Becoming a Young Adult

We are definitely back to school full time now. Although Amber's cold lingered into this week, she was quite productive and diligent in her school work. She might have had motivation in the form of her upgraded teenager hangout room (aka, the playroom).

Creative writing lesson  from the comfort of her very own study / playroom.  Then German and more German. She's cruising right along.

Over last weekend we finally returned the TV to our bedroom from the floor of the reorganized playroom, so now the loose cords are all attached to something again. It was driving me crazy to have my room so unkempt looking.  But... we bought Amber a TV for her playroom, along with a bluray/dvd/internet app device. Target had no DVD players other than this little device, seriously. At least it was cheap and in the price range I expected to pay for a DVD player. Amber's TV does not have access to our satellite (well, technically it does but it would have to watch the same channel as the TV in my bedroom). The Amazon Fire TV Stick is still working well for Amber, and that little DVD device we bought also provides some of the streaming apps, including YouTube. However, it looks like only the Fire stick can access the Disney Channel apps.

We decided to let Amber upgrade the playroom again so it can be used for video based school work, since it is more comfortable in there on the couch than at the computer. Her body aches all day, every day, and she started needing ibuprofen in order to function. Actually, she needed it a while back, but would not take it. I think some of her exhaustion and a few dysautonomia flares are from being in constant pain. She sleeps better when she takes the ibuprofen too. Although, I am worried about long term use of the medication since Amber has such a delicately balanced GI system at the moment.

My new reading material and Amber finishing a writing assignment.

We're still waiting on the script for physical therapy too. It was lost in the mail, and they've posted out another script. The rheumatologist also recommended an immediate echo-cardiogram when calling about the missing script. They are frustrated with the length of time to see the geneticist (as are we) and want all possible tests done in advance. So, that's scheduled for Monday. I'm really hoping it's all good and she doesn't have the mitrovalve prolapse common in EDS.

Oddly, we have found school the past couple of weeks to be heavy on math and languages. We expected the language emphasis, as we purposefully planned for it. Our schedule has mornings taken up with English and German. In reality, sometimes German waits until the afternoon, but it always happens. The surprise is math. There used to be almost no way to convince Amber to finish her math and she'd do any other subject, sometimes two lessons in another subject, to avoid her math. The switch to Life of Fred has made a huge difference. Now, when given the choice, she picks math over most other subjects - including her beloved history. It is taking us forever to get out of the history explorer study, but that's okay. My lesson projection still shows us completing the planned history lessons in February.

We even had a science experiment this week.

Again, we didn't manage our water aerobics this week. Amber had the cold and we were afraid to expose the elderly people in the class. However, there were plenty of fun times this week too. We saw Pixels over the weekend, met a friend of Amber's and her mom for pottery painting, and yesterday we had a spa day at an actual spa. Okay, so it was only my fantastic hair cut and Amber had her eyebrows waxed for the first time. But still, it was more relaxation than we've had in a while.

This weekend I need to finish start, then finish lesson plans for the co-op German classes I'm teaching. Co-op starts next week! I've already put in quite a few hours ordering curriculum and creating lesson plans, but those were just the emergency plans in case I'm unable to make class. It requires some creativity to write plans for a non-German speaker to teach German language classes. Thankfully, I have my course outline from teaching German 1 last year, but German 2 is entirely new this school year.  Eek!

We had to pause the Stargate SG1 episode, Urgo, for Amber to have a few minutes of laughter. She really liked that one.
I have a rose bush that has gone mutant. All the new branches look like this, with the crazy amount of thorns.

Also, by the time I update next week, Amber's swing set should be on its way to my sister's house. We are re-staining it this weekend and the movers come to take it next Friday. I hope my nephews love it as much as Amber did. We really are moving out of Amber's childhood years.

Happy Weekend!

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