Assessing Progress

Next week is a meeting with the IEP chair (or, rather, her surrogate, as she should be off on maternity leave) to discuss the Monster’s triennial assessments.

So far, we’ve only gotten the educational assessment, but I’m not terribly surprised.  As long as I have time to read them before the meeting and formulate some responses, I’ll be satisfied. Continue reading

Observer Effect

So as I mentioned earlier this week, R went in for his two-year evaluations as part of the studies that he’s in.

We’ve had him evaluated by Infants and Toddlers before, due to concerns about where he’s felt “laggy” to us on his skills… and we were generally assuaged that he’s fine, though that we could certainly work harder with him on some things.  In the time since then, he’s developed into quite the regular chatterbox and relatively normal child. Continue reading

When Normalcy Reigns

I’ve probably mentioned a few times that R is enrolled in a couple of studies for siblings of children on the spectrum.  Framing this weekend are the two-year appointments for these studies, where the wife’s having to take him into the lab for him to be evaluated… but that also means loads and loads of paperwork, where we’re answering questions ad nauseum about his development.

It also makes me think about those times where our children are particularly normal or not. Continue reading

Change the Channel

If it’s the winter of certain years, it’s time for the Winter Olympics.  That quadrennial occurrence where we all watch sports that we’ve no idea how to play or score, but that we’re going to be glued to anyway.

The last time the Winter Olympics happened, the Monster was just shy of two years old, and we’d not yet gotten a diagnosis.  We had some inklings that something was wrong, but that was then. Continue reading

Real or Fake?

So after yesterday’s “ooh, he has a soul” moment… it’s time to step back to things that are actually about the kid. 😉

Many evenings, while my wife’s making dinner, I take the time to get the Monster’s homework out of the way.  It’s generally more meant as an effective use of time – every moment that’s spent doing homework while one of us is busy is a moment later that can be used for fun when both of us are available.  His class, “Together We Grow”, actually follows the real kindergarten curriculum, so his homework is little different from what other kindergarteners in Baltimore are working on. Continue reading

A Matter of Faith

This is more of a “my failings” than “anything else” kind of post.

I’m not the most observant Jew, but I’d consider myself a decently-good one who tries relatively well to hew to the practices of Conservative Judaism.

For those of you who are long-time readers, you know that I’m a gabbai at my synagogue.  I spend a Saturday morning, every few weeks, up on the bimah at my congregation, helping to run the Torah reading.  I find it very rewarding – not perhaps as rewarding as I find reading a portion myself, but certainly involving less of my personal time at home trying to prep for participating in the service, and certainly less nerve-wracking when one bears in mind that I have extreme stage fright, even after reading Torah for nearly thirty years.

Continue reading

What’s in a Name?

A few weeks ago, a commenter here left a note about how my reference for my eldest – the Monster – made him increasingly uncomfortable… and I thought that I’d circle back about it after I’d had some time to put in real thought.

So… the Monster.  As I mentioned in my first ever blog post, we’ve called him ‘Monster’ since he was two days old.  It’s a name that’s stuck, and he actually does answer to it.  And yes, he does know his real first name, both in English and Hebrew. Continue reading

Shot in the Dark

The Monster is not a big fan of the doctor’s office.  And still there are times that he’s going to have to go without wanting to do so.

Since we’re in the middle of flu season and the Monster had off on Friday, I volunteered to take him to the doctor’s office to get his flu shot. Continue reading