Ups and Downs

For the most part, I think the school year is progressing nicely. Isaiah is obviously still struggling with reading and remembering what words are what and how to spell things. What he remembered last week may not be what he remembered last night or will remember tomorrow.

We went to KC this past weekend and while we waited for breakfast at Perkins, I wrote down some words on the place mat for Isaiah to read. Simple words seem to be as hard for him as the more difficult words. My sister thought it was my "left handed printing" (with a crayon) that made it tough for him to figure out. I hope that is the reason and not that he's regressed a bit. I spelled h-o-t, r-u-n, r-a-n, t-h-e-y, t-h-e-r-e, and a few others. He got 50% correct on the first try and ended up getting about 90% overall. He just has so much trouble remembering things.

Unfortunately, I don't know what to do to make things better. I have bought "helper" books, we bought LeapFrog pen and books, we have done flash cards - and I can't honestly tell you that any of them have made any noticeable difference. I worry about him in the grades to come and wonder what the school system has in store for my sweet little guy.

We ate lunch at my brother's church and while we were there, my sister-in-law's mother sat down across from my mother. She's not seen Isaiah before and asked me who he belonged to. I told her that he was Amy's little boy and he blurted out that he was our little sweetheart. Now, how sweet is that? LOL - it was too cute and we all had a good laugh.

Isaiah is having mostly green days, with a yellow one here and there. He's had one blue day - which is really bad - and red day, which is the worst. One of the reasons he's had a couple of bad days is the para decided that he couldn't twirl his pencil while he was thinking. This is one of those things that they ended up adding to his IEP. Isaiah will be allowed to twirl his pencil as long as he is not interfering with the other students. His teacher told the resource teacher that Isaiah was less of a disturbance with his pencil than it was when he tore his desk apart searching for another one (after the para took his first one away from him). This para has worked with him since the beginning of last year so she should know that Isaiah sometimes has issues with changing his routine. The teacher was not too happy with the fact that the para decided to enforce this seemingly little rule. LOL - not any more. Isaiah's compulsiveness won and he can now twirl or even sing to himself if he needs to while he works.

I think some of Isaiah's excessive movement is because of the structure and the strictness of the classroom. He's just not coping too well with someone else making the decisions regarding what he does when. He'll be fine once the routine becomes HIS routine, but right now it is not. Also, we're sharing our home with a young lady and her two children - a three year old boy and a four year old girl. That means Isaiah also has to share his "crampa" and he's not too happy about it.

The sharing is OK most of the time, but when they all want to sit on Ron's lap and Isaiah doesn't have room, he's pretty tolerant but I can tell he's not happy. That is HIS Crampa and he is sharing because he's a good kid but he's not happy about it.

LOL - he doesn't seem to mind sharing me, though.