{another proud mommy moment}

If it seems like I am having quite a few proud mommy moments lately it is because I am! Who is going to complain about that?! NOT ME!

We had Ayden's second parent teacher conference of the year last night and it went AMAZING! I cannot remember if I mentioned the math timed tests that he has been having to do in school and at home for homework. He is a math master and so he wasn't having any trouble with them. Apparently they had to do a 100 problem timed test in school and the goal was to complete it in 10 minutes... my math master of a son completed it in... SIX minutes! Awesome!

Both Jay and I attend his parent teacher conferences when we can. We've been lucky enough to be able to schedule them during time that work with both of our schedules. I know it will most likely not always be that way and at some point they probably won't be as important to me. But given that Ayden currently receives services for reading and speech therapy, I find it very important for us to go to these conferences. There are normally two conferences throughout the year and many times the second one is optional. His teacher did note that we didn't need to meet for the second conference because Ayden was doing so well, but I wanted to in order to see the progress that he's made.

I love the fact that both his reading teacher and his speech teacher (along with the student clinician who is working at his school) both made it a point to come to the conference without me even having to request it. I really love his school and am sad that we will be leaving at the end of the school year and we got the guilt trip from his speech teacher about leaving too because she loves him so much. AWWW! Apparently Ayden is a little ham at school because his current speech teacher will be leaving for maternity leave towards the end of the school year and the long term sub will actually be the speech teacher he had when he was in kindergarten at his other school and she specifically asked if he was still in speech because she wanted to see him. Leaving lasting impressions on women already, haha! I think we might have our hands full!

The report from all of his teachers was amazing! He has made many strides in reading since he has started working with his reading teacher in October. He is still having some fluency issues where his reading isn't super fluent, but he is enjoying reading SO much more and everyone can see it. His confidence has increased and it is just awesome! I am in awe! His reading teacher said that if he continues to make the progress that he has that he will be right on track for reading when he starts third grade.

His speech teacher stated that he has met two more of his speech goals for his current IEP which is awesome! He has a few more sounds that he needs to work on, but they are the later developing sounds and as of right now, as long as he is continuing to make progress I could care less that he is in speech therapy. Actually, I really never cared that he was being pulled out for it. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that almost my entire undergraduate course work centered around speech therapy and so I understand a lot of it and what they are working on and I never thought of it as something that woud classify my child as slow or behind. I do know that for awhile I did feel really bad about his reading being so behind his other classmates and worried that he might have to repeat the second grade over and what not and I know that I shouldn't have, but as a parent you want the best for your child and I couldn't help feeling that maybe I had let him down just a little bit in that area.

Anyways, Ayden will likely need speech therapy throughout the third grade as well, but that is okay. I am okay with that.

Overall academically his regular teacher says that he is doing great! Like I've mentioned, his reading has come along, his math skills are great, he is doing better and better with his writing and penmanship, and he is SO social! His teacher joked that she doesn't know why we ever said that he was shy because sometimes he is  just a little chatterbox in school. It made my heart swell to hear that! I think he will adjust just fine when we move to a new school!

My only current concern is learning to write in cursive. We asked his teacher when they start cursive in Stevens Point and it is not until the third grade. We had asked Jay's mom (who works as one of the administrative assistants at the elementary school where we might be moving to) to ask one of the teachers there when they start cursive and apparently it is in the second grade. Well, I know that some kids who transfer in might need some catch up time with those already in that school district, but because Ayden already will be in speech therapy and might still need some reading help (fingers crossed that he doesn't), I don't want him to feel more behind if he doesn't know any cursive and his new classmates already do. So... we might start some cursive this summer or before if he wants to learn how to write in it. It kind of depends on his interest in it. I don't want to push him too much right now when we still want to concentrate on reading and his articulation.

Wow, have I bored you do tears with all of my wonderful Ayden talk. Sorry... any parents that are reading this know what it feels like to be so proud of your child and to know that at least some of the stuff you are doing is right. I'm not a perfect parent by any means. I lose my temper and get irritated with Ayden sometimes. But I also try my hardest to make sure that he knows I love him more than anything that I will always be there for him. I don't want him to ever be afraid to come to me about anything! God bless me when this child hits his teenage years, haha!

Okay, enough about Ayden (even though he's pretty much the center of my life). Life has been going pretty good otherwise. I had clinic today and it snowed pretty much the entire day. The roads were okay driving in and I am hoping they are better than okay on my way home. I am still at clinic (yummy lunch time) and it is STILL snowing, but it is a wet snow. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I have a bit of a cold going on and it started Sunday night. Sunday afternoon Ayden and I ventured to Jordan Park (I have yet to upload my pictures from the adventure, but I'll be sure to share some in a different post) and had a great time. We did see one other person there and maybe it is just me being paranoid, but the guy kind of freaked me out. He was alone and probably in his late 40s and in sweats and I had no reason to be afraid of him or think he meant us any harm, but it was just a little weird. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't hear him coming up behind us until he was almost there. He was really friendly to talk to for a bit, but it wasn't long after we talked that I told Ayden it was time to go. You want to think the best of people these days, but you just never know. Sorry dude for thinking you might be a crazy person! Anyways, after we got home from the park, I laid down for a while because I felt a headache coming on. Even though I felt like crap, I made myself get up and workout Sunday night. Last night of Week 1 of Ripped in 30 with Jillian and I rocked it out. I woke up yesterday with a runny/stuffy nose and felt like crap pretty much all day and I REALLY didn't want to work out last night either, but I knew that I was probably going to use my 'off' day on Saturday, I made my sick self get up and start Week 2 of the program. I felt pretty good while working out. I can feel myself getting a little stronger. I know I'm not losing as much weight as I would like as fast as I would like, but I'm trying not to concentrate on that (or weigh myself everyday either because that is just depressing). I will probaby forgo going to Cub Scouts again tonight so I can workout instead. And then go to bed early because getting up at 5:45am SUCKS! I don't know how I am going to do that on a daily basis when we move. I'm thinking my day will probably start around 8am, which means getting there probably by 7:45am... which means leaving by 6:45am and getting up by 5:45am. Ugh, too early!!! I just can't think about that right now, haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!