Coburn Kids

Genevieve and Adessa are enrolled in karate, or more specifically Kyuki-Do. The little picture at the side are of them in their uniforms or Gi’s! Genevieve goes Tuesday and Thursdays for 45 minutes, Adessa goes for 30 minutes every Thursday. So far they loooove it. Master West is their teacher and their first rule (all you parents will chuckle and applaud) is ‘Obey your parents the first time.’ And would you believe it?? It’s working. Sure they’ve only had like 2 lessons but it’s rubbing off all ready.

I’m especially impressed with Adessa and how well she is doing listening and following instructions in class. Genevieve, the first day after class went straight to her room to clean it up (without being told!) and went in to get ready for bed the first time when she was told. Okay, so all this excitement might be a bit premature as the novelty and newness of it wears off but we can hope! Gena and Adessa are pretty good kids in themselves really, we signed them up for karate for fun because we couldn’t pull off all the soccer practices that were going to have to happen if we put them on a team this year. So it was a great alternative and the practices are right in our neighborhood.

In other news, Gena is indeed moving to the first grade. When Gena went in for the kindergarten assessment they do on all kids going into school to see where they’re at, her teacher mentioned getting her tested based on just observing her. We had originally decided not to pursue this too much as we’ve been told numerous times that it was nearly impossible here in Utah. That it’s just not done. We told her kindergarten teacher that we had all ready had Gena tested 9 months ago and she was interested in seeing her scores. It was a bit late coming, wasn’t exactly planning to be in the hospital and to have a baby right when she started school, so we sent that off this last Monday. We tried to make it clear that we were really interested in the teacher’s opinion on if this was a good move since she’s been able to see her these past few weeks. She responded that she normally wouldn’t recommend it but she could see Gena was VERY (yes she capitalized it) advanced. So she sent off her scores to the school’s guidance counselor and the counselor commented that she “almost couldn’t believe how high her scores were.” So they are fast-tracking that and it should happen sometime next week. They are even further pushing to put her in the ALPS (accelerated learning program) first grade class where she would be doing essentially 2nd grade work but this would involve a school transfer. With Caden and all the surgeries still coming up we have a lot to consider for this and coordinating getting her to school and being able to get her home if we needed help from a neighbor, etc.

I guess I’m maybe too overly critical of Gena. It’s hard to believe that I have such a bright child that scares me because I can’t keep up or sometimes even comprehend where her learning is at right now. I have no idea what’s normal! When she started reading at 4 I seriously thought that nowadays this was probably a common thing. That she’s teaching herself how to type, I figured it was just part of her interests. When she started arguing with me over singular versus plural nouns on her preschool homework. That she wants to do multiplication, I mean… I have no benchmark. Gena has her slow areas, coordination especially. Her fine and gross motor skills… well let’s put it this way. Daniel and I fully accept that she has no natural ability for sports, dancing or even being able to button her own pants or tie her shoes. Her 3 year old sister is capable of things she’s not in terms of climbing, buckling herself in the car, putting on socks and more that Gena struggles with. We are very proud of her though and she’s ecstatic to start going to school all day and having lunch in the cafeteria.