Tag Archives: kids

My Extra Day.

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Giraffe Footprint Craft

It’s closing in on the end of Leap Day, our gift of 24-hours from Mother Nature.  I must admit that I had visions of waking up late and eating chocolate and cookies for breakfast, but, alas, no such luck.  It was a dreary day here in the Northeast; rainy, cold, foggy, and generally miserable.  And despite my mad desire to just curl up in bed with a book and snooze all day, I managed to be rather productive.

I say that as if I don’t have another four hours of work ahead of me tonight.

One of the highlights was being featured as a guest on my friend Barbara’s Blog Talk Radio show this afternoon.  Barbara is like sunshine on a dreary day and, although I was dreadfully nervous beforehand, I had a wonderful time chatting with her.  She has an amazingly uplifting blog called The Corner on Character that is definitely worth checking out.  You can listen to the interview here.

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Dyslexia Bites.

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Super A - In your face dyslexia. My boy loves books!

Dyslexia bites.

Super A was diagnosed (finally) this time last February with rather severe dyslexia and while it was such a relief to have a formal diagnosis, it’s also heartbreaking.  I watch him struggle and give so much of himself – trying and trying and trying and trying  to decode words.  And his brain just does not want to cooperate.

When he had his formal testing last year he was in third grade and reading at a low first grade level.  His silent reading comprehension was at a kindergarten level.  His math scores were on target and his vocabulary was great.  He just can’t decode the words and, oy, his short-term memory for sight words is almost nil.

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Classic.

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You know, I debated the name “One Great Mom” for a long time and I’d actually had the domain registered since 2010, but, obviously, just really began using it.  Why?  Well, because it sounds kind of pompous and most days I feel anything but great.  But here’s a classic example of greatness in action.

Get ready.  It’s good.

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Mardi Gras, Masks, and Lent.

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The boys had a Mardi Gras event at the school yesterday and we headed down after rush hour to take part.  For those of you who don’t know, “the school” is an online charter school that allows us to continue the feel of homeschooling, but with tons of extra support for Super A’s dyslexia.  I can’t speak highly enough about them.  It’s an amazing school opportunity.
We ended up making masks with feathers, foam stickers, crayons, glue, and crafty-sequiny-things (not the real name for them, obviously).  The kids had a blast and Sweet Pea has been wearing hers almost constantly since then.  She hasn’t had any major injuries, but she did run face first into her plastic car.  A hug, a kiss, an ice pack, and a piece of Dove Special Dark Chocolate and she was fine again.  Such resilience. Continue reading →

We Made Pretzels. With Only a Little Bit of Arguing.

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Photo by Brandi Jordan

I am in awe of those moms who make life with children look so easy, so carefree, so Donna Reed-ish.  Because if there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s that that is so not my reality.  We argue, we fight, we yell use our outside voices inside, and more often than not, someone ends up in time-out whenever we start a project.  But today we did pretty good.  We made pretzels and no one got sent to time-out.  I consider that a win.

Since we’re on our “must eat non-processed food only” kick, we have been seriously lacking in snack food.  So much so, that Ultra-G was snacking on ice cubes.  Seriously.  It’s bad. Continue reading →