Frustrated Irritated Disconnected from it all

So is it good to have a down right pity party sometimes? Must have gotten up too early today. How does one feel refreshed and sad. Why would I be sad? I have a beautiful family, a beautiful home. Just feel bummed out. Life has been hard lately. School stuff going on. My hat is crushing my head and there isn't many could be a helping hand. It's just what my life looks like right now. I know and accept that I am exactly where God wants me right now. No one said it would be easy.

What's going on? Hard days for hubby at work. Trapped in the house, don't want to drive on nasty roads, don't want to tense up from the cold, don't want to have confrontation.

Four IEPs- which Aubrey is off the richtar now and aside from trying to "be there," our efforts have to be restricted because 1) she is technically Luke's daughter and I control enough things and 2) even if I wanted to control anything the logistics of it is that she and her beautiful sister are in a different household that we have NO CONTROL over. She is serviced under TBI. Traumatic Brain Injury. She was four, fell out the 2nd story window onto a sidewalk. Frontal lobe reconstruction with permanent titanium mesh and a scar to prove it. Blessed for life and thinks she knows better now, ah well isn't it a blessing that those teenage years don't last forever? She suffers from nasty regular headaches, delayed processing, and some periodic emotional/behavioral delays. Overall she is a great kid, but has had the same case manager for her 3rd year now and doesn't seem to be making the progress I WOULD LIKE. The district even furnished a computer in her home to set up a reading program for her to be doing some audio work in hopes to increase her reading skills (that btw mom has never given a hoot about and has probably never requested leisure reading as an activitiy:(.) Guess what? They got the computer, yeah facebook!, but the program needs some code and they were going to check into that and it has been since May that they have a cool apple from the school with no programs for Aubrey. But the line is drawn somewhere and my hands get bound and tied with responsibilities that are in my face every day and so am I giving up on the situation? Not yet, but again- my excuses are logistics. I should add it to my list.

Adam is serviced under ASD, Autism Spectrul Disorder. That was new with his most recent 3 year eval. Previously he had been serviced under LD because of cognitive impairments. This has been my sucker lately. By sucker I mean of the energy from me. By sucker I mean sticky and icky, like one you find in your purse on a random search. Or perhaps like an upper cut to the gut. Maybe that is it. He is content to stare out a window for hours. That is troubling when over half his day is spent in the cozy special ed room. I am convinced that the teacher's paper weights are in his hand more often than a pencil in that room. I need to go observe. I am meeting with the case manager next week. She graded a RiDiCuLoUs paper that should have never been considered a final paper with an A. She circled that there were "almost no" grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors; when really there was barely a sentance that didn't have all three of that. Her reasoning was that he had spent 3 periods on it or something and after correcting his rough draft (as I stated that was the quality of the paper) she decided to not correct new errors. NOT HAPPY! So instead, she is educating my son that that research paper was A work and didn't have any errors in it. I will be praying for wisdom and collection for our meeting next week!

Seriously, I was contemplating home schooling. Then that includes David too. Because of the social vulnerabilities, there is no way I would split them up. I need a tattle-tale, plus they are best friends! I met with their developmental disabilities social worker last week and she has encouraged me to be more involved. I guess if I was willing to dedicate my life to their education, the first step may be to become more involved at school. But my argument is that the time invested or what appears would need to be invested may be better utilized in the comfort of my own home:) So I need more information about the transition programs and also about the possibility of combining public and home school, or what type of assurance the school can give me to maximize their potential.


David is serviced under LD because of cognitive impairments, but is significantly higher functioning than Adam. He can read an analog clock if given enough time. His problem solving skills are higher. He is doing great in school but we are finding that he has gotten comfortable at the middle school and also is testing his levels of responsibility. We think he may be taking advantage of his memory issues and the special ed excuses.

Reany is serviced under OHD, Other Health Disabilities, as she was diagnosed with ADHD last spring. She needed that diagnosis; I was surprised that she actually met the guidelines. I had anticipated just getting that diagnosis because we needed it, not because she did. I never really thought of her like that. After her auditory processing assessment and SCSU, which I strongly recommend, it became clear that she has quite a bit of neurological activity affecting her ability to focus and identify information. She is however, doing great in school. Her neuropshych a couple years ago showed areas of "executive functioning" impairments, so is typical to not see in a 2nd grade classroom. She is excellent at fitting in with the mob of 2nd graders. It will be later on that they will see the difficulty in independent skills. We are not seeing her transfer her skills much though either, as requesting information from her is like pulling teeth some days.

Pacer said to send a letter to the director of special ed and cc her case manager that they are not in compliance with the iep- as I had not recieved the weekly reading probe results per her IEP. I fought for that last spring when they told me she was no longer eligible for academic services. Academic services she had had since 18 months old and yet still was testing below where they wanted her, but higher than eligibility marks.

I decided that was harsh, because I didn't discuss that with her new case manager yet. So since I did, she has been in compliance. I did need to remind her this week- but assume she was sincere that she had been working on it and there was some issue with her getting those results. Not my problem, right? Yeah, choose your battles wisely. You get more with honey. I am the IEP though and I care more about my kids education than anyone else could imagine, so at some point I may need to take out the big guns.

Sigh...so you just got a glimpse of my administrative world in education. No wonder I take joy in the leisure of immersion advocacy and parent involvement. It doesn't always have to be a sucker. Sometimes the piece of gum doesn't have lint and things wedged in the wrapper. And that is just if it escaped from the package when you randomly find it in your purse.

I am excited to see what God's plan is for my kids and I would be a fool to not surrender our household to him. When asked his name... " I am who I am." Nothing simple there folks, no matter where our minds want to go, no matter what jibber jabber this world of babel has to say- I know that our creator has authority over all and through Christ we have been set free and so to this I take great joy to know that His works were not in vain, that the prophets were correct, that the world has found proof, and I will wait! And in the mean time, I have my hands full working for Him. What are your hands full with?