This is the last year we’re celebrating Father’s Day in our house.
No, I’m not moving out, and nothing’s happened to the kids. I’m not getting a gender reassignment… nothing like that.
I just don’t see the point of it anymore. Continue reading
autism
How Much Accommodation?
Yesterday, my wife asked me to take the day off so that we could take the kids to Sesame Place. Baltimore City schools let out early for the summer this week – on Monday – and while the rest of the state seems to still be in classes, it seemed an ideal opportunity for us to fill some time for both children by taking them somewhere fun.
As my long time readers already know, I love how Seaworld Entertainment accommodates guests with disabilities. Sesame Place has been the top of the heap in this regard – they’ve been so easy with regards to accommodating the Monster, and their policies in general are very disability friendly – so we’ve always looked forward to our trips there. We’ve even bought season passes, despite the fact that it’s twice as far away (if not more) than the nearest Six Flags park.
So a visit to Sesame Place is fairly standard for us – we park, we go inside, the wife goes to Guest Relations just inside the gate to get the bracelet and RAP sheet for the Monster, and we go about our day. And then… this year came with a change. Continue reading
On the Road – Hersheypark
Every summer, my company finds something for us to do with our families. For several years in a row, it was the company picnic at a local swimming club, but… then we grew a lot. So it got moved, first to Six Flags America (see On the Road – Six Flags America), and then the last two years have been at Hersheypark. (Given where the staff at our company live, it just makes more sense to have it north of the office than south.) Continue reading
Dancing Queen
We’re used to the Monster saying weird, random things out of the blue – it’s part of how his Autism presents. A lot of the time, it’s a fill-in for another word – oftentimes, the word is “banana” or “Sesame Street” or the like. And every so often, he says something new that we’re not quite understanding.
A few weeks ago, it was random earworms – an Ariana Grande song, then “Bills” by Lunchmoney Lewis – but today, he came into the media room while I was cooling off, saying something about “criss-cross.” Continue reading
Between Trips
I’m only home for a short bit between trips – the wife and I returned from the Dominican Republic last night, and I’m off to Minnesota today for the weekend – so I’ll keep it a little bit short and sweet.
I’ve mentioned in another post that we have a communication log for when the Monster’s at school. Our communication system isn’t fantastic when it comes to how we handle things when we’re not around at home… Continue reading
IEP Year Four
Today was the second meeting for next year’s IEP.
As any special-needs parent can tell you, any IEP meeting tends to be stressful – the goal of an IEP is to ensure that your child has the necessary supports to learn, and the supports and therapies that go into the document govern where your child is going to go to school in the coming year.
And the one thing that was apparent, coming into this year’s IEP review, is that Mount Washington is not the right placement for the Monster. Continue reading
How Was Your Day?
This is based on a conversation I was having on Twitter last night with another parent of a child with Autism.
The Monster’s only partially verbal – he can communicate his basic needs (“Eat!”, “Drink!”, “Go to sleep!”) but he’s not very good at a narrative of what’s going on in his life. In some ways, I’d joke it’s like living with a teenager a couple of years early (“How was your day?” “Fine.” “What did you learn at school today?” “Nothing.”), but without the ability to really get useful information from follow-up questions.
One of the most useful things that we had added to the Monster’s IEP is a communication requirement. Continue reading
Getting Away
The wife and I are actually going on vacation soon.
I’ve commented before that it’s important to find time as a couple to actually be a couple – we spend so much time (especially at this time of year, with IEP meetings and placement discussions) doing things for the kids that it’s easy to go for days without acting like there was a time where we were young and in love and actually married…
And in the time since the last time we got away, we’ve forgotten what an undertaking it is. Continue reading
The Monster Turns Seven
So we’re at the end of another year, and the Monster’s seventh birthday was yesterday.
Like the last two years, we’ve celebrated with cupcakes and the like, with no real decision when/if we’re going to throw a party for him. It’s hard to decide to do the party thing when he really doesn’t have any friends – he’s not invited to any of the other children’s birthday parties from his class at school, and we don’t really know any of the other parents in the class, despite my wife being the class parent. We’ll probably do some family thing over Memorial Day weekend again, since that’s a convenient time for my family to come down. Continue reading
To the Rest of My Child’s IEP Team
It’s the end of another school year, and here we are, going over the Monster’s IEP yet again, evaluating which goals he succeeded at meeting, which ones he made progress on, and which ones are abject failures.
I know it’s really hard to squeeze out time to make these meetings work. He’s one child out of twenty-five in his general education class, and heaven knows how many other schools his specialists get to during the day. His IEP chairperson’s time is split between two different schools, and the meeting protocols require having an administrator and school psychologist present as well. Further, someone from the central office has to come as an education/placement consultant, and since we’re discussing changing placement next year, there’s also the problem of having someone from that program at the meeting…
And being part of an IEP team can be a very thankless job. Continue reading