Housekeeping Blogkeeping

To answer a few questions from commenters:

Hannah had persistent pulmonary hypertension when she was born. It took her nearly a month to be able to breathe room air. This was not related her to congenital heart defects. She had heart surgery at age 2.5 to repair 2 ASDs, a VSD, PDA and a clefted mitral valve. She had to wait until her hypertension was resolved before she could be considered for surgery.

We have had terrific support and inclusion within the local homeschooling community (we moved here less than a year ago). I also belong to one of the several yahoo groups that focuses on homeschooling special needs. The homeschooling community in Newport News was not as organized as it is here in the Richmond area, so we pretty much did our own thing. That said, we have always been very independent homeschoolers; after 15 years of homeschooling I don't feel that I need that much "support". I do spend a fair amount of time encouraging new homeschooling families, especially families with children with special needs. This helps me remember WHY we homeschool--when I have to explain it to new families I remind myself what motivated us to start on this path.

Hannah currently takes three different homeschool classes, all of her classmates are typically developing (as far as I can tell!). She takes Ballet (and she is CLUMSY), Art, and Theater. Theater is her favorite. One nice thing about homeschool classes is that they generally have a wide age range for groups of children. Hannah, at age 10, does best socially and academically with children who are in the 7-9 age range. If she had the short stature that is typically found with Ds, she'd be able to fit in perfectly in this age group. However, she is about the size of an average 12 year old, so she does stand out a bit more. Homeschoolers are pretty used to kids being different in lots of ways, and we've found that Hannah is accepted easily by teachers and children alike.

Hannah did attend a preschool when she was 3-4 years old. It was the same school her siblings attended--a granola/creative/exploratory learning school housed in a Unitarian Church. All three kids had fabulous experiences there. We did have the public school provide therapy services in our home during those years. We didn't want them interrupting her "regular kid" time.

Hannah has not had any formal therapies since we moved from North Carolina when she was six.
Well, that's not exactly true. She has had no meaningful therapies since we moved...we had one wimpy SLP for a time being, but I can't honestly call it "therapy". We continue to work on oral motor at home, and work on vocabulary, pragmatics and syntax daily as well.

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Now, a little fun.


I've been playing.....but I don't know how to screen capture (without downloading a program, and my 'puter is very naughty when it comes to anything that involves my video graphics card. It must be sent back to hp to get fixed before the warranty expires in December.) So that's why I have to send you to Wordle.