Well, since I hadn't written anything regarding project progress, I figured I'd update both of my favorite groups at once.
School started 8/20 and both children are adjusting well, as is mom now that I have 3 mornings to do "my" stuff. Last week, DS came home with a fever that went up to 104.7......visit to ER resulted in 4 hours of waiting and nothing else. fever never went down, took him to walk-in hours on Friday, and they said to keep him home throughout the weekend and come back in on Monday if his fever hadn't broken. Well, he's back at school and doing fairly well.
This week, it's DDs turn to get sick. She left school early yesterday with a fever of 102, and it went back up to 104.6 last night. She is complaining about her head hurting, throat feels icky, and she had the shakes this morning when she tried to hold her juice cup. Into walk- in hours with her, did a strep test (actually 2...the quick test and the longer one). Quick test came back negative, but the longer test might come back positive. She's on the couch with juice and apple sauce and we're waiting for the jello to be ready.
So.....Mom is running around like a loon trying to take care of everyone else. Except for MOnday....Monday I almost got into a fight at DSs school because the IEP committee refused (again) to listen to me. His IEP has been renewed for another year and they also did his triannual review. Ok, that wouldn't have been a problem, except that the school psychologist that was at the meeting never even took 5 minutes to talk with DS, and her "notes" on the meeting were simply direct quotes from his 4 year old evaluation!!!! The spec. ed teacher wanted to drop his IEP because she feels that he does NOT have a disability that interferes with his learning, and his regular classroom teacher said that she honestly feels that he is bored with his classwork, but she has yet to take the time to find extra work for him. They *DID* listen to me when I said he still seems to have auditory processing issues and they will be giving him an OT evaluation to see if he still has auditory issues under his SID diagnosis, though he seems to have outgrown the other issues.
Anyway, I was trying to explain to the committee that Thomas has come home repeatedly complaining about how his classwork is stupid because he already knows how to do the work that they are giving him. They continue to refuse to listen and have also refused to test him to see if he needs to be in more advanced classes. Well, this time around, Mom was tired of it. I went to a local educational supply store and bought him a couple of science books, math books, reading comprehension book, and simply because he asked for it, a cursive handwriting book. He has a folder for each subject, and when he finishes the assigned schoolwork, he can get one of those folders and work on the different lessons that I have sent in. This takes the responsibility off the teacher and school, which is extremely annoying to Ken and me (after all, our tax dollars go to support this school and they do get help based on the number of students with IEP or 504 plans). However, if the school isn't going to meet his needs, I will.
Yesterday, after I had my nutritionist meeting (down to 171 pounds..woohoo) and met with DSs counselor to ask her for direction and help since the school doesn't want to test DS, I decided to head to the county school board. Yes, I was more than a little ticked off, and this was a day after the meeting!!! I spoke with the differentiation specialist about DS and how the school was handling the situation - they would rather try to address his behavior issues than try to find the underlying cause(s). The lady I spoke with said that she will get in touch with the coordinator at DSs school and will get back to me by the end of the month. SHe will either have info regarding WHEN they will test DS or will have his test results.
Yesterday afternoon, DSs teacher called to let me know what DSs PALS test vocabulary scores were. The PALS vocab test determines what grade level reading group they will be in. To be at a certain grade level, a student needs to know 15 out of 20 words at that level. DS blew away ALL the words at the 4th grade level, knew 14 out ouf 20 at
5th grade, and 13 out of 20 at 6th grade!!! She also said that by the end of the year, he will probably be beyond 6th grade level.Needless to say, I haven't been doing a lot of quilting or apparel sewing, or even taking my nice long soaks and shaving my legs, but the family isn't falling apart, so I'm good.
When I talked to Mother about all of this, she told me that this, my tenacity in forcing the "system" to address my child's needs and abilities, is one of the things that she is proud of me for :-) Then she talked to DS....it was a little odd because he didn't understand that I could be on the phone at the same time he was on the phone talking to his grandmother. MOther said that she thought I was probably in the garage, which I was, and then she asked where DS was....I told her in the kitchen. SHe asked DS and when he said he was in the kitchen, her response was, wow, you're mom was right.....DS responded with, "She always is!" I was more than a bit speechless at that.
Anyway, that's my life as it has been for the past few weeks. I have
11 more pounds to lose before the nutritionist will be happy with me. DH is losing weight and following the diet plan that we have in place (balanced meals and not as many junk meals during the week). The children are getting their work done and gaining weight slowly, and the pets are just being themselves.I'm slowly getting the sewing room reorganized so that I can actually work in there. I've figured out that I need to rotate projects so that I can actually get things done, but before I can do that, I have to clean out all the stuff that I no longer need in there.
I'll try to get some more projects done and pictures posted.....I've moved everything over to Flickr now, so once I get things settled, I'll update everything and post the new link.
Larisa, tired, icky feeling, but still alive