the weekend

We had a good Memorial Day weekend!  My parents came down and Josh and my dad played in Josh's football golf tournament.  My mom, the B-man and I were really busy.  My mom helped me in our yard, then helped me organize our baby's room, which has been a catch-all for everything B has outgrown.  You could hardly walk in there, but now it's a beautiful nursery.  We needed to get it done - we have our home inspection coming up this weekend.  I was very glad for the help my mom offered.  We threw away a bunch of stuff, got things set up, clothes into new tubs by size, and things washed.  Thanks for the help, Mom!  Now we just need a dresser for in there and it will be ready for a little one to come home some day!

B-man helped every step of the way.  I love love love that he's such a helper.

Yesterday we just took it easy - it was cold, dark, and windy out so it was a day to snuggle in and read.

My parents left this morning and we've done the same thing - snuggle in.  It's so windy and cold out - not nice outside weather for sure!

Busy week coming up. B and I are done with school - officially on summer vacation!!  Josh has 2 weeks left still. I'm babysitting a couple cuties while their mom and dad have school still - their babysitter bailed and left them without childcare for the last month or more of school.  I'm done with school now, so I'm taking the kids this week until their grandma can come to the rescue next week.  B and I are excited!  Tomorrow is our anniversary, and we'll be spending it very romantically - eating dinner at the school while a football coach gets me certified in infant CPR.  haha!  I need to get certified for our new adoption agency.  Josh is of course certified already, being an EMT and all, but I need to get mine done.  Then we have our home inspection on Saturday.

And I thought summer was supposed to slow down. :)

released

We had B's IEP meeting this afternoon.  He is officially released from it and his services.  SPD is not IEP-able, so he was on his IEP for speech so he could receive services for sensory.  He passed the speech eval with flying colors, so he has been released.  We'll work on getting his 504 plan written with the elementary school principal. (for those not familiar with the education jargon, a 504 plan is used for students that may need accommodations and interventions, but don't have a learning disability.  So a student without a learning disability but is in a wheelchair, for example, could have a 504 plan because they would still need some accommodations.  Same with SPD.  It's not a learning disability, but he could still need certain accommodations for noise and sensory overload and whatnot.)

I'll come back later and add his scores in, but he tested above average in everything, and 99th percentile for most, including fine motor, gross motor, language, and emotional stuff.  In fact, in expressive communication, he is at the level of a 7 year, 11 month old!

Way to go, my superstar!!

kindergarten round-up

Hard to believe my boy is going to kindergarten.  Makes this mama sad, but I suppose he has to go...

Round-up was today.  B told us we were not allowed to talk about it, because he didn't want to go today.  So I had a good idea of how the day was going to go...

Here's a cast of characters in this post, for those of you not familiar with who I'm talking about! 

Mrs. Uhling - the K teacher.  She's amazing.  She won a national math teaching award last year and got to meet President Obama to receive it.  Her husband is Josh's principal.  Her daughter just graduated with an elementary ed degree and was voted the outstanding female graduate from the whole university.  Pretty impressive.  We go out to dinner with them a few times a month, so Mrs. Uhling and Brecken know each other very well.

Mrs. McAtee - the math facilitator for our district.   Knows us well - and has a desk at Central Office right across from Josh.  She was impressed one day while B was at work with Josh that B was writing down jersey numbers - 44, 24, 13, etc.  Not just any old numbers - jersey numbers of Josh's basketball players. LOL!

The OT is Chuck.  He of course is known as Mr. Mollica to the kids, but in this email I call him Chuck.  

Donna is B's current OT.

And you may not remember, but he rubs his hand in my hair and twists it every time he gets tired or overwhelmed.  It's a soothing thing for him.

Alright, here we go:

Started off disastrous.

I was a few minutes late because I had to finish a class and drive the 20 miles from work.  I walked in and Josh and B were with the nurse already.  Brecken was buried so far into Josh's shoulder that I couldn't hardly see his face.  He immediately reached for me and would not say a word.  He wouldn't even wear the name tag they had for him.  His face was so red and hot I thought he had a fever. The nurse knows us (she works at all the schools in the district) and knows Brecken so she was expecting this.  She was very good - very calm, very nice, and didn't push - just showed us where to go next.

Next was the kindergarten readiness test with Mrs. Uhling, who he knows very well.  The math faciliator was also there to do math things.  B also knows Mrs. McAtee, he talks to her at Central Office a lot.  CRAWLED up me to get away from both of them. Literally.  Wouldn't answer a single thing.  Wouldn't point to his favorite color, wouldn't find a circle, wouldn't even LOOK at Mrs. Uhling or Mrs. McAtee.  Even though his friend from preschool was in there doing it.  I'm so grateful those two ladies know B and know he's not being a brat, but that he just could NOT do it. 

So we move on to OT.  The OT was busy with the girl that was in the room with us for math and Mrs. Uhling, so Mrs. McAtee decided to try again with B since nobody else was in her room.  They were in there a LONG time.  I stood and waited for OT.  The OT knows me, he works in our school too.  So we talked about the SPD and what we see in B, what he does, what's going to be a struggle (like lunch - oh, how I dread lunch next year), asked about motor skills and I said he's probably the most athletic 5 year old I've met, and that gross motor was great, but that he works with Donna on fine motor, along with the other sensory stuff. He said he has a weighted vest we can try if the transition to K is hard since he sleeps with a weighted blanket.  

He told me about a FANTASTIC sounding program that he does for sensory kids before school every morning.  He calls it sensory school, and those sensory kids can come in at 7:45 and do what they feel they need to do - swing, spin chairs, balance balls, sensory tables for tactile things, he can brush them, etc.  They do that for 15 minutes and then they have 10 minutes of yoga.  I might have gotten tears in my eyes when he said that - that sounds like EXACTLY what B-man needs every morning.  I'm so grateful that that's an option.

After we talked about that, Mrs. McAtee came in with a thumbs up, followed by B and Josh.  He managed to get all his math and readiness stuff done!  HOORAY!!!!! Didn't miss a single question. AND, he saw stuff in the OT room that Donna has and felt better - he balanced on a ball with Chuck (the OT), showed off his running, stopping, jumping, catching, drawing, etc.  After every "test", he'd run back to me and rub his hands in my hair, and then he'd go do the next thing.  He wouldn't TALK to Chuck at all, but he did what he asked! YAY!

By that time, we had been there an hour, when most roundups take 30 minutes, and he still hadn't gotten to the hearing and sight test lady.  I had to get back to work (I was only able to go because it was during my plan/lunch) so I had to leave Josh there with B. Josh told me tonight what a super-star B was when he finally opened up... got all the math questions right, drew himself correctly, drew a tree (with an apple in it!), drew a sun by drawing the yellow circle and THEN filling it in, which is apparently a pretty high skill for a preschooler, and drew stars, which apparently is a skill taught late in kindergarten.  Who knew?!  Our kid is brilliant. :)

Super excited about sensory school!!

band-aids. again.

The B-man has not only decided that band-aids are OK, but that now his finger hurts if he DOESN'T have one on.  We bought the box of 30 on Saturday morning.  Today is Tuesday.  We have gone through 11 band-aids.