Nevaeh wasn’t at all nervous to start preschool. She’s been watching the other kids go for years and has been asking when she gets to go for the last couple of years. Nevaeh has always been quick to do things…my earliest walker, my earliest talker, witty, and able to make and understand jokes very early. She’s pretty outgoing and charismatic and I doubt she’ll have much trouble making friends. When I dropped her off I wasn’t too emotional and neither was she…she told me “have a good day mom” and skipped off into the classroom. I started feeling a little weepy when I got home but she did just fine!

Here she is in front of her school-She bumped her head a couple days ago and has a nasty bruise (that’s gotten nastier since this picture)…

And here she is posing in front of her locker:

Sanura and Adrian were both excited to get back to school. I’m thankful that Adrian has the same teacher as last year. She’s wonderful with him and he made so much progress. She remarked how much bigger he looked to her and she was impressed how well he was talking after the summer off!

Adrian on first day of school:

Sanura on first day of 4th grade:

So they referred us to a speech pathologist and I took him to his appointment…must have been a couple weeks ago now. She spent an hour with me and asked all those oh so familiar questions that I remember answering many times to various people who’ve worked with Adrian. While we were there he named several pictures in a book and several of the toys in the room, he said “hi” and “bye” to the lady, he pretended like he bumped his head on the wall and said “ow” so she got to see some of his skills.

All in all she wasn’t concerned about him. She said he was just a tiny bit below average on his speech but not enough to be concerned or recommend any therapy right now. If we’re concerned in 3 months then I’ll call his doctor and get a referral and back for another evaluation, meanwhile I’m trying my best to get him to start combining words.

The kids start school in about a week and a half or so. Sanura is really looking forward to it and I know Adrian misses the routine of it all. Adrian has been acting out a ton lately and maybe (???) it’s because summer school is over. It’s frustrating for everyone. Nevaeh is starting preschool this year, just a few hours in the mornings so it will just be me and Lincoln for a few hours each morning.

I’m just amazed at the people who will support and celebrate all of Adrian’s accomplishments. I will post an update about Adrian on facebook and person after person will “like” my status or comment on how great he’s doing and it just means the world! In this world where there is ugliness and judgment everywhere for people with special needs…well to see kindness and support and celebration, it’s AMAZING!

Tonight Glen was talking to Lincoln and Adrian and he said “Hi boys!” and Adrian repeated “Hi boys!” then he stopped and thought and said “Hi Dad!” instead.

I can’t say how cool this is for us. It breaks my heart when he repeats what we say. I just think “does he understand any of this”…”have we gotten anywhere?” or is he just repeating everything we say? So when I see him really getting it and have a conversation, albeit a small conversation, it’s just a wonderful reason for our family to rejoice. He’s truly amazed me these last few months. Today he looked out the window and said “it’s raining!” I mean really…wow!

I’ve walked this tightrope balance of holding out hope for his future and being realistic. I’ve always seen his future with us, not being independent. It’s not over, he’s only six years old and progressed with leaps and bounds this year. I will guard my heart but I can’t say how much hope I have for his future. He’s so special.

There is every chance that a lot of what I’m feeling tonight is hormonal…I mean I did cry during a commercial for a bladder control medicine because a lady had to go use the bathroom while her daughter was trying on a wedding dress and missed seeing her find the right dress….but I’m glad the thoughts that are keeping me up tonight are happy ones!

Then last night he saw the movie “G-Force” on Netflix instant watch on the computer. I guess it’s some hamster movie, I haven’t seen it. Anyway, he walked up to Glen and said “Dad, look, a hamster movie!”

We were going for a drive the other night and we happened to drive by the movie theater and I heard Adrian say “Yes! Let’s go to the movies!” and then another day we drove by Burger King and he said “I’m hungry!”

It’s very few and far between…but getting closer all the time….that Adrian uses spontaneous and appropriate language like this. These are the little things that I get to get all weepy over and get so very proud of. How lucky am I?

Adrian is doing great in school. I’ve been working on some sight word flash cards with him almost everyday and he knows all of them pretty much. He slips up here and there but usually it’s because he’s not interested and not because he doesn’t know them. Adrian can count to 50 and is beginning to write. His teachers this year have been amazing. I’m so thankful that he’ll have them again next year. Not too much longer and school will be out for summer break. Adrian will go to summer school from June 24th to July 24th. He definitely needs it. When we look at his IEP goal progress charts you can visibly see when he comes back from breaks a decline in how he’s doing and it takes him weeks to recover. So with all the positives we still have our issues. Adrian’s conversational language is almost non-existent. He’s repeating us a lot and not using a whole lot of his own words. So it’s a good thing that we can get him to say pretty much anything but not so good that he’s doesn’t speak for himself. We’re working on it. The difference in his progress from previous years is like night and day though. He’s doing great overall.

Nevaeh is going to be 4 years old on Tuesday. It’s hard to believe that she’s already going to be 4. She’ll be going to preschool in the fall and she’s already excited about that. I’m going to take her to get her ears pierced for her birthday. She had them pierced when she was a baby but would not stop tearing them out of her ears and I didn’t want her to hurt herself so I let them grow closed.

We have a new member in the family now too. His name is Roger. He’s a little black and white kitten that I found outside. He was barely alive when I found him. He couldn’t lift his head and was barely meowing. We brought it in and Glen, Sanura, and I nursed it back to health. I took it to the vet and the kitten was only a couple weeks old when we found him and the vet didn’t see anything wrong with him. So he’s our new unexpected pet. I wasn’t really wanting a pet right now, I had enough going on with four kids but I’m glad our pet found us. He’s a playful little kitty. He’s already litter trained and it was so easy. He only had one accident on the floor so he must be a pretty smart dude. Lincoln and Adrian are terrible with him. They handle him too rough so we’re working on that. Nevaeh is a little rough with him but only because she loves on him too much.

Overall, things are going well and I’m glad to get back to life after everybody being sick for so long. I’m looking forward to summer and summer break with the kids.

So my phone rang today, it’s the kids school. Par for the course, I imagine, I start thinking “is someone sick?” “is someone in trouble?” etc…in my seconds before I answer. I’ve overcome the anxiety somewhat though because Adrian’s teacher calls quite often which I LOVE! So when she called today she asked me if I had a few minutes to talk with her. I didn’t really, in fact Lincoln was completely naked because I was in the midst of changing a blow out dirty diaper but of course I said “yes I can talk!”

She started telling me about this research they are doing at the University of Iowa Hospital. There is a little clinic there called Center for Disabilities and Development, that is where we took Adrian when he was diagnosed with autism and again the following year for a follow-up visit. There is a program called The Consultation Service for Children with Challenging Behaviors. This is funded by a grant given by the Iowa Department of Education to the Center for Disabilities and Development to provide consultation services to children with challenging behaviors (Adrian fits the bill for this for several various reason but the one she mentioned was tantruming when she was trying to get him to do his work) and it’s intended to help promote positive partnerships between school teams, area education agency teams, families, & other professionals that work with the child.

So from what I understand basically we’re going to go and people that work with Adrian at school, perhaps his teacher (if she can get a sub) and some people who work with him in the classroom from area education agency are going to work with Adrian and the professionals (whatever doctors, therapists, teachers, specialists) that may be will observe the interactions with the teachers/other professionals and make suggestions on how to better handle Adrian and other children like Adrian.

It’s very exciting and we’re really looking forward to using this opportunity to help Adrian, help Adrian’s teacher help him, and in turn help create ideas and communication between these professionals who will be touching the lives of lots of kids!

We’re going one week from today!

We’ve been pretty busy around here, we took the kids to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium We had a really good time with one minor mishap of Adrian running from us. Out of the blue with no warning he just took off. So here I am in all my glory running full speed after him as he’s laughing and not slowing down. I just kept thinking “I can’t loose sight of him” Thankfully the place he ran looped around and he ran back into Glen who was waiting with the other kids for the chase to end. Anyway, I tried to let that roll off my back and burning lungs and move on with our day after Adrian got a stern talking to.

So this was one of our first stops. There is a little gator in there that the kids were checking out:

This next picture is a really big alligator. It was very cool to watch him, he was very active. Nevaeh was really scared of him and hung back but I could’ve watched this guy all day. When I took this picture he was actually bumping his mouth (snout…whatever LOL) against the glass:

This was a table with reptile puzzles on it so we stopped so the kids could do them. They each finished a puzzle:

All four of the kids at the “lizards on the loose” exhibit. There is a Komodo Dragon in the glass next to the kids. Lincoln was growling at it and it was really staring him down. We listened to a podcast about Komodo Dragons on the way home from the aquarium….the Komodo would definitely win the fight!

Now these were really fun to take and the kids were actually excited about doing it:

I love Lincoln’s expression in this picture:

All of the kids tried out the sailboat wheel:

The girls got to “meet” Mark Twain

Touring an old tow boat, this is the kitchen:

Adrian had a couple of meltdowns. I don’t think he liked being on the road for two hours but we made it through and we really enjoyed ourselves. I’m also updating the photos on my “Meet Our Family” page so check those out. Happy Spring!

Present at the meeting was Adrian’s teacher, speech pathologist, school counselor, a representative from the area education agency, and school principal. First they just went through everything from when he first started receiving services from the AEA until present day. We talked about his progress and whether or not he is still eligible for special education services, summer school, and door to door bus pickup. He’s still eligible for all of those services.

Next the school counselor brought out the Conner scale that myself and his teacher had filled out. He is rated “high” on many areas that would indicate ADHD but the counselor said you can’t be sure whether or not some of those high ratings are from the autism or ADHD. She just said it’s up to me, I can take this to the doctor and have him evaluated, it’s just our choice how to proceed. I will take the charts to his doctor either next time we go or I’ll make an appointment in the next month or so, I haven’t decided yet because I think we’re going to have to get a referral and go out of town to have him evaluated for ADHD.

Next I talked to the speech pathologist. She just gave her report and is really impressed with how well he started to come along because apparently they had a rough start. Then his teacher discussed his goals, I think I’ll write up a separate post about his actual goals because this will get too long.

The only thing I was kind of surprised about was that the AEA rep was talking about how we need to make sure Adrian’s goals will help him function in his life. For example, rather than teaching Adrian his days of the week we should be teaching him things like telling the difference between a men’s restroom and a ladies restroom or that you should stop at a stop sign to be safe. It kind of turned into a thing where we were discussing whether or not he should be taught to read right now or not. I want Adrian to read, I think he’s capable and he loves letters. The question is will he just memorize the words or will he really understand the meaning behind the words? I just didn’t know what to say or think, I guess I wasn’t prepared for that. I just assumed that the next step, since he knows all his letters and the sounds, that he would start to learn to read. Eventually we came to an agreement that the would add an extra goal, one for learning his sight words AND one for learning more functional skills. Basically it boils down to I want him to HAVE IT ALL!

It was also a big joke that Adrian REALLY likes girls. He cuddles up next to girls, he approaches girls in the hallway, he tries to cuddle with all the female teachers. His teacher made the comment that they were having some college girls coming in to help in that classroom and that Adrian “was going to just love that!” They were all talking about how lovable he is and even when he’s having a rough day it makes it so much easier because he’s such a loving and sweet boy. Music to my ears.

When I receive the actual IEP in paper I will post his goals. I wish I would have done more research on what I wanted his goals to be before I went so maybe our goals can help someone in the future. They had to make some changes to the IEP so I didn’t get a copy yet.

Adrian’s IEP meeting is this coming Friday. I’m always nervous for these and generally have a very “emotional” week during his IEP meeting weeks. We’ll see, last year it went very smoothly. School is going great, his teacher is amazing. I really wasn’t sure at the beginning of the year but he’s made more progress these last few months than he has ever made. He’s chugging right along, he can read some simple sentences, he can say anything that we ask him to say but spontaneous conversation isn’t there yet, he can write his name. His stimming is still wildly out of control and he can’t sit still. His teacher had me fill out a paper for the Conner’s scale to see about possible ADHD. We’ve always thought he may have ADHD as well and we have talked to a developmental pediatrician about that and he had told us they don’t like to diagnose ADHD until at least first grade. It seems like the teacher is really hoping we can talk to his doctor about this possibility and see if there is anything we need to do to help him in this area. We’re going to talk about this more at the IEP and we’ll probably be scheduling a visit to the doctor and possibly the Iowa State University hospital to look into this more if we need to.

The girls are good. I took Nevaeh to the art center the other day and she loved it. Her favorite thing by far was painting. She also made a necklace and played in shaving cream. There was a lady sitting in there playing a keyboard for the kids and she was holding a cute fuzzball of a dog. Nevaeh loved that. Usually Nevaeh is scared of dogs but this one was so tiny and quiet so Nevaeh was actually petting it which surprised me. Sanura got her report card. She’s doing very very well. Her teacher made a note that Sanura was doing better socially but needed to “use her time wisely” Sanura wasn’t sure what she meant by that so we talked it over and hopefully she understands that she needs to be staying on task. The only part I saw that was concerning was Sanura’s subtraction facts…I guess she’s having trouble with that so we’ll be practicing that at home. Sanura always gets very good marks in music. She loves to sing and she’s good at it too. I’m trying to come up with a way to help her expand on that and practice that more since it’s something she seems to enjoy so much and something that she’s good at.

Mister Lincoln got another hair cut today. He was so good, barely moved throughout the whole thing. He’s talking more and more. He’s even saying a few sentences now, the other day he actually told me “Open the door!” I was kind of surprised by that one!