There is so much going on inside of my head that it feels as if I cannot stay above water. Instead of posting those things here, I am putting them on my other blog, the one that is more of a journal and less of a scrapbook of our lives, the one that I turn to when the thoughts inside my head don't make sense and getting them out where others can read may not glorify God, the one that is private. I am tired, but I don't want to complain, so I say nothing here. Often lately I am noticing that I don't leave comments, either. I am still reading. I am still praying for you. I am just not writing much.
I don't know if Butterfly is making progress or holding steady. All I know is she is not going backwards. In some things, it seems as if she is going backwards but we are just realizing that we made some wrong assumptions about her progress last fall. Some things that I thought she could do, like 3rd grade math, she was struggling so much and not really comprehending. She was doing the work, but not understanding it, not learning, not retaining any knowledge. So, I went back to 1st grade math. She is finally beginning to learn what I am teaching, if I remember to teach math at her best time of day. There are a maximum of 2 hours a day that she is capable of learning. The rest of the school day is really just busy work. She is awake all day now. That is progress. Well, she gets up around 10:00 and begins school by 11:00. From then until lunch break, she learns. After that, it is just marking time. Her impulse control is better. She is learning that even though she might not have the normal checks and balances to keep a person from reacting on impulse, that she is still capable of making choices. She is learning that the choices she makes early on in a situation snowball quickly, whether they are right or wrong. She is learning that God gives us self-control as a fruit of the Spirit and it is our responsibility to exercise it. In the end, if that is all she learns this school year, it is enough. The book learning can come later.
FigNewTon is growing physically and spiritually. She reads her Bible more faithfully than I do. She exercises discipline in the way she uses her time so that she has the opportunity to do what she loves most: figure skate. Sometimes I feel like she gets the short end of the stick. I try extra hard to spend time with her and praise her often. She really absorbs the words I speak to her. I try to get her to as many youth events as possible. I also remind myself that this time with her sister is a season, quite opposite of when she was sick and got the lion's share of my time and attention, that in the end it all balances.
We have been spending a lot of our computer time recording their Girl Scout accomplishments
here. Posts are backdated to when the event occurred. All posts have been made since March 6. By the time I am done helping the girls with that, I am also done looking at a computer screen for the day. We should be finished early next week. Maybe then I will post more here. No promises.
