I just have to say it: my Calder rocks! Shortly after we moved, Calder started preschool at this great Montessori school just a couple minutes down the road from us. After his teacher mentioned that she was really struggling to understand Calder’s speech, I learned that a private speech therapist met with students at the preschool for private sessions. I’ve known for a while now that Calder needed therapy to help with his articulation, but when we had him tested by the school district down in Pleasant Grove, he didn’t qualify for aid. Well, now, a year or so later, he clearly qualified.

When the therapist performed her usual diagnostic tests, she told me that she was able to understand about 50% of what Calder said. And that’s coming from someone with a very trained and professional ear. For someone without all that training, it was probably almost impossible to understand him. As his mother, I’m pretty well-versed in Calder’s language. To hear how hard it was for an outsider to understand him was a little shocking. So, we signed him up for sessions with this therapist twice a week. He progressed amazingly well! His therapist said that he progressed quicker then almost any of her past students (and she’s been a therapist for 30 years). With her private instruction and our daily practice at home, Calder’s speech improved by leaps and bounds.

A picture taken by his preschool teacher on Wacky Wednesday (the day of the year when the kids come to school in a wacky outfit).

However, this all came at a cost. Private speech therapy is not cheap and our insurance doesn’t help with costs until we’ve met a certain deductible. After about 6 weeks of therapy, we really couldn’t afford the fees any longer. I took Calder into the school district offices for our new area and had him assessed. Two good things came of that. First of all, the therapists said that they could understand about 75% of what he was saying–pretty amazing progress for a little over a month of work! Secondly, they approved him for free aid through the district. So, now, Calder and I go to this fun class called Speech School once a week. There are four other children joined by a parent and we spend an hour working on different sounds, sound blends, and working those into sentences. They get to do a craft at the end of the hour, something related to the sound we’re studying that week.  We have homework and practice work for home. Calder loves Speech School!

I am so proud of my Calder. He has been working really hard on his speech. At Speech School he pays attention, is eager to answer questions, and tries his very best. Learning how to break bad habits and correctly form sounds is really hard–I can see how hard it is for him as I practice with him. But he is doing it and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Found this poem that I wrote last year and thought I’d share it.

Boys

Screaming—with delight?

                   with terror?

Those boys.

Often needing a full name

called LOUDLY and c-l-e-a-r-l-y

to grab their racing minds.

Whizzing, buzzing,

horsie one minute

tickle monster the next

Vroom vroom!

I gonna get you!

And then the inevitable

     — CRASH —

and the wet angry cheeks.

Mad, mad, MAD!

Three minutes pass.

Back to tumbling, shoving

around and around and around the table.

Shrieks—of joy?

               of pain?

Those boys.

Ah, the living room. The place where we spend most of our time. Here’s a couple pictures–again, please excuse the lack of photography skills.

The couch. This couch is so comfortable and seats all of us comfortably. We had planned to get a coffee table, but I’m actually liking all the open space where the kids can lounge around and play. Also, this picture shows me that our rug has migrated away from the couch too much to the left. Time to go fix that.

Our entertainment center. I’m enjoying all the storage for books and toys. We have plans to put a big wall clock on the wall to the left of the entertainment center.

Okay, Mom, here are the pictures I’ve been promising. It’s hard for me to send pictures of the house because I don’t feel like I’m done decorating yet. We have yet to hang anything on the walls and it’s definitely not “finished” yet. But I guess it might be a while until I feel like I have it where I’d like it to be, so I’d better send pictures now or I might never get around to it. Here are some pictures of our dining area. Not a room, really, just part of the great room. Sorry about the photo quality. It’s hard to take a good picture of this room (well, hard when you’re a total amateur working with your phone’s camera) because of the lighting, I think.

Our table with a bench and four funky chairs that we love. The kids love how rainbows sprout up on the floor when the light hits the chairs just right.

Another view of the table and chairs. The table is solid wood and can extend to seat something like 15 people.

Facing the door and windows.

The curtains are actually one of my favorite parts of the room, but these pictures do not do them justice at all. They are a gorgeous teal blue color with a satin finish.

So, there’s the dining room.