Sick Again!

It all started last week. We knew Emily was congested by the fact that Friday on to Saturday and then again from Saturday on to Sunday she came up to our room to sleep and kicked us both out of our bed because of her horrible snoring. She started complaining about a sore throat on Sunday, so we got OTC medicine and cough drops. The kids were home on Monday due to flooding by their school and her symptoms remained the same. Emily went to school on Tuesday but I received a call from the school secretary at 12:30 letting me know Emily has been in the office twice complaining about her throat. I told the secretary if she came in again to call me and I would come get her otherwise I would get her at the end of the day.

When I picked the kids up from school, Emily was pale with red eyes and looked very "sad".

Because the kids were to have NJ testing this week, I went into the school to talk to the Principal. I wanted to take her to the doctor on Wednesday but not have it effect the testing time. Thankfully, the state of NJ was late is sending the test so the testing was delayed to the end of the month. I took Emily to the doctor Wednesday and sure enough she tested positive for Strep throat. Emily stayed home yesterday so she could have a full dose of medicine in her prior to heading back into the "school population". Well, God decided she needed one more day and sent buckets of rain which resulted in flooding by the school cancelling it for the day. So, she has another day to get better followed by the weekend.

Please pray that she continues to get well and also that Matt, Dave & I will stay well. This has been a bad winter for sickness at school and church and the kids have stayed relatively healthy. We are praying that spring will come soon so we can open the windows and get these germs out of here.

Emily's Progress

On March 3rd, we had one of two IEP meetings we will have concerning Emily. This first meeting we discussed the progress she has made thus far and what areas she still struggles in and how to tweak the IEP for the rest of her 2nd grade year. Emily has made significant progress in her speech therapy. She currently has 3 half hour sessions a week. As of the 4th marking period, she will go to 2 sessions per week. Emily does still have issues in her expressive language but we feel that in small familiar groups, such as speech, she can only go so far. They will be focusing on broader areas of using her expressive speech such relaying directions to fellow classmates, etc. Because her expressive language is still an issue, it transfers into her sentence structure and writing.

Emily does not struggle with the task of reading, however it can still be a little choppy, yet when it comes to pulling information from a story unless it is a factual item from the story she struggles with putting together answers. If a question is too broad, she is unable to condense or choose one fact to answer the question with. It has been determined that she will need better clarification of these broad questions, especially on tests.

Emily still has a major aversion of coins - she goes pale and her face expresses her fear. Not as of yet, but it has been determined in the future she will be allowed to use a calculator in some areas of math to keep her from becoming overwhelmed or panicked. We also expressed her inability to retain the math tables in her head and her inability to shift quickly from a skip counting situation to a single count within a math problem.

All this being said though....Emily has retained an A/B grading. However, we are anticipating that these areas of struggle will be more prevalent in 3rd grade.

We will be having another meeting to determine her specific needs for 3rd grade. I have however met with the Principal to go over some of my concerns with him regarding next year and we will be working together on making sure she gets the "right" teacher and monitoring her progress especially at the beginning of the school year.

Please continue to pray for her current teacher as she finishes the year and pray for next year's teacher too.

I must say we have been very blessed to have the case worker Emily has. She has been a true advocate for Emily and has made it very easy on us as parents on making the proper choices for Emily.

I would ask that you pray for me also. I have to confess that I am little "concerned" with the fact that both Emily and Matt will be in transitional school years (1st & 3rd grade) next year. Although Emily doesn't complain about doing homework, I know the work will be harder and take her longer. On the other hand, I will have Matt who in Kindergarten has a total aversion for homework and already knowing the homework load for 1st grade there will definitely be an issue. Yes, there are 6 more months before this all begins and the kids can change but it still has me concerned.... so pray!

Happy Birthday to Aunt Lori

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lori!! We hope you enjoyed your day yesterday!!

The kids are looking forward to spending some time with the "best cooker" (as Matt said) in June. Oh, so am I.

Love you!!!

Happy Belated Birthday Grandpa Don

Hope you had a wonderful birthday last month.

Love you - Dave, Kathy, Emily & Matt

Sorry .... A Little Behind

Well, life has been sending us some twists and turns that have been keeping me from staying up to date on the blog. Between the kids being sick or off of school due to weather "issues" and having to make up for lost time on the days they are at school, time has been very limited.

Emily was sick with a bug the first three days of her winter break. She was running a low fever had headaches and a stomach ache. By the time she recovered, the only "fun" thing we did was go to the movies one afternoon to see "Gnomeo and Juliet"... cute movie. Hopefully I can get you updated on all that has been happening. Thanks for understanding!