Last week James and I decided on a plan in terms of what we wanted to accomplish for the fundraiser over Spring Break. He is off a total of three days this week, which leaves us a good chunk of time for planning and doing.
Today turned out to be quite a productive day. We headed out to Bourbon Street around noon to meet with the Fundraiser Coordinator. She answered a few questions for us and gave us a tour of the room along with suggestions of how to maximize space in the room. Next stop was Archer Bank in Mount Greenwood to setup an account for the fundraiser. This took awhile, but I was impressed with the ease of the registration process and what will be provided for us the day of the fundraiser. Once home, James registered "A Day for Adele" as a domain name with Go Daddy. We need to register the fundraiser account with paypal ASAP so we can include a paypal button on our webpage for pre-sale tickets. Tomorrow and for the rest of the week, James and I will be adding to the web page and will create a facebook page. Our goal is to get both launched by Friday.
Adele is officially crawling as her main mode of transportation. In true Adele form, she rounds out hitting this developmental milestone right at the edge of when it's considered delayed; she will be 11 months old on Wednesday. We also noticed that she "dances". Jade was giving us one of her many performances, and Adele decided to bop her head and body to the music. CUTE!
For the last two weeks, I have spent the majority of car rides listening to "Far From the Tree". This is because the book is 1000 pages so as you can imagine, the audible version goes on forever as well. I am completely captivated by this book and cannot WAIT to discuss it at book club in August. I am continually impressed with the author's ability to weave family interviews, history, statistics and research in each area of disability. I am walking away with a three-dimensional view of people with disabilities that I have not worked with, and a broader perspective of those I am familiar with.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Off we go
After dinner routine in our house includes family time in the loft. Tonight I noticed that Adele was especially physically confident. I was over-the-moon when I saw her lift herself off of her belly, onto her knees, into a crawling position and actually crawl a foot! She attempted and succeeded a few times before and after the required excited mama video.
When you have a child with a disability, milestones that are achieved cause an amplified reaction by family members. This is for a few reasons: you never know what milestone may or may not happen at all, and chances are, it took longer for your child to reach given milestone.
I am listening to the audio book version of "Far From the Tree" and have reached the chapter on Down Syndrome. Since the author does not include a chapter on other types of chromosomal abnormalities, this is most likely the chapter I will relate to the most. A story is shared about a boy born in the late 60's with DS. Dr.'s advised this family to put the boy in a "home" since he would not ever recognize his family or learn anything. The family visits a groundbreaking institution with progressive doctors and psychologists that suggest nurture may superseded nature. This mom took off running with all types of EI like activities and therapies. The boy was reading at a fourth grade level when he was in first grade. The parents began advising other families of children with DS to follow in there footsteps.
Then it happened. Adolescence, the moment when her son showed both social and academic discrepancies amongst his peers. He begins to become depressed and is taken to see a therapist. Boy graduates with a high school diploma and is eventually placed in a small, well staffed group home. He is too smart for other individuals with DS, but not quite socially up to par with other adults. He is still rather lonely but finds solace in his roommate at the group home.
The mother reflects on whether or not it was a good idea to push her son as much as she did. Her observation was that lower functioning individuals with DS, tended to appear more happy. In subsequent lectures, the mother is realistic with new parents of babies with DS.
I have said before that I am both cursed and fortunate to be in the field of Special Education, having a child with a disability. I can bring a "big picture" sense of what Adele's life may entail thanks to my career, however, I also know a storm is brewing. This is ALSO true of Jade, but Adele's storm will most likely be more intense for many reasons.
For now, I am savoring Adele & Jade's achievements and milestones, but I never take an eye off the approaching storms.
When you have a child with a disability, milestones that are achieved cause an amplified reaction by family members. This is for a few reasons: you never know what milestone may or may not happen at all, and chances are, it took longer for your child to reach given milestone.
I am listening to the audio book version of "Far From the Tree" and have reached the chapter on Down Syndrome. Since the author does not include a chapter on other types of chromosomal abnormalities, this is most likely the chapter I will relate to the most. A story is shared about a boy born in the late 60's with DS. Dr.'s advised this family to put the boy in a "home" since he would not ever recognize his family or learn anything. The family visits a groundbreaking institution with progressive doctors and psychologists that suggest nurture may superseded nature. This mom took off running with all types of EI like activities and therapies. The boy was reading at a fourth grade level when he was in first grade. The parents began advising other families of children with DS to follow in there footsteps.
Then it happened. Adolescence, the moment when her son showed both social and academic discrepancies amongst his peers. He begins to become depressed and is taken to see a therapist. Boy graduates with a high school diploma and is eventually placed in a small, well staffed group home. He is too smart for other individuals with DS, but not quite socially up to par with other adults. He is still rather lonely but finds solace in his roommate at the group home.
The mother reflects on whether or not it was a good idea to push her son as much as she did. Her observation was that lower functioning individuals with DS, tended to appear more happy. In subsequent lectures, the mother is realistic with new parents of babies with DS.
I have said before that I am both cursed and fortunate to be in the field of Special Education, having a child with a disability. I can bring a "big picture" sense of what Adele's life may entail thanks to my career, however, I also know a storm is brewing. This is ALSO true of Jade, but Adele's storm will most likely be more intense for many reasons.
For now, I am savoring Adele & Jade's achievements and milestones, but I never take an eye off the approaching storms.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Inventory
As we continue to roll through 2013, it occurred to me that I should check on my goals for 2013, here's a re-cap:
New goals (gotta have them!):
1. Run the Shamrock Shuffle in Downtown Chicago. Haven't signed up yet! Thanks for the reminder blog!
2. Develop my photography skills. I am not currently taking classes, however I am toying around with different apps and editing functions.
3. Read more! Yes!! I have read 5 out of my goal of 20 for year... Thinking I may surpass this.
4. Improve my writing skills. I've been doing my damnedest to use their, there and they're properly!
5. Continue to grow as a teacher. I'm working on it... So far I can give myself kudos for learning how to utilize an I-Pad in my classroom and with individual students.
Another goal that I need to bump to the top of this list comes in the form of waking up earlier during the week. I have been cutting it way to close to show-time at work these days and it has not gone unnoticed. I discovered a wonderful app called "Sleep Cycle", that essentially tracks your movement while you sleep. Supposedly, when you are still, you are in REM sleep, when you move around, you are in Non-REM sleep. You put your charging phone next to your pillow under a mattress case and set your alarm for a given time. The app will wake you up within a half hour before your set time based on when you appear to be in light sleep. The theory is that if you wake up during light Non-REM, you will wake up more refreshed and less stressed. You need 5 days of data to start gathering trends about what may affect your sleep, here's a snapshot of Night 1:
My goal is to not only get up earlier for work, but it is to get up earlier to provide some "me" time before the kids get up and to gather data and analyze what behaviors create the best climate for quality sleep. While I realize that having two children under the age of 3 will throw a wrench into this occasionally, I have two very good little sleepers, so unless illness arises, I'll be okay.
I'm following a blog that created a 30 day sleep challenge. One of the suggestions was to try to be more aware of set-backs that will disrupt your day. My threshold for set-backs was much lower than it is now thanks to children and life experience in general. The advice is to anticipate disruptions and be pleasantly surprised when they don't occur. I am going to continue to work on this as to help keep a positive attitude through out my day.
Here's a few snow day pics of the gals
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)