i think summer is sliding on out and fall is on the way in. around these parts, trees are changing colours by the minute, and the days are slowly but surely getting cooler. we went to a bonfire/bbq with friends the other night and needed sweaters! and the one sure sign that fall is just about here – Starbucks is serving their amazing pumpkin spice lattes 😀

and… the fact that the weather is changing means Josh’s 3rd birthday is not far away. in fact, a week from this Friday, my boy will turn 3. i’m not sad about this – i’m excited actually, because i’m making him a Lightning McQueen cake for his party. Josh’s friend Grace and her parents are coming, and with Grammy here we’ll have a nice small birthday party for our boy.

when i watch Josh play and do his stuff around the house, i’m amazed. he loves his preschool class and is sad when he can’t go for some reason (like, say, it’s Sunday. or it’s too early in the morning). his speech is improving – he calls me Mommy, he’s learned to say “happy” and “no” (i was hoping he’d hold off on that one!). he is learning to share with his classmates, and he’s doing the same with his little friends at church. he still has some stuff to overcome – but man, he works hard at doing it, and he doesn’t give up. he makes me so proud.

today i’m just feeling really emotional for some reason! i just looked at a photo taken of Josh last November – he’s sitting in a big pile of leaves looking up at Kirsten (who was taking the picture) with a big smile on his face. he had just discovered the joy of jumping into a pile of leaves! that day, our small group had come over to rake leaves… and they raked 47 bags of leaves. Brian had broken his back a few weeks earlier and there was no way i could have raked all of that by myself. i’ll never forget that day. and i can’t wait to make some leaf piles this year! it’ll be even more fun now that Josh is a little older.

After a couple of days of nightmarish server migration, we’re back and everything should be functioning again.

It all started because of a bad email account on my webserver hosting. When they contacted me about payment, I didn’t get it. However, they never took the site down. 2 months later, I finally contacted them about payment and we clarified the issue. However, since they cancelled my account, they re-created it and wanted me to move to a new server. When my backups would not restore on that server, they moved me back to the old server???!?!?!?!? (That was a little messed up, and I was a little ticked about it.

Anyway, almost 4 days later, it’s all fixed.

UPDATE: Emails are still not working (we can send, but cannot receive). Support is looking into the issue. In the meantime:

kristafrench AT gmail.com
brianrfrench AT gmail.com

as i write this, Josh is having his first morning of preschool. he was so excited to get going this morning with his big boy backpack and all… but he was really unhappy when we left him there. there were no tears…just a really sad face. i wanted to cry!

here are some pictures for those who would like to see exactly how big he is now:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Mamaspatcher/JoshSFirstDayOfPreschool

so we had our CPSE meeting for Josh – and the upshot of it all is that he won’t be going to ECEC. I’m disappointed, to say the least. However, we have to try the “least restrictive environment” first, and that will be at a preschool program down the road from Pineview. I wasn’t overly impressed on our visit – for a program that is supposed to run from 9 to 11:30, i didn’t see a whole lot happening at 9 other than just kids getting dropped off and playing with toys.

however, the decision was ultimately not up to me, and so this is what we are trying first, with a report and re-evaluation of the situation at the end of November. Josh will be in a class of 10-12 kids (as opposed to the 8-10 kids that the CPSE Chair said would be there) with a special ed teacher and a regular preschool teacher, and 4 30-minute sessions of speech therapy every week. I hope that this will be just what he needs. I have no doubt that he’s smart and capable of learning – i just want to make sure that he’s really getting what is right for him!

edited to add:
after re-reading this post, i feel like a bit of a heel. (hey that rhymed) We did pray that the best situation for Josh would be what we ended up with, and who am i to doubt the hand of the Almighty at work?!

wow… i was so not ready for the end of Brian’s vacation! Although, we are extending things a bit and taking an overnighter to Boston on Friday/Saturday. Brian will meet up with his WOW “pals” on Friday night, and we’re spending the day at the New England Aquarium on Saturday. Oh and we got a screaming deal via Priceline at the airport Hilton. Not an overly child-friendly place to stay, however for one night it won’t kill us.

Josh’s CPSE meeting is tomorrow morning. We had our classroom visit to ECEC on Friday – this is a special needs preschool that rents space from the church in the bottom of our education wing. They are AWESOME people. I am really praying that Josh will be able to go there. We refuse to put him on a school bus – he’s too young, and nobody can understand what he says for the most part. So ideally, he would be able to go to “school” with Daddy in the morning and then i could pick him up in the afternoon. He was a little withdrawn on our classroom visit – i know the adjustment will be hard for him, but i think it will ultimately be worth it in terms of his speech development, and socially too. So, if you’re reading this, and you’re someone who prays – pray that the best situation for Josh will come out of the meeting.