Our Week in Review

We are still watching Julie and going back and forth between Grandma's house and our house so things are not at all normal around our house. I knew September was going to be this way so I hadn't planned a whole lot. We have been reading a lot of books about ancient Egypt. And we watched a documentary this week too. But I can't say we have really had a structured history lesson in some time. Or anykind of structured school really. We have spent a lot of time out of doors. Grandma's house is great for outside play.

Sophie had her big Craniofacial clinic visit this week as well. We saw SOO many doctors it was kinda crazy. It was good to see the Plastic Surgeon that did her lip. We saw orthodontists, speech therapists, geneticists, audiologists, neurologists and some psychologists. (Sorry... I am not spelling these right). They all loved Sophie. The Neurologists did a few test to see if she had any brain issues and was quite impressed that she could read so far above grade level. It looks like surgery isn't going to be in the works for a bit. Sophie hasn't lost any teeth on the top so the Orthodontists can't do anything until she looses those baby teeth and grows the adult ones. Orthodontics are needed before bone grafting surgery because they need to widen the upper jaw to make room for the bone. The speech therapist said there is some nasality in her speech but it is mild. I don't think surgery to correct her speech is necessary since everything will change once the Orthodontics and such are done anyway. So... it was a long drive and a long visit but Sophie did great. The doctors are all going to compare notes and send me their evaluations and recommendations for what happens next.

This week we did a little sewing project. I cut out a little Egyptian collar and Sophie sewed on some buttons to be the jewels. She decided she was done before I thought there were enough "jewels" but she was happy with what she had done. I plan to make an Egyptian wig to go along with it this coming week. I hope in the end we will end up with a whole Egyptian outfit. She will love this.

One project she has really enjoyed is the model of the Nile. We did this about 2 weeks ago. Here is our model after we flooded it the first time.


And two weeks later we have little green shoots growing all along the Nile. Sophie loves to pour the water in to flood the nile. Our Nile doesn't hold the water long. I wonder if that is because we put the fork in it to create the delta. Maybe there is a leak. But the point that the model is trying to make clear so it doesn't really matter. We also planted parsley instead of grass. We don't have a lawn that needs seeds so the big bag of grass seeds wasn't needed. We just went with a small packet of parsley seeds.


We still haven't built the pyramids yet. One of these days we will do that.



Other than these history type projects we have been reading a lot of poetry books. Sophie really loves Where the sidewalk ends. She takes this book with her everywhere. When she isn't playing her virtual pet she is reading some poetry from this book. The same poems that I loved as a kid are some of her favorites too.

We also started reading The Jungle Book aloud. Sophie is really enjoying this book. While I read she digs through her big box of plastic animals to find the ones that are in the book. We have just about all of them. A Black panther, tiger, snake, bear... we just need Mowgli. But she plays and plays while I read and I wonder if she is really listening so I quiz her when I finish a chapter or come to a stopping place and sure enough she knows exactly what is going on in the story. Amazing! She is one of those kids that needs to multitask I think. Her mind is just so busy.

My parents return from their European excursion this coming week so things are going to be a bit crazy for a few more days and then come October we should be back to normal life and schedule.