Snow Day

 I ended up with a snow day/pro-d day at home with the boys.  It was a good thing I had no expectations of getting any work done, because my boys seem to require a lot of attention these days.  There's been an increase of homework and school-projects that take extra motivation and assistance and the sibling squables start from the moment they get up and are loudest in the car. Because I'm not a big fan of too much screen-time, extra activities needed planning so we had 2 visits with mom-friends and their kids to break up the day a bit.  Despite this, I'm feeling a little stir-crazy and very ready to get back to the studio for a little peace and quiet, space to breath, think and be creative without someone asking me for a snack. 
With work in mind, I have a few exciting things coming up for me - all in the planning stages.  It's great to have sudden waves of inspiration (they are all such good ideas!!), although I admit that the day-to-day of life sometimes deflates my ability to move beyond the initial stages of planning.  It's difficult to wrap my head around all the things in the studio needing to be done when lunches need to be made and homework needs to get done.  Is it just me or is the work/home/life balancing act getting you down too? Maybe it's the January blues that make me feel like just crawling back into bed and leaving it for another day.

seven years ago

I can hardly believe that my baby boy is 7 today.  It's also amazing to think that I gave gave birth 7 years ago.  Having a baby is no short of a miracle.  After Johnny's birth (which took me 8 months to heal from- another story all in itself), it took a lot of courage to even think about having a second baby.  Well, turns out it was something we didn't have to plan, and thankfully, the birth was so easy (relatively speaking, of course)...and short!  I had been induced again- it was only 4 days after my due date instead of 13 with Johnny and my labour started really easy- Dean and I went shopping together, went out for dinner, I had a nap- both of us enjoying having Johnny, our 21 month old, be with his grandparents.  Anyways, I woke up from my nap and I was in full labour- we called the hospital to say we were on our way and my Doctor was waiting for us when we arrived at 11:30 pm.  Sasha was born at 12:30 am on Feb 23rd.  So fast! And after Sasha was born I sighed a big relief and said "I'm Done!".  Dean turned to me and said "Done done? or just done?"
We were both surprised to see our new, healthy little boy.  He looked so different than Johnny did- had lots of dark hair, a button nose and had my chin.  
Sasha is my artist.  He's very musical and loves to draw.  He's a funny story-teller and has an interesting slant on life, with big ideas of how things should be.  Every year he grows older I feel sad that I will miss the way he was when he was 3, 5 or 6.  Even so, I'm still done.

The waiting game

It's one of those days where I'm waiting for my kilns to fire and cool.  There is no immediate gratification in the land of ceramics.   I've thrown a new bowl shapes and a few new mug shapes, made a bunch of new and old glazes and now I have to wait to see what will turn out.  Sometimes this waiting game gives me a little perspective between the heavy process oriented aspect of the work and the final outcome.  Sometimes I feel impatient with it, like I want to know what I did right or wrong now.  I guess it's a little like parenting a child sometimes.  
Johnny is growing so fast.  He's up to my chin for crying out loud.  How did this kid get so big?  Seriously.  We have our good days and our hard days.  Our days when we don't worry or fret about school, where he's gentle and kind, fun-loving, telling jokes and singing to himself.  Days where he's a real pleasure to be around.  And then there are days when I feel as though everything I say comes back to my face with an anger and a frustration that comes out of left field. 
For those of you that are new to my blog, Johnny was diagnosed with a learning disability last June.  His teacher in Grade 2 was completely baffled at how he would un-learn what he had been taught the day before.  He's a bright and intelligent kid and his reading and writing in particular didn't match up.  Last fall he was enrolled in a really great Literacy program for grade 3's with learning disabilities.  It ran from September to the beginning of December, there was only 7 kids in his class, one teacher and one Orton Gillingham Instructor.  Wow, did we ever see a difference.  The confidence that this program gave Johnny was immense.  It was hard work- 30-45 minutes of homework 6 days a week.  Spelling tests daily.  Lots of practicing and reviewing.  And he really improved.  His reading went a whole grade-level higher.  We saw a big improvement at home, his stress level and happiness level surrounding school really improved.  Unfortunately the program only runs for 3 months.  Now we are back in the regular school system and really struggling to keep up.  There are a lot of holes in the way the regular classroom operates that can be hard for kids who struggle with learning ie split classes, too many kids in the class, teacher sharing, too many extra-curricular activities... all of these things are probably fine for regular kids, but for someone who needs space and extra concentration just to learn the basics, these things just distract. 
So, what to do?  I've been researching options for next year already.  Grade 4 is supposedly a big year, there is lots expected of kids in this year.  I've looked into a school for dyslexia here in our area.  $19'500.  Yeah, not likely.  For grade 4???  I realize there could be scholarships but I really don't quite think that's going to cover it.  I think it might be more reasonable to look into a combination of Orton Gillingham tutoring and getting him a laptop for school.  If the frustration continues to mount I've even thought of home schooling him for a set time.  But for that I'd have to really scale back what I do at the studio. Hard decisions. 
Really at the end of this all, I know in my heart that Johnny will be a great person when he grows up.  He has so much going for him and school is really only a small part of our lives over-all.  And really, there's spell check for when he's going to get bogged down with the whole spelling thing, right? Everyone has stuff in their life that they will struggle with, some of us struggle with it early on, some of us later.  I just hope  (and pray) that we are giving him the tools to know how best to cope with his struggles now so that later in life he makes good choices.  Really, isn't that all a parent can hope for? 

Birthdays for boys and a diagnosis

Well, we officially have an 8 year old boy in the house and for his party this past weekend 2 of his closest buddies came over for a sleepover complete with mini-golf, nerf gun target practice, a late night movie, pizza and cake and a pancake breakfast to boot.  Wow.  I felt like I needed the next couple of days to recover from all that!  The decorations were kept pretty simple- just some balloons, streamers and paper airplanes hung over the table.  A couple of old trophies made for a fun centerpiece.  I did end up putting a 'Darth Vader' Birthday Candle on the cake so it was a little more appealing to the boys.  Anyways, it was fun and wild and sometimes crazy but that's how it goes with boys this age.

Yesterday we had our meeting with the school psychologist who actually did do some diagnosing.  I'm still trying to process some of the results- more the labels and associations that come with the diagnosis.  It seems that Johnny has some form of ADD and dislexia that are inhibiting his ability to learn to read and write as smoothly and quickly as other kids.  Both diagnosis were kind of a surprise to me. Johnny has never mixed up letters and he can read and write, albeit slowly and below his level.  So there is a program he might do for 10 weeks in fall to re-learn how to read and write geared for kids with mild dislexia. 
I think what surprised me more was the whole ADD diagnosis.  I sat down to do some research yesterday and frankly, it's hard not to see every boy Johnny's age as being somewhat ADD.   Knowing that about 7 of Johnny's classmates have undergone a similar psychological assessments this year makes me a little frustrated that we aren't looking at the process of teaching kids as opposed to simply trying to medicate and diagnose our kids into being good students. ADD or ADHD seems to be a catch-all phrase for kids who have a lot of energy and a low attention span.  Perhaps it's not just our kids who have the 'problem', perhaps some of the issues have to do with educators and parents who haven't completely learned how best to motivate these kids to learn and cope with life at their optimum.
With that in mind, I can see that there are a few strategies that I can work on personally as a parent to make life a little smoother for both Johnny and us as parents.  Some of those parenting tips I found here, some more I found here- both sites and the video being advocates for the concept of 'positive parenting'.  Essentially, the idea behind positive parenting is to learn how to avoid conflicts/power struggles with your child while trying to teach them how to make positive choices.  For me it will mean being more intentional about how I relate to my boys and not trying to rush over the parenting tasks that I do every day.  Also making sure that we have a more consistent schedule, complete with lots of meals/snacks, good sleeping habits and lots of physical activity will be on the agenda.  Good thing I bought some new running shoes on the weekend- I have a feeling I'll be playing a lot more soccer and going for more hikes and runs throughout the summer...