Happy 40th Birthday, Ryan...

Today my amazing husband turns the big 4-0. Originally, I had planned to post the top 40 reasons why I love him, but then I was like "no one will read all of those", so I narrowed it down to the top 5.

5) He sets a wonderful example of how a Godly man should be for both of our children. Every night at bedtime he prays with and for them.

4) He works hard. The man rarely stops moving, except when he is asleep. He is the example of how hard work does pay off.

3) He puts up with my craziness and still loves me. There are days when he comes home and I am on the ragged edge. Instead of getting irritated with me, he lets me unleash my crazy and then apologize without holding it against me.

2) He has a great sense of humor. He says he's a fall baby because winter doesn't start until December 21. He isn't afraid to laugh at himself or be silly with kids.

1) He makes sure we are always taken care of. He does all of the maintenance on our house and cars and is teaching it to the kids so that they can learn too.

Happy 40th Birthday, Ryan, we love you!

Escape Room...

This year Ryan turns 40 (actually tomorrow).  He didn't want a party or anything special, but 40 is a pretty big deal and I wanted to do something special for him. We had watched an episode of the Big Bang Theory where they do an escape room and solve it in 15 minutes. Ryan had mentioned that it looked fun, and I actually remembered it!

In August I started looking up the various types of escape rooms, locations, themes, etc. Originally, I had wanted to do a zombie one but I could only find one in Chicago and in December, who really wants to drive downtown?

At the end of November I found one that seemed do-able, it was in Schaumburg called : Outbreak- Find the Cure. I waited and eventually a Groupon and Living Social deal came around and I booked the room.

Yesterday we did the room. What a fun time! It got a little stressful at the very end when there was 7 minutes left a d we had 2 clues to solve, but we did it and escaped with 4 minutes to spare.  I want to thank Tracy and Eric Takeda, Steve and Jill Capito, and Cari Lombardi for braving the weather and meeting up with us. Thank you to Jaime and Bill Patrick for joining us wandering us use their house afterwards for pizza and cake. And thanks to my mom for watching all 5 grandchildren so we could "adult".  Ryan enjoyed it a lot and I think we all had a fun time.

Good News and Not So Good News...

We have been busy since Thanksgiving.  I feel like all I do is drive from this appointment or therapy or lesson to that one.  On the positive side, Juli was dismissed from Physical Therapy for her knee last week; all she needs to do is continue her exercises at home.  Yay!  Monday's are now free for the moment!   We went to see her orthopedic doctor this past Monday night, and he said she can now fully participate in PE.  Another reason to celebrate!  He even gave her the cautious okay to sign up for Irish Dance lessons (after he said an emphatic no to gymnastics and karate), with the "if you dislocate you can't do it anymore" speech.  In swim, Noah was moved to the highest level and they want him on the swim team (yikes!).  Juli stayed at the same level, but she conquered her fear of jumping in to the deep end this swim session.

Onto the not so great news.  This afternoon I sat in on Juli's IEP meeting.  She is making some great strides in areas.  She smashed several of her speech goals (that's my girl!).  Her personality continues to dominate and she is quite the social butterfly (I honestly don't know where she gets that, as her dad and I are huge introverts).  However, she is still behind with her reading and math.  She is slowly making gains with both, which is a good thing because we worked our asses off on it this past summer.  Our fear is that she will regress over the summer, so Juli will be doing the extended school year this summer.  I haven't told her yet, she already hates school so much right now, so I will wait until it gets a bit closer.  I know that this is something we have to do to make sure she gets caught up to her peers, but it breaks my heart that we have to do it.

If I Had One Wish...

School came easy for me, except for math. School came easy for Ryan.  School comes easy for our first born.  School does not come easy for Juli.  Over Thanksgiving break several things happened.

1) We had parent-teacher conferences with both kids' teachers.  Noah's went very well.  Juli's went as expected.  Some positives were that her reading scores had increased, she is almost to the point where she should have been at the start of the school year (all that hard work during summer and during this school year is paying off, yay!).  However, math continues to be her biggest weakness.  Adding and subtraction just won't click in her mind.  We brainstormed some new strategies and came up with one that we hope will get math to click in her brain.

2) Juli had a giant meltdown about school on Saturday.  She woke up in a foul mood on Saturday morning.  We continued to anger her when we stuck by our rule that she had to earn screen time by completing her xtra math and reading.  What started as a temper tantrum transitioned into a full out meltdown after she was sent to her room.  After allowing her some time to cool down, I went up to her room to talk to her.  That's when she told me how much she hates school because it's so hard for her to read and do math.  She begged me to not make her go anymore.  I pulled her into my lap as she cried and tried to kick and hit me.  For 20 minutes I sat on her bed while she screamed about hating school and tried to kick me.  Eventually she was done and wilted into a puddle of quiet sobs.  My heart broke for her and I wanted to cry myself.

If I could wish for anything, it would be to make school easier for my little girl.  She knows that she is different from her classmates.  She knows that she is behind. She is too little to already hate school.

So I guess what I am asking for is prayer. Prayer for Juli to learn math and to keep reading. Prayer for Juli to stop hating school.