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.

Another first - - Plus A quick note to Mrs. Glasgens

Just a quick post to notate a big deal in this household.  Yesterday I was off with a friend enjoying some mommy alone time when I received a text from my husband.  It stated "Will just said I like Uncle John".  Okay well this may not seem like a big deal, but IT IS.  Will has never expressed a like unprompted before.  Oh you can ask him if he likes something and 99% of the time he'll say yes.....even if he hates it.  So to volunteer with language he likes something is a very BIG deal.  I foresee big things to come.....

Mrs. Glasgens,

Just sending you a quick note congratulating you for getting assigned my son Will for your kindergarten class this year. You must feel so blessed to be able to be such a big influence on Will and he you.  You see if you allow it, Will can challenge you to be the best teacher you ever thought you could be.  If you simply can open your eyes, heart and mind you will be delighted on how much he knows and how willing he is to learn from you.  You may have to use some unconvential teaching methods, but I promise you that by doing this not only will Will benefit, but so will others who undoubtedly come after him.

You lucky teacher you.  Enjoy the year.

Sincerly,
Will's Lucky Mother

A Little School Freak Out - I feel entitled.

Soooooo its now Aug 10th.  School starts for Will September 8th.  It was about 2 days ago that I started to really think about Will going to school.  I've been watching him all summer going to "speech school".  This is a class of 5 kids all with speech/language issues that meets 2x/week for 1.5 hours.  He has the same teacher he had this last school year.  In the beginning of summer I was really impressed with Will.  He answered most questions asked of him and tried to answer for others.  He seems to attend fairly well.  Cut to the end of summer and he seems to be checking out a bit, acting out a bit too. 

I know I am suppose to have the happy optimistic outlook for how schools going to go this year, but right now I'm panicking.  The good news is that since he is repeating K next year whenever I hear he's not where his peers are I can say this is why we are giving him another year to master these skills.

So what have I decided to do to help ease this time for Will???.......I went shopping.  Because the truth is there isn't too much I can do to determine how successful Will is this school year, but by golly that kid will have new scuff free shoes to wear.  Of course I plan to be in his teacher's/OT/ST ear all year long and volunteer in the school as much as they'll let me (yes - do know how fortunate I am that I can stay at home and do this.  I am VERY thankful.)  But in truth Will's success will in large part fall on him.  Seems like a lot to ask of a 4 year old - don't you think? 

One more month to enjoy.....and worry. Oy.

Perspective - it's a strange thing

Just a quick note on perspective.  As I've written in the past Will has a Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder (MERLD- for short).  He got this diagnosis at 3.5 and again at 4.5 from the Camarata's.  This past year we took Will for a follow-up to see how much progress he had made.

Unfortunately Mary couldn't get though all of the language testing on that day (she had forgotten about our appointment and we started an hour late.)  I told her Will's teacher was testing his language as well and Mary requested I send along these test results to help her finish and round out her report.

Well I finally got around to sending her the information she needed yesterday (we went for the visit in February and I had Will's test results in May).  I know slacker, but in truth I was dreading a bit sending the results, and I wanted to just concentrate on how well Will is doing right now in the real world and not on some test.

The teacher's results said Will was in the 5th percentile for Receptive Language and .3 percentile for Expressive Language.

Let's be honest when you read a report that states numbers like these it's a bit depressing, which is another reason I just put off sending the results off to Mary.

About 12 hours after I sent that email I got a reply from Mary that follows;

"Great. I will get the report right off.  I am also happy to hear about how the summer is going language-wise...and fun-wise for Will. It is nice to see the gains in Receptive Language as per the CELF-PRE. Nice! Gains in receptive language most often precede expressive gains. This bodes well. I will get the report to you. Good to hear from you. Mary Camarata."

I guess I need to leave interpreting test results to the experts. After reading this I realized Mary was right already as this test was given back in April/May and Will has shown some bigger gains expressively this summer.

Just one more reason I feel blessed to have found wonderful doctors for Will.

Perspective - it's a strange thing.

Growing up

First off, sorry it's been awhile since my last post.  School finished up and we were enjoying a week long visit from some old friends, a July 4th party etc, etc. 

We had a lot on our plate while our friends were here and I did worry a bit on how Will would react to all new people staying at the house and coming over for a party.  I needn't have worried.  Will was incredible.  I think it helped our friends have no kids yet and were a bit reserved with Will and let him warm up to them in his own time.  The first full day of their visit he brought me his shoes and and told me "Put on shoes.  Go outside and talk to CJ."  I did as requested and watched amazed as my son "talked" to CJ outside on our porch steps.  Now I am not sure what he was saying, and my money is on some script from Super Why that morning, but his guestures and intense intent to get his point across read load and clear to this mom.

For our forth of July party it was more people and one new child at the house.  Will had met Andrew about 6 months ago at Christmas time.  Andrew is only 2.5 and only 1 inch shorter than Will, and Will is even tall for his age!  Anyhow Will was wonderful sharing toys and holding hands to take Andrew out to his slide.  Very sweet.  He even crawled in my bed pulled up the covers and yelled "Andrew in bed and snuggle!".  While this was a very sincere invite Andrew's mother and myself let this pass. ;-)

At the end of our friends visit something happened that I recognized as a big deal, but it went by everyone else without notice.  Will had been playing in the rain and was soaked going down his slide in all the water.  About 1.5 hours later I picked him up to cuddle and exclaimed "Will you're all well still".  Not expecting a response I heard "it's from the slide".  This to me was a BIG DEAL as unless you ask Will a direct question he usually doesn't respond verbally, so this was wonderful to my ears.

To round off the week we took Will everywhere with us while taking our friends site seeing.  Truthfully we don't hide Will in the house, but usually go the route of grandparent babysitter and some mommy and daddy free time than worry how he'll do on outings.  Again he did wonderfully!  Dinning out, going on car rides, grocery shopping were all non eventful for this LT.  The highlight of the week seeing the "giant waterfall" aka Niagara Falls and riding the Maid of the Mist.  Will loved it all and rolled with everything we challenged him with.  I think he cried once during our friends week long visit and that may have been under a minute in length.

I guess this LT is really growing up.  I couldn't be prouder of him.