Annual ARD and Scenes from the weekend

We had part 1 of our annual ARD last Thursday.  It went really well.  The principal was definitely in the 'kicking ass and taking names/I am in charge and this will be done right' mode.  It was sort of awesome.  Brian and the SLP went head to head again.  There was some wording and inferences in the evaluation that we had a major issue with.  Logan does qualify for both speech and OT from the school this year.  OT is sort of a joke.  It's 30 minutes of indirect instruction (classroom observation/talking to the teacher with recommendations) once a MONTH.  Speech will be two 30 minute sessions weekly.  We didn't even make it to reviewing the proposed BIP.  This is what our main focus was going to be, so we refused to sign and will recess and reconvene after 10 days.  I must say, I was super impressed with the principal.  I am so happy she's back and in charge.

We also followed up (again) with our pediatric neurologist about Logan's speech regressions.  He will  be having a 24 hour EEG (hopefully) in-home in the next week or so.  If he won't cooperate for an in-home EEG we will have to have it done in the hospital.  Please send your good thoughts/prayers that we can get this done in-home.  We really don't want an overnight hospital stay bill.

Brian and his Dad went to the F1 race events this weekend.  Saturday was total wash, but they were able to see qualifying and the race today.  We stayed home and watched a lot of movies!  Jan watched Logan while I took Isabel to her birthday party today.  We all went to Isabel's Girl Scout ceremony after the party.

I'm looking forward to a lower key week this week.  After an insanely busy week last week all I have this week is the kids' Fall parties at school on Friday.  I'm really hoping to get some organizing and cleaning out done.  I'm looking at you study.

Clean clean clean

It started out with me wanting to clean the car out.  I'm driving for Meals on Wheels tomorrow and the car was a mess.  It ended with a complete detail and a garage clean out.  Still not done with the garage, but we are making progress.  Didn't get the front door polyurethane'd yet.  I'm also itching to restrain the stairway banister.  One thing at a time.  This week is really busy again, so won't get started on that soon.

At least the car is clean and smells great!  I love that feeling.

Brian took Isabel to see Hotel Transalvania 2.  She's been begging to see it since it came out.  I have the (hopefully) awesome dinner in the crock pot.  There is a lot of prep time before it will be done, so I volunteered to stay home with Logan.  I hope it tastes as good as its smelling!

Mr.  Sticky is feeling better today.  No fever.  Good news.  His sonicare toothbrush came today.  I'm excited to try it out tonight!

Brian also got the temporary screen uproar I purchased on Groupon about 6 months ago.  

Logan is fascinated with it.

Strep AGAIN

This poor little boy has strep again.  😢

Again, so glad our pediatrician's office has weekend/night hours.  We even saw our regular pedi today.  This time no puking, but high fevers.  I really hate high fever.  Logan is super super lethargic.  It came in very suddenly.  We were having a really really hard time at ABA yesterday and I just told his therapist that he was either too tired or not feeling well and that we needed to end early.  He was clearly miserable.  A couple of hours later he spiked a high fever.  Anyway, now we have a different antibiotic and hopefully little dude will be better fast.

Icee while waiting on medicine at Target.  I decided to stop using Walgreens except for after hours emergencies.  They are consistently terrible.  I'm not the only one who has had serious problems with our local Walgreens.  I'm not sure what the deal is, but there are always super long wait times and rude employees.  I finally had it today trying to pick up a rx for Isabel and just left and called Target to get it transferred over there.

Isabel had a good soccer game this morning.  Brian took her while I was at the doctor with Logan.  She always looks forward to seeing her buddies on Saturday!

I'm trying a (hopefully) amazing crock pot recipe tomorrow.  I'll post the recipe of it turns out good.

Confession time

Brian went to LA to visit his brother and sister in-law last weekend for 4 days.  It was a much needed and deserved little break for him.  He got to see the USMNT lose to Mexico in a sold out Rose Bowl!  Amazing!  Anyway before he left I made a Costco run and on a whim bought a bag of dark chocolate covered dried figs.  That is all I ate for 2 of those 4 days.  Yum.  No regrets.

I took a nice, long shower today and then thought 'what the hell, I'm going to take a nap.'  It was noon.  I set my phone alarm for 2pm 'just in case' I slept that long.  I was fully expecting to wake up around 12:30.  Um, yeah.  I woke up at 1:45pm.  It was glorious. 

I've been having lovely passive-aggressive interactions with my friend in the front office all week.  It's so awesome coming in to 'work' for your volunteer 'job' 2.5 hours regularly and having her give me the side eye.

Yep, still me!  Can't scare me off!  Hahaha!  Going in tomorrow to help a friend too!  Sucker.

We have Logan's annual ARD next week.  It's the big one ya'll!  BIG ONE!  We will have a pre-ARD to go over everything prior to the actual ARD.  Wanna know a secret?  We have a secret weapon whose identity shall remain anonymous.

Other confessions?  When someone emails me about a 'problem' and I have some kick-ass responses (because 99% of the problems are YOU DIDN'T READ THE EMAIL/HANDOUT) I sort of want to gloat.  Sort of.

Barton Hills Farms and some General Halloween

IYesterday we went to Barton Hills farm with the Girl Scout troop.  The high was 97 degrees.  Super Fall-like weather.  The place was about 45 minutes away.  I had never been to this one before.  They have a really big corn maze and a smaller maze.  Of course the girls voted to do the big maze.  Of course.

Before the maze we hit up the bouncy pillow.  Always a hit.

So off we went into the maze.  There were 10 stations where you answered questions and it told you which way to turn.  At station 3 Logan asked to be picked up.  He was so red and sweaty.  So I carried his ass to the next 2 stations.  Luckily there was a way out after station 5 and all of the parents were like 'yay!  We made it!' And left the stupid maze of heat and death.

He looks thrilled.

After that we got lunch and found an actual shady spot.  It was tolerable for being 96 degrees out.  After lunch we sped by the small petting zoo, took some pictures in the actual pumpkin patch, hit up the slides and train and called it a day.

For some silly reason I decided to run errands after the sauna fest.  Gotta get that glitter to glitter pumpkins!

Sunday night was the premier of Walking Dead!  Yes!  I attempted to make some zombie/spooky stuff.

Caprese salad eyeballs.  Or something.

Skull veggie lasagna.  Isabel would like it known that she likes the 'regular lasagna' better.  Well don't we all like sausage, ground beef and fat?

It was fun.

Today Isabel went swimming with a friend (because, you know, the high was 99( while Logan and I glittered some pumpkins and he made a masterpiece watercolor.

Isn't it gorgeous?!  I love it.

Some random Halloween pictures around the house:

Our glitter pumpkins!

Track and Field

Today we had the annual track and field event at the school.  I was with Logan from 9-11:15am and then Isabel from 11:15-2:30pm.  It was a long day, but a lot of fun and it went by really quickly.  I just wish I would have thought to pack a lunch or something.  I was starving!

Logan did really well.  He participated in almost everything and seemed to have fun.  The last station was where they could buy snacks and little tokens (junk) with their prepaid debit cards.  After the last station Logan wanted to go home.  I think all of the kids were tired.

Isabel had a great time.  Always always always has to be first in line, first for everything.  She had a blast.

Girls team plotting their strategy at a 'team meeting'. So funny.

Girls vs boys.

New shark slippers

Beauty parlor

Are you ok?

This little phrase from a couple of moms at soccer practice today.  Am I ok?  Sure, I mean, of course.  But I knew they could see my haggard face and tired eyes and knew that I was not 'ok.'  These sweet moms offered to take Isabel for play dates 'anytime!  We would be happy to!' They know the struggles I have been having with Logan.  They are so kind.  Things have caught up with me this week.  I'm tired.  Really tired.

Yesterday was a very bad day.  It started off with incredible frustration and fear over Logan's seeming lack of ability to remember a sight word.  One little sight word.  The weight of his diagnosis and disability just landed in me yesterday morning with a huge thud.  I kept hearing the words 'we may need to be realistic about his disability' over and over again in my head.  I was scared.

Fast forward to school drop off.  Here is a little back story.  So the first few weeks of school were very challenging getting Logan out of the car and into school.  That is putting it very mildly.  Usually I was lugging him like a sack of potatoes over my shoulder while he was kicking/screaming/biting/scratching/pinching.  It got to be too much so one of his aides gave me a PPCD pass to drive in the staff parking lot and directly drop Logan off with his aide in the morning.  I usually walked Izzy in after handing Logan over.

Fast forward to yesterday.  This (I'm not going to use the adjective I want to, but it rhymes with snitch) from the front office is out back (PPCD drop off) barking orders and basically telling everyone what to do.  Logan's aide comes to get Logan and warns me.  Then she comes over and basically talks to me like a 6 year old about how dropping off here was 'a courtesy for PPCD kids.'  And some other shit, but I stopped listening and just nodded my head.  She wanted me to drop Logan off and go back and park and walk Izzy in.  No bitch.  No.

What I wanted to say, but didn't, goes something like this:

Fuuuuuuuuuck you!  A courtesy?!  A COURTESY?!  How about if I just utilize the bus service provided to kids with disabilities and have Logan ride the bus to school with a full time aide?  That way I'm taking up a hell of a lot more resources than just 7 feet of curb space you've provided me as 'a courtesy.'  You're welcome.

Ugh.  So that shouldn't have put me in a (for lack of a better word) tizzy, but it did. I was really upset.  Not to mention the fact that I'm up at the school busting my ass routinely to help out the teachers, etc  and I feel like I had just been shat on.

Deep breaths.  I'm feeling much better.  Tomorrow is track and field day at school and I'll be there all.day.long.  Logan's aides are both out and they were all 'sooooo....are you volunteering to help tomorrow?'  Yep.  I'll be there.  With bells on.

Reading Rainbow

After a rough start to the morning I was lucky enough to go see my friend's lovely new house while it was being inspected.  It was perfect.  Definitely a fun way to spend a couple of hours today!  After that I had Isabel's parent-teacher conference.  I was expecting all amazing things about my girl.  While it was mostly amazing I was a little disappointed that her DRA (reading level) didn't go up at all this summer.  Boo.  Parent fail.  We had workbooks people!  Oh well, she's still on level, so no big deal.  Everything else was good.  The little diva is quite the social butterfly and likes to quietly go 'visit' her friends at other tables while her teacher is doing 1 on 1 reading with other students.  Apparently she is quiet, but it inhibits her friends from completing their assignments.  She says 'but Mom, I always complete my tasks.'  And the other day I guess she picked off some of her hair tie and walked over 4 students during carpet reading time to give her friend the pieces of the hair tie.  No way girlfriend, no way.  So we definitely have some things to work on.  Her strong points were logical thinking and math.  Her father's daughter for sure.

I've heard that reading usually just clicks for kids.  Some are faster than others, but usually in 1st or 2nd grade there is a huge reading surge and they just 'get' it suddenly.  While Isabel can read on level, she is by no means a strong reader.  I'm hoping it will click for her this year!  This about sums up our reading most nights:

In super proud Mom news, I heard that there is a girl in her class who is having a sort of harder time making friends with other students.  Some of Isabel's other friends weren't being very nice to this girl.  One girl even said she didn't like her because she was 'weird.'  Isabel said to her friend 'that's not very nice and I don't think she's weird so I'm going to play with (friend's name).'  Yes!

Logan's parent-teacher conference is tomorrow...stay tuned!

After dropping Logan off at ABA on Tuesday's I take Isabel to gymnastics.  We usually get there a little early so she plays on the playground or we read.  Today as I was reading to her she notices some squirrels in the trees above us.  I'm reading and she's literally going "squirrel!" 

So I keep reading and then I feel a very hard thump on my back.  Those fuckers fell of the tree and on to my BACK!  UGH!!!!!!