Author: Melissa

It’s the last day of school.

Melissa

I’m ready to be done with school for a while but no such luck.  Tomorrow is our IEP meeting to discuss goals for next year and how to implement them.  I wish I could say I was excited but you all know that excitement isn’t an emotion that accompanies these sorts of appointments. 

Last night I sat down with his IEP and took notes.  I looked at each goal that we set for this year that has now just ended and noted to the left either “Yes” or “No.”  He met 25% of them.  How is that for a kick in the pants?  We knew we had been ambitious when we set the goals but I wasn’t expecting such an outcome.  If you were to look back here you would see that we proclaimed him to have met almost ALL his goals at that point.  What is the explanation for this drastic re-evaluation?

I plead wishful thinking and willful ignorance.  At that meeting the teacher and his therapists lead the discussion and proclaimed him to have nearly met every goal and I drank the Kool Aid they were offering.  Who doesn’t want to walk out of a parent/teacher conference with a glowing report?  I have to give myself a little credit because I did recognize that the reports in the meeting were not the reports we had been expecting given the evaluation his teacher had prepared for the FX clinic.

Last night when I was reviewing the goals and came to this much lower number I admit I was in a very different place emotionally.  Before reading his IEP I had read his teacher’s report on his classroom functioning.  The first paragraph set the tone for the rest of my evening.  I’m so angry with this woman, how can she be so out of touch with reality?

You see, the first paragraph laid out her version of Monkey’s “transition issues.”  She proclaimed that he initially had trouble with a variety of transition issues in September and October but that, due to their implementation of a “variety” of techniques he was essentially cured in November.  He’s been making fantastic progress ever since.

The woman is delusional.  I looked back at my blog entries (you can too if you search for the “school” category) and she is so far off that I think maybe she forgot which kid she was writing the report on.  Monkey HAD no transition issues in September or October.  I noted on Oct. 31 (the day she scared the heck out of him by dressing up for Halloween) that he was less excited about school due to being more challenged but still doing well.  Of course, it all went to hell from that point on and we didn’t get the kid to walk into his classroom again for another SEVEN DAMN MONTHS. 

All those months that Duhdee and I were prying this screaming, crying, tantruming child off our arms, legs, waists only to get out of the classroom and break down into tears ourselves….didn’t happen as far as she is concerned.  None of it.  None of the stress and anger and helplessness happened.  The world has been peachy keen since November even though we were in TEARS in the office of a private psychologist in February because we had reached the end of our ropes.  We were done.  We were considering pulling him OUT OF SCHOOL. 

I don’t think this meeting tomorrow is going to go very well at all.

Happy Father’s Day!

Melissa

For all the dad’s out there that work hard, kiss skinned knees, spin their kids’ wildly through the air making them shreek with joy and excitement, read bedtime stories, demonstrate pitching techniques and drink tea with their pinkies extended to the delight of their little girls…today is your day.  Enjoy it and know that there are a lot of people out there, besides your kids, who don’t take what you do for granted.

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Summer session or no summer session.

Melissa

Duhdee and I have been talking the last few weeks about whether we want Monkey to go to summer session this year or not.  We were offered the 6 week summer session last year as well but declined because he was transitioning from EI to school as it was and we really didn’t want to have 5 transitions in the first 3 months*.    What we settled on last summer with the school district was that Duhdee would take him in for ST, OT and PT services but that he’d be home most of the time (it basically mimiced our EI set up.)  It worked OK for us.

We knew that this would not be an option for us this year.  This year our choices were 6 week summer session in a classroom with a different teacher, at a different school, with different kids, with different service providers or … nothing.  Given how hard transitions are for him, how difficult our experience has been this year with getting him into a classroom each morning and the fact that our normal family vacation falls in the middle of the summer session, “Nothing” was pretty darned appealing! 

We gained some additional information on Wednesday though.  We’ve learned that we can simply sign up for 3 weeks of the summer session (so he will start after vacation, not 2 days before we leave, have a long break and then start up again.)  We’ve learned that the summer program will be at a school he has been to before (for services last year.)  We’ve learned that 2 of his current classmates will be enrolled.  And, the biggest new piece of information we’ve learned is that, his VERY favorite teaching assistant will be leading the class!  How cool is that?

I think we’ve done a complete 180 on this subject now, lol, which is very notable given how stubborn I am and how much I dislike changing my mind 🙂

*The 5 transitions offered by the school last year were 1) Into a “transition” classroom (non-inclusion class with a few hours spent with an inclusion class each week), 2) Summer break part 1, 3) Summer session, 4) Summer break part 2, 5) Inclusion classroom for the school year.  Any wonder we turned it down?

No one was more shocked than we.

Melissa

Yesterday, we dropped Monkey off at pre-school as we do every morning.  I walked a few steps ahead of Monkey and Duhdee, who were holding hands, doling out M&Ms to induce Monkey to keep moving forward.  It’s a great system that works very well for us. 

Normally, Monkey eats the M’s as fast as I hand them to him.  We usually go through 4 or 5 M’s.  Recently Monkey has started hoarding his M’s.  He will hold the one I have just given him and reach for the next.  If I hesitate and we tell him to eat the one he’s holding he will put it in his mouth only to take it out again as soon as I hand him the next one.  This makes quite a mess, as you can imagine, so this morning I did not insist that he eat each M.  I would hand him a new one even though the last one was still in his hand.  By the time we reached the door to the classroom he had 3 M’s clutched in his hand.

I always hand him the last M after he steps through the classroom door.  This morning I held my hand out with the last M and he reached out with his fistful of M’s to grab the final one but, this time, he did something shocking.  He dropped all of the M’s into my outstretched palm and ran over to the table to join his friends, ST and teachers at their activity*.

Duhdee and I stood by his cubby staring in shock.  We were stunned.  He never runs to join a group activity as soon as he walks in the door.  He never gives up his M’s, usually he’s trying to grab any extras that I might have in addition to the ones he’s been given already.  He never stands across the room and happily waves good-bye to us as we walk out the door.

It figures that Monday is his final day of school for the year.  But gosh it was a nice way to start the day. 

*Don’t worry, the M’s didn’t go to waste.  I am happy to share that celebratory M’s are the very best tasting M’s ever.

Discovering ASL.

Melissa

Between starting EI and receiving the FX diagnosis we purchased two Baby Signing Time DVDs but we didn’t use them. Duhdee and I had decided early on that we wouldn’t let Monkey watch TV until he was 2, at least. We received the diagnosis a few weeks before his 2nd birthday and we finally decided we really needed to try the DVDs. Clearly he wasn’t just going to start chattering away one day as everyone had been saying and he needed a few more signs than “more” to communicate effectively!

We started playing the DVDs for him, he was interested in them for a few minutes but that was about it. We kept trying, at least we were learning signs even if he wasn’t. That summer we took our normal 10 day vacation with my family in the mountains of Maine. I was a bit reluctant to go up that summer because they were building a new house which meant the lot was not child friendly (dusty/dirty/construction zone) and everyone was going to be busy. It turned out to be the BEST thing for us.

We took the DVDs with us and we played them A LOT because we had no other form of entertainment. In addition to that we introduced Monkey to the quad that week. He LOVED riding in our laps as we drove oh so slowly up and down the driveway and through the shallow brook. We started using the quad as a reward, he learned to sign “go” on the quad. By the time we came home he was sporadically using about 10 new signs!

That vacation truly was a turning point for both Monkey and for me, he finally realized these signs WORKED to get him what he wanted and I finally realized that he could totally rock ASL if we were persistent.

How on earth does he know IGLOO?

Melissa

Last night, after we got back from our nightly walk with the dogs, Monkey asked for some “bubbles” (soda, in this case, Jones Root Beer.) Normally this would be denied but I thought, hmmm, I bet if I get him some bubbles he’ll stay sitting at the table. I thought maybe I could take advantage of it somehow but wasn’t sure exactly what I’d do. Duhdee looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Come to think of it, maybe I should have explained why I said yes!

Anyway, Monkey sat down at the table and I grabbed the nearest thing at hand. A set of wooden alphabet blocks/flashcards we bought at a yard sale two weeks ago. They look sort of like this:
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The pictures are slightly different but the concept is the same.

So I showed him 5 at a time, A is for apple, B is for ball, etc. Then I separated the picture from the letter and asked him to hand me the apple, ball, etc. We made it through about 1/2 the alphabet before he finished his little cup of root beer and headed towards bed.

I knew he’d nail the everyday objects but how the heck did he know what an igloo looks like?? I’ll have to ask his ST if she has igloo included in his PECs, lol. Somehow I doubt it.

***Update*** It was not, as I suspected, included in his PECs but the teaching assistant was able to explain it to us anyway.  One of his classmates brings his lunch to class in a cooler/lunchbox.  An Igloo brand lunchbox, of course.

Educational DVDs?

Melissa

Are there any DVDs that your kids have loved?  I’m looking for engaging DVDs that cover pre-school concepts like colors, shapes, numbers, letters, etc.  Monkey has learned so many signs from the Signing Time DVDs, we’re hoping to capitalize on this mode of learning to fill in gaps and firm up what he already knows in some cases.

What other techniques do you find work well?  We’re trying to come up with a list of learning activities for Duhdee and Monkey for this summer break.  Monkey is NOT a fan of board games, puzzles or flash cards *sigh* what creative ways have you found that you’ll share? 

I got my wish!

Melissa

The sun came out on Saturday and Duhdee promptly installed the AC units, lol.  It was in the 80’s on Saturday, it was in the mid-90’s yesterday (at home but we were in Maine along the coast so it was beautiful high 70’s with a breeze) and it’s in the 90’s again today!  Tomorrow looks like more of the same.  I am not complaining, the sun improves my mood so drastically…everyone else is miserable but I am very, very happy.