5 in 5: Bring on the Blessings!: Reading Tutor

Four days to completion of the blog challenge. I'm really excited that I've almost accomplished this year long goal. Xander continues to have stomach troubles and a few months ago he had an endoscopy done. The biopsies they took looked like he had Celiacs disease. They proceeded to perform genetic testing to see if he contained any of the four genes for Celiacs. The test was negative and Xander does not have the gene for Celiacs and therefor said to not have Celiacs.

His GI's best guess was that he has a spasmodic colon. Today was a follow-up check for him. The doctor changd up a few supplements and recommended we continue to eliminate soy (Xander's allergic). By the way make sure you call Xander Xander. His whole name is Alexander but if you call him Alex he gets very upset. The doctor discovered this today when he came in the room and greeted Xander with "Hi Alex! How are you doing?" Xander crossed his arms. "I am Xander. Only Xander." The doctor made sure to note the correction in Xander's chart.

We had a few more errands to run and made our way to the children's hospital. I had to get hearing aide batteries for Ronan as well as more pulse-ox probes. Both are at the children's hospital but in different wings. Xander had never gone with me and was excited to cross the skywalk. He thought it was especially cool to see the city so close behind us. I let him pick out a snack at the gift shop and he made a wish at the wishing well.

Now on to more cute pictures. Inara is continuing her cheese grins. She is one of the happiest toddlers I've ever met. Through five kiddos I've begun to realize toddlerhood is a lot like adolescence with the prevalence of mood swings. Inara has those and when she does she is always on the extreme end of whatever emotion she is experiencing. You do not have to guess at what she is feeling but the majority of the time she is a happy little girl.

My mom is a blessing. She has taught hundreds of kids to read throughout her 30 plus years of her elementary education career. She has offered to help me with the boys' reading. Landon is getting awesome at reading but still struggles at speed and larger words. My mom is going to help me by tutoring him. She is also going to help me teach Xander to read. While I can teach them the progress is much slower. I will not refuse help from a professional and I am blessed my mom has offered to help the boys excel in this area. Here is Landon and my mom at their first tutor session. Landon was excited because he read the word vacation without any help.