The End of Summer Swim Class

Last week was the end of summer swim class and we have a month before the fall sessions start. I'm hoping Alivia and I can spend some quality time at the pool over the next few weeks and keep her skills up. Alivia has mastered all the requirements for the youth class except floating on her own, so she'll be (thankfully!!!) staying with the preschool class in the fall. She's smaller than most of the preschool kids and they have a smaller student to coach ratio, so I'm hoping to keep her in that group until at least the end of the year. Once she masters the ability to float, we can start looking at the diving class for her--she absolutely loves to dive! And I can see progress being made--we've gone from two support bubbles to just one and she's able to manage fairly well until she starts getting tired.

I was really enjoying the classes, too--Livi did well and had a great time and I got to socialize with a couple of the other moms. Livi and I hosted a couple of the girls and their moms at a swim party at our pool and everyone had a terrific time. I'm hoping to repeat it this Friday--mental note that I need to remember to send out the invites! I didn't realize how much I missed that interaction with other moms until I had it back again. And these two moms in particular, Lena and Suzanne, are so great to be with--laid back, accepting, and just all round great ladies.

Things are still going great in the sleeping arrangements arena. Alivia still loves her new bed and is staying in it all night. I'm not sure if the difference is that it's a big girl bed or that she sleeps really well on the new mattress. It's one of those memory foam mattresses that has to be tons more comfortable than the crib mattress we used on the toddler bed.

I'm still working on the final bed details--some corner braces and such, but am almost done. I also put up a huge castle mural on the wall beside the top bunk. Alivia loves it. I just hope it stays in place--the wall is rather textured which makes it hard to get the mural to stick. It looks really cool, though! Pictures coming soon, I promise!

In our adventures with FASD we have added yet another player to our little scene. In addition to her imaginary friends Cory and Zachery, Livi now has an old man named Ren (Wren? Who knows?). I have no idea where he came from or what his purpose is. So far she's only mentioned him a couple times. Dr. P feels that Livi is using her imaginary friends as kind of scapegoats for herself when she misbehaves and that they will fade out as she develops more self discipline and control. Since they have gone from being the same size as her to fitting in her hands, he thought that we might be seeing that phasing out starting, but I'm worried now that she's adding another character. I'm looking forward to our next session where I can bring it up.

My other Alivia challenge for today was trying to get her transportation issues settled for school. The bus will pick her up at my house in the morning and is supposed to drop her off at my mom's house in the evening. The school board is trying to finagle that last part right now. The problem is that my mom lives in a different school's bus area and the severe budget cuts are making it difficult to provide the additional covereage. (All the local magnet school kids have to provide their own transportation this year for the first time. Livi is in the special needs category so they are supposed to accommodate her if they can...) I'm hoping to have it all settled tomorrow.

So much for today...

~ Jeana