Backpack... Backpack

Curriculum Check
It recently occurred to me that, unlike Justin who had the (mis)fortune of being in a "regular school" for 4 months when we first moved to Hartsville, Jasmine Olivia never really got the opportunity to celebrate her first day of school. With Justin, the milestone was obvious: We had to buy a boatload of supplies,

get him dressed, strap on his backpack, and ship him off to spend the day with a bunch of strangers. That whole transition was kind of hard to miss. But with homeschooling, it's just kinda like you wake up one day, think you're just doing a little something new with mommy and daddy, and boom... you're in school (where am I? How did I get here?). With that said, I thought I'd take the opportunity to snap a few photos just to commemorate the fact that our baby girl Jasmine Olivia has been in school since Oakdale Academy started in January... and she even gets to strap on her own backpack once a week when she and Justin head to Co-op. Delightful. As for her academic progress, I won't say much except that I think she's doing great. I've told Venesa for months that I think we tend to overlook Jasmine's intelligence simply because she has a 4 year old brother whose progress is easier to quantify in typical terms (he's reading this, adding that, etc.). But when we keep in mind that Justin didn't really start talking until he was 3, and compare that with the fact that (at the same age) Jasmine can hold a legitimately adult conversation; I'm willing to bet that (as many accolades as we give Justin for his smarts) his sister is poised to give him a run for his money.

Extracurricular
As for outside of school... Venesa did the math yesterday and came to the conclusion that Jasmine has been on some type of antibiotic (3 different types, 5 individual rounds to be exact) for all but 2 weeks of 2012. I guess because I always think of her as the healthy child in this family, somehow I totally missed that she's been anything but healthy this year. Just that quickly, I forgot about her multiple bouts with a facial staph infection to start the year. And then the sinus infection two weeks ago... which morphed into (drum roll, please) a double ear infection. After the ear infection got really bad about 2 weeks ago, we were on the verge of getting some tubes put in her ears... but some unauthorized mixing of medications (talk to my lawyer) seems to have us back on the right track. She's doing much better, and we're really hoping that the infection bug has been conquered this time around. For us, the toughest part of the whole ordeal was the hearing loss that came with the double ear infection. Poor thing couldn't hear us at full volume standing literally just 5 feet away. To say it was scary (not to mention heart wrenching) would be a supreme understatement. But with the fluid levels down, she's back to her usual eavesdropping ways. Hooray for eavesdropping. And hooray for staying healthy (fingers crossed).