So since we took Noah to the Halo clinic in June, he has grown in leaps and bounds.

It’s been amazing.

One effect that we did not expect from the implementation of Soma-RPM, is the surge of verbal communication that has come out of Noah.

Speech has always required a great deal of effort on Noah’s part and is very difficult for him.  New phrases and words require a great deal of concentration and work.  As a result, much of what Noah says…when he does talk…is either an echo of someone else’s speech, or a “script”… a memorized word or phrase that Noah is able to pop out in order to obtain a need or a want.

Spontaneous speech…conversant speech…is a rare treat.

But over the last few months…since we started Soma-RPM…we’re getting more and more glimpses of it.

This morning, Noah’s teacher came to the car to give me a progress report.  It seems that Noah got mad yesterday afternoon when she insisted on more work.  Noah’s teacher said that “it was like we were having a back and forth conversation”.  Noah’s teacher said that Noah would jabber a few unintelligible words in response to her requests and then, with great force, eked out the sentence…

…”It’s time to go home.”

“Bye”.

I guess he was done.

I am so proud.

So Noah has had a successful start to the school year.  Three days in, Isaac is digging the whole homeschool thing.  And I’m having fun with it too.

Well…that’s all I’ve got for now.

How’s school going in your house?

So Isaac is really into our broom.  He loves to help me sweep.

He’s terrible at it, but we’re working on it.

This morning, he was carrying the broom around the kitchen, getting ready to “help” me.

As I walked up behind him, he turned quickly and the broom in his hand flew straight toward me.

He caught it right before it made contact and said,

“oh…Mom…I don’t want to hit you…”…

“…because you are very old”.

oh. my.

I know.

It’s been mighty quiet around here this week.

We had a big Children’s Ministry Event over the weekend, so there ya go.  I was pretty much all over the place.

So here are some random thoughts, in no particular order…

I can’t believe that Noah starts the third grade tomorrow.

I always seem to get a little melancholy at the start of a new school year.  Even with the great hope that we have been given through Soma RPM and Noah’s amazing progress over the last few months, I got hit with a touch of sadness last week.  Thursday afternoon, as I walked through the hallway at Noah’s school during the “Meet Your Teacher” event, I was surrounded by parents taking their “typical” children to their “typical” classrooms.   I watched as nervous parents guided their equally nervous, yet excited little children to their new classrooms.   And I wondered…which would have been Noah’s class?   Who would have been his teacher?  Would that little boy with the impish grin have been his friend?

“Meet Your Teacher” is one of the few times that “what would it have been like?” thoughts invade my mostly at peace with it all mind.   I don’t know why it hits me like it does, but it just does.  Every year.  I gotta quit going to those stupid things.

It stinks, but thankfully, it doesn’t last very long anymore.  I’ve moved on and I do have a lot of hope for this year…more than I have ever had.

So…Noah starts the third grade tomorrow.

And…God help me…

Isaac starts Pre-K.  And we’re gonna do it homeschool style.

Since he’s a September 2nd birthday, Isaac gets a “bonus” year.  If he would have popped out 24 hours earlier, we’d be staring down Kindergarten tomorrow.  But God, in His Wisdom, kept the cork in and had Isaac cook for one more day…ensuring this extra year before “real school” starts.

I’ve got some homeschool curriculum…a little bit of this and a little bit of that…so we’re just going to quietly “dabble”.

It is odd to finally be able to officially say that I am a homeschooler.

Well it is rather late and we’ve got an early morning…back to the leave for school at 7:30 ritual…so I must be off to bed.

Ya’ll have a great start to your week and hopefully I’ll get a chance to catch up some more a little later…

Noah’s birthday was August 1, but we finally got to celebrate it yesterday.

Going to the beach is one of Noah’s favorite things.  He loves the ocean.  So…we decided to give him a beach trip for his birthday.

Sunday night, my parents took Noah and Isaac to a Cocoa Beach hotel to start Noah’s weekend.  (Yep…that meant that Doug and I had a whole night to ourselves.  Woo. hoo.)

Yesterday morning, Doug and I drove up to Cocoa to join them.  Lori and the kids and Kris and Dana and Anna Grace came too.  We hung out at the beach, walked over to Ron Jon and had a cookout for dinner.  It was a blast.

I’ve got a few pictures of our day posted here.  (I’ve actually got some more cute pics of the kids, but since Lori and Kris are in most of them and they would k-i-l-l me if I posted photos of them in bathing suits, I guess I’ll have to refrain from sharing those.)

We got home at about 9:15 last night.  Isaac fell asleep on the way home.  Noah didn’t take long to settle down and slept until 7:45 this morning.  Gotta love that.

So yesterday, I was getting ready to head to the mall, sans kids, as some mean and ugly storm clouds began to break open.

Isaac was in the garage, waiting to see me off, and started playing with our new Ikea umbrella (it’s bright orange and says “Ikea Family” on it…gotta love that.).

I said to Isaac, “Mommy needs to take the umbrella with her.  It’s going to rain and I might get wet.”

Isaac looked at me thoughtfully…held the umbrella a little bit tighter and said,

“Well…you can just run”.

Nice.

How ’bout another one?

So this afternoon, Isaac had some really raunchy gas.

Doug asked Isaac, “Where did you get those stinky toots?”

Isaac replied with a smile…

“Walmart”.

oh. my.