Ordinary Time

Today is TM's 12th birthday. He strongly dislikes the date his birthday falls on, so we will be celebrating this weekend. But today is the day he turns 12, so I'm writing my birthday post. TM has come so far in the past year. He has worked hard and is so much better in control of the big emotions and feelings he has roiling around in him and is getting better able to identify and (sometimes) talk about those feelings. It has also not been an easy year as we have identified some past events that significantly alter how his therapist works with him. They are things that in the long run are good to know and address, but it's not easy. This is all good stuff and it comes with ups and downs, but the best thing in my book is that we are more and more seeing the 'real' boy that has been buried in deep, deep pain and fear. We are seeing him smile more. We are seeing him able to laugh. We are seeing him able to help. We are seeing him slowly allow himself to become a par...

We are blessed with some very good friends who take an active interest in us and our children. One friend came over once a week to watch little people while I took the older girls to their horseback riding lesson. Another friend has developed a great relationship with TM and D. and several times a year will take them out and do something fun. We are richly blessed to have friends like these in our lives and our children's lives. It makes our job a little bit easier. Last Friday, was one of these boys' outings. Miss C. took TM and D. to Navy Pier. They had dinner. They rode the Ferris Wheel. They rode the carousel. They had a fantastic time. On top of it being a great time for our boys, it also allowed J. and I to go to that fancy dinner . I think they had a really good time. What do you think? These are all from the Ferris Wheel. It's even better that we have friends who will take my boys on the Ferris Wheel. I do not like them. (Ferris Wheels, not the boy...

No, I wasn't in the bathtub and discover the theory of displacement, but it felt almost as momentous. Sometimes teaching children who have come from a different and deprived background is challenging. It stretches me in ways I didn't expect and sometimes it requires me to play detective. This morning was one of those mornings. It is always a mystery to me when H. and I hit a road block in terms of school. We'll be going happily along and suddenly it's like a switch flips and we're not going happily along anymore. My first question is always: have we changed to a new seizure medicine?  As I've written before, that can play havoc with learning. But this time, no changes in medicine. I couldn't figure out where we stumbled. And the trouble with stumbling on one thing is that it sets in motion a chain reaction that then causes us to stumble on everything. With H., success causes more success and misunderstanding brings complete and total shutdown. I'll lea...

Last weekend J. and I went to a family dinner downtown at a swanky club. It's a good thing I've been fooling around with a dress pattern so I had something to wear. Remember my first attempt at this pattern? The one where I accidentally made myself a new nightgown ? Well, I was much happier with the second try. Happy enough to wear it out in public.

I read Malcolm Gladwell's newest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants , over the weekend. While I really liked his other books ( Blink , The Tipping Point , and Outliers ), I think this is my favorite one. While it is also more difficult than the others in terms of emotional content, I also think it is his most hopeful. Like most of his books, the essential premise is that what we think we know is true, actually isn't. In this case, if we think the giants of our lives hold more power than the underdogs, we are wrong. Being the underdog carries certain advantages in itself and those advantages are not without strength. There are a lot of interesting topics in this book. Too much of a bad thing really is bad for you. Going to a very prestigious school is not always going to help you in the long wrong... and could actually hurt you. Being the underdog means you are going to have to expend more energy than those on top. These topics alone ...

I won't let these girls be forgotten and miss out on a chance to have a family. Don't forget, a family isn't just for the growing up years. As an adult can you imagine not having a family? (And for those adults who do not have family... my heart breaks for you.) As adults we rely on our families almost as much as we did as children, but in different ways. Imagine not having that. It is the plight of many, many children. Do not let these girls suffer that fate... to not have anyone. Are you her family? Grace Or hers? Tina

It's been quite a while since I've written about our game days. Three years ago to be exact. ( Game Day, Oct. 2011 ) The idea of planning in game days to play those fun, yet educational games I have stashed away has continued. When I am planning our homeschool year I put one in every six to eight weeks or so. Today was one of those scheduled days. Well, actually, Tuesday was one of those scheduled days, but we were all on auto-pilot and no one (including myself) bothered to open a folder to check what we were supposed to be doing. D. was the first to discover yesterday that we had missed it and the outrage was immense. I did some quick shuffling and changed it for today. Once again, I started with the younger group first, though they are now all much more enjoyable to play games with. Everyone can move their own marker, they can count, and they will all stick around to the end of the game. We started out with the Dorling Kindersley game, Around the World . Someone had give...