The Principal's Office

The child fidgeted listlessly in a chair oversized for her small frame as she looked up at me. Recognizing me as a parent who volunteers in her class once a week, she smiled and perked slightly though she quickly began rubbing her stomach to show she was not really feeling better. We chatted as I waited to speak with the principal and she waited for her mom to come pick her up. After discussing her tummy ache and how Anika had been sick and missed school a couple of weeks ago, I asked the girl how Anika was today. Good she told me, then tilting her head to side she raised her hand and amended her assessment by gesturing so-so. Eyes growing larger she explained to me how a boy in class was not making Good Choices and Anika choose to follow those choices too. Our conversation was cut short as the principal returned with a very slightly ashamed looking boy who sat next to me.

Now it was my turn.

I came in to discuss some concerns I have about my daughter's work and her class-size, I had meant to explain. Instead, what I said was, I'm wondering about the procedures for choosing a teacher for next year and the possiblity of changing her class now.

Diplomatically he asked, what's going on?

So we discussed modifying her worksheets with bigger lines, havingsome things pre-cut for her, making sure her adaptive scissors are available to her, making sure that her chair with the back support and foot support travel with her when she works at another table and getting more assistance during work-time.

The special education teacher was called in. I had spoken with her the day before. She agreed that these things should be going on. We talked about pulling her out of the class more to work on her writing and computer time. It's just not happening in the classroom.

I showed them a journal page we worked on at home explaining it was really good for Anika but it took us about 20 minutes to write the sentence. I had to take away her pen between writing, coach her on sounding out words to spell and have her write the word with her finger first. It's was really a lot of effort on both our parts.

This was what I showed:


Then I told them how I scanned it, cleaned up in (what else) photoshop and printed it out so she could really see what a good job she did writing.

This is the clean up version:



In case you can't read it. It says, "He saw a tiger." She wanted to say, "He saw a tiger at the zoo and ran away." Isn't that awesome! Those little dots are the kid getting smaller as he runs away. I love it.

I explained how Anika was really proud of it and wanted to toss the original.

But bottom-line was what she does in her school journals are just scribbles. I mean really a page of scribbles like ....well nothing. On the first parent-teacher day when all the kids had their journals out to show their parents I almost cried because her's were like a baby's scribbles and the other kids had drawings. Drawing with words. Drawings with sentences. Well now she has a drawing with a sentence. But how do we get her to work at school? How do we get the right supports in place?

Next week is her IEP meeting with her evaluations since she's got to have one every 3 years to prove she still qualifies for services. I hope it will be productive. Her special ed teacher has some good ideas.

Now I need to meet with her teacher who is probably going to be irritated that I didn't talk to her first. I should have. I did try when I was volunteering in her classroom. Her classroom has 27 kids in it and I find it very overwhelming. I've emailed her.

Once again I feel like a kid sitting in the office waiting to talk to the principal.

Another visit from the Tooth Fairy

It happened again. For the third time now. Anika lost another baby tooth. She finally managed to pull this one out on her own. It's one the bottom teeth next to the incisor.

Right away she ran upstairs and put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy did not disappoint.

She's doing fantastic in her swim class. She's really trying to do what the teacher asks. It's amazing the difference from a year ago. She can finally push the water herself for the shower afterwards! No more wet arms for me! And while she's still a long way off from mastering what they are teaching, I can now imagine her getting there someday. She loves the water so much she wants me to start taking her swimming every Sunday and every other Saturday. This was her concession when I said every Sat. and Sun. would be too much.

Funny girl.

anika

I`m so glad to see you todae 2010.

Anika just typed that. She typed the title too. This is her blog and she's ready to start contributing.

A little back story on the pictures. I found out today that I won "photo of the year" on a parakeet forum where I post sometimes. So me and Anika were looking at some parakeet pictures. She really like the Christmas pictures of parakeets in x-mas trees and on Santa's. She wanted to make her own. So these is what she set-up and I photographed.

2009...good-bye

2009, so where'd it go?

Christmas was really fun. It was the first year Anika was really wound up in anticipation. She crawled in our bed in the middle of the night saying, "Christmas is taking so long." It was also the first year she was able to open all her presents by herself. No hand fatigue this year.

Aunt Michelle, Great Aunt Ruth and the Grampy's came over. It was a lot of fun.

We went to indoor park and I saw Anika could finally pedal all the little car toys and tricycles! Some she could barely fit on but she can finally pedal them! Awesome to see. And she can finally do some zippers. I think her biggest accomplishment this year, at least in my opinion, is daytime potty training. She rarely has an accident and she usually takes herself or tells someone she needs to go. Now we need to get her independent in the wiping area. I think she finally has the fine motor skills but she's pretty grossed out about #2 and would rather not deal. But I'm hopeful that our days of wiping her bottom might end in the next 6 months.

Here's a few pictures from our surprise snowstorm.

Mom, I don't want to go to this party

I don't wanna grow up

Anika has decided she wants to stay 5 forever. It's a touch bitter-sweet. While I love seeing her grow and develop into her own person, seeing my baby grow-up makes me want to make her 5 forever too. Her babyhood was wrought with such anxiety I really don't long to return to that but now she's doing so well I could hang out here for a while.

Of course it doesn't work that way. Anika is loathe to hear that and insists her wish on a star was granted and she is staying 5 forever. Her hands grasp at intangibles as if to pull them close whenever she says this phrase, "staying 5 forever."

Though I can't grant her wish I am doing what I can to allow her to have the magic and imagination of being a kid. When she asks if fairies are real I say, "Some people thinks so, what do you think?" She thinks yes and wants to visit them. I keep telling her fairies are shy.

She's decided Santa is real. Though we've never encouraged this. Now I've promised to bake cookies with her so we can leave them out for Santa. I need to read up on how to play along with this one.

Jason and I never planned on doing these childhood games (what we considered lies) with her. Both of us were pretty serious kids. However, Anika is not. She loves being a kid and doing silly kid stuff. She wants to believe in magic and myth. I'm going to honor that as her her answer is "yes, to what do you think.

School Picture

Anika is so hard to photograph these days. She often doesn't want to me photographed and if you ask her to smile she gives you "camera face". I was super impressed with her school photo.

Our conference went well last week. She's not acting out or have tantrums there, thank goodness. She has been very possessive of her para-educator who she shares with other kids so they are working on that. Academically she's doing very well. She's already reading at the measure they hope to achieve by the end of kindergarten. Her writing remains a big challenge though. They have computer she is starting to use at journal time but they have yet to hook it up to a printer so she can print it out. I think it will be more meaningful for her when she can do that and put it in her journal. I look forward to that happening.