update and farewell 2008

I was going to do a year in review until I realized that I had only started the baseline for this year in July so any official before/after will only reflect half the year. And anything before July isn't detailed enough to warrant a full post unless you go back to 2007 and then it isn't really a "year in review" anymore.

And then I thought why not do a "future goals" post? But by the time I'd finished writing it, I wasn't sure I wanted that much detail in a public forum, especially since Rachel and Sarah are so high-functioning they'll probably end up reading this blog within the next few years. And I've run out of time for anything else.

So, here I am with no idea what to post to my blog except the above ramblings. I guess I'll do an update.

Worked with Rachel yesterday catching her up in Saxon K. Because of the birth, I missed all of December and there's no way to catch her up in her meeting book before January. That's okay. I'll just keep doing the lessons in sequence because we're at the really crucial lessons now. Up to this point it's been mostly counting and shapes; yesterday we started learning about numbers and today we begin to associate numbers with amounts (as shown through pennies). I'm going to need to go slow for those lessons because I really want to make sure Rachel gets the concept. Plus, she's getting frustrated with herself. And when she gets frustrated she get starts giggling or sits there smiling at nothing in particular. I learned this is how she shows frustration when she burst into tears at the end of one of those giggle fits, saying she couldn't do it.

Point is when she gets frustrated, I get frustrated because she isn't even trying anymore and the whole thing falls apart. Better just to take things slower.

Haven't worked much in a formal sense with Sarah. I've been trying to get Rachel back on track first since she's the one I'm working the most with and the one who's most behind in her skills. Besides, Sarah has been learning a lot about the rules of interaction through her sisters, especially Becky. It's because of Becky that Sarah's beginning to relax when people don't do exactly what she wants. It's still a weakness of hers but she's starting to let things go when they don't go her way.*

So, that's where we are right now. Looking forward to seeing where the girls are at the end of 2009. :)

*It's not like she's being willful. I want to make it clear that she gets very rigid about how people act because she clings to structure as a way of feeling secure. Take away the structure and you take away her security in a very deep and real sense: it really freaks her out. In the past this has extended even to little things like when certain songs are sung. Apparently she's been feeling more secure because we've been able to reason with her more and more often regarding things she wants.