I haven't blogged in years. To be honest, it just started feeling weird to have people reading what I wrote. Life got easier, and then insanely crazy, and now I don't know... I need to have a place to rant, and a place to rave. This place is as good as any.
I'm not sure if there's much point in going into all that we've been through in the past few years. In short, my Dad got sick, my parents moved next door, we got a dog, Ellie started school, Jakob got diagnosed with autism, my Dad died, the school didn't believe in Ellie, so Jakob is changing schools, and I'm homeschooling Ellie. Not much, right?
Deep breath.
This summer was the best one we've had in years. We made a conscious effort to spend time together as a family, and found ourselves all over the lower mainland hiking, biking, and exploring. We had the quintessential west coast summer holiday, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Ellie participated in a six-week full-day summer camp for kids with special needs (the best thing ever!), Jakob went to an engineering camp, a sleepaway camp, and spent the majority of his days outside with the neighbourhood pack of boys.
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| Hole-in-the-Wall, Port Alberni |
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| Stamp River Falls |
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| Mount Seymour |
We were able to secure funding for Ellie to have weekly physiotherapy and speech therapy, so she's making a lot of progress both in gross motor skills, and in terms of speech clarity and comprehension.
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| Working hard at PT |
I feel like the backstory for why we're homeschooling Ellie could take up an entire blog of its own, and I'm trying to focus my energy on the positives, and on this coming school year. Essentially, things went down that made it crystal clear her needs weren't going to be met in the private system, so we decided to pull her out for grade 2, and try to catch her up through an amazing distributed learning program with special education funding.
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| Looking so grown! |
As we were no longer going to be paying for her tuition, it became possible for us to afford to send Jakob to a school for gifted/twice exceptional learners. Out of everything, that change is something I look towards with high hopes. Jakob is quite the extraordinary fellow. He is interested in so many things, he LOVES learning, he is constantly in a book or listening to an audio-book. He wants to know everything. Jakob had his best year so far, in grade 3, but there are so many more opportunities to be challenged and to expand his knowledge at the new school. My introverted, solitude-seeking, reserved little (okay, not so little) guy blossomed into an extrovert in the three days that he participated in the school's admissions in-house trial run.
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| Living a dream! |
Life for me last year was great. I dropped both kids off at school two minutes away, and I had nothing but time. I worked a ton, sold thousands of cookies, taught classes, and took classes. I focused on my health, on my mental well-being, on my marriage, and on the relationship I have with my mom. The time I had to myself was wonderful, and I cherished it.
When I look at my calendar for the next few months, I wonder how I'm going to adjust from so much freedom, to none. My husband and I have agreed to change cars, because I'm going to be in my car more than anywhere else. Unfortunately, Jakob's new school is in the middle of nowhere, a solid 30 minutes away from home. Ellie is signed up for literacy tutoring, and math tutoring, both at a centre about 20 minutes from home. On a day where things don't line up properly, and our carpooling doesn't work, I'm looking at 100+km of driving in a day.
In addition to 4 hours of tutoring a week, Ellie has her heart set on therapeutic horse riding, homeschool gymnastics, kids yoga, and swimming lessons. Jakob has twice weekly tutoring session (for enrichment), art class, and swimming. We were extremely fortunate to find a doggie daycare that Piper loves for half-days of running around with her friends, so at least I don't have to worry about her constant need to expend energy, too.
A friend of mine asked me today what I was going to do for myself this term. In the summer, I picked up painting.
It takes time, though, and time is not something I obviously have much to spare. My schedule doesn't work for yoga. and I don't know anyone who lives in the city where I'm going to be spending time every day waiting while Ellie has her sessions. Your guess is as good as mine as to what I'm going to do with myself in these weird 45min-an hour chunks of time. I can only do so much shopping...
I want desperately to see both my kids be their best selves this year. I KNOW that Ellie is capable of so many things, and that with the right supports in place, she will be amazing. She already is the sweetest, most caring girl. I love her to bits, even when she drives me up the wall. She knows when I get frustrated, and is so good at making me remember not to sweat the small stuff, and to live in the moment.
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| Worksheets and OT skills! |
Sigh.
This is going to be one heck of a crazy ride...
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