only 1 more week.....

WOW!  Where oh where did the summer go???  JEB starts school 1 week from Monday.  August 1st. 

Seriously???  School is starting AUGUST 1st????  Yep.  Seriously. 

Now, JEB will be happy about this.  His mamma will be happy about this.  But, seriously, I think starting school August 1st is a bit ridiculous.  I grew up going from after Labor Day till Memorial Day and I learned enough to make it thru my Masters Degree.  Going to school for an extra month is NOT going to make these children learn any more information.  They should be outside swimming in the pool, or just playing outside and enjoying the summer.....because AUGUST is still considered summertime!

Oh well, I guess they didn't ask me what I thought.  Sad.  I could help them figure out a lot of solutions to their problems.  But.....they didn't ask me.

he learned to swim.....sort of......

Hey y'all!  Summer is in full swing here in SW GA, and my tutoring schedule is jam-packed!!  I have 9 students that I see thruout the week and JEB has been quite the trooper going with me to most of those I have scheduled!  The younger kids, he'll get to play with a bit before we go on to the next one, which is fun for him.  I tried to not schedule any for the afternoons, but I've had to adjust a couple of them to an afternoon slot, because JEB needed to be home with Daddy while I worked or their schedule was in conflict.  Not too bad though, I tried to leave Monday's free, in case I needed to swap someone, or so that we would have one day totally free to do whatever we wanted to do!! 

Now, the big news?  He learned to swim!!  I'm so proud of him....wish I had pictures, but I was in the pool with him, so I couldn't take any!  A lady from our church was offering lessons, so she agreed to try to work with him.  We started out, screaming-yelling-gulping in plenty of pool water-coughing-sputtering....you get the drill, but he weathered it out that first night.  Then on day 2, he was holding his breath underwater and going from her to me, maybe 1/3 of the way across the pool.  Kicking his feet behind him was a bit of a challenge, but by Friday?  He has mastered it.  She would start of one side, count to three and give him a good push-off and away he would go toward me, on the other side.  She would follow alongside of him, and helped him come up for a breath and go back under to continue on!!  I was so, so proud of him!!  Of course, now all he wants to do is go "swim at lysse's house"!
Good thing I'm going to tutor her 7 yr old for a bit and I swapped the tutoring for some swim time in the pool!!! 

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!!!  Enjoy your celebrations!!!

Deb and JEB

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEB!!!

11 yrs ago today, GOD blessed us by sending us this sweet boy!!  Have a great day!!

Welcome!!

WELCOME!!  To the readers from Kelly''s Korner!!  Thanks for stopping over here and meeting us!!

JEB is a sweet little guy, who will be 11 yrs. old on Sunday, who also just happens to have Down syndrome!  GOD has richly blessed us with him in our lives!!

Spend some time looking over some of our posts and getting to know us!!  We'd love for you to leave us a comment so we can add you to our buddy list!!

I am still here......really......

Well, I have no excuses really.  I check this poor, neglected blog, I really do!  I check it so I can click onto the blog friends and see what's happening with everyone else and think, "You know, I really need to write something on the blog." 

Well, sad to say, it's been over a month since I've posted anything.  No excuses.  I've had plenty of time to do it.  I just chose not to do it.  BUT here I am now to post pics of JEB's Buddy Baseball game.  Too cute!!  He had fun.....wanted to be in the middle of everything!!!  Summer has begun......my tutoring schedule is packed, but I have one whole day off and every afternoon so that JEB and I can do some things.  Pretty good, I'd say!!  Enjoy the pics!!

FIELD DAY!

Friday was JEB's field day at school, so I went and cheered on the boys in his class and had a blast!  I hung out with his teacher, Mrs. "Pocket" - as JEB calls her.  Several other parents came to cheer on their little boy too!  I did learn something new about my child.....he likes running.  He wanted to run in every event and had the best time running in the 50 yd. dash and the 100 yd dash, and even brought in the last leg of a relay race!  Guess I'll have to get him involved in some sort of running activity.....maybe soccer, since he loves kicking the ball around.

Next weekend, we are going to the local Easter Seals "Buddy" Ballgame.  Sort of like the Miracle League, that does baseball for kids with special needs, where they pair up a child with an older "Buddy" and that buddy helps them play baseball and run the bases and catch.  JEB has a glove already, and he loves swinging his bat and hitting the ball, so we'll see how much he cooperates.  Usually when there are other kids doing it and participating, he'll do whatever they are doing.  I can't wait.  Too bad there is only one game though.  Maybe next year, they can do two/three.  That would be fun!

Today is a special day in our area, as one of the local mom's who has a child with special needs, is building a Special Needs Play Park.  I don't know how to link anything to the page, but if you look up Butterfly Kisses Play Group on FB, it will pop up and you can look at all the neat things she's doing with a Pepsi grant she won by having people vote for this idea.  It's really cool!!  Can't wait to see it all complete!!

I think you could say that he had a great day!!!

a new found pastime for my sweet boy....

It seems he has discovered the fun of putting a puzzle together.  We did a couple of larger, 25 piece ones before and so I thought I'd go to the dollar store and see what I could find.  I found a couple that he was interested in - Toy Story and Spiderman - 100 pc., smaller pieces kind of puzzles and thought I'd let him try his hand at them.  We did them together a time or two, and since then he is totally enthralled with sitting at the table and putting them together.  He searches out the colors he needs, and wham!  It fits!  It's fun to just sit and watch him find the right pieces.   I know this is a very good activity for him, gives him time to work on problem-solving skills.  Guess we'll be spending some more time at the table working these puzzles.  Guess I'll have to go for a little bit more pcs next time!!