Getting in Gear for the School Year

After today, there are only five days before the Monster returns to school for his second year in the public school system.

There are a lot of questions about the coming school year.  How much has he regressed over the summer?  How much good did his ESY services at camp do?  How much good did the social interaction from camp do?  Will this year be better in terms of his progress?

And my big question for this year – will the bussing be any better? Continue reading

Autism at the Ballpark: Frederick Keys

It’s occurred to me that with all of my travel reviews and whatnot, I don’t actually talk about the ballparks we’ve visited this year. (This is the fact that came into my mind while I was sitting at the stadium yesterday, in the drizzle.)  Given that several of these games have been courtesy of either Pathfinders for Autism or our local Autism Society chapter, it seems like a weird omission on my part. Continue reading

The Big Switch

We’re about a week out from school now, and that means getting the Monster’s list of supplies together before he gets into the classroom.  Most of the items are the run-of-the-mill stuff you’d see for any kid going into kindergarten – crayons, glue sticks, paper towels, things like that.

One of the things that’s not on his list this year are pull-ups. Continue reading

Not The Same Thing

Being the age that I am, I have plenty of friends and family who also have children around the same age as the Monster.

One of my cousins posted a link to a blog post on a Patch site today regarding a parent who is sitting back at a reasonable distance to let her children explore the playground, but moreover is asking that other parents don’t step in to help her children either.  It does, on reading it (and the copious comments, both pro and con), make me wonder what other parents think when the Monster’s on the playground. Continue reading

Invisible

It’s hard, sometimes, to get folks to realize that the Monster is – at least according to the law – disabled.

As I emphasize everywhere, and as most of us parents in this situation emphasize, the Monster is for all intents and purposes a “normal” child.  He runs, he plays in the water, he can climb structures.  He has full use of all of his senses, even if sometimes his voice is more the matter of shrieks and yelling. Continue reading

Sis Boom Bah

I had to get up early this morning to handle emergency-backstopping on a software push this morning, so I was up this morning to watch Twitter as the principals from the Baltimore City School System were off to their kick-off for the new school year.

Now, I think that they’re all entitled to a pep-rally of sorts, especially as the year kicks off.  We need it, after all – to get into a mindset that will enable children to learn, to support them in all of their endeavors, and to get a running start to the new school year.  On the other hand… Continue reading

Bag Policies

When I was growing up, as I’ve mentioned before, my dad used to take us to sporting events on a regular basis.

None of us were really that “baggage heavy” at the time – I was 6 or 7 when my dad took me to my first pro basketball game, and by the time we were going regularly to sporting events, I had to be in my teens (meaning all of my sibs were mid-elementary school or later). Continue reading

Dog Days of Summer

So this is the last week of the Monster’s day camp.  Next week is the gap week between camp and school, and then we’re back into the school year.

Originally, we were trying to figure out what we’d do next week, having both R and the Monster home, and were wracking our brains as to find something to keep them both occupied, bearing in mind that R needs to have a nap mid-day, and the Monster might not do well with further disruptions to his schedule… Continue reading

What Time Off?

I know I’ve whined enough about money this week, so. 😉

One of the things we had considered putting in our LISS request (the one that’s seemingly not going to be approved anyway) was for respite care.  We’ve never actually taken respite before, but… well, it comes back to the question about getting a break for ourselves. Continue reading