As They Say…

“And let us not grow wear of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”  Galatians 6:9

I have been lost! When someone doesn’t see me for awhile they will tell me “You have been lost”! I have definitely been lost for the past month! Not really, I am here but I have felt lost. Greece was definitely a great break, we decided we wanted to go to visit the kids one last time since their time in Greece was coming to an end. Three days after our visitors left we left! We spent two weeks there enjoying our son’s family. The kids are growing so much and their personalities are so much fun. It is always hard leaving them but I didn’t cry this time. I was happy that I wasn’t sad about coming back to Uganda (if that makes sense). But I have had a hard time getting back into the swing of things. (And Jenifer said I only got a little fat this time!)

When our visitors came they brought tons of stuff I had ordered for Raelee’s schooling so I only had a week or so to get it all out and get September planned out for the start of school. We struggled with Raelee for most of the year last year, somewhere in there she decided she didn’t want to have anything to do with spelling or reading. She has even tried to explore careers she could have without having to learn to read! She loves math and is advanced in that area. I had decided to go back to kindergarten/first grade basics and bought a lot of manipulatives and activities to try and get her interested in Language. I researched a lot about Montessori way of teaching so we decided to give it a try. Well, I worked and planned, worked and planned for about 6 days straight. I went over lists of “What your kindergartener should know” and “What your first grader should know”. “What your second grader should know”.  Printed and ran out of ink (lost count of how many times). Laminated, laminated, laminated. I was ready for the first four weeks. Guess what? Raelee was ecstatic over the new way! So ecstatic that the little billy-goat breezed through the whole four week plan in four days! She wanted to have school from morning until bedtime! Exciting and infuriating! Haha! We knew she knows so much but getting her to do it has been a great challenge. She has control issues that we are always working on and this has played greatly in the areas of learning. I decided to help her “feel” in charge and it has changed everything. Well, that and the promise of a reward at the end of the month.

I’m not sure it made a difference but we had to go to Kampala last week to meet with our lawyer. While we were there I went to the pharmacy to pick up medicine I take to help sleep and the pharmacist gave me medication that he assured me was the same, just a different brand. I have taken this medication for years and know that even though the brand may be different, the medication is still the same. I questioned him on this and he assured me it was the same but that I could look it up. Of course I was going to look it up before I took it, I found that it is actually high blood pressure medicine. It was a good example to teach Raelee the importance of being able to read, I already have low blood pressure and our blood pressure goes down when sleeping so if I would have just taken the guy’s word for it and taken the medicine it could have killed me. It seemed to make an impact on her. When we got home she picked up a Dick and Jane book and read through it with very little help! She laughed and laughed at how easy it was to read! We all laughed and cheered her on but the next day when I picked up the same book and asked her to read it she didn’t know any of the words. We gave up after twenty minutes of sounding out the word b/a/ll. What do they say? “One step forward and one hundred back”? Haha, feels something like that! So it looks like I have a busy week to prepare for October! I thought we would have a longer review time to get her up to where she should be – turns out she is right there! So I have learned (because I am not a teacher!) that Raelee learns creatively the best, not sitting with a workbook. And I have learned the things that engage and interest her and how to apply that to other areas. Learning with an anatomical figure with squishy parts has covered language, science, math and bible all in one. I passed second grade but still I learn so much right along with her!

Along with that there is still rabbits to tend, people with problems, spreadsheets I got behind on, a husband with the flu and a big project I am trying to get started! And I’m asking “When do we get our next vacation?” 🙂