Not everything about winter is blah...

I am loved...

How do you know you are loved on your birthday?
By awesome birthday surprises like this!



 

No birthday is complete until your toilet is covered in toast.

 

 

They love me in strategically placed toast.

Totally made my day.

 

I love you guys!

And just because you may be wondering...

Compliments of Jaysen.

Thanks, buddy. ;)

 

Um....yeah

*Sigh*
It must be my curse in life, to not be able to laugh at hilariously funny shyt.

Case in point: 
Jaysen got in trouble in school.  Again.

When I went to school to pick him up, I asked him why he had to apologize to his teacher (who just happens to be very bright eyed, young, cute, peppy, etc.). 

He said he called her a name.

I asked him what he called her.

He hesitated, and finally said,
"Mom.......I called her........a sausage."

*blink blink*

I couldn't do anything but stare at him with this crazy look on my face, trying to suck my lower lip into my mouth, chewin' on it like the last supper, so I didn't bust out laughing. 
What made it worse, is he saw my face, and kept telling me "mom, it's not funny", while he's trying to keep a straight face too.

Oy.



Possibly related:

Decisions.

Head spinning....make it stop....

I have to make a decision.
I have to make a decision, and come to some terms I don't know that I'm ready to come to terms with just yet.

It's looking like next year, Jaysen will be moving into the self-contained, EI (emotionally impaired) classroom.

Ugh.
Okay, that wasn't too bad...

Here's what's going on.
The Autism Consultant explained it that Jaysen's educational predicament is unique because he has one foot in each program. He doesn't fit in total SpEd, but doesn't fit in GenEd either. Currently, Jaysen is struggling with mainstreaming. His behavior is impeding his classroom time, and that in turn is impeding his learning time.

Bottom line is despite everyone saying he is academically capable, Jaysen is having difficulty in the large, fast-paced, GenEd setting.  We can say he's not getting the right supports, but honestly, he's in 6th grade. How long am I going to fight for different supports, only to have yet another year wasted away? He works really well in small group or 1:1. He does awesome, in fact. He learns best when the instructions or assignment can be "chunked" and presented in a different way. GenEd isn't structured to do that.

The self-contained class I visited at the middle school was pretty promising. I really liked the teacher, and he seemed to be focused on the student's education. The teacher, being EI certified, is used to dealing with explosive behaviors, and won't necessarily take them personally, but might be able to help Jaysen work through and process them.

What sealed the deal for me though, was the promise that even in the self-contained classroom, Jaysen will still progress forward in the GenEd curriculum, and maintain on a diploma-bound track.
This is HUGELY important to me/us right now.
Jaysen wants to go to college. He wants to be a kindergarten teacher.
In reality- do I know that he will or won't go to college? No, nobody knows that at this point. He's in 6th grade. But my point to the Team was, in 6th grade, it's far too early to close that door for good. They agreed, and assured me he would, at this point, remain diploma-bound.

In a nutshell:
(negatives)
Jaysen will not be mainstreamed. He will be removed from GenEd and placed in SpEd full time.
He would have little to no contact with the GenEd population.
He would be in in a classroom with kids that generally have moderate-severe behavior problems (red flag to possible increase Jaysen's aggression)
If he and the teacher don't "click", too bad, it's the only teacher he'll have for the next 2 years.

(positives)
Super small class size. This year, there are 2 students.
He will remain on diploma-bound grade level curriculum.
The teacher would be able to present information in different ways, so Jaysen better understands what's expected.
He could work at his own pace, and teaching would be more individualized (Y'know, like the I in IEP?).

When I discussed this with Jaysen, he seemed apprehensive about going to a new school at first. I asked him his thoughts about the bigger GenEd classroom this year, vs the smaller Resource Room, where he had basically been all year last year as his main room. He did say he liked the smaller RR better.

I'm a stressed out fracking mess, because once the motion is accepted, I am basically signing off on him saying "General Education does not work for my son".
And I am coming to terms that, y'know, it just doesn't. And that's okay.
It is okay, right?
Yes, it is okay.

Send booze.
Okay?

B-day!

Happy 6th Birthday Ry!

 

You are amazing, and we love you so very much!

Happy birthday to my baby.

~xoxoxoxo~

P.S. You are still a dork.

 

Got math?

I'm sensing a theme here.
You all know my math skills suck.  I could try to sugar coat it, but really...they just suck.
And I'm okay with that, because I am able to conjugate verbs, spell, and grammarize (yes, grammarize) circles around most people. That being said...

I work for the CFO of my company.
He's actually pretty awesome, but he's a "numbers" guy. I swear there are times we have full conversations and neither one of us understands the other.
He also likes to tease me about my lack of mathematical skill, and purposely asks me questions he knows I don't know the answer to because he finds some kind of sadistic joy in it, I imagine.

Anyway....
In helping Jaysen in his math homework last night, I realize yet again, that my kid rocks.

Example: Jaysen is working on converting fractions, to decimals, to percentages.

 He explains how he has to divide 70 by 100 to get the decimal.

 

And then...

 

 

 

 Me: Awesome job! Now how did you make the decimal a percent?

Jaysen: I butthundred it.

Me: You...what?
Jaysen: I butt-hundred it.
Me: Butt-hundred it?
Jaysen: Yes, you have to butt-hundred it!
Me: Hahahaha! What in the world is butt-hundred?
Jaysen: Look...

 



And there you go.
My boss will be so proud of me.

Ketchup

Okay, so I've been busy losing my mind and need to update.

First off- THANK YOU to those who commented on my previous post. Your advice is absolutely invaluable and I love you guys.



Me loving you guys

Secondly- I still have readers! *happiez*

I digress. Back to the Outcome.
I was able to hold the Team off on modifying anything just yet. I asked for every possible evaluation I could think of. OT, Speech, academic, and technological.  Jaysen's IEP is in December, and I'd like these evals done prior to that, but it is the district, and I'm not holding my breath. This is a big IEP though since it's his re-qualifying one, and also will be dealing with his transition to middle school next year. I do plan on calling a transition meeting in a few months, and I ain't skeered to re-open the IEP if need be.

Regarding some of the frustration Jaysen has been experiencing this year- we did, as a Team, decide to withdraw Jaysen from band. Although I was initially against the idea, it causes Jaysen major stress. If we try it without band, it just could relieve some of the avoidance behaviors he's been exhibiting, but we won't know until we try. On the up side, they replaced band with art, something Jaysen enjoys immensely. So the up side is that he now has art everyday.

I'm also laying down the law (again) with my minion.  We are going to read every single night and try to boost his reading skills. Jaysen hates reading because he finds it difficult. We're back to limiting the video games to an hour after school. Jaysen actually gets more than this because he's home before I am, but I'm not going to create a situation that will foster lying to me, so I'm just looking at it as a freebie for him. So far, it's been met with some resistance, but I expect that.

And that's really all I know.

On a side note- 6th grade is friggin' tough! I can't believe the amount of homework that comes home every night. It's insane. And frustrating for everyone, not just Jaysen. My math skills topped out in 4th grade. Sad, but pretty true. I can spell the feck out of anything (a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. See?), but when it comes to finding common denominators....look for them yo' damn self, 'cuz I can't find squat.  You need to get 6 cups of sugar into 4 bowls? Eyeball it.  You need 10 apples to go into 8 lunches? I guess 2 people need to eat oranges. That's life, people. Suck it up.
(Thank you Sissy, for helping me with Jaysen's math homework!)

There's the update.
Send a math tutor.