HemAware Wednesday - My Boys

Here is the link to my latest post at HemAware.org 
http://hemaware.org/blogs/diary-hemomom/my-boys

And...I just saw a very sweet comment left by my fave sweet treat-maker "M" from Tiny Treats. If you're a Bay Area local and need some delish teeny, tiny morsels of yumminess for your party, you should definitely check her out. I used her services for Niki's 1st birthday party and our guests gobbled up everything. :)

***10/28/10 Update***
Here is the condensed version of the results of our first parent teacher conferences.
Kevin

Aside from the minor mystery ailment issue I wrote about in my HemAware blog, Kevin's conference went splendidly.

Kevie is ahead of his class. At the END of the school year, most kids can read approximately 51 words per minute. Well my friends, Kevie can read 110 words per minute! Keep in mind that Kev is only 7 years old! The KID is already reading chapter books, and I brought him his first Goosebumps book a few weeks ago. He's still a video game fanatic, but the boy enjoys a good book! Like mother, like son. Kev is the top of his class for reading comprehension, and he is able to derive mature ideas and values from stories. Ms. H was very impressed with his essay on "Tabby and Mr. Putter."  She really gets a kick out of his quirkly little perspective on life, and his passion for paper crafting. Kevie finishes his work early so he can focus on his comic books and paper creatures. Again, like mother, like son.
We (me, John, and Kev's teacher Ms. H) are excited to see how well Kevin performs when STAR testing happens later this year. Unfortunately, the school doesn't have a GATE program any longer, but his teacher has no doubt in her mind that Kevin would have qualified for GATE if the program was still around. Kev has accelerated in all subjects -- language arts, math, and of course, reading. His teacher thinks he's just the swellest little guy ever.
But...don't be fooled because he's still his Daddy's son! Kevin is the sweetest little thing in class, but apparently he has a penchant for using the F-word on the playground. He doesn't say the F-word to people, but he does use it to express his emotions. His teacher wasn't too worried about it, but she wanted us to remind him that adult words are best left for the adults.

Anthony

John and I were worried that Boo's speech and temper issues would resurface once he started school, but Ms. C says that it isn't an issue at all. The psychologist that evaluated him when we were going through his speech evaluation said that Boo would eventually outgrow his mild OCD. (He had an affinity for perfection and would have a tantrum when it wasn't.) It looks like the psychologist was right because Ms. C says Boo doesn't exhibit any issues at all! Boo is one of the brightest and sweetest kids in class. Ms. C says that she wouldn't have even have known that he had severe expressive speech delay if she didn't already known about his history. (We're old friends from high school and she was Kev's kinder teacher.)  Boo does the cutest things at school. He always reminds Ms. C that she and I were friends in high school. :)

Boo has already met the year end standard for number and letter recognition!! He is very social (more social than Kevin was in Kinder) and has tons of friends. He doesn't "verbally clam up" when he's in stressful situations like he does at home. (I think he just wants to be babied more by us.) He needs a little more TLC when he's injured (see the HemAware post above if you want to read more) but he has no other issues. I feel so relieved. I'm happy that his speech therapy helped and gave him the best start possible. It was worth all of the time off, paperwork, evaluations, and appointments we had to go through. He's just a normal kid now, and that's all we ever wanted. :)