Category Archives: school

Three Weeks to Go

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Is the end of the school year killing anyone else? I feel like I have two or three events to fit in every single day for the last three weeks of school. With three kids in three schools, that means that I don’t even get to kill three birds with one stone. I have three spring concerts. Three end of the year parties. Sixty-five field trips.

Seriously. These kids go on a LOT of field trips.

That doesn’t even include Geo Bowls, regular volunteer gigs, and 504 meetings.

This week alone, there was that great concert at Jack’s school, a field trip for Jack and a field trip for Quinn, and a performance of Shakespeare’s The Tempest by Sam’s fifth grade class.

I have to tell you, I think the play wins for best event of the week. It was phenomenal. Sam’s teacher created this fantastic 40-minute adaptation of The Tempest that the entire class took part in. It was absolutely amazing.

I took both Jack and Quinn out of school so they could go with me to watch, partly because I wouldn’t have gotten home in time to pick them up from school after the play and partly because they really wanted to go.

I wasn’t sure about their attention span and how well they would follow, you know, Shakespeare, but they both sat quietly on the floor and watched, rapt. Watching them in the audience was nearly as good for me as watching Sam in the play.

I don't have great photos of Sam in the play, but trust me, he was a star.

I don’t have great photos of Sam in the play, but trust me, he was a star.

I was beyond impressed by this fifth grade class. Every one of them did so well. Afterward, I could barely restrain Jack until the audience (made up of the other classes in Sam’s school) left because he was all, “I want to go hug Sam!”

(I did too.)

Methinks Jack was a little starstruck.

Methinks Jack was a little starstruck.

It was all very cool. Also, I feel I should let you know that I didn’t even read Shakespeare until I was in 9th grade. Kids these days.

After yesterday’s theater experience, today I chaperoned the second grade field trip to the Natural History Museum. Parts of it were a lot of fun. Quinn made it about 3/4 of the way through before he melted down.

I think I took this photo on the cusp between "Field trips are fun! I am having a great time!" and "I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW."

I think I took this photo on the cusp between “Field trips are fun! I am having a great time!” and “I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW.”

Quinn pretty seriously lost his shit right in the middle of the dinosaur exhibit. Poor guy.

Before we embark on next week’s many elementary school adventures, we’re talking a little Memorial Day weekend vacation to Hershey Park. This will be my kids’ first time at an amusement park. I imagine that is will go spectacularly.

Spectacularly good or spectacularly bad, that remains to be seen.

Honestly, considering my family, we’ll probably have a little bit of both. And that’s perfectly all right by me.

The Inclusion Problem

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I believe in inclusion. I think that when it is done right, putting kids with special needs in general education classrooms is so good for everyone. Obviously, full inclusion didn’t work for Jack. That doesn’t mean that inclusion can’t work for Jack. It just means that inclusion done right is really difficult and if it’s not done right, it really isn’t right.

Jack is in a specialized program for kids with a certain kind of autism, but he spends a big chunk of his day with typical kids in general education classrooms. He always has support and he’s been doing pretty well. For the most part, we are really happy that he is where he is and with the people he is with. It’s not a perfect situation, but what is?

Jack had a chorus concert at his school today. He had a tough time at his afternoon concert, but an even harder time at the evening concert, which he wanted to participate in, but couldn’t handle without poking at and bothering the other kids. We ended up leaving after one song. It wasn’t great.

The truth of the whole thing is that this evening, Jack, an autistic child, was put in a stressful, stimulating, pressure-filled situation without supports. I am partly to blame for that. The school carries some blame too. The truth is that I failed to make sure he was taken care of well enough.

I learned a lesson tonight though. I learned that even though the school carries the responsibility to make sure that Jack is supported at school events, I can’t count on that and I have to be the one to make sure he is okay. This is a lesson that I have learned many times.

It’s too late to help Jack with chorus this year; there are no more concerts. That one is on me. That said, Jack is going to be in a similar situation soon. He is participating in his school’s Geo Bowl, which is a geography quiz show-style competition. He is the only autistic kid on his team (as far as I know; I don’t actually have neuropsych reports on the other kids).

I am worried about the Geo Bowl. I am worried about the stimulation and the sensory overload and the need to communicate quickly. I celebrate the inclusion that put him on the team, but I worry about how it will be carried out. I don’t know how to help make sure that the Geo Bowl is inclusion done right.

Jack has wonderful support at his school during the day. But I have to make sure that he is supported in the right way. I can’t fail him again. I wrote about the Geo Bowl for White Knuckle Parenting this week. If you have thoughts about anything that might help him, I would love to hear them. Or if you have calming words, I always like those too.

In Dreams

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Ahem.

I would like to do a little bragging about Sam for a minute. He has been playing flute for a couple of years now and today at his school’s spring concert, he had his first solo. He has been practicing really hard. He was having a little trouble for a while, but after we figured out that his flute needed to be adjusted—not him—it all came together.

See Sam perform In Dreams from Lord of the Rings at his concert. (Also see my finger in front of the lens.)

I’m so proud.

Eleven Things

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• So. The Great Quitting of the Soda. I have only had a couple of days when I drank zero soda. BUT! I have not had more than two cans on any day, which I think makes me a normal person in terms of soda drinking. Yay, me! Don’t worry; soon enough there will be far more zero-soda days than two-can days.

• Quinn has started reading chapter books! Of his own free will he has voluntarily read THREE chapter books in two days all on his own after YEARS of only reading them if I begged him. Weird.

• There appears to be some sort of strange sharpened pencil shortage in Quinn’s classroom. I was there today and there was all kinds of creative sharpening happening. I brought all of Quinn’s pencils home to sharpen at my leisure. When he found them after school, he was like a junkie finding a fix.

• I have still not been doing a lot of running. This is mostly because I have stopped wanting to run in the cold weather. I am trying to will warm weather to arrive. Unfortunately, my area is supposed to get five inches of snow tomorrow.

• People here are calling this storm the Snowquester, because no economic crisis is too serious to make a weather-related joke out of.

• Even though I have had two weeks of, shall we say, less than stellar running, I have run more than 100 miles so far this year over the equivalent of more than a 24-hour day.

• Alex is out of town. If the Snowquester knocks my power out, I will die. If the Snowquester knocks my power out while Alex is out of town, I will kill him. I don’t know why. I just will.

• Do you watch The Walking Dead? Did you watch last Sunday’s episode? Because it was so good. Stories like that are why I like zombie fiction. Best. Episode. Ever. Discuss.

• I think that Quinn is starting to get inside my head. Last night I had a dream about a field full of kittens. I wonder if that is what is happening in Quinn’s head all the time. Because it was kind of awesome.

• LympheDIVAs created the most amazing lymphedema sleeves in honor of Susan. Read Marty’s post about them here. They are gorgeous. I love them so much. They are just so perfect. See?

hubble collection

• Aaaaaand, last, I managed to write an entire White Knuckle Parenting column based on a half-hour ride on the Metro with my kids. Happily, it was a fun story, not a “Team Stimey being dorks out and about” story.

The Concept of Quinn

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Warning: This is definitely a fawning parent post. When in doubt, I go to the school work. My kid is adorable.

Last week, Quinn had an assignment at school to create a concept map about himself. All the kids in his class made a little map thingy about themselves. They also wrote sentences having to do with each of the concepts (not included on the map). Here is Quinn’s:

Quinn's concept map

Don’t worry. I’ll decipher it for you.

Let’s start at the top and move clockwise.

“Quinn likes Dodgeball” Well. Who doesn’t? The real Quinny part of this comes in the sentence that he wrote about it: “I like getting hit in the face.” Well. Who doesn’t? (Answer: EVERYONE.)

“Quinn likes swiming in pools a lot”

“Quinn hang out in places example TV Room with oreos watching TV” He’s so cute. Also, this sounds like something I’d like to do as well. The sentences he wrote for this branch were all things like, “I love TV Room!” and “A great place to hang out watching TV,” one of which is not actually a sentence, but that’s okay.

“Quinn hang out in places example hamock with lemonaid” I die of cuteness. Especially when his sentences clarify that the hammock is a “good sitting place” and lemonade is a “super good drink on hot days.”

“Quinn I hate homework.” This was the only part of the entire concept map that was entirely correctly spelled and punctuated. Oh, also the sentence that went along with it: “Homework sucks!” There is no ambivalence there.

“Quinn used to be a gyminast” Yeah. We all remember how that went. If you don’t remember how that went, it’s okay. It was one of my, let’s say, less proud blogging moments.

“Quinn our pets are 2 cats, 1 dog, 5 mice, 2 gerballs. one cat is Izzy is a Star!!!!!! Cats are the best!!!!!!!!!” I think it is lovely that Quinn included all of our dead pets, including Izzy, who is the most loved of the deceased. But it makes me a little sad too. For his notes about Cats are the best!(!!!!!!!!), he wrote, “Relates to Izzy.” For his notes about Star!!!!!!!, he wrote “Also relates to Izzy.” (He did follow that up with, “Relates to space,” but that seemed to be secondary to him.) I think it is likely that Izzy’s death will be the defining memory of his childhood. This makes me a little sad.

“Quinn likes Dessert” Also, “Dessert rocks just like cats.”

“Quinn Favrite game is Mindcraft” I’m hopeful that one day he learns it is actually called Minecraft. Somehow I’m more bothered by that misspelling than the misspelling of “favorite.”

“Quinn had a cat” Izzy is, like, 30% of Quinn’s concept map. I feel a little sad that the sentence he wrote was actually a question and that question was, “Is Izzy soft anymore?” (Answer: Unlikely.)

Quinn Likes Space (crescent moon, soler eclipse, comet, galaxy) My favrit planet is…Jupiter” Quinn is a HUGE fan of space. I mean, what’s YOUR favorite planet? That’s what I thought. I don’t have one either. Although Saturn is pretty cool. And Earth has been good to me. Regardless, Quinn believes that “Jupiter is the planet king!” He also had some pretty elaborate sentences for his space examples: “I want to learn about solar & lunar eclipses. We’re learning about the moon in class. Superstition says that comets are the harbringers [I'm sorry, I just couldn't correct his all too cute spelling of that word. —ed.] of doom. There are millions & millions of galaxies in the cosmos.

There you have it: Quinn in a concept map. I have to say, it is actually pretty accurate and complete.

St. Sugartine’s Day

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Ah, Valentine’s Day. Who doesn’t love Valentine’s Day? (Me.)

Mostly I see Valentine’s Day as an exercise in forcing my kids to write 26 names each on little scraps of cardboard and checking to see how many of Jack’s classmates he actually knows. I imagine that Alex sees Valentine’s Day as an exercise in wishing he’d married someone more romantic.

My kids, on the other hand, see Valentine’s Day as a wonderful chance to ingest as much sugar as is humanly possible.

In case you are wondering, it is possible to ingest a HUGE amount of sugar.

Sam’s day was largely an enigma, what with his being a fifth grader who doesn’t need mom at his Valentine’s Day party as long as she buys him a bag of corn chips for him to take into school ostensibly for the class, but mostly just for him, thank you very much.

Although his afternoon did end with him hiding behind a piano at a party, so I don’t think we should count sugar out for him entirely.

To be fair, a magician told him to do it, so...

To be fair, a grown man calling himself the Great Zucchini told him to do it, so…

Here is the Great Zucchini himself, bringing joy to a room full of special needs kids and their families—and standing RIGHT in front waving his arms around, Jack.

Jack laughed a whole lot today.

Jack flipped his lid laughing at this guy. It was great.

Many thanks to Sir Zucchini for his show and to my friend B for inviting us. Also thank you for living the “your baby is my baby” philosophy today, B.

Jack’s school party isn’t until tomorrow, but he gave Alex and I valentines today on which he’d written poetry. Now, I’m not a big poetry girl, but Jack writes some good verse.

To me:

Violets are blue
Roses are pink
I really like love
and hate really stinks!

To Alex:

Roses r red
Violets r blue
I’m so awesome
and I ♥ u!

See what I mean? That’s good stuff right there.

I’m going to his party tomorrow, so I am sure there will be a Part II to his Valentine’s story, but for now, what I do have are photos of Quinn, who had a sugar-coated day that can pretty much be summarized in the following four photos.

1. Before the Sugar:

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Ice cream at school?! This was Quinn’s favorite day in the history of days!

2. Post Sugar Ingestion:

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This is what a lot of ice cream, a box of chocolates, and a bag of blue Fun Dip will to a person.

3. Ruh-roh! The Sugar Has Kicked In!

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This is what a lot of ice cream, a box of chocolates, and a blue bag of Fun Dip will do to a person when it is followed up by a loud classroom full of singing second graders and combined with sensory processing issues.

4. Can’t Talk. Coming Down.

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In this photo, taken at the after-school party, Quinn refuses to acknowledge that there is a party with a beloved children’s entertainer going on around him.

I hope your day was lovely in its own way and that you didn’t have to hide behind any pianos or in any cubbies to get through it. But if you did, that’s okay too.

*****

This week at White Knuckle Parenting, I wrote about my kids’ life stages through their adulthood. I was a little more detailed about the early ages, because the oldest one is only 11.

Patol, Bingo & True Love

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The fourth grade at Jack’s school had an exhibit today of the projects they’d created for their Native American projects. Jack had very enthusiastically created a replica of a game called patol and I very enthusiastically noticed that patol was far easier to recreate than any number of other projects: dolls, boots, clothes, igloos, dioramas, fancy weaponry…

I know he looks hungover or something, but I swear we let him sleep.

I know he looks hungover or something, but I swear we let him sleep.

In the photo above, you can see the fantastic doll made by R, a girl in Jack’s class that he calls “the most beautiful girl in the world.”

I tell you this for a reason (in addition to telling you so I have an excuse to post that photo). The exhibit took place late in the day, so I just brought Jack home with me afterward, in time to pick Quinn up from the bus stop.

Jack usually comes home later than Quinn, so it is unusual for him to meet Quinn’s bus, on which rides Jack’s very good girl friend, E, with whom Jack used to go to school. Jack and E have long had plans to get married, and Jack was delighted to see her again, as they hadn’t seen each other for a while.

She got off the bus and bum rushed Jack, giving him a huge hug. It was really beautiful to see. They, like, just gazed at each other for a while. I love that girl so much. Also Jack. I also love Jack so much.

They hugged for a while and were very excited to be in each other’s presence, when Jack very seriously turned to E and said, “I am in love with another. Her name is [the most beautiful girl in the world].”

To E’s credit, she handled it pretty well. I wouldn’t count her out just yet.

*****

You might have missed my live tweeting last Friday of Quinn’s bingo night. Never fear. I wrote all about it for White Knuckle Parenting. I even learned a lesson about giving in to chaos.