Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Dusting off the blog....

I can't believe I haven't posted since January.

Sarah is continuing to do well.  She is repeating second grade as is standard for her program.  We were going to try her in a different program, but ended up keeping her where she is as it was a bit too challenging for her.  She is adequately challenged where she is now, I think.  Also, her current school was more than happy to allow Sean to transfer.  I liked our zoned school just fine, but having both kids in the same school is pretty awesome.  They love riding the bus together, and Sarah likes to walk Sean to class.  This has resulted in Sean having basically no idea how to get to his classroom by himself, but I'm not super concerned about it.  I asked his teacher to please make sure if Sarah is absent that he gets to class okay.

As far as eating goes, she's doing pretty well.  She still has a somewhat limited diet, but has taken some recent interest in different foods.  She eats pizza like crazy now.  In fact, this school year, she started buying lunch on "pizza days."  Her teacher has told me she has been trying new food in the cafeteria.  I'm happy about that.  She has also taken a recent interest in pancakes.  She still has a long way to go before she can eat them well, but she likes to order the "Create a Face" pancakes at IHOP when we go.  I think a lot of it has to do with the yogurt tube, but she at least tries a bite or two.  We still have to bring her food when we go, but I'm happy if she takes a bite or two and gets them down.

She played adaptive soccer this fall and loved it.  I really liked that she had a nice program and could learn at her pace.  It was at the same field as her brother.  This worked out for some long Saturdays this past fall, but the kids really enjoyed it.  She is still playing ice hockey and taking dance class.  I pulled her from jazz this year for scheduling reasons and the lack of structure.  She did okay last year, but it was definitely the class where she struggled quite a bit.  She is happy with ballet and tap, so that works well for us.

We did adaptive swim over the summer.  She did okay with it.  I am hoping we can start up again next month.  She has gotten a bit braver in the water lately.  The kids had off this past Monday for a professional development day (and to torture parents who'd just had them four days in a row for Thanksgiving! Hahaha!), so I took them to the Y to swim.  Instead of hanging on the wall the whole time, she actually did some dog paddling while using a noodle to float.

My kids have already seen Santa twice this year.  I'm hoping that is good enough for them.  They saw him Friday at Festival of Trees.  It was a benefit for Kennedy Krieger, and my older niece was performing with her dance company.  My kids had a great time and loved seeing their cousin.  I took them to a local mall on Monday after swimming to see Santa.  I dressed them in their nice Christmas outfits for that Santa visit and couldn't get over how grown up Sarah looked! She was wearing clip-on earrings, and I feel like those made her look so much older.

As far as growth goes, Sarah has gotten tall lately! She was measured in October, I think, at 4 ft 3 1/2 inches.  She weighed about 65 pounds.  I couldn't believe it.  She is wearing a size 10 in girls' clothes.  She is still a skinny thing, though.  She wants to wear jeans all the time, yet lacks the fine motor skills to button and zip them.  She mostly wears jeggings at this point, which solves the fine motor problem and she doesn't usually argue about them.

Here are some recent pictures:

professional fall picture, my favorite of her recently

Santa at Festival of Trees

dressed up for Santa visit

Santa at the mall




Monday, January 28, 2013

What a difference a year makes

So, I was going to write this blog on her 8th birthday, but the kiddos have me swamped lately!

Sarah turned 8 last Wednesday.  The Saturday prior to that, we had her birthday party.  It was probably the best one we've thrown for either kid.  While the bowling party was fun last year, it wasn't conducive to having the family come as well.  The swim parties we've thrown in the past are nice, but we have a lot of people who don't want to get in the pool with their kids.  Or, they don't want to put the kids in the water in the winter, etc.  We did one at a bounce house, which was fun, but the party room was tiny and the food was expensive.  This year we rented the party room at the local YMCA.  It was cost-effective, we brought our own food, and the Y provided the tablecloths, paper goods, etc.  I kept it simple too - just goldfish crackers, potato chips, and pretzel sticks.  I bought soda, lemonade, and juice boxes.  I got Sarah a Sonic cake that she loved, so that was pretty awesome too.  Her brother has already told us several times that he wants a party there too, and we are happy to oblige.

Also, for the first time EVER, we took Sarah out to dinner for her birthday.  We actually did it the day after, but that was due to her dance class on her birthday.  I brought cupcakes to dance class, and they were a hit with the kids.  Sarah only licked the icing off of hers, but that is totally fine with me.  She did the same with her piece of cake at her party.

So, here's a comparison from age 7 to age 8.  She hasn't been to the doctor for her physical yet, so I don't have a height/weight comparison.  I went with clothing sizes.

Clothing sizes then:
13 shoe, 6X pants, 6X or 7 tops, leotard size 6 (with a 7-8 in one brand)

Now:
2 shoe, 7 pants, 8 tops, 7-8 leotard

Food then:
baby food, spaghetti-o's (plain only), tomato soup with Elmo shaped pasta, vanilla pudding, smooth yogurt

Now:
macaroni and cheese at regular texture, beefaroni at regular texture, spaghetti-o's (with or without meatballs, meatballs need to be cut up), ravioli cut up, beef stew fork-mashed, canned spaghetti and meatballs (meatballs cut up), almost any vegetable fork-mashed, most fruits fork-mashed, vanilla pudding, yogurt with or without chunks of fruit, NO MORE BABY FOOD

Social skills then:
Can name entire class and staff at school, greets others properly, but no real friends

Social skills now:
Still names class and staff and greets others properly, has a BEST FRIEND

Reading then:
10 sight words (maybe)

Reading now:
Not sure of the number of sight words, but she can read simple books with some help, probably 30 sight words now if I had to guess

Math then:
could count up to 100, identify up to 3-digit numbers

Math now:
Can do simple addition and subtraction with help

Bus then:
Would be scrambling to get ready and nearly miss the bus (although I blame the nearly missing the bus somewhat on the driver who never looked at our front door to see me signal that Sarah was almost ready)

Bus now:
Waits for the bus BY HERSELF and gets off BY HERSELF as well

Favorite character then:
Elmo!

Favorite character now:
Sonic (although she still loves Elmo)

I can't believe how much she has changed and grown in just a year.

And here are a few pictures:

Birthday cake

Eating her cake


Excuse the expression, but here she is on her birthday ready for dance class in the new outfit she got from friends of ours.

Enjoying her personal pizza from Pizza Hut that the manager gave her for free for her birthday

Playing Nickelodeon Dance on the Wii with her best friend

Sharing a hug with her best friend

Friday, January 18, 2013

One year later

So, today is the one-year anniversary of the day we started the clinic.  Last night, Sarah ate more than one slice of pizza.  About a slice and 1/4, but I'm happy with that.  She chewed it up, and only spit out two bites. She left the crust, but don't most kids her age?

She's gotten a bit selective about her food, but overall she's doing fine.  She'd prefer I always offer peas and carrots with every meal. I'm mean, so I only indulge her for breakfast.  We have decided macaroni and cheese is an acceptable breakfast.  She'll eat oatmeal if I force the issue, but who has time for that before school?

She still takes ballet and tap, but we've added jazz.  She loves it!  She now takes swim lessons as well, and just this week got moved up a session in hockey.  This means one more hour of sleep on Saturday morning for whoever takes her!

I'm really pleased with where she is, although if I had everything I wanted, she'd be eating like most kids her age.  I've accepted that she isn't ready for it yet.  But, I haven't bought baby food in forever, so I don't care.

Here are a few pics of her at Pizza hut last night.




Excuse the weird hair.  She'd just come from swim class.