Warms a mother's heart

A long overdue milestone was accomplished this past month. There was a program we worked on with Zachary when he first started therapy. It was called Joint Attention. What it requires is for a person to attend to another person's actions. So for example, if I pointed at something, anyone standing near me might look in that direction. The most common one I think of is when you are in the grocery and you smile at a crying baby (I tend to make a funny face), and they stop and respond.

In Zachary's case, he never responded to a person smiling or pointing. It was just a blank stare. But the other day, he did. He was doing homework, and I was just watching him work. I smiled at him when he looked up, and then he smiled right back. I can't tell you what that meant to me. Never take your child's smile for granted. It has always been such hard work to get Zachary to smile. And here in this instant, he was smiling back, welcoming me into his heart. And the cool thing, is it was not a one time deal. He did with his Pops also when we were visiting last weekend.
Therapy work continues to pay off...even eight years after we started!

4th grade complete

Through many challenges, we have finally completed 4th grade. This year, Zack received a few awards at the year-end ceremony. He received Bible, Spelling, and Book Report Award, as well as the Great Effort Award and the Principal's List. He also got the Superior Bible Achievement, which is where they have been tested to say full Bible passages throughout the year. He was on the straight-A Honor Roll all four nine-weeks. And then received, the Excellent Conduct Award, which is kind of funny to me since he added his own flair this year. And last, he received the Most Outstanding Computer Student. This is selected out of his whole class, so that is a pretty cool deal.

We had a very large class this year, but Mrs. Otto worked very hard to make it successful.

Back row, from left to right: Mrs. Hope Otto, Jay Chavez, Nathan Davis, Zack Sansing, Joshua O'choa, Joshua Stinson, Nick Wilson, Bryan Tran, Joseph Otto, Carter Ung, Donald Euzede, and Tirk White.

Front row: Ariana Sneed, Nadiya Blair, Gabby O'choa, Megan Ritthaler, Brianna Harrelson, Shyanne Seth, Eunice Mora, Madeline Burke, Alyssa Davis.

Artwork on the side

Zachary loves Star Wars, still. He has moved on from Legos, but still reads the books, and is now buying the action figures. He is doing a lot of good imaginary play with the characters though.

These are a few drawings of some of the Lego characters...

For Christmas, Zachary's Mimi got him this 3+ foot Lego of General Grievos. I took a picture for you to reference. Below, you will see his artistic attempt. I love it!

Favorite papers

I love to include Zack's work, some is funny and others are just plain cute. I like to include his handwriting too. So here are the worthy papers from this year.

It reads: I am having a stellar day today because of three reasons. The first reason I am having a good day because I am behaving well. The second reason why I having a stellar day is because I got 100 on spelling and science. The third reason why I have a stellar day is because I almost got a 100 on my Bible verse. Yesterday, I had a good day because I got all my seat work done. Even a child is known by his doings, whatever his work may be pure and whatever it may be right. Proverbs 20:11.

It reads: One time when I got frustrated about the math homework, I asked God to give me strength. God calmed me down. After God calmed me down, I was able to finish my math homework. Now I know I can ask for strength when I feel frustrated. God also promises to answer me when I call to him.



It reads: I am a green card, that has good behavior. I am a green card that as two credits. I am a green card that follows the rules we have at the school. I don't like red or orange or yellow. I am a consistent fellow. I am as tall as a small beyblade and I flip like one too. but I'm always gonna be green because I do what I am suppose to do.

It reads: I have three favorite subjects that are my favorite. These three subjects are Computer, Art, and PE. My first favorite subject is Computer. I like computer because we do "Type to Learn" and we learn about animals on the computer. We also play games. My second favorite subject is Art. I like Art because we do projects, paint pictures, and we glue materials together. My third favorite subject is PE. I like PE because we run, play games, and we are with friends. Of all the subjects we have in school, these three are my favorite.

It reads: My favorite day is Tuesday. It is my favorite day because we do PE. We do Spanish class. I get to learn music on Tuesday. I don't have therapy on Tuesdays.

So what can we draw from these papers? He tries very hard to behave and likes it when he gets 100's in his main courses. However, he likes his ancillary classes best, especially on Tuesday when he doesn't have therapy after school.

70th party fun

Back in April, we had a party for Mike, my step-dad. He officially turned 70 in March, but the crawfish were not ripe for pickin' yet. We had about 20 in all, I believe. I thought I would share some of the entertainment...

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Big Debut

Zachary got his first singing solo this year in the Spring Musical. Now granted, they try to give as many solos as they can, so please do not expect a full song solo. It is two lines, but I was so excited they chose him. He tries out every year, and I think they worry about him.

Granmommy came to watch and support Zack.

Zack and his buddy, Joseph Otto

And I just want to note, that he is 100x better at standing still while with the big group. When he first started in first grade, we had a friend on stage that would help if necessary. A particular teacher noted her concerns about his stage behavior as one of her reasons that the school might not be a good fit for him. Weeeellllll, I beg to differ, and have seen many other students with questionable behavior. Sooooo, if I may say so myself, "Awesome job Zack!!!!"

Triathlon

We started Mother's Day with a Super Sprint Triathlon. My girlfriend and I decided to knock something off our bucket list. The "super" part means it was really short. We swam 200m, biked 8 miles, and ran 2 miles. Really nothing too challenging...WRONG!

For me it was challenging, and I felt much better when I saw many people walking during the run part. For that matter, there was a girl with a basket on her bike and she was pedaling like it was time for a nice afternoon ride. The hardest part for me was the swimming. I thought I would do so much better, but I was tired very quickly. And when you hear it called Combat Swimming, you know you are in for a doozy. People were everywhere trying to drown you. And you can get a little anxious when you realize you are in the middle of the lake with no saving device. And no less, I cut my foot in the beginning.

The other part that is a little challenging is unwelding your legs from the bike and then forcing them into a run position. You would think this wouldn't be sooo hard with me being bo-legged. Not the case. It takes a few minutes to adjust. And my cousin Travis, a mega-triathlete, was right. Adrenaline does do something for you. I was projecting an hour and a half. Well something came over me after the swim. It was probably thoughts of you will look like a looser if you don't get moving on that bike. None the less, I finished in just over an hour. Woohoo!

Now the funny part...pictures.

Training buddies (and no less, they wrote your age on the back of your leg).

And then for fun and to look like I might have looked like I knew what I was doing, we took a few goofy pictures. As you can see God gave me defined arms, but they sure didn't help in the swimming. :-)

I leave you with this....Whose up for a triathlon? If I can do it, you sure can.