Week 10 1/2 - Art, Allergies and Vision Therapy

Last weekend we took LB's friend with us to ride

This is what LB wanted for her birthday

She's wanted to do this since she was "little"

We had perfect weather and a beautiful ride

This week CC had 2 days off from school so I'm only counting it as a half week.

Monday night I had one of those rare moments when I felt like I was a picture-perfect classical educator.  LB was tucked into bed listening to the audiobook of Moby Dick, and CC was stretched out in bed reading a summary of the Aeneid in her Latin book.   Of course the perfect moment didn't last long because LB was in chapter 135 and the whale was attacking, so it was much too exciting to fall asleep to which somehow led to her playing with green food coloring in the bathroom.  CC thought the summary of the Aeneid was shallow and left out too much of the story and couldn't figure out how to summarize such a poor version of a story she already knew.  Oh well.  I enjoyed my moment while it lasted.

LB had her first vision therapy appointment Monday, and we were given 15 minutes of homework to do everyday.  The therapist warned that because her eyes had such a large problem with tracking that she would only be able to work about a minute per eye at a time.  She suggested that we break up the work into 4 or 5 sessions throughout the day.  It sounds like a little bit of work, but it is taking up our whole day.  I was warned by other moms to scale down school expectations during therapy. She gets tired eyes after the first session of tracking exercises.  After the third session, she gets a headache.  I think it will be a while before she can realistically do schoolwork and VT, but we've been playing lots of games.

When I first saw how much her little eyes jump around during the tracking exercises, I was shocked.  I can't believe that her eyes are that bad and that I didn't know.  I'm feeling pretty guilty.

Tuesday afternoon I was back to feeling pretty happy with the education my kids are getting.  When I asked CC what the highlight of her day was she said that it was that she got to touch a Van Gogh.  That is a really cool highlight.  I got to see the Van Gogh but not touch it.  A private collector brought his amazing collection of art to her school.  She loved hearing him talk about collecting it because he had such a passion for each piece that it became alive to the students.  He had even met Picasso and told the story of having dinner with the artist.  LB liked the Jackson Pollack and the Da Vinci.  I didn't get to spend nearly enough time looking at them, but I enjoyed seeing such a diverse collection.

Wednesday ended the school week.  CC is still doing great in school and thriving from the interaction with girls with similar interests and teachers that are passionate about their subjects.  LB is working hard at her vision therapy but having trouble sleeping this week.  I don't know what's up.

Since CC had two days off from school and her allergies have been better because of the weather, we decided to try another allergy shot.  She had been bumped down to the lower than low bottle of serum, and we expected to not have a reaction because of the dilution.   Of course, she had another systemic reaction.  Instead of a quick shot and a 30 minute wait to make sure there was no reaction, we spend almost 2 hours there.  The doctors are reevaluating and will call us with a new plan.  I don't know that I am a strong enough person to take her back for shots again, but she is terrified that if her allergies don't improve before spring that she'll spend the whole spring in the hospital.