Magic Carpets

Leading up to our big recital, the kids in Madison's piano class - and the other classes too - are all filling out a magic carpet shape with their name on it.  They then tape it to the wall, creating a path around the room, one that will lead to Jasmine all the way over there on the other side.

Here's Madison practicing her recital piece.  She's got a long way to go on this one, so the underlying story of the week will be the large amount of practice that she'll be doing whenever possible.  This particular piece is a bit tougher than previous ones, but then again, this is her final big recital number.

It was Taco Tuesday today, and Mommy had a big spread for us set up on the kitchen table when we got home.  This was perfect, because Madison and Daddy were really hungry.  Madison downed something like four tacos!

Homework has been consistent, although nothing complicated or more than usual.  I think things are winding down.  Madison had art today, and she'll have art tomorrow after school again with enrichment.  She's loving that, of course.  She does art at home all the time, so it would stand to reason that trying new mediums would excite her.  Speaking of "new mediums," we found some pottery that we did not sell in the yard sale Saturday, something from Grandma's collection.  It was too nice to sell, and we're glad we didn't do so, because it was signed on the bottom and we looked up the value online.  Sure enough, it'll get us more than a few bucks if we were to sell it.  But we're thinking of holding on to these pieces of pottery - they look nice.

The other thing at school today was a meeting with the speech teacher, who we got to talk with a little.  She told us a bit about phonological organization, suprasegmental aspects, and so forth.  As if we had any idea what she was talking about.  It's one of those conversations where you have a choice:  just smile and nod vaguely, or have a bit of deglutition of your pride.  Yeah, who uses words like that?  Elementary school therapists, evidently.  Before going in to school, you'd best bring a speech therapy glossary with you, because those words fly fast, and your auditory processing might not be able to catch up.  I guess what I'm saying is her prosodic fluency seemed good, but her intelligibility needed a bit of work.  We were hoping for helpful details and strategies, but the meeting wasn't long enough for things like that.  In other words, we'll be working on this on our own a bit.  Madison's speech isn't perfect, and it has a bit to go in order to improve.  We'll keep up the good fight, and try to do some stuff on our own, particularly over the summer.

Tonight, Madison watched "Dead Man's Chest" for the first time, and met Davy Jones and the Kraken for the first time as well.  She loved the movie, particularly the surprise about Hector Barbossa at the end.  That was much the talk tonight before going to bed - she just has to wait about a week to find out what happens next, while Mommy and Daddy waited a year for part three.  Of course, part five will come out soon, and that's the one we're really waiting for, because if there's one thing the pirates movies need, it's some sense of closure for certain story lines.  There are so many loose ends with these movies!

Anyway, we read tonight, prayed, and got Madison in bed at a reasonable hour.  We got up early this morning for that speech therapy meeting, and she's due a good night's sleep.  That, and Mommy and Daddy have their appointment tonight with "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  Hopefully we can stay up late for that.  That 10:00 pm time slot is rough on us!