Basic Skills

This morning I visited the school where I want Holland to attend next fall. He's been staying at my mom's house for a few days and I took Egypt with me to observe the class. I really liked it. They use a lot of the same curriculum I use; they're a Christian school that's is located very close to me and the instruction seems great. The morning teacher uses the Orton-Gillingham method that I've been looking to get my hands on for Holland. This was the last day of school, so it wasn't really a normal day. But the kids are all very respectful, they stayed on task, the teacher had no distractions from the kids while teaching. The afternoons would be spent doing science projects, art projects, etc. It's four days a week from 9-3.

Oh - and it costs $500 a month. I don't have $500 a month. Pray for a miracle!

I Need a Secretary

Apparently one person can't do it all. And it's not because I'm not trying. I got a call from Holland's charter school saying we never signed up for the statewide Writing assessment. It is Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Luckily Holland's speech session got canceled. We drove over to the school and he had about a 30 minute session. I just felt horrible. He is so not prepared to do the kind of writing they are expecting. I tried to prep him right before we left and he just ended up throwing his pencil and ran off crying. We were very blessed to have a proctor who was very understanding. He has accomodations written into his IEP, so we are spreading out the testing over several days and he is one-on-one with the proctor.

And let's complicate things even more. I drove Romania to school this morning. I wanted to hand-deliver his immunization records. As soon as I walked into the building, the Principal said, "oh, people have been talking about you. They heard you know sign and want you to teach a class." If this doesn't give me a mental breakdown, I don't know what will. How do I answer that? "I'm sorry. I have no time to help you out. I'm busy schooling Holland, driving to doctor appointments, going to swim lessons, meeting for speech, attending a ceramics class. Somewhere in there I manage to feed everyone and wash clothes every now and then." How do I explain to people that I'm overwhelmed and cannot add one more thing without sounding like I'm making excuses? Let me know if you've figured that one out.

School is Back in Session

Romania is on day three of school. I took him in on the first day and listened to all the announcements for the yearly activities, their goal as a school community and pleas for parents to volunteer. I stayed two of the three hours because I had Egypt with me (Holland had spent the night at my parent's house) and she was coming to the end of her 3 year-old attention span. His new teacher is nice and there are several kids he knows from his 1st grade class. It's a 2nd/3rd split and so many of the kids had the same teacher last year.

This year will be a lot easier in the driving schedule. Since I am homeschooling Holland again, I don't have to worry about his bus coming and we leave the house a few minutes after 8 to drop Romania at the bus hub. They added another stop this year, so it's a bit closer and I don't have to use so much gas to and from school. Yesterday, Holland and I finished his school work before noon and he was able to play with a neighbor boy for a couple hours in the afternoon. So far he's doing pretty good. I still don't have all of my school books I ordered over 6 weeks ago. They are still sorting them at the school and their method of inventory only allows one person on the computer at a time. So we are finishing up the last few pages of his math, and doing some reading and handwriting stuff I had left over. I've even been pretty successful keeping Egypt busy with coloring, building blocks and painting. Holland seems less stressed out, so I'm praying this year will look a lot different than it did two years ago.

We've Been Bumped

I cannot keep track of all the appointments we have going on. Yesterday morning, only one day after scheduling Holland's biopsy, I got a call from the doctor's office saying he had to reschedule because he'd be out of town. I have this sneaking suspicion that he's taking an extended Labor Day holiday, but who knows. The good news is, now I can go to Romania's first day of school. The bad news is I have to feed Holland wheat for another week and a half and witness major meltdowns. It's been incredible to see the change once I reintroduced wheat. He gets upset at the most minor things. He looks to be in a fog and his face looks so tired.

The other thing that has happened is the IEP team for Holland has decided that they need to have a transition meeting to talk about me pulling him out of his program. Nobody seemed to care when I was pushing for placement at the Charter school, but now that I've pulled him out of public school (gasp!) everybody has something to say. It was scheduled this week, but the district rep said that his boss couldn't make it so they had to reschedule. (BTW - this boss has never been to any of the other placement meetings when I was requesting the move to the Charter school.) So he rescheduled for next week, but that was the week of Holland's biopsy. So I called to reschedule because I didn't know how he'd feel the next day. I get a call this morning saying they can do it on Friday next week, but they are trying to coordinate 7 people. I told the district rep the only person who needs to be there is my Educational Specialist. She's the one helping with the transition. I haven't heard back if the meeting is in fact on the 5th, but I cannot imagine going into this meeting with 7 people having strong opinions about my decision to pull him. They've even invited the principal from the Charter school. Why?? She is no longer involved in this. They don't want him, why do they need to have her there?

To top off all the chaos and confusion, I have yet to receive even one of the books I ordered for Holland's school year. I know that they are in fact in the school office, but there is one person entering in all the books received and was told on Monday that I may not even have the books by the start of the school year. "What am I supposed to do? I have no books!" The secretary told me to "be creative." I'm wondering if this is worth the hassle.

Guilt-free schooling

Romania's school depends a great deal on parents volunteering since it is a Charter school. They don't get 100% funding from the school district, so in order to keep costs down, they strongly encourage you to find a way to volunteer. They leave it totally up to you, but everyone is expected to contribute.

I was all for that-count me in. Before Holland was diagnosed with Spina Bifida, had surgery for tethered cord and needed numerous doctor appointments, follow ups and fittings for orthotics. Before Egypt was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arhritis and I spent all my free time scheduling and shutteling kids around to 7 different doctors. I actually was able to help out several times in Romania's class. The kids are very sweet. You show up one time and all of a sudden, everyone knows your name and wants your help! I even went in the week before Mother's Day to make homemade bird suet with the kids. That was a huge project. I had to recreate the experience 4 different times since there were 20 kids. I felt given the circumstances, I was doing pretty good with my volunteerism.

So today when I was waiting at the bus hub for Romania, one of the moms came over to me and said she needed some information from me. She said she hadn't seen my name on the "check-in" list in the office for volunteer time. I said I didn't know there was one. She wanted to know if I had been able to help out in the classroom at all. I explained with a 3 1/2 year old tagging along it was hard to work out a regular time to come in. I mentioned the bird suet project. She asked about how many hours I had been in. I said "Oh, 4 or 5". (Remember, we've only been going here since January). She said, "A week?" I about fell off my seat. I said, "No, I've been to the hospital a lot. Not much time to come in to school." If another mom (who knows our situation) wasn't sitting right there, I would have been so embarrassed. Ok. I WAS embarrassed. If she only knew what craziness she was asking of me. I get it. They need people to volunteer. That is just not something I'll be able to work into my insane life right now.

Nothing like guilt-free education.

Oh-and Romania said he wanted to be homeschooled again. Ugh. I told him I couldn't possibly do that right now. He actually comes home in a good mood every day. I think he's just so tired that he needs a reason to be home. He gets along with his peers; his teacher called him a "rock star" in math and his reading has really taken off. If I didn't have so many medical issues right now, I would probably pull him out. I'm looking forward to the summer because I'm going to be schooling both boys. I've opted out of 'extended school year' for Holland so he can do summer camps, swim lessons and our week at the family lake cabin. Can you say 'year-round-school'?

Science Fair at Heron Creek

Here are pictures of Holland and his classmates at their Science Fair. Holland's group presented on Dental Health.

The Electrical Experiment

Whenever the phone rings and it's Holland's school calling (love caller I.D.) and the conversation begins with, "We've had an interesting day..." I know something's askew. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, it has to do with electricity. He really is a smart kid trapped in a non-executive-functioning body. He has so much natural curiosity, so much passion and so much impulsiveness that the combination is deadly. Luckily (actually it wasn't luck, but divine intervention) he was spared from injury at school.

I haven't been able to get the whole picture of what happened, but I've pieced together that he was frustrated that he wasn't being allowed to build something. He was persistent and asked several different adults in the class. Each one responded with no, not now. He was in the reading area of the room and he had found himself a paper clip, unbent it and stuck it in an electrical outlet. Sparks went flying. Somehow he managed to touch part of the outlet that resulted in big sparks, but didn't feel a shock. His teacher told me he cried for several minutes and then just sat at his desk staring off into space. This is the same kid who at about 1 year of age, touched our glass fireplace with all ten fingertips. He had blisters on each finger and guess what? He did it two more times before he learned something. You're probably wondering why I didn't teach him not to touch hot things or stick things into an outlet. BELIEVE me, I did. This is the executive functioning and cause and effect skills he lacks.

We had another conversation about making good choices and I don't believe he will be sticking any more paper clips in outlets. He will, I'm sure, continue to invent, create, build and construct various masterpieces that will require a keen eye, constant supervision and total disregard for housework.

911 is too many numbers to dial in an emergency. I'm gonna need to put that in speed dial.

Big Plan Gone Kaput

I haven't exercised once! I'm not kidding. I had this whole big plan of swimming at the club three times a week and walking with a friend the other two (sorry jaqui!)
I cannot believe how much time is spent in the car. After I get Holland on the bus at 8:25, I tell the other two to jump in the van and we head out at 8:35. It's about a 15 minute drive to Romania's school. Then Holland gets off school at 2:00. It used to be 1:00 and the bus would drop him off at 1:05 (he was the only passenger), but now he's not the naughtiest kid on the bus, so it takes him 45 minutes to get home! I could drive to the school 5 times and pick him up in that amount of time. We live about 3 minutes from the school. But I can't be out running errands because the bus driver may have fewer kids on board and he could get dropped of anywhere from 2:15 to 2:45. It's like waiting for a repairman ("between 10 and 3 we'll be there").

So the past 3 weeks I've had a zillion doctor appointments, been to the pharmacy countless times, post office, grocery store, library and oh yeah, two days in the hospital. Then there are parent/teacher conferences (which got rescheduled because of the 1/4 inch of snow we had yesterday and the district freaked out and cancelled school), the parent night at Romania's new school and Women's Bible Study (not a bad thing!) So, basically I'm home less than I was before. My house is still a wreck (still haven't washed those curtains) and I haven't seen the inside of the gym yet. Maybe I could lose weight from the STRESS of it all!! and then I wouldn't even have to exercise!

Uh-Oh

I should have known that public school was going to be a gold mine for blog posts. When I picked Romania up from the bus hub today, he had paperwork for me to look at. I was expecting to see forms for registration and a supplies list. He hands me a paper that screams "I was in trouble". Official-looking paper with all these boxes checkmarked, handwritten notes, instructions for the parents.

Since Romania has never been to public school, he hasn't really had experience with standing in line, raising his hand, etc. We've done all our schoolwork at a desk in the schoolroom. He's never had to wander all over a classroom looking for supplies.
Today, another student reminded him to walk with his scissors pointed down. He told me he was afraid he would poke himself, so he didn't want to do that. He was too angry to explain himself at school and ended up throwing the scissors. He gets angry and has trouble coming back down, so I wasn't surprised (more embarrassed) that he couldn't dig himself out of this. At least the first three days were rock solid!

When we got home, I helped him write letters of apology to the student and his teacher. Just yesterday in Sunday School, he made a little booklet called "Wise Words" and drew pictures of himself in those situations. I guess he'll have to take that with him to remember what to do.

Stay tuned for more exciting public school adventures!

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

This morning I got an email from this environmental school that I applied to for both the boys last year. If your child attended the first year (very new school), then they pretty much had a slot guaranteed. The rest of the openings were done in a lottery. We didn't get in, but Romania was pretty high up on the waiting list. Today we found out that Romania got in. I'm stumped as to what to do. Holland doesn't go a full day yet, so the bus schedule might be an issue since they are going in two different directions. I talked with Romania about it and he was excited to meet new friends and ride the bus. I think riding the bus was actually the higher priority.

I Heart School

Ok. One more thing to post today. I was going through Holland's school notebook. I have to sign a paper every day. Basically it's just communication between the teachers and myself. They also may tell me how his day went. Once in a while, they put some school work in there so I can see how he's doing. Let me just say right off - he's normal in this area. It's one of those fill in the blank pages. You know, the type that ask you your favorite, food, or animal. Here's how he answered some:
"I think my favorite subject will be" and he wrote "lunch".
"My favorite school lunch is", "pizza".
"This year, I really want to do this in school", he wrote "bus".
"My favorite place in school is" and he wrote "no where"
"This year I want to learn about", (here's the kicker,) "nething"

Wow! He's just like any other typical kid making his way through the trenches of school. Yipppeee!