Silent Today

Portable Classroom

I have found out that there is a possibility that Samuel's special education class will meet in a portable classroom next year. My gut reaction is to think that this doesn't sound like a very good idea, but I'm trying to approach this objectively. The room they are in right now is very small, so an advantage of a portable room would be more space. However, I don't like the idea of the class being removed from the rest of the building, both because of the proximity issues and because it seems to imply that they are "separate" from the rest of the school.

I'd like to know what others think of this.. I know portables classrooms are used in many places. My sister teaches in one at her school.

I'm going to call the principal of the school to further inquire..

Time to Pull out the Wright's Law Book Again

I spent an hour and a half on the phone tonight with the Mom of a special needs boy who had been in Samuel's class up until this school year. She has not had her son diagnosed with autism yet, and is facing problems with the services he is receiving at school because of it. For confidentiality reasons I cannot say any more about it, but our discussion reminded me that I need to once again start reading "From Emotions to Advocacy" and start questioning things that I see and don't see in Samuel's IEP.

Samuel has been very challenging the past few days. He is constantly scripting at home (I am told he has not been doing this at school). The last two weekends he would not get himself dressed on Saturday mornings (the only day I can leave him to dress himself). He also remains very unfocused when we do his homework. The token board, with its promise of an occasional bite of snack as a reinforcer, is not helping him the way it had been a few months ago. Maybe Samuel needs a new reinforcer. He may have been tired one or two of the days, but that isn't the only thing going on here. I won't let him watch "The Upside Down Show" anymore. However, his brothers still like to imitate things they see on it so it's been very hard keeping Samuel from imitating it himself. He also tries to watch it on Noggin's website during his computer playtime. We only made it through about 10 minutes of mass last Sunday, he kept screaming. He had only gotten a little sleep the night before so I knew it wouldn't be worth staying there.

He is starting to ask questions about school ending. There are only 5 more weeks!

I was very saddened by the shootings at Virginia Tech last week. I had to stop watching the news about it after a couple days because I was starting to get desensitized to the story. Early this past Monday morning, however, I watched a portion of CNN's show about the shooting victims. Although it was overwhelmingly sad, I was glad to hear about the real story in all of this, the senseless loss of such beautiful lives.

Development Delays

Some thoughts I have regarding our area’s changes in geography and some pictures to go along with them…

I happen to live in an area that is experiencing a lot of development. In the next 3 months, about 3 ½ miles from my house, we will have a Target and later this year we will have a WalMart. We will also be getting one of the chain restaurants (Applebees, I think), and at least one home improvement chain store. Currently we have to drive about 15 miles to the nearest ones. As with just about anything in life, there are benefits to this and there are costs.

Benefits of development: Shopping for groceries, household necessities, and clothing will be easier. I’m also hoping for a pizza place that delivers. That might sound trivial, but it’s an adjustment for me to live somewhere that I can’t have a pizza delivered to my house!

Costs of development: Traffic will increase along the major road we use to get into town. In 3.5 miles of main road we travel on, 2 new traffic lights will be in operation within the next few months, a new traffic light was put into operation last year, and another is planned within the next year or so. Where we used to have 2 traffic lights we will eventually have 6. Not that our area has ever been “rural” while we lived here, but all the traffic and other development that is going to eventually take place along the main road will bring more of the urban sprawl that many of us who moved here are trying to avoid.

I do have another option for my driving route into town, but it is not always available. It involves driving over a low bridge that crosses the Shenandoah River. After heavy rains or during periods when snow is melting it floods.

I’ll compare my two driving options:

Option A (driving along the main road) is a ten mile drive that takes about 20 minutes. There are 2 bridges over the forks of the Shenandoah River to take, and 10 traffic lights.
Option B (over the low water bridge) is about an 8 mile drive that takes 13 minutes. There are no (zero!) traffic lights, but this option is available only when the Shenandoah river's water level isn't high. It is a one-lane bridge, as the picture just below shows. This bridge is frequently covered with water after heavy rain or when snow is melting.

The rhythm of my day is very much defined by having to drive Samuel in to school, driving home, then later in the day returning to school, driving home again. (Why I drive him in is a story for another time) All of this is done with my other 3 children in tow. While I currently can easily attach small grocery shopping trips to the trips I take into town to get Samuel from school, shopping for other household necessities is difficult, considering I have to spend my day teaching and caring for my other children. I do most of my clothing shopping on-line, I cannot even imagine what it would be like to have a retail clothing location within 5 miles of my house.

While I am willing to sacrifice a little of the quietness of our area for an increase in shopping convenience, I don’t yet quite know what to think of the increase in traffic this will bring. I wonder what I’ll think a year from now, when most of the new shops should be open and the new lights in operation.

Two of the new traffic lights, to be put into operation soon.

A whole new golf course, adult community, and hotel/conference center is also being built along the same 3 1/2 mile stretch of road where the Target and Walmart stores are going to be. It has been a little sad watching the rolling hills that this area used to be get stripped, turned into a golf course, and now watching homes and townhomes getting built on it. The hotel just started going up in the last couple weeks where the large crane is pictured.

The Tree Didn't Make It; Pediatrician Visit

Things went from bad to worse with our tree. By Monday night 3 more large branch sections had broken off the tree. We'll have to cut the whole thing down. One of the sections fell towards the side of the house and pushed the pine tree away from the house a bit. I haven't looked at it too closely yet, but it won't surprise me if there are problems with that too. It also tore a bit of the rain gutter away. We have 5 Bradford Pear trees and this is the only one that was impacted. I suppose that is because it was in such bad shape to begin with. An avenue near where I lived in Virginia Beach years ago was lined with these trees and every year there seemed to be at least one that broke apart. That is about the worst that we have seen from the storm. We did not get the massive quantities of rain and flooding that states north and east of us received. Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures I posted, they are much too dark.

Our visit to the pediatrician went well. I used to think that these visits would bring startling revelations as to the path we should take with Samuel. Now I know better. The doctor I saw let me do a lot of talking. She took copious notes and didn't say very much. That made me feel like talking more, which I did. Finally, she turned to Samuel and tried talking to him. His behavior was the most "autistic" that I have seen it in a while. He would not answer her, but he had a humorous look in his eye. Of course he tried to play on her computer and he lunged at the keyboard several times. He picked up a container of crayons and played with them on the floor during much of the visit. At one point he told me "Tell her about how I do not like 'Cyberchase' and I get upset." Maybe in the future I should not discuss him in the third person in front of him like that.

I greatly appreciated that she did not bring up the subject of medication (I did tell her while it was my turn to talk that I was not considering it at this time and that the only reason I will would be if he develops a lot of anxiety). She said it sounded like things are going pretty well for Samuel (which I think they are too). We just need to watch his scripting, his access to television, computers and other things electronic. She also recommended an increase in the amount of speech therapy he is getting (he only receives 40 min/week at school).

We'll return for another visit in 6 months and she see what she thinks of his IEP. I told her that one of my current concerns for him is his educational setting and his academics. She told me rather than worry so much about his academics, getting his communication more up to speed should be what we focus on. Makes sense to me. I should get more interactive activities going with him here at home. I spend so much time on homework and worry about his academic progress. Both will be much easier if he is able to communicate better.

Northeaster Storm Effects

We have had some amazingly strong winds since late last night. The pictures above show the damage they did to one of our Bradford Pear trees in the front of our house. This poor tree lost an equally large section of branch a couple years ago. That time the branch hit the house and dented up the rain gutter. It is a much skinnier tree now. It might be hard to see the detail in the upper photo, but the stability of the tree really looks like it is compromised, it broke off so far into the trunk. These trees are notorious for having entire sections of branch break off like this.

Samuel has an appointment with a developmental pediatrician tomorrow. I have not taken him to one since 2002, partly because of being busy with babies since then and partly because I was so discouraged after the last visit. The doctor immediately began discussing medication, something I will consider if necessary but not as a first treatment option, and she was more interested in talking about my older son who was five at the time. He was drawing a picture of a thunderstorm and she thought this might be a sign that he had Aspergers Syndrome! I know, this might not sound like a big deal but this was the first time I had been able to convince my husband to go to an appointment with me and he left it feeling like it wasn't a very worthwhile experience. We will be seeing a different doctor this time and won't have nearly as far to travel to get there.

Aahhh..Saturday Morning!

It's 7am and it's quiet in the house. The boys were up pretty late last night, well past 10:00, so I'm almost guaranteed they'll be asleep until 9:00. Baby girl woke up at dawn and I fed her so she should sleep in even later than the boys. I could conceivably have 2 more hours of peace and quiet!

In a moment here I'll be typing up some lessons for Samuel. I received some information from Samuel's teachers about what he is working on in Math and Science. I got some library books yesterday that cover what he is learning in Social Studies (Ancient China and Egypt). I need to get back on track with his Religion lessons. It's good to sit down and feel like I have something to work with! My oldest son has a Science exam to take today. My youngest son is learning to write the upper case letters of the alphabet. I've been printing out pictures from Writing With Symbols that correspond to the particular letter he is working on. It's time to print out more pictures, we've worked up to the letter "O".

Later today we'll be going to the library, something Samuel is eagerly anticipating. Tomorrow we are going to visit some friends who live an hour away. They have 5 children, so with our 4 plus the 4 grownups our visits are quite lively. I expect it could get downright chaotic tomorrow because we will most likely have to stay indoors, rain and snow are forecasted. I am going to type up a social story for our visit to remind Samuel that he should not invade their collection of videos and that he should play where the other children play. The daughter of our friends has a dollhouse that Samuel likes to play with. It's fragile and delicate and my friends have made attempts to hide it and one time he found it. The children of our friends, without them knowing it, are helpful in giving me the hint about what I need to watch for with Samuel. The daughter complained about him getting into it and I wouldn't have known about it if she hadn't said anything.

Time to get to work!