Chistmas reading

WOW!! Christmas has come and gone and seeing Bubba's acheivements makes me think. He received a present of hiking boots from Santa and the little stinker was like why does the box say cabelas?? Ugh mom had to back peddle. I think he only believes because he wants to receive. I told him if you don't believe you don't receive. So he is on the fence about Santa. I just stated that sometimes Santa has to buy things so we can exchange them if they don't fit. Dah mom you bought the wrong size shoe. Seriously how could I have done that. I know what size shoes my kids wear but I didn't want to think they were as big as they are or something. I can't even spell things in code when I am talking anymore cause he gets it. I love this moment. I also dread it cause how am I going to communicate, obviously not in front of him anymore if I need something to be secret.

FEELINGS

Well here is something I didn't think would come up or out. Today was a day that we received bad news about my sister. Her stage 4 breast cancer has moved further. She now has cancer in her spinal fluid and the lining of her brain. UGH, that really sucks and I cried. Bubba came out of school and said "mom why are your eyes red"? mmm, I said we will talk about it in the car. Then Bubba said mom is Jamie OK? I said we'll talk about it in the car. He said ok. We did talk about it and he wonders if the cancer will ever leave Jamie.

This also brings up that he was able to tell me his feelings when he was watching a movie and a couple dogs died. He cried and said he feels very sad for the boy in the movie cause he lost both his dogs. It amazes me everyday the things he comes up with.

Tomorrow I will not be attending his "show off" because we are picking up a Christmas present for the boys. My mother will be going to the show off and I hope he is in his prime because he has improved so much. I am excited to hear my moms opinion.

SECURITY

Wow!!! Today I went shopping with my mother-in-law and they boys went to Grandma Annies. They absolutely love it there, but when given the option they will come with me. Not today. I called when we were done shopping and the boys (Bubba) told me straight out that he wants to stay with Grandma and not come home with me at this time. I was shocked.

The Lindamood Bell program has helped my son so much in so many different ways. He finally has self esteem, he is confident in his own skin, he has a sense of security, he smiles more, and he is truly happy. We knew that he was going to be learning how to read and hopefully math, but we never thought that he would gain any of these feelings. Christmas is coming and this is the best Christmas present I could ever want or hope for.

CONFIDENCE

Wow 3 weeks of Lindamood Bell and Bubba's confidence level has increased. People keep asking me what is different about Bubba? He seems more secure. I then tell them about this amazing center that he goes to instead of school. No matter if he answers a question wrong or right there is always positive reinforcement. He does eventually answer the question right. Bubba has amazed me, Lindamood Bell has amazed me, the employees of Lindamood Bell have amazed me.

Don't get me wrong we had our reservations about going to a learning center, but we have had nothing but a positive experience. For the first time in 8 1/2 years our Bubba finally has confidence and it radiates off him.

It has been a long road!!

Where to start. Late Friday night of March 22, 2001 my water gushed while I was sleeping. WOW, scared, and ugh I want to shower were the feelings that went through my head. We called the hospital and they said take your time, shower if you need to and come in. So that is what we did. That night was the night that has changed my life for the past 8 1/2 years. After 23 hours of labor, fluid being pumped in, and the babies heart rate dropping the doctors decided to do an emergency c-section. An amazing little boy was born. I felt like a truck hit me and the doctors say that the little boy didn't want to come out so they applied a ton of pressure to get him out. An AMAZING little man was born. We were so happy.

The little man was being watched by the doctors and it was decided that he needed to go to childrens cause he had pneumonia. He stayed in childrens for about a week. The nurses there nicknamed him Bubba cause he was the biggest baby in there.

Throughout Bubba's life we noticed that he had a very long thought process. He also had a very short attention span. I didn't think that he was ready for kindergarten but we sent him. While in kindergarten the teacher thought we should have him evaluated by the special education department. We said go for it. Bubba fit in under the LD (learning disabled) classification for special ed. What does this mean? We had no clue what this meant. We asked what it meant or where was he learning disabled. We were just told that is the classification he fell in and they don't know where he is learning disabled. I just wanted to know where to go and what to do to find out. I never did figure it out.

First grade, we were told in a subtle way that we should have his doctor check him out. The teachers never really said what they were thinking. It was brought to our attention that he was very fast moving and such. Bubba was diagnosed with ADHD inattentive. He was put on Adderall XR 10 mg. It did help with his focusing but he didn't improve in school.

Second grade, we had a wonderful teacher. She was absolutely fabulous and Bubba had a fantastic relationship with her. AMAZING. We also started at Childrens Theraplay and Speech and Language services. Over a course of one year Theraplay worked with Bubba and brought his handwriting up to grade level. Bubba absolutely loves his occupational therapist there. Things still weren't getting better in school. Bubba's IEP moved from LD to other medical disability. At the end of second grade we had Bubba's eyes checked. Bubba is farsighted and qualified for vision therapy services. He started during the summer and also continued with childrens theraplay. We also brought Bubba to a neuro phsycologist. This is where Bubba was diagnosed with ADHD, dsylexia, & dyscalcula.

Third grade. Bubba hates school. He is acting out and wants nothing to do with it. He is not improving and everything seems to be a fight. We finally have a diagnosis and have no clue what to do with it. Orton Gillingham was a name that was brought up to get some tutoring services but there is no center around to do an "intervention." We know Bubba needs help and we think it would be the best to find a center that he can go to to get the help. "Intervention"

I spoke with parents around school over the past couple years to see if there was anything that I could do. Are there any options that I can check into? Well one mother told me about a program called Lindamood Bell. I looked into it and they have a center in Edina. Also, they do tutoring in math along with the reading part. It is an amazing program and Bubba is already reading and it's only been 3 weeks. I will continue to update you as this entry is huge.