Month: May 2014

Removing All Doubt

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My parents once gave me some wonderful advice: Better to keep silent and let others think you a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Clearly, I speak a lot, so we all know I’m a fool.  But I also don’t position myself as superior to others in my conduct – Heaven knows I’m flawed.  And then you get groups with Holier-than-Thou attitudes who decide to shoot off their mouths about topics they know nothing about.

Yes, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, I’m looking at you. Continue reading →

Getting Around

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In my last post, I mentioned that we had the Monster’s IEP meeting.  This obviously means that I was at his school, in the morning, rather than my usual Thursday afternoon stop to grab my kid.  While I was waiting for the meeting-time, I saw a school bus pull into the school lot, discharging their kids and then going on its merry way.

The problem?  It was 9:25, and the school starts at 9 AM. Continue reading →

IEP-Go-Round

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Today was the IEP meeting to discuss our concerns about the newly-crafted IEP from February.

A few weeks ago, when we’d called Ms. R to schedule the meeting, she asked us if we wanted Early Learning involved.  We said no – we’d had a horrible experience with the woman from Early Learning (the one who ripped out the Monster’s ESY) – because we didn’t know what they could possibly contribute to the meeting.  So this morning, it was us, our advocate, the IEP chair, the SLP, his special-ed teacher Ms. A, the general educator he sees in the mornings, and the school social worker. Continue reading →

Blessing or Curse

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I’ve seen a lot of carrying on this week about Toni Braxton’s new book, most specifically to the snippets that are being distributed far and wide about how she saw her child’s Autism as ‘punishment from God’.  A lot of it has been handwringing in the tune of “how can people feel that way”, as if such thoughts make someone a bad parent.

On the other side, I hear a lot of folks expressing the viewpoint of “God gives special children to special people,” and the outcry against that point of view. Continue reading →

Party Planning

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The Monster’s belated birthday party is this weekend.

Because R is two, his birthdays are lightly themed, but are moving in the direction of having some kind of actual structure – we’ll probably have to have a “real” birthday party for him next year.  The Monster, at six, still is getting what is really an overglorified playdate with a BBQ… for a lot of good reasons. Continue reading →

FUD

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Because us parents of children need another thing to bludgeon ourselves about, with regards to how it’s entirely our fault as to how our children have Autism…

My job has me online all day – being the manager of a team of software developers, I have time now and again to flip through interesting-looking articles when they appear on my Twitter timeline – so I do get to catch the latest study that points to a cause of Autism.  This week’s latest revelation: it’s my fault (because of my job).

Seriously. Continue reading →

Looking Ahead

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Last night, while we were prepping for today’s (now postponed) IEP meeting, we started looking at the website for the school that the Monster will be attending next year.

It’s weird, to consider the differences between two elementary schools in the same district.  And while we had already known that the Mount Washington School is a far better school than Garrett Heights… it’s shocking. Continue reading →

Weekend Daze

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My wife got the afternoon off from the kids for Mothers’ Day – she’s down at Oriole Park while I have the kids at home.

Because we have the feeding clinic visit (and by we, I mean “my wife and the Monster”, since it’s during R’s nap-time), the Monster’s weekly private OT and speech therapy were moved to this morning.  This was just fine by us, since today’s also the Therapy Spot’s annual open house, which means drinks, cotton candy, face painting, and two bounce-houses for the kids. Continue reading →