Thanksgiving Break (plus a couple days)

The first day of our Thanksgiving break was Wednesday.  I told all of the kids that they could each have friends over to play as soon as they got their 'stuff' done.  One quickly finished up her 'stuff' and when I asked her who she was calling to have come over she told me that she didn't want to invite a friend over, that she'd rather play with her sisters.  All day long she and Four played together.  She took, holy crap I just counted, 84 videos.  They were making a movie.  Anyhow, kept them busy all day and it was cute to see them play together.  I loved that she chose her sisters instead of her friends, too.

Saturday we had our carpets cleaned.  This involved moving all of our furniture into the kitchen and filling our bathrooms with furniture as well.  Which was fine until somebody needed to actually use the bathroom and then it was a little tricky.  At one point, One and Two wanted to go upstairs to their bedroom and attempted to do so without touching the carpet.  Not the best idea they've ever had.  Our stairs are hardwood on the very outside of the step, so they decided to climb up the outside of the staircase, resting their feet on the hardwood part.  Had I seen this, I'd have wrung their little necks, but in the end they learned a valuable lesson that would not have taken place had I seen and intervened.  About halfway up the staircase, one of the rails that they were holding onto as they climbed fell out.  Two fell backwards off the stairs onto the floor below and then the wrought iron rail fell on top of her and hit her head.  Both girls were horrified.  One by the odd looking goose egg that appeared on her sister's head and Two that she had broken the railing.  On their own they have decided to not climb up the outside of the staircase again.  I didn't have to say anything.  I just took care of Two and they had a lovely learning moment all on their own.  I'm happy to report that Two's goose egg has almost returned to normal and she has only a light green bruise in its place, which is mostly covered by her bangs.

Speaking of goose eggs and bruises, Three's goose egg has gotten much smaller also and the bruising is nearly gone.  There was a couple of days where she had a bit of a black eye from the blood draining, but for the most part she has recovered nicely.  

This morning I woke up to eight porcupine quills in the chin of our our dog, Lady.  Poor thing.  I have to use the pliers to pull them out, they're in there pretty good.  Once before I tried using my fingers and then the tweezers and it just didn't work.  

BoyTwo has been in fine form the past month or so and we can't seem to bring him down out of la-la land.  He's pretty agitated a lot of the time and really defiant.  I had a meeting with the school yesterday to draft his 504 (an educational plan for students that the school is required to follow so that the child receives their free and appropriate education).  There are a lot of times when I feel really bad that I even send him to school and subject his teacher to dealing with him.  She should have a 504 for herself to protect her!

Two has a 504 with about 10 accommodations.  Three has an IEP also about 10, although this will most likely change at our next meeting due to her CAPD dx.  BoyTwo's 504 has 26 'necessary accommodations'.  The team is awesome.  It included his teacher, the principal, the special ed teacher, the reading specialist, the district math specialist and myself.  There is a whole slew of interventions that they will begin for him and we are going to test him for special ed for reading as he is officially two full years behind in that subject.  Sadly, in our state (and I don't know if this is the case everywhere), a student must be a full two years behind in a given subject to qualify for special ed.  During the meeting the principal did tell me that one of the things he is working on is targeting those students that do not meet that criteria but who are not at grade level.  

Reading intervention will begin for BoyTwo while we get through the testing instead of just waiting.  The reading specialist was, in my opinion, overly optimistic about her program and what it will be able to do for BoyTwo.  Three has been a part of this program for 1 1/2 years and has barely moved.  When I pointed this out to her, she said that if I'm expecting a big improvement in her ability to read, then of course it would look like she wasn't doing well, but if I simply check to see if she has improved at all from where she was in kindergarten I should see that she has improved.  Well, in that case, I guess maybe my expectations were too high.  I did think that a reading intervention program that meets with students four times a week should be producing amazing results.  Good crap.  I did more for her over the summer, which was also acknowledged by said specialist.  In our district, the reading program is simply the same program that is being used within the classroom, just more time with it.  Clearly, if the child is not doing well in the classroom, having more of the same most likely will not benefit those who struggle the very most.  To clarify, students in this program are not just struggling readers.  These are students who are at least one year behind their peers.  Anyhow, I've gone off on a tangent, but it was a very productive meeting and I felt that I was listened to and that those in attendance truly wish to help BoyTwo.

Interestingly, after the meeting the district math specialist approached me and asked to speak to me as herself, not as an educator.  She asked if I had heard of RAD (reactive attachment disorder).  I told her that I had and that I suspected that this was something that BoyTwo was dealing with, although it had not yet been diagnosed.  She told me that she had a student that she helped ten years ago with this diagnosis and that after listening to everything we had talked about today and taking into account her time with BoyTwo, she suspected he was affected by RAD. That said, neither of us are trained doctors or neuropsychologists so it doesn't really matter how much we suspect something, and his appointment on March 25 seems ions away.