Saturday, October 29, 2011

Long time no post.....sorry!

WOW it has been WAY too long since my last post.  The good news is that it's because there has been little strife and lots of growth.

Full day K started off well and continues to be good for Will.  His special ed teachers now wish they had pushed him along to 1st grade as academically he is pretty ahead of his classmates (was doing 2nd grade math and subtraction a few weeks back).  Since his current school does combine grades after K, I have a feeling he may skip 1st and go to 2nd, but it's too early yet to worry about next year.  He is all Hellos for his friends and teachers. His aid is ....ok.... I think the match isn't the best, BUT she is a nice person and genuinely wants to do a good job.

The struggle for language is still ongoing.  Every morning I great him with a "Good morning Will" and I get in return "Good morning Da, Dad, Good morning Mommy".  It can really take him a bit to find the right words.  Yet other times  I hear "Come on Mommy" roll off his tough like second nature.  I think once he sets his mind to what he wants to say it comes more easily than finding a correct response to reply to me.

The 6th birthday brought me to tears...of happiness.  He TOTALLY got it!  Was soooo excited for cake, candles and PRESENTS.  When asked what day it was I heard a VERY strong..."it's my birthday!" Both my husband and I said this was the birthday we've been waiting for.  We can't wait for Christmas...either can Will.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Random Update


I just realized it has been awhile since my last post.  Just got a new comment on my last post (thanks Pam -  hearing that people read and get something from my blog helps me keep it going).

Things in our little MERLD world have been clicking along.  Will is making progress in development and language.  We are now concentrating on pronouns which as you may know are REALLY hard to teach.  Right now we hear a lot of "You need a chocolate chip cookie please!" Slowly we are hearing I first in this sentence, but only about 40% of the time....I'll take it.

General development has come a bit since February too.  Will is now more interested in being with us....we call him our shadow and copying our actions.  We are also getting a nice play by play.  At dinner time we are likely to hear  "Dadddy sitting down to eat....Mommy sitting down to eat"  "Mommy eating a hotdog" etc. etc.   Asking where questions is now second nature to Will, although some of the time he asks knowing where something is so we can get it out for him ie.  "Where is the kite Mommy?", but most times it is genuine.

School is going by so fast and this Wednesday we have our IEP meeting for next year.  Funny how a year can bring so many changes.  Last year I was all in a panic and now, well I'm just looking at it as a formality.  Next year will be a whole day repeat of K with ST, OT and now Music Therapy too.  Also next year Will will be receiving a 1-1 aid to help him attend to activities. Since he is in a typical classroom with 1 teacher and 20 students this will be a great help both to Will and his WONDERFUL teacher Mrs. Pilon.

I've heard stories from a few of the school peeps of how they are having short (4 exchanges) conversations with Will in the last few weeks.....so great to hear.  We are now also way more independent getting out of bed turning on Mommy and Daddy's light, going downstairs for toys and THANKFULLY using the toilet (no more OVERNIGHTS!!!!)  I have to say I miss going to his room in the morning, after I've woken up on my own thanks, to get Will, but now I wake up to "Mommy wake up please!!" so it's a good exchange.

Lastly I finally bit the bullet and enrolled Will in an extra school activity.  We are now in week 4 of 6 for bowling.  Will was SO SO exciting when I took him to the alley.  I think he thought bowling only existed on the Wii and not in the 3D world!  He is now happily taking turns and giving high 5s to his bowling partners.  It really is too cute.  This gives me hope that maybe next year we will go full out and try t-ball in the summer. 

And one final word, thankful.  I am truly thankful for my son.  He is probably one of the easiest kids to raise, language disorder or not, on the planet.  His easy going nature and beautiful smile make me realize that life could be so much worse.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Another example of MERLD

Just wanted to add another example of how MERLD effects my son's understanding and response to spoken language.

Today when my husband came home Will was pretty happy to see him. My husband asked for a high five to which Will gave him one. Then my husband held out his two hands and said high five, which was reciprocated as well. 

My husband then encouraged him to hit harder (Will's muscle strength is really weak and my husband was trying to have him apply more effort). After a few weak high fives my husband says "Give me 3!" (asking for three quick high fives) What does out dear son do? We watched as he carefully put up three fingers on each hand and gave his father a "High 3"

Sometimes I find this adorable and heartbreaking at the same time.....

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Long time no blog.......


Sorry for the long span between my last blog entry and this one.  I could use the usual excuses of holidays and all that goes with them, and to some extent it was partly that.  The other part, well things are trucking along.  Progress is being made but it's SLOW. 


Had a wonderful phone conference with the school and Will's doctors in Nashville.  Was told they wished they could send every child with Will's language disorder to their school.  They had a great conversation on how best to help Will function in the school environment.  One part of this phone conversation that was hard to hear was the doctor telling the school that Will will not be making great progress this year or even the next and that they wanted the school to understand that it will be 3rd grade before huge gains are made.  I sat in that meeting and did the math......that's 4 years from now.  He is 5 now so almost another of his lifetime to get him caught up with his peers.  That was a bit hard to hear, but then I realized the end was out there and the first 5 years passed by so quick already. 


Christmas was great this year.  The idea of Santa Claus started to sink in and the opening of presents was breezed through wrapping paper flying. 

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Back to our regulary scheduled (and wonderful) program

 Where is that bus?


Sorry its been awhile since I posted, but it took awhile to come down from that high from Will's birthday.

Things are going well enough.  School keeps on going well, I've received several more amazing emails from Will's teacher.  Will's interaction and sentence structure is slowing coming along too.  As little as a few months ago you could ask him "What's this?" (lion) and his replay would have been "lion",  then his response became "a lion" to today its "It's a lion."  I see this as a big gain for him.

We are now able to tell him to his question "Where's the gigi?" (Gigi aka beloved blanket) "It's upstairs on your bed go up and get it."  AND HE DOES!  Even in the last 6 months or so is would have been SO much more involved in that exchange.  Our response would have been closer to "on bed.....upstairs......Will go get it."

When I started this blog Will also couldn't really tell me what hurt when he was sick.  Just this past week he told me "tummy hurt" when he was suffering from a stomach bug.

All of this equals progress to this mom.  Compared to others it may seem like small potatoes, but in this house its great gains.  Sometimes my husband and I feel kind of lucky as this language issue has kept Will innocent longer.  He is the most easy going kid and now that he understands more complies so willingly to requests. We don't have bad attitude or too much acting out.  Now I don't know how long this will last, but I'm happy that right now I have a 5 year old who is such a sweet, happy easy kid.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Am I living in an alternate universe?

Do you remember in the movie the Sound of Music???  The scene where they sing "I must of have done something good." Well that is how I am feeling right now.  I have been reading recently blogs, message boards of fellow mothers with "different" kids and a lot of them are doing the beginning of the school year struggle.  A few have gone so far as removing their child from the daycare/preschool/Kindergarten, then deal with people who don’t want to help their child. 

Well let me tell you a little story that happened yesterday, which happened to have been Will’s 5th birthday........

As Will’s 5th birthday only happens once I decided to bring in donuts and cider to celebrate his day with his classmates.  I showed up while the class was in Spanish and set up the cups, plates, and napkins.  Then all the kids come in.  Will is all smiles saying “You came in!”  and trying to show me all the cool animals in the classroom.  His friends all gathered around him asking how old he is and he was happy to reply “Five years old”.  That response alone would have made his day for me but wait it gets so much better.

I turn to look and see Will’s special ed teacher.  I’ve not met her in person, but talked to her briefly on the phone a few weeks back.  A bit nervous on what she would say to me as Will’s 5 week IEP meeting was later in the day I approached her cautiously.  What proceeded to happen then I couldn’t have imagined even if I tried. I was told how much she loves Will and was asked how I managed to figure out what was going on with him and had taken him to the right doctors.  Then she says “The Einstein Syndrome is so fascinating. At first I was a bit of a skeptic, but as I read it and he had all of the traits listed I became convinced he isn’t on the spectrum.”  I was completely flummoxed!   “You read the book?!”  I asked  “Yes and I made my assistant read it too.  She thought he probably had Aspergers, now I am convincing everyone with this book that is not the case.”  She went on to tell me what a wonderful job I’m doing with Will and how she has applied things she read in the book in helping Will in the classroom. 

I practically skipped out of the school that morning.  But me being me was still nervous about the IEP review meeting later that day. By nature and hearing others past bad experiences I always enter these meeting cautiously.  I need not have worried.  Carl came with me and counting us there were 9 people in the room all to discuss Will.  Not intimidating in the least right?  What proceeded to happen was a big love fest of Will.  I was prepared for a meeting of  “Will can’t do this.....he can’t do that”  Instead it was ...... “He can do this....He is doing that!”  Everyone one of these teachers/aids/therapists had great things to say about Will.  A few wanted to change his IEP goals as he had met some already and to set up others that were more appropriate for him.  Also they wanted to take off things that were no longer happening anymore, potty training and some sensory stuff.  These were things I wanted removed, but felt it wasn’t worth the effort to fight over as this point, so having them want to voluntarily take then off was wonderful.  Most said he was easily correctable, direct-able and a pleasure to work with.  We heard how his classmates love him, how all the girls circle around him and help him with his lunch box and how they all wave goodbye to him when he leaves for his half day.  My heart was so full from that meeting. Will’s OT told me she emailed his last school district OT with one line “I heart Will” 

Then Will’s teacher gave us a copy of her report that went in his file sorry for the length, but I need to right this out......

10-12-10

"Will is a very bright, curious child.  He has an amazing smile that lights up the room.  He is loved and cared for by his peers.  The often write him notes or cards during center time.  They invite him to join them on the carpet.  Some days Will sits at circle time and other days he prefers to watch or listen from the perimeter of the rug or while playing in an adjoining area.  Even if he is engaged with another activity, Will is often  smiling and watching what the group is doing/learning.   He attends keenly to what is going on around him.  When he is interested in an activity or a toy, he becomes fully engrossed in what he is doing.  He is excited about math, counting, computers, magnetic letters and words! He read the entire poem of the week aloud to the class.  He reads aloud from Dr. Seuss books.  Last week during the engineering center, he joined a small group of classmates as they constructed a large building and added animals to it.  He joined me at the semi-circle table to work for 5 or 20 minutes on a task.  He enjoys Spanish class and likes to use the instruments and move to the music.  He is excited about the flannel board puppets that were used to tell the story one day.  He goes to hall meeting and sits amongst the children from various classrooms  and he goes to the auditorium with his Mr. K buddy and sits attentively for the most part.  He will listen to a re-direction from an older child and adjust his behavior.  For example, he will remove this feet from the back of the seat when asked.  He is a joy to work with and he teaches me so much every day.  Thank you for sharing such a fantastic little boy with me and with our classroom.”


I don’t think I could ask for more....do you?  Oh yeah after this love fest for Will we had a birthday party with family.  For the first time he really got into the idea of presents, candles on his cake, and enjoyed the party immensely.

It was a great day to start off 5!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Been afraid to say this outloud.....

Its been before school started that I've updated this blog, and maybe someone may wonder why.  Could it be the poops hit the fan? 

Truthfully school seems to be going pretty well.  I've spent this last week wondering when the other shoe was going to drop and didn't want to jinks anything by posting how wonderful the school has been.

The first day of school went down as a happy day for Will and Mommy.  He was so excited to ride the bus!  I had made him his own book "Will Goes to Kindergarten" and I think reading it every night and seeing himself in his classroom and pictures of his teacher, locker, etc. really helped with the adjustment. 

I've gotten either nice emails or phone calls from Will's support staff.  His SLP seems to want to utilizes the techniques the Camaratas had listed in their last report, so that is nice.  His teacher is already using the techniques I've given her before school started.  Right now their is NO pressure for Will to conform in the classroom.  If he doesn't want to participate he doesn't and when he does I have a feeling is rewarded and encouraged.  I've also been told he is not a distraction nor does he present any disiplinary issues, so that is good. He has been described by the school psychologist as easily distracted, to which I replied "well if you watched a french film with no subtitles you tell me how distracted you would be."  I think this got the point across.

The call from the special ed teacher that works with Will informed me that there was a meeting about Will and I guess the information that I wanted him to repeat K was discussed and agreed with.  She told me that are treating Will like a preschool student who happens to be taking K this year and will repeat next year.  Right now we are all concentrating on getting Will used to the routine and getting him more socialized and participating with the class.

More complex language is starting to creep in as well, but the scripting still continues.  So right now we are going with the flow and taking it one day at a time.  Hears to hoping we end the year as happy as we started it, for Will and I.