Learning

I found them one evening like this, both playing video games :)

We all have the potential to learn new things.  What and how much depends on each person's ability to learn and/or their desire to learn.  Learning is something a lot of us take for granted.  As school students, we were forced to go to school and learn.  And as adults, I think we just navigate the world of work, parenting, and responsibility by learning as we go without giving much thought at what it is we are actually learning.  Consciously deciding to learn something new might be more about stepping out of our comfort zone as we get older. 

Photography class assignment #1:  Self portrait

I know nothing about photography and after my first class last week, I felt a little like I did sitting in chemistry class in high school.  Like the information is so far over my head, I'll surely never grasp it.  While I passed chemistry, the difference now is I am actually interested in learning about photography.  I don't have visions of becoming an amazingly talented photographer, I just want to learn enough to be dangerous.  Maybe the best thing about choosing to learn as an adult is it's more fun because you have the opportunity to pick what you're interested in....and the fact that I'm not taking the class for a grade :)

We have no idea what the future will hold for either of our girls.  They are different as much in their personalities as in their abilities to learn.  Casey is a bright, enthusiastic and vocal girl and, as much as I hate to admit it, I sometimes find myself almost taking for granted her ability to learn.  I think we just assume she'll do well in school, go to college and one day rule the world :)  Her potential is endless, but it is unfair to take that for granted because her sister's learning ability is actually her disability.  As a mother, it's something I need to keep in check because I don't want Casey to ever resent us for feeling like we were on parenting auto-pilot with her. 

So I will preface this week's accomplishment with admitting the guilt I have because when Casey learned to write I may not have been as overwhelmed with emotion as when Emily did it for the first time.  Because little sister just did it and it felt like we were gifted the moon.  One morning before school she asked me how to spell my name, so I said m-o-m and she proceeded to write just that on a piece of paper.  I had to help prompt her with where to put each letter because she doesn't quite grasp that letters need to go in some order to make words just yet, but I was no less stunned when she followed my instruction and I saw mom staring back at me on the page. 

The concentration it took for her to put together the lines to make the letters and to put them in order and the interest in learning this tells me so much about her potential.  Because her learning potential is such a mystery to us all.   And then just to show off later that day, she not only wrote mom, but also her name.  And maybe, just maybe, a little of the weight I carry on my shoulders each day worrying about what Emily is able to learn may have been lifted.  And best of all, Casey was almost in tears with excitement at Emily's accomplishment, too.  And I am certain that every time Emily demonstrates that she has learned something new Casey is learning something about helping and pride and overcoming obstacles. 

 

 

I actually convinced Tom to go to a Toga Murder Mystery party last night (for those of you that know Tom, you take a minute to process that) and a new babysitter was going to come over and watch the girls.  My friend, Jenn, hired a new babysitter last weekend and she told me how she cleaned her whole house, even the ceiling fans, to make a good impression.  (Really, Jenn?  Ceiling fans?)  So maybe I do tidy up a bit for babysitters, but full on deep clean?  Um...maybe not.  But I had my two little girls bursting with excitement all day yesterday waiting for Julia to come over to play, so I decided I was going to channel that energy and teach them to clean.  Growing up my sisters and I had a list of chores every Saturday that included mopping, dusting, scrubbing and vacuuming and I want to make sure my girls get that same torture sense of responsibility, too. 

As much as we think they are our princesses, we know we want them to learn the value of hard work, too.  Even in high school when I played every sport that was available, I had my set of chores I needed to fit in between homework, practices, games and meets.  Our girls will never be too busy to have to do chores here at home either.  I have some friends that have cleaning ladies come in to help with the housework and, as with everything, I think each person needs to do what's best for their family, so no judging here.  But even if I was still working, I couldn't hire a cleaning lady because I don't think I would be able to look my mom in the eye.  I would somehow feel like a failure.  Like I had just flushed the values she tried to instill in me down the generational toilet.  As a kid I didn't have to milk cows before school like my mom did and my kids don't have to settle for only Saturday mornings and 3 channels for cartoons either.  So it's not like I'm all let's-hang-on-to-the-past, but I do want our kids to know how to work hard and take care of things that are important.  

And it was important to get Tom into a toga and for us to go out with other adults, so the teaching of doing dishes and dusting and vacuuming for the babysitter commenced :)

Why would I hire a cleaning lady when I have 2 (little) cleaning ladies here!!  Oh, I've learned something from my mom all right :)

Cabin Fever

 

 

The lazy days of winter are upon us and we're all looking for interesting things to do to combat cabin fever.  See the 2 pictures above?  I just found them still on my camera from New Year's Eve.  Talk about lazy days of winter all right...

Casey never even made it out of her PJ's Saturday.  I forced Emily and I to put on 'real' clothes (if you consider yoga pants, wool socks and sweatshirts 'real clothes) around 11 a.m.  It's still winter here.  And by the forecast, it's not going to change anytime soon.  Weekends find me trying to find new ways to keep the girls (and me) entertained.  You'd think by the huge haul of toys they received only one month ago at Christmas, that wouldn't be a problem.  But then they wouldn't be typical kids if they weren't already bored with some of those toys.  They still love everything, but not being able to go outside and burn some energy off, has left us all a bit restless. 

Emily can walk up and down a set of stairs pretty well now but it's not something we are 100% comfortable with yet, so all of the girls' toys are in our dining room.  As opposed to the finished basement like every other house with kids.  I know this because every kid that comes to our house asks to go in the basement to play with toys.  They look at me in disbelief sometimes, like I am surely withholding some treasure trove of toys down there.  But until we feel certain sister can be safe on stairs, we'll continue to forgo a dining room for a toy room.  The room is only so big, though, so I have been wise enough to keep a certain stash of toys in our unfinished part of the basement, out of sight, not only because of the lack of space but to also be able to rotate some 'new' things back upstairs when some fresh material is needed.  Saturday I brought up the easel for some new entertainment for the girls as well as to provide another opportunity to work in writing letters with Emily. 

Now that we are into the listening therapy with Emily, I am trying to take advantage of her increased focus when we can.  We've just started here at home and she's doing great.  We've done it a couple of times at occupational therapy and I was very, very impressed with the results.  Like, blew my skeptical socks off.  Emily has a very difficult time focusing on tasks.  Especially if there are other kids and/or activities going on around her.  (Basically if she's not by herself in a cardboard box, she's not interested in doing goal-oriented tasks.)  You can about imagine how getting her to write letters, ect. is going at school with a room full of kids.  Or at therapy where there are other kids doing fun activities all around her. 

 

Her OT, Angela, suggested therapeutic listening a while ago and, to be honest, I kind of blew it off.  We were coming up on the holidays and buying a $150 pair of headphones specialty made for this therapy, as well as the other accessories wasn't appealing.  From what I understand, there hasn't been a ton of research done on this therapy, so I was a bit ignorant about it, too.  But Emily's interest in other kids and her lack of attention for her own work has been an obstacle in her learning for a while, so we tried it for an hour at therapy.  With the headphones on, she worked for 1 solid hour at fine motor skills and I was sold.  My dad has season tickets to the O-G basketball games and sits next to a couple who has a daughter with disabilities.  Through random conversation (I swear I did not even talk to my dad about the headphones!) it was discovered they tried therapeutic listening with their daughter and they wanted to give us the headphones!!!  Twice a day now, we gear up with the electronic music-ish sounds and the super expensive (but free) headphones and read, write and play.  We're hoping this therapy will lead into increased focus throughout the day and increased capacity for focus and learning in the classroom.  Because, I swear, this girl has some really good stuff to show us yet. 

Sunday was church and beginning the first of our home lessons with Casey in preparation of making her first communion in April.  It took us about 30 minutes to review the material and pray and, once again, I am reminded that I could never home school my kids.  I am certain I said way more prayers than Casey did during that lesson at the kitchen table.  My were mostly of the 'grant me patience' variety.... 

 It's the end of January and we're doing a lot of painting nails and playing games to help combat the cabin fever here.  February is a short month and then comes the promise of temperatures slowing getting warmer.  And we'll finally get outside again!

 Check this out: I found my old checkerboard I got as a birthday gift when I was about Casey's age.  I apparently thought I needed to sign my name on each side in a 'fancy' way :)  Casey loves that I still have this and we can both play together. 

She loves it except when she's getting beat :)

My first photography class is tonight. I hope to learn a ton about my new camera and taking great pictures!