First Day of School, August 26

Robby and Kaitlyn out in the chilly, fresh morning air at 7am waiting for the bus this past Tuesday!

They have their same bus driver, Mr. Bill from last year and are excited.

They both have great teachers. Robby's teacher is younger, hopefully she still thinks kids in elementary school should have neat handwriting! Seems both of Kaitlyn and Robby's teachers in the past don't seem to be bothered with chicken scratch and it's driving me nuts!

I was touched today when Kaitlyn's teacher pulled me aside while I was up visiting for lunch. She said she almost cried reading the letter we wrote. I must clarify, Larry wrote it and signed both of our names. She had requested a note to her about our child to help her get to know the children. I'd probably written "She's a great help when she wants to be, she can be the sassiest girl God made at times. She will kiss up to any teacher, so you are fine." Instead Larry wrote the most sweet, sincere thing ever. I teared up reading it myself! I made a copy of it for her babybook. He just saw past her sassy pants and wrote about her. he mentioned her being a young Christian and her love of singing church songs....that she was taking piano lessons but her true passion is riding horses and how she just recently had her first show. Her teacher was touched to know she was a Christian as she is one too. God is good and with so many speaking of how God is being kicked out of school, I'm glad to know that at least one of our kids has a Christian role model in the classroom.

Kimberlyn had her kindergarten testing today. Her teacher was thrilled at how well she did. She actually talked too! She is one shy girl... There was a part during the testing that most are having troubles with and Kimberlyn did it well. She knows all but a few letters when having to recognize them in upper case and lower case. She starts school on Thursday! And will join the other two on the bus! YIKES...not sure I'm ready for this!

While she's at school I'll try to get going on back tracking...have a handful of cool pictures and things we've done....oh, wait I'll barely have time to shower after she catches the bus. Silly me I forgot...she's in school less than 3 hours, less tha she was in Pre-K....AM Kindergarten is 7:45am to 10:20am ---

Oh, oh....boy, oh boy...I'm behind. Last thing before I try to catch a nap. Tommy is definitely a handful. I love every second- but on teh kids' first day of school he explained (through actions) that we MUST use baby gates in our home. I'll leave it at that. My fingers would be too sore from typing if I typed out every thing Trouble T (known better lately as Bruiser) gets into!

BUT....you may be interested in his Speech Evaluation...it was on Wednesday and he did great. First thing the lady asked me was what was my main concern? Um, if you know me, you won't be shocked at this...I told her honestly I shouldn't say this, BUT I HAVE NO CONCERN AT ALL! She is the first person in the medical so to speak community to not look at me like I had two heads when I explained WHY I have no concerns.

They scored him in like 5 or 6 categories and the last category being actual language. All but the last he scored at his adgusted age to a two year old level. What a baby genius we have! For language he scored at below a one year old level...didn't you all know every one year old should be speaking?!?!?! RIGHT!

The end result is yes, he needs therapy. She told me sometimes they just know the child will catch up in a few months w/o therapy, or they know the child needs therapy. For Tommy she said she wasn't sure and we'll never know if the therapy is what helped. BUT she did agree with our pediatrician's recommendation based on him being so at risk for speech delays from being a 28-weeker AND having ear infection/tube issues. It can't hurt and costs us nothing but time. We can handle it. He's on the waiting list and I'm waiting to hear WHEN they think he'll be starting therapy. The list is long and is based on the need of each child. We're blessed he's not needing it so badly that he's bumped to the top of the list!