Little Idea(s) about School

Two weeks ago I went with The Girl's kindy teacher to hear Patti McVay talk about inclusion.  If you have a child with special needs - any kind - you should listen to her.  Her presentation at the NDSC convention in Denver left me in tears and I started to get choked up again this time but pinched my arm and stared at my shoes till it passed.  She is a true believer in the power of an inclusive education - not just for those with IEPs but for the typical kids too.  She talks about how to make it work with behavior plans, modified work, para support, etc.  Listening to her it all seems quite reasonable, easy even.

She stressed and I have heard over & over again that every study ever done confirms the benefits of inclusion. 

But I get lost in the details.  The fact is my daughter has an IEP because she has certain delays.  She needs extra time and practice to pick things up.  Her biggest delay, of course, is that she's effectively non-verbal and inclusion be damned but I would cut off my own arm if I could get her in 5 hours of speech a day.  I think the answer to that would be she's not going to learn to talk sitting in a back room with a bunch of other non-verbal kids, but she WAS in daycare and preschool with typical kids and the only thing she picked up from them were cold germs.  Be it motor planning or low tone, she's going to have to practice-practice-practice and work 50x harder than other kids to learn to enunciate.   She is using an AAC but in my mind little will affect her ability to be meaningfully included and to eventually live independently more than her ability to speak clearly. 

But I have no idea how to make that happen.  She's already 6 - I don't know if it will happen. 

And 5 hours of speech therapy/day does not make for happy, well-rounded children or fiscally solvent families so...  we're back to the inclusive class.  Thank God for Apple & Proloquo. 

Going into this year, the school and I did try maximize her time with her peers.  We cut PT in half and what's left is push in, half her OT is push in (which the kindy teacher was thrilled about), and I think about half her speech is.  I think Patti would ask why it isn't ALL push in.  And she'd ask why The Girl is still spending time in the SpEd room.  (Or resource room. Or whatever the hell they call it).

At the workshop I asked what the SpEd teacher was supposed to do if kids were 100% included. The answer was co-teaching.  I have no idea what co-teaching looks like.

So I went out to breakfast again with the most fabulous SpEd teacher ever and asked, ever so delicately, what she was doing with my kid.  Last year this teacher gave my child a voice - she's the reason my daughter uses Proloquo.  Did I mention I love her?  This year she's teaching my daughter to read.  And do math.  But, most of all, she is teaching my non-verbal 6 year old to read.  Oh, my heart. 

I have no idea how that happens.  I have no teaching credential or educational theories on my bookshelf but reading is right behind speaking on my list of hopes & dreams for my girl.  I tried to work with my son when he was making an awkward transition from "See Cat Run" to full sentences but only managed to frustrate both of us.  Then his 2nd grade teacher did something magic and it suddenly just clicked for him.  I don't think it will magically and organically click for my girl though. 

One of the sessions I went to at this year's NDSC convention was on teaching kids with Ds to read.  The presenter opened with a story about watching the kid with an IEP get pulled out for "therapy" just as the other kids were sitting down for story time.  Which seems a wee bit counter-intuitive, even to me.  Inclusion, right? 

Except she went on to say that she's never had a person (some were adults) not learn to read, but sometimes it took a LOT of practice.  Annndddd..... we're back in the resource room. 

I laid out my angst on Facebook and the general consensus was that a little tutoring isn't a bad thing (also that calling it tutoring makes it sound better).  Which is the place I keep coming back to too, though I feel guilty for being OK with this knowing how hard other families have fought for a 100% setting.  I have no idea if The Girl's current SpEd/gen ed ratio is ideal for her.  I have no idea how long it will take her to learn to read.  But I DO know both her teachers care about teaching her.  I know that matters.  I hope it matters enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of books, The Boy and I just finished Percy Jackson, which had immediately followed Harry Potter.  We needed to give the magical superpowers a rest before Narnia or The Hobbit and I thought Little House on the Prairie would be nicely grounding.  My copies were given away years ago but I decided we'd skip the library & ordered the full set on Amazon.  I thought they'd be nice to have around... for both my children to read.  They arrived today.

Query, and Friends over Forty

Would be weird if I actually befriended The Girl’s SpEd teacher?   Like not just “friendly,” but meet for coffee after hours?  She really is awesome and is one of those rare, rare people who seems to like me too, and I think she just accepted my casual invite/bribe to chat about ESY.  At Panera.  On Tuesday.  

It IS, however, entirely possible she just likes free coffee.   

I hit it off with one of The Boy’s teachers a couple years but she got weird when I invited her to a bunco group (Bunco, for the uninitiated, is the mid-west's excuse for a bunch of SAHMs to get together and drink too much.  There is occasionally dice involved.)  In retrospect she had good instincts, since I dropped out shortly thereafter myself.  If you can’t click with anyone over a bottle or two of wine there is no hope.  These are not the people you're looking for. 

I'm sure I was mostly to blame since I'm never at my most adorable when confronting large and less than warm groups of people I don't know, so no fault of theirs for not finding me fabulous, but it just wasn't happening.  Even with the wine.  Did I mention the wine?  It didn't help.  

Ever since I’ve had it in my head that the social mingling of parents & school staff is frowned upon.  It probably is.  The potential conflicts could be legion.  Especially if you spend a little time with them and then decide you don't care for them that much after all?  Have you ever hit it off with a mom and tried to  expand into a couples' dinner and then you find out the couple bicker all night and/or over-share their bedroom fetishes?  

Yikes. 

But still.  Making friends as a grown up is hard, especially for the socially awkward an introvert.  I have been blessed by several very dear friends and made more than I could've hoped for through this space.  (Most of whom I'm excited to see this summer at the NDSC conference!  Whoot!)

But as loved as I feel in general I don't think I can say I'm not hiring - any good company will snatch up quality people, independent of staffing levels, right?  

So.  

I guess I'm getting coffee on Tuesday!?

(yikes!)

31 for 21: 1 down, 52ish more to go (Mo'School)

I just added up all the IEP and parent-teacher conferences in our future between both kids, assuming we never get around to adopting and the kids don't venture too far off the rails:  52.

Kids, man, they're such a time suck. 
I jest!

If you want the background on the To Kindy or Not To Kindy decision, it's here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~    

I went to The Girl's first official kindy parent-teacher conference Thursday night.  There was no drama, no conflict, no good narrative tension… not that I'm complaining, but it makes for rough writing.

The SpEd/SLP were running a few minutes late and her 'formal' teacher seemed a little lost at first, but soon warmed up and had nothing but good things to say.  The Girl is (mostly) sitting nicely during circle time, there are a couple kids in the class who ask about her and want to sit by her (my heart!), and she looked shocked when I asked if my sweet little angel* was walloping people, as she'd done last year.
*sarcasm

[Not a critical factor but I was also happy to hear she isn't intentionally dumping her food/drink at lunch - something she delights in a home.  *phew*  Also?  THAT is why peer modeling works, my friends.]

We only had 20 minutes with the primary so the SpEd, SLP & I soon moved into the teacher's lounge where we went over her IEP goals (she has a re-evaluation coming up) and just chatted about how kindy is going.  She's picked up the classroom routines easily, they confirmed she knows all her letters, upper & lower case, and they were delighted to find that she loves-loves-loves to read, doing my bookish heart proud.  She's busy exploring her AAC and even answering questions on it (!).   She is, however, exhausted by the end of the day, and especially by the end of the week - but they they anticipated this going in so no surprise. [And, really, who isn't done by Friday?]

They seemed appropriately uninterested in the IEP numbers and percentages, stressing again that this year is about communication.  They talked about how the para hangs back during activities so she isn't being smothered or singled out (!).   They love her social stories & have shared them with the class.  And not only did they agree to a communication book (the emails have been a wee bit thin lately), they're going to put it into Proloquo2go so that my daughter can tell me about her day.  That is brilliant.

They told a couple funny stories about her - which completely escape me now - but concluded by commenting on what a bright child she was.

Oh, you guys.  This is the dream.

Yes, I am a sucker for compliments about my children but it wasn't just that - they recognized her strengths, they intuitively understood things other parents have had to battle over, and they were completely invested in their role in my daughter's success.  They just oozed a lovely, quiet competence.

I read somewhere that older SpEd teachers are the worst at pushing inclusion because they tend to be territorial of "their kids".  That doesn't to be the case here but she IS spending most of her day in SpEd, by design.  I know anything could happen over the next few years - we could end up battling over the amount of time in gen ed when we re-do "traditional" kindy next year, we could argue over the number & timing of push ins vs pull outs.  We could lose the pro-inclusion principal.  The SpEd teacher from heaven could quit or move.  I could get hit by a semi.  The Girl could…. well, anything could happen.  But what a gift this year is.

P.S.  Also, only a few kindy art projects seem to have received excessive assistance.  I think she did the eyes on this guy - at least she recognized it and grabbed it from my hand - That's MY spider, mom!

The School Post

I've been wanting to write this for months but I'm afraid I won't be able to do it justice.  I'm afraid  this wordless feathered thing of mine might fly off and leave just another IEP post in its wake.  This is not just another IEP post.  This is about the closest I can get to giddy.

Early last year I called an IEP meeting to discuss the preschool's shameful inability to communicate with my child.  That was... unsatisfying but they asked at the time if I'd thought about kindergarten yet.  The Girl's birthday is exactly four days before the kindy cut off so, although they stressed seventy kajillion times it was a "team" decision, at least they wanted our input.   This sparked 8 months of ifs, ands, & buts.  If you are one of the lucky three people I didn't force to listen to my tail chasing, these are the pros/cons:

• The preschool was underwhelming - we could get better teachers in kindy.
• They could be worse.
• She's in day care in the afternoon anyway, might as well spend that time in an educational setting.
• Kids learn best thru play - we should let her Play!  Explore!  Un-school! 
• She already knows all her colors & letters - we should build on that!  Neural connections! Learning is fun! 
• She'd be awfully young for kindy anyway, add in a developmental delay and it's akin to putting a three year old in kindergarten.  NO child would succeed in that situation.  We're setting her up to fail & she'll never ever ever end up "mainstreamed".  (*dramatic hand waving*)
• I read this book a while back and it argued for delaying kindy as kids learn best when they're emotionally mature enough to learn.  
• That book was about typical boys.  It might also be total BS.  Zero relevance.  
• With all the money we'd save on day care we could retire buy groceries afford more private therapy.
• Two words:  potty training.
• One (& a half?) more:  non-verbal
• Mah baaayyybeeee!

Amid the hand wringing, I chatted with the pre-school principal.  He reminded me The Girl could be eligible for school till she was 21.  That's about 8 years of high school.  Eight years of high school sounds like a special form of hell and pushed me straight into the "delay kindy" camp.

Fast forward to this spring.  We have to have an official "transitional" IEP with the kindy folks. Because I'm always polite (*HA!*), I did not kick them out of the room as superfluous even though Matt & I had already decided against.  I brought cookies so they might as well eat.

The SLP didn't show up.  Awesome.  Because we're clearly not at all concerned about her speech.  Gah.  The pre-school teacher said almost nothing.  We later heard she quit the next day.  The principal, who I'd liked during our call but hadn't attended any other IEPs, revealed himself to be a massive doufus.  He wondered aloud if The Girl's speech might be affected by a structural/palate issue. He pointed to how messy she ate as evidence.  (Dude. We've run thru 2 school SLPs, two private, had an additional outside eval, AND the surgical nurse at Children's knows us.  You think we missed something?  Also?  Thanks, yes, my child is a sloppy eater.  Ass).  He also wondered if she had anything to say.

Read that again.  He wondered if my child had enough cognitive function to, say, ask for "milk".

Meanwhile the elementary school's SpEd teacher, SLP, & company were asking awesome insightful questions, drilling down when she could do what in which setting.  Asking if we'd tried this or that.  They reminded the principal I had already said she was signing in full sentences and clearly had much to say.  They talked about iPads and multi-modalities and the pros and cons of various approaches.

They said, "We can develop an intensive speech program for her".
They described it like 8 hours of speech therapy/day.
They talked about peer modeling and the benefits of inclusion.
They said, without asking, she'd have a 1:1 para and they'd teach the para all the signs she already knows.
They said, "We want her."

Kids, my girl is going to kindergarten.



I'm at Gigi's this week (Hence the post. Shocking!  I know).  I remember playing with this glass bird when I was a kid.  Miracle it wasn't broken.  No feathers, but here's to strength & fragility & hope.

Drive by

I probably should have clarified in my last post that The Boy's Drive By IEP was a full 6 months ago.  No, I'm not that far behind (on most things), I was just going to write about The Girl's IEP and realized I'd never finished his story.  There was going to be a clever segue but... yeah.  Sometimes the pillow calls.  Also?  Bonus, rare readably short post!

Give up on the ears already, mom! 

You know what else I'm behind on?  Easter photos.  Not that has anything to do with anything.

A Cousin, the Boy, and seriously goofy grin.

The Girl's IEP was last Wednesday and she "qualified" for summer school.  Something I was vaguely aware of but struck me as astonishingly asinine once I got the details:  she only qualified for summer school because she had shown regression during a two week flu+random break absence.  Sorry to be blunt, but she's already delayed - in whose minds is it even remotely acceptable to let her tread water for 3 months during the summer?  Wouldn't we, um, want to continue to build her skills?  No, we're going from 90 minutes/week of speech to 30, just so she doesn't lose the precious few sounds she's picked up.   We're not going to bother adding to those sounds, or try to turn them into, ohidontknow, WORDS.  Thanks to that great American pioneering spirit we're now going to have to figure out how to pull another 2-3 hours of private therapy up out of our scraped-all-to-hell boots.  [What is a boot strap anyway?  Aren't boots, by definition, strapless?]

I've emailed a couple people about this and general consensus is that it's SUMMER TIME and kids should be down by the poolside or picking up ticks in the backyard.  It's just... I don't get the summer off myself, so must warehouse them somewhere for three days a week and would be happier if they were learning something or exploring their creative halves and not, you know, sitting in a warehouse.  I have a feeling CPS might frown on the warehouse idea. 

[Noting for the record: I actually LOVE The Girl's ware, er, home away from home.  I could not wish for a warmer, more welcoming place or a more enthusiastic bunch of teachers.  It'd be nirvana if they provided speech therapy & OT but, alas... no.

I also realized that I'd be a lot more down with the pool idea if my girl could verbally express her interest in said pool.  I KNOW she's making progress -she really, really is- but sometimes that little whisper reminding me that we have no words yet snowballs into a shrieking harridan and I have try to breath through it.  

Mommy's funny when she starts shrieking! 

Eating more chocolate helps too.  

Ah, thanks honey, is all that for me?  

Loose Tales

I've been in a bit of a funk lately - so much so that when Matt suggested a weekend away I actually sighed, and thought about all the laundry that would be waiting upon our return and all the extra money that could otherwise go to that neverending list of stuff that we need or need done.  First world problems, indeed. 


It'll pass.  In the meantime, since I can't be bothered with a cohesive post (when can I ever?), I thought I'd clean up a few unfinished tales.


Remember when The Boy's school recommended speech therapy?  Because Mr. Chatterbox's R's and Th's were mushy?  And this recommendation came around the same time that I was fretting that The Girl hadn't yet said "Mom"?  [6 month update:  Nope.  Still hasn't].  It was really more funny than anything else because The Boy is a talker - last night he asked me what the "requirements" for something were while spinning some wild plans to build a robot.  He's 6 (at least for another month). 


We nonetheless rolled into an IEP evaluation and after the comprehensive physical/social/cognitive/blah/blah walk thru, the school's SLP said R's and Th's weren't really expected for another year or two and he wasn't even close to qualifying for anything.  At 30 minutes, including the BS-y weather/traffic/coffee chit chat, it might've been the shortest IEP in all of history.  [And not that I'm complaining, but she couldn't have said that up front and saved everyone a meeting?].  Also?  Here's to failing! 

Ridiculous dimples

 A quick shout out to The Boy's teacher here - over this last school year she taught him to read.  Really read.  At the beginning of the school year he would unhappily fumble thru sounding things out and had a short sight word list but too many words strung together in a sentence and he'd lose interest, resulting in some frustrating and unproductive Mommy/Boy/book times.  And my efforts to explain the mysteries of English grammar were likely terrifying:  Well, son, the ai sound as compared to the ei sound in this particular subset of present perfect verbs*....  Now?  He reads EVERYTHING and has internalized the elusive power of the vowel - sheep/shape/start?  No problem.  He's even grabbing my fancy new phone from me to help during WWF.  If only we had another 'E' we could spell READER.  Not a problem buddy, I already have one.   
   *Totally joking.  I wouldn't know a passive subjunctive adverb if it bit me.

Also, reminding myself to remind myself of all the little happy things (HUnt the Good Stuff = HUGS  i.e. the worst acronym EVER), this was taken with my camera phone during the walk w/The Boy, above.  Geek out man.  

PS.  Dear Blogger - Your update sucks.

PPS.  Dear Readers - I cannot fix the line breaks or upload a cute video I had.  If this shows up 30x in your Reader because of my efforts to fix said line breaks, my apologies. 

10/31 for 21 A Supernova of Sunshine

I don't think it'll be a surprise to anyone reading that I have morose streak.  Nothing requiring medication, just a dark side that I occasionally have to sate with my DVR, chocolate, carbs, and red wine.  Running helps, but that's not as fun as chocolate (though it does allow for more chocolate).  So when I call myself a little ray of sunshine, which I'll admit I am wont to do, it is with a massive sense of irony.  There is no irony in tonite's title. 

TODAY WAS AN AWESOME DAY.

I haven't pulled together all my thoughts about the school post that I've been wanting to write.  Too many issues playing into it - our schedule, my girl's health issues, her signing, my signing, our absurd parental lapses, etc, etc, etc.  It was going to be a lot of logistics & not much fun to read.  So, instead of presenting this in a logical format, I think I'll dribble it out of a couple days.  After all, today is only Day #10.  There are 21 more days to go! 

One of the the things - actually THE THING - is that my daughter is non-verbal.  Still non-verbal. She has never called me mom.  She signs a LOT.  And she is picking up new signs faster and faster.  Faster, in fact, than I am.  I should take an ASL class.  I haven't.  Squeezing that in would be hard - not impossible, but not dropping-by-the-store-on-the-way-home easy.  Cue guilt.  Matt, much as I adore him (12 year anniversary this week!), is a glass half full kinda guy and thinks it will all magically work itself out.  Proof that opposites attract.  He has not been as enthusiastic about ASL as I've been (massive understatement).   Cue... something. 

And, in full disclosure, even I don't think she'll remain non-verbal.  She babbles, constantly.  She'll be completely quiet in her room but if I come in she lights up and starts telling me all her fantastic stories, in baby-speak.  She'll repeat sounds back -  she says "eeeee" when it's time to eat, or when I ask where her ear is, something approximating "zzzzz" when zipping up her PJs and I think her receptive language is oookkaaayy, but it's all at a very basic level. 

I saw a post today, courtesy of the 31 for 21 challenge (sorry, don't remember where), with a standard Ds developmental chart.  I'm long over comparing to typical kids, if I ever did, but we are now on the far end of speech for the *Ds* chart.  She only got 90 minutes a week of speech in her IEP.  We're clearly not doing enough at home, and I think she needs more at school.  I don't think the last year of speech therapy was effective (our first SLP was focused on the talking part and not so much ASL, feeding into Matt's aversion - I think the vocabulary needed to come first, the understanding that things have names and using them results in fun things like milk, dinner, and kisses).  Also, she's starting to get frustrated when we don't understand what she wants and I don't want her verbal skills to impact her behavior - but I'll save that for another night.

Anyway, seeing that chart snapped me to attention. I've been moping about, idly wondering how we're going to cover extra speech in near-Eeyore like fashion.  No.  WE ARE GOING TO FIX THIS RIGHT NOW.  So I called our health insurance provider, wondering what sorts of sadness merit speech therapy and who I'd have to bribe to get a "better" diagnosis.  (I won't share what I was prepared to do so you don't judge).  I was under the impression they wouldn't pay for it, because it's covered by the school, not a traumatic injury, some other reason dredged up from the murky depths of my half empty soul, but instead.... (sorry for all the caps) OH MY, HOLY $%^&*(%!!!! 

60 visits a year.  $20 copay.  No referral needed.  SIXTY VISITS A YEAR.  How many weeks in a year? Oh, that's right, LESS than 60!  That's 1.15 sessions/week.  We have been paying for the premium coverage but still felt dragged under by the bottomless annual family deductible(s).  This makes it all ok.  I'm not ashamed to tell you that after getting off the phone, there were great stomach-heaving silent sobs.  Luckily my office space is pretty private.  What a tremendous, tremendous relief. 

Also?  How much time did I just waste with my asinine assumptions?  A year.  Maybe a year and a half.  One third of her life.  !#$%^&*()%^  Guilt doesn't even begin to cover that. 

[Just to temper my giddiness, this won't be in home.  It won't even be within 20 miles of home.  We might even spend more in gas then we would have on private in home therapy, but a giant PFFFFTTTT to all that tonight.  Tonite? We dance!]

4/31 for 21 I would have preferred to go without the food.

A retired speech pathologist recently offered to do some screening at my son's (Catholic) school.  I was tickled about this because word on the street was she was SEMI-retired and I had a little fantasy running she'd volunteer to provide us some top rate in-home speech therapy at a specially discounted co-parishioner rate, just because she thought my daughter was cute and because the universe felt bad I'd otherwise have to give up eating to cover it (maybe that was the universe telling me something else?) 

Silly me.  Not only do I still not have the nice lady's phone number, I also now have a 3 line referral to the public school system's special ed department for "further evaluation" of some speech "weaknesses" she found when chatting with my son.  My son. 

I can't decide if I should laugh or cry. 

Lest anyone get overly concerned, *I* am not.  The kid has a better vocabulary and speaks clearer than half the adults I deal with during the day.  If they want to work on his "R"s or whatever else I'm too schleppy of a mom to have noticed, then boo-yah.  He's doing great in school (though parent teacher conferences are in 2 weeks.  Stay tuned!  Surely there are more fun surprises waiting!).  The fact that they're going to offer speech therapy to my son but I can't get more than 90 minutes a week for my non-verbal 3 year old is just....  AWESOME. 

On a bright note, at least we already know where the special ed offices are. 

Delays, and Belated Clarity

My daughter’s formal IEP arrived Thursday night.  No surprises – everything had already been covered at the meeting but there it was in black and white:  Poor, Below Average, Moderately Low, Low, Significantly Delayed, Very Poor…. This is my exceedingly delightful gorgeous daughter they’re talking about.  No, No, No, NO.

They provided an exhaustive catalogue of what she was doing (she can jump 4” – who knew?) but it was not enough.  The worst section was the occupational therapist’s who, in addition to using their standard numeric scale, was super-duper-thorough and noted the expected developmental ages for various things my daughter was not yet doing (she’s turning 3 in nine weeks):  expected at 12 months, expected at 14 months, expected at 13-20 months.  That was exceeding helpful information.  A litany of failed benchmarks.

But then something caught my eye:  The area of daily living skills was one of [her] higher domains…. “Daily living skills” - This is language from my world.  When you break your non-dominant arm in an accident, it’s worth more or less x.  If you break your dominant arm, it’s worth a tad bit more, say 1.2x.  If you break both arms you can no longer brush your teeth, scratch your nose, or use the restroom solo.  The sum of your claim has now shot past 2x simply because you cannot perform your ADLs, Activities of Daily Living.  This creates near total dependence and allows for an endless stream of minor humiliations, depending on who is, um, brushing your teeth.  Every physical & occupational therapy form, ever, should document which ADLs are affected by whatever your complaint is.  Therapy will (hopefully) either restore your skills or find work arounds.

Something finally clicked – “This” (sweeping hand gesture)… All of This is simply supportive care.  The 12 page summation of Ways In Which [my daughter] is Behind is simply the grand-daddy of Therapy Evaluations and they’re just working on her ADLs.  Because standing on her tiptoes and, well, talking are important life skills.

In writing this, it strikes me that this should have been self-evident.  This is clearly less Grand Epiphany and more insight into the tortuous workings of my brain.  I think I even explained the process to someone else mid-testing, but also had managed to work myself into a frenzied lather about the whole thing.  How did I think they were going to develop an Individual Ed. Plan without some baseline?  The whole point of an IEP at this stage of the game is to set her up for therapy.  Fabulous…  Round one?  Sanity : 0  Hysterical Mom: 0 No winners here.

It's a Wascally Wainy Day.

Individual
Educational Plan Is
Not my girl, Defined

IEP, letters
Three. Words of Dread?  Yes Indeed.
Eff Bureaucracy. 

I. Am more than words.
Extraordinary Me! 
Paper pushers, y'all. 

I'm assuming y'all is one syllable? 

I do believe this is textbook avoidance behavior.  Obviously, the IEP was today.  More later - maybe.  No surprises, no drama, just ill defined, poorly understood feelings of blech. 

Blechity-blech-blech-Blah. 

In other news:
Matt took my camera to work to document tornado damage and failed to return it, so am waiting on the kindness of family for Easter photos.  Worst case scenario, I'll do some laundry and Recreate the Day, not that I would ever confess to stooping so low.  Surely there's a joke in there somewhere about Easter Outfits  rising anew?  I am surely going to hell. 

On a bright note, my car radio did rise again and is working just fine [I am SUCH a heathen], despite the bottle of water I dumped on it, so that's one less bit if broken electronics.  To compensate, my little jug of milk for coffee at work exploded in the car this morning so now my fellow commuters can also enjoy my functioning radio because I have the windows down so I don't gag on the lovely eau de rank cow.

Aren't I charming tonight?  Just so you know it's not all hell & brimstone over here, my son & I read Amelia Bedelia together tonight - When Amelia made lemon pie for the Rogers, he added that Gigi makes really good lemon pie too and he would like some more and when are we going to see her again?  Adorable.

Then he pointed at the fox stole on Mrs. Rogers and asked what it was.  Ummmm....  I really don't want to ruin the book for him because he associates it with lemon pies and Gigi, and he is doing a spectacular job reading it himself, so "That is a Dead Fox She is Wearing Around Her Neck"  didn't seem appropriate.  Telling him it was a Pet Fox seemed disingenuous (and he'd probably want to know why it didn't have a bigger role in the story).  I went with Pretend Fox.  Best I could do on the fly.

And last, in a sign I need more sleep - my boy periodically has to gather objects for "letter bags" at school.  For the A bag, you toss in an Apple, Alligator, Altoid tin - you get the idea.  He had fun doing this in preschool but he's reading Amelia Bedelia now, so I think the moment may have passed, but whatever, the school year is almost over.  This morning we did 'W'.  [Normally I wouldn't help him with this but it was one of Those Mornings and I forgot to have him do it last night].  So I'm pointing out the Watermelon (plastic picnic piece), Windmill (Geotrax), Whale, Wacecar....

I.Eeee.Panic.

My girl's cognitive, OT, and PT testing was last week.  Her speech evaluation was supposed to be today but was pushed till tomorrow.  Our IEP is next week.  We've had busy, emotional month (heck, we've had a busy, emotional couple of years) but I've been holding my breath over this.  We are in a very safe, very quiet spot right now - early intervention is chugging along, my girl is happy and progressing, adorable, and even increasingly nice to the extended family.  There are no yardsticks around with which we will be whopped upside the head for thinking everything is "normal".  No social snubs, no administrative battles.  I would very much like to stop for just a moment and remember this. 

Stop before her skills are rated, ranked, and assigned a developmental age incompatible with the birthday we will celebrate this summer.  Before we will be forced to downplay her abilities in order to maximize her therapies.  Before we start wondering how much extra money we can - how much we should - put toward private therapy.  Before we start feeling around blindly in the dark for the line, that may or may not exist, between simply loving and enjoying our child and pushing her to her "fullest potential".  If we sit very, very still it will all be OK. 

I was going to write about the vocabulary list I filled out for her evaluation but I'll save that for later.  For now, just Shhhhhhh.....

Cog in the Machine

I was home today because our otherwise fabulous day care provider believed our little princess to be harboring new pathogen and put her in a 24 hour time out.  And the downside to having a month of vacation time and a husband with a new job without any, is that you get to handle Sick Days.  Even if you were already scheduled to handle the pre-op eye visit and the phlebotomist party next week AND you are suppose to be taking a week off the week after that. 

Let's just say I believe their assumptions were, while possibly well-intentioned, entirely without basis in fact.  Defendant's evidence to be supplemented at later date (because the photo uploader is taking too long and it's 1am).  As I noted to someone in a brief email, too sick for them, not sick enough to nap the day away and let mommy work from home.  Which means the only rest I will be securing on Sunday is rest from my maternal duties because I WILL BE AT THE OFFICE.  Grr. 

But the day started off with a quick meeting at the school district to go over their notes from the Transitional Meeting and, as far as I could tell, just set testing dates.  The quiet voice in my head wondered if this were maybe not the most efficient use of time ever, but there were forms to sign and, as a neophyte to the mysterious IEP, I'm all about face time.  Which -genius- is probably why they do this. 

I still find the fact that Down Syndrome is not an automatic qualifier in our great state to be mind-boggling (though, weirdly, good?  Is anything automatic?  I should look into this), but I'm a cog in a bureaucratic machine myself so get that there are (occasionally) Reasons For Things. 

Also, I finally reached the nice lady who hit on my husband who works at my girl's daycare.  LOVE HER.  I didn't ask if I could post her family's life story on my blog, even if no one reads it, so will reluctantly opt for discretion, but before her daughter entered school in our town, they did NOT mainstream our kids.  Guaranteed education, yes, inclusion no.  She changed that.  She was also funny and practical and LOVED HER.  But we were also on the phone a long time and the local savages were up waaayyy past their bedtime so I ended up getting off the phone in a hurry.  I want to call back and ask if she'll be my new BFF but I'm not 13 anymore -

And yes, contrary to yesterday's post, I realize that it did not take me long to warm up to her but anyone who tells you they took all their kid's teachers to inclusion conferences and can discuss the finer points of adaptive lessons has already earned a gold stamp.  But, because my life is dripping with irony, the only two outcomes here will be we'll have a string of successful coffee dates only to discover I really don't  like her after all because she hates dogs or something, or she was just being nice and this was her standard advocate-mom call for other moms of special kids and even though I'm all smushy for her, she's going to think I'm crazy-stalker lady when I ask her out on mom-date #4.  Being a grown up is hard.

Wordless Wednesday

In real life, not so much here.  I hardly ever get sick (apart from that weird brief episode on Christmas day) but my throat is on fire today & it hurts to touch my neck because I have two golf balls where my glands used to be.  So I'm home.  I should be at work.  We had my girl's TRANSITION MEETING this morning and I was going to go in after but had that fuzzy feverish feeling and went to lay down "just for a minute".  Matt sweetly just left me alone till he & the girl left for the day.  At noon.  By the time I got in I'd have all of 2 minute to work before I'd have to leave again to collect my offspring.  Actually, that not true.  I could have put in 4 hours.  A half day would have been ok, right?  The chills have dissipated but I'm all achy and whiny (obviously).  How much would I have actually done?  Little to nothing.  Sorry I'm venting but I am terribly terribly frustrated that the Great Work A Thon of 2011 isn't panning out so well.  We had the snow day last week and then the post-Salt Snuggle Fest on Sunday.  But to rationalize my laziness I told myself I'd rest today and get into work at some [insanely unrealistic] early hour tomorrow.  My sister's coming into town this weekend to do wedding-y stuff but flying out at noon on Sunday.  Would she be mad if I weren't there the last 6 of her 36 hour trip? 

Would she? 

In other news I thought the Transitional Meeting went superbly.  Massive boon of good news that they WILL bus her over to her fabulously inclusive day care - we'd previously been told they wouldn't bus outside city limits and the day care was set a tantalizingly half mile too far over the line.   The logistics of what the heck we were going to do with our kid were nigh unsolvable. Yes, I exaggerate - The easiest answer would have been to find a new day care within city limits but I hear HORROR stories. It took us two tries before we found a pre-K class that our son was happy in. I mean my girl isn't even talking yet...when she sulks at drop off is it standard separation anxiety or because they are... (can't even go there).  Also, because the inclusive place is local, the other places aren't going to have ANY experience with special needs kids, because everyone goes to the first place.  Why wouldn't you?   

Our day care is an early intervention provider and we could have received some therapies there if we opted out of the school's pre-K program - to keep her being shuffled around, keep her out of Random Possibly Criminal Daycare (turns out I do have a dramatic flair), and/or avoid the not-small problem of getting her from place A to place B, since both Matt & I work >30 miles away.  But after 3 I wasn't sure if we'd have to pay extra (since it's no longer EI and then just becomes private) and, more concerning, I heard their therapies are done in a group setting.  Small groups and I'm sure they're fine, but it strikes me that we'd get more bang for our buck my neighbors' tax dollars in a one on one situation. Though as I'm typing this I realized I was so overjoyed at the busing news I didn't follow up on the school gal's comment about their after care program.  It would be better if she didn't have to go to two different places...though if they're offering busing I suspect their after care is probably limited.  Also I guess I haven't confirmed directly with the day care place what their post-3 therapies look like.  My info is cobbled together from random sources and casual conversations.  It must be reliable. I also heard the school's teachers are way more proficient signers than the day care peeps, which seems to be where we're headed right now.  Last, I think there is a benefit in getting into the school district now.  First, FREE. Second, smoother transition when she gets to kindergarten.  I'm not sure how to phrase this but something about integrating into the institution, especially with testing, sorting through the good/bad/nice-but-completely-ineffective therapists, etc.  Third, socially - we are going to be with this group of parents for the next EIGHTEEN years, might as well get in at ground level, before the cliques form (only half joking). 

Anyway, lots to think about and some follow up calls to make but all in all, not so much IEP THE HORROR BATTLE TO THE DEATH, that I would have otherwise gleaned from the internet. Because the internet, it must be reliable.  

[post-spell check:  Did you know blogger thinks internet should be capitalized? Really?]

And yes, I know this was only a preliminary meeting and we haven't even seen her IEP yet.  In a surprise bit of news, Down Syndrome is NOT an automatic qualifier in our lovely state so they want to test her.  Which is fine.  I'm not blind as to what she can and can't do.

Am getting cold & shivery again.  Back to bed!