Thursday, November 29, 2012

fun in November






A friend of mine on Facebook posted this little cartoon today and I just had to share it here.  I have encountered that very question many times, and I have answered similarly to that.  Now, on to what I wanted to share.....

Not much has really happened here in my home.  We have just plugged along with life here, doing what we need to do each day.  Jojo is doing well with her homeschool lessons, her big sisters are doing well in school, and PJ is being a little tag-along pest who follows me all over the place and hangs on my leg if I'm not holding him (ok that part is new, he gets super clingy when he's working on a big developmental milestone).

We had some disruptions to Jojo's lessons with PJ getting sick, we ended up at the hospital emergency room a couple weeks ago because he was struggling to breathe.  Turns out he has a reactive airway, which means that whenever he gets sick the coughing fits can cause his lungs and airways to spasm and he cannot breathe.  Yes, this means I now have two children who use the nebulizer when they are sick to control their breathing.  He will likely not outgrow this quirk, but that is ok because Kimmy and I both have it as well and I'm pretty familiar with how to handle it.  It is truly amazing how something as simple as a cold can cause such big problems, isn't it?

Jojo is currently visiting Europe in her history/geography lessons.  We are a bit behind in this subject, so I am planning to do extra lessons for the next couple weeks with her and get caught up again and possibly even ahead.

We still haven't gotten her 1st grade math, as we have been dragging our feet with the little bit she needs to review before moving on.  PJ's illness and then the Thanksgiving holiday break threw us off in a big way.  She is working on weight and measurement, and I'm going to try having her take the test today just to see where she's at in it.  Once she passes this one last test I can have OHVA send us 1st grade materials.

Missa and Liddy had testing done last month at their school for services, and both qualified for an IEP.  Liddy, as suspected, needs therapy for her motor development and Missa is most definitely dyslexic and needing a lot of accommodations for that.  I signed that paperwork and got them started with services, and already there is a noticeable improvement in their work.

Kimmy is doing great, and has become "teacher's pet" so to speak.  She's the most popular kid in her class, has good grades, and is overall very polite and a pleasure to be around according to her teacher.

The 3 girls are all trying out for parts in a school play here in a couple weeks, and are really excited about that.  Missa also brought home an invitation to a birthday party next weekend, her first ever invitation.

PJ is now 9 months old, and making huge developmental leaps.  Right now he is working on learning to walk.  He can take 3-5 steps completely unassisted before he falls down, and with the push toy we have he runs all over the house.  He also eats crazy amounts of food.  He has graduated from baby food to table food cut up into bite-size pieces, and can easily eat 2-3 pancakes, an entire banana, or even 2 scrambled eggs with toast at a single meal.  According to our pediatrician at yesterday's checkup, he is 23lbs and 30 inches tall.  I knew he was tall for his age, but I had no clue he would be above the 90th percentile.  I guess I'm feeding him right to be growing like that, he is bigger than all his sisters were at this age (and bigger than 2 of them were at 2 years old!).

I told you that November has been pretty slow here.  Now we are gearing up for Christmas, and all the festivities that come with it.  This year we decided to tell the kids the truth about Santa since we have added expenses from some home repairs and aren't going to be able to do as much for Christmas as we have in the past, but also we have decided to introduce a variation of Elf on the Shelf for fun.  I am going Saturday to pick up our elf, and then we will have fun with it in our own crazy way.