Stop the Presses: Five Year Old Attends School Everyday 4th Six Weeks!

Okay, so maybe it doesn't seem like something most people would get really excited about but I'm very happy when Imma gets recognized for anything.  And today she got recognized for perfect attendance--essentially because she wasn't sick in the last six weeks. Perfect attendance is what we shoot for these days until we can get some bigger awards!  And she's working on it.  Her reading is coming right along.  She just read me a level B with only one error so hopefully she'll get to that magical level C by the end of the year! I'm proud of her! I just have to get her to remember the word "said." She always says "sad"--and I mean always! We keep plugging away!

I hate that I had to block all of Imma's friends' faces but without permission, I didn't want to post them.  Her class had a lot of students with perfect attendance and all three of the top readers. Her teacher is AWESOME!

5 Things I Love About Taking my Daughter to Work

I am one of the few blessed individuals who are able to take their daughter to work with them everyday.  One of the reasons I decided not to be a stay-at-home mom was because I wanted to make sure I was still a teacher when my children were old enough to be in school so that I could see them everyday at work.  I know that may sound a little odd, but I thought 6 years of elementary school would be better than 5 years at home.  Now that I have a kindergartner who comes to work with me everyday, I'm  happy that I made that decision. I really love having Imma at school with me and here's why!
1. Expected but unexpected greetings. Every day at 9:30 I hear, "Hi Mommy!" yelled at me as she bounces down the hallway to resource.  I also hear it again at 10:00 when she bounces back down the hallway to class.  It's just a little reminder that she's here and that she's doing so extremely well.  She spends the majority of the day in regular kindergarten and just that short amount of time in resource class getting some extra help.  It gives me a few seconds worth of a break from being Mrs. Van Horn and let's me momentarily be Mommy.
2. I get to bring her lunch.  Imma wasn't eating the cafeteria food so she started bringing her lunch.  She really likes one of the Gerber Graduates, the one with mashed potatoes and chicken, so I heat that up for her and that's part of her lunch. Everyday.  As long as that's what she wants, I'm okay with that.  It's nice that I have my lunch at the same time so I can heat her lunch up and bring it down to her and help her open her yogurt and other items.  I can also occasionally eat lunch with her which is also very nice.
3. My 12:00 O'Clock lunchbox call.  Imma brings her lunchbox back to me just about everyday and it's always ceremonious.  She opens my door just far enough to swing it in and yells, "Here's your lunchbox, Mom!" before bounding back to class.  Again, just a sweet reminder that my little girl is here.
4. Before school I get to spend some time with her. When we get to school early enough, I have the opportunity to go over a few things--sight words, numbers, etc.--and help her get ready for her day.  It's nice to have her with me on the commute, too, even though it's only about 10 minutes.

5. End of day companionship. After school she keeps me company while I finish up all of the paperwork and other things I need to get done. It would be a lot more boring working on spreadsheets without my little girl behind me playing on the iPad and making silly noises.  She's my live entertainment!  It's also nice to have her with me on the way home.
There are some struggles that go along with having your child at work, too.  Sometimes it is hard to determine which hat I should be wearing.  Sometimes it is tricky when my colleagues are also her teachers though I cannot complain at all about any of her teachers. They are all phenomenal and I haven't had any issues at all with boundaries or anything like that.  But that's always a concern.  It's also difficult with I have to put data together and I see her name in places where I'd rather it wasn't but I understand that she has a disability and that's just an obstacle we have to overcome.  And, if she wasn't with me at work, I wouldn't be able to torture her by taking pictures of her at the end of the school day, against her will, like the one below!

Sneaky Mommy took her picture while she wasn't looking!

Play Date With a Classmate!

Today, Imma had a play date with a friend from her class. This is the first time anyone from her class has come over to play and we were so happy that her little friend and his brother were able to spend some time playing with the girls.  Little brother is about Lucy's age so the girls each had a friend their age to play with.
We spent a few minutes playing upstairs in the playroom. The boys came over in capes so Lucy put her cape on, too.  Imma put on her cowboy hat and rode around the room on her stick-horse.  The boys took turns driving around our toy car and Lucy had a good time flying down the slide. (Yes, we have a little slide in our play room!)
Then, we decided to go outside.  Everyone had fun swinging and going down the slide. Lucy's hair got crazy with static!  She looked like Medusa for a little while.  The only conflict we had was when little brother had a basketball Imma decided she needed.  Imma never plays with that ball but she thought she needed it because someone else had it.  Other than that, the rest of the play date went very well.  Imma didn't always play with the other kids but she was in the vicinity and did talk to them and occasionally went over to play with them.  She also played ball with them for a little bit, too.

I just had to take a pic of Lucy's crazy hair!

Static everywhere!

I'm so glad Imma is starting to make real friends with her classmates and develop some relationships that will, hopefully, last for years to come.  We plan on living here for the rest of eternity so the girls will have most of the same classmates all the way through school.  We are really hoping to get to know more families and put down some roots here.  The family that came over today is wonderful--sweet kids, very nice, friendly parents.  We're very happy that Imma is in the same class as this little gentleman. He does such a good job of taking care of her.  He's extremely polite, he always asks her if she needs anything or if he can help her, and he is one of the students Imma insists on hugging good-bye at the end of the day.  We can't wait until our next play date!

Toontastic Really is Fantastic

If you have an iPad or iPod, you should check out the app Toontastic.  Imma absolutely loves it.  I think this video will speak for itself.

You can also publish to the web so that you can share with family and friends.  She was working on this after school while I was getting some work done, which is totally awesome!

Lowballing Just Might Get You a Car--Whether You Like it or Not!

We went to look at cars yesterday.  We decided to ask Ms. Meagan to watch the girls because we wanted to test drive a few vehicles and gather some information about what we liked and what we didn't and it's just too hard to get the girls in and out of the cars, with their car seats, over and over again, so we left them at home.
We went to lunch, formulated a plan, and went to the first dealer.  We wanted to test drive the Acadia, Infiniti, and maybe a couple of others. So, we pulled into the GMC/Buick dealer and waited.  It only took about 15 seconds before a salesperson found us.  We told him we wanted to look at the Acadia and he mentioned that they actually had one 2012 Enclave that he could make us a really good deal on.  The Acadia and the Enclave are basically the same car, the Buick is just a bit more high-end because of the finishes and some of the bells and whistles it's supposed to have. There a few things that my Pacifica had that I was not willing to give up--back-up camera, heated leather seats, DVD player, navigation--I don't think I can go back to driving without these things. He said that this Enclave had all of those things as well as remote start, which was something else I wanted.  We decided to take a look.
The Enclave was very nice.  White with gray interior and everything I wanted included.  We test drove it and it was a pretty smooth ride.  The salesperson explained that it had extra insulation and suspension that was suppose to make the ride even more stable. We also looked at the Acadia. I actually liked the color better on the Acadia, red with black interior, and they had a wider selection.  But they were all 2013s and I knew they were not going to be as desperate to get rid of them as they were this Enclave.
I really wanted to test drive the Infiniti.  I went to look at it last weekend and I absolutely love it.  It had such nice features and I loved the body style.  However, the sticker price on the Infiniti I wanted was about $8000 higher than the Enclave and we knew we could talk them down on the Enclave.  Though I really liked the Infiniti more, it just made more sense to see what we could do with the Enclave.
My husband is good at a lot of things, but one of the things he does best is negotiate.  I hate bartering with people but he loves it.  And, as we kept saying, we didn't need to buy a car that day.  So, I let him play his game.  He threw out a ridiculously low number and waited for the salesperson to go check with his manager.  In the meantime, they were getting an estimate on my car. When he came back, he was pretty far off of what we had said so we pretended to walk.  He scurried off to talk to the manager, came back, gave us an insulting quote on my car, I really was offended, so he went off again.  Eventually, we said, "thank you for your time," and started to get our stuff together when the manager came over to meet us.  He explained why my car was worth what it was (and I honestly don't care what he says it's worth, that doesn't change my number).  We went back and forth for a few more minutes and Brian held to his number.  He went to go check something else and while we were alone, I said I thought we should buy the car.  It was going to be a lot more expensive to buy the other car and it just made sense for us to get this one, even if we ended up paying a little more  for it than the number we threw out. He agreed.  So, when the manager came back, he had come up on my car about $2000 and down on his about $1000. We were now about $13000 off of the price of the Infiniti so I told him we'd do it. Yes, I told him--I cut off negotiations. Perhaps we could have gotten a better deal by walking out or continuing to negotiate but I really felt like this was a good deal and someone else could swoop in and take this car before we did if we weren't careful.  So, the next thing I know, we're signing the papers and moving our stuff from my car to this new car.

My new wheels

2012 Buick Enclave

I really like grill

My first stop? Sonic of course!

How much you wanna bet there's a french fry under that seat within two weeks, regardless of whether or not I buy any?

I get emotionally attached to objects pretty easily and that's one of the reasons Brian lives in fear that one day I will become a hoarder and I'm only partially joking so it was kind of hard for me to leave my car there yesterday and drive home in the new one, even though it's an amazing vehicle and I really like it a lot. I had visions of my car on the lot crying, wondering where I was. I know that's ridiculous but that's how I felt so it was bittersweet.
It also brought back some memories of when I took my dad with me to buy a car when I was in college.  I had picked out an amazing camero.  I absolutely loved it.  But it was $10,000 and I was going to get next to nothing for my trade-in so I really needed them to come down on the price. I had talked to Dad about playing good-cop/bad-cop. He was suppose to get them to come down because it would be dangerous for his little girl to have such a fast car and my insurance would go up, etc.  We walked in and the owner of the used-car lot said, "Well, the asking price is $10,000," and my dad says, "Sounds like a good price to me.  Let's do it."  I was shocked and tried to switch rolls to "bad-cop" but I also play a lousy "bad-cop" something I apparently inherited from my father. Thus, I ended up paying $10,000 for my car.
It doesn't seem like it's been that long since the last time I bought a car, though it's been about 5 years ago.  And I was also thinking I've bought a lot of cars!  Time marches on.  Before I know it, I'll be going in with Imma to buy her first car and I'll be the one driving her crazy with my negotiating skills.
So, we bought a new car.  I love it.  I miss my old car.  I have to name it still.  Yes, all of my cars get named something I consider to be clever.  My Pacifica's name? Oceanic.  Can you tell what television show I was watching when I bought it? Imma was convinced it was Ms. Meagan's car and I'm not sure she completely understands that mommy has a white car now and not a red one.
How do you determine when it's time to get some new wheels?  Do you have trouble trading in your old car or is it just me? How do your children adjust?

Parent-Teacher Conferences Still Make Me Nervous!

It's been about a year since the whole ordeal with whether or not Imma was ready for kindergarten began and I still get a little queasy walking into a meeting with her teachers. I know that this is totally different--new school, new district, new philosophy for special education--but I can't help but have momentary flashbacks to the horrendous experience we had last year.
In our new school district there are conferences in the fall and the spring.  We just had Imma's spring conference.  There were no surprises.  Imma is struggling in areas where she has to understand abstract concepts or be able to perform a task based on information she should have attained from listening to a story or specific directions. She is struggling with putting letter sounds together or figuring out unfamiliar words from picture clues.  I'm not surprised at these things.Of course she is having difficulty when it comes to areas where she'd have to be able to process language.
She also has a few areas where her behavior has to be modified.  Again, that's not surprising.  She can be a bit mischievous.  In fact, her behavior at home is probably worse than it is at school.  At least she doesn't try to ride the other children the way she tries to ride the dog.  At this point, she isn't doing anything beyond typical kindergarten "can't keep her hands to herself" and while we are going to continue to work to extinguish this behavior, at least she isn't biting, kicking, punching anyone. No one used the "A" word and no one told me she "couldn't" or "she'll never."
The bottom line is, she's continuing to make progress and her current placement is working. She has an amazing classroom teacher and resource teacher and a phenomenal speech teachers as well.  I've worked with hundreds of teachers in the last 12 years and I can honestly say her kindergarten teacher is one of the very best teachers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work with some amazing kindergarten teachers, having been one myself for several years, and I would put her teacher on the short-list of fabulous teachers. Her resource is a former pre-k teacher so she knows exactly what Imma needs to work on and she does an outstanding job with her as well.  Imma loves both of them very much and she works for them because she has such a good relationship with them.  She also has the benefit of working with speech teachers who are practically miracle-workers.  Imma's speech has come so far this year because of the hard work of these two amazing women, it boggles my mind to think about all of the things Imma says now that she couldn't say a year ago.
Though we still aren't at the kind of conferences I had envisioned for my children--you know, the perfect kind where the teacher just can't stop saying that your child is brilliant and far above grade-level, etc.--we are far from where I think we would have been if we hadn't made the decision to take our Immy and run.  It's hard to believe kindergarten will be over soon but I'm looking forward to next year.  (We have a lot of fabulous first grade teachers, too!)  Before you know it, I'll be at a kindergarten conference for this one:

Is Lu ready for kindergarten?  Is kindergarten ready for Lu??

and that will be a different kind of conference all together! Better get ready, kindergarten, you only have 2 1/2 years to prepare and time's a ticking!

How One Word Can Ruin Your Whole Day (If You Let It)

Creepy.  The word was creepy.  Not "mean" or "weird" or "stupid" but creepy.  Creepy invokes images of haunted houses, old witches with crooked fingers, or strange men hanging out by the restrooms. Creepy is an ugly word, meant to invoke fear or at least a feeling of extreme discomfort. Creepy is not a nice word and it has no business associating itself with my daughter.
One of the reasons I love teaching so much is because I really enjoy getting to know the children.  I make a point of creating a personal relationship with every child on my campus because I want them to know how much I care about them.  It's not enough to know what class they are in or what grade.  I want to know more than just their names. I want to know what they like to do, what interests them, what and how they want to learn. I like to hear about their families and what they did last weekend.  It's because of these relationships that I can get some students to do things other people can't.  If a child I have a relationship with is making a bad choice, I can often get him or her to stop.  If they can't or don't want to do their work, I can usually fix that, too.  I love these kids and I want the best for them so I do everything I can to help them understand that they are important and appreciated.
And when one of them goes and calls my child a horrible name like, "creepy," well, it just breaks my heart.
It's hard to get over something like that.  Sure, we're talking about children and they do things sometimes for no explainable reason. I still love this other child and I still want to see her to do amazing things but sometimes it's hard to actually be an adult and move on without remembering every time I look at her or speak to her what an awful thing she said about my baby for absolutely no reason. I think it's only because I care about her so much that it's affected me the way that it has.  I guess I feel a bit betrayed myself. I can tell she is sorry that she said it  because she won't look me in the eye now and she's not quite her same bubbly self today. Hopefully, she has learned that her words are more powerful weapons than she had imagined and, therefore, she needs to choose them carefully.
I'm sure tomorrow will be different and the sting will have dissipated some. It's funny how time can do that. Sometimes I am happy that Imma doesn't understand everything because at least she avoids some of the pain words like this one can cause. But then that argument is circular because she might not have been called this name in the first place if she could understand.
I am glad that I am here to protect my child and the other children who are different. Not everyone has the opportunity to go to school with their children everyday and those children need someone to stand up for them.  I'm constantly on the look-out for children being picked on and I try to alleviate those situations so both the bullied and the bully can find happiness.  If a small child is picking on another child, everything isn't okay on either end. I know I can't possibly rectify all of the wrongs that happen each day but hopefully I can be of some small influence to our children and help them to make better choices next time so that no one else has to feel the sharp sting of an ugly word like creepy.


On a lighter note, I finally got some pictures of the girls playing t-ball!

Lucy holds the bat funny!

And usually pushes the ball off with the wrong end.

I don't think that's where your glove is supposed to go, Lu Lu

Getting ready!

It's a hit!

Perhaps We're Approaching Normal Enough

The last two years Imma has participated in the Special Olympics.  This year, she isn't eligible to participate. I absolutely love the Special Olympics.  I think it's a wonderful way for athletes to show what they are capable and that they are not limited or defined by their disabilities. I would, however, be lying if I said that it never bothered me to see my daughter in her Special Olympics t-shirt.  I wasn't embarrassed or anything like that, I was just sad.  It just seemed like another way my child was being labeled as different.  So, even though I love that we have a Special Olympics and I think it's amazing to see athletes come together and compete and cheer each other on, I'm not sad that my child wasn't eligible. And honestly, if we allowed children who are identified for special education only because of a speech disability to compete in the Special Olympics, doesn't that take away from many of the other athletes who have more limiting disabilities?  If you disagree, I'd love to hear your polite explanation as to why, but, in my opinion, students with speech disabilities are generally capable of participating in regular sporting events and shouldn't be allowed to participate in the Special Olympics and it's kind of sad for the other children that my daughter was allowed to participate for two years with a qualification of speech-only.  Of course, if you've read my story then you know that we had some made-up labels that also allowed her to compete, but you will have to go back in my blog history to read all about that!
Imma is actually going to play t-ball this year and she's been practicing.  She can hit the ball pretty well.  She doesn't bend her knees, she often puts the wrong hand on top of the bat, and she doesn't swing as hard as she probably needs to, but she can actually connect the bat to the ball and that's better than I can do most of the time. I'm pretty sure she'll forget where to run once she's in an actual game--or she'll skip to first base  like I used to--but she's going to be playing with other typically-developing children and I'm eager to see how she does.  I hope she has a coach with a lot of patients and a team that doesn't put a lot of pressure on her to do well!  She'll make mistakes like we all do but I think she'll have fun.  And I think she'll learn a lot.  I was once told she was not capable of observing other children and mimicking their actions so that she knows what she's supposed to do.  That is completely untrue and I think that her friends will help her understand what to do and that she will learn a lot from watching them.
I am excited for her to have the opportunity to be a part of a team and hopefully continue to grow some friendships. My dad always said that playing sports wasn't about competing in a game, it was about figuring out life--how to work together, how to be a leader, how to be a cheerleader, how to win and how to lose gracefully.  I want Imma to know all of those things. It warms my heart to see how well some of her classmates look out for her and help with everything from eating lunch to following directions. I want to see how that carries over to other areas of life.  And she's a good athlete, too! She's fast, strong, and a super climber, which doesn't help with t-ball but it does help with sports in general.
Spring will be here shortly and I can't help but think back to where we were a year ago. Imma was in the process of being kicked out of daycare. I was getting notes about her behavior from her teachers almost daily. I was at my wits end trying to figure out what to do with her.  We were driving for hours twice a week to get to speech and O/T and, while she was making progress, it was hard to see through all of the clutter.  Now, here we are a year later and, while we still have our struggles, she's come so far.  There are times when people are talking to her that I catch myself almost explaining to them that she's not able to understand them and I stop myself.  Let them figure it out for themselves--or not. Maybe they won't know.  Maybe she'll be "normal" enough. And that's all I really want for her at the end of the day--normal enough,  not the same as everyone else, but normal enough to get by. She may have lost a little bit of her "special"ness this year, but in a good way, in my opinion. There's a balance between special and normal and I guess that's what we are trying to find.

Is it Time to Buy a New Car?

We went car shopping today--sort of. We looked at a few, kicked some tires.  That sort of thing. It's really hard to seriously consider buying a car when you've got two little monkey's running around but we tried it.  Imma wanted to "drive" every car we looked at and Lucy wanted to climb through the hatchback.  The young man at the Infiniti dealership was very kind, even though Imma insisted on calling him Mr. Hamster for some reason and I walked away from there pretty enthralled with the JX, even though Brian almost had a coronary when he looked at the price tag.
I also have a very tough time spending that kind of money.  I know we could easily buy something way less expensive that would provide transportation wherever we need to go.  We could also just hold on to the Pacifica for a bit longer.  It's a nice car, it has a lot of great features. You have to wiggle the shifter to get the key out of the ignition and it takes at least three tries before it actually starts but other than that, it's pretty good. It even comes with a side of french fries if you don't mind picking them up off of the floor.
I guess I grew up in a situation where the reliability of a car was certain--it wasn't going to start for sure, you'd have a flat tire for sure, or something was going to break as soon as you got something else fixed, for sure.  I don't want that for my children.  I want them to know that we are going to be able to go where we need to go and that we won't be stuck once we get there.  I know any car can have a flat or need repairs but I like the idea of driving a new car so I don't have to worry as much.  We had to cancel a doctor's appointment this summer because something broke in my starter and it would not shift into drive.  My car is only 4 years old and I feel like it shouldn't be having these kinds of issues yet.  I love all of the features in my car--nav, DVD, heated leather seats, back-up cam, blue-tooth.  But it's hard to find all of the features I love about my Pacifica in a comparably priced SUV and they don't make Pacificas any more.  You have to think there's probably a reason for that since the Dodge Journey, it's replacement, isn't as good.  Most of the other vehicles in the same price-point as the Pacifica are much smaller or are missing some of the key things that I need (like heated seats because even though I live in Texas, I am freezing 9 months out of the year.)
So we may end up with a car payment again here in the next few months, even though we really don't want one.  It's a tough decision.  We're a bit afraid my transmission is going to go out or something like that and we'll end up sinking a lot more money into the Pacifica just so we can trade it in.
With the economy the way that it is and the gas situation, how do y'all go about making decisions about your vehicles?  I would love to hear the opinions of some rational third parties!
Sorry this wasn't about the girls so much but it does relate to them.  They will be riding in the vehicle.  And there was the great mention of Imma and Mr. Hamster.

Lucy Kate, Dancing Queen!

What's a romantic Valentine's Day dinner without a little dancing?

Okay, perhaps this isn't quite what you had pictured.  But it made my night!

Here are some pics of my sweet family!

I Heart Levis

I really miss my Dad today and I'm thinking about his Valentine and how she didn't get a gift from him this morning. I am remembering getting cards and chocolates and bears from him myself as a little girl. It's just another difficult day.
But God always finds a way. Today his message was pretty clear. A few children gave me candy but I only got one Valentine from a student today. One out of 400. And that's perfectly alright with me. My 5 year old little friend has no idea how much his simple gift meant to me. I have lots of students that are special to me, but this one will undoubtably always be in my heart.

Imma's First Loose Tooth!

Imma's class is talking about teeth this week. They were doing an activity where they glued marshmallows on a little paper model of their mouths when I walked into her classroom to get a group of students to read with.  I stopped to check on her and she said, "Look, Mommy, teeth!"  I said,  "Oh, ya, you've got teeth!" and tapped her teeth.  Then, I realized one of them was loose!  The bottom front left one is just a little wiggly!  This is her very first loose tooth.  I am hoping she doesn't freak out since so many people in her class have lost teeth already but I'm really not sure how she's going to react as it gets more and more lose.  Her class mates were just thrilled!  Another teacher stopped me in the hallway this morning and said, "So, Imma has a loose tooth, huh?"  I asked her if Imma had told her and she said, "No, Colton (one of Imma's classmates) told me.  He's very excited!" Those are the kinds of kids Imma has in her class. They share each other's triumphs and cheer for each other. I absolutely love that!  Part of it is because her teacher is so good at building a community in her classroom. I hope these kiddos are always able to keep this aspect of friendship alive as they travel through the grade-levels.

These are  cute teeth--but they aren't Imma's!  She wouldn't let me take a picture of her but Lucy would!

Imma is really starting to wiggle that tooth with her tongue.  I hope that it comes out easily with very little blood or pain!!

Thank You, Lucy Calkins!

If you're an educator, especially an elementary teacher, you're probably familiar with Lucy Calkins. I've been trained on a lot of writing programs in my career but I've always stuck to Calkin's program because it works.  I wish I had the time and patience to do more with Imma because she responds to it very well.  Tonight for her homework, she was to read her library book and then draw a picture of her favorite part.  We did that but I asked her to write a sentence, too.  The book was about training a dog to do tricks.  She said her favorite part was when they taught the dog to sit. She drew a picture of a little girl teaching the dog to sit.  I asked her what she could write to tell about the picture and she said, "The dog is sitting."  In Calkin's program, you draw a line for each word to help reluctant or new writers understand where one word ends and the next begins, to teach how to sound words out phonetically, and to help them to see how much they have left to write. So, I drew four lines on her paper and said, "Okay, let's write it down."  She had no trouble whatsoever writing, "The dog is," she knows those words.  But I know she has been struggling with phonetically decoding words and spelling them the way she hears them so I wasn't sure what she would do with "sitting."  I said, "What do you hear first?"  She said "S," and wrote that down.  Before I could ask her what she heard next, she said, "it!" and wrote that down. It is super hard for kindergartners to grasp "ing" so I wasn't surprised that she didn't know that part.  She said she heard an "e" and that was fine with me! Phonetically, that's not too far off and it's pretty common for kids to put an "e" for "ing."  This is what she wrote:

This is progress, in my opinion.  I think she could potentially write several sentences if she was motivated to do so.  I know she isn't quite where we would have hoped she would be academically just yet but considering the obstacles she's overcoming, I am very happy with what she is able to do. Who knows, maybe she'll write my next blog post!

This is How We Roll

Imma wanted to go for a bike ride this evening. Problem is, she was already in her pajamas. She changed into her favorite mismatched PJ's as soon as she walks in the door. But, since we only have one other family in our neighborhood and I was pretty sure they weren't home, this is how she was dressed when we left the house. She got off her bike in a cul de sac and she and Lucy ran around for a bit. Such silly girls. So happy the weather is getting nicer and we can spend more time outside!

My Co-Pilot is Jesus, But My Navi, Well, That's Imma

Just a quick post today as, believe it or not, maintaining three blogs and trying to post something new and exciting on each of them everyday is, well, a little exhausting--especially when you have strep--so I'll try to keep this one brief. And don't worry, I will not send my Kooties through cyberspace to get you. If you happen to get strep after reading this blog post, it's purely coincidental.
I took Imma to Wal-Mart with me to do the grocery shopping today. She is in rare form today and we had a really good time.  She was sitting in the cart, which she can barely squeeze in to but we made it work, and she was making all kinds of goofy conversation. Lately, she's been mimicking that awful Fruit Roll-Ups commercial where the little boy says, "PLEEEEEAAAASSEEE!" for like 20 minutes--ya I'm never buying Fruit Roll Ups again, ever, even if the Zombie Apocalypse hits and we find out they are afraid of tape made of fruit--so I got to hear that word a lot more than I am used to.  But mostly she just talked about things that she saw and who we should get stuff for.  She said stuff like:
 "Grab it and go!"
 "Uhm, ya, it's a good one!"
"One for Barkley and One for Duke!"
"I like chocolate fruit!"
"Can we have chocolate cereal?  No that one, with the Rabbit! Yes, Trix!"  Uhm, that's not chocolate, "Pleeeease!" Okay, okay, whatever you want!
My favorite part was when she started "reading" the grocery list.  In her defense, even if she was a reader, she might not have been able to decipher my husband's chicken scratch.  She was sitting there telling me what we needed next. "Okay, Mommy, we need some birds, and a circus, and some cereal, and strawberries."  And wouldn't you know it if they weren't all out of birds and circus!  That's always my luck!
She was being so cute I tried to bribe her into letting me take her pictures. It was a no-go until she saw the M&M's. One extra-large bag of peanut deliciousness later and she's a little wired.  But I have my picture for the blog, so it's all good.
As she was sitting there talking to the very sweet cashier, I was thinking, "I bet if I told this woman that my child was autistic not so very long ago, she would be shocked." There was nothing autistic about my girl today.  She wasn't like everyone else but that's okay.  She was cute, she was making sense, she was being funny (they told me she would never understand humor) she was sweet.  We had a very nice trip to a place that's not exactly my favorite and now she's sitting next to me ruining every high score I ever had on Angry Birds on my iPad.  I'm very lucky to be her mommy!

Oh, what will you do for an extra-large bag of M & M's, Imm?

I'm So Happy to Be Home! And The Girls Went Swimming

Yes--two titles because I'm just that happy to be home!
My girls were just as happy to see me when I got home yesterday as I was to see them. Lots of hugs and kisses!  And lots of excited chatter.  Daddy wasn't feeling well so he did not do as much excited chattering but we were still happy to see each other!
The girls went to a swim birthday party today and had a lot of fun.  Here is our day, in pictures.

Imma and Lucy in the pool

Lucy, just chillin'

Imma with two of her friends from school

My favorite part of the day--Imma got on this fish and two of her friends from school swam over and got on, too.  These two kiddos are two of Imma's best friends and greatest helpers.  I am so thankful she has friends like these two (and a couple of others that weren't there.)  They are angels in little people's bodies!

Demanding cake!

All tuckered out!

My 100th Blog Post: A Tribute to My Original Inspiration

This marks my 100th blog post on my original blog, Images of Imma-Jane. (The "and Lucy!" part was added about 3 years after I initially began the blog.)  Today, I would like to reflect a little bit about where we were, where we are, and where we are going.
On June 13, 2006, I woke up feeling very sick to my stomach and exhausted.  We'd been trying to start a family for a few months and I was hoping this was a sign that this family had begun! I had a master's class that morning and, though I didn't want to attend, I dragged myself in anyway.  I was feeling better later and I was hoping that was also a good sign. That afternoon, I decided to start recording my ideas in a journal for the baby I was hoping to have someday soon.
It turns out I wasn't pregnant on June 13, 2006.  However, it wasn't too long before I learned I was pregnant.  And, on June 13, 2007, one year to the date of when I started that journal, Imma-Jane Isabella was born.  Imma came into this world with many serendipitous occurrences and those types of things still tend to surround her.
We were thrilled with our tiny bundle of joy.  I've always said Imma was Imma before she was even born.  She is her own person--unique, self-motivated, different, fearless.  She has proven time and again that, if you have enough tenacity, nothing is going to keep you down.  She has over-come great obstacles to get where she is today and she does it all in a way that prevents most people from even realizing she is "different."
Imma was 18 months old before we started to realize something wasn't quite right.  She wasn't talking like she should be, she wasn't focusing well, she was too courageous, she didn't seem to notice other people the way she "should."  Through several evaluations and lots of therapy, we ended up in a Pre-school Program for Children with Disabilities and a sentence to kindergarten by their rules--a structured teach classroom, an autism unit.  No official label, just "autistic tendencies" and a school staff convinced my child could not survive in a general education classroom.
Despite the recommendation of these "experts," we did not place Imma in an autism unit. Instead, we moved her to a school that puts much faith in the believe that children must be given a chance to fail or succeed before they are labeled or defined.  And Imma has flourished this year!  Not a week has gone by that someone--a teacher, an administrator, a friend, a family-member, doesn't tell me how proud they are of what she has accomplished.  Despite her inability to completely process spoken language, Imma is being successful in a general education kindergarten class with minimal support.  We still have our struggles and there are times when I wonder if she will ever be the same as everyone else, but she has by far surpassed my expectations, those of her current teachers, and certainly the minimal expectations those "experts" set for her at her previous campus.  If there is one thing you should know about Imma, it's that she is never going to give up.  She'll keep working and fighting until she gets it.  I could not be more proud of my little girl than I am today.
What does the future hold for us?  A lot more struggles, a lot more trials and tribulations, and a lot more successes.  There will be more difficult curriculum, more skills she will need to acquire, more hills to climb.  But each one of these is truly an opportunity for her to show her tenacity and to overcome.  I know nothing is going to crush her spirit and nothing is going to keep her down. If each of us had just a bit of the will-power that child has, imagine what we could accomplish.

Imma at 2 1/2

Imma at 5

100 posts in 5 and 1/2 years, but many more to come. I hope you will stay with us on this journey.  We are far from the end and we have many more lessons to learn, and share.  Please continue to walk along beside us on our journey to "normalcy," and thank you so much for walking with us thus far.

10 Things I Miss About My Girls

Since I haven't seen my daughters since Monday--and it is now Thursday--I thought I'd take this opportunity to compose a list of what I miss about them.
1) I miss hugging Imma first thing in the morning.  She will be sitting on the couch, watching Chuggington, with her hair still messy, no shoes on, a bit disheveled, eating her cereal (yes, on the couch) when I come out of the bedroom and hug her and ask her how she's doing.  Sleepy Imma is calm Imma and I like that.
2) I miss hearing Lucy talk to Daddy over the intercom as he gets her ready in the morning.  She tells him about the owl outside of her window, about her dreams, and usually says something about PawPaw.  She'll also tell him she doesn't want to wear whatever it is he has laid out for her to put on.
3) I miss taking Lucy to Ms. Amy's in the morning.  She's always so happy to see Amy and even though I am sad to tell her good-bye, I'm happy that she loves her caretaker so much.
4) I miss taking Imma to school.  She almost never gets her act together as quickly as I want her to.  She's pokey or distracted and wanders through the parking lot.  Her backpack is too heavy, her coat is slipping off, she's a mess.  She'll yell, "Good morning!" to her teacher as we pass her classroom on our way to mine and attempt to get everyone she passes names' correct.  She's a sweet, silly little mess.
5) I miss taking Imma her lunch.  Imma stopped buying her lunch a few weeks ago because she never ate any of it, except for maybe her dessert.  Now, she brings her lunch but part of it I heat up in the teacher's lounge and bring down to her. I take a few minutes to open everything for her, remind her to get a happy face, talk to her about her friends, kiss her on the head and go back to my room. I miss seeing how happy she is to see me for those few minutes.
6) I miss seeing Imma after school.  She waits for me in my classroom and plays on my phone or the iPad.  She's always happy to see me.  She doesn't let me sit in my chair at the computer, that's her chair.  I have to bring a student chair over and work from there.
7) I miss picking Lucy up from Amy's and hearing about her day.  She's usually happy to see me but other times she would rather stay there.  She will give me a big hug and do something silly--like sing her version of Gangham style.
8)  I miss watching the girls play in the front yard.  When the weather is nice it's almost impossible to get them to go inside so they play out front while the dogs run around. They build houses for the three little pigs or throw sticks in the pond.
9) I miss snack time and watching "Spongebob Squashpants."  I don't really miss watching that show, but I miss watching how happy it makes them to watch it.
10) I miss getting them ready for bed.  Lucy likes to take what she calls a "baby bath" these days and Imma loves to play in the tub.  We read a night-night story,  give kisses and hugs, ask for God's blessings and end our day with, "I love you."
I can't wait to get back home so that I can see my girls and get back to our routine!  Tomorrow, I'm going home!  How do people stay away for so long?  I could never be a business person or even think about being in the military.  God Bless those people who defend our country and miss their families for so long!

Love this pic of my girls!

I Heart Skype!

I got to Skype with my family again this evening.  I don't know what people did before all of this technology! I mean, calling is great and I would have been okay with just that, but actually getting to see my little girls playing while I talked to them about there day was awesome.  And I feel like Imma's grown so much just in the few days I've been away.  If you don't actually see someone for a while, you certainly notice these things more.  I asked her questions about her day and she answered them.  The answers didn't always make perfect sense, but the important thing is, she was actually answering my questions. She knew she was supposed to say something back in response to what I said to her and it was at least on the same topic, most of the time, so this is major progress!
Lucy, on the other hand, was mostly a blur.  She was doing some sort of calisthenics on Daddy's lap. This is a great photo of her head right next to the camera.

Lucy's face in the camera.

She's such a goofball.  I miss them very much!  Imma kept saying, "Okay, Mommy, bye!  Have a good weekend!"  Thank goodness I'll get to see them this weekend! We are supposed to be back Friday afternoon. In the meantime, I hope we get to skype at least one more time tomorrow so I can see my silly little girls!

Missing My Girlies!

I'ts been over 24 hours since I've seen my girls and it's been pretty rough on mommy.  I think the girls are doing okay, though, which is the most important thing.  I was able to skype with the girls and Brian earlier this evening. It was very nice to see their cute little faces along with hearing their sweet voices.  Imma said, "Mommy on an airplane. Get the car, Daddy!"  I guess she was going to make him drive down here.  I didn't fly to Austin but in her mind, I am very far away and the only way to get here is by airplane.
Imma told me about her day at school.  She said she had a hot dog and yogurt for lunch.  She said she learned about the letter "r" and hearts and that she sat by her friend Peyton at lunch.  She played outside at recess and mostly played on the swing-set   It's so great that she is able to tell me about her day now, even if I'm not sure it's all exactly accurate.  But then, most five year old's have a hard time remembering the details about their day so that's pretty typical.
Lucy was a wild woman.  She was a little blur in the background, with the occasional shriek. She had a beach ball and her little pink car.  Her clothes matched better today.  Yesterday, she wore two dresses on top of each other and some leopard print pants that matched neither dress.   She has her own sense of style!
Brian is very sick and I'm worried about him. He looked exhausted.  It's too bad he's sick while I'm not there to help with the girls.  They are a handful even when you have help!  Hopefully, he will get better tomorrow or the next day!  And I hope no one else gets it!
I am having a lot of fun getting to know my co-workers.  I think a trip like this can make up for not being in the district that long.  I am hanging out with some really cool teachers who know a lot about technology and care immensely about teaching our students everything they need to know to be 21st century citizens.  If you would like to follow us on twitter, we are having some hilarious conversations, as well as some insightful educational related tweets and retweets.  You can follow my educational twitter account at @AmyVanHornCISD and then follow some of the #cisd folks I am following or search for #cisdvan for our most ridiculous posts.  Warning--this will only be funny if you find shows like "The Office" funny, not if you like your humor less witty.

A  view of Austin from the convention center

World's nicest park restroom

Do you know where we ate lunch today?

On my way to Austin

This will be the longest I've ever been away from my girls! I'm on my way to a technology conference in Austin for 4 days. I'm sure it'll probably be harder on me than on the girls but I'm missing them a lot already. And that other guy, what's his name.
Hopefully I will get lots of pictures sent to me while I am gone! I know I'll learn a lot from this conference and I'm excited I have the chance to go but it's gonna be tough being away from my girlies!

Video from Chicken Hamburger

Here are some videos of Lucy singing, and of me trying to get Lucy to sing!
The first video is just of Lucy eating a delicious dinner of french fries--and ketchup.

I am pretty impressed that Lucy can sing the alphabet song so well at 2 1/2, even though she wouldn't sing the whole thing again for me to video.  She loves to sing and even makes up her own songs.  She has been in dance for almost a year now and she's going to have a dance recital in the spring.  I can't wait to see her up on stage.  I hope she doesn't get scared and she acts like the little diva I expect her to!

Friday Night at Chicken Hamburger

To celebrate Imma's appointment to the position of Braggin' Brave, we took the girls to Chicken Hamburger.  The play area was CRAZY! There were a ton of big kids running around, climbing up the slide, screaming.  And a lot of ity-bitties like Lu that I was sure were going to get trampled.  Let's face it, placing a teacher who spends the majority of her day telling children not to run, to follow the rules, and to play nicely in an enclosed glass cage with 30 wild children and telling her she has no control over any of them except for the two that are actually playing nicely, is kind of like making Jillian Michael's  sit next to a buffet and telling her she isn't allowed to yell at any of the people she sees over-eating. It's torture!
But my girls were totally cute and they had a good time.  Imma really, really, really enjoyed her ice cream.

Tomorrow, I will post another video of Lucy singing!

Imma is The Braggin' Brave!

At our school, each teacher picks a student of the week, which we call The Braggin' Brave.  This week, Imma was selected, yay! The principal reads the students' names over the loud speaker every Friday morning.  When I heard Imma's name, I was standing in the cafeteria at breakfast duty and I cheered for her!  The kids and cafeteria staff looked at me like I was a little nuts, but I didn't care.  I was so proud of my girl!
When I came back to my office, the school secretary stopped by and asked me if I heard the cheering when Imma's name was announced.  I hadn't heard anyone cheering but myself.  She said Imma's entire class cheered so loudly that they could hear them in the office, which is all the way down a fairly long hallway.  Wow!  I'm so proud of my girl!
I also learned that Imma was walking around on the stage this morning before I went into the cafeteria so another teacher told her, "If you're going to be on the stage, you have to sing and dance."  Imma took her seriously and performed for the other kids while they were eating breakfast.  She actually sang several songs and danced!  I wish I would have seen it.  While I'm sure she was super cute and entertaining, I also hope we haven't created a monster!  I hope she doesn't think she can get up there anytime she wants to and sing and dance.  It might be a little awkward during awards assemblies!

Imma did not want me to take her picture today!