and better yet, payday!!!! One of the few, and I mean few drawbacks of my job is the once a month paydays. But, I have learned to adjust. I also have to adjust my budget around for a small small June check (school lets out May 30th) and no check again till September 25th. I had kicked around the idea of finding a small part time job, but decided that my kids are more important. Especailly, with my 4th, Mollie who has some learning issues. She has language deficit issues as a result of undiagnosed hearing loss that lasted almost a year. The girl had NO and I mean NO ear infections. It wasn't till she started putting her ear up to the TV speaker that I got worried. Up till that point, I thought she just wasn't paying attention and was bit of a late bloomer. She also has convergance insufficancy, meaning that her eyeballs do not work together. She also overfocuses when she is doing close work which fatigues her eyes for distance work. The school psychologist feels that she is also ADHD/ADD but I am not so quick to jump on that bandwagon. There are several studies that show that convergance insufficancy can lead to a false diagnosis of ADD. I am also going to try an elimination diet that has shown promise with ADD kids. If anything, improved nutrition will not hurt anyone. So my summer will be spent helping Mollie with her learning issues. She is poor in reading comprehension and math. She also has poor spacial reasoning. It is hard for her look at something that is broken into peices and put it togther to make a whole (like a puzzle). Each evening, she and I play a children's game, do a puzzle and do some flash cards, sometimes a worksheet. She has come to treasure her evenings with mom and I have too. It is hard for me sometimes because it is easy to become impatient with a child who cannot do a simple puzzle. But I also refuse to put her in a box labled ADD, throw in some pills and hope all comes out fine. Thankfully, too, she has a great teacher who has put up with alot from Mollie (she is easily distracted and requires alot of redirection) and has really helped up in our quest to get help for Mollie. I call Mollie my "crack child" because she was never bad enough or tested low enough to trigger any red flags. She didn't qualify for preschool by 8 points! (if we had been low income that would of been diferent). She didn't score low enought on her reading assesments to get placed in Title 1 reading programs and so on and so forth. Had I not pushed for the testing for learning disabilities, we would still be floundering, wondering how to reach her and she would of gotten worse, especially with her eyes. She would of kept falling thru the cracks.
What this all has to do with bus driving? Nothing, but since I have mostly family reading this, I think you will appreciate this. I have some misplaced guilt over this and more heartbreak, but I am also clinging to hope. Many people who have changed history were considered not normal children and learning disabled. Please pray for us as we try to help her discover her strengths and talents and help her with the school subjects that she needs.
Thanks all!
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