Highlights
- Pizza making party with the Fischers
- The Grans and Bran/Gin come for Christmas dinner
- Trip up to Solvang
The boys had fun getting into the Christmas spirit this year with some simple traditions. They read through tons of Christmas themed books from the library. Mama does a good job of getting a lot of good books and setting them up to be accessible around the house. Reading time is easy as the guys really like holiday stories. They loved doing their Advent Calendar each day. Christmas cookies were also a hit as usual. One of their favorite things to do were the car rides around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights and singing…the kids called it “car-oling”. We also went out and saw The Grinch movie. Another fun outing was a night over at the Fischer’s house where we made many, many pizzas in their outdoor pizza oven. Those pies were really delicious!
Christmas Eve and day were nice and quiet. Uncle Brandyn and Aunt Gin came for dinner, and the Grans arrived from Oregon. Their visit was shorter this year but we had a wonderful balance of downtime and fun in the 5 days they were here. We took a trip up to Solvang, which ended up being an adventure. We tried to get our favorite restaurant but they were out of the meatballs that always draw us in. We tried a couple other places, but they too had limited food and/or seating. So, we ended up at the Hamburger Habit. Not quite what we imagined but then again, young kids don’t care as long as it’s food
Calan
As usual this time of year, Calan got to participate in a couple violin performances. While violin isn’t his “favorite” he’s always a good sport when playing Christmas music. This year, a group of kids from Ms. Dena’s studio did some violin caroling around her community in the housing by the Cal State Channel Islands Campus. Calan wore his Santa hat and played his violin with the other kids. He also played a solo and a bunch of festive ensemble paces at the holiday concert. Ms. Dena held it at Pleasant Valley church, in the same room where Calan had his preschool graduation ceremony a few years ago.
One theme that happened this month was meeting up with Josiah to dig some serious mud holes. No, they didn’t strike water but they made sure to dig up some really deep holes and get water in there for a nice pot of good ol’ fashioned mud. After football games a couple times, they would go to the hill on the side of Pitts Ranch Park and dig away, carrying water from the drinking fountain across the playground. The had a nice meetup at our own park too, where they got a good sized hole going with plenty of gooey, sandy mud to get dirty in.
We continued and made some more headway this month in terms of getting family support for Calan through the school. We have a kid who is incredibly bright in many academic areas, yet struggles emotionally. The tests show his brain power, yet there are discrepancies among different subjects. It’s a sign of “asynchronous development”, which on the surface doesn’t seem so bad but it creates an imbalance for Calan in his life. i.e. To be so good in most areas, and come to expect that everything should easily and not even realize it. It’s the worst recipe for a perfectionist. Particularly for Calan, we see his inability to handle emotions as a conflict he’s not even aware of. That must be so hard. For an intense and sensitive kid, it translates into spending a lot of time trying to manage emotions vs learning and other healthy experiences. We met with a panel at ROA to kick off and look at getting him an Individual Education Plan (IEP). It was fairly formal, but the panel of a half a dozen or so teachers and therapists were extremely supportive and wanting the best for Calan in terms of support we can access from the state (through the school). The gals who worked with Calan in recent weeks administering the various assessments of almost game-like test all praised his willingness, good spirits and high achieving abilities that showed throughout the testing. Like we say though, we’d much rather have a more consistently balanced kid than a guy who is reading and comprehending content at a high school level in the third grade. We’ll meet back up in February to discuss their decision on an IEP for Calan and anything else the school can offer. In the meantime, we also met with a gifted psychologist who will continue some more assessments to help identify Calan’s level of giftedness along with ruling out any possible Autistic or other type of conditions that could be at play here. Once we get a diagnosis, there’s a lot we can do in terms of finding further support that is right for Calan and the family.
Evan
Evan continues to write more. He loves to jot down letters and words in his journal and write little notes to people. This can include a simple “I love you”, which he’ll spell as “I LF U”. He also wrote a few Christmas cards to people. Our favorite though was a story he wrote as a take-off from Calan’s novel last month. Evan’s story was called “Evan’s Search for the Lost Toothbrush, Christmas.” We were able to get a recording of it. Definitely something special!
In anticipation of joining a preschool next semester, Evan and Mama toured a few preschools this month. This included Calan’s old preschool at Pleasant Valley Christian. While he liked them all, we ended up deciding on PVC. So it will be exciting to see E attend Calan’s old school for half a year starting next month. Evan seems pretty excited about it as well.
This little guy is so sweet. He’ll look up at you while playing quietly or getting dressed and just smile at you as you walk by. He’ll even sometimes stop what he’s doing, look over and say “I love you.”
Notable quotes this month:
After getting hit by Calan (that’s what brothers do), he came over a little upset. Half jokingly, Dada said, “Would you like to learn karate so you can defend getting hit and just put up a block like this?” Evan says, “Yes…but what if he gets hurt?”
Stops watching his show and says, “Dada, I love you, and I’m going to get a piece of paper and write ‘I love you’ on it.” Said with wide eyes and big smile.
While the Gran and Grandpa were here, Evan needed to go potty before we left the house. Mama said, “Just use Gran and Grandpa’s bathroom”, referring to the guest bathroom. Evan replied, “But I would have to go a really, really long way all the way to Oregon to use their potty.” Good point, Mr. Literal.
After sitting on a small, hard, wooden chair for awhile, gets up and says: “That chair just wears out my legs, so then I can’t walk as much.”