Sent: 03/19/2017 From
Alicia
Subject: West Coast Westra Update
3/19/2017 Sun, 19 Mar 2017 22:28:25
-0700
Happy Spring (tomorrow, anyway!)
It's been so pretty here this
week! The weather has been really nice, with a couple days reaching the 80's.
It's been fun to drive past one of the lakes and see the collegiate rowing
teams out practicing or competing. There was a big rowing meet going on
yesterday and today. It would have been fun to stop and watch, but we were
always coming or going and didn't think about it otherwise.
Here's what's been going on
this week:
Monday: Calder had speech therapy.
He's really coming along well! He's been working on his k and g sounds and is
becoming more and more consistent. It's pretty amazing! I'd forgotten how
quickly he picks up the sounds using the "prompt" technique! It's
pretty intensive, so I can see why it isn't used more, but both therapists
we've worked with (one in Utah, one in CA) who have used "prompt"
have gotten great results in a short amount of time. It works so well for him.
After speech, Calder and I went to the county building to take care of some
paperwork for my business. We waited for almost an hour before we ended up
needing to leave to get him to school. Rella had another make up dance class.
She enjoyed it more this week because there was another girl there for a make
up class. Since she and the other girl were both older, they got to be special
helpers and demonstrate things for the regular attendees of the class. She
really enjoyed that aspect of it. Adria had mandolin lesson...she's continuing
to enjoy it and is advancing well. I've been pleasantly surprised at how well
the FaceTime lessons have worked out.
Tuesday: Calder and I went back to
the county building to do the paperwork. We were able to get it done this time.
Yay! Rella started her week of early out days for parent teacher conferences.
She loves getting out of school early. Of course, Calder still has school in
the afternoon and Adria doesn't have early out days right now, so we didn't
really do anything remarkable. Rella had her regular dance class.
Wednesday: Rella had girl scouts
after school. They had a special girl scout birthday party for all the troops
that meet at the elementary school (Daisies, Brownies, and whatever Rella's
troop is). We found out that Rella sold 125 boxes of Girl Scout cookies! Calder
and Adria both had swimming lessons. Calder is getting braver and braver, but
is earning the reputation of being a tough customer. One teacher in particular
has a break between lessons when Calder is in class...he works with one of
Calder's teachers, trying to get him to put his face in the water. No luck yet.
That is one thing that is slowing his progress there. Adria is enjoying her
class...it's a lot of lap swimming and perfecting stroke and technique. A girl
she knows from school is in her class. There wasn't YW on Wednesday because of
Youth Conference.
Thursday: always one of the busiest
days of the week. I had Calder's IEP meeting in the morning. He and I met with
his preschool teacher (who is also a speech therapist), the small group speech
therapist, and the preschool psychologist to go over his current goals and set
some new goals. The teacher and speech therapist both commented on how excited
they were about his progress with k and g in the last two weeks (guess how long
we've been going to our private speech therapist?) We set some new goals...he's
still working on his speech goals. Some of them are very close, others still
have a ways to go. We also set some new social goals for him. One thing I am
very excited about is that he will start going to the transitional kindergarten
class a couple times a week so he can get used to how a larger class with
typically developing peers works. This is something I was very anxious to get
into his IEP, so I was so glad that his teachers were on the same page. The
psychologist is working on some additional evaluations to see if Calder falls
on the Autism Spectrum. We've been concerned about some of his social skills
and especially his eye contact (or lack thereof). We want to be proactive, so
this seemed like a good place to start. I'll know the results of the
evaluations in April. Rella had dance and ukulele, then I had a RS activity at
the church. Shane was working late, but got home earlier than expected. He had
an EQ meeting over Google Hangouts, so when I got home, kids were still getting
to bed. It was a late night.
Friday: hooray for a slow morning
for me and Calder! I had a fair amount to do during the day to get ready for a
Beehive activity we were having at our house. Since the Beehives don't go to
Youth Conference, we wanted to have a little party. Shane made scones and we
chatted and played games. I wished I had planned for the activity to run longer
than two hours...the 3 girls who came (out of 4) were having a fun time playing
"Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes". It's an intense game where one
person has to defuse a bomb (displayed on the computer) by describing it to the
other players. The other players have the defusing manual and have to describe
how to defuse the bomb. There is a timer going, intense music, and occasionally
the lights in the bomb room on the computer will go out or an alarm clock will
sound. The girls had a fun time playing it. Rella went to a birthday party for
one of her friends in the ward and had a fun time there. Calder wanted to hang
out with the Beehives and play the bomb game.
Saturday: Rella had an activity days
field trip to a farm in Fremont (about a half hour away). They saw sheep being
sheared, popped popcorn, learned about carding and spinning wool, and many
other things. While she was gone, Shane took Calder to the park. Adria joined
them later. When I picked Rella up, she and a friend from the ward wanted to
have a playdate, so we had her over. Calder had come down with a cold, but was
still in fine form. Shane and I went on a date (Indian food and grocery
shopping).
Sunday: Shane spoke in church with
the EQ presidency. Their topic was duty, kind of a tough one. Of course, their
secretary is out of the country for work in Israel. It's amazing what some
people will do to get out of speaking in church! After church we got things
ready to have people from the ward over for dinner. We had one of the new
families over (though the husband/dad is out of town for work...some people
will do anything to get out of coming to our house for dinner). We also invited
our friend Eric over with his daughter, Nora, and his new fiancee, Erika. Eric
is a young widower who moved into our ward about a year ago. His daughter just
turned 5. His late wife passed away about 3 years ago from an aneurysm while
she was pregnant with their second child. We have been so impressed with him!
He is diligent in his responsibilities as a father, in his calling (he's
Adria's Sunday School teacher), and his work. A few months ago we learned that
he had met someone through a friend and was in a long distance
relationship...last week they announced their engagement. She's been in town
this week (she's a PhD student at Duke in North Carolina) for spring break. It
was fun to get to know her better and see them together. We're very excited for
them both. Shane was reminiscing about his childhood stuffed bear family...the
dad was HoneyBear, the mom was Erica, and the baby was Eric. We suggested that
they start calling Nora "HoneyBear". She wasn't too sure about that!
Adria and Calder are both down with
a cold now...hopefully we didn't pass along any significant germs. Today marked
a new stage of life for Adria. She sat at the "adult table" and
didn't play with the kids after dinner...she also had to take regular ibuprofen
instead of the kid's stuff to help her with her cold at bedtime. She's getting
old.
Have a good week!
Shane, Alicia, Adria, Rella, and
Calder
No comments:
Post a Comment