Well we made it through Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time at Jen's brothers house with great food and good company. It feels a little strange for me not to be in the middle of helping make dinner but it is also kind of nice to just sit back and relax for a holiday too. William told me that he went to his grandmothers house for Thanksgiving and he got to see his older sister. I was glad he got to see her again so quickly. He really misses her and he was excited to see her again. Now it is time already for his birthday and then on to Christmas.
We put up the tree on Sunday. Jen and I put the tree together and put the lights on. We waited for William to get home to help put the rest of the decorations on the tree. We bought a lot of new decorations last year to add to the memories of old. It is nice to be able to look back over the years and see William and his older brother through the years of Christmas. William asked all kinds of questions about the pictures and the frames that they are in. I need to get a new frame from the craft store and have him paint one for this year and add a picture. I do not want to lose the history of Christmas with William. I will not have William for Christmas this year. It makes it a little harder to get excited about Christmas but I want to make sure that William has the best year ever. Santa will just have to visit a day early.
It has been a good year all the way around and I am thankful for the blessings that surround us this year. School seems to be going better this year and William does his homework and spelling with little help. He has been doing great on his homework and seems to care about getting them all right. I am glad to see that he is starting to take ownership for his effort. He had a spelling list for this week that we started yesterday. He was disappointed that he got four wrong. I was very glad to see that he only got four wrong on the first day of trying the new list. We are making progress and I do not get any fight from him to get him to sit down and do his work anymore. We sit down, I give him a word, he spells it and then repeats the word when he has completed the word so I know to move on. When the list is done we check his test and he spells the words seven times each for the first day, eight for the second day, nine for the third and ten times on Thursday. On Thursday we also keep going until he has a perfect score. We take a test and any that he got wrong he writes ten times and we take the spelling test again. We keep doing this until he gets them all right. He used to complain about that until I sat down with him and explained that I want him to do his best and that I want him to be proud of himself. I want him to know that he has the capability to do what ever he wants to but sometimes it takes a lot of work to get there. He doesn't complain anymore. In fact we celebrate when he finally does get them all right and he has the biggest smile on his face. He is proud of himself and that is worth everything to me.
I had William tell me that he is so smart yesterday. It was good to hear him say that. He can be tough on himself for his actions. He comes down really hard for some of the choices that he makes and that is hard to hear. It was nice to hear him say positive things about himself. I have been trying more lately to get him to say good things about how he feels and what he does. Maybe I will start making this something we do before bed every night. Tell me one thing that makes you feel good about yourself today. He needs that extra boost of confidence in himself. I think it will make him stronger as a person.
This year diabetes was held at bay for the most part. William's A1C's were below where the guidelines say he needs to be. Lower is better for those that do not have this as part of their life everyday. We have a few new tools to use to make life easier and I am glad that it means more sleep for me at night. He is due for his yearly blood draw and I am not looking forward to that. I guess I will try to take care of that while I'm off for the next month. William hates getting his blood drawn. It takes multiple people to hold him down. I remember when I was younger I was the same way. I remember when a nurse threatened to kick me back if I kicked her when she was trying to poke me with a needle. Now I give blood every two months. Life really does change.
That is another thing I am blessed with. This year they gave us five weeks of vacation but didn't tell us until July. I was used to only having three weeks off. Now I get most of the month of December off. I am ready for the break from work. I think I will try to spend some time working with students over the break to get them ready for the upcoming robotics season. We still need to officially launch the new technical center but the community support has been heart warming. I have been involved with robotics a lot this year and I am lucky to have someone that supports those efforts. I have gotten to see every level from K-12 this year. I have also helped the middle school group with programming their robot and figuring things out. I am lucky to have one of my brightest programmers from the high school level there giving her time to help get them running. We have worked together to figure out the new programming language and hardware and we have a moving robot.
As you can see I am a blessed man. My heart is filled with love from those around me and it make it easy to give that love to others.
I am proud of you buddy,
Your Loving Dad
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