Summer Break and Other Sundries

Whelp. The homeschool year is officially finished. (It actually has been for about two weeks but life doesn't seem to have gotten noticeably less busy thus blogging falling off the cliff.) I'm already ready to start on the new year of school - all this unstructured time is killing me. I clearly need to sit down and make a schedule for our sixish weeks off since, and I know this is a shock to anyone with kids, left to their own devices, the boys will end up fighting with one another.

I know, right? So unexpected.

I told a friend the other day they really do get along amazingly well. Right until they don't. Which basically makes them typical siblings.

Still, as I'd just as soon not be the mom yelling into the back yard at her kids to get along or else, I need to figure out a plan.

I probably have to hold off a little on the super firm schedule, as youngest boy is staring down the start of vision therapy and until I know what that schedule is going to look like, I hate to decide something that we then have to immediately change.

Reading is a struggle for him. And we've been round and round with the eye doctor and a pediatric ophthalmologist, so I finally broke down and had him evaluated by ophthalmologists who specialize in vision therapy and there's definitely a convergence insufficiency happening, and maybe other things as well (we have an appointment next week to suss out what they think are the big problems and look at how they think they can help.)

As I was with our experiences in speech and occupational therapy, I will admit to being a little hesitant and a little suspicious (I mean really, do these types of doctors every say "Nope, there's no way we can help you. He's fine. My guess is no, no they do not. Which then makes me wonder if I'm simply falling for their particular scam or if there is actually something here that's going to help my child and help me help him. Parenting, man, not for the faint of heart.) But I'll hear them and, more than likely, give the therapy a shot, because he does need help that's beyond what I'm able to figure out how to give him. And it's reading. It's not like it's optional when it comes to leading a successful life. College vs. technical school vs. some kind of apprenticeship ...doesn't matter. You still have to know how to read fluently.

(Which reminds me, I need to call the insurance company so they can tell me that no, they don't cover it, thank you for asking. But it's better to know going in than to find out later? Or something.)

Youngest is also back in glasses - now with prisms! I will say, the prism glasses he used in the office during the eval did appear to have a somewhat immediate effect on his ability to catch and throw more accurately, so if that depth perception improvement translates to focus on letters etc, then I'm all for it. Catching and throwing are, to me, considerably less important in the grand scheme (because let's face it, I'm 45 and it's 50/50 whether or not I can catch what gets lobbed at me. It has not impacted my ability to lead a happy and successful life.) So we'll see what we see when the glasses come in and he's wearing them full time.

Beyond all that, we have no vacation plans at the moment, and we need some. Maybe not during the summer, but it'd be nice to say, "Oh, yes, in September we're going to X." and have that carrot hanging out there in front of me. I guess I should poke at some ideas and see if we can come up with something reasonably fun and still affordable.