Gal Pal Dance

Last night was the Gal Pal dance for Girl Scouts. Lauren has been so excited all week. We did her hair and I let her wear some of my jewelery. She looked great. Her and Daddy had a great time. Lots of food and dancing. Unfortuately, Jim forgot the camera so all I have is a picture at home and one from the dance. Take a look.

Correction

According to Brandon, I did not get everyone in the picture from my last post. He insisted that I retake the picture with the ones I missed. So here it is. This time we included Panda and the two Webkins, Drake and Josh.

Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here!!

Last night we ran into a little Brando crisis. You see Brandon loves his beanie babies. He has several. Last night we were missing all of them. He was really upset about it. They have been slowly disappearing over the last several weeks. We were down to the last two and he was doing fine with just them, but then they went missing. I figured they had to be somewhere around the bed, because that seemed to be the last place I always saw them. I decided to check between the headboard and the wall by the bottom of the bunk bed. I thought I was something and reached my hand down. I started pulling up animals and ended up finding all of them. Even Cuchi Rat, who we haven't seen in months. Brandon was so happy we had to take a picture this morning.

"I Need Protecton Eye"

This is what Brandon said to me when I called him to take a bath. He standing there, in the nude with his swimming mask. He went on and on about a need to "protect" his eyes from water. So like any good Mom, I let him put on the mask after I washed his hair. What else was I to do?

Daddy Gets A Safety Violation

Yesterday I had to work. By the time I got home it was 7:30 pm. The house had a funny smell and I noticed that the toaster oven was not in it's usual place. When Jim came into the kitchen he stated to tell me that they had a little problem with dinner. He and Lauren were in the kitchen, and Lauren mentioned that she smelled smoke. Jim had a cold and couldn't smell anything so he started looking around. What he saw was not smoke, but fire coming from the toaster oven. After shoving Lauren out of his way, he was able to unplug it and get the fire out. So much for that toaster. The funny part was when he said that Lauren wrote him up for a safety violation, you're not supposed to have a fire in the kitchen.

Lauren's IEP Meeting, Not Bad

This morning was Lauren's IEP. I was very good this time. I made a list and knew what I needed to make sure was to be kept or put in. As expected they had tried to remove some things. I objected and they are supposed to put them back. They really didn't fight me on the things that I wanted added. They seemed surprised that I had given thought to what she would need for next year. We also discussed summer school and next years teacher. The special ed teacher recommended two different teachers. One of them had Arion so I think I will go with her when I make my request. I guess I really expected more of a fight, but I guess then figured that I had warned them that I would be making changes earlier in the year. Now I just have to wait for the final report to come out. They made some procedural changes and now the report goes to another department and they send out the final report. This kind of makes me nervous. What happens if they mess up. I guess I will deal with it if and/or when that happens.

The good thing is that she has made good progress this year. She is now reading in a 2nd grade reading level and has reached her wpm reading goal. The new on is set for 100 wpm. I'm not sure that's high enough, but they readjusted the one from last year about mid-year and if things look good they will probably raise the goal again. Just in case you wanted to know, here are the things that I requested.

1. Her teacher has to initial her agenda book to insure that all homework, projects, quizzes and tests are listed.

2. Accommodations are being made for note taking. The teacher is to give her a copy of her notes. Lauren is not required to take notes.

3. Lauren is able to turn in projects and assignments early or late. (This one is very important. A lot of kids finish and then the teacher won't take it early. By the time they need to turn it in, they have forgotten or lost the project)

4. They had wanted to remove the phonemic awareness section of her goals. I had them put it back for the ending sounds. Lauren still consistently drops the ending sounds when reading. They argue that she knows how to do it, but my argument is she may know how to do it, but she doesn't. Thus they need to continue to work on ending sounds until she consistently reads including all ending sounds (i.e., ing, er, s, y, etc.).

5. Communcation had been changed to state "communication with home" and I had them change back to "daily".

Well, I hope I didn't miss anything that she might need for next year.

Earphones and Acceptance

This weekend was Brandon's first chance to use his new sound reducing earphones. You see, Brandon's sensitivity to sound seems to be getting worst. At school they noticed a problem and after some notes back and forth with the teacher they started letting him wear some at school. They had pretty good results so I got a pair on e-bay for us to use at church. You see, sometimes the organ hits just the right note and then Brandon will want me to hold his ears for the rest of the service. The new earphone were great and while he was showing them off I got a comment. The lady was saying how great it was that I let him wear them. She went on to say that she had a niece with a similar problem and her parent would never do such a thing because it would embarrass them. This thought is appalling to me. Imagine thinking that your social pain is more important than your child's physical pain. Once again, it all boils down to the acceptance of your child. One has to accept the child with all the problems and issues and do what you can to help that child cope. For me, if that means that Brandon has bright red earphones in the front row of church then HELLO. To me then look much better than Brandon having a fit and holding my hands over his ears.

Look Shannon - NO BLEACH

This post is for my good friend Shannon. In the spirt of my new years resultion, I have decided to try some new cleaning products. They are supposed to be better for the environment and have NO BLEACH. I only hope they work and I like them (or it's back to the chemicals for me). So take a good look Shannon.