I hope they’ll be best buds forever.

Grapefruit.  I love winter purely for these babies.  I bought an 18 pound bag at the store yesterday.  CAN’T. GET. ENOUGH.

My new modern bird feeder.  So far we haven’t seen a single bird yet, but the squirrels dig it.  Damn squirrels.

Iphone covers that look like cassette tapes.  Hilarious.

Takes me right back to the days of sitting in my room listening intently to the radio waiting for THAT song to come on so I could push record on my tape player and listen to it OVER and OVER and OVER.

Josh thought I should write a playlist on them.  Hmmmm…..BoyzIIMen (be still my heart), Janet, Babyface, TLC, Mariah Carey (Notice a pattern?  I dreamt of being a back-up dancer for Janet Jackson.  Aspirations I tell ya.)  You’ll be happy to know my taste in music has definitely changed.

A Prayer for Owen Meany.  One of my favorites.  I’ve read it several times and each time it’s just as entertaining.  Pick it up.  Sorry, you can’t borrow mine.  You’ll definitely want to own this one. (If you’re not much of a reader, rent Simon Birch.  It’s the movie version of this book.  Although the movie’s great too, the book is ALWAYS better).

This combination of loveliness.  The hat, the cheeks, the smoochable lips, and the fact that she’s sleeping without being held (that’s a rare thing around here).  Car seats are magical.

Oh yeah.  And Instagram.

First off, happy new year! Whew! I feel like it’s been a whirlwind last several months and so far 2012 is looking quite crazy too.  Sorry for the lack of blogging-little sis is going through the “you CANNOT put me down or I will scream until my lungs give out” phase.  (And no, the moby, sling, bjorn don’t help.  She wants to be held held).  It’s been next to impossible to do ANYTHING until Josh gets home at night and by then, I’m too tired to do anything but sit and stare at the tv.

Anyway……I’ve had several people tell me I left them hanging after my IEP blog and I wanted to fill you in.  Turns out, Gav’s teacher JUST DOESN’T UNDERSTAND autism.  Our meeting went WAY better than expected and she asked a lot of questions.  She WANTS to know, she’s just never been educated.  (I have several teacher friends and they’ve chosen to get more training in the areas of special needs-apparently it’s not required.  A sad fact in this day and age when autism and behavior issues are so prevalent).  A huge thanks to my friends who DO care about their students as individuals-you guys are awesome!

But let’s rewind a bit. Remember when Gav got left on the playground?  That incident and several other less catastrophic issues left me feeling SO dissatisfied with Gavin’s school, teacher…..the whole public school system really.  I happened to have lunch with my bestie not too long after that and she was telling me the troubles she’d been having homeschooling her oldest son and a resource center they had found here in town that had been helping him immensely with his school issues. (Some of his struggles are the same things Gav struggles with).  And it sounded like just what Gav needed- a quiet environment with a one-on-one tutor who builds the curriculum around his specific strengths and weaknesses.

After talking to her, I had such a sense of urgency that we needed to give this place a shot. I felt like we’ve already exhausted all our other resources. I couldn’t believe in all my research and therapies, I had never even heard of it before.  I called the next day and Gav had his 4 hour (!) evaluation three days later.  We met with the director to go over his test results and one of the first things she said to us is, “This kid’s not autistic.”  To her, Gavin was presenting as someone who has language processing issues, but definitely not autism.  She felt like once his processing issues were dealt with, he would absolutely have no trouble keeping up in school.  Everything would start to flow out of him and what’s trapped inside would finally be able to come out.

HOPE.  She had given us hope.  Not that we didn’t have it before, but some of these day to day struggles can really muddy the water.

Gavin starts there tomorrow.  2012 is looking to be bright and promising for this young man.

“And then there was a party.”

Merry Christmas everyone!

But anyway, here’s some shots over the past few days of Sloanie B.

We think we’ll keep her!

For the rest of you:

Sloane Cadét (pronounced Cah-day)* arrived at 9:19am on Wednesday, November 30th weighing in at 7lbs. 14oz and 20 3/4″ long (my biggest baby….but we won’t tell her that).

All is right in the world.  She’s beautiful and perfect.

And she only wakes up once in the night to eat.

Did I mention she’s beautiful and perfect?

We are so blessed, she is oh so loved by her three biggest protectors, and she already has Daddy wrapped around her finger.

Oh yeah.  And she has delicious cheeks.

*Cadét is Josh’s french grandmother’s maiden name.  She has tons of stories about growing up in France during the war and I’ve always thought it was a beautiful name.  I looked up the literal meaning of cadet in french and it actually means “youngest child”.  How cool is that! (And yes, Sloane will always be our youngest child……our family is complete). 

]]> http://recoveringgavin.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/pinkalicious/feed/ 6 recoveringgavin DSCN2045 http://recoveringgavin.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/iep/ http://recoveringgavin.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/iep/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:05:06 +0000 recoveringgavin http://recoveringgavin.wordpress.com/?p=2325 ]]> I’m tired and overwhelmed.  I’ve been walking around in a daze today without purpose or motivation.  We have Gavin’s IEP (individualized education plan*) meeting in an hour.  I’m nervous.  I’m also non-confrontational.  I have no idea how it’s going to go.  Last year we let them walk all over us because we had no idea what we were doing.  This year, I’m trying to find the balance between a desire for it to go well and not caring at all because I know this is not the best place for him and I feel like we’re just slamming our heads against a brick wall**.

I’m thankful for good friends (who are also teachers) who have been walking us through this process and giving us specific words to say.  I’m thankful for our ChildServe speech therapist who will be attending the meeting today.  She was a private consultant to families for IEP meetings in New York.  She’s tough.  She’s blunt.  She’s amazing.

I just want to get it over with.

*IEP’s are designed for students with special needs.  This is a meeting of all teachers, therapists, etc within the school to develop a specific education plan to fit Gavin’s needs.  Sounds great…….but it mostly comes down to whether or not those involved actually stick to the IEP…….or if they even show up at all.

**2 weeks ago we had a life-changing experience at a private educational organization.  I’ll be blogging about that soon.

Since the boys knew Halloween was coming, they’ve been planning their costumes for a while.  Liam wanted desperately to be a spork.  Yes.  You read that right.  It’s funny how many people don’t even know what a spork is (a spoon and a fork combo in case you’re one of those people).  WHAT????  I have no idea where he came up with that.  AND, Gavin has been telling people for about 2 months now that he wanted to be a duck. Again, I refuse to do much when it comes to this “holiday”.  I definitely don’t sew costumes……

2 days before I had the (brilliant) idea that they should go as Albert Pujols.  (Famous baseball player, just won the World Series, plays for the St. Louis Cardinals, and we have TONS of St. Louis gear). DONE.

(Yes, that’s Liam’s medallion you see.  Albert likes bling too.)

And Tate went as a monkey. Partly because he is one, but mostly because we had that costume and it fit.  He didn’t get a say.  That’s how I roll on Halloween.

Oh, and apparently Des Moines is about the only place on earth that does Beggars Night (where the kids go out the night before Halloween).  So as of last night, Halloween is over for us.  We have bucketfuls of candy that will be rationed (or eaten by me-they got a lot of chocolate) the rest of the year.

“Sugar” is what Tate calls it.  “Mommy, when can I have another sugar?” is what I’ve been asked about every hour today.  Sigh

So last night, we bundled up (not well enough…it was COOOLD) and headed to Madrid.  Not knowing what to expect, and not planning very well, we arrived without a stroller or flashlights (thank goodness for the flashlight app on the iphone!).

You have to walk about half a mile to get to the bridge (something we didn’t know).  You can’t actually see the bridge until you get right up to it and then you’re met by these huge, beautiful columns covered in stones.   The bridge itself is very modern and funky…..and then you get to the middle:

and it’s all lit up.  Liam named it the “Obi-Wan Kenobi Lightsabre Bridge”.

Apparently if you ride your bike through it, it feels like the blue lights swirl around you.

Pretty dang sweet and totally worth the trip.

Today I did not see Gavin in the hallway.  I saw his buddy Joe.  Joe hadn’t seen Gavin.  I went into his classroom while the kids were getting settled. No Gavin.  I went upstairs to the special ed room thinking maybe that teacher had snagged him.  The room was dark, no Gavin.  I went back to the classroom, where by now, the kids were all on the rug listening to the teacher.  No Gavin.

You should have seen her face when she realized he wasn’t there.

My little Gavin was still out playing on the playground………at this time, about 15 minutes after the rest of his class had gone inside.

I WAS LIVID.

I do not blame Gavin at all.  It’s crazy out on the playground at that time of day.  There are probably over 100 kids out there from different classrooms.  There are whistles being blown all the time for different groups to go in. My son has auditory processing disorder for one thing.  He plays alone sometimes.  He did not see/hear/process that his class was going inside.

I understand that it can be hard to keep track of all 25+ of your 1st graders all the time.  BUT DON’T YOU THINK THAT AS A TEACHER YOU WOULD ESPECIALLY KEEP TRACK OF YOUR KIDS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS FIRST????? DON’T YOU AT LEAST DO A HEAD COUNT WHEN YOU COME IN FROM ALL THAT CHAOS???  (Imagine me screaming here because that’s exactly what I wanted to do).

Good thing we have a parent/teacher conference already scheduled for tomorrow.  Insert me screaming some more.

LIVID I TELL YOU.

Now it’s got me wondering if this has happened before……..it’s not like anyone would ever tell me.