Friday, April 29, 2011

not a typical Friday

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It’s amazing what a few minutes of sunshine can do.  The boys are so happy to be able to be outside in their sandpile, working on their ‘volcano.’  They LOVE digging in the dirt…

It’s been an interesting day….  Our big guys have all attended a small Christian school in the area, and this morning an email came across my desk.  “Please pray for the high school choir director and his family,”  it said.  “His 26 year old son died unexpectedly last night, and they are grieving hard.”   I can’t even begin to imagine the pain.  Shortly after that, I learned that one of the young Army men injured last night in Afghanistan in an IED incident is a young man from our church.  I’ve known Spencer’s aunts and his grandmother for nearly 20 years, I’ve worked with his mom for the last few years on Tuesday mornings, and he and his sister are the ages of some of my children.   More heartache, and then some relief.  Spencer is doing well—spent time in the hospital being observed but will be released back to active duty soon—but I don’t know if a mom or a grandma ever fully recovers from that.  I know what my heart did on hearing the news and recognizing that it could have been MY son injured in that kind of circumstance.  I am grateful to Spencer and the other young men and women who serve our country so faithfully.  I have a new level of appreciation for their sacrifices, and for their families.   And I am grateful(?) for a career-ending knee injury for my own son, who reluctantly left the Marine Corps last fall, even as I recognize the “adventurer” streak in him and know that he has given serious consideration to re-enlisting.   

After watching the (beautiful!) royal wedding this morning, I had an IEP reevaluation meeting for Logan.  Bright and early we went down the road to school, the boys carrying their Leapsters in one hand and cold cereal in a baggie in the other.  It’s hard to find someone to watch small children at 8 in the morning!  The reevaluation went well, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Logan has qualified for more services.   He' will continue with his speech and language therapy, but we’ll be adding occupational therapy to work on his fine motor and visual discrimination skills.  The good news in all this?  We get to write a new IEP, which means that we can finally address his need for assistive technology!  Logan NEEDS an FM system, and we’ve been working on getting one for him for many months.  Now we’ll be able to write it into his IEP and, theoretically at least, should have one for him to use soon.  While we finished the necessary paperwork to schedule the IEP meeting, I had a chance to visit with the OT.  She’s new to the school and very young.  She had lots of questions about the boys, and we had a great conversation about adoption and homeschooling.  I think she was surprised by the things I knew about Logan and the things I have learned in the last 3 years about his hearing loss, his apraxia, and his abilities and disabilities.  She was clearly blown away by the things we’d done at home to address his fine motor issues (most of them ‘normal’ for homeschooling families, things like tactile learning for letters, copying and tracing letters and shapes, and practice, practice, practice).  I look forward to working with her and am excited to see that God has given Logan another advocate in the school system to help us meet his needs.  Makes me wonder, though, why it is I continue to doubt.  God gave us this child, and has promised to provide what we need.  So why does it surprise me when He does what He promises??

Now, the long grass in the backyard is calling.  I’m going to get out the lawnmower and take care of it!  Sunshine…freshly mowed yard…one could almost think it was spring.  Almost.  A few degrees warmer and I might even buy it.  While I’m out there, I get to see the peach tree in bloom…DSC_0005

Such a pretty sight!  Makes me smile…and eagerly anticipate some peaches this year!

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