Monday

It's Monday. I'm not fond of Monday's. After a nice, relaxing weekend waking up to the alarm is annoying! The kids were up and dressed, fed and ready to go about twenty minutes before usual! Wow, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for their first full week of school.

I realized today that not a lot of people understand CAPD and how it affects Emmie's everyday life. Her homework was to write her spelling words using a triangle method. I am assuming the teacher drew an example on the board and Emmie copied it. I haven't graduated from Secret Spy School, so I am not sure how to decipher Emmie's "triangle code". So, I THINK she did it correctly but I really have no idea! Homework this week seems to be a lot of writing. Emmie struggles in spelling because she is unable to distinguish between certain letter sounds. Homework also includes reading which is something we do every night anyway. The problem is the book they are reading in class. BLAH! We re-read what is read during the school day and I have to take Emmie's word on what was read, since I don't know. The AR level on the book is 2.9, we are SO not at that level yet! She stumbles over so many words and doesn't seem to have the comprehension of what was just read. I feel horrible because I don't know what to do in order to help her. I am lost.

I feel like our life rafts were taken away and we are left with nothing. Paddling in this lonely ol' pond of water with a hole in our boat. Some days it feels like the boat is fine, other days it's filling with water quickly. How do we get out of the boat? How do we get the help she needs, the support she needs? We have no family even remotely close to us for help and support and no real system in place to support CAPD in on our base, local community, or schools. I think people underestimate the effects it has on Emmie because she puts on one heck of a front. She fakes it. She gets through the day without you noticing because she has ways to cast your eyes on a different boat. Emmie could reach so much higher if she had the tools she needs...sadly, we are stuck paddling in circles. SOS. SOS. SOS.