Our First Day of Homeschool...

February 4, 2013 began our first day of homeschooling with Gabriella (Kindergarten, age 6) and Amaris (turning 3 this month).

First thing I hope to change in our new day is the time the girls wake-up. Like clock work, the wake each morning at 5:50AM. I personally think that is a bit ridiculous. I hereby declare that Mama wants the NEW wake-up time to be 7:00AM.

Baba let them play together one last time, grabbed them cheese stix... and, I got to sleep until 7:00AM. Yeah!

The girls wanted a bath... not something we do in the morning, but, hey... it was our first day of school. So, they got a bath...

Once we were dressed, it was time for breakfast. I made them a "shake" out of un-sweetened coconut, coconut milk, almonds, strawberries, and 3 types of protein. It was yummy.

We were just about ready to start preschool, but I just had to pause for a moment... how am I going to get all the housework done each day? Would I have time to make my bed, empty garbages/recycle, wash dishes and clean the kitchen, run my 7 daily loads of laundry,  fold clothes, and iron them all? Surprisingly, I had completed everything (but the ironing) before noon... all the while, homeschooling.

We started school at 9AM with our Bible time and the story of Noah. The girls got our their Fisher Price Noah's Ark and we talked about the story, the people, the animals, the flood, and God's promise.

Next, I got out the workbooks for Gabriella. She LOVES workbooks! I think she ended up doing 2 pages of 7 different books. Because these books are beginner level, she got a lot of practice coloring. For those  parents of normally developing children, your child could have colored the pages in a minute or two... for Gabriella though, it took many, many minutes. Hopefully this will get quicker soon.

By 10AM, she LITERALLY had done more work than she had done since September 2012 in Kindergarten. No exaggeration. And, she was loving it. 

We took a break, had a snack and did some physical therapy activities. The girls loved that too. Is homeschooling REALLY this fun?

I gave the girls free choice time while I finished up some house chores and checked email and Facebook. :)

They had a scrumptious organic (and mostly raw) lunch. Quinoa with homemade cashew cream cheese and cucumbers, navy beans mixed with hothouse tomatoes and basil and pinenuts, brown rice and carrots, guacamole and hummus chips, a tangerine and apple slices.

At dinner, we had curry chicken with celery and onion over rice with a delicious green salad with slivered almonds, hemp hearts, tomatoes, flax seed and a homemade Asian dressing. The girls even got to cut up the organic cucumber with their kid-friendly knives.

The only thing I forgot to do was take pictures of our day today... so, I will do it tomorrow so you can get a glimpse into our first week of homeschooling.

Cinderella and the Super Bowl

Gabriella was scheduled to celebrate her birthday a week or so ago, but we postponed it so the dad's could talk while sitting and watching the Super Bowl as the girls chased each other with their Chinese baby dolls, wands, celebration blowers, and Fisher Price Disney Princesses.

Her brother Kai had a chance to join us after his weekend duties. 

The girls hadn't opened the toys yet, so a cell phone was their first toy of the night... 

everyone else was too busy watching the game to notice they might need a little re-direction. Sigh!

Gabriella has been waiting to open up her presents for her birthday. Today she will open Noah's Ark, a multi-pack of Disney Fisher Price Princesses, and mini pack of Cinderella and Prince Charming in their wedding outfit. Anna got her a mermaid for the bath, a necklace, bracelet, and ring set, and some fun hair pretties.
 

Munching on some gluten-free food and brownie bites. 

Snuggling with Anna's baba. 

Painting princess fingernails!

And, what this party is probably really about... football... and those watching. Must have been one of the dumb commercials this year. I only thought a couple of them were worth viewing...

February 1st... Last Day of Kindergarten!

Technically, there are 5 more months of school left... but, Gabriella won't be finishing Kindergarten  through her public school.

For years, Jason and I have discussed home schooling. When Gabriella came home from China though, we knew I would need some assistance with speech and physical therapy. I attended many of her public school therapies and all of her private therapies so that I would know how to help her at home and begin to think like a physical therapist. Sometimes the therapy sessions were good, most of the time though, I felt they weren't stretching her and doing things that challenged her enough. 

We may still be able to receive these therapies through our school district while she is home schooled. I will be looking into that this next week and whether her therapist will work with her in a way that I feel she will benefit from it.

She did well in school... but, she didn't do the things that I expected a Kindergartner to do. She did receive an award in December though that I should recognize...

While I don't know "why" she was given this award, I am speculating because on this particular day, she walked 9 unassisted steps (at school, while my video camera was rolling) for the very first time in her life. See an earlier post on her blog for this story. 

Gabriella was gone almost 4 hours each day from the time she left me until the time she returned home. Outside of beginning to make some sounds more clearly, we didn't see much of any improvement in her and actually began witnessing horrific "fits" at home... "fits" that her younger sister quickly picked up on. This was not good. I realized that she was imitating the behavior of a couple of her peers in class. 

The "fits" have now subsided... thank the Lord. But, I really don't want her to be in an environment where she can pick up on bad behavior. From my observations, it appeared that Gabriella did the most speaking and interacting of any of the other 7 children in her class. I would have preferred for her to learn from peer models.

Getting on the bus one last time was full of excitement, but yet sad too!

Amaris asked if she could join us this morning... so, I let her say goodbye to her jie jie. 

While we were concerned about the "fits", I was more concerned about how I was going to capitalize on her voracious desire to read. She was gone during her prime learning time of the day.

In the first 5 months of Kindergarten, only 3 books came home for her to "read"... and, just three weeks ago. They weren't phonetic-based books... they were what I call "guessing" books. Two of them are pictured below. These were the first books to introduce children to reading at her public school system. For the life of me, I can't figure out how you can teach a child to read this way.

For 20 years I taught almost 500 normally-developing students... but never have I taught them to "read" by guessing... they learned how to sound out words phonetically. I found myself being discouraged with Gabriella's recent "homework." 

She was transferring her new "reading" knowledge to her phonetic based BOB books, such as the ones below.  I just couldn't allow her to begin to get comfortable with that type of "reading."

So, we broke out her BOB books that night and started reading like we had never read before. I let her read as many books as she wanted... and, she wanted to read! She would read several of these a day... most with little or no error... and fairly quickly... but never guessing... at least once I got that idea out of her head. 

Now that she is going to be home schooled, she will read 2-4 of these type of books each day, learn to write letters and numbers, do some hands-on counting, and learn some additional "play" skills that I would teach kids in my preschool/pre-k classroom. We will also do some pretty intense physical and occupational therapy... much different from taking a few steps at school or coloring a color page. 

She will still be able to hang out with her peers at church on Sundays and we will get connected in the community for special outings.

I am confident that we have made the right decision for Gabriella and that we will see her flourish academically in these next couple months. 

Gabriella Walks!

Gabriella was adopted from Guilin, Guangxi, China in July 2010 at the age of 3 years and 6 months old. She will be 6 in January 2013... just a few weeks after videoing her greatest number of walking steps (December 2012)

This is the link if you have trouble viewing it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJnlVS6L96A

When we accepted her referral from China, we were told she had an abnormal CT scan. That's really all we knew.

By the time we got her, she had been in a Chinese foster family for a year, so she was finally able to sit up and crawl... but, there were many challenges.

Gabriella could sit and crawl, but she would fall ALL the time... when we realized these falls (just from sitting) could literally take her life, we purchased a soft padded helmet for her which she wore for the first year home.

While the doctors had no suggestions and continued to do tens of thousands of dollars in blood testing, after her MRI, to find the root cause of her cerebellar atrophy, they came up with nothing but her diagnosis:

Diagnosis: "Severe cerebellar atrophy"



I knew within 6 months of Gabriella coming home that there was nothing "atrophying" in her brain. She was indeed getting better and stronger in our care.

So, in the follow-up appointment, our neurologist changed the diagnosis verbally to: "Severe cerebellar hypoplasia" ... basically, her cerebellum is not atrophying or dying.

Gabriella eats 90% organic food and takes a number of supplements each day. The ones I attribute her most significant help from came from Univera's Essentials drink and Metagreen capsules.

She has very limited wheat (only in her organic bars or pizza), no corn, soy, and minimal dairy (although she still ingests way too much dairy because we are lovers of cheese and yogurt).

We try to keep our diet as close to veggies, fruits, nuts and beans as possible.

While all this is good, and I believe it made a rapid improvement in her health while still in China during our adoption process, it wasn't what made the most significant difference in her ability to walk or not.

She gets physical therapy at school twice a week for up to an hour, but without exercising at home, that wasn't going to make much difference either. She loves riding her bike (with training wheels), exercising on her own, going up and down the stairs, and walking all over Costco several times a week.

Her AFO's have stabilized her ankles and have made a difference as well. Before them, she couldn't stand unassisted for even 1 second. After them, she could stand for a second or two.

What made the difference was coming before the Lord and fasting and praying and seeking Gabriella's healing in February 2011 when she began to stand from zero seconds to 4-6 seconds on occasion... by Christmas 2011 she could stand for up to 12-15 seconds on occasion.

Because I saw great growth over the year as a result of fasting, January 2012, I decided to join Jentezen Franklin's fast that he encourages his church to do each year for 21 days... I felt like I was supposed to fast longer, and so I did. And, God honored my prayers. Gabriella started standing that first week in January 2012 for up to 30 seconds... then a minute, then, two minutes, then 3 minutes... by February 6 (the final days of my 40 day fast), Gabriella stood for 6 minutes and 13 seconds...

See this post for more information: http://sweetprincessgabriella.blogspot.com/2012_02_05_archive.html

Her miracles could not have come this fast through her potential hour of physical therapy in school each week... Her miracles came because the Lord heard my prayers... And, if He will listen to mine, He will listen to yours.

His word says in Jeremiah 33:3, "Call to me and I will answer you."

Hebrews 12:13 says, "Make straight paths for my feet so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed."

Over 2012, Gabriella has taken a couple unassisted steps a handful of times. But in December 2012, she took 9 tiny steps... a miracle!

She WILL walk and talk, run and jump, hop and skip and play basketball... in JESUS name!

First Trip to Disney World... lots of photos and a video!

On December 10th, Gabriella, Amaris and I hopped on an airplane to fly across the United States to visit some friends and then a bunch of princesses.

Gabriella was delighted to meet the princesses. She hugged everyone of them and introduced Amaris to them... she was so enamored with them... a requirement if you are a Fouts girl.

But, we never talked about Mickey and Minnie Mouse (outside of one little Minnie Mouse toy she was given), nor any of the other furry Disney friends... so, when Gabriella laid eyes on these characters, she was out of the stroller and sitting on top of my head (uh, literally... or at least trying to get there)... she was absolutely TERRIFIED of them... she screamed so loud that people could hear her if they were within a couple football fields of us in any direction... and, I am not exaggerating. My ears rang for many, many minutes after she had stopped screaming. I probably failed at being her understanding Mama at that moment...

Amaris, age 2, on the other hand, was already "cutting" past everyone else in line (seeing that I was pre-occupied with a screamer) and attempting to get photos and signatures of these same terrifying beings.

I am thankful for my nanny. Without her, I could not have accomplished this trip. When I hired her, I told her she had to do a few things in order to come to Disney World with me...

1. She had to be able to control my kids and keep them safe
2. Carry my drink and the girls
3. Carry all of our bags, regardless of how many there were
4. Carry Gabriella's walker, just in case she needed or wanted to walk
5. Carry my little chair so that when we sat in lines, I could actually sit

Well, I am pleased to announce, she could do all that!

As we walked Disney World's Magic Kingdom, it was VERY clear, I had more bags than ANYONE in the entire park (again, I am not exaggerating)... I never once found anyone with as much stuff as me... but, I was prepared for just about anything. By the end of our trip, which was Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party and a breakfast with some more characters, I only had the princess backpack you see in the bottom of the stroller. So, I did learn to re-duce as the days went on.

Introducing... NANNY!

My magical assistant... AKA stroller.

Our first day, we were so excited because we were having breakfast with the princesses at Cinderella's Royal Castle. It was simply magical, but I was worried, because we hadn't yet seen a princess before.

So, we went into the Theater you see in the background and met Rapunzel, Aurora, and the most beautiful Cinderella you have ever laid eyes on. Later, we saw Mickey Mouse... our only furry critter Gabriella would ever stand next to... and, only once!

Rapunzel... 

I thought Amaris was going to get in a Tangled mess when she grabbed on to her hair!

Princess Aurora...

Amaris' princess! 

Cinderella...

Gabriella's princesss!

Once we met our favorite princesses, we were off to the castle!

It was time for our royal breakfast with Cinderella and her friends.

We took the elevator up... Amaris pushed the emergency bell 3 times... everyone in the whole restaurant knew we were arriving... not sure why the bellman thought he should tell her to ring it...
cause she didn't want to stop.

The girls were each given their very own wishing star!

They got their magical wands!

Within just a couple minutes of arriving (you can see that we only had our juice), 

Snow White (a princess they had never seen before and knew nothing about) was now at our table. 

Fortunately, she was a princess, and the girls were elated.

Snow White...

Jasmine...

  

Ariel...

Our First Trip to Disney World YouTube Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQzDflAvw4Y