The Taylor Spot

Today was Matt’s first day of pre-school at Crabapple Lane Elementary School. His teacher is Mrs. Ellen Castro, who I just adore, and his para-pro is Mrs. Amy Basset. He will be going 5 half days a week, and he will be riding the bus next week. He absolutely loved his first day today. His new friends are Dea, Ian, Matthew, Hako, and Aaron. He thinks after only three hours that Aaron is going to be his “best” friend. I think that the name reminds him of Erin Autry. How cute!

A Little History
Matt has been taking speech threapy since Oct. ’05, and has made amazing progress, but there are still some issues with his speech. He repeats a lot of what we ask instead of answering our questions; he fails to make eye contact with us and his peers, unless reminded over and over; and he wants in the worst way to write letters, but just lacks the fine motor skills, even though we practice. He also needs help with his gross motor skills. He falls all of the time.

His speech teacher began to see some of the same issues that we were seeing and in a meeting with Chris and I last Friday, she, the school psychologist and other pre-school and educational specialists suggested that Matt would benefit from one of their special education preschool classes. They recommended five half days saying that he needed the consistency. We agreed, and suddenly he was signed up.

On Saturday night, I “lost it.” I was beginning to realize how much Matt was going to be away from me, and I suddenly felt like we had hastily made the decision. But, after I cried and talked with Chris I knew that preschool would be good for Matt. One of his “issues” is forgetting things that he has already learned. I know he needs consistency in order to better retain information, and he doesn’t get that at home. We practice writing his name and so many other things, but not every day because sometimes Tori is fussy or we have doctors appointments, and I end up making Drew & Alex’s school work the priority when we are pushed for time.

Today, I found myself completely amazed and thankful for how God is providing for Matt. I have been so concerned about how I was not giving ALL of my children what they need, and I have been praying for an answer, and I realize that this is it.

How Exciting!  We all race for the door.  Matt runs and gets something to help open the package.  He comes back with a screw driver (his all time favorite tool right now), just as I realize that this package is for our new house.  “Let’s wait to open the package,” I say.  Matt seems surprisingly agreeable and smiles and says, “We have to wait ’til Christmas!”  I wonder how many times he heard that last month?

. . . and girl scouts get to sell cookies?”  Drew asked.  I made up something about typically girls baking cookies and boys being farmers who grow corn, which can be turned into popcorn, and then asked Drew if he would rather sell cookies than popcorn, and he replied, “I would really rather eat them!”  FYI, the boys aren’t in Boys Scouts yet, but we plan for them to be sometime, and we have plenty of popcorn and cookie sales via our front door!

Melissa told me this story, but I wish I had been there! Thanks to Tori’s frequent pillaging of the cabinet where we keep plastic containers, Matt came across a plastic lid on the floor while he was playing in the kitchen. It had the Ziploc brand name embossed in the center, as pictured below.

He held the lid as shown, with the letters reversed. Matt knows his letters, and he was very anxious about these. He asked Melissa for help. She flipped the lid over for him, and he broke into a big grin. “Z-I-P-L-O-C. That spells wid.” (“Lid,” that is!)

Melissa corrected him: “No, honey, it spells ‘Ziploc,’” she said.

Matt knows about Ziploc bags, so now he was puzzled again. But only for a moment. Then he just shook his head, smiled, and said, “No. That’s a wid.”

My little baby girl turned one on December 29! I cannot believe that it has been a year since she was born. I so well remember a year ago when my parents came into town, we had our Christmas celebration, and took the boys to meet Jolie. The next morning Mom, Dad, Chris and I, headed to Piedmont Hospital for my induction, and at 1:52 pm Victoria Grace Taylor was born.

We decided to have her party on December 19th (her cousin Karsyn’s birthday), when my parents could be in town this year, and it was such a blessing that Jolie and family (who have now moved to Ohio) were in town too! The theme was a dolly birthday party, and to my amazement, Tori really appreciated all of the girly pink and green on the decorated tables and all of the dollies that we had put in various spots on the tables.

She kept kissing when I walked her into the dining room where we had everything set up. That’s what she does with all of her baby dolls right now. I feel like not only did God bless me with a daughter, but he blessed me with a girly one. How amazing! (You know if she turns into a tom boy, I’ll love her just as much. Something tells me, she actually has a pretty good chance of that!)

She enjoyed her cake more than any of our one year olds!

When I was a child, my mom made a fabric play house tent that fits over a card table for support. My mom still has it, and I asked her to bring it to our baby doll party, and she did!

I had so much fun passing out the party favor bubbles from it. Hopefully soon, Tori will get to fully appreciate it and play in it at Grandmommy’s house!

By the time we started opening presents, Tori was pretty tired and puffy eyed from all of the frosting that had gotten into her eyes, but with brothers and friends to help, she stayed happy! She loved all of the cute outfits and her talking/sleeping baby doll (whom we’ve named Charlotte Anne) from Grandmommy and Grandpa.

At the end of our evening devotion tonight, I was out of things to keep Tori quiet (actually she had not been quiet the whole evening), so I just propped her beside Drew as he was kneeling in front or our couch to say his prayers. Before long, Tori burried her face in the couch and started jabbering. It was precious. She even did it long enough for me to grab the video camera (but not the digital camera, so I don’t have a picture to post)!

Almost all light fixtures are now installed, and ceramic tile was going down today. We are hoping for a mid-February closing.

Below is the breakfast area and a powder room light that Melissa really likes.

Melissa published some new family pictures from December.