1st Grade

At the beginning of the school year I put in a request to get a little extra help with Josh's school work through a tutoring service. It took quite some time to get the ball rolling on it, but last week he finally had his first session.
We've felt very lucky through all of our experiences with Josh that there haven't been any developmental delays. However, first grade has been a difficult on for Josh. There seems to be some sort of disconnect that we haven't experienced in the past.  He did quite well with Mrs. Marinez in kindergarten & she assured us he's a regular old kid, nothing to worry about with him (she's been teaching more than 40 years, so I trust her judgment).  But this year just hasn't been the same and I can't pin point the problem.  I spend a lot of time with him each evening reading, helping him understand his homework, but even with that I feel like he's having some trouble retaining what is being taught.  I also notice he has a hard time maintaining focus. First grade is much more rigorous, and it's just been hard to adapt.
Thankfully, he's really enjoyed his first two sessions with his tutor.  She's been very encouraging and Josh responds well to her personality.  I'm really hoping that this extra help will allow him to catch up to where his teacher feels he should be & most importantly to build confidence in his ability to learn.
In addition, I have been have recently reached out to Stanford's department that advocates for their patients with educational needs.  I look forward to any advice/help they can provide to give him a little boost as well.
I know many of you who read this blog have kids similar to Josh so if you have any advice I'd love to hear it!

Lastly, here are a few pictures from opening day & Josh's first game...

(I can't stand how cute these little boys are in their uniforms!!)

Okay, one last thing...A dad from Josh's team approached me and mentioned he heard Josh may have some sort of heart issue.  I began to tell him a little about it and he asked "Is he a hypoplast?"...immediately I knew this guy was familiar with the heart on a medical level (hypoplast=doctor talk).  So he goes on to tell me that he was Dr. Azakie's perfusionist (the guy who hooks the patients up to the heart-lung bypass machine) during open-heart procedures.  We realized together that he was in the OR for all of Josh's major surgeries. How crazy is that? He couldn't believe that Josh was post-Fontan. He said, "You just don't see kids running around like this post-Fontan!"  He said he was going to call Dr. Azakie to tell him because he could hardly believe it.  That's how we feel too, Josh is a special kid.