about Perspective (Part 1): What would you do? How would you feel?
Imagine you are a teacher of 20 elementary-school aged children and are also 37-weeks pregnant. In the middle of the hustle and bustle of a classroom party, one your students all of a sudden flees the room without you noticing.
Imagine you are a substitute for a teacher who is on a 6-week leave. Without warning, one of your students begins crumpling and ripping up all of his papers.
Imagine you are the parent of a 1st grader. You get a call from the school to come get your child. You learn that he has developed a large knot on his head because another child threw a chair that hit him.
Imagine you are the Principal of a primary school. A student has been brought to you for disrupting the classroom. He spits at you, disrobes, and urinates on the floor in your office.
Imagine you are the parent of that child.
Imagine you are that child.
This is Part 1 of a series of articles on Perspective. I have been procrastinating addressing a controversial topic, but because I don’t want to default on my New Year’s Resolution, I decided to take baby steps.
If you choose to share your thoughts, please post on the original post where you can also choose to post anonymously. Please be honest, especially with yourself…
The last post of my blog
for 2008, that is. No I haven’t given up blogging, though it may appear that I have compared to what I started 18 months ago or so. But I need to force myself to blog. Not because I owe anyone a narrative of my life but because this blog does serve as a journal, and besides, it’s very therapeutic. I haven’t blogged since this post leading up to the IEP meeting on the 18th.
So there’s great news, and good news. The good news was that The Elder did not qualify for OT services. Ok if you read my last post, you might remember me hoping that he gets the services based on some of the triggers that led to “behavior reports.” But when the OT showed up some of his work, I was really floored by the amount of progress he has made with his motor skills. I was really floored by the amount of progress he has made with his motor skills.(I have video to support this too, but won’t be posted until next year. lol) When she showed us a piece of paper (one piece of paper) that was smooth (not crumpled), in one piece, with no “frustration” stripes all over the page of his ALPHABET, my mouth hung open. Yeah, sure he could recite his abc’s both forwards and backwards, by letter and by phonetics, by age 2.5, BUT at 4 years old, he couldn’t draw a consistent circle. About a year ago his circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles were pretty much indistinguishable. And don’t even DARE give him a pair of scissors to cut more than a 1/4in thick straight line (large zig-zags were ok though), without expecting a meltdown.**Thank goodness that his implusive glasses/shoe/food-throwing hadn’t migrated to scissors. It couldn’t have been pretty scary, tho I’ve gotten hit by a fork once or twice. Yay for plasticware. We’ve been recycling them from parties (our own parties…not other people’s. That’s just weird.) so we have a good supply in stock when they get lost in flight, snapped in two, or eaten by the disposal (oops). They are pretty darn sturdy. So seeing a perfect letter O made me giddy, but seeing a perfect S and a perfect number 8 put me in a bit of shock. I think me and The Hub blurted out at the same time, “HE did this?”
–wow–
She even showed us a picture of where he drew a person. It is all in pencil and has hands, feet (and stilts “like at the circus”), eyes (big circles), nose, mouth, ears, etc etc. Then in orange crayon there is a line drawn straight down the middle of his body (a), and then a line crossing it at the person’s waist (b) so that it looks like a cross. (Boy I wish I had a scanned version of it) He had explained to the OT that:
a) This is his spine, and
b) This is his belt.
–HI-larious–
So, his fine motor skills were no longer in question. And at home (and at school, as witnessed with my own personal eyeballs) his gross motor skills have improved as well (re: video that I have yet to post). His proprioceptive sense is maturing OR he is just getting braver/trusting more. Because he is starting to climb (I’m sure as taught by The Younger, expert monkey boy) and The Hub has a picture of him swinging on the HIGH “fireman” pole on the playground at his Fall Festival.
So…no OT. yay!
However The OT did recommend that he attend a handwriting class because he has an aversion to lowercase letters (especially the ones that “sink” below the line: g,j,y,p,q) and the d’nealian style in general. The OT is worried that if we “program” his chip to learn it this way that he will not be able to change it later. I’m not 100% sure that that is true because he does really well with a slowly communicated, very logical, self-motivating explanation to changes in routine, rules, etc.
So that was the big outcome. There were some other changes made in his IEP so that he wasn’t taken out of the classroom for any additional time than he already has been. He’s been having a “social group” session 2 days a week, and his reading group. But he is so accelerated that in his 15 minutes session 2 days a week, he would read a book and then take the test with a perfect score with time to spare and The Resource Teacher would have to provide him with an extra activity just so the others in his group could “catch up” (not that they were slow or anything). he was finished before she even got back to her deskShe said that the first time he took the comprehension test on the computer that he was finished before she even got back to her desk which is literally less than 5 steps away. Her classroom is about the size of a college apartment’s kitchen(nette). She said that at first she thought he was just clicking any ole answer just to get done as if it were a non-preferred activity. However, after multiple sessions of perfect scores she realized that not only was he reading the five questions on the test that fast, but he comprehended the book (that he just read) and could recall the answer at the same lightning speed.
–wow–
I also got to meet The Behavior Analyst who will begin her observations in January. She has a good reputation. We are SO BLESSED. Again, The Resource Teacher bragged on The Elder to her about how sweet and funny and smart he is.
“I just wanna eat him up with a spoon.”
were her exact words. Giddy Me! I could have kissed her on the lips. But I didn’t. Probably not very appropriate or socially acceptable.
So needless to say, I enjoyed my time and I didn’t need a kleenex unless you count tears of joy/shock.
Since then we experienced a FIVE DAY SMILEY FACE WEEK!!!!!! It was a first. He was SO proud of himself!
The Elder: I know.
So he definitely earned his Batter Batter Baseball.
We also had a successful trip to SC and back. A 7hr trip, that takes 10hrs with 2 kids who are potty trained and a dog. You can check out my tweets for an idea of what went down that week. Other than my ear/sinus infection and The Elder missing out on the presents, it was a very successful trip, only a few minor behaviors (like hitting and pseudo-biting) that I’m sure were triggered by the changes in routine and the excitement of seeing their cousins.
We are on the last week of Winter Break and I must say that I have really enjoyed having the boys to myself (The AP is on vacation too).
Stay-tuned for the following topics in (near-) future posts:
- Timeline – so what exactly happened during the last 6 months hiatus? cliff notes version.
- Video – shocking video of a hidden athletic talent. Goooooooo gross motor skills and coordination! Well, he still has the “Phoebe Run.” (soooo cute)
- Photo Album – Jesus was a carpenter so why can’t we?
- Christmas Quips – to be echolalic, to not to be…that is the question.
Happy New Year folks!
Find Out What Happened to Jen’s Blog
I was locked out! 
Thankfully it wasn’t a server problem so everyone was able to read and comment but I couldn’t moderate first-time commenters to have it post. But thanks for the emails (and comments) and phone calls that I got with your concern of our whereabouts.
Looks like the lastest upgrade to the Open ID plugin was a bust (as discovered be The Hub). So I’ll have to find a different one but I don’t think anyone who is currently commenting is using it. As a matter of fact, someone with a blogspot address should see if it is taking your URL yet.
If you are wanting to Mr. Linky your post for this week’s Success Sunday, post it on the previous one.
Soooo much to update and journal on, including The Elder’s IEP meeting but that might take a while because I typed it up in my DayNotez in very raw form. A cut and paste would make NO sense to the General Public.
However I will give you an up-to-date quip.
Let me give a little bit of background information. Fridays are usually family movie night, but since last night The Hub and I went bowling for an event (I do better at the Wii though), we had to defer the movie to today. Well we were going to go to a party instead but they totally were NOT in the mood for a 45 minute drive to a party that starts about an hour before their regular bedtime. It gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about the potential chaos we might have endured! However they did start to lighten up (with some threats) enough to go ahead and watch a movie.*I guess I do too.I got some really cute popcorn holders ($1 each at the Target Hot Spot) and they eat a LOT less popcorn that way too*.
Now, The Elder has been SUPER sensory lately and licking everything.**Yet, this is the guy who won’t eat French Toast (GFCF of course) that has black spots on it. I try to explain to him that it was cinnamon, but I just get the “It’s barnacles! It’s boring!” typical response.He was even licking the inside of the VHS tape case before the movie even started. I’ve seen him licking his shoes, licking the legos, licking his brother, I mean, everything!
So when The Hub asked which movie we should watch, I replied, “Osmosis Jones, because it’s about germs.” If you haven’t seen the movie, it is half cartoon and half not. Bill Murray plays Frank, and his body is the “City of Frank” where germs, organs, bodily fluids, etc. are all animated and portrayed as a micro-universe or such. It is a very clever movie. Me likey witty.
Anyhoo, when the movie first introduces the above concept, you see Frank eating an egg that had fallen on the ground and the camera follows it down his throat. In attempt to explain that to The Elder I said:
The Elder: No, that’s not it. We are just watching.
Me: (I pause to enjoy my amusement) You’re right, I didn’t mean to be so literal.
The Hub and I make eye contact and snicker while The Elder continues to watch like nothing happened.
Maybe about 10 minutes into the movie I look at The Hub and say, “I guess this isn’t an kids movie” I look around and neither of them are paying attention to the movie. Either their back was to the TV or their head was inside a bookshelf or something other than watching the screen. From the very beginning The Younger was playing with a puzzle so he was never really engaged in the movie to begin with. I think he was just excited to have his own little popcorn box (which he knocked over and lost his popcorn and The Skipper Dog ended up partaking). The most exciting part to The Elder is realizing that Osmosis Jones is the same as Marty on Madagascar (Chris Rock).
Me: (looking at him confused, but totally seeing his point) You don’t think it’s funny?
The Younger continued to work on his puzzle (the same one over and over again for most of the 90min movie) and The Elder started playing with the invisible ink and black light pen he got because we he sold for him at least 10 coupon books on behalf of his classroom. Then he started going through the VHS tapes and DVDs and pulling them all out. The Younger decided to join him.
By the end of the movie (I did prep them for the funny part at the end and they laughed hysterically as if they were waiting for that for years), all of the movies were off the shelves, on the floor, on the futon, etc. The good news is that there never was a meltdown and they never said “I don’t like that” or “Let’s watch a different movie.”
But they gave us some pretty strong hints…
