Let's Hear it for the Boy(s)

Its not my favorite way of posting, but due to the absolute craziness of life right now, I'm just going to post a few updates. Forgive me!

Shark Boy did indeed lose his first tooth last Friday. And promptly swallowed it. (It was snack time at school.) His teacher and I assured him that he could write a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining what had happened and that he would still receive a reward for his lost (literally) tooth. He was content with that and thrilled when the Tooth Fairy did indeed come through as we said she would.

We had discovered that our months-old camera was broken just days before, thus I have no photos of this monumental occasion...yet. Thank goodness for the Office Depot Protection Plan. (Our electronics seem to have my tendency towards accidents. Go figure.) Hopefully we'll have a replacement soon.

My foot continues to be a real pain. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.) It seemed to improve quickly, but I think I did too much on it too soon, so I've been back on the crutches for the last two days. Phooey. It has been extremely frustrating. Few things bother me more than feeling helpless, so its taken a lot of creativity and energy on my part to keep my attitude positive. (I think the only one more frustrated than I would be our poor puppy. I'm usually the one who walks her or at least keeps her moving throughout the day.) I did my grocery shopping with an electric scooter today. I'm all about humiliation, let me tell you! Nothing quite like trucking around on a scooter, passing little old ladies with walkers on the cereal aisle. I just couldn't figure out how else to do it -- can't push a grocery cart when you have to use your hands to move your crutches. And then there's the clingy 3 year-old.... He got to ride on my lap. It made his day.

Going back to the nearly 6 year-old: He has "stayed on green" for, gosh, two and a half weeks now. We are so thrilled. HE is so thrilled. Its all about the power of prayer, I assure you. That little guy has come SO far in the last year, its unbelievable.

I never posted an update regarding his IEP meeting. I sat down to do it multiple times, but never could find the motivation to go into it. It ended up not being an IEP meeting at all. It was what they call a Functional Behavior Assessment. Its what they usually do with kids who are exhibiting problem behavior (ie being bad) in an attempt to get them to stop said behavior or else certain agreed upon consequences would take place. We were not told that it would be a FBA. We were told that we would be revising his IEP. But I digress. Let me just summarize by saying that the gal in charge of his IEP is going to be a challenge with which to work. She basically announced to all present at the meeting that she felt our son was acting out to get attention. In other words, he's a brat. And she continued with that attitude throughout the meeting. This is a woman supposedly trained in special education services. I am convinced that she was more concerned about his behavior than his teacher and find it interesting that most of his issues occur(ed) while under the former's watch. All such behaviors were reported to me by this gal, with never a word from the teacher. But again, I digress! (See, this is why I avoided posting on it for so long. Its very complicated and almost seems moot because he IS doing so well right now.) On a more positive note, his teacher and the school psychologist seemed to actually be familiar with the needs of children with autism and I think we had a productive discussion with them in terms of ideas to try with our son to help things work more successfully for all involved. AND his teacher reported that he has been doing very well in terms of his actual academic, individual work time. What mama wouldn't be thrilled to hear that??

While in bragging mode, I cannot forget to mention my uber-talented hubby, who spent the weekend taking part in a whirlwind international book tour with a group of fellow young adult, fantasy fiction writers. Okay, so they only went to Canada, but these days it requires a passport, so travelling to Canada almost seems exotic. Almost. They also hit a couple locations around our state. For the curious, you can view video clips of their tour here.

Also, I would be remiss if I forgot to mention the crazy news over at our adoption blog, again.

And so, my brief update has blossomed into an multi-paragraphed monologue. All that's missing is a thesis statement. Sorry!

**Photos from a fundraising event held by my father-in-law at, of all places, a chocolate factory. How cool is that?!

Hey now, the Dream is Over

Okay, so its not that bad, but the honeymoon period has indeed ended. I knew as soon as I went to pick him up and realized that the resource room gal was waiting with him. I wouldn't say she was surprised, but she did seem a little resigned to admit that we his parents indeed knew what we were talking about. It would seem that, in her words, our son "doesn't do well with the word 'no' and doesn't seem to think that the rules that the other kids follow apply to him". Um, yeah. That's pretty much the definition of your typical child with Aspergers/High-Functioning Autism. No surprise there. Now as to what we're going to do about it, she says she has some ideas and would like to meet with us next week to set up his new IEP. Seeing as how my son himself already divulged that he has broken in the classroom discipline system -- not in those words -- this should prove to be an interesting week. (He said that he got a "yellow card," which is a warning, and didn't receive a reward like the other kids.) I think I've been holding my breath since the first day of school. The good news is that now I can exhale. The bad news is that things are going to get a lot more complicated. Time to revisit the Psalms!

Bragging Rights

Its not too often that I get to play Proud Mama, though I do post acheivement news frequently. Usually I'm the Apologizing Mama, Humiliated Mama, or Retreating Mama.

Today was his school conference, which I was looking forward to mainly to hear the awesome tale of how this woman manages to survive 5+ hours a day with my son. Not that he isn't a charmer, he's just a handful of a charmer.

Like we expected, given the academic and creative improvements we've seen at home, he has met and surpassed almost all of his IEP goals. Academically, he is already working on kindergarten-level work. This is exciting for me because I had worried that some of his other behavioral issues and anxieties would cause him to be stubborn about progressing to new things.

But the best news of all? He will indeed be given a spot in the full-day kindergarten program up here near where we live, with the teacher we had hoped for, AND we won't have to pay for it! Praise the Lord!

While today I get to feel like the Proud Mama, I know that all these things had nothing to do with me. To God be the glory for working out all the details, big and small!

Oh, Mama!

He bounds out of the door before we are even halfway across the courtyard. Holding up a sheaf of papers, he calls out, "Daddy, look! Some of these are for you."

We've reached him by this point and can now see that the papers are a stack of drawings. He shuffles through them to show us one in particular. Proudly, he points out the details of two characters from his dad's latest book. My husband had shared the illustration for the cover of the book that morning, explaining who the characters were and what they were holding in the image. Our son had not only recreated the characters, but he wanted to share them with his dad.

Whilst our son was accomplishing said feat, his father and I were attending the transitional meeting I wrote of the other day. I had no idea what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised, again, at the options open to us.

We were most intrigued by the idea of full-day kindergarten, only accessible by lottery and a monthly fee in this area. (In other states, full-day kindergarten is the norm.) His current program is full-day and has worked out wonderfully. (As if you haven't heard!) The idea of him going into a half-day (2.5 hour) program wasn't that appealing. He just needs too much structure to his day. Too bad it would be left to a lottery to decide...or would it? Chatting with his teacher after the meeting, we were told that they are working with the district to get the extended-day SE students "grandfathered" into the full-day program! She agreed that it would be silly to put him in a half-day program and said they try hard to avoid that with this particular population. It would be awfully hard for him to get any services in just 2 hours! Hooray for the IEP! Now wouldn't it be terrific if the fee were to be waived because of his special needs too??

* "Oh, Mama!" is a quote from a book my son has been obsessed with lately. That particularly phrase, used in the story as an exclamation, intrigues him to the point that he brings me the book quite frequently, pointing to the phrase, and asking about its usage.