- Alex and I played glow-in-the-dark miniature golf this week. I learned that fluorescent orange + fluorescent yellow + black lighting = one massive headache.
- That happened to be the same day that Nicholas discovered pasta. Now, my Super Baby Food book says that children are not allowed to have tomato until one year old. But this 10-month-old saw the lasagna on everyone else’s plate. He took one look at his oatmeal with veggies and said, “NO WAY! ARE YOU CRAZY, woman?” (Those very words. 😉 ) So guess what? Nicholas, like a good half-Italian baby, is eating pasta. With tomato sauce. And doing just fine.
- Julianna is officially in Transition. On Tuesday she had her play-based assessment, which means that a special ed teacher played with her and asked her to do things—throw a ball, kick a ball, point to such and such, group colors—while four other women: PT, OT, speech therapist, and school psychologist (now that one I don’t understand at all) took notes. At the end of next week we will have our IEP meeting, and the following Tuesday, on her third birthday, Julianna starts school. Whew!
- This week, I also had a rude introduction to the frustrating world of the public schools’ useless repetitive information-gathering. In November, when we scheduled these transition events, the special ed teacher spent 45 minutes on the phone with Christian and I asking questions and taking notes about Julianna’s capabilities. On Tuesday, they watched her in action, and the therapists asked me specific questions—except for the school psychologist, who had to leave ten minutes before we finished, and asked if she could call me the next day to ask a few of her own. Stupid me, I should have realized when she wanted to schedule it, down to the time, that it was going to be a long call. Silly of me, to think that “a few questions” means “a few questions.” The next morning, with Alex at preschool and the babysitter taking care of the other two, I sat down at the computer for a nice long uninterrupted stretch of working on my Advent book—and the phone rang. And it was a FORTY-FIVE MINUTE PHONE CALL. In which she asked me to detail EVERY SINGLE THING that Julianna is capable of doing. Even the ones she observed WITH HER OWN EYES THE DAY BEFORE. Even the ones that the PT, OT, and speech therapist had asked me THE DAY BEFORE. Hello! Talk to each other!
- I was furious by the time it was over. And then, to make matters worse, no sooner had I hung up from that one than the phone rang AGAIN—another phone call I had no choice but to take—and this person kept me on the phone for another half an hour! I was so angry by the time this was all over, I couldn’t even write.
- And then Christian called.
- Nicholas just woke up, which means I’m done writing blogs.
Kathleen M. Basi 
Many times the school psychologist is the lead person on the evaluation team for IEPS; the special ed teachers can’t be because they have to have time to teach the kids
sorry that the team didn’t communicate with each other. 😦
I have no objection to the psychologist being there, I just don’t understand what psychology has to do with special needs, and why that person would be involved at all.
What a frustrating experience. I have a niece with autism and that whole process has been just as frustrating at times for my sister! Hang in there!
I would have been mad enough about the wasted time from the school psychologist that I couldn’t have continued to write even without the second phone call. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be when your time is so limited and well-scheduled!