Assessments

I took both boys to get assessed by the Post Falls School District today. Mason has made quite a bit of improvement since the one in August. He is average, falling into the 53-55% for the three areas: motor, speech and academics. He knows 13 capital letters of the alphabet and 9 lower case letters. If a child knows less than 8 letters, they are referred to a "catch-up" program during the summer prior to Kindergarten. So Mason doesn't qualify for that, which is good news. They saw some non-compliant behaviors while testing him but they were able to get him back on track. He just gets bored or frustrated and gives up and says "I don't know". They did not have suspicion of ADD or anything like that. They thought he was a very typical 5 year old boy. All great news. They gave me some advice about things I can do to help further make sure he is ready for Kindergarten. One of which was to call the PF Kindergarten and ask specifically what their expectations are for Mason so I can see if we need to work on any specific area etc.
I also had Talan tested for Gross Motor skills. They know he is already receiving Speech Therapy through the school district. He scored in the 93%. Obviously, no issues there. They observed that Talan just needs more confidence in his abilities (like riding a big wheel) and then he can do the work to make the pedals go. Ironically, I just bought him a big wheel two days ago as that is what he picked out when we went for a "treat" at the thrift store (it was $1.99).

So I am feeling much better about where my boys are at. It is so unsettling to think they are deficient or behind or being labeled negatively. The director of the assessment said she would speak with Teacher Pam next week to make sure that she understood Mason's results. I am so grateful!

I treated the boys to an excursion to McDonald's with Missy and Mason Paul. They had such a wonderful time playing. Talan was very excited to have us watch him climb to the very top. He adores Missy and sat in her lap and asked her to carry him. I am so glad we have such nice friends in our lives. We ran into my friend Susan's husband Rick with their two kids Conner and Lily. So all 5 kids were being crazy in the jungle gym. It was quite cute and funny. Glad to know I am not the only one to use McDonald's for escape! I am so tired of the cold weather and being cooped up indoors.

We had a nice afternoon nap and then Aunt B came to visit us. Talan was playing with his Grover doll and wrapping Grover in his blue blanket. I tried to get Mason to get a letter "G" for Grover but he came back with a "U". :( Barclay is taking us all to a Monster Truck show in Spokane tomorrow night. Apparently there is a Batman truck! Exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Life is good for these two guys.

Mason asked me this morning what time our flight was and I just had to laugh. Our flight isn't until March 30th so I can only imagine that this will be a frequent topic in our household until that day arrives. Mason smiled when I told him it was a long way away. We called Grandma Jutta to tell her how silly and excited we are for our visit. There are so many things I want to do while we are in CA that I am not sure we can cram it all into 7 days. It certainly something nice to look forward to.....there never is anything quite like "home".