Our First Parent & Teacher Conference!

I feel so grown up! Doug and I went to our first P/T meeting last night while Unc Curt stayed with the boys. Let me tell you, I like P/T meetings so much better than IEP meetings!

First we met with Miss Sarah, Aidan's teacher. She told us about all the great skills he has and which ones they are going to be working on. He needs a little help verbalizing his feelings when he is hurt or sad, right now he tends to cry when he is upset. She said she is a little tougher with him because she wants him to be more independent to prepare for kindergarten. Miss Sarah is such a sweetheart it is hard to imagine her as tough. Aidan really likes her and she seems to be able to reach him in a way that he relates well to. She also showed us the writing program they are using and gave me some pages to take home that explains how to teach him to make his letters they way they will be teaching him. Aidan has been very interested in learning to read and write more, so this will be so helpful! The drawing above is one Aidan made of his family, I love how he is getting the understanding of scale! Miss Sarah thinks that Doug and I should spend one hour a week away from the kids. She thinks it will strengthen his sense of independence and also responsibility as a big brother. Hmmm, what to do for an hour a week....

Then we went to Sean's room and met with his teacher, Miss Ronda, the speech therapist and the physical therapist. Miss Ronda talked about what Sean has been learning and is very happy with how he is adjusting to school. He has used the potty 3 times successfully, is making improvement in the feeding therapy, and interacting well with his classmates. She surprised me by telling me that Sean has started matching colors! I haven't been able to get him to do that at home yet, I thought he wasn't even aware of colors yet! Woo hoo! We will have to keep working on this at home.

Miss Ronda has been telling him that he can not crawl up steps and she holds his hand on the rail as he walks up them instead. Well, Sean shocked me yesterday when I told him to come upstairs with me. He put one hand on the wall to steady himself and walked up the first half of the stairs by himself! I couldn't believe it! Makes me nervous to think about him walking down, but up is great!

Both of the teachers told us that they would like it if Aidan did not call his brother "Seanie" at school. They have been telling him the Sean is a big boy now and goes to school like a big boy so we need to call him Sean. Yikes, that's a nickname that we have been using for as long as Aidan could say Seanie! It's going to be hard to break that habit, for all of us.