQ ribs dinner with my parents, then let the kids play while we chatted tentatively on our up coming trip to San Fransisco in July.  And that was our busy busy week!
Sorry not a lot of pictures, I put the camera away for therapy on Tuesday and totally forgot about it...not that there were a lot of photo opportunities this week anyway.

Putting together Elizabeth's wiggle car

Look at Elizabeth go!

If I were more on top of it I would have gotten some pictures of Devin while he was riding his inside yesterday....sorry just believe me, it was adorable! :)