Kid Updates

There's a lot going on with several of my kids, but I can't share all of it obviously. So I'll share the stuff they don't mind me sharing.

Tyler
Ty is currently firefighting in Louisiana. Here is a link to a news segment online. He is one of the guys they mention when they say 20 guys came from job corps to help with the fire. He is one of the guys shown, but I don't know which with them all in uniform.

Watch here


Jessica
On Jessica's 24th birthday everyone got together, and she and Hunter revealed that they are having a girl.

Jessica starts her internship at the ME office tomorrow. I don't think I'd enjoy working with dead bodies.

Jeff
Jeff is currently stationed in Louisiana and is only an hour from where Ty is, but unfortunately won't meet up. Ty's group will leave as soon as their job is done. Jeff will be heading to NY sometime in the future.

I'm not sure what kind of fashion statement he is trying to make. This may be in Korea before he left.

Adam

Adam is currently looking into options in law enforcement. There are a lot of choices. He did not sign up for college classes this fall. He is mostly really busy with work now and trying to figure out the best options for himself.

Jasmine
Jasmine usually takes dance, but the two classes she wanted this year--musical theater and hip hop--are both during after school marching band time. So for now she has county Christian youth choir on Mondays and marching band after school Tu & Th (in additional to having it zero period). She might be able to join dance after football season is over. We need to see how the homework load is too.

Jasmine and I work in two year olds one morning each month, sometimes more if they need help. Today we met our new group. There are three different rooms of two year olds. I think we have the older ones. Our group that promoted July were much more rowdy and vocal. Of course they were all three by  then and a couple were close to four. I don't think we ever had that whole group sitting at the table at once.

Kaleb

Jessica, Kaleb and I swam the 3/4 mile shell island swim yesterday. He did great for his level of experience. He was tired near the end but pushed on.

 We swam from the grassy area you can see behind us to the pier in the last picture.

Kaleb tried out for the city swim team. You only have to be able to swim one length front crawl with proper breathing to make novice, and he did that. The coach was kind of surprised when I said he wasn't in their summer lessons, I taught him myself.

 I learned to swim in college and went on to lifeguard and Water Safety Instructor. I miss teaching swimming. I tried putting my kids in lessons, but I didn't like how they teach--18 kids to two teachers so in 45 minutes they might get two turns to blow bubbles.I don't even start with face in the water, bubbles and all that. I teach them to do a glide and then add kicking, then arms, then breathing. 

Also, we have a lot of thunder during the summer and if there's thunder or lightning, the pool shuts down. Lessons are not rescheduled. So we lost a lot of money the summer they had lessons and all they learned was to put their faces in and blow bubbles. The next summer I started teaching them and in a few weeks they were swimming the length of the pool (without the breathing), last summer we added the breathing and added back crawl. 

This summer the pool has hardly been open due to random thunder. Or imaginary thunder. Rick too the kids today after church and the pool was closed. He asked the weather person for the area, and there was no thunder reported. Hmmm.

 Swim team  practice

Due to the expense of swim team and the fact that it is four nights a week for an hour, Kaleb isn't currently doing gymnastics. He may add it back later.

Kayla
Kayla has just started meds for ADD/ADHD (one dr called it one, the other dr called it the other). Hopefully this will help with the issues. The pediatrician is not too sure though since what may look impulsive is sometimes very well planned out-ex. running over to a shelf, grabbing someone's back pack and throwing it across the room. I am not convinced she is ADD or ADHD at all, but the specialist coded her that way. I guess time will tell. For now she has an ODD, ADHD diagnosis.

We are working with her counselor to manage some of the behaviors. She can be a very kind, helpful person. And she can be mean, hateful and antagonistic. We are working on seeing the kind, helpful side more. The school year seems to be off to a good start, but we are only a week into it. She told me she probably won't get in that much trouble this year because they are too busy. That's good thing! There are privileges she can earn, and of course there are activities that don't have to be earned, but many require trust.

Check out our highlights of summer HERE. You can also read some of the kids' journal entries on earlier posts.