What is tomorrow anyway?

Good morning! After looking like it was going to be a day full of high drama, I am glad to report that yesterday turned out to be uneventful. I am happy to report that Claudia's mother in law made it through surgery safely in Germany. She is still being watched closely and not completely out of the woods. But, that is a great improvement over a very dire and grave situation. We were ecstatic to see her yesterday morning and obviously not only for the twerp's sake. She would take the kids for a field trip to Chuck E Cheese's to celebrate. The kids had a great time.

The next bit of drama which was averted concerned Sydney. Although some of the redness has remained on her palms, she really isn't showing any other signs of malfunction. She had a great day and afternoon and certainly seemed no worse for the wear. From her perspective it was just about the perfect day for a kiddo. You know - eggs for breakfast, trip to Chuck E Cheese's, lunch, play, swimming in the pool, dinner at McDonald's (don't ask), swim practice, cuddles and night, night. It just doesn't get much better than that.

Finally, I wouldn't be the proud papa everyone has come to expect if I did not mention that we received Sydney's Stanford Achievement Test scores in the mail yesterday afternoon. The test is one to measure her achievement. The report compares her performance to students in the same grade across the nation. This is my measuring stick. This is one of the few ways I have to really compare to see where Sydney stands. It is also a great way to identify areas that we need to work on or, God forbid, to help identify neurologic issues. Considering her history of drugs we have to keep this in the forefront of our minds and realize that it is a very real possibility. Finally, Sydney has been in treatment for 4 out of the last 5 years. She has had a lot to overcome. She has constantly taken trips across the country for therapy and had to spend mountains of time in the hospital. For her, an average below the average would be an achievement. Well, I am extremely happy to report that she did tremendously on the test. In reviewing all of the clusters she was either average or above average in every category. In fact, she did not have a single below average rating. In fact, I would even say that she was rated above average in about half of the categories. In looking at the percentile bands I am happy to announce that Sydney scored very well. In fact, she ranked in the 95th percentile in Sentence Reading, 87th in Word Reading, and 86th in total reading. It is funny. The only areas that she seemed to score lower in were areas that required listening or hearing skills. I suppose this should tell us something. Her lowest score was in Sounds and Letters where she was in the 49th percentile and Listening in the 54th percentile. I am pretty sure that this has to do with the fact that she has hearing loss but it is something we will watch. It depends so much on how the test was administered and where she was sitting. Regardless, in the end I could not be happier. It is quite and achievement for her. Heck, it is quite an achievement for kiddos that have not been through a tenth of what she has. There you go. Told you I was a proud Papa.

How many of you know what tomorrow is?

I will give you a hint. It has been five years of purpose.