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.

Feeling blessed - Some things are meant to be.

Well if anyone actually is reading this blog you know school choices for Will have been the bane of my existence since last February, when we went through the whole K vs. preschool,  private vs. public.  Then the unfortunate non-acceptance from said private school (Grrrr that STILL makes me so mad - I heard they only have 6 kids this year for K, serves them right).

Anyway the last part of this ongoing saga the last minute switch to our school of choice.  This school is an international baccalaureate school.  I could try to explain it, but I'm not to adept at it so here is a link if you want to learn more.  IB information  After taking a tour of the school and going to one of their informational parent nights I was sold.  One thing I liked the most is they combine grades and the kids get the same teacher for both years.  So K is alone than grades 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 are together.  It's pretty cool.


We got this last minute spot that had I not brought my cell phone to our cabin in the woods and had a signal not made it too my phone we would have missed our chance to go.  Some times I think things really happen for a reason.  


Yesterday we had our meeting with Will's teacher.  I had taken Will to the open house on Wed. night and had gotten this wonderful email from his teacher on Thursday.

"...It was great to spend time with you and William last night. I enjoyed speaking with you and watching William as he was engaged in some activities in the room. He is a beautiful, bright and amazing young man.  I am looking forward to seeing you and your husband tomorrow morning. .....I am so excited to have William in our classroom. I will do everything possible to make sure he is appropriately challenged and always enjoying his time at school. See you soon,..."

I teared up just reading it and was hoping our meeting would go well.  It did!  I honestly do not think I could have hand picked a better teacher.  As I mentioned before in an earlier entry she has a child (19 now) that has high functioning autism, or so they told her.  She told me now she is not so sure on the diagnosis, but back then there was so little information about it.  The interesting thing is she would not let the school give him an autism label and fought and got a speech/language impairment label.   This information alone made me happy.  I shared with her the doctors reports from Nashville and told them a little bit about them.  She was totally open and supportive of our decisions to get answers for Will and wanted their email so she could "glean info from them".  Also we talked about how K this year was not what we really wanted for Will which is why we want him to repeat it again next year.  Her response was this was the best decision we could make.  "Give him the gift of time" were her words.  I couldn't agree more.  


We talked for 2 hours with her asking all kinds of wonderful questions on how Will learns, his interests, likes dislikes.  We were very frank about our concerns of Will's scripting and how we thought it could be an obstacle.  Evidently Will will not be her first student who has scripted and she was not at all concerned.  


Am I dreaming.......I hope I never wake up from this.  School starts in 4 days and for the first time in forever I am optimistic and excited to see how Will flourishes.  Fingers crossed.

Riding a wave of High Emotions

Yeah the title says volumes doesn't it?  I'm headed to my 2nd glass of wine right now.  What has me in such a state you wonder?  The same stupid crap.... school, my child etc. etc.

Today was a red letter day in this house.  We started it off with Will's 5 year routine physical.  A bit early, but he HAD to have his last vaccinations before the start of school.  He is growing like a weed, 90 something percentile for height, 88 for weight.  Tall and slim is what the doctor said.  So what is so bad about that??? Well Will HATES the doctor.  Since his memory is so wonderful he knows exactly what happens every time he goes there.....ouchies AKA shots.  Will's recall memory started as soon as we drove up to the office telling us that "Daddy go to doctor".  He waited beautifully in the waiting room, but as soon as his name was called the battle began.  Height and weight were a bit of a battle and then we went back to the exam room.  Fine again as we waited and then the doctor came in.  Truth be told he did AMAZING  compared to his 4 year exam and complied with all the exam as long as I came up with ways for him to comply.  The doctor asked him some questions and Will actually responded to the ones he could, which was nice.  She told us she was extremely happy with his language progress and thought he may just flourish in K this year.    Then it was time for the shots.  I can still hear, but I am positive I lost some hearing due to the screeching.  The nurse just about ran out when she tied to talk to Will after she gave the shots and he screamed at her with such passion I've not seen before.

We were both drained after that and after some mindless time watching the boob tube, both Will and I took a nap together upstairs.  I needed my energy for part II of the day... school open house.

As soon as we woke up I told Will we were going to ride a bus and meet his new teacher and school.  He seemed okay with it and even when asked what we were going to do at diner replied "teacher".  Again he did well enough.  Rode the bus like a champ and would have rode it again and again if I had let him.  Then we went on to meet the teacher,  Mrs. Pilon. 

If you read my blog you're probably wondering what happened to Mrs. Glasgens.  Well last Thurday we found out Will had gotten a last minute spot at our school of choice.  It has a lottery system in which we entered but lost sometime in March.  I guess we were high on the wait list and someone dropped out of school last week opening up a spot for Will.

I checked out his new teacher and was a bit amazed at our luck.  She won a teaching excellence award and went to the White House last year to meet President Obama.  Pretty cool right?  But was she the right teacher for Will?

I dropped in on her classroom on Tuesday and immediately was feeling better about school.  I shared a little about Will and she told me she kind of understood since she has a 19 year old son with high functioning Autism and he didn't talk until 5, so she knew the anxiety I was feeling with Will.

Sorry got off the story there.  So the classroom visit went fairly well.  Will loved her room with all the toys and animals.  She has a snake, tarantula, bearded dragons, turtle an iguana and some other furry creatures.  She chatted with me again and we set up a meeting for Friday to discuss Will.  She was very reassuring and that was a good thing.  I was dreading a teacher who wanted only round pegs and would be non accepting of my cute square peg.

I just wish I had a heads up all those years ago that my preconceived ideas on school and how my child would be could be so entirely different than reality. 

School starts in a week.  I'm not sure I'm going to make it......Will on the other hand can't wait to ride the bus again.  Go figure.