Lucy Kate is PSY!

This is what my precious two year old was singing when I picked her up from her "other mommy" today.

No, Amy didn't teach her that song. She learned it by watching Daddy. Sort of.  He sings it to the girls but he says, "Hey Pretty Lady, Lu-Lu-Lu, dancing Lucy-style" or "Imm-Imm-Imm, dancing Imma-style"  So, she's not actually saying the inappropriate words from the original.  She is such a little kook! And, Imma thought it was hilarious, as you can hear in the background.  Too bad she got milk all over my pants!
Here is another verse, this one is about Daddy-style and then Mommy-style.

So, how has Psy invaded your life and corrupted your children?  Surely my little girls aren't the only ones singing this catchy-annoying song.

Never Leave a Lucy Kate Unattended

As a Reading Specialist, I don't have a lot of papers to bring home and grade.  However, the last two weeks I've been administering math tests to about 150 kids (yes, math, not reading--I know, seems odd!) and the only way I was ever going to get them all graded was to bring them home.  I stacked them on the table yesterday and left them there when  I had gotten through as many as humanly possible.  I also left my pen there. . . .
Fast forward to this afternoon.  A very cranky little girl who only slept for four hours last night and didn't take a nap today happened by said stack of tests while I was working with Imma on her homework.  She came into the living room a few minutes later with my pen in her hand and started writing on one of her toys. Of course, I took it away immediately, and then realized, if she had the pen from the table, chances are she had written on the tests, too!  I rushed into the kitchen and sure enough I found some of her beautiful artwork all over one of my little friend's math tests.  Luckily, it was just one test and it was just the cover so I think it will be alright.  Nevertheless, I have learned my lesson about leaving writing utensils anywhere near where Lu Lu can pick them up!
I learned something else quite interesting from this experience as well. I didn't notice it at first, but when I looked more closely at Lucy's apparent scribbles, I realized that, down at the bottom of the page, in the corner, very tiny she had copied the student's name.  It wasn't completely legible, his name has 5 letters in it and only 3 were exactly right but it was good enough for me to be able to tell what she had done and for Brian to see it, too.  Copying is a pretty difficult skill, especially for someone who doesn't know all of their letters, has poor fine motor skills, and can't really reach the table. I was pretty impressed that she was able to do this.  It makes me wonder what else she can do. But I am not so curious as to ever leave her unattended around valuable school work again!
I wanted to post a picture of what she wrote  but it's legible enough that you can actually read the child's name so I decided not to post it for the sake of his privacy. So, I will just post a cute picture of Lucy instead!

Never turn your back on Pirate Lucy!  Arrrgh!

Breaking Down--But Breaking Through

I've been thinking about my dad a lot the last few days.  I got a message from my little sister late last night that caused enough emotion to bring back the "ugly cry" for a half-hour or so.  This post isn't about my dad but I mention him because, like so many things in life, I have once again found myself in a situation when I would really like to talk to him about what's going on with Imma right now.  But I can't. And that always makes me very sad.
My dad was in a band my entire life.  When I was very little, he was in a rock band named Crossfire.  He was going to make it big.  He should have.  My dad was extremely talented.  They made a record and went on tour briefly before realizing he couldn't be away from his family so long. However, one of the songs that he recorded sticks in my head pretty consistently.  It was called "Can't Change My Heart" and I don't know if it was a cover or if the band wrote it but tonight when I was working with Imma, one of the verses kept playing over and over in my mind.  "You can build me up, just to tear me down, but you can't change my heart, can't change my heart."  I wasn't sure why the situation reminded me of those words, whether I felt like I was tearing her down or building her up but I had the distinct feeling that something, something important was happening in her head and I just had to weather this storm to get to the rainbow on the other side.
I've been pushing her a lot lately.  I feel like she isn't living up to her potential. She isn't reading like she could be, she isn't writing at all, she's behind in math.  I know she acts differently for me than she does for her teachers but I also know, as a teacher, what it's like to work with a child when you're not sure what they are capable of.  If you meet resistance, you're more likely to stop or let up.  With Imma, the resistance is consistent and relentless.  Every time I push, I get ridiculous laughter, animal noises, howling, unintelligible jibber-jabber, or physical movement away from where we are working.  I can completely understand how a teacher could meet anyone of these responses with the idea that she is not capable of doing what they are asking her to do so leave her alone and try again later.
Except, she was fully capable of doing what I asked her to do and then some.  And I know that.  So I pushed back.  I asked her what letter makes the /p/ sound.  She howled at me. I asked again.  She laughed hysterically. After about five minutes of going around and around, it took me  asking her if it was "w" to finally get her to say, "No, Mommy, it's 'p'!" Every single time I asked her a question, we would go back and forth until I finally got her to answer me.  But she was fighting just as hard as I was.  I know that she's not writing much at all in school, but I got her to write, "Clifford plyas in the sno."  She copied the word Clifford, she knows the word "the," and the rest of it she wrote phonetically.  She can do it.  She CAN do it.  But I can't figure out if she just doesn't want to, if she doesn't know what I'm asking her to do, or if she just can't get her mind and her hand to cooperate long enough to get the work down on the paper. I hope this doesn't come across as ugly or unloving but it is slightly disturbing to watch your child contort her face and laugh in an almost crazy sounding cackle when you ask her what sound a letter makes. I have got to figure out a way to make her understand what she is supposed to do and find another way to respond when she is asked to complete a task because I am honestly worried about how other people may interpret this response. If I find it odd and she's my child, whom I love and understand better than anyone else in the world does, how do her teacher and classmates perceive this response?
At one point when I was growing extremely frustrated, I took her little face in my hands, and asked her to look at me.  At first, she wouldn't do it. She looked down, she looked across the room, she looked anywhere but at my face.  I finally got her eyes to lock on mine for just a brief moment, and in that moment, I think I may have seen past the disorder and actually glimpsed the Imma I am trying so desperately to unlock.  It was only for an instant but her expression changed, and I thought, "There it is! There is the 'normal' we've been searching for!" And just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. She scrunched up her face again, wrinkled her nose and said something I didn't understand. I don't know exactly how to explain what happened in that moment, it's not as if Imma never seems normal or always acts like there is something "wrong" with her, but this is the first time that I actually felt like we were closer to getting where we want to be than I had realized.  Like a lot of parents with differently-abled children, I have dreamed of a day when I wake up to the child I thought I was going to have. With some brief remark about having a strange dream or feeling different, she would just go on about her life like a normal five year old. Of course I don't ever expect that to really happen.  All of our steps are baby-steps.  But looking into her eyes for just those few seconds made me think that maybe someday she will be able to tell me what was going on in her head for all of these years when she just wasn't able to tell me what she was thinking.
After this little experience with the homework, the rest of the night was shot. It was a battle getting her to do--or not do anything.  She usually goes to bed at 8:00 but tonight Daddy put her to bed at 7:30 because she just could not leave her dog alone. You would think being bitten this morning before school (nipped on the hand, no blood or teeth marks) would have been enough to show her that she shouldn't pull on his legs or pick him up by his ears.  But she just doesn't get that yet so after being told several times that she was going to bed if she didn't leave him alone, she ended up earning her consequence and off to bed she went.
She did not go willingly or easily. In fact, getting her into her bed was much like boating a marlin and getting her to stay was trickier than keeping Houdini in a box.  She was kicking the wall, throwing things at the door, screaming at the top of her lungs. Brian went in two or three times and tried to explain to her that she had made bad choices and this was her consequence. I finally went in myself, put her in the bed and held her for a few minutes, smoothing her hair and talking to her about why she had to go to bed.  She kept repeating a line from a movie, "Please, I'll do anything.  I'll die.  Please let me out of here."  My response was to repeat that she needed to go to sleep, it was bedtime, we had to go see her teacher in the morning and eat cereal. She started speaking gibberish.  I knew she was trying to tell me something but she literally could not form the words.  What she was saying sounded like a foreign language. It was the same intonation as English, same phrasing and phonetic sounds.  It was not English, nor was it any other language.  But it was a message.  I kept saying, "Use your words, Immy.  I don't know what you're trying to tell me."  She grew more and more frustrated.  She started licking he fingers and putting them in her dimples, and smiling really big, like she was Spongebob or someone on a cartoon.  Then, she'd do it to me.  More unintelligible words. I encouraged her to keep trying.  I said, "Do you understand that you can't touch the dog like that?" Finally, she said, "Mommy, doggy's not hot.  He's cold." She thought we were telling her not to touch the dog because he would burn her, like we tell her not to touch the oven! I said, "No, honey, you'll hurt him and he'll bite you." "No he isn't.  He's not bite you."  "He bit you this morning."  "No, he's not bite you. It's okay. He's a good dog." At least I was able to understand what she was saying, even if she wasn't understanding what I was trying to tell her.  I finally got her to let me sing her a lullaby--something she hasn't let me do since she was about six months old--and she rolled over to go to sleep.
Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I just feel like this was an important evening, that we are in a treacherous and steep part of the journey but the road ahead will be smooth and downhill.  It seems like Imma always struggles and rebels when she begins to develop new communication skills. I just kept reminding myself that we have come so far.  She has made amazing progress.  I think she finally knows how to learn. Most of the skills she has learned over the last five and a half years have had to have been taught to her individually--word by word, phrase by phrase.  It seems to me like she may be figuring out how to pick up language the way the rest of us do.  When her brain gets overloaded with this information, the silly sounds and laughter takes over because she doesn't know how to process it. Does that make sense?
If anyone has any experience with this type of a situation, I would really love it if you would message me or leave a comment.  Without a diagnosis, without a cause or a proven therapy regiment, it is so difficult to know if we are moving in the right direction, if pushing her is really helping or if I shouldn't be pushing so hard.  It's all trial and error, learning as we go, hoping we make the right choices, and learning from our mistakes.  If anyone has been down this path before, please let me know where the pitfalls and dead ends are!

My beautiful Imma

The last time I actually spoke to my dad on the phone (not email) we talked about our decision to move Imma to a different school and take her out of the autism unit.  He assured me that we had made the right decision and that Imma would be better off for it. I would really like to hear him reassure me that we are on the right path now and that Imma is going to be able to learn all of the skills she needs in order to be ready for first grade. I have no doubt that we made the right decision about her placement, but I do need to figure out how to make this year as successful as possible. Sometimes, you just need your daddy to tell you it's going to be okay!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland?

The weather has been so wonderful here the last few days. It's hard to believe that it's the middle of winter!
We went for a walk today after school. I pushed Lucy in the stroller and Imma road Picky.  She is still having a lot of trouble getting up and down the hills in our neighborhood.  This time, I actually pushed Lucy up to the top of the hill, parked her several feet from the road and went back down to get Imma.  We don't have any traffic in our neighborhood but that still makes me nervous.  I need to come up with a better solution. Imma can't ride her bike up the hills and she can't push it by herself either.
Here are a couple of pictures I took of the girls by the pond at the back of our subdivision. It's hard to believe there maybe several houses here someday.
This may be our last walk for a while. I guess the weather is supposed to be pretty yucky tomorrow. :(

A candid photo of the girls by the pond.

This one may be a little more posed. I used to pose like this when I was little, too.

A Skunky Weekend

Our weekend started off with a de-skunkification of our home and our dog Duke.  Though the house smells a lot better, there is still a hint of stench in the air, especially in our bedroom, where our little friend hid under the bed.
It started Friday morning when Brian took the dogs out, as usual, but Duke went around the side of the house and disappeared.  He came sprinting towards our pond a few minutes later, dunking his head and scratching at it with his front paws.  Brian wasn't sure what was wrong and thought he might be having an allergic reaction.  When he opened the door to the house, Duke ran in, ran upstairs, ran around, ran back downstairs, and under our bed.  I was in the bathroom putting on my make-up when Brian asked me to look at Duke's eyes. He got him to come out from under the bed and it took me about half a second to realize he'd been sprayed by a skunk.  He smelled terrible!
Brian tried the old tomato trick but that did nothing.  He scrubbed him several times.  No good. His eyes looked much better though and he had calmed down. We finally had to go to work so we put him in the half bathroom so he couldn't spread the smell anywhere else.  By now, it was burning our eyes and we could hardly breath in our own house.
When I got home from work, I opened all of the windows, despite the fact that it was pretty cold outside.  I put Duke outside, on a tie-out, and waited for Brian to come home from work.  He had stopped and bought some remedies at PetSmart and I was really hoping they would work.
After several treatments for Duke with the chemicals, several wet-vacs and treatments to the carpet, and washing anything fabric he had come in contact with, we finally got rid of the smell. Mostly.  I can still smell it in our bedroom a little bit, which is gross but it's not nearly as bad as it was.
As for Duke, he smells a lot better, too, but he ran off on me this afternoon after a bird and I was really afraid he was going to get himself into trouble again. We may have to stick to letting him out only in the fenced in backyard from now on.  As my grandma would say, he's a Skunkeater!

Imma and Duke Friday afternoon.  Guess he smelled okay for her!  Pardon her mess behind her--she likes to get out a lot of toys!

Time to Hit the Books!

I've decided to take the bull by the horns, hunker down, bite the bullet, and move full speed ahead!  I'm going to teach Imma to read--if it kills me! And after two days of fairly intense tutoring, uhm, well, I'm not dead but I am a little exhausted.  I think she probably is, too.  But I feel like she should be reading by now.  She's had the same skill level for a while and she has all of the basics she needs to be able to do it.  I just have to find a way to make her understand what she's supposed to do!
So, yesterday I got out a book that was a little bit too hard for her.  There were a lot of words that she already knew and several that she didn't.  Whenever she got to a word that she didn't know, I did the same thing I do with all of my students. I asked her to look at the first letter and get her mouth ready for that sound.  Her response--laugh hysterically in a goofy voice.  Okay--different approach!  What letter is this?  She barks like a dog and snarls out me.  Imma?  Imma!  IMMA! Finally, after about 10 times of asking, "what sound does this letter make?  This one. No this one right here.  Imma?  Imma! You know this letter, you know this letter!" she would finally give me the information I was asking for.  And it isn't because she doesn't know her letters or letter sounds.  I don't know if it is because she just didn't know what I wanted, she was just burned out and being silly, or if she is just a toot, but she should have been able to answer my questions very quickly and she wouldn't. After about twenty minutes, we finally got through the book with no blood and only a few tears.
I asked one of her teachers this morning if she responded to her this way and she said no (thank God!) She said she laughs sometimes but she's never barked at her or done some of the other annoying things she was doing for me.  I don't know if they are asking her to do the same things that I am doing either.  All teachers have their own methods of teaching reading so they may not be teaching her the same way that I am attempting to.  I have had a lot of success with my approach and I'm going to keep trying with her because I'm hopeful that I'll find a way to reach her.  Today went much better but that might be because we worked on it before school when she wasn't as tired instead of after school. I also brought her to my reading table at school so I think she was taking it a little more seriously.
This isn't at all to imply that I don't think her teachers are doing an excellent job or that I feel like they aren't doing everything they can because I know they are.  I just have very high expectations for her and I really hated seeing her name sooooo far down on the list of kindergartners when I rank ordered their test scores. (I did that because it's my job, not because I am obsessed with her test scores, just FYI). So, I've  just decided to move into high gear and use all of the methods I use with all of my non-reading struggling students and see if any of those make her understand what she is supposed to do when she comes to a word that she doesn't know.  Right now, she's just learning words, one at a time, and while that would be fine, it will take a long time.  I'm hoping she'll figure out that, since she knows her letter sounds, she should be able to put those together and start decoding words.  As of right now, she isn't getting that and I'm trying to find a way to explain it to her so she does get it.
With that in mind, we will try again tomorrow!  Wish us luck!

Traveling Back In Time Via the Telephone

I received a phone call from a very good friend this afternoon while my daughters were opening their Christmas presents from Grandma.  I wanted to take it but I couldn't tear myself away from the giggles of glee coming from two little girls who had just received their version of a Red Rider BeeBee Gun in the form of Cuddleuppets. So I let it go to voicemail. When I finally got the opportunity to listen to the message, it was one of those sickening feelings moms of special needs kids get when they hear the oh so familiar story about a child very similar to their own whose parents don't know what to do. It's the kind of phone call I dread but also welcome with open arms.
My sweet friend used to teach in the same district as I did, same job, different school.  She left at the same time as I did as well, for similar reasons. In her message she explained that she has a friend in a similar situation as Imma was. No diagnosis but a big push for a specialized classroom with limited access to typically developing students.  She described the frustration, anguish, and exhausted state that I felt myself in so often when she talked about how the mom who feels lost, confused, and alone. She said she just couldn't understand how they could put her child in a classroom like the one they were pushing for without a diagnosis.  The mom just doesn't know what to do and they were hoping I could help.
Of course, I would love to talk to her and let her know our story.  I don't know her, don't know if she has similar options to the ones I had--which ended up in essentially taking my toys and going home instead of staying and fighting--or if she is in a situation where she will have to go the distance.  But I will do whatever I can to help this family because I know first hand that placing a child in a highly restrictive environment often creates restrictions on their ability to grow and develop while allowing them to participate in a general education classroom can create the opportunity for enormous amounts of growth.
I hope I have the opportunity to speak with this mom soon. I want to reassure her that she has the strength to fight for her child, if that's what she intends to do.  So often we feel hopeless and helpless in situations where institutions tell us what we are going to do with our children.  We should never feel that way. She may have to face the demons I was able to avoid but I will gladly stand with her and fight as long as we have to, if that's what's best for this sweet baby.  I certainly don't have all of the answers but I have learned so much more from walking through the fire myself than I ever dreamed I would before I took those first steps.
A wonderful friend of mine told me when I was beginning this battle, "Amy, you and Brian are the only advocates Imma has and it is up to you to always do whatever you must to stand up for her.  You are her mother and advocate first and everything else must always be second." That is so true. If we don't advocate for our children, who will? The decisions we make today could very well impact them for the rest of their lives so we must be decisive and sure-footed, no matter how jagged and foreign the road we traverse.
Hopefully, I will at least be able to inspire this mom to keep doing whatever she needs to do for her child.  At the very least, she will know that she is not walking alone.  There are so many of us who have walked the road before her and we will walk it again, with her, for as long as she needs us to.

Christmas with Grandma

The girls got their Christmas presents from Grandma Kelly and Aunt Braidi today. They also brought their presents from Uncle Chris, Aunt Dani, Rhiannon, and Payton. They got a lot of really cool gifts. Their favorites? The Cuddle-Uppits!

It's Things Like This . . .

My step-mom, my youngest sister, and her boyfriend are on their way down from Missouri right now. My dad isn't with them.  We love it when they come down to visit but it's always hard. It was this time last year when my dad came down for the last time. It isn't easy to think about the fact that he won't be coming through that door with the rest of them.
When my dad came to visit, he slept on the couch.  Except, it is a couch with recliners, so he would sit in one of them and sleep.  He had to have a fan on, even in the winter.  I just moved the floor fan out of the living room last month. I decided it didn't need to be there anymore. He said that our TV was exactly in the right spot so that he cold see it perfectly from that spot on the couch.
He would wake up at the same time the girls got up, even if he had driven late into the night to get here. It's a six hour drive and he usually wouldn't want to miss work so they would leave around 5:00 or 5:30. After several stops (he'd tease my sister that she had to stop and get ice cream five or six times) sometimes it would be 2:00 or 2:30 AM before they would pull-in the drive.  Even though PawPaw had to have been exhausted, he would be up bright and early to see the girls.  Imma would usually sit on his lap and watch cartoons or play on the couch next to him.  Lucy loved to sit on his lap, too.  She'd bring in her blankets and her bottle and curl-up.
It's things like this, the normal things that occur in life, the events we look forward to, the places where he is missing.  Those are the things that make me really miss him.  Lucy talks about him all the time.  Every time she sees his picture, "It's PawPaw!"  Imma still calls a popular character on a television show PawPaw every time she sees him because, in her mind, they look similar.  I know eventually it will get easier but we still have a lot of firsts, a lot of events, a lot of moments to get through before that happens. We'll be very happy to see Grandma, Aunt B, and Uncle Cristian, but we won't be able to get past the feeling that everything is not quite as it should be.

The Lizard of Poz or Reading Without Words

Tonight, Imma decided she wanted to read Lucy a bedtime story. Lucy was delighted and promptly climbed into Imma's bed, waved at me and said, "Night night, Mommy," as if I was going to let her sleep in her sister's bed! (I don't think we're quite ready for that!)  Imma picked up her favorite storybook and proclaimed, "Lucy, let me read you this story.  It's, The Lizard of Poz." She then preceded to tell Lucy the story of the Wizard of Oz, to the best of her ability, while flipping through the pages, using the pictures as her guide. Lucy was enthralled, hanging on her every word!  There's just one problem, Imma doesn't have that many words.
In fact, much of what Imma was saying wasn't really words.  It was intonation. It was speech-sounds.  It was phonemes, phonics, some syllables. Lots of rhythm and variance.  Very few words.  The only words I really understood were, "Dorothy," "Toto," "she said," and occasionally she would throw in something else that was recognizable to me.  The rest of it sounded kind of like a muffled conversation you might hear through the wall of a hotel room.  You can tell it's speech.  You can tell it's English.  But, you really have no idea what the person is saying.

Imma reading to Lucy

Lucy was ready for a sleep-over!

This is how Imma hears a lot of the conversation going on around her so it only makes sense that this is how she would tell a story.  She knows there are supposed to be lots of words. She knows her voice is supposed to go up and down and she's supposed to have different emotions.  But she really doesn't know what she's supposed to say.  So, she does the best she can and fills in the gaps with speech-sounds.
If one is simply reading a bedtime story to a two-year old sister, this is perfectly acceptable, wonderful and good.  When one is in kindergarten taking a state mandated assessment, however, that makes it a little more problematic.  Imma had her reading assessment today and she didn't do so well. She struggles with segmenting and blending words because she doesn't process sounds the same way most people do.  She struggles with comprehension and how to respond to verbal prompts because she doesn't understand what she is supposed to do.  When she listens to a story, there are more words that she doesn't understand than she does understand.  So, she has to try to infer meaning and fill in gaps in the story based on very little information.  The result?  Her teacher read her a story about some kids building a tree house. Imma thought the story was about kids climbing a tree to get apples.  There was no mention in the story about apples but she just assumed that, if there was a tree, there would be apples.  Needless to say, she didn't do so well on the test and that is unfortunate because it isn't through lack of intelligence or lack of effort.
It also isn't because of a lack of reading skills.  Imma has a lot of great pre-reading skills. She knows all of her letter names and sounds.  She  knows a lot of sight words.  She knows practically every animal name you can put in front of her. She can decode to a point but she doesn't always know how to put the words back together.  She does get frustrated easily when she's reading because she isn't sure what she's supposed to do and she doesn't take direction well in that type of situation.  She also doesn't always know the names of the objects in the pictures so that can't help her and she doesn't acquire new words easily so even if you tell her, "That's not a hat, it's a cap," she's probably not going to understand what you are telling her.
She also literally does not hear some sounds the same way we do and it's not because of a problem with her ears.  Some sounds she just doesn't process correctly.  She thinks she's saying the same thing you are. Take the word, "Wizard," for example.  She says, "Lizard."  And she thinks she is saying it the same way I am. I'll say, "It's Wizard, with a 'w', /w/."  And she'll say, "Lizard.  Yes, Mommy. Lizard."  She knows what a lizard is and she knows what a wizard is. And in other situations, I've heard her use the word wizard correctly.  But she just doesn't get that she isn't saying Wizard of Poz.  (Poz I think is coming from a blending of the last phoneme in of and the beginning sound in Oz. I mean, we are usually saying The Wizard of Foz, if you think about it.)
So, what's a mommy to do?  And, especially, what's a Reading Specialist Mommy who spends at least seven hours a day teaching other children how to read, to do? It's really difficult for me to teach Imma and most teacher will tell you, teaching your own child is always challenging.  It makes it even more frustrating and depressing when I know she's doing everything she can and she just cannot overcome this obstacle right now.
And I do think it is just for right now.  I know she'll learn to read. And I really hope it is before the big mandated state testing begins in third grade where it could potentially affect the rest of her life.  We have amazing teachers at my school who will do everything they can to help her but this is going to be a huge challenge for this little girl.
If you have been through a similar situation, I would love to hear about it!  What challenges have you and your child had to work through?

Another Reason I Love Lucy!

Lucy and I watched (part) of Beauty and the Beast this evening. She wrapped herself in a blanket, sat down on my lap on the couch and said, "Watch Beauty? OK!" Who could say no to that?
Most of the time when Lucy "watches" a program she is playing all over the room and only occasionally pays attention to what's on the television so having her on my lap and actually paying attention was a treat in and of itself.  But actually watching Lucy watch Beauty and the Beast was just enough to make a mama's heart melt!
She has just enough of the words to the songs memorized to do that cute, "mh fhm luhm wumhg ---Belle! hmn finm guokn--Belle!" You know, that mumbling thing people do when they want to pretend they know all of the words but they really only know a few?  Adorable!
Then, she copies the gestures of the characters singing the songs.  So, I get all kinds of cute poses--hands on  hips, arms crossed, shrugs, etc.  Double-adorable!
And, she always has to tell me what's about to happen, in her cute little baby house!  "Wook Mommy!  It's bats! Oh! No! Oh, no Mommy! It's a beat!  Ahh! It's a hot, Mommy!  His hand's hurt!  Ouch!" She's just so stinkin' cute!
We only made it about twenty minutes into the movie before she was off to more interesting things but spending those twenty minutes with my precious little princess was absolutely priceless.
Imma-Dog joined us for a few minutes as well but then she had to go pretend to be chained to a toy, break-free, jump onto the couch, repeat several times. We have a very busy household!

My little diva adjusting her headband.

How Does "The Mean Girl" Make Friends?

Making friends is something we have always struggled with--well at least the last three or four years. Imma doesn't relate to other children well.  She used to try to play with the other kids but when they didn't know what she wanted or what she was trying to say, she would wander away, or they would go off and leave her.  She almost always ended up playing by herself.  This year, kindergarten hasn't been too different.  There are a few kids in her class, mostly very sweet little girls, who try to "help" her.  Sometimes they treat her like she is a baby or a little sister.  One even tried to pick her up one day.  They will even ask me how old she is.  They don't get that she is the same age they are, she just can't speak as well as they can. I tried to explain that she just doesn't understand what they are saying all of the time. One of them asked if they should say it in Spanish.  I laughed because sometimes the thought goes through my head, too.  Maybe if I just say it in another language, she'll get it!  But, no, saying it in Spanish, or French, or Chinese won't make any difference. We just have to keep saying it, slowly, with gestures, and she'll figure it out.
But five year olds are impatient and they don't always want to do that.  A lot of time she ends up swinging at recess or playing on her own.  And she's perfectly fine with that, for now.  But I am hopeful that she will eventually make some good friends and have lots of children to play with.
One day I over-heard another kindergartner, not in Imma's class, talking to a little girl next to her in the gym before school.  She said, "Oh, see that backpack over there?"  She pointed at Imma's backpack, which I had sat down while she was in the cafeteria eating breakfast.  The other little girl said, "Yay. Whose is it?"  The first little girl says, "That's the Mean Girl's backpack."  The other little girl nodded and said, "Oh, ya, the Mean Girl."  Of course, I had to enter the conversation at this point, so I said, "Whose backpack is it?
 "Oh, it's the Mean Girl's."
"Why do you call her the Mean Girl?"
" Cause she's mean to everybody."
"What did she doe that was mean?"
"I don't know.  She's just mean."
Well, I spent a few minutes explaining how it isn't fair or nice to call someone names if you don't know why you are calling them that and both of them seemed to understand what I was saying but a few days later I heard a similar conversation, this time two boys, talking about how Imma was the "Mean Girl." It just breaks my heart to know that these children are assuming because she doesn't talk to them that she's mean.  And I know from time to time Imma has done some mean things. Most kids do at the age of five.  But she's certainly not mean and she would be a great friend, if other kids would give her the chance.

My Sweet Non-Mean Girl!

We have play dates sometimes and those usually go well because I always invite family friends that she has known for a long time.  I don't know the parents of any of the children in her class well enough to set that up yet, but I think that would help. Does anyone else have suggestions of things we can do to help facilitate making friends? My girl is a very sweet girl and she deserves to know the joys of friendship just like everyone else.

All the Leaves Are Brown and the Sky is Gray

It is not a lovely day in North Texas today. It is dreary and bleak and miserable looking outside.  After some beautiful weather the last two days, it's disappointing to look out the window and see such yucky weather.
Yesterday, Imma, Lucy, and I went for a walk. I pushed Lu in the stroller and Imma rode Picky (it's Picky, not Pinky.  We just didn't understand what she was saying before.)  Imma talks to her bike like it's her best-friend.  "Come on, Picky, this way!  You can do it! Let's go toward the big house!" It's very cute.  We live in a pretty hilly subdivision and there were a few times I wasn't sure if she was going to make it up the hill but she did it.
Today, we definitely won't be going for a walk or a bike ride.  It's just too wet outside.  Sometimes on days like today we take the girls to Chick-fil-a (a.k.a. Chicken Hamburger) so they can play inside. Or we take them to Bass Pro to see the fish.  They really like looking at all of the enormous fish in the indoor fish tanks.  We don't usually stay home all day.  My girls are very active and they like to run around! I'm not sure what we are going to do today but I've got to figure something out because I don't like being cooped up either!
What does your family like to do on a rainy, dismal day? I'd love some new ideas!

Lucy, just chillin'

Disney World Tip--If Your Child Has Special Needs You Need to Know This!

Our family traveled to Disney World during Thanksgiving break.  When we arrived on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the parks were not that crowded but by the end of the trip a lot of the rides had waits in excess of two hours.  With Imma's sensory processing problems, it would be absolutely impossible for her to stand in a line that long without having multiple meltdowns.  In fact, I don't think she could stand in a line for half-an-hour without getting really upset, bothering the other children, or just running away. Luckily, the wonderful people at Disney understand that not all disabilities are visible.  They have a system in place for preventing meltdowns and allowing all children to have a magical experience in their parks.  It's called the Guest Assistance Card and if you have a special need's child, you need to know how to get one.
Acquiring a Guest Assistance Card is actually very simple, so long as it is needed.  You simple go to the Guest Relations Counter in any of the Walt Disney World Resort theme parks, accompanied by the child that needs the Guest Assistance Card (GAC), and explain why you need the card.  We had absolutely no problem getting the card whatsoever.  It took less than 10 minutes and the cast members were extremely nice.  We also asked for a card for Imma's stroller so that we could use it as a wheelchair.  This meant that Imma never had to get out of her stroller except for getting on and off of the ride.  We pushed her right up to the ride's loading area and she got right on.  This was important for us because Imma has a tendency to wander away when she is in wide open spaces.  She also runs off and blends into crowds quickly.  She doesn't always look where she's going and darts into traffic.  With the GAC, we didn't have to worry about any of these things. She felt more comfortable in the crowds because she was in her own seat.  She was able to rest if she needed to and she was less likely to bother others because they were not as accessible. These were all very beneficial.
Of course, the best part for us was that we didn't have to wait in extremely long lines with an anxious and irritable little girl.  The longest line we had to wait in was about 15 minutes long but sometimes we actually just walked onto the ride.  All you have to do to use the GAC is find a cast member near the attraction that you would like to ride and ask them which entrance to use.  It's usually the Speed Pass entrance or the wheel chair accessible entrance.  It can also be used for shows but not usually for character greeting. The card isn't intended to shorten the wait, just to put the child in an area where there is less stimulation. However, it usually does both.  Your child gets to wait in a less crowded area where the line moves a lot more quickly.
I have heard that some people get harassed by other people when they use the GAC, so be prepared, just in case this happens to you. We did not get harassed by anyone and, in fact, several other people were actually very helpful. Other parents were pointing out the entrance to us or they would take special note of our kiddos. We did get a few rolled eyes from cast members, of all people, but they were usually younger people who probably looked at my girl and thought she "looked" fine.  I was very prepared with a response, however, should anyone have had the nerve to say anything to us.  My response would have been something along the lines of, "I'll gladly stand in that line for two hours if you'd rather be the one with a disabled child!" Did I feel a little guilty sometimes by-passing all of the other people standing in line?  Of course!  But our children go through so many things that other children don't have to.  While most of those kids are playing baseball or going to dance class, mine is at therapy.  Other children get to enjoy a lot of things that my child misses out on so I see no reason why I should feel guilty that someone--Disney--recognizes that sometimes there needs to be a few points in her favor. Without the GAC, our vacation probably would have been horrendous.  But because of the GAC, we have some wonderful memories, with very little intermittent meltdowns.
If you have any questions about the GAC, or anything else you read about on this blog, please leave a comment or email me at amyevanhorn@gmail.com

Imma loved the Dumbo ride. We rode it over and over.

We all loved Prince Charming's Carousel.  We didn't need the GAC for this ride because the line was always short.

Imma Dog Needs Obedience Training

Imma dog rolling around with Dukc

Imma dog barking at mommy

Imma has been pretending to be a dog for about two months now. I'm not sure what has inspired her to become a canine but it's starting to get out of control--very out of control. She insists on barking, chewing on things, rolling around with the dogs, and whimpering from the time she walks in the door until she goes to bed. When she is Imma dog, she doesn't listen, she doesn't follow directions, and she's mean to the dogs and her sister.  And today, she started acting up in school.  Her teacher said she was not following directions and started screaming and crying twice because she didn't want to do her work.  I am honestly getting concerned because this was about the time last year when her behavior got really out of control.  On my blog I try to provide information to other parents who need help with their special needs children. Well, now I'm asking for help.  Does anyone have any suggestions? What do you do when your special needs child doesn't follow directions, is argumentative, or refuses to stop pretending--like Imma dog!  Otherwise, I may have to call Man's Best Friend!

To Freak Out or Not to Freak Out? Imma and Frosty the Snowman

This is our friend Frosty:

Our old pal, Frosty

Frosty has lived with Brian and I for about 8 years.  He sings, dances, and is a regular jolly guy.  I love Frosty and one of my favorite events of the Christmas season is hauling him out of the closet, pulling his head out from under his body, attaching his head to his neck, pushing down on the spring, and watching him bounce up and come to life! There's nothing like a little Frankenstein Syndrome to get one ready for Christmas.  There's just one problem. . . . Imma is terrified, TERRIFIED, of Frosty this year.  She has had a love/hate relationship with Frosty for the last 5 years.  When she was little she would impishly totter over and touch him, running away as quickly as her little chubby baby legs would carry her.  She would eventually warm up and then start dancing as he sang such greats as, "Jingle Bells" and "I Wish You a Merry Christmas."  Last year it was a little more difficult.  She was really scared for a long time and I thought maybe we should put him away.  But eventually she got to where she not only wanted him out, she wanted him on ALL THE TIME.  That got a little annoying and I actually started to dislike Frosty a little bit.
This year, Frosty is upstairs, in our guest room closet, still in his box with his head under his body.  Why?  Imma is literally petrified of him this year. I got him out of the closet when I was getting my Christmas stuff out and she freaked out!  "NO!  No Frosty, Mommy!"  If anyone even walks past the room where he is kept, she starts yelling, "No!  Don't take him out!"  So, Frosty stayed in the closet this year and I've been so busy I've hardly missed him, though Imma reminds me of his existence everyone time I take a step in the direction of the guest room.
So imagine my surprise today when I walked into work and saw this:

The Frosty in the display case at school.  Photo by Imma

Uhm, ya, that's Frosty's twin, uhm, Frosty.  He was in the display case at our school!  Every 6 weeks a new team of teachers switches out the decorations in the over-sized display case near the office and this wonderful team of teachers had used a snowman theme. It's gorgeous and creative and I absolutely love it. Except I was sure Imma was going to FREAK OUT!! when she saw it.  I mean, really, what are the chances that two Frostys live in our little bitty town? Not very likely!  But, here he was, standing there in the window ready to scare the pants off of my little girl.
So, naturally I did what any over-protective mother would do. I panicked. I went to Imma's teacher, interrupted her class a little bit, and said, "There's an s-n-o-w-m-a-n in the display case and if Imma sees it she is going to start screaming!"  Imma's wonderful teacher (who could probably tell that Imma is not the only one on the verge of  freaking out calmly said, "Ok.  We don't go past there until Friday so she'll be okay until then."  But then I realized that Imma goes past there twice a day with her resource teacher and she also has to walk past there to get to speech!  So I ran off to find her other teachers and warn them of the inevitable screaming fit that was about to happen.
Luckily, her teachers are much more calmer than I am.  They assured me that they would try to distract Imma when they went past and would reassure her that it would be okay.  Now, keep in mind Imma literally covered her eyes and ears for an hour after Santa visited, so I'm not sure my own freak out attack was completely unwarranted.
Nevertheless, Imma did not freak out today at school--thank God!  Her resource teacher was able to walk her past without much of a conversation, though Imma did notice.  Then, on the way back to her class, Imma stopped and told her teacher about the snowman.  After school, I found Imma standing outside of the display case window, talking to Frosty and taking his picture with my phone. I walked over to her and said, "What are you doing?"  She said, "He's best friends! And he's got a storybook in he's hand. See?"  Her resource teacher happened to walk by and Imma told her the same thing.  She went back out to visit Frosty two more times before we went home and had to tell him good-bye. I was amazed that she didn't freak out!  But I think her teachers staying so calm really helped.
Unfortunately, ever since we walked in the door, Imma has been screaming and acting very upset.  She has told me several times, "Don't take it out, Mommy!" I'm not sure if she thinks that was our snowman at school or if she now realizes there isn't just one. She is currently sitting next to me repeating, "No, it's not okay!" and  I have no idea what she's talking about. Something tells me we're in for a long six weeks!

Acronyms, Abbreviations, and ARDs: What in the world are they talking about??

One of the most confusing parts about being the parent of a child with special needs is trying to understand the lingo.  Educators use a lot of acronyms and other words specific to special education when they are talking about your child and it is very important to make sure that you understand exactly what they mean when they use these abbreviations and jargon.  If you are not sure, ask.  I can’t guarantee that they won’t make you feel like you should have known what they were talking about but wouldn't you rather look uninformed than have your child placed in a program you didn't understand because you didn't ask? You can always ask me, too, if you aren't sure.  I know what most of it means and if I don’t know, I’ll be willing to find out for you!

Let’s talk about some of the words you will hear again and again. The first one is “SPED.” SPED is an abbreviated way that teachers talk about special education.  You may hear a teacher refer to themselves as a “SPED” teacher or they may say, “I’m SPED.”  They might also refer to a student as being SPED.  This is just a quick way of saying a teacher or a child is affiliated with special education services.

Another acronym that was tossed around a lot at Imma’s meeting is, “AU.”  AU is one way of referring to autism.  You may also hear, “The student has (or is) ASD.”  This means “autism spectrum disorder.”  When an educator uses the terms AU or ASD, they are saying that a child has been identified as having autism or one of the disabilities previously group with autism, which include Asperger’s, Rhett’s Syndrome or Rett's Disease, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (or PDD). The law has recently changed and students are now identified as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or not. There are no longer subcategories.  That does not mean that these terms will no longer be used as it always takes a while for the correct verbiage to filter all the way through the system.  Also, please keep in mind that the child should always come first when you are talking about a disability.  Teachers should be saying, “a child who has autism” or “a child identified as having autism disorder” never “an autistic kid” or “he’s an autistic.”  We want to put the child first.

Depending upon what the area of disability is, you may hear other abbreviations in your meeting.  Sometimes teachers use the abbreviation “MR.”  This means “mentally retarded.”  This is a phrase that some people toss around as an insult but it should never be used that way and if you ever suspect an educator is using this word incorrectly, please say something to him or her or a supervisor.  There is a clearly defined “Intelligence Quotient” ( or IQ) that determines whether or not a person is classified as mentally retarded.  It is just as much a disability as any of the other disabilities we are discussing and should never be used as an insult. 

Another abbreviation you may hear depending upon the area of evaluation is “LD.”  LD stands for “learning disabled” or “learning disability.”  This means that a child has been identified as having great difficulty acquiring skills in one or more areas due to certain factors, which the diagnostician has been able to quantify.  There are a lot of diagnostic tests that go into reaching the conclusion that a child has a learning disability and diagnosticians tend to use a whole other lingo to talk about this so we won’t go into that today but you may need to know what they are talking about if the committee says, “I believe your child may have an LD.” 

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, is the law that regulates who is identified as qualifying for special education, how they are identified, what services are to be provided, and how those services must be provided.  You will receive information about IDEA before the testing process begins and at every committee meeting.  If you do not receive a guide for IDEA, please ask for one. Once you receive it, please read it. It is not an interesting read. It is extremely wordy and boring.  But you need to read it so that you know exactly what the other members of the committee are talking about.

You may be asking what committee I am talking about.  This varies from state to state, but in Texas, this committee is called an ARD committee.  ARD stand for Admission Review and Dismissal. This is the committee that determines: 1) if a child qualifies for special education services 2) what goals and objectives need to be worked on 3) how those goals and objectives will be taught 4) how to determine if goals and objectives are met 5) the environment the child will be learning in (or placement) and 6) if and when a child will be dismissed from special education services.  This is extremely important because you are a voting member of the ARD committee.  Again, the other members may vary by state but you will always have an administrator (principal or assistant principal), a general education teacher, a special education teacher, and a diagnostician or specialist in the area that was tested.  All of the committee members will either agree or disagree with the recommendations.  You have the right to disagree so if you think you need to use it, do so.  Most of the time, the specialists are going to have all of their ducks in a row and they are going to have already determined what the qualification is, the goals, measurement of those goals, and the placement of your child.  Ask a lot of questions while they are talking about the goals and the placement. If you don’t understand, ask for clarification.  If the committee members cannot answer your questions to your satisfaction, ask for someone else to come in and explain things to you.  This is your child and you need to know what they are talking about.  Don’t let the lingo throw you off or intimidate you.

One of the most important decision the committee makes involves adopting goals for the student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP).  Basically, this document takes the place or supplements the regular school curriculum.  The committee determines what goals your child needs to work on and in what order. This should be based on the diagnosticians report and/or your child’s class work.  If you feel like your child has already mastered these goals, speak up. Sometimes children act or perform very differently at home than they do at school and if you don’t say anything, your child could waste a colossal amount of time working on something s/he already knows how to do.  For example, I was once told it took 120 trials with my daughter to get her to learn what an ice cube was.  I said, “My daughter knows what an ice cube is.  She’s known that for a long time!”  But they weren't seeing it so it “didn’t count.”  They also told me she didn't know what a pond was.  We have a pond in our front yard.  She knows what a pond is.  Children act differently and say different things at school. My child wasted a lot of time that year trying to “learn” things she already knew because she wasn't showing her teachers what she knew.  Have these discussions with your child’s teachers because they don’t want to waste time either.

 This is a lot of information—and believe me, there’s plenty more where that came from!  But I am only going to mention one more piece of lingo to you in this article.  I want to make sure you know what the phrase “least restrictive environment” means.  In special education there are several choices of where your child can receive services.  They can receive services in a general education classroom (regular classroom) through their general education teacher and a special education teacher who comes in to the classroom and helps support your child. This is called “inclusion” because your child is included with the other non-disabled students.  It could also be a special education aid who provides these inclusion services.   The next level of restrictions is called “resource.”  This is when your child leaves the general education classroom for an agreed on amount of time and goes to the special education teacher’s classroom to work on the IEP goals and objectives set by the committee. Your child may have other students with him or her or s/he may be alone, depending upon the size of your campus and how many special education teachers there are.  The amount of time your child spends in the resource classroom must be agreed upon by the committee, including you.  If you feel like your child is spending too much time out of the classroom—or not enough!—speak up.   The most restrictive environments are special  classrooms, sometimes referred to as “units” where the child spends all or most of his or her day with the special education teacher and little to no time with a general education teacher.  An example of a unit would be a Life Skills classroom, where moderate to severely disabled students learn the skills they need to be successful in life. This is sometimes referred to as a Functional Academics Classroom (or FAC.)  There are also units for students who have Emotional Disturbances (ED) that create behavior that disrupts general education classrooms and there are Autism Units, sometimes referred to as Structured-Teach Classrooms where students who have qualified to receive special education services because they have been identified as having autism can be placed.  Structured-Teach is just a type of learning where the teacher goes through a series of lessons with a student following a particular order and these lessons are usually on a one-to-one or very small-group basis.  You can learn more about structured teach classrooms here.  Most structured teach classrooms are set up following Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and if you hear that term used when referring to your child’s education, please do as much research as you possibly can.  One source of good information is Autism Speaks and you can find the ABA link here.  

So, when we say that a child needs to be placed in the “least restrictive environment” what we are saying is your child needs to be in a classroom where s/he will be able to learn what s/he needs to learn with as few changes in schedule as possible.  If your child is in special education,  by definition, the general education classroom alone was not sufficient enough for him or her to be completely successful.  You want to consider inclusion next, followed by resource, and one of the special units as a last alternative.  Never let an educator try to take these rights away from your child.  If you find an educator who is unwilling to try a less restrictive environment before placing your child in a more restrictive environment, it’s probably time to call in an advocate, or possibly even a lawyer.

I’m not saying that some children don’t need to be in a restricted environment, nor am I saying that some diagnosticians can’t immediately look at test results and draw this conclusion.  However, sometimes, as in my own case, the most restrictive environment was the only one considered by the other members of the ARD committee and when I refused to place my child in the most restrictive environment without trying  the alternatives first, well, let’s just say I ruffled a few feathers.  There is a disagreement process in every state.  Know what it is in yours and don’t be afraid to follow it.  Luckily, I was able to move my child to another school district and she know spends the vast majority of her day in the general education classroom.  She has inclusion for part of math and part of reading.  She also has 20 minutes of resource a day and she is pulled out for speech two times a week. That’s it.  The rest of the time she is in the regular classroom like everyone else.  The ARD committee at our previous school district told me she could not possibly be successful in a general education classroom. Like most things, Imma has proven them wrong in this as well.

Was this helpful?  What other question are out there?  What other abbreviations or acronyms are you hearing?  What other resources would be useful?  Please let me know and I will happily write some more about this topic.  I have a list of some other resources available at the end of this post.

My beautiful daughter, Imma-Jane

Autism Speaks

IDEA

Wrightslaw

National Center for Learning Disabilities

Patience, My Young Catch-a-Fly!

When you have a special needs child, patience brings on a new meaning.  Most parents know the importance of being patient with any child, and I think this is something most people struggle with from time to time, but when you have a child with special needs, sometimes counting to ten isn't quite enough and you end up mentally counting to about 27 before you are calm enough to handle a situation.
Something that Imma struggles with is containing her emotions.  If she is happy, she is extremely happy!  And luckily, she is happy most of the time.  If she is angry, she is unbelievably angry (remember my earlier post about, "Get out of here, my face!"). But when she is upset, she is often inconsolable.  And this makes being her parent even more difficult because sometimes it breaks my heart and there's literally nothing I can do to make her stop crying and nothing I can say that she will remotely understand.
Imma understands about 60% of what is spoken to her.  It used to be more like 10% so this is huge progress but it is still difficult to make her understand that something is "okay" or "we can fix it." She struggles a lot with abstract concepts and parts of speech that are not essential completely throw her off.  For example, if her teacher tells her, "Imma, go put your backpack away in your cubby."  Imma will probably only understand, "Imma. . . backpack . . .cubby."  However, the rest of those words are still rolling around in her brain and she isn't able to process the rest of the sentence because she's trying to figure out the words she didn't know. She's thinking, "Did she say, 'Imma don't ever put your backpack into your cubby' or 'Imma I'm going to put your backpack into a different cubby' or something else?"  Consequently, whenever you speak a phrase to Imma that is unfamiliar, it takes her a very long time to figure out what she is supposed to do. And what do most people do when they say something to a child and get no response?  We repeat ourselves, of course!  So, as we repeat ourselves, the message in her brain gets even more jumbled.  Now, she has to sort through two sentences.  And chances are, we didn't say the second sentence exactly the same as the first one, or we threw in another sentence, such as, "Did you hear me?" Now, there are a lot of words rolling around in her brain and she only knows what three of them mean so she's trying to sort through all of that and figure out what she is supposed to do.  Can you imagine what this would be like?

Imma's cubby at school

Let's look at an example. You are sitting at your desk at work and your boss walks in and says, "I . . .you . . . .report. . . .Friday."  Of course, you are asking all kinds of questions now.  What report?  Am I supposed to make a report?  Is my boss going to make a report?  This Friday or next Friday?  In the meantime your boss says, "You . . .me?"  What about you and me?  Are we going somewhere?  Then your  boss says, "Report. . .desk . . . Friday."  You found a report on your desk on Friday?  I need to write a report about a desk on Friday?  Clearly you can see that it is not easy to live in our world when you have a language processing delay. Luckily, Imma's amazing teacher has figured out that phrases like, "Imma, cubby!" while pointing at her backpack usually get the right response.
But many times, people, including her parents, use phrases she just cannot process. Often times, this can lead to meltdowns that we cannot verbally console.  There's no amount of,"It's okay," or "It'll be alright" that can get through all the jumbled up messages when you can't understand the message and your brain is already full of words rolling around.
So, what do we do?  A lot of times counting helps Imma to calm down.  Counting is consistent.  She knows what number I'm going to say next.  She knows what it means. It's predictable.  It has a pattern.  She likes it.  Sometimes rocking helps and stroking her hair.  A lot of times I have to fix the problem. Today, she dropped her cookie on the floor.  She cried and cried.  I picked it up and wiped it off and made sure it was clean, though I'm sure it probably still had germs, but without another cookie to replace it, it would have to do.  She  started eating the cookie but continued to cry. Her brain still hadn't processed that the event that had made her cry was over and she could be happy again.  Sometimes she is upset and I'm trying to explain something to her but she's so upset she can't process.  For example, she thought she had to go to school today and I tried to explain that we aren't going today, it's tomorrow.  She kept saying. "I don't want to go to school!" and I kept saying, "Not today, tomorrow." But it didn't make any difference.  She was hearing what I was saying but wasn't processing it.  Finally, I just started saying, "Okay," and after about ten more minutes, she moved on to something else.
And distractions also work, to a point.  They worked better when she was younger.  Sometimes I can "break a loop" if you will by giving her something else to do.  And it really is like a mental loop where she just can't let go of a thought in order to move to another thought.

This self-portrait is a good example of how Imma see's the world sometimes.  Off balance, out of focus, not centered.  

So, what is a catch-a-fly? A butterfly.  She likes to catch butterflies.  These two words have gotten so jumbled into her brain that she does not understand that the words are separate.  It's a "catch-a-fly," not "catch a butterfly."
Patience is something I pray for everyday.  I can never have enough.  If I was living in a foreign country where the only words I understood were essentially nouns and sometimes verbs but rarely adjectives, adverbs, articles, etc. I would hope everyone would have a lot of patience with me, too.
What tricks have you learned for helping calm your upset child?

More Info About Special Education Eligibility

I have had several conversations with parents lately regarding the stories I posted about Imma and the events that occurred during the decision making progress for her special education eligibility.  I wanted to elaborate a little bit on some of the topics I discussed and provide you with some more resources.
First of all, I want to clarify something I think is confusing to parents and teachers alike. From a school's perspective, there are two different types of disability diagnoses.  The first one is a "medical diagnosis."  This means that a doctor or a psychologist, someone out side of the school who has the authority to do so, has diagnosed a child wit ha disability.  This could be a diagnosis of autism, attention deficit disorder, etc.  This is a medical diagnosis because a qualified source outside of the school has evaluated the child and determined that the criteria for the diagnosis has been met.
The second type of diagnosis is an "educational diagnosis."  This is different.  This is when the school personnel have done evaluations and have determined that not only is there a disability but that the child is in need of special education services in order to be successful at school. So, it is very possible that a medical doctor could diagnose a child as having ADD or autism and a school could do an evaluation and say they do not meet the established criteria to receive special education services.  The school diagnostician and/or psychologist would then need to show the other members of the decision-making committee why the student does not need the services.  For example, they could demonstrate through qualitative diagnostic exams that the student doesn't meet the criteria or they could show that the student is being successful in the classroom and is not in need of any extra services or support.  It is important for parents to understand the differences between these two diagnoses and to understand that it is not necessarily a bad thing if the doctor says your child has a disability but the school says that your child is not in need of services.  Most of the time, the school is going to be correct.  If they can demonstrate to you that your child is receiving ample support in the classroom, highly consider leaving your child in the general education setting.  While there are benefits to special education, most schools have other supports in place for students who are struggling but are not special education students.  It is very likely that your child will be receiving support through a Response to Intervention team, a Reading Specialist (like me!), a Math Specialist, or another staff member who can provide similar support to your child without having to label them as "special education."  While it can certainly be beneficial for certain students to be placed in a special education for inclusion (when the special education teacher visits the child's regular classroom) or resource (when the student leave the regular classroom and goes to the special education classroom for a period of time) if the school says the student does not need these services, please consider the school's evidence before pressing the issue.
Now, that is not to say that there aren't circumstances when some schools may deny services for some reason and parents have every right, and the responsibility, in fact, to press forward and demand services.  Certainly this has happened before.  But I have found, even through all of the issues I've had in our previous district, it is always better to have an amicable relationship with the school and to truly listen to the school's reasoning.  You can always have an advocate or lawyer come with you to meetings with school personnel and you may want to do that if you think the outcome is not going to be best for your child.
Another topic I wanted to clarify are the eligibility areas for special education. Many of my teacher friends have said they couldn't believe that my child was going to be placed in a special autism unit when her only special education eligibility is speech.  Here is a list of the areas a child can qualify for special education services under:

• Autism
• Deafness
• Deaf-blindness
• Hearing impairment
• Mental retardation
• Multiple disabilities
• Orthopedic impairment
• Other health impairment
• Serious emotional disturbance
• Specific learning disability
• Speech or language impairment
• Traumatic brain injury
• Visual impairment, including blindness

  
  

  In order to qualify for special education services, your child has to have an educational diagnosis that qualifies him or her in one or more of these categories.  And you cannot receive services in an area where your child does not qualify. So, if your child is deaf, they cannot receive services for having a specific learning disability, unless s/he qualifies for that as well. In our case, my daughter qualifies for special education for a "speech or language impairment."  The school district where we lived was trying to place her in a classroom that serviced students with autism.  We have not documentation to support the diagnosis of autism. They justified this placement by telling me she had something called "Non-categorized Early Childhood Autism."  That is not a thing!  That is not a category, as you can see above. I thought it must be a qualifier under the autism classification but it's not.  In order to receive services as a child with autism there must be a document that says your child has an educational diagnosis of autism.  We had a document that said our child did not have autism and the examination was completed by a school psychologist. My point?  Don't be a sucker.  Ask questions, lots of them.  Ask for explanations.  Ask where that qualification falls on this list.  Ask to see the law.  More importantly, read the law ahead of your meeting.  I have a link below that I think you will find very useful if you find yourself in a situation similar to mine. If you know anyone who has a child in the process of being diagnosed for special education, please pass this information on to them.  It could be extremely helpful to them.

  Also, please notice ADD and ADHD are not on this list.  They fall under a different  qualification called "504."  This is not the same thing as special education and if you hear an educator say "504" and you're not sure what that means, start asking questions.  You can also find information about 504 eligibility on the website below.

  What other questions do you have?  Please ask in the comments or email me.  I am happy to answer anything I can and if I don't know I will find out!  Also, what other topics would you like more information on?  I know a lot of parents read this blog that are in a similar situation to the one that I was in so please ask me anything you'd like to know about. I'm here to pass on what I've learned

  For more information, please visit:

  Wrightslaw From Emotion to Advocacy

Bath Refusal Goes On 3 Days--Mommy At End of Rope

Lucy is taking a bath today! It's been a few days because she refuses.  She screams and cries and thrashes around, goes bone-less momentarily, then springs back into full flailing mode.  What's a mommy to do?
We haven't gone anywhere except for Chick-fil-a and that was on day 2 of the "not gonna do it" spree so I don't think she was stinky then but now, I think it's time to give her a bath!  Her hair has food in it!  She's starting to smell a little like sour milk.  And I'm pretty sure even non-permanent marker because permanent eventually if you leave it on long enough!
So I guess I'm just gonna have to prepare for some screaming, some splashing, and this mommy getting half-dunked.  Any suggestions fellow mommies?  I've tried bribery, bubbles, new toys, etc.
Wish me luck!
(No pic today--she wouldn't want a pic of her hair today in existence for Future Lucy.)