First Grade Report Card

For reasons that are unclear to me, in our school district, marking periods do not coincide with school breaks.  Isaac got his report card on Friday for the second marking period of the year that ended sometime last week.  He did very well:

His religion grades are OK, but we think they’re not great because he isn’t Catholic, and isn’t familiar with all those Catholic saints and customs.  Overall we were very pleased.

There were a couple of things that his teacher wants him to work on.  I am sorry to say that one of these was my  fault – tardies!!!:

Isn’t that terrible??? I really should get up earlier!  I promised Isaac I would do better.

If you look at the report card, there is one area that he does really well in, and that is written expression.  He has to write something almost every day for “Journal”.  If you ask him directly, he says he doesn’t enjoy this, but I think he does.

“I take care of my baby brothr Ben.  He likes me so much that one time he fell asleep in my lap.”

I suppose it’s supposed to snow in January…

…but that doesn’t mean I have to like it !

Today’s snowfall took us by surprise because we don’t watch the news or the weather channel.  Our older boys LOVE snow!  As soon as Isaac got home from school, he and Jonny went out to play.   They were out there for a long time.  I went out long enough to take a few pictures, then hurried back inside to Ben, who also doesn’t like the snow.

Yes, Isaac did get wedged under the van once or twice.   It was a good thing the van was there or he would have sledded right into the street.  We really need a bigger yard!

After an hour or so, Jonny came inside, and announced that he’d had enough playing in the snow and was ready for some hot chocolate.  Now there’s something I can get into!

Mobility

Ben is 20 months old, but is not exactly what I would call “mobile”. He does manage to move around somehow with a combination of scooting on his back and rolling from side to side. In the photo below, he has managed to escape his toys in search of something much more interesting to play with – the flap of cloth on the bottom of the living room chair. Santa could have saved his money!

Four nights ago something very excited happened. Mark and I were watching “The Return of the King” for the first time on DVD, and Ben was lying on a blanket on the living room floor, playing with his toys. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him suddenly roll over from his back to his belly…and then continued all the way over on his back again! Mark saw him too! He’d never done that before, and we were very excited. He had rolled off his blanket, so we put him back on it. Sure enough, he rolled all the way over again…and again…and again! He seemed very pleased with himself, and completely upstaged the movie.

Of course he hasn’t done it again since. We’re waiting with bated breath for him to do it again, which probably means he’ll hold out for another few months. I’m sure his physical therapist will think we are liars…we should have videotaped him.

Here’s Ben doing his abdominal crunches. He really enjoys doing these and he must have abs of steel:

In other news, we got a brand new refrigerator on Friday. It replaced our tiny 30 year old dinosaur with the metal shelves which used to randomly freeze our veggies for no good reason. The new fridge isn’t one of the fancy expensive ones, but it does have one nice feature. The freezer is on the bottom! I hadn’t intended on buying anything other than the cheapest fridge they sold at Lowe’s, but the more I looked at this, the more I couldn’t live without it. Never again will I have to grovel on the floor to get veggies out of the crisper. Thank you, Mark, for talking me into it.

Popsicles in January

 

Ben has been completely tube fed since birth, first with an NG tube, and then with a g-tube.  For much of his life we have been working on teaching him to eat by mouth.  It’s been slow going for the most part, and Ben will simply NOT be rushed.  Lately, though, we’ve been seeing definite signs of progress.  He’s been much more eager to taste different foods.  His favorite dishes by far have been ANY homemade soups that his Daddy makes! 

Tonight, though, he tried popsicles for the first time…in January!  The response was overwhelmingly positive.

 

The next step is for him to eat enough to make a swallowing study possible.  Only Ben knows when that will happen!

New Year Popovers

Happy New Year!

We had yet another boring relaxing day at home. Mark made us a delicious roast beef tenderloin for dinner which we ate with green beans and rice pilaf. I didn’t want to make bread today because I felt lazy tired, so I looked through my trusty “Joy of Cooking” for an alternative – something we could eat with butter and honey that wouldn’t take hours to make. I found a recipe for popovers, and we made some. I’ve only had these once before when I was a very young child. They had an interesting taste and texture reminiscent of French toast. We all liked them (Isaac asked for seconds) and we’ll definitely make them again.

I haven’t really thought of too many resolutions for the new year except for one: I’d like to worry less about the future. Anyone else have any resolutions they’d like to share?

If you are interested in having the popover recipe, click below: