Feeling Thankful for These 10 Things!

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Thanksgiving is of course a time to reflect upon the things for which we are thankful. But like I told Faith the other day, I think we both thank God every day for the blessings he has bestowed upon us.  Each night, we read a scripture together (it's usually one Faith has memorized such as Psalm 23 or John 3:16-21). After our scripture, we recite "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). At the end of that verse, we add our little cheer, "Do good deeds! Say nice things! Be kind!"  This little cheer is just a way to remind both of us, that's how God wants us to act every day. Then we pray, which often begins by thanking God for all that He has done for us and then we pray for others. But the other night after prayer time, I asked Faith to tell me some things she was really thankful for. I told her what I was thankful for as well.  This year, we are feeling especially thankful for ...
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Faith's IEP Meeting

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Today we met with nine members of Faith's IEP team at school this morning. The meeting was at 8:00 a.m. so we had one of our respite care providers come get Faith ready for school and take her there, which all worked out very well.

The purpose of Faith's IEP is to set goals for her to work on throughout the school year. The whole team works together to ensure these goals are met. I must admit that probably the hardest part of the meeting was discussing the fact that she is not making any progress with learning words and having the ability to read. 

I discussed this in a blog post from this summer after an eye appointment in which the doctor told us she is probably having trouble getting her eyes to track left to right. It is somewhat disheartening, but as the doctor told us we should keep trying and finding new ways to help her eyes "attend" as they called it.

One person on Faith's IEP team is a vision specialist who works with the students at school, and she gave us some great ideas on how we could get Faith to move her eyes around and focus on various objects, colors, shapes, and words to help increase her tracking abilities and train her eye muscles to track and identify in a quicker manner. 

We also decided to do more with Faith from an auditory standpoint. Some students with cerebral palsy do not have the ability to read so they do everything through auditory input as opposed to visual input. I do continue to have hope though that Faith will be able to read.

IEP Meetings aren't that bad for us, but Faith does like Woody and Buzz!

One of the more exciting things we talked about at the meeting is the assistive technology that will make learning much easier for her at school. She is going to have a laptop mounted on her chair and all the books and other lessons that the other kids are working on in the classroom will be downloaded onto Faith's computer. This means that Faith will have the same book on her computer that her classmates are reading, and she'll be able to turn the pages with her switches. These are the same switches Faith uses to drive her chair. It is amazing to me that they can connect all of this together for her!

Another exciting venture this year is that Faith will be in her power chair all day at school. This is especially nice for me because after school instead of having me push her up the hill, she'll be able to drive up the hill! She did it today and she did so good! 

Of course, though when we are trying to leave school, she has to stop and visit along the way. It was cute because as we were heading towards our apartment, one of her aides who is also a crossing guard, was coming down from the hill so we stopped to chat. Faith was getting a little bored and ended up doing circles in her chair while she waited for us to stop talking.

All in all, the IEP went very well, and I feel so blessed that Faith has such a great team to work with her. I believe if anyone can help her to achieve her goals, it is this amazing group of people. (This includes her fantastic instructional aides who help her in so many ways). I am also really impressed with Faith's teacher, and I know Faith really likes her. I really believe 2nd grade is going to be her best school year yet.

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