A Work of Art

I was sitting on the couch Friday afternoon, looking through the papers that had come home in Zahra's Friday Folder. There were some messy math assignments, flyers for various events, and this little gem.

Zahra was playing quietly with toys at the dining table. I thought this drawing was amazing.

"Hey, Zahra! This is awesome!" I yelled as I held up the picture. She came over to explain. All by itself, I thought it was impressive. Then Zahra told me that it was a picture of her Daddy. I realized immediately that those black lines sticking out of his head were supposed to be his dreadlocks. When I heard it was supposed to represent her dad, I thought the picture was even better. She said something about him picking up books (represented by the squares with the lines in them?) and her wanting a puppy (a few litters at the bottom?).

Anyway, I thought I'd share since I think this drawing is really cool. I'm going to look for a frame so we can make it more permanent than hanging on the fridge.

Soccer 2010

Today was the first game of this soccer season. Zahra is playing for the Chili Peppers this year. She's now in the AYSO U8 division which means she's playing with girls that are 6 and 7 years old. Some of the girls on the team have definitely been playing for awhile and really understand the game well. After last year's experience with soccer, I was hesitant to sign her up again. She barely moved last year, paralyzed on the field with the fear of getting hit by the ball. Her head seemed up in the clouds or down in the grass, almost completely oblivious to the fact the game was happening around her. This year, when Willie and I asked her about signing up back in the spring, she seemed enthusiastic and excited, so we did it. Before team practices offically began, Willie started taking Zahra out to kick the soccer ball around. He ran through drills and had her practice dribbling and stopping the ball with her foot (as she so nicely demonstrates above). I think this was a great idea because it got her ready for some of the same things they'd be working on at practice. When I took her to her first practice, she did great. She listened to the coach, ran as fast as she could, followed all the directions, got into the game during a scrimmage, everything she needed to do. Her skills weren't as good as the other players, but she definitely earned an 'A' for effort. I thought this year we had turned things around and that this season would be totally different.

Then this happened. Zahra, immobile with fear, standing almost still as a statue on the soccer field again. My shoulders slumped, my hopes stared to wither. Everyone cheered her on and tried to encourage her. No change. For an entire quarter, she barely moved from the exact spot where the coach had placed her to defend. She didn't run to the ball, she didn't kick it if it rolled right in front of her. During a break, I asked her what was up. She said the field was bigger and that it made her nervous to have the ball coming towards her. I told her that she had shin guards and shoes on. I told her she wouldn't get hit in the face and if she did get hurt, we would take care of her. She asked if she could have a big prize if she was injured. I caved in and told her yes. She asked for one of those little motorized cars that kids can drive. I told her if she was hurt, we would definitely look into it. I just wanted her to play! After that and some more words of encouragement from a brother of one of the players, her attitude seemed to turn around. She never ended up making contact with the ball this game, but she started running towards it, following her team, sort of getting into it. That was way more than she did last season, so I'm hoping we're off to a better start. She does such a great job during scrimmages at practice, we just need to get her to do that on the field during the real games.

After the game, on the way to the car, Max and Zahra kicked the ball back and forth. Max already has quite the leg on him and we think he'd love to play, too. Just a couple more years and he can start playing on his own team.

In the end, our team lost the game (I think the score was 3-0), but most of the girls seemed to take it in stride. At one point, our goalie missed and the other team scored. The little girl seemed upset with herself for a minute, then she shook it off, and yelled, to no one in particular, "I'll try not to do that next time!" So hopefully Zahra will try better her next time. (We'll be out of town next week so we will be missing that game). At practice, she volunteered to keep the goal, so we'll see how that goes when she gets a turn. I'll keep you all posted...

ArkLaTex Trip

OK, this post is arguably a few months late, but... better late than never? So I am finally getting around to posting some pictures from our June vacation to the south. We visited three states (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas) in the space of a week. Yes, it was a lot of time driving around in a little rented bright red Chevy Aveo, but it wasn't nearly as bad as you might expect. For the most part, it was a really great trip. The best part was visiting Willie's family and getting to spend time with them. Here are the kids, waiting in the lobby of the rental car facility at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. I think this was the only period (of three seconds) where they actually stayed in one spot. The little cars that I had gotten for Max to play with would zoom super-fast across this fully-waxed floor. Either that or Max thought actually throwing them as far as he could was great fun, much to my chagrin.

We found a little stowaway that fit in our carry-on suitcase! She was playing in the hotel room and would completely close the top. She's so little that it didn't even bulge out! After flying into Dallas, we spent the night in Allen, TX where Willie's Aunt Regina and Uncle Ralph live. The next morning, we woke up really early and got on the road, in hopes to avoid morning traffic on our way out of town. We drove all the way down to New Orleans and arrived around 3 in the afternoon.

Willie, Max, and silly-face Zahra in Jackson Square. New Orleans.

Zahra eating beignets at Cafe Du Monde (New Orleans). We've made beignets from scratch at Auntie Colleen's and those were delicious. I tried making them with Zahra after the "Princess and the Frog" movie came out and those were... edible. By far, I think the best beignets are the Mickey-shaped ones they have at Cafe Orleans in Disneyland. So light. So fluffy. So delicious! So of course, we had to stop by Cafe Du Monde (world famous?) since we were in New Orleans. I was very disappointed. When I had them the last time I was there (pre-Katrina), I didn't really have anything to compare them to so I thought they were OK. This time I thought they were terrible! Not even worth it. Then, at the end of our dessert, I had to go to the bathroom because I knew walking back to our hotel would take a long time. Yuck! The kitchen was a disaster! It made me really not want to eat them again.

Mostly, Max and Zahra enjoyed the powdered sugar. They didn't really even dig into the doughy part of the beignet. But they loved it. So at least they enjoyed the experience. We walked around the French Quarter the next day and kept asking if places served beignets. No one did! The only place that seemed to have them was Cafe Du Monde. For being the state dessert or whatever, I didn't really understand the monopoly on the beignet market. I wanted to try different ones to compare, the way we did comparing malasadas when we were in Honolulu. Sorely disappointed with the beignet experience in New Orleans. I will continue to crave the ones from Disneyland.

All right, so you had to pay to take a picture with this character, but Zahra really wanted to do it! I didn't think it was worth $1, but Willie wanted to make her happy. It was funny because I think she was really intrigued by him, although you can't really tell that from her expression. After we walked away, she seemed jazzed about the whole experience.

Willie and the kids in front of the Mississippi. We visited Mardi Gras World to look at all the floats that are made for the holiday. The floats were housed in this huge warehouse that was open to the outside which meant that it was super hot in there, probably around 90 degrees. Max was suffering from a cold so he was miserable and cranky. He just kept screaming and fussing. That with the heat made the whole experience difficult. I think Zahra got a kick out of seeing the huge floats, though.

My favorite picture of the whole trip! Zahra in front of a gold-covered Buddha that was probably on a float at some point. Inside the air conditioned gift shop of Mardi Gras World.

Max playing inside the window in the hotel in New Orleans.

Family picture at Jackson Square (New Orleans)

Reading in bed in New Orleans with sleeping Max. He just crawled up and laid down and went to sleep on my arm. I love this part of vacation! I got to read so much. I probably read over 400 pages of this book while we were on vacation. (Thanks, Maryanna, for letting me borrow the latest Elizabeth George!)

After an afternoon and a day in New Orleans, we left to drive north. We had lunch in Baton Rouge with Willie's cousin Chasity.

After lunch we drove to Shreveport. Max had this bag of chips and he climbed up into the bed by himself. The pillow was there and he just made himself comfortable, popped his hand in the bag and started eating the chips. It was pretty hilarious.

When we went to Willie's Aunt Shirley's house, Zahra just made herself at home right away. I thought she might be kind of shy, but maybe because we said it was family and she heard there were kids, she just ran right back into her cousin Christian's room. They were instant best friends. It was so cute that they just started playing together like they had been lifelong friends!

At the Boardwalk in Bossier City with family from Bessie's side of the family.

After a few days in Shreveport, we drove north some more and went to Texarkana (a city which exists across the state line in both Texas and Arkansas). Willie's grandmother (Big Mama) lives on the Arkansas side. Here we are on the porch in Big Mama's backyard with family from his dad's side.

Zahra and Max with their great-grandma, Big Mama.

Zahra and her cousin Cozy (spelling?)...

Overall we had a great trip!

Fun times!

First Day of 1st Grade

Wednesday, September 8, was Zahra's first day of 1st Grade. This "first day" was very different than last year. I just looked at the blog entry from the first day of kindergarten and saw how happy and excited she was to start a new school year. This time around, every time you would ask her how she felt about starting first grade, her reply was always: "I'm nervous." I would ask, "But aren't you a little excited, too?" and she'd just shake her head and say, "I'm nervous." When I woke her up on the first day at 6:45, the first thing she said was "My heart is beating really fast." And it was. I put my hand up to her chest and I could feel her heart was pounding. Perhaps mentioning "It's the first day of school!" the minute I woke her up was not the best idea. I wanted to take another picture of her in front of the school sign, but she refused to let me take one without Max in the shot. She was really excited about her new Scooby Doo lunch box. (It's fun to me that she likes one of my favorite childhood cartoons. Maybe she'll grow up to love reading mysteries, too.)

We got Zahra some new school clothes and she picked out this skirt at Old Navy by herself. (I put the rest of the outfit together and she didn't seem to care as long as she got to wear this skirt on the first day.) I wanted her to wear the black patent leather Mary Janes with this but I couldn't find them that morning. (Turns out, they were in my trunk, which I discovered when I went to take the umbrella stroller out.)

A brother-sister tete-a-tete before school. (I wanted to cut and paste with the correct accents, but it won't let me. Grrr...)

Zahra did this for a long time after Mrs. Gibson asked the kids to line up. She kept telling me she didn't want to go inside. Typical first-day jitters, I think. I had an appointment with the dentist at the exact time she was getting out of school (my crown was finally cemented after a month's worth of back and forth appointments). I called Bessie's phone when I was on my way back to work and asked to talk to Zahra to see how her first day went. She seemed upbeat and happy. The adjective she used to describe how the day went was "good." Nothing to worry about so that made me happy. I think she just didn't know what to expect and that's what was making her nervous. When she realized it would be a similar experience as last year, I think she felt right at home. Being at a school that was familiar and seeing kids she knew probably made things even better. She only has two or three kids in her class this year that were with her last year. But she gets to see her friends at recess so I think that makes her happy.

Walking in the door to 1st Grade. Somehow in my mind, kindergarten felt like an extension of her as a "little girl." Like, oh... she's just a kindergartener. Something about 1st Grade makes me feel like I have a "big kid" now. While I understand there was definitely a lot happening in kindergarten academically, in retrospect, it seems like a big practice year to get ready for what's happening now. Sometimes I think it wasn't that long ago that she was a super tiny little baby in an isolette, wrapped up in blankets, hooked up to machines and monitors in the hospital, and here she is, starting 1st Grade. It feels both fast and slow at the same time. I feel that I have been very lucky to spend so much time with her and experience so much of her life with her. (Working full time for the month of August made me really realize the difference of my usual part-time schedule.) And on the other hand, time seems to have sped by, how she was in physical therapy as a baby, speech and PT as a toddler, then preschool, kindergarten flew by, and now a whole new grade already.

While we read a lot together over the summer, Zahra still has a long way to go to catch up academically. Both of us were excited to do worksheets in the beginning of the summer, practicing her alphabet and writing 1-30. As the summer went by and our daily schedule got mixed up with vacations and swimming practice and work changes, our enthusiasm started to wane. By the end of the summer, I couldn't get her to do practice school work at all. Every day at bedtime, though, we picked up the Easy Readers we had borrowed and continued to work on those. Reading those "sight words" helped reinforce what she had learned and I saw a lot of progress in her continuing to pick up words and remember them the next time we read the story.

I asked her about her first three days of school and she described some of the assessments they were doing. She said she had trouble with the alphabet and number drills. I'm interested to see where her placement is and what her new teacher recommends to further her progress. I talked to her kindergarten teacher a little after school today and she said that she has already discussed Zahra with Mrs. Gibson and explained where things were left off. But that's all we know about 1st Grade for now. Until later...

Baby Signs

Here's a short video of all the signs that Max is using these days. By far, I think the two that help Max the most are "thirsty" and "hungry." Sometimes, the first thing he does in the morning, when he sits up in bed, is sign "hungry." It's really fun to watch a non-verbal toddler get his point across without having to use words. There have been a lot of times that I wouldn't think to give Max some juice, but out of the blue, he'll just point to his throat and say something that sounds like "dee-deeeee" to the unknowing bystander. But in our house, we know what he means. I'm trying to teach him signs that are close to the real ASL, but sometimes they're just too complicated for little hands. (Like the sign for "more" is hard for him to form, so it looks like he's clapping. In context, however, we know that he usually wants more food.) All in all, I think using signs are a great way to introduce a way to communicate for a little person that can't speak clearly yet.

Last Day of Kindergarten

Today, Zahra finished kindergarten! (The picture of the commencement ceremony was actually from Monday.) The ceremony was cute, but unfortunately, the pictures from it didn't come out very good. The lighting wasn't great so the pictures are kind of grainy. Zahra's class and the kids from Mrs. Powell's class had their ceremony at the same time. They sang a lot of patriotic songs for us, complete with American sign language. It was pretty cute to watch all of the kids sign as they sang. Perhaps it was because she was tired, but Zahra seemed completely bored by the whole singing thing. When it came time to give out the certificates, she seemed to perk up a little bit. Each child was called up while "Pomp and Circucumstance" played on repeat. It was pretty cute.

After the ceremony, parents and visitors were invited into the classroom to pick up the memory books and look around the room. We got a better picture of Zahra holding her "diploma" with Mrs. Conton. See how proud Zahra looks? We are very proud of our little girl, too. I can't believe a whole school year has gone by already!

We went around and took pictures with some of Zahra's friends. Here she is with Grace. These days, this seems to be her new best friend. I love how happy they look together.

Well, since today was the last day, Zahra's report card for the third trimester came home. She did pretty well. Of course, we'll be working on all those things I mentioned last time, but it was great to see that she's made quite a bit of progress.

After school, Zahra's friend Alysha came home with us. I wanted to surprise the girls, so I decided to take them out to lunch. School let out at 12:20, so we came home for a few minutes. Then Bessie met us and we took all the kids to Chili's. I think it was a fun way to celebrate the end of the school year.

Here comes summer!

Moving on to 1st Grade

Well, here is my 6 year old, somewhere in the line for Space Mountain at Disneyland. I can't believe we're one week away from her finishing kindergarten. She has made SO much progress this year, it's really remarkable. I mentioned some of this in a previous post after we'd had a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Conton, so I won't go over those details again. Despite all this learning, I have recently been quite worried that it wasn't enough. I was afraid that she was going to be retained and have to repeat kindergarten. But, on Friday, when I picked Zahra up from school, I had a chance to talk to her teacher for about 20 minutes. She had met with a team of teachers and specialists to discuss the best possible choice for Zahra. The team decided that the best thing would be for Zahra to move on to 1st grade with her peers. I was elated.

However, I'm very realistic and understand that this move will not be an easy one. Things will remain difficult for Zahra. She made enough points to be a candidate for 1st grade, but just barely. If students score a total between a 1 and 7 on their assessments, they will be asked to repeat the grade level. Zahra's score was at 8.5, which is just bordering on the edge. Skills that are pretty easy for some of her classmates remain a challenge for her. Though she knows all her letter names and sounds, actually writing both upper and lower case letters, in order, for every single letter, is a difficult task. Lately, she's been intrigued by numbers, and has taken it upon herself to practice writing from 1-100. (The kindergarten goal was to be proficient in 1-30.) Although she is working on the numbers, she still requests a lot of help along the way.

Over the summer, we plan to continue working with Zahra. Her reading level is way below where a student should be entering 1st grade. She can read some short words that were on a list of 50 or so that were part of her kindergarten lessons. I had taken blank index cards and written a word on each card. I let Zahra decorate the back with a picture she felt was appropriate for whatever word was represented. I think including her in the development process was rewarding for her. It helped her take ownership in the flash cards. We practiced a few words nightly and she picked them up pretty quickly. We'll continue working on the list until she has all of those words memorized. We'll work on sounding out new words together. We'll practice reading books for very beginning readers. We'll work on her handwriting and sharpening her fine motor skills. We'll keep working on being able to quickly recognize numbers.

I'm finding worksheets online, making some of my own, and will look for some workbooks to help her practice. I'm thinking that if Willie, Bessie, and I all work with her a little every day, we can make significant progress during the months she's away from school. We are lucky to have a cheerful student who is eager to learn new things. I remember how I felt when I learned to read words out in the world, things like street signs were an exciting challenge for me. (I still remember arguing with my dad that the street "Poplar," as in the kind of tree, actually said "popular." At some point, I realized he was right, and I kept playfully arguing because I didn't want to admit I'd made a mistake. I don't remember how it actually ended. I think I kept calling it "Popular Street" just as a joke.)

I think that Zahra's emerging literacy is wonderfully exciting. To see her make such a progression from entering kindergarten with only the most rudimentary skills, to a place where she has earned enough points to move on to the next grade, is amazing. I remember when she was still in the intensive care nursery and we would be talking about "the future" with the neonatologist of the day. The doctor would tell us that her prematurity might lead to learning disabilities or other problems that wouldn't manifest for five or six years. I remember thinking at the time that seemed so far away. And here we are today. I wonder if the way that she is in school has to do with the circumstances surrounding her time in the womb, her months spent in an isolette, hooked up to IVs and leads. I wonder if she would have been exactly the same way if she was born around her due date at the end of April, instead of in early February. We will never know. In the beginning, this bothered me incessantly. And now, several years later, I have come to accept the ambiguity.

I think Zahra's kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Conton, was an exceptional fit. There are many good teachers at Golden View, but I am thankful for where Zahra was placed. This was Mrs. Conton's first year teaching kindergarten after years of teaching 1st grade. Because of this experience, Mrs. Conton has an extensive knowledge of where her students need to be by the end of the year. We were lucky that Mrs. Conton is a skilled professional who was able to recognize the unique needs of individual students. At Zahra's IEP meeting in January, I learned that Mrs. Conton had been taking specific actions to help maximize her potential. (IEP stands for Individual Education Plan. Zahra has been getting these every year since she started receiving therapy with the school district when she turned 3.) Because Zahra has a hard time sitting still, Mrs. Conton would ask her to get up and get something or bring something to another teacher or person in the classroom. This would help Zahra focus when she returned to her seat. Talking with Mrs. Conton and volunteering 2 hours a week in the classroom this year have helped give me a greater understanding for just what a range of academic achievement levels exist in an average classroom. There are kids who are proficient readers and those who are struggling with phonetics just like Zahra. Some are able to focus for long periods of time and those who find even a minute or two as a huge challenge. Overall, I think that Mrs. Conton is a very good teacher who not only understands the individuality of her students, but is also compassionate and truly caring. She is able to tailor the material to different levels of understanding to make the most out of the lesson for every student. While of course I am happy to see Zahra move on, I will be a little sad to say goodbye to her teacher and all the kids in Room 4.
[Although he was in Stockton when I took this picture, I can hear my dad saying, "Look at how she conked out." At the end of a long Memorial Day at Disneyland, Zahra fell asleep in this very-uncomfortable-looking position in her car seat on the ride home. She must have been so tired, because this picture was taken around 4:30 in the afternoon. When we came home, she kept sleeping on the couch. Then slept some more when we carried her up to her bed when we went up at 10 o'clock. Then, the next morning, I thought she would surely venture into my room when she woke up too early. Nope. I still had to force her to wake up for school at 7:00.]