Before the baby was born, we planned on doing a few last renovations to our house to make sure we could use some of the rooms we’d not been using. A secondary goal in this, of course, was to let the wife move her study out of the third bedroom, and down to where my study, so that we could move the Monster into his own room. The goal of this, of course, was to let the baby move into the nursery and out of the master bedroom. Continue reading
Month: December 2012
Choose Your Words Carefully
Verbal communication is one of those pesky things that we all have trouble learning at some point or another.
The Monster, as referenced frequently, handles his limited verbal communication by sticking to scripted phrases that he’s learned. These, by and large, go to the format of “Can I have <X>, please?” He’s figured out enough of English to realize that X can be just about anything. Continue reading
Big Brother Mode
There are breakthroughs and there are breakthroughs.
Yesterday, I spent a few hours alone with both kids – this is, as you can imagine, a bit of a challenge, when I’m coping with a very non-verbal child (an 11 month old infant) and a semi-non-verbal child (being the Monster at a very rambunctious 4 1/2 years). Most of the time, it works out fairly well, since the baby is still exploring his environment and the Monster’s quite content to play around/with him. Continue reading
The Squeaky Wheel
A rare Saturday post, yes. I figured that after I got bogged down with real life the last few days, I owed you all an update on what’s going on.
So yesterday was the meeting with the IEP coordinator and a parent-teacher conference with his general educator. Continue reading
Friday is for Fighting
So the appointment is made – Friday at two in the afternoon. That’s when my wife and I are going over to the Monster’s school to talk to his IEP coordinator (and likely the principal) about our issues with the program.
Now, let me be clear about something. I’m not in a position where I think this program is horrifyingly letting my child down. This is not about my coming in to demand massive, extraordinary changes in his program for the sake of how I envision it should be. Continue reading
Sitter Seeking
Of all the things I thought I’d be worrying about as my kids grew up, I thought finding a babysitter would be the least of them.
I was, of course, a babysitter myself when I was a teenager – it was a great way to make cash, and most nights the kids were asleep for the vast majority of the time that I was at their house. Continue reading
Spoiling for a Fight
I’m sure this isn’t news to anyone who has a child on an IEP – if you don’t make sure that they live up to the goals in the plan, they tend to go by the wayside.
Going a step further, bear in mind that we live in a major city with a record of having issues living up to the IEPs. The biggest issue, really, is the lack of resources that the city has and their inability to really apply what they have effectively. This is clearer still when you notice that our city is finally owning up to just how much deferred maintenance they have – to the point that several schools will be closing over the next few years, and most of the rest going under serious renovation. Continue reading
Lazy Sunday
Just a little slice of life from our house, perhaps.
Sundays are often our ‘down’ day – as you may have guessed, because I don’t update on Saturdays, we often have things going on. (Yesterday, case in point: we had synagogue – wife’s choir was performing, and I had gabbai duties – then over to the grandparents’ to program their new phones, install a Slingbox and let the Monster run rampant for a bit.) Sundays are the day where we usually have nothing at all to do, nothing pressing at least, unless we’ve specifically scheduled. Continue reading
For Me?
I’m going to call this serendipity. I think it’s funny that Autism Speaks called this out this morning, but… it’s just timely.
Hanukkah starts tomorrow night, which means that we ran into the inevitable question last night from the Monster’s grandparents, when they were over watching the kids – what do the kids want for Hanukkah? Continue reading
Differences of Opinion
The Monster had another speech evaluation yesterday.
I find it interesting, as we go from therapist to therapist, at the differences in opinions as to his level of function. (For a basic level of evaluation – they require a ‘greater than 25% deficiency’ in function here for services.) He is currently just shy of 55 months, which means that he needs to be speaking at less than a 41 month level to be getting speech services in the schools. Continue reading