Update on us

My last day of work was last Friday, and it's already been crazy since then.

On Tuesday, we took J for a private speech evaluation, and the SLP thinks he has apraxia.  That means that while he can make all the right sounds involuntarily, or even individually, he can't motor plan to put them all together to form accurate-sounding words.  This would explain why his current speech therapy, which focusses strictly on the articulation of sounds, hasn't been helping.  The therapist is going to try to prepare her report in time for our IEP/eligibility meeting later this month, so if the school's evaluation continues to focus on articulation, we can use it to ask for individual, more appropriate therapy.  I'm glad to know that this is his problem, as it appears that we'll be able to address it more directly/appropriately, but I'm also a little concerned that this might be a more long-lasting/lifelong problem.

As if that wasn't enough for one day, we also had M's IEP meeting for the same day.  I hate IEP meeting days.  I'm always blindsided.  Always.  Even the day they gave us everything we asked for--because I was sure they were going to fight us on everything (as they have in the past) that I worked myself up so much before we went in.  

Tuesday was no exception.  They agreed to keep M's program exactly as it's bee, as we liked it...and recommended he participate in the extended school year program.  It's a fantastic, one-month, morning program that has a waiting list, and M would have a spot if we agree.  The thing is, it's 2.5 weeks until the end of school, and he's SO looking forward to his summer break.  He's supposed to be on the swim team, which would directly overlap the ESY program, and through which he finally made a lot of local friends. It really helped his self-confidence and social skills last year, and he even went to the championships.  He's a little bit apprehensive about doing it again this year, mostly because he gets nervous at the meets, but we think it would be good for him and have been building him up for it.

So yesterday, after weeks of him talking about how much he's looking forward to summer and no school, we sat him down tonight to talk about the extended school year proposal. We told him how proud we and his teachers are at how far he's come, and that his teachers are worried that he'll forget a lot of what he's learned if he doesn't do any school work over the summer, and he immediately replied with, "so does that mean I have to go to school on the summer?" We explained the program to him, and he seemed sad, because he though it would me that he wouldn't get to do anything fun with us this summer. Once we explained that there would still be plenty of time for us to do all the things we discussed, but he'd miss swim team, he declared, "Then I'm in!"

I was worried that he was rushing to the decision, so we talked to him about it for a while. We were prepared to tell him that if he didn't want to go but participate in swim team, we'd have a math tutor come in twice and an English tutor twice a week throughout the summer, but we didn't even have to suggest it as an alternative.  His only other questions were if his friends would be their, if he could still go to the pool with us in the afternoons, and if he'd have homework. I was completely overwhelmed by his reaction and mature choice.  He seemed excited, and told us he wants to go to school in the summer because he wants to "be smarter than all the people!"

After our discussion, he immediately asked if he could tell his nanny and J. We've checked in with him several times, and he really seems okay and even happy about this. My kid who always says he hates school and who has tried everything on the past to get out of it, just volunteered to go to summer school! I'm completely and totally blown away. (And still a little nervous about this whole arrangement tumbling down like a house of cards....)

But tonight, I will put all that behind me.  I'm going to meet my husband in the City for dinner at my favorite restaurant in the whole world (my mother's day gift from my husband), and I'm going to revel in the thought of the two amazing boys I have and my wonderful husband.  Next week, I'll be out west for an adaptive ski instruction training, and when I get back, we'll be transitioning into our new-reality summer.