First day of homeschool!

That’s right. Today was Elijah’s, and Julia’s, first day of homeschool. I’m happy to report that it went quite well. Plus, Elijah got some new roommates today! So much to report.

As I mentioned yesterday, Abigail spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Rice’s house, so we didn’t have her with us this morning. Julia spent a good portion of the morning homeschooling Elijah, while I went out and ran some errands. With Elijah’s schooling, he has a four-day week, with a few hours of schooling each day. On a normal day, Julia will likely break up this time into chunks throughout the day. But today, she did it all at once since she had the time alone with Elijah. I think it will work out well because we can work on tailoring it specifically to him, his interests, and making it interactive and fun. It’s the type of specialized and individualized instruction that can be hard to get in a classroom with lots of other students. Plus you get to sleep in, so how can you go wrong? We’ll eventually get a better spot setup for his homeschooling, but right now the kitchen will have to do.

Grandma Rice brought Abigail back around lunch time and we had a pretty mellow afternoon. After rest time, we took a trip to the pet store. Elijah has a fish tank in his room, but most of his original fish have passed on. We were down to one fish, and we thought it would be fun to go out and get some new fish for the tank. It’s also just fun going to the pet store to look at the animals. The kids especially liked the cute cats that they would try to touch through the windows.

We we picked out a few fish, brought them home, and put them in the tank. Oh, and we got some ghost shrimp too. They are just a small clear shrimp that feed off of pretty much anything and are quite fun to watch, when you can see them.

A a few of the fish are GloFish too, so they’ll glow at night in his room.

After after we came home from the pet store, it was time for dinner. Tonight, a family friend, Mary Rodriguez, provided a wonderful dinner and dessert for us. And you guessed it, we ate it while watching a movie!

On a more medical note: Julia called a nurse to talk about the rash on Elijah’s bottom. The nurse asked her to take some pictures with her phone and send them for a doctor to look at. The doctor called back late in the day and told her it looked like a diaper rash to him and just to continue using the ointments we are already using. That was good news assuming it’s correct. We also transitioned him off of his prescribed medications and onto over the counter medications. So, instead of using Valium and oxycodone, we’re alternating between Tylenol and ibuprofen. If we find that those aren’t working well enough, we can reintroduce the others without any problems. He seemed to do well today though, so we’re optimistic it’ll work out well this way. Only two more days until his doctor’s appointment, when we can find out how he’s progressing. Keep praying that he’s where he should be or even farther along than that!