A lot of things have happened this summer, I just don't write about any of it while it was happening.
My insurance covered my breast reduction surgery, and it has been awesome so far. I am still healing, so I don't know my size right now, but I was a 34G before surgery. Most of that I gained when I got pregnant with Jasmine. Unfortunately the neck and back pain was just killing me, every day was just a struggle. Right now somethings are still a struggle, I don't bend well yet, but my neck and upper back pain are gone. I still have some lower back pain, but I think it is because I am not used to sleeping on my back.
My mom visited before my surgery and my dad is going to visit mid-September with his brother.
A couple of days ago Jasmine came to me with this workbook...
and she did the first 20ish pages probably under 15 minutes. She has much better control now. We are using a triangle pencil like this...
but Jasmine's doesn't have an eraser. It was great that she has finally decided to write, but it did show me that she has problems with the half-circles for letters. We didn't continue on to the part of tracing the alphabet. Instead I bought some a writing tablet like this...
and made our own tracing lines. Like this...
Jasmine did pretty well with the straight lines in the workbook, but these are much smaller and will need more control, but if she does well with these too then I will just make the next page a workout of half-circles and circles for her to practice with.
I don't want to tire, bore or frustrate her (especially when she has finally shown interest!) so we'll probably only work on it every couple of days.
We are also working on numbers. Jasmine has 1-12 down solid, but when it comes to the 'teens she is very wobbly. She knows the names of the numbers, but not the order so she kind of mumbles and adds a 'teen at the end until she announces that it is suddenly 20. I got some flashcards and we have been playing games with beads. I hope that will help her out a bit.
The themed Muffin Tin Mondays started last Monday, but we missed it. Hopefully I will remember to do this coming Monday's theme.
Back from the beginning of the year, that Korean school I mentioned? Yeah, that didn't work out for us. It is intended for kids who already know and understand Korean, but are just learning to read and write Korean. I cannot teach Jasmine Korean, I do know how to read Korean, it is a phonetic language and very easy to learn to read, but I have no vocabulary at all. It is one of the few times that I wished my mom lived closer. There are a few other Korean churches that I will check out and see if they offer classes, but not right now.
I think there are going to be too many changes soon that adding another one right now would just be too much for Jasmine.
Jasmine will start going to a "child development center" aka daycare a couple of hours on Mondays and Wednesdays while I am in class. We think this will actually be a positive thing. All of the kids on our block are much older (middle school/high school age) so this will be a chance for her to make friends around her own age.
Faith co-op starts on the 9th and Jasmine will be in both hours of the preschool, but some times the kids are only in one of the hours of preschool (and it is only one day a week.) I think the kids in the daycare would be more stable. I really am hoping that she makes a good friend, 'cause she can be really shy some times.
This semester I am also teaching Journalism and crafts at the co-op. Should be fun.
Jasmine will start bowling on the 11th at Carson Lanes. We are having her birthday party there this Saturday. I'm really hoping that Jasmine will like it, it'll be another chance for her to socialize in her age group (3-6 year-olds is the bowling league she is in.)
We also have an appointment on Tuesday for Jasmine to observe a Tiny Tigers class. I'm not sure how well that will go, I think she might enjoy the class, but she doesn't follow directions well at all. So, we'll see.
I think that's all for now.
