Lately. . .
So it’s been about a month since I’ve blogged anything and it’s intimidating to look at how much of life I haven’t written about. Life has been super busy.
Isaac started Football.
Football is the most intense sport we’ve been involved in yet. They started off about two weeks before school started with early morning practices five days a week for 1 1/2 hours each. They also threw in a few afternoon practices as well. Once school started they changed to three evenings a week for an hour and a half each. They warm-up/practice for an hour before each game as well. 
On Football practice days, Isaac gets home from school and only has about 10 minutes before he leaves for practice. By the time he gets home from practice, it’s almost 6:00 and time for dinner. It’s been a big adjustment for him to have so little free time. In addition to Football, Isaac started the ALL (advanced) class this year. He really likes the class, but it also requires additional homework. Isaac has always hated writing and this year we’re trying to help him through his writing blocks. I’m seeing improvement in his writing speed already. We still have some work to do in composition. He is great at math. In fact, he’s doing so well that the teacher has started sending him up a grade to the 6th grade ALL (advanced) class for math! Isaac said that he’s the only kid in his class going to 6th grade for math.
Charlotte started her second year of soccer. We’ve been a little frustrated with her coach who originally scheduled practice for the team at a time that conflicts with school and often comes late to games. The comparison between the intensity of football and the disorganization of Charlotte’s soccer team has been a little dramatic.
Charlotte is loving third grade. She got the teacher she wanted and is thrilled to have her best friend in her class as well. 
She’s also excited to be learning cursive, multiplication, and division this year.
I wrote about Nicole’s Autism diagnosis months ago, but the last few months have been particularly challenging. She has really stretched our patience and parenting skills. We’ve had to move her from general ed to small group. It was a decision that I was really worried about, but the small group classroom has been a good fit for her behaviorally and I’ve been reassured that they’ll continue to challenge her academically as well. Hopefully this class will be a bridge back to regular ed eventually.
I already wrote about changing our guest room into a bedroom for Nicole, but we’ve done some more work on her room since my last post. Zach and his dad built her a desk.
We also added some functional, decorative, and educational items.
We got her a CD player and made some music CDs.
At first she spent a lot of time in her room which was nice because the whole house seemed so calm with her chilling out in her own space, but lately she has wanted to be out with the other kids and the rest of the family more. It’s a good thing, but it leads to more stressful interactions. She has become so scared of the cats (who have never scratched or bitten her) that she tries to wear a blanket over her head whenever she’s outside of her room.
She screams if you take her blanket off even if there are no cats in sight. She also screams every time she sees a cat. We’ve been working with her on taking the blanket off more and reassuring her, but we’ve still got a long way to go. As soon as we work through one issue with her, another one pops up. Sometimes behaviors that went away come back before fading away again. Zach and I have had a lot of days that were mentally and physically draining.
Nicole is still creative and loving and full of energy and we love her to pieces.
It’s hard for me to fathom that this is my last year with Ila home with me all day before she starts kindergarten. She is funny and curious and kind. She’s one of the easiest kids to take places because she is generally very cooperative and happy.
I’ve finally started reading lessons with her. She loves them and can’t wait to be able to read all her books (although she has many of them memorized). Ila is good at playing with other kids. She plays well with younger kids like Thomas and his buddy, Ian. She’s also really great at playing with older kids like Lucie and Charlotte.
She has started trying a few new foods lately. She’s picked a new shape of chicken nuggets the last few times at the grocery store and asked to try a different variety of potato chips (Ruffles instead of Lays). She ate french toast for the first time and liked it. She has tried a few new flavors of ice cream as well as cotton candy. She ate grapes right off the vine, homemade grape jelly on a spoon (her first taste of jelly ever), and watermelon. She almost tried a doughnut, but in the end she chickened out. Today she ate blueberry oatmeal for the first time and liked it.
Thomas is happy and playful and lots of fun. His vocabulary is expanding every day. He loves numbers and letters. He recognizes all upper and lower case letters, and numbers. He counts with good one to one correspondence into the teens. He can count to 30 if you allow him a mistake or two in the mid-teens.
Thomas loves playing with his siblings and his best buddy, Ian. Ian lives next door and Thomas gets so excited when Ian comes over to play. They play cars together and make the cars have little conversations. They love to run around and laugh together. Thomas will go from cranky to happy if Ian comes over.
Well, it’s late and my brain function is diminishing. Hopefully one day my kids won’t get mad at me if this post is unevenly balanced. I didn’t start it off intending to write about each kid, but that’s where it went.