Today was Aidan’s last speech session. Kevin drove us down to the school because he was getting worried about how worn down the brakes are — bless him : ). Aidan played a 4-step Sequencing game. It was the SLP’s last day at the school and she was a bit off her focus. We both could see Aidan wasn’t really getting the sequencing thing at all but she couldn’t really get down to why, and she was going in the wrong direction… moving to harder instead of easier, and taking up more of the reins for herself. This is not a criticism — it’s just a different perspective when I get to watch someone else interact with him, and it helps me see how I could do things differently and what my “persona” is. Hers is more take-charge than mine, at least her default mode — funny how when we are preoccupied or tired we slip back into our defaults.
Anyway, Aidan had fun and she gave him two little prizes instead of one since it was her last day. Then we went to the photocopy room where she copied out some worksheets which I can use or springboard off of during the summer. Areas were sequencing, categorization, spatial concepts (prepositions) and one other thing I can’t remember.
It has been a good speech year. We did only 9 sessions — due to weather, some surgeries of hers and so on — but he really springboards off of them now. When he was younger, he wasn’t so invested in working hard, but now that he is older he gets really plugged into succeeding and doesn’t mind the challenge. I generally try to stay back a bit because part of what I want for him is to be able to interact well with people outside his family.
The boys did their Thursday cleaning and checklists (I hate how boring and routine “checklist” sounds but hesitate to use a euphemism that boils down to the same thing). Today was enjoyable for them because it was almost all reading.
Kevin went to drop off the car to get the brakes repaired. He can do it himself but is overloaded with other stuff to do with the company, right now.
I spent most of the day catching up on things — raked for a couple of hours outside with Aidan’s company, and since the boys had unloaded the freezer and fridge to defrost them, I cleaned them down thoroughly while they were empty. Tiring! Now that I’ve been walking every morning though I have more energy.
I read two books: One Minute Manager Gets Fit and Self-Management and the One Minute Manager. You ask — when did I interact with my kids? Not much today, except in little bits. Both the books were short reads — written as “parables” in story form which is interesting and actually worked well. Nice for visual spatial learners.
Breakfast — I made peanut butter “cookie bread” as we call it — basically breakfast cookies.
Lunch — Liam made me a crab quesadilla — yum
Dinner — crock pot taco meat — turned out pretty well — ate it with tortilla chips, whole wheat flour tortillas, and various trimmings.
Sean is almost through with Landscape with Dragons. I mentioned before that I have my middle schoolers read it as a “controversy piece”. At that age I like them to have the chance to grapple with an argument that is sincere and well-written, but has, well, arguable parts. This author criticizes Star Wars for example, and A Wrinkle in Time, and even CS Lewis’s Space Trilogy. So it jump- starts the kids thinking about themes I want them to think about more as they go through high school. In Sean’s case, when he first started reading the book, he didn’t seem to “get it” plus the author’s criticism of Star Wars annoyed him, and I was thinking maybe we better drop the book. But we stuck with it and I’m glad because recently he has been spontaneously discussing the book on a much more thoughtful level, really dealing with the arguments and bringing up good points in answer, which is what I want out of the reading experience.
