Artwork

Ryan has decided he loves to draw, and he does it everyday. He drew this picture this morning, which for those of you familiar with the movie, is obviously the cast of The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue. ;) For those of you not familiar with it, beginning on the top left and going clockwise: Radio, Lampie (in yellow and hard to see), Computer, Maisie, Toaster, Kirby, and Blanky (also yellow and hard to see).

Library Prize

Our little library has been having their summer reading program, Paws, Claws, Scales, and Tales. They have crafts and special events once a month or so in addition to the regular storytime. Also, each time the kids went to the library, they got a ticket to put their name on to be entered into a weekly drawing.

Just look at those rows and rows of books at the St. John's
Library...and this is one of the small libraries, whoo-hoo!

Though our community is VERY small and despite the fact that we go to the library at least weekly and sometimes more often, neither Abby nor Ryan had won the drawing all summer...not until the very last one, that is! Ryan won the last drawing of the summer and got to choose his prize. He chose the book bag which is very useful, especially since he has his very own library card now. We recently paid the fee to join the Multnomah County Library system (since we were quickly reading through our local library's small collection of children's books), and when we did Ryan got his own card. He was very excited last week when he checked out his own books for the first time!

Surgery Date

We have been patching Ryan's eyes (first one, then the other) for the last two weeks to see if he still skips lines while reading. Unfortunately, we discovered that he doesn't which means that when he's using both eyes he's not transitioning well between eyes when he moves them across the page to the beginning of the next line. The surgeon believes that the surgery will help this transitioning and give him better vision. So we are going to go ahead and have the surgery done, especially since we have been able to coordinate the stenosis surgery and this one to be done simultaneously. It is scheduled for October 18 when Gramie will be here.

Our library had their last big summer reading day on Monday, and Ryan for the first time agreed to get his face painted. Mommy ended up having to finish the second half because he got scared or shy or something, but, hey, at least he tried this year! This picture shows slightly how one eye is a bit higher than the other, though I never notice it except in pictures. He's never standing still long enough to see anything most of the time!

Riding Again

Ryan earned his bicycle earlier this year by quitting his thumb sucking habit by his fourth birthday. He had stopped for months, but then at some point he regressed and starting up the habit again. We finally had to take his bike away and start all over. After some threats of putting on his surgical arm restraints at night (which is the only time he was sucking it), he got serious and stopped again.

Yippee, we were able to give him back his bike last weekend! It's too bad summer is almost over, but at least he'll get some enjoyment out of it for another month or whenever the rain begins.

Hungry & Resourceful

This morning apparently I didn't get breakfast on the table promptly enough for Ryan because next thing I know he has set the table for both Abby and himself, got out the Cheerios and dried cranberries (he loves those sprinkled on his cereal) and put those on the table and is telling me he's ready to eat! He didn't get out the milk but only because he's not allowed in the fridge yet. What a great helper!

First Chapter Book

Ryan has been asking me to read The Boxcar Children again for several months now, and I keep telling him he can read it again for himself when he's ready. He's looked at it a couple of times but apparently decided the picture/word ratio was way too high for him. Pictures are still a very big deal for Ryan when it comes to books. But yesterday he insisted he wanted to read it, so I let him read it during his school time yesterday, not really expecting him to stick with it.

I was very surprised, however. He read the whole first chapter (nine pages with only three black & white pictures), and today he read the second chapter (11 pages with only three black & white pictures)! I knew he was capable of reading the words, but I am surprised to see him tackling longer stories that have few pictures. This is definitely a new adventure that he is enjoying...hopefully he'll stick with it and finish the book.

Not Just School, But a Way of Life

As we were consulting with Ryan's eye doctor last week, she was very surprised to learn that he is reading already at four and a half years old. I told her that it was her fault! Because we had to begin patching Ryan's eye for three hours a day while doing close-up work 18 months ago, I decided to make some of that time constructive. Ryan had been expressing interest in learning to read, so I started teaching him during his patch time. He was reading on a basic level in just three months at three and a half years old! She said she had never heard of another patient learning to read because of having to patch, and it made me begin to think about the whole experience.

To me (and hubby), homeschooling is more a way of life than a schooling preference. I don't think it started out this way, but it certainly has evolved into that. We originally just wanted to ensure academic achievement and protect our children from some of the influences found in public schools, but after years of praying and researching it, we have found it to be a lifestyle that we embrace. We are always teaching our children as we go about our daily lives: pointing out flowers and plants as we hike, teaching them to count and measure as we cook, on-the-spot Bible lessons as situations arise, etc. Homeschooling is just the natural extension of that.

Reading is huge part of our chosen curriculum, and thankfully it is also a huge part of our everyday lives. Ryan reads aloud to me daily and frequently to Abby too, he reads on his own periodically throughout the day, I read aloud to them several times a day, and we have a family read aloud time in the evenings where we enjoy a good book as a family! I have always loved to read, and this part of homeschooling has come as naturally and smoothly (so far) as I could have hoped for. It's just our way of life.

It was interesting to me that if Ryan hadn't learned to read last year, we probably wouldn't be having another surgery this year. Because of some interesting things I had noticed as he read to me, the doctor suspects that he's not transitioning well between usage of his eyes. If he wasn't reading, we'd just assume the problem was a minor cosmetic issue and probably would not have put him through another surgery, but now that it appears that the issue is actually going to improve his vision, he will have the second surgery.

So we have come full circle. He learned to read during his patch time before his first surgery and during his reading we learned we need to have another surgery. We are now patching again to see if it corrects the problems he's been having transitioning his eyes (it seems to be). While I'm not excited to put him through another surgery, I am grateful that we caught this and can give him the best possible outcome for his vision.

Writing a Letter

Recently, Daddy went camping by himself for a weekend, and the kids and I had a weekend to ourselves. We invited Ryan's friend Jakey and his mommy over for a fun play day. However, Abigail came down with a 104 degree fever the night before, and we had to postpone it, much to everyone's dismay. Ryan was particularly devastated because he was so excited about it for weeks beforehand. Saturday instead of pouting though, he sat down all on his own and wrote Jakey this note with a picture. Though he doesn't quite get spacing words and keeping them on the same line, though some of his letters are backwards and words aren't spelled correctly, Mommy was so impressed with his budding writing skills! If you sound it out phonetically, you might be able to make out what it says. Not bad for 4 1/2 years old.

"Jakey, I'll invite you some other day. Ryan"

Things Don't Always Turn Out the Way You Want

Ryan had two appointments today: One with a urologist, and one with his eye doctor. The urologist told us that Ryan will definitely need surgery, and the eye doctor said she would like to do one more surgery on him as well. It was not exactly the news I had hoped for.

We had hoped that Ryan's urological problem, a stenosis, could be treated in the doctor's office, but the urologist said it would only have a 50% chance of success if done in-office (though he was willing to try if we thought Ryan would lay still for it...uh, no.) versus the 100% success rate he's had with outpatient surgery. We opted for the outpatient surgery. He will probably have it done in October.

Then we went for a six-month post-op check-up for Ryan's eyes. His surgeon said everything looks good except that one eye is slightly higher than the other, something we really hadn't noticed. At first she said it is really only cosmetic, but then I mentioned a couple of interesting things I've noticed when he's reading to me and she thought maybe his eyes could be the cause. So we are going to experiment with patching during reading to see if it helps. If it does, then she definitely recommends another minor surgery to even his eyes out a little more. It won't correct the crossing any more than what he has now, but it might help him to use both eyes together better than he is now.

The only good news today was that we will probably be able to do both surgeries at the same time (if we can coordinate two surgeons' schedules), so he would only need to go under general anesthesia once.

Ryan is less than thrilled with the idea of having another surgery (or two...he doesn't know about the eyes yet), and frankly so am I. However, I am not tempted to be as fearful as I was the first time. I just don't want to see my little boy hurting again. Thankfully we have a God who allowed His Son to undergo unimaginable suffering so that we may "draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)

Serious Discipline

Kids just say the cutest things sometimes! Recently Ryan had an attitude that needed adjusting. Daddy told him about a coworker who had had a bad attitude and had gotten fired because of it. Ryan's eyes got really big. Then he soberly and increduously asked, "You mean they shot him?"