With the school year drawing towards its conclusion, we’re starting our planning for next year.
The IEP’s essentially been agreed to for the moment – the one that we handled two months back for ESY placement (see my post The Non Event) – but the one thing that’s still in the air is where the Monster’s going to go to school in August. That decision was going to be deferred until later this spring. Continue reading
Most of the time, the Monster’s actually fairly good about sensory sensitivity.
We’ve taken him to bull riding, the ren-faire, ball games… nothing really phases him when it comes to most sounds. On the other hand, lately, he’s been showing increasing sensitivity to a certain set of sounds – fans. Continue reading
Tomorrow is my every-so-often date with jumping up on the bimah to do my thing. My “thing”, in this case, is playing gabbai sheni (the “second” gabbai, the person who corrects the Torah reader, as opposed to gabbai rishon who calls out the honors and coaches the folks through what they ought to be doing). For the first time in a long time, I’m flying solo with the kids for the whole day tomorrow, as the wife’s going to a local Autism conference, my in-laws are out of town, and my folks are just a bit too far away to cover.
I should mention that this is with the caveat that the Monster’s actually being dropped off at “Parents’ Day Out” before I head to shul.
Yes, I’ve mentioned that our congregation has a quiet room, which is a Wonderful Thing. I’d rarely get to synagogue at all without it, and as it is, I spend much of the services at High HolyDays in there rather than in my much-more-comfortable seat in the sanctuary, if only because the Monster’s not… calm enough to stay out there for long periods of time. (And, granted, much of the congregation knows us and about the Monster having Autism. If they don’t know us… they’re kind of oblivious, between everything our family does there.) But I can’t leave both kids alone in there while I’m on the bimah – that’s just not fair to anyone (and it’s a violation of the quiet room rules, to boot). Nor can I really manage both children while I’m supposed to be on the bimah. The wife had an offer from a friend to have her daughter watch the baby while I’m up there, and so it’ll be a quick run in the morning to drop off the Monster, then over to shul, then back to pick him up and head home once my little duty is done.
And I feel awful about it.
To me, going to synagogue is supposed to be about both religion and family. (As I wait for folks who knew me in my pre-marriage days to chime in with the fact that I used to go every week by myself just fine without the latter… and yes, I used to go a lot more. It is more complicated when you have kids.) And I feel like something of a failure for not only having to admit that I can’t really go to shul alone with the kids if I’m going to be on the bimah, much less feeling that I can’t handle both kids in a religious space without help. Even if that last bit isn’t quite true – I could handle them just fine, as long as I’m resigned to sitting in the quiet room – it’s still an impression I’m working on.
Just a lot of ‘ifs’ in my head about going to synagogue in general with the Monster. If I could figure out how to explain to him that he needs to be quiet (without food bribes). If I could explain in a way he’d understand about how beautiful the religion is, how meaningful it can be. If I could teach him to read Hebrew so he could daven along with everyone else. And of course, these are all really more ‘if I could right this moment’ – I have confidence he’ll learn it all eventually…
I know God knows what I’m feeling, why I feel that way, and forgives me for my feeling like a failure. I wish I was so understanding.
For those who don’t know, my wife does read my postings every day to see what I’ve said. While we were on our evening walk last night, we briefly discussed what I’d written yesterday and her impressions on it. (It’s a good self-check for when I also have a different impression than she.)
And while we were discussing the matter, something very prescient was said. She had, earlier the day, run to the bank and made a deposit of some large bills (from doing focus groups at a nearby company) and a check we’d received for our anniversary, and her thoughts on it were: Continue reading
Since the school system seems disinclined to provide the Monster with all of the care that we think he needs, we’ve decided to take the “logical” step and get him some outside therapy. Yesterday was his first trip to a local private provider for supplemental occupational and speech therapy.
As I’ve mentioned before – the school provides him with three speech therapy appointments a week and one OT. However, the OT was recently reduced from 45 minutes to 30 (though from a push-in to a pull-out appointment) and the speech is two pull-out small group, one push-in per week. And we think he needs more individual attention than that. Continue reading
The Monster is, as anyone who’s seen him can testify, a very healthy child. Our biggest issue with keeping him such, though, is the fact that he lives on a very limited diet.
I’ve spoken before of the fact that he tends to be a very picky eater. It’s rarely predictable what he’s going to be willing to eat on a given day – we can take guesses based on past performance, but other than that, he’s only happy within a very limited range. Continue reading
I’m so accustomed to over-preparing for the Monster’s behavior when it gets ‘late’ that I think sometimes we overreact in advance.
We tend to plan to be back at our house by bedtime with the children – neither of them really ‘handles’ being in public well much past that point. This means being home before eight on most evenings, or perhaps at the grandparents’ where we can tuck them in. Continue reading
When considering having children, sensory issues were never something that had entered my thoughts. Even now – with the Monster being how he is – I rarely consider the matter. After all, the Monster’s really not sensory adverse. (He’s sensory seeking at times, but usually in ways that aren’t horrifyingly ‘awful’ – he has a fascination with hair and occasionally with crumbling paper or the like.)
However… the cicadas are coming this spring. Continue reading
The Monster’s favorite toy around the house is his iPad.
Granted, the iPad is a snazzy thing – I’m still shocked at the sheer number that I see of any tablets at all around in public, much less the sheer number of the sticker-price-shocker that the iPad is. ON the other hand, I sometimes question the effectiveness of the device alone in his hands. Continue reading
This morning, we had our check-up with the Monster’s developmental pediatrician.
We have this meeting roughly every six to nine months – it’s a good spot for us to talk about what therapies he ought to be getting and to go over our concerns. As you can imagine, this meant the creation of a laundry list last night, and then trying desperately to remember what everything meant while at the doctor’s office today. Continue reading