I have ear infections in both ears and my ring finger on my left hand has an infected hang nail. I figure this is my reaction to the stress of the last few months. Interestingly, I am on a 14 day herbal cleansing -- fiber, laxatives, and thistle -- and I wonder whether that lowered my immune system a bit. I usually don't get infections at all. To get them in my ears and my finger . . . .
David is seeing a few bumps along his healing road. Nothing terrible serious but it means more doc visits and tests. We are more than ready to be through with that. But then, I remind myself how lucky we are to be on this side of the process.
Our New Jersey neighbors have agreed to let our oil re-mediators come into their house and inspect their basement -- this is for engineering reasons. The appointment is June 7. Maybe it is time of get the divinities involved. My hope is to sell the house before the end of the year. Oh, oh, oh.
No other words. I am beyond anger, frustration, exhaustion, boredom about the estate. I just write checks to pay bills and make phone calls to remind people of things.
David and I got the initial designs for our renovation. More about that on my house blog. Check it out if interested. I decided to keep it separate from Julia and our doings. We are having fun but so much depends on costs. I will feel freer and have more fun with it, once we establish a firmer budget. And that will be soon.
My week of angsting about Julia's education feels like it is resolved. I am going to put some of the advice offered by others this summer and then I am going to give the public school experience one more year. During the year, I will gather what I need to home school. Yes, I am considering it for fourth grade. At the rate that Julia is taking to traditional education, taking a year or two off, even if she learned nothing at all, would not mean that much. And maybe I can do better by concentrating on her -- teaching her through the things that she likes. I am closer to this idea than I have ever been. It still scares me terribly, but for Julia I will do it.
Julia's behavior in school has been good. I don't know if the work is so much better or if she is available for learning but she is more complaint. We continue to have the staring, but it is now accompanied by her asking to be looked at. My theory is that her mind is waking up to the faces that she knows and loves, and that it is a tiny thrill each time someone looks at her. When she does it with us, we try to be very playful and loving as one would be with a very young child.
I've read the T-rex Julia story to Julia a few times and she is very responsive to it. She doesn't like all of it, but it is interesting to see her get emotionally involved in it.
Julia is routinely inviting me and others to play with her. I am going to finish this up and dig into some lego. This is nice progress.
And the art, watching her with lego is a humbling experience. I am good at walls or buildings. she makes cows, helicopters, and furniture for dinosaurs. Julia has also been creating with wicki sticks -- oy, too expensive to keep her in those things as much as she would like -- and some of her creatures are amazing. I will try to get a few pictures. One of her therapists is making stories with her. Julia draws a picture and then tells the story of the picture. The therapist writes it down and they put the pages together. Julia is very interested in reading what is written herself.
And last night, she set up a bunch of toys and called us into the living room, "Presenting the popcorn theater with movies and dancing dinosaurs!" Who was the child in her past life?
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