Julianna (a 7QT post)

Picnic, playground, Pinnacles 097___1___

The decision was made at the end of last week: Julianna will remain in public schools. I would like to say we made it, but the truth is that the Catholic school decided they simply couldn’t serve her. I was relieved, because for quite some time I’ve been moving toward the conclusion that she is where she should be, and I was dreading having to make the decision ourselves. Christian, however, was not so sanguine.

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As much as anything I think our disappointment stems from the lack that the Catholic school kids suffer by not having her in their midst. Ugh, I sound like one of those insufferable moms who think their kid’s very existence enriches the universe around them, right? Well, I can only plead guilty, but I do have a reason.

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I’ve said before how not-diverse my childhood was, and how difficult that made it for me to translate lessons of equality before God into action. My mom says I have a tendency toward “scrupulosity.” In this case, that means I’ve spent my entire life worrying about whether I’m treating people the same regardless of skin color–or, I discovered later, disability. Knowing something in theory is not the same as having the chance to put it into practice when the lessons are being formed. For this reason I say that kids need to be around my daughter at least as much as she needs to be around them. Other kids need that interaction.

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Our local Catholic school isn’t quite as homogenous as the one I grew up in, but it’s close enough. And last fall, we had a rather disheartening experience at the cub scout family campout, which is entirely Catholic kids. Exhibit A: during Mass out on the lawn, Julianna was reciting prayers loudly and not clearly, as she always does. She got several of those “looks” from the kids. You know, the “you are so weird, what is wrong with you?” looks. Afterward, there were a few little girls running around hand in hand. They were so cute, and Julianna went running over to join them. They, too, gave her The Look and gave her the cold shoulder.

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Understand that nothing like that has ever happened around the public school kids. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is exposure to diversity, or lack thereof.

Take a bow, girly girl

Take a bow, girly girl

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I read something recently that said that although people with Down syndrome have a low intelligence quotient (Julianna’s IQ was measured at 60), they have an emotional quotient that’s much, much higher. That rings true; Julianna is enormously empathetic, sensitive to mood, and seems to be able to pick out the person in the room who most needs loving. As a society we are so focused on intelligence as the primary value, we’ve failed to recognize the contribution that a high emotional quotient has to offer.

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Although Julianna is reading at “level 2.” Level 4 is considered end of kindergarten. Not too shabby, methinks.

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Yesterday her school had a Mothers Tea. It was a concert followed by cookies and fruit punch. The kids were “warming up” with the music teacher when I arrived and sat down. I was just beyond the music teacher, and Julianna was so fixed on her, she didn’t see me at first. But when she did…well, those of you who have met Julianna know how she reacts to delight. Christian says her entire face expands to make room for the size of that smile. “BAH-EE!” she screamed, drowning out the other sixty kindergarteners. So stinking cute. They were doing songs about mothers, and every time they said the word “mom” during the performance, she pointed with her entire arm at me.

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I will not, however, pretend that she’s an angel. She is not. There is way too much brother-torment and button-pushing and deliberate obtuseness in my girl to justify that label. But I’m shredding the idea of seven quick takes now, and I need to mow the lawn. :) Have a great weekend!

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 216)

Published in: on May 10, 2013 at 5:36 am  Comments (16)  
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May Fest

Spring Festival Photo BoothWhen I was a kid, my little parochial school–200 students, grades 1-8–had its major fundraiser the first Friday in May. The school cafeteria/gym became the venue for a pork chop meal, which I think everyone in the parish attended, whether they had a kid in the school or not. In the corner was a country store selling baked goods. My mother always sent four loaves of bread. Each classroom was converted into a booth: cake walk, wood burning, engraving, lollipop tree. The end of the building, blocking the main entrance, was a white elephant.

It was a community event, and utterly magical. We looked forward to it every year. My parents have a set of six huge globe goblets that my sisters and I won piecemeal over the course of years by throwing ping pong balls into them. (As a parent, I can now shake my head and imagine their reaction: “Oh, great, just what I wanted. More of those tacky goblets.”)

I thought of this about an hour into Julianna’s school spring festival on Friday night. It was supposed to be outside, but–big surprise, this ridiculous weather year–it was too cold and rainy. In keeping with modern America’s abysmal eating habits, the meal was hot dog, chips and a cookie instead of the pork chop, green beans & homemade desserts of my youth. There wasn’t a country store or a white elephant–but the classrooms were set up for bean bag toss, lollipop tree, and the like. Including a photo booth, where I volunteered for half an hour.

It was a bit chaotic. Michael was getting tired, and our whole family (except Christian) has been fighting the sore throat/cough bug. Michael began hurling himself to the floor and rolling around long before we ran out of tickets. Until he discovered a water fountain with a stool in front of it, that is. After that, he was in heaven.

It was such a fun evening. Crazy, yes, because the halls were crowded and it was tough to keep track of the kids. My memories of Mayfest involve us being cut loose, but of course we were older.

What struck me about the juxtaposition of memory on present is the rarity of events like these nowadays. Even my parochial school has abandoned Mayfest for the more profitable “auction” format. And I don’t like that format. I feel locked out of auction events, because we will never, ever be in the market for large ticket items, especially not at auction prices. And although there is a community aspect to an auction evening, it’s not the same. Auctions are adults only. Now, don’t misunderstand: I can certainly sympathize with the desire to spend time with other adults. But at the same time, it feels wrong to me somehow to remove the kids from the quotient. After all, we’re fundraising for the kids’ school. Why not make them part of it? Let them be invested? Make fundraising an event that not only raises money and builds community, but also gives families the chance to have fun together?

Maybe it’s not an either/or situation. The auctions certainly serve their function; they raise a ton of money. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to have those family events that bind communities together, too?

I guess the obstacle is that a spring festival requires a higher commitment level from the community. The need for volunteers is greater, the need for donations is greater; people need to take time to bake goods and make crafts and prepare homemade desserts and spend shifts in the kitchen and the game booths. You have to go through your closets looking for white elephants to donate. All the way around, a festival is a bigger commitment from the non-committee members, and the larger the school, the more unwieldy the practicalities. And the reality of urban life in the modern world is that it’s hard to get people to volunteer to the needed level. I’m as guilty as anyone else.

So maybe my idealized version of a school fundraiser is doomed to failure. But when I remember the festivals of my childhood, and when I see my kids enjoying the one at Julianna’s school, it makes me sad.

Published in: on May 6, 2013 at 7:36 am  Comments (12)  
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What I Learned From A Kindergarten SpEd Re-Eval

J birthday 034

Carousel birthday Cake, a la Mommy

About a month ago, Julianna’s school finished her “re-evaluation.” This is required every three years under the IDEA, presumably to ensure that kids who are receiving expensive special ed services still need them.

Julianna entered the mid-kindergarten eval with a diagnosis of “young child with developmental delay,” a dx that does not carry into the elementary/secondary years (for obvious reasons). So, beginning mid-fall and lasting until Christmas or thereabouts, she underwent a battery of assessments for language, behavior, speech, motor, and academic skills. Even an IQ test, about which we were intensely curious. Hearing the number 60 was a bit of a reality check; it’s one thing to recognize that your child is and will always be delayed; it’s another to see it quantified. Somewhere deep inside, you keep hoping your kid will pull out a 69 and almost squeeze into the “normal” range.

In any case, the end result of this re-eval was–wait for it–an IEP meeting in which we went over the report and incorporated the results into a new plan. Ten people in the room, copies for everyone–nauseating amounts of paper, because the god Privacy forbids electronic dissemination. We moved quickly, with many interruptions caused by the three children in the room (one of whom was trying to eat every toy block in sight), so it wasn’t until the formal report came that I sat down to really read and process it in depth.

carousel craft

Apple, straws, peanut butter & animal crackers = a great, edible carousel birthday party craft.

When your child goes off to school, you automatically lose a certain intimacy. No matter what you do, you can never quite pry out of them what their day is like now. Their routines are unremarkable to them, so they don’t see anything to share. You ask “What did you learn in science today?” and you hear: “We didn’t have science.” You know they must have, they just didn’t recognize it as such, but without a beginning point there’s no way to pry the layers back and understand exactly what’s going on in the hours he or she is away from you.

If it’s that hard with a verbal child, imagine the dearth of information when your child doesn’t communicate by speech at all, or at least, only at the most surface level. So this report was really enlightening. It didn’t tell me about the school days or the routines, but every so often a nugget would pop out that I recognized so clearly, I could picture the entire scene:

“It was often unclear whether she was simply repeating the presented words rather than making an attempt to respond to the items.” Check.

“When asked to write numerals in sequence, Julianna wrote the number 1. When asked to write other numbers, she wrote the number 1 again.” Ouch.

“Julianna would sometimes point to several pictures on the page and was reminded that she could only point to one. This test was given over 2 sessions as she would start pointing randomly.” And giggling with a sly Miss Charming look on her face, no doubt.

“Julianna appears to enjoy socializing” (you think?) “and will wave hi and bye to many adults and peers.” Yup.

“She is a risk-taker.” Uh, yeah.

Concurrent with this is the formal discernment by the Catholic school administration as to whether they can realistically serve Julianna there. I am so torn on the subject. I want her in an environment where faith formation is “in the air,” and I want to have one PTA, one fundraiser, one school calendar to deal with.

And yet…she really needs speech intervention every day, and I will have to transport her myself (barring carpools, but you can’t count on that.) The public school has been wonderful–I love all the people. Her speech therapist calls her “chickadee,” and it makes me all warm and gooey inside. Her para and her teacher are particularly wonderful, and all the necessary infrastructure is right there. Her classmates are incredibly sweet to her. It has been a wholly positive experience, and even considering moving her feels disloyal.

It’s a good position to be in, so don’t take these reflections as complaint. But this is a part of the special needs parenting process, so I share it for the benefit of…well, whoever needs it.

I am being paged for a game of Spot-It. Bowing out for the day.

Published in: on February 11, 2013 at 8:52 am  Comments (7)  
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7 Quick Takes

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134 pounds. 10 down. 5 to go.

134 pounds. 10 down. 5 to go.

I am wondering how people get such lovely pictures of themselves to put on blogs. Am I the only person in the world who feels prohibitively self-conscious asking someone to take my picture? And wince the whole time because it feels like such a bother on someone (AKA my husband’s) time? Or maybe the problem is we did it while he was trying to get out the door yesterday morning….

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In any case, I needed to crow a bit. For the first time in ten years I don’t feel like my upper regions are grotesquely huge. For the first time, um, EVER, I actually like wearing jeans. They actually feel good now!

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Photo by OnePinkHippo, via Flickr

In this process, the last three months, I’ve come to understand a truth we’ve all been told: more is not necessarily better. The thing is, that truth is contradicted daily in ev.er.y.thing we are exposed to in advertising. Restaurants: bigger portions = better. Car manufacturers: more power = better. And so on. But as I’ve really broken down what goes into the meals I’ve been eating for the last dozen years, my jaw dropped. The way I made a peanut butter sandwich? 450 calories. The way I made a tossed salad, with cheese on top (and lots of it)? 380 calories.

And I realized I wasn’t even enjoying them all that much. In the process of trying to cut back on the high-calorie foods, I found, to my astonishment, that I liked the end product better. A lot better. I’d just been overdoing it all these years. Like the one Blizzard I’ve had since starting this lifestyle change (notice I don’t call it a diet, b/c it’s going to be permanent, if not always as strict as it is now). I had 1/3 of a small Blizzard. I ate it in tiny bites, and it was the best Blizzard I’ve ever eaten. Shoveling in more, faster, just numbs my mouth so I can’t taste it at all.

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Another thing I’ve discovered in this process is that “hiding” spinach in food is very easy. I put the word in quotes because I’m not actually hiding it. It’s openly acknowledged in our house. I did have to hide it at first in the smoothies (raw spinach, no less!), because I knew there would be a knee-jerk reaction. Indeed, Christian won’t eat the smoothies because he knows it’s in there. But the kids drank them for a few weeks and then when they found out there was spinach in it they went, “Oh. Okay, whatever.” You really can’t even taste it in the smoothies. Which then made it possible for me to drop leaves in the gumbo and beef up the vitamin content that way. And so on. Christian’s even using spinach instead of lettuce on his sandwiches now. (Spinach is one of the “super”-veggies, and probably the most flexible as far as I’m concerned. Avocado is another.)

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Moving on.

I had all kinds of thoughtful, reflective posts this week, but I’m in survival mode now because of the rotating sickness in the house and, more to the point, the extremely fragmented nights resulting from them. Michael went to the doctor yesterday and was tentatively diagnosed with sinusitis, so he’s on amoxicillin now and acting…well….somewhat better. He still got up (one, two, three, four, five) FIVE times in the night, meaning I slept from 11-2, 2:15-4:20, and 4:45-5:30. This sort of schedule, more or less, has been going on for about two weeks now. So I’ve given myself permission to spend this week free writing instead of trying to draw out deep philosophical insights. Maybe next week.

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I did make some progress on fiction submissions, though. I submitted one story to two different places and began the process of polishing a couple others, hopefully to send in the next week. Crossing my fingers for making some headway in that area soon.

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Yesterday was a zoo of a day, beginning with two doctor appointments and ending with a First Communion meeting, but the biggest event of the day was Julianna’s IEP/re-evaluation result. They do a major battery of tests to figure out where she falls on the different scales, including an IQ test, which is something we’ve been intensely curious about her entire life. It turns out at the moment her IQ is 60, which is considered “mild intellectual disability” (mental retardation, even as a formal classification rather than a derogative, has recently fallen out of favor–most likely because of the derogatory usage). In different areas her scores are scattered over the higher and lower range, but basically she’s functioning in most areas like a three-year-old. Which is about what I thought. I questioned myself because I’ve been saying that for a year at least. But then again, she passes through stages very slowly, so that’s probably about right.

Well, this is becoming epic in length, so I’ll just stop there. There are boys getting into trouble, and bathrooms in need of cleaning.

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 202)

Published in: on January 11, 2013 at 8:33 am  Comments (17)  

A Regular Kid

She’s a charmer, my girl. Adults everywhere within her sphere of influence fall obediently like dominoes into line behind her, excusing her foibles and focusing on her angelic qualities. She knows it, and she knows how to use it. I can’t tell you how many times people have come to me literally hand to heart, sighing, “Oh, she is so sweet!” or “What a cutie!” or “Oh, we just love Julianna!”

I’ve gotten a bit smug about it, truth be told. Only her siblings, parents and grandparents are allowed to wag fingers and list her character flaws.

So her first kindergarten report was quite a shock. “She definitely needs the para,” her teacher said a little over a week into school. “When the para is working with other children, that’s when Julianna acts out, getting up and moving around the room, poking people or pulling hair.”

Irrational though it seems, my first instinct was to haul out the Mother Bear Claws. How dare you imply that my daughter doesn’t have a halo?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Her teachers like her just fine. But up ’til now, Julianna’s had a fan club comprised of a) friends of her parents and b) people in the disability field. Those who work with special needs are a special kind of person themselves, deep in empathy, with, I truly believe, a greater capacity for love than the rest of us.

It’s a wholly different matter to toss her into a regular classroom. I’ve loved every one of my kids’ teachers, but none of them have ever bonded to my children the way the special ed teachers and therapists bonded to Julianna in her first few years. How can they? The level of intimacy isn’t the same. In baby- and toddler-hood, it was one on one. In preschool, Julianna’s early childhood classroom had 9 students with at least 2 adults on hand at all times. It’s a far cry from a classroom with 18.

As I talked myself down off the Mama Bear pedestal, I began to realize this is a pretty valuable thing we’re receiving. Now, Julianna is being treated much more like every other kid her age. Her teachers and therapists have always pushed her to do her best, but now it’s an unemotional expectation instead of a cheerleading squad behind her. Just like every other kid. She was always guided toward appropriate behaviors, but there was always a loving tolerance that no longer exists; now, she’s expected to do the right thing, just like everyone else.

It’s a gift for her to be treated like a regular kid. Christian and I are people pleasers, hard-wired to want to make authority figures happy, constantly analyzing and on the hunt for ways to pursue excellence. So is Alex. So it’s an adjustment for us to see our free-spirited little girl tear through the world on her own terms. It stretches our minds, and it stretches our hearts. But the more of life I live, the more I value being able (read that: made) to stretch.

On a more fundamental level, it’s such a blessing for her. It’s good for her to have her sense of self as center of the universe kept in check by not being above the “law.” It’s an understanding she needs in order to integrate into the world. So I’m sheathing my claws and embracing having a kid who doesn’t get glowing progress reports every week. Go Julianna. The world is yours.

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October is Down Syndrome Awareness month, and a lot of people participate in “31 for 21,” promising to post every day on T21 and related issues. I think I might even burn myself out if I tried that, to say nothing of you fine people, so I’m just going to devote Wednesdays to the topic of my darling girl.

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Published in: on October 3, 2012 at 7:42 am  Comments (6)  
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Miss Pooey Goes To Kindergarten

The first Friday of kindergarten, Julianna brought home a progress report. In typical kindergarten fashion, it was a list of attributes the kids need to have to be successful students–following directions, self-control, and so on. There are no grades in kindergarten, only +, √, and -. I got quite a shock when I saw her page filled with “-” and a smattering of √s. Not a + on the page anywhere.

Now, I’m sure you will not be surprised to learn that I have been a straight-A student my whole life, a meticulous rule follower. Alex is the same way. So to see a report like this was quite a shock to my system.

Who was she being measured against? What were they trying to communicate? Was she not living up to the standard of a typically-developing kindergartener (in other words, this was par for the course), or was she not living up to what is reasonable to expect for her? Does it matter? After all, if we want her in a regular classroom, we have to expect her to be held to the higher standard–and that’s what we want, right?

Such are the agonies of a parent of a child with special needs.

I didn’t realize it, but I have always taken kindergarten more seriously than preschool. When we needed to go somewhere, I just pulled Julianna out of preschool. We didn’t know all that much about the daily routine–we weren’t able to have a conversation with her about what she did all day, or what they talked about–but that was okay. Preschool was really about intensive therapy.

Kindergarten is a whole new world. This is where she’s actually supposed to be learning academic concepts. This is where she’s actually interacting with typically-developing peers, laying the foundations for whatever life she’s going to live as an adult. Suddenly, the stakes seem so much higher. Suddenly, it bugs me that I don’t know her classmates and she can’t tell me about them–that I don’t know her routines, and she can’t share them.

I went through this with Alex. Sending your child off to school automatically requires the parent to give up some control. The child doesn’t know what you want to know, and you can’t formulate the questions properly to get them to understand. It was very illuminating to go into Alex’s classroom for an hour one morning, and I’m in the baby stage of trying to work out logistics to visit Julianna’s classroom for a peek.

In the meantime, we’re more or less dependent on her teacher, who has been very good about sending us detailed reports. Many of which make us go, “Whaaaa…?” For instance, in the early weeks, when the para was not working directly with her, she would get up and move somewhere else (totally believe that), poke other kids (probably trying to be cute), and pull hair (uh…what?). She was uncooperative in P.E. and adaptive P.E., where there was less structure. Now, Miss Pooey has always been pretty cooperative with non-parental adults, so this caused us some consternation. But we haven’t yet begun enforcing “if…then” consequences with her, because we don’t have the sense that she “gets” it. If we had gotten a report like that on Alex in kindergarten, there would have been repercussions at home: lost movies, etc. But how do we address this with Julianna?

At last I found my entry point. She likes to watch her signing times and “your baby can read” videos from a distance of one inch from the TV screen. We’ve been yelling at her about it for a long time, but I realized suddenly last week that here is an opportunity for immediate consequences. So now, if she goes up to the TV, she loses the privilege. We’ll see if that makes a difference.

I have many other reflections on the experience of sending Julianna to kindergarten, but that’s plenty for one day. This week, she brought home one extra √, and her teacher said the problem behaviors were easing off. So maybe, twenty-five days in to the elementary years, Julianna’s finding her stride. Go get ‘em, girly-girl.

Published in: on September 18, 2012 at 6:46 am  Comments (4)  
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Isaac, Julianna’s schooling, and The Incredible Backward Boy: a 7QT post

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English: Hurricane Isaac

English: Hurricane Isaac (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Oh Iiiii-saaaaac. Here boy!!! Come on! Come here!”

This was my sister’s Facebook status the other day, and I laughed out loud. By afternoon and evening today, our part of the country is supposed to be receiving the remains of Hurricane Isaac. And I don’t know anyone who is anything other than thrilled, and holding our breaths, praying fervently that it actually happens! Last weekend we were promised 80% chance of rain here both days. The weather forecasters told us that if Isaac stalled out right where it was (which happened to be over Haiti), the rain here would hang on through Monday. How do you pray in those circumstances? Whose needs come first? The people still living in tents and abject poverty, or the worst drought in fifty years, which has worldwide repercussions for food production and cost?

Well, it didn’t matter. Saturday passed with nothing more than a pathetic sprinkle, and Sunday we got 4/10 of an inch late, very late in the day. My parents began harvesting last weekend. Corn is expected to produce over 100 bushels per acre. That first day, my parents got 30. And they still don’t know if the soybeans will produce anything at all.

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Which leads me to another pet peeve of mine: what we pray for communally. I’m well aware that I don’t live in a farming community, but I can’t stop being frustrated that we remember to pray for military members every single week at church, and we don’t pray for agricultural issues even when huge swaths of the country are undergoing severe hardship. Understand, it’s not that I object to praying for the military, because I don’t. I just object to the fact that we seem to be communally blind to the segment of the population that provides us with, I don’t know, EVERYTHING WE EAT.

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Here’s a telling sentence from Julianna’s new IEP: “Julianna will comply with 2-3 step directions with one verbal prompt beyond the initial direction. (Refraining from avoiding eye contact with the adult, and covering her face.)”

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Reading this got me started thinking, and made it clear to me that Nicholas has at last outstripped his sister in almost all developmental areas. One morning, he spilled milk on the floor. I told him to use the stool, get a paper towel, and clean it up. At the time I was thinking about the fact that I still had to problem solve for him how to get the paper towel, but in retrospect I realize that series of directions is still beyond Julianna. For her to accomplish the same thing, I would have to hover over her and issue each stage, more than likely several times. I’ve been thinking it’s mostly behavioral, but now I’m not so sure.

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On the up side…are you ready for this? Watch this video we took of her before school yesterday. It’s less than a minute long, I promise. I don’t want to tell you what it is because I don’t want to spoil the surprise. :) Though if you’re on Facebook with my husband, you’ve probably seen it already…

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Not that all is well in Julianna-land. We learned from her teacher yesterday that when the para is working with another child, she pokes other kids, pulls hair, or gets up and moves. Aside from the hair pulling, which makes me go “Whaaa?” the rest of it is just mischief that she hasn’t learned isn’t appropriate. She can’t talk to people to tell them she likes them or wants to be with them, so she does it by touch instead. She just doesn’t realize how annoying it is.

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I am single parenting this morning which means I have to have everyone ready to leave in 1 hour to take Alex to school, so I’ll leave you with this: the Incredible Backward Boy.

Your eyes do not deceive you: he is wearing his shirt and pants backwards, with his shoes on the wrong feet! I love self-dressing. :)

Have a great weekend!

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 186)

Published in: on August 31, 2012 at 5:14 am  Comments (11)  
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Julianna’s New Schoolyear

I owe you an update. You might remember that when we first had Julianna’s kindergarten IEP meeting, back in January, the representative from her elementary school, who knew very little about her, recommended that she be in a self-contained classroom for 65% of the day. I was very upset about this on a number of levels–the most basic being: if the assumption is that kids with disabilities are going to be walled off, and they have to fight their way into the general population by proving they don’t really have a disability, then society is setting them up for remaining behind that wall their whole lives.

Christian and I set up an appointment with the school last spring. He took a day off so we wouldn’t be rushed, and we spent over an hour meeting with people at the school expressing our concerns. Julianna’s peers need to be around her at least as much as she needs to be around them, we stressed. And after all, we’re realistic about her academic future. There are a limited number of skills she needs to learn in order to function in the world: reading, writing, some basic math. And she has thirteen years to learn those skills. What she really needs is to learn how to interact with typically-developing peers–because those are the people she’s going to have to interact with as an adult. We want her schooling to prepare her to live in the community, not behind a wall.

The team was cautious in their response to us–cautious, though supportive in theory. I spent most of the summer thinking I was going to spend this school year skirting the fine line between advocate and pain in the school’s @$$. But about three weeks ago, the head of special ed at the school emailed us and said, “Hey, let’s do this IEP meeting now instead of in September.”

Really?

Wow!

So the day before school started, we had an IEP meeting in Julianna’s classroom at her new school, a meeting that included the principal and a representative from the district (I’m not sure if that second one is standard, but I’m pretty sure the principal’s presence is not). It was a good thing on many levels. Our ideas for goals have solidified in the past few months, for one, and this allowed us to formalize those goals. It also served to introduce us to the team, and best of all, the school was on board with a much greater level of inclusion. They reversed the proportions. Now, Julianna is spending the day in her regular classroom, and being pulled out for PT, OT, and speech therapy, plus adaptive PE and a little bit of extra instructional time. It boils down to this: Julianna’s in a regular ed classroom around 70% of the time.

I’m very pleased with the school so far. There are the quirks I don’t care for–like the chocolate Teddy grahams at breakfast that first day, and the fact that the bus didn’t even show up yesterday morning (but that’s a problem with the bus company, not the school)–but the feel of the school, and the vibes from the staff, have been 100% positive. Very supportive, very sweet, very professional and empathetic–in a nutshell, everything you could ask for in the people who are going to be working with your child. And I put this out in the e-universe as a word of hope to those who are viewing the transitions with trepidation.

Published in: on August 21, 2012 at 7:10 am  Comments (11)  
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Confounded by a Primary Composition Notebook

School Supplies Pencils Erasers August 07, 20103

School Supplies Pencils Erasers August 07, 20103 (Photo credit: stevendepolo)

Early Friday morning, we loaded up the van and headed for Target, armed with three school supply lists and Christian’s iPhone to calculate whether it’s better to buy 18 small glue sticks or 9 large ones.

I had compiled the three lists into one so we’d know total numbers without having to cross-check lists, but questions kept arising, and I’d have to refer back to one list or another. Filling the boys’ was pretty straightforward, but as we picked items off the shelf for Julianna, I found myself for the first time really contemplating the disparity between her and her soon-to-be classmates.

There are things on Nicholas’ preschool list that he can use, and she, a kindergartener, can’t.

There are things on Julianna’s list that made me stop, kerflummoxed. A primary composition notebook? Really? She’s still in the scribble-all-over-full-sheets-of-paper stage. A composition notebook is a very poor use of money for her.

I thought back. Yes, of course, Alex wrote in one of those notebooks. It’s a perfectly reasonable item to place on a kindergarten list.

It was just that I hadn’t really processed how far delayed Julianna is. I’ve consistently said she’s really close to on-target in her understanding–she knows letters and colors, for instance, and she can count to five and sometimes higher. It’s just her speech, I said, that makes people think she’s so much farther behind than she really is.

But a primary composition notebook?

“You’re the one who said you wanted her to be included more,” Christian reminded me; in other words: Don’t overthink the list, let her be like her peers. And he’s right, of course.

It just drew the distinction in a way I wasn’t quite prepared for.

Last night as I helped her brush her teeth, Alex came into the bathroom. He’s far too tall now for the stool Christian made for him, the stool both Julianna and Nicholas have to use to reach the sink. But tonight, for some reason, he climbed up beside his sister, reached across her for a cup. Julianna turned her head, gave him a big goofy grin, and put her arm around him. She stuck it at a right angle to her body, and wrapped Alex’s waist.

His waist.

They are less than two years apart.

Afterward, I came downstairs and faithfully copied her school calendar into my planner, just like I do for Alex, just like I do for Nicholas. There were things I found exciting. Movie nights. Parent teas, a fancy dinner on Valentine’s Day for the kindergarteners.

And yet I’m scared. Intimidated. Our first public school. Julianna’s first foray into the real world, where she’s going to interact with the un-walled-off population of the world without us around to guide and protect her.

(That’s not really true; we sent her to children’s liturgy by herself yesterday, and she did great–came back all by herself, just like any other kid. But still.)

The week before Alex started kindergarten, I was awash with excitement for him. Today, my feelings are much more ambiguous. It’s poignant. Bittersweet. Kind of nerve-wracking.

I’m sure she’ll continue to leave a string of touch points behind her, as she always has. I’m sure she’ll charm everyone. But it’s a different experience this time. Alex was ready to fly the coop. I knew it, placidly, comfortably. Julianna’s ready, too–at least, she thinks she is. But I’m nervous about pushing her out of the nest.

Published in: on August 7, 2012 at 8:57 am  Comments (7)  
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Preschool Hassles (a 7QT post)

Nicholas needs to go to preschool. He’s extremely precocious and determined that it’s his turn right now. He puts on Julianna’s shoes, shoulders her purse, and says, “I’m going to ‘chool now. I will see you on Wednesday.”

To keep the expense and inconvenience factor low, we planned to send him to the early childhood special ed center in our neighborhood as a peer mentor next year. A peer mentor is a typically-developing child who models appropriate behavior and skills for the kids with special needs. We had Alex screened when he was four, but eventually decided his entire toddlerhood had revolved around Julianna, and he needed something just for him. That’s not the case with Nicholas, so I called up the school district a while back to schedule the “DIAL” screening. And this week, we went. I came out with my ears smoking.

One: not family friendly.

The cover letter for the paperwork (which I didn’t get till I got there) included this: Please bring only the child to be evaluated, in order to avoid distraction. I understand that, but what are my options? Hire a babysitter? I don’t think so! This is the next in a long line of un-family-friendly policies that smack me in the face on a daily basis…such as the concert that would have made me buy a ticket for my three week old baby. If you want people to bring up a new generation of concert goers, don’t make it so hard for them to come!

But I digress.

Two: the paperwork annoyance.

On the phone I was told I had to fill out “a couple of pages.” Which means four.

Three: none of your business.

As part of the health form, I had to tell the school district whether he rides in a car seat and whether he wears a helmet while riding a bike. While I appreciate the safety concerns (of course he rides in a car seat. Duh, it’s the law!), the answers to those questions have no bearing on the school district. It is simply none of their business. This is part of that “mission creep,” for lack of a better word, that makes medical professionals try to be developmental experts (i.e. the questions they ask at well child visits. I know I’m in the minority in this, but eh bien, that’s my opinion).

Four: not family friendly, part two

On the forms, I was required to provide names and birth dates for all other children living in the household. They left me two blanks. Imagine me hissing with (overdone, I admit it) righteous anger as I had to write Michael in the blank space beneath.

Five: the guilt complex

When it was all over, Nicholas scored in the 60th and 80th percentile on cognition and communication, but only the high 40s on physical skills. Which makes him marginal for acceptance into Title 1 preschool. Because…are you ready? He can’t cut with a scissors, and he can’t hop on one leg. I thought, Are you KIDDING me? Give this kid a scissors and he’ll learn to use it in three minutes. After he shreds my couch.

Six: the bait and switch

And after all this annoyance, it turns out that they “generally don’t accept peer mentors until age four.” I wanted to say, “Well, sure, that makes sense, but don’t you think somebody could have told me that BEFORE I waited six weeks till you decided he was old enough to make the appointment, and BEFORE we waited three more weeks for the appointment, and BEFORE we spent an hour and a half that we could have all spent doing more productive things?”

Seven: the up side

But at least now I’m looking for other preschool opportunities for him. And those are opportunities that may be better in the long run, anyway.

Have a great weekend!

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 167)

Published in: on March 23, 2012 at 5:28 am  Comments (8)  
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