Fourth of July

One of the things in the last year or so, is that Emily has really begun understand that holidays are more than about gifts or parades. We have found that we need to start explaining more than it's a day off from school. She gets that Christmas is really Jesus' birthday celebration. The up coming 4th is no exception. I explained it's the day we celebrate the birth of America. That concept was hard. How does a county get born? Who is it's Mommy and Daddy. So, I tried, It's the day we celebrate when America became a grown up country and no other country had to help it or run it. That was better.
But with the up coming holiday weekend, marks the end of Em's summer vaca.
We decided to find a new sitter. I found one through an internet sitter service. I called, left a message. The woman called back.
Her name is Jenae. Irish. Her husband is Patrick. Son Liam. Son Gabe.... see the pattern? Daughter, Shannon. There is a family member in our family with the same names... good sign. I think this will work out well.
Still working on the house. We are finished a patio over the weekend. We will be away this weekend so, no projects. Maybe Monday!

Father's Day

There was a time that Father's DAy was worse for me than Mother's Day. Between Brian, his father, mine, my grandfather, and Em's Godfather, I was buying a LOT of cards and gifts. But this year is a little sad.
Tomorrow, Emily will get her Bible from church, the first step in her First Communion for Nov. Brian is then going to meet up with his mother and sisters and go to his Father's grave. Then we are invited to dinner at my mother's.
Brian really hasn't talked about it much, but this is the first year without his father.
Well Happy Father's Day to all the dad's and make sure you give your father a hug and a kiss. You never know when he won't be there.

IEP

IEP.... the three most horrible letters and at the same time the three best letters in my world. For those of you who don't know, the IEP stands for Individual Education Plan. This is Emily's plan of action for the next school year. It's all the things that will tell us what's going to happen next. It's the set up for her PT, OT, Speech and other therapies.
Well, this year I hired someone to help review the information and help advocate for me to get Em the best possible services. It was worth every penny. This past Wednesday was IEP day.
Pat, the advocate and I show up at the school about 10 minutes early. We get down to the room on time and find out that the 9:00 meeting has just gone through the door and we are the 10:00 meeting. Okay. So, we are waiting a bit. We finally get to go in around 11:15.
Sit in the room with the meeting for almost 2 hours. The half an hour that they scheduled for Em was not enough. And the only thing we resolved was that we need more meetings to set up for September and that summer school is in place for now. It was exhausting.
I'm glad that it was so intensive though. At least I think that I was finally heard. That my daughter at 8 can't even read the word Pizza or Mommy. That kills me. Oh! We also decided and I put my foot down so hard that I thought I would break the floor, Emily will not be going on to 3rd grade. At this time she's functioning at a high kindergarten level. Wow, right?!
I hope and I pray that all the wonderful readers of this blog never have to go through this. Remember that when your child asks you, yet again what the letters for Mommy are... you could have a child like mine. She can't spell Mommy.

There's nothing really going on

I haven't blogged in a while as there is nothing really all that exciting going on in my life. We went to Pa for Memorial Day weekend, camping. Nothing really exciting there. Since we've been back all I've done is work, homework, cook.... etc. Nothing really else.
It's coming up on a busy month... yet again. It's seems that as summer approaches, everything kicks into hyper drive. School events, brownie events, church events, family events... it doesn't seem to stop.
Maybe something will happen in the near future that will be worthy of writing about...
But if nothing else... here's to boredum!